#who were in reality being groomed themselves

[cryptidmomochi]

did you know?

the insistence by commentary creators on treating children the same way as adults has caused ridiculous amounts of harm.

over and over i would see drama about various artists, and so many of them were just kids. some of them were younger than me, but i didnt know that. i thought they were all much older than me, because that's how they were treated.

"oh this person was a groomer" they were a child. if a child is exhibiting groomer-like tendencies, they don't just get that out of nowhere.

"oh this person pretended to have mental illness or s/h for attention" that is not a thing that normal people do. you look stupid when you say that. just because someone is doing something "for attention" doesn't mean nothing's actually wrong.

"this kid was racist" im from an extremely white, quite cishet, and very able-bodied town (or, at the very least, the town is inaccessible enough that you just don't see that many disabled people, who knows). sometimes you learn bigoted rhetoric, then have to unlearn it. sometimes you say stupid shit because other people around you say that exact stupid shit. kids in particular do not always know better. just because theyre 16 doesn't mean they're exempt from being stupid.

like.

can we stop hatemobbing fucking children. i have at least lingered online for almost 10 years. kids are one of the most likely groups to get harassed, often by adults. im glad i never developed a sizeable following before i turned 18. i wouldnt have been able to handle it either.

but im just shouting to the void, really. commentary creators dont fucking learn. they just hop onto the next bandwagon and ignore it.

do you ever wonder why so many commentary types keep getting into trouble? hopeless peaches, creepshow, daftpina, turkey tom, omnia, prison mate luke, im sure i could think of more given the time and given a little bit more research to track down some old creators i used to watch. good people don't go online and talk about kids like they should be killed. the art commentary community as a whole is rife with toxicity, seemingly always searching for small prey nobody's heard of. I remember a very long time ago there was a "drama" because an artist on deviantart didn't want their art being favourited (they misunderstood what it did) and that was a big enough deal to start making videos about. playlists upon playlists preying on kids being stupid.

if not kids, then any other vulnerable group will do just fine, too. if you remember the "tumblr art style", youll know it had a few main "characteristics"; ambiguous race, hairy legs, character depictions that weren't conventionally attractive, bandaids, s/h scars, drawing the characters with different body types, depictions of mental illnesses and disorders, the works. the "tumblr art style" was, in reality, a dogwhistle. it wasn't about the art. it was about the fact that it wasnt a white, cishet, able-bodied, neurotypical man or woman. that was a topic for a few years. "the problem with the tumblr art style", "tumblr art style cringe", i only knew of tumblr from those types of videos when i was in middle school.

commentary rarely if ever cares about justice. its just another dime in their wallet, and if they have to harass kids to get it, well, that's just fine.

[margareth-lv]

⛓️ When art and life become one ⛓️

I believe fairy tales have a great deal of therapeutic power. And there's nothing quite like a good story.

As I’ve written here a few times before, I first started watching Outlander in 2020 – a challenging year for us all. At that time, we all needed a good story to take our minds off reality. And to move into the catharsis that art offers. You can imagine my excitement when I realised that two actors (who were so obviously in love) playing the characters in the story were born around the same time as the characters they were playing.

James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser, born on 1 May. Sam Roland Heughan, born on 30 April. Both Taurus, just like me. Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser, born on 20 October. Caitríona Mary Balfe, born on 4 October. Both Libra.

And, as you might expect, in both the play and real life, she is older than he is. Isn't it wonderful how things just fall into place sometimes? There’s always something to ponder, think about and enjoy.

But it's been a while since we've seen joy in "enjoy." The Taylor Swift concert is the exception that proves the rule, here.

I'm getting tired of the low-level storytelling we've been presented with for a while now. This story is the worst of the worst. It’s a pretty poor selection of C, D, and E cinema.

And it's pretty sad how two people, who literally built their relative public recognisability on being the 'hottest couple on the screen', are now pathetically role-playing their supposed 'real love lives'. And neither of them succeeds. They're also pretty weak actors in their roles of romantic lovers (I'm thinking mainly of Sam here). Let me just say that they're not pathetic only when they're together. *** *** *** When I saw the blurry, embarrassing footage from this weekend's Giorgio Armani Tennis Classic (tagged #ad on Sam's Instagram), my first thought was that it was a spectacle for us, our Tumblr fandom. There's no one else who would be interested in something you have to look for with a magnifying glass, zooming in, spending long minutes stopping frames of film. Then I got reminded about the Wimbledon Tennis Championships back in July 2019 and another poor performances by 'bride' and her 'groom' a month before their 'wedding'.

Do you remember those pictures?

First wife, second wife, Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser and Laoghaire MacKenzie, I mean, Evie Greenwood, a primary teacher.

You know, realism and art all blend together.

We first saw this kind of kissing being reduced to sucking on the partner's upper lip in what we were forced to think was Sam’s ‘real life’, and then we saw the same thing on screen.

And what about Sam's somewhat embarrassing performance in The Couple Next Door? Which other actor in that film has exposed themselves so much (and so pointlessly), in a literal sense?

How many of us thought Sam's performance in the erotic scenes in TCND was not sexy at all, but disgusting?

I did.

Wasn't that display of Sam's rhythmically moving buttocks as distasteful as his other performance a few weeks ago?

Seriously, I would never want my husband/partner/father of my children to behave like this. There's no money worth it. But maybe there is.

Sometimes I feel sorry for them, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I remind myself of how jealous Cait can be.

How on earth do they manage to live like that?

[3 July, 2024]

[walidgoldpreppy]

Welcome WalidGold

Walter Jenkins, a square-faced man in his thirties with a layered red haircut, stood in front of his office mirror, meticulously adjusting his gold tie knot. He wore a crisp suit, black with gold accents here and there—a nod to his role as manager of the famous sports team, the Golden Team.

Each member of the team wore their Gold uniforms, a symbol of their success and unity, and Walter, always dapper, found subtle ways to incorporate the color into his own outfit. Today, it was his tie clip, watch, and belt buckle that sparkled in the dim office light.

On the mahogany desk sat a small bottle, with Arabic writing etched into the glass. It was a gift from a friend, @arab-god.

Why not try it, he thought, with a wry smile. Without further hesitation, he uncorked the bottle and swallowed the liquid in one gulp. At first, he didn't feel anything out of the ordinary.

But a few moments later, a wave of heat invaded his body. His red beard, although well-groomed, began to gradually darken, turning a deep brown. The heat spread, making his skin browner and browner, as if every cell of his being was burning with energy. His muscles swelled, his body became wider, more imposing, as if every fiber of his flesh was being reforged under the effect of the drink.

Walter staggered slightly, his hands gripping the desk to keep his balance. He felt his mind grow numb, his head became lighter, as if his intelligence was slowly fading to make way for something more primal.

His Gold tie strained against his pecs, which were developing visibly. Each breath was heavier, slower, as the heat reached his lower abdomen, triggering an even more radical transformation.

He placed a hand on his chest, watching in amazement as his red hair turned black, taking on a more neat, almost slicked-back look. His eyes, previously a bright blue, became dark, almost black, as a voice echoed in his head, murmuring words in Arabic.

Walter didn't understand a thing, but he knew, deep down, that something had changed. He repeated these words mentally, without understanding their meaning. Suddenly, everything became clear: he had surrendered to something greater. He submitted to the force of this transformation, feeling a new power invade his mind and body. *Allah*... A clear, precise word, invaded his mind.

He felt stronger, more confident, and above all... more dominant. He straightened up, becoming aware of his new body. His skin was tanned, his features harder, his gaze, now dark brown, more piercing. He ran a hand over his beard, which had grown thick and black. Now he was Walter, but also something more. He felt more masculine, more imposing. Every gesture, every movement gave off an aura of power and control.

