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#(SPOILER: kind of. it depends who you backed in this race and whether you wanted them to Become Better People)
nostalgia-tblr · 1 year
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I had another fic idea and the brain was like "no, that's too fluffy and romantic and YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO WRITE NICE THINGS, PEOPLE WOULD JUDGE YOU" but then I went "but what if it was kind of... comedy fluff?" and brain went "...yeah, okay, if you really must." Which I fucking HATE! Why can't I write nice things, brain?! Everyone else is allowed to! FFS, it's fanfiction, it doesn't have to be ~deep~ or any of that shit!
This has actually been a bit of an issue when I'm trying to write The WIP because while I told myself yeah sure go ahead and write the massively self-indulgent epically long (by my own odd standards) fic but still sometimes I get stuck because I'm not "allowed" to write something that appeals to me and my own sometimes niche interests??
Like angst I can do because that's "proper" somehow? WTF is that about? It's not proper! It's still daft! And comedy I'm allowed because I dunno apparently if it will make someone laugh that means it has "value"? It's very annoying, I don't like it.
Do other people have this? How do you deal with it? You'd think after all this time I'd be okay with writing any old shit that I want to. If anything it might be worse now. I remember years ago I could tell myself "Look, if you've spelled most of it correctly then it's already in like the better half of all the fanfic on the internet" which isn't really TRUE but I could go along with that and let myself write whatever-the-fuck I wanted to.
You know how many of us go "I'll write this fucked up thing... but I'll post it as Anon"? I get that with fluffy fic ideas as well. Or with things that are "too shippy" (WTF?) It's just such a stupid and weird form of self-criticism and it bothers me a lot.
#ranting at myself#writing stuff#possibly this is a mental illness thing but i don't think it is but it might be?#i am Quite Mad but it usually manifests related to fic as the usual “you suck!!” or irritating OCD things about wordcounts or such#this is a VERY SPECIFIC thing and i don't even know where it came from?#maybe i'm just pretentious? do i look pretentious? i might be?#(the fluffy thing was sylki fic where spinning off on the 'oh no unable to express feelings!' they have to pass each other notes)#(the comedy element was that this is Bloody Stupid and also Mobius attempts to Help (oh no) and etc)#(will i ever be able/“allowed” to actually write that thing? dunno!)#the Frigga thing also suffers from “that bit is despicably adorable you should be ASHAMED of yourself”#.The WIP? currently stuck at “okay now he needs to Hold The Baby. this is an important bit you can't skip it. but babies are Too Twee”#“so you may NOT just write someone Holding The Baby because that's like something people might actually want to read!”#“the murders are fine you can write murders. murder isn't twee. babies are VERY twee though.”#PROBLEM: there are several babies in this fic and the next chapter is like... ENTIRELY baby-based#(the end of the entire fic is already written and it's Too Twee as well but i've kind of gone immune to that because it's existed a while)#(oh no did i just spoiler a Happy Ending?!)#(SPOILER: kind of. it depends who you backed in this race and whether you wanted them to Become Better People)#anyway am gonna post this now before i change my mind as i probably should#fic related
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invidiia · 8 months
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I don’t think you understand the way I raced to read your work once I saw you updated something new lmfaoaoo. But like I have an idea- platonic yandere pm!Dazai with a reader who was sent to assassinate him from a rival organization. This is my first time asking so feel free to ignore this- literately just have a great day <3
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⋆⭒˚。⋆ "higher than the sun." 𖤐 yandere osamu dazai // reader.
dazai grows an obsession after meeting the one who was supposed to end him.
m.list // now playing..
[ a/n ; THANK YOU FOR REQUESTING!! pm!dazai so silly i love him even though he makes me sad </3 reader and dazai are the same age, so whether it's teen/adult daz depends on reader's age i suppose? ]
[ warning ; platonic yandere, obsession, gender neutral reader, reader's organization is abusive to them, honestly this can probably be read as platonic or romantic, reader also lives in a shipping container like dazai, does that count as a stormbringer spoiler?, mention of torture and death ]
[ word count ; 1.6k ]
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One month.
It was one month since you were tasked to assassinate Osamu Dazai of the Port Mafia, and it was finally time.
The young assassin stood behind the door with a sharp knife in their hand, leaning against it to listen for anyone else in the room. Only silence.
Nothing could be heard from beyond the door, but you knew your target was behind it. Getting into the port mafia headquarters wasn't easy, but you were here now, so what really mattered was killing Dazai and getting out easily.
You leaned up against the door quietly, trying to listen for anything else to be a danger while you did this job. It was super important you didn't fail. You could never predict your leader's next move.
With an ear to the door, you finally made out a sound. The sound of the door knob turning. Before you could react, the door swung back and you fell forward. Into someone. You landed on your side, while the other landed on their back. It was embarrassing. You sat up carefully to look at the person, seeing if it was truly who you needed to see.. and it was. Osamu Dazai lied next to you on his back, opening his eyes.
You gasped, turning to trap him under you, with the knife in your hand. Now, Dazai was face to face with the person who would bring him death. Your target lie shocked under you, and before you raised the knife to stab his chest, a smile creeped onto his face, and Dazai spoke up.
"Do it," He spoke, followed by a smirk and a sigh. "I always wanted to die under the hands of someone like you."
Hold on.
Someone like you?
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
You moved back off of him, obviously flustered, and dropping the knife. Did he just call you attractive? "Did you just..?" Seriously. Calling the person who was about to stab him, to bring him death, attractive?
Dazai sat up too, moving closer. "Yeah." He spoke as if it was normal. "Are you gonna kill me, or..?" He looked through your eyes, straight to your very soul. "I.. Um, yeah, I'm gonna kill you. With this.." You turned to your side to pick up the knife, but it was gone. Looking back up to see Dazai pulling away from you, with the knife in his hands. Oh.
You backed away further, because now he had the knife, and you were at just about every disadvantage here. "I gotta go, uh."
"Wait, you're supposed to kill me..!" Your target yelled before you stumbled back up to your feet and bolted, leaving the room and running down flights of stairs. Thankfully you had stamina because if anyone else from the mafia caught you, you'd be killed.
But maybe death was better than being beaten by your boss.
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Was your life always this miserable before?
That's what Dazai wanted to know. He followed you the night you left, looking for you again.
Dazai gained an obsession. Some kind of love, and he didn't know. He watched through a window as the one who ordered his death violently beat you, continuing to press on your limp body with his shoe for not finishing your job. Dazai stayed out of sight, to keep the living proof of your failure hidden as to not get you hurt more.
Part of him blamed himself for this. Thinking that he should have let you stab him to avoid being beaten.. but then, he couldn't save you in the future, like he couldn't now. That was why he had a plan.
Dazai followed closely behind on an empty street, watching you cling to street light poles to keep yourself standing on a sprained ankle. He noticed how you winced in pain every time your hand clutched the poles, the sensitive, scraped skin giving you a hard time just because you couldn't properly stand.
It was a long walk to where you lived, especially if you're injured. Dazai had a smile, watching while you dragged yourself into your temporary home - a shipping container. You were just like him! You two were destined to meet, practically cut from the same mold.
Like Dazai's own, your living space was very.. empty. Barely anything, aside from a bed and place to store your food, and a few other necessities.
But, at least you could get some sleep for the night.
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Only a few days later, you found yourself back in your own bed. Normally for you, sleep was amazing when you haven't gotten it in a while. Any amount was worth it, as long as you had a bed, right?
It wasn't normal, however, to wake up to another person's head right over yours. You could see one eye with a curious glint peering down at yours, the other hidden by bandages.
It didn't take you long to back away and swing a fist at the familiar face. Your former target caught your wrist right at your knuckles grazed his face. Thankfully, it didn't hurt him, or he'd be a little more upset. But could he really blame you? You're just defending yourself, he can't possibly hate you because you thought he came to hurt you.
Dazai didn't yell at you or anything, all he did was ask one question.
"How's your ankle?" You had no idea he saw what he did. Was he not here to get revenge on you for trying to kill him? "What? You saw that..?" You paused, sitting up probably and turning off the side of the bed, lifting your ankle up to see how it looked. Swollen blotches of a deep purple color covered all around the area. It hurt to move, but it wasn't the worst thing your boss had done to you anyway. You've limped home on a broken leg twice anyway. "If you're looking for an apology, I'm sorry. I-I was ordered to do it,"
"No," Dazai stifled a laugh, bringing a hand to his face. He didn't care about your apology. He wanted you to kill him anyway.. but not now. "I don't want a 'sorry'. Instead, I have an offer for you."
You never heard offer with a good meaning.. normally, your boss would give you a mission for a large amount of money, and then cut down on his word by paying you less than his promise. "Offer..?" You cautiously asked.
"Yes." Dazai stood in front of you, reaching a hand out for you to take. "Come with me, join the port mafia." His hand was steady, contrary to the way he felt inside, anxious. Anxious for your answer, for your reaction.
You hesitated. Leaving your boss would be.. hard. Despite the organization being smaller than the port mafia, it wouldn't be hard for your boss to find you. If he found out you were gone, who knows? Likely, he'd have you killed for treason. "What would my superior say..? He'll find out, then he'll have me killed."
"I won't let him hurt you." Dazai responded quickly, taking your hand in his without asking, It hurt. It hurt your skin, the palms of your hands still scraped, not fully healed. "I won't let him lay a finger on you. Would you do the same for me?"
He stared into your hesitant eyes for a few moments. "I can't betray him.." Dazai didn't like your decision. His eyes were darker, less hopeful for your answer. "I understand." And with that, he let go of your hand and left.
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It was a few days again since you decided to stay under your boss.
Dazai could understand. He knew you were terrified of being killed for turning against your only source of income. But he could just have your boss killed if he wanted to! He could have him tortured for hurting you as much as he did! All Dazai needed was for you to trust him, and it didn't work, he should have known.
Unless he used another tactic. Maybe he could get you to come with him willingly, but why would he wait so long to take you out of your situation? Kidnapping was always an option, anyway.
But first, he wanted to get your boss out of the way. There was nothing too special about his death, really - it just was rare to be tortured by Dazai specifically, then killed.
Now that your boss was gone, what was basically your life had just dissolved in the span of two days. Your boss was dead, multiple other members had gone off the grid, and you were forced to go back home.
The shipping container's doors shut with a slam while you flopped onto the bed, whether it was anger or sadness, you couldn't even tell. Part of you was relieved, hearing about the death of your abuser, the infamous boss of your organization. Your vision was blurred. You didn't feel like you had a purpose anymore. You practically just lost your life.
The thing that snapped you out of your dissociation was the sound of the container door shutting. When you looked back up, Dazai was there, standing in front of you with a smile on his face.
You wanted to tell him the answer was no, knowing he was going to ask you to come with him again, but you were too out of it to do anything but look up at him. "I heard about your leader."
He mocked your boss. Dazai knew what he did. "I know you have something to do with this," You sighed, blinking to gain composure over yourself.
"Maybe," Dazai stepped closer to you, tilting a head at your accusation, smiling. He didn't deny it. "So, what'll it be?"
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lingthusiasm · 3 years
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Transcript Lingthusiasm Episode 59: Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Theory of Mind
This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm Episode 59: Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Theory of Mind. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the Episode 59 show notes page.
[Music]
Gretchen: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Gretchen McCulloch.
Lauren: I’m Lauren Gawne. Today we’re getting enthusiastic about whether you’re getting enthusiastic about theory of mind. But first, our most recent bonus episode is on translation in fiction – mostly translating between human languages and non-human languages but all kinds of translation.
Gretchen: You can get access to this translation episode about some books we’ve been reading recently and 50 other bonus episodes by becoming a patron at patreon.com/lingthusiasm. Here’s a bit of a preview into the books we talked about.
Lauren: We talked about Semiosis by Sue Burke, and A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, as well as The Devil Comes Courting by Courtney Milan. And, Gretchen, you have read Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin.
Gretchen: I have finally gotten around to reading Native Tongue, which has been much recommended to me.
Lauren: A classic piece of linguistic sci-fi.
Gretchen: You don’t have to have read any of these books beforehand. We don’t provide plot spoilers, although we’ll talk about some of the things in the setting. It’s fun whether you’ve read any of them or not at all. You might end up with some new things to read.
Lauren: You can get access to that episode and all of our bonus episodes at patreon.com/lingthusiasm.
[Music]
Lauren: Gretchen, I’m gonna run an experiment on you.
Gretchen: Okay, I like experiments.
Lauren: Excellent. This one involves a lot of a set up, but it’s great because you can do it. If you are listening along, you can also do the experiment along with us.
Gretchen: Great! What’s our set up?
Lauren: We have Sally and Anne.
Gretchen: Okay.
Lauren: Sally has a basket. Anne has a box. Sally has a marble – Sally with the basket – and she puts her marble into the basket. Then she goes out for a walk. Sally’s not here. But we’ve got a basket with a marble in it.
Gretchen: Sally’s not here. We’ve got her basket with the marble in it. Okay.
Lauren: We’ve got a box, and Anne is still there. Anne takes the marble out of the basket and puts it in the box.
Gretchen: So, now we’ve got a marble in a box.
Lauren: We’ve got the marble in the box. Sally comes back, and Sally wants to play with the marble. Where is Sally going to go to get her marble?
Gretchen: I’m going to deduce – based on the fact that when Sally left the room, she left the marble in the basket – she probably still thinks the marble is in the basket because she’d have no reason to assume that things would’ve changed, and so she’s gonna try the basket first because she doesn’t know that Anne has moved it.
Lauren: That is a perfectly reasonable deduction to make. You are a veritable Sherlock Holmes.
Gretchen: Thank you. Did I pass the test?
Lauren: You did. You completed what is known as the “theory of mind test” because you kept track of what you knew about the situation and what Sally knew about the situation and all the sneakiness that Anne had perpetrated with the marble.
Gretchen: But presumably at some period earlier in my life, when I was a very young child, I might not have passed this test.
Lauren: The ability to correctly articulate what you know about Sally’s likely chances of going to the basket or the box really doesn’t settle into being reliable until 3 or 4 years old – actually being able to articulate what you know about the state of other people’s thinking.
Gretchen: Which feels kind of late because 2-year-olds, 3-year-olds already have quite a bit of language in most cases, and yet this later reasoning about mental states and what different people know about different things comes along later.
Lauren: That’s what the theory of mind test seems to indicate. It is a bit more complex than this. This is something that was run for the first time 30 or 40 years ago. There’s been more work that’s tried to do versions that don’t involve language; they just involve looking. They show that toddlers, 15 months old, are actually maybe better at paying attention to the fact that the marble is in one place or another and what Sally might know a little bit better than they can articulate. It’s something about being able to put it into words that seems to be one of the challenges that takes until, as you say, well into language acquisition to be able to do this task consistently.
Gretchen: This task feels like something that some experimenter set up in a lab, and maybe they had puppets, or maybe they had two different experimenters, and these props feel very psychology-experiment-prop style to me.
Lauren: What do we have in the props department, yeah.
Gretchen: It’s funny. I was reading a different paper about these types of experiments, and there are other ways you can test for theory of mind. One of my either favourite or least favourite, depending on this, is – oh, shall I do it on you?
Lauren: Okay, yes.
Gretchen: I have a box. It’s a small cardboard box. The outside says “Kinder Chocolate Bars” – chocolate things.
Lauren: Great. I’m very compelled by this box.
Gretchen: We have our friend Gavagai, who is also in the room and sees this box with the chocolates on it. Gavagai is called out, suddenly, to leave to go do something else.
Lauren: Bye, Gav.
Gretchen: I open this box, and I show you that inside is not, in fact, chocolates, but it is pencils – coloured pencils.
Lauren: Okay, I was gonna say that’s a bit of a disappointment, but it’s something of a disappointment to me.
Gretchen: They’re coloured pencils, which is something more exciting than graphite pencils. But still, they’re not chocolates. Then I close the box up again, and it looks like it’s closed. Then our friend Gav comes back in the room.
Lauren: Hi, Gav.
Gretchen: What does Gav think is in the box?
Lauren: Well, I know that it’s pencils. But Gav wasn’t here when I saw that it was pencils. Gav still thinks it’s chocolates, and boy, are they in for a disappointment.
Gretchen: Yes, they are. You can do this about location of item, which is the Sally-Anne test, which is about location, or you can do it about identity of item – what’s in it.
Lauren: I have a colleague who’s done the theory of mind task with little stones instead of a marble, but then there’s a whole other twist where the stones end up being those little nuggets of chocolate that look like stones. I just feel like I would be confused by that point about who knows what about the state or location of this rock chocolate situation.
Gretchen: I remember I loved those stones as a child because it felt like you were gonna break a tooth on them, and then you would eat them.
Lauren: You could definitely do some fun false belief with someone about me eating dirt.
Gretchen: There’s also a fun one in this study where they found – and I don’t know where they got this object because I have not seen an object like this – they have this little toy that looks like a race car, like one of those cars that you “vroom vroom” on the table. But it turns out when you press a button on it, it turns into a pen. A pen-thing pops out. They’re trying to see does this person think it’s a race car, do they think it’s a pen. Somebody’s really going around in toy shops being like, “Okay, what here could be deceptive?”
Lauren: Keeping track of people’s knowledge states, as we’ve said, is something that takes a little bit of effort. Not all animals can necessarily do it. In fact, when we find animals that are really good at this, people get really excited. There are animals that are closely related to humans, like chimps seem pretty good at this. You can basically do a version of the location of an object thing, and the chimps are all over it. Also, ravens are really good at conceptualising where someone might be and what they might be doing. It’s one of those skills that isn’t just like – well, first of all, you get theory of mind and a bunch of other things, and then you get language. It’s not just an ingredient in the language cake. It’s just one of many skills that humans and animals closely related to humans seem to have but also is scattered throughout the animal kingdom.
