#and insist that there's no such thing as a disabled person who is COMPLETELY unable to work

[alastors-wife]

I have no idea how some of you guys are able to get super into politics & reading about communist stuff because accessibility wise??? it's been a nightmare for me

[galactic-rhea]

I am totally here for Cars worldbuilding ramblings

THANK YOU, USER FAN OF THE SOAP

I'm glad I'm not scaring all of my audience lmao.

Now, let me talk to you about how nightmarish ableist is Cars 2.

You see, I was subjected to a very special kind of torture called "I have two nephews who were obssesed with Cars 2, not 1 or 3 or Planes, but Cars 2. And they would watch it for three times, every day, for about two months. And I had to be with them".

Which I'm sure did something bad to my brain, my standards of what's annoying in a movie are wrecked and I can still hear dialogue per dialogue on my mind.

Cars 2 got away with a special kind of ableism that I want to believe any other movie wouldn't have been able to get away with on our current era, all because is Cars.

But there's also A LOT OF violence in that movie, we see on screen characters violently exploding, being subjected to torture and also the equivalent of open-heart surgery, black market of organs, and a literal bomb being put into an individual. Because is Cars it just could do so.

The thing about Cars 2 is that all the villains are disabled cars. They're unable to function properly and constantly will be unable to turn on their engines, are called slurs and, in the case of the rich-mafia adjacent ones, literally have hired medical assistance (a tow truck). And all of this because we're told that their parts have been descontinued, which technically gives us the grim implication that they're basically left to die slowly as they can't keep changing their parts. There aren't humans, and this isn't a human-post apocalyptic universe (no matter how much people Insist, i refuse to accept that theory). Which means that the fabrication of these parts and thus, the ones in charge of the literal poblation's development, must be other vehicles, most probably Cars.

Very powerful and rich Cars like it goes beyond a comparison in real world, they aren't the ones in charge of meds or health care, they're literally in charge of the whole production/birth of Cars, and by deciding what parts to make and what parts to descontinue they're slso deciding who gets to live and who gets to die.

And this isn't possibly a "new" problem, is probably something rooted in the Cars' universe culture for thousands of years. If let's say the Wright brothers were, idk, bikes. They created the first plane (which then died in seconds), so they're basically Victors Frankesteins and this is legal, this is absolutely completely normal in this universe because otherwise there's no way for new models to exist.

So every generation of vehicles have this deep, ingrained thought of " we're building the generation that reemplaces us, in every way they're better and as soon as there's a better version, we will cease to exist and cease to be produced".

I remain of the theory that parents in Cars basically buy parts and assembly their own child and then as time passes, they change parts until we get the general "adult" model. But this also means some parents might be unable to buy parts and what not, does this stunt the child development? Probably.

In Cars 3, Lightning McQueen is unable to keep compiting because the new gen is of much better tech, so I assume it's already happening to him what I just explained: At some point, the production of their parts/ maintenance becomes obsolete. So Lightning can keep on living, for a long while, but no matter the reparations or even the modifications, apparently you can't completely modify a car otherwise you would have a Thesseus ship predicament.

In Planes, Dusty is capable to get several modifications, but they aren't extreme. However we see a little car that's able to change into a plane, and we see he apparently has a split personality , which makes me a bit icky because -gestures-, Hollywood also loves to make awful reps about DID. But, this seems to support the idea that extreme changes= basically a different person in the Cars universe. And an awful idea is to face the familiars of a vehicle that got into an accident "we can save them by almost completely rebuilding them, but might as well be a different person".

So back to Cars 2, all these villain Cars are disabled and suffering because someone, literally decided that isn't worth it, these models can't continue their existence when our engineers/doctors already created a new version.

And they must go along with it! They must accept it, because their society has been accepting it for hundreds of years by now! And so the movie decided to make them the literal mafia and a violent murderous group of terrorist and spies, what a move.

The movie tries to make Mater to be some sort of disabled character as well, he keeps being called dumb, ugly and whatever for the whole movie, he's all covered in rust and shamed for an oil leak. And nothing of this is resolved or really addressed, because not only his problems aren't even comparable to those of the villains (is implied he's rusty and all covered in bumbs just because he choses to), his character arc is basically that he's capable of solving a mystery not even the spies figured out at the time, the classic "actually i can be useful" that Hollywood loves.

And we learn the motives for the villains, and like, yeah, that's awful! All those murders and a political fraud to try to get rich by owning oil, but no one gives an ounce of sympathy for a group of characters that literally need medical assistance almost 24/7. The mafia guys can afford to hire tow truck and the big multi-millionarie villain can afford his constant surgeries, to the point of being able to disguise himself and look "normal"

And it drives me crazy that no one mentions this, but I can't blame people, most people weren't subjected to this movie three times per day for 60~ days.

If anyone read this far, you should thank to @soapysudz for fueling me (GET IT?!! FUEL?! -recorded laughs-)

[angelsanarchy]

Glass Houses: Jack Thurlow x Y/N Series CH 09 -> CH 10

"Feeling sexual attraction isn't a crime Jack." "No but I'm pretty sure jerking off while watching the neighbor might be."

Tagging: @roryculkinluvr @thatsthewrongwallcraig @icarus-star @cc-luvr @madamemaximoff06 @shady-the-simp @quicksilversg1rl @s-0lar @kristennero-wallacewellsver @mayathepsychic1999 @ophelialaufey

Jack slept without interruption the entire night. His body had let him relax enough and his mind was fuzzy. He woke up with a slight ache in his throat, assuming he had slept so well that he had snored. It wasn't until he remembered the cum stained pants in the corner that he felt shame wash over his body. He took a shower trying to scrub away the negative thoughts that swirled around in his head, begrudgingly taking his meds and waiting for the opportunity to talk to his doctor.

"Good Morning Jack, how was your-" He barely let him get through pleasantries.

"I think I need to be locked up." Jack practically yelled into the computer.

"Okay...did something happen last night?" Dr. Carty remained calm.

"Yeah and I think I may be a predator or something." Jack shook his head unsure, wringing his hands.

"I'm going to need a lot more than that please." Dr. Carty pressed.

"Last night, I was finally able to jerk off...to completion." Jack explained like he was expecting him to know.

"Was the subject of your infatuation a minor or someone who has a mental disability that leaves them unable to make intellectual decisions?" The doctor seemed almost afraid to receive the answer but Jack scrunched his face.

"What? No. The neighbor was outside changing out of her work clothes late last night." Jack's explanation made the doctor sigh with relief.

"Feeling sexual attraction isn't a crime, Jack." The doctor could tell Jack was still upset.

"No but I'm pretty sure jerking off while watching the neighbor might be." He insisted.

"I mean, it's rude to say the least in terms of consent but you didn't seek her out. You weren't peeping through the windows or leaving spy cameras in the shower stalls. You simply saw an attractive young woman's naked body, who you also seem to have a good repore with." Jack tried to calm his breath listening to the doctors rationalize his actions.

"Jack, if you had a history of predatory behavior, I would be the first person to send someone to pick you up for treatment. You are not a danger to your neighbor. I hope your regrettable actions didn't cause you to be a danger to yourself." Dr. Carty looked him over but Jack voluntarily lifted his arms up to show him that he was unharmed.

"How are you feeling today?" He followed.

"I mean I slept great. I just woke up and realized what I had done last night, started freaking out and this is where I'm at now." Jack ran his hands through his hair frustrated.

"How did you feel last night? I know you had been struggling with the ability to feel sexual inclinations." Jack had mentioned that he had been pent up for over a year now and all the doctor did was make a note of it.

"I mean I was thrilled. I couldn't believe I could actually get hard let alone finish." Jack explained.

"So you think maybe your connection with your neighbor is going well." Jack shook his head.

"I barely know her. I'm just a guy who appreciates a really attractive naked woman." Jack blew it off but the doctor shook his head.

"If that were the case, you wouldn't have had any issues reaching completion in the year prior. You like her, at the very least you feel comfortable enough to use her in a fantasy." Dr. Carty continued to take notes.

"I don't exactly know how I feel about that. I mean doesnt that sound a little shady? I use her to get off without her knowledge." Jack added.

"Feeling safe with someone isn't a bad thing Jack. You could always let her know that you find her sexually attractive and see how that goes." Jack snorted a laugh.

"I don't know that we're living in the same timeframe Doc. If you haven't noticed, we're living in the times where woman don't exactly respond well when you make sexual advances on them out of the blue. The last thing I want to do is get punched in the face by the neighbor who's letting me dogsit for her." Most days, Jack was able to get on board with the doctors recommendations. Today he seemed like he hadn't exactly had his coffee yet to be encouraging him to just tell Y/n he whacked off to her.

"I would hope that you were a bit smoother with your approach than to just make sexual advances on her. She seems to get along with you well and trusts you to a degree to watch over a life she cherishes. You may not realize that but she's already let you into a precious part of her life." Jack hadn't looked at it that way. He glanced back over his shoulder at the pup snuggled down on his bed, silently snoozing away.

"Jack, let me remind you that your delusions from your episode were not real. You never physically hurt anyone, espiecally in a predatorily sexual manner. You are not a danger to her or anyone else you choose to have relations with. You are capable of knowing when to reach out for help in the instant you feel something changing. Give yourself some credit." Dr. Carty's words were genine and Jack felt some relief from them.

"Thanks Doc." Jack cleared his throat, slightly startling Ace from his slumber. He moved from the desk after ending his session and crawled into his bed next to him. Ace moved to lay next to him so he could pet him.

"What do you think? You think Y/n would punch me in the face if I told her she had great tits?" Jack scratched behind Ace's ears and he rolled over onto his back to get belly rubs.

"I don't know if its the massochist in me or the self destructive piece of shit that wishes she would just so I'd feel better." Jack huffed. Ace crawled onto his chest and took up residencey to stare him in the face.

"We can't lay here all day buddy. We need food and at least a walk." Ace perked up and jumped from Jack's chest. If only he could find something in his own life that made him as excited as Ace was for a walk.

[theconcealedweapon]

A lot of people say this, but many of them are not the type of people who it's safe to open up to.

What a lot of people don't realize is that suicide is not a light switch. It's often caused by pain that seems survivable at first but over time slowly gets more intense or slowly gets less hopeful for the pain to end. At what point during that timeline is someone considered suicidal? At what point should they open up about it? What happens if they open up too early and it ends up being a false alarm and they worry people for nothing, get accused of exaggerating, or get involuntarily committed to a hospital?

Also, many suicidal people could easily save themselves if they understood exactly why they were suicidal, which means that helping them requires acknowledging that their experience is difficult to explain and not jumping to conclusions. But many people who say that they want to help are often the first to jump to conclusions.

I was suicidal because of a party I was at where someone went out of his way to make it seem like I was bothering anyone I tried to talk to. This would have completely thrown off my ability to read people and made me feel like the world was a better place for people like him than for people like me, which would have been deadly when the pandemic started and the painful memory was combined with the loneliness of the pandemic. Thankfully, when I was about to leave that party, two of my friends reassured me that they loved me and wanted me to stay there. They saved my life. But before I understood what happened, I had very powerful feelings for one of those friends (even without consciously thinking about that party). At first it felt like just a crush, but it was so powerful that I could die from it. The feelings I had for her made perfect sense after I realized that she saved my life, but before then it felt like I had an unhealthy obsession with her. So I tried everything I could think of to get my mind off of her, and nothing worked. Being autistic made it much harder, because understanding my emotions and connecting with other people is much harder for me than it is for the average person.

One time, when I was stoned and saying random things to my sister and my mom, I ended up mentioning how traumatic my experience was for me. In an attempt to explain how traumatic it was and how I had to force myself to do things that my brain was not meant to do, I said that after what I've been through I'd probably be able to solve the feud between my other sister and my cousin.

At no point did I plan to do anything, or think it was a good idea, or want to do it, or think it would be easy. I simply mentioned that as a random hypothetical scenario as a comparison in order to illustrate how difficult my experience was. But my mom and my sister started yelling at me. They went back and forth repeatedly yelling "No" at me, probably about five times each separated by a few seconds each time, while I was sitting there silently trying to figure out what was even happening.

They knew that I have a disability that makes confrontation difficult for me, and they also knew that I was stoned at the time and barely able to hold onto a thought for more than a few seconds. They knew that anything I said was just words put together, and that I was unable to make any sort of plans at the time. But that didn't matter. They still felt the need to massively overpower me just because I mentioned something once that they added a hidden meaning to. For some reason, they just had to interpret "I probably could do this" as "I insist on doing this and I dare you to stop me". And on top of that, explaining why they didn't want me to do it (or what they thought "it" even was) never crossed their mind. They just saw something that seemed like an opportunity to gang up on me and they jumped on it.

And because of that, I could no longer open up to them. I was going through something that was nearly impossible to explain on so many levels. And they showed me that if I open up to them, my first priority has to be analyzing what I say in advance to make sure they don't attack me for it. I was already burning myself out by doing an amount of thinking that my brain was never designed to do, and they made it so I had to do even more thinking in order to stop them from making it worse.

But they're the type of people who would share this photo. They're the type of people who society considers compassionate. They're the type of people who would call themselves "empaths". They're the type of people who would "feel bad" when someone commits suicide. But they're also the worst type of people for any suicidal person to open up to.

If you want suicidal people to open up to you, you have to be a safe person to open up to. Don't jump to conclusions. Don't add hidden meanings to what people say. Don't lock in what people say. Don't try to take over a conversation about other people's experiences. Don't expect to be obeyed. Don't expect quick responses. Don't be more forceful than informative. Don't wait for people to be suicidal to start showing them compassion.

[anotherdayforchaosfay]

The single most irritating people I've had to deal with are those that use their disability/disabilities as an excuse to be a cunt.

Example?

We had a neighbor who, when we moved in, came knocking on our door and informed us that we can't call the police on her because she's not responsible for her actions. Wtf? Apparently she has a neurological disorder and seems to think that excuses all her behavior. She also had a seven year old daughter who was outdoors all day, regardless of weather, because this woman wouldn't let her in for more than toilet use. I had to call CPS one summer because she had a monstrous sunburn, complete with blisters, and it was 115 F outdoors. When they arrived, the woman was screaming about not being responsible because of her condition. BTW her excuse was completely BS and people like her are why the rest of us have to work so hard to be respected and keep our independence.

Another example?

Several years ago, I was hanging out with some friends. One of them brought along someone else, and warmed us this person is an acquired taste. This person immediately told us they have a personality disorder, and it makes them an absolutely unpleasant, cruel, PoS cunt. That they can't help but be this way, and if we have an issue with them, we're ableists and terrible people. That BS excuse doesn't work on me, at all. They had not a single nice thing to say, and when I finally had enough, I suggested they consider the advice of "if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all." Everyone else was nodding, but this craptastic ass fucking blew up. They launched themselves at me, stopped only because two others were faster, and had to be physically removed from the building. Oh, and they threatened to kill me, so that went over well when neighbors heard them being dragged down the hall.

Need another?

When I was a uni student, I had a classmate who, on the first day, informed everyone they have a condition that often results in being too touchy. If we have an issue with that, we need to tell them and be patient. They would then come up behind the girls, myself included, and touch our waist, back, butt, and when sitting next to us, our thighs. I got tired of telling them to stop and physically grabbed their hand and removed it from my body. They started YELLING about me crossing boundaries, assaulting them, blah blah blah. The teacher was a hundred ways done with this student, and called bullshit on the behavior before telling them to leave. Next day, a school official is in there, asking questions, interrogating interviewing each of us. The student never returned, nor did we ever learn what this condition is, aside from being a possibly made up excuse to harass each girl in the classroom.

You want another one?

A uni classmate told me I need to wear a hat in class or dye my hair because redheads are a PTSD trigger for them. I suggested they seek therapy because the world doesn't revolve around them and their triggers. They tried getting school officials involved because they claimed this was a violation of rules regarding accommodations. Surprise, it's not!

Final example because this is helping long.

I used to vendor at a pagan convention, selling jewelry I made. A woman, total stranger, told me I need tonlower my prices for her because she's Disabled and doesn't have much money. I asked her if she tells this to the grocery store managers they need to accommodate her like this. She was an interesting shade of red at this point. Then I pointed out I, too, am Disabled, unable to work, have very little money, and pointed to the sign I have on my table that states "if you ask/demand I lower my price, it goes up 10%." That's when she ran off and returned with a convention official who, at this point, had received several complaints about this woman. She was given a reality check and a suggestion to leave if she insisted on being so disrespectful to sellers. She left.

You being Disabled is not an excuse to be a piece of shit asshole cunt towards everyone else. The world does not revolve around you or your disabilities. Accommodations are vital, but they don't include treating others like shit, requiring others make changes for your triggers, or demanding price changes.