Standing in his office, Walter or whatever he had become stared into space. His right hand played absently with his tie as his mind sank into a thick, confused haze. Fuzzy memories came to mind, but none of them seemed to belong to the life he had led so far.

Images of his childhood in a small American town, his rising career in sports management, all of it gradually dissipated, like a dream that evaporates in the morning. In their place, a new reality imposed itself, more powerful, more vivid. He was no longer Walter.

Perhaps he had never been. *Walid*, that was who he was. The name echoed in his mind, filling every corner of his being.

Memories of a sunny childhood in a faraway land, in the heart of palm-lined alleys and bustling markets, imposed themselves on him. His parents, pious and respected, had taught him the values ​​of religion from a young age. Every morning, he rose for prayer at dawn, his eyes still sleepy, but his heart filled with faith. Walter's mind was slowly burning, absorbed by these new memories. He was no longer the man he believed himself to be. *Walid*, the son of a prosperous merchant, had grown up learning to dominate his environment, to impose his will with charisma and authority.

Very young, he had developed a natural talent for business, a keen sense of commerce and negotiation. Everything in his life had converged towards an unstoppable rise. Within a few years, he had become an influential businessman, respected throughout the country.

Every morning, Walid put on his suit and tie, a symbol of his success and power.

His unwavering faith had been his guide throughout this journey. He prayed fervently, guided by the love of Allah, and strove to spread the good word wherever he went. His success was not only the fruit of his hard work, but also of his deep devotion to his Creator.

It was Allah who had given him this strength, this natural dominance over other men. Every day, dressed in his impeccable suit, Walid stood as a manager, but also as a guide, a model of masculinity. With his ties and elegant suits, he embodied success, faith, and power. Under his leadership, the team was no longer simply a sports team, but a unified force, driven by a deeper conviction.

Adjusting his tie, he contemplated his reflection in the mirror. His tanned skin, his impeccably groomed black hair, his perfectly trimmed dark beard... Everything about him exuded a natural authority. Walid stood there, towering and powerful, ready to spread the good word through his success in business and sports. There was no more doubt, no more hesitation. Walter Jenkins was a distant memory. Now, he was *WalidGold*.

[serpentface]

@latenightagain Ok here we go [x]

INTELLIGENCE:

They are very intelligent animals- on a primate scale, more cognitively complex than lemurs but probably less than most great apes. Their social organization is a lot simpler than proto-elowey were. They cannot produce as complex vocalization as elowey, and lack developed facial musculature for expressions. (As a tangent, elowey are less visually expressive than humans and rely more heavily on olfactory and audial senses)

VOCAL MIMICRY:

The vocal mimicry myth is based in the reality that their warning vocalizations sound quite a lot like the cries of young elowey children. The folklore extends this to claim they produce the unique bleating cries of babies, screams for help, or outright mimic complex speech. This is also complicated by the fact that historical qilik ranges heavily overlap with elowey, and qilik CAN mimic speech, so some real life mimicry by qilik may be attributed to hutsmet.

TAKEN AS AN INFANT:

That sort of thing has probably happened on an incidental scale in history, but would not be common enough for any particular views to develop around it beyond 'that's probably a bad idea'.

It's not quite the same thing but some elowey cultures have variants on 'changeling' myths, where hutsmet kidnap and replace elowey children. The hutsmet changeling is usually disguised by magic to pass as an elowey, but is often identified by never starting to speak (or only being able to speak through mimicry), never learning to walk bipedally (or using quadrupedal locomotion in ways deemed inappropriate or excessive), or their scent glands being uniquely foul-smelling/the secretions killing trees and rotting wood. Most stories involve the changeling sneaking out at night to poison fruit trees, smudge out territorial boundaries, or kill livestock and eat only their eyes. Sometimes the changeling eats its parents. Occasionally the hutsmet changeling is said to grow up more or less 'normally', but usually disappears into the woods when it is time to be wed.

There's other variant mythology of the 'animal bride/groom' folkloric motif where a magic hutsmet passes itself off as a man and weds to a clanmother, only to steal the resulting offspring and disappear into the woods. Or a hutsmet clanmother kidnaps a man and bears a child off him. The story usually ends with the man escaping with his hybrid child - in some instances the child is an elowey and grows up normally, in others the kid tragically pulls the classic 'disappear into the woods' maneuver and returns to its mother.

HYBRIDIZATION:

They are not close enough to hybridize. This doesn't stop people from Believing they are, with hybrids occurring in folklore (as mentioned above) and the occasional person claiming hutsmet ancestry.

There's one prominent warlord who established a maritime empire in the southeastern sea about 300 years BP who claimed to have a hutsmet mother, which was probably a facetious "I'm a dangerous motherfucker" type boast but is has gone down in legend as a literal fact. (This is one of the lore areas where I have concepts developed but little to no person or place names, sorry)

HUMANS AND HUTSMET:

Very hard to generalize because there's massive variations in human-elowey relationships (and intersophont relations in general), so human-hutsmet relations heavily depend on this context. In instances of human cultures that tend towards species-xenophobia, hutsmet may be used as an rhetorical device to (for a lack of a better word) dehumanize elowey via casting similarities between them and wild animals.

But speaking very, VERY broadly, humans and elowey tend to group themselves together as being the most 'alike' sophonts, so hutsmet may occupy a similar place in the cultural imagination as being Creepily Like People But Wild. Otherwise they are significant animals in their environment but their resemblance is regarded more as a curiosity.

They also are fuel for beliefs about the existence 'wild' humans (if elowey have a 'wild' version, then humans must too?), which leads into-

CHIMPS:

Chimps do not exist in the contemporary of the setting, but there's a few places whose 'wild human' legends are probably (heavily embellished) cultural memories of long-extinct great apes.

Most primates in the present day are lemuroids, with no nonhuman great apes and most species of monkeys existing in relative geographic isolation.

[bubuslutty]

You're upset, darling?

pairing: platonic gn!reader x ghost x soap x price

word count: 1.4k

tags: angst with comfort, depression, episodes, no use of y/n, 3rd person pov, reader is mostly refered to as darling + they/them pronouns

warning: mention of suicide, not in detail tho but still (let me know if I missed anything)

summary: 141's darling has episodes where they feel like shit and how they spend their day in the base with those feelings, and how the guys comfort them.

a/n: I wanted to add könig, horangi and gaz but I was too tired to keep writing so I only wrote abt these three. this is very much based on my personal experience. I'm also undiagnosed so I might not use certain terms.

Sometimes 141's darling has days where they're down and very upset. It's normal, they think, everyone must have days where they don't feel entirely themselves, right? it's totally normal and very human, they believe.

At first, when they were upset, nobody would notice, because no matter how they felt, they always did the same things as they always do, if not a bit slower than usual.

They would shower, groom their hair, wash their clothes, clean their room and attend all activities with the other guys. They would even sleep their full hours, uninterrupted, and finish all of their food, rarely missing a meal.

But all of that feels robotic. An attempt to seem normal, to seem fine. When in reality, they feel gray on the inside. Dead. a walking corpse. A heaviness that settles in their chest like a rock. Sitting there, unmoving.

And more often than not, they wouldn't know why they're so upset, so down and dead and just not themselves. They might as well be in a coma because nothing feels real during those days.

Then they would be forgetful, less talkative, and their face would drop, drained out of any light and animated expressions they usually wear. They would laugh along to jokes that aren't even funny, to keep anyone from noticing that there's something wrong, that they're wrong.

