#absolutely unconcerned with gender roles

[aibidil]

Oh!, to be a battleaxe side character in classic lit—

Betsy Trotwood (David Copperfield)

To this hour I don’t know whether my aunt had any lawful right of way over that patch of green; but she had settled it in her own mind that she had, and it was all the same to her. The one great outrage of her life, demanding to be constantly avenged, was the passage of a donkey over that immaculate spot. In whatever occupation she was engaged, however interesting to her the conversation in which she was taking part, a donkey turned the current of her ideas in a moment, and she was upon him straight. Jugs of water, and watering-pots, were kept in secret places ready to be discharged on the offending boys; sticks were laid in ambush behind the door; sallies were made at all hours; and incessant war prevailed. Perhaps this was an agreeable excitement to the donkey-boys; or perhaps the more sagacious of the donkeys, understanding how the case stood, delighted with constitutional obstinacy in coming that way. I only know that there were three alarms before the bath was ready; and that on the occasion of the last and most desperate of all, I saw my aunt engage, single-handed, with a sandy-headed lad of fifteen, and bump his sandy head against her own gate, before he seemed to comprehend what was the matter. These interruptions were of the more ridiculous to me, because she was giving me broth out of a table-spoon at the time (having firmly persuaded herself that I was actually starving, and must receive nourishment at first in very small quantities), and, while my mouth was yet open to receive the spoon, she would put it back into the basin, cry ‘Janet! Donkeys!’ and go out to the assault.

Mrs. Cadwallader (Middlemarch)

The parishes of Freshitt and Tipton would have felt a sad lack of conversation but for the stories about what Mrs. Cadwallader said and did: a lady of immeasurably high birth, descended, as it were, from unknown earls, dim as the crowd of heroic shades—who pleaded poverty, pared down prices, and cut jokes in the most companionable manner, though with a turn of tongue that let you know who she was. Such a lady gave a neighborliness to both rank and religion, and mitigated the bitterness of uncommuted tithe. A much more exemplary character with an infusion of sour dignity would not have furthered their comprehension of the Thirty-nine Articles, and would have been less socially uniting.... She would never have disowned anyone on the ground of poverty: a De Bracy reduced to take his dinner in a basin would have seemed to her an example of pathos worth exaggerating, and I fear his aristocratic vices would not have horrified her. But her feeling towards the vulgar rich was a sort of religious hatred: they had probably made all their money out of high retail prices, and Mrs. Cadwallader detested high prices for everything that was not paid in kind at the Rectory: such people were no part of God’s design in making the world; and their accent was an affliction to the ears. A town where such monsters abounded was hardly more than a sort of low comedy, which could not be taken account of in a well-bred scheme of the universe. Let any lady who is inclined to be hard on Mrs. Cadwallader inquire into the comprehensiveness of her own beautiful views, and be quite sure that they afford accommodation for all the lives which have the honor to coexist with hers.

"Excuse me, it is you two who are on the wrong tack,” said Mrs. Cadwallader. “You should have proved to him that he loses money by bad management, and then we should all have pulled together. If you put him a-horseback on politics, I warn you of the consequences. It was all very well to ride on sticks at home and call them ideas.

Mrs Rachel Lynde (Anne of Green Gables)

Mrs. Rachel Lynde was a red-hot politician and couldn’t have believed that the political rally could be carried through without her, although she was on the opposite side of politics.

“Well, since you’ve asked my advice, Marilla,” said Mrs. Lynde amiably—Mrs. Lynde dearly loved to be asked for advice—“I’d just humor her a little at first, that’s what I’d do .... That is I wouldn’t say school to her again until she said it herself. Depend upon it, Marilla, she’ll cool off in a week or so and be ready enough to go back of her own accord, that’s what, while, if you were to make her go back right off, dear knows what freak or tantrum she’d take next and make more trouble than ever. The less fuss made the better, in my opinion. She won’t miss much by not going to school, as far as that goes. Mr. Phillips isn’t any good at all as a teacher.... I declare, I don’t know what education in this Island is coming to.” Mrs. Rachel shook her head, as much as to say if she were only at the head of the educational system of the Province things would be much better managed.

Granny Weatherwax (Discworld)

She hadn't ever needed to. Granny Weatherwax was like the prow of a ship. Seas parted when she turned up.

Unlike wizards, who like nothing better than a complicated hierarchy, witches don’t go in much for the structured approach to career progression. It’s up to each individual witch to take on a girl to hand the area over to when she dies. Witches are not by nature gregarious, at least with other witches, and they certainly don’t have leaders. Granny Weatherwax was the most highly-regarded of the leaders they didn’t have.

It was one of the few sorrows of Granny Weatherwax’s life that, despite all her efforts, she’d arrived at the peak of her career with a complexion like a rosy apple and all her teeth. No amount of charms could persuade a wart to take root on her handsome if slightly equine features, and vast intakes of sugar only served to give her boundless energy.

Lady Bruton (Mrs Dalloway)

Lady Bruton had the reputation of being more interested in politics than people; of talking like a man; of having had a finger in some notorious intrigue of the eighties, which was now beginning to be mentioned in memoirs.

She was getting impatient; the whole of her being was setting positively, undeniably, domineeringly brushing aside all this unnecessary trifling (Peter Walsh and his affairs) upon that subject which engaged her attention, and not merely her attention, but that fibre which was the ramrod of her soul, that essential part of her without which Millicent Bruton would not have been Millicent Bruton; that project for emigrating young people of both sexes born of respectable parents and setting them up with a fair prospect of doing well in Canada. She exaggerated. She had perhaps lost her sense of proportion. Emigration was not to others the obvious remedy, the sublime conception. It was not to them (not to Hugh, or Richard, or even to devoted Miss Brush) the liberator of the pent egotism, which a strong martial woman, well nourished, well descended, of direct impulses, downright feelings, and little introspective power (broad and simple — why could not every one be broad and simple? she asked) feels rise within her, once youth is past, and must eject upon some object — it may be Emigration, it may be Emancipation; but whatever it be, this object round which the essence of her soul is daily secreted, becomes inevitably prismatic, lustrous, half looking-glass, half precious stone; now carefully hidden in case people should sneer at it; now proudly displayed. Emigration had become, in short, largely Lady Bruton.

[bioethicists]

you're allowed to completely abandon the project of searching for an objective 'true self'. you're likely never going to find some indisputable thing inside you that proves that you Really Are a lesbian or a man or autistic or an empath or an artist or whatever you're troubled over. you can just call yourself whatever (or nothing). you can just do the things that give you the most joy without obsessing over whether that makes you x or y.

there's nothing wrong with naming your experiences but do it with a light hand. do it with the knowledge that these labels are constantly shifting, simplistic social constructions which describe things you do; they don't cause them. these identities are projects of understanding between you + the world around you + you're allowed to abandon your role in that project. you're allowed to say "whatever i am to you is meaningless to me". even though we are all still forced to suffer the material consequences of others' perceptions of 'what we are', i personally feel absolutely freed by letting go of my gender + madness- i am unconcerned with what i am, only with what i feel + think + do.

[rcsplendent]

☼☾  (  logan  lerman  ,  26  ,  he/him  ,  cis  man  ,  lukin  5  )  -  have  you  seen  mikhail alexander  "sasha"  lukin ?    we’ve  heard  through  the  grapevine  that  they’re  shrewd  but  also  conniving. when  you  think  of  them  ,  you  think  of  a  stash  of  mismatched  objects  stolen  from  unwitting  pockets,  tattoos  peeking  out  from  disheveled  shirtsleeves,  the  hypnotism  of  a  dark  and  unwavering  gaze.

parallels  :  westley  (  the princess bride  )  ;  the son  (  bullet train  )  ;  deadpool / wade wilson  (  marvel comics / marvel cinematic universe  )  ;   alyssa  (  the end of the fucking world  )

BASIC  INFO

FULL  NAME:  mikhail alexander " sasha " lukin

NICKNAMES:  ' sasha, ' which is a diminutive of his middle name, alexander. he has never been called anything other than sasha; only his family knows that his first name is mikhail.

AGE:  twenty-six

GENDER & PRONOUNS:  cis man, he/him

ORIENTATION:  absolutely unconcerned; but if we had to put a label on it, bisexual & biromantic.

LANGUAGE(S)  SPOKEN:  primary  — russian;  conversational  —  french, english, spanish, italian, turkish

VOICE / ACCENT:  russian ; thickly accented, but surprisingly soft in tonality & volume. same as lo's role in ' bullet train ' ( click for example ).

TEMPERAMENT:  melancholic

ALIGNMENT:  chaotic neutral ( leaning evil, sometimes )

ZODIAC:  gemini sun, aries moon, scorpio rising

LABEL:  the miscreant ;  one who is drawn to crime or delinquency ; one who enjoys, or even revels, in the experience of misbehaving.

APPEARANCE  &  PERSONALITY

FACE  CLAIM:  logan lerman

HEIGHT:  five feet, ten inches

HAIR:  mostly mousy brown and curly, with white-blonde strands streaking throughout the front sections. these streaks are natural & are void of pigment rather than bleached. well-kept & soft. a smattering of stubble on his face. 

EYES:  icy blue, with pools of green towards the pupil. outlined by long lashes that, in some places, are nearly white in colour.

USUAL  EXPRESSION:  dark and mischievous, with an uncanny ability to play coy; an assessing gaze, looking for his next target. 

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES:  the white bits of hair mottled through his locks & eyelashes ; certain patches of skin on his body being just slightly paler than the rest of him ( such as the space in & around his eye sockets, his knuckles & fingers, his chest, & his shins ), barely noticeable but evident enough if you're looking closely ; tattoos scattered across his body, mostly concentrated on his torso & thighs — but the most noticeable ones are a tiny cross on his left cheekbone, a rose on the back of his right hand, and the small symbols ( vines, moons, dots, and rings ) that occupy his fingers.