Gretchen: Corvids are pretty smart, I guess. They can recognise people, so maybe they can also – if you feed them, they’ll become your friends.
Lauren: We’ve run a very classic theory of mind experiment at the top of this episode, but as we suggested, people have been pulling apart exactly what theory of mind is and how different people do different elements of it. It seems to be this complicated cluster of features around attention, attention-tracking, false belief, mental states, and being able to do all of this is part of being able to do the social element of language.
Gretchen: Because when you’re talking about language, you’re describing what other people have done. You’re thinking like, “Okay, why did this person behave this weird way this time?”, or “Why did this person do this thing to me?”, “Why can’t I get this?” You’re trying to figure out, well, it’s because this other person wants this thing even though that’s not what I want. Or it’s because this other person knows this thing even though it’s not what I know.
Lauren: Even just the process of asking a question, like, using language to interact with someone to try and get to an end goal and whether or not they are likely to have the right information that I need to get this question answered. Theory of mind is the having really good foundations on the house of language, and it’s part of why I’m always very zen when people talk about computers taking over the ability to do language. It’s like, well, first of all, a computer has to be able to keep track of their best guess of the knowledge state of everyone else in the interaction, and that’s not necessarily the same kind of programming task as figuring out sounds or morphemes or syntactic structures.
Gretchen: It’s interesting because it is a theory – not like the theory of gravity where scientists have hypothesised that minds might exist – but in the sense that, whenever we’re interacting with the world, we’re hypothesising that the people around us have intention behind what they’re doing, and they’re doing stuff for reasons. I have to hypothesise that you, Lauren, have a mind because I don’t actually have direct evidence that you have a mind. Maybe you have actually been Lauren-bot this entire time!
Lauren: True, true. I am operating under the same premise. I have my own theory. It’s not a shared theory, necessarily. We all have this internal idea that the people we’re interacting with in conversation are also doing the same mental calculation that we are.
Gretchen: I remember having this realisation that people have other mental states, and maybe they conceive of the world dramatically differently from how I do. Maybe this thing that I see that I call “red” isn’t actually what someone else is seeing even though they also call it “red.” I remember having this philosophical realisation when I was about 12 or so, and thinking, “How do we know anything that we’re seeing things.” And yet, even though I don’t have empirical evidence that you aren’t just an extremely sophisticated automaton – I mean, I do have a lot of empirical evidence, actually, because automatons aren’t that good yet – but we still manage to interact with people. We still manage to operate under a working theory that people do have minds and they are interactable with.
Lauren: People have drawn a link between this kind of cognitive foundation and the need for language by looking at the way early human ancestors learnt to socialise with each other. Instead of having small packs of humans, you ended up getting these larger and larger groups. Once you have these larger groups, you have to have some way of maintaining social cohesion that’s not just small-group dominance. Robin Dunbar is probably one the most famous proponents of this idea that language is a way of maintaining social cohesion and that you can keep a happy social relationship with more people essentially through gossip – gossip being one of the mechanisms that helped generate the need for language.
Gretchen: I mean, it’s useful to know can you trust this person because they were trustworthy last time or have they been going around and doing things that are not trustworthy or is this someone that someone else is willing to vouch for. There’s lots of reasons why language can help with cooperation.
Lauren: In the absence of being able to time travel, I quite like this theory of one of the ways that humans came to use language.
Gretchen: I’ve actually been thinking about Robin Dunbar’s theories for a different reason. Because he has this very famous 150-size social group number, which is the size of a lot of villages or small communities or small companies or small conferences. It’s the magic number for that kind of community. But also, there’s this other number that Dunbar and colleagues have also researched, which is four. That’s the number of people that conversations tend to max out at before they start splitting into smaller conversations.
Lauren: Ah, this makes a lot of sense when I think about small group chat at parties and the ebb and flow of when people join or leave conversations. I think that must also explain why trying to have all of your friends in one big video chat room at an online party is really stressful.
Gretchen: Exactly. This also shows up in fiction. It shows up in plays. It shows up in movies that people tend to max out at four conversation participants. The reason for this has to do with theory of mind, which is that we find it too cognitively exhausting to keep track of the mental states of too many people.
Lauren: In a specific conversation.
Gretchen: At once, yeah.
Lauren: So, I can vaguely keep track of, like, 200, 150 people in my social village, but in terms of the moment-to-moment what-do-you-know-about-the-story-I’m-telling, three or four people is enough for me to keep track of.
Gretchen: There’s a really interesting test of this which is that Dunbar and colleagues did an experiment where they asked people to talk about an absent third party and speculate about that absent third party’s mental states. When people were instructed to use that for their conversation, they tended to form one smaller conversational grouping, so maximum of three instead of maximum of four, when they were just asked to talk about what the absent third parties were doing but not what they were thinking.
Lauren: I’m deeply fascinated by – this is experiment is “Please come into this lab and gossip.”
Gretchen: Right. I don’t remember exactly how they set it up, but yeah, something about the maximum number of mental states that you can conceive of without getting too tired is around five, but that means four people because you’re also keeping track of, like, between you and me, we have three mental states. I’m thinking about me, I’m thinking about you, and then I’m also thinking about what you’re thinking about me.
Lauren: This is why the language that we use to talk about internal mental states does particularly interesting things in grammar. You begin to see theory of mind affect the way that we do grammar because verbs that express internal mental states act a bit differently to other verbs.
Gretchen: English actually has this interesting grammatical distinction between how we talk about mental state verbs versus action verbs in the present tense. We say something like, “I know,” “I like,” “I understand,” “I enjoy,” “I fear,” but for action verbs, we’re more likely to say something like, “I am running,” “I am walking,” “I am talking.”
Lauren: Oh, yeah, “I walk,” implies an “I walk every day” habit thing.
Gretchen: Right. Whereas “I know” doesn’t imply “I know every day.” There’s just this subtle distinction between how we talk about verbs in the present. In the past, we don’t do this. You can say “I liked” and “I walked,” and that’s the same, but in the present, we have this interesting distinction that’s made in English that isn’t necessarily made in other languages.
Lauren: That only really works for first person in English. It’s a bit weird to say this about other people, especially the person who you’re talking to.
Gretchen: It’s another thing that’s weird about verbs about mental states where it’s sort of weird for me to be like, “Lauren, you like cake.” I mean, I guess –
Lauren: I mean, you definitely have enough evidence to support that as a viable statement. I think in the context of us interacting, it would be fine, but it would very weird to say it to someone who you didn’t have that knowledge for.
Gretchen: If I just go up to someone in a coffee shop who’s eating cake and say, “You like cake,” it’d be like, “Excuse me, but who invited your opinion here?”
Lauren: I think this is one of the things I’ve had to learn in teaching over the years is it’s very easy for me to be like, “Well, you know this because we covered it in class last week.” I just assume that everything we covered in class is completely absorbed into your knowledge state.
Gretchen: You mean your students don’t have perfect downloads of every single, you know, audio file of your voice?
Lauren: In much the same way that we don’t assume that people have absorbed every single fact from Lingthusiasm when we bring them up a couple of years later.
Gretchen: Absolutely. You don’t retain this. It’s easy to be like, “I’ve told you once,” and like, “Yeah, that was years ago, I don’t remember everything that happened to me years ago.”
Lauren: It’s why you end up finding a lot of question forms for second person in verb paradigms when you’re trying to do this elicitation because it’s much more comfortable for people to reframe what you’ve said as a question.
Gretchen: I think when we’re used to doing this decontextualised form of grammar as linguists, we’re like, “Oh, yeah, okay, I can make a verb paradigm: I like; you like; he/she likes; we like; you-plural like; they like.” Yeah, fine, I can just make this little paradigm for me. But the social context in which you would use each of these forms is actually really different.
Lauren: I mean, now that we’ve said that I can definitely think of contexts where it would be fine to say it in English with a direct “You like” or “You know.” I think there’re definitely where it would be safe to say it to a child that you are very close to like, “I know you like toast. We ate toast for breakfast yesterday.” Lo and behold, they like toast. They just need to be reminded of that.
Gretchen: But even there you were like, “I know you like toast,” which is sort of not quite as committed to the statement as “You like toast.” Or if you wanna say to a dog or something like, “You want your dinner? Yes, I know you want your dinner. You’re gonna have your dinner. Here we go.” But it’s, I think, to say to an adult – I mean, maybe if I walk in on you in your office, and I’m like, “Oh, you’re busy. I’ll come back later.” Or like, “Oh, you’re reading. You’re on the phone. I’ll come back later.” There’re certainly contexts in which you could do it, but you have to do a lot more contextual set up.
Lauren: I love how much set up you had to do to get to that as a valid way of using an internal state verb directly at someone.
Gretchen: Whereas if I say, “Yeah, I know. I like cake.” This doesn’t require any set up. This is just the unmarked thing to do.
Lauren: This is why we separate out these verbs about internal mental states or “psych verbs” as they’re sometimes called and look at them separately to other verbs in English. Because talking about someone else’s mental state changes the way that we can use them in grammar.
Gretchen: Some psych verbs come in pairs. You can say “I like cake” or “Cake pleases me.” Or “I fear dogs,” “Dogs frighten me.” In both cases, you’re having the same relationship between the two entities, but the verb flips, which you don’t always see with actions. Sometimes you see it with actions like “I buy this from you,” “You sell it to me.” But it seems to be one of the things that happens with internal mental state verbs.
Lauren: They also tend to have more variation across languages and across cultures as to how you can use them.
Gretchen: Yeah. There’s a really interesting and subtle example of this in English and Spanish where in English it’s less common to say something like “You understand” with the meaning of “I infer you understand based on the evidence of you seeming to understand.” Whereas in Spanish, you have a verb that seems like it should correspond to English “understand,” but it is reasonable to use that verb to mean “I infer you understand because you’re asking really good questions” or “I infer you understand because you are making noises of comprehension and you’re nodding and so on.” It’s reasonable to say to someone “You understand” with the meaning, like, “It seems to me that you understand” or “I observe you to be understanding.”
Lauren: That is a subtle but important meaning distinction, I feel.
Gretchen: I heard this anecdote from a linguist who – I don’t remember which linguist anymore – who said that they’d told this to somebody – an English speaker and a Spanish speaker who were in a marriage together – and they both spoke each other’s languages, but they didn’t have an understanding that this was actually a pragmatic difference between them. Sometimes, they would get in fights by like, “What do you mean you say I understand? You don’t know what’s going on in my internal mental state. You’re just assuming what I know.” Which was actually a systematic pragmatic difference in how the languages use those particular mental state verbs rather than a case of just not understanding between the partners.
Lauren: That is amazing. The thing I find really interesting about that anecdote is that the distinction between the two forms of “understand” was really implicit between the two languages. I’m really interested in those grammatical features where knowledge state becomes very overt. That’s essentially what motivated me to study how we grammatically track source of information, which is the area of evidentiality. We had a whole episode on that that I will not assume you’ve listened to, and I will not assume you remember anything from, but essentially, evidentiality is used to keep track of, depending on the language, whether you know something because you saw it or because someone else told you about it or maybe you’re not entirely certain about it. This is marked as a feature of the grammar rather just being implicit or optional.
Gretchen: In English, you have the option of saying something like, “It’s raining,” “I can see that it’s raining,” “I can guess that it’s raining because I can hear the rain drops,” or because someone’s walked in, and their shoulders and umbrella are all soaking wet. You can say all of those things to indicate the source of your knowledge, but you don’t have to. You could just say “It’s raining” and let someone else figure out how you came to know that information.
Lauren: Whereas if we look at a language like Yolmo in Nepal that I’ve worked with, you can actually see someone’s knowledge state changing throughout the story that they’re telling because maybe they start with talking about something in a way where they’re not certain if this cake is going to be delicious, and then they talk about how someone told them it’s going to be delicious, and then finally, they have direct sensory evidence of how delicious the cake is. You see how the knowledge about the cake being delicious is really clearly marked by the grammatical choices that they have to make throughout the story. It means that I can keep track of someone else’s source of evidence in a way that’s more direct than in English. It means that people are more attentive to mine as well.
Gretchen: So, if you wanna say something like, “I infer that you understand,” you would be doing that with the evidential marker. Or “You told me that you understood this yesterday, so why don’t you understand it today,” then you’d have a lot of ways of marking the differences between those internal mental states.
Lauren: Yes. And those internal state experiences of if someone’s unwell or if someone’s hungry, I have to mark them differently if I don’t have any direct visual evidence. If you’re unwell, and you’re shaking and feverish, I can say that I can see you’re unwell. But if you’re unwell in a way that I can’t see, I have to use other grammatical ways of marking it. How you interact with other people’s internal states varies because sometimes you don’t have access to a direct source of evidence for it.
Gretchen: I feel like I’m just picturing those little cartoons you get in language learning textbooks where they have test very stereotyped representations of common illnesses that don’t have obvious physical things. Like, “I have a headache” would be like a person holding their head in great distress or with a hot water bottle on their head, and you’re like, “I don’t put a hot water bottle on my head when I have a headache.” Or like somebody who has a thermometer sticking out of their mouth or something to indicate these sort of things that aren’t really easily visually represented.
Lauren: It’s because figuring out someone else’s internal state is actually a really complicated cognitive task that we do, and we fall back on these tropes to help us navigate that.
Gretchen: I guess same for teaching other types of mental state verbs, you know, “know” or “understand” or “like” or something. You have these maybe very stereotyped or symbolic representations. If you have someone with a heart or something, maybe they’re liking it or loving it. But it’s difficult to do a picture of “I know,” “I understand.” Not everything is easily visualisable.
Lauren: You talked earlier about how it was a revelation for you at some point that maybe we can’t really know what’s happening in other people’s minds. There is a lot of cultural variation as to how much people are willing to feel like they’re able to intuit the internal states of other people – so much so that there’s a whole area of anthropology that looks at this idea of cultures where it’s really prevalent to assume that you can’t know someone else’s internal state. That’s the starting point for building social interactions.
Gretchen: This is the inverse of the Spanish thing where it’s like, “Yeah, I can infer your mental state.” This is like, “Nobody can really know what anyone else is thinking at all.”
Lauren: It’s a cultural assumption and starting point for building conversations and interactions that I’m gonna assume that I can’t know what your internal state is. I can only make reference to it by very overtly flagging that I don’t know that. I might talk about your actions rather than my assumptions about the thoughts behind those actions.
Gretchen: So, what does it look like in practice if someone’s operating under the assumption that you can never really understand what’s going on in someone else’s mind?
Lauren: A lot of the anthropologists who work in this area tend to look at the domain of gossip. I like to think of it in terms of – it just means that you’re unlikely to have gossip that goes along the lines of “What were they even thinking?” Instead, your gossip is more about the concrete actions of people rather than rationalising their mental state while they were doing those things.
Gretchen: Okay. So, not like, “This person had good intentions, but this thing didn’t work,” or “This person never cares about other people’s feelings, and so therefore…,” but it’s more like, “Oh, this person did this thing – ate my cake.”
Lauren: Yeah. I mean, assuming someone has good intentions is something that presumes that you can know what’s inside someone else’s mind.
Gretchen: It’s like, “This person ate my cake. I don’t care why they did it, but that’s what happened.”
Lauren: That tends to be more of the focus that gets talked about or that people might come upon by using strategies like grammatical evidentiality as a like, “You can’t know what’s in my mind, so let me tell you that I know that it’s raining because someone said or because I saw it.” Like, “Let me do that work for you of telling you my state of knowledge rather than you trying to guess something that you can’t guess.”
Gretchen: So, it’s not necessarily a thing of “We’re not talking about mental states,” but the person is the ultimate authority on their own mental state.
Lauren: Yeah. I think this area of opacity of mind is looking at commonalities between what are actually very different ways of approaching understanding people’s internal states because perhaps culturally we’ve just gone with the assumption that everyone thinks about social interaction the way we do and that maybe there’s a lot of variation there.
Gretchen: Lauren, are you saying we have bad theory of mind about theory of mind?
Lauren: Potentially. But I think learning about theory of mind as a bedrock and then opacity of mind as the way people approach this bedrock has made me more appreciative of keeping track of what people might know or not making assumptions about what people bring to any particular interaction. I really appreciate knowing about theory of mind for that reason.
Gretchen: I think practicing figuring out, okay, what are some possible mental states here, what might be going on. This is one of the things I really like about fiction, especially, reading books is you do get to be behind someone else’s eyes and thinking about what they’re doing and why they’re doing it even if their reasons for doing something are really different from what I would think. I find filmed stuff, unless there’s a lot of voiceover – I love voiceover because you can get into someone’s mind. Not everyone’s a fan of voiceover, but I love it because it gives you that internal mental state. I don’t just wanna look at someone’s face and think, “Oh, this is what they’re thinking.” I wanna be behind their eyes and thinking, “Oh, they actually think this is a good idea. Okay. Well, I’m along for this ride now.”
Lauren: I think fiction is a really great philosophical experiment. It’s one of the reasons I really find sci-fi to be interesting is because it can push the limits of what another mind is or what another mental state is to be thinking in. One thing we didn���t get to in the bonus episode about Arkady Martine’s Memory Called Empire is that there are people who have the capacity to take on the entire previous knowledge state of someone else. I just am like what would an evidential marking system be like for a person who has multiple consciousnesses worth of evidence for a statement.
Gretchen: Like, “I know this because my original consciousness knew this” or “I know this because the consciousness that I got added to mine later in life knows this.” Oh, man.
Lauren: There’re just so many layers of potential knowledge state there. That’s the kind of sci-fi that lets me bring my linguist brain to problems of consciousness.