Until a few years ago, the very sight of a box of Kraft Mac'n'cheese was enough to set off flashbacks. Therapy, including exposure therapy, helped a lot. My husband would make a point of hiding the boxes in the back of a cupboard and carry thr empty ones to the recycling bin, but never once did I ask he never eat it. A specific type of hoodie has a similar effect, still does, and I asked him not to buy or wear that type. He's cool with it. What I don't do is approach strangers and ask that they remove the hoodie because it was setting off flashbacks. Instead, I don't look at them and leave. My husband hates a specific type of fern, the type that are massive, popular indoors, and could lass for trees. They set off his flashbacks. I love those plants, but have refrained from ever buying one. He had a friend who had several of these around their apartment. Rather than asking the guy to hide the the plants, he made the single visit short and left, and simply had the guy hang out at our place. When the friend was packing to move, he asked if we would like the plants, and I declined, using the legitimate excuse about the apartment being too dark for the plants.

Reasonable accommodations are valid, like ramps, wider doors, grips for the bathroom, larger bathroom stalls, and elevators. Asking a restaurant to completely wash a down a flat top stove in order to cook something for you because you have celiac disease is unreasonable.

Stop using your disabilities as an excuse to be an asshole. Do better.

[thepixarau]

oooh for angst i was wondering what the pixars would do for another pixar if they were sad/depressed , how would the different pixars try to help their friend through it?:o)

There’s actually quite a few of them that have suffered with depression and still struggle to this day. Now before I answer your question I’d just like to clarify to anyone who may be wondering why any of the Pixars would be depressed;

Depression isn’t always directly caused by one thing in particular. It isn’t just being sad or empty all the time. Depression can be caused by a number of reasons like stress, physical disabilities/injuries, ocd/adhd, body dysmorphia, etc. People with depression can have moments of normality where they act and feel completely fine and can complete a regular routine if they have to. However, some people experience depression differently than others and that’s perfectly valid. Taking antidepressants or other medication can affect that.

Just wanted to kinda make this clear so no one gets the wrong idea like “oh one of the characters just mopes around in bed all day!” While yes some of them have had episodes where they feel unmotivated and unable to take care of themselves, that isn’t always the case and isn’t a daily occurrence.

Now back to the question, helping anyone with depression is tough because there’s not really much you can do. The more optimistic Pixars like Joy or Dory might try to crack a joke or take them out of the house to do something fun, anything to take their mind off things. And while this helps, it doesn’t take the pain away completely, and that’s perfectly understandable. A person like Woody might actually try and offer advice, not for how to handle depression but maybe how to get motivated to do little things like chores or grocery shopping. EVE, being an android, will focus on the physical well-being of a person and insist that they eat or shower. She’s kind of a caretaker but since she’s not a human like the rest of them she expresses it in a very blunt way😆

Anyway to sum it up; if one Pixar is truly suffering with mental health the others will always be there for them in one way or another❤️

[ghooostbaby]

deeeep dive into why and how wei wuxian and lan wangji love each other, complete each other, are the inverse reflection of each other’s deeply hidden internal selves mirrored through the other’s external self, lan wangji’s inner wildness that he has to conceal and protect recognizing and loving wei wuxian’s outer wildness, wei wuxian’s deep, fuddy-duddy morality and values that he conceals with an elaborate subterfuge of jokes, mischief, and bravado, seeing and loving in lan wangji the ability to say no that it was never safe for him to express directly, “between you and me there is no need for thank you and sorry”

oh and a slight diversion midway through into a manifesto on WEI WUXIAN IS NOT INSECURE the whole story is about a society where being liked is ESSENTIAL for survival and it is actually completely perilous not to be liked, and his “people pleasing” is a skill and tool for his survival especially as an orphan and proven to be a necessary one when he stops doing it and STOPS SURVIVING

after the cut discussing the very interesting dynamics of consent in general in the novel, but not going into the consensual non-consent kink stuff till the last paragraph if you need to avoid for any reason.

I've been thinking about how Lan WangJi sees in Wei WuXian the exterior, unfettered expression of the wildness Lan WangJi holds in him and protects with rigid codes of conduct, propriety and outward dignity.

I have had this sense that these two are mirrors, either one reflecting the hidden, interior (and unallowed) self of the other. but it seemed more clear from Lan WangJi's side, especially knowing about his history with his mother and the spicy side that emerges when he drinks and in the extras.

I also - just... the way this whole story shows how romantic love is truly this longing for your self, to become yourself, to become the thing you're not allowed to be, seeing in that person the expression of whatever it is you can't become and longing for it, protecting it, joining with it as closely as you can without ever being able to let it live inside your own body.

On the surface it seems a lot more difficult for Wei WuXian to find a piece of his soul in Lan Wangji. I think its a bit too simplistic to see whatever draws Wei WuXian to Lan Wangji as a reverse-psychology sort of craving of acceptance from the only one who won't give it, pushing and pushing against this impenetrable boundary that he needs to break to feel assurance that no matter what he can make anyone accept him.

And he is SO drawn - in a mind boggling way, in the teenage flashbacks Lan WangJi rudely and aggressively throws him off over and over and Wei WuXian cannot keep away! Even when he talks about how boring Lan WangJi is, he never stops trying to be around him and talk to him.

I've seen discussions of the way Wei WuXian has always relied on the goodwill of others to survive, and that his placating of others to survive is a character flaw. Although that seems only halfway true. 

As a young child he didn't have anyone's goodwill for a while and he survived, and it seems like he can always find a way to survive from whatever means and sometimes very limited resources he has at his disposal. Doing what he has to do to become powerful enough to survive losing his core and being thrown into the burial mounds slowly costs him the goodwill of everyone around him - and what happens to him as a result shows how much placation was a truly necessary for someone without the protection of biological/hereditary family bonds.

(Don’t get me started on how his loss of his golden core and his development of demonic cultivation to give himself power by ‘unnatural methods’ through the use of a musical instrument is a metaphor for disability and the way ableist society sees the use of accessibility devices and tools. Actually please DO get my started haha.)

Wei WuXian is so charismatic and seems very used to getting what he wants and needs on the strength of that. He pushes a lot of boundaries and seems pretty confident and flexibly prepared to handle the consequences, whether beatings or harsh words. But he does work so hard to make others feel good, good with him, good with themselves.

When he is in the cave with Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian is described as "like one who forgets all past pain as soon as the wound heals". He can't resist coming up beside Lan WangJi and talking to him again and again after every time Lan WangJi pushes him off, only finally staying away when Lan WangJi bites him (and he still keeps trying to talk to him after a little bit!) and then calls him an awful person (!!! Bad Wangji! :(((( ). In the end, when Lan WangJi (very minimally) discloses what happened to his sect and his father, and even cries, because of all the defences/assaults Lan WangJi has put up Wei WuXian can't do anything or say anything to help and feels miserable.

Lan WangJi just absolutely refuses to allow Wei WuXian to take care of him - and I began to wonder maybe that’s what Wei WuXian actually really likes about him? Why he is unable to resist coming up to Lan WangJi again and again? Maybe because Lan WangJi refuses to let Wei WuXian appease him. He’s not trying to crack Lan WangJi to get to this impenetrable place of approval and acceptance. In a way he can’t quite understand, Lan WangJi is a respite for Wei WuXian from the constant work to be the one who pleases.

And  how different this is to how Wei WuXian is (or has to be) with Jiang Cheng when he wakes up in Lotus Pier after the cave. Jiang Cheng gets so down and really really needs Wei WuXian to do what he does so well (and wasn’t allowed to do with Lan WangJi) - chasing Jiang Cheng down while being injured and reassuring him about all his insecurities about his father's acceptance and becoming a sect leader and Wei WuXian's own abilities excelling his - and at first Jiang Cheng is pushing him away, but he really does need Wei WuXian to do all this to feel better.

Wei WuXian is described as not wanting to be lonely, and not wanting to see other people unhappy, and he keeps trying to push and pull with whatever he has to not be lonely and lift the mood for those around him. I don't think it's a kind of codependency or insecurity. It’s not that Wei WuXian is afraid to say no, in fact I would say he doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do, but he must always do it creatively, with humour. Similarly to Nie Huaisang, he uses a persona of foolishness to give himself a covert agency.

I also think I'm writing this because I don't like seeing this discussed as a sad bean character flaw for him to always need to be liked - its a strategy, its a tool, its how he survives and excels. Doesn’t the whole story prove how essential being liked is to a human’s survival? And he is so so good at being liked, in making others happy, even when he is refusing to do what others want from him that he doesn't want to do, he does it in a way that deflects criticism, with a smiling bravado that never says what it truly means and has people writing him off as shameless or foolish or just endearing himself toward them despite themselves.

He is always at work really, with jokes and flattery or mischief and teasing, to get the resources he wants and needs. Case and point, when he makes a big coquettish show for mianmian, definitely not being "people pleasing" for her, but the group of girls around them all find it funny and cute and in the end she gives him a perfume sachet which ends up being a valuable resource for later. Or the time he outright tells Jiang Cheng that if you give the girls some lotus seeds they'll remember you and return the favour in the future. (Also notice how his interactions with girls seen as flirtatious are actually strategic resource-gathering acts.) These are the skills he has developed to meet his own needs. (THIS IS NOT A CHARACTER FLAW. I REPEAT.) He takes what he needs and steals from the Lotus Pier markets knowing it'll be paid for, he lives like he never know when his next windfall will come from so he'll take what he can when he can find it. Like Jiang Fengmian said, if there is no guarantee of a meal in the future then today's meal should still be enjoyed. It’s how Wei WuXian said to Nie Huaisang at Cloud Recesses, you have to find ways to make your own fun out of whatever you have. So he gets kicked out of class, goes fishing, gets alcohol, he pursues his own pleasure. He actually is quite insistent of his own agency and right to choose, he just can never directly say no.

And that little detail that Wei WuXian always tucks coins into his clothes just in case, that makes him able to buy food when he and Jiang Cheng are on the run... breaks my heart and reveals so much about the way Wei WuXian is constantly at work on ensuring his own survival and never takes for granted whether he is safe (he knows he never is). 

I've seen some people talking about Wei WuXian sacrificing so much for his brother and sister out of a need to be accepted out of a chronic sense of insecurity. But isn’t this just true? Doesn't he live in a world where being accepted is absolutely essential for survival? Doesn’t this whole story show the cruelty of a social system based on networks of hereditary/biological family that closes out and scapegoats any outsiders, and that without biological family connections that can enclose around you, you can never truly be safe if not constantly working to earn acceptance? (And then beautifully ends with the way a gay romantic relationship that queers marriage/family/etc disrupts all this and creates safety and inclusion for Wei WuXian without needing a normative family.) (AKA romantic love does not resolve some internal personal problem in Wei WuXian but disrupts and refuses and rebels against the problem of SOCIETY.) (*breathes heavily*)

And that’s why Lan WangJi is magnetizing to Wei WuXian. Lan WangJi is always saying no. Although what Lan WangJi sees in Wei WuXian is an exterior wildness, Wei WuXian is not really out of control so much as he is playing and caring and supplicating and showing off and pleasing people to get the resources and the acceptance he needs to live his life. He has firm values and desires that he can never outwardly state, only creatively spinning plates to distract and deflect while he refuses what goes against his values, protects who he cares for, or takes what he needs to in order to survive/thrive. Lan WangJi embodies an exterior of resoluteness and direct agency that Wei WuXian doesn't have the luxury of. And he's so drawn to him for his ability to repeatedly say no, to refuse to get along, or make others laugh, make other people happy, but just simply follow what he thinks is right.

Wei WuXian’s outward wild movement protects an inward stillness. He is an exterior of people-pleasing around an interior of refusal. He is an exterior of youthful rebellion around an interior of unflinching morality. He sees in Lan WangJi the outward expression of his stillness, his morality, his resistance that he can't express, that he's had to protect.

FYI after the cut gets more into the dynamics of consent in the story, and the last paragraph directly talks about consensual non-consent kink play in wangxian’s relationship.

When Wei WuXian is with Lan WangJi, there is no work to be done. Lan WangJi cannot be swayed by him, and so there's no point vying for resources or favors. Lan WangJi will either give him everything or refuse him everything based on who he is, it does not matter what Wei WuXian does and he can't do anything that will change Lan WangJi’s mind. Someone he literally can't win over. After the resurrection, they are often in an adorable tug of war, where Wei WuXian tries to take care of Lan WangJi, while Lan WangJi won't allow him to but demands to care of Wei WuXian right back. Actually, Lan WangJi insists that Wei WuXian take everything he wants or needs from him and is even angry when he doesn't take or when Wei WuXian tries to offer a gesture in return, even something as simple as a thank you Lan WangJi won't accept. It’s kind of adorable how frustrated Wei WuXian is in doing this thing he's learned that he needs to do, and just... so confused by Lan WangJi, and has to find a way to please this person who aggressively refuses to be pleased and is ONLY pleased by Wei WuXian being pleased.

(Not to mention the way Wei WuXian delights in finding that Lan WangJi can’t say what he wants, and they have sort of these chaotic cohesive both-being-so-pleased-by-working-hard-to-please each-other moments where Wei WuXian is letting Lan WangJi please him by finding out what pleases Lan WangJi and giving it to him.)

The wildness Lan WangJi had always hidden within himself is something he sees as just as dangerous as Wei WuXian thinks of his desire to refuse. He saw his mother be socially alienated, shunned, and eventually die because of her wildness. His ability to survive in the world, aka to be accepted by his family, is contingent on him being able to control this inner wildness. From a young age (re: Phoenix Mountain kiss) he could only understand his sexual desires for Wei WuXian as something repulsive or dangerous that had to be repressed and controlled, and that the only way he could imagine his desires as possible was as non-consensual. His secret gay desires were never available to him as anything but something monstrous.

Importantly, it’s not like everyone else other than Lan WangJi are all vampires cruelly demanding Wei WuXian’s constant sacrifice. Wei WuXian is always vibrantly, charismatically offering so much, before anyone has asked. It’s Wei WuXian who creates this kind of relationship for himself again and again. It’s Lan WangJi who simply refuses - he refuses to charmed, to be cared for. And so in the end Lan WangJi becomes the one person who Wei WuXian feels doesn't need anything from him. When he says he's eating the corpse's fruit to save Lan WangJi money and Lan WangJi says that will never be necessary. Or when Wei WuXian asks what toy he should win for Lan WangJi at the market game, and Lan WangJi says anything Wei WuXian gets will be the one he wants. (XD stahhhhp it’s too sweet !!!) He really just wants Wei WuXian to be, to exist, to spend his life discovering his own desires and allow Lan WangJi to help satisfy them, he doesn't want anything from Wei WuXian other than him living - happy and safe.

It takes someone like Lan WangJi to refuse Wei WuXian’s aggressive generosity, it’s definitely not an easy thing to say no to Wei WuXian, dazzling or annoying people so chaotically before they even realize there’s something to say no to. The sacrifice he gives to Jiang Cheng, he never even offers a choice - and perhaps it would have been too much for Jiang Cheng to accept if he had the chance.

Lan WangJi’s statement "Between us there is no need for thank you and sorry" seems like one of the most important sentences in the novel, and you can’t help but noticed the way “sorry” and “thank you” is littered meaningfully through the book. What is owed, what the characters owe to each other, the give and take, touches every part of the story (down to wangxian's erotic explorations!).

When Jiang Cheng talks to Wei WuXian at the Guanyin temple he makes a lot of contradictory statements about what Wei WuXian owes, what he was given, what he took, what he (Wei WuXian still) is owed in return. Wei WuXian, according to Jiang Cheng, took everything from the Jiang clan, and paid them back with their deaths. The Jiang clan give him his life when they took him in, and he owed Jiang Cheng service for the rest of his life as the right hand to the sect leader, that’s what Wei WuXian had promised anyway. At the same time, Wei WuXian sacrificed everything (his golden core) to Jiang Cheng, by giving everything he was taking one more thing - Jiang Cheng’s right to even be angry at him. Jiang Cheng had taken everything from Wei WuXian. Everything that happened around Wei WuXian after could be said to be because of the loss of his golden core, which Jiang Cheng might be said to be responsible for. But he never asked for it, maybe he never would have wanted it. He wishes Wei WuXian told him, but Jiang Cheng never told Wei WuXian his golden core was melted while he was sacrificing himself to save Wei WuXian. He wants Wei wuxian to say sorry, but that makes him feel pathetic. And Jiang Cheng says sorry too. It’s a mess of paradoxes, and in the end somehow it seems like the scales are balanced in the most hollow, dismal way.