POSITIVE  TRAITS:  shrewd,  cunning,  intelligent,  quick-witted,  fearless

NEGATIVE  TRAITS:  arrogant,  self-important,  maleficent,  moody,  snooty,  petulant, devious, mischievous, impetuous, irresponsible

THINGS  TO  KNOW

you were never supposed to be born, & from the way you've wreaked havoc on the lives of everyone around you ever since, you wonder how many times it's been wished that you never were.

that's dramatic. you know your family loves you. but with the way they sigh in exasperation every time they get a letter requesting your presence in court ( the court where you're put in handcuffs & convicted of a crime, to clarify ; not the pompous kind with dancing & drinking & political chatter ), you know you're probably ninety-percent of the reason the lukin name is usually met with sneers of contempt & suspicion.

and, well, that's also dramatic. ( you have a penchant for that, it seems. ) you haven't ruined your family's reputation that badly. not yet, at least. but the whispers that move through the political arena about your family being a pack of troublemakers, deliquents, liars & miscreants ... it's not all your fault, but you're certainly the only one not desperately trying to cover it up, aren't you?

 you think it's silly, is all ;the money exchanged under tables to expunge records, wipe the slate, & keep the lukin name clean. why try so hard to maintain a sparkling reputation if everyone in your family is so bad at it naturally? you'd never ask that question aloud, though. hell, you've asked it in the past and been met with the same lecture, over & over again: your bloodline has been noble for centuries, and you won't be allowed to jeopardize that for the sake of a good time. 

so you did your best to keep up the image. ever since childhood, you've been wedged into the mould of a perfectly polite nobleman, hair combed back ( all brunette at the time ) and posture pin-straight. it wasn't so hard once you got to boarding school at the age of eleven — a military school, the kind where you get up at the ass-crack of dawn, crawl around in the mud for eight hours to ' build character, ' get yelled at for making stupid mistakes, and go to bed with your tail between your legs. at least, that was your experience of it. you hated it, but you did learn a lot there — how to make your bed with perfect corners; how to get out of a headlock and have a knife at your attacker's throat in half a second flat; and, most importantly to your story, how to steal.

that wasn't an intentional lesson. it's not like the boarding school was holding classes on how to rob someone blind by just bumping into them on the street. but you learned anyways — mostly motivated by envy as you watched the other students get showered with rewards for this & that, while you were scolded for your various shortcomings. one time another boy was gifted a gorgeous fountain pen for climbing the flagpole faster than everybody else; you stole it out of his bookbag and laughed when he bursted into tears upon realizing its absence. it was fun — the thrill of taking was what sparked your penchant for misbehavior.

by the age of fifteen you were stealing shit just for the fun of it. you'd get caught, sometimes, reprimanded by the headmaster and whacked across the knuckles with a ruler. but the rush you felt when you'd snatch something particularly valuable, your victim none the wiser ... it made it worth it. pickpocketing became your favorite pastime.

upon turning eighteen, everyone at the boarding school graduated straight into the russian imperial army. the summer after your final year was a hellscape: bootcamp where they started training you for real, actual war, this time — not just playing with unloaded rifles and goofing off on obstacle courses like you did at school. you were, surprisingly, a fairly good soldier. an excellent fighter, at the very least, but you also weren't afraid to play dirty in just the right ways to take down your enemies. you could've risen in the ranks if you had made it far enough along to do so, but alas ... caught red-handed, literally, stealing your commanding officer's wallet out of his back pocket. you were dishonorably discharged just before your twentieth birthday.

that's all fine and good, in your opinion. you never wanted to be a soldier anyways. your father had instilled a military state of mind in you & each of your siblings from a young age, so it was just sort of the natural way of things in the lukin family, to serve in the army for at least some time. and you did, you insist — two whole years ! — but the circumstances of your dismissal from the forces overshadows any accomplishments you might've made during your time there.

ever since then, you've fallen into a self-fulfilling prophecy. your family sees you as their rat-faced little brother who can't stay out of trouble, so what is there to do other than get into as much trouble as possible? you ended up in the underground club scene, somehow — tailing after some other miscreant friends of yours — and from there, you ' accidentally ' weaseled your way into the outer rings of a group of pickpocketers who steal from the wealthy and split the profits. you're a small fish in that crowd, mostly because you're only there for fun, but that doesn't spare your full, government name from being displayed loud-and-proud whenever your little band of robbers gets raided by the very army you used to march with.

the fact that nobody knows your name is ' mikhail ' probably helps to conceal the fact that you're the son of a duke and protect your family's reputation ... well, that and the exorbidant amounts of money your family has shelled out to get you off the hook and keep your record clean.

so that's the pattern. you get into trouble, usually related to stealing; you land in jail and write home as fast as you can; your family gets you out and threatens to lock you in a tower if you don't clean up your act. you promise you will, but you never do. being bad is just so much fun.

and as long as they continue to bail you out, you'll continue to wreak havoc.

HEADCANONS

tl;dr: sasha is a pickpocket ! he's a bit of a kleptomaniac and steals things compulsively. he's gotten into a lot of trouble in the past and honestly can't even be bothered to stop despite gravely endangering his family's reputation every single time he gets caught.

he went to a military boarding school from the ages of eleven to eighteen, as is customary for most children in the lukin family considering the tradition of the eldest of each generation being a military advisor.

he served in the russian imperial army for two years after boarding school, but he hated it, and was dishonorably discharged after being caught stealing his commanding officer's wallet ( he could've gotten away with it, but lowkey he hated it so much there that he wanted to get caught and kicked out ). 

sasha has focal vitiligo, which causes him to have pieces of hair that are void of pigment, appearing white-blonde, as well as patches of pigmentless skin in the places mentioned above in the ' distinguishing features ' section. he even has patches of white eyelashes. this adds absolutely nothing to his character arc. just a fun fact about him.

he has a fuck ton of tattoos. 60 in total. mostly on his torso, arms, and legs, though he has some on his hands and a small cross on his left cheekbone.

he's a shit disturber, and loves to be involved in chaos. chaotic neutral for sure. 

he's also quite ... easily influenced, and terribly impulsive. it's how he ended up falling into that pickpocketing circuit back in russia. would follow pretty much anyone if they so much as promised he'd have a good time.

he has a dog ! a black mutt named blini ( meaning ' pancake ' ), who he adores. he got her as a puppy for christmas a few years ago & she's almost always at his side. ( inspo: one, two, three ! )

WANTED CONNECTIONS

marks: sasha do b stealing ... he'll rob anyone who looks away from him for even half a second. these people would probably be more on the kind / soft-hearted side, which he will absolutely take advantage of. bonus points if they catch him and make him feel bad about it by being kind to him anyways.

delinquent friends: people he can get into trouble with ! 

a good influence: ok listen .. this could be really cute ??? platonic or romantic. somebody who makes him want to behave for once. someone he just can't bring himself to pickpocket. someone who sees the good in him, & can tell he's hiding a lot of sadness & dejection underneath his chaotic exterior.

others: lichrally anything else u can think of ! i am down for whatever ! hit me !

[certified-hunterfucker]

darrposting on main??

B A S I C S • Full name: Darrash Aron Nealev • Gender: Masculine, but unconcerned with differentiation or perception • Sexuality: bisexual/pansexual • Pronouns: he/him

O T H E R S • Family: Father — Masjona Sanbre Nealev | Darrjoel "The Eagle" Mother — Danwya Javgra Giakhal | No Known Aliases Brother — Johkel Conoguy Nealev | Watcher Three Sister — Marrav Arisha Nealev | [DATA EXPUNGED] • Birthplace: Howdunga, Nal Hutta (it means "burp" lmao) • Job: Cipher Agent; Sniper • Phobias: total failure, perceived failure, true loss of control over self, complete isolation/silence • Guilty pleasures: remembering he knows how to throw some serious ass (was briefly a dancer/escort), Moff Hunting Season™, some of the greasiest food one can find, tookas/fluffy animals he can hold

M O R A L S • Morality alignment?: Neutral/Imperial (More specifically, he is self-serving when it's convenient. He has no real judgement on killing-when-told past his teens, often resorting to whether or not he was personally slighted in the ordeal or feels that this particular problem will not serve him additionally in the future. His morals can also be heavily impacted by his settings, as he adopts the mindset of his surroundings in order to better blend in. That is to say - he's willing to make a bloodbath in the Outer Rim but a stellar pacifist when closer to seats of mainstream, "clean" power.) • Sins: lust/greed/gluttony/sloth/pride/envy/wrath   • Virtues: chastity/charity/diligence/humility/kindness/patience/justice 

T H I S - O R - T H A T • Introverted/extrovert. — He highly enjoys being left the fuck alone. (Some days he's closer to an ambivert, but he is never fully an extrovert.)

• Organized/disorganized. — A little bit of both; he believes in organized chaos as an art and a science. It's something he's lived throughout his childhood and finds great comfort in it once he's out on his own.

• Close-minded/open-minded. — Darrash has always been one to consider all sides of a story; most of the time he just doesn't give a shit.

• Calm/anxious. — Call him the "master pretender" - taking into consideration he never wanted to join Intelligence in the first place, the feeling of constant surveillance took a deep root in his psyche. Even after a decade of the Academy and his own victories in the field, he behaves like a prey animal when work is done. But perhaps for the most irony, he's often the most level-headed person in the room when put on a directive.

• Disagreeable/agreeable. — This can purely depend on whether or not he likes you, even day-to-day. As said before - he has always considered all sides of a story, and further the implications of any prevailing end. But he usually doesn't care and will side with whoever gains the most beneficial advantage, usually to his own cause rather than what makes the most sense. Because nothing fucking makes sense in war.

• Cautious/reckless. — Similar to his organized chaos, he believes there can be a certain amount of recklessness that allows the job to get done as effectively as possible. He grew up as a full-time petty thief who, upon joining Intelligence, only relearned how to do what he’d always done, but now on a planetary scale.

• Patient/impatient. — Even though this is not one of his virtues .. he did make the decision to bide his sweet time for over! ten! years! to not only come out of the Academy as their top Agent but also earn their trust, so they'd give him a longer leash to do whatever he wanted. That's committing to the bit if there ever was.

• Outspoken/reserved. — Again - this can depend on who you are or what day it is or how beneficial either option serves for him. He's either silent as a Temple mouse or he's the loudest, most boisterous voice in the room.

• Leader/follower. — This can pivot depending on what the mission is becoming. Darrash has absolutely no problem taking the leading role and spearheading the charge, or he can take orders and fall into line, or he could even be providing the cover fire from a good ways removed. He's learned well, he's done well, he's acted better. Just give him something to do; he hates being idle.

• Empathetic/unempathetic. — Darrash is a deep empath, even if he hadn't been Force Sensitive. As a child he offered himself to the cause of recon, infiltration, and usually the attacker - he figured he was the best suited for it with his small frame and stealth capabilities, and would have rather made things easier for his friends to grab the goods. This carried into his time as a trainee and as a field agent: if he can help, he will.

• Optimistic/pessimistic. — Gotta have something to look forward to when you're the living embodiment of "shit is irreversibly fucked and I'm the magic button".

• Traditional/modern. — He loves his gadgets and gizmos - they're pretty exciting to employ in the field and learning about them can help take his mind off of whatever's bothering him. But he was still taught by self and service to rely on himself first and foremost, to tap into his nature and his knowledge. Anything else can be a crutch or a hindrance, the difference between life, limb, and death.

• Hard-working/lazy. — Again, he decided to spend a decade playing nice just to spend three more years as the Empire's little shadow-stepper. And he not once disappointed (even if he did things his own way) his handlers. The job was done no matter what.

R E L A T I O N S H I P S • otp: Vector/Darrash - this is it. they are husbands. i don't care what bioware says i can't do- • ot3: Darrash/TLC/A Warm Bed - I think this is the most important trine, • brotp: Darrash/Lana/Theron - three spies playing their little spy games, but they're genuinely not looking to hurt one another >>>>>> • notp: Darrash/Kaliyo - he would kill her. Full send. It's a miracle he hasn't already.

[mesaprotector]

Still drifting down the stream.

There's perpetually a side of me that's focused on current responsibilities and thinks I can do it no matter how stressed I get, and a side of me that sneaks in during quiet moments and goes "don't forget, you're depressed, and none of this BS will stop you from getting older and dying alone".