Gretchen: I’ve been thinking about this from a practical level as well recently which is what’s the point of having a conference compared to just reading some blog posts or something about the same topic. I think it’s about that conferences create a state of shared knowledge among their participants. You know that everyone else was also at the same talks or in the same environment or is interested in the same topic, and so it gives you springboards for having conversations about topics of mutual interest rather than just “I’ve acquired this information.” It’s “I’ve acquired this information in a social context where I’ve also acquired a bunch of people to talk with about it.”
Lauren: I’ve never quite thought of conferences in that way, but that is a very wholesome, linguist-brain way to approach it.
Gretchen: Well, it’s partly why digital conferences can be unsatisfying because if you don’t know who else is in the audience and you don’t have any way of spending time with them then you don’t get to have that shared mental state with the fellow conference participants. You’re just receiving the knowledge in a way that you could do without the conference structure at all.
Lauren: I think that speaks to the way that approaching theory of mind allows you to just be more generous in the way you conceptualise other people’s intentions or their motivations or their actions, which is one thing I really appreciate about it.
Gretchen: I also think that there’s – I mean, this is definitely not in the canon of theory of mind – but it’s part of this thinking and reasoning about other people’s mental states. It’s also what the mental state is that you impose on someone else by reacting to something.
Lauren: Okay. I’m now very conscious about whatever I say in response to this anecdote.
Gretchen: I’m sorry. An example of this is the xkcd comic “Lucky Ten Thousand,” which reads, “I try not to make fun of people for admitting they don’t know things. Because for each thing ‘Everyone knows’ by the time they’re adults, every day there are, on average, 10,000 people in the US hearing about it for the first time.” And there’s some calculations. “If I make fun of people, I train them not tell me when they have these moments. And I miss out on the fun.” Then the little comic strip – this is two people – one says, “Diet Coke and Mentos thing? What’s that?” And the other one says, “Oh, man! C’mon we’re going to the grocery store.” “Why?” “You’re one of today’s lucky ten thousand.” Some of my friend groups have adopted “lucky ten thousand” when someone mentions like “Oh, what is this book?” or “What is this thing?” rather than say “Oh, you haven’t heard of that? What?”
Lauren: I can actually tell you exactly how Gretchen says it because Gretchen said to me when we were preparing for this, “Oh, you haven’t heard of the ‘Lucky Ten Thousand’? Oh my gosh, do I have the link for you.”
Gretchen: [Laughs] Exactly.
Lauren: It was so nice to not feel embarrassed to not know every comic in a canonical webcomic series and to be introduced to this very excellent one.
Gretchen: It makes the conversation happen in a much more positive way because then – you know, nobody’s read all the books. Nobody has done all of the things. You can have the conversation of “Oh, well, what did you like about it?” or “What is interesting about it?” without the shaming version of the conversation of “Why haven’t you done this?” or “What’s wrong with you that you don’t know this thing already?” I think this is a similar thing that happens when you create things as well, like “I wrote a book” or “on this podcast.” Sometimes, we’ll say something there or give some – like, here’s a set of examples or something. And sometimes people will reply, “Oh, I listened to your thing,” “I liked your thing and here is this other example for you.” Like, “Here’s another thing that you might like.” That frame is a really positive way of having that conversation and is something that I can then share with other people and say, “Oh, here’s this other thing that people might be interested in.” I can retweet it. Or “Here’s something else going on.”
Lauren: I always feel bad when people phrase it as though we have deliberately omitted something for nefarious reasons when it’s often just that we have a finite amount of time and there’re many languages.
Gretchen: Also, we don’t know everything. Sometimes, someone tells us about a new example.
Lauren: Sometimes, we get to be one of the lucky ten thousand for a topic in linguistics, and it makes us very happy.
Gretchen: The thing is, is the intentions are generally really good. People are excited to share things. They’re excited to talk about things. It’s just this common way of responding to things that doesn’t end up leading into the conversation that you wanna have and with a slight tweak could totally do that like the “lucky ten thousand thing.
Lauren: I also think about this modelling other people’s mental states and knowledge. I think one of the peak activities for that is creating a forwardable email.
Gretchen: Ooo.
Lauren: For those of us who spend a lot of time on email, occasionally, someone will say, “Cool. I’m glad we’ve agreed to do this thing. Can you put the details in a forwardable email so I can send it to the rest of the group?”
Gretchen: Right. Or “Can you introduce me to this person. Here’s why I think they’d be interested in talking about it.” And I’ll say, “Okay, I’ll write a forwardable email. I can send it to them, and then they can decide if they wanna talk to you,” or something like that.
Lauren: Me and this other person know that this email exchange has happened. I now need to write a single, useful, context-filled email that that person can forward on to the group that they want to do the thing with or someone that I am hoping to be introduced to. It requires me to think about what I know, what the person who asked me to do this email knows, and what this third person, who hasn’t been part of any of the prior conversation but needs all of the relevant context, needs to know. I just think that the mental state modelling involved and the mentalising what this person who hasn’t been part of the conversation needs is like Dunbar’s mental representation stuff as, like, multidimensional chess.
Gretchen: Because you end up saying – like, to the person you’re actually emailing, you’re telling them all of this information they already know, and that’s why you can sometimes specify to someone like, “Oh, yeah, please send me an email that I can forward to this person.” If I’m receiving a forwardable email, I know that you’re repeating information that I know, and it’s not patronising in this context because you know that I know that I’m gonna forward it to this third person who doesn’t know these things and so, therefore, that’s why you’re repeating this information that I already knew. There’s so many levels of understanding what other people are gonna potentially think in there.
Lauren: This is why, before we even get to thinking about language, we have to think about the cognitive processes that allow us to know where the marble is, to know if someone thinks cake is delicious, or to go to put everything into an email.
[Music]
Gretchen: For more Lingthusiasm and links to all the things mentioned in this episode, go to lingthusiasm.com. You can listen to us on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, SoundCloud, YouTube, or wherever else you get your podcasts. You can follow @Lingthusiasm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr. You can get IPA scarves, “What the fricative” mugs, and other lingthusiasm merch at lingthusiasm.com/merch. I can be found as @GretchenAMcC on Twitter, my blog is AllThingsLinguistic.com, and my book about internet language is called Because Internet.
Lauren: I tweet and blog as Superlinguo. Have you listened to all the Lingthusiasm episodes, and you wish there were more? You can get access to 54 bonus episodes to listen to right now at patreon.com/lingthusiasm or follow the links from our website. Patrons also get access to our Discord chatroom to talk with other linguistics fans and other rewards as well as helping keep the show ad-free. Recent bonus topics include the linguistics of Pokémon, backchannelling, and translation in fiction. Can’t afford to pledge? That’s okay, too. We also really appreciate it if you can recommend Lingthusiasm to anyone who needs a little more linguistics in their lives.
Gretchen: Lingthusiasm is created and produced by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our Senior Producer is Claire Gawne, our Editorial Producer is Sarah Dopierala, and our Production Manager is Liz McCullough, and our music is “Ancient City” by The Triangles.
Lauren: Stay lingthusiastic!
[Music]
📷
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starfast · 3 years
Text
So you want to write an autistic character
So I watched the trailer for Sia’s movie just to see if it really was that bad. Spoiler alert: Yes it is. It made me feel like Sia was making fun of me for two and a half minutes. But it also made me really fucking angry because there’s not autism representation to begin with, and most of what we do have isn’t really that great, which is what drove me to make this post. I don’t have many followers so even if like 3 people see this, then at least that’s 3 people who have seen this.  
What would I like to see less of
Literally incapable of detecting sarcasm: “Wait,” you say, “But Starfast, there are autistic people out there who are like this!” Sure, there might be, but for me personally detecting sarcasm is a lot less difficult than literally every autistic character has made it out to be. Yes, there are times where it goes right over my head but those times are usually when there’s not enough context for me to figure out whether the person is being sarcastic or not. Some of us actually are able to tell when you’re being sarcastic, it usually depends on context.
The “Sheldon Cooper”:  Autism is really diverse and yet I feel like 99% of autistic characters are basically all just carbon copies of Sheldon Cooper from BBT. They’re maybe overly formal, blunt, or have a hard time picking up social cues. And while these are all things that are commonly associated with autism (although this type of character rarely shows any major downsides to having autism, more on that later), like I said earlier, autism is different for everyone. Not all of us are going to feel represented by this type of character. Honestly I don’t even relate to a lot of autistic characters because they just keep reusing the same autistic stock characters and that’s really disheartening to me. It’s almost like they’re not making autistic characters for autistic people.
The Burden: This probably doesn’t need to be explained that much but it was the one thing that really pissed me off about S**’s movie. In the trailer, I really got the very distinct impression that the older sister saw Music as a burden. Her life was just oh so difficult because she had this autistic sister. No one wants to be thought of that way. And idk if you neurotypicals know this but autistic people have feelings and we hear it loud and clear when you say these kinds of things and it hurts. 
Using autism as a punchline: I think it’s fine to have an autistic character to provide comic relief, BUT! if your comic relief involves laughing at an autistic character’s very autistic behaviour then you’re doing it wrong. This kind of goes back to my first point- the reason why I hate seeing the “incapable of detecting sarcasm” character is because it’s almost exclusively played for laughs. Please stop making fun of us. 
What would I like to see more of
Diversity: I feel like this doesn’t really need much explaining. Autism can affect anyone regardless of age, race, gender, sexuality, etc. And yet most autistic characters I’ve encountered are straight white guys. Let’s see more girls, more POCs, more LGBT+ who are autistic. 
Obvious drawbacks/struggles: When I talked about the Sheldon Cooper-type character I mentioned that this type of character doesn’t really seem to face many challenges that are directly related to autism. What I mean by this is that sometimes they’ll maybe just miss the odd social cue and it’s kinda embarrassing but it rarely gets worse than that. An autistic character is going to face challenges that a neurotypical won’t ever have to deal with and if you don’t acknowledge that then you’re not really properly portraying an autistic character. Show more autistic characters struggling to make friends, having meltdowns or experiencing sensory overload, having a hard time articulating themselves. The list goes on, honestly. 
Actually saying it: Have you ever seen it where there’s a certain character and a bunch of people go “hey, that character seems like they could be [insert literally any minority] and then the creator goes “Oh, yeah that’s totally what I intended!” I personally don’t really like this, because it feels kind of disingenuous. If you’re going to write an autistic character, it would be nice to have that brought up within the story. Autism isn’t a dirty word, you’re allowed to say it. The only exception I can think of would be if you’re writing a historical fiction or some other setting where autism hasn’t been recognized but most examples I can think of don’t fall into that category whoop there it is. 
Literally just anything that isn’t a stereotype. This seems to be setting the bar pretty low, but it still needs to be said. Autism looks different for everyone and just because someone doesn’t fit the mold for a stereotypical autistic person doesn’t mean they’re not autistic. No one wants to be represented by a stereotype. 
“I’m not autistic but I want to write an autistic character. Can I do that?” 
I can’t speak for the entire autistic community when I answer this but my opinion is yes, it’s ok provided that you’re being respectful and doing research beyond reading symptoms off of WebMD. That being said, here’s my final advice: 
Listen and talk to autistic people: If you’re not listening to the group you’re trying to represent then you’re not doing a good job. There are lots of people here out there who would be willing to answer your questions or be a sensitivity reader. There’s a lot of people here on tumblr who are willing to answer your questions (you can even ask me, but I’m just one person and I don’t have all the answers. I’d recommend talking to multiple people). 
Autism Speaks is not your friend: There’s been a lot of talk about why this organization sucks, but it mostly boils down to trying to end autism and not actually helping us. So make sure you’re steering clear of them while you’re doing your research. 
Reddit and Quora are actually great resources: Reason being is that these kinds of sites will give you lots of first hand information about being autistic, and that’s the best kind of information to have, usually. Most sites will just list symptoms, but the right reddit/quora thread will provide more insight about how these symptoms affect their daily life. Additionally, you’ll have multiple people offering their own views and since autism is so different for everyone it’s good to have more than one person’s opinion (psst... this tip works for writing other minority characters too!) 
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succulentsunrise · 3 years
Note
Hm how about prompt 26 with Grey x Gauche please Sun 🥺💕? Thank you so much~!
26 from this prompt list! Thank you 🥰 hope you like it!! It references some events that happened in the manga, so if you haven't read up to chapter 266, beware of spoilers!
(also yes, if the title sounds familiar, it is a reference to that 😉)
Pairing: Grey x Gauche Note: SFW, fluff with small bits of hurt. ———————————————————
Truth Untold
Act 1 -
I feel like I can do anything with him, Grey thought as Gauche was carrying her on his back. To anyone else it would have looked like Gauche was carrying his double. Grey was still maintaining her disguise as him. Her heart was still racing from the battle’s success. She was in a kind of a high - even her twisted ankle didn’t feel that bad at that very moment. She and Gauche had defeated a member of the Eye of the Midnight Sun together! If her squadmate had been the type to get excited, Grey would have probably high-fived him in no time. Gauche wasn’t like that, however. He was serious and stern.
Gauche was dependable.
Soon after that, the two of them walked into a trap. It was almost laughable, if they weren’t in lethal danger! They had simply walked towards Charmy, who had been sleeping...and now they were captured. Grey panicked easily - she knew this too well. The vines that had wrapped around both of them were not even that tight, but she didn’t know what to do to slip out of them. They were sucking their magic away. She struggled uselessly against them, the previous high giving way to pure fear.
Then, that calm voice whispered to Grey.
When her mind retreated to jumble and fear, Gauche’s voice brought to her what she needed: direction. Her body obeyed before her mind even figured out what Gauche’s plan was. She trusted his plan fully. She trusted him. It wasn’t for naught - her magic and his cunning freed them from the trap. Grey landed to the ground with a small pained noise, as her twisted ankle complained about the rough landing.
Gauche’s calm voice addressed her. Grey turned to look at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. His gaze was to the side, one hand scratching the back of his neck. She hadn’t seen him do that very often. He didn’t compliment people often - perhaps that’s why. She had only seen that kind of sincerity in his eyes when he spoke of his little sister. Even if he only complimented her magic, Gauche was encouraging her. It made Grey feel rather fuzzy inside, enough to make her cheeks turn a little warm. She hadn’t expected that from Gauche of all people. She was about to smile, but something else caught her attention - smoke was coming out of her. Her disguise, her magic, was coming undone! In an instant that same old panic overwhelmed her - she wasn’t ready for Gauche to see her! What if he recognized her! She hadn’t prepared for that: it wasn’t a scenario she had practised and played out in her head yet! As the handsome features she had worn turned into her own round face, Grey hid behind her hands. She could feel her cheeks redden with embarrassment, and the knowledge made it worse. A nervous noise left her before she could stop it, only increasing her embarrassment. If only she could control this reaction!
Gauche’s and Charmy’s voices reached Grey’s ears, but she could barely concentrate on them. She peeked from between her fingers, noticing that Gauche wasn’t even looking. That eased her beating heart a little - but not much. Charmy’s clear voice came closer, trying to calm her down. It was sweet, but all Grey wanted to do was to disappear. To be someone else. If she only had mana.
At least Gauche wasn’t looking. That was a relief! - and yet - somehow - disappointing?
No, it was definitely a relief.
Act 2 -
I wonder what he thinks of me, Grey thought. The three of them were gathered around a table: Grey, Gauche and Gordon. The others were on missions or visiting the town. They had originally just eaten together, but thanks to Gordon, they were now pondering whether to play something together. Gauche had tried to withdraw as always, but they had managed to convince him to stay for one game. Grey was glad he had decided to stay. She liked to think part of it was because of her, but that was what had made her wonder in the first place - Gauche saw her as weird, right? Well, it was no good thinking about it right now. If she got embarrassed, she’d just enforce that view! How Grey wished that she could control that in any way, but that was not how it worked. She got so easily anxious...
Gordon brought cards and they began playing. It was easy enough of a game to get into. It distracted Grey from her thoughts. The objective was to get all the cards to oneself by keeping a lookout for a specific type of a card, and when it would appear, by slapping the accumulating card pile. Whoever managed to slap the pile first would get them all. Gauche was very good at it - he had excellent reflexes and a competitive playstyle. Gordon was much slower, taking his time to enjoy the game. Grey felt a little too anxious to make such quick movements. She wasn’t always sure it was the right card, and as she hesitated, Gauche managed to slap it. It went so poorly for her, that she lost all her cards. She only had one round to save herself and that was only if she managed to get a slap out. While being out of the game would be in some way a relief, Grey had to admit she was having fun. She liked watching how confidently Gauche played and how his eyes followed the way the two of them placed the cards into the pile on their turns. She didn’t want the game to be over yet. So Grey steeled herself, readying herself to best Gauche: she would get the next slap! She watched like a hawk for the next card. A round passed, another one - her hand was twitching from anticipation. She had noticed Gauche’s gaze on her. He had noticed her concentration, but there was something else as well. No, Grey shook her head, she had to keep her attention on the cards! As she thought that, Gordon placed a card on the pile. The card. Quick as lightning, Grey extended her hand, noticing that Gauche was doing the same. Their hands struck the card almost at the same time, slapping on top of each other. She could feel his strong hand on hers, more gentle than she expected - and perhaps because of that, Grey anxiously jumped up from her chair and withdrew her hand. Realizing what she had done brought red warmth to her cheeks. She quickly hid her face with her hands, not wanting the others to see that she had gotten embarrassed. She was ashamed of it. She barely managed to get words out, mumbling something about getting scared.
Grey heard Gauche let out a ‘tsk’ noise, and the chair moved. She peeked from behind her fingers to see Gauche standing up. His face was turned away from her, but she could feel the negative aura around him. He was clearly done with the game. She had done this, hadn’t she? The guilt tied her stomach in knots. She watched as Gauche began walking upstairs, looking at his own hand briefly. The one she had touched. Grey sat down to the floor and hugged her knees. Her feelings for Gauche were clear: she wanted to be close to him and she wanted him to like her. Yet, everytime, she managed to ruin it somehow. Maybe there was nothing there. Maybe even with all her knowledge gathered from observing people, maybe she was wrong this time. Maybe Gauche just tried to support her, and she was making it more than it was.
