#which is also ironic bc people like to say he never consented

[radioactive-earthshine]

Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #136

Thinking about Jim Harper again and how when he died the first time around he was content and had made an impact, but he was so well loved his friends, the original Newsboy Legion, could not bear to say goodbye to him yet so he they had him cloned as one of the many projects in early Cadmus.

These early issues of Cadmus from today's perspective is fairly creepy as it is involves a lot of dubious consensual cloning and ethical practices; people being grown for specific purposes, genetic experimentation, metas being grown, whole other species (like Dubbilex) were all the results of experimentation involving cell samples taken consensually (Clark) and nonconsensually (Jimmy, Jim and about an unknown number of different people). The times that these were written in (1971) this was not really considered problematic but rather exciting!

Jim's first come-back out of "The Project" was out of grief and love even if he had not given express permission for this to even happen.

Jim's second cloning at the hands of a changed Cadmus was for exploitive purposes and done in absolutely contradiction to his request. His request to remain dead was made in part because he did not consent to being brought back in the first place, and he knew that if he did die there would have been a possibility that he would be brought back again. Only this time it wasn't love that brought him back.

It was apathy.

[littlemisssatanist]

can i ask for a small favor? can you rant about daemon targaryen please? i just re-read your team green 💚 post and i'm reminded of how much ick i feel towards that character, especially in the wake of the team trailers being released.

hiii!!! tysm for this ask i was super happy when i saw it in my inbox i'm flattered people want to hear my opinions lol

my thoughts about daemon are very convoluted. i think he has the potential to be a very interesting character but it's kinda canceled out by the incest and pedophilia thing.

like. i understand it's an incest dragon show but my main issue with team black when it comes to their criticisms. they love to spout endless words about how aegon is a rapist and how alicent is a rape apologist for not... idk slitting his throat i guess.

it's really ironic to me, because these same people will turn around and then yap about how daemyra is the perfect ship. they'll be aghast when you even slightly suggest you enjoy aegon's character in any way but be in an uproar if you dare bash their dashing and roguish prince daemon.

honestly, name one terrible thing aegon did and i'll be able to give you something daemon did that is arguably worse than that.

aegon - raping a servant girl in the show (which honestly i'm treating more as a fanfiction considering how terribly written both the greens and the blacks are).

daemon - uhmmmm probably the whole thing with nettles. you know. the sixteen year old girl he groomed and raped (yes raped because minors aren't able to consent). actually, now that i think of it, he did the exact same thing with rhaenyra too, huh? or does team black find the whole fleabottom episode to be hot and rhaenyra being sexually free? that seems like the sort of thing they'd take from that whole fiasco.

on the topic of blood & cheese: the way some people defend this is honestly sickening.

'but poor luke was killed by his terrible uncle aemond' he was an envoy of war (not to aemond, btw, he owed him no safe haven) and also he kinda. yk. took out his eye. i'm not saying luke deserved to die, but i'm going to be honest this is one of the more mild things that happened during the dance.

whether luke deserved to die (which i'd like to reiterate: i do not think he did. i can understand WHY aemond killed him, but that is not me EXCUSING him. this is for those of you who don't know how to read and will inevitably find a way to start putting words in my mouth) b&c is completely unexcusable.

it's team feminism until its a woman who doesn't fit your little box of badass hottie. it's team feminism until that woman doesn't bow down to rhae-rhae and betray her own family and children in order to join the 'good side.' it's team woman until you point out that rhaenyra was groomed by daemon and continues to make decisions that are decidedly anti-feminist.

this is why i can't stand team black stans who say things like 'i hate the greens except for helaena bc she didn't do anything wrong' because you quite literally cannot do that without admitting that helaena suffered because of the blacks NOT the greens.

helaena suffered bc of DAEMON not because of any actions taken by the greens. DAEMON was the one who orchestrated b&c, the one who sent men to terrorize her and kill her children.

daemon did that.

i have no problem with people who can admit that their faves have flaws. i admit aemond's flaws, daeron's flaws, aegon's flaws. the problem i have with daemon is that his stans are so insufferably annoying and they literally cannot do any of that.

my last thought about daemon (at the moment, at least) is his relationship with strong boys.

lots of tb likes to say that daemon loved those boys like his own and would never do anything to hurt them. and i... honestly find it a little strange, and also a little embarassing, because how am i going to have a better grasp on his character than those that love him most???

i genuinely believe that daemon, had rhaenyra ascended to the throne like viserys planned, he would have caused 'unfortunate accidents' for the strong boys in order to get his blood on the throne. which, btw, was one of the main reasons viserys named rhaenyra heir, to keep daemon from sitting on the throne.

i think it the succession crisis had been between daemon and rhaenyra instead, it would have been a much more interesting storyline.

then again grrm isn't that good at writing interesting storylines when it comes to daemon considering he's a self-insert. honestly i wouldn't be surprised if when he died it was found out that grrm had a fanfiction written somewhere where daemon survived the fight with aemond and got to live out the rest of his boring ass life grooming little girls. who knows.

[abri-chan]

You can explain morality or math that ain't mathing in the timeline gaps, but can you explain how sinful gaze?

He's in love with her. He looks away because he knows it is wrong. Especially when the pins in both his brother's hand and sister in law's hair are meant to symbolize their union/marriage the way marriage rings do in modern times. He looks at her when his brother praises how she has mellowed him out over the years, then his gaze catches the two pins that symbolize the unions, or at least Kubo intentionally makes our gaze catch that, and then Shunsui looks away. The sin is in looking away. He knows it is wrong to covet your brother's wife. Or that it can never be.

FYI, that's how I read this at least. Which ironically fits the womanizer guy to have been in love with one woman all his life and to have his coming of age story shaped by a woman, and an older woman at that. It's also good that she never knew he loved her back, or didn't even register him as a man. It's one sided and it shows the one redeeming quality of drunkard womanizer Shunsui who dumps his work on his subordinates who happen to coincidentally be women. He has a good heart. He kept the promise to her for as long as he could and broke it only to save her daughter, which was the only thing left of sister in law. It would be less beautiful if he was rewarded with the woman he loved. The fact he did it expecting and getting nothing in return shows he did it genuinely. (It's canon to me even if one-sided, and I do like the mom, and I should make a whole post about how she's a "horrible woman" and therefore an interesting woman because she has full agency.)

I think Shunsui's sword also implies the romantic connotation multiple times, such as when she says he's wearing another woman's kimono or that the play reflects back his choked desires. The whole theater suicide is an extended roleplay of his brother and sister in law, where he plays the brother, but the marriage is broken this time either because he cannot believe how bad things happen to good people (the original couple the play is based on) or because of the guilt of roleplaying the brother with a woman that never consenting to give her love to him (he took her pins even though she never gave the pin to him the way she did to the brother as a token of love). I also feel "adult play" was more a call to Japanese puppet theater being for adult audiences where war tales or suicide love tales were performed, hence not for children; it doesn't necessarily mean r-rated. In fact, nothing r-rated happens bc I think Shunsui has internalized the play that later ended up being his bankai as a young teen, and what does a young teen know about how adults act or live or love. Hence why the play is a farce like a theater mask which suits him well. He's only playing adult because ultimately he doesn't know what kind of relationship intimately his brother and sister in law had.