Sometimes - okay, very often - I find myself thinking my love life is really the *only* problem I have, and everything else is a complex built on a complex that just is really how things go when you can't fix things for more than half your life. Like I still half believe if tomorrow I fell in love and it led to a decent relationship the hopelessness would stop trying to sneak in.

I resent to some degree nearly everyone I get to know well and a bunch of fictional characters too. Hell, I can barely describe my feelings sometimes except through stories I read. And at times I feel I'm very wise. I told a relative recently I feel what revolutionaries nearly always get wrong is just how much happiness there already is in the world. That makes me sound like I'm a lovely, humanity-supporting, balanced human being. Rather than someone who rereads a manga about a girl who murders four people just to comfort myself.

Are there even stories written about people like me? I wonder that a lot.

I genuinely believe I deserve to be happier than I am. I don't blame anyone but I kind of wish I could. I don't think asking for someone I'm at least a tiny bit attracted to to like me back is that outrageous.

I wonder if the version of me that dated in high school and college would be as unconcerned with money as I am. A lot of things stop mattering when you're still figuring out if your own life is worth it.

Do other people not have thoughts this dark? I can't imagine ever having a friend (or lover) I could tell absolutely everything to. Hearing people say they share everything with their bestie/husband/etc. I don't know anymore if they lack self awareness, or if I really am just incredibly screwed up.

I know I wasn't always. My darkest secrets in high school were pretty normal things I've since at least hinted at to friends. But then every couple months I tie myself into another knot and it gets deeper and deeper...

I can talk endlessly about my horrible feelings but I can't cry. Well, I can - but only about stories and music I love.

I took psych in high school without realizing I'd get stuck in "Identity vs. Role Confusion" at least a decade past when I should've figured it out. My identity is nonexistent. I'm just me. I sometimes feel Jewish or American or weeaboo-ish but I never throw myself into any category with my whole heart. I hate gender and wish it didn't exist. I barely know what race is. I never see myself in any personality type description. I can't paint myself over for anyone - I apply for jobs using a thoroughly unprofessional email address - but I'm also forgettable, stoic, and mild.

I'm sleepy.

Tomorrow I have work that I'm not sure will get done. If it does I probably will feel only slightly better.

Some day I hope I do feel like part of the world. I never really have.

[aethersmoke-and-ash]

LFRP - Milloux Allard

✦ The Basics ––– –

Age: Late 20′s

Birthday: She remains unsure of the exact date - but celebrates yearly when the Moonfire fireworks begins.

Race: Duskwight Elezen

Gender: Female

Sexuality: bisexual

Server: Balmung

✦ Physical Appearance ––– –

Hair: Long, nearly waist-length hair, naturally a deep aubergine color. Highlights change frequently, often favoring dusty pastels or bold saturated hues. Often pulled back into a high ponytail or loose braid for ease.

Eyes:  A bright – almost unnaturally so – magenta with flecks of paler pinks.

Height: Fairly short for an elezen - just under six fulms. This is likely due, in part, to stress and malnourishment during her formative years.

Build: Fit, but softer. Her features have lost some sharpness over the past few years; maturity, regular meals and a lifestyle resembling some form of stability has caused her to fill out a little.

Distinguishing Marks: A faded scar bisecting the bridge of her nose - from forehead to just under the corner of her right eye. A full sleeve of tattoos on each arm, depicting floral motif, mythical creatures, and protective sigils.(When not glamoured away for the sake of propriety- which is frequently the case these days) Freckled cheeks and shoulders - a consequence of ashen-colored skin being exposed to more sunlight than is probably advised for a duskwight.  A series of four jagged parallel scars on her right side/hip; all very old and faded.

Common Accessories: Various hoops and other ear adornments - often sporting a pair of silver ear cuffs. Will accessorize with various bits and baubles, but seems largely unconcerned with excessive adornment.

✦ Personality ––– –

At once earnest and enigmatic, Milloux can be difficult to pin down, and seems to prefer it that way. Her voice, low and pleasant enough, carries the distinct cadence of Limsan salt, though practice seems to have softened it a great deal. Make no mistake, she can still weave a tapestry of profanity fine enough to make a sailor blush... at least in the right company. Those that take the time to get to know her find there is a tempest of emotion underneath the wry humor and composure. A woman fiercely protective of those she has come to call her own and those she seeks to aid, and yet undeniably fragile - someone that has built up high walls to keep the soft parts of her psyche and heart safe from harm.

✦ Personal ––– –

Profession: Former freelance mark-hunter and bodyguard. Absolutely not seeking to help others in a more proactive sense, securing wayward & harmful artifacts, or hunting down dangerous individuals.

Hobbies: This is something she’s still figuring out! Free time has never been something she’s had a surfeit of, though she’s taken to teaching herself how to play the guitar…and knitting. (The latter will be denied vehemently or claim is solely to help her focus and meditate)

Languages: Common

Residence: A rambling ramshackle manor she is slowly restoring on Vylbrand’s coast or her quarters at the Mercier Estate in Ishgard.

Birthplace: A long collapsed cave-network deep in the Shroud that may or may not have had access into Gelmorra.

Religion: She remembers little of the religion of her birth - ancient rituals forgotten by most.  Loosely follows the Navigator, asking occasionally for her fair winds and favor, more recently looking towards the Fury for guidance, after initial hesitance for the halonic faith.

Patron Deity: Nophica

Fears: Abandonment, loss of control, suffocation, being restrained or confined, paralysis.

✦ Relationships ––– -

Spouse: None currently – Divorced.

Children: None.

Parents: Sidoni (mother; presumed deceased, surname unknown) , Toussaint Allard* (father; whereabouts unknown.) *Allard is an assumed name. Both Milloux and her older brother are unaware that their father made this change upon relocation to Gridania, and are unaware of their true surname.

Siblings: Jordain Allard (older brother)

Other Relatives: Unknown; very likely to have relatives still living among various isolated settlements and caves in the Shroud.

Pets: Matilda; a tiny sphynx kitten.

✦ RP Hooks ––– –

Crossroads - Milloux has found herself  staring down uncertainty and an unknown path after the sudden closure of the Ashen Enclave and the seizure of the Clinic by Ul'dahn interest and authority after a series of unexplained aetheric anomalies on the grounds.   She is still reeling from the ordeal, the carefully composed mask of Advocate and Lady peeled away enough to reveal someone unsure of her next steps, of redefining herself after turns of devoting herself wholly to helping others; burying herself within her role, and the responsibilities she's shouldered.  That she was perhaps drowning under the weight of it all, even before then, is something she has been slow to acknowledge. Where there has always been a quiet melancholy about her, there's now a morose edge, tangled within fatalist and reckless inclinations -- no longer tempered by her need to be responsible for the sake of the Enclave, and those who looked to her for guidance. What she seeks now, she isn't certain. A new purpose, distractions, people to help...or even a greater sense of self underneath all of the personas she has attempted to wear and define herself by for the sake of others.  Maybe she just needs trouble, a strong drink, and a sparring partner. It's difficult to say, really.

✧   A full list of hooks & more info about Milloux can be found at:  http://milloux.carrd.co ✧

✦ What I’m looking for ––––

Connections of all sorts! Plots to jump into and help with!

Milloux has worn many masks over the course of her relatively short life, and has likely made as many friends as enemies. I imagine an entire rogue’s gallery in her past - with room for all sorts of characters and interactions - the drama of such characters coming back into her life would be a lot of fun - both as ally or adversary! Maybe both... If your character needs help with a problem, or a drinking buddy from their past with seemingly deep pockets and what appears to be an uncanny influx of good luck, she might be your gal. 

I am looking, in particular, for those with knowledge of thaumaturgy and black magic. Milloux has some connections to the darker arts, and I have been looking for colleagues, rivals, and adversaries in this vein.  Folks to research, delve into mysteries, poke at dangerous artifacts...

If Mill isn’t your cup of tea, I have a whole bunch of other characters as well! (I’ll be making individual posts for them soon)

✦ OOC info ––––

Hi! I’m Dani~ I’ve been RPing for a really long time now! As in, started back on AOL, long time ago. I’m a really laid back and patient RP partner, and I prefer the folks I write with to be the same. I’m a tired lady in her 30′s with a trio of cats.

Due to work obligations, evenings (EST) work best for me for in-game RP!  I do enjoy Discord RP as well, especially for more personal and character-focused scenes.

Darker plots are as welcome as slice-of-life scenes. I value communication with those I am writing with, in order to make sure we stay on the same page and nothing gets thrown at me entirely out of the blue. Please know that, in general, while I’m not opposed to spicier rp or romantic plots, I don’t like to set out with just those aims in mind, and prefer things to develop organically, and then only after I’ve gotten comfortable with an RP partner.

✦ Contact Information  ––– –

Ingame - ‘Milloux Allard’ , Discord: snarksonomy#1313

@balmungrp​ , @crystalxivrp​, @mooglemeet​, @ffxiv-crystal-rp​

[chicagocityofclans]

Scorpius Getta → Jake Gyllenhaal → Vampire

→ Basic Information 

Age: 1378

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Straight 

Birthday: December 2nd

Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius 

Religion: Satanism

→ His Personality Getta is practical and down to earth with strong ideas about how vampires should be in this new age. He is orderly, organized, systematic and controlled, and once committed there is no stopping him. Getta has a great capacity for loyalty and affection, considering vampire nature. Being a calm and methodical individual, Getta is mostly in control of his emotions. He rarely loses his temper, but has a great capacity for violence when pushed. Getta is courageous and a true survivor, he is the builder and the foundation of the Underground, and his hard work and values paid off; the Underground is booming and he has one of the largest seethes in America. It's also his ‘fuck you’ attitude that links up with his sucess. Getta is unconcerned about being viewed as ‘the bad guy’ and sees his actions as a means to an end. He is often secretive and can be somewhat of a trickster, but is honest and direct. He is headstrong, persistent and passionate. Getta downright refuses to accept authority and has a stubborn belief in himself and his dreams. 

→ His Personal Facts

Occupation: Master of Chicago Seethe 

Scars: None

Tattoos: None

Two Likes: Blood with Pepper and Business

Two Dislikes: Vampire Movies and Bananas 

Two Fears: Being Forced to Feed Off of Himself and Naked Zombie Grandmas 

Two Hobbies: Enhancing the Underground and Inventing 

Three Positive Traits: Innovative, Lively, Extremely Confident  

Three Negative Traits: Sassy, Maniacal, Disconnect 

→ His Connections

Parent Names:

Ulfrik Göransson (Father): Getta enjoyed his father and if he had been given the chance he would have changed him into a vampire.

Bon’Ginnever (Mother): Getta doesn’t remember much about his mother beside the fact that she had blonde hair and an unusual eye color. Bon’Ginnever died from an infection. He was sure it was over the loss of Aleigha, his little sister. She was never the same after and death took her months later.

Emmalee (Step-Mother): Getta didn’t approve of his father remarrying. Since Emmalee was around his age, Getta tried his best to ignore her to keep from showing her any disrespect and disappointing his father.

