#despite all of the horrors and trauma he has experienced he still has compassion in his heart

[magic-can]

[sukumen]

sorry if this is a loaded question, ofc you don’t need to answer! what’s your take on the argument that dark content is harmful to reality, and that it romanticises traumas? personally i like reading some dc, but when i see posts about how it’s harmful to both survivors and readers (smth to do with psychologically normalising it) it kinda makes me feel guilty, like i’m doing something wrong? when i know i can distinguish between fiction and reality?

hey! so i’m going to keep this under a read more to avoid upsetting anyone - also because this is literally - and i mean, literally - an essay LMAO. i had a lot to say!

any anon hate will be deleted and blocked, but you’re free to engage me off anon (and kindly on anon) if you want to! anon, you’re also free to come chat with me in dms if you want to speak more freely about this :) 

warning for rape mentions, murder / mass murder mentions, dub / noncon mentions.

so, i want to preface this by saying that i don’t think that anyone is obligated to like or be comfortable with dark content. it truly is your prerogative not to be interested in it and you are valid if it makes you feel uncomfortable. so nothing i’m saying here is to convince people that anyone should like it or is wrong for not liking it.

but i don’t agree with the argument that people should be shamed for liking or writing it, that it romanticizes trauma, etc. i understand why people feel that way 100%, but i don’t agree.

sometimes, it feels arbitrary. “dark content” has become a pseudonym for dub/non-con fic, but is the the only type of dark content there is? dark stories can include murder, horror, gore, etc. yet, despite us knowing that murder (for example) is a crime and morally wrong, most people don’t bat an eye when a chara in a fic does it and is still protrayed as attractive or is the reader’s lover. we go crazy for mafia aus where characters kill and show power --- we love those characters, those scenes where they kill and go take their lover all covered in blood. i mean, even in the jjk fandom, one of the most popular characters is a cursed spirit whose first words in the series are about massacring women and children. and we love him. more than that, we love the gory, arguably dark world he comes from - we hypothesize about these characters, we sympathize with them, and we lust over them.

so it’s hard to reconcile that with telling fans who write dub/noncon that they are impacting people’s sense of reality. we’re all experiencing this series together - if written fan fiction is what desensitizes morality, what about the images from the anime and manga? would we make the same argument for banning it? would we say that the people who like sukuna are romanticizing mass violence or that gege is normalizing it for us psychologically by making the character who does it hot and engaging or showing/referencing it so much in the manga?

i just don’t think we would. i think we all understand that those things are wrong and like him knowing that, and can readily say he’s a villain or that the things we’re seeing is wrong. so, i don’t think there’s a black-and-white argument that seeing x in media will make you think y is a-okay or make you more comfortable with it in real life.

i do get that there’s a difference here: a big part of this argument is the sexual aspect of non/dubcon - it’s hard to feel like it’s not normalizing rape when people find a scenario like that hot (whereas no one is like...lewding a mass murder scene, haha). but i think that, at the end of the day, brains do what brains do and people just have dark fantasies. like it’s really as simple as that. rape fantasies in particular are common and talked about by psychologists all the time and i have never been able to find a common thread of them condemning people having them or even writing about them. what they DO talk about is the fact that consent is actually key to the fantasy - that the person fantasizing is the person controlling the situation, that the fantasy, despite being “dub/noncon”, is inherently exactly what they want because THEY are creating the situation, and that, in the end, it’s the absence of actual danger that makes it. ultimately: there is a difference between real life rape and an imagined fantasy or roleplay. so much so that it might not even be fair to call them “rape” fantasies at all.

“It’s crucial to recognize that real-life rape is anything but erotic for a woman. Being at the mercy of someone who’s so outrageously violating your will, holding you down, threatening you with bodily harm (or even death), and physically forcing himself upon you induces arousal all right. But not that of sexuality, but of utterly petrifying anxiety and panic. Contrast this to most imagined rape scenes, which are so electrifying precisely because they’re expressly designed by their female creator to stimulate the illusion of danger—which can, in fact, be positively arousing.”

>  from this article.

to me, this is ultimately what dub/noncon fic is. people writing out those fantasies for people who share those fantasies to process those fantasies.

you can make the argument that that it’s harmful to survivors, but that has its own issues when doctors have reported that some survivors have rape fantasies or find comfort in acting out those rape fantasies (and writing, in my opinion, is a form of acting that out). like are they not valid victims because they are contextualizing their trauma into something that they can control and can process on their own terms? i think the issue there is that the argument uses survivors as a monolith to make an argument on their behalf; but every individual survivor is valid in what they think about this because no two survivors process what happened to them in the same way.

i myself am a survivor and have no real issue with dark content (obviously). i don’t read it often and only write it now because of sukuna; but when i do read it, i draw the line at certain things because i personally cannot stomach it. but would i demand that person delete it from existence because of that? no, i wouldn’t. because again, at the end of the day, that’s the entire basis of the fantasy. i control what i’m fantasizing about, and if something that i do not want to happen to “me” as the reader occurs, i do not read it. i don’t consent to that experience or that fantasy, so i stay away. but at the same time, that other person’s fantasy isn’t mine to control or infringe on and it doesn’t make me a better person than them for not sharing the fantasy.

SO ALL OF THIS TO SAAAY: i don’t think you should feel bad for enjoying dark content. i don’t think the argument about whether or not you’ll know how wrong it is in real life anymore really applies because you could make the claim that any type of fiction runs the risk of distorting people’s perception of reality and making them desensitized to something. and i don’t think that’s what people’s struggle with this is. 

what it boils down to, to me, is that people can’t understand why anyone would find dub/noncon arousing, and think that they condone rape because of it. which, again, is understandable. rape is a horrible fucking thing to experience - it isn’t sexy, it isn’t hot, it isn’t arousing and it’s hard to see any nuance when you see “noncon” and “wow this was so hot” in one post. but based on the way psychologists talk about “rape” fantasies, i think the two things (the fantasy and the real life act of violence) can typically be distinct for people, even survivors, and it just comes down to whether or not it’s a fantasy you share. if you don’t, completely your right! block the tags, block the writers, do whatever you have to do to protect your peace and your limits! but the discourse about it always seems to go into the realm of shame or arguments about someone’s moral compass, which i think is unfair. 

hopefully this helps and wasn't an annoying thing to read! like i said, don’t mind talking about it more if need be!

[turtle-steverogers]

Hi! 👋

I’ve just recently found your blog and I must say that I am IN LOVE with your blog. Your writing. Your AU’s. Your thoughts. And just EVERYTHING.

Your blog just screams ‘Welcome!’ With a big, fat, warm smile that stretches across such a sincere and welcoming face! Like wah!

I’ve been binging your posts about Stevebucky and I cannot contain the amount of joy I feel about reading the domesticity,angst,joy,and -ahem- smut(👀), as well as !the vulnerability between them in your stories. It’s intoxicating and REFRESHING. You don’t know how many times I’ve seen people say that Steve is unable to accept Bucky as he is currently, after all the trauma and change he’s gone through, saying that he misses the Bucky from the 40’s! Unable to move forward! Which I find Baloney! To believe Steve’s love would be so shallow!

I always think back to that scene in civil war when they’re on their way to the base where the other Winter Soldier’s are being held and Bucky says something along the lines of : “I’m not sure if I’m worth all of this, Steve.” And Steve not even hesitating and saying : “ I’ll deal with it”

It not even a question or a thought needed to be entertained. But, blatantly or not, Bucky is asking him WHY. WHY is it so important? Why is HE so Important? Why is HE worth the risk?

To Steve,it’s simple, there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for Bucky because Bucky was the goal all along. His compass. A clear and precise goal that shined so bright, you would have thought he was the North Star and Steve a sailor who’s lost his way! And he was! Bucky always was the reason he pushed forward. He doesn’t realize it but he’s the reason Steve even became Captain America and the first Avenger. He was the reason he picked up that shield and the reason he dropped it! Because it was never about those American ideals and patriotism that everyone slapped onto him and the Shield that made him Cap. It was Steve Rogers who had the heart, compassion, and fight to believe and see that people were worth fighting for. That they were good and deserved a chance to live better than what they were living or what cards life had given them. He believed in the goodness of people and believed they would stand, if they couldn’t, he would stand for them and get back up until they could. So when he looks at Bucky, knowing only half the horrors Bucky’s been through, he doesn’t see someone who’s broken and damaged, he sees a good man doing his best to be and do good. He sees a man trying, his friend, his Bucky, hurting but trying. So he’d be damned if he’d let him weather this all alone and let him fall one more time. But what does this have to do with anything? Because Steve doesn’t care how much time has passed and how much they’ve both changed. His feelings are just the same. The fact being, he’d do anything for Bucky, because he’s worth it. He’s worth being remembered. He’s worth being known and worth getting to be known now, as the person he is and still figuring out to be. Because love is change…

…and Steve has a whole lot of bucks,haha But that’s besides the point! That why I love your AU’s, your stories, because it’s them navigating the new world and finding out together what they do and don’t like. They’re experiencing life with the best person they know who would strap on to the roller coaster of a life they’ve had and still have a reason to smile and laugh despite the twist and turns. To have a hand to hold when the drops have there bellies twisting. It’s just having that partner in crime.