The love suicide play where uncle saves niece and his brother's family dies seem to be common in other anime aside of Bleach so may be classical theater Kubo is borrowing from, but theater suicide in the context of Shunsui where the ending ends in suicide is also about how it was set from the start his brother and sister would die. The brother knew by marrying an Ise, and the curse got him. The sister in law by destroying the sword of her/the family that she would be executed. That's why the play of Shunsui always ends in suicide because he keeps roleplaying his brother and sister in law over and over again, and he can't save her. Until Nanao did, by taking the sword from him, and vicariously showing the last Ise woman that can be saved (I have written at some point how by accepting the curse Nanao was able to win, bc the curse is like a misguided wish and you cannot fight a wish), and furthermore interestingly enough both Nanao and Shunsui are rewarded for not continuing their family lines; and Nanao is the only Ise woman so far whose main arc does not intersect with personal romance. And if we take the novels to be canon, he only invents a new play, after Nanao "saves" him, not just his life but emotionally, and shows a version where the mom could be alive and where it could have worked out with the man she loved. And only then Shunsui makes a new play

Ultimately, I wish Ise to be back in the Hell arc. Mostly so Shunsui could get closure. I do think he hasn't moved on from loving her, but what he most wants, I think, is for her to just be alive and see that a different path is possible. I don't think it matters to him much if she loves him back. Which having lost a lot of blood in the Barro fight, I wonder if he was talking to Nanao or sister in law, and if the two merged at some point into the same person, the woman he wanted to save and who always was so lonely in the garden when he was a kid. I do think, ironically, his love towards her was/is pure.

[aemiron-main]

this whole scene even gets worse when you consider that spiders=predators and that the moment that *steve* goes into the creel house bathroom in s4 and crounches at the vent in the exact same place henry was shown, a black widow spider immediately lands on him..... there are some implications with this. 

like it’s definitely A Choice to put steve in the exact same place that we saw Henry and then have a spider (representing predators) immediately crawl onto him without his consent/without him realizing until it’s happening. 

and then steve panics and drops the jar and the glass breaks. thinking about the broken creel window glass vs el’s broken cabin windows. thinking about steve breaking the glass/jar because of a spider (predator) surprising him and landing on him. thinking about henry finally having enough of dealing with virginia (the spider) and freaking out and breaking the glass in the creel house... thinking about how the glass jar falls and breaks EXACTLY where steve was previously crouching/where we saw henry crouching.... 

hell, looking at the vent and the fact that the spiders (both live with henry and in jars with steve) are in the vent. what else is in the vents? the alien in ‘alien.’ the alien specifically gets around by travelling through the vents. yknow, the same alien that a.) has some very obvious SA parallels in the movie and b.) the alien movie is HEAVILY referenced during will’s s1 rescue scene, which as we all know, is a scene that has some implications for sure. 

it’s also worth keeping in mind that victor sees HIS reflection in the bathtub too- but it’s just a normal reflection in the water. because he’s not a predator, unlike virginia. they’re really trying to hammer home the whole ‘people seeing their REFLECTION in the bathtub’ thing. plus, it demonstrates victor’s ignorance- even when he looks for the spiders (predators), he can’t see it. henry literally doesn’t show them to him. because henry can only show people reflections of themselves. and victor isn’t a predator. henry literally and figuratively cannot show the abuse to victor, he feels trapped, like he can’t say anything about it and therefore he can’t ‘show’ it to victor in a non-supernatural sense but also, henry cannot show him in a supernatural sense bc again, henry’s powers work like a mirror. victor cannot see it and henry cannot show him. victor needs to LOOK because henry cannot show him, but he DOESNT LOOK and that’s the problem. victor sees only his own reflection, he’s too focused on himself and not on the world around him. maybe if he stopped looking in the tub at his reflection, he would figure out what happened with virginia by realizing that henry was nowhere to be found (and therefore was off creating the visions). maybe if he paid attention to his son he would realize what was going on. but he doesn’t. he only looks where he’s told to look (the bathtub) and sees only his own reflection and doesn’t see the spiders/predators. he doesn’t see the abuse but he also doesn’t look and that’s the key problem with victor imo. 

virginia was literally seeing her reflection in the bathtub. a mirror was being held up to her. and her reflection is spiders. and spiders are referred to as predators repeatedly in ST. and then, exactly like you said, to hammer it all home, she runs in front of a mirror, but never looks at her own reflection. because she’s already seen it, and she doesn’t want to see it. she doesn’t look in the mirror near the stairs at all when she runs past it. but even more than this, what we’re seeing is victor’s pov- so not only does virginia not look in the mirror, but victor doesn’t see her in the mirror. he never looks at her reflection either, even if she’s just running past the mirror and not looking into it, he only looks at her, not her reflection, and ironically, looking at her is the one thing that keeps him from actually seeing her for what she truly is. because Virginia’s reflection, narratively, is spiders and spiders = predators, but victor never looking at her reflection- he chooses not to see (by not looking) victor looks in the attic for a demon. he finds virginia’s wedding dress instead. victor goes looking for a demon and figuratively finds virginia instead (her wedding dress) and finds her next to a baby carriage, ironically enough. 

perhaps he should have gone looking for the wedding dress and he would have found the demon- perhaps he should have gone looking for virginia and he would have found the demon.  but he doesn’t. he doesn’t go looking for the right thing. and that’s the problem. he’s not only blind but willfully blind (blinded himself in the prison) because it’s not just that he doesn’t see, but that he doesn’t look/doesn’t look for the right thing. he should be looking for virginia, should be paying attention to the way she treats his son. but he’s after a demon instead. but if he went looking for virignia, he would have found his demon. he’s blinded himself, he doesn’t want to believe what’s going on. so he doesn’t look. he looks away from virginia and towards a supernatural demon. and eventually, he stops seeing altogether.

Henry can’t show victor, so Victor can’t see it, but Victor should be LOOKING instead of relying on Henry to show him.

my dumb ass just realized she literally runs in front of a mirror after seeing the spiders. girl you are a horrible human being please Die

[aro-but-not-ace]

follow up question… is it normal for alloromantics to never get crushes on fiction or irl and only have had like 1 or 2 throughout their whole life and be 17/18 or is that more of an aro thing? do allos get crushes more?? tbh. I see allos just “start dating” people they just met or consider their relationship romantic when just starting to talk to someone and I couldn’t do that bc I don’t get feelings like that. is that how is supposed to go like do allos not always get a strong friendship with them before anything romantic happens?… they just jump right into romance? They get full romantic crushes on celebrities and fictional characters?? they do blind dating too and I could never.. when people had crushes on me I felt panic and discomfort at reciprocating.. it’s taken me so long to get more comfortable being romantic with my partner (sometimes it feels better when I’m doing it platonic with a friend and people know it’s not actually romantic but it is fun to pretend) and I do love doing it w my partner and want to cuddle and hug and stuff but it’s still hard sometimes to do stuff like kissing and I’m scared to have people see us be romantic but maybe it’s just social anxiety. sometimes I don’t feel much towards it either and I question my romantic feelings all the time (but I also have relationship ocd so lol).. I guess looking back on everything I haven’t been too much interested in a romantic partner compared to my friends constantly getting partners and crushes.. especially on people they never even talk to. but since I love romance in media and I do love my partner romantically I feel like I can’t be aro. idk my brain feels confused bc I’m trying to think of what else bejng aro feels like and how it could it apply to me before I go saying I am

First of all, I wanted to apologize for not seeing this until AFTER I posted the first ask… my wifi has been spotty and went out after I started replying, I assume 😅

This sounds like you’re aro (or on the spectrum). That’s only based on my experience and definition of the labels, so don’t take that as gospel or anything.