Sibling Names:

Eirikur Ulfrikson (Brother): Eirikur was born several years after Getta. Getta doesn’t remember much about Eirikur as a child but he remembers his little brother all grown up and being a ladies man. Eirikus died mysteriously in his sleep. Getta is now sure he must have caught an STD or something. 

Aleigha Ulfrikdotter (Sister): Just like Eirikur, Aleigha was born several years after her brothers. Getta was nearing his late teens when she was born. Sadly, Aleigha was sold off to pay their debts and Getta still has no idea what faith laid out for her.

Bryleigh Ulfrikson (Half-Brother): Getta was out of the castle when Bryleigh was born. Getta never had the chance to meet Bryleigh. He only knew his name and the random updates his father would send him.

Children Names:

Ulfric Scorpiusson (Son): Ulfric was named after Getta’s father, following the old Nordic practice, before hereditary surnames were introduced. Ulfric grew to be a spitting image of Getta’s father with the same attitude to follow it. That’s probably why they get along so well. Getta turned Ulfric, on his request, into a vampire on his 20th birthday. He is still alive and married with his own seethe in Sweden.

Bjorn Scorpiusson (Son): Bjorn was named after Solveig’s father, following the old Nordic practice, before hereditary surnames were introduced. Getta doesn’t know where Bjon got it from but he is absolutely unpredictable. He was well on his way to become a shadow vampire when Getta stepped in and killed him. Bjon was always Solveig favorite and Getta still mourns the both of them.

Kjersti Getta née Scorpiusdotter (Daughter): Kjersti was named after Solveig’s mother, following the old Nordic practice, before hereditary surnames were introduced. Kjersti was unexpected but wanted. Getta made sure she didn’t follow the same fate as Aleigha and kept her close. She was the 3rd person Getta changed and he doesn’t regret it. She now holds rank in his seethe.

Romantic Connections:

Solveig Pelledotter (Wife): Getta wasn’t in love with Solveig but at the time it was his duty to marry and continue his bloodline. After marriage, they became close friends. If given the chance, Getta was sure they would have eventually fallen in love. Solveig had taken her own life after Getta was changed.

Platonic Connections:

Alva Ebba Getta nee Garbo (Daughter-In-Law): Alva married Getta’s son Ulfric over a thousand years ago. At first he did not approve of her but thought a wedding would be good for overall morale. Over time Getta learned to love her as one of his own. Getta especially likes it when she puts his son in his place.

Geralt Getta (Son-In-Law/Progeny): Geralt was an orphan on the streets Getta fed from. Getta adopted Geralt and he was Getta's first vampiric progeny. Getta sees him more like a brother and best friend than a son, especially after Geralt married his daughter, Kjersti. 

Winona Fili (Progeny): Getta had originally turned Winona into a vampire for his son Bjon. He should have known better because the two hated each other. Frankly, after the way his son reacted Getta knew Winona deserved better. Getta still cannot accept that Winona is gone and is trying his hardest not to fall into a depression. Losing Winona was worse than losing a limb or death itself. Getta still expects her to be there when he turns around or wherever he gets a brilliant idea.  

Aleksander Mazur (Progeny): Getta found Aleksander when Aleksander was at his lowest on the streets of London. Aleksander tried to rob Getta and failed. Instead of killing him or turning him to the authorities, Getta fed him, gave him fresh clothes and offered him a new life as a vampire. They have a well built relationship that is not exactly a father and son type but close enough. 

Raphael Caron (Progeny): Getta saved Raphael's life. Raphael was dying from Leukemia when Getta gave his parents the terms and conditions of vampirism. Their relationship is stronger than ever nearly two centuries later. Getta enjoys Raphael’s creative side and allows him to use him as a test subject.

Fiona ‘Fi’ Marz (Progeny): Getta does not like sharing the story of how he found Fi but she has been with him since she was a 6 years old human. Getta held out on changing her into a vampire until she was mature enough. After living and dealing with Fi for centuries, nearly a millennium, Getta has turned from an overbearing father to a cool understanding brother and to a best friend. Getta can switch to whichever role she needs from him at the time without making it awkward.

Dan Prior (Vampire Son-In-Law): Getta couldn’t hate Dan if he tried nor can he blame Dan for Winona’s death. Dan's first few years were tough on Getta, he was the new master of his seethe, lost his closest companion and progeny, and had a suicidal baby vampire to watch over. Getta feels like Dan and Fili are the only things he has left of Winona. He has been better about separating them from her but something in him always feels like it's snapping when he does.  

Richard Fili (Vampire Grandson): Fili was changed by Winona many years ago. Getta has always been accepting of Fili and even fatherly at times. Getta puts up with Fili’s bullshit, only getting pissed if Fili messes up big time, and he knows that is enough to make Fili grateful and undeniably loyal. Fili seems to be the only one that has taken notice of Getta keeping himself busy and staring off into space since Winona’s death; Fili is worried for him but Getta isn’t ready to talk yet.

Audrey Ann Wallace (Vampire Granddaughter): Audrey was turned into a vampire by Garelt when Kjersti started mourning the loss of ever being a mother. Audrey reminds him a lot of Kjersti and can be mistaken as their biological child.

Petra Chak (Best Friend): Petra and Getta have an unlikely friendship. She had originally come to Chicago to take over Getta’s seethe for her own master but somehow Getta had won her over. Over the years they formed an unbreakable bond and Getta trusts Petra with his life and the lives of their entire seethe. 

Sadie McCoy (Good Friend): Sadie randomly showed up one day… Or at least Getta finally noticed her and was too ashamed to ask anyone who she was or where she came from. Sadie hung out with Winona and by default hung out with Getta. It didn’t take long for him to grow fond of her and to constantly want her around. She became his muse and little soldier girl. She took Winona’s death as hard as Fili, Dan and Getta’s other progeny.  

Morana ‘Ana’ Vickors (Old Friend): Ana was a part of Getta’s seethe before he became the seethe master. She saw the destruction their old seethe master caused and quickly jumped on his support train when he took over. Getta considers her a trusted and loyal friend. Getta is also close to Ana’s husband and daughter. 

Sven (Old Friend): Getta met Sven a few times in Europe and again in the New World. Sven was always a loner and some considered him to be a feared shadow vampire. It took Getta a while but he convinced Sven to join the seethe he was apart nearly 300 years ago. Sven came and went as he pleased but Getta is happy to see that lately Sven has been making a permanent home for himself in Chicago. 

Chiara Ricci (Friend): Getta knew Chiara’s adopted vampiric parents. When he asked them to come teach for them, he was aware that they had changed a woman to be their child but never figured it would be someone with Chiara’s personality. She makes Getta laugh and can retell stories about himself better than he can. 

Hostile Connections:

Nick and Ray Hamelin (Hate): Getta doesn’t hate easily nor does he have a vindictive streak but the Hamelin brothers live to test his restraint. Vampires are not widely liked among the mortal supernaturals and Getta understands that. What Getta doesn’t understand is why the rats are constantly trying to enter the closed section of the Underground or why the rats cannot leave them in peace. After the poisonous gas accident Nick and Ray attacked the Underground killing multiple orphaned and neonate vampires. Getta was tempted to retaliate but put the entire seethe needs ahead of his own. He and Petra have tried to explain that the closed section of the Underground is semi poisonous but their pleads have gone unheard. 

Pets:

None

→ History Scorpius Getta was born Göran-Skorpionen Ulfirkson. He changed his name to Scorpius Getta after he was changed into a vampire and a widower. He no longer wanted to associate with his human past and this was especially so after changing all of his biological children to vampires also. Getta travelled the world, finding those he bonded with or those he thought deserved another life and changing them. → The Present Getta plans on expanding the Undergrounds and opening an above ground full service Hotel made especially for vampires. The only thing holding him back are key features and trusted human or supernatural construction workers. The key features are shutters and windows that completely block out the sun which are currently out of reach. Getta has already begun employing witches and warlocks to help, and his dreams seem closer to reality. Getta plans on naming it Hotel Winona. 

[but-tom]

Tony’s Rut

Finally a real smut scene.

Hi Tony it’s Peter. I was wondering if I could drop in you know maybe bring some takeout since it’s almost dinner time. I’m like five minutes away from Delmar’s Sandwiches. Or one if I swing over there.

No. Don’t come.

Peter pouts, shoulders sagging at the text.  He’s sitting on the rooftop of a run down apartment building in his neighbourhood. The omega is still in his Spiderman suit as he had been in the middle of an afternoon patrol. But how could he even focus when his boyfriend was sick? The omega hasn’t seen his alpha in almost a week! Five days ago, Peter had received a text from Tony.

Sorry sweetheart. I don’t think you should come to the Tower today. I’m not feeling well.

Of course Peter was insistent on coming anyways and being a good boyfriend. But Tony had been stern yet placating. If you got sick because of me I’d be very mad at myself.

But he was Spiderman! He hadn’t caught a cold since he was bitten at the age of fourteen. Unfortunately, there was no way of going against his alpha’s clear orders, leaving behind a sulking Peter. Only Happy had been delighted at the news. Free from having to pick up Peter after school and swatting away nosy teenagers from fogging up the windows of the Bentley.

As time passes, Peter grows increasingly anxious. By Friday, he’s going crazy. Tony’s texts were getting shorter and shorter each day. Which, Peter concludes, could only mean that Tony was getting worse. During lunch he consults his two beta friends.

“Surprise him. Show up in a sexy nurse’s outfit.” MJ advises.

Ned makes a face. “Gross.”

“Why? A male nurse in a skimpy outfit doesn’t conform to your stereotypical gender roles?” MJ doesn’t miss a beat.

Peter masterfully tunes them out and he knows he’s already made a decision. He’s going to the Tower after school.

———————————————————-

Impatient, Peter swings his way to the Tower. By the time he’s reached his destination, his web fluid is empty, but that’s fine he has no intention of going home today.

He climbs along the side of the Avengers Tower, making his way towards the discreet glass entrance near the top floor of the Tower. One that was designed and installed entirely for the Iron Man armor’s convenient access. It leads directly into Tony’s own master bedroom. And FRIDAY’s security is authorized to grant access for only two people.

As soon as he is inside, Peter peels the mask from his face and almost buckles over at the unmistakable and overwhelming stench of alpha. But what was usually the familiar and comforting scent of his boyfriend is now an attack on Peter’s already sensitive senses. The smell makes him want to sink to his knees and whine. It’s an instinct that the omega only feels during a heat.

The sound of running water draws Peter hesitantly towards the bathroom. As the scent gets stronger, his knees start to buckle and slick is already starting to run down his legs. He shakily opens the door and the omega’s breath hitch when he finally sees Tony, past the fog and shower glass, eyes shut tight, lips parted as he pumps his own cock.

The omega’s body reacts faithfully and new slick dribbles from the cleft of his ass, his body getting ready to serve his alpha’s needs.

Tony’s eyes snap open at the scent of a fertile omega, his omega. Peter visibly gulps when angry, dark eyes burn into his own.