The thought gnawed at Grey’s heart.
Act 3 -
I want him to see me, Grey thought as she sat by the white bed. She felt very tired and hopeless. Gauche had gotten seriously injured in the last fight. She had healed him - according to the court healer, Owen, completely. She didn’t know what to think about that. She didn’t want to think about it. So many terrible things had happened. Even their Captain was gone - no, taken - and a lot of the members were dealing with in their own ways. Grey sighed, her gaze on Gauche. He was bound to wake up any moment now. She hoped it was true. She wanted at least someone to stay by her side. She felt a small twinge of anxiousness at the prospect of Gauche remembering what she had said to him when she had healed the wound - look at me, she had said - and moved her gaze away from him. It was true, though. He had been by her side and supported her. It was easier to do things when someone confirmed what her anxiety doubted. Gauche was the calm harbour in the sea of emotions. Even if he couldn’t erase the embarrassment or anxiety itself, he helped alleviate it. He helped deal with it.
The rustle of sheets caught Grey’s attention. Gauche had woken up. He was sitting upright, looking around him. He seemed ready to go. Grey looked at him quietly, her heart catching onto her throat. He swung his legs to the side and rose up. As he turned to leave, Grey took a light hold of his hand, nervousness beating in her chest. She watched as his gaze turned to her, surprised perhaps, angry - the storm was raging inside him this time.
“Stay,” Grey asked, looking up to him from her chair.
Gauche looked at the delicate hold of his hand. Silence fell as he simply stood there.
Two heartbeats drummed as one.
Slowly, Gauche sat down back at the bed, never breaking the gentle hold of his hand. They looked at each other. Grey could see they were both uncertain. They were both waiting, expecting - wondering. Determination built up inside of her. Yes, she wanted him to see her. Grey stood up, her gaze strangely steady. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears. It thrummed wildly.
Gauche's hold was a little stronger, as if gently pulling Grey towards him. She took a step and gently leaned forward, one hand raising to his jaw. The surprise on his face made her stomach twist and hands sweat, but then his gaze dropped lower - to her lips. Grey closed her eyes and kissed him. It was a clumsy, light meeting of lips, bringing great warmth to her face. She flushed completely red. She would have likely withdrawn, if Gauche's hand wouldn't have moved behind her neck and pulled her closer - the next kiss being as clumsy as the first one, but even better. Grey didn't want to move away from him anymore.
They had found happiness in each other's arms.
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First Impressions and predictions based on the coven Leaders
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After a full first season their fame adorning the banners and walls, who they are being hailed, yet they themselves being kept in the shadows we now get first looks (and throughout 2a will meet) the emperors top dogs: The coven leaders. I will not lie as a group... these guys dissappoint me. Making the majority of them very human in appearance for me is a big no. Compare this group to the many colorful and fantastical creatures that are shown teaching at hexside and the hexside teachers are far more creative, unique, and fun. Maybe the artists decided to make the coven leaders look more like normal people so the audience would have an easier time understanding their expressions and body language. Maybe the more humanoid whitches are a higher class and have a easier time climbing higher than the more beast and demon like residence.? We will have to wait and see. 
Seperate this group into individuals (like how we will hopefully meet them) and most of them become far more interesting, So below lets take a look at each coven leader individually, where the artists may have taken inspriation, and what  What kind of characters they could maybe turn out to be.
The Beast keeping coven Leader: One of the only two that are not humanoids. What type of animal is he? At first I was sure he was a hedgehog, but maybe he could also be like a chipmunk or a squirrel. I get the feeling he might be partially inspired by Sonic from Sega. I was really into Sonic back in middle school. I liked the cartoons and read through the archie’s old comic series. But I kinda out grew him since then. I know from helping to take care of kids though that he is still popular with the younger generation. That’s kinda how I thin the Beast Keeping Coven leader will be: less interesting for older viewers, but a real fun charcter for kids.
The Healing coven leader: Now this guy looks like fun villain all around. Is some kind of witch docotor? a Dark Priest? The size the purple Grin, he looks like the phantom boss from those horror films where you get trapped in nightmares. Tell me he has scary theme song music and talks in a very high pitched voice. I’ve heard some people wonder if he could be Selena (oracle girl from hexside)’s dad. I don’t thinks so, the macaroni crescent shape n his head looks more like a fancy cowl than part of his actual head. Also him having a daughter in Luz’s class could be used as a reason for him to change sides, I want this guy to stay as a villian/antagonist. We all know that with this size group some will stay with the emperor and some will defect to Luz’s side (possibility a couple will die, we haven’t seen yet just how dark Dana is willing to go). Personally my view with redemption arcs and if a character “deserves them” is it depends on what it will do for the story/character afterwards? IF redeeming them opens more doors for the characters and directions the story can take, do it. IF it closes doors leave them as they are. I absolutely hate when clever and well written bad guys get “redeemed” in to boring, plot useless, weebs. The only reason I could see having this guy change sides is for him to “cure” Eda and Lilith’s curse, and I would much rather see the two of them gain control over their forms than be “cured” of them.
The Illusion coven leader: Another fun looking antagonist. My third favorite of these nine. If the healer guy is horror movie based. This guy is Disney based all around. Looks like one of those Vegas suave showmen styled character. Love it. I guarantee you he does not actually look that young or slicked back, but is using illusion magic to make himself more pretty. Not sure if he will stay with the emperor or not. Illusion is Gus’s track and I could see Dana having the leaders of Luz’s friends tracks be the ones to stand by them. If so I am fine with that (in the case of the abomination leader I will beg for it). Gaining the respect of someone as high up as a coven leader could be really great for Gus’s character. Just as long as I get plenty of laughs from Gus and this guy both along the way.
The Potion coven leader: My second favorite and in my opinion the most creative idea of the whole bunch. A mosquito that works in potions! Does he suck them up with his nose and carry them in.. whatever it is mosquitos store blood in. Also he looks angry. Like everyone else is either amused or board. This guy is fed up and ready to do something about it. Not sure if it is the Emperor, the other leaders, or the owl gang he is mad at, but it should be a worthwhile show down.
The Abomination coven leader: Yes this is my favorite design. Yes it is because he is such a beautiful man. Would never have expected someone who creates mucks (the pokemon) with legs would be so fine. Its more than that though. He looks the most kind. Their is no malice or guise in his smile and his green eyes are bright and relaxed. I wondered what the purpose of the Abomination track was and why it had “more opportunity” all last season. Well slight spoilers if you haven’t seen episode 2x02 it is the industrialist field. When you learn about Industrialization usually the idea is that it is done to help the human race reach its full potential, and it is up to each individual to decide what to do with that potential. Whether you call that the passion of a creative mind or the carelessness of a fool would also be up to you. But I really don’t want this guy to be all bad. If for no other reason that more spoilers for episode 2 * with the interest/caution the emperor is showing the blights I expect this guy to show up to their house, probably meet Amity, and we really do not need another not so nice adult in her life. She has had enough.
The Oracle coven leader: What is this? He’s got nails/caws at the ends of dread thingys like Kikimore, so is this her father? Does he have anything to do with her being in the Emporor’s coven? But this is my least favorite. Like what was the inspiration behind this guy? With so many legendary oracles in mythology and we get this guy who mostly looks saggy, washed out, tierd, and just Blah. Hope thier is more to him, but here is one who I am not holding my breath for an episode on.
The Plant coven leader: based on her banner I was expecting something like the Swamp Giant from ALTA. Instead they went in the direction of a very traditional witch desgine: An old women with a wrinkled face and really messy hair, who probably lives alone in the woods, with maybe the exception of a cat, and dances around a fire at night. Okay. She is definitely going to become an ally of the owl gang. This is the only female of the group,and it is neither in Dana’s message nor would it be popular with her target audience to make a villain or even an antagonist out of a women who managed to climb the later into a male dominated success level. I am actually looking forward to seeing her, because it will probably be in a Willow based episode, and after 2x02 (which I personally feel should not have been a luminaty episode but rather a Willow and Amity one finishing up their reconciliation arc), Willow deserves an episode with potential centered around her. An episode where she goes against the Plant track Leader would be that. This witches Grin isn’t exactly friendly, but its more mischievous than wicked. She gives off vibes as one of those people who like to test the mains, and if you pass her tests than you earn her respect. I have no doubt Willow could win at her little games, and doing so would be a huge boost the confidence she has spent the show building.
The Construction coven leader: Oh joy here’s the other one I am unimpressed with. Unlike with the Oracle guy I know where they got his design. To everyone saying that we first saw him at the convention, your not backing far enough up. If you have ever seen any cartoon ever where the main character wanders past or onto a construction sight you have seen this man. Every trio of workers sitting on a iron frame eating from a lunchbox. Every pig that makes a catcall at a disgusted women. Every exhausted worker who watches as your slapstick mains chase each other past at quitting time... they all looked EXACTLY like this guy. This is really the character leading the track Dana herself has said she would pick to join? They could have done a Golem made of brick an stone that resembles a palace. They could have done some kind of humanoid ant with super strength. They could have done a wizard with shapes and mathematics on his robe who carried a scroll everywhere that he compulsively scribbled blueprints onto. But instead we get Mr. Generic here.
The Bard coven Leader: This is R, Eda’s old friend from her hexside days. Did I save R for last because of this connection? Partially. I am also unsure what R’s pronouns are. To me R looks physically male. I have seen other posters use “she” when posting about R. One person posted that Dana had confirmed R uses “they” and if so awesome, I would really like to see that tweet. What ever R’s pronouns though their appearance in the show will be tied with Eda, er past, and what she had to give up in order to live free. I look forward to this new insight onto her character
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everything-laito · 3 years
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if I don’t have tendinitis by the end of writing this series, I am officially immortal. anyways here’s the long awaited Laito and Cordelia analysis: Part I
Hi, Corn here! Holy shit I’ve been wanting to write this for forever now; idk how long this series will be but uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I’m gonna wing it.
Lemme get something REAL clear before I begin. Because for some fucking reason I still see people trying to say that Cordelia did not molest/rape/etc Laito. Cuz she did. It’s called grooming and manipulation, sweetie. And I’ll explain that too. 
Also, I’m not defending or justifying Cordelia’s actions (there’s a difference between explaining why something happens and defending it. For example, we know racism is harmful and awful, but explaining what it is and why it happens isn’t defending it). I also don’t defend Laito’s nonconsensual or abusive actions either on here, I also wanna clarify that. I just merely explain his theorized rationale and psyche.
God I don’t even know where to start, or where this is exactly going to end, but my god, time to pop off. I’m going to divide this into sections as well. 
Also I think this is usually a given with all the Laito stuff I put on here, but, spoilers ahead! And trigger warnings galore! Pedophilia/rape/abuse/grooming/depression/anxiety are the ones I can think of now, but all of those are really a given on this blog. Just wanna emphasize it because I’m gonna go deep into em. 
As always,,,,, rant under the cut~!
Section 1: Before the Storm (insert Life is Strange joke here)
There’s quite a bit of back and forth about where Cordelia started doing this. I just finished Dark Fate and the conversation between the triplets caught my eye. Laito mentions in his Dark Fate Ecstacy Epilogue that implies Cordelia wasn’t abusive at first. It’s revealed how Karlheinz used Cordelia just for his Adam and Eve experiment to create a new human race, which is why he blatantly ignores her after courting her and making her have kids that she didn’t even wanna have. Which is. Yikes. I’d say that’s a form of coercive pregnancy abuse.
The conversation turns to Laito who then says that Cordelia lost her mind due to of sexual frustration and then hurt the triplets. Sexual frustration is a real and common thing, but I’m gonna explain the potential logistics of this being turned into abuse. 
Sexual frustration in general can be described as a sense of “dissatisfaction stemming from a discrepancy between a person’s desired and achieved sexual activity” (source). I know it’s from Wikipedia but the phrasing of that definition is just too perfect. (also Wikipedia’s good just to get the basics from ;) ) Sexual frustration can happen from physical, mental, emotional, social, religious, or spiritual barriers. Everyone has some kind of ideal sexual activity, whether it be innate and or learned (like getting used to sexual acts over time, whether that be from a traumatic or consensual experience). However, I can safely say that Cordelia has high libido, regardless of the reason. 
Oxytocin, my absolute favorite hormone to talk about, is huge in this case. Touch starvation (what I’d say most of us are going through now because of quarantine) also depends on oxytocin level. We’re social creatures, and we need touch in some way. Having sexual needs is also not a thing to be shameful of (if you do have them), since that is also very human and very biological. Oxytocin is needed for so many things! From social bonding, sexual bonding, reproduction in general, and general emotional wellbeing. Everyone has different levels of oxytocin needs. With a lack of oxytocin, whether it causes sexual frustration or touch starvation (or both), it can create fear, anxiety, and or depression. This has to do with my favorite part of the brain, the amygdala. It’s this lil almond shaped part (hence, amygdala, which is Latin for “almond”) is responsible for empathy, your fight and flight response, as well as SO many other things. I’ll talk more about the amygdala later, because I’m getting off track. 
Back to the logistics of oxytocin deficiency and abuse. Basically, I didn’t initially think that touch starvation or sexual frustration could get so bad that someone would resort to abuse. Haven’t found anything that supports that either. However, since it is linked to depression and stress, I do believe Cordelia would have other underlying psychological issues that made her response to depression and stress just so much worse. It’s kind of obvious that Karlheinz absurd her, and when someone goes through a traumatic episode, there’s different coping mechanisms or different emotions are triggered. Maybe even before Karlheinz she had issues, but we will never know. I just know that Cordelia seems susceptible to some kind of manic episodes, such as mood swings and intense behaviors. 
Dark Fate confirms that Karlheinz most likely used this, and used Cordelia due to her Founder blood and that her psyche was “optimal” to eventually have the triplets kill her. Karl can see the future and past etc, I believe that was confirmed in Lost Eden too. Anyways, all of this paves the way to what Cordelia did to the triplets.
Section 2: The Beginning
There’s been quite a bit of back and forth between when did Cordelia start sexually abusing Laito? We know that Kanato and Ayato were abused when they were young, but there’s no flashbacks in Laito’s routes that depicts him being a child (to my knowledge). Not saying Laito wasn’t abused when he was a child, but I can assure you that the first time Cordelia had explicit sex with Laito was when he was older. 
Special thanks to @vampiretsuki​ and @amiecris​ for helping me think this through on Zara’s server! 
There hasn’t been any flashbacks that specifically show us the first time that happened. However, I believe that there was a flashback in HDB that shows one of the first times. Here’s a scene from Laito’s Dark Epilogue:
Cordelia: ー Laito…Laito… Laito: …Hm? Is something the matter? Cordelia: I have a favor to ask. It just isn’t enough. You can do it, right Laito? Laito: You really are something…So that’s why you came to me again? Cordelia: Fufufu…That’s right, Laito. Come on, quickly… Laito: …Guess it can’t be helped. I’ll love you plenty. Cordelia: Aah…My cute Laito~ I love you. I really do. Laito: I can do it…right? Cordelia: Of course, Laito. Now, quickly…
First of all, ew. Second of all, Laito’s diction implies that this was maybe the second or third time this occurred. He asks a question, and ends it with “again.” We know by this that it is not the first time, but the question also means that Laito might not have expected to occur again. His tone also implies some surprise to it, at least in my ears. His other question, “I can do it, right?” screams hesitance to me. If this scene took place down the line, or after many times he did this with Cordelia, I don’t believe he’d be some level of surprised or hesitance. 
Now, you may be thinking, “Oh! What about Ayato and Laito’s Versus II CD?! Didn’t it mention that Laito wasn’t in the triplet’s shared bed 9/10 times?!” And yeah, if you remembered that, kudos to you! Yes, you’re totally right. I thought this was some inconsistent writing, but I don’t believe so. I believe Cordelia was grooming Laito as a kid. For some reason, grooming never came to my mind, it was Tsuki who mentioned grooming, and Cris also backed that notion up. It’s not confirmed if Cordelia planned to do this to Laito in the beginning (which I doubt, I think she sexually exploited him on a whim due to sexual frustration and because Karl wouldn’t; and the suitors she had wasn’t “enough” for her) but I think it’s implied that it happened (from the earlier excerpt). As for grooming, here’s an excerpt from the VS II CD:
Ayato: You weren’t even there 9 out of the 10 times. Laito: So you knew, Ayato-kun. Ayato: … Laito: You know, I have been thinking how I came to be the person I am today. I am still wondering why wasn’t it Ayato-kun or Kanato-kun.
God that’s so SAAAD! This is why Laito being groomed from a young age would make sense. It would also make sense as to why he was so dismissive and hesitant to help Ayato out. In Ayato’s flashbacks, Laito is there, but doesn’t interfere when Cordelia gets into the picture. Laito tends to run away from his problems, and this manifests even when he’s a kid. To further the support of the claim, it’s definitely not farfetched that Cordelia would do something to a child, especially her own child. She used Kanato for his singing voice when she was having sex..... yikes. That’s another form of sexual exploitation. So uh, let’s dive right into see what grooming does,,,,, *opens another private window* Here’s the source I’ll be using too. 
Grooming is a process that is typically used to sexually exploit children. Ewewewewewewew. It can be a quick or gradual process. It’s basically harnessing the trust in children utilizing constant contact. There’s not much explicit evidence describing this with Cordelia, but if Laito wasn’t sexually exploited when he was younger in the fashion he was “used” to when he got older, again I do think he was groomed. It would make sense as to why he either avoided conflict with Cordelia as a child. Either that was his own disposition (which to a degree I think it is), or maybe he was confused about Cordelia’s actions towards his other brothers, since he “loved” Cordelia. Young Laito typically fell silent when Cordelia entered the room, which again could be because of his disposition, fear, or he knows not to say much in front of her. 