I got my first actual crush when I was 17, and then I realized that all my “crushes” in the past were, indeed, fake. Though here’s a fun, ironic story: during high school, my entire friend group except for one person was arospec—but nearly all of us had no clue yet.

Therefore, whenever I asked how they felt romantic attraction, it was the same as me, so I thought I was alloro. But then I asked actual alloro people later, and they were like “no yeah, I’ve felt that ‘love at first sight’ feeling, it’s real,” and I… it just blew my mind.

I also realized I was romance repulsed at the time, and that it wasn’t a “normal” alloro experience. I had a boyfriend, and he kissed me on the cheek—it was without my consent, which was bad enough, but I felt sick the entire day. I literally wanted to curl up and never talk with him again, because I felt bad that I felt genuinely nauseous after he kissed me. It wasn’t like “oh, that was weird”—it was genuine repulsion.

After I broke up with him (I was ~15 or 16), I had no interest in dating someone else. Everyone kept asking, “when are you going to get into another relationship? Haven’t you thought of dating again?” And the answer was “no, why do you keep asking? I just want to learn about biology. We’re in biology class.”

So, my experiences are similar to yours, I think. I also have social anxiety, but I feel as if the social anxiety would rather stop someone from pursuing the attraction, rather than feeling it. When I had a crush on that one person, I still had the attraction, but I felt extremely anxious to come out and say it. And not in a normal anxious way. But that’s a story for another time.

I hope this helped and provided some bit of clarification!!

[amelia-grant-md]

If you were to re-do the scene with Bucky and his therapist but with Amelia instead, how would the scene go?

Oohh that is an interesting question! (although I also kind of have to sort through what I, me, Josie, would do (as someone who really likes the fictional character Bucky and his backstory and also writing) vs. what Amelia would do (as a fictional therapist invented by a writer who knows fuck-all about therapy). Bc Amelia is very different to the therapist-character both as a) a therapist and b) a person. And that’s less about “what makes a good therapist” but “how does Amelia deal with things and what does she consider good therapy.”

For me, personally, I think what really bothers me the most about those therapy scenes in Falcon and Winter Soldier and really the way Bucky is being treated: This therapy is forced on him in the first place. He doesn’t want to be there. And this therapist often treats him in a very passive-aggressive way, especially in the first therapy scene. (I especially hated the thing with the notebook considering that Bucky and doctors with notebooks...yeah, they have a history).

And I know that a very common fandom reaction to his therapy scenes was that it is nice for Bucky that he is in a position where he can choose to push back, to refuse stuff - something he couldn’t do in ages. But personally, I don’t think putting him in a conflict position is the best way to get him to open up. I mean, it’s nice to teach him to push back (which is actually something we know he already can do bc we often see him do it when interacting for example with Sam and the entire idea of Bucky being some soft trembling flower is kind of a fandom-take) but I think the guy has bigger issues. 

Now, talking specifically about Amelia and the kind of character I see her as:

 One thing that I try to make Amelia do a lot is that she tries not to push people. She has a stubborn streak when it comes to how she perceives herself, but she doesn’t push that on others. That is for example why she told Val and Jacopo that they could leave any time if they needed to take a break or why she let Val get coffee when it was obviously her way of stalling - bc she could tell that Val was uncomfortable and didn’t want to add to that by saying: “Hey sit your ass down and talk now.” So it’s easier to let Val get her additional three minutes of getting coffee and then having her sit down for good.

It’s also why when she was invited to their house for the first time to check whether this is a good place for Jacopo, one of the first things she told Val was that she has no intention to take Jacopo away and that she wouldn’t be angry if she found something amiss (it’s too long ago for to me to remember what exactly she said but they had a brief conversation of that sort) - because she knew that putting additional stress on Jacopo’s parents would just give them reasons to hide stuff from her and not to tell her the truth which in turn would prevent her from helping Jacopo, so instead she wanted to give them the liberty to be honest without consequences and if she found something wrong, she could give them actual advice.

Or that’s why she never told Jacopo something along the lines: “stop cutting!” or “you shouldn’t have run from home!” - or for example when Jacopo told her that he considers stealing to show Jlo that stealing is bad, she doesn’t say “you shouldn’t do that” or “stealing is bad” or “that’s a dumb idea” or even “Wow you would be a thief and I hate thieves”, but just points out that he might get in trouble - not indicating any personal feelings on the matter. Because if she did that and he stole something, he might not tell her. So she just reminds him of the consequences.  

When it comes to Bucky, I think one of the biggest differences is the apologising thing. I don’t think Amelia is averse to advising a person to apologise if a person genuinely feels bad and she thinks this might help them feel better, but she’s also someone who focussed her career on dealing with abused children (who tend to blame themselves for things they are not responsible for). And ironically, Bucky is also not responsible for the things he did when he was the Winter Soldier. 

Now, I’m not a therapist and I don’t know whether apologising would maybe really help a person like Bucky feel better or not (it might! I’m not saying it wouldn’t!) - but just ignoring how therapy really works in the real world and just looking at characters and how fictional Amelia regards fictional psychology; I don’t think she would make him apologise unless he would insist on doing that. In which case, again, she would be very non-judgy and more matter-of-factly and point out the pros and cons for his mental health (and the mental health of the people he apologises to) and generally the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. And if he decided to do it, she would very frequently go over the results with him in a neutral way.

Obviously, we have to keep in mind that she was developed as a therapist for Jacopo so a big thing for her is that she’s always very: “Hey, this is not your fault.” and “You are not (stupid/slow/untalented)”. And I feel like for her, setting Bucky up to make apologies would be setting him up to internalise that he has something to apologise for - when really, he is the victim. It would be like...if someone grabbed your arm, made you slap someone, gaslit you into believing you hit that person and when you talked to someone about this, they would tell you: “Well, apologise to the person you slapped, and you will feel better!” - Again, I don’t know whether this would help a real-world trauma patient, but in terms of fictional psychologists, I don’t think Amelia would make him do that. Instead, she would focus on sorting through his trauma with him, teaching him coping strategies with stuff like flashbacks, nightmares, and other tendencies. And use that as markers of progress, not some third persons reaction to an apology by the guy who killed someone they loved. (which is another thing: Consent. I will say some more about this later but I think for her, consent is a big deal and involving those victims in Bucky’s therapy would be something she would really want do some check-ups on bc she cannot put her patient’s well-being over that of stranger’s.)

Another thing is the scene where the therapist takes Bucky’s phone, looks through his calls and then tells him it’s “sad” how few people he spoke to. That’s also something Amelia would never do - she has a very “glass is half-full”, “you tried your best!” approach. Also, again, she wouldn’t go through his stuff without consent and if she found out how many people he called, she would either not comment or she would at least find something praise-worthy about it.