I would write more but I’ve gone on long enough! Haha! So, thank you for sharing your works, thoughts, and just wholesome- ness! Your work is truly a gift that I am grateful to have stumbled upon!! And the Fandom is oh so ever lucky to have such an incredible creator publishing such wonderful pieces!!!

ANON OH MY GOSH this was the SWEETEST thing to wake up to??? I stg I almost teared up by the end-- truly, thank you for your kind words and thank you for taking the time to write them. It means the absolute world to me, my friend!

Also yeah! I never entirely understood where that particular characterization came from in the fandom?? Especially when, like you pointed out, Steve never EVER alluded to wanting the "Old Bucky" or "Bucky from before" in canon. Bucky is Bucky, no matter what he's been through. And really, Bucky isn't the only one that's changed! As much as Bucky's been weathered down and twisted by a hand that shouldn't have touched him, Steve's been through horrors of his own that Bucky wouldn't ever understand. They're both so so different, and so so willing to learn every inch of each other all over again. That's the beauty of Stucky: they're two men withered by time and faced with numerous abuses and traumas, and yet they still come back to each other with all the love they have to offer.

It's the same with that odd characterization of Steve not letting Bucky have any autonomy, or the one where they have Steve treat Bucky with kiddie gloves. Neither hold up in canon *shrug*.

But anyhow, thank you again. I'm so glad that I am able to make my blog can be welcoming how you described it-- that means everything to me. Thank you for stopping by! Your Stucky thoughts are lovely and beautifully put! Much love!!! <3333

[thebluelemontree]

I know GRRM has previously stated that ADwD!Tyrion is at his lowest point, but I find it very hard to see how he will ever redeem himself given what he has done and what he has participated in. Do you believe readers gloss over the tragedies he faces i.e. slavery, the Tysha revelation, and do you see path for redemption?

I think with the fandom in general there does seem to be a proportional relationship to the amount of careful consideration people give their problematic favs versus how little they give to a character that is decidedly not their fav. Full disclosure: Tyrion is not one of my favs. There are moments I don’t like him and I don’t personally connect with him. He’s deliberately written to be someone most readers will wrestle with. Out of all the POVs, he’s probably the most psychologically complex and fraught with a minefield of trauma-induced hot buttons. As we know, profound trauma and horrific family dynamics rarely produce saintly victims who suffer beautifully, quietly, and always behave magnanimously. I am by no means an expert on Tyrion; however, I do know he definitely started out as a good person. Early AGOT Tyrion is a pretty decent fellow who validated Jon’s feelings of anger and resentment and designed a saddle to accommodate Bran’s disability for no other reason than he just empathized with them both. Even later on, he does stand up for Sansa against Joffrey’s cruelty, even though their marriage was a miserable farce and act of war against her family. Sansa seems to bear no personal ill-will toward him despite it. I think we should leave room for the possibility the impression he made with small kindnesses in the beginning could come back around to foster peace and mutual forgiveness between the Starks and Lannisters toward the end. 

But before that he was a sweet, loving kid until he was brutally disabused of the notion that anyone could possibly love him. I can’t imagine anything worse than your own father violently raping by proxy two innocent kids for the crime of his son being happy and believing for one single second that he was loved for himself. He’s experienced a lifetime of continuous physical, sexual, mental, and verbal abuse on top of ableist bigotry and repeated scapegoating that nearly cost him his life more than once. For all his dark gray, unlikable moments, it’s actually kind of a miracle that Tyrion still retains what goodness he does have when he could have been totally fucked up beyond repair, without any pity or compassion left in him, and hating all of humanity with every fiber of his being.   

GRRM does a good job of delivering blow after intensifying blow leading up to the moment he snaps and murders Tywin and Shae.There’s the overwhelming stress of the trial for the regicide he was framed for, one where his guilt and conviction is a foregone conclusion. The public humiliation and betrayal of Shae’s false testimony where his sexuality is served up for mockery. The people of KL are literally bloodthirsty and cheering for his death. There’s the momentary hope and crushing defeat of Oberyn Martell championing him in the trial by combat. Then finally Jaime drops the Tysha bomb. I mean, wow... it’s a lot. It’s totally understandable why he goes to the Hand’s tower to confront his father instead of escaping immediately. Personally, I don’t think he has to be sorry about killing Tywin at all. That pile of excrement had it coming and deserved a painful, ignoble death on the shitter at minimum. Shae is the only one there that has enough mitigating factors to say she definitely didn’t deserve to be strangled to death, though I get how it happened in the heat of the moment under intense mental duress. I think he needs to atone for that one, and I say that as someone who thinks Shae is a callous, conniving, greedy, low-level bloodsucker without any redeeming qualities. Yet, killing either of them, especially Tywin, didn’t bring Tyrion any peace or satisfaction whatsoever. Kinslaying is still up there with the most cursed of transgressions. It’s major part of his spiral into the tormented abyss we see in ADWD.  

It’s been a long time since I read ADWD as it’s not my favorite part of the series, so my memory of all the details is not the best. And like I said, I am not an expert on Tyrion. The general impression I get is that Tyrion thinks that he thinks he hates humanity and he’s finally become the monster everyone believed him to be. So he rages against practically everything and everyone. He certainly harbors a hatred for the people of KL and the sister sitting on the throne. There is a high probability he acts upon those feelings and helps usher in a catastrophic tragedy out of vengeance. Just as an example, he is aware of the wildfire cache sitting under KL and that knowledge can be used in a really bad way. Might be that crossing a point of no return, which may feel glorious in the moment, is ironically the thing that causes him to recoil in horror and regret after the dust settles. Consider Tyrion’s dream about the duality of himself: 

That night Tyrion Lannister dreamed of a battle that turned the hills of Westeros as red as blood. He was in the midst of it, dealing death with an axe as big as he was, fighting side by side with Barristan the Bold and Bittersteel as dragons wheeled across the sky above them. In the dream he had two heads, both noseless. His father led the enemy, so he slew him once again. Then he killed his brother, Jaime, hacking at his face until it was a red ruin, laughing every time he struck a blow. Only when the fight was finished did he realize that his second head was weeping.

If the two heads are both noseless, then they are both present day Tyrion. There are two sides of him right now that are equally capable of reveling in bloody vengeance and weeping for someone he still loves even though they wounded him deeply. 

Then what? Well, the thing about hitting your lowest point is that you can either dwell there until you fatally self-destruct or you can find your way back up. Granted, ADWD Tyrion is in a dark place, but there’s still space to get even darker for at least a little while in TWOW. It is possible Tyrion spends the rest of his life atoning for his worst actions during this period, using his intellectual gifts (even the parts that are Tywin writ small) to serve the needs of the people he has harmed. And it does make good story sense for someone who grew to hate humanity for very understandable reasons still found it in himself to care about it enough to save it. Even sacrifice himself for it if necessary since there’s a strong possibility he is a dragon rider. Since all signs seem to point to him ultimately playing a heroic role against the Others, we can rule out the idea that he just says good riddance to bad rubbish and laughs while the world ends. That has to mean something, right? 

There is always a path for redemption for anyone who sees the wrong of what they’ve done, has heartfelt remorse, and commits themselves to meaningful and lasting change. It’s not really about forgiveness at all, although that sometimes happens alongside redemption and it’s certainly easier for people to forgive once they see change. Redemption is work the character must do themselves for the right reasons. It’s not a status granted to them by other people. In fact, it’s probably more sincere when someone decides to do right anyway even if no one ever thinks better of them. If Tyrion (or any other character) is unforgivable to you, then the best worst thing that could happen is that they have to live a long life and spend all of it repaying their karmic debt. Even if he’s not my fav or your fav, a lot of people out there still do relate to him and the things he’s been through. A lot of people are not okay and not good victims from the trauma they’ve suffered. Fiction with redemption that is possible for anyone gives people hope that they could be better too, and there’s no other instance in the books that makes me think GRRM is cynical about redemption. The only way redemption isn’t happening for Tyrion is if he choses not pursue it. 