During the grooming process, a child can result in not being able to see coercion and deception. In general, kids 7 years old and under biologically are not able to differentiate persuasion from their own decisions, which results in the laws surrounding advertisements catering to children. Fun fact. I know we’re dealing with vampires and so their brains might not work like that, but from what I’ve seen, they’re pretty human. Also, we’re still not sure about their ages or how vampire biological ages work, but bear with me on this. 
Another stage of grooming involves cutting off the child’s support system, whether it be family, friends, etc. I made a comment in an analysis that Laito doesn’t have a support system, and at the very least, his brothers. But even that is pretty weak. You know how it’s mentioned how Laito wasn’t even in bed with Ayato and Kanato most of the time? That’s probably due to Cordelia weakening Laito’s bonds with them. Furthermore, on the website I’m using to get information from, it says this:
Control and alienation is exercised in the following ways:
[more bullet points here]
- creating conflicting feelings of love and hate, protection and exploitation, guilt and innocence, entitlements and duties.
OOOOOHHHHHH BBBBBOOOOOYYYYYY!!!!! Ayato and Kanato say that they fucking hate Cordelia. But... Laito’s the only one that says he “loves” her. He also says that he hates her. So, from this, I think it might be safe to say that Cordelia groomed Laito as a child, and continued to use those tactics when he was older.
Well, I’m gonna end it here for part one. That was quite the ride, but I hope you enjoyed nonetheless! Next part, we’ll be getting into Laito when he’s older and the effects it had on him, along with some other crazy dark sides of psychology. I still won’t be answering many of my inbox questions until this huge analysis is finished, sorry! I kinda wanna focus on this first. But feel free to hit me up with any questions! I’ll still get to them :)
Any Cordelia/Laito questions will most likely be answered in this series, just a heads up. But if you have any questions pertaining to Cordelia/Laito right now or after the series, feel free to hit me up still! Any clarifying questions for this post or anything in general are always encouraged as well if you’re confused or want me to elaborate on something :)
Part two is planned to be up next week! See ya then ;) -Corn
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notveryglittery · 4 years
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battle weary
summary: he was supposed to have cried until he couldn’t anymore, put away all of his problems, and go about the next day like nothing had hurt him at all. wc: 2,850 / ship: platonic prinxiety (roman & virgil) warnings: lots of hurt feelings, mentions of manipulation and lying, brief questioning of one’s existence. lmk if i need to add anything! author’s note: y’all have @blinksinbewilderment​ to thank for this one. i was supposed to write roman-centric royality hurt/comfort first!! no biggie, though, this was pretty cathartic :) thank you @sleepless-in-starbucks​ for beta reading!
spoilers for “putting others first”!!!!  read on ao3 
— — — — — — — — — —
Roman’s head was so full of confusion and pain and swirling thoughts, he was sure he’d fall over from the dizziness of it. A dull ache was beginning to spread throughout his skull, reminding him of how hard he’d tried — of backtracking on insults and stumbling over opinions and attempting to fix what he’d broken. He could barely sift through what they had discussed. Selfishness was okay sometimes, Patton had sided with Deceit, they’d gone to the wedding for nothing. Roman had given up the callback, had ruined their chance at a breakout role, for nothing.
Tears stung hot at the corners of his eyes. He wiped them away, frustration bubbling up his throat, threatening to spill out in sobs or… or screams or curses or something, he didn’t know, he didn’t know if he wanted to know. Roman finally moved from where he stood, the spot he’d been rooted to since he sunk out, since Thomas lied about Roman being his hero, since Patton lied about loving him, since they both ignored Deceit manipulating and using and lying to them, to him. He barely made it up the stairs, each step feeling higher as he climbed, the intended destination of his safe and quiet room feeling harder and harder to reach.
He hadn’t even realized he’d passed Virgil’s door until it was opening and his voice was breaking through the fog Roman was losing himself in.
“Hey, Ro, c’mere.”
Alright then. Showtime, apparently.
Plastering on a smile and standing up straight, he squared his shoulders before turning to face Virgil. He looked tired but relaxed, purple plaid pajama pants on to match his hoodie. He must’ve been in the middle of a project because his hair was pushed back with a headband. Before Roman could ask what Virgil required of him, his hand was taken and he was pulled across the threshold. The room was considerably brighter than usual with the setting sun casting rays of light through the window, where the spider curtains had been tied back.
Virgil guided Roman to the bed, where he sat him down, before going to retrieve something from the closet.
“Not that I don’t appreciate your company,” Roman began, managing a genuine yet sarcastic tone, “but I am… quite spent from filming today. Will this take long?”
“Depends on how cooperative you are.” Virgil said, backing out of the closet and carrying something rather large, hidden under a blanket.
Cooperative. Hah. Roman allowed himself a bitter smile. He’d been cooperative all day and look where it had gotten him. “Very well,” he agreed, scooting over when Virgil sat down beside him.
Virgil handed the box over to Roman and removed its cover. The Disney princess wrapping paper had to have been from years ago, dug out of storage just for this. He glanced at Virgil, who looked like he might be shaking from nerves — it was hard to tell, though, whether they were the good or bad kind.
“What’s this?” Roman asked instead of opening it.
Virgil seemed confused by the question. “What’s it look like? It’s a gift. Duh?”
“I haven’t done anything to deserve it,” Roman said, frowning.
Virgil’s brows furrowed. “Well, not that you need to do anything to deserve a present every now and again, but… Okay, it’s for today’s episode. Is that a good enough reason?”
Roman’s grip on the box tightened a little. The sound of crinkling paper grated on his ears. That just made it worse. He’d blown up at Thomas and Patton, he’d laughed at Deceit’s name. Of course today’s episode wasn’t a good reason.
“I don’t think I can accept this.” Roman held the box out for Virgil to take back.
Virgil didn’t look annoyed or frustrated with Roman’s denial, which felt unfair. Everybody else was already mad at him, what was one more? Virgil took the present and set it on the floor before he pivoted, pulling his legs up onto the bed, and facing Roman.
“Alright. What happened today?”
“Nothing,” Roman answered immediately.
Virgil narrowed his eyes. “Let’s not invite anyone unwanted to my room, okay?”
Roman doubted Deceit was even paying attention to any lies in the Mindscape. He was probably too busy living it up, celebrating his acceptance, relishing in the glow of approval from Patton and Thomas.
“I led our chat to the trolley problem and sorta put the lives of Thomas’ friends in danger. Surprised you didn’t feel that one.” How could he have done something so stupid? Especially after they all knew Thomas didn’t take well to putting Joan in harm’s way.
Virgil folded his arms over his chest. “Locked myself in here and kept very busy to avoid it all.”
Roman wasn’t sure how Virgil could have possibly not noticed the trashing of the living room and Patton’s boss battle, but he wasn’t going to question it. “Deceit took Logan’s place, again. Did a better job of it this time.”
Virgil tensed.
“Said how the way he manipulated me in the courtroom was just a prank. Funny. Wholesome.” Roman couldn’t be sure if it was a miracle or a testament to how well an actor he was that kept his voice steady. “I suppose I shouldn’t put words in his mouth. He probably just didn’t realize what I was saying. Clearly, for Patton and Thomas to agree with him, he can’t be as bad as I’m making him out to be.”
“Roman,” Virgil interrupted, tone edging with panic before he took a deep breath, which Roman unconsciously mirrored. “Back up. Hold on.”
Getting up from the bed, Virgil went shuffling through his drawers before pulling out his old jacket. It was folded neatly. “Outta the costume,” Virgil demanded, “we’re getting cozy.”
Too tired to argue, Roman freed himself of the constricting top and pulled the hoodie on over his undershirt. Virgil unceremoniously shoved a bunch of stuff onto the floor and settled at the head of the bed, with his back against the wall. He gestured for Roman to join him.
This was definitely on the list of things Roman didn’t deserve. … Still. The hoodie seemed to carry with it feelings of protection and determination and while he was sure he hadn’t earned being cozy, much less anyone to be cozy with, he didn’t quite have the energy to disagree. Not anymore. So he sat himself beside Virgil and took to breathing deeply while Virgil started talking.
“If anyone is familiar with being tricked and lied to by that snake, it’s me. I fell for it. A lot. He was crueler, when we were young. If…” he paused. Roman felt him move but he didn’t look, in case Virgil wanted some privacy. “If he’s got Thomas…” He huffed. “Thomas and Patton on his side…”
“We went to the wedding for nothing.”
“We went to the wedding to support Lee and Mary Lee.”
“Yeah, and Thomas was miserable and angry and regretful. Because of me.”
“Now, wait—”
“He lost his chance at fame because I sentenced him to the wedding. I gave up my dr— his… our dream.” Roman swallowed, trying to dislodge the lump in his throat. “In the act of selflessness. Because going to the callback was selfish and bad. I… I wanted to go to the callback. More than anything. Which makes me selfish and bad. Which means I don’t deserve gifts or to be cozy or to have a seat at the table or—”
Virgil’s arm shot up, looped around Roman’s neck, and yanked him down. The startled noise in response was muffled by the pillow he found his face shoved into. He adjusted, realizing that his head was resting now on a cushion on Virgil’s lap. Virgil sunk a hand into Roman’s hair and began combing his fingers through. He shifted so that his neck and back weren’t quite as uncomfortable in this new position but stayed put otherwise.
“I’m not trying to stop you from saying what you want or need to,” Virgil began, keeping his gaze at a spot on the far wall. “It’s just that you were magnifying. Princey, sometimes we’re told one thing for so long that anything that opposes it default becomes wrong. And then we find out that that isn’t true. It shakes everything else out of place.” He took a moment to brush the bangs out of Roman’s face. “It’s a lot to handle, much less if it’s coming from someone you trust.”
Virgil sighed and looked down at Roman. He smiled, only slightly. “I know it’s hard to be open about your feelings. You’re really good at hiding behind a mask.”
Roman bristled, denial on the tip of his tongue. “You would know.”
Virgil’s hand stilled as he grimaced.
“I’m sorry,” Roman said hurriedly. Panic raced through his veins. “That was out of line.”
Sighing, Virgil continued scratching gently at Roman’s scalp. “No, you’re right. It was a big secret to keep from Thomas for so long.”
“I guess… At least he’s had some time to think about it. Since all this happened and distracted him,” Roman offered.
Virgil rolled his eyes. “Yeah, thanks.” He tugged a strand of Roman’s hair. “Back on track. You need to let us in, Ro. I’m guessing you had a lot to say when they pulled the rug out from under you?”
Roman hesitated, guilt squeezing painfully around his heart. He closed his eyes. “You could say that."
Virgil waited patiently.
"... He told us his name."
There was a long stretch of silence. So much so that Roman was afraid to even breathe.
"You laughed, didn't you?"
"I… yeah. And he. He compared me to…" Roman brought his arms up, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes.
Virgil jolted, as if he were going to get up, but the weight of Roman's head on his lap stopped him. "He did what?"
A part of Roman was flooded with relief at the anger in Virgil's tone. Another part of Roman broke into pieces at the reminder that Thomas and Patton hadn't even tried to stand up for him.
"He may have had a point."
"Absolutely the fuck he did not." There was an electricity in the air now, as if Virgil's emotions were sparking off of him. "Sure, you laughing at an act of vulnerability isn't great. Comparing someone to everything they try not to be, that's… What the fuck?!"
"It's okay," Roman tried to say but the words got stuck, his throat closing up around them, as tears leaked unbidden from his eyes despite his best efforts.
"Ah, no, listen—" Virgil nudged Roman's hands away and then lifted him back up, cradling him against his chest. "You can cry, Roman. That's alright."
It wasn't, he wanted to argue, but shielded here from the disapproval of those that mattered to him most, and the crushing weight of failure, and the terror of not even knowing what the point of his existence was anymore… Virgil's arms held him close and tight, safe from harm, even if just for a few minutes… His shoulders shook as he sobbed, though hardly a sound came out.
Roman wasn't sure how long he stayed like that for but by the time he pulled back from Virgil, the room was considerably darker and the sky outside the window was black.
"Better?" Virgil asked, handing him a box of tissues.
"I don't know," Roman responded, voice hoarse and tone defeated. He wiped his face dry. "I don't think so."
"Might have a couple more bottles to empty, then."
"Pass."
Virgil turned on the bedside lamp. Roman flinched at the artificial light.
"I think the next step here is talking to Patton."
"I don't want to," Roman whined, not unlike a petulant child that didn't want to speak to their parents after being grounded.
"I'm not going to make you," Virgil promised. "You need to decide what happens first. Breaking down those walls between right and wrong, good and bad, with Patton? Apologizing to Janus for reacting the way you did but expressing clearly to him the damage he caused from the way he's treated you in the past? Opening up and trusting Thomas with your insecurities?"
"Can't I just go back to debating healthy sleep schedules with Logan?"
"You know he'd agree with me and send you right back to making this decision."
"Could you…" Roman hesitated, fidgeting.
Again, Virgil waited patiently. Roman wondered how he’d gotten so lucky. For all intents and purposes, he was supposed to have gone back to his own room to wallow in his misery and confusion. He was supposed to have cried until he couldn’t anymore, put away all of his problems, and go about the next day like nothing had hurt him at all. Instead, Virgil had diverted his course completely, and now he wasn’t alone while trying to put himself back together. It was… relieving. And terrifying.
“Could you… be with me? When I talk to them?”
Virgil grinned. “I’m proud of you for asking. That couldn’t have been easy.”
Roman thought that sentiment alone might tip him over the edge again, but he managed somehow to not burst into tears anew.
“I can do that, yeah. I’ll hang out on the other side of the room with my headphones on but I won’t actually listen to any music. That way, if you need help, you can call for me, and I’ll hear you. Is that okay?”
Roman nodded, not sure that he could keep his voice even if he spoke.
“I know there’s still a lot to unpack. I’m not saying that you are bad or wrong, but I think everyone involved in that conversation did and said some things that were bad or wrong. Obviously, I wasn’t there, but I can imagine things got heated and that you weren’t the only one to leave feeling bitterly, jittery, and not very glittery.”
Roman cracked a smile. “Patton turned into a giant frog monster.”
“What?!” Virgil exclaimed with a rough laugh. “Okay, wait, let’s go to your room. We’re having a sleepover tonight and you’re going to tell me what the hell happened earlier.”
Roman lit up, looking genuinely happy. Virgil’s heart ached, realizing how long it’d been since he’d seen such real emotion on Roman’s face. “Can you get snacks? There’s edible cookie dough in the fridge.”
“Yeah sure but don’t expect me to encourage your sweet tooth again after this,” Virgil teased, getting out of bed and helping Roman up too.
Roman picked the box up off the floor, clutching it to his chest. “Can I still have this?”
“Duh,” Virgil answered. “Go get the pillow fort set up, I’ll be there ASAP.”
Virgil opened the door, checking that the hall was clear, before gesturing for Roman to step out first. Before they could part ways completely, he caught Roman by the shoulder.
“I’m… really proud of you, Ro. You didn’t have to tell me anything. You’re willing to make amends. That’s pretty damn cool.”
Roman wanted to ignore the warmth blooming in his heart from such sincere praise but after everything else, it would have been hard to. He gave Virgil a tremulous smile. “I’m glad we’re friends. Thank you for looking out for me.”
A moment of silence followed and then they both took a step back from each other.
“Snacks. Edible cookie dough. Got it.”
“Pillow fort! I’ll even let you pick the first movie.”
Arriving in his room alone gave Roman a moment of pause. There was still… so much… that he had to fix. He took a deep breath. His time with Virgil, however, was a reminder that he wasn’t truly alone and that with enough time, patience, and support… Things could… things would get better.
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Character Introduction
Hello! my first little character sheet so you all can meet Delila, the main protagonist of my still untitled story. Most- if not all- of my characters are blatant self-inserts, and Delila is no exception. I identify as GF so she's kind of the embodiment of my very fem moments, and my soft cottagecore side. Anyways, here's all you need to know about her! I'll post newer versions of her character sheet later on as certain events happen in the story so I don't give you guys spoilers.
Name: Delila Amelie Lestrade
Age: 24
Hometown: Born in Atlanta GA, moved around a lot as a child.
Occupation: Forensic Psychologist. FBI agent.
Sexuality: Asexual, questioning.
Talents/Skills: Writing. Playing Uke. Can't cook at all. Great skill of falling down or bumping into things. Hands are steady in times of crisis and is very levelheaded.
Siblings (describe relationship): Theodore 'Theo' Grayson Markham. 35, older half brother. Second son of Alana Markham(nee Ramses) and Fredrick Markham. Lives in NY. Jameson Albert Markham, 36, oldest half brother, and firstborn son of Alana Markham and Frederick Markham. Lives in rural North Carolina with his wife and kids. Gwendolyn 'Gwen' Beatrice Markham (deceased). Born 1980, died at 26) Killed in a car accident in St Louis in 2006. Very close to Delila and Jameson. Entire family mourned after she passed, and Alana became very different emotionally.
Mother (describe relationship): Alana Elizabeth Markham (nee Ramses). 54, lives in Ojai, California with Frederick Markham. They talk intermittently, but Alana isn't very responsible and Delila refuses to interact with her too much because it's emotionally draining. Alana refuses to acknowledge Gwen even existed.
Father (describe relationship): Gregory 'Greg' Lestrade. 49. Their relationship is close, and Greg would often visit Delila, or fly her out to see him during school holidays when she was a child. They call often (when he actually picks up or calls her back) and email back and forth. She loves him more than life itself even if he often forgets to call her because he's busy.
Significant Others (describe relationship): Struggles to remain relationships due to lack of intimacy, but had a long-term relationship for 2 years that recently ended for undisclosed reasons.