In my own pedagogy studies, one very interesting thing my psychology lecturer always stressed is that any positive or negative attention from a person in authority* is automatically reinforcement vs. punishment. You know that feeling when your parents say: “Ooohh look, you left your room, huh? How nice of you to show your face for once!!!” - that is negative attention bc it’s indirectly saying: “Well you are never here you asshole.” (even if it’s not meant that way). And the thing our lecturer really broke down for us about punishment vs. reinforcement is that reinforcement is the more well-directed force – it’s like a laser while punishment is like a leaf-blower:

- If you tell a student who draws a lot in class: “Peter, stop drawing and focus!” (negative attention-> punishment) you can at best have one result: That the thing he won’t do is draw. You have no idea what he’s going to do instead. He might start throwing things for all you know

- But if you actually have positive reinforcement for Peter when he’s not drawing and you find a way to praise him for doing his work without the “ooh you left your room!”-undertone, you are actually reinforcing the positive attention he gets for doing his work and this is the one thing you are encouraging here. Even if you just say: “Hey, you really put a lot of effort into this and I can see your progress, good job” – already positive attention.

*(and yeah, I’m kinda projecting that from a teacher over to a therapist (bc again, not a therapist), but then, it’s also a court-mandated therapist we are talking about here and Bucky can get arrested for not seeing her - which is something that gives her a lot of power over a former POW whose captors infiltrated military and law enforcement)

And yeah, since this is...one of the few things I know, this is something that informs the way Amelia treats people (which is why she brings muffins to an uncomfortable appointment -> sugar makes people happy. So if someone is feeling down, they get a muffin).

Going through someone’s phone and telling them it’s sad that they called so little people is negative attention and therefore punishment. What she’s encouraging here is that the next time, Bucky simply might not bring his phone and lie about his social life (same as he already lies about his nightmares).

Also, again on the subject of consent: There is the question of adding someone else to a session. It was very important to Amelia to talk with Val before this entire thing was set up bc a) she wanted her explicit consent to this session and b) to make sure that Val knew about this and this was not something Jacopo had decided to spring on her to get his way.

Bucky’s therapist just pulls Sam into the session, putting him a very awkward position without his consent.

 So yeah, how would I set up such a scene....(cough aka answering your actual question cough)

Now, ignoring for a moment how I would actively write such a scene from an stylistic point of view but just focussing on how I would picture Amelia setting up such a session/therapy in general:

I think the first thing would be that Amelia would be very open about this being a court-mandated therapy and acknowledging that Bucky does not want to be there. Personally, considering her own stance on consent, I’m already in the doubts here whether she would accept a court-mandated patient but then, I think she might if she was really optimistic about being able to help that person and since she’s a trauma specialist (although for children and young adults) she might give it a shot.

On the other hand, just the way she sees her practice, I don’t think she would be able to treat someone who doesn’t want to be treated in a way that they don’t feel comfortable with. She’s really not a “we have to dig into the things you don’t feel comfortable with!”- therapist and very “I will nudge and encourage them to bring forward what they want to.” (on that matter: She also didn’t really expect Val to put her survivor’s guilt all out in the open. But just to say which incidents lead to Jacopo running away from home from her perspective)

So, I can very well see her say to Bucky: “Hey, I know you don’t want to be here, I’m not going to force this on you, so let’s just have a tea and some croissants and I will non-bindingly talk a little about trauma management strategies and different places any person with trauma can turn to in an emergency and btw here is how you can contact me at any time.”  That would mostly be an excuse to say a) yes, court-people, therapy has happened here are records on what we talked about and b) a way of hiding some real attempts to get him to talk. She might even pick fairly neutral topics like “do you know that new bakery downtown” (to gauge whether he goes out and explores or stays at home and shuts off) or planned vacations (does he plan ahead/does he have things he wishes to do or see and does he make efforts to do them?) or something in the hopes that he responds and she can gently nudge that conversation to more personal subjects.

Now, we have to keep in mind that Bucky is kind of…a dangerous person. Even if he’s not violent, he has super-powers, can be brainwashed and has PTSD a mile-wide which can make people irritable and even cause violent flashbacks. I think one priority for her would be to assess that danger potential – both to himself and to others. So, while she tries nudging at those subjects, I think central themes would be:

a)      His emotional state (is he an angry person? How does he talk about his past? How does he talk about other people in general? How does he interact with his (21st century) environment? Also, he grew up 100 years ago, so she might actually try to get a read on how his thoughts and feelings on stuff like race, gender, sexuality – bc a lot of stuff happened since then and even someone with the most progressive ideas and intentions from the 1930s might at worst be out of touch with the 2020s and at best actually…mean well but say or do something that is highly inappropriate in the 21st century and put himself an awkward position in every day life, so I think she would try to get a read on that and give him pointers. (especially since she herself is a woman of colour with a phd working in the medical field (something that wasn’t a thing when he grew up) and treating a white man who got iced in the 1940s and was kept by actual Nazis for 70 years is probably something she would have some expectations and concerns about. I think generally, she would just want to observe how he interacts with her, considering that this is an uncomfortable situation for him and if she wants to know whether the Winter Soldier is dangerous – might just see how this legendary mystery killer reacts to being put in the room with a court-mandated personality-prodder and being served pastries. Now, we might be reading this from a position where we know Bucky and know he’s mostly a very decent guy – but Amelia doesn’t know that going in and while I picture her as a very encouraging and positive person, I also think as a professional, she would try to prepare herself for some fucked-up shit.)

b)      His living situation (the thing where he sleeps on the floor is actually something a lot of former POWs and people who were imprisoned do so I imagine this is exactly one of the things she would be on the look-out for: Does he have a place to stay? Does he have food? Does he have someone who checks up on him? Does he take care of himself? – and depending on that outcome, she might encourage the efforts he already makes and offer help and give tips, mostly neutral ones at first like easy recipes that don’t require a lot of effort? Or if it’s really going badly, I think she would actually offer him to check up on him, much in the same way that she checked up on Jacopo’s  home, as: “hey, this won’t have negative consequences for you, you don’t even have to let me in, I just want to see you alive once a week and maybe drop off some leftovers from my kitchen.” Now, this is something I know therapists should not be doing bc it blurs the line between private and professional life, but I think it’s definitely something Amelia is very accommodating about (I mean, she cAnoNicalLy lets her patients call her any time of the day if they have a problem and if Jacopo had called her that he was running from home, she would probably even have let him stay at her place until she had figured something out. I think she’s a person who really puts her patients first, even at the expense of her privacy…and well-being)

c)      His danger potential (when he talks to her, does he mention feeling aggression?  Does he disassociate? Does he have flashbacks and what are they about and when does he have them? Does he slip into that brainwashed personality?)

 I think gauging those things mixed with providing help to acute difficulties Bucky shares with her would be her first priorities.

Now this can go two ways: Either he completely refuses to participate. In which case I imagine she would accurately and dutifully record that and either the therapy gets extended and she keeps going the way she does until he changes – or the court says: Well, we tried, therapy over, good luck Bucky – in which case she would probably give him her number and ways to contact her, maybe a self-help book and tell him her door is always open. Or if he does participate, I think she would slowly shift from gauging problems and providing direct solutions to immediate problems (“You don’t have the mental energy to cook? – Here are some quick recipes and these are my favourite pizza places in the area”) to long-term strategies and even medication plans, however they might look like for Bucky.

I think she would encourage him to develop a healthy social life same as his canon therapist and encourage him to seek out contacts but again, she definitely wouldn’t call it “sad” that the brainwashed ex-POW born in the 1910s has difficulties finding people to relate to but try to encourage the relationships she has (she would definitely give some positive feedback about Sam trying to reach out to Bucky, as he apparently did because a) he’s an Avenger and knows some of that superhero shit Bucky is dealing with and b) he also has experience supporting people dealing with trauma and c) he knew Steve, one of the biggest anchors in Bucky’s life.)