What is owed, what is given, what is taken ... Wei WuXian has never been part of a family. He has always had to say thank you and sorry for everything he's taken. Wei WuXian himself admits that he used "thank you" as a way to enforce distance between himself and Lan WangJi. Lan WangJi's point i think is that they belong to each other, Wei WuXian is his, and he is Wei WuXian's, unconditionally. The way that Jiang Cheng speaks of him in the Guanyin temple (admittedly I read a fan translation and this is very nuanced, related to slight variations of grammar), even when Jiang Cheng clearly is so broken by the loss of Wei WuXian from his life, he talks about Wei WuXian as an outsider. It is what MY family gave to YOU, never what you took from our family. But at one point Wei WuXian was part of their family - but he takes too much, and becomes an ex-disciple, not a brother. Wei WuXian’s inclusion as a Jiang was always conditional. 

Even when Wen Qing and Wen Ning leave him to go take the blame for qiongqing path they tell him "thank you and sorry", drawing a line between them and him, so he doesn’t even belong to these people who he sacrificed everything for. The way Wei WuXian acted when he was younger, he was always keenly aware of this - he always knew that he didn’t belong to anyone, no one is going to protect him unconditionally. And after first escaping the Burial Mounds, he is done pretending. When Lan WangJi warns him about what a demonic cultivation path will do to his heart, Wei WuXian replies: “After all, on the topic of how my heart is, what could other people know about it? Why should other people care about it?” He is done pleasing. Nothing has changed really, he still belongs to no one and is alone, but now he is angry about it, and instead of saying thank you and sorry he is going to become too powerful to be at anyone's mercy. And then we see in the story afterward what happens to people who don't say thank you and sorry.

The whole point I think is the impossibility of choice, the impossibility of consent in this society. If he didn't forgo the behaviour his social acceptance was conditional on, he wouldn't have survived the burial mounds. But once he becomes powerful enough to survive and get revenge on the Wens, he is socially outcast. Except he was already outcast from the beginning.

And so how do Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi find a way through all that to a life together where all their desires are possible, where Wei WuXian can say no while also being pleasing (safe) to others, and Lan WangJi can indulge in his wild desires while still being good? The answer is kinky sex!

It is kind of miraculous and beautiful how Wei WuXian finds a way to say no, while simultaneously pleasing Lan WangJi, giving pleasure, while taking it, saying no, and knowing his refusal is not just tolerated, but gives Lan WangJi pleasure, knowing Lan wangji and knowing the painful belief Lan WangJi holds within that his desires are unacceptable and unspeakable, and that Wei WuXian can take care of Lan Wangji in a secret little way and please him and give everything to him by craving this wildness in Lan WangJi while at the same time he gets to say no again and again , and it won't push Lan WangJi away, he can refuse everything while at the same time be totally pleasing and thus safe, and also for Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian's pleasure at saying "no" while still being held onto, that he genuinely wants to be fucked even while begging Lan WangJi to stop (and the many ways he does give his consent for this throughout, especially their first time), allows Lan WangJi the ecstatic feeling that this idea that his sexual desires are only possible through force are not just something his lover forgives him for but something his lover is SO turned on by, and that he has consent for his fantasies of non-consent, Wei WuXian has the same fantasies from the other side, he is doing what he is supposed to while doing what he shouldn't, and actually these monstrous feelings in him allow him to take care of Wei WuXian in a way that he needs - that they both need - and all these impulses that are so wrong with Wei WuXian become very right and a way to do good. And they are just both so perfect and perfect for each other and I love them and I am so happy for them to have a long kinky life together.

[ingek73]

Everyone knows the Queen hates a fuss – except, strangely, her most loyal defenders

Marina Hyde

Prince Harry’s comments about visiting his grandmother have provoked uncontrollable fury among Elizabeth II superfans

Published: 15:26 Friday, 22 April 2022

Prince Harry at the Invictus Games in the Hague, Netherlands, April 2022

Like all truly patriotic Britons, I hugely enjoy how mad Prince Harry makes some people. Mad in both the British and American senses of the word. More than two years after he stepped back from royal duties to become yet another boring Californian, seemingly every utterance of Harry’s induces proper steam-out-of-the-ears stuff in a whole demographic of British people who insist they never want to hear another word from him – yet absolutely refuse to simply stop reading about him.

Is HRH doing it on purpose, like some clever, extremely high-status troll? That’s a nice idea, but feels unlikely. The Windsors have never exactly been fabled for their intellects. It’s possible the situation is actually extremely uncomplicated: Prince Harry just wibbles out some stuff every now and then, at which point millions of grownups are completely unable to handle it.

Either way, the Duke of Sussex’s latest act of treason seems to have been calling in on the Queen on the way to his Invictus Games for disabled former soldiers, held this week in the Netherlands. Not only did Harry later reveal that he and his grandmother had had a good-humoured tea – decried as oversharing by the sort of former aides who lucratively betrayed all his mother’s secrets – but he explained he’d been “making sure that she’s protected and got the right people around her”. Can’t be sure what he’s on about. Perhaps he saw the Queen being walked to her Westminster Abbey seat at Prince Philip’s memorial by the Duke of York, about 10 minutes after she’d forked out for some of his multimillion-dollar sex assault case settlement, and wondered if she was being advised by some kind of paedo Oliver Cromwell.

Whatever the import of Harry’s comment, though, it has caused a huge number of pants to be wet, and whole fleets of prams to be emptied of toys. You cannot move for corpulent royal experts hissing about it all as they bank another appearance fee, while Britain’s leading body language authority wheels herself out to explain that Kate and William look “subdued” because of the “emotional exhaustion” she reckons was caused either by Harry, or by the fact they were visiting a Ukraine charity. (What a huge amount the rigorous science of body language can tell us.)

However, in a country where millions act as if they know the Queen socially, people were always going to claim their chief concern was for the monarch, who celebrated her 96th birthday this week. “How CAN he do this to the Queen?” they always demand, apparently unwilling to realise that anyone who really cared about the Queen’s supposed feelings would simply avoid making it worse by ranting about the situation on every available airwave. That would surely be the most civilised course of action. After all, if a real-life friend of ours has an irksome relative we regard as potentially upsetting to them, we don’t spend their birthday wanging on about him.

Sussexes invited to appear on Buckingham Palace balcony for jubilee

So the logic escapes me. If newspapers and TV pundits were simply trying to sell clickbaity content to be consumed by messy bitches who live for the drama, that would be one thing. But nothing – nothing! – could be further from the noble truth. As they never tire of telling us, they utterly REVERE the Queen. In which case, surely they should conduct themselves with a baseline level of social tact? The true, committed royalist would ignore Harry’s pronouncements completely. We ignore most of the other Californians; it can’t be beyond our famous British reserve. As close personal strangers to the Queen, we know the one thing of which we can be absolutely sure is that she wouldn’t want a fuss about it all.

Yet a fuss is endlessly made. No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible, as the saying goes, but maybe the provisional wing of the Elizabeth II fandom ought to suppress the urge to call in furiously to a phone-in, or post furiously online, in order to spare this 96-year-old woman the endless drama? If not, I’m not sure how much longer we can keep taking lectures in duty and service from people too emotionally incontinent to prevent themselves being exercised by a Dan Wootton article.

If they can’t commit to ignoring Prince Harry’s supposedly incendiary pronouncements, it’s past time for every single one of them to admit to themselves the truth: that they love the drama of the royal soap opera, and relish every new half-baked opportunity to re-enter the outrage cycle. As I say, I myself adore it. I am completely with the Bloomsbury group diarist Frances Partridge, who characterised people’s reaction to the death of George VI as “richly revelled-in emotional unbuttoning”. “What the public is feeling is a sense of great drama,” she noted, “not at all unpleasant.”

Well quite. What a sadness, then, that the great British public remains too repressed to acknowledge this as far as Prince Harry is concerned. Instead, many feel more comfortable using the feelings of the Queen as a figleaf, at the same time as taking none of those feelings into account. So as she enters her 97th year, one of the greatest public services Her Majesty performs is serving as the proxy for all sorts of desires and impulses that her people lack the honesty and self-awareness to admit. What an exhausting job that must be at her age – but of course her heartless “fans” will never permit her to retire.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

[missmentelle]

What the Hell is “Emotional Incest”?

Emotional incest, also known as “covert incest”, “spousification” or “parentification” is a certain type of unhealthy relationship that can exist between a parent and child. In these situations, the child is treated more like a “subsitute spouse”or even a “substitute parent” to their parent than an actual child. The parent’s need to have an adult life partner or a parent of their own outweighs the child’s need for an actual childhood, and the child takes on an adult role in the relationship at a much, much earlier age than is developmentally appropriate. Although this does not involve actual physical incest, it can give the child lifelong struggles with intimacy, relationships and self-esteem. 

Sounds familiar to you? You may have experienced emotional incest or parentification if:

You grew up in a family that was dysfunctional or broken in some way. Emotional incest (EI) and parentification generally don’t happen in households where there are stable, loving parental figures who have a healthy relationship between them. EI usually occurs in households where one parent is dead, disabled, incarcerated or absent, or in households where there is serious dysfunction - alcoholism, drug use, mental illness, violence, poverty, divorce or other major issues. Generally, EI stems from a parent being unable to cope with their own loneliness or with the seriousness of their circumstances, and leaning hard on their child as a result. 

Your parent confided in you at an inappropriately young age. You were treated like your parent’s substitute therapist, and asked for your input on situations that you were much too young to handle - your parent may have told you about their sex life, your other parent’s infidelity, their own experiences of child abuse, or other adult issues that you were not old enough to handle. No attempt was made to explain things in an age-appropriate manner, and you were not told these things for your benefit; your parent simply dumped their emotional issues on you, and expected you to deal with them in a meaningful way, even when you were barely old enough to understand them. 

It was your responsibility to keep the household running. Almost all children are responsible for some amount of age-appropriate household chores, like dishes and vacuuming, but you were responsible for major household tasks that should have been your parent’s responsibility. You had to make sure that there was food in the fridge, school clothes for the younger children and that someone had paid the electrical bill, because if you didn’t do those things, nobody else was going to. At an age where most children can’t use the stove by themselves, you were expected to keep the household functioning.

You had to set rules and boundaries for your parent, not the other way around. You were the one who had to lecture your parent about responsibility when they came home drunk on a Tuesday night or when they forgot to take their medication again. You had to take on the “adult” role in the relationship and beg or scold your parent into growing up and being an adult for once. Although being on equal footing with your parent might sound awesome once you are both adults, it is an exhausting thing for a child to have to deal with - you aren’t even old enough to take care of yourself yet, but you are already responsible for trying to emotionally parent a grown adult.

You may have had to physically take care of your parent. In some households, children are made to engage in something called “instrumental parentification” - this is where you are expected to physically take care of a parent. This can happen in households where a parent has a physical disability and needs their child to prepare their meals, dress them, etc, but it is especially common in households where one or more parents struggles with substance abuse. If you had to routinely put a drunk parent to bed and clean up their vomit, you are well aware of what instrumental parentification feels like.

You were given no discipline or structure by your parent. It might sound awesome to live in a house where there are no rules and you can do whatever you want, but it is actually emotionally devastating to grow up in a household where no one gives a shit if you drop out of school or don’t come home at night. You weren’t given healthy boundaries and no one made any meaningful effort to look after your well-being - if you wanted to smoke and have unprotected sex in high school, no one cared. All of your boundaries and responsibilities were things you had to figure out for yourself.

You are probably the eldest child, or the eldest child of your sex. Children who experience EI or parentification are normally one of the oldest children in the family. Eldest daughters are at especially high risk, as both fathers and mothers are disproportionately likely to turn their eldest girl into a substitute mother or spouse. There are cases, however, where a parent chooses the eldest son for their codependency; this is especially likely in families where the father figure is dead or absent. 

You raised your younger siblings. You were, for all intents and purposes, the true parent of your younger siblings. Most older siblings have to do some occasional babysitting or keeping an eye out for the younger siblings, but your role went well beyond that - you may have been the only one making sure that they were fed, bathed and doing okay in school. If you didn’t get them up and off to school in the mornings, they simply didn’t go. You probably signed field trip permission slips, made sure that everyone had clothes for school, and took an interest in your siblings’ lives in a way that your parent never did. Your parent may have kept on having kids well into your adolescence - there was an assumption that you’d just keep on raising whatever children they handed to you.

Your parent was unable to handle your emotions, so you stopped showing them. Whenever you had some kind of breakdown or emotional moment, your parent absolutely could not handle it; they were depending on you to be the “rock” of the household, and when you showed any signs of cracking, it completely overwhelmed them. They could not step up to the plate and cope with your emotions in any way; they often made your emotions all about them. So you quickly learned to push everything down and put on a brave face at all times, all for the sake of your parent. 

Your parent did everything in their power to prevent you from moving out. Your parent was likely not a huge fan of the idea that you would one day move on with your life and leave them to fend for themselves, and they may have gone to great lengths to delay it. They might have discouraged you from having any kind of independence by preventing you from going to college or having a job, or they may simply have appealed to your emotions, insisting that you were needed at home and that leaving would mean “abandoning” them. Your parent may have intensely disliked all of your romantic partners, and felt threatened by the idea that your partner was trying to “take you away” from them.

Examples of emotional incest and parentification in fiction:

Fiona from Shameless. Fiona is perhaps the boilerplate example of extreme parentification. She is the oldest daughter in a family where one parent has outright abandoned the family, and the other parent is a low-functioning alcoholic with little interest in being a father. Fiona raises all of her younger siblings and ensures that the household is somewhat functional, at the cost of her own happiness. She repeatedly makes poor decisions in her personal life, but does not have any parent around to offer her guidance.

Princess Carolyn from Bojack Horseman. Princess Carolyn was raised by an alcoholic mother, and often had to fill in for her mom at her cleaning job when she was too drunk to work, so her mother would not be fired. Her mother also tries to use guilt to keep Princess Carolyn from leaving home to achieve her dreams. As an adult, Princess Carolyn continues to be hyper-responsible for the dysfunctional adults around her, and jumps in to save them from themselves even when it harms her. 

Bella from Twilight. Bella’s parents are depicted as being flighty, irresponsible and clueless, particularly her mother, Renee. Bella expresses guilt over leaving each of her parents to fend for themselves at different points in the story, even though she is a minor and they are both adults. Even while living with her father Charlie, Bella takes over the household chores and does all of the cooking, as her adult father is unable to cook for himself. 

Like anything else, emotional incest and parentification fall on a spectrum. You may have had a parent who was relatively functional when it came to finances and household chores, but made a habit of unloading on you emotionally and expecting you to give advice on adult issues. Or you may have had a deeply mentally ill and addicted parent who required huge amounts of care. Sometimes, parentification and emotional incest are temporary things - your parent may have leaned on you to be their parent for a few years after a major upset, like a divorce, before gradually getting back on their own feet, or their functionality may have waxed and waned as they recovered and relapsed from their issues. Some people have experiencing everything on this list and more, while some may have only experienced one or two things, and only for a short time. Not two families are alike. 

It’s also important to remember that the impacts of emotional incest are deeply negative. There is a huge misconception that being a parentified child is somehow “good” for you, because it will make you wise and responsible at a young age. This isn’t actually the case; what many people see as “responsibility” is usually just high-functioning anxiety, which comes from being raised in a household where you got very little guidance and there wasn’t always a parent there to back you up if you messed up. Parentified children often get a “late start” in life, as they may continue to feel responsible for their parents well into their 20s, and their parents may go out of their way to discourage life milestones like college, independence and marriage. Children who have experienced emotional incest also tend to struggle with their own relationships as adults; they frequently have poor self-esteem and an enormous tolerance for dysfunction in their romantic partners, which can be a dangerous combination. They often struggle to have relationships without taking on codependent tendencies and placing an enormous caretaker burden on themselves, and it can take a long time for them to feel comfortable in egalitarian relationships.

There is hope for children who grew up in these situations - therapy can be an excellent tool for working past these tendencies and moving past the loss of one’s childhood. But the first step is recognizing that something was wrong. 

[ko-fanatic]

Blood, Guts and Chocolate Cake (Part 3)

Rating: Mature

Fandom: Danganronpa

Pairings: IshiMondo

Summary: Breakfast before the show, and Mondo realising he loves Taka's music if it's live. Still, there's something too close to a disturbing premonition burning under Mondo's skin, and the idol's comments, actions and frame just make it worse. Something's going on with him...

TW: Alcohol, and eating disorders (both restrictive behaviours and B/P), mentions of disability, underage sex/sexualisation, drugs

Other parts: Part one | Part two

Kiyotaka did not, in fact, get to finish his allotted miles. 