Pets: none yet. had a childhood snake named Jonathan.
Friends: Li Huang (will be introduced in the next chapter or the one after), John Watson, Molly Hooper, Sherlock Holmes (tentative), Theo, Mycroft Holmes(eventually).
Height: 5'2" or 157.5 cm
Weight: 135 lbs. or about 61 kg
Race: Caucasian, British-American
Eye Color: Blue in Original Fictions. In this AU, however her right one is Purple. her left is Pink. (I like pink and purple very much)
Hair Color: Naturally brown, dyed pastel orange.
Distinguishing features: Constantly has scrapes and bruises, often topped off with band-aids on her fingers and cheeks. Her wild orange hair and round gold-rimmed glasses. (they're bigger than Harry Potter's, before you ask). She wears a black pea-coat often, and it's worn from years of use. (it was her sister's)
How does he/she dress? Black pea-coat when it's colder. Likes to wear slightly-too-large clothing. Often wears stolen shirts, sweaters and button ups. Flowy, flowery dresses and skirts and occasionally ripped jeans. She did go through an Emo phase and dyed her hair white in her late teens/early 20's, and has some clothing left over from that phase that she occasionally wears.
Hobbies: Writing romance fiction and crime. Reading, often James Patterson or fantasy. Playing ukulele, and singing. She likes to dance but isn't very good at it, so she often does it when she's alone or it's dark (or both). She likes to go for walks with John in the park, and used to go for walks with Theo.
Greatest flaws: She cares too much too fast, and becomes attached to people within a day or so of meeting them. She can be slightly needy and clingy if she doesn't have a lot of friends, because she thrives off of physical affection. She's very stubborn, and will do things even when she's been given explicit instruction not to because she thinks she may know a better way. (sometimes she does, but other times she just is too strong headed to stop). She can either be unabashedly arrogant or filled with crippling self-doubt dependent on the situation as she's experienced a lot of respect and praise for her intellect. She also puts a lot of pressure on herself to succeed and it can lead to devastating burnouts.
Best qualities: Very loving and openhearted. She will put others' needs above her own nearly every time. She will make sure her friends and those she cares about are taken care of, and are taking good care of themselves. She is extremely intelligent and knows an array of weird and sometimes useful facts, and has a large span of knowledge thanks to her time at uni. She also has a way of making friends wherever she goes, which leads to a large web of connections and sources whenever she needs them.
Introvert or Extrovert? Ambivert, it's dependent on the situation. For example, if she's forced to be in isolation then she's going to be more extroverted when she's around people again. She enjoys talking to people, but after a certain amount, she can become worn out and need alone time. I think it would be good to note she is much more socially adept than Sherlock, though he is better at other things socially. (she has Asperger's and therefore he picks up on certain cues or details she may miss)
How does the character deal with anger? Delila can either run hot or run cold in terms of temperament. When she runs hot, she is often so overcome with emotion that she 'loses' words, struggles to speak and gets really flustered. (not in a good way) she never really says anything unkind when she's like this but she will be very dismissive and tell people to leave her alone. She is prone to shouting or crying to voice her frustrations and get out her emotions. The best way to calm her down is to let her rant about it, and she often calls Theo- who lets her rant. When she runs cold, she is eerily calm. She becomes sharp-tongued, cold and calculating. She will destroy whoever has angered her in this way and feel no shame. Sometimes she will spend days like this, and will be snippy and distant to anyone who tries to talk to her. She is vengeful and fully of unabashedly cruel remarks. It takes a lot or something particularly bad to get her this way.
With sadness? Delila tends to cry when she's sad, and is most comforted by physical affection. She listens to sad music, curls up under a blanket, and will write, whether it be in a journal or creatively. She will occasionally vent, but usually keeps it to herself as to not burden people around her with her issues or emotions.
With conflict? Delila can be rather argumentative and stubborn, but if she cares about the person she will do her best to listen to their side of the argument or disagreement, even if she feels as though they are wrong. When it comes to other peoples' conflicts, she will try and take the side she feels is most correct, or try and be an unbiased judge. She will defend her friends if there is a conflict in which they are being attacked in some way.
With change? Delila isn't a big fan of change but she will try her best to adapt and overcome by setting goals and new routines.
With loss? Delila will self-isolate. She will spend a lot of time re-consuming media that reminds her of what she has lost, and will go through a period of denial. Eventually, though she will come to honour the memory and move on.
What does the character want out of life? Fulfillment. Delila has spent a lot of her short life searching for something she is truly passionate about, but once she finds things that make her happy she becomes hesitant to follow them. She longs for fulfillment in ways other than reproducing and relationships, but one day she wouldn't mind having a family.
What would the character like to change in his/her life? Delila wishes she'd spent less time worried about how her mother perceived her and hoe those around her viewed her and her achievements. She is quite successful now and has learnt better but she wishes she hadn't let her doubts hinder her in the past.
What motivates this character? Delila doesn't excel because she longs for success, but because she fears failure. She refuses to be a burden, and will be independent almost to a fault.
What frightens this character? Delila is terrified of her family being hurt in any way, or losing someone she loves again. She also despises spiders and rejection.
What makes this character happy? Music. Her family, her friends. The rain. Tea. she loves to dance, but she only does it when she's alone.
Is the character judgmental of others? Delila's job required her to profile people, and because of that it has become her nature to psychoanalyse or even try to make assumptions about people from the get-go. She will often alter this perception of people later on depending on how she sees them interact with their environment, and people around them.
Is the character generous or stingy? She can be overly generous when it comes to those she loves, but also hesitant to share other things. It all depends on the item or person's emotional and sentimental value to her.
Is the character generally polite or rude? Unless given good reason to be rude, Delila is generally kind.
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The Beauty of Humanity in The Case of Hana and Alice
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***Spoilers Ahead***
The Case of Hana and Alice puts on displays the overflowing kindness of the human race, despite the fact that when we are stuck in the hell that is middle school humans can seem like the scum of the earth. In middle school we are in the absolute worst stage of our development we are trying to create our own characters yet we are stilled shackled to and dependent on our parents, which leads middle school to being a place with a bunch of people lashing out trying to create their own identities hurting those around them in the process. This creates an exceedingly hostile environment, which can easily make those within the inherent goodness of mankind. This movie recognizes this and asks us to take a step back and think about every time someone did something kind for you when they had absolute no reason to do so. The Case of Hana and Alice is full of these moments where it simply wants you to revel in the kindness of humanity knowing that it is offered free of charge whether you deserve it or not.
The movie begins in middle school which, as we all know, sucks. Alice wants to create her own identity separate from her mother, but since Alice is completely dependent on her mother this is of course impossible. The other characters we encounter in Alice’s class also have as similar struggles with creating their own identities, most notably Mu with her gothic mother. Since everyone in her class is lashing out it is turbulent and stressful and most middle school experiences are, and that is even ignoring the cult the Mu forms.
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Alice’s curiosity and fun loving spirit is very nearly beaten out of her by middle school. She is luckily saved by a friend who through a series of events gets her involved with Hana to discover the secret behind the cult at her school. Alice’s imagination of course runs wild: who is this Judas? Why did he have four wives despite being in middle school? What is anaphylaxis? While all these questions were interesting to see unfold, Alice’s and Hana’s journeys were the real stars of the show. They displayed the world outside of middle schools; they showed the real beauty of mankind. They both had overflowing imaginations: Alice imagining the harrowing journey that they were to embark on, while Hana brooded on the notion that she might have killed someone. Both of these fantasies are beautiful to see play out in the characters’ minds where they seem so real yet as adults watching it is clear they are both entertaining childish notions.
When Alice confronts Hana to learn about Judas she is give the task to track down and follow Mr. Yuda to his house, since Yuda was “Judas’s” father but the name Yuda somehow became Judas through the middle school grapevine. Alice ends up following the wrong man, who upon realizing he is being followed offers to treat her to dinner and bring her back to her house. Upon informing Hana of this, Hana encourages Alice to leave thinking that “Not Mr. Yuda” is a kidnapper. Turns out he is just a kindly old man who wants to be reminded of youth. While treating her to dinner he shows Alice that despite the fact that he looks quite old there are still parts of him that look young and a smooth as a baby. On the way back to the train station they play on a swing set as they reminisce about the last time they were on swings. “Not Mr. Yuda” remembers the raising his daughter and his lost youth, while Alice remember her elementary school days and her lost childhood. This man is so kind to her as to buy her dinner and offer her transportation home with no expectation of anything in return. Despite the fact that she seemingly has nothing to give she is able to allow him to relive some of his youth with her and remind him of his younger days with his daughter on the swing set.
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After Alice’s encounter with “Not Mr. Yuda” she reunites with Hana who is stalking the real Mr. Yuda they spend a while camping around Mr. Yuda’s apartment before deciding to call it a day and head back after getting ramen. Unfortunately with their orders stuck behind a large group they get up to leave at which point the group starts offering the girls their food not wanting them to go hungry.
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Unfortunately they still miss the last train. Because of this, they end up spending a night under the stars. They end up sleeping under a truck, so when Alice wakes up when the truck drives away she thinks Hana is being dragged behind the truck. She then chases the truck roping in a ton of high schoolers on her mad dash to catch the bus.
Through their insane journey around the city in order to find the source of this strange rumor in the school they discover the wonder that exists simply in exploring and encountering other humans. They begin stuck in middle school at the whims of the bullies and general bad attitude of other middle schoolers, but as the story progresses they are shown the true faces of humanity the face of Not Mr. Yuda who was willing to help out Alice despite only knowing the she was stalking him, the face of the ramen bar goers who wanted to help a couple of girls get home with full bellies, and the face of the high schoolers who were willing to jump in front of a truck to save someone’s life. Through seeing these they begin to grow past the selfish attitudes of middle school and start to incorporate some of the selflessness that they see into their own lives.
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belphegorbillickin · 3 years
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Okay, but I can definitely imagine Barb/Dia doing that. It seems like quite a possibility. But wasn't dying mc's own fault though? Like,, Barbatos did warn,,, unless he knew this was gonna happen and mc was DUMB AND STUPID enough to show up to everyone like: "hi." and possibly be dumb enough to get killed. Idk lol I forgot this part.
But what you said about Beel, I really like that. I think you even mentioned belphie guilt tripping you in your yandere hcs, and trying to make you completely depend on him?? I like those possibilities. Mammon though,, too soft. Like you said, they've robbed him a lot. He could have had so much potential to be a dark character. Similarly Levi omg.
The brothers are the embodiments of the 7 deadly sins, yet, tbh, I haven't seen too much of this side of them. At least, not like how'd I expect. Leviathan, for eg. Envy. I don't recall seeing his sin playing out anywhere except in the TSL Quiz thingy. I mean, it's been toned down a lot for someone who's the literal embodiment is envy. Idk I just don't feel he's like that? As from what I found: Envy (Latin: invidia), like greed and lust, is characterized by an insatiable desire. It can be described as a sad or resentful covetousness towards the traits or possessions of someone else. The struggle aroused by envy has three stages: during the first stage, the envious person attempts to lower another's reputation; in the middle stage, the envious person receives either "joy at another's misfortune"(if he succeeds in defaming the other person) or "grief at another's prosperity" (if he fails); the third stage is hatred because "sorrow causes hatred".[38]
Envy is said to be the motivation behind Cain murdering his brother, Abel, as Cain envied Abel because God favored Abel's sacrifice over Cain's.
They toned him down a little too much?? If this game has actually been inspired by demons and the 7 deadly sins, they could at least make them similar to the demons, at least in some way. I'm not that far into the game yet, but so far that I've played, I haven't seen much. As for a demon who is the embodiment of envy... I wish to see more. Levi is capable of A LOT.
Similarly, Satan. I sometimes wonder why is he even called the Avatar of Wrath when we hardly see it?? The only time I remember is him losing his calm during the whole body swap event. The fact Satan got mad at us refusing a pact actually made me think that he was the sin "wrath", but idk now. And the way it was said that "every smile is an act", I really like that concept too. But I don't think I've paid much attention to see where it played out. Sigh now Satan simps for cats like,,, please show me your dark/evil side sir.
The way you said Barb and Dia took part in a torture dungeon, I want to see more of that too. If they're demons, wouldn't they have caused SOME sort of bloodshed in a way? Especially if they're the strongest demons. Killing humans, eating them, or I even like to think doing the same to their own race. Torturing... Seems like something that every demon's blood would contain lmao, I'm not answering questions bye.
And I believe so too. The human seems like a pawn... I feel the demons would use humans for entertainment and their own purposes, while keeping up the facade of loving them. It's easy, since demons are manipulative. In that case, losing the human whether by their own hands or not would go like: "Oh well, that's unfortunate. Time for another human."
But if they REALLY did love you, I feel they'd still be manipulative. Like you said. Corrupting/spoiling the human so much to the point that they'd just HAVE to depend on them. I feel they'd also have yandere tendencies, or be "protective". Like, then I feel they really wouldn't want to let you go, despite knowing how much it can ruin your innocence.
I also don't like how everyone is after mc like "uwuwu master". The human is still a weakling despite having pacts, plus, the pacts aren't even demanding the human's soul or anything. I don't get why they let mc walk over them when they are CLEARLY much stronger? If I were a demon I'd do the opposite lmao. Making the human seem as if they are controlling me, but it's the opposite. I don't think a mere pact can change the fact that the demon's stronger,,, esp if the pact didn't demand the human's soul/life/whatever.
Also, thank you! Things got better for me :)) and also,
💫✨💕send this to ten bloggers you think are wonderful. keep the game going 💕✨
Ofc you don't have to do this, but I got this, and it really made me happy, so here ^^
Oh btw in lesson...56 I think?? Just gonna tag this as a spoiler, but where for whatever reason Satan was "Sully" and the angel Lucifer asked him whether he liked books, let me just say I haven't even played it that far yet, but Satan going, "...Every book here is precious."
TOUCHED ME SO BAD LIKE. I DON'T KNOW IT REALLY MADE ME SOFT LMAO HE'S JUST SO okay I'll stop 🏃– 🍹
It's been a while since I've thought in-depth about the whole time traveling thing tbh, but couldn't Barbatos generally see the outcomes of the world?
We went back because they wanted to know who opened it, but considering Diavolo's the ruler of hell who turned Lilith human and Barbatos is basically the ruler of time & practically the universe I believe they already knew Lilith did it since it had to be "blood related" basically.
Barbatos also knows he can stitch together timelines and get of "extra" MCs essentially, so I believe he'd take that into account. I'm not saying MC getting killed was 100% part of the plan, but that they didn't care of MC was traumatized because they knew they could bring them back if necessary.
Imo the real goal wasn't to find out who did it, but to avoid breaking the family's bonds and devotion to Diavolo. The way it worked out was incredibly convenient and "coincidentally" a huge upgrade for Diavolo that kept the status quo and made him look good (or at least better) to Belphie and Beel without making Lucifer choose.
We see that kind of repeat later when Diavolo withdraws from the play because he was worried Lucifer wouldn't be as loyal. That's also why Lucifer gets that warning from Barbatos.
I think a huge part of why Levi's characterization is like that is because not enough people like him enough to tolerate it tbh. Even Mammon and Lucifer stans complain about the other characters hogging screen time and a lot of them admit to feeling bad for other fans. Levi is pretty much always second to last popularity wise.
I think he'd actually be more liked if they focused more on the jealously instead of making almost every interaction otaku/Ruri-chan related, but it's a bit too late now. I really, really hate how they just pretend otaku culture always existed and that's all Levi ever was. Like at least make him have an obsessive personality and be hyperfixated on novels instead of talking manga in an era before Japan even existed. It's so unbelievably lazy and really takes me out of the story.
Another problem is we only really see him interact with family or people that could enact severe consequences like Diavolo & Barbatos or people protected by the exchange program. He never gets a chance to shine or be cunning. The closest we get is things like him purposefully trying to ruin Christmas for random people online in his Christmas card. I think if he genuinely got jealous of MC and some random demon he would summon lotan almost instantly.
It's especially painful knowing what we had & being so excited to get more only for all of that to get dropped.
In an early devilgram, Be You, Satan gets jealous and feels bad about not having much unique to him and Lucifer comforts him in his own way when the others make it worse. Mammon is the most empathetic though ofc. They also talk about horror movies and Mammon says he doesn't find them scary (& the way it's framed sounds honest, idk if it's a retcon or a lie,) and Satan says "I'm sure we've all witnessed plenty of real-life horrors worse than anything in the movies."
Then when Lucifer asks for a time when he was really angry Satan first casually then gleefully talks about torturing a family to death because a kid set him up to get scolded by their parents. Meanwhile the brothers act wary of him and worry about him getting out of control while Lucifer tells everyone to take cover for their own safety with a smile. Satan happily talks about them begging for their lives and says he wishes they saw it too.
Levi also says he hates hearing about people being happy, but likes hearing about the negative things. While Asmo and Mammon are freaking out he also calls Satan cool. Which shows at least a little bit of his envy for once. Satan also says just the aura of his rage is usually too much for humans which is also interesting.
But back to Diavolo and Barbatos, I don't hate how the whole torture thing isn't super open, it makes sense imo, but I would like to see hints of them hiding it. Especially if Satan or even attic Belphie was the one you could go to to learn more about it. If anyone would defy Diavolo for that it'd be them trying to bring Lucifer down with them, or even just Satan rewarding the hunt for knowledge and not understanding the human psyche fully.
Imagine if instead of a paper thin lie about being human we got a Belphie manipulating us by pretending he was locked up because he was against hurting humans and the whole exchange program was a scam? Or at least if he told us things no one else would about Diavolo that were true so we wouldn't trust him and etc. That's the angle I'm going with in my fanfiction at least, the original story is just so lazy and boring imo.
Yeah I'm not a huge fan of how they handled pacts either, especially considering they don't even get MC's soul. It's way too one-sided to the point where I don't believe someone like Satan would ever offer it, even if the first offer was a trick and he'd get your soul or something. I agree on the whole manipulation thing too, like how is it partnership if one side has complete control over the other?
Even just making it so that demons can fight against if they really don't want to do something like harming each other and having it corrupt MC would make it a million times better.
And that's so sweet, thank you! You've made my days a lot brighter too. Not much makes me happier than infodumping and complaining about Obey Me rn lol.
I really liked Satan's line there too, although I did wish he had more a reaction to everything tbh. That whole section felt a bit too easy imo though, like I kept waiting for it to all go to shit or something. I am glad they went back into more story-based chapters too. I hope they keep that trend and expand on it.
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brandedfool · 3 years
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I originally wrote this in response to @pliskin‘s post about The Doom Eternal: Ancient God’s story. I realized that it was way too long and not really a response to their thoughts so I made my own post instead. 
Be warned, friends, I wrote a whole essay.
Spoilers under the cut because I, too, cannot stop thinking about this.
Jumping into this sorta-essay, the really telling thing about the DLC is, like Pliskin mentioned, VEGA apparently didn't have any idea that the Father’s life sphere was destroyed, and destroying it didn't destroy him. It hurt Samur, apparently, though he was already undering a transfiguration so how much of that backlash was due to his physical state and how much to the Life Sphere is up for debate. Also, Urdak was able to function without the sphere for forever without it actually being used for anything. The same goes for Hell and the Dark Lord’s sphere. It brings up a lot of questions as to the true nature of those life spheres and what their intended purpose is.
The whole narrative of the "maintaining of balance" and the way both Samur and the Khan talked about Hell and Urdak plays into my interpretation of the situation. It’s a common thread through all of the lasted reboot of Doom and it’s really fascinating. The interplay between the Makyrs and Demons can be seen as the corruption of the Makyrs and Hell gaining power (or as good being corrupted by evil if you want to see it like that) with the Father and the Dark Lord being the "kings” on both sides of the chess board.
I think it’s a bit more complex, and admittedly this viewpoint draws not just from Doom but from the way western culture talks about good and evil, how often we see those themes in media, and how Doom is subverting them.
It’s really difficult to see the Makyrs as truly “good” or “holy” or even as angels, even though the lore indicates that’s how they’re seen by other races. They are not immortal and they face death with less dignity than humans. They twisted the Argenta into worshipping them rather than the wraiths and, ultimately, let them be corrupted by Argent. They are as selfish as any other race of beings we’ve seen in the Doom universe. They function a little differently and live in a post-Makyr (Is post-humanism a thing for other species?) society with the help of incredible technology, but it’s all artificial and meant to manipulate.
Side tangent: go back and look at Samur’s stupid Makyr face right before the Slayer crushes the Father’s life sphere in his hands. I have never seen so much greed. There’s something very disturbing about the characterization of Samur in regards to the Father and I don’t think we have quite enough context yet to know what it is.
On the other side of the coin, we have Hell. It’s apparently naturally occuring (though idk about that given the fact a life sphere exists for the Dark Lord in the same location as The Father.) and functions in a similar way to the Makyrs; the strong demons control the weak, the weak cannot disobey. The demons also, like the Makyrs, want to consume, subjugate, and devour. They just have a different method of doing so. They’re evil, yes, clearly, but there are a lot of similarities between how the Makyrs go about their work and how Hell goes about its.
So really what we’re looking at isn’t good vs. evil or right vs. wrong. It’s about control, power, and selfishness, and the fact that the Makyrs and Hell agree to work together in Doom Eternal doesn’t indicate they’re corrupted at all, just that they finally came to an alliance with each other. The interaction might be better conceptualized then as a matter of entropy and dimensional balance; for there to be an up (Urdak), there must also be a down (Hell). They must be equal in power. They want to subvert each other, to gain the upper hand, but to do so would be disastrous, as we are clearly seeing in the DLC.
With good and evil thrown out the window, we can slap a number of different critiques and commentaries onto this framework. It’s anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist. It has things to say about expectations we put on people and how rebellion occurs. It’s got all kinds of layers. The important thing to me is this:
The Father and the Dark Lord are, in some way, balancing each other out. To have one exist without the other is wrong. There are two life-orbs, two components to the struggle, two species that they control. It’s about the balance between them. Hell and Urdak are part of it, but at the end of the day it’s about these two entities and how they interact with each other. If either of them leaves, everything goes to shit.
But... The Father already left. He left Urdak, in fact he asked to leave Urdak. He went to Mars! On purpose! There are a number of reasons why this might have happened. Personally I think he was disgusted with the Makyrs and decided something had to be done, and he was the only one who was capable of doing it. He threw off the balance purposefully, and in doing so set the events of the entire Doom series in motion.
Now if we assume that the Father and the Dark Lord are in tension, what does the Father disappearing do to the Dark Lord? Apparently, two things; it makes him stronger, and it makes him vulnerable (that’s a common theme in Doom; your enemies’ greatest weaknesses are the weapons that damage the player the most). The Father leaving Urdak opens up a third possibility for the universe apart from balance between them and total chaos: balance with neither the Father or the Dark Lord.
Enter the Doom Slayer. A third party. Aligned not with Urdak, but against Hell. Fighting for the people caught in the middle. Both sides clearly want him out of the picture or under their control, and the more they try to control him, the worse it gets. Suddenly Urdak and Hell aren’t fighting against each other, but against the Doom Slayer and the coming of the Destroyer. Whether they succeed or not depends not on whether they can fight each other, but whether they can fight him. They can’t.
And the Father finds him as VEGA. Exactly how much of their interactions were foreseen by him on Urdak isn’t clear and probably never will be (Samur’s monologuing aside: he’s clearly full of BS) but the fact that they end up working together is very telling. Also a reminder that they spend roughly 13 years (though time in Hell might not be that linear) with no one but each other, and the Slayer comes out of that time with the Fortress of Doom and everything in it. They freaking know each other (To me this is where the DoomVega potential takes off. Can you imagine the drama? I love it).
Given all of this, it’s pretty clear to me that VEGA and the Slayer went into the story of the Ancient Gods DLC with the plan in place and knowing what would happen. Take note, especially, of how after Samur is defeated after the final boss fight, there isn’t any moment of horror or disbelief from VEGA. He gives his blessing to the Slayer’s purpose and a warning about the consequences of his actions, probably in regards to winning the fight he’s picked with the Dark Lord, not in his previous actions at least in my reading of the game.
I don’t have a really huge TA-DA conclusion to this other than that. There are a lot of questions that aren’t answered in the DLC, questions we might not get answers to ever. It does, however, reframe VEGA/The Father as an active presence in the narrative rather than a passive one, which I find very compelling.
Also it means Samur has always been and remains still a greedy piece of shit that hides behind self-righteous rhetoric to mask how bad of a person he is. That feels important to me.
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rosexknight · 3 years
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@arceusfan493 Here’s that Dragon Age 2 rant you wanted.
Because I am still not over it.
Under the Read More, I have for you: - Lore Context - How Dragon Age 2 is Amazing - How it Hurt Me Enjoy~!
Oh yeah and major spoiler warning for Dragon Age 2 and minor spoiler warning for Dragon Age Origins and Awakening.
Lore Context ((Note: It is way more in-depth than this, I am simplifying ALOT))
Okay so. In the Dragon Age universe, magic is seen as super dangerous, because mages and those who have magical abilities are connected what is called the Fade, which is like a world that mirrors ours. It is also known as the Dream World, and every race but dwarves dream, but Mages specifically are connected to it in a way that lets them manipulate it for magic. In the Fade there are spirits and demons that can be brought into the real world by a mage or take over a mage’s body to enter our world. When this happens the mage becomes what is called an “Abomination” and loses all semblance of themselves. Demons are dangerous, spirits not so much, and demons are actually just spirits that have been twisted from their original purpose, usually by desire/pride/rage/etc. Spirits are the embodiment of virtues, where as demons are usually the embodiment of sins. There’s also Blood Magic which is hella powerful but corrupting and usually links back to demons.
There is also some religious reasons why magic is so feared, as it’s basically said that mages that got too close to God caused all the bad shit happening in the world (specifically a literal and metaphorical plague called the Blight) and also there are political reasons since there is a country/kingdom that’s all mage-run and it’s not great.
So for the protection of all the non-mages, they lock all mages in these towers called Circles so that they can study, hone their skills, etc. But they're essentially prisons, and the mages are watched over by Templars, which are like anti-magic paladins. And all this is ran by the church called the Chantry (there's a shit ton of lore and all these fears are linked back to that religion I mentioned earlier.) In order to become full mages, you have to pass a test where they put you against a demon in the Fade to prove you can handle your magic. If you fail you become an abomination. If the Circle thinks you will fail this test, they will (literally) brand you Tranquil, which cuts off a mage from the Fade but ALSO makes them 100% emotionless. Also if you get too good, they might also brand you a Blood Mage and kill you anyway.
Also, there is no escape. You can try to escape, but when you come to the Circle, the Chantry takes your blood and puts it in a vial. They then use this blood to track you down if you slip away.
Now, in the games we have seen that SOMETIMES the Circles are not that bad. Mages can get special permission to live outside the Circles as long as they can get jobs. Some mages are perfectly content there, while others aren’t. The mages might be governed by the Chantry and Templars but usually each Circle is kind of given its own freedoms to have its own politics, etc. HOWEVER, whether or not you're put in a good Circle is a toss-up, completely dependent on where you are, who is in charge, etc. And also the Templars can call upon the Right of Annulment if they feel the things in the tower are getting out of control, which essentially nukes the tower and destroys it and all the mages. OH and you are sent to the Circles when your magic starts manifesting (between the ages of 4-14) with no say from you or your family. Just “Oh you got magic? Time to lock you in this tower.” SO needless to say, things between Mages and Templars are fucking tense, and the game is not shy about giving this whole thing a prison feel. The mages are very obviously the oppressed class here (elves are also oppressed but in a different way and I’m not going into that.)
Also you can play as a mage in-game, which makes this all hit especially home if you do since you as the player both see and experience it.
OKAY that should be all the lore context you need.
How Dragon Age 2 is Amazing
DA2 takes place in a town with one of the bad Circles. The Commander of the Templars, Meredith, has basically gone insane. She’s become paranoid, and is turning mages Tranquil (illegally btw because we know that she turns some Tranquil even after they passed that test I mentioned earlier,) or killing them left and right. However, in conjunction to that, there's ALOT of shit that happens that are all mages fault. Blood magic, demons, your mom (basically the only family you have left at that point btw) gets killed by a crazy necromancer, etc.
So it puts you, the player and your PC Hawke, in this situation where you clearly see magic is HELLA DANGEROUS, but you also see that the mages are being pushed too hard by the Templars and are taking drastic measures to escape or fight back. And again, it hits doubly hard if you play as a mage. The game also takes place over the span of 7 years, so you see it all build up and get worse and worse as you play.
So it presents the conundrum: Do all mages suck or is it because of what is happening? It's fucking brilliant. Especially coming from the first game, Origins, where you see a good Tower that's super chill until one crazy mage fucks it up. You see what horrors magic can bring but also see and hear how crazy Templars can be when they face such horrors (this is clear with both Meredith herself AND a recurring character named Cullen but if I talk about him we’ll be here all day.)
Anyway, point is there's clearly no right answer to which side is right or wrong, and the game builds up on it alot. It gives you all the perspectives with Meredith, the paranoid Templar Commander, Orsino, the leader of the Circle who is just trying to keep the peace and defend the mages, and the Grand Cleric in the Chantry Elthina, who refuses to take a side even though she has the power to basically end it all. Your companions also have opinions on all of it as it unfolds. And it puts you right in the middle of it all. And you experience all of it.
Like I said, fucking brilliant.
How it Hurt Me
One of your companions is Anders, who is a mage that has run away from the Circle you know of from Origins. He's a healer that is helping people from an underground (free) clinic, and has also been helping mages escape the city. He's all about freedom for mages, and has fused with a Justice spirit that he became friends with. The spirit saw the injustice that was happening to the mages and wanted to further help. Both Anders and Justice are from Dragon Age Awakening, which comes after Origins. They are companions in that game and you see how their friendship grows and how they come to be able to help each other.
Now I LOVED Anders and Justice in Awakening. I was ALL FOR seeing them again seeing how the years had changed them, and helping them. I also played as a mage in both games so I was also all for mage freedom. It’s also worth noting that in Awakening you learn the Circle was NOT kind to Anders. He’s a free spirit, a lover not a fighter, and he was suffocated. He tried to escape like 7 times and after the last one they put him IN SOLITARY CONFINEMENT FOR A FUCKING YEAR. He was 100% expecting to be killed every time he was caught. “Oh but couldn’t he have used those methods you mentioned earlier to live outside the Circle?” you may ask. And like, yeah maybe. But also...No one should have to do that?
I romanced Anders because I adore him. He’s a bit of a broody boy in DA2 that tries to push you away, but he’s hella sweet and supportive. Funny. Small hint of danger with Justice. He's great. And it was great to romance him in DA2 since I was playing Awakening going “No please why can I not romance YOU?”
Well throughout the game you see that due to the anger Anders has, Justice is getting morphed into something more akin to a spirit of Vengeance as things are pushed more, and that Anders is having trouble controlling him. Depending on what route you take with the romance, he and Justice can either fuse into something like only one being, or Justice can be turned fully into a demon of Vengeance. Both of these are heavily implied more than confirmed, so it’s kind of ambiguous, but the ending is the same. Anders becomes consumed by this, and everything else is drowned out.
Eventually, towards the end of the game, when Meredith has sent off for permission to the Right of Annulment, and Orsino can’t control the many other mages wanting to fight back, and things between mages and Templars are coming to a head, Anders asks you to come with him to get some ingredients that will make a potion to separate he and Justice. Then that turns out to be a lie and he asks you to distract Elthina in the Chantry so he can do...a thing. And he won’t tell you what. And you know he's up to something. BUT in DA2 and Awakening he's ALWAYS said that violence isn't the answer and that we have to show people mages can be good by example, and been against blood magic, etc. So you have the option to help him or not.
I helped him because SURELY he wouldn't do anything crazy. And SURELY he wouldn't ask/trick me, the woman he loves, to do something crazy. He simply asks you to trust him, and I did.
Aaaaaaand then I was wrong. Very, very wrong.
He blew up the Chantry in that town. Confirmed death toll from game lore is 100, but people estimate it could be more. This was the second time I had to walk away from this game due to emotions, the first being when your mom dies.
The Chantry runs the Templars, and the Templars watch the mages. Things were coming to a head. It had been a silent war raging. The Knight-Commander of the Templars was seeing shadows, threatening to basically rip the tower apart to find Blood Mages where there weren't. The leader of the Mages supported the Circle but was doing little to lead the mages against the Templars, and if the mages snapped all hell would break loose. The Cleric in the chantry refused to take sides, even though her word would essentially sway the masses into siding with someone. But she had to stay neutral because she couldn't choose as it wasn't her place, and she agreed there was no right answer both sides had a point. He blew up the Chantry, and forced people to take sides. Change had to come, and he decided he had to take the matter into his own hands to do it. And whether or not it was him or Justice or both is ambiguous and dependant on the route taken.
And I fucking helped him.
The game at this point forces you to choose a side, and I chose to side with the Mages because I WAS one and also Meredith wanted to kill every mage there for what Anders did.
I was betrayed by this character I had loved for two games, who my Hawke fell in love with, who I trusted, etc. And THAT hurt worse than anything else ever. You then had the option to kill him, which was the third point I had to walk away and agonize over a decision. Whether or not Anders was right is a topic still viscerally debated in the Dragon Age community too and it gets ROUGH.
So yeah. That is why I’m not over it and why I love this game so much but also how fucking dare it do this to me.
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seymour-butz-stuff · 3 years
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Thanks in no small part to organizers on the ground, relentless marches and peaceful protests calling for justice continued pressure on our justice system from all sectors of society, and video evidence of the crime, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has been convicted of the murder of George Floyd. The results of the Chauvin case would have been easily predictable were it not for the long-standing history of systemic racism in our country. It is a history filled with extrajudicial killings of people of color, predominantly Black American men, by our law enforcement apparatus and ultimately sanctioned by our justice system. Chauvin’s conviction does not change the past and whether or not it marks a long-fought pivot toward a universal justice for all Americans, regardless of race, will take decades to inform.
One thing that the Chauvin case has done is put right-wing organizations and conservative folks back on their heels. This is not the result they expected, even if they know it is the correct judgement. The thorny spot they find themselves in is one where an institution that they have blindly defended to keep a certain type of white supremacist law and order in place has returned a judgement on a foot-soldier in this racist system. A police officer doing something that has been done time and time again—killing an unarmed citizen—has been judged and punished as the crime it is. No one is taking it harder than the water-logged mind of Tucker Carlson.
The day Derek Chauvin was convicted of two counts of murder and one count of manslaughter in the killing of George Floyd, Carlson went on his show to imply that the convictions were politically motivated and that we should no longer discuss the systemic issues that led to the death of Floyd. Most importantly, Carlson wanted everyone to understand what was really lost in today’s judgement: this was a victory for liberals in their war on (white) civilization.
Carlson began his show with the sped-up drivel we have come to expect from him, saying that “the jury in the Chauvin trial came to a unanimous and unequivocal verdict this afternoon please don't hurt us.” Explaining that “everyone understood perfectly well” that there would be mob rule in our cities if the jury had not come to this conclusion. The conclusion—based on numerous witnesses, multiple cameras’ video footage, and medical experts’ testimony—is not the result of this avalanche of evidence, according to Tucky, it’s politics. And for Carlson, “politics” means liberal culture war to destroy and replace white Americans.