I also, think she would provide some medical help for the nightmares and teach some strategies for dealing with those.

And yeah, a lot of those factors depend on their effectiveness and I think it would be somewhat trial and error because Bucky’s situation is…pretty unique and not her field of speciality, but just in short, I think one of the central themes with Amelia as his therapist would be that she would try to get him to want to participate and a transition from a) getting a read on his danger potential and b) offering immediate help to immediate problems to offering long-term strategies and perspectives to deal with shit. 

[lesenbyan]

because like, here's the thing.

Jifuya recognizes he fucked up. he admits if she dis these atrocities bc of those done to her then he's one of the formost to be blamed. He joined the liberation front to atone and seems serious about that otherwise why stop the lucrative business of employing sex workers that may or may not be consenting the the profession?

whereas never once does it seem or feel like Gosetsu recognizes he's being insensitive or wrong, indeed the game has you on his side instead of against and the Dotharl are the only ones e ne about it and they're also not frequently painted in a good light, if not a bad one (unless you listen to the Oronir.)

Hien's excusing feels more like "okay so he did those things. but the man I know isn't that man anymore" and if you believe anyone and everyone deserves a second chance, then so does Jifuya. So does Yotsuyu, memory or not, So does Fordola. And if Jifuya has admitted that he has done wrong and is doing his best to atone then so long as no one from his past comes calling asking for more, then he's atoned as well as he can. and, again, Hien can't force him into punishment for how he treated Yotsuyu bc the people of Doma don't care what has happened to her, they don't care that she was made into who she was. they only care what she did and the fact there was no escape. which is fair enough! but if Hien claps Jifuya in irons and gives the reason "he employed Yotsuyu as an unconsenting sex worker" there will be riots. I'm not saying Hien even considered it, that's up to everyone individual interpretations. But Jifuya is trying to atone and Hien's saying that the Jifuya he knows wouldn't. the Jifuya of today wouldn't do that again.

Gosetsu? I 100% believe would do all that again. esp bc his biggest point of contention was reincarnation which we know is canonically a thing

man, people can have whatever opinions they want, but as shitty as Hien's halfhearted defense of Jifuya feels Gosetsu's behavior on the Steppe will always always feel worse and grosser. Sure, Hien's in charge of Doma, but he'd not stay that way if he starts condemning people for their pasts with the woman everyone now associates with the worst years of their lives. Absolutely there's something to be Done about Jifuya's past, but he can't act on Yotsuyu's behalf.

Gosetsu, on the other hand,

[momestuck]

Epilogues: Candy, chapters 6-13 [the rest of Epilogue 2]

I’m told that there are 40 chapters, and a postscript, in Candy - and also that it’s split into 8 individual ‘epilogues’ within that, of varying length. ‘Epilogue 2′ began with chapter 4, featuring Rose and Kanaya. So I kind of cut it off in exactly the wrong place. Oops!

Anyway I’m going to split these up by Epilogue section from now on. This one covers the rest of Epilogue 2, which mostly concerns shipping, and processing of feelings.

Here are the irons in the fire at the outset of chapter 6:

Gamzee is back! he claims to be setting out on a ‘redemption arc’

Terezi is in space somewhere looking for Vriska, but set to return at some point, and not all that happy that Gamzee’s back

Dirk has perceived some bad news. And briefly spoken about it with Jane, though without explaining anything.

But that’s all Epilogue 1 stuff - old hat!

Rose has suddenly recovered from her illness, and is patching things up with Kanaya

Jade has attempted to push Dave and Karkat to admit they’re into each other, but really just made things worse

Jane attempted to run for President of Earth C - to the trepidation of the Karkat, who hyperbolically suggested this would amount to troll genocide - but abandoned the idea

That’s all interesting but let’s talk about money! This is something I didn’t pick up on in the last post:

KARKAT: OK, SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT. YOUR PRIORITIES ARE: NUMBER ONE, THE ECONOMY, WHICH LET ME REMIND YOU IS BUILT ENTIRELY ON INFINITE, FAKE MONEY THAT WE CAN MAKE AS MUCH OF AS WE WANT.

Elsewhere, Jane’s megacorp and stocks are mentioned.

One wonders why, given the machinery to manufacture just about anything by means of alchemizer, the forms of money, stocks, and corporations are retained... what sort of productive and reproductive labour is regulated and mediated by these markets? Or are they merely acting out the vestigial forms of capitalism as a bizarre drama...

As for the consequences of an infinite money supply, let’s not get into the ‘modern monetary theory’ debate on a Homestuck post, maybe.

on to chapter 6+

This is a Jane chapter. It opens almost immediately with economic discussion; Dave apparently once accused Jane of ‘neoliberal corporate welfare’ for trying to bolster the ‘struggling locksmith industry’ rendered unnecessary on a planet without crime.

She’s visiting Jake, who’s probably my least favourite Homestuck character (who’s not an alpha troll). About Dirk... Jake (Jane says) seems to still have a bit of a thing for him, and Jane, meanwhile, still “has no idea why she can’t get [Jake] out of her system, even after all these years.”

The reason Jane cancelled her run was, it turns out, because Dirk said ‘cancel everything’. She gets drunk, very quickly... and hits on Jake, who is completely oblivious to her advances. She speaks of wanting to abandon business to raise a family, which Jake himself notes is something rather new for her (though the whole traditional gender thing she does isn’t lol)

Jake/Jane isn’t a ship I have any sort of opinion about, honestly. Dirk/Jake’s terrible collapsing relationship was kind of interesting but yeah, here’s a thing. What even are heterosexuals though? “I want to clean your giant house and have a lot of children”... incomprehensible!

One thing I will give credit for is the narration: it creates pretty strong images of like, these characters as fully embodied people, being intimate in like, subtle physical ways. that probably doesn’t make a lot of sense... whatever lol. it works

chapter 7

...brings us back to Gamzee. fittingly, i’m listening to the friendsim soundtrack as i read this, and i just hit ‘take me to clown church’.

anyway since this whole story basically seems to be an exercise in developing ships along the lines of ‘A is into B, B is obvious to their advances’... Roxy’s hot for John now I guess? or at least, so Callie thinks. she insists they’re all going to be ‘very, very happy’ despite her disappointment.

anyway, then we get Gamzee saying a bunch of casually misogynist stuff to John about Roxy. in this context, basically two interpretations are shown: a shallow ‘oh he’s redeemed now’ attitude from Roxy and Callie, and a ‘oh god i hate this person keep him away from me’ attitude from John. Gamzee’s repulsive qualities are underlined by the narration (from John’s perspective): he’s unhygienic, he’s casually misogynist (which seems like a new element, and rather out of keeping with the gendered-but-somehow-theoretically-not-patriarchal Alternia)...

chapter 8

Rose and Kanaya chapter. Jane’s possible presidency is once again the subject of discussion. Jane apparently wanted to apply some kind of anti-troll eugenics policy, and tried to bring Kanaya on board - and got told to fuck off for it. Our two good lesbians agree that, if Karkat were president (and Dave running the economy), things might have worked out ok...

We are briefly introduced to a new character, a jadeblood troll called Swifer Eggmop. Her character archetype, we are directly told, is ‘1920s newsboy’.