Tony growls, “I thought I told you not to come.” And he slams the shower door open, pulling Peter harshly inside, suit and all. Peter’s slammed against the wall but he has no time to care when all he can think is more, more, more. He barely feels the fabric fall past his shoulders onto the ground in a useless heap. The omega keens when he feels an unforgiving bite to his exposed throat. He gasps, “Alpha.”

“You never listen do you. Every single time. Only bad omegas disobey their alphas.” Tony says lowly. “What am I going to do with you?”

Peter whimpers, wanting to be good. He never ever wants to disappoint his alpha.

Tony’s breath is hot against his own burning cheeks. “How should I punish you omega?”

Peter doesn’t get a chance to answer because Tony’s mouth devours his own. The kiss is absolutely filthy, he can feel the drool down his chin all the way to the base of his neck. Tony bites down on his lips before licking into his mouth again. Peter cries out when he feels a rough tug on his wet curls. But his alpha under the haze of his rut, is unconcerned. A hot mouth is busy bruising his neck and shoulders, marking what is his.

Tony’s crushing him against the cool marble of the shower but still he doesn’t feel close enough. There’s a desperation in Tony’s touch and Peter knows his alpha feels the same. “Need you, alpha. Please. Want to make you feel good.”

His answer is a groan and suddenly Peter’s feet are dangling in the air as he is hoisted up against the wall. He quickly wraps his lean limbs around his alpha, just in time as two thick fingers work into his soaked underwear and plunge into his heat. “Ah! Tony!”

It burns so good. The walls of the omega’s anus, in welcome, clench tighter around the intrusion. Peter’s eyes roll to the back of his head when he feels the pressure on his prostate. Tony is merciless as he curls his fingers to change angles. He cums with only the fingers in his ass and the omega is shaking so hard he can barely keep his grip on Tony.

There’s no time to catch a breath because the head of Tony’s cock is at his entrance. It feels solid and heavy against his sensitive rim. The boy is leaking from the anticipation. He whimpers, “Please.”

And Tony is pushing into his heat. “Tight.” His alpha grunts pleased.

Peter’s voice is hoarse as he cries out in what’s both pain and pleasure. He’s already come twice on his alpha’s cock but Tony is still relentless as he drives in, deeper and deeper each thrust. It’s too much for his abused prostate but he can’t get away. Tony’s hands leave angry fingerprints on his hips with how hard he’s gripping. Forget his spider strength, Peter can’t even remember his own goddamn name. “Tony, tony please no more. It’s too much. I- I can’t. It hurts now. Please.” Peter sobs.

“Peter,” Tony breathes out, the smouldering desire still heavy in his voice. “You said you want to be good for me. You’re perfect right now. Fucking perfect for me. Just made for my cock.” Peter is screaming as he comes again. He blacks out.

When he comes too again, he’s still damp and on a bed, and a hot, wet appendage is pushing into his asshole. “Oh my god!” Tony’s large, calloused hands hold his pale legs embarrassingly wide apart. Peter is utterly exposed and at his mercy. Tony blows into his hole. “Come on my tongue, baby boy. Just like you came on my fingers and my dick.”

Satin sheets wrap up his small frame and he’s completely surrounded by Tony’s smell. That only drives him madder and he clenches the pillow to keep the last shred of his sanity when the orgasm rips from his body.

“Delicious,” Tony looks up and grins, with a face full of slick, a tongue purposely licking his lips. When Tony crawls up to to kiss him again, Peter can taste himself, salty and sweet.

He gasps out loud when Tony pushes in without warning. “Tony please I can’t! Not again. I can’t.” He’s babbling at this point, fear creeping up on him when Tony doesn’t slow down. His cock is spent and red from coming so many times but never once being touched. Tears run down his face at the sensations building up again, “No I’m gonna- I’m gonna die. I feel like I’m gonna-.”

“Peter,” Tony soothes. “It’s OK just one more. You can do it. I know you can. My good boy. My perfect perfect boy.” And finally a hand wraps around his neglected cock, pumping slowly compared to the sharp thrusts to his insides. Peter doesn’t know to cry in relief or pain when finally Tony’s knot swells and he’s pumped up with cum.

Exhausted and overheated, Peter tries to roll away from under the weight of his lover as Tony’s knot dies down. A firm pressure on the bulge of his tender stomach stops him. Tony’s lips brush his ears, sensual and full of promise. “Sorry love, last one this time.”

The night is young after all.

[somniatcr]

      character study series--- d.azai o.samu

where do i even begin--- dazai is possibly... probably... the most complex character within my little roster. and, like izaya  ( who i’ve already done a post like this for, which can be found here )  and the rest of my muses i suppose, my dazai is very headcanon based  ( though i do take a lot of reference from the series itself, i tend to portray him as i see fit and most enjoy doing so without sacrificing the things that i believe to be pivotal to his character );  to be entirely honest, when it comes to the manga, for bungou stray dogs and for nearly every series to ever exist, i’m not, nor do i imagine that i will ever be, entirely caught up.

all that said, let us delve into dazai; into the way that he thinks, the way that he functions, the way that he acts, and generally who is he as a person  ( as well as how i, personally, view and portray his character ).

let me first kick things off with a significant change that i’ve made in regard to his character, in how he’ll be portrayed here on this blog. dazai canonically has a deeply troubled mind. though his frequent, and oftentimes wistful, talk of death and his suicidal behaviors are rarely, if ever, taken seriously within the series itself  ( rather being treated as a source of comedic relief, which does somewhat bother me, but it is what it is ),  likely due to this penchant that he has for jesting and for over-dramatics, the reality that his mind is very dark and very deeply troubled remains. he feels as though there is this deep, dark hole  ( an emptiness, a void )  within him that he’s incapable of filling, regardless of however hard that he tries. a large majority of his life was spent dedicated to this, to trying to fill it, to trying to find some sort of reason to live  ( which is why he had initially aligned himself with the port mafia to begin with; he believed that he could, perhaps, find what he’d been searching for, what he’d been longing for, if he lived this life of conflict, of bloodshed and war ),  though, obviously, this was to no avail. and while, yes, he will at times use self-depreciating humor, and while, yes, at times his humor may be dark, a bit morbid, his depression and his suicidal thoughts, tendencies, are not rooted in comedy, they are not a source of comedic relief and i, personally, don’t write him, portray him, in that particular light.

that said, does he ultimately want to die? in his youth, yes, absolutely. he hadn’t yet met anyone that he cared for  ( he had no attachments, had never felt nor experienced any genuine form of love ).  he too no joy from life, spent all this time searching, aching, for purpose, yet couldn’t find it.

and then he met people who meant something. he met chuuya who, though he was adamant that he couldn’t stand him, was interesting. he met odasaku, who managed to break through his barriers unlike anyone before  ( or after )  him, who wormed his way into dazai’s heart and gave him this friendship that he never knew that he’d wanted, nor needed, who provided him with a much needed positive role model and with this beacon of hope. this--- this was pivotal in setting about a turning point, in finally setting him on a different path, in giving him the purpose that he’d been searching for all those years. although an irrefutable tragedy, oda’s death ultimately brought about new life in that it  ( and in oda’s dying words )  gave dazai a will to live.

all the same, he does still suffer from depression, he’s an insomniac, and he does still struggle with suicidal ideation  ( in that he still thinks about death, about dying and all of the ways that he could go about doing it, fairly often ). 

moving on,

this is a man with a very dark and violent past, an important thing to keep in mind. while little is known about his past bar from the knowledge that he was affiliated with the port mafia, that he’s been rooted within this world since he was around fourteen years old, back when he met mori ougai  ( as well as the fact that he managed to wind up being the youngest executive in port mafia history ),  it can be surmised that his time spent working beneath mori likely, at least in part, has resulted in his penchant for apathy, his tendency to emotionally detach himself from others, from death, and from traumatic experiences as a whole  ( he’s actually been shown attempting to fill that hole in his heart, in fact, to find joy, to feel something in causing harm to and in killing others, though he never quite does manage to get what he wants ).  his experience as a killer and as highly skilled interrogator  ( it’s worth noting that he, in fact, specialized in torturing others for information; he’s even once gone so far as to state that there wasn’t a single prisoner who ultimately didn’t wind up spilling everything when he was the one tasked with retrieving it--- and while still being a child ),  has been alluded to on more than one occasion and, even to this day, he still manages to command respect and to inspire fear throughout the port mafia, albeit no longer being a member himself.

he is unconcerned with the idea good and evil. while he currently affiliates himself with the armed detective agency, now working to protect  ( and to save )  the city and the lives of its inhabitants, his motivation to do so was primarily spurred by the words of a friend prior to his passing;  ’ be on the side that saves people. if both sides are the same, be a good man; save the weak and protect the orphans. neither good nor evil means much to you, i know… but that’d make you at least a little bit better. i know better than anyone because… i am your friend. ’

it’s these words, oda sakunosuke, that finally sets him on a different path, that leads him to meeting the members of the armed detective agency, that leads him to meeting nakajima atsushi, an orphan who’s life he, ultimately, does wind up making a difference in, providing him with much needed guidance  ( though to say that all of his methods, and all of his motives, in doing so are genuinely good, genuinely selfless, and always would be a little hard-pressed--- also, it’s worth keeping in mind that this is the second orphan to have been taken beneath his wing; the first being akutagawa ryunosuke who’s experiences with dazai were significantly different, the training that he endured beneath him being absolutely hellish, horrific, and cruel ).

ultimately, with him, the ends justify the means and, so, the actions, whether good or evil, mean little to him. he’s willing to use any means, any method, to achieve his goals; this includes playing dirty, causing harm to others, killing / death when deemed necessary, and so on and so forth. such as, for example, purposefully deflating the airbag in someone’s car prior to a car ‘accident’, in turn causing extensive injuries that he’s only willing to have healed by a fellow ability user in exchange for having a young girl pardoned of her past crimes. the end goal was ultimately good, sure, but the means of getting there were anything but.

he’s also an exceptional liar. while his ability to intricately weave together falsehoods, from the most small and insignificant of lies to the most complex of tales, comes naturally, his time spent working for the port mafia only honed his abilities further. and while is doesn’t lie constantly, perhaps not even frequently  ( instead opting to simply abstain from providing an answer altogether ),  he is, in himself, a walking fabrication, putting on a perennial facade all his own; fake. his true thoughts and emotions are rarely so much as even alluded to, frequently hidden behind a mask of his creation, perfectly crafted and nearly impossible to crack. furthermore, his true intentions, frequently, are left unrevealed until he, himself, chooses to reveal them. in truth, there isn’t a person alive who truly knows or who genuinely understands him. there are a select few  ( such as mori ougai, nakahara chuuya )  who come, in their own way, close through all of their time spent working with him  ( a former mentor, a former partner ),  though none are able to comprehend his actions, his mind, in their entirely, not quite the way that oda was once able to.

it doesn’t help that he is also a man of mystery and deflection. while he may talk and act as though he’s an open book  ( and believe me, he does just this and often ),  he rarely, if ever, speaks of himself, in regard to his past and present alike. thoughts are locked away, left solely for him to ruminate upon, and emotions are kept hidden, locked deep, deep within, if not attempted to be brushed away in their entirety. furthermore, he has a habit of leaving his comrades, his friends if you can quite call them that, in the dark when it comes to long-game plans and strategies that he has devised and it’s virtually impossible to get a straight or genuine answer from him upon asking a question, so most times it isn’t even worth the effort that it takes to form the words  ( not that this has ever stopped anyone from trying, much to their ultimate chagrin ).