But they couldn't keep having their episodes unnoticed. They're not sure who noticed first, out of 141, but they do remember how Soap would look at them. How even when he's talking and laughing loudly, he would glance at them, to study their reaction and face. But he wouldn't say anything, not yet at least.

He would then drag them with him as much as he can, and not necessarily make them speak, because he notices their silence, and the discomfort that would appear in their face when they're made to speak and actively participate in a conversation when they're not obligated to. He would fill in the space, with his chatter, but it would not be as loud, softer, a comforting murmur, a nice sound to focus on when they can't make themselves stop falling inside their head.

And then darling would lean against his side when they're sitting down and he's sketching on his knees, still talking and filling in the air. And he would wrap an arm around them and squeeze, his body heat comforting and welcome in those gray days. And when darling has to be somewhere without Soap, he would give them a much needed tight hug, all warm and big and long and soft.

"You'll be alright."

They find themselves hanging out with the 141 guys more often during their episodes. And Ghost is no exception. No matter what anyone says about the man's personality, whether he's cold hearted, emotionally unavailable or just straight out a bastard, they would never get it right, never, nobody knows him as much as he knows himself. But he does let out bits and pieces of himself to his mates. Because he trusts them.

Darling would be sitting next to Ghost, without saying a single word while he's cleaning his guns in similar silence. The only sound that could be heard is their breathing and Ghost's hands working on cleaning his weapons. But then darling did break their silence once, they don't know what urged them to open their mouth and speak, but they did.

"Thank you for being my friend."

Ghost's hands froze, and he just kept staring down at his guns when he lifted his head and looked to the side at the sergeant sitting next to him.

"Sergeant, are you suicidal?"

Darling was slightly taken back by the bold question. But that was Ghost for you. Asking direct questions when it mattered. Darling didn't take offense to his question but simply shook their head, "Negative, sir."

Ghost kept staring at them silently and reached out for their hand, gripping it and squeezing it in his gloved hands. Darling smiled a bit and didn't say anything after that, nor did Ghost.

Darling doesn't know if their words freaked their lieutenant out or not, but he did mention their very short conversation to their captain, John Price.

"Sergeant, I need you in my office, now."

Darling was a bit confused, raking their mind over any mistakes they did, or said anything wrong to anybody. And were even more confused when they couldn't think of anything they've done.

"You're not in trouble." John said as soon as they entered his office and sank down on the chair in front of his desk. Darling fidgeted with their fingers, unable to just sit still under Price's gaze.

John Price was the only man on base that Darling disliked interacting with during their episodes while simultaneously yearning for his attention and approval. His eyes could see everything, he knew everything.

They didn't like to be weak in front of Price. They don't like how easy it is for him to see and understand them. Even if it is one of the most relieving feelings in the world. It was scary. To face a man who could read you and so easily pin your vulnerabilities.

"Lieutenant Ghost told me what you said earlier today. He's worried about you and wanted me to check on you." Price said, arms crossed and leaning against his desk, staring down at them with a steady gaze.

He went straight to the point, no wasting time or breath.

Darling opened and immediately closed their mouth, unable to form a sentence or pick what to say, their mind was reeling and they had the urge to just spill everything to the man.

He does that to them, makes them want to lay out everything they are and stand naked in front of him and let him see every scar, every mole, every dip, every swell and every pore.

"Talk to me, honey." He said, so gently when he kneeled next to them, that it choked up Darling's throat.

Their eyes immediately blurred with tears, their breathing picking up and now heaving, struggling to breath.

"Breathe, aye?" Price said.

And it was as simple as that. Breathing. Breathing for their captain.

He wanted them to breathe? They will, with no question.

They're not sure if it's just his rank that makes them more obedient, more willing to obey and trust blindly. But they're too afraid to think too much about it. They're afraid they'll find a hidden layer under it.

"I- I feel useless. I feel lost and confused. I feel sick in my heart. I'm not happy, and I don't know why. And I want to be happy, to not feel like I'm not myself anymore. I want to feel good. I want to be good."

And just like that they spilled like an overflowing glass of milk.

Price's gaze softened even more, and he placed a big rough warm hand on their thigh, "Darling," He said and their heart jumped in their chest.

"With all due respect, you're not useless. If you were, I'm scared to think of what that would make us." He said, voice all deep and warm.

Darling cracked a small smile, looking at him with their hands on their lap and staring at him with big eyes, shiny and begging for praise and reassurance.

"You're more than enough, love. It's alright to feel like shite, but what's not alright is you keeping your hurt to yourself and making yourself sick with it. Talk to me, talk to us, you're safe. You're safe and good. You're so good."

A tear spilled down their cheek, staring at Price with their heart beating faster than a horse in their chest, their body heating up and feeling all warm and fuzzy and so loved they could suffocate with it.

"Come here." Price said before dragging his sergeant by the arms to engulf them in a big warm hug. His scratchy beard was pressed against their temple. But they didn't mind. Their captain smelled like cologne, mint and tobacco, but they didn't mind either. His grip on their body was tight, but they also didn't mind. Because their captain was good, solid, a constant force, safe and warm and understanding.

And that heavy stone that lodged in their chest was finally lifted and they could breathe again. They know this won't somehow heal them. To think so would be foolish and a joke. But this felt good nonetheless.

Their captain knows they will have their episodes, maybe not as often, maybe more often, who knows. But what he does know is that he'll set up a private therapist for them. And he'll make sure to remind Darling that they're part of 141. They're part of them, and they don't have to act as if they're fine, it's okay to be vulnerable, because they'll protect them, keep them safe from bad thoughts just like how they protect them from bloodthirsty enemies and bullets.

[toaarcan]

C3E107 Thoughts

Okay first point of order, obligatory screaming about Abubakar flying an ocean to do a surprise return as the Arch Heart, you love to see it.

The Arch Heart's plan is interesting but I think they've either not telling the whole story or they're making a mistake. They assume that, in a moment of panic of Predathos being released early, their siblings will all flee. Except we know Melora would stand and fight, and we know that two of the gods are not Tengarian and therefore they have no past track record to base that thought on. They've got no clue what RQ and Vecna will do when the chips are down.

Of course, it's possible that the Arch Heart is hiding the truth. They said themselves that they are sneaky and that they were there without the knowledge of the other gods. They also kept stressing that they were being honest. Which could well be a lie. DC30 on the Insight check to see through any bullshit. The gods may have a different purpose for putting Predathos into a person.

The reality they've claimed is that the gods are currently in argument over what they should do about the Predathos situation, and the Arch Heart believes that if they have time to come to a conclusion, they will choose to fight. Whether that means war with Predathos or war on the people trying to release it, who can say. Either way, if they all come back, inevitably the Betrayers will try to kill mortals again, and the Primes will fight them. Calamity 2 will happen if mortals take too long to stop Predathos.

Ultimately the idea of cramming Predathos into Imogen or Fearne does not seem like a good one. We just spent the better part of 103 episodes watching Laudna struggle to keep Delilah under control. Delilah is the soul of a mortal fucking wizard. And Downfall illustrated the vast gulf between mortal mages and gods. It also showed max-level mortal bodies being disintegrated by the raw power of an unbound deity forcing its way out from within them. And the plan here is to cram a more-powerful entity into a Lv.13 Sorcerer or Druid and expect Predathos to not immediately escape or hollow them out and wear them like a cheap suit?

Then again, given the way it was being talked about maybe they are aware of this and recognise that whoever becomes Predathos' vessel is functionally or literally dead and doomed to chase the gods across reality for eternity, and that's a sacrifice that some have decided they are okay with. Either way, not a great plan.