We bear witness to an egg hatching (in prose, anyway). This particular baby grub out closely resembling Vriska... which Kanaya says is because she comes from a slurry based on the original 12 trolls. Rose notes this would make Vriska the troll’s Ancestor, which raises an interesting question of whether Ancestors still exist as a social concept on Earth C. Anyway, Kanaya wants to adopt baby Vriska, which can only be a fantastic idea...

KANAYA: There Are Two Things Of Which I Have No Doubt

KANAYA: That You And I Are Going To Be Happy For The Rest Of Our Lives

KANAYA: And That We Are Never Ever Going To See Vriska Again

I think we can safely assume that neither of those things are true. The emphasis on ‘happiness forever’, voiced by multiple characters, is interesting... also the turn towards reproduction.

I went to uni with people who have kids now. Heck I have friends who have a child (who they are trying to spare from gender)... but for most of my social circle, which is to say almost entirely 20-to-30-something trans women, even the idea of adopting is incomprehensible? It’s somehow weird to think of ‘wanting kids’ as the narrative of 20-something year olds...

Kanaya is right. Vriska is dead, and despite everything, she died a hero. Vriska was a complicated figure of contrasting extremes; her heroic actions were matched in scale only by her monstrous ones, and since no one had actually witnessed her end, it was impossible to say which side the pendulum swung and judged her death—Heroic or Just.

It would be a fitting memorial for her and Kanaya to raise a version of Vriska who would be given every chance to make good on her noble characteristics. A true, symbolic redemption arc. Something about the thought appeals to Rose’s taste for the dramatic flourish. It would be proof that this was all worth it in the end: the destruction of multiple universes, the death of Kanaya’s friends, the circuitous rites of suffering experienced by the nearly infinite splintered versions of every being to inhabit Paradox Space...  

Once again, the notion of a ‘redemption arc’ enters the narrative explicitly, directly echoing fandom discussion. Unlike Gamzee, this is studiously neutral on the Vriska Question: steering exactly between ‘Vriska did nothing wrong’, nor ‘Vriska is a monster’. Regardless... I think it’s probably safe to say that everyone’s prophecies are wrong and we haven’t seen the last of the ‘true’ Vriska.

chapter 9

More of Jade trying very hard to ship her friends, to the discomfort of everyone involved. Jade kisses Karkat, and Karkat explicitly names what she’s doing as sexual assault, a violation of boundaries and consent - Jade attempts to convince him that no, it was really Dave who kissed him!

This prompts a long monologue from Dave in which it’s obvious that he has put some thought into kissing Karkat. Point seems to be: they sure are into each other but Jade’s intervention is not at all welcome. At least I hope that’s the point. I would prefer not to see Jade vindicated by the narrative.

Anyway, other things of cultural note: grub spaghetti is apparently still eaten on Earth C. I always thought it was implied that ‘grubs’ in Troll food were like, actual troll babies, but maybe they’re just ordinary (for certain values thereof...) bugs bc I don’t think Kanaya would stand for that.

chapter 10

The ‘Jane running for president’ subplot has largely disappeared, because what we’re really here for is... shipping! This time, a John/Roxy chapter. I think they call it Roxygen or something? Terezi explains the ‘pair the spares’ logic of the ship (dequirkified):

TEREZI: Um, yeah John.

TEREZI: We are not idiots. We can all do the math on this.

TEREZI:  It’s not like you were going to fuck your human mom or human sister.

TEREZI: And you are “not a homosexual,” which takes Strider dick out of the equation.

TEREZI: And Kanaya is the only girl troll left, and she lesbian married one of the two remaining eligible human females.

TEREZI: Oh and Jake is a double threat. A human dad with a human dick!

TEREZI: So by a process of elimination, of *course* you were going to “fall in love” with Roxy.

Equation of ‘dick’ with ‘male’ there terezi but whatever... (god is this fic going to get into the question of what a ‘nook’ and a ‘bulge’ is...)

(lol i’m calling it a fic...)

Anyway, my position on this one is: Roxy/Calliope was a fine ship worth upholding, and I do not see any reason why anyone would be into John. Though I may be biased on that front.

Terezi also brings up the Calliope question. John is trepidatious on that front.

There’s an interesting line from Roxy here, when John tries to assure her she doesn’t have to wear makeup:

ROXY: john...

ROXY: do u ever think about like

ROXY: gender???

JOHN: ???

JOHN: uh. not really, i guess?

JOHN: but i don’t think girls should feel like they HAVE to wear makeup just because they’re girls.

ROXY: lol

ROXY: thats not what im getting at

JOHN: what do you mean then?

JOHN: are you, like...

ROXY: like what

This is where I’m conscious of the ‘trans character’ tag on this one.

They talk about adulthood, as a performance that they do not feel ‘ready’ for. At that point Dave shows up, clearly aflustered after Jade’s intervention:

DAVE: anyone can be a dude if they really want thats part of the beauty of living in this brand new world with none of the baggage our old world had like gender and sexuality and relationships only involving a very specific number of people

chapter 11

So yeah now to pick up the torch on Dave starting to understand he’s gay. here for this

DAVE: theres a metric fucking ton of shit about to come down on me because i dragged my heels on doing some serious self reflection

JOHN: is this just some more stuff about...

JOHN: being gay?

DAVE: maybe yeah

DAVE: ok definitely yeah

DAVE: its 110% about being gay

JOHN: i thought you’d already worked all that stuff out?

DAVE: turns out it takes a long time to figure out your sexuality after a childhood filled with repression and abuse

nice to see it named as such i guess

the dialogue in the last couple of chapters has been really good. i’m getting properly drawn into this, the characters feel extremely well-realised. threads which were long latent are finally being made explicit.

Dave is struggling with very abrupt self-realisation: he definitely has feelings for Karkat, he has complicated feelings for Jade, but the ‘simple’ solution of just entering a non-mono relationship both is not feeling ‘right’ to him. John isn’t really able to help... he’s gonna talk to Dirk.

This chapter does a lot, I really like it, but at the same time I’ve not got a tremendous amount to add to it.

chapter 12

in our latest chapter of ‘homestuck but they fuck now’, Jake and Jane did that - while up on various substances, including at least alcohol and the trickster lollipop. Jake is having second thoughts but when he tries to back out, Jane looks sad, so he decides to go for it. This can only end well.

Also damn I guess someone on the team thought ‘what would it be like to fuck while high on the trickster lollipop’ so uh, that’s a thing now.

chapter 13

Back to the Strider boys. There’s a heavy intro...

Dave and Dirk don’t talk that much about the heavy stuff. They don’t need to. Dave can hear his brother’s voice in his head.

Not, like, literally. That would be insane. But Dave knows what his bro is like. Dirk, or a version of him, instilled in Dave a way of living and thinking that would, for better or worse, persist far beyond the first thirteen years of his upbringing.

Yeah huh.

Can’t believe Rose and Kanaya have the dubious honour of being the most ‘together’ characters in this.

Anyway in this case Dave still feels like he needs to talk to Dirk - who we know has gone awol, for some mysterious reason. He meets... Gamzee, who says some religious clown stuff, and offers Dave a redemption arc (really running this joke into the ground huh), but Dave brushes him off. Then he finds a fembot that Dirk was working on, with a note.

We don’t get to read the note yet. I would guess that’s the end of epilogue 2.

Sure enough it is.