Mondo, in his defense, had attempted to continue, but after another mile his lungs had given up on him. Taka was so concerned, hearing his wheezing breaths, that he’d gotten him to spill about being asthmatic. The idol then promptly freaked out, calling a taxi to take them back to the hotel and insisting that he’ll keep his workouts to a gym setting in future.

He could tell Taka was upset - he might be callous, but he wasn’t stupid. Still, the kid said he was just antsy, nothing to worry about. Excess energy he hadn’t had the chance to burn off.

After a while of sitting on the couch, watching the TV that was way bigger than it had any right to be, he wasn’t actively dying anymore. Therefore, Taka saw it fit to leave him for a bit as he pottered around, doing idol things. He could hear Taka practising one of his songs in the bathroom as he performed his ludicrously long skin care routine. 

Honestly, he was more focussed on Taka’s singing than the shitty sitcom on TV. He’d heard the polished, studio versions - who hadn’t? - but this was something else. Fuck autotune, for sure; Taka’s voice was beautiful, crisp as a bell and perfectly trained. But rather than the polished version, Taka added more vocal tricks and a generally interesting style to the song that he’d never heard before. 

If there was more of that in his official audios, Mondo would’ve been an avid fan by now. 

“And if you got a little more time, baby let me hold your hand in mine,” The idol sang as he strolled into the kitchenette, opening the fridge and retrieving an apple, “Drink you up like the finest wine, lick you off my lips before showtime -”

“Whoa,” He whistled lowly, unable to help himself, “Those lyrics aren’t very ‘sweet boy next door’.”

“Oh,” Taka blinked, seemingly just remembering he wasn’t the only one in the room, “That was actually my original version, before it was reviewed. Too lewd for the image, I guess.”

“Or they didn’t want a bunch of tweens bustin’ their first nut in public,” He chuckled, Taka’s nose scrunching in disgust. 

“Ew,” He huffed, retrieving an apple from the fridge and starting to cut it up, “I’d rather not think about that.”

He just smirked, not bothering to turn back to the mindless crap on TV, just watching as Taka prepared his breakfast. He was about as meticulous about cutting up that apple as he was his choreography; while anyone would cut an apple into segments (barring bento making), Taka halved and cored it before cubing the frankly pathetic slivers of fruit he was left with. 

The cubes were small, almost diced, and quickly scraped into a bowl like they'd burn Taka if they so much as brushed the pale, thin skin of his hands. Then, a bottle of lemon juice was procured, sprinkled on the un-diced half of the apple before it was wrapped in cellophane and sealed in a Tupperware box. Just watching the methodical, practiced actions had Mondo raising an eyebrow; Taka sealed that half apple away like some corny Hollywood curse. Like it would come back for one final scare if he didn't get rid of it.

He expected another fruit to be taken from the fridge, making up a small fruit salad, or for bread to be put in the toaster. Hell, he'd be cool with the promise of Starbucks or McDonald's on the way to the venue, but no. 

Taka sat next to him on the sofa, chopsticks in hand as he daintily picked at the meagre portion he'd given himself. His frown only deepened when he saw just how little it amounted to, barely obstructing the bottom of the bowl from view. It hardly counted as an apple, looking far more like peelings you’d throw in the garbage than an actual meal. 

“That it?” He asked, gesturing to the ‘meal’ as Taka placed a particularly small cube into his mouth. 

“What do you mean?” The idol asked, raising an eyebrow, “It’s my breakfast.”

“Yeah, no shit Sherlock,” He grumbled, “I mean, ‘wow, kid, you eat less than a fuckin’ bird, go get some more’.”

“Half an apple is perfectly fine,” Taka defended, putting down his chopsticks to properly argue with him. It made a pang go off in Mondo’s chest, especially as his eye was drawn to the small bowl, resting on Taka’s thin thigh. 

Most people’s thighs pool when sitting; flesh, whether be muscle or fat, generally molds under pressure. However, there was still that oh-so-lauded gap between the boy’s thighs, hardly more than bone. It made him… uncomfortable. Like seeing a cancer patient on their final days; only Taka wasn’t dying, ashen complexion notwithstanding. 

“Yeah, no, it’s not,” He spoke bluntly, no preamble, “You did a three mile run, and you’ll be in rehearsals all day. Half an apple’s not going to keep you going.”

The idol rolled his eyes, muttering something about how his run should have been five miles, and picked up the chopsticks once more. He seemed to just push the fruit around his plate, however, instead of bringing piece after piece to his lips like he had before. 

“What -?”

“Lost my appetite,” Taka shrugged, standing on those tiny, boney legs once more, “I’ll have something later.”

Mondo didn’t comment, not wanting to upset Taka more than he, apparently, already had. He simply watched as the peelings got scraped into the bin with the rest of the apple, hardly eaten. Maybe the equivalent of a couple bites. 

He didn’t say anything, considering he’d already put the kid off his food. He’d make a note of it, but he mainly put it up to nerves for tonight; big venue, and didn’t they say that stage fright was an important part of this shit? 

“Looking forward to the show?” Taka asked as he washed up his bowl, chopsticks and knife. 

“Honestly, yeah,” He nodded, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table, lounging around like he owned the place, “I’m not a huge fan of pop, but what you were singing now was cool. Guess I like live music better than studio versions.”

“Honestly, that’s completely valid,” Taka smiled, “I prefer doing my own thing, with no editing to slow me down…”

---

Mondo was having the time of his fucking life! Taka wasn’t kidding about editing slowing him down, the guy was a beast on stage. 

The stage lighting pounded down on the idol, refracting off the metallic accents of his costume and catching the beads of sweat at his temple. Two hours of jumping around, dancing, singing, and playing his guitar, and he showed no signs of slowing. The adrenalin was high, and it vibrated through Taka, the crowds, the stadium itself and straight through Mondo himself. 

If he was a cheesier person, he’d say it was like he could feel Taka’s own heartbeat through the music, resting in his chest next to his own. But he wasn’t that sappy. Nope. Not at all.

He certainly wasn’t prepared for Taka to remove the prince-like, white jacket to reveal the costume underneath. A crisp button-up was par for the course, but the leather harness buckled around his torso made the simple look jaw dropping. Finale outfit, he’d heard one of the costumers mention, but he hadn’t been paying attention at the time. 

The leather looked so perfect wrapped around his thin body, and Mondo was screaming. Internally, thankfully, but this was going to be his end. 

The song wasn’t long at all, maybe a couple minutes. Like a vast majority of Taka’s “approved” songs, it was about love; albeit darker. A couple heavily veiled allusions to bondage, both in the fun and not-so-fun senses, a feeling of wanting to pull away but being far too in love to do what was healthy. 

The crowd just ate it up, even if it gave Mondo an odd feeling… Foreboding, perhaps? Some sort of anxious buzzing under his skin, like a premonition, but no basis in anything he could actually pinpoint. It wasn’t like he could see Taka’s eyes, or anything like that. Maybe a slight tremor in the voice, but fuck, the kid had literally been singing for hours. 

After the final guitar riff, and a couple breaths, Taka grabbed one of his water bottles off the front of the stage, not even hesitating to dump it all over his head. The screaming from the crowd managed to increase tenfold, and he was pretty sure the whole stadium was enjoying the view of that white shirt turning translucent and clinging so enticingly.

“Thank you and goodnight!” He cheered, stage lights going out and allowing Taka to walk off stage with minimal awkwardness. 

“That…” Mondo began, Taka holding up a finger as they disconnected his mic, making sure none of the sounds backstage got broadcasted and ruined any spell the audience was under. 

“Sorry I had to interrupt you,” Taka apologised, so sweetly sincere, “You were saying?”

“Just… That was incredible…” He breathed, still slack jawed from the rush of the concert, “You… I…”

“Articulate,” Taka smirked, hand on hip as he sauntered off to get changed, before he would exit and be swarmed with both eager fans and paparazzi alike. 

Mondo was smiling, heart still hammering, until his attention was brought to what was visible beneath the sodden fabric. 

Ribs.

[thetomorrowshow]

Slower Than Words Ch. 20

First  -  Previous  -  Next

Been a busy week! I’ll let you know if I need to slow down updates! So how about we visit Virgil, see what’s up with him?

cw: a n g s t, panic attack

~

Virgil couldn't move. Roman had helped him into bed, then sat in the room for a while, trying to talk to him. When Virgil didn't respond, he eventually left, stating that he would be back later.

His world was crashing down around him.

Could he believe that just yesterday, he'd smiled? He'd laughed? Now it was all background noise, mindless buzzing that felt totally inconsequential. There was only one thing that mattered now. Patton.

Therapy had been rough, and Virgil had expected it to be. What he hadn't expected was to go over every meaningful interaction he had with Patton. The doctor had said she was “doing some tests”, so Virgil struggled to keep himself together as he talked about the one person he missed most in the world.

Then, she'd had the audacity—she'd dared to—

Virgil took a deep breath, blood boiling as he remembered that it was she who encouraged these breathing exercises. What if he didn't want to calm down? He deserved to feel, remember, Patton needed him to—

Virgil's legs started quaking, but he paid it no mind. He could not be wrong, admitting he was wrong would be abandoning Patton, he couldn't do that, he wasn't dead, he wasn't gone, he'd always been there and always would.

His breathing quickened, coming in short, shallow breaths. His entire body was shaking, and Virgil nearly puked when he realized he could smell rubbing alcohol. He hadn't had a flashback all week, he'd been doing so well!

As if summoned, there were gentle fingers on his wrist. Calm, the fingers traced. It's okay. I'm here.

“Patton,” Virgil croaked. “I—I knew it, you're here, you're here, I knew it—”

V breathe slow. Safe.

Virgil got his breathing under control after a dozen rounds of exercises. His legs were still quivering, but he knew where he was. He was in his room, in Roman's house, and he was going to be okay, and Patton—

Virgil choked.

His own hand gripped his wrist. His own hand was tracing soothing words.

“She was right,” Virgil whispered. His mind frantically grasped at straws, trying to explain what had just happened, as Virgil felt an overwhelming amount of despair.

“Virgil, you talk a lot about Patton. In every instance you told me about, however, you never hear him. You can't see him. Based on your time alone at the beginning of your imprisonment, it seems unlikely that they would suddenly decide to move you into a room with another person.”

Virgil's body had been completely out of energy, lax and unable to move, but now he was stiff as a board, locked in place. It couldn't be. It couldn't.

“We haven't been able to find out what that book was, based on your description of it.”

No. No no no no no.

“And I've seen you trace words onto yourself, in times when you need comfort. An interesting coping habit, one that might appear when a person is locked in a room with no outside stimulation.”

Virgil sobbed, full on weeping as his body couldn't move. This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be real.

And that was exactly the problem, wasn't it?

“Virgil, I think Patton may have been a hallucination that your brain fabricated in order to keep you comfort during the year that you were alone. I may be wrong, but everything you've told me about Patton points to it. Virgil, can you be absolutely certain that Patton was real?”

He'd said yes, he'd said that there was no other option. He'd stormed out of the office five minutes later. He'd refused to talk to Roman in the car. He'd gone straight to his room and curled up on top of his blankets.

Patton had to be real, didn't he? He couldn't have made up a person so complex, so loving, so wonderful. And, more realistically, he couldn't have created something so solid it had washed his clothes on days he felt too ill. Unless he'd imagined it. Anything was possible if it came from his head, wasn't it?

One part of him was screaming, begging him to not abandon his best friend. The other part of him was mourning the loss of Patton. Virgil wasn't sure what to do, torn this way. He had to be real. He was real—but was he? Where was the evidence?

The world was crumbling. Virgil choked on his tears, crying for Patton, crying for himself, crying for the loss he'd just suffered. Patton wasn't real, Patton had to be real, Patton couldn't be real.

Roman knocked on the door, asking cautiously if Virgil wanted to come down for dinner. Virgil pretended to not hear him, feigned sleep when Roman opened the door to look in. He buried his eyes in his pillow as he heard the door quietly shut, then Roman's footsteps retreating. He was alone, isolated, and the one person he'd truly loved had probably never even existed.

What was Virgil supposed to do?

-

“Dude, what does it say?”

A long silence. Virgil groaned. Apparently he'd gotten an email as well as a letter, but Roman had insisted on reading it to him. Screen-readers were 'too impersonal' now. It wasn't like he was going to get his information any other way.

“Virgil, I . . . I'm sorry.”

Virgil's heart dropped. Roman sounded lost for words, his voice cracking in the middle of the sentence. There was no way whatever the letter said was good news.

“You . . . you got in!”

In a shot of adrenaline, Virgil smacked him. Probably on the arm.

“Ow! That was my face, you heathen!”

Oops.

“Roman! Don't—why—” Virgil could barely speak. He'd gotten in? He was certain he wouldn't get in the first time, let alone twice . He got in!

“It's my job, as your adopted older brother!” Roman said, the false hurt completely gone from his tone. “I have to bully you a bit! You should've seen the look on your face, it was priceless!”

Virgil frowned, his heart still racing. He shook his head in an attempt to clear it a bit. “I'm . . . older than you?”

“Doesn't matter! I am, by proxy, older!”

Virgil snorted. “That makes no sense, dude.”

“Doesn't have to!” Roman proclaimed. Virgil could practically see him doing some dramatic arm thing. “I'm the older brother, and therefore, I don't have to make sense!”

Virgil tilted his head back in an approximation of rolling his eyes. According to Roman, it looked pretty creepy when he actually rolled his eyes, and it stung a little. Still, he would probably roll his eyes once he was around people who weren't Roman's parents.

He was really going back.

He sniffed, his nose burning. It had been so, so long. Had the campus changed? Would he be in a different dorm? Would he and Roman still share, since they were in different grades now?

He knew everything about their accessibility and whatever, about how they would accommodate disabled people. The school had actually reached out to him, informing him that he could finish his degree no problem, they had four or five visually impaired students already and could easily make it possible for him to continue his education. Virgil had been in contact with various foundations in order to work things out with his university, and he'd gotten a few scholarships—not to mention, the handful of scholarships he'd already had had gladly reinstated themselves. In fact, Virgil had pretty much already known that he'd be going back. There'd been very little room to doubt, as his therapist had told him several times.

This was real, though. Right there, in Roman's hands, was proof. He was allowed back, and would see teachers and classmates he hadn't seen in over a year. He was starting spring semester, which was still a few months away—Roman, despite his protests, had also put off starting his junior year until spring semester.

“Virge? Are . . . you okay?”

Virgil sniffed again, wiping his cheek to find a few tears there. “Yeah, I'm fine,” he said, with an attempt at a laugh. “I just . . . didn't think this would ever happen, y'know?”

Roman also laughed, albeit much more nervously. “With the way admissions was basically begging you to come back? Of course it happened!”

Neither of them acknowledged what Virgil really meant.

“So, packing?” Roman said, after several seconds of silence. “I know it's a while away, but is there anything specific you want to bring?”

With a pang, Virgil thought back to his hand-stitched hoodie. Hopefully it was bringing Patton as much comfort as it had always brought him. He'd had it for years, made it in Home Ec in high school. Until recently, he'd never been without it. It was bittersweet, in a way. Sure, it was gone, but it was with Patton. Like . . . like a piece of his heart would always be with Patton.

Virgil shook himself. That's stupid. And cheesy, he told himself. Grow up. Move on. He doesn't exist.

There was an ASL club on campus, one that Virgil planned on becoming a part of. Roman wanted to as well, making up something about having always wanted to learn sign, but Virgil knew it was just protectiveness. Virgil was pretty sure Roman had been about to rearrange his entire schedule so that they could have the same classes, despite the fact that Roman was a year ahead and in a different program of study. After a long evening of Virgil sitting in his room anxiously while Roman talked to his parents in the living room downstairs, Roman had come to the conclusion that it was best for him to continue with his intended major. Virgil was relieved—he was a grown adult, after all. He didn't really want someone trailing after him everywhere, insisting on helping him with every little thing.

Did he?

“Am I ready for this?” he wondered aloud. Roman gripped his shoulder tightly.

“I think so.” The words were soft, but no less powerful than Roman's usual loud tone. “You're so strong, Virgil. You're the strongest person I know.”

Virgil couldn't help but cringe. He knew someone much stronger. Whether that person was real or not was up for debate.

His most recent therapy sessions had involved a lot of tears, but Virgil had agreed to acknowledge that Patton might not exist. In turn, the doctor agreed to not make a formal assessment on Patton for the time being. It was still devastating, of course. It was still as if his entire world was falling apart. But Virgil was finding it easier to smile, more natural to joke with Roman.