The two members of BH that are most happy with the Arch Heart's idea are Dorian and Ashton, who are reacting to it like the perfect answer has finally been given to them. But it's not Dorian and Ashton who are going to be tasked with becoming the vessel. Imogen really does not want Predathos released. Fearne is more curious but Zathuda is actively trying to groom her into the perfect vessel and Shardgate was born out of Ashton convincing her to go with her gut and give him the Shard instead of taking it for herself, and I worry that with them on one shoulder and Zathuda on the other, Fearne may end up going with the plan and dying for it.

As for who the deity that agrees with the Arch Heart is... I don't think it's the Matron. The Arch Heart's words around her appearance are "You've heard my side," as if to imply that she represents the other. She was also one of the more reluctant gods when it came to leaving and building the gate, and she was consistently the "Stop doing hubris" one during Downfall.

The Arch Heart definitely did not have an answer for whether Predathos will harm mortals accidentally in pursuit of its meal. Also there's a probably-god chilling in the heart of the planet who isn't going to be running anywhere so that's not a great sign.

Zathuda and the Unseelie's dissatisfaction with Ludinus speaks to one of the bigger flaws in the Ruby Vanguard's plan. We've seen the gulf between mortal wizards and gods in Downfall, but Ludinus assumes that if he kills the gods then mortals will sit atop the food chain. Except they won't. There are a lot of entities that live in the gulf between mortal and divine, like powerful Fey, and also the Fiends the heroes keep running into. Zathuda evidently looks down on Ludinus and intends to betray him. To chase the gods away will open up the throne they've abdicated again, and it will not be a mortal wizard that sits it (nor should it be), it will be a devil or a demon or an archfey.

[prying-pandora666]

Let’s be Honest About Iroh

Okay but for real.

I adore Iroh. When I was a troubled, angry teen who had been abused and had left home as soon as I finished high school, even when it led to homelessness, Iroh meant everything to me.

He was the only adult who never failed me. Who gave me kind advice and words of wisdom to soothe the raging storm of pain and betrayal in my heart.

Only Iroh and the works of Tolkien have ever given me that level of comfort and will to keep moving forward even when I messed up. To always strive to be better, even if you were misguided or lashed out the day before. Even if you’ve been wronged or hurt and lost it all.

But for real, fandom, let’s be for real.

The problem comes when fans claim Iroh never killed anyone. Or never hurt anyone. Or tried to be a “humane” general fighting a genocidal war of aggression . Or that the Siege of Ba Sing Se wasn’t a horrific 600 day campaign which caused “chaos and violence” within the walls of the biggest civilian city in their world. It makes it seem like fandom would rather deify Iroh due to their positive feelings towards him rather than confront the reality that sometimes your mentor is someone else’s monster.

That maybe the jolly, kooky, tea-loving Uncle who always forgave and gently guided Zuko, and never ever gave up on him, may have arrived at that kindness and wisdom precisely because he has seen the end of the path Zuko was walking on. Iroh in his prime was worse than Azula could ever dream of being. When he said “she’s crazy and she needs to go down”, he was speaking from experience because he knows all too well what propaganda does to a person, and that you can’t talk them out of it. They must experience the downfall and realization for themselves.

He never said “don’t help her after she falls”. On the contrary, in the comics he wishes for Azula to heal.

Iroh is not perfect. No one is perfect. And if you keep judging people by their proximity to perfection, you will always be disappointed even in people who do good. And you will also condemn people who need help and have the potential to change into good people.

There are monsters out there but none of them are born that way. They are created through a combination of experiences and their own choices along the way.

But an important message of ATLA is that while we MUST fight those that seek to do others harm, even with our very lives, we must also reach our a hand to help those that have already fallen. If they reject it, that is their choice and they can bear the consequences.

But it is still our responsibility to reach out.

Too much of the fandom seems steeped in essentialism. That everyone is only as good as the worst thing they’ve ever done.

Which is why they feel the need to pretend Iroh was always a good person who never really wanted to participate in this genocidal war.

But this isn’t the case. And the sooner we can admit that to ourselves, the sooner we can begin to understand what drives people to such actions.

And how to help those that have been groomed and exploited for such purposes. Just like Zuko.

Even if we find them unpalatable or mentally unwell. Just like Azula.

[scarabjewels]

Corpse Bride had the PERFECT ending.

SUE ME.

The number of people who wanted Emily to be Victor's endgame, with myself included, have a similar issue or lack of growth with Emily's arc throughout the movie.

Clinging onto the idea of love, to the point of forcing it onto someone. I'm calling us and her delusional.

She also went through a sort of roundabout response of the stages of grief: grieving her life.

Shock and Denial

She knows she's dead, and yet she delusionally believed she was still a young bride waiting for her groom

Emily was murdered and Barkis, her now ex- fiance, took her dreams with her life. My theory is that after she died, she had to grieve his betrayal first. She probably coped by clinging on to her dream, convinced that she had just found the wrong guy, and that the right one would come eventually. While we see she is popular in the underworld, she was not able to find a young enough suitor or one that sparked her interest.

She also exhibited extremely idealistic scenarios of her finding the right guy. Hey, the girl was murdered the last time she took a chance on an impulse. While her pattern of falling hard fast still exists, she probably convinced herself that Victor was better because she had no dowry to present for him to take and leave her, yet he still asked her to mary him (despite being an accident), so it must be "true love". This is the kind of behaviour a loottt of people with reoccuring similar toxic relationships tell themselves, I know because I was one of them.

Emily was our hot dead girl with the delulu issues. She was in denial of the reality of the situation, even when she was aware of this.

Pain and Guilt

Notice how when Emily has a fit about Victor seeing Victoria, she said the words "you should've thought of that before you asked me to marry you" and he responds "don't you see it was a mistake, I would never marry you". The silent blinking and realization of Victor's lack of tact, out of so much frustration, and Emily's small glimpse of what kind of person she had become, was perfection. She obviously knows she was holding him captive, but she was denying the truth until the wedding. It was painful for Emily, but her reality is so twisted that she can only see her pain before Victor.

The essence of guilt came when she was given the option to poison Victor to forever be tethered to his marriage to her. With guilt, there is kindness, and her kind heart shined before guilt. She couldn't bear to kill him for her dreams because she genuinely cared and loved him still. Another time was the wedding scene. She had second thoughts and finally realized that she was taking Victor and Victoria's chance.

Anger and Bargaining

When she caught Victor seeing Victoria, not only was she pained, she was blaming and angry at Victor, as in her eyes he was cheating on her, when all he did was to escape from her, because duh, he is held against his will.

Going back to their argument, while Emily felt jealous and envy, she subtly wished she was alive. In the lamenting musical scene "Tears to Shed," she accepted her death a long time ago but envied Victoria's main asset that she can never compete with: being alive.

Depression to upward turn

Emily's lamentation of being dead and that Victor will eventually leave her, being lonely again, was evident during the Tears to Shed song and just before the infamous chemistry induced piano scene.

While we see her depressed, she had calmed down and was able to be serenaded into a neutral mood again.

Emily was in this stage completely when Victor and her were gathering everyone and getting ready to get married upstairs.

Reconstruction and working through

Emily was in her full delusions of her dreams finally come true, but her reconstruction stage flashed when she was delivering her vow and saw Victoria watching.

My own little headcanon is that she saw herself in Victoria, and she saw herself as Barkis, taking her dreams away.

She stopped Victor drinking the poisoned wine and finally spoke her truth, the raw truth that Emily is seeing the reality she is in and what she has become.

Her dreams were taken, and now she is the one taking from someone else, and she hated it. She loved Victor so much, but he wasn't hers. She brought the Vs (keehee) together, deciding to call off the marriage.