Epilogue 2, taken as a whole

I quite enjoyed this, Gamzee sections notwithstanding. The prose is tight, the dialogue is hitting its flow, and a lot of relationships that were left vague in Homestuck proper are finally being given time to develop.

Obviously it’s kind of risky bringing in explicitly sexual themes, but I think they approach them in the ‘right’ way: focusing on the emotional meaning of relationships that now might - now we’re dealing with 23-year-olds - include sex, rather than just porn lol. It does slightly strain credibility that, in all their time on Earth C, none of them have made any meaningful friendships or relationships outside the core group of 8 kids and a handful of surviving trolls, but I can also understand the desire to focus on the already-developed characters. That’s a common problem for ‘endgame’ ships: in truth dating exclusively within a tiny friendship group is probably a recipe for disaster, but in fiction it makes a work manageable.

I am enjoying just how gay Homestuck has gotten. If Homestuck is the comic for Very Online kids who were around 13 in 2009 when the comic began, it’s somewhat fitting, because our cohort has, at least to a degree, done the same thing lol. Of course, that’s shaped by my personal experience of like, transitioning and moving to a friendship group that’s like 99% trans lesbians and bi women, but I suspect statistics would bear out the idea that more and more people are comfortable identifying ourselves as not-straight in some way. I could be wrong about that though lol.

Of course, it’s too much to hope that this trend - insofar as it exists! - is like, the beginning of the end for Gender as a system of social relations, violent exploitation and coercion - especially since periods of ‘more acceptance’ often seem to precede violent repression (c.f. Weimar Germany and then, the nazis; the period just before the AIDS crisis; much earlier, the construction of colonial/modern gender in the first place on the bones of less rigid gender systems...)

Anyway, let’s see what’s happened to old Dirk. I’m still wondering who the “trans character” is going to be, and how they’re going to handle that. It’s going to be tough to match fic like @rememberwhenyoutried‘s An Earth-Shattering Confession, but we shall see.

[tanoraqui]

Some thoughts on The Raven Strategem, while I sit here tragically bereft of both The Stone Sky (next Hugo book I really fucking want to read) and Revenant Gun (last MoE book, which I SHOULD put off until I read all the other Hugo noms but lbr if my hold comes in that’s like...50/50 chance at best):

The Raven Strategem is the Mwennin story of building a path to your enemy on the backs of your dead soldiers. Cheris actually does relatively well at NOT doing this - as opposed to some people, coughHellspincough coughKelCommandcough - but also, this is how all war works. Children in caskets for power, suicide formations, letting sending your favorite brother to pull a suicide mission to assassinate 2/3 of the heads of state...there’s a cost, and it is lives.

This was also addressed in Ninefox Gambit - it’s a trilogy about fighting, about war. Ninefox Gambit was more about WHY people fight, though, I think. There heretics fighting for ideals like democracy vs the Kel fighting just because orders said to. Both camps, in fact, had a hidden fox in their midst - Vahenz among the heretics, revealed to have been fighting for...it’s a little unclear. She’s an “agent at large”, but employed by whom is never said. She seems to be a fairly free agent, encouraging chaos wherever she is before moving on. The other fox, of course, is Jedao, who fights, as is revealed, because some things simply cannot be borne.

Though they’re the sole survivor, neither Cheris nor Jedao is the main character of The Raven Strategem, which is neat. Oh, an inordinate amount of time is spent by reader and characters alike trying to figure out what the hell is going on in her head, but the reason the POV is elsewhere is that Cheris isn’t really having much development - she’s getting a job done. She’s the natural disaster that the rest of the characters contend with, pushing them forwards. The book suffers a little, imo, in how clear it is who the winner is going to be - we all know, or at least I sure did, in part admittedly bc I’d read the back of the 3rd book, that the real fight is with Nirai Kujen in Revenant Gun. But that IS the point. Kujen is the danger because calendrical warfare is about hearts not guns, and he’s the only person who has a goddamn clue what is going in Jedao(/Cheris)’s. The Hexarchate is fucked because they lack key information:

This isn’t Shuos Jedao

To the extent that it IS Shuos Jedao, such that it matters, Hellspin Fortress...well, he did snap, but he was never mad. He’d been coming for their throats since he was a teenager, and even if he hadn’t been, they’ve done more than Cheris can bear, too. For the exact same reasons.

Servitors are people too

(Kujen seems mostly unaware of this, too, though it’s possible he’s wised up by Revenant Gun. That may be a problem.)

So, while Cheris provides the dramatic background action, The Raven Strategem does like any really good book turns into an essay disguised as a novel. In this case, the subject is loyalty. You have Khiruev, standing in for most of the Kel as she’s yanked around by the blatantly false, induced, wrong loyalty of formation instinct - until she gets a chance to choose, first to die for a belief and then to live because, frankly, why die if you don’t have to. (Suicidehawk no longer, hm?) You have Brezan, who is loyal to Kel Command because he chooses to be - but it was never really Kel Command. It was to the people. “the hexarchate was a terrible place to live, but it would be an even worse one if no one with a conscience consented to serve it....serve, and hope that serving honorably made some small difference.” (I love him a lot.) we get that line while he’s waiting in a cell thinking that basically Kel Command can stuff it, but he needs to get back to save Khiruev - whose first impression as his general was to tell him to “help me never to forget that it’s people [raven soldiers] that we send out to die.”  Real personal loyalty is earned by looking out for those who give it, service for service. This is what convinces Brezan to give Cheris a chance, that the swarm has been looked after in his absence. This is the start of Khiruev giving her alliegiance to Jedao/Cheris, that Cheris firmly refuses Khiruev’s offer of her death. (Not one more raven soldier than necessary.)

Earning loyalty, says this book, is also a matter of vulnerability. Khiruev’s request of Brezen “wasn’t the sort of confidence you’d expect as a newcomer.” This is emphasized in the third plotline/character, Mikodez - hexarch of the faction famed for backstabbing, yes, I see and appreciate your use of irony there, Lee. Mikodez’s paramount goal the protection and betterment of his people - over and over he says, “I do my job”, and that job is the Shuos. Which is why he has a secretary who keeps trying to convince him to accept immortality and a brother who drops to his knees to call him “Hexarch” and ask to go on a suicide mission. That was the only time we’ve heard “I’m your gun” earnestly - no Kel would count, with formation instinct, and Jedao is either heavily ironic or outright lying whenever he does it. And then Istradez asks if any of it is real, or is everything a game now...and Mikodez gets right down on his knees, too. He wins an argument with Zehun by sending them all the plans he’s ever come up with to kill them. If you want to be a leader, if you want people to trust themselves to you, you have to return the favor.

Maybe that’s why Cheris gets people signing up for her ideals more than her own self. She’s too goal-oriented, too Jedao, to be vulnerable these days. Hurricanes don’t flinch. 

It’s interesting that Istradez’s fate runs up against Cheris’s insistent refusal of Khiruev’s death. But then, I already said - Khiruev’s wasn’t true, not the first one. That was formation instinct. The Vrae Tala was real. 

...all that said, I really don’t like how we still don’t, like, have a basic explanation of how calendars work? My guess is, if you manipulate time and how humans perceive reality, it can allow you further warp reality to produce the “exotic” effects. But, like Cheris caused a “calendrical spike” - HOW? Just by sitting in her room doing math? Was it all the servitors around the Hexarchate changing their clocks, or something? Did she need to be traveling, or was that purely a distraction, and she could have done this all from a hotel? I want just a couple sentences explaining that, damnit, and after that I think I could comfortably roll with it. 