and, finally, a basic character and personality breakdown,

name.  DAZAI OSAMU, 太宰治 age / d.o.b.  22 / JUNE 19 species.  HUMAN / GIFTED ethnicity.  JAPANESE gender.  CIS-MALE, HE / HIM occupation.  DETECTIVE / PORT MAFIA EXECUTIVE  ( FORMER ) affiliation.  ARMED DETECTIVE AGENCY / PORT MAFIA  ( FORMER ) height.  181 CM / 5'11" weight.  67 KG / 147-148 LBS build.  SLIM, LONG-LIMBED hair color.  DEEP BROWN, ESPRESSO; MILD, NATURAL WAVES eye color.  RED-BROWN, CHESTNUT blood type.  AB r / o, s / o.  DEMIROMANTIC PANSEXUAL noticeable features.  WEARS BANDAGES THAT COVER THE LARGE MAJORITY OF HIS BODY  ( * explanation to be provided below );  ONLY HIS FACE, HANDS, AND FEET REMAIN UNCOVERED

ability.  NO LONGER HUMAN      **  his ability allows him to effectively nullify the abilities of others entirely upon contact, whether with the user themselves or a physical manifestation of their ability. he’s often referred to as an anti-ability user or anti-gifted. zodiac.  GEMINI religious belief(s).  ATHEIST mbti.  INTJ alignment.  CHAOTIC NEUTRAL temperament.  CHOLERIC mental health.  DEPRESSION, SUICIDAL IDEATION pos traits.  QUICK THINKER, SHARP, IMAGINATIVE, CLEVER, STRATEGIC, DECISIVE, SELF-CONFIDENT, INDEPENDENT, DETERMINED, OBSERVANT, PERCEPTIVE, CALM, COLLECTED, LOGICAL, OPEN-MINDED, QUICK LEARNER, ADAPTABLE, WELL-READ, A JACK OF ALL TRADES neg traits.  SECRETIVE, DETACHED, JUDGEMENTAL, ARROGANT, OVERLY DRAMATIC, UNPREDICTABLE, CONFUSING / DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND, CAN BE OVERLY ANALYTICAL, HAS DIFFICULTY WITH  ( AND LOATHES )  HIGHLY STRUCTURED ENVIRONMENTS, PRONE TO APATHY, PLAYS DIRTY, CAN BE CRUEL, FREQUENTLY INGENUINE neu traits.  WITTY, TEASING / JESTING, BLUNT, SOMEWHAT OF A FLIRT, PRONE TO SHIRKING CERTAIN RESPONSIBILITIES, HAS A HABIT OF EMBARRASSING OTHERS  ( VERY INTENTIONALLY )

he covers himself in bandages for two very specific reasons. the first being that his body is absolutely riddled with scars; while some were obtained during his port mafia days, equally as many were self-inflicted. the second, they serve as a sort of security blanket, providing him with an unconventional source of comfort.

he’s very well read. he enjoys novels of a wide variety, though he’s usually only seen reading books about suicide or death. he isn’t partial to poetry, however.

he isn’t a big eater whatsoever. he’s generally a one meal per day sort of person and doesn’t snack particularly often furthermore.

he listens to music fairly often during his free time  ( when he isn’t reading ).  while he doesn’t have much of a preference as far as genres are concerned, he does gravitate primarily toward music that he finds calming, more mellow, or relatable.

he’s highly skilled in the art of lock-picking. he could chalk it up to his time spent with the port mafia, but in truth it’s a talent he’s had since he was a kid.

he doesn’t have a drivers license. he’s never been especially concerned with getting himself one and doesn’t really find that he feels the need for one even now.

he dislikes fizzy and / or bubbly beverages. for the most part, he’s a tea or a coffee drinker, although he’s fine with water, too. also, whiskey. he loves a good whiskey.

he enjoys good company  ( although he finds that it’s rare to come by ),  good and meaningful conversation, summer storms, late night rain showers, autumn leaves, seafood, and fresh, clean scents.

he dislikes overly sweet foods, the sound of babies crying  ( and loud noises in general ),  dogs, hot weather, and boring, tedious, and / or repetitive work  ( such as paperwork, for example ).

he frequently smells of soap, laundry detergent, and cotton intermingled with a natural scent all his own; fresh, warm, and clean with a hint of musk.

[sk-salazar]

Here are my favorite things and some amazing observations about “Change Your Mind”. Needless to say, there are spoilers.

💖 Those cute rainbow caterpillar bois that Pink brought to Homeworld. And the image in my head of them chasing the Pearls. 😂 Someone needs to draw that.

💖 That DejaBlue pun.

💖 Connie standing up to Mama Blue and using her strict parents to her advantage.

💖 Steven standing up for his support of fusion instead of just giving Blue an empty apology.

💖 Blue realizing that she was wrong to use her emotional manipulation powers on her loved ones all these eons. And her comment about Homeworld failing Pink instead of Pink failing Homeworld. So many kids who defy the status quo need to hear this.

💖 Blue hiding the kids in her hair loop.

💖 The symbolism behind Steven throwing off his Pink Diamond getup and putting on his own clothes to confront White. (Maybe they’re just more comfortable, but I feel like there’s a clear message there.)

💖 Blue saying, “She prefers to be called Steven.” Even if she didn’t use a male pronoun, I can see a message here of accepting your trans kid and defending their chosen identify. Even if it causes a strain in your marriage.

💖 Connie’s courage (again!) to stand up to Yellow. Everyone kept blaming Connie for “blowing Steven’s chance to talk to White” because she fused with him. And Connie’s statement about changing the rules for everyone was the best clapback to that. Steven knows he’s right. Steven knows that servitude is wrong. He knows that denying who you want to be and not loving who you want to love is wrong. So if he is to confront White Diamond, he must do it on his terms, not hers.

💖 Yellow crying of her own volition.

💖 Connie’s “face-off” pun and all the hand puns about the ships. 😂 And Bismuth wanting to uppercut an upper crust. The writing for this episode was 🔥.

💖 Steven saying “GASP!” instead of actually gasping. 😂

💖 Lapis’ and Peridot’s new forms! I’m so in love with Lapis’ palazzo pants and golden sandals! She looks like she has so much more personality now. 💙💚

💖 Peridot saying, “Who needs thumbs?” even tho they’re the reason humans are an advanced species. 😂

💖 Steven’s observation about all his forms. Pink represented the “flight” response and Rose represented the “fight” response. Both of which are primitive responses to conflict. Meanwhile, Steven represents using logic and compassion to foster dialogue. He’s the most ascended form.

💖 Blue saying, “In order to fix [our family], we must admit that it’s broken.” Here, she voices the most common fear of those people who always push back against progress.

💖 Yellow telling Steven to #TakeAKnee . I see what you did there, Sugar Woman. 😏

💖 Yellow having the courage to tell White that “we need to talk about us”. (I love all the throwback references in this episode! One of which is this line, which is a throwback to the episode about Greg and Rose.)

💖 Steven telling White to “let us in your head” or to “get out of your head”. To be “in your head” means that you’re self-centered and unconcerned about the world around you. Again, that 🔥 writing.

💖 Amethyst’s owl pun. 😂

💖 Steven fusing with all the Crystal Gems to save them. Not only was it a great idea in an emergency, but it’s a great plot device. It gives us the answer to our questions about who all the Steven fusions are, thereby making it easier to wrap up the show sometime in the near future.

💖 The new fusions!!! Rainbow Quartz is a posh twink, Sunstone is a positive, 80’s rapper-esque cool dude role model for kids and Obsidian fucking Te Ka.

💖 Rainbow Quartz blowing a raspberry, Rainbow Quartz blasting off with a literal rainbow trail, Rainbow Quartz’s “two stones and one bird” joke. Just, Rainbow Quartz. 🌈

💖 The Crystal Gems forming a cheerleading pyramid to form Obsidian and Pearl doing a Swedish Alps move.

💖 That badass fucking shot of Obsidian’s multiple arms. As well as that epic music they played for her scene.

💖 The Crystal Gems’ new forms. Pearl has completely thrown off that flimsy veil thing that all Pearls have. (Which is a symbol of servitude to her.) And now, her outfit is a lot more conventionally human. (Maybe a sign that she wants to pursue Mystery Girl?) Also, the Star is on her back, representing her putting her past as a Crystal Gem behind her. Now, she’s just Pearl and she just wants to live her own chosen purpose.

Garnet has both red and blue in her corset. After Ruby and Sapphire spent time apart, Ruby realized that she liked being with Sapphire while still being herself. Maybe Sapphire came to the same conclusion. Maybe they both came to the conclusion that they’re not two halves of a whole. They’re two whole beings in one pair.

💖 Bismuth loving Connie enough to make her a custom non-Rose Quartz-themed sword. I love how much she loves and protects the new crew.

💖 The Great and Lovable Peridot declaring that she’s Homeworld’s savior.

💖 As unnerving as it is, I love the way White tries to mess with Steven’s head. She talks about Yellow’s, Blue’s and Pink’s impurities making them dependent on each other. (Essentially, colored diamonds are created because of impurities.) And also how Pink surrounds herself with outcasts in order to be considered normal or good. I don’t agree with any of her statements, but you’ll often hear bigots use the same kind of logic to justify their worldview, which really makes this show hit home in many ways. I have to admit, her words kind of messed with my head, too. For a moment, I had some intrusive thoughts, wondering if I believed what I believe so that I could be “the best of the worst”. I snapped out of it really quick, mind you. But this was an incredibly effective speech.

💖 Amethyst calling White a dirt wad. 😂 She has NO chill.

💖 Again, White Diamond being an absolute villain when she says, “Now I’ve removed all their flaws. Now they are perfect, now they are ME.” This could be an interpretation of God. He sees free will as a mistake because his creations choose NOT to glorify him and NOT to be molded in his image. So many awesome sneak-disses of real people in this episode. 😎👏🏼

💖 Yellow Pearl’s silly Pink Steven line turning out to be foreshadowing. 🤦🏻‍♀️

💖 The palpable representation of self-love in the form of Steven adoring his own form. Also, there’s a throwback to Rose Quartz saying, “Every time you love yourself or you love being yourself, that’s me loving you and loving being you.” Steven really is Pink’s ascended form. The song in the credits is from Pink to Steven.

💖 Rose Quartz and Pink being gone for good. So many stories have characters that come back to life and it seems like death loses meaning nowadays. As much as I love Rose, I’m here for her never coming back. Especially because that represents Pink/Rose/Steven growing and moving on. Just as we never go back to our old, naive selves, neither should Pink.

💖 Steven being equal to White in power, apparently. She was shook with that scream of his! And he took his sweet ass time walking towards his meat suit. That’s power right there.

💖 White saying, “I only want you to be yourself and if you can’t do that, I’ll do it for you.” A perfect representation of people nowadays forcing people to deny their true identities through draconian laws, unwritten social codes and bigoted statements.