Now, facing her past is probably her final stage of reconstruction. She meets her ex-fiance and is able to protect Victor from him in the midst of the two men's showdown. She was absolutely disgusted and hated his presence, pointing the sword and telling him to get out.

The karma probably hit best when Barkis drank the poisoned wine, his last words showing how full he is of himself. He was dealt with by Emily's underworld friends soon after he died.

Acceptance

While Victor and Victoria were finally in each other's arms, Emily smiled with bittersweetness and began to walk away. Victor stopped her, attempting to keep his promise. Emily reassured he already did. He set her free, and now it is her turn to set him free.

She literally walked the aisle alone. She accepted the truth, the past, and the present. Her only future was to move on.

As a sign of moving on, she tossed the bouquet that eventually landed on Victoria's hands. With her last breath, she bursted into butterflies. Finally free.

My Conclusion: Delulu got her the Solulu

I think a major theme in Emily's arc is letting her delusion get the best of her, almost portrayed humanely. Just an observation, aside from the art style of Tim Burton, Emily looked lowkey deranged? While Victor looked tired and scared, Victoria had wonder and curiosity, and Emily looked low key crazy and held on to what little sanity she had left. I think the reason why I couldn't see that aspect as much is because she also looked so beautiful, sounded sweet, and looked delicate, albeit being a red flag and literally a horrifying, decaying reanimated corpse.

Corpse Bride really was Emily's story, told through Victor's perspective. Let's be honest, if it was from Emily's perspective, it would be similar to 500 days of summer, an unreliable narration from a delusional protagonist. That is the difference between her, Victor, and Victoria. They saw what was actually going on.

Victor was already a developed character, in my opinion. He was just a young man living with anxiety. He liked Victoria at first sight and wanted to get married. He was kind and musically inclined. He was much more of an established person than say a character needing another character for their development like Joel from Eternal Sunshine (that's a read and I meant it). So was Victoria, she was a young woman who wanted to get married, looked forward to getting to know her betrothed more, and was quite outspoken and courageous. They were just bothe caught up in an arc. Emily, albeit the different girl, was probably the one who needed a manic pixie dream man, and she got Victor. She really needed character development.

One more theme the movie has is what a broken heart can do to you. Emily loved and was betrayed. She clung to an impossible dream even after death. Victor saw the opportunity for a rebound the minute he heard Victoria was going to get married to another man. Victoria was in total shock when she was going to be betrothed to someone else and accepted to help her parents, but also stood up for herself from Barrkus the minute he showed his intentions of marrying her.

I really loved Emily realising what was happening, it took her a good minute but she got there. I also loved that Emily and Victoria never got into some kind of argument or showdown, seriously I feel like that would have happened in early to mid 2010 fantasy romances, ehem Twilight (I hate the story and the characters but it was entertaining hot garbage). It was a graceful story of love and let go.

I'm sure we have a collective head canon of Victor's and Victoria's first daughter to be named Emily.

[guess-that-ship]

S12 Semifinals

codependent bodyguard arrangement

Since childhood, Prince and Guard were raised together. Prince was groomed to be his father's heir while Guard would be his loyal protector. They have a magical bond that lets them feel each other's emotions which made them absolutely inseparable to the point where as kids caretakers had to pick them both up at the same time so they wouldn't cry.

When they were fifteen their court was attacked and the two of them were the only survivors. Guard is extremely protective of Prince and to him nothing matters more than his safety. Guard wanted to go with Prince despite a prophecy that he would die if he went because he NEEDED to watch Prince's back. It's said at one point that Guard would have been fine if a whole building collapsed and killed everyone in it so long as Prince could make it out okay. Prince on the other hand is fully aware Guard would die for him and under NO circumstances is he letting that happen. Prince's boyfriend told him that he's aware he'll never be the love of Prince's life because that spot belongs to Guard. They're like two stray cats you can't adopt separately. Also they (and the rest of their found family) have adopted like five kids between them.

You can't clearly define their relationship. Not platonic not romantic not siblings but also all of those at once. They are just soooo obsessed and in love.

Purple Light

cw: spoilers

Two teenage girls meet one summer and forge an unbreakable bond with each other, one that unites them with a psychic connection. They go their separate ways but remain connected as they separately fight monsters and other forms of evil, always remaining close to each other with their telepathic communications.

One day, their greatest foe captures them both and traps them in another world, one where they forget who they are. They settle into different lives, where they meet again and become friends. They both seem to understand that something is wrong with their lives, even if they can't explain how. They both want to escape their unhappy existences, and one girl eventually escapes.

When she leaves, she finds a way to remember her real existence, and realizes that she & her friend are still trapped and in danger. She tries to save them both by convincing her friend to return with her so that they can battle their way out. The friend refuses, staying behind and believing that their false, unhappy life is their true reality, settling into an uneasy day-to-day life. …until they see themselves in a mirror as they truly are, seeing themselves as the powerful being they truly are. What happens next is left ambiguous, but it's implied that there is still time for the both of them to save each other and return to where they truly belong.

[diaryofafeministbw]

EXCERPTS:

As thrilling as it is to participate in the shared experience of watching two titans of their industry challenge themselves to a gladiator-style conflict with impressive skill and turnaround, their tracks also expose a long standing tradition in battle raps: using women as pawns and fodder for slinging insults. When the battle is arguing over who’s the bigger misogynist, does anyone really win? The women in these rappers’ lives sure don’t. 

Kendrick fans have resurfaced interviews disavowing abuse and support from Alford’s brother; Drake’s supporters have been circulating quotes from young women rejecting claims that their relationship with the superstar was inappropriate. As the dust settles from the battle, you are left to contend with two realities. One, artists are engaging in a speculative exercise of bloodsport where the ultimate crime is violence against women and girls, a frame that is tragically not reflected in present-day society. And the other, these are sincerely held positions by each artist against their opponent, suggesting that both legends associated as colleagues for years despite being aware of purported harm that their respective crews were responsible for, and said nothing publicly. In either scenario, fans and consumers are left to reconcile a contradiction between the conviction in Drake’s and Kendrick’s lyrics and the artists’ present-day behaviors. The women, girls, and children affiliated with them are left to deal with the fallout in the public. Despite what their raps may claim, the safety of these alleged victims isn’t the priority: it’s ego. 

Objectively, both men are trading in moral inconsistency. Kendrick can barely purport to have a moral brightline around abuse and parental neglect when he has collaborated with serial deadbeat baby daddy Future, claimed alleged abuser Dr. Dre as a mentor, and heavily featured convicted sex offender Kodak Black on his most recent album. Drake’s accusations against Kendrick fall apart in kind; he declares Kendrick an abuser in the same track as he shouts out alleged chronic abuser Chris Brown. This inconsistency is not contained to this conflict, either: in a recent spat between Chris Brown and Quavo, both artists weaponized documented physical incidents with women against the other in a twisted race to the bottom. In Drake’s response to Kendrick’s accusations, he spent the bulk of his song “The Heart pt 6” denying any accusations of sexual misconduct – claiming he was too rich and famous to be culpable – as well as alleging that Kendrick’s focus on the topic was due to his own childhood experiences with sexual abuse.  It ultimately becomes irrelevant whether the artists committed the alleged acts of violence or not, because what is ultimately revealed is that the trauma the women around them have experienced is accepted, until it’s time for a rap battle. These artists may be willing to weaponize cruelty against women as a critique, but fall short of committing to rejecting abuse around them as a sustained principle.