Also, ngl, for Hugo’s voting...the “Not one more child” scene from Obelisk Gate is sticking with me harder than anything in Raven Strategem, so if The Stone Sky can live up to that...And we have all the other books to read :D Maybe I’ll end up writing an off-the-cuff essay on all of them; that could be fun.

[steverfan]

Still waiting for evidence...

steverfan

This is a conversation that was cut off. I’m putting my reply here..

Italics is littlemissstark.

There are some interesting assertions here. Do you have any evidence?

How can u have a history of us imperialism where the us actively ravaged the Middle East and countries in the global south for oil and resources, refuse to allow those countries to flourish or even SURVIVE under the covid pandemic, and then be like ‘Steve Rogers was right in cw.’

You are aware that Tony Stark traveled to the Middle East to show off his Jericho missile and suggesting that the American military let one “slip off the chain,” right? Tony was the American imperialist for decades, making weapons to enable the U.S. to maintain military superiority in the Middle East and other countries that the U.S. exploited and continues to exploit. And Tony kept all of his blood money even after he started making his WMDs for his private use.

‘Governments have agendas’ tell me Captain AMERICA who has govt agendas?? Enlighten me.

If you think it is okay for private superpowered Americans to ravage other countries wearing their pretty little costumes and kill other people in the name of ‘saving the world’ with zero consequences, then you’re moronic. And so helplessly, stupidly American.

This is really funny, because Steve has rejected the American political and government structure in every movie he’s been in. It’s Tony who is Ross’s and the U.S. government’s lapdog. And it’s so amusing that you’re dismissing the fact that the Earth would be a wasteland if the Chitauri or Tony’s murder-bot hadn’t been stopped by the Avengers. The Avengers didn’t ravage anything or anyone, they stopped the invasions. It’s like you can’t tell the difference between the arsonist and the person putting out the fire.

Because NEWSFLASH, the whole concept of the Avengers is propaganda. Americans invade other countries in the name of ‘saving them’ when actually they’re killing innocent civilians with no impunity. Sound familiar?

The Avengers are killing innocent civilians with no impunity? Really? You are aware that if people die during a fire, the firefighters aren’t considered murderers, right? Or are you claiming that Iron Man was executing women and children in the streets?

Interesting how they made Tony Stark the villain for saying ‘hey how bout we don’t do that?’ And people hate him for it.

No, Tony Stark is a villain for being a hypocrite who tried to blackmail and guilt people into signing away their rights, then turned around and not only violated the Accords he claimed to support, but committed multiple additional crimes. Tony blackmailed Peter into becoming a child soldier, brought an unregistered enhanced across international borders without permission from Germany, the U.N., Secretary Ross, or even Aunt May. Tony shot unarmed people and shot Bucky in the back. Then Tony hid all those crimes rather than accept responsibility and face the consequences. That is why he is considered villainous.

And then people wonder why Tony Stark is beloved globally and Steve Rogers isn’t.

Evidence? Because the polls I’ve seen rank Steve Rogers higher, and Captain America merchandise sells far more than Iron Man.

littlemissstark

I’m not gonna argue with your dumb ass who doesn’t even crack open a history book to look up American imperialism. My country’s people are dying bc of america’s commitment to suffocating developing countries. Tony’s entire purpose as a character is to show someone who pushes for accountability because he recognized that he was wrong. I don’t need your patronizing ass to tell me who to consider a villain or not esp when Steve refuses to take responsibility for civilian casualties who are mainly poc and innocents from the global south. Also if Tony employed Peter as a child soldier , then how come Wanda isn’t considered one since y’all bend over backwards defending her and calling her a kid. Hypocrisy. Get off my post with your smooth brained ass, block me, and fuck all the way off with your MERCHANDISE STATISTICS FOR GODS SAKE. the jokes write themselves.

I’m not gonna argue with your dumb ass who doesn’t even crack open a history book to look up American imperialism. My country’s people are dying bc of america’s commitment to suffocating developing countries. 

America’s commitment to suffocating developing countries was fueled by Tony Stark’s weapons for two decades. And Tony created EDITH, which violates everyone’s privacy and like Project Insight, will kill anyone anywhere at the user’s whim. That seems pretty imperialistic, don’t you think? Also, Steve was on ice, so it’s ridiculous to blame him for America’s actions when he was not there. Also note that the Avengers are not furthering an American agenda when they are saving people. Steve was right in Civil War because 1) You do not sign a contract you disagree with, especially one that strips people of their rights; 2) The Accords strip people of their rights. This is a bad thing and in violation of the Geneva Conventions and Declaration of Human Rights, along with many constitutions.

Tony’s entire purpose as a character is to show someone who pushes for accountability because he recognized that he was wrong.

Really? Because Tony’s arc seems to be pushing for consequences for everyone but himself. Did Tony not recognize it was wrong to blackmail a 15-year-old into becoming a child soldier? That is was wrong to lie to the child’s guardian about his intentions for the child? That it was wrong to sign the Accords, then violate them by going without permission to a country that did not give permission for him to be there, or even know he was there? To hide his crimes, rather than take accountability and face the consequences? And never did Tony admit he was wrong to force people to sign the Accords. He also decided that Ultron was a great idea, and that his “suit of armor around the world” was worth the loss of people’s “precious freedoms.” So while he may have decided to make weapons for himself in Iron Man 1 (rather than selling even more to the U.S. government), he hasn’t actually pushed for accountability or admitted he was wrong.

I don’t need your patronizing ass to tell me who to consider a villain or not esp when Steve refuses to take responsibility for civilian casualties who are mainly poc and innocents from the global south.

Evidence? Steve has only been awake for a few years and was working for either Shield or the Avengers. The person putting out the fire is not responsible for the fire, the arsonist is. In the same way, the people failing to stop the bomb are not responsible for the injuries caused by the bomb, the bomber is. Steve has never attacked civilians, unlike Tony, who fired his Iron Man weapons into a crowd during Iron Man 2. So you agree that Tony should have accepted responsibility for that, right? That he should have been jailed for endangering innocents?

Also if Tony employed Peter as a child soldier , then how come Wanda isn’t considered one since y’all bend over backwards defending her and calling her a kid. Hypocrisy.

You do recognize the difference between a young adult who is called a kid and an actual child, right? Peter is 15. It’s not hypocrisy to call him a child. Tony should never have gone near him, never threatened him with exposure, never taken him over international borders without permission and full consent from Aunt May, never violated the Accords by failing to register an enhanced person, never endangered him by putting him in a battle with trained fighters, and never hid the crimes Tony committed by involving Peter.

Also, no one is defending Wanda here, so your claim seems to be an attempt to avoid providing the requested evidence.

Get off my post with your smooth brained ass, block me, and fuck all the way off with your MERCHANDISE STATISTICS FOR GODS SAKE. the jokes write themselves.

You do recognize the irony of your statement, yes? You bulldozed your way onto someone else’s thread. So you really don’t have any standing complaining that someone asked you to provide evidence for your assertions. You don’t like my evidence, why not prove me wrong by providing your own? I noticed you still haven’t provided any evidence that Tony is “beloved globally.” Do you actually have any evidence? Or is this just another Tony stan head canon?