(“You do not look like this, you do not sound like this, you are Pink Diamond” = “If you have a penis/vagina, you’re a man/woman.” “That gender doesn’t exist.” “Men and women are supposed to be with each other because...reproduction.” “You can live together, but don’t call it marriage.” Etc, etc.)

💖 The best line in the whole show: “I AM a child. What’s your excuse?” What a sweet, heartfelt way to remind us of the pilot episode, when all this magic got started. 😭

💖 White Diamond interpreted Pink’s “impurity” as warmth earlier. All this time, she thought that being “perfect” meant being detached, cold, unsympathetic, overbearing and cruel. But she becomes more likeable and multi-faceted when she absorbs Pink’s warmth/light. Without it, she’s a creepy, aloof puppet master. But with it, she becomes the same old White that the Diamonds loved. She changed quite easily, so that indicates to me that she felt the need to remove her emotions to become a more effective leader. (Kind of like how people with broken hearts often vow never to love again.) There should be a future exploration on this. Did she remove her own emotions? Did she do it in order to detach herself from grieving for Pink? Or did a higher, more eldritch power do this to her? 🤔 Either way, Pink’s warmth is the antidote to all forms of frigidity. For all that guff about her perfect white light penetrating everyone, she sure got shown a thing or two. 😁

💖 Apparently, Pink Pearl is okay-ish. She probably still has the trauma of being taken from Pink and having her eye cracked. But she apparently has no memory of being controlled. I was so tormented for the last month, wondering if poor Pink Pearl was screaming for freedom, trapped inside her own body. 😢

💖 Steven’s throwback to the song he sung to Lars and Sadie when they were stranded on the island. “If you let others just be whoever they are, maybe you could let yourself be whoever you are” is a throwback to “Let Yourself Just Be Wherever You Are”. It��s also a perfect message to people who rely on bigotry and forcefulness to serve as their whole identity.

💖 Sadie’s green hair. 💚 What a look! And Greg is such a good guy that he’s allowed Sadie and her band to play his song. ☺️ Also, her literal mic drop when the Diamond mothership lands above her. 🤣

💖 The way our perfect cinnamon roll always brings people together. The way he introduces the off-colors to the Diamonds like it’s NBD, like there hasn’t been eons of bad blood between them. And the way White is willing to say hello to them first. What a good grandma. ☺️ It’s funny that earlier on, White said that Pink inspires others to be their worst selves. Yet whenever Steven does stuff like this, it inspires me to be my best self. And many other fans too, I’m sure!

💖 Lars being kind to Lion. ☺️

💖 The off-colors and corrupted-now-uncorrupted Gems finally getting their happily ever after. ☺️

💖 Jasper still retaining a scar of her corruption. Because no one ever comes back unscathed and that little detail makes this story so much more real to us. Also, the way Amethyst explained everything to her, even after the way Jasper had bullied her.

💖 Yellow throwing up some deuces as the mothership was blasting off. 😂✌🏼 There is hope for these Diamonds after all.

💖 Steven’s closing song. What a perfect message to sum up the entire episode. 😍

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

I normally love Where Peter Is, but I think this is excessively optimistic and I find parts of its reasoning absolutely deplorable (i.e. the idea that binary transgender identities affirm the innateness of (some) gender roles and that this is a good thing--radical feminists have been arguing this as a case against transgender identities since the 1970s and it's bizarre to see a galaxy-brained Catholic ethicist biting the bullet on it).

I also have to confess that I’d feel a selfish, Cain-like sense of rejection of my own sacrifices (in returning to a male presentation after a two-year-long misadventure IDing as trans) by a formal affirmation of trans identities from the Church. I would understand its value as an acknowledgement of the lived experiences of people who aren’t me, obviously (since I’m not an insufferable narcissist). And obviously the Church isn't going to go with the most directly insulting and disillusioning framing, which would be "lol identify as whatever you like for whatever reasons you like, it's fine, there was never any reason to agonize about giving up your Ineffable Innate Identity for honest religious reasons in the first place.”

Alarm bells also tend to go off for me when I'm presented with the prospect of a country or an institution like the Catholic Church affirming wide-ranging medical interventions to make you resemble the “opposite” natal sex, but not the experience of happening to fall in love with someone of the same sex. People like Jones or whoever these people in England are I’m sure mean well, but they seem clueless about the way “illiberal integralist” societies like Iran and Thailand use gender reassignment as a way to police non-conformity in their populations. I can’t imagine Pope Francis and his court are unaware of this, and I can’t imagine they’d be unconcerned about it, so I really fucking hope they wouldn’t accept or promulgate this reasoning wholesale if they were presented with it, even if they decided (which I agree could very well be a reasonable, humane decision) to informally or formally teach a greater openness to the trans community on other grounds.

It would be ridiculous to say I would lose my faith if they did accept or promulgate this reasoning, but I'd definitely see it as a kick in the teeth from the Magisterium that would probably take me a while to come to accept.

[circadianwolf]

realism in fiction

(in response to characterizing and dismissing a criticism of Fallout 3 as a silly concern about “scientific accuracy”)

I don't really want to talk about Fallout (I've done enough of that in the past), but on the topic in general with the various Fallout games as examples. I think the "inaccuracies" of Fallout 3's setting are incredibly relevant to the rhetorical/ideological work that the game is doing (knowingly or not). Presenting a world that seems to have existed in stasis since the bombs fell, which still lives in the junk and detritus of the Old World, is (obviously) a deliberate choice, commonly assigned to the "aesthetic" of post-apocalypse. But beyond this it serves the function of justifying a dioramic world of isolated scenes and disconnected characters, not a society but rather individual survivors and communities which form no larger network, produce nothing, and  whose labor, where it exists, is purely extractive (scavenging), mercantile, or violent. The notion of a post-apocalyptic world as a ruthless every-man-for-himself (gender deliberate) anti-society is common and dangerous; it is a fantasy of unrestrained masculine violence, in the same way zombie stories are by and large fantasies of racist genocide of thoughtless hordes by the imperiled white minorities. Fallout 3's world of tattered three-hundred-year-old clothing and squatting in three-hundred-year-old ruins and eating three-hundred-year-old canned food is one of total scarcity, in which the only gain possible is by taking from someone else.

That this is "inaccurate" is important for the reasons all stories are important: stories serve as life experiences by proxy. Our brain compiles our experiences over time into recurring patterns which become templates for our default reactions to future situations that register as similar - these are our "instincts", which are not programmed in our genetics but largely socially conditioned. Stories are a technology of information sharing, a way for humans to collectivize experiences so that we can react to experiences we have never faced ourselves with the knowledge of others' experiences. Stories are -always- didactic. But this technology opens up the opportunity for false experiences which can teach false reactions. All stories are, of course, "unreal" - even those based in reality are abstractions, even fiction set in the "real world" creates characters and situations, etc. So yes, to criticize "inaccuracies" is on a base level silly; but they are very relevant when these inaccuracies reinforce false patterns. Normally, false patterns are not promoted precisely because they teach false responses; but when culture is controlled by a minority, they can override the normal dynamics to promote stories that falsely justify power, exploitation, and oppression.

This is not just a theoretical or abstract process (as you might look at with Fallout), it is something governments and corporations actively and knowingly engage in. In the 1950s a major priority of the CIA was to promote "anti-communist" media. Perhaps the predominant example of this was the Iowa Writer's Workshop, a literary graduate program which became the model for many similar programs across the US. Its early funding included a grant from the CIA and its founder openly proclaimed his goal of creating "anti-communist" fiction, which meant the elision of "politics", relations of production, and similar structural forces and a rejection of "didacticism" in favor of a focus on individuals, psychological interiority divorced from material circumstances, and atomic social relationships. The epitome of this "anti-communist" fiction was the motto "show, don't tell". What this reflected in a larger sense was the conflict in philosophy between what is termed "idealism" and "materialism", the latter of which is fundamental to communist theory (Marx's theory is specifically termed "dialectical materialism" or "historical materialism").

Now in American culture, the interiority of "high" literature was matched by a false opposition of plot-heavy "low" culture, increasingly dominated across mediums by corporate-controlled franchises that become ever-more enmeshed within their own "canon" (a metaphor from the debates over which Christian scriptures are "true"). Alongside this was encouraged a cultural fixation of quantification, metrics, and consistency - but only of specific things. The early fan cultures which treated corporate fiction as any other mythology, as something to be interrogated, extended, transformed, and played with as people found it useful (and not coincidentally composed significantly of women) became the extensive but derided backwater of "fan fiction" while corporate media instead promoted a fan culture of obsessive cataloguing and collecting "approved" products. The only form of extra-canonical culture encouraged was/is the sort of "could a Star Destroyer beat the Enterprise" questions and "fanon" creating extensive and ridiculous justifications for existing canon - in other words, fan culture that was wholly secondary and subservient to corporate culture.

It is in response to this latter trend that we got to the modern rejection of "scientific accuracy", both in terms of complaints about a lack of accuracy and in false claims of accuracy as justification for pernicious fiction (e.g. "it's medieval Europe so of course everyone is white" which is both a false statement in itself and of course completely nonsensical when applied to fiction not even set in history). But both sides of this are largely unconcerned with "accuracy" in the sense of storytelling that does not promote harmful responses; both position themselves as "apolitical" and in so doing reify the capitalist logic underlying this entire spectrum of criticism. Complaints of "how are people feeding themselves? who is doing the work?" and similar are neither promoted by those invested in "accuracy" nor indirectly promoted by citing them when refuting the desire for such. Materialism remains by the wayside in favor of supremely individualist critiques isolated from any larger context or relevance. (As an aside: even I was surprised when I did a survey of what are today termed "simulationist" tabletop role-playing games and found that while they would spend dozens of pages on rules simulating the physics of gunshot injuries, rules for production relations and political structures were all but nonexistent in every single game. Surveying strategy video games with a global/regional setting for mechanics covering these topics is less fruitless but still incredibly rare.)

In recent years the derision of "accuracy", "realism", "plot holes", and similar has intensified as mainstream culture has become more and more, to borrow a metaphor from other criticism, pornographic. By this is not meant a proliferation of nudity and sex, but rather a structuring of fiction around crude emotional climaxes, with plot, characters, setting, tone, and other concerns set aside in order to achieve the desired climax, no matter how nonsensical. This is spectacle in the basest sense; absent the contextual girding of plot and characters, these climaxes can only move viewers (or players or w/e) to emotion by way of basic visual and audio cues: lurid violence, triumphant music, explosions. Previously this might have been derided even in mainstream criticism (look to the reception of Michael Bay's films), although there has always been exceptions; but, for example, the most recent season of Game of Thrones - which while always a white supremacist fairy tale dominated by a materially unsustainable by fascistically indulgent level of violence, at least at one point paid heed to concepts like "character motivation" and "distances of 1000 miles are significant obstacles" - seemed to deliberately give up on any pretense of its storytelling serving any function other than the delivery of "awesome moments" to be "shared" and discussed on social media the following day. Critics, beholden to the domination of the capitalist behemoth, at most offered tepid laments of the show moving too fast while continuing to celebrate it as an apex of television storytelling.