He was healing.

Did he want to heal?

Yes, of course Virgil wanted to heal. He wanted to move on. He wanted to lead a normal life, without hurt and flashbacks and hallucinations.

But not without Patton.

There was a fork in the road approaching, Virgil was sure of it. He was going to have to choose between waiting for, hoping for Patton, and moving on. He wasn't sure what would happen when he reached that point.

But it scared him that he would have to make that decision alone.

~

Taglist (let me know if you want to be added/removed): @enragedbees @gotta-love-alejandra @bunny222 @basiic-emo @patt0n-sanders @rosiepupper @fangirlgeekandfreak @dn-fan21 @that2000skid @remy-the-lemon-berry @itsadastraperaspera @xionbean @sanderssides-angst @hell-yea-we-gay-tonight @maybedefinitely404 @broken-pencils @thewhimsicallibrarytech @doomllily @hereissananxiousmess @judyismydog  @arodynamic-enby @at-that-one-nerd @therapysides

[an-annyeoing-writer]

Baekhyun x Reader: transcendental. [fallen angel!AU]

Word count: 4 820

Genre: angst if anything, but not too heavy

Warnings: mentions of blood & description of injures 

It was hours after midnight, when the window suddenly gave up, letting in all the rain and wind. You sat up, startled by the noise, and got up quickly, rushing to close the window before the water would start pooling on the floor and carpet in your room. 

A lightning crossed the sky and hit somewhere not too far, causing you to jump in fear. You quickly pushed the curtains aside, because they got tangled with the window, preventing you from shutting it. 

Something flashed in the corner of your eye, and you couldn’t help but look up, staring at the white stain that crossed the sky and fell among the trees that surrounded your house, not more than hundred of meters away.

You stared at where the stain disappeared, as if not believing it was real. What could it be? It was too big to miss, too bright to be just a shade. A meteorite? The thought made your heart skip a little. You’ve never seen a meteorite in real life, and you heard they’re pretty expensive. Was it worth leaving the warmth of your four walls, to look for the treasure?

You wouldn’t fall asleep until you found out what the thing was, you realized. It caught too much of your attention to dismiss now. You sighed. It wasn’t too cold outside, only awfully windy. You quickly grasped your raincoat and a phone, hoping that it wouldn’t soak through and you’d still be able to use it as a torch.

The world at night was unwelcoming, and you found yourself skipping towards the forest, hoping that among the trees, you’d feel slightly more at ease. The lightnings stroke even more often than before, making your phone almost useless, because all your surroundings brightened up every few seconds anyway. You tripped over roots nonetheless, and thick mud quickly stuck to your legs; you’d have to take a shower and change your clothes once you got back home.

Something glistened among the trees, a white flag-like thing. For a brief moment you mistook it for fire, but then, what fire would stand such weather? The thing wavered in the air, disappearing from your sight every few seconds and appearing again. Definitely not a meteorite, you realized. You stepped towards it confidently though, almost sure that it was exactly the thing you saw, and definitely too curious about it to give up now.

You stepped into the small clearing. The stain of white was completely soaked through, just like you. But when you stepped forward, your heart almost stopped. Because among the white sheets, there was a motionless, human silhouette.

Your hesitation lasted no more than a few seconds, before you ran forward and towards the person. You knelt next to them, pushing them onto their back. 

The man’s eyes remained closed, and that was all you could see in the flashing light of lightnings that struck every few seconds, disabling you from having a proper look at his body. 

You felt your head spin at the realization. This man fell from the sky. 

No way he would survive it.

You touched his skin – cold from the rain. Yet, no visible wound was in your range of sight. 

“H-hey…” Your voice quivered, but it wouldn’t get through the noise of wind, rain and thunders. You shook his shoulders desperately.

And at that moment, the white matter surrounding him waved, and something struck you so hard that you stumbled backwards and fell onto your back. The whiteness whirled, trembled, moved, and you could nothing but stare as it finally regained its original shape.

The shape of white wings, ones that grew out of the man’s back as he slowly rose to his knees, checking out both his surroundings and the white, shattered robe that covered his slim body.

Finally, his gaze fell on you, and a frown adorned his face.

“Human…?” Your breath got stuck in your throat, and you could nothing but stare. “Close your eyes.”

You found yourself listening to the command without a thought, as if the superior voice took control of your body. For a few seconds, all you heard were noises of shuffling, barely drowned out by the weather. 

Then, you felt a presence hover above you, and you forced your eyes open to see a hand extended to you, to help you stand up from the cold ground.

You took his hand, and to your surprise, the skin seemed warm and dry. It was as if the rain around the man avoided him, and you quickly realized, that his wings were gone now. He stood in front of you with a slight, sly smirk on his face. 

“Tell me, what is a human doing in a place like such at this time? Won’t you get sick? You’re all so fragile, after all.”

You opened your mouth, and for a few seconds, forced yourself to think of a proper response, fighting for your voice not to fail you.

“I… saw something fall from the sky. It was you, wasn’t it?” 

He let out a breathy laughter.

“So you came to my rescue? How kind of you.” He stepped backwards, playing with the sleeve of his robe. “That’s good though, I have nowhere to stay for the time being. Will you be so kind and lend me your bed, human?”

Your lips parted in slight shock. Was he really willing to stay at your place? 

And what kind of existence he was in the first place? You couldn’t tell. You felt dumb now, unable to understand something the man seemed so casual about.

“Y-you can sleep on my couch” you finally let out. 

The man smiled warmly.

“Sounds brilliant. Let’s go there.”

Reaching the warmth of your own house made you feel more at ease. Even the thunders wouldn’t bother you anymore as you grew used to the noise. Closing the door behind the two of you, you were welcomed with the familiarity you felt nothing but comfortable with, and the mysterious stranger’s presence became less overwhelming the very moment you noticed him look around curiously, but politely not touching anything, like a guest should behave. 

You took off your shoes and raincoat, hanging them by the door. Your pajama pants were still soaked through and you’d probably leave stains on the floor, but it was the least of your concerns now. You glanced at the stranger; the man stood by the door, clearly not knowing what to do. His hand massaged the other arm’s shoulder, but you couldn’t tell if he was doing it out of boredom or if it was hurt.

You had to take care of him, somehow. To get him to tell you, what he was and what happened to him, of course. Your curiosity was at its peak, but you forced it down, knowing better than to interrogate him now.

“Are you hurt? I don’t know much about medicine and stuff, but I can try to help” you announced, leading him to the living room ahead of the main door.

“Ah, it’s nothing. I just need to rest a bit” he answered, smiling softly, yet his gaze was avoiding you, wandering around the room and stopping on all the tiny things, ornaments, or plants around it, as if it was the first time he’d seen things like this from up close. 

“Okay then, but you surely need to change clothes” you announced. His robe, even though – somehow – dry, was stained with dirt and torn in a few places. “You want a shower? You must be cold” you offered, pointing at the bathroom’s door. “And you’ll dirty my couch if you lay like this, so I insist” you added. The man just nodded, and you excused yourself for a few minutes, going to fetch him some clothes; your parents were away this week, but you were sure your dad wouldn’t mind his shirt and tracksuit pants being borrowed to someone who clearly needed them. 

Once the man was safe in your bathroom, you found yourself letting out a huge breath, as if you were holding it for the past twenty minutes.

What exactly were you doing?

Helping a person in need was, no doubt, a proper thing to do. But it wasn’t the need to help him that urged you to invite him to your house, you realized. Because if it was, you’d have fought it with your self perseverance, and maybe called the ambulance to check him for injures and take care of him. But a stranger, one you didn’t know anything about, one that seemed more suspicious than not and was the first one to actually ask you to keep him for the night, was the last person you should invite over with no parents at home, in the middle of night. 

You’d say that the self perseverance was fought by curiosity, an overwhelming one, but not only. You could be just curious about a person, just curious about their whereabouts. But the wings you surely saw before? The fact he fell from the sky and still was able to walk around as if it didn’t bother him much? And that weird robe, one you’ve never seen a person wear, one that was different from any other you’ve ever seen? It was more than just curiosity. You felt as if you’ve just briefly got a hold of something not many other people do, something beyond your way of understanding. It wasn’t just some curiosity; it was a primal longing, a need that was buried within everyone’s souls, something deeper, something fuller.

With thoughts like such, you found yourself justifying the irresponsible behavior. And as soon as they started, you dismissed them, forcing yourself to focus on what you had to do right now. 

Food. He had to be hungry. And even if he wasn’t, food would definitely help him recover. 

You didn’t have much. Your parents’ absence was one of the reasons why your eating schedule was a mess, and you’d just make yourself rice with vegetables once every few days and just eat them at the moments of hunger, not caring about the proper dinner or lunch times. Anyway, there was still some of the rice with veggies left, and you put the pan on the heating stove to warm it up. You decided to boil water as well. 

No more than ten minutes later, when the rice and tea for the two of you was already done, the bathroom’s door opened and the man came out. In the light of your house, you could finally get a better look at his features. 

He looked young, somewhere around your own age, and a tad boyish, especially with how your dad’s shirt hung on his thin body. He seemed spent, but still wary, watching you carefully, even though it didn’t seem as though he considered you a threat. He was still stronger than you were, that much you were sure about. 

One of the towels you gave him was hung around his shoulders and he used it to dry his hair. His eyes were fixated on you as he did so and you cleared your throat, pointing the opposite seat. He went through the living room and to the kitchen, sitting by the table a tad awkwardly.

“I heated up some food, so feel free to stuff yourself up. You need to eat, if you want to recover” you reasoned, reaching for an apple to keep yourself busy and – also – to encourage the man to relax a little in your presence. 

He nodded his head, busying himself with the food as well.

He ate fast, as if he didn’t do that in ages. He managed to burn his tongue with the tea, but it didn’t bother him much. Now, with his attention occupied, when you found yourself staring at his silhouette, you couldn’t bring yourself to look away. On the skin of his arms, you spotted red marks that started to poke out, as well as a scratch on his forehead, one that was covered by his hair earlier. It didn’t seem as though any of his bones were broken, otherwise you’d have already noticed. But he was weakened.

“Am I such a beautiful sight to behold?” he suddenly spoke, startling you. 

You looked up at his face. As predicted, he was watching you cautiously, not stopping to chew for a second, even as he spoke. 

“U-uh, sorry, I’m just curious” you muttered in response.

“Curious? About what?” He tilted his head to the side, letting the fork hang loosely from his hand. His eyes sparkled with some kind of emotion you couldn’t quite get a hold of.

“Well, about you, obviously” you answered honestly, leaning against the chair’s backrest. “I uh… I saw your wings earlier. But they disappeared. And you fell from the sky. It’s not something I experience on daily basis” you reasoned. “Who are you?” you asked bluntly, furrowing your brows. 

He chuckled, his lips curling into a charming smile, one that you were sure, would stay in your memory for long.

“I think we should have started with that. My name is Baekhyun. Yours?” 

You bit on your lip and took a sip of your tea.

“[Y/n]. And I live here. Where do you live?”

“Far away” he hummed, suddenly reminding himself of his own tea as well. It was already cooled down enough not to cause damage while drinking.

“I gave you food. Specify” you huffed, squinting yours eyes at his attempt to maintain the secret.

“But would you believe it? I wouldn’t want you to call cops on me. It’d be troublesome” he said with a cheeky smile, resting his chin on his hand once he finished the meal. 

“You’re more likely to be called cops on if you don’t spill” you announced, crossing your arms in a firm pose. 

“But you already know the answer, don’t you?” he announced, staring at you with amusement. “I’ve got wings, and I fell from the sky. Isn’t the answer obvious? I’ve lived among humans before, I’m not clueless. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

The lip you bit on was starting to swell, but you found yourself growing a bit more nervous with every passing second. Of course, the answer was simple. Yet, the word just wouldn’t get through your throat. A part of you was still doubtful, as it probably should be. 

You took a deep breath and exhaled it, fidgeting with the edge of the tablecloth.

“So you’re an angel.”

You wanted it to be a question, not a statement, but as you pronounced it, it became nothing but obvious that there was no reason to hesitate.

Something poked at the edge of your mind, a thought that seemed random, yet so on point that you had to speak it aloud.

“But if you fell from the sky… Does it make you a fallen angel?” The edge of the man’s lip tilted even higher, and at that moment, his face suddenly seemed scarier than ever before. “…A demon?”

You held your breath, waiting for his response, but it didn’t come. The man just sipped his tea in silence, not caring much about your growing nervousness.

Only a few minutes later, when he put the cup down and looked at you again, had you noticed the slightly annoyed gaze he graced you with.

“I may be one, but I’m not irrational. I don’t have a reason to hurt you, so loosen up.” When he noticed you only tense more at his words, he let out a sigh. “Look, just give me a place to sleep and I’ll be gone first thing in the morning. I have no business with you.”

You pursed your lips and nodded slowly, staring down at your cup. What kind of mess were you getting yourself into? You didn’t know, but what you knew so far, didn’t satiate your curiosity just yet.

“Why have you fallen?” you asked, staring at him firmly. 

He sighed. But maybe he didn’t care about how much you knew, so he answered.

“I’ve hurt some. That’s all. Can I get a bed?”

“What do you mean by ‘some’?” you pried.

“Angels. Humans. Don’t be stubborn” he scolded you.

You rolled your eyes.

“Fine, then. You can have my bed, I’ll sleep in my parents’. The room is upstairs” you pointed at the stairs in the living room, getting up to put the dishes in the sink. 

But as soon as Baekhyun stood up and turned around, you found yourself dropping all you’ve been holding, your eyes fixated on the sight on his back.

“O-oh God.” Your voice wavered and the man turned around, startled by the sound of the cup shattering on the tiled floor.

“What’s that?”

“Y-your back.”

He frowned.

“What about it?”

“You’re bleeding!” you exclaimed, stepping over the shards and to his side. With no much thought, you turned his back to you. The whole backside of the shirt was sticking to his skin, covered with redness that would seep through it and even through the pants he wore. But you didn’t see the injury, and you were surprised he himself didn’t notice it until now. “Oh God” you said once more.

His turned his head to glance at you, and the concern on your face made his own twist in sadness. As if after all this time, he suddenly started to think about the consequences of what he’d done.

“I’ll stain your bed if I lay like this” he exclaimed quietly. “Can I sleep on the floor?”

You grit your teeth and hit the nape of his neck with your opened hand.

“You fucking idiot, you’ve been scaring the shit outta me me just a minute ago and now you’re worried about the fucking bed? The bed is the least of our problems now, you’re fucking bleeding!” you almost yelled. For some reason, the pitiful tone he had now pissed you way more than the cheeky smile with which he avoided speaking at all. “Anyway. I need to see the injury. You won’t help yourself, so let me see it.”

“It’s no injury” he spoke.

“It’s bleeding. Show me.” You tugged on his arm, leading him into the living room and sitting him on the small stool, so that you could have a good look at whatever was going on underneath his shirt. 

After a moment of hesitation, he pulled the shirt over his head and threw it onto the floor – fortunately – away from the carpet. 

You held your breath. Most of the blood sank into the fabric, and you could clearly see the two long gashes that looked like a shape of V cut deeply into his back, but not meeting at the bottom. It didn’t take a genius to figure out it had something to do with his wings, but what happened for these to look so awful – you couldn’t tell. And no way it didn’t hurt him, you realized. The skin looked ripped at the edges, its pieces seemed to be barely attached to the body. 

“Oh, God” you muttered yet again.

“How does it look?” he asked, peeking at you over his shoulder.

“Well, terrible” you answered honestly. “Definitely not like something you’d willingly do to yourself. Is it always like this? When you… You know, hide your wings?”

He shook your head.

“No. The gashes are never open.” He sighed deeply. “Move aside and close your eyes” he commanded, and you rolled your eyes in response, but obediently did as he asked. You knew what he was about to do, and hopefully, it’d clear some of his doubts.

You heard the shuffling noise as he probably made sure that he wouldn’t hit anything in the room by accident. His wingspan seemed pretty impressive earlier on, one wing could be around two meters long. Then, there was a moment of silence, and a quiet whimper, one which he probably couldn’t hold back in his weakened state. 

And a few seconds later, a scream of pain ripped through the room, and you instantly opened your eyes in panic, only to whimper as well at the sight that appeared in front of you.

One of his wings was extended fully, but it definitely didn’t look like what you remembered. It was ripped off the flesh almost completely, with very few feathers barely sticking to it in random places. Most of it was nothing but a bone covered in blood, a skeleton of what used to be his wings.

The other one was in no better state, but it wouldn’t even extend fully. Around half meter of a bone stuck out from the gash in his back, and it seemed as though he wasn’t even able to get out anymore of it. 

You rushed to Baekhyun’s side when he fell off the stool, curling up on the floor with loud, pained whimpers. The full wing fell limply on the floor behind him, the other just stayed rigid as it was; it had no joints on the short length. 

To your utter terror, you realized that despite the state he was in, he was still trying to push the rest of the wing through the gash. It extended slowly, ripping the gash open even more, extending it through his back. It definitely shouldn’t be like this, it definitely shouldn’t be so hard to get out. 

“Stop it, Jesus, Baekhyun, stop doing that!” you yelled.

His eyes were clouded as he looked up at you, finally giving up. But the expression of pain never disappeared from his face, and when he turned his head to look at what’s left of his wings, a small sob escaped his lips, more pitiful than anything you’ve heard before. Right now, he didn’t look like a demon – but a small, broken creature, one that was in too much pain to bear with alone. 

“I-I need to get it out whole” he announced with trembling voice. “It can’t stay in, it’s rotting. I need to g-get rid of them.”

“Why is it happening…” you thought aloud, unwittingly resting your hand on his shoulder in, what you hoped, was a comforting gesture. 

His face darkened, and you could tell, he knew the answer. And when you thought carefully, you could have a good guess on that too – he was turning into something else. He fell, hence why he was being deprived of his angelic attribute. 

“How are you going to get rid of them?” you asked quietly. The bones were still attached to his back. Maybe there could be some sort of surgery that’d detach the wings from the rest of his body, but other than that…? 

He forced himself to sit up, wincing every time the wings moved against his flesh. More of the blood spilled onto the floor, but none of you cared at this point. 

“Will you help me? I won’t get it out myself” he asked quietly. “Just grasp it and pull with full force” he instructed, not waiting for your answer. 

“It’ll hurt you!” Your voice quivered.

“What part didn’t you understand?” he snarled. “I need to get it out. Just do it.”

“Fine” you huffed with annoyance. You were positive that you could just do it, especially with the other’s behavior that just pleaded to put him back in place. But when you touched the gross, bloody structure, almost flinching away yourself, and you felt his body shiver underneath your fingers, you once again felt nothing but pity for this creature. 

He wrapped arms around his knees, digging nails into them as soon as you felt him start to push on the wings. You pulled on the wing, a bit hesitantly, not wanting to cause him anymore pain than what he was already going through. But then, you realized, the faster the wing was out, the sooner it’d be over. 

And so, you pulled, with all the strength you had, until you felt the structure come out of the gash, until your whole frame was stained with his blood, until the screams that ripped through his throat finally died down, until the wing was out whole. Only then, had you released it, letting it fall limply on the floor beside the other.

And right after the wing, he fell limply, too.

* * *

While sound asleep in your bed, Baekhyun finally looked at ease. 

You sat on the chair next to him, gently wiping the blood off his wings. You started to grow used to their structure, even though it looked so unsettling. The whole house had bloodstains here and there, mainly on the floor, but there were some on the walls too from when you were helping him up to your room.

He was barely conscious, grazing everything around with the limp things. But when he finally laid on his side, letting the wings fall behind, had his face turned into a relaxed one, and sleep took over him almost instantly. 

Yet, you couldn’t bring yourself to sleep.

You cleaned all you could in the house, even wiped the floor. The weather outside calmed down, and the sky was starting to get brighter. The realization of half of your night being taken away brought more of tiredness onto your shoulders, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to go to sleep. As if the very moment you left the angel’s side, it’d disappear and leave you as you were. 

You found yourself wishing for him to stay instead. Maybe, just maybe, if he lost his wings, he’d decide to live among humans? He said he’d done it before, he definitely seemed familiar with the idea. He didn’t seem like there was anyone who’d look for him. Were other demons in this world, too? Would he be able to get in touch with them? Would they welcome him as a friend, help him figure everything out?

Even though you knew he needed someone to guide him, you found yourself wishing so that he’d just stay here with you. The feeling was unfamiliar, peculiar, it was some kind of possessiveness that you’d never seen in yourself before.

It was getting to you, you realized. The creature out of this world was more than just body and wings, more than the trick with which he made the rain avoid him, more than his past. There was something in him that messed with your own emotions, and whether he did it consciously or not, it had to be something dangerous.

But you were just a human, incapable of resisting it.

You laid yourself behind him, a bit lower, not to put any weight on his wings. With a brief graze of your hand, one of the last feathers went off with no resistance, and you fiddled with it in your hand. 

If you wanted to ever figure it out, you definitely couldn’t do that without at least a few more hours of sleep.

* * * 

The morning was cold. You woke up in the middle of your bed, but with nothing to cover you, and by then, you were trembling from the chill seeping through your bones, your whole body aching from it.

You reached around you, until your hand found an edge of some blanket, and then pulled it over yourself, but the thing was too thin, bringing close to no comfort to your worn-out body.

It took you a few more minutes to open your eyes and sense, what was wrong. 

You were alone in your bed, and even in your sleepy state, had you noticed that it didn’t match what you remembered from the last night’s events. 

Dried droplets of blood covering the surface of your bed were only a proof that, in fact, you didn’t just imagine or dream what you remembered.

You stumbled to your feet, almost falling off the bed when your legs tangled with the blanket. You reached for your dressing gown and wrapped it around yourself, and then pulled the slippers from underneath the bed. You instantly felt warmer, but still not enough. You glanced towards the window – it was slightly open, and you realized you must have forgot to close it in the end, before leaving the house to look for what fell from the sky.

“Baekhyun?” you called out, stepping down the stairs. But even as you halted, listening to your surroundings, nothing was there to be heard. 

You were alone in your house, with nothing but some kind of aching emptiness in your chest, and a will to run somewhere far away.

Yet, the tiredness quickly brought you back to bed, and all there was left was a single, white feather stained with blood, one that got stuck in the fabric of your sweater, and which you discovered sometime later, deciding to keep as a token of remembrance.

To be continued?

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[linkspooky]

Dabi and Hawks: Two Victims of the Hero System

This is something I have talked about before, but considering the upcoming arc is most likely going to focus on an Endeavor internship and the connection between Dabi and Hawks let’s give their relationship another in depth look. While Dabi and Hawks appear to be enemies both deceiving the other, both stringing the other along for their own purposes set to inevitably betray each other, the irony of their connection is that they’re both far more similiar than they are different. Hawks and Dabi may be the most capable of understanding each other, and yet they will not trust each other nor open up to their true intentions and so far plan to continue using each other. 

So underneath the cut, an analysis of both Dabi and Hawks as victims of the hero system, and how they have more to gain from learning to trust each other rather than betraying one another for the sake of their ideals. The ideal ending is not one where good triumphs over evil, and the heroes save the day again, but one where two victims empathize with each other because of their similiar past experiences. 

1. The Good Victim and the Bad Victim

The title of this section is not to insist that Hawks is good and Dabi is bad, but rather they both follow a certain incorrect dichotomy that is assigned to victims. They are two sides of opposite extremes. Dabi and Hawks are both characters who were fored to become heroes against their own wishes, because they were born with powerful quirks. They were also only valued because of their quirks, Dabi was born for the sake of becoming a hero and not as a child to be loved, and the people in the hero commission lifted Hawks from poverty not to save a child, but rather because he had a quirk that was useful to them.

However, their reactions are opposite. Hawks aspiration is to become the best hero he can be, therefore he shuts his own feelings out and instead tries to become the tool that the hero commission moulded him into being. Dabi on the other hand rebels and acts opposite of his father’s wishes for him, becoming a villain who opposes villains like his father who value quirks over herodom. 

Hawks embraces and Dabi rejects. Hawks lets himself be used by the people in power over him, and Dabi attempts to burn his abusers. 

One thing that defines their early life for both Dabi and Hawks is the complete control their abusers had over them. This is literally what Endeavor says in Todoroki’s flashback of him, that Todoroki is not allowed to be his own person, that he has to become what Endeavor desires him to be. He cannot exist with his own wants and needs besides what Endeavor wants for him. 

Endeavor literally threw out his own children that did not comply with those desires. Dabi’s entire youth is characterized by a complete lack of control of his own life, because he as a child could not overpower a grown man who was one of the strongest heroes in the world.

Dabi is not only born not as a child to be loved, but as a tool to fulfill Endeavor’s ambition, he’s also physically disabled. He cannot use his own quirk without hurting himself. Yet, he receives no sympathy or even care for his disability because it makes him useless to Endeavor. Of course there is absolutely nothing wrong with Dabi being born disabled. He’s also not someone who is just pitiable for being born disabled and living with his disability.

 However, not only was Dabi treated this way by Endeavor, but also because Endeavor was cross breeding on purpose in order to create a perfect hybrid it’s extremely messed up that Endeavor knew he might have a child whose quirk harms themselves like Touya, and yet decided to have that child anyway. And when that child was hurt he just threw them away because that child was useless to them. 

Dabi’s entire life is defined by his quirk, and he doesn’t want it to be. He was given absolutely no choice in the matter, because for a period of time everything in his life was completely controlled by Endeavor. Dabi is a pwoerless child who was exploited, taken advantage of, and then thrown away. 

This is why we see him rejecting Endeavor’s ideals. Dabi is not using his own victimhood as an excuse to hurt people, he is genuinely trying to create a world where children like him will never be powerless again. Yes, those ideas are shaped by his circumstances but there’s no way he could have not been influenced by those circumstances. 

Dabi fights for the powerless child he once was so nobody can be exploited like him again. Dabi fights the hero system because his abuser destroyed his entire life, and got away with it, and is praised in the streets as a hero. It’s a common reaction to abuse, those who have no control of their lives in their formative years rebel, sometimes even violently, they grasp for freedom because they want to live for themselves not be exploited by the people who were supposed to take care of them. 

Dabi has a good reason for going outside the system, the system has failed him every step of the way. Children who are tuaght by the adults who control their lives that the rules are in place to hurt them, are going to be unable to trust in any system of rules placed by other adults. Delinquency, rebellion, lashing out these are not excuses for people who have been abused to hurt other people, they are the messy reality of processing abuse. Especially since children who are abused become developmentally stunted and even have different functioning brains from those who come from healthy households. This is not to say that Dabi’s actions are justified completely by the fact that he is an abuse victim, but that people who react to narratives of abuse victims are far more obsessed with judging the victims as good or bad then acknowledging their abuse in the first place. 

Another way this could be phrased is Golden Child or the Scapegoat. Basically two children are raised in the same household where the parents are narcissists trying to control their lives, one attempts to please the narcissitic parent and become exactly what they want, and the other cannot do that for whatever reason and therefore is labeled the failure of the family. However, neither of these are healthy reactions to abuse. 

Source: [x]

Beyond judgements of good and bad, Hero and Victim, both Hawks and Dabi react to their abuse in an unhealthy and self destructive way. So, let’s talk about Hawks for a moment.

Haks is rescued from one bad household, only to be exploited by the hero commission. Just like Touya, who he was as a prson came secondary to his quirk. Even if Hawks originally wanted to be a hero, he was still forced to be a hero against his desires otherwise the same commission that saved him would let him fall back into poverty again.

Just like Touya’s entire life and self worth was defined by his flame quirk, Hawks’ entire life is defined by the wings quirk he was born with. The person he is comes secondary to everything else. Just like Dabi who calls himself by a false name when he becomes a villain, Hawks has no real name not even on his character profile and he has no life or identity outside of being a hero. Hes not allowed to be anything besides a hero. 

When the hero system took in a child and tried to control his life and all of his decisions, Hawks reaction was the opposite of Touya. He let them do it. He became exactly what they wanted him to be. 

Hawks accepts orders that he does not like, because he has been regarded as a tool to be used by the hero system. Yes, there is a part of Hawks that also is genuinely selfless and wants to save as many people as he can but the thing is its always Hawks who has to continually sacrifice himself over and over. Hawks was a child raised in the hero system, he has no personal life, his motto is that he goes too fast and expends too much of himself. Yet, they continually call on Hawks to give more and more to the hero system. The only result of his compliance is they continually exploit him over and over again. 

Hawks attempts to be a ‘good victim’ are extremely unhealthy to him personally. Not only that but it also means the people who are exploiting children like him stay in power, because he does not do anything to question them or resist them. What he desires is to reform the system and yet at the same time he obeys every single order of the system in place because that is what he has been conditioned to do. 

Hawks saves innocent people and puts their lives above his own, and continually sacrifices himself to keep the status quo and minimize the number of people hurt possible, but when the system is done using Hawks it’s just going to spit him out and start chewing up somebody else instead.

Dabi hurts people in his attempts to break the system as a whole, and because of that people will get caught up in his crusade, but at the same time Dabi is also trying to destroy the system in a way that will make it so nobody else like him can be exploited. 

Neither of these solutions is right, neither of them will solve the entire problem because Dabi and Hawks are only capable of addressing half of it with their individual fights. Which is the point of having these two characters instead of being opposed learning to work together, because each character has half of what the other needs. 

2. Foiling and Relationship to Endeavor

Hawks and Dabi have complete opposite perspectives of Endeavor. For Hawks, Endeavor is a hero, and for Dabi Endeavor is a villain. Dabi’s hatred for endeavor is so strong he abandons his objective to collect the Noumu in order to try to kill him on site. 

Hawks has a mistaken idealization of Endeavor, which while unfortanate makes perfect sense when you realize that one Hawks has no idea what Endeavor did to Dabi, and two that Hawks response to the system that exploited it has always been to try to conform to the ideas and ideals pushed by that system. Endeavor is, the embodiment of those same ideals, that strength is everything to a hero, that the most important thing is being strong all on your own, that to be a hero you need a powerful flashy quirk to fight with. 

These are ideals that Hawks was raised with, that control his reality, he cannot break free of them so easily on his own even if he was exploited by those same ideas. 

Hawks feels like a victim, even though he is a succesful hero he has little to no control over his own life. He is a prodigy at becoming a hero, and yet he’s never enough. He cannot save enough people to let him take a break. He is not powerful enough to put people at ease or solve the problems of the world on his own. Because Hawks was raised in a utilitarian way where his purpose and use to others came far before his own well being and needs as a person Hawks is extremely disatisfied with his life. He feels hollow and used. 

However, because Hawks attempts to conform to the hero system rather than attempt to correct it, he puts the problem on himself, and not on the people that exploited him. Hawks cannot get what he wants because Hawks is not good enough, not strong enough on his own. 

Hawks is raised to feel constantly inferior, hence why he’s always the man who goes too fast, hence why he’s always taking everything on his own shoulders. This is what he was taught to be, a tool first and a person second. His well being will always come secondary to others.

Hawks wants desperately to be free of the hero system, to stop himself from being used, but it’s important to remember that Hawks is extremely young and has been infleunced for most of his formative years. 

Hawks way of fighting the hero system is to be the best hero he possibly can, so that maybe he will get some time off. His way of fighting is to let himself be exploited so things might change for the better because of his sacrifice. Hawks is using the only tools he has, which is being a hero, and a disposable tool for the hero commission, in order to try to improve things. 

But in taking everything on his own shoulders, he is doing the exact opposite of what he wants. He is reinforcing a system that values individual strength, and puts all the burden on the sacrifice of individuals. He admires Endeavor for his strength, but the idea that strength is what matters and what allows people to be free is only in Hawks head in the first place because the hero commission put it there. 

Hawks is trying to use the tools he was given to try to improve the system, but since he only has experience inside of the system Hawks does not know any other, or better way. Which is why the perspective of an outsider like Dabi is so necessary to him. 

Now returning to Dabi, while he exists as the opposite of everything he was raised to be, Dabi just like Hawks uses the tools that were given to him by his abusers. Dabi and Hawks are in a way, both products of what they were raised to be, as much as they are also reacting and trying to be different from the way they were exploited. 

This is not me saying that Dabi is just as bad as Endeavor. However, at the same time one cannot look at Dabi and not see the environment he was raised in. Dabi despises Endeavor, because he tried to teach him that his quirk was everything, and the only thing he existed to be was a strong hero for the sake of endeavor.

However, at the same time Dabi also, uses his flame quirk to completely burn away his enemies, recklessly even when he knows that his quirk will burn himself in the process. Dabi’s first and most common method is to use his flame to overpower his enemies and burn them away quickly with sheer brute strength. Dabi will dismiss people as unworthy and then burn them alive if they do not fit his purposes. As different as Dabi tries to be from Endeavor, Dabi is still a reflection of Endeavor and the way that he was raised. 

Once again Dabi is using the tools that his abusers gave him, and then turning them against his abusers. Might makes right, he needs power to change the world in the way he wants to, the only way he can fight is by burning away everything that stands in his way, individual strength is the most important thing of all. 

These are all Endeavor’s ideas. These are also the ideas that Dabi was raised with, and groomed into becoming for a long time. Even if Dabi was able to see how much of a fraud his father was, that does not mean that the fact that he was raised with those ideas will magically go away. 

Dabi was raised with unhealthy ideas of being a hero, and then sticks with those unhealthy ideas because once again just like Hawks it is all he knows. The problem is not that Dabi seeks a violent revolution against the system, but rather he does it all by himself and limits his perspective.

Hawks and Dabi are both the loners of their group. They both take on way more then they can handle to the point of being self destructive, Hawks burns up all of his feathers in his first fight, Dabi burns his skin every time he uses his quirk. They both push themselves way over their limits to accomplish what they want, and part of the reason they do this is because they believe they can only fight on their own. For Dabi and Hawks there is no one in this world they can trust, because the people that they were supposed to trust and rely on only exploited them in the end. 

Which is why because they are fighting on their own in an incredibly unhealthy and self destructive way, Dabi and Hawks are both pushed to do things they do not want to do, because they feel they have to do them to accomplish their goals. Dabi is the only character on the Villains side we see expressing remorse for killing someone, because he killed a good hero like Snatch in order to continue with the league. 

Hawks and Dabi are both determined to fight the system all on their own, and that determination pushes them to extremes. If Hawks murder of best jeanist is not entirely fake, then Hawks too was pushed by his ideals to kill one person in order to save thousands. 

They both have an extreme amount of resolve to the point where they will destroy both themselves, and others in order to get what they view is a better world. However, both of them do not need to fight on their own, and both of them only have the tools they were given by their abusers to fight back so far.

Which is why, Dabi and Hawks learning to work together makes far more sense for both of their characters, rather than both of them eventually betraying each other and Hawks defeating Dabi in a triumph of good over evil. 

[antoine-roquentin]

I think one of the major problems with the modern left is a focus on cultural analysis instead of economics. When I say culture I EXPLICITLY DON'T MEAN racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and Indigenous rights/decolonization.

Stupidpol and their ilk are reactionaries and should be treated as such. What I'm talking about is the focus on things like analyzing TV shows or picking over the latest issues of the NYT op-ed column, the sort a caricatures you see on Chapo.

Zizek is emblematic of this syndrome. He's a theorist of ideology, a film critic, a Lacanian psychoanalyst and complete reactionary on gender and immigration issues, and he's widely considered to be one of preeminent Marxist scholars alive. And, and this is important, Zizek does fuck all actual economic material analysis. Mark Fisher, who was an excellent Marxist theorist, covers almost exactly the same ground from a different perspective, and you can repeat this across academia.

Inside academia the problem has gotten so bad that the best economic analysis is being carried out by the fucking post-humanists. Take, for example, Anna Tsing's excellent Supply Chains and the Human Condition. Tsing is a brilliant theorist but she spends most of her time writing about multi-species interactions between humans and mushrooms. Carbon Democracy, one of the best theories of the carbon economy ever written, is by a left-Foucaldian.

There are some exceptions to this, Andreas Malm's Carbon Capital is wonderful, Riot Strike Riot is great and I have to mention the group I call The Other Chicago School, Endnotes, whose infrequent analysis is a breath of fresh air. But Endnotes isn't particularly well read even inside the academy, which takes back outside the ivory tower in the dismal mess that is what passes for popular left "economics."

I want to go back to Occupy for a second because what happened there is indicative of the problem. Occupy, at least technically, actually had a theory of economics that went beyond "neoliberalism bad, welfare state good." And it's really not as bad as its critics have since accused it of being. Graeber's "the 1% meme" was supposed to be part of an MMT analysis of the ability of banks to create money out of nothing, see Richard A. Werner. The theory then goes with the ability to create money out of nothing the question becomes who should actually have that power. The 1% are the people who control that power and use that it to gain wealth and their wealth to gain power.

This is essentially what happened after 2008 and it relates to an entire analysis of the politics of debt and war that's captured really well in the last chapter of Debt, The First 5000 Years, drawing from Hudson's excellent Super Imperialism. Again, not bad, and not the disaster it became in Liberal hands. But note two things:

1, His work is intentionally detached from the production process- Graeber uses a value theory of labor about the social reproduction of human beings. That theory is really interesting and I'll leave a link to his It is Value that Brings Universes into Being here. But Graeber is an anthropologist, not an economist, and his recent work is mostly composed of a set of theories of bureaucracy.

And, don't get me wrong, I really like Utopia of Rules and Bullshit Jobs, and it's possible to build an economic theory out of them, but almost no one actually does. And this gets us back to my second point about Occupy and economics.

2, Not a single other person I have ever met, including people who were in Occupy, have ever actually heard the theory behind the 1%. Part of this has to do with Graeber’s rather admirable desire to not become an intellectual vanguardist. But, I cannot overemphasize how much of this is a result of the left's retreat into an analysis of consumerism instead of capitalism and its further insistence that the entire fucking global economy can be explained by chapters 1-3 of Capital and this just isn't a "read more theory" rant, it's not like reading the rest of Capital is going to help you here. But even that's better than what's actually happened, which is people reading Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism and the Communist Manifesto and trying to derive economic theory from that, or getting lost in a Gramscian or psychoanalytic miasma trying to explain why revolution didn't happen. But we can't keep fucking doing this.

If we do we're just going to keep getting stuck in endless fucking inane arguments, one of which is about which countries are Imperialist or not based on trying to read the minds of world leaders, and the other of which is a bunch of racists trying to argue that they're actually "class-first" Marxists and that if we don't say slurs and be mean to disabled people we're going to lose the "real working class," which is somehow composed only of construction workers banging steel bars.

So let's stop letting them do that. One of the reasons Supply Chains and the Human Condition is so great is that it describes how the performance of gender and racial roles creates the self super-exploitation at the heart of global capitalism. Race and gender cannot be ignored in favor of some kind of "class-first" faux-leftist bullshit. THEY ARE LITERALLY THE DRIVER OF CAPITAL ACCUMULATION.

Most of the global supply chain has been transformed into entrepreneurs and wannabe entrepreneurs (see the countless accounts of Chinese garment factory workers who dream of getting into the fashion industry and who attempt to supplement their meager income by setting up stalls in local marketplaces to sell watches and clothes).

The fact that global supply chains have reverted to the kind of small family firms that Marx and Engels thought would disappear is a MASSIVE problem for any kind of global workers movement, because it means that the normal wage relation that is supposed to form the basis of the proletariat isn't actually the governing social experience of a large swath of what should be the proletariat, either because they're the owners of small firms contracted by larger firms like Nike who would, in an older period of capitalism, have just been workers or because the people who work for those firms are incapable of actually demanding wage increases from the capitalists because they're separated by a layer from the firms who control real capital, and thus are essentially unable to make the kind of wage demands that would normally constitute class consciousness because the contractors they work for really don't have any money. These contractors are in no way independent.

Multinational corporations set everything from their buying prices to their labor conditions to what their workers say to lie to labor inspectors. The effect of replacing much of the proletariat with micro-entrepreneurs is devastating.

The class-for-itself that's supposed to serve as the basis of social revolution has decomposed entirely. Endnotes has a great analysis of how this happened covering more time, but the unified working class is dead. In its place have come a series of incoherent struggles: The Arab Spring, the Movement of the Squares, the current wave of revolutions and riots stretching from Sudan to Peru to Puerto Rico- all of them share an economic basis translated into demands on the state. We see housing struggles, anti-police riots, occupations, climate strikes, and a thousand other forms of struggle that don't seem to cohere into a traditional social revolution and WE HAVE NO ANSWER.

I don't have one either, but we're not going to get out of this mess by trying to read the tea leaves of the CCP or analyzing how Endgame is the ruling class inculcating us into accepting Malthusian Ecofascism.

I want to emphasize YOU DON'T NEED TO SHARE MY ECONOMIC ANALYSIS to develop one, I'm obviously wrong on a lot of things and so is everyone else. The point is that we need to start somewhere.

There are other benefits to reading economics stuff even if it can be boring sometimes, like being able to dunk on nerd shitlibs and reactionaries who do the "take Econ-101" meme by being able to prove that their entire discipline is bunk. Steve Keen's Debunking Economics is absolutely hilarious for this, he literally proves that perfect competition relies on the same math that you use to "prove" that the earth is flat.

Or learning that the notion that markets distribute goods optimally is based on the assumption that what is basically a form of fucking state socialism exists, and that the supply demand curve is fucking bullshit. Here's a page from Debunking Economics looking at the socialism claim, it fucking rules, and it's the result of the fact that neo-classical economics and central planning were developed together. Kantorovich and Koopmans shared a Nobel Prize.

But wait, there's more! We can PROVE that THE MARKET PLACE OF IDEAS DOESN'T EXIST. Do you have any idea how hard you can own libs with facts and logic if you can demonstrate that THE MARKET PLACE OF IDEAS DOESN'T EXIST?

But seriously, if you go outside of the Marxist tradition there are all sorts of fun and useful things you can find in post-Keyensian circles and so on and so forth. I'm a huge fan of Karen Ho's Liquidated, an Ethnography of Wall Street/Liquidated_%20An%20Ethnography%20of%20Wall%20Street%20-%20Karen%20Ho.pdf) which looks at how the people at banks and investment firms actually behave and, oh boy, is it bad news (they're literally incapable of making long-term decisions which is wonderful in the face of climate change).

Oh, and also, all of the bankers are essentially indoctrinated into thinking they're the smartest people in the world, so that's fun.

This may sound like I'm shitting on Marxism, and I sort of am, but there's Marxist stuff coming out that I absolutely love! @chuangcn is a good example of what I think the benchmark for leftist economics and historical analysis should be.

Chuang responded to the call put out by Endnotes to cut "The Red Thread of History," or essentially to stop fucking arguing about 1917, 1936, 1968 and so forth and look at material conditions instead of trying to find our favorite faction and accuse literally everyone else of betraying the revolution, and then imagining what we would have done in their shoes. The present is different from the past and we need to organize for this economic and social reality, not 1917's.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EBvBIVhXYAYlVfj.png

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EBvBM3CXoAA7Qmx.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EBvBP0SWkAEl6OX.jpg

Chuang produced an incredibly statically and sociologically detailed account of the Chinese socialist period in issue 1 and the transition to capitalism in the soon to be put online issue 2 that focuses on shifts in production and investment and shifts in China's class-structure and how urban workers, peasants, factory mangers, technicians, and cadre members reacted to those movements and shaped each others decisions and mobilizations. They largely avoid discussions of factional battles of the upper level of the CCP, which dominate liberal and communist accounts of the period and produce, in supposed communists from David Harvey to Ajit Singh, a Great Man theory of history.

Instead, they trace how strikes and peasant protests shaped the CCP's decision making and how the choices of people like Mao and Deng Xiaoping were limited by material conditions, in this case by their production bottleneck.

What's great about Chuang is that their work is so rich in sociological detail that you don't need to agree with them at all about what communism is and so on for their account to be useful, and they force us to think about the world from the perspective of competing classes bound by economic reality, instead of the black-and-white "good state/bad state," "good ruler/bad ruler," discourse that dominates our understanding of both imperialism and the global economy.

I'm just going to end this with a TL;DR: Cut the read thread of history and stop fucking arguing about 1917, use economic theory to dunk on Stupidpol and shitlibs. When you talk about "material conditions" talk about the production process, supply chains, capital movements and so on, not which states are good and bad (the bourgeoisie is a global class friends), recognize that strategies need to be built around current economic and social conditions, WHICH ARE INSEPARABLE FROM RACE AND GENDER, climate change is more complicated than the 100 companies meme (I only touched on this but please read Fossil Capital and Carbon Democracy), and in general try to learn more about different schools of economics and social theory, I swear reading something that wasn't written in 1848 isn't going to kill you.

[etherithical]

Pidge Whump Scenarios (UPDATED: Seasons 1-4)

Please do not read this if you faint of heart. I do not want to ruin your life through my cursed Whump scenarios😅😈

Just some ideas if you have writer’s block or want to evolve some of these things for my (or your own/other peoples’) BTHB prompts! I kept them vague so you could add your own things. Most of them are AUs, are Pidge focused (y’all know me), and are placed in the order of the episodes.

Disclaimer: Many of these ideas are heavily inspired by some other amazing Pidge Whump writers out there. While I tried my hardest to keep ideas original and creative, be warned that some stray very close to what is already out there.

Whumpers: -Law Enforcement (considering the prior to Voltron prompt)

-School bullies, gangsters, blackmailers, pretty much any human that sucks and uses Pidge as their punching bag

-Commander Sendak

-Lieutenant Haxus

-Bounty Hunters, although who would want to injure their precious cargo? -Subcommander Ylvik (Note: Lead Galra on Shay’s Balmera. He is not seen on screen, but mentioned when Prorok states that he has command of said Galra’s fleets)

-Commander Prorok

-Macidus and those other Druid creeps

-Chief Information Officer Plytox (Not seen, mentioned)

-Zarkon? (Note: Considering he is more of the kill, no prisoners type of guy, you’ll have to tread carefully with this one. He should have a reason to keep her alive other than “Hey I like torturing young children cuz I’m a creeeeep!”

-Haggar (Note: Another one you should be careful with. While there are a TON of Whump fanfics with her, I don’t see her as really that sadistic. I mean, she interrogates prisoners, but that’s for the Empire’s villainous plans rather than her own personal enjoyment. Again, you’ll need a reason other than she wants to have fun.

-Commander Branko (Commander on Olkarion)

-Unilu traders?

-The Warden from Escape from Beta Traz

-Lotor

-Lotor’s Generals (I think it would be cool to see Narti as the Whumper. Kinda creepy since she can’t see or talks, so she’s just hurting Pidge and saying nothing the entire time)

-Commander Hira and the evil Alteans from the Alternate Universe

-Lambonite Scavengers (Seen in The Legend Begins)

-Evil Matt...? 😏

-Bounty Hunter from Reunion

-Evil AU version of Pidge, resentful of our beautiful girl’s happier life.

-Commander Throk

-General Raht

-Ladnok or Trugg (female Whumpers are 👌)

Scenarios/Prompts:

1. Pidge’s secret about being a girl comes forth before the Blue Lion is found. You can play this idea a bit: Maybe Pidge is arrested, or maybe Iverson doesn’t want to tell the truth about Kerberos, so he takes matters into his own hands? It’s up to you

2. Not a specific episode, but Pidge is made into a Robeast?

3. Fall of the Castle of Lions/Return to the Balmera. Pidge fails to save the Castle of Lions from Sendak. This one could go in several unique ways depending on personal choice. Here’s some ideas if you need some inspiration.

-Haxus defeats Pidge, but instead of killing her, he tortures or maims her.

-Keith and Allura are unable to get in on time, and Sendak has Pidge.

-Sendak convinces Pidge to turn herself into him.

4. Rolo, Nyma, and Beezer take a certain little Green Paladin with them instead of (or along with) the Blue Lion. Hunk is infuriated at the rest of the team for being too trusting, and by doing so letting the Bounty Hunters escape with their friend.

5. Pidge is caught in a rockfall in Return to the Balmera. (Note: Subcommander Ylvik is the name given of the lead Galra on the Balmera, though he is not seen on screen)

6. Pidge catches onto the infected Alfor’s plan. Unfortunately, he gets to her before she can tell the others…

7. Macidus finds Pidge, Lance, and Hunk and takes her with him to Central Command. Now we have both a Paladin and a princess captured! YAY!

8. Voltron is defeated in The Black Paladin and Pidge is the only Paladin left alive. Zarkon chooses to keep her alive (Why? As a pet? To entertain his soldiers? Because one of his subordinates insisted?). Maybe Thace could be the caretaker, sneaking in food and medicine when no one is looking?

9. An idea for Across the Universe: Pidge is injured on her landing on the trash nebula. Nevertheless, she must manage to build the satellite, with a little help from the Green Lion and the trash floofs, of course!

10. Greening the Cube. Pidge is captured during the mission and the Commander (no name given) either makes her his slave, or, due to her unbelievably strong connection to the world around her, experiments on her.

11. In Eye of the Storm, Pidge is hit by one of the lasers in the teludav. While she survives, the hit causes severe damage to her body that can’t be easily fixed, or not at all.

12. Pidge and the Green Lion fall into the acid in The Ark of Taujeer. This one is a good option for Plance, since Lance and Pidge were working together to sew together the planet’s crust.

13. Pidge is captured in Space Mall and sold as a slave by a group of Unilu.

14. There already are some Escape from Beta Traz whump scenarios out there, so this one was a bit of a challenge. One idea is that the Warden catches Pidge while she is hiding under his desk, and forces Lance and Shiro to face an ultimatum: leave Slav, a vital part of the plan to defeat Zarkon with him (and Laika, too!), or leave Pidge, their friend and the Green Paladin, at his mercy.

Another idea is that everyone gets caught. Because Pidge was pretty much the one conducting the mission from the Control Center (and through that, causing all the trouble), the Warden beats her up.

15. Not tied to an episode, but let’s imagine for a moment that for whatever reason, team Voltron believes that Pidge is half-Galra rather than Keith. Pidge, already reeling from the false disbelief, experiences Allura’s racism, which grows increasingly detrimental to her confidence. And, Keith, who knows he is Galra, is unsure whether to tell everyone. I don’t see him as the “I’m afraid she’ll act the same way toward me as she is with Pidge” kind of guy, so you’ll have to get a little creative. Either way, once the truth comes out, Allura is terribly guilty and Pidge is furious at Keith for not saying anything while she suffered in silence.

16.Pidge is hit by the laser-eyed monsters… well, um, lasers in Stayin’ Alive.

17. The plan in The Best Laid Plans and Blackout fails. This one is almost identical to the The Black Paladin idea, except later in the show. I like this one a bit better as the hatred for the Paladins is higher, seen as they managed to get as far as they did, with the downside of losing Thace as caretaker.

18. What if… In Red Paladin, Voltron for some reason was doubtful about the attack of Puig, so Pidge offered to go in by herself (since the Green Lion can turn invisible). While Lotor and the gang expected evidence that there ‘is no Voltron without the Black Lion,’ taking Pidge to interrogate her is an easy alternative. Or, if this one doesn’t excite you, he can capture her when Voltron was set up (since the other Lions and their lack of experience flying leaves for an easy capture on Lotor’s part).

19. Fairly similar to 18. Lotor’s plan in The Hunted to flush out the Lions and capture them one by one mostly or completely succeeds. Either way, Pidge and possibly a few more of the Paladins are captured.

20. In Hole in the Sky, The Alteans attach some sort of alternate version of the Hoktril to Pidge, one that leaves her with free will but the inability to do anything but what the Alteans want. Sort of as a punishment for trying to mess up their plans. This could be a part of a larger plot: Where Commander Hira manages to cross through the wormhole and begins to take over the universe. Maybe an enormous war between the alternate reality Alteans and the Galra Empire could start. Or else this could happen to Pidge when the others are trying to escape and she gets caught and left behind.

21. While The Legend Begins doesn’t give me an AU, an interesting idea came to mind. We know that the original Paladins of Voltron fought evil before the Galra took over the universe. At the beginning of the episode they are fighting Lambonite scavengers. What if 10,000 in the future, they or some other ancient menace came back to exact revenge on the Paladins. And while they can’t hurt dead people, torturing their successors is an easy second best.

22. Let me just spill my Reunion ideas here. For just some general angst, you could just have Matt be dead. Imagine Pidge has been gone for vargas, so the Paladins go and search for her, only to find her literally hugging onto a gravestone, her eyes wide, and when they try to move her she is reluctant to leave her brother’s side and unresponsive when they try to talk to her. She constantly holds on, it doesn’t seem like she recognizes (or cares about) her friends beside her, and Shiro has to drag her out so they can leave. Another option, a darker one, is that the Bounty Hunter wins and takes Pidge and Matt to the Galra. A fun idea to play with, if you ask me. And if you’re willing to go even darker, making Matt evil and having him actually hurt (or… torture) his sister is an idea I’ve played with for the longest time.

23. The Galra catch on to the Paladins’ in The Voltron Show and the ‘propaganda’ it’s spreading. Zarkon or some other Galran in power organizes an attack during one of the performances, when the Paladins are vulnerable. Most of the Paladins manage to escape but Pidge is captured. Or the performances from the Voltron Show create enemies… and people who should definitely be avoided for each Paladin. Pidge is captured off guard by a stalker who wants to make her ‘his dog.’ (If you write this I would rather it not be NSFW. You can be you but please use your own ideas for that)

24. Pidge and Hunk fail to disable the Communications Station in Begin the Blitz. Because of their failure, the Voltron Coalition takes serious losses, and Pidge is brutally beaten as punishment while Hunk is forced to watch. Another one is because they lost Lotor as a bargaining chip, Ezor, Zethrid, and Acxa capture Pidge in order to reenter the ranks of the Galra Empire.

25. Somehow, Pidge is the only survivor in the entire Coalition after the massive explosion in A New Defender. The Galra choose to keep her alive as a prisoner of war… and for some fun. And alternative to this is that Pidge survives and manages to escape the Galra, but is a fugitive of the Galra Empire and constantly in peril of being found… and paying the price

Feel free to use these or change these however you like! I honestly don’t care how you use them; the purpose of this is to inspire you, not hold you back! I’ll update it once I’ve finished rewatching seasons 5-6.

You can request me to do my own ideas for my BTHB card, although I would like to see some of your own personal improvements/additions as well!

[emblemxeno]

Xander Support Science Rebuttal/Review + How Mediocre Localization Could Change A Character (1/2)

A couple of days ago I said I would do this because I haven’t watched the videos in question in a long time, and I wanted to see if I would hold the same opinions that I do now. In short, yeah, I do. (Part 2 of this Post)

The videos in question by Ghast (going by Faerghast now) can be found here: Part 1 Part 2

You’ve all most likely seen my posts and short analyses about Fates’ writing, it’s localization, and Xander as a whole. I wanted to make this rebuttal/review, not just as a way to get my differing opinion out there, but to also provide context on how translation and localization can alter a character’s interpretation with even the slightest change, and a brief summary on how Xander was supposed to be written from the get go.

TL;DR (Though I highly recommend reading the whole thing to really understand the point I am trying to make with this series of posts):

Xander’s character was altered in the localization due to a number of changes made that either replace/remove the original context of his writing, or add things that weren’t even present in the first place. The reason why I’m doing a rebuttal against these videos in the first place is because the greater community cite these videos as the correct interpretation of Xander, with there being no acknowledgement of localization being a factor of why Xander seems so inconsistent and poorly written. Further worsening the issue is Ghast’s own reading of Xander’s character, by roping him into a few select traits, and ignoring others.

Before moving on with the meat of the review, I’d like to link some things that would be useful to read/watch when they’ll be referenced in these posts:

- Analysis of the relationship between Garon and the Nohrian siblings (aka the abusive royal household)

- Xander’s Japanese supports with Camilla and Corrin. Here is a link to the localized Fates supports in order to spot differences.

-English patched playthroughs of the JP version of the game done by Linkmstr (Pre-decision   Birthright    Conquest    Revelation) as well as a link to said patch done by a team on Serenes.

-A link to the chapters of Fates, each one has a link to the script of said chapter.

(I’ll also be using quotes from Ghast in the videos, usually marked by time stamps)

Xander Summary

Xander is an intimidating figure who is seen as a stoic and unemotional Crown Prince. In actuality, he’s merely an introverted dude riddled with trauma, and is unable to express his emotions in a “normal” way. The person who’s feared by tons of people in Hoshido is the same guy who gets anxiety during public speaking (dealing with this by imagining his audience as bunnies or carrots depending on the version) and who’s greatest fear as a child was his own father (as revealed in the Boo Camp DLC).

He’s also heavily suicidal, a result of each time having to kill his enemies weighing heavily on his heart and his psyche.

While he seems to be relatively put together, all of these aforementioned factors influence his character, and the dichotomy of appealing to his duty as Crown Prince and appealing to his emotions. Moreover, it has lead him into a deep seated denial of his father’s evil actions, trying to justify or excuse the things Garon had done, a fairly common symptom of an abused child. Not only that, but it has lead him to believe that betraying Garon is synonymous with betraying his family and all of Nohr, something he finds inexcusable and outrageous, and only breaks out of this way of thinking once he witnesses Garon become truly monstrous.

And while trying to do what’s best for his people and his family are major parts of his character, they are not the only ones, and as we see in the game, they lead to him doing things that some would see as OOC, but actually are pretty reasonable if you dig deep into what makes Xander, well, Xander.

The Beginning

Unfortunately, a lot of this is lost in localization, which preferred to make him less introverted and more... observational and witty? He’s more confrontational in the localization, but only sometimes when the story needs him to be, making him look inconsistent and badly written. He tends to preach a lot more, but ends up contradicting himself through his words and actions. Almost all of these are issues added by the localized script, and either were completely different or just plain absent in the original JP script.

And the reason why this rebuttal exists, is because the videos blame the game’s writing instead of this very faulty translation, made even worse by the fact that Ghast’s channel is popular because of story/character analyses, so not mentioning how translation can affect story telling is the first glaring issue with the support science.

The first video starts with the main issue, how Fates has character’s written well in supports, but not in the main campaign. That’s the main thing with this, so I’ll save an overview for it later.

Mistranslated Support Lines

-At 2:25, Ghast talks about Support Xander, starting off with the Camilla-Xander support. The line in question that’s referenced is how Xander deliberately cultivated the image of him being stoic and seemingly uncaring. However, this isn’t true, Xander didn’t cultivate the image in the original JP support, he just ended up realizing that was how people saw him and thought it would be too much of a hassle to change it. This fits in line with how he acts later in the story, as an introverted character, he’s ultimately non-confrontational unless pushed to the limit.

-At 7:55, the Corrin support is brought up. This is the support that is the key reason why Xander is seen as two different characters between story and supports. The line where Xander said he’s now strong enough to stand up against Garon whenever he felt like it wasn’t present at all in the original JP support. Hence, continuing on with the idea that Xander is not as confrontational as he seems, and preferred to swing his sword to let out his emotions instead.

-Ghast then goes on to discuss why there’s this discrepancy between Xander in supports and story, where Xander supposedly acts out of character by fighting Corrin in chapter 2 on Garon’s orders (at 14:31):

“For this segment of the video, bear in mind what has been established about Support Xander so far. The feats that Support xander has disclosed from his past, particularly his courageousness to engage Garon in yelling fights and pre-established love for Corrin is entirely contradicted from the offset of the game...Given their (Xander and Garon’s) relationship before the game even starts, the game provides absolutely no reason why Xander would behave in such a sheepish way to his father. Where is the bravery he was talking about before? Wht did Xander hope to accomplish by striking at Corrin? Did he want to disable her? Did he intentionally want to harm her for Garon’s sake?” 

Except that’s not true. Applying what we know with Xander being non confrontational, scared to death of his father, being all too familiar with family dying around him, etc, and this scene really isn’t too out of character. But it seems so because of the lines added in the English script.

Adherence To Select Traits

-At 16:10-18:20, he goes on to claim that Xander’s reaction to Corrin choosing to fight for Hoshido is uncharacteristic and ‘stupid’ because of the former’s pre-established observational skills, doubts of Garon, and tendency to stand against his father when he disagrees with him (all of which are more exaggerated/added in the English script).

Besides the fact that Xander wasn’t written to be someone who regularly stands up to his father in the first place, the insistence that Xander remains strictly observational and pragmatic in these scenarios is the first big issue I have with these videos.

Ghast picks certain traits and latches them onto Xander without considering others that might influence the his actions; it’s true that Xander’s awareness of Corrin’s situation might have let him come to terms with the Hoshido family wanting them back, and yes they were kidnapped, BUT they were also raised as if actual siblings for over a decade, and feelings/attachment towards one's family is hard to let go of. Wanting Xander to be more accepting of Corrin’s choice of going back to Hoshido and, to him, abandon their family and everything they’ve had, just to have him continue to have his hidden awareness/familial observation be more forward completely betrays the fact that they’re still family, and Xander as a person should be allowed to have feelings and still love his sibling. 

The point that’s apparently tried to be made is for consistency’s sake, but what good is this supposed consistency when it doesn’t make sense for a family member to just accept their sibling siding with their enemy. Ghast goes on to say that he’d rather Xander say ‘I’m sorry for keeping secrets from you and I’ll follow up on those claims about Garon, but please come back’, and that’s basically what he says, but instead of trying to understand why Xander would react the way he would he instead reduces Xander’s reaction to a childish ‘Get Bent, Traitor’. 

Xander’s dedication to his family and his country aren’t mutually exclusive, at least to him. So when Corrin decides to break ties with Nohr, Xander sees it as them throwing away their family, friends, and every good memory they’ve had. Aside from the fact that Xander’s vehement defense of Garon is a result of having an abusive/destructive childhood, the shock of and surge of emotion from Corrin choosing to, from Xander’s perspective, betray everything they’ve had together is in my opinion, a perfectly fine reason for why Xander acts like he does. Ghast says this type of read of the situation is stupid, which isn’t a valid criticism and he doesn’t even go into why he believes so, and says it’s uncharacteristic, even though it really isn’t but the localization and his own insistence on having Xander adhere to a select few traits makes it seem that way.

Misplaced Criticism

-At 18:01 ”It’s alright for Xander to continue to try and persuade Corrin to rejoin Nohr, but he ought to be able to understand Corrin’s wavering loyalty. It’s hypocritical for Xander to flagrantly and ignorantly criticize Corrin for their decision and distance himself the most despite being made out to be the closest to them” 

Why? Again this ignores Xander’s own character having thoughts and feelings of his own, but also wouldn’t it make sense for the one to be closest to Corrin to be the most affected by it, and ergo the have the most negative reaction?

-Talks about the Xander line at chapter 12 at 18:28, “Xander doesn’t make connections around the circumstances regarding Corrin’s betrayal after 5 chapters” He says this makes Xander out to be someone who has no observational skills, but in regards to what? Making connections to the reasons behind Corrin’s betrayal, leading him to question and go against his father? Well, that reasoning hinges on the fact that Xander is the person who would stand up to his father in situations like these in the first place, but he isn’t. Any lines indicating such are a result of the localization adding them in.

The criticism of Xander’s observation skills doesn’t make sense. In the context of the situation, where Xander is engaging a loved family member after they betrayed the Kingdom (which to Xander is synonymous with betraying the family), why are his observational skills being brought up? The reason why he’s engaging could just be summarized as “he’s angry and hurt that Corrin would fight their family”. A completely justified reaction to what Xander has been experiencing. But instead this is ignored in favor of criticizing Xander for not having the awareness of why Corrin betrayed Nohr, and the awareness of Garon being evil. Ghast says “Story Xander is unable to catch on that his dad is going bonkers” Simply put, it’s most likely that Xander IS aware, but keeps it locked deep down due to deep seeded denial. In chapter 27, (taken from English patch of JP version) he says as much:

Garon: Just what do you know about me...?

Xander: I should be saying that to you... Just what do you know about Father…?! ...All this time, I acted like I didn’t notice. No matter what the order, I obeyed. And that, in the end, you would return to your normal self. That’s what I believed. But, now, Father is… already…

Said denial had run so far, that it took Xander seeing Garon as a literal grotesque monster for him to finally break free. 

Xander’s Way of Thinking

-At 20:05, “While it’s true that Garon is family and Corrin is seemingly betraying that family, Xander’s supports suggest that he would at least consider Corrin’s motivations before putting a sword through her'' 1) it’s not seemingly, Corrin is pretty much betraying her family by choosing one nation over the other, made worse by the fact that Nohr is synonymous with family to Xander, making this worse 2) it’s completely possible that Xander does understand Corrin’s motivations by this point, but is simply too angry and hurt by his sibling’s betrayal to care or acknowledge. “It makes it seem like Story Xander has no critical thinking skills or has lost every ounce of empathy he has that’s established in his supports” or that this is just his reaction to these events, as I previously said? It’s not Xander lacking critical thought that’s the driving point here, he believes that Corrin going against Nohr, means that they’re going against him, their family, all of the innocent people in Nohr, everything they’ve had together. 

This includes Garon, because as a result of his upbringing, he justifies any shitty action Garon does because he’s clinging to any good thing his father has done, and desperately denies that he could be evil, because ‘how could the person that raised and cared for me be as bad as my brother/sister, who threw everything our family had together in our face, says he is. I love my sibling dearly, but asking to betray my father is asking to betray my family, my country, and my people, I can’t do that’; that’s essentially Xander’s way of thinking. Extreme, yes, but people don’t always do what’s considered the right thing just because it’s the right thing. There’s a whole slew of factors I’ve already explained as to why Xander would be hard pressed to betray Garon.

---

Anyway, this is what I have for today. There will be 2 (maybe 3?) more posts in regards to the rest of my notes. I hope you enjoyed the start of this, please leave any replies and asks and reblogs on any things you liked about this and anything you think I could improve on!