[cosmicjoke]

Ash, Yut-Lung, and the Fundamental Difference between them:

Okay, so I rewrote this, better able to get into words what I originally intended to say.

Something that gets talked about a lot are the similarities between Ash and Yut-Lung, and the theory that if Eiji hadn’t come into Ash’s life, Ash himself might have become as monstrous as Yut-Lung.  What makes them similar gets discussed plenty.  They both had brutal, abusive upbringings, they were both trained and utilized by their abusers to be efficient killers, etc…  But I want to focus on what makes Ash fundamentally different from Yut-Lung, and use that difference to argue for why I don’t think Ash ever would have become like him, with or without Eiji’s influence.

That fundamental difference is this.  Ash chose, and was able to choose, love, while Yut-Lung chose, and was only ever able to choose, hate.

That may not sound like a lot, but it is an objective truth about these two characters that, when boiled down to their most essential selves, means everything.

Ash always had a heart open enough to receive and give love, despite the cruelty and miserable brutality of his life.  Because of that openness of heart, when he was offered kindness, when he was offered friendship, he was able to accept it, and trust in it.  That’s remarkable, when one considers Ash had been given, in his young life, every reason NOT to trust in anything or anyone.   When he’d been given every reason to be wary, and suspicious of everyone, and to suspect ulterior motives behind every, friendly gesture.  And Ash does often approach people at first with that wariness and suspicion.  He approaches everyone at first with caution.  He would be a fool not to, given his life experiences.  But even still, with all of that fear and uncertainty, ingrained in him by years of enduring the most severe and traumatic kind of abuses, he is ABLE to TRUST.  That is simply extraordinary.  

It’s often Shorter who is given as the first, real example of a person who Ash was able to befriend and trust, but rather, I think, it’s actually Blanca.  Blanca’s later betrayal aside for the moment, let’s really look at this relationship, and what it tells us about Ash.

Blanca came into Ash’s life when he was 14.  Ash, at that point, had been trapped within the clutches of Dino for at least three years, possibly four, depending on whether Marvin had found Ash at ten or eleven.  Ash was repeatedly raped and abused by Marvin and Froggy before being sold by Marvin to Dino to work as a child prostitute in Dino’s underground sex trafficking ring posing as a seafood restaurant, drugged and passed around between high powered clients, treated in every way as a disposable commodity, before being chosen by Dino to act as the man’s personal sex slave, raped God only knows how many times, before Dino decided to turn Ash into his own, personal weapon as well, utilizing Ash’s brilliance and natural abilities for his own, personal gain.  While all of this was happening, Ash continued to be preyed upon and targeted by Marvin, who continued to rape Ash whenever the fancy took him.  Ash’s experiences previous to that were in Cape Cod, where Ash was repeatedly and brutally raped by his baseball coach, blamed for it by the police, and, after his father’s abject failure to protect him from said abuse, was forced to kill his abuser to save his own life.

Well, just think about all of that for a moment please.  Really THINK about it.  

It’s the most horrific fate imaginable for any child.  Truly.  It’s beyond words.  Beyond any logical explanation.  Beyond any kind of reason.  It’s a hellish nightmare, almost unspeakable in its grotesqueness.  

So, enter Blanca.  

When Ash first meets Blanca, he doesn’t trust him.  No one can blame him for this.  At this point in his life, what reason would Ash have to trust anyone?  Ever?  In truth, it’s a wonder that Ash is even still functioning in any kind of meaningful way.  It’s a wonder he hasn’t gone completely insane, or simply committed suicide.  With the kind of hell his life has become, like he later tells Eiji, it would have been a mercy simply to die.  It would have been better, than to live the life he was living.  One can assume, then, that only Ash’s veracity of spirit and powerful mind kept him from perishing.  From giving in yet to total despair.  Ash always was and always would be a fighter.  But after suffering the kinds of sickening abuses he did, after experiencing the true depths of evil for which mankind is capable, enduring the worst kinds of atrocities one could commit against a child, Ash’s ability to trust in any person ever again should have been destroyed.  It should have been.

But it wasn’t.  Beyond all reason, beyond all expectation, beyond all probability, it wasn’t.

Ash comes to trust in Blanca.  A trust which runs deep enough that Ash is able to reveal his true self around him.  A trust deep enough that he can look up to Blanca with the honest admiration that any boy with a normal life would his father, or older brother.  A trust which runs deep enough that Ash is able to look at Blanca with a genuine hopefulness.  

Blanca finds Ash after he’s been raped by Marvin, and Ash, thinking Blanca is there to do more of the same, succumbs to a full blown panic attack.  He stops breathing, his eyes go blank with terror as he can only fall paralyzed with horror and resignation, waiting for the inevitable.  

But Blanca doesn’t rape Ash.  He doesn’t assault him.  He instead holds him, and coaxes him to breathe, and lets Ash cling to his chest while he cries.  He comforts Ash, and Ash LETS him.  

Later, while still in the hotel where Ash has so recently been brutalized, Ash opens up to Blanca, and tells him about the abuses he’s suffered at the hands of Marvin and Dino, and again he cries, expressing his pain and rage.  And then, maybe most remarkable of all, Ash shows Blanca who he really is.  He laughs freely and with the abandon of a little boy at how hopelessly square Blanca is.  He completely lets down his guard and simply trusts this giant, dangerous man whom he’s known only a scant, few days.  He lets Blanca see his pain, and his loneliness, and his despair.  And he lets Blanca see how much of a child he still, truly is.  

Later still, when Blanca rescues Ash from Marvin, and Ash looks up at Blanca with so much open admiration, we see again the depth of Ash’s trust.  He believes completely in Blanca at this point.  He believes completely that Blanca won’t hurt him.  He believes completely that Blanca cares.  

After asking in a tone of pure reverence how it is Blanca was able to break Marvin’s wrist so easily, and after Blanca explains that he’ll show him, Ash looks up at him with the most naked and vulnerable hope, and it’s one of the most heartbreaking panels of Ash there is, for how completely you can see his trust in this man.  Exemplified too by how readily Ash goes with Blanca afterwards, following on his heels, sticking to him like a shadow, showing him the kind of trust a child would a parent.

All it took was Blanca showing Ash compassion once, for Ash’s wariness and suspicion to fall away, and for Blanca to help him once, for Ash to trust in him fully.  

After years of the most horrific and terrible abuse imaginable, after years of being lied to, betrayed, failed, and used by every single adult in his life, Ash, with unreasonable quickness, trusts in Blanca, and believes in him.  Believes in his honesty.  Believes in his kindness.

This trust is later extended to Shorter, and Skipper, and Eiji, etc...  The moment they showed to Ash genuine kindness, he took them at their word, and trusted in them without qualm. With everything precious to him.   

Ultimately, it was Ash’s openness of heart and willingness to believe in people, despite all that had happened to him, that allowed him to find so many loving, caring people in his life.  His own ability to trust, and his own capacity to love, which made it possible for him to make so many genuine, kindhearted friends who were so loyal to him, and who loved him just as much.  It started with Ash’s ability to love, trust and believe in others.  It started with Ash’s willingness to open his heart up to them.  

And herein lies the fundamental difference between Ash and Yut-Lung.  

Yut-Lung’s heart was never so open as to trust in anyone the way Ash was able to trust in those mentioned above.  After the abuse Yut-Lung suffered, his heart shuttered closed and refused to open for anyone, and thus he became consumed by his own hate and lust for revenge.  He wasn’t able to accept or believe in the shows of kindness offered him, the way Ash was.  And in his inability to accept or believe in kindness, Yut-Lung lashed out in petty jealousy for the way Ash’s open heart drew friendship. loyalty, and love from others, trying in that petty jealousy to take those things away from Ash, enraged that his own, closed heart was unable to inspire the same.

Ash was ABLE to believe in love, in spite of the torments he’d suffered through.  In spite of the pain, loneliness and trauma of his life, Ash was ABLE to love and be loved in return.  Despite it all, defying all odds and expectations, Ash was able to believe in other people.  Yut-Lung, suffering much the same, was only ever able to believe in hate.  

[internetremix]

In IR lore, what are the personalities of your personas? Basic likes and dislikes?

Kristen: Goggles is An Child and behaves as such. She's very cheerful, very curious, a bit mischievous and also 100% obsessed with making fanwork of her internet family... like a goddamn weirdo. She'll usually be hanging out with everyone, spot some sort of inspiration, squeak with joy and then rush off to write or draw. She's also the defacto leader of the Smol Squad, which is composed of herself, Shyner, Jojo and Chi-chi, and she's usually the one squeaking out ridiculous plans in muppet for dumb shit like stealing cookies and trying to trap people in fanfiction scenarios. She likes to help and can often be found doing such things as assisting Xander in his many schemes or just popping up to provide shit like charts or hold things for other people- basically whenever it would be funny to have some goddamn muppet backing something up.