At battle rap’s inception, women became disposable currency for sensation, with no consideration for fact or fiction, legend or myth – and  young women were left to deal with the fallout. In the ensuing weeks, the women around Kendrick Lamar and Drake are going to be thrust into an unprecedented level of scrutiny – their social media exhumed and pored over, every statement and response dissected – in service of a conflict they never signed up for. While the war of words may be over (for now), the effects against the women involved continue to linger with a level of invasiveness that they never consented to. Abuse and grooming are now spectacles for consumers to gossip about rather than structural problems that need dismantling. The care for all parties involved is not prioritized, instead it’s about who “won” a rap beef. Regardless of whether or not the accusations are merely speculative, the sensationalism  continues to harm everyone involved. It is an ongoing shortcoming that cannot continue to be maintained in hip-hop’s next 50 years; it is tragedy enough that it dominated the first 50.

Written by _ShamGod 🙏🏾

[anonvkirkped]

Exposing @/Kirkped.

hello everyone, i will stay anon for this callout but you may know who i am, or know my story. I dont wish to cause anything but i just want people within the fandom to know what this person has done.

TW / CW for: grooming, arguing, suicide and suicide baiting, racism, slurs, splitting.

for background info, kirkped goes by multiple within this callout, timmy and xochi. Kirkped has mental illnesses which cause them to lash out and i understand that, yet over time this was just abuse, they claimed they were trying and attempting to get better, but often lied and only got worse. Continuing to blame mental illness when i feel it is no excuse, being mentally ill does not give a right to abuse.

i have attempted to blur out all names. And give proof.

————————

starting off with something important: The racism, timmy is kirkped and has been confirmed by kirkped themselves. They lied about being black when in reality being asian. Went on for around a while. Said the N word multiple times.

—————-

Next up just general abuse:

These screenshots are from when i posted a video of me and them playing roblox, friend saw it and brought it up. Friends talked about how they were abusive and i wont stop going back, yet xochi told me to tell them it was due to their mental illness.

kirkped getting upset im busy on my birthday party, i get they need the attention but i told them before i would be busy that day.

One of xochis friends, i had blocked xochi and they told them to contact me. I didnt want to talk anymore yet they wouldnt take no for an answer.

Suicide baiting, they did this 24/7. They copied and pasted this and sent it to a bunch of people. Made me lose my mind.

Them getting upset just recently after we sadly spoke again after months, i didnt want to talk anymore due to being triggered and they exploded on me.

—-

This is just insane.

and also

Them ignoring my triggers

———

this is the first callout ive ever made, xochi has caused great pain to me and others, their relationship has caused me to dissociate, have panic attacks so bad i shut down, and get triggered and cry every time i enter the basement: where they suicide baited and made me cry and scream over call while i his from my family, it was a painful night.

i have needed professional help to recover, im still shaken up. Im still so extremely traumatized to the point of abusing drugs to force myself to forget the past. This is only a chuck of everything but im not sure what else to add. Im scared, i dont understand why they keep coming back, they keep pretending theyre fine when they need help, i dont want to cancel them. I just want them to realize they hurt others and many wish them to stay away from the internet.

please understand. Its 3 am and im very scared. I am traumatized over kirkped. I wish no one else has to go through the same, please block. I am not the only one either, i just havent gotten other views yet.

-anon.

[hamliet]

Hello Hamliet, I started reading Dostoevsky because of you and just finished The Idiot. I really enjoyed the book and I wanted to ask what are your thoughts on Nastasya Fillipovna?

AHH I'm so happy to hear that!

Hoo boy. First I'll direct you to this post I wrote on Rogozhin and this brief post.

The short of it is that I think Nastasya is, perhaps, Dostoyevsky's best character (besides maybe Smerdyakov, though I see Smerdyakov as essentially the male Nastasya). But she's incredibly tragic, and you're supposed to be outraged as you read her story. She's self-destructive because of trauma (being sexually abused from a young age), and she isn't even hiding it. She's upfront about her trauma, and that is what makes her fairly unique especially for a woman in her day and age--and also kind of what dooms her.

Nastasya is remarkably prescient about the factors that led to her position, which makes her an ideal contrast to Myshkin and to society as a whole. She knows who is to blame even more than Trotsky (her abuser). While everyone calls her a madwoman for her actions that lash out at everyone around her as well as at herself, she's not mad. She's blaming exactly who should be blamed. The mad ones are society, who pretend not to see the reality they are all living in.

Nastasya lashes out at everyone because society is, itself, an even bigger villain than Rogozhin. Society looks proper and flaunts beauty and power, like Trotsky . Society, at its best, is intended to be a community that helps protect the innocent and care for those who are in pain. Instead, much like Trotsky acted as a "benefactor" for the poor Nastasya who needed an adult in her life, society grooms and takes advantage of the innocent and hurting, and then uses their pain for their own entertainment. It's an observation not limited by time: see, every pop star ever.

And even when society feels pity for her, it's too late to save her. Her life is ruined. And yes, the misogynistic and patriarchal values of 1800s Russia do play a role here, but there are still also those elements present today, too. They push her to a point where even "redemption" offered to her in the form of Myshkin is not about her--it's about them. It's about them feeling good about themselves.

She has no power and no say over her own life, and that's why she constantly acts out in any way she can--to act like she has power, and to punish society for being "invested" in her either as a hot mess or as a redemptive bride. And society could have intervened with Trotsky, or just--not cared about Trotsky, as they all acknowledge she was taken advantage of, but they don't.

I do think she genuinely loved Myshkin, and my hot take is that Myshkin and Nastasya were better suited as a couple than Myshkin and Aglaya, which is what most critics tend to purport. I don't think Myshkin ruined things by choosing Nastasya out of obligation over true love with Aglaya. I think what ruined things is the whole paradox that is the crux of the book's thematic question: how can one be a true human being in a corrupt society?

I think the tragedy is that in not understanding herself as a human being--something society has never seen her as--she cannot treat others as humans either. Marrying Myshkin would have meant facing that about herself, and also facing the inherent power she does have as a human being--to affect those around her, because no person is an island and we do need community. Nastasya is used to being a tool, and her spirit is so broken down at that point that she is afraid to be human because community has only objectified her. So she cannot face it and chooses to go to Rogozhin instead so that he will kill her; it's suicide, and the text directly says that.

Yet in her death, she ironically proves that she is human--her death destroys Myshkin, because he was a human being too who loved her. He goes truly mad, and society continues on by putting him away in a sanatorium and washing their hands of it.

That's tragic. It's wrong, and we understand that as readers and are meant to grieve and to feel angry at how society, which can heal, destroys. And we're meant to examine our role as human individuals and as a collective in the destruction of the innocent around us--the limits and strengths of our own humanity.

[marvelstars]

Anakin is the bridge that binds the fantastic with the realistic in Star Wars and that was his tragedy

Following my comments about Padme and Anakin, I wanted to argue that even without involving the dark/light side of the force or the force in general, Padme´s actions on ROTS are not unhinged at all, even in real life Padme´s choice makes complete sense.

“I will safe keep your good heart, Dear One, until you are ready for its return.”

Vader’s Dream - A Visitation from Padme by Kirk Reinert (source)

In real life terms Anakin was suffering of a psychotic break/emotional breakdown, when that happens people need attention in psychological crisis, medication, tranquilizers and if necessary, food, water, being taken to a safe place so that they do not hurt themselves or others, Padmé as Anakin´s wife and next of kin would be the one to make the decisions of what to do for his treatment. What we don´t do in real life with people on Anakin´s situation is to burn them alive with their limbs shopped off.