Then Carlson pivots the only way a vapid-minded bigot and coward can, by saying that Chauvin, depending on sentencing, could spend the rest of his life in prison, wondering aloud “Is the officer guilty of the specific crimes for which he was just convicted? We can debate all that and over this hour we will.” Spoiler alert: He won’t, and he doesn’t. This is where Carlson gives his rhetorical straw-man argument for the night, saying that “we can’t debate,” that the “mob has the right to destroy our cities not under any circumstances not for any reason.” That’s a good thing because no one was ever debating that except Carlson. And he finished by equating the public outcry and support for Floyd and his family with “an attack on civilization.”
In fact, you can go back and watch Carlson debate that very thing, saying that the mob indeed has the right to destroy our cities, back on Jan. 6, 2021, during the Capitol building insurgency. He remembered to bring up this debate just three weeks ago on his vacuum-sealed television program.
Carlson then goes on to argue that politicians like Rep. Maxine Waters, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and even President Joe Biden influenced this decision with their statements about Chauvin’s guilt. “No politician or media figure has the right to intimidate a jury.” Spoiler alert: Barf. Before we point out that Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi spoke after the Chauvin decision was handed down, let’s remember how Donald Trump—the president of the United States at the time—spoke out publicly in defense of fraudster Paul Manafort while the jury was deliberating on one of his cases, saying the case was “very sad,” and that Manafort was a “very good person.”
https://twitter.com/Scout_Finch/status/1384687884452732929
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Carlson’s show proceeded to have guests on to “discuss” everything but the guilt of Derek Chauvin. First up was a very British-sounding reporter from the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post saying some of the same. Then Candice Owens—the intellectual equivalent of a methane leak—came on to demand that everyone be thrown in jail who isn’t a regular on Carlson’s show. Finally, after all of that wheel turning, Carlson had on Ed Gavin, a former New York City law enforcement official to talk about Chauvin’s actions against Floyd. It was supposed to be what passed for analysis of why the Chauvin conviction was excessive, but sadly for Carlson, Gavin thought that “the verdict was just,” calling Chauvin’s treatment of Floyd “pure savagery.”
Carlson attempts to turn the case into a conversation about police being afraid to arrest people and “the mob” looting the world. Gavin very clearly says that he isn’t arguing against the need for police to protect the public from bad actors, he’s saying that in this very specific case, it is clear that the police had handcuffed and “subdued” Floyd and then killed him. That’s not right. In fact, it is murder. Carlson, unable to argue facts, and not intelligent enough to use rhetoric to get his way around this, loses his nonexistent cool.
You can see and feel Carlson, clearly reddening with the humiliation he feels when things don’t go his way, as he tries to make his point through the uncomfortable smiling face of a truly underdeveloped emotional inner-world:
TUCKER CARLSON: The guy who did it looks like he's going to spend the rest of his life in prison, so I'm kind of more worried about the rest of the country, which thanks to police in-action, in case you haven't noticed, is like boarded up. So that's more of my concern but I appreciate you coming on Ed Gavin, thank you.
But he isn’t thanking Gavin at all. As they cut away, a clearly angry Carlson says “Nope. Done.” It’s pretty gross.
When your entire intellectual rationalization of our white supremacist judicial system is based on the belief that law enforcement is always right, and that the judicial system makes correct judgements, it is quite the conundrum when that very system reports back to you that it is racist.
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ktheist · 4 years
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story time: wartime child
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warning: spoilers ahead.
this is where i rant, cry and scream about my fics. not all fics have a story time though! the ones that do just kind of have a special place in my heart ♥️
ok. where to start?
i.
i think the how i get inspiration for wartime child should be a good start.
i don’t really remember though. all i know was i read @softlyjiminie’s to hold a dragon’s heart. the part where she highlights the forest made a big impact on me - esp being someone who needs to imagine the scenes as i read, i was easily transported into that fic’s world. (and of course fraener was influenced by taehyung’s shapeshifter character!)
so i wanted to write another universe. the idea of races being at war was already there since who knows how long and i already wrote an excerpt of it months ago - before i even thought of the main character being jungkook or the involvement of a certain magical baby. but the concept was much darker and made it hard to me to continue writing. initially, the oc was supposed to be queen of the underworld who got tired of hiding and decided to rule the humans. then war breaks out - that’s as far as i got.
but felt like i needed to do extra research about races and their abilities. and of course ya girl was too lazy to research so i scraped the dark themes of war - not that the current wartime child is light but it’s lighter than i originally had in mind. couldn’t have been all fluff since someone actually died lmao
so i got started again on the idea after reading THADH. it just started coming to me yk - who’ll it be about? jk because he’s easiest to write. is there a twist? a magical baby! and ideas kept pouring from there on.
and i’m so glad i took my time with the fic - didn’t rush it, slept on some scenes and woke up with a better version or addition. i suppose it wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t for quarantine and that gave all the time in the world.
but i hope everyone stays safe and that this pandemic ends soon. there are people out there who can’t afford to miss their jobs and have bills to pay. i hope the government does its job and help the people and let go of whatever political, financial interest they have. and to my readers specifically, i hope they’re holding on and staying safe and healthy.
ii.
i think i’m particularly proud of myself for holding back mary sue-ing the oc. i’m so glad i made her human and stuck with that until the end.
her character is a personal landmark for me - she’s the first character i wrote that isn’t emotionally detached in order to make an oc look “strong”. in a way, that kind of thinking (being emotionally distant to be a strong person) is toxic.
i don’t know if it is for others but i can only speak from my experience. i’d been that girl that thought crying was a part of being weak and not showing emotions means you’re strong - i was wrong sue me lmao
but yeah, i have a soft spot for the oc because she’s finally the “evolved” version of my mindset.
i think more often than not, we tend to associate the words “strong women” with physical strength or having a sort of control over people. while it is part of strength, it’s not the only definition of a strong woman. i’ve always held onto to the concept that the root of empowerment isn’t breaking the stereotype but it’s being able to choose to do whatever the fuck you want - stereotype or not. you want to go to work, have a successful career life? go for it. you want to get married, stay at home and take care of your kids? yas queen. you wanna find your own path and skip college? inspiring.
so to me, the oc was strong in her own way. she had decided to keep her kid and live for the two of them - ofc it was dumb of her not to ask for monetary aid from the baby daddy but her pride is part of her flaw and i love it. she was prideful in the beginning and didn’t want to depend on anyone. but what’s empowering for me is she took a brave step to reach out for jk for the best of her child’s interest. and when she found out he wasn’t coming back after jumping into the portal head first, she stayed strong for jun and raised him by herself - ofc she had help from taehyung and taeyeon but friends can only help so much. at the end of the day it’s just her and her kid. it’s just - her choice to be the mother to her kid is so powerful to me.
but i guess i mary sue-d jun a bit. but then again, you don’t always get a magical genius kid and struggle to raise em because they’re not how you raise normal kids lmao
iii.
god i hate kids.
but there are some that are sweet and pure and we just don’t deserve them yk? those are the kids i absolutely am soft for. and whew the baby fever - i saw too many baby videos on my timeline on twitter so you get jun!
i don’t want kids mainly bc they’re assholes but i’m horrified if i had one, i end up raising them as an asshole.
that’s when jun was born - the manifestation of the kid i never had and how i’d raise him. but irl isn’t that easy, you might slip up and end up raising a mini you-asshole. and ik for a fact that a neutral evil (me) is somewhat an asshole.
at first, i thought of just giving him a minor role here and there but i’m a winger and don’t outline my fics so he ends up probably with more screen time than jungkook.
call it fanfiction but koo’s baby edition lmao
iv.
the real mvp?
definitely the manga/manhwa(s) i read prior to writing wartime child. they’re another form of universe that sucked me in completely.
i have them to thank because i think my narration got way smoother. i used to struggle with that - i couldn’t convey my character’s emotions properly to the readers and i think that’s what makes a big difference in whether a fic becomes liked more or less.
but then again, the likes may very well depend on tumblr’s algorithm. so at the end of the day, i think got lucky with the amount of notes.
v.
none the less, the support i got was beyond my imagination. mainly because it was all fluff and angst and lacked sexual content.
not that i’m saying a fic needs to have smut in order to attract more readers but i think we should acknowledge that the ones with sexual content gets better audience and that’s amazing too. shout out to all the writers who are able to write amazing sex scenes - that shit ain’t easy 🙌
i wish i could thank every single one of my readers for reading and the potential ones who probably liked or reblogged as a “to-read-list”. and i don’t know if my sincerity reaches the ones i manage to thank. i’m not good with words and i want each respond to a feedback to be different and meaningful but i don’t know if i managed to do that. but i’m truly grateful for those who reblogged with a comment, it made my whole week.
and i remember kirbykook’s ask - i’m guilty for keeping it in my inbox for longer than i should. they’d asked about the future of the fic and what would happen after jun’s little sibling is born. it gave me a reason to revisit wartime child’s world and realize how much i enjoy writing that fic ♥️
x
so that’s all for story time! thank you for reading 💓
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Interior. TARDIS, Pan to door.
Team TARDIS walks in followed by the Doctor.
Doctor: *excitedly* Well that was fun. So where to now FAM?
Fam: Doc, that was actually kind of tiring, what with all that running, I could use a bit of a kip. *followed by a chorus of* ...me too’s.
Doctor: Well, I ‘suppose I could do some maintenance on the TARDIS. Land us on a nice quiet moon. yeah, I know one, small Earth colony, land us about a half days walk from a village. Give you plenty time to have a nice rest. Last time I was there they had a lovely market, you could get some trinkets, breakfast even, watch a beautiful planet rise. *Doctor starts piloting the TARDIS*
Fam: Sounds like a plan. See you in the morning Doctor. *two Head off towards the bedrooms*
Fam: Doc, you do awful lot maintenance, don’t ya?
Doctor: Well if you were as old as the TARDIS, when I st.... I mean when I first got her she was vintage. *TARDIS disgruntled Beep*
Doctor to TARDIS: Sexy, you know what I mean, they practically had you mothballed.
Doctor to Fam: Anyway, Regular maintenance is important and besides the TARDIS likes my attention. *TARDIS Hums happily*
Fam: All right Doc, you and the TARDIS have a good evening, G’night.
*TARDIS lands*
Doctor: ‘night.
Tardis interior. Middle of the night, long nondescript corridor in TARDIS *distant voices are heard*
Over the shoulder of FAM walking towards the control room. The TARDIS seems to be making it hard to get to the control room, as though walking down an endless Corridor.
*A door closes*
FAM finally arrives in the control room. The doctor is standing near the takeoff lever, head bent.
*TARDIS is in flight*
Fam: Doctor, where are we going, thought we landed ages ago?
Doctor: *spins around and cheerily says* Is it morning already? Are the others up? Let’s go get that breakfast I promised.
Fam: No, Doctor it’s still practically middle of night. I woke up for some water, I thought I heard voices.
Doctor: Oh well, you know me always talking to myself, or someone, or you, or anyone that will listen really. Or even those that don’t, sometimes even they need to hear someone that’s clever.
*TARDIS lands*
Fam: Doctor, where are we?
Doctor: That quiet moon, just like I promised.
Fam: Fine, then where were we?
Doctor: Nowhere overly special....just running an errand.
Fam: And did this errand have a name or reason? And why didn’t you tell us about it before? You don’t have to hide things from us.
Doctor: Well, didn’t know about it before, did I. Just came in through the door, unannounced really. Opportunistic it was, a joyous event really, one I couldn’t pass up, not that I’ve ever been very good at saying no to ‘em.  special errands, really. I think..I think it might be a solution to something I’ve never been able to figure out, but it’s spoilers so I don’t really know, yet.
Fam: Are you trying to be obtuse on purpose, do you not trust us?
Doctor: Oh, Fam it’s not about trust. I’m old. I’ve lived a really long time. Things are complicated. Sometimes it’s not something that can be explained it’s something you have to have lived and sometimes the explanations would require a flow chart.
Fam: Doctor, ya don’t have to give us all the details, but if you could give us something, Because sometimes it feels like you don’t want us here.
Doctor: *gasps* No!! No, never think that. I want you here, I want you to stay, you’re my Fam!
Fam: Then tell me, a simple sentence, I know I wasn’t dreaming. No distracting, no deflecting. Who’s voice did I hear that was’t yours and where’d we go.
Doctor: *inhales, starts to speak, pauses* I’m married. *pauses again*
Fam: *waits* What?? I don’t understand how does that answer my questions. And if you’re married where is your wedding ring, And why doesn’t your spouse travel with us, how long have you been married even?
Fam 2: *appears holding a morning cuppa tea* Who is Married?
Fam: The doctor apparently.
Fam 2: Congratulations! When is the anniversary?
Doctor: 22nd April, 5:02 PM. Anywhere and everywhere, since time was all happening at once. River tried to change a fixed point in time, and well the pair of us we’re a complicated space-time event. Sort of tore things apart.
Fam: River? That’s who you’re married to. What event was River trying to change?
Doctor: Yes, and the reported date and time of my death.
Fam: What??
Doctor: I told you, complicated, flow charts really would help. *pauses* Let me try again. River went to prison for my death which she both did and did not commit. It was my fault really, I made it up to her though, I think. I would help break her out of prison for a while, in between guard checks. Not that she needed any help escaping stormcage. We’d go on adventures together or she’d show up with adventures for us. For a while she had to pretend to not know that her parents were her parents... For a long while actually, she grew up as her parents best friend, making sure they got together even. *pauses*
Fam 2: I think I see what you mean about the flow chart, Doc. But how does River have anything to do whatever the conversation that was at the start of all this?
Doctor: Oh yes right, the voice you heard it was River.
Fam: So your wife came by for a visit?
Doctor: Sort of, not that I knew this for a longest time, but sometimes when we’re out having our adventures, River stops by to borrow the TARDIS for errands. From my perspective this is the first time that she’s borrowed this particular version of the TARDIS. In fact she wasn’t expecting this version of the TARDIS or me either, she thought it might be one of my younger selves; her husband, Chinny with the bowtie.
Fam 3 walks up: You really were a man 30 minutes before you met us, weren’t you?
Doctor: Yup, After the Time War, There was Ears in leather, Sandshoes with the great hair, Chinny with the bowtie, and the white-haired guitar playing Scotsman with the attack eyebrows. These aren’t names I call myself really, although they are handy to help you keep track of my me’s, but they were ways my friends described me, sometimes.
Doctor: Ah, back to your questions. My hands are smaller in this body, wedding ring slipped off when I regenerated. Fell through the floor, the TARDIS thinks it went all the way to the heart, she won’t let me get it. She says if I want a new symbol of my marriage, l’d have to get River to marry me again in this body. *pauses* until I saw River tonight I thought the TARDIS was.... forgetting something.
Doctor: As for why River doesn’t travel with us, River is a time traveler as well. And before tonight the last time I saw River we spent 24 years, well more than that actually, neither of us are very good at staying in one place. They were just day trips, well sometimes multiple days, we always made sure to be back the same day, minutes after we left so that we would truly get to spend those 24 years together. All totaled it was probably more like 30-40 years. However, for the River that showed up tonight that hasn’t happened, yet. She was actually also sorting out some of the details to make that happen. Turns out she is going to need to pretend to not recognize the white-haired Scotsman me, because this me told her spoilers. That is why we are supposed to compare diaries first, we’ll need a volume two. As I said we are complicated space-time events. But at least now I know why she said I reminded her of her second wife.
Fam: Why?
Doctor: She was teasing me, the me that was the white-haired Scotsman husband, because River knew that I..him regenerated to me. So, because Rivers first wife was Cleopatra, that makes me... the me I am right now her second wife.
Doctor: As for how long have we been married, it depends on which one of us you ask. If you ask me depending on how you count it. I think I’ve been married to River for well over a 1000 years; if you count the time I was locked in the confessional dial then it’s 4.5 billion years-ish. If you ask River from her perspective I think it’s been to nearly 200 years.... well -40 if you ask the River that was here tonight.
Fam: 4.5bil...Dare I ask, how the two of you met?
Doctor: Well, again that depends on who you ask and whether... Well you see, the thing is River is not entirely human. Not that I knew it the first time I met River, I suspect she had some kind of bio dampers on, but she’s a child of the TARDIS. Even though both of Rivers parents were human.... I knew River before I met her mother and father, but I didn’t know who River was exactly.... I mean it was Amy the first time she met River, that said River was my wife to me in my future. This was before Rory was traveling with us, in fact, they weren’t married yet. The concerns of a mother should not be overlooked, Amy was worried her child would be born with a “time head”, and River does a bit, DNA is alittle like my species. You could say River’s a hybrid Human+...Time Lord.
So like a TimeLord, River has had 3 names, the name given at birth, the name given at school, and the name she chose to become. She’s used other names but those were just aliases. Like me when on Earth and I had the name John Smith, I suppose now that would be, nope...can’t use that, Joanne Smith, I guess. Anyway I’ve met River in those different regenerations, when she had those different names, but never in the order that she had them first. *pause* A flow chart would really make this clearer.
Fam: *confused*
Fam 2: Don’t worry about it Doc, I think we’ll skip the flow chart. We get it it’s complicated. Let’s go get that breakfast you promised. It’s ok, you can stick to telling less complicated stories about River.
Doctor: Ok! Thanks! We’ve met so many different ways and times...
Fam: Wait, what do you mean? Do you have three names?
Doctor: *starts whistling* I have the name I chose, it’s the name where other races get the word Doctor. Let’s get a shift on, we have a bit of a ways to go for breakfast.
Fam: Doctor!
Doctor: When I was regenerating, Scotsman me, told Me not to tell anyone my name. Unless they were children, children could know, they would understand. First time I met River she knew my name, for there is only one reason I would tell anyone my name. *pause* It was how she got young me to trust her. The thing is I haven’t yet told her my name, but she knew it in the Library..
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