She loves plush toys, particularly Crockernanner, and also loves sugar, star decorations, and cuddles. She likes being picked up and loves attention, and she's pretty consistently attached to at least one person, often her big brother Split if she's not with the Smol Squad. She is in eternal war with Phill since he bullies her constantly, and will occasionally try to set up elaborate traps for revenge only to fail miserably. Also she's a huge weeb. She does not like to sleep and will often go days without it before being dragged off by some bigger person to take a goddamn nap you ridiculous child.  She is also very afraid of thunderstorms, she doesn't like loud noises or the dark.

She also has... various flaws and problems. But those are spoilers and I have no idea when/if we’ll be doing story stuff with IRsonas so I don’t want to give too much away with that.

Sorry this is very long, I think about my child a lot.

Jojo: JoJo is also a very happy child... like, stupid happy all the time. Like, they don't really have a concept of being angry. they're either manic happy or a bit sad. They love to find any way to make anybody smile or laugh, whether it be a somber happy, or a crying fit of laughter. They thrive off of happiness. They're a bit mischievous as well, and will try to play pranks and swipe things to chew on. They'll just appear in random places you'd never expect. like, in the pantry, the vent, or in your drawer. They chew things all the time to keep their dragon teeth sharp! They do tend to come off as obnoxious and kind of useless sometimes? But that's ok.

They love happiness, rocks, swimming, sandwiches, Vanilla coke, coffee, pianos, stars, ghost stuff(horror genre), and laughter. JoJo is pretty similar to Goggles now that I think about it x_xJoJo is best friends with Phill, and will always be on him in some way. Like his leg, back, holding onto his scarf by their teeth, etc. They're also very close with Goggles and Shyner, and Scott (even though Shyner tries to chase JoJo off with knives, JoJo will take it as a game of tag or something)JoJo doesn't like being yelled at or being told to go away. They get spooked easily by loud noises. They always get paranoid when they think someone is mad at them and will go to ungodly lengths to make them not mad or slightly annoyed with them, which sometimes makes people more annoyed with them than they were before.

JoJo is just an exaggerated version of me XD

Atwas: Atwas is fairly easy going. They make light of things often, and often hide serious sentiments behind jokes. They’re the type to roll with goofy and silly situations, and are very “yes and” type that enjoys escalating things in the name of light-hearted fun. They enjoy playing pranks, especially ones that take advantage of their hologrammatic nature (being able to enter and ‘possess’ electronics is something that they take advantage of often). Being technically in the cloud and a part of the internet at all times, they will often chime in with fun (often unrelated or humorous) metrics about situations and people as they occur—and often forgets that having a HUD isn’t something everyone has access to.

Being ‘technically’ invulnerable, atwas isn’t phased by the more dangerous things that go on in the IR tower, but usually prefers being a spectator or commentator as opposed to being an active participant in general shenaniganry. They don’t have any particular animosity towards anyone, and will occasionally help manage technical parts and functions of the tower.

They enjoy things like tech, cold weather, tea, fun statistics, darkness; and aesthetics like Film Noir and Retrowave.

They dislike things like excessively hot weather, being interrupted, getting too personal, having to put in a lot of “effort”, and being out of the loop.

Shyner: Shyner can easily be summed up to a tsundere in denial, and is the definition of an agent of chaos. If something goes wrong, she’s the one pouring a trail of kerosene to let the fire spread. She's loud, impulsive, and really doesn't give two shits. While quirky and charismatic, she’s also sarcastic and witty, reveling in the amusement of making fun of others. She’s often stubborn and impatient, thinking highly of her own beliefs and angered by those who dare to challenge her ideals. She also lacks a filter, and enjoys garnishing her words with colorful profanities. Filled with gripes of past trauma, she’s engaged in a constant internal war of turmoil and grief. She’s incredibly cautious and closed off around those she doesn’t trust, and can be very selfish.  Despite this, she’s loyal to the few people she cares about, going out of her way to put them first if a dire situation were to arise. She’s also very sneaky and mischievous, often finding amusement in spying on others. Her MBTI is INTP-T.

Her hobbies include stargazing, ghost hunting, spying, and Satanic worship. She enjoys melancholy vibes, horror movies, animals, thunderstorms, and has an unhealthy obsession with sweets. Yes, this child will stab you without hesitancy if you take her cookies. She dislikes seafood, big crowds, kiddie leashes, and is afraid of experiencing intense emotion she doesn’t understand.I love my satanic smol bean very much. If I may be so bold as to dive into the nitty-gritty psychology, Shyner possesses many flaws, a lot of which I personally struggled with growing up. She is a reflection of my past self, some gripes with my current self, and the perception of how I could have turned out if I hadn’t met my family at IR. Hiding behind the exterior of being a merciless bully, she still has an intense internal desire to be a good person, but gets frustrated and often derails herself in the process of fighting her desire to act on impulse. She keeps most relationships with people at arm's length, fearing that if someone were to think highly of her, it would only be a matter of time before they’re disappointed. If we were to go full-fledged story mode, she would most definitely have an intense character redemption arc, making the revelation that being shitty to those who care about her isn’t the way to run from her problems and hide away from her own sense of self-insecurity/hatred.

Phill: Phill likes mischief, bad jokes, sexual undertones, Jojo, sexual overtones, bullying Kristen, and the colour pink. That's it xD

Jojo: :D yay

Alex: Alex don't give a shit but is for whatever reason the bossman and is also as powerful as silver age Superman, just don't try actual murder of the crew and he won't yeet you into the sun

Moon: 2019 Moon is an idiot. If we didn't know any better, we would assume he was born from nothing but an old head of lettuce in Satan's refrigerator. Think like Scott from Monster Prom, but different. He knows his right from his left, but the compass is still just "NESW" to him. Impulsive, lovable, and kinda loud, this muscley dumbass will do practically anything you tell him to if he finds it enjoyable. When paired with a few people, he works well as a second to many dynamic duos. Brodingles and Moon/Split and Moon are two really good ones, dangerous shenanigans ensue. Can and will rap like a beast, any challenge to a freestyle will result in a career ending and a death being sentenced. Extroverted people pleaser, definitely shooting high to perform and when adapting to a character, goes a little too hard. This man played Gander in Charlottes Web and didn't stop making goose sounds for months. Did I mention he's also a disney princess? Singing, animals, mortal enemy falling to their death? Everything

Dawn: ToonWolf/Dawn's personality falls within the confines of recklessly adventurous who doesn't think things through entirely. They like to try and rope others into going on various hikes, treasure hunts, mythic/cryptid searches, etc. Unapologetic sailor mouth. They will fight for friends and family. Various animals, trinkets, treasures, and cool but useless garbage are brought back to the tower often (oops theres a liiiiiiitle bit of hoarding). Sometimes those animals consist of dogs, cats, lizards, bears, wolves, The Great Noble One, horses, lions, elk, you get the idea (Can I keep them?Pleeeeeeeaaaaaaaaseeeeee??????????).

Overall they are most comfortable and relaxed in/around water and likes a whole lotta things including sailing, swimming, adventure, stargazing, animals, mythology/legends, friends, family, and drawing.

They dislike waking up early, limitations, being talked down to, boredom, desert/hot/humid/dry weather, coffee, and the movie "Cube"

Tex: Tex is an avid cryptid detective + has a surprisingly good intuition when creating conspiracy theories about them to follow. Mm lots of memes and disguises. Smart, but usually just off on their own thinking about other stuff.Totally has a wall in their room dedicated to figuring all the cryptids out with like, red string and everything.

[tycoons-official]

T𝐲𝐜𝐨𝐨𝐧𝐬: P𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 (ᵗʷ: ˢˡⁱᵍʰᵗ ᵐᵉⁿᵗⁱᵒⁿˢ ᵒᶠ ᵃᵇᵘˢᵉ)

꧁࿇Ｐｒｅｆａｃｅ࿇꧂

MBTI: INFJ - "The Advocate"

Alignment: Neutral Good

Demeanour: Introvert

Mental Health: 65% - Tyke suffers from Depression, brought on by months of internal torment and guilt, he has to try very hard to maintain an upbeat attitude and has bad days where he barely finds the strength to leave the bedroom.

Physical Health: 85% - Although he may brush his scars and scrapes as mere 'slip-ups during his childhood', dig a little deeper and you can see that they were inflicted on him, whether as harsh form of discipline or just feeling pain for fun, and this is not to say that he and his sister hasn't experienced verbal abuse, 80% of the damage done was verbal alone

꧁࿇Ｐｅｒｓｏｎａｌｉｔｙ࿇꧂

EMPATHETIC | SUAVE | COMPASSIONATE | CONSERVATIVE | ARTISTIC | INQUISITIVE | HONEST | GUARDED | CAPABLE | UNPREDICTABLE | TENSE | SENSITIVE | DEPRESSIVE

Charismatic and genuinely likeable, Tyke has a way with others, making him warm and approachable, therefore most tend to feel quite comfortable when in his presence. He finds a great deal of joy in quiet company, preferring to live among many people and have a few close friends. With an uncanny ability to understand emotion, he is very empathetic, able to speak into other's hearts and approach them from a personal standpoint. In his youth, Tyke underwent vigorous training exercises at JYPE as well as the home to prepare him for leadership. As a result, he is undoubtedly reliable and honest, although he has a tendency to hold his tongue during confrontations, for the sake of peace. Although most within his family and environment were raised to believe females were the lesser sex, Tyke had a respect and appreciation for all who were in the family. He felt disgusted by the way his uncles and several other male relatives treated their female counterparts and refused to partake in any derogatory conversation. He has a strong belief in equality, regardless of their sex, bloodclass or circumstance. 

Despite his strong morals and mentality, Tyke has a hard time voicing these opinions. Having been shamed by his family numerous times, the young male has grown accustomed with keeping his jaws shut, preferring to say little rather than risk open confrontation. Although branded as a 'disabled male', Tyke was raised by two professors being his parents, and therefore received high level education. He is articulate and bright, rarely intimidated by challenges, both of an intellectual and physical nature. His strange yet subtle lisp may come off as unintelligent or foreign to some, but once a person takes the time to speak with him, he presents as quite the opposite. Witty and bearing a prominent sense of humour, Tyke is known for his occasional quips and jests. Despite his initial sombreness, he is naturally a light-hearted fellow, preferring laughter over silence. He is a barrel of entertainment to those he dares call friends. 

Creative and unique in his way of thinking, he likes to utilise his insight and often comes up with bold and unusual ideas. Although withdrawn from personal experience, Tyke has a great deal to offer if he was approached with the right attitude. Curious about the world around him, Tyke genuinely loves to learn and finds particular enjoyment in tactile tasks. Having been born with a love for adventure, he adopted the nickname 'Seeker' from his family that tells about his constant seeking of adventure. Although travel was never on Tyke's agendas during his childhood, the journey to travel to Seoul and to pursue music under JYPE has broadened his horizons, and he feels a constant calling to keep his head running. Due to the fact that he does majority of his thinking internally, Tyke can come off as very spontaneous or unpredictable to those around him. He fails to discuss his plans or thoughts aloud, expecting other's to simply "know" and often proving a confusing and frustrating individual, even to his own sister.

Tyke tends to live life in the present and is a very emotional being. When involved in overwhelming or intense situations, he is easily stressed and has a tendency to loose his outward charisma. He was born into a highly oppressive environment, feeling a great deal of weight on his shoulders and it tends to show in his lowest moments. Chronically exhausted, he has failed to find true peace within himself and often feels as though he has to prove his worth. Tyke has many regrets in life and is a very tormented individual, blaming himself constantly for the mistakes he has made and finding it near impossible to accept the past and move on. Tyke's guilt often prevents him from achieving new goals and it takes a sharp reminder now and then to snap his attentions back to the present (and that, is what is sister is best at). His depression hits hard, dragging him down so viciously that sometimes he can barely leave the house. It takes a great deal of perseverance for him to get up everyday, and his poor sleeping patterns often leave him feeling weary and worn out before the day has even begun.

꧁࿇Ｐｒｅｆａｃｅ࿇꧂

MBTI : ISFJ - The Defender 

Alignment : Lawful Good

Demeanour : Extrovert (Only with the ones she trusts though)

Mental Health : 90% - Although still suffering from occasional panic attacks and sleep paralysis, Carmen has learned to manage her mental health and is recovering steadily alongside her brother.

Physical Health: 85% - Just mentioned earlier, the twins do not like talking about their past or their scars, and are used to degoratory remarks by now.

꧁࿇Ｐｅｒｓｏｎａｌｉｔｙ࿇꧂

ADAPTABLE | COMPASSIONATE | LOYAL | PRACTICAL | SUSPICIOUS | HUMBLE | SERIOUS | VENGEFUL | REPRESSED | JUDGEMENTAL

Strong but callused by life, Carmen faces life with her eyes sharp and self defense mode ready. Despite many challenges, the one thing this Alpha didn't loose during her 'dark ages' was her compassion. Especially to the young and vulnerable. She feels a sense of responsibility for the youth of today, and always ensures one eye is kept on them as she goes about her business. She despairs when other's are grieving and wishes to do what she can to prevent them from facing the horrors of her own past. She takes great interest in the education and training of the new trainees and rookies whenever she is able, and her friend group is her family and her family is her life. Carmen would die a thousand times over to protect her loved ones, and she feels a constant burning dedication to creating music as a whole. Having been with her brother in the worst of times, this young lady has developed a bond with him unlike no other, and now with the siblings being a group, her commitment has never been stronger. 

As she has aged, Carmen's once spontaneous nature has dampened into a more calm and logical approach. She thinks through things carefully and is certainly one to make plans before diving in head-first. She is intellectual and cunning, having experienced a lot in a short amount of time, and although she makes for a deadly foe, if conclusions can be made without blood-shed, literal or figurative, Carmen will abide. The world is tainted, and Carmen has a very jaded view on it. Having been through much trauma as a child, she finds it difficult to let her guard down completely. In fact, she is always on edge. Rarely getting a thorough sleep, this young lady spends a majority of her time looking out the window of her dorm as if looking for any sign of danger, almost fanatical about her brother's well being and determined to ensure he is safe. She has partially separated herself from the outside world, and rarely interacts with other people, other than those she's already met before, and if she does by chance run into a stranger, it will take much for her to come to trust them.

Carmen feels as though she has failed many in her life, and therefore, has a wavering self-esteem level. Undermining her importance in the family, Carmen rarely takes the time to think of herself. Her outward appearance displays much of this, having a 'rugged' or 'edgy' sense of style and hollow eyes from lack of sleep. Although maintaining a rather respectful aura, one must not mistake her as a pushover. She will not stand for disrespect or rudeness, especially from the lesser or subordinate. Although once she bore a light playfulness that softened much of her behaviour, Carmen has hardened significantly in her age. She has seen the horrors of abuse and felt the bite of torture and betrayal. A sense of humor is certainly not completely absent, but rather weakened. Carmen finds it very difficult to relax at times, and has a stern resting face. She is honest and sincere, believing one should be transparent with their family and friends, for she believes that secrets tend to fester and only make things worse. Perhaps one day she will re-connect with her fun-loving side, but alas, the scars of internal wars still remain.

Having to withhold grudges, Carmen is not one to forgive and forget. In fact, sometimes she debates whether or not to hunt those people down and make them suffer like she did. So whilst she may appear calm and collected outwardly, on the inside, she holds a burning hatred and desire to wipe those who wronged her from existence. Socially, Carmen finds it hard to interact with those around her. Although not necessarily disconnected, the woman finds little to speak about and tends to spend her days alone, or with her brother. There are only a selected few that she spends time with and considers close friends, but after months of isolation and despair, she struggles in large groups and crowds. She is more of a quiet observer, watching her loved ones from the sidelines and only jumping in when they have need of her. But in general, she is quite oppressed, recalling the pain from her past and dwelling in her failures. If only things could have been different.. Months of cruel treatment and relentless betrayals has soured this soldiers mind. When meeting new company, she automatically adopts a neutral-to-negative opinion. Tending to read a book by it's cover, Carmen finds it difficult to trust anyone outside of her own family and friend group. She is quite bias, only holding her family in high regard and tending to shun others, sometimes unintentionally or without even knowing. Unknown or unfamiliar people will need to work hard to gain this idol's trust. She has many doubts and reservations about newcomers, and takes a long time to warm up, and even then, very few people experience her at her true self.

[awesomethingsandsuch]

Hold on, this is going to get long

I want to talk about Dennis and work out some timeline and psychological stuff I’ve been thinking about. 

Dennis’s struggle with younger women is never really explained in the movie, but I think we can work out some good theories. 

For one thing, timeline-wise, we know that the full takeover of Kevin by Dennis and Patricia took place in 2014 (3 years before the events of the movie). But while it may be tempting to assume that this was the same day as the incident at the zoo, It wasn’t. We know this because Dennis and Patricia had apparently come out of banishment before that secretly and were taking the light from Barry at times without him knowing; this went on long enough for Barry to start suspecting something (according to his video diary). We don’t know how long, but let’s rough it and say a year. 

However, we then also have to add in the time that Dennis and Patricia actually spent banished. Even if we only give this a year too, that means that Dennis was banished at least 5 years before the movie. If we go with how old he looked on that train platform and guess at his age being 29 in Glass, that means Dennis was 25 or younger when banished (because he was the first alter at 3 years old, I’m going with the idea that he aged concurrently with Kevin because that’s how close he was to him, even though some of the other alters seem to have set ages). 

This means that Dennis, as a 25-year-old man, was attracted to girls around 17. Now, I know this will shock tumblr which likes to inaccurately through the word “pedophile” around, but this actually isn’t that strange. Most guys around this age notice when 17-year-old girls are attractive. However, guys who don’t suffer from compulsive disorders can probably put those thoughts aside as inappropriate and go about their business. 

But Dennis does have compulsive disorders, specifically OCD connected to punishment for “doing something wrong”. I’m not an expert on OCD but I think it’s likely that even when everything is clean and “perfect”, Dennis probably still dwells on what if’s. I’m sure he can’t stop thinking about what he could or might do wrong. These are probably extremely upsetting and intrusive thoughts that plague him all the time. 

Now, this connects to my own personal headcanon that Dennis is NOT actually preoccupied with young girls or only young girls in any kind of real pathological way. 

With run-of-the-mill men who gravitate to younger women, there tends to be a desire for dominance; they like the power imbalance. However, despite what some people assume, I actually don’t think there’s a whole lot of canon material to suggest Dennis is a control freak in that way; in fact, he seems pretty submissive to Patricia and let himself be banished by the other alters; I know many have the headcanon that he’s uber dominant, but I don’t know ... I think that’s a facade. I think the main person Dennis desires to have ultimate control/dominance over is himself.  Plus, while we could apply that sort of psychology to Dennis because it’s the most common in real life, I don’t think there’s actually anything “common” about Dennis or Kevin’s situation. 

I think Dennis had some pretty normal thoughts about attractive teenage girls, but because he has so much shame and worry connected to “doing something wrong”, he simply couldn’t put them aside as other men would. 

He probably dwelled on it; at first in a paradoxical way because he knew it was wrong and shouldn’t think it but that simply made him think about it more. Then it likely escalated (because thoughts you dwell on tend to escalate) until those thoughts became intrusive enough for the other alters to intervene; and the fact that - I’m going to guess - Barry told Dr. Fletcher that Dennis struggled and knew what he was thinking was wrong, makes me think the other alters may have even been trying to protect him by banishing him. 

(There may be some other reasons for his attraction twisted up in there too; perhaps he’s attracted to their innocence or maybe even a little bitter about their innocence. Some have mentioned that there is some indication that Kevin’s mom may have even engaged in some sexual abuse towards Kevin, which would open a whole other bag of worms when it comes to attraction and maybe an instinct to gravitate towards women who do not in any way remind him of his mother ...but I think any of those possible reasons are still blanketed by the larger issue of compulsion and there aren’t as many canonical clues to back them up as the driving force behind his issue)

This would also explain his very strong reaction to what those girls did to Barry or Kevin. And I think it’s really telling that his reaction was not to be intrigued or happy about the contact with younger girls, but apparently super protective and angry (let’s be real, those girls doing that is the reason why the “impure” are often teenage girls - because Dennis is super pissed off about that “attack” and how ignorant those girls were to other people’s possible trauma; not because he just wants to surround himself with temptation; in reality, I think Dennis would actually go out of his way to NOT surround himself with temptation under normal circumstances). 

Now, none of this excuses his behavior (which is actually way worse than simply creeping on Marcia - the dude was prepared to let them be sacrificed to bring a supernatural being to life, so in the grand scheme of things ....) but I’d like to think that this aspect of Dennis wasn’t just added to up the tension/horror in the movie but was actually thought out when it comes to his character, and to me that most logical, careful way of doing that is to connect together these two primary struggles Dennis faces and then connect them back to his primary purpose as a protector/shield, and most likely the alter who experienced the most direct abuse and humiliation from his mom (or “Kevin’s mom”, as his says, which is an interesting detachment). 

I also want to point out that I think it’s clear that Dennis’s problem probably wouldn’t go further than the dancing thing because I think he has issues with touching people too much, or at least people he doesn’t know or trust at all (Hedwig even says that in Glass when the guards start getting handsy about escorting him into the caged part of the hospital, and he reacts very strongly to Casey touching him even though it kind of melts into something nicer after his first instinct to pull away) 

He can probably also justify to himself that the dancing thing is less harmful than it is (he even refers to it as simply “bothering” them and not molesting or rape). He would have to do this to protect himself; it’s clear he has a sense of compassion because he shows it to Casey and reacts emotionally when Dr. Fletcher tells him that the girls are “suffering” like he’s been trying hard not to believe that. 

I fully admit I like Dennis, and I was happy to see him finally see the error of his ways and the Beast’s methods in Glass, but I feel like if he were just a straight up molester/raper, then giving him that redemption would actually be irresponsible of the writers if they never really address this elephant. There would have to be a more complicated, sympathetical psychology behind his redemption in order for the audience to be accepting of it, and I want to appreciate the character arch I saw which is why I need to work this out for myself. 

[dirtylevi]

Allow me to apologize for this mass of canon angst ahead of time, but I have been sitting on this for a long time and I think I’m finally in a mental state where I can write this out without sobbing all over my keyboard. My disclaimer isn’t really necessary for this post, but regardless, you can look at it anyways just in case:

DISCLAIMER: This is my personal opinion. In no way am I stating what I say here is canon or completely accurate. if you disagree with my opinion, that’s perfectly fine! Everyone has a different interpretation, but if you are going to send me messages trying to argue points of view with me or send me hate messages; please do us both a favor and just don’t even bother with it. WARNING: Manga spoilers ahead. Mentions of death, decomposition stages, etc. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Also note that this is just... Rambling tbh. Like, the post is organized, but I don’t even like calling it meta because it’s really not??? Maybe it is, idk. Either way, it happened, it’s sad, and it’s getting posted god dammit.

Now then, you want know what really fucks me up the most about Levi’s incredibly horrid life? His early childhood. Knowing that not only did he have to watch his mother die from illness right in front of him without being able to do anything about it. But, also knowing that after she died, no one in the entire brothel gave enough of a shit to check on either of them despite knowing Kuchel was sick and dying, and knowing she has a little boy living in the room with her.

In the panel above, we see a woman behind Kenny, who I can only assume is one of the working ladies, and we see the owner of the brother informing Kenny that Kuchel “is no longer for sale because someone got her sick a while back.”  This makes it pretty ovbious that it was common knowledge that she was dying in her room, with her son in there with her, and it was something people working in the brothel were well aware of for a long time.

But still, despite knowing, no one fucking checked on her. Not one fucking person working there took it upon themselves to just open her door to see if she was still alive or not. To see if Levi was eating or not. To see if they were okay. You could argue that this was for quarantine purposes, but that doesn’t negate the fact that everyone working there left Kuchel and her son, a child, alone to die while carrying on with business as usual. 

The outright lack of human compassion Levi experienced right out the gate as a child is just astounding to me. Because you have to keep in mind that up until Kenny showed up, or up until Kuchel got sick, these are people Levi was around all the time. These are the people he took cues from as a child, and their treatment of him and of Kuchel were his first experiences of human emotions towards others outside of what he learned from his mother. That lack of outward compassion or even blatant noncaring is something I think shaped him into the very stoic character he is now. Because even Kenny, the murderous hardass in seek of power was far more expressive than Levi has ever been.  

Seriously though, I want you guys to let all of this sink in for a minute:

How long had she been lying in bed like that before she died, and how long had her corpse been there before Kenny showed up? Allow me to answer this for you. A really long time. I’m not going to get into the gritty details of this, but let me just say that Isayama drew Kuchel to be in the Active Decay stage of death here, which is the fourth stage of decomposition out of five. This is made apparent by the tight, dry skin, exposed teeth, etc. She had to have been dead for at least a month for her body to be in this state. 

I have people ask me all the time why I think Levi holds cleanliness in such high regard and fears germs and mold. I’m finally going to thoroughly answer this question:

Considering how neatly tucked into the bed Kuchel is with her head placed perfectly center on a fluffy pillow, and how well preserved her body is in these panels despite knowing she had to have been deceased for a very long time, I can only assume Levi did all he could to preserve her remains (i.e. cleaning her, tucking her into dry blankets to ward off insects, etc). So, not only did Levi grow up in an Underground dump full of people that were sick and dying, but he had to watch his mother wither away from illness too, and care for her despite her already being dead, and starving to near death himself in the process. Plus,it’s been shown that in the underground, it is not uncommon for corpses to be found on the side of streets and that it’s as normal as us seeing a streetlamp. The smell of death there must be something everyone living there is numb to if no one in the vicinity of a brothel noticed the stench of a month old corpse. 

Overall, Levi’s living situation was very bad, but for at least a month, Levi lived in this state:

Huddled on the floor so his mother could remain comfortable in death, as he slowly starved to death while wearing nothing but her tattered shirt. 

I’m well aware that there is no way Levi would have survived that long without water. Especially as a child. But without food? Yes. He could survive that long without food. However, considering the delirious state he seems to be in here, with his eyes bordering on death so severely that even Kenny questions if he’s alive or not, and how dry and shriveled his lips are from apparent dehydration; a few more days, maybe not even that long, and Levi would have been dead too. 

I question how old he is in these panels all the time because you’d think a child would seek help in this situation, yes? But it’s very apparent to me that Levi did not do this. Mainly because the pimp of the place and everyone working there were blissfully unaware that Kuchel was already dead and had been for a long time. Most kids would have been scared, confused, and overwhelmed in this situation. Running to any nearby adult to help them in any way possible. Plus, dying due to starvation is excruciating and very slow. So why didn’t he seek help? 

The only logical conclusion I can appoint to this reasoning from a child in a situation this severe, even if that child is Levi AckermanTM, is that in watching his mother die slowly with absolutely no offer of help from anyone aside from the pimp taking her off the paying roster; he had already concluded that no one cared enough to help him. That he was inevitably alone in this world, and that’s how it was simply meant to be.

Just picture Levi sitting in this room, tending to his mother’s corpse by himself in silence as he hears all the commotion going on in the brothel around him, knowing people are outside. Knowing that they know he’s there with his sick mom, and having them do nothing to help him or check to see how they were doing for months. Sleeping on the floor so Kuchel could remain in the bed, and simply allowing himself to rot away with her because he didn’t believe there was anything else for him to do. That there wasn’t anything else he could do. 

Imagining him, Humanity’s Strongest, in a mind state like that, ESPECIALLY as a child just kills me. The situation and realizing how severely this must have affected him as an adult. I could go on and on about this, really because it is so incredibly soul crushing. So much of what this man has gone through has just been utterly horrible. But I think, out of everything, the earliest memories of his life... Watching his mom die and accepting death in turn because he believed that’s all he could do is the most saddening to me. To know the physical and emotional pain he’s experienced, and that Levi would have died thinking no one cared about him had it not been for Kenny reaching out his hand to him really fucks me up. Especially knowing the incredible man he grew to be.

                                          C O N C L U S I O N

The trauma Levi suffered as a child is nothing short of sickening, and this only covers what he experienced in terms of his mother. The list of horrors this man has had to endure throughout his life is simply heartbreaking, and all of it shows in his personality one way or another as an adult when you really sit back and think about it.

He’s able to sleep easily and comfortably in a chair due to spending months slowly dying on the floor.

He lacks trust because, for a majority of his youth, he only saw people who thought solely of themselves. 

He’s a verbal train wreck thanks to Kenny being his only outlet for learning how to properly communicate. 

He’s bad at conveying his emotions due to being ignored emotionally.

He’s awkward in affection because he’s never truly experienced it in terms of what he can remember.  

He’s compassionate because he knows from experience how shitty it is to be alone in your suffering.

He’s numb to death because he’s lived his entire life with it, but he understands and feels how devastating it is.  

He’s violent because that’s how he was taught to survive and move things to his favor. 

Every time I see Levi in the manga, I am just amazed by him to be honest.

He is the bastard child of a prostitute that was born in the rotting dump that is the darkened cesspool of the underground city. He is someone who, as a child, watched his mom sell her body, fall ill from doing so, and slowly die without being able to do anything about it. Then chose to slowly die with her because he felt like no one cared enough to help. 

He watched Kenny - the only person to reach a hand out to him and offer him means of survival and validation as a helpless kid - leave without saying a single word. 

He watched the only friends he’d ever made living in the underground, people he considered family, die right in front of him because he made the wrong choice. 

He has watched countless innocents and comrades die, all while fighting for freedom and a better world. 

He has basically watched everyone he has ever really cared for die without ever really being able to do much about it, aside from recent events. And even then, there is no doubt it has all affected him very deeply. 

The fact that this man has managed to carry himself as far as he has in life, while bearing the weight of being a hero on his shoulders along with the lives of those lost is nothing short of astounding. He has helped so many and has done so much self-sacrificing for the sake of others and a better future, and the universe has given him little in return for everything he’s endured. And even though he has suffered so much since the very beginnings of his life, and even though he started in literally the lowest possible place in society; he grew to be one of the strongest human-beings in existence physically, mentally, and emotionally. 

Kuchel would be so proud of her son if only she were still alive because regardless of everything, she brought him into the world out of love despite outside opinion, and now he’s one of the very few leading that world forward.  

I wish Kuchel could have lived long enough to see her son grow into the man he is now, but knowing the way of the butterfly effect; his life would probably be vastly different had things progressed down another path. As sad and as angry as his childhood makes me, I understand the affect it had in shaping his future. 

How bleak the world of snk would be if it weren’t for this incredibly strong and worthy man. I sincerely hope he experiences the true peace and happiness he deserves one day, and I hope he knows that his mother loved him dearly. 

[dustydreamsanddirtyscars]

How would you write Dean Winchester (or an excuse to write everything you love about him)? It's for a fic, and I trust you're one of the best sources for his psyche. I know you're busy so just take your time. Besides, even I am busy.

Good evening lovely anon,

I definitely jump on any “excuse” to write about Dean. ;) Though I personally have only written like… maybe three one shots ever, if I was to write a story set in the SPN universe, I would write Dean the way we know him from the show, meaning “canon”!Dean, because that is the Dean I care about, the Dean I fell in love with.

It’s the Dean Winchester with all of his flaws, his fears, his talents, his nerdiness and most of all his big heart, that I’d write about and that I’d want to incorporate and highlight in my story, because to me the most interesting and beautiful thing about Dean as a fictional character is his complexity. What we see of him on screen is the sum of everything he’s been through and despite all the tragedy, hurt and loss that he experienced he is still standing, still fighting.

I wouldn’t want to change a thing about Dean. Well, almost… I wished that he would see himself a tiny bit as the person he truly is - and that person isn’t “a monster” or “a burden” or “poison” as he thinks - but a man that has lost his childhood way too early, was forced to grow up much too fast and had to experience and endure traumas in amounts no one ever should have to. Yes, I wished Dean could see his own self-worth, his importance - and not in a way that shows him as being useful for others, but in a way that makes him recognize his own inherent goodness, how selfless he is.

And while I find it incredibly important for Dean to hopefully at some point down the line and at the end of the show see himself in a positive and much better light than he views himself now, I’d be lying if I said I wanted to erase these character traits, which aren’t beneficial to himself at all. Because if these aspects of Dean’s character were taken away, just like that, without build up and healing and resolution, Dean essentially wouldn’t be Dean.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing I love more than seeing Dean lighthearted, with a bounce to his walk, smiling, laughing, delving into LARPing, getting all nervous when meeting childhood idols or just being silly and playing pranks on his brother, but that’s only one half of the bumper sticker so to speak. Dean is more than that and it’s not the times he is at his strongest and happiest that he inspires me most, it’s when he is struggling, when he is close to hitting rock bottom and despite everything manages to pull through. That is when I love him most (I mean I always love him), but it’s the times when he openly struggles, shows emotion, displays rough edges and at the same time total gentleness and insecurity when I feel Jensen can shine most with his acting as Dean. It’s the small gestures, the small expressions and ultimately half the time the look in his eyes that just speaks volumes without any words needed at all that contribute Dean’s power as a fictional character to speak to people. It’s his ability to defy labels and stereotypes that make him not just real feeling but also almost something like a canvas many people can project something onto and find something to hold on to. That is the reason Dean resonates with so many people. He’s complex, layered, complicated and scarred from life, but in the end his strongest asset has always been his heart, his ability to love.