Lucas did something interesting here because Anakin is THE CHARACTER who bridges the fantastic myth of star wars world and connects it with real world suffering like slavery, grooming and mental unstability

Lucas bassically went by the book to bring Anakin to this point on ROTS and the novel is even more concrete, lack of sleep, lack of food, Palpatine 24/07 giving him paranoia agaisn´t his loved ones, isolation from loved ones, people who would care, he even made sure Padme and Obi-Wan thought Anakin shared his ideas for the republic, so they started meeting in secret for rebellion bussines and didn´t tell Anakin anything, giving support to Palpatine´s arguments they were seeing each other and when Anakin weakly tried to argue some of Palpatine´s points, while being almost delirious, he could not do so for long.Remember the way Palpatine pushed Luke in the throne room in ROTJ to make him fall to the darkside which he almost did? that´s what happened to Anakin for an entire week, after 16 years of grooming.

Basically Palpatine´s order to make Anakin his representative at the Jedi Council was part of his plan to isolate and break Anakin´s will and allow him to fall faster, with him being the only figure around ready to "help him" making him dependent on him and only him and this had the added benefice of the Jedi Council distrusting Anakin even more than usual, leaving him alone with his groomer/father figure just after coming back from war with a deep fear of losing his family, connecting it with his trauma over losing his mother.

Anakin´s story is written as a classic tragedy but that was supported by real life ailments.

This is why Lucas said his story with Anakin in ROTS is about someone you thought was evil but who in reality was a victim and Vader´s story is all about him trying to regain his humanity, not just from the consequences of his actions but also from his groomer, slave master who he loved as a father, because Palpatine himself as twisted as he was, seek to develop that kind of relationship with Anakin.

Padme and Luke just happened to be the characters who noticed what was really happening with Anakin behind Darth Vader´s mask.

[super-paper]

MVA Appreciation Post? MVA Appreciation Post.

Rereading MVA with the benefit of some hindsight really makes me appreciate just how well-crafted it is as a story arc. Like, pretty much every aspect of it was tailor-made for the sake of exploring Tomura (like....!! even the conflicts & themes explored thru other characters are still ultimately written to service Tomura's character in ways that only a completely insane person can appreciate, lol.)

Mostly just listing some observations and things I like abt MVA that I feel lay the groundwork for Tomura's entire character + arc:

There's a lot of significance to Tomura fighting quirk based cults back to back in the same arc that delves into his own upbringing under AFO, I feel! There's also significance to his indoctrination into villainy under AFO mirroring ReDestro's indoctrination by the Meta Liberation Army. Both Tomura and ReDestro are framed as believing that they made a personal "choice" to walk this path, when in reality they were both groomed into their respective roles by predatory adults.

Underrated and potentially devastating detail that I (a known sicko) enjoy : Tomura and ReDestro aren't even allowed to choose their own villain names after being baptized into villainy.

This part is especially glaring when you contrast it with the earlier chapters, where Class 1A is actively encouraged to *choose* their own names and really think about what sort of hero name best represents them. Even when the kids ultimately choose names that others gave them (Izuku), and even when they resolve to take up the mantle of their family names (Iida)-- the distinction is that they are still very much naming *themselves* and not being named by other people. They are all allowed to assign their own meaning to their chosen hero names. There is a choice.

In contrast, Tomura and ReDestro's villain names are not an expression of their identity, but a suppression of it.

The idea of inheriting a "will" or "name" that completely consumes your own is already in play, and it only gets worse from here!

Masks are also a big theme! MVA literally opens with the LOV wrecking a group of fantasy bigots who hide behind masks.

Spinner doesn't hide his own identity behind a mask, rather, he hides his lack of identity through cosplaying as someone else.

Jin and Himiko have their "masks" forcibly removed during their respective battles-- Jin is able to verify and assert his own identity, which allows him to discard his mask for the remainder of the battle. Himiko instead scrambles to put her "mask" back on in response to Curious claiming that she's secretly miserable.

Compress gets half of his mask shattered at the same time that his aloof "we're villains not a friendship club!!" façade begins crumble, and he becomes more and more vocally concerned for Tomura's safety. This bit of symbolism is repeated again during the PLW, where the whole mask comes off once he finally admits he loves the LOV and very nearly kills himself in an attempt to save them.

AFO's face is constantly obscured by shadows, but it otherwise remains completely uncovered-- indicating that the "kindly face" he shows to Tomura is, in fact, a mask in itself.

And here's where Hori's brilliant art direction comes into play! Tomura decays Kotaro's hand-- the very symbol of his own rejection and suppression that he has worn as a mask since his debut-- but he does not embrace his identity as Tenko. The blood from Tomura’s head injury now creates the visual of a mask as he instead embraces his identity as "Shigaraki Tomura", the symbol of fear who exists to beckon acts of mourning into the world. (and the blood mask also resembles the dark shading that constantly obscures AFO’s true face in the flashback chapters! ...as does the creepy permasmile Tomura has for the rest of the arc! :D )

Visually, it also resembles the way ReDestro's (stress-powered!) quirk starts spreading across his face like a mask whenever he starts vomiting up MLA propaganda and ranting about the """glorious""" burden he inherited from the original Destro. (😬)

The mask imagery is even more explicit in the anime, where the red really makes the whole thing pop:

lowkey it's hilarious that a good chunk of Tomura's story is told through a mix of visual story telling and symbolism, but he also happens to spend half his screen time shirtless and distracting ppl from said symbolism with his eight-pack.

Seriously tho', it's little stuff like this that really cements MHA as a story that's even more enjoyable when you reread it. Moving on!

Curious 🤝 AFO, Being creepily affectionate with the victim whose story you plan to rewrite and exploit for your own gain

Toga’s failed/rejected martyrdom at the hands of Miss Curious foreshadowing Tomura’s successful martyrdom at the hands of the PLF and AFO-- the inherent dehumanization that comes with martyrdom and turning others into a "symbol", the lack of actual care for the martyr/symbol as an individual, and the idea that Tomura has always been a sacrificial lamb that's lurking just below the surface of every aspect in this narrative. Curious wants Toga to die to fit the MLA’s narrative, AFO wants Tenko to die to fit his own personal narrative— neither Curious or AFO care about Toga or Tomura as individuals, nor do they care about saving them from their circumstances. Because to Curious and AFO, their only value lies in fulfilling a certain narrative-- and that narrative is only fulfilled through their deaths. Both AFO and Curious WANT these stories to be tragedies, and you only beat someone like that by refusing to follow their script.

"Let's turn your death into a tragedy! You'll become a martyr whose tale serves as a parable for the ages!" "I'll shape him! Mold him! He will be a symbol of fear who lusts for destruction!" Toga and Tomura are both depicted as lacking agency in how their respective stories are told-- Toga manages to lash back against Curious' attempts to commandeer her narrative, but Tomura ultimately finds himself written into a corner by AFO.

The manipulation of media and the '"truth" being a reoccurring theme in MVA through both Curious/Skeptic, and this being foiled with the way Tomura’s own memories/perceptions of his past are called into question multiple times throughout the arc. In the same chapter where Skeptic discusses his plan to edit the footage captured in Deika to make the LOV look like they're the aggressors and the MLA look like brave heroes, we have Tomura lamenting how his memories are like a busted movie recording. He compares his memories to film snippets at the start of the arc, too.

Tomura's perception of his past being directly influenced by his traumatic upbringing under AFO is something that goes without saying at this point, so I won't beat that dead horse any further-- but it's legit fascinating how Hori lays out the groundwork for the readers so that we naturally reach the conclusion that Tomura's recollection is something that we are meant to doubt.

Yet another notch on the long list of Tomura wearing clothes that other people chose for him, reciting words written by others as if they were his own (.....l-literally reading from a cue card lmfaoooo it could not be any more on the nose if it tried 😭😭😭)

but seriously i could write a a ton on how Tomura's lack of agency with his own clothes is Very Much a Thing in The Story, and how him no longer bothering to self-style after MVA and just letting others dress him up however they want (or y'know... just not bothering with clothes at all!) is one of the best stealth indicators of where his mental state is actually at.