All of this is not to say that, for example, Game of Thrones would be better with context simply because context is good in itself. Rather, it is that context demands a logic and material basis; when a story undergirds itself with material logistics of how its characters eat, clothe themselves, travel, etc., even if those details are not centered or elaborated (but not if they are ignored for "dramatic purposes"), it forces the storyteller to engage with the processes and conflicts that actually drive human society, and that are therefore of import to us. One critic calculated that based on the stated land area of Game of Thrones' setting combined with the stated casualties in the various battles across the series and assumptions of medieval European population density and farm outputs, the entire continent would be suffering depopulation and famine (as a result of lack of farm laborers and devastated fields). Certainly, the assumptions based on medieval Europe are not "accurate" for the story, but they serve to demand an explanation of how -does- the continent still produce food? Why -do- the armies keep fighting rather than deserting, as many pre-modern armies did when wars stretched long and without result? Among many other unanswered questions.

The point is not that there can't be answers to these questions - c.f. "fanon" above - but that the canonical fiction bypasses them in order to tell the story it wants to tell - a story about endless violence, faceless armies, and nihilistic elites, without any interest in how such a society functions at all. That the values of a story should trump material logistics of the setting and plot is an absolute truism in American fiction and criticism, but this is not a neutral position; this is the CIA's project for anti-communist fiction having triumphed utterly, the idealist ideology of capitalism, of decontextualized individuals driven by abstract values and engaging with material reality only through the lens of violence, having been rendered so dominant that opposition is unthinkable. Similarly elevated is "show, don't tell" and its dismissal of didacticism, its explicit valorization of the elision of ideology. Lost in all this is, again, that if stories matter - and they do - then their ideology matters, and all stories teach ideology, and the rejection of materialism - the wholesale dismissal of "realism" and its ilk in favor of abstract ideals - is a pernicious ideology that works to justify capitalism and undermine anti-capitalist - which is to say, communist - education. We -need- stories about logistics and labor in order to teach ourselves how to survive and escape capitalism, to provide us with experiences we cannot yet have in reality.

[brentsotherblog]

Top 15 Films of 2016

Hey, I’m still doing this!

Living in Chicago (and working at a job with flexibility for occasional film streaming) means better access to films, and I saw 63 of the films released last year (er, if “released last year” is loosely defined). As always, this is a list of my favorite films—the ones I connected with most or couldn’t stop thinking about. I’m stretching to 15 films this year, because I couldn’t narrow it any further, and because does anyone read this?

Different year, same disclaimer: We all have different standards and tolerance for material, so if you’re wary of certain kinds of content, I’d recommend perusing reviews or ratings before trusting my recommendations.

(I really struggled to narrow this down! #22 is La La Land, #21 is Paterson, #20 is One More Time with Feeling, #19 is Kubo and the Two Strings, #18 is The Handmaiden, #17 is The Lobster, and #16 is Cemetery of Splendor.)

15. Swiss Army Man

I had to watch this twice to make sure it deserved a spot on my list—was there really as much heartfelt sweetness as I initially perceived?—but I can confirm that if you don’t mind more than a handful (an island-full, more accurately) of fart jokes and boner jokes, Swiss Army Man offers a heartfeltly sweet story about friendship and what happens when our intricately constructed inner worlds are exposed for the world to see.

14. Loving

This is the film that 2015’s Freeheld wanted to be: Poignant, gentle, and lovely, Loving seems mostly unconcerned with reminding you that it’s a film about a major social issue or a major Supreme Court case. Instead, it’s a film about a couple whose connection to a major social issue finds them at the center of a major Supreme Court case, but most of that exists in the background: Watch Mildred and Richard tend to each other, take care of each other, be husband and wife to each other.

13. Captain Fantastic

Wickedly funny and concerned with two of my favorite themes (i.e., whether those who withdraw from society might actually be better off, and a la #15, what happens when our private worlds are publicly exposed), Captain Fantastic was unlike anything else I saw this year. This is the opposite of a movie that doesn’t know what it thinks about its protagonist and his decisions—it cares deeply for Ben Cash (a nuanced performance from Viggo Mortensen) and his family and presents them as complex humans worthy of our time and consideration.

12. Manchester by the Sea

Okay, it bummed me out that so much of the discussion about this movie focused on how sad it was, as if it were created merely to win sad-movie Oscars: It is a profoundly sad story, but it’s also bleakly funny and boldly straightforward, a sort of workman’s examination of grief less concerned with pompous soliloquies than with the sort of humdrum triggers and decisions that grief is actually made of, like: When is it warm enough to bury a body in Massachusetts?

11. OJ: Made in America

The documentary that finally scratched my Serial-shaped itch! OJ: Made in America earns its nearly 8-hour runtime by showing exactly how Simpson’s trial captured so many contemporary dynamics in American culture: race, policing, celebrity, sports, marriage, abuse, economics, etc., etc. It says a lot that I was hooked 30 minutes in, at which point the film is still mostly only talking about Simpson’s football career.

10. Moana

I saw Moana with my family over Christmas, and there was a specific moment about two-thirds of the way in when I stopped thinking, “This is a beautiful film, and I’m so glad my niece and nephews are getting to see such a great female hero,” and realized, “No, forget the kids, forget progressive politics—Moana is a badass character, and this is a genuinely entertaining and movie story.” I could write pages about this film, from its wonderful subversion of kids’ movie tropes to its rich theological themes to its beautiful visual style, but I’m too busy crying at the part where the ocean gives Te Fiti’s heart to Moana.

9. Sing Street

Sing Street has all the elements of a coming-of-age classic (breakout performances from two young leads, a self-aware sense of humor, moments of surprising darkness, and an ambitious ending that reaches for the mythic) and ties them together in a toe-tapping, catchy package. What elevates Sing Street is its subtle forays into the imaginary, like the slow pan around the room as the band assembles for “Up” and the heartbreaking fantasy of “Drive It Like You Stole It.” If nothing else (and there’s so much else!), this film gave us the sublime “Riddle of the Model.”

8. Hidden Figures

Listen, the worst thing I can say about this film is that it’s somewhat low-hanging, feel-good fruit; but if you want to feel good after watching a movie, you could do much, much worse than a story about the unsung black women heroes of NASA in the 1960s featuring perfect performances, deft pacing, and dialogue that sizzles. The film subversively suggests that one of the worst dangers of systemic injustice (among many) is its sheer mathematical inefficiency, and the subplot about Katherine’s difficulty finding a bathroom for (so-called) colored women is one of the best portrayals of the slowly exhausting burdens of invisible (to some) discrimination I’ve seen.

7. Krisha

Imagine a horror movie where the villain is the anxiety induced by large family gatherings, or maybe the demons that accompany you to those gatherings. Though I usually look forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas with my own relatives, Krisha was the kind of film that grabbed me by the shoulders and wouldn’t let me exhale till the credits rolled. The unfamiliar cast (composed of mostly real-life friends and family) and house setting help this film feel like a small peek into the dynamics of a real family system. How is this Krisha Fairchild’s first prominent role (at least in a long time), and when can I see her on screen next?

6. The Fits

This year’s “I don’t know exactly what to say about it except that it’s doing something brilliant, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it” entry! The Fits is undoubtedly up to some interesting things in terms of gender and social pressure, but this film spoke to me primarily on a visceral-aesthetic level, due primarily to Royalty Hightower’s commanding, stoic (and, undoubtedly, career-launching) physical performance as a young boxer-turned-dancer.

5. I Am Not Your Negro

In a year that gave us more than a handful of compelling, tightly-constructed documentaries about various issues concerning race in the United States (including #11), I Am Not Your Negro had the greatest effect on me. The film’s clever, gut-wrenching juxtaposition of protest and police footage (What year was that clip from, again?) and pop culture history is elevated a few steps by searing narration from James Baldwin’s typewriter and a smart, poignant structure highlighting the deaths of three Civil Rights Movement giants.

4. The Witch

I only watch horror films if they get buzz like The Witch got, and the buzz did not mislead me: This is a gorgeous, haunting, disturbing film, one that meticulously crafts a self-contained world as a means of isolating us in that world with its isolated protagonists. As a result, the dangers menacing the family—from the surrounding forest, but more pressingly from each person’s heart—feel truly menacing, and we may not know any better than the characters what they should fear most. Don’t let any critic tell you what the ending means; it’s much more fruitful to argue it out with fellow viewers. The second-best film on faith I saw this year.

3. Silence

Admittedly I was rooting for this film out of the gate as a huge fan of Endo’s novel, but I think the adaptation succeeds on many fronts: The brutally patient pace, the fully-realized (and stunning) recreation of 17th-century Japan, and the sheer power of every interaction between Neeson’s Ferreira and Garfield’s Rodrigues. It was a growing frustration of mine to see how poorly (and inevitably) Silence performed at the box office compared to 2016’s God is Not Dead 2; suffice it to say that I consider the former film a much more compelling exploration of the question of God’s absence. (It’s rare that a film adaptation of a character so matches my imagination that I actually recognize the character, but thus was the case with Kubozuka’s snivelling, tormented portrayal of Kichijiro.)

2. Arrival

I loved this film for a few reasons. It’s absolutely the most gripping experience I had in a theater all year, with each of the film’s high-stakes revelations unfurling slowly and organically with a pleasantly slow burn. It’s a perfect marriage of form and function, in terms of how the story plays with familiar tropes (including cinematic depictions of grief) to foreshadow and surprise us. It’s firing on all cylinders, including a powerhouse performance from Amy Adams, an unforgettable score, and breathtaking, expansive cinematography, to deliver a story that’s equally satisfying as both an alien encounter film and a personal family drama. More than anything, though—and I shouldn’t spoil too much here—it’s a wholly imaginative exploration of the age-old question of whether you’d live your life differently, if you had the chance. The last ten minutes of dialogue are nearly perfect.

1. Moonlight

I knew this would be my favorite film of the year about 10 minutes in. It’s become cliched to call the film “empathetic,” but it’s true that I can’t remember a story so concerned with letting its characters speak on their own terms as Moonlight is. Each performance is masterful: See if you can count how many times Juan (Mahershala Ali) or Paula (Naomie Harris) shifts between vulnerable and withdrawn (”soft” and “hard,” in the language of the film) in any given scene, or all the near-imperceptible ways Kevin and Chiron admit to themselves and signal to each other what they hope will happen. My second viewing revealed many of the film’s brilliant structural touches, like the way each act ends with the moment that effectively concludes each chapter of Chiron’s development, or the subtle visual motifs that tie his life together; notice, for example, the way Kevin heating up water on the stove to make Chrion tea recalls young Chiron heating water for his bath, or the colors of the shirts the two leads wear in the final scene. What else? The film contains both my favorite line (”I cry so much sometimes I think one day I’m gon’ just turn into drops.”) and my favorite scene (the transcendent baptism-via-swimming-lesson sequence) of the year, and I haven’t talked to anyone who was unaffected by it. Moonlight is a timeless masterpiece and my favorite film of 2016.