It’s Dean’s vulnerability that is always hiding in plain sight even when the moment requires him to be or act tough that draws me in, it’s his humility and his way of putting every one else first and making sure theiy’re okay that shows his incredible empathy and care (if only he cared a tiny faction for himself as well) that makes me emotional. It’s the way Dean has been able to preserve some childlike glee even through the horrors of losing his mother, father and his childhood in one night, how he is able to still find reasons to smile despite carrying 40 years of Hell and unbelilvable agony and torture under his belt that is incredible, that show he is a fighter. Despite all he is standing tall.

Dean has lost about every single one he cared about, lost himself even and yet, even though he has trust issues (lord knows, who wouldn’t if he/she had experienced what he experienced), is rather a pessimist (seriously, I can understand why lol) and sometimes close to giving up and drowning his sorrows in alcohol, he always manages to come back around. It’s never easy, never without a price to pay, but ultimately there is one thing that Dean can count on and that are his instincts, his heart, his moral compass. It would guide him anywhere and anytime. It’s his humanity and divnity that makes him unique and beautiful.

So yes, dear anon, all of this and so many more aspects (I really could continue writing 20 more paragraphs, but then again I guess no one would read that lol) are what I’d work into the caracterization of Dean if I planned on writing a Dean focused fic. It would probably also feature a good dose of tragedy, drinking, possibly smoking as well though. *hides*

Anyway, hopefully this wasn’t too disappointing. I suck at writing today. I blame the cold I’m fighting. ;P

[francescamaxime]

Juneteenth

It was James Baldwin I first heard say the American dream was essentially the Black American’s nightmare. And so it is with June 19th/Juneteenth. Having been emancipated from enslavement over two years prior, many Black Americans in Texas were only told of this fact on June 19th 1865. And even then, the system which America and it’s economic engine of consumer capitalism is founded on - genocide, land theft and chattel slavery… and with it, stolen labor - had been put in motion.

 I think about the Buddha and the caste system he came up in, 2700 or so years ago, and how I imagine its roots are similar and yet not the same. Rooted in clinging/greed/consumption, hatred/aversion, and ignorance/indifference, delusion, these three poisons are habits of mind found in both systems, creating artificial separation that lies at the root of the affliction of separation/delusional superiority, loneliness, rage and shame that poison us all.

 These habits of mind and heart of course can be cultivated either way: the old story of the child asking the grandfather, when seeing two wolves, one “good” and one “bad, asks - which one grows bigger? To which the wise man responds, “the one you feed.” What are we feeding?

 The ways in which colonialism and institutional racism infect our human hearts, minds, and bodies, has permeated every aspect of us - its entirely insidious, as is all conditioning (karmically, everything is subject to causes and conditions, and therefore it’s unsurprising that if for centuries one system has oppressed certain groups of people, that it will take time to imagine, create and implement a new system based on common dignity and humanity). As the creator of the 1619 Project Nikole Hannah-Jones had said at the start of the pandemic, that many of us were indeed in the same water, but some were swimming downstream, and others upstream.

 And yet, if we carry our mindfulness practice forward and we, as is often recommended in the mental noting practice (seeing, seeing… hearing, hearing… not getting caught up in the story but in the experience of our faculties) we may do so with institutional oppression and racism: we can “name it to tame it.” Given these systems of oppression, if we are not in a subjugated racialized position, our often startling, horrific recognition of this country’s true genesis (for of course the USA/North America existed as an interdependent land, with its Indigenous first nations peoples, as Turtle Island, prior to settler colonialism) can put us into a shame spiral. Instead, we can cultivate a courageous heart, shift from shame to engaged humility, equitable empowerment… inviting in an elegant ferocity, and stare clearly and cleanly into the truth of suffering, as the Buddha invited us to do: and then recognize our personal and collective paths to transformation.

 I didn’t know much of anything, if at all, about Juneteenth before I started looking. I hesitated to write anything at all. As what I like to now say was a white-adjacent upbringing, as a Haitian-Dominican Italian-American raised by a white Italian family in a white school in a white suburb in Massachusetts, my lived experience was not particularly racialized until I went to college, where despite it’s international student contingent, I was asked to categorize myself by checking off boxes: Other, Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, etc…. I checked many. My lived experience there became segregated based on those boxes also. I lived as a white-adjacent cishet (cisgendered, heterosexual) woman, enduring many micro aggressions regarding my exotic looks, or fetishization around my womanness, but I did not have an experience of being a Black American in this country I could see other than dealing with my hair and my hips (not in fashion at that time). While I studied Sojurner Truth, read Richard Wright and Ray Bradbury and Toni Morrison, I never “got” the racialized trauma that is inherent to the founding of this country (as Apartheid is/was to South Africa, also, for example) at a visceral level, either due to light skin privilege and/or my proximity to my white family, and/or their economic stability, or my own entitlement, ignorance and not wanting to see.

 All that is to say is that I’m still new to this work. My mentor Dr. Jack Kornfield invited me into studying antiracism work a few years ago as part of my spiritual practice and mindfulness training, because he suggested I was in a unique position to do so as a multiethnic, biracial person. I never imagined what I’d uncover: learning the last lynching in the US was in the 1980’s while I was alive, discovering that it was against the law for a Black person to testify in a court of law against someone white, how modern policing is a vestige of slave patrols, or even understanding the origins of the delusion of white superiority by studying pseudoscientists like Carl Linnaeus who categorized groups of people based on random assignations (or as the Buddha might say, perceptions) and valued some over others: white skin on top, everyone else, in a hierarchy of subjugation and exploitation.

 To see Juneteenth as a celebration of the resilience, joy, and struggle of Black Americans is to see that the perseverance of the sanctity of life is deeply grounded and rooted in an inner knowing and collective holding. Despite having been called 3/5 of a person, your children and families in perpetual enslavement for centuries, your daughters raped regularly and their children taken as property, and all the Jim Crow laws and redlining that followed - perpetuating a system of have and have nots, including the destruction of intergenerational wealth among Black Americans with massacres in Tusla and Rosewood, medical experiments like Tuskeegee and the OBGYN horrors perpetuated by J. Marion Sims and more, the repairs to the ruptures owed to Black Americans (and Indigenous folx as well as other subjugated and exploited communities) is enormous. And yet we have yet to name the truth of our founding.

 Juneteehth precedes Independence Day, the 4th of July, by nary a fortnight. And yet the two dates describe a tale of two Americas so rooted in the delusion of superiority that the celebration of Black American freedom and resilience is not a national holiday in the same way the 4th is. In my view, it should be. It would be one small step towards the likes of a “Sorry Day” commemorated in Australia. Of a naming of the hard truths of where we’ve come from, so we may know where we are, and how we may imagine anew.

 Nondualism and the truths of “not two” describe our relative and our ultimate selves - both/and: that we are process to begin with, all energy on a continuum. And, that we are incarnate, here for a time on this earth in this body and skin, and that from whence we came, we shall also go - part of the mystery of our “part” of showing up in the continuum. Yes, there is oneness, but as my mentor likes to say, which I believe his teacher Ram Dass used to say, don’t forget your social security number. Which means to me, in this case, don’t spiritually bypass around issues of racism (or anything for that matter, including troubling truths like incest and abuse). Ground ourselves in our innate goodness, capacity for joy, recognition of our common humanity, and lean into mindfully discovering that which is challenging, right here and right now. In my direct experience, the way out is through, whether it’s my personal traumas or the grand trauma of settler colonialism and racism rooted in the chattel slavery whose abolition is celebrated on June 19th/Juneteenth.

 This invitation is one to reckon with ourselves, with our histories, and with all of our imprinting - and from this place of relaxed and alert, noble and dignified, I’m enough and I matter, to lean into holding both truths: if I’m in a white or light skinned body, I inherit privileges with this based on the oppression of others, which is based on a lie. And if I’m in a Black or brown body, I too may have internalized oppression that is my birthright to be liberated from. We need all hands on deck. And it’s for those who created or inherited these delusional privileges to lean in, to help restore our collective equanimity using our compassion, intelligence, hearts, and to do it not out of guilt but love.

 To me, nirvana is not somewhere “out there.” It’s right here for us: it’s our ability to respond appropriately to what’s here right now. And right here, right now, we experience the pain of racism. Juneteenth celebrates the reclamation of humanity, and is an invitation for us to bow to one another with grace, inviting in a humility and putting in skillful means to continue to work towards sustainable policy changes, creative liberatory strategies, and deep spiritual practice.

 May all beings be safe, happy, healthy and free from harm, and may we see one another through the eyes of our cosmic intelligence, experiencing from the inside out our deepest connection. May we act with love, from this connected place, to create change.

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