(tl;dr tomura asserting that he's "definitely his own person" and that he "controls himself" when he doesn't even have the agency or energy to dress himself the way he wants and is constantly getting treated like a life-sized dress-up doll by other villains is another one of those understated parts of the series/tomura's character design that makes me Big Depressy)

But!! When Tomura DOES actually add his own flair & individuality to his fashion, he generally accessorizes with things that tie him to the hero side and his identity as Tenko (red shoes as a connecting thread to Izuku, long flowing capes that connect him to heroism)

What "liberation" does to a mfer

As an aside: ReDestro feeling liberated from his stress as Tomura starts laying waste to the MLA/Deika (but still failing to break free from his grooming despite this!) serves as a dark parallel to Tomura “breaking free” from vestige!AFO during the final war, but still insisting that destruction is all he wants. Both Tomura and ReDestro have been prisoners their whole lives, and thus, have no frame of reference for what true freedom is. They both come so close to having a Realization About What They Truly Want™ only to immediately fall back into what they’re familiar with (ReDestro has always been a follower of cult forced to masquerade as its leader, Tomura still thinks that he wanted his family to die and takes the catharsis he felt from destroying his abusive home as evidence that he was always secretly bad). Hori is horrifyingly realistic in his depictions of the hold that grooming has on people.

Like. It's also the way that Tomura and ReDestro’s quirks are both powered by their misery, but they're surrounded by people who fail to see this as a bad thing and instead choose to romanticize their strength as something they can use to make their "dreams" into reality (and the unspoken question: is it really a "dream" if chasing after it makes you completely miserable? We have a different word for dreams that hurt you, boys!).

I'll stop here bc this is already too long, but man, every time I revisit this arc I notice something new (and horrifying) about Tomura's character. It's literally the gift that keeps on giving.

[furiousgoldfish]

I wasn't going to write personal posts on this topic, but this one is for all of the people who insist we are not allowed to call out narcissists for their actions, we are not allowed to call it 'narcissistic abuse', and what we're doing by saying that, is in fact, stigmatizing and marginalizing a group of people with a disorder.

I understand all of you want to be kind, and not accuse someone of being abusive, if they're presumed to be struggling with a disorder. Being accused yourself, that you're creating stigma if you do it, can feel uncomfortable and wrong. And to accuse those who are struggling the worst, of stigmatizing if they speak up about abuse, can be devastating.

Stigma, however, is not created in small, isolated communities of people who have no public voice, it's not created in the space where people go when they have nowhere else to turn to. The public does not listen to victims, they listen to the framing that makes it the easiest to ignore abuse. Which is, coincidentally, the abuser's narrative.

Hearing that narcissists are to be protected and that to say otherwise is evil, can easily take vigor if the most loud, aggressive and forceful people are yelling it, in a community of mostly scared, vulnerable individuals. So you relent and decide, it's simply kind to just defend whoever has a disorder, no matter what it is, no matter the consequences. You find it easier to not do research, to not look at reality, but pick whatever is the most convenient. If people yelling the loudest are saying 'narcissistic abuse doesn't exist! you're hurting people by saying it does!' then it's the easiest to repeat it and accept that it's right.

So now let's scale back a bit, and look at what is going on specifically in the community of abused and traumatized people on tumblr. You have a group of people who are claiming that the narcissists abused them, who can recount horrific, devastating, destructive, traumatic and severely damaging experiences of abuse by narcissistic parents or partners. People who have developed dissociative disorders, complex trauma, chronic conditions and a whole ordeal of mental disorders due to the extensive, long lasting abuse. Most of these people were children, when exposed to the narcissists. Most of these people have loved those narcissists with all of their hearts. For the most of them, it took half of their lifetime to realize abuse was going on, and that their symptoms were not imagined or without a cause. These people have been tortured, and are looking for a safe space.

You also have children here who are currently being abused, who are telling horror stories of their current reality where they're used, exploited, controlled, violated, their identity and humanity erased, who exist only as a resource to the narcissists. They're looking for a way to recognize what is happening to them, why are they feeling this awful, and how to get out.

And of course, you have people in this community who have been abused in other kinds of circumstances and by other kinds of abusers, and we're all trying to figure out what the truth is, who to blame, how to get out of abuse, how to gain freedom, how to stay safe. So it's a community of heavily traumatized individuals, most of them very vulnerable to future abuse, a lot of them children, a lot of them abused and sensitive to other kinds of grooming and abuse.

Narcissists are infiltrating this specific community and demanding to be promoted as safe and non-dangerous, to these specific people. They're not trying to appeal to general public, to psychologically healthy, to people who have resources and community to protect themselves from abuse, no, they're aiming at this specific, already-abused, already groomed, vulnerable, struggling, traumatized community of people, and threatening to smear-campaign, cancel, expel and banish anyone who doesn't accept to view them as harmless.

Why would they do this? Which safe and harmless person would put themselves in a group of traumatized and vulnerable people to bully and threaten them for the sake of 'public image' and 'erasing the stigma'? Tell me what is humane about this. Tell me what is humane about asking a victim of narcissistic abuse to be narcissist-positive on their trauma-related blog. Tell me what is normal about telling a victim of torture to say positive thing about their torturer, or to be expelled from their community as a punishment.

You are extending our torture. You are now the extension of our trauma.

And when you're out here saying 'not all narcissists', tell me how do you know which ones then? Do you know that if you're saying this to a child, they might then happily accept a narcissist in their life, who then might end up torturing the kid? You don't know which ones are dangerous, and neither do they. Are you okay with that? Can you feel peace in your heart knowing you helped this to happen? Can you look at yourself knowing you went and claimed, to a vulnerable, or already-traumatized child or a vulnerable person, to accept this potentially dangerous individual in their life, who then hurt them? Will you tell them it's their own fault and to 'stop claiming narcissists are abusive' if they confide it to you?

You're not even thinking of what will happen to those kids. I was left with narcissists alone. I was locked up in a basement. I was beaten. I was forced to play games where I would end up inevitably tortured and told it was my fault for 'losing'. I was brainwashed into believing that I'm not a human being. I was denied food if I didn't do as I was told. I was brutalized and almost murdered. I was told I would be dead if I tried to escape. I will never recover.

And I'm not even one of the worst cases. Children have been thru worse. Children are going thru it right now.

If you feel safe recommending to children and the vulnerable, to go and accept narcissists in their life, this is what you're risking. This is what some of them are capable of. You don't know which ones. Are you really going to use children and most vulnerable people in society, to test and see if the narcissists would torture them or not? You're really going to tell them to go and associate themselves with a group that has a high count of predators, just so that the predators in the groups wouldn't be upset or feel excluded? Just so you'd feel safe from being told off by them? So you wouldn't have to deal with them?

If you can put kids at risk and feel like you've done nothing wrong, then I don't care what else you have to say. You can no longer pretend not to know. You can't pretend that defending narcissists is a kind gesture. You can't pretend to be 'inclusive' when you barge into a community of victims and tell them to shut up about the abuse they worked so hard to recognize. You can't pretend you're faultless when you insist that the most vulnerable people in the population should be accepting and positive about the most dangerous group to them, so you'd have it easier, so you wouldn't have to even look at what narcissists have already done to us.

We're not your shield. We're not here to be scapegoats for your cowardice. We're not sacrificing children because it's so easy and convenient to bow down to bullies. It's been enough of this. Respect our boundaries. We don't want narcissists to have access to us.