#does that adequately answer your condescending question

[lochlanratliff]

you live with your mom?

yes 🙃🙂

[wellnoe]

I feel like Jean was kind of a dick to Madelyne all the way through like taking Madelyne’s memories as her own, saying that Madelyne wasn’t a real person, treating Nathan as her own son, and overall treating her like shit. How do you reconcile that with Jean’s compassion as one of her defining traits and do you think there’s a way to truly fix their relationship?

i think there are things that can hurt people that are nevertheless not unkind. i think jean feels a lot of guilt toward madelyne, and unfortunately, because of the specific hurt madelyne has been dealt, this guilt comes across as condescension.

i also think that x-factor is not a great time for jean. she is going through a whole lot, and handling with varying degrees of success that nevertheless still don't really manage to handle the whole. jean is hurt that scott moved on when she thought he had moved on with phoenix, and she is just as hurt when she realizes its with someone else. scott himself is dealing with the aftermath of his marriage, something that x-factor certainly doesn't depict as either a healthy or fulfilling relationship, and he works through it aloud, with jean. this is the ONLY madelyne jean meets until she is trying to sacrifice her own son to demons. in that context, i don't think it is difficult to understand the way she talks about madelyne. she hates her, for having the life jean feels she would have had if not for phoenix; she condescends about her, because jean understands scott, and scott and x-men, pretty well, and doesn't understand how another person in a relationship with him could see him differently than she does; she feels guilty, knowing that maddy was actually alive when she and scott got together and that the anguish maddy feels is anguish at being jean's clone. i don't think, at a character level, any of these are unreasonable given the circumstances.

to address one of the other things you mentioned: jean was dating nathan's father when nathan was extremely young, and was very active in helping to care for him. that is true both in x-factor, and in the adventures of cyclops and phoenix. i think it is fair, especially considering that maddy is for all intents and purposes dead at the end of inferno, that jean would consider nathan her son, a sentiment he shares. it makes sense that she grieves for him the way she does, and given her aforementioned feelings about maddy having the life she wanted, it makes sense that she would wish she could have been there for even more of nathan's early life.

i think jean is an overwhelmingly kind person, but i think it is a mistake to then argue that she must be written without flaws. madelyne hits right at the center of a lot of jean's insecurites at an already insecure moment in her life, and i think its fair that in her flailing to regain herself, she might react negatively. i don't think jean being nathan's mother is unkind to madelyne, except in the sense that you might argue the narrative itself is unkind to madelyne by allowing jean the opportunity for that kind of relationship. i hope this is an adequate answer to your question.

as for the last bit, i am not convinced this is a relationship that needs fixing. there is nothing to 'fix', something wasn't broken, this is the only relationship they have ever had. something i think about a lot in regards to inferno is that maddy isn't right, exactly. her anger is justified, but she views many people (including both scott and jean) as having a) more control of her situation than they did and b) more intent. x-factor is completely ignorant of the goings-on in other x-books right up until inferno. jean has never met maddy, thought maddy was dead (if still warm) when she hooked up with scott, and had no idea of who sinister was at all. in this context, maddy hates what jean represents to her more than she hates any specific action undertaken by jean herself. i'm not sure there's a way for jean to fix that that i would find satisfying, and i'm not sure there's a way for maddy to come to like jean that i would find satisfying either. my dream ending for maddy is her crawling out of her need for revenge, letting go of the need for validation from people whose validation will only ever feel like condescension to her, and becoming a recurring, morally-grey, slightly chaotic character who is sometimes loosely aligned with the x-men, but retains her distance.

obviously this is all just my interpretation, and a lot of people view jean a lot more coldly in x-factor than i do. kind of like i said at the beginning: i think there are things that hurt people that are nevertheless not meant cruelly or done with intent. maddy in particular is perfectly positioned to be hurt by literally any interaction she has with scott or jean, as i think can be seen by jean's final moments with madelyne. personally, that's part of what i love about maddy. i've called her my favorite tragedy before, and i think that's accurate.

[gracelesslamb]

“Don’t Talk”

Rated: Explicit

Fandom: Code Geass

Pairing: Cécile x Lloyd

Summary: Lloyd will do anything for giant robots. Even show an interest in girls. Sort of. There’s not really a plot it’s mostly just smut.

“Cécile, you’re a woman aren’t you?”

Cécile Croomy holds back her grimace at the obliviousness of Earl Asplund’s question. Could the guy get any more cliché in his cluelessness?

“Yes. I’m a woman. Where are you going with this?”

The Earl chuckles, running his fingers through his light violet locks idly. “Obviously it is to ask a favor of you. I require practice in the art of copulation—“

“ExcUSE ME? That ISN’T something you just ASK for practice in. Look, I get that you don’t understand how human attraction works but you don’t just ask your subordinate, who is not your betrothed to...do stuff like that with you!” Cécile fumes, turning back to her work, her cheeks flaming a bright crimson.

Another condescending chuckle. What was wrong with this man? “Science is trial and error. I want to please my future wife, Miss Ashford, so I can get my hands on those antique Knightmare frames, and I have no experience whatsoever with the opposite sex. Odds are if Miss Ashford isn’t pleased with my performance, the opportunity to study those frames would slip through my fingers!”

Cécile sighs. “Then take Miss Ashford on a date or something. Why should I help you practice?”

“Because you would give me honest feedback. I do see you as my conscience after all. I don’t exactly know how I am supposed to conduct myself in such situations and I will probably need instruction. Besides...it has been awhile since you’ve had a lover.”

The heat rising in Cécile’s face rose to a boiling point. He was right. It had been awhile since she had gotten any action whatsoever. Instead she was just making eyes at Suzaku, who really didn’t notice her or anyone else since Princess Euphemia died and honestly she couldn’t blame him. But...Lloyd? She was pretty certain Lloyd was asexual and sleeping with him would be like going to the doctor’s office except with penetration.

Wait.

Why was she even thinking about it? Granted the Earl of Pudding was easy on the eyes, with his fluffy lilac hair, somewhat handsome face, his lithe frame and...those hands. She wasn’t a prude and had occasionally indulged in casual flings and one night stands before, but never with someone she would actually see daily. Granted, she definitely knew that Lloyd would have no problem pretending their little fling never happened because he was...Lloyd.

“S-so...let me get this straight. You want me to...what? Let you go down on me for science?”

“Correct. In fact, I don’t believe we will need to have intercourse. Unless you want to, of course. If that’s the case I will provide adequate contraception.”

Cécile cringes a bit. He’s so..clinical about this. But...she was intrigued enough by the idea of Lloyd going down on her that she nods hesitantly.

“F-fine. But if you’re weird about it, I’m gonna make you stop, okay?”

“Yes, yes. I understand. I’ll drop by your place tonight at 8:00 sharp.”

Cécile nods again, blushing profusely and not daring to look her future bed partner in the eye. Jeez. What had she gotten herself into?

——————————————-

Later that night, Cécile was ready. She had settled on some deep purple lacy lingerie that was covered by a fluffy white robe. She was fresh out of the shower and sitting on her bed in sheer anticipation. God, why did she agree to this? Sheer curiosity about how her boss would be in bed? That’s a good explanation as anything else she could come up with.

The doorbell rings and she gets up and opens the door. Lloyd, wearing his standard uniform, strides in as if he owns the place. A simple messenger bag is slung over his shoulder, which she assumes has the box of condoms inside. Hopefully he won’t work her into such a frenzy that they’ll need them.

“So, then. Where is your bedroom?” he asks, raising an eyebrow at her current state of dress. “I see you’re ready to get started, hmm?”

A blush rises in Cécile’s cheeks as she points in the direction of the bedroom . “I-It’s that way, you jerk!” she mutters.

Lloyd grins at her embarrassment and walks toward the bedroom, setting his bag on the side of the bed. Cécile, still red-faced, walks into the room and closes the door behind her and dimming the lights to set a less clinical mood. Well. Here they were.

She hesitantly sits on the bed, patting the spot next to her. Lloyd takes the hint and sits beside her. “So, where do you want to start? Some kissing? Or do you want to just get undressed right now?”

Cécile swats his arm lightly. “Just...just shut up and kiss me.”

“Hah. As you wish.” Without hesitation, Lloyd crashes his lips onto hers, threading those delicate fingers through her drying hair.

The kiss was sweet. Sensual. Slow. Enough so that Cécile’s eyes flutter shut and she just lets him nibble on her bottom lip and surprises even herself when she allows her lips to part and the kiss deepens. Eventually, though, the absurdity of who was kissing her was too much to bear and she breaks the kiss, pushing Lloyd away, who just smirks in response.

“What’s wrong? I thought my skills were adequate, judging by your reaction.” he remarks smugly, in such a way that made Cécile want to clock that smug smirk off his stupid face.

“N-nothing’s wrong I was just...expecting something different from you.” Hesitantly, she pulls him into another kiss, which Lloyd reciprocates by pulling Cécile into his lap as she snakes her arms around his neck, slightly toying with his soft hair. This was...surprisingly intimate.

Eventually Lloyd pulls on the robe’s sash, letting the material fall open. Cécile, in turn unbuttons his lab jacket, causing both of them to break the kiss and discard both lab jacket and robe.

“I see you’re enjoying yourself, Cécile.” Lloyd murmurs in her ear before pressing kisses against the skin of her neck, causing a quiet moan to leave Cécile’s lips.

“Ooh, I like that noise. Do it again!” Lloyd comments, before heating up his kisses, adding small bites and suckling to the mix. Céline, already embarrassed that she made such a noise, bites her lip before another moan comes out. “Lloyd, shut up!” she hisses.

“Yes, yes. Just making an observation. How am I doing so far, might I ask. Pretty good judging the noises you’re making, hm?” He pulls her into another heated kiss, swiping his tongue across her bottom lip, begging for entrance. Cécile breaks the kiss to answer, “Passable.”

“Well...I suppose I need to step up my game then, hmm?” Lloyd grins, pulling her back into the kiss, deepening it immediately and sliding his tongue inside of Cécile’s mouth, causing tingles to emanate throughout her body every time his tongue collides with hers.

While they kiss, Lloyd’s hands begin to wander from her back, to the inside of her thighs, causing Cécile to gasp softly into the kiss. His hand creeps upwards and cups one of her breasts through her bra while the other hand reaches behind and...attempts to unclasp the garment, causing Cécile to break the kiss and collapse into giggles as he struggles. “D-do you need help?” she asks, biting her lip as she buries her face into his shoulder, pulling down Lloyd’s turtleneck to press teasing kisses against his neck while he struggles.

“No, no. I simply need both hands to unlock this contraption.” Lloyd mutters breathily, looking over Cécile’s shoulder to see the clasp. Finally, after a few moments of more struggling, Lloyd finally unclasps the bra with a triumphant, “HAH! Success! Now, can you get off of me and lay on the bed?”

“Only if you take off your shirt too.” Cécile fires back, tugging at his shirt.

Lloyd sighs as he complies . “Very well. I suppose that’s a fair trade.” He pulls off the shirt revealing a fairly wiry body with very little body fat or muscle, but it was still pleasing to look at.

Cécile gets off of Lloyd’s lap and slides out of her bra, carefully laying down, avoiding the Earl’s gaze as she does.

Lloyd climbs on top of Cécile, engaging her in another kiss as a hand caresses a modestly sized breast in his palm. Breaking the kiss he murmurs, “I’ve never seen one of these up close before.” Moving down to her breasts, the Earl pokes at one of them with a look of fascination on his face, making Cécile roll her eyes. This man was 30 years old, five years her senior, yet he acted like such a child sometimes. Most times. All the time.

He spent a good amount of time playing with them, poking and prodding at them, squeezing and flicking at her nipples, causing several moans to escape Cécile’s lips, against her better judgement. He had got her going and now she was definitely feeling heat between her legs as he continues to play with her breasts.

“Y-you can put your mouth on them if you want.” Cécile murmurs, gasping softly as Lloyd takes a nipple into his mouth, tracing his tongue around the nipple, causing Cécile’s eyes to flutter shut as she bites her bottom lip to hold back another moan, her legs rubbing together as her lower regions begin to throb with anticipation.

Of course Lloyd was completely oblivious to Cécile’s thighs rubbing together and he continues to play with her breasts far longer than Cécile would’ve liked but she gave the Earl some slack — he’d never played with boobs before.

Eventually, Lloyd decides it’s time to move on and he kisses his way back up to Cécile’s lips, leaning in her ear. “So...how do you want me to pleasure you?” he asks. “With my hands?” His deft fingers rub at her clothed core, causing Cécile to sigh in pleasure. “My tongue?” he nips at her earlobe, “or..” his voice lowers into a whisper. “My cock.” With that he rubs himself against Cécile’s aching core, causing her to moan louder than she expected. He was...a decent size judging by what she had felt through his pants.

“A-all three?”

“How greedy.” Lloyd murmurs softly, pulling down her panties and immediately stroking her core, which by this time was soaking wet. “I guess I did promise to go down on you for science.” he mutters. “But now I need to take care of my own arousal too. How annoying. Do I have permission to penetrate you after cunnilingus?”

Cécile’s face burns bright red as she nods quickly, too embarrassed to say anything.

“Excellent. Then let’s get this show on the road, shall we? Spread your legs for me!” Lloyd exclaims, as if he was about to test a new feature on the Lancelot.

Slowly, Cécile spreads her legs, revealing her core to the Earl of Asplund, who grins with delight as he settles between her legs. “Now, let’s see if I remember my female anatomy correctly.” he murmurs, experimentally sliding a finger inside of her, his face flashing in surprise as her insides just suck him in. “Oh my. That’s..interesting. Just sucks you right in there, huh?”

Cécile was getting impatient. Her loins were on fire and needed relief. “Just get on with it, Lloyd. Please!”

“Fine fine.” Lloyd begins to thrust that finger inside of her, once twice, three times before adding a second, and locating her clitoris, which he presses his tongue against, causing the other scientist to moan softly. “K-Keep doing that” she murmurs under her breath.

“Hmm...your taste is..hm. Interesting. It’s not bad it’s just..” another lick. “Strange. And a bit salty.”

“Stop—mm! talking!” Cécile says, her eyes feeling heavy and fluttering shut as her head tilts back against the pillows as Lloyd thrusts his deft fingers inside of her while swirling his tongue around her sensitive button. With all of this stimulation, it wasn’t surprising that her first orgasm quickly approached her and she fell over the edge with a loud gasp of pleasure, panting slightly.

Lloyd looks up from his ministrations and pouts. “Aw. Did you finish already? I was just getting started. Oh well. Guess that means it’s time for the main event, huh?”

He sits up and removes his pants, underwear and all, revealing a very hard, decent sized shaft. Unashamed of his nakedness, Lloyd hops over to the messenger bag he had brought, finding a condom wrapper and tearing it open and placing it on his shaft.

Cécile watches him while he does this, still trying to catch her breath after her orgasm. He was a virgin, so he probably wasn’t going to last very long, but given the fact that he was 30 years old and not a teenager anymore counted in his favor.

Lloyd climbs back on top of Cécile, pulling her into another passionate kiss just to get her blood boiling again, rubbing the tip of his cock against her entrance, thrusting inside of her sharply, causing both of them to gasp. Cécile tangles her legs with his as Lloyd begins to move in and out of her. Their breathing is heavy and the movements of their bodies results in the bed rocking and creaking back and forth in time with their movements.

Their coupling was surprisingly intimate as the Earl was too winded to offer much more than a few gasps and moans, making the entire ordeal much more erotic rather than the clinical nightmare Cécile was dreading. In fact..she wouldn’t mind this becoming a regular thing. The only problem was that outside of obligation, Lloyd had no interest in sex whatsoever and the obvious: he was engaged.

Cécile didn’t have feelings for Lloyd, rather she would definitely admit to having affection for the eccentric young man who just really liked building giant robots and pudding. Maybe that counted as feelings.

Lloyd’s thrusts begin to speed up and the bed creaks louder paired with the sound of their bare skin slapping together and their shared gasps and moans. He was definitely close. Cécile holds on to the Earl’s waist as they chase their orgasm together, her body arching into his as they both reach their high almost simultaneously.

As they come down from their high, Cécile pulls Lloyd into a gentle lip lock, which he reciprocated, surprisingly. It was gentle and intimate and as they pull away, they both smile, pressing their foreheads together, his glasses almost falling into her face.

As they lay there, arms wrapped around each other, Lloyd finally breaks the comfortable silence. “...So what are your thoughts? I am expecting a report after all.”

Cécile rolls her eyes and laughs. “I’ll give it to you in writing later. For now just...don’t talk. Alright?”

“Alright.”

[done-mer-moved]

i Also don't know ur OCs but: 1, 4, 5, 8, 15, 22, 23, 24, 25, 33, 42, 50, 54, 56, 61, 73, and 78 please? -drunkmiraak

[[LKdghlkj sorry this took so long!! I got super sick so it sat half-done in my drafts for 84 years. @drunkmiraak]]

Oh boy oh boy oh boy!

So, while I’ve got half a billion OCs by technicality, my main idiot is Azaryne Redoran who takes the role of the Vestige in the ESO story I write with @sinnaroll by the name of Soulbound. (Ima also just casually pass on these questions for her to answer in reply for D'tannen, who is the other main character in this thingy so you can get to know him too!)

Thank you so much for asking!! Here we gooooo~!

1. What is/are your OC’s nickname(s) and how did it come about?

Az’s main nickname is the self-explanatory name shortening from “Azaryne” to “Az”. But D'tannen has kinda stuck on jabbing him with “pretty boy” to the point where it’s basically a nickname lol 

Also, in-game plot reasons dictate that the Five Companions also know him by “Vestige”, much to his dismay. It’s what the Scrolls named him by, so the Prophet tends to slip and refer to him that way, and the others kinda do too by proxy for a while. However, after Az makes it clear that he’s really uncomfortable with it, Lyris and Sai specifically make a point not to call him that.

4. What is a noticeable physical attribute of your OC?

So I memed twice earlier before I got to these questions lasdgkh gomen, but my goofier answers are Dorito Shape and Resting Trouble Face

But more seriously, one of his major notable physical features is that he’s pretty much covered in tattoos from his neck down past his waist and starting down his legs. They’re being redesigned from scratch right now because I can’t ever allow myself to have characters that can be adequately represented in game i guess lmfao but here’s the in-game tattoos with some photo-editing for an earlier visual draft on where they might cut off—

It’s a total personal headcanon but I decided that since the in-game body marking style was pretty clearly influenced by Maori-style kiriituhi, that Az’s tattoos are also highly significant in a similar way. Each piece symbolizes or connects to either his ancestry, or his own life and skills and milestones. His designs weren’t finished, but have the indication of where they were meant to continue as he hit new points in his life. Unfortunately, since his life was cut so short, that’s as far as they ever get.

On a lighter note, he also has pretty big ears?? Lmao

5. What does your OC normally wear? What would your OC wear on a special night?

He likes clothes that are comfortable but flattering. He knows what his assets are and enjoys looking well-dressed – a bit of a remnant from his previous life as a noble. 

He tends to favor sleeveless tops and cool-colored fabrics with neutral accents. He particularly likes blues of all shades, and some purples. He’ll also occasionally wear red. On his travels he wears leather armor that fits within these features, and notably has a Khajiiti-style jack because he liked the aesthetic of it when he saw the style in a tailor’s display. 

When he’s dressing up, he’ll wear more flowing robe-like attire. He had more reason to do so while he was alive, and at the time it was usually specifically Dunmeri cultural clothing. Over the course of Soulbound, he only dresses up the once so far for a date with Sinna. That takes place in Orsinium, so it’s Orcish formal wear. 

Even if the situation’s not a fancy one, though, he’ll usually still wear kohl eyeshadow, which D’tannen gives him shit for, of course lol.

8. How does your OC talk/what does your OC’s voice sound like?

Az’s voice is light, crisp, warm and friendly. It’s between tenor and baritone in range, and the expected Dunmeri accent. He’s well spoken, and you can tell he’s well educated, but his phrasing isn’t snobbish or condescending, and there’s a firm sort of sincerity to his speech, even when he’s being playful.

15. What was your OC’s childhood like?

Az’s childhood was a little complicated in that it came with a great deal of privilege, but also a great deal of expectation. He was noble-born— the eldest son of House Redoran’s Archmaster— so before he was even old enough to have an awareness of the world, his parents had already decided many things about his future. 

In spite of both this and the constant pressure of the Redoran philosophy that “a light, careless life is not worth living”, Az had an untamable spirit that continuously tried his parents’ patience. As a child, his impulsivity, tendency to bend the rules, and headstrong defiance on points he fundamentally disagreed with led to frequent discipline, and a particularly strained relationship with his father.

Over time, he begrudgingly learned to play by the rules, but would still disappear from time to time for brief moments of freedom. 

He had two younger siblings— Eralane and Meril, and they had very close and loving relationships with each other. Az always did his bes to see right by them, so they felt safe in knowing that he would always have their backs. They didn’t ever keep much from him, as a result, and Meril specifically often looked up to him as a role model.

By the time he was fourteen, he’d been arranged into a political betrothal to solidify clan relations within the House, and it was decided that the two would be married in 16 years when they were both fully grown adults. Neither he nor his intended fiancée were really comfortable with this, but even as young as they were, they knew it was a sticky situation far bigger than just the two of them. So, they quickly established that, future aside, they didn’t feel entitled to each other’s feelings. They would both rather have a straightforward, honest friendship than try to force things between them. 

Because of this, there was no tension when other chemistries developed in later years. Instead, they continued to ignore their inevitable marriage, and turned their performative date nights into formally-dressed vent and gossip sessions. Using the expectations put upon them to their advantage as they got older, they also happily became each other’s alibi when either of them needed time away with other people.

22. Who is/are your OC’s closest friend(s)?

Since arriving back on Tamriel, he’s been shuffling company a lot on his journeys. He’s also pretty introverted, despite being fairly socially adept. He doesn’t have any real connections from his previous life anymore, but has met many people and made casual friends and positive acquaintances with a solid chunk of new ones.

In terms of more serious friendships, D’tannen is honestly the closest, which is kind of incredible honestly laksdhg. But, they travel with each other day in and day out, so there’s a tight bond there that’s developing fast.

He’s also particularly attached to Irvane, who was his first friend since coming back to Nirn.

23. Who are the people your OC surrounds him/herself with?

Along the same lines as I just said above, he’s never in one place for very long right now, so he is constantly around new people. His kind heart and need for hands-on activity means he tends to gravitate toward people he can help in some way or another. His empathy and sense of honor do most of the weeding. He’d rather be around someone who has shown good intentions, even if they are rough around the edges, than someone who rests on the laurels of past deeds and judges others against themselves.

24. Who are the people your OC dislikes/hates?

It’s pretty damn hard to make this list, at least if you have any sort of good bone in your body. He’s really very empathetic and patient, and will forgive so quickly once he feels amends have been made that it’s honestly gotten him into trouble.

But, even with that said, he’s got some strong resentments for some strong reasons… Notably: Mannimarco and his Worm Cult, ol’ Molag Bal himself, and pretty much anyone who allies with them… Malacus is another name that quickly finds its way on the list under “kill unflinchingly” as he becomes closer with D’tannen.  

25. If your OC has a soulmate, who is it?

oh my god im so sorry this joke is just right here its too easy to grab i can’t help myself – 

Doesn’t a soulmate require… a soul…? 

33. What subjects interested your OC?

He’s always done whittling as a hobby, so he’s currently kinda advancing on that in woodcarving. Since he was also trained in maintaining and repairing his own weapons and armor in life, that’s carried over into an interest in actually crafting weapons on his own. He does wind up making his own bow way later on, and even spends a bit of time with the Morkul Orcs in the Orsinium arc learning to do some metalwork.

42. What makes your OC happy?

He’s very attached to his dog Blackjack, and the mutt can always seem to pick him up when he’s otherwise faltering. He loves whittling and tends to carve little objects to occupy his mind. Complicatedly, D’tannen makes him happy as well, lol. 

He also tends to have moments where he finds happiness in specific things, but the emotion related feels strange or misplaced. When this happens, it’s usually because whatever he’s experiencing— a particular sight or smell or flavor— is something that ties directly to a positive memory he’s lost from his life before. A sort of unwitting-nostalgia that’s hard to pinpoint or replicate.

As a general rule, he’s pretty easily contented. He lives very much in the moment, which combined with his adaptability and natural optimism, means that he’s usually able to find some small spark of cheer for himself anywhere he goes. He’s always wanted the freedom of life as an adventurer, so if circumstances were different, this would honestly be an ideal life for him. However, it’s pretty dampened by the stress of current events, along with the nagging restless and hollow feeling of having lost his soul.

50. What secrets does your OC have?

This is a bit of a tricky one. He’s not a super open person, but he also doesn’t like to lie to cover things up. However, there are many things about his life at present that he finds he has to dance around giving knowledge of. In some ways, the very nature of his current existence is something he keeps tucked away. It’s not very easy to explain to anyone, so he’s grateful that for the majority of the people he interacts with, direct questions never really come up.

In the second act of Soulbound, however, after he becomes very close with Sinna, Sinna asks him directly for his story. He dodges it for quite some time before finally giving him the details, but he’s kind of nervous at that point to state it. He doesn’t know how Sinna might react. But, he lays it out on the table anyway: He’s not truly alive. He’s what remained of himself after he was sacrificed by cultists to Molag Bal. His soul was stolen, and he has only vague pieces of memories from when he lived. And now, he’s been prophesied to assist in stopping a daedric invasion. 

Sinna’s response was heartfelt. But, nobody could blame him for the fact that all he could manage for a brief moment after listening was “Wild….”

54. Does your OC think with his/her head or heart?

Heart… His upbringing tried its best to instill an ability to detach for the sake of duty, but honestly, he’s never been able to. Even when he knows there’s no way he can avoid a difficult situation, and is able to approach it tactically, emotion will be gnawing at him all the while, and he’ll be completely staunch on the things he believes the most if those interfere with the “logical” course of action.

56. What are some of your OC’s strengths?

He’s honestly got a wide range of skills in a lot of ways. He’s a highly skilled archer, and has a very well-rounded set of combat and survival skills that have been hardwired into him since a very young age. He’s also got a great sense of aesthetics, which he likes to express in woodworking and whittling when he can. He’s intelligent, but a lot of his skill specifically in emotional/social intelligence comes from his powerful empathy, and how dramatic swings of circumstances in his life have given him many perspectives to draw from, even subconsciously through the massive amnesia he struggles with. He’s incredibly adaptable. He’s intensely loyal, courageous, and firmly optimistic even through the worst circumstances. He’s got an incredibly strong character to him, and it tends to be both charming and inspiring, even when he doesn’t recognize that he’s producing these effects himself.

61. What is the general impression your OC gives other people?

Honest. Empathetic and selfless. Good-natured, down to earth, and a bit wild-spirited. Patient, incredibly forgiving. Helpful. Playfully charming. A protector. A defender of good.

73. What is your OC’s favorite form of entertainment?

He likes art, stories, nature, animals, and adventure. Crafting from time to time as well.

78. What is your OC’s favorite time of day?

Late morning. The point in the day when you’re up and awake and setting off. The whole day lies in wait before you, and you’re ready to meet it

[enterprisetrampstamp]

face painting

spones; also on ao3

“Doctor McCoy,” Spock greets. There’s no particular inflection to his voice, but Len pretends that he sounds both confused and exasperated.

“Mr. Spock,” he answers cheerfully, his hands perfectly steady as he brushes the finishing touches on the elaborate butterfly on the young boy’s cheek. “This--” he leans back to survey his handiwork, giving his patient a quick wink as he goes-- “is M’tyne."

“I have familiarized myself with the passenger roster, Doctor.”

“Of course he has,” Len whispers teasingly- well aware Spock can still hear him- and rolls his eyes with a certain theatric flair. He’s rewarded with a tiny, tentative little giggle and tosses a self-satisfied smile back over his shoulder.

Spock tilts his head slightly in response, his gaze going soft around the edges as he moves across the room towards them.

With the ease of long practice, Len ignores the heart palpitations that micro-expression gives him. “M’tyne an’ I decided the medbay needed a little more color,” he explains. “He’s been givin’ me advice on what to paint for each nurse. Chris got--”

“A dragon,” Spock interjects, coming to parade rest next to Len’s stool (a piece of furniture painstakingly scrounged up to give him the perfect height for facepainting as his victim sat on the edge of a biobed). After a beat of silence, he adds, with the thinnest thread of amusement, “A highly logical choice for Nurse Chapel.”

M’tyne shifts slightly nervously, eyeing Spock with a child’s flighty trepidation, and so Len sets his paintbrush aside to lean into Spock’s side. Spock stiffens ever-so-slightly in surprise, but M’tyne- whose culture takes touch as a sign of implicit trust- visibly relaxes.

“'Logical’ is high praise from him,” Len promises, after a beat of distraction. Spock’s warmth radiates temptingly through the layers of fabric between them; Len indulges himself in another ten seconds of contact before he leans away, reaching once more for the paintbrush.

“I notice you do not have a creature depicted on your own cheek, Doctor.”

It’s not a question, since Spock is clearly above investment in trivial human past times like face painting, but it does imply one. Len feels a fond grin twitch at the corner of his lips as he offers, “I’m not quite a talented enough artist t’get away with the whole ‘paint it based on the reflection in a mirror’ schtick.”

M’tyne huffs petulantly, picking at the sheets on his biobed with one hand. “I picked a lion,” he informs Spock, though the translator garbles the word; whatever animal he’s referring to, a lion is simply the closest approximation on Earth. His gaze flicks over Spock and then back to his knees. “Crane,” he adds quietly. “You get a crane.”

Len raises an eyebrow in consideration. “I can do a crane.”

“And I ‘can do’ a lion,” Spock tells them, matching Len’s eyebrow with his own. There’s a sparkle of something almost like mischief in his dark eyes as he holds his hand out, palm flat, in silent request for the paintbrush.

“Whoever said Vulcans don’t have a sense of humor was full of it,” Len mutters, subsuming his (lovestruck) grin with his normal gruff bluster. He doesn’t so much give the brush over as slap it into Spock’s hand like a challenge, jutting his jaw out stubbornly.

That sparkle of mischief flares brighter, long fingers brushing his palm as they curl over the handle. “On a multitude of occasions, Doctor, that person has been you,” Spock points out. “I have personally been privy to precisely fifty-four such instances and calculate the odds of your expressing a similar opinion outside of my presence as being higher than--”

Spock allows himself to be interrupted by Len’s crotchety harrumph and over-the-top eye roll; M’tyne giggles again, this time with a bit more vigor, and sets his short, chubby legs to swinging where they dangle over the edge of the biobed.

(Can Spock feel the giddy appreciation for his help in indulging M’tyne’s whims that Len’s trying to project? He’s never been certain of the proximity necessary for that Vulcan telepathy to be effective.)

“What color lion, m’boy?” Len asks jovially and presents his young patient with the available paints by means of a dramatic flourish.

M’tyne doesn’t even have to look, immediately blurting out, “Purple.”

Spock opens his mouth, but before he can espouse the illogicality of the color choice, Len elbows him savagely in the side. “One purple lion, if you please, Mr. Spock. And then on your cheek I’ll paint a...” he trails off, an eyebrow raised in question.

“Yellow,” M’tyne declares, after a moment of deliberation.

“A yellow crane,” Len echoes and flashes Spock an impish grin. He doesn’t stop to wait for a response but instead turns to M’tyne, pulling on his best serious face. “Would you like to be Mr. Spock’s assistant?”

M’tyne nods furiously, shoving forward greedy fingers, and Len tuts. “You’ll have to hold it very steady,” he warns.

“Doctor McCoyyyyyyy,” M’tyne whines, and then- with the self-awareness of a five-year-old who understands exactly how cute he is- juts his lower lip forward and opens his eyes wide. “I can do it, I promise,” he whispers confidentially.

(At least, Len’s pretty sure it was supposed to be a whisper.)

“Hmmmmm, well,” Len drawls, drumming his fingers on his chin. “I suppose, since you promised...” he holds out the palette of paints to M’tyne, who sits up very, very straight and accepts it with all the solemn dignity he can summon into his three-foot frame.

Len bites back a grin and rises to his feet, stretching his back with an audible crack. “Scooch up,” he orders, and M’tyne shuffles over a foot or so, giving Len just enough room to perch next to him.

Spock looks at him, a question in the blink of his eyes; Len raises an eyebrow in return. “Unless you want to spend the next ten minutes bent over at the waist, or else try and find a second stool,” he drawls lazily.

Spock engages the auto-clean function on the brush with a flick of his thumb. “The biobed will function adequately for these purposes,” he agrees, voice deceptively neutral for the way he moves to stand just-shy of between Len’s slightly open knees.

He inspects the bristles for any remaining pigments, and then he nods with satisfaction and reaches out. Len’s focus narrows to the delicate press of long fingers against his chin as his face is tilted to the perfect angle, to the brush of Spock’s hip against his knee when he leans to the side to dip the brush into the paint. He sucks in a shuddering breath, and with a blink the world comes back into existence.

Spock has that self-satisfied smirk hovering in the corners of lips, like he knows exactly what he’s doing. Which he must, of course he must.

Len huffs just before Spock can set paint to skin, earning himself an admonishing glance, and raises his gaze from Spock to the ceiling. The paint is cold, Spock’s strokes precise and- he’s sure- elegant. He can feel the intensity of Spock’s gaze, every ounce of his considerable well of concentration focused on the strokes of the brush, and Len suppresses a shiver.

Spock reaches over, dabbing the brush in the paint, and informs M’tyne gently, “You are a most competent assistant.”

Len cuts his eyes to the side, catching the way the boy swells with pride, puffing out his chest beneath the thin medbay robe. “Thank you, Mr. Commander Spock,” he enunciates carefully.

“It is only logical to state the truth, M’tyne; your thanks are unnecessary.” Spock hasn’t even finished speaking before he’s receiving a sharp kick to the shin, and he sighs. “However, within both yours and Doctor McCoy’s cultures, I believe the appropriate response is ‘you are welcome.’“

“You’re learning, Mr. Spock,” Len says with a grin, and it’s meant to be teasing--he’s unfortunately certain, from the smug look in Spock’s eye, that it comes out more fond than anything else.

Spock places three fingers under Len’s chin, asserting a gentle pressure upwards. Admonishingly, “Please refrain from speaking until I am finished, Doctor.”

Len acquiesces, but not without an eyeroll. He focuses his gaze on the ceiling once more, fingers drumming on the edge of the biobed, and lets the cadence of Spock and M’tyne’s continuing conversation- regarding M’tyne’s subjects of interest in school, ground Len has long since covered with the boy- wash over him.

Spock isn’t per se good with kids; they make him uncomfortable, simply because he hasn’t had much experience with them since he was one--and even at that, Vulcan children are a far different beast from those of other species. He does, however, treat them with the same calm, solemn respect with which he treats adults, and kids pick up on that. They don’t like to be condescended to, and Spock’s condescension is kept in reserve for Len.

The rest, well. Spock does his best to follow Len’s lead, and Spock’s best is rarely disappointing.

The warmth of Spock’s touch retreats, and Len blinks his way back to reality. “Your lion is complete, Doctor McCoy,” he’s informed lightly, the buzz of the brush’s autoclean function curling beneath the words.

Len shifts on the bed to face M’tyne, drawing one leg under himself and resting the other foot on the ground in between Spock’s. Turning his head to show off his cheek, he asks lightly, “How’s it look?”

M’tyne kicks his legs, giggling. The palette of paints teeters dangerously in his grip as he leans over to prod at Len’s cheek, but Spock carefully removes it from his hands before it can fall. “Ms. Christine’s turned out the best of them all,” he declares, “but I guess this one is okay.”

“Well.” Len rubs his hands together, looking back at Spock. “Your turn, then, eh? Hop up on--”

The comm buzzes. “Bridge to Mr. Spock.”

Spock passes off the brush to Len, adjusts his blue shirt, and steps over to the wall panel. “Yes, Lieutenant?”

”The Captain and Mr. Scott need your input on the protocols we’ll be following when we reach the settlement,” Uhura tells him, a thread of apology in her voice.

“Acknowledged. Inform them I am on my way to the Captain’s ready room.”

“Aye, sir. Bridge out.”

“Another time, then,” Len says, smiling, before Spock can apologize. He slides off the biobed and spins the brush between his fingers as he moves to Spock’s side. “I won’t be in tonight,” he says softly, voice pitched low enough that M’tyne won’t be able to hear him. “I could leave him with the night staff, but he was awfully skittish when they first brought him in and--”

“I understand, Doctor,” Spock murmurs back, and two finger brush over the inside of Len’s wrist before he steps away. Len catches his hand as it passes, squeezing ever so briefly.

“Thank you for your assistance,” Spock adds, turning his attention over Len’s shoulder and nodding to M’tyne. He receives a sloppy child’s salute in response.

Len doesn’t bother to bite back his lovestruck grin this time, taking his place back on his stool and setting the brush aside. “Have you ever played Go Fish, m’boy?” he asks, rustling around in the bedside table. “No? Alright, well the rules go like this...”

[metaformers]

Megatron and Abuse

I’ve spent months emotionally gearing myself up to make this Megatron meta post. It will contain mentions of real life abuse--verbal, emotional, physical, sexual--from my own life, as well as links to sites that discuss said topics. There will be a focus on emotional and narcissistic abuse, as that is the kind I have the most experience with--and the kind I most see Megatron perpetuating in More than Meets the Eye.

I understand that many people identify with Megatron. It may be best for you to skip this post if you count yourself among them. I want to be clear that this is my reading of the character, and I do not fault others for reading him differently; I’m not going to go after anyone for liking him or shipping him with people. It’s fiction. Do what makes you feel safe and happy. I can guarantee you are not the first to block me for saying I believe Megatron is abusive.

If you are interested in reading about why I, personally, view Megatron in this light, I would like to make one final request. This subject matter is extremely personal. I have spent four and a half years in therapy, but this still affects me powerfully. If you find yourself getting the urge to argue with me, please keep in mind that I will not be responding to comments for my own health.

So why am I posting? Because I have seen no discussion of this in fandom. When Megatron’s abusive behavior is described, it is invariably treated as a thing of the past, not the present. And I think that multiple views of a character in fandom lead to richer interpretations in fanworks and other meta.

And, with that, we’re off to the races.

(Note: This post is over 18k words long and contains over 70 images. If you would prefer to read this as a Google Doc, use this link. I recommend going to the View dropdown and un-toggling Print Layout if you do so. If you would rather read this as a Tumblr post, please use the read more below. The Google Doc may be better if you would like to use a functional outline navigation system or if Tumblr’s habit of stretching images bothers you.) 

***

First things first: abuse is cyclical. An abuser is not always going to be abusing someone--if they did, no one would ever tolerate the mistreatment. When times were relatively good, my mother and I would crack jokes. My ex would hold my hand and tell me cheesy pickup lines. This is known as the ‘honeymoon’ or ‘idealization’ stage of the abuse cycle, and it is as much a fixture of abuse as the tension-building and abuse phases.

If an abusive relationship never left the abuse stage, no one would ever tolerate it. No one would stay. So violence must be rationed, and after each new outburst, the abuser is likely to promise that--this time for sure--it will never happen again. They then ‘prove’ it with a honeymoon period and the cycle turns anew.

As a result, there is no way to point at one instance of kindness and say that someone isn’t actually abusive. It is likewise not generally possible to point to one instance of cruelty and call it abuse. Abuse is almost never a one-time thing. As a result, I’ve gathered examples from throughout season two of MTMTE and from the latest issue of Lost Light.

Since it’s the most clear and unambiguous example of Megatron’s abuse, I’m going to be singling out one particular relationship--the one between Megatron and Rodimus.

RODIMUS

To help me structure the problems I have with Megatron’s treatment of Rodimus in the time since the Lost Light left Cybertron, I’m going to borrow text from Psych Central’s “Eight Mental Abuse Tactics Narcissists Use on Spouses” article as well as tactics mentioned in their “Signs of Emotional Abuse” article and my own experiences.

Degradation

This is perhaps the most obvious type of abuse Megatron commits. He constantly belittles and demeans Rodimus. On the surface, it may at times seem justified. A minor comment on a fair annoyance.

Here he calls the Rodpod a vanity project, for instance. Getaway does much the same. But we know--and he likely has been told--that this wasn’t a vanity project. This was a gift from the crew to Rodimus.

It’s easy to forget. There’s no clear origin for the Rodpod before it was rebuilt, and, frankly? It’s not important. Whether it was a gift or something he had built, this is a privately owned ship, and this is a possession that clearly means something to Rodimus.

I grew up in the 90s, and I had a lot of tacky plushies and furbies and beanie babies--all extremely easy to mock, especially as I got older and they remained sentimental. Even when I wasn’t a kid anymore, I wanted to hold onto these things, and I think that’s understandable. If I’d lost my neon purple stuffed frog and had gotten a replacement as a gift, it would have been an easy avenue of casual attack. As it was, I mostly got, ‘Are you seriously keeping this ratty old thing?’ about anything that reminded me of happier times. It was always a coded jab at me, a deliberate forgetting of where a gift had come from or why I might want to remember.

This hits me especially hard since everything Megatron says here? Is an uncharitable lie. But believable lies have a way of spreading and turning into a commonly held ‘truth’--and Getaway later cites the Rodpod as a reason that Rodimus deserved to lose everything.

Which, ultimately, is the goal of abuse--start small and build until you can justify anything because of their ‘bad behavior.’

But, of course, this particular comment is targeted at a different audience, intended to undermine Rodimus’ standing with the crew and change the story to something that makes it seem as though Rodimus is squandering quest resources on trivial items.

Much of the time, the audience for Megatron’s comments is Rodimus himself--wearing at his already thin self-esteem and feeding the self-hatred we’ve seen him manifest throughout the series. (If you doubt either of those assertions, I plan to write meta about Rodimus later on. For now, I ask that you remember that he self-harmed by carving the results of the vote into his palm--explicitly so he would always know how many people didn’t want him there.)

Actually, for further confirmation, let’s take it to canon:

While he ‘admits’ to thinking he’s better than everyone else after having a very direct cry for help shot down with an insult, I hesitate to say this indicates in any capacity that his self-esteem is fine.

You see, I’ve been accused of the same. Literally--to the point where this exchange with Ratchet made me sick the first time I read it. How else is Rodimus supposed to respond to this kind of jab, especially when he’s in the middle of handling a crisis?

To me, the willingness to accept as ‘true’ something that directly contradicts his own experiences, especially coupled with the reassurance-seeking behaviors and low self-esteem, makes him especially vulnerable to emotional and verbal abuse.

And so, let’s turn our focus to Rodimus himself and answer the questions posed by the article to see how well Megatron’s behavior holds up.

Do they tell you that your opinion or feelings are “wrong?”

Without any warning of what to expect, Rodimus was presented with his own corpse--which has half its brain sliced out. They specifically didn’t tell him why they were calling him in, which I can’t imagine helped soften the horror. He’s in a very reasonable state of shock.

And there’s Megatron calling his reaction tiresome, even though his eventual reaction when faced with the spectre of his own death is to scream and punch Perceptor. Rodimus is just quietly attempting to come to grips with an upsetting situation, not hurting anyone by taking a moment to process.

But, of course, he isn’t allowed to process. Megatron is the captain of this ship, and he expects everyone else to handle their feelings quickly and efficiently, even if he never does.

This is a hallmark of narcissistic abuse--considering one’s own feelings bigger, more important, more valid than those of others. And it’s fully in line with the dynamic, too, to attempt to invalidate said feelings by emphasizing one’s role as an authority over the victim.

“Don’t you think, as your mother, it’s fair to expect a little consideration?” might have been fair if the consideration hadn’t involved her demanding things I’d already done for her--which she promptly pretended I hadn’t done, or that I’d done them improperly, or that I hadn’t adequately managed my emotions while doing them.

It’s patronizing enough from a parent. From someone who shares the same rank as you? It’s condescending in the extreme--not to mention entitled.

Do they belittle your accomplishments, your aspirations, your plans or even who you are?

But, of course, Megatron doesn’t respect Rodimus’ rank. Rodimus owns this ship--Drift purchased it as a neutral vessel and I would be genuinely shocked if he didn’t insist on signing it over to Rodimus after convincing Rodimus to let him take the fall. This ship? This is his ship. Optimus had no right to set Megatron up as captain; he didn’t even have the right to forcibly install him on the crew roster.

In fact, if you’ll pardon the brief aside, Rodimus had very fair misgivings about allowing Megatron onto the Lost Light.

Rodimus points out that Megatron is dangerous--this is undeniably true, no matter what your stance is on his character. And Ratchet responds by lying to Rodimus to convince him to let a powerful criminal aboard. Which is, ironically, the same thing that kicked off season one--only this time it’s Megatron instead of Overlord.

Personally, I think that this shows Rodimus has learned his lesson and is trying to avoid a repeat of that particular disaster.

He also offers a great insight into why Optimus is cooking up this outrageous plan:

And, although this is just conjecture, I think that this is part of why Megatron targets Rodimus. He can be insightful--especially when it comes to people and their motivations. This makes him a threat to Megatron’s otherwise nearly unchecked power as captain of this ship. However, he is also susceptible to manipulation, as we saw with Prowl.

Megatron is extremely intelligent and very good at manipulating others; he plays a long game, as Ravage walked us through at the end of DotL. And with the idea that Rodimus tried to bar him from his ‘rightful place’ at the helm of this ship, with the idea that Rodimus was the one chosen by the crew to be captain, I would like to return to the panel at hand...

Here we hear Megatron say--exasperated, belittling--“How many times?” As if this argument should be concluded by now, and Rodimus is being childish to keep forcing the issue.

I’ve heard this exact line in this exact tone too many times from multiple abusers. How many times would I dare to defy them? I wasn’t trying to be defiant; as Rodimus just did, I reminded them of an inconvenient (for them) fact, one they wanted to convince me wasn’t true. I doubt I could list every iteration of this I’ve seen in real life.

This is not something you say to an equal when discussing something that is objective fact. Rodimus is the co-captain, much as Megatron wishes to deny it.

And he continues to deny it. It’s not a real rank. It’s a made-up rank. He is the one true captain, and Rodimus is a recalcitrant second-in-command in denial. Megatron doesn’t have the best track record with those--which Rodimus would be fully aware of. I refuse to believe that the Autobots never saw footage of Starscream’s treatment at Megatron’s hands.

So I think that it makes sense that, rather than push farther when Megatron has already raised his voice, Rodimus redirects. This was a tactic I, too, used to avoid moving from the tension-building phase to the abuse phase in my own relationships.

Do they regularly ridicule, dismiss, disregard your opinions, thoughts, suggestions, and feelings?

This is a pretty obvious example of ridiculing someone’s feelings--and it’s another dig following right on the heels of the last two. Although all three are relatively small, the fact that they come one after another, basically coloring every statement Megatron makes, feels uncomfortably familiar to me.

Even if these are justifiable complaints--which I don’t believe they are, but I recognize they may be open to interpretation--the steady build-up is worrying.

My mother did much the same thing. One mild example was that she would tell me to go wash my face--I had acne, so this could have been reasonable advice. However, it slowly escalated until every time she saw my face, she would suck her breath in between her teeth and cringe. “Go wash your face!” If I complied immediately, there was no reward beyond, “See, isn’t that better?” (Which it wasn’t--the repeated scrubbing made my acne substantially worse.) And even then, within an hour, she would repeat the comment.

And if I didn’t comply? She would keep cringing and insisting until she brought acne pads over to physically drop on top of me before walking off with a smug smile. This despite the fact I was bathing twice a day and scrubbing with one to four of those pads a day. (No wonder my acne got worse, right?)

So when I see these types of minor but incessant insults--nothing big enough that any onlookers would feel comfortable defending Rodimus, nothing serious enough to justify lashing out--it rings alarm bells in my mind.

Furthermore, Rodimus turns away, but Megatron looms right behind him. I find the body language of this interesting--even when Rodimus approached previously, he left roughly an arm’s length between them--enough to not really be getting into Megatron’s bubble despite his frustration. It may be an angle thing, but it seems as though Megatron is closing that distance, subtly physically intimidating Rodimus. He’s closer still in the next panel:

Much less than the almost-arm’s length that Rodimus gave him--and he’s much larger than Rodimus, not to mention more powerful, which means that his physical presence alone can be a weapon. Healing Abuse Working for Change, an abuse prevention group founded in the 70s, specifies “looming over you, getting ‘in your face’ or blocking a doorway” as a variety of physical abuse (source).

Rodimus may have approached Megatron, but he respected Megatron’s space. Megatron did not return the favor--particularly when escalating his ridicule and getting increasingly aggressive in terms of tone and expression.

I’ll discuss other aspects of this panel in a later section--for now I want to focus on the intimidation and the way he insists that it is impossible for Rodimus to do something as adult as ‘take stock’--he is capable of it, but clearly Rodimus is not.

Why? He doesn’t need to state it explicitly; his previous comments are explanation enough. Rodimus is childish for not tailoring his emotional reaction to a traumatic scene to suit Megatron’s needs--and for not conceding the argument to Megatron and arguing about facts.

And when Rodimus turns back to look back at his own corpse?

When you complain do they say that “it was just a joke” and that you are too sensitive?

Rodimus’ head is bowed, and he looks resigned to me. Another red flag, since that was usually how I reacted to that particular brand of abuse, particularly when my ex or mother got into my personal bubble. If I didn’t shut down and comply, I ran the risk of inciting something worse.

Especially coupled with yet another dig at his emotional maturity and sensitivity, this conclusion to their altercation leaves me queasy.

If you have never been in a relationship where this is the norm, it can be hard to fathom exactly how taxing it is. You think that, if it were bad enough, you would notice. You would leave. But none of these comments are quite unreasonable enough to prompt a full-blown fight; none of them are hills worth dying on, particularly for someone who already has (hidden) self-esteem issues.

I’ve heard a metaphor for situations like these. If you place a frog in a boiling pot, they’ll jump out immediately. But if you place them in cool water and gradually turn up the heat, they get used to it. Eventually, they boil--because they were trained to tolerate minor abuses along the way.

Over time, in an environment where nonstop digs are normalized, they become background radiation. Rodimus turns away, unable to fight back against any single point aside from the few attempts at fact-checking and explanation he already made. It’s not worth fighting. It’s not worth pushing. If he pushed harder, maybe--but Megatron knows what he’s doing. He knows how far to push.

He wrote the script, after all: attack, withdraw, isolate.

Of course, if this scene were the only such example in the series, I would put it down to Megatron waking up on the wrong side of the bed and Rodimus not wanting to deal with the grumpiness. It’s the context of the entire series that informs the cycle.

Do they give disapproving, dismissive, contemptuous, or condescending looks, comments, and behavior?

Because this panel--containing a very similar dig--takes place a full year later. Instead of encouraging Rodimus or bantering back at him, he dismisses him.

‘But doodling is a sign of inattention and Rodimus should focus!’ you might say. And you would be wrong. As Time reported, doodling helps people focus. So, while teachers and other authority figures demean it, it’s largely because of the lack of respect they (falsely) believe it implies.

Furthermore, even though no one was aware of it, Rodimus was doodling the lost map to Cyberutopia. It’s possible that he was compulsively driven to carve it--and I do mean compulsive in the true sense of the word.

(An aside: I have obsessive-compulsive disorder and, when unmedicated, perform up to six hours of compulsions a day, so I think I’m qualified to make that call.)

He had merged with the matrix--it reformatted him, in fact. It seems reasonable that having the map lodged in his processor would itch like having a word on the tip of his tongue. His doodling in this case would have been more like filling a genuine physical need.

If you have never experienced a genuine compulsion, I can’t explain the visceral need of it. Fighting it down is much like holding your breath--if you hold out too long, it becomes intolerable. You feel like you will die. Like you are actively dying.

Of course, this is conjecture--it’s entirely possible that his doodling serves only the usual purpose: increased focus. And you know what’s a helluva lot more disrespectful than doing what you need to do to focus? Disguising verbal abuse as jokes.

Do they tease you, use sarcasm as a way to put you down or degrade you?

This example is super upsetting to me. On the surface, yeah, haha, Megatron made a joke, good one, Megs.

But...Rodimus was literally turned inside out. He was left in a dark hallway, alone and in pain, unable to move, unable to speak, for an indeterminate amount of time. Someone violated his mind to remove knowledge so basic it’s fundamental to them as a species.

To make sure not to understate things, let’s ask the psychiatrist who has the most experience with the procedure:

The most painful thing a Cybertronian can ever experience. A mental violation followed by incredible pain.

And that painful-looking mess of organs there in the brig?

That’s Rodimus. Who apparently rushed ahead to shut off the lights and protect the mechs in the brig--mechs who were trapped in place and likely targets for a criminal who likes to feast on ‘sin,’ wouldn’t you say?

Meanwhile Megatron and the others are far enough behind that Sunder has come and gone--turning Rodimus inside out, but not prisoners like Getaway, who were left safely in the dark. The timing, to me, makes it look like Rodimus barely got there in the nick of time.

Which, of course, only gets a disparaging comment from Megatron, who won’t even get off his moral high horse to fight back against Sunder and protect his crew.

Rodimus may or may not be able to hear this condescending comment, but when he comes back to work, fresh out of the medbay? Megatron kicks off by making fun of the experience. Rodimus counters humorlessly--clearly not digging this particular joke--and Megatron follows up with, oh, by the way, the only mech you probably count as a friend these days? Helped me come up with this terrible joke at your expense.

Making fun of your own trauma can be cathartic. Making light of someone else’s trauma, particularly when they’re literally leaving their hospital bed for the first time after the fact? No--that’s cruelty. That’s another example of convincing Rodimus that he’s too sensitive. Can’t he take a joke?

And he does take it--with only a minor dodge. Hence the barbed follow-up.

I would say that this is just an example of a tasteless and poorly thought out joke, but Megatron knows people. We see him manipulate the DJD masterfully--and those are mechs who know him, mechs who know the ins and outs of manipulation and abuse. So I’m inclined to believe that this is deliberate rather than a misstep, especially in light of his follow-up...

He cuts off Rodimus’ attempt to move away from the unpleasant subject by literally talking over him (note the overlap of the speech bubbles) in order to make a ‘joke’ about Rodimus resigning. Which--as we saw in the first scene, as we see in many scenes--is a continual point of contention between them.

Megatron is taking advantage of a moment of probable vulnerability by priming him with a ‘joke’ followed by a comment meant to make him feel alone, and then another ‘joke’ meant to indicate the desired behavior.

This is a pattern I’m familiar with, as you might expect by this point. In the case of my ex, he would use this pattern--making light of something traumatic that had happened to me, following up with a non-apology that referenced the fact that no one wanted to put up with my issues, and then bringing it home with an unsubtle joke about things he wanted to do to me to ‘make me feel better,’ no matter how I tried to indicate my own discomfort.

And I, personally, don’t think that this is any less bad here, even though that was really awful and--after enough rounds of it--inevitably succeeded in getting me to give him what he wanted to make it stop. Because, even if Rodimus seems to be in good spirits, trauma can present itself in different ways. And an experience like that, especially given the complete lack of emotional support he experienced before, during, and after? Yeah, no, I’m not prepared to believe that he's actually unbothered instead of coping by acting tough, not when he tries twice to dodge the ‘joke’.

And I’m also not prepared to believe that Megatron can't see right through that act, especially in light of the fact that he also makes a habit of making fun of Rodimus in front of everyone he can.

Do they make fun of you or put you down in front of others?

Megatron continually puts Rodimus down in front of the crew.

In case the screenshot ends up too small to read, he says, “I hope this puts paid to the notion that I ignore everything my ‘co-captain’ says on the grounds that he’s lazy, petulant, and pathologically ill-suited to command…”

From the air-quotes around ‘co-captain’ to the specific insults he uses, every word of this is supposed to cast himself as the responsible, capable captain and Rodimus as the immature usurper. He maintains a formal voice for his own actions--he’s being magnanimous by agreeing to Rodimus’ rendezvous plan on the planet below. Why, if he doesn’t, Rodimus will probably be petulant and whine about it, so really, any inconvenience is on Rodimus’ unstable emotional state.

Which seems over the top, but look at what he said. He starts by heavily implying that Rodimus shouldn’t be respected as a leader, then follows this assertion with three ‘reasons’ for this.

Lazy - Rodimus goes out of his way--literally--in season one to go on side-quests that help people. He’s always personally willing to go to the frontlines of any conflict he’s willing to risk his crew in. And when the co-captains are each presented with the opportunity to risk their lives for the sake of saving others (Rodimus in #21 and Megatron in #33), they have two very different reactions.

We are shown no panels of Rodimus balking; he immediately allows Perceptor to wire him to the anti-killswitch. When told it might kill him and will certainly destroy the matrix, he says, “There goes our map.” And after spending what might be his last moments telling Minimus the truth about Overlord, he says, “Self-sacrifice, Magnus--it’s cheap. It’s a cheap way out. I need to live so I can make amends and--” before the anti-killswitch cuts him off.

We go on an entire hunt while Megatron avoids coming clean about being able to mass-shift; it’s how we find out Brainstorm is a Decepticon. It takes five pages. And although Megatron agrees in the end, his quote on the matter is, “Oh, I could’ve said something earlier, but here’s a survival tip: when everyone’s lining up to make sacrifices...always get to the back of the queue.”

Which maybe doesn’t qualify as laziness--but it still paints a very different picture than Megatron is doing here.

Another point of fact is that even though Megatron has said in this arc that Rodimus has spent the time since launch hiding, Ravage points out later in the arc that he’s observed the same behavior in Megatron. More on that later--under Double Standards and Projection--but worth noting here to undermine the ‘honesty’ in the lazy point.

Petulant - This particular insult is set up to make Rodimus look emotional and childish. This is a pretty common tactic in abuse--it makes it hard to believe anything the person in question says. After all, they’re a child, do they really know what they’re talking about? Surely they just misremembered. Surely it’s safe to ignore their petulant demands unless you feel like indulging them.

Which is exactly what Megatron is implying he’s doing here. Indulging the whimsy of a child instead of working with the mech who shares his rank.

This particular brand of trivializing is a favorite when setting up for gaslighting, which I’ll talk about later. After all, if you can convince someone they’re immature--that they’re too inexperienced or emotional or downright crazy to trust their own perceptions--then they need to turn to someone with the authority to tell them what the truth is.

And if you can also convince those around the victim that this is true--as the villain does in Gaslight (1944), which gives us the technique’s name--by slandering the victim and undermining their authority, you have others who can ask, ‘Are you sure you didn’t imagine that?’ even when you aren’t around to enforce the reality you want.

The air-quotes around ‘co-captain’ are small, and words like ‘petulant’ are minor--but as Psychology Today’s article on Gaslighting points out, it always starts out slow. These words are weapons--and words have always been Megatron’s weapon of choice.

Pathologically Ill-Suited to Command - The final nail in this sentence’s coffin is this one. As I mentioned above, prepping for gaslighting is easier when you can convince your victim and their would-be support network that the victim is crazy--and here we see Megatron pull out that argument. Pathologically ill-suited to command.

It’s not poor baby Roddy’s fault, you see--his brain isn’t wired for command. He doesn’t have the intelligence of the True Captain. He doesn’t have the stability. He might like to pretend, but these are delusions.

As someone with several mental illnesses (primarily anxiety disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, but also depression), I heard this one a lot. A lot. I tried for years to take crazy as a point of pride; sometimes I still want to. But it’s been used as a weapon against me for years. “Are you insane?” prefaced a lot of furious dismissals of innocent requests I made when I was young, but it sometimes still happens when I try again to interact with my family. I also had panic attacks that got called ‘tantrums’ to trivialize them.

Rodimus likely has PTSD--he’s a veteran with a traumatic childhood, after all--and I’ve seen headcanons that he has ADHD. We also know for a fact that he self-harms--and so do all the people Megatron is addressing, since the cuts were visible all the way until the morning of the day this issue began. (It was even commented on when they were looking at Rodimus’ corpse.)

Casually pathologizing someone who visibly self-harms is an easy way of isolating them. Making it an indication that Rodimus is unfit for command? Easier still. It’s also a ready-made dismissal whenever someone doesn’t like your argument. I could offer examples, but this blurb has gone on long enough as it is--and I think every mentally ill person I know could likewise offer examples of it.

This is far from the only time Megatron publicly insults Rodimus in ways that undermine his credibility as a leader. In fact, he does it often enough to have become an in-joke among the crew between Dark Cybertron and the first arc of season 2:

This is the first arc in season 2. The first arc. And yet they’re already saying that Megatron always says this.

Which...isn’t really fair. Rodimus isn’t an engineer. If you review the scene in issue one, he gives the order to jump, and no one tells him that the engines aren’t ready until after they’ve malfunctioned, and even then they can’t tell him why. He immediately has them set down and refuses to take off until they’ve figured out exactly what went wrong--which seems responsible to me.

But, of course, anything that goes wrong can become Rodimus’ fault, even if he wasn’t the one responsible.

Megatron also deliberately insults Rodimus in front of Ultra Magnus, the mech who was, once Drift left, probably the closest thing to a friend Rodimus had on the ship:

Note the way he frames it: “a crisis in morale precipitated by his own woeful captaincy.”

We know people actually liked the Rodimus Stars, even though they were ridiculous. Maybe because they were ridiculous. We saw that in the Trailcutter Spotlight, where the entire story revolved around characters like Trailcutter and Swerve trying to get Rodimus Stars.

Yes, it’s silly. He doesn’t have a great system for passing them out. But that’s not what Megatron focuses on--instead he once again targets Rodimus’ supposed ineptitude.

Am I boring you to tears yet? It’s five hundred insults that all make the same point, one after another, to everyone he can get to listen, for over a year.

Until eventually…

Even the mechs that once supported him are instead convinced that Megatron is correct. Rodimus is incompetent, incapable of leadership--Minimus is comfortable joining Megatron in mocking Rodimus after he took a long weekend off to do something he enjoys.

Something I find interesting about this is that they accuse him of disappearing when there’s work to be done, but he has no idea whatsoever what the work they’re doing is.

In fact, he doesn’t know anything about the situation at all. He’s been gone three days, and they clearly hadn’t started decorating before he left. He even makes the reasonable suggestion of maybe just maybe avoiding the death zone, even if he goes with Megatron’s reasoning in the end.

This implies to me that he didn’t know there was work to be done. Either it came up after he left, or he wasn’t properly informed before he left.

As for the ‘not returning their calls’ bit--I suspect that meteor storms might interfere with comms. I’m fairly sure that’s a repeated subplot in most sci-fi I’ve seen, and the Lost Light’s comms aren’t especially robust at the best of times, let alone whatever handheld or internal unit Rodimus might’ve had.

Leaving things in the hands of Megatron and Minimus for three days--just a long weekend--isn’t irresponsible. Everyone deserves to be allowed to have hobbies. Everyone deserves to have a long weekend now and again, no matter their job. But Megatron has turned this--along with a laundry list of things he himself does--into a way to justify isolating Rodimus.

Isolation

How isolated is Rodimus? Since season two started, there have been no scenes of Rodimus spending downtime with anyone--until Drift returns, the one friend who hasn’t been exposed to months of Megatron’s unending degradation and insults.

It’s possible I missed a scene in my reread, but even though every other member of the group who ends up on the Necroplanet in Dying of the Light has at least a panel of casual or friendly interaction with others, the closest I found for Rodimus was the scene when he was fresh out of the medbay and Megatron made fun of him. Not promising, to say the least.

From all the available evidence, I’d say that Rodimus is an extrovert. He seems more energized in front of crowds, he was so charismatic he was partly responsible for short-circuiting the personality ticks, and he does things like naming his favorite crowd the Rod Squad. He likes people, clearly--and he’s shown repeatedly to care about protecting his crew, as well as total strangers.

He also habitually seeks external validation because of his low self-esteem. Without this kind of support, he resorts to self-harm (see the numbers he carved into his palm) and other unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Again--planning to do a Rodimus meta at some point. For now, let’s roll with the idea that he’s a social mech who craves being around others and needs external validation to function, which I don’t think is particularly difficult to believe.

The lack of interpersonal interaction in season two--alongside the belittling comments he faces when he does interact with others--indicate that he’s isolated. He’s a charismatic mech; that’s part of how he helped to kill off the personality ticks. And yet by the time they leave for the Necroplanet, he’s receiving no external validation, no interpersonal support, nothing. He’s alone.

He may not be the best at friendship--but neither are Whirl, Cyclonus, or Swerve, all of whom end up with strong friendships and support networks. Considering the previous section and Megatron’s clear attempts to isolate Rodimus, one can only surmise that he was ultimately successful in cutting him off even from Minimus.

So what does Megatron accomplish by shutting out all sources of external validation, anyone who might rebuild Rodimus after Megatron verbally tears him down?

In my experience, he’s setting himself up to have power over Rodimus. Remember--Rodimus is so full of self-doubt even before the beginning of the series that he reaches out to Ratchet, only to get shot down there. (“Beneath my cocksure exterior I have terribly low self-esteem.”) No longer able to lean heavily on Drift for emotional support and cut off from any positive reinforcement, he’s put in an extremely vulnerable place.

I, too, am an extrovert. Sometimes I’m fairly sure that it makes me intolerable to be around, especially since I do the same reassurance-seeking behavior as Rodimus. If I go too long without interacting with friends, my depression makes a bitter comeback.

Yes, it would be awfully nice if I could go without social interaction or reassurance or positive external feedback in general, and certainly no one is obligated to provide such things for me. But the fact of the matter remains that without these things, I’m left vulnerable and hungry for any scrap of affection I can find.

And, in my experience? My abusers have deliberately starved me from outside attention to put me in that vulnerable state. It was easiest for my mother, which isn’t surprising; she already had absolute power over where I went and who I saw. What she didn’t have--and what she wanted more than anything--was my undivided attention and affection.

So when I displeased her--and there were quite a lot of ways to upset her--one tactic she used was cutting me off from other sources of support. People who could verify that she’d said one thing on Tuesday morning and something radically different by Wednesday night. People who could help me cope with the nonstop insults, the micromanaging, the unbearable pressure.

Without them? I crumbled. I did anything my mother asked--and I apologized when I did it ‘wrong,’ or if I had ‘misunderstood’ the order she’d changed halfway through my obeying it, or if she’d simply forgotten that I had, in fact, obeyed her already. She was the only one who could arbitrate the Truth; I didn’t have anyone else to turn to.

My siblings and I banded together sometimes to stave this off, but at other times they behaved more like Minimus--going along with Mom to keep the peace, to keep her focused on me instead of them, or just because they actually agreed with her, I can’t quite be sure. In the end, I’m not sure that it matters.

For a specific example--I was required to hug my mother and tell her I loved her before I went to bed every night. One night, I could tell she was sleepy when I hugged her, but she said, “I love you, too,” so I thought I was safe.

No such luck--she woke up at two in the morning convinced that I hadn’t hugged her good night or said I loved her. She burst into my room, sobbing and shouting, and I had to stumble out of bed and try to calm her down.

I’m fairly confident that she didn’t cite that as the direct reason for the ensuing silent treatment and enforced ‘family time’ that meant I couldn’t see friends for a while, but the timing was suspicious.

We see this general pattern a few times with Megatron and Rodimus, as well, the most recent of which was in Lost Light #4. I’ll cover other aspects of that later, but, for now:

Transgression: Rodimus asked about teleporters.

Warning: “Hush.”

Withdrawal: “Not now, Rodimus.”

Isolation: Public humiliation.

And that pattern--do something ‘wrong’ to earn punishment, an initial outburst, pulling back with the silent treatment, and then isolating them from others as a way to build tension for a final blowout? Uh...

That’s a script Megatron wrote a long time ago, and he knows exactly how effective it can be.

Ultimately, what Megatron gets out of setting himself up as the only one to interact one-on-one with Rodimus is a lack of oversight, a lack of outside influence, and--if he presses hard enough, if he twists Rodimus around for long enough, if he sways the opinions of enough of the crew--eventually he might succeed in becoming sole captain of their merry band. With Minimus in his pocket? It’d be a recipe for total control over not just Rodimus, but the entire group.

Rage

“This is an intense, furious anger that comes out of nowhere… It startles and shocks the victim into compliance or silence.” (“Eight Mental Abuse Tactics Narcissists Use on Spouses” by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC)

This is what most people think of when they picture abuse--the most violent of the symptoms. It’s also the one that Megatron has deliberately been keeping in check, pulling it out only when the long game he’s playing is at risk of being cut short.

I have said before that abuse can only be viewed in a pattern--one instance of shouting doesn’t necessarily make an abusive relationship. In the context of an abusive relationship, however, even one instance of rage is a powerful tool for controlling someone. Even if someone never again takes it ‘that far,’ the victim remembers. And they know that the threat is always going to be present.

When I was fifteen, I did something to upset my mother. To this day, I have no memory of exactly what I did wrong. What I do remember is my mother taking a book and slamming it against my temple so hard that it knocked me to the floor. She then grabbed me by the hair and dragged me up to scream in my face. I remember being held high enough that my knees weren’t on the floor, but my legs were still bent--the only point of contact I had with the world was my toes. I remember being so terrified that I had no idea what she was saying other than the tone, the way spit hit my face. She then stormed out of the house and blamed me for it.

The older of my two younger sisters tried to run away that night, and I nearly jumped off the roof of our house. I remember very clearly that the only reason I didn’t was because I was convinced that I would only break my legs, and she would use it as an excuse to trap me at home with her.

Beyond that, my memories blur. I remember that either that night--or perhaps another night--my littlest sister caught our mother’s attention. I remember making an attempt to distract our mother. Was that why she attacked me? I don’t remember. Did I make her more upset? I don’t remember, although I recall fearing I had. What I do remember is the moment that she grabbed my seven-year-old sister and threw her--physically threw her--out of the way. My sister landed wrong--on her wrist--and broke a bone. I remember her crying. I remember my mother telling her to shut up. I remember that it took a while before Mom took her to the hospital, and then that we were all ordered not to tell anyone how she’d broken the wrist.

Aside from these instances, my mother never laid a hand on any of us.

She never had to. It’s been twelve years--almost thirteen years--and I still feel it every time we interact. I remember that she’s capable of it. I remember that she was willing to shift her rage onto the more easily accessible target despite my best efforts. All the way until I moved out--and beyond then, and into the present--it’s kept me from being willing to confront her about some of the worse things she says and does.

It’s been over a decade and I don’t think I’ll ever forget that fear. For a while, I was so deeply afraid of even sharing the story--after being ordered to be silent about it--that I think I’ve only told a few of my closest friends and my therapist. The only reason I’m sharing it now is because I’m posting this anonymously. Because, at heart, I am still afraid.

Now, I could cover the handful of examples of Megatron hitting characters here. I could make conjectures about how Rodimus cares more about the wellbeing of others than his own, and threats of violence against characters like Trailcutter, Perceptor, and Minimus would be more likely to keep him in line than violence against his own person. I know that was true for me.

But none of those were done directly in front of Rodimus, even though he would have heard about them later. That makes it harder to draw conclusions about without wandering a bit too far off panel. So I’ll be discussing physical violence in those characters’ subsections--and for now, I’ll be looking at the times Megatron has threatened violence directly at Rodimus.

In context, Rodimus respectfully said that he and the others were reporting for duty; he even saluted. Megatron then ordered all of them to carry Ravage back to Ratchet, and Rodimus objected.

What was his objection? Was it, ‘but this is only half of Ravage, and even Ratchet probably needs both halves to repair him’? Was it, ‘but there are a lot of us, and probably we don’t all need to carry Ravage, so maybe some of us could stay and help’? We don’t get to find out, because Megatron doesn’t accept any objection to his orders, no matter how softly or respectfully put.

In this scene, with the DJD nearby, his long game is, as I said, at risk of being cut short. So he breaks out the rage to terrify Rodimus into unquestioning compliance.

What’s more, it worked. They all fled.

Maybe this doesn’t look like violence to some of you. But his expression and the way he towers over Rodimus as he screams? Looks almost identical to my mother’s face in the anecdote I shared above. And to me, that screaming was violence.

In fact, screaming like that was the only kind of violence my abusive ex-boyfriend perpetrated against me. He was physically larger than me; he would get me cornered in a bus seat and loom over me exactly like this while screaming insults. And I know for a fact that some people don’t think this counts, or believe this behavior can be justified--when I reached out to the older of my two younger sisters about how he kept doing this, she told me that I deserved it, and she wasn’t the only one.

As a result, in the context of Megatron’s treatment of Rodimus, and in the context of this being a tool that worked to control him, I would personally count it as an abusive tactic--one that I believe was deliberate. Especially since he never apologized.

And then, almost immediately after Rodimus risks his life to save Megatron…

Rodimus is standing directly behind Ratchet as they try to convince him to pretty please put down the gun, as we can see in the next panel:

And, of course, Megatron pulls the gun on them--all of them. And Rodimus, the one who brought him through the portal, the one who rescued him, is looking down the barrel of a fusion cannon over Ratchet’s shoulder. This group of mechs--the Rod Squad, his favorite people--are all being threatened.

And then Megatron says that it’s time he left, and it’s hard not to think, under the circumstances, that he means he’s done playing at being an Autobot, done being nice. He’s wearing Tarn’s mask as a deceptibrand, for goodness’ sake! For all intents and purposes, at this moment, it looks like Megatron is through with the quest and has no intention of going to trial.

A few days later--or however long it takes them to build the Den and end up on Functionist Cybertron--you can see that Rodimus is still thinking about this:

There are other potential explanations, of course, but--in context? I find it both telling and worrying that Rodimus’ instinctive reaction when Megatron shouts his name is a full-frame flinch. Not with battle prep or defensive stances or anything that would indicate he learned this response from being ordered around in battle. Just the same sort of flinch I still sometimes get when my mother raises her voice.

And, although it’s been a bit since I used this format, let’s answer another question from the checklist:

Do they accuse you of something contrived in their own minds when you know it isn’t true?

This is the last example I’m going to use for rage--and a tirade like this is an example of out-of-nowhere fury used to shock Rodimus into silence.

The thing is? Megatron pulled all of this out of his tin-plated ass.

In this scene, Rodimus did not once mention the Lost Light. He only tries to ask about the teleporters, and then Megatron derails him with this.

Now, I’m going to give JRo the benefit of the doubt, here. Instead of assuming he’s forgotten about Nyon--the core of Rodimus’ backstory--and abandoned Rodimus’ main driving force as a character by having him sacrifice others to get what he wants instead of, y’know, literally being willing to risk his life saving people at every single opportunity he’s ever had… Instead of pinning writing that terrible on JRo, I’m going to assume instead that Megatron cut off and then derailed Rodimus before he could suggest what he actually had in mind. Misunderstandings and assumptions being thwarted both play a role in JRo’s writing, after all.

And, with any thought at all, it actually makes perfect sense that Rodimus might need teleporters for a plan--for saving the people of this Cybertron, not for tracking down the Lost Light. These mechs aren’t safe on Cybertron, even in this supposed ‘sanctuary city’--and there’s no way to transport all of them offworld. There are too many of them--we see veritable thousands in the streets.

So how do you save everyone? Do you start another war to rise up against your oppressors--because the first one went so well--or do you get everyone the hell off the planet?

Sure, maybe Rodimus wants to use the teleporter after the fact. I’d be surprised if he didn’t--he left half the crew he still has on a distant planet with a bunch of potentially dangerous strangers.

As for why Rodimus responds to this accusation the way he does instead of by saying what he actually intended--have you ever been accused of the worst thing? Something that is so antithetical to your character that you feel like the person accusing you of it has never interacted with you? How could you have given this person the idea that you would ever, in a million years ever, consider doing what they’ve just accused you of?

Well, you see, that confusion? That disorientation? The scrambling to find any common ground to argue on and finding that you have no footing because you don’t even know what to expect--what’s real and what you’ve made up? Leaving you floundering to counter a point in a way that at least connects to their reality?

That’s another abuse tactic. And it’s called gaslighting.

Gaslighting

“Narcissistic mental abusers lie about the past, making their victim doubt her memory, perception, and sanity. They claim and give evidence of her past wrong behavior further causing doubt. She might even begin to question what she said a minute ago.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

I have more experience with gaslighting than literally any other form of abuse, to the point that I still struggle to believe that my memory isn’t just faulty, that I’m not just overreacting, that these things really did happen, that I’m not the one making things up. That’s why I extensively cite every point I make: I feel as though no one will trust me or my word, but maybe if I bring in enough data points--enough hard facts--it’ll make up for the fact that I’m the one writing it.

Gaslighting seems so minor, and it is so hard to point to examples when you’re living in it. Even the extensive trauma I described above doesn’t hold a candle to the scars left by decades of gaslighting. I cannot overstate how deeply emotionally scarring it is, the way it can change the entire way you see the world, the way it makes trusting yourself and others almost impossible at times.

This is a hard section for me to write. Perhaps the hardest, in fact, and I say that despite the fact that writing the last section gave me flashback nightmares so intense I couldn’t sleep for three days. To get through the experience, I’m using the framework offered by the article linked in the above description and referencing other sections of this meta post. Any brevity in this section is a result not of a lack of evidence in canon but of an overabundance of my own trauma.

And with that disclaimer, let’s dig in.

They deny they ever said something, even though you have proof.

“You know they said they would do something; you know you heard it. But they out and out deny it. It makes you start questioning your reality—maybe they never said that thing. And the more they do this, the more you question your reality and start accepting theirs.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

I would personally amend this to say that they deny they ever said or did something, even if you have proof. This can range quite a lot:

“Mom, you said that you’d already picked up the stuff for my school project, but I can’t find it anywhere. Where is it?”

“You never even told me you had a project! This is what happens when you leave everything to the last minute.”

“But I have your text message right here?”

“Let me see that. No, no, that’s not what I meant at all, why would you think that was what I meant? Are you stupid?”

Which was a pretty staple ‘misunderstanding’ in our house, but less frustrating than the times my mother’s reaction to evidence was to say, “I swear to God that I never said that, and if I’m lying, may He strike me down where I stand!” Which was, unfortunately, at least as common--more common, actually, when we were in public. And when God didn’t smite her, she gave us a smug smile and considered herself proven right.

As this escalated--gradually, over the course of my entire childhood--eventually she built to a moment so big and so obvious that I actually realized what she was doing. That it wasn’t forgetfulness. That it wasn’t a case of repeated misunderstandings. That she was reconstructing reality as it suited her, and I was powerless to stop her.

What moment could possibly have been jarring enough to open my eyes to that? I talked in the rage section about the night my mother knocked me to the ground and hauled me up by my hair. What I didn’t tell you is that after she dropped me back to the floor again, I looked up at her and, still sobbing, asked her why she’d hit me in the head with her address book.

“I didn’t,” she said, still towering over me as I lay curled on the floor. “I would never.”

“Then--” Maybe it was her hand, I thought. Maybe I was confused. I felt so disoriented and terrified and I didn’t understand what was happening. “Then why did you pull my hair?”

“I didn’t,” and she looked angry enough to do it all over again. “It must have gotten caught in the zipper.”

The zipper, of course, being on the address book she’d just denied smacking me with.

When I tried to point out this logical flaw, she redirected--and then stormed out of the house, blaming me for the fact that she needed to abandon us. Even though she came home a few hours later, the guilt worked--and I was too afraid to bring up the incident ever again.

And here’s where I’ll be frank--I said that that incident opened my eyes. And it did--but not that night. That night, I was terrified I’d imagined the whole thing. I had no evidence. She’d hit me, but it hadn’t left a mark. She’d pulled me up by the hair to bellow in my face, but I couldn’t even remember what she’d said.

If my siblings hadn’t been there to question her with me--to reaffirm it had actually happened--to be honest? I might to this day believe it was a nightmare. That she’d never actually laid a hand on me. And that’s what long-term, slow-build gaslighting does.

So--a few small denials, a pointed redirection whenever holes get poked at, all of that seems trivial in comparison, I’m sure. But it builds. It has to start small if the abuser hopes to normalize it. Because, at first? You question them. You start hoarding evidence. But if it goes on long enough? You start to question yourself. You start to question any evidence that you, personally, collected. Eventually you’re left questioning yourself so often that you stop questioning them.

Which is why even minor instances of gaslighting--if they’re part of an abusive pattern--should be noted as soon as possible.

In this case, Megatron asserts he’s been saying something when Rodimus has proof that he hasn’t even been around to say it. He says it both to belittle Rodimus and to set up a reality where he’s been dutifully doing his job instead of secretly doing prep work for the ultimate supervillain device in his habsuite (I’m talking, of course, about the antimatter he spends months channeling, almost certainly in violation of his parole).

Before you doubt Rodimus--and I wouldn’t be surprised if you did, because another goal of gaslighting is to make others doubt the perception of the victim--I’ll point out that Ultra Magnus also comments on Megatron hiding himself away.

So Megatron was lying to begin with--he hasn’t been saying that for weeks. He hasn’t been in a position to say anything to Rodimus for weeks. And when called out on it, he neither apologizes for the lie nor even allows time to address the fact that he did so. Instead, he picks something we know to be a sore point--and therefore a good distraction.

Taking stock, not sulking. Because, as Rodimus clearly remembers:

And from the way Rodimus reacts? Especially given my own experiences? I would guess that this wasn’t the only time Megatron said it--just the only time caught on camera, so to speak.

Also, yes--in the next panel, Megatron claims that he’s been working, something that both Ultra Magnus and Rodimus have both confirmed isn’t true. The truth is that he’s channeling antimatter for his own purposes--regardless of whether he eventually uses them to benefit the others, with no one aware he’s setting this up, he has no oversight.

They tell blatant lies.

“You know it's an outright lie. Yet they are telling you this lie with a straight face. Why are they so blatant? Because they're setting up a precedent. Once they tell you a huge lie, you're not sure if anything they say is true. Keeping you unsteady and off-kilter is the goal.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

These lies, in my experience, can range from nearly inconsequential to the extreme. My mother would routinely tell me that I hadn’t said something that my siblings later confirmed I said, but that could be dismissed as forgetfulness or poor hearing. She would also tell me that I’d promised to do something when we’d never discussed the matter in the first place, then tell me that I was the one forgetting. That was a little harder to handle--my siblings didn’t listen to every conversation between me and Mom, so I had no one to back me up. It’s much more difficult to prove you never discussed something than to prove that you did.

But, like I said--minor. Hard to prove or disprove. These tiny lies make it hard to trust reality and harder to trust your memory or judgment. These are also almost impossible to point to when discussing abuse with those who have never experienced it, because they look like misunderstandings at worst. It’s insidious and frustrating and only when you get to a big lie--the kind you build up to over years (or after more than twenty issues)--that you can point to it and say, “See? I have proof. I can prove this time it isn’t true!”

Megatron is claiming--genuinely daring to claim--that he was the one to first suggest stopping to help people along the way. When he’s been complaining about Rodimus’ so-called “side-quests” since day one. In season one alone, we saw them stop on the DJD homeworld so Ratchet could help cure a plague, Temptoria to rescue prisoners being used as batteries, and, eventually, the Big Hero moment when Tailgate uses a semicolon to save them all.

Except something that nobody seems to talk about in season two--as far as I’ve found, at least--is the fact that Rodimus is actually the one who saved all the constructed cold mechs with the help of Perceptor. Tailgate shutting off the suggestion beam and shutting down the Legislators was also critical to the operation’s success, of course, and I’m hardly going to say that Tailgate doesn’t deserve his due credit, but Rodimus was also fully ready to die for a universe of strangers.

I covered this above when talking about how Megatron called him lazy, but let’s pull in the panels for comparison’s sake.

Here we see Rodimus getting hooked up without a single panel of hesitation. As soon as they were ready to wire him in, he went.

He asks if it’ll kill him and has no qualms when he’s given a decided maybe.

And when he does save the CC mechs, you would expect, wouldn’t you, that he would never let anyone else forget it. After all, everyone (especially Megatron) insists he’s a self-centered jerk. But he lets Tailgate take full credit, and the only mention of Rodimus’ role in the proceedings after the fact comes when Optimus gets angry at him for destroying the Matrix.

Meanwhile Megatron drags his feet for five pages as the foam gets progressively worse and more dangerous, hoping they’ll find Brainstorm’s shrink ray so that someone else can go in his place.

But it was Megatron--who stays on the ship, who sends mechs to do battle but spares himself from the dirty work that would strip him of his self-righteous high horse--who first had the idea to help people. Right. One hundred percent his idea, and Rodimus should have told him they were saving organics so he could leave them to die.

It’s a lie. It’s a big enough lie that anyone could point to it and objectively prove that it’s not true. But Megatron says it, and Rodimus placates him instead of fighting him on it. He’s just happy that lives are getting saved; he doesn’t try to take any of the credit.

I find it unpleasantly relatable that Rodimus’ first reaction is no longer to correct Megatron, as he once did--in fact, as he did in the last example where we caught Megatron out in an obvious lie--but instead to offer him something to calm him down. Something to mitigate fallout. Something I, myself, have done countless times.

Their actions do not match their words.

“When dealing with a person or entity that gaslights, look at what they are doing rather than what they are saying. What they are saying means nothing; it is just talk. What they are doing is the issue.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

I want to write a separate meta post about Megatron’s bullshit redemption arc because I don’t want my opinions on that to distract from the primary point I’m trying to make with this meta. However, it also fits this point to an almost ludicrous degree.

Rather than break down Megatron’s entire character arc, I’ll focus on a few relevant points and save the rest for another post.

What Megatron says: “I am on this quest to make amends by finding a new world for our people after destroying our original planet.”

What Megatron does: never apologizes to the people he wronged using his own words, takes control of a privately owned neutral vessel with the help of a mech who holds no democratically appointed position nor has any kind of oversight, deliberately sends them three jumps off course to the necroplanet for the express purpose of derailing the quest.

What Megatron says: “I’ve renounced violence.”

What Megatron does: continues to send others into battles he’s not willing to fight, refuses to act even when it means that his crew will likely suffer casualties, orders acts of violence from behind the protective distance of a screen.

What Megatron says: “It’s not about me! I am taking a vow of pacifism because, if I were to pick up a weapon again, I would be unstoppable.”

What Megatron does: continues to reach for the dark matter that would make him unstoppable (even at the cost of shirking his duties--note that he missed Brainstorm’s trial), continues to risk the lives of others--apparently, by this logic, for their own good.

I could go into greater depth--I hope that someday I will get to tear this particular topic open--but, for now, I’ll leave it at this. What Megatron says can be very pretty, particularly if you ignore the overblown narcissism hidden in the message, but in practice it’s functionally worthless. He does virtually nothing to actually advance the honorable goals he’s espousing--only enough to make himself look good and noble.

This is something my mother and ex excel at. My mother can talk anyone into believing she’s a good and loving person who gives everything she has for us kids, tailoring how she frames her beliefs to most please whoever her audience is. Growing up, I heard a lot about how lucky I was to have such a loving and wonderful mom. My mom has even been able to talk me in circles--‘I only threatened you with a pray-away-the-gay camp because I wanted you to know you had other options! I didn’t want you to be bullied, so I had no choice but to completely isolate you from your DFAB friends any time your sexual orientation came up!’

Only, uh, of course I’m not framing that the way she did. That’s just what all the pretty talk amounted to. I only picked it apart years after moving out of the house.

Actions speak louder than words--because in situations with this brand of abuse, words are just tools to further the abuse, not tools for honest communication. With gaslighting, especially, words are meant to confuse.

They know confusion weakens people.

“Gaslighters know that people like having a sense of stability and normalcy. Their goal is to uproot this and make you constantly question everything. And humans' natural tendency is to look to the person or entity that will help you feel more stable—and that happens to be the gaslighter.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

Gaslighting has profound effects over time. In “Identifying Victims of Narcissistic Abuse” on Psych Central, the provided list offers some idea of the scope of the damage that victims endure.

What I find most interesting about that list in the context of this meta post, though, is that it increasingly describes Rodimus as season two of MTMTE and then Lost Light each progress. From second guessing and increasing difficulty concentrating and making decisions to being highly strung and irritable to fear responses when Megatron says his name, this all actually adds up to a potentially realistic picture of how trauma can affect someone.

It’s not pretty. In fact, it can leave people looking and feeling unstable, which adds further fuel to the gaslighting fire.

I can’t say for sure whether JRo intends Rodimus’ increasingly erratic (and, at times, desperate and out of character) behavior to be read as a response to this prolonged abuse. I hope he does--it makes more sense to me than the alternatives.

Especially since this particular article on gaslighting goes on to cover many of the points I’ve already addressed in this meta, which I think hammers home their severity.

They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition.

“They know how important your kids are to you, and they know how important your identity is to you. So those may be one of the first things they attack. If you have kids, they tell you that you should not have had those children. They will tell you'd be a worthy person if only you didn't have a long list of negative traits. They attack the foundation of your being.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

I could rehash this point--but I’ve already spent several thousand words on it. From mocking the Rod Pod to tearing down Rodimus’ identity as a leader and a hero to rattling off reason after reason why he’s worthless, the entire degradation section could fit under this bullet point.

They wear you down over time.

“This is one of the insidious things about gaslighting—it is done gradually, over time. A lie here, a lie there, a snide comment every so often...and then it starts ramping up. Even the brightest, most self-aware people can be sucked into gaslighting—it is that effective. It's the "frog in the frying pan" analogy: The heat is turned up slowly, so the frog never realizes what's happening to it.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

Once again, a point I covered in previous sections. Abuse builds up bit by bit, allowing the abuser to skate by without being called out. What would have looked like a vicious and unfair tirade at the beginning of the abuse--uncalled for and baseless--eventually looks like a righteous ‘dressing down’ of a petulant child.

They tell you or others that you are crazy.

“This is one of the most effective tools of the gaslighter, because it's dismissive. The gaslighter knows if they question your sanity, people will not believe you when you tell them the gaslighter is abusive or out-of-control. It's a master technique.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

This is the reason I homed in on that particular choice of words by Megatron in the degradation section. It seems like it’s no big deal--all varieties of this abuse seem like they’re no big deal. Until they build and build and suddenly everyone believes--both in the comic and in the fandom--that Rodimus deserves the treatment he receives at Megatron’s hands and should not be trusted with any serious task. Everyone immediately believes the worst of him in every situation.

They try to align people against you.

“Gaslighters are masters at manipulating and finding the people they know will stand by them no matter what—and they use these people against you. They will make comments such as, "This person knows that you're not right," or "This person knows you're useless too." Keep in mind it does not mean that these people actually said these things. A gaslighter is a constant liar. When the gaslighter uses this tactic it makes you feel like you don't know who to trust or turn to—and that leads you right back to the gaslighter. And that's exactly what they want: Isolation gives them more control.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

And here we have the final critical point I covered above--the result of all the dismissive comments, the intention behind the isolation. No one trusts Rodimus’ judgment. No one trusts Rodimus to even have good intentions anymore.

It’s a personal hell for someone as extroverted as Rodimus--and it could all end if he ceded power to Megatron. And wouldn’t that be easier?

They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you.

“This person or entity that is cutting you down, telling you that you don't have value, is now praising you for something you did. This adds an additional sense of uneasiness. You think, "Well maybe they aren't so bad." Yes, they are. This is a calculated attempt to keep you off-kilter—and again, to question your reality. Also look at what you were praised for; it is probably something that served the gaslighter.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

This seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? If you’re spending months or years breaking someone down, why would you ever throw in a compliment?

The thing is, this particular brand of abuse--this variety of manipulation--makes the victim especially susceptible to praise as a weapon. When starved of praise, it’s natural to crave it. And in two rereads of season 2? I found exactly one instance of someone praising Rodimus. In issue 43, Rodimus says that Swerve called him the best dancer he’d ever seen. Other than that? Nothing. I reread twice specifically looking for positive comments about Rodimus, and there was absolutely nothing for him.

I was lucky enough to have friends who told me that I was worth something even when I was being abused. And even then, I craved praise from my mother more than anyone--both because she’d conditioned me to look to her above all the others, and because she was the one who was the hardest to please.

Of course, when she did praise me, it was either performative--‘look what a good mother I am’--or it was to get me to do something that I desperately did not want to do. “You’re such a good daughter, (name)--I know you actually do love us. That’s why you’re looking forward to this three month trip (where you’ll have no contact with any of your friends and no means of escape), right?”

And I went. So help me, once she pulled out that card, I honestly believed I had no choice but to go. Every summer, I fell in line.

If I’d been as starved of praise as Rodimus had--if my mother had succeeded in fully isolating me as she so often tried to do--I don’t think I could have pushed back on any subject at all.

At the start of Lost Light, the issue summary indicates it’s been five years since the ship first took off. Assuming half of that was during season two, that’s two and a half years--during which we only have evidence of a single, passing compliment. Especially for someone like Rodimus, that’s downright devastating.

And then Megatron drops this bomb during their most critical argument:

It works.

Rodimus stops pushing. Rodimus stops fighting him. Stops begging him to help them not die by standing with them instead of watching them fight from a screen, directing them in how to die. (Which he doesn’t do, by the way--he makes no contact with the group once they leave until he strides out onto the battlefield.)

This is the antithesis of everything Megatron has said for the last two-ish years. This is everything that Rodimus has wanted to hear.

It’s pure manipulation, of course--Megatron goes back to doubting Rodimus’ leadership and judgment without a single pause. He doesn’t hear Rodimus out on the battlefield or on functionist Cybertron. If this compliment had been genuine? He would have.

But no. It was a means to an end, and it worked. Rodimus did exactly as Megatron wanted. As Megatron knew he would.

The final point the article on gaslighting brings up is one I want to address separately--projection and double standards.

Projection

“They dump their issues onto their victim as if she were the one doing it. For instance, narcissistic mental abusers may accuse their spouse of lying when they have lied. Or they make her feel guilty when he is really guilty. This creates confusion.” (“Eight Mental Abuse Tactics Narcissists Use on Spouses” by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC)

“They are a drug user or a cheater, yet they are constantly accusing you of that. This is done so often that you start trying to defend yourself, and are distracted from the gaslighter's own behavior.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

Megatron has claimed--first to Optimus and later to everyone who would listen--that he would find success where Rodimus found failure. It was part of his sales pitch to avoid imprisonment until his retrial.

So he said then, when they had no map and their only plan was to track down Thunderclash, who was having visions to guide him toward Cyberutopia. And, once they’d found him, the map he’d carved was destroyed in the fight with the personality ticks, leaving them rudderless once again.

Or so it seemed.

Up until this point, Megatron has disapproved of Rodimus taking supposedly pointless sidequests. However, as soon as Rodimus produces a hand-carved map to Cyberutopia, he changes his tune.

Rodimus has just very reasonably expressed that Cyberutopia is in the opposite direction and given his position as co-captain: they need to stay on task and find the Knights. Here, Megatron overrides him without even acknowledging that, technically speaking, he doesn’t have veto power. Of course he gets the final say even if they share the same rank. Why shouldn’t he? Co-captain is a position made up for Rodimus’ ego; if Megatron decides that it’s time for a literally pointless sidequest, then it’s time to start getting the quantum engine jumping.

He looks so smug as Rodimus arches an optic ridge in the background. No one questions Megatron’s authority to make the executive override here, though, including Ultra Magnus, who would be the one in the best position to point out that the captains share a rank and Megatron can’t just arbitrarily ignore the chain of command. Ultra Magnus is also probably the closest thing Rodimus has to a friend on the ship, and he still doesn’t speak in Rodimus’ support here.

Even though, by the terms of the quest and Megatron’s parole? Rodimus is the one clearly in the right.

Megatron has been accusing Rodimus of shirking responsibility, of laziness, and at one point of not having the steel to face his own death (in the form of his corpse). And yet, when they can finally actually get on the right path--when Rodimus has hand-delivered a map--his first action is specifically to derail the quest.

And for what possible reason?

Because of character flaws he’s been accusing Rodimus of since day one.

Of not facing his death quickly enough.

Of not even being able to start the quest--when, of the two of them, Megatron is the one who sent them deliberately off course as soon as he could.

Of vanishing when work needs to be done.

This is all par for the course with projection. It can look coincidental; it can even on occasion look well-intentioned. But it ultimately comes from a self-centered place where the one doing the projection can have a few possible motives.

Self-Centered Motive 1: Being unable to conceive of motives separate from those they would have.

Self-Centered Motive 2: Being unable to conceive of being wrong about someone’s internal motivations--or, indeed, about any assessment they make.

Self-Centered Motive 3: Deliberately using the projection to cover for one’s own behavior. (This isn’t necessarily indicative of shame or guilt; it can be done to draw attention away from behavior they believe they will face repercussions for when they would like to continue perpetrating said behavior.)

Self-Centered Motive 4: Deliberately using the project to confuse and disorient an abuse victim, putting them on the defensive. (After all, “No, you,” is an argument that could be regurgitated by a ‘petulant’ two-year-old and therefore easy to dismiss, particularly when you habitually tell others that your victim is just childish and overly sensitive.)

The first and second motives are unlikely to be the case for Megatron, who is a master-class strategist used to dealing with schemers. He wouldn’t be able to remain several steps ahead if he was unable to read intentions behind other people’s choices. He also wouldn’t have lasted particularly long as leader of the Decepticons if he couldn’t infer the motivations of others.

Meanwhile, motives three and four would serve him extremely well, particularly in this situation. If he spends sixteen issues convincing the crew that Rodimus is the irresponsible one holding back the quest, if Rodimus tries to counter by saying, “But you’re the one trying to keep us off course!”--well. Can you imagine anyone taking him seriously?

Oh wait. You don’t have to--they had that argument in Lost Light #4.

And, as Megatron knew would happen, even Minimus Ambus believed his lie. No one--no one at all--believed Rodimus or took his side.

Great bit of misdirection, isn’t it? It also has the benefit of leaving Rodimus doubting himself--questioning whether he actually is working hard enough. That’s the gaslighting aspect of the technique; it destabilizes your reality and makes it harder to question what your abuser says about you or asks of you. Because if you and you alone think that something is true? Peer pressure is likelier to silence you.

It won’t always--the Asch conformity experiments are an interesting place to begin for further research, if you’re interested--but in those experiments, even though it was clearly objective reality being described, only one in four participants consistently fought majority opinion. When it’s something more nebulous--personality traits, personal failings--it seems likely to be a little harder to fight.

And when you’re already being conditioned not to fight this particular person (with bouts of rage and the other abuse techniques I’ve described here), it can be hard to convince yourself that it would be worth fighting in the first place.

Mix this with Rodimus’ already present self-worth and guilt issues? And it’s frankly stunning to me that he contradicts Megatron as often as he actually does. I know that I didn’t have it in me that often--it’s almost unspeakably exhausting to have this kind of fight, particularly when you have no one on your side and no hard evidence to point to.

This is still relatively early into the abuse, admittedly--six months after the trial. But Rodimus is still trying to assert his own reality in the face of Megatron projecting.

And he is projecting. Need proof? Ask Ravage an hour or two later in this arc:

He’s been sitting in his room for six months, the same as Rodimus. But to distract others from that fact, he loudly accuses Rodimus of it--publicly, purposefully. “I ‘take stock.’ You sulk. You’re sulking now.”

As the second blurb says, it puts Rodimus in a position where he must defend himself against the accusations, distracting from the fact that Megatron is also doing this.

And it works: Rodimus goes on the defensive, and no one questions the narrative that Megatron is setting up.

This narrative allows Megatron to twist situations (and facts) to suit himself with relative impunity.

Twisting

“When narcissistic spouses are confronted, they will twist it around to blame their victims for their actions. They will not accept responsibility for their behavior and insist that their victim apologize to them.” (“Eight Mental Abuse Tactics Narcissists Use on Spouses” by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC)

Megatron avoids apologizing like the plague. He apologizes exactly once in the series--and then leaves without trying to get the injured party to the medical bay or calling a medic, which makes it more than a bit hollow. Beyond that? He never apologizes for his actions during the war--for Grindcore, for setting up the DJD, etc--and he also never apologizes for things like decking Perceptor and nearly sending him through a computer screen. He certainly never apologizes for his behavior toward Rodimus.

Instead, he twists the situation so that he’s justified in his awful behavior or so that the blame falls on someone else. He does this, too, when something threatens the narrative he’s been building or Rodimus ‘disobeys’ him. For example, when Rodimus overrides his condescending hush command that Megatron had no place issuing...

Rodimus is offering a potential counter-strategy that Megatron hasn’t approved: evacuation and escape. It’s something they discussed while Megatron met the ‘troops’ instead of coming to the briefing:

A solution Rodimus brought up at the time, using the same language he describes the teleporter with above:

So he’s trying to work out, it seems, whether there’s a possibility of rescuing the mechs already teleported away--and whether there’s a chance they could get all of these civilians to safety.

I discussed this possibility in rage, but I’d like to look at a different panel for the lead-up to that, where Megatron twists the narrative:

See how he turns his controlling and dismissive behavior (“Hush, not now.”) into an attack that invents a sinister motive Rodimus is clearly supposed to apologize for? This being despite the fact that all Rodimus asked about was teleporters--something that would be absolutely vital in evacuating a civilian population off-planet.

It’s a successful twisting of the situation--successful enough that even I bought it on my first read-through. Despite everything, despite all logic and circumstance and evidence, Megatron convinced even me that his narrative was the right one.

But when I read again? It was groundless. Megatron describes Rodimus as being obsessed; if he’s referring to the paint job, then Drift pointed out it lends itself to multiple interpretations--including mourning. Other than that, all Rodimus has done is organize a plan to get them home. Nothing about his behavior reads as obsessive to me.

But let’s stick to these panels and break it down:

Rodimus attempts to participate in the conversation. Considering that he and Rodimus share a rank and the group is currently planning what to do, it’s perfectly appropriate for Rodimus to try to pitch in, especially since he was the one at the briefing while Megatron met the ‘troops’ in another area. He knows more about the situation than Megatron in some ways, and he’s trying to use that information to help.

But Megatron gets visibly angry and tries to shut the attempt down. Based on his behavior through the series as well as my own experiences, I think I can guess why.

Rodimus ‘disobeyed’ him, which undermines the vision Megatron has of himself as the ‘real’ captain. The image he’s been trying to sell the crew. If he can spin this as Rodimus being childish, he can salvage the situation and maintain his narrative. Scolding him like a child sets that up.

It’s technically also possible that he’s somehow forgetting Rodimus’ experiences with Nyon and nonstop heroism despite being present for both, although that seems like an awfully large and uncharitable lapse on his part.

This implies to me that this isn't the first time Megatron has dismissed Rodimus like this--but before Rodimus can call him out further, Megatron twists the narrative, and now it's not about teleporters or exit strategies. It's a personal attack on Rodimus.

This comes, frankly, out of nowhere. It's an unprovoked attack against someone who shares his rank and is trying to contribute to the planning process--you know, trying to do his job.

Here's the thing. I'm familiar with these derailing types of attacks--where anything I do can get twisted and turned into something that requires an apology when I'm (a) trying to help, (b) doing my job, and (c) trying to do it respectfully but also efficiently due to time crunches. And, like Rodimus, I've been baited into shouting back at my abusers.

It's a win-win for them. Sure, they derailed first--they shouted first--but since I fought back, it can't be abuse. Since I got distracted from the point I wanted to make, I proved them right. I'm too sensitive. I deserve to be ‘taken to task’ or ‘put in my place’ or whatever euphemism you care to use. Because I stop looking like a crying victim on the floor, it stops counting as abuse.

If you think I'm exaggerating, I can assure you I'm not. Read any comment thread about abuse or assault and see how long it takes for people to find reasons why this person wasn't really a victim. Why they deserved it.

I should have talked above--under almost every section--about my abusive ex-boyfriend. Really, it's painful how much is relevant. But I haven't, because… Fuck me, this is the sixth complete rewrite of this section, and I'm still tearing up. I haven't, and it's because experience has convinced me that no one will take my side because I wasn't a good enough victim.

I'll keep it simple and relevant--just a single example that I feel parallels the above scene. It happened within a week of when my mom hit me; I was 15. My ex was failing a writing class, and he showed me his homework. I thought he was asking for feedback, since, y'know, he was failing. But I only got as far as saying he'd misused a comma before he told me to shut up.

I say he told me. That sounds so mild. We were sitting near the front of the school bus together; I was trapped between him and the window. He had eight inches and fifty pounds on me, and he used it to loom over me like Megatron continually looms over Rodimus. I say he told me to shut up; he got in my face and screamed it in front of a bus full of our peers.

He then proceeded to scream insults at me until he was red in the face. I wasn't qualified to judge his commas, I was an idiot, on and on. He had a bad habit of yelling at me in 1337-sp34k--yes, out loud--because it made him feel intelligent when I couldn't understand it. To be honest, I think that parallels with Megatron’s consistent condescending use of ‘big words’--the point of communication is to communicate, not to feel smart about our superior vocabulary.

Like Megatron, he would get loud and condescending and demeaning and use speech I couldn't understand to prove that I wasn't as smart as he was. Like Megatron, he would loom over me, using his height and bulk to intimidate me when I started getting ‘uppity’ or otherwise ticked him off. Like Megatron, he mostly did this when we had an audience--it was other types of abuse he perpetrated in private.

And, like Rodimus, sometimes I backed down--but sometimes I shouted back.

Not often. Usually I kept it to a few incredulous statements. But there were times when he said something so shocking, so untrue, I had to defend myself--like Rodimus does in this scene. And--once again, like Rodimus--I got so ‘het up’ that I would lose my point, forget my words, and find it impossible to actually figure out how to fight his points. Partly because they were so groundless it felt like there was no evidence I could pull to counter them.

I told my sister about it, once. And she said that since I yelled back sometimes, I deserved it.

She wasn't the only one to say that, but it hurt the most coming from her. And it hurts again when I read posts about Megatron and Rodimus where people talk about how great it is that Megatron finally put Rodimus in his place, how much Rodimus deserved to be screamed at. It's just fiction, true, but in the back of my mind, I always think, ‘If I told you that this happened to me, would you say I deserved it, too?’

Because I've seen very little recognition of the fact that victims do sometimes fight back. They often pay for it, but when you're driven into a corner you don't lie down and take it every time.

No one looks like a Hollywood victim all the time--crying and ‘weak’ and only staying because of fear. Anyone of any personality type can be abused. And abusers are experts at seeming like good, upstanding people; they need to be able to build a narrative that casts them as the hero or anti-hero. You need to see a whole pattern to recognize them for what they are--and they're invested in hiding that pattern by any means necessary so they won't lose that control, that power over both their current victim and other future victims.

Some abusers apologize going into the honeymoon phase of the abuse cycle as part of perpetuating that narrative. Others avoid taking blame at any cost, refusing to take responsibility for their actions. Megatron makes excuses rather than apologies and never does the work to make amends; like my abusive ex, he thinks experiencing any guilt at all absolves him of the hard work of fixing things. It doesn't; feeling bad is meaningless. It accomplishes nothing. And excuses relieve that guilt--the false high of unearned absolution.

Do they make excuses for their behavior or tend to blame others or circumstances for their mistakes?

It’s not his fault, you see! This murder squad he personally trained massacred two hundred of his crew members (the theory at the time of this panel was a ‘near future’ scenario, not parallel quantum shenanigans), but really, he knew this would happen the moment Optimus made him say sorry. These are natural consequences of making him do something he didn’t want to do.

Now, it’s true that Megatron didn’t order them to do this, but immediately putting the blame on Optimus making him vocally renounce the cause he was already claiming he’d renounced… When, y’know, these are his hand-picked and hand-trained assassins who he used to terrify his troops into abject obedience to all Decepticon beliefs… It’s just mind-boggling to me.

To explain another way: he just entered a ship full of two hundred mutilated corpses, all but a few showing signs of extreme torture. And he makes it about him. And he does that while still trying to dodge all blame. It’s a natural consequence of him reading the speech Optimus wrote for him, but it’s not because he trained a team of murderers in the art of violent murdering, no, that part has nothing to do with anything. They didn’t answer to him, he says, when he’s the only one who has Tarn’s comm number. When Tarn personally credits him with shaping him into the person he became.

The DJD are responsible for their own actions, certainly, but that doesn’t mean that Megatron isn’t responsible for giving them a list of traitors and turning them loose on his troops--and on innocent bystanders.

This would be a good opportunity for a sparkfelt apology. We could have seen Megatron mourn these dead and regret training the DJD and tell the survivors that he’ll find a way to talk to the DJD and make sure this never happens again (something he could have done at any time--he does have Tarn’s number, after all). We could have seen him start making reparations six months after saying he’d changed.

Instead we see him give a self-righteous little speech about how he’s totally blameless.

This may not be directed at Rodimus, but Rodimus numbers among the dead--he was the first corpse they found. And he cares not one bit that his living co-captain and second in command have vanished, with only gray and disfigured corpses to replace them. No, the most important thing in this situation is to twist the narrative and make sure everyone knows it’s not his fault.

This is what happens when he’s made to do things he doesn’t want to do. There are consequences; he doesn’t need to make reparations because the consequences are natural and right.

Living for millions of years with the DJD as real boogeymen who could appear and wreak this kind of devastation without warning if Megatron gave a single word? It’d be hard not to see those natural consequences as a threat.

Manipulation

“A favorite manipulation tactic is for the narcissist to make their spouse fear the worst, such as abandonment, infidelity, or rejection. Then they refute it and ask her for something she normally would reply with ‘No.’ This is a control tactic to get her to agree to do something she wouldn’t.” (“Eight Mental Abuse Tactics Narcissists Use on Spouses” by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC)

All of the above is manipulation, without question. But I’m including this as a separate bullet point because it allows me to address a particular tactic that doesn’t fit neatly under any of the other sections.

Do they continually have “boundary violations” and disrespect your valid requests?

Megatron has no respect for Rodimus’ personal space, particularly when he’s being ‘defiant’ in some way. Paring away text to focus on body language, it becomes even more abundantly clear.

From the beginning of season two, he towers over Rodimus, jabbing a finger less than a hand’s breadth from his face.

When he wants to be obeyed, he physically gets in Rodimus’ face--snarling and huge.

And as a new arc begins, he’s once again looming and jabbing fingers in Rodimus’ personal space.

If I listed every panel where Megatron was shown leaning physically over Rodimus, I’d be including almost every panel they share. And before anyone says it’s because of Megatron’s size, and he can’t help but loom--he doesn’t do it to other characters unless they, too, are ‘misbehaving.’ He’s perfectly capable of keeping a straight back and relatively professional distance with most mechs, even when being threatened, even with extreme height differences:

Straight back, no leaning over Tailgate, no snarl. It’s the same with other crew members. With Rodimus, however, his nonverbal cues are constantly screaming dominance fight.

Now, I’m a small person, so maybe I’m especially sensitive to this--I’m just barely five feet tall and not muscular in the slightest. When much-bigger people get in my space the way Megatron gets in Rodimus’ space, it’s terrifying. Respectful people don’t do those things, and you can’t convince me that it’s merely a product of his size. My boyfriend of almost ten years now is eleven inches taller than I am, and he’s never once loomed over me or used his size to intimidate me.

I might be willing to call it thoughtless rather than an abuse tactic, since it is possible to loom unintentionally--except he singles Rodimus out for this treatment.

And it works.

After the first example above, Rodimus is visibly cowed while Megatron practically presses himself against his back:

Note the lowered spoilers on Rodimus’ back, the lowered head, the expression on his face.

And after the second panel, he literally transforms and obeys Megatron without further question.

Constant physical intimidation has unfortunate effects on a person, particularly when used alongside verbal and emotional abuse tactics like the ones I’ve been describing. This is a documented aspect of physical abuse--of which physical intimidation is a part--but I also know it intimately.

My abusive ex boyfriend never hit me, but he used physical intimidation tactics like these on a daily basis. He sat between me and the aisle on the bus and got in my face and snarled at the least provocation, but he also just--loomed. He was always--always--in my bubble, to the point that sometimes my friends would literally push him out of it. He would stand behind me like that, and when I have nightmares I can still feel his hard-on pressed against my lower back, his hands on on my hips or shoulders to keep me where he wanted me, the heat of his breath on me as he curled above me, around me, cutting off every exit until he was physically my entire world.

Which brings me to the panel that finally set me off enough to write the meta post I’d been mentally composing for over a year:

I feel sick when I look at this panel. When I look at the hand on his back and the way Megatron curls around him and the way the hand that’s always jabbing fingers in his face is caging him in. When I look at the way Rodimus is hugging himself, pulling in and away from Megatron--because in is his only escape route, because Megatron has cut off everything else. Verbally isolating him, then emotionally, then physically.

Rodimus doesn’t have any friends here to shove Megatron out of his bubble. Rodimus has the certainty that Megatron could be screaming at him (again), could be threatening him with hands in his face (that we can see are the size of Rodimus’ torso), could actually be injuring him--which we haven’t seen, but, honestly? “Whenever you shout my name I expect to get shot,” uh, isn’t a ringing endorsement of what might be happening behind closed doors, where most actual violence plays out.

Even if Megatron hasn’t hurt him--and I haven’t got enough proof to conclusively say one way or another--the threat is still there. As I said, my abusive ex never hit me. But I knew--every time he screamed, every time he got in my face--that he could. That he was capable of it.

He didn’t have to hit me. Like Rodimus, my defiance never lasted--without support, with too much fear, I decided that I needed to pick my battles. And, one by one, he pushed through my boundaries. Because if it wasn’t worth picking a battle over him stroking my inner thigh outside my shorts, was it worth fighting him on stroking the inside of my waistband? With that boundary demolished, was it really so unexpected--really worth challenging--when he went past the waistband?

After all, it was my fault he was so riled up. I’d done this to him. Didn’t I owe it to him to fix the problems I’d caused? But I guess that particular bit of nastiness comes from the next section--the victim card.

Victim Card

“When all else fails, the narcissist resorts to playing the victim card. This is designed to gain sympathy and further control behavior.” (“Eight Mental Abuse Tactics Narcissists Use on Spouses” by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC)

At every point in Megatron’s “redemption” arc, he casts himself as a tragic figure. Poor Megatron, made to stand trial! Poor Megatron, asked to provide evidence to expedite the trial! (optional; he didn't consent to mnemosurgery and they immediately left) Poor Megatron, asked to read a speech renouncing the cause he already said he'd renounced! (optional; purely a get-out-of-jail-free card) Poor Megatron, surrounded by incompetence on this privately owned neutral ship he was given captaincy of in place of his prison stay! Poor Megatron, forced to drink ‘poison’! (optional; again, he made the choice himself) Poor Megatron, having to share the ship with the mech who owns it! Poor Megatron, faced with the knowledge that some people wish the war had never happened! Possibly even the knowledge of how many mechs he killed! What terrible knowledge.

Poor Megatron, indeed.

All of these situations are fair and reasonable for him to encounter. He's not a tragic figure for facing any of these things; in fact, the last two are hardly even about him. Billions died, and we're supposed to feel sorry for him surveying the field of flowers? For having to face the facts of what he did when he still doesn't face any negative repercussions for his choices?

This is entitlement, but it's also an abuse tactic. My ex used this trick to guilt me into roleplaying sexual situations I was really, really not comfortable with, while my mother used it to get me to do...well, in retrospect, basically anything she felt like I owed her.

Used on the wrong party, this tactic is just grating--case in point, Getaway and his mutineers. He specifically cited this overall strategy in his last call with the crew on the Necroplanet. But on someone who already has a guilt complex--someone who's easily manipulated by authority figures telling him it's his duty to do one thing or another, insisting nothing he does is enough and he owes more than he can give--the sort of person who carves into his hand the number of people who wanted him gone? Yeah, that's a different story.

Do they blame you for their problems or unhappiness?

Prior to this panel, Rodimus just informed Megatron that Brainstorm seemed to have jumped through time. Rodimus specifically gives him time to process the info, too.

He's beings downright nice about it.

And, yes, it's absolutely fine to need time to process or to freak about things not going according to plan. That's natural! I say this despite the fact that Megatron--a mech made of black holes--isn't exactly unfamiliar with weird science. In fact, one of the thirteen ores seeded by Shockwave had time properties, and they literally just met quantum doubles of their entire ship. I'm a little dubious about his claims of a minor breakdown here, but the freak-out itself isn't the real problem here.

What's not fine is taking that as an excuse to once again lean in over Rodimus (note the angle Megatron shifts to once he starts yelling), jab a finger in his face, and personally insult him. What's he done to warrant the “You are ridiculous” line and accusatory tone, other than tell Megatron something he didn't want to hear? How does keeping him briefed and patiently waiting for him to process lead to the conclusion that Rodimus is his own, personal punishment?

Well, keeping a level head while publicly briefing Megatron means undermining some of that narrative he’s so carefully constructing, where Rodimus is rash and rude and impulsive and irresponsible. Unsuited to command. Because in this scene? Rodimus looks and acts like a capable and considerate commander.

There's also the fact that Rodimus is treating him like a peer rather than a superior here.

Now, that might not be why Megatron lashes out. He might genuinely be disturbed by the idea of time travel and instinctively target his current favorite (emotional) punching bag. But I think it's telling that he immediately turns something going wrong into being Rodimus’ fault when he's actually doing his job quite well in this scene, not to mention respecting Megatron as co-captain. It's also telling that he breaks out the same physical intimidation tactics I described in the last subsection the moment he gets agitated.

So why do I think this is an abuse tactic and not poorly-handled panic, aside from Megatron's extensive experience with various types of weird science? Because Rodimus doesn't try to contradict him. He doesn't fight the point or defend himself. And, sure, that could be a sign of maturity--but it can also be a sign that he's beginning to internalize Megatron's message, especially when looked at in the context of everything else I mentioned in this post.

In fact, let’s cover his motivations and intentions a bit more directly.

INTENTIONALITY

Assessing whether abusive behavior is deliberate can be nearly impossible when you’re living in it. For example, I highly doubt that my mom is any kind of mastermind with an ultimate end goal of control over me. I’m not actually sure what she was thinking for any of that--she insists most of it never happened and has a different justification every time I ask about the parts she doesn’t deny (although she sometimes denies those, too, depending on her mood).

Even if Megatron’s behavior wasn’t intentional, it would still be unacceptable, dangerous, and traumatic. But I do genuinely believe it’s deliberate--partly because of the following scene:

This is coming from Ravage--a spy with extensive experience that goes all the way back to the day of the Senate. He’s seen a lot. And he makes a compelling argument:

Ravage points out numerous occasions where Megatron played the long game--planning ahead, setting up for what he might want someday as well as what he wants today. Reaching for the dark matter, delaying his trial with sidequests as soon as the opportunity presented itself--those, too, are examples of this.

So it stands to reason that all of this manipulation could serve the fairly straightforward goal of setting himself up to be sole captain of the Lost Light--or some other goal we haven’t yet worked out that requires tearing down Rodimus’ reputation and isolating him from the rest of the crew.

IN CONCLUSION

Megatron is abusing Rodimus. Emotionally and verbally at the very least, but possibly other forms of abuse. He’s certainly threatening physical abuse with his nonverbal cues--and, by some definitions, is in fact perpetrating physical abuse by bodily intimidating Rodimus.

The evidence is overwhelming, and I think that this interpretation gives greater depth and meaning to JRo’s characterizations of both Rodimus and Megatron. Through this lens, Rodimus’ increasingly erratic and seemingly out-of-character behavior as the series progresses can be viewed as a response to gaslighting and other abuse. Meanwhile, for Megatron, this interpretation serves to connect his current behavior to his wartime behavior in a way that feels more in line with IDW’s past version of him instead of a sudden and hollow change.

Ultimately, though, this interpretation is important to me as an abuse survivor. I don't fault those who want to write their own version of Megatron, but, if I'm being honest? I never again want to see another post insisting that Megatron can't be written as abusive. (and if you think this is vagueblogging about someone in particular, I swear it's not. I've seen multiple posts and tweets echoing this sentiment. This isn't some vague callout post; it's an alternative interpretation that runs counter to the dominant fandom narrative as I've encountered it.)

You can keep your interpretation of Megatron. He is a fictional character who has been written by dozens of different people in numerous canons. If you don't want to write about him as an abusive and manipulative jerk, by all means, don't. The only request I make is that you not condemn those who do.

Multiple interpretations of canon lead to more varied and interesting fan works. And I think that's good for everyone.

Additional Reading

In case you want to do further reading, here are some links to other articles I looked at while making this post. I may add to this if I find any others that feel relevant.

15 Types of Verbal Abuse in Relationships

10 Signs You Are in a Relationship with a Narcissist (first part in a series)

[vidovicart]

Living Lagom in Sweden: An Interview With Lola Akerstrom

Back in 2006, during my first trip around the world, I met a Swedish girl. We traveled together for a bit and the following year I went to visit her in Sweden. Though that relationship didn’t last, my love for Sweden did and, in subsequent years, I learned Swedish and even tried to move to Sweden. I love everything Swedish. And so does my friend Lola. Lola and I met back in 2008 when travel blogging was in its infancy. Unlike me, she’s had success in making a life in Sweden, where she now lives with her husband and son. She’s one of the favorite people in the industry and I love the imagery in her writing and the beauty in her photography.

In her new book, Lagom, she discusses life in Sweden and Swedish culture. Today, I jealously interview her about life there.

Nomadic Matt: Tell everyone a bit about yourself. Lola: I’m a Nigerian-born, US-educated, Sweden-based writer and photographer focusing mostly on exploring culture through food, tradition, and lifestyles. My photography is represented by National Geographic Creative, and I was recently awarded the prestigious 2018 Travel Photographer of the Year Bill Muster Award from the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW).

I actually took a nontraditional path to this new life, as I worked as a web programmer and GIS system architect for 12+ years before the full career shift into the travel media industry.

I’ve always been fascinated by the nuances of culture: what makes us different and what our similarities are. And so this curiosity and acknowledgement really underpins pretty much all my work as a travel writer and photographer.

How did you end up in Sweden? I met my husband in 2006 while living in the US. After logging thousands upon thousands of air miles, as well as temporary stints in Stockholm, I officially moved over in 2009. It really was an intercultural, interracial, and intercontinental union in many ways. We now have two kids, so Sweden will be home for a while for many reasons, the prime one being that it’s pretty darn perfect for families.

How do you find life in Sweden? Good? Bad? Life in Sweden is what you make of it, and that’s why I also wrote this book — as a handy cultural guide that can help you integrate and deeply understand Swedish culture and its nuances. Having lived in both Nigeria and the US for extended periods of time, I appreciate living here with a young family. Overall, the quality of life is fantastic in terms of stress levels. There is enough time to dedicate to the family, as well as generous benefits, which we all contribute to through our taxes.

What’s your least favorite part about living in Sweden? I often say Sweden is the most open society run by the most private people, and I explain why in the book. Sweden does have its dark sides, and I always say the main difference is this: I can be like Oprah Winfrey if I want to as a black woman in the US, despite all the racial tensions. In Sweden, while you’ll be left in a small corner to live your happy life, trying to be a CEO or magnate like Oprah is a gargantuan task. There are people who still don’t get called for job interviews because of the names on their résumés. So overall, while I love living here, no society is perfect, and Sweden has a lot of integration issues it needs to work out.

Why did you write this book? So, the Swedish word lagom has recently emerged as the lifestyle trend of 2017 and of course, publishers are jumping on it with different lifestyle books — from recipes to interior decor.

But I needed to put a book out there that was beyond cinnamon bun recipes, because lagom is not a word that is warmly embraced or even liked by many Swedes themselves for various reasons, including the fact the ethos has over time morphed to denote average, boring, and middle-of-the-road. I detail all this in the book, as well as explain why lagom itself is inherently a good ideal as opposed to jante, which is the negative parasitic ethos that attaches itself to lagom and brings the negativity. But it is the key to understanding the Swedish mindset.

I have been living in Sweden for eight years, and writing about the country and its culture for even longer. I am also married to a Swede and have a unique vantage point of observing the culture both objectively and subjectively. So I explain lagom in a way that a foreigner fully gets it, as well as holding up a mirror to Swedes so they see how lagom is expressed in interactions with other people. It can be very difficult to write about something that’s very intrinsic to you in a way that others can fully understand without coming off as patronizing and condescending.

It really governs the Swedish psyche, and individual bubbles of lagom are definitely changing and morphing with each passing generation.

I needed to write a well-balanced cultural book that could still stand once the Scandi-trends wave washed over.

What does lagom mean and why is it important? On the surface, lagom is often described as “not too little, not too much, just right,” but it’s a lot more nuanced than that and lies closer to “optimal.” It is the key to unlocking the Swedish psyche and governs almost all aspects of life and culture in the country.

It also transforms its meaning in different contexts — from “less is more” in terms of décor and “moderation” in terms of food to “harmony and balance” in terms of society and “mindfulness” in terms of well-being.

If one were to boil down the true essence of lagom to its very core, it means striving for the ultimate balance in life that, when applied to all aspects of one’s existence, can help guide you toward operating at your most natural, effortless state.

The state and measurement of lagom mean different things to different folks. My satisfaction may vary from yours, but we can both be satisfied. Lagom represents the ultimate sweet spot or golden mean in your own life, and more importantly, it encourages you to fully operate within that sweet spot that’s just right for you.

For travelers to Sweden, how can they detect lagom at work or play? Many people often describe Swedes (in Sweden, not outside of Sweden) as reserved, inaccessible, and maybe even cold and flippant, but it’s often just lagom’s mindfulness at play. Locals will give you your space and ensure you’re not inconvenienced by their presence. So, Swedes naturally keep their distance from a place of mindfulness, not because they don’t want to be around you. (Outside of Sweden, they are quick to ditch lagom in social settings.)

At work, lagom is always looking for the best solution, so there’s a lot of planning, lots of meetings, lots of consensus, lots of teamwork, you get the gist… to make sure they arrive at the optimal, lagom solution to all problems.

For example: Many foreigners working or doing business in Sweden often lament the amount of time Swedes put into upfront planning and preparation. Agendas are triple-checked, and several meetings are called to plan every single item on said agendas. Plans can take months to put in place before moving to the next step of implementing each item on those plans.

For a culture that prides itself on efficiency, it could seem these inherent acts of zealous planning are counterproductive, and they can be seen as wasting time and resources. However, because lagom craves balance by trimming excess around its edges, it requires adequate planning. “Adequate” is measured by whatever it takes to prune irrelevance, regardless of how long it takes.

To be efficient means to perform and function in the most optimal manner possible with the least waste of time, resources, and energy. This very definition of efficiency mirrors the core of lagom.

So lagom says it is perfectly OK to spend as much time as needed to prepare ourselves and strongly develop our plans, because that’s the only way we can guarantee efficiency.

For travelers who would like to date a Swede, how can understanding lagom help them? Swedes don’t naturally divulge information or overshare, so sometimes it can be hard to even gauge or assess what’s going on in a relationship. And it’s not a culture that overly gesticulates with hands or uses flattering words, so knowing if a Swede is interested in you can be denoted by their unusually prolonged eye contact.

So, when out on a date, always have follow-up questions to keep the conversation going and to avoid your date awkwardly ending at “yes or no” answers. Because they will do so, in an effort not to overshare without being asked.

For someone going on a date expecting to be lavishly wined and dined, Swedes are generally conditioned to split their bills, to always repay favors, and to not be duty-bound to anyone, especially financially, by keeping that scale balanced. So this can come as a nasty surprise at the end of the night if you haven’t discussed it before the waiter brings out the menu.

And if you’re in relationship with a Swede and have issues or questions, just ask straight out because Swedes are very direct. And be prepared for those direct answers!

Why are people so fascinated with Sweden? I think a lot of the fascination comes from the quality of life and just how progressive the society is. Another more superficial angle has to do with physicality — from people and landscapes to interior décor and architecture. I mean, the city of Stockholm itself is absolutely stunning, and it spreads across 14 islands, which you can view from some nice vantage points in town. Sweden consistently ranks in the top 10 happiest countries, so there are clearly things Sweden is getting right.

What’s the one thing you want people to take away from your book? Lagom is a mindset that fundamentally battles stress. Having too much or too little causes stress, so lagom tries to find its balance between both with the optimal solution by reducing excess. Not perfection, but the best solution.

Think of it as a scale that always needs to be balanced. Too much or too little tips the scale sharply to one side or the other, so lagom balances itself (“just right”) by trimming excess and getting rid of all sources of stress within our control — from material things to relationships that drain us.

Lola A. Åkerström is an award-winning writer, speaker, and photographer with National Geographic Creative. She regularly contributes to high profile publications such as AFAR, the BBC, The Guardian, Lonely Planet, Travel + Leisure, and National Geographic Traveler. Lola is also the editor of Slow Travel Stockholm, an online magazine dedicated to exploring Sweden’s capital city in depth. She lives in Stockholm and blogs at Geotraveler’s Niche. You can pick up a copy of her book on Amazon. (It’s really interesting and I highly recommend it!)

The post Living Lagom in Sweden: An Interview With Lola Akerstrom appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

[tipsycad147]

Curses, Hexes and Magickal Attacks

Leandra Witchwood

Curses, Hexes, and Magickal Attacks

So you’re cursed. Man, that really sucks. Curses are vile, hate-fulled, and horrible to experience.

But… wait… Are you certain? How do you know?

I honestly don’t mean to sound condescending or harsh. It is just very hard to tell if you have been cursed. There are several considerations to make, and many factors to weigh.

Curses, Hexes, and Magickal Attacks are filled with intense hatred and rage. This is one reason why they can be so powerful. Curses come in different forms including self-infliction. This is why it is important to take a good look at the “who, what, and why” before we assume. We must also look at our subconscious before we convince ourselves we have been cursed.

If you are certain that without a shadow of a doubt, you have been cursed, then there are more questions to answer. Like… What did you do and are you sure the person cursing you has the skill and focus required to complete a curse? and… Then comes the REALLY tough question… Are you sure you didn’t curse yourself?

Believe it or not, self-cursing is the most common form of hex. Yep, I am sure you have cursed yourself on a number of occasions without even knowing it. You could be experiencing a curse of your own making right now.

Another phenomenon to consider when evaluating your “curse” are natural cycles. Everyone has high points and low points in life. If you feel that your high points are much lower than they should be then perhaps you should look at other factors that might affect your natural rhythm. Are there people in your life who hinder you from going above and beyond your current situation? Are there any restrictive or negative habits you unknowingly hold on to? Do you engage in regular negative self-talk?

There is much to consider when we discuss cursing. There are so many factors, most are obscure and arbitrary.

What gets to me is that very few seem to be discussing curses, their power, and personal origins. I think people are afraid to discuss this “HOT BUTTON” topic.  There are plenty of DIY curse-breaking spells out there, some with detailed instructions, while others are laughable.  In fact, no matter how good they are, they will do you no benefit if you are the one serving up the infliction. So I am brought to discuss this touchy topic. Here I will be discussing the philosophy and consequences of performing curses. I will also include in the discussion the use of inner power. The power you have that gives you the ability to block, deflect, and break curses.

First, let’s talk a little about cursing someone…

Curses take a great deal of power and determination. They take skill, time, and they come at a very high price. So for someone to accurately perform a curse, he/she must have adequate knowledge, skill set, and be willing to pay the price. Since the price and skill level required are both high, not too many will perform a curse without adequate justification and/or compensation.

Now, you can decide for yourself what consequence will befall you. For some, it is the “Rule of Three” or “The Three-Fold Law of Return”. Some say you pay with your soul, although this is more a Christian belief, passed down to us through religious propaganda and Hollywood. For most Witches is the time and effort that must be sacrificed.

I see it as the birth of negativity. Mentally when we get into the habit of revenge and negativity we become consumed. We start a downward spiral that is not easily stopped. Revenge and severe hatred are like a rancid wound that grows the more you engage it. Your payment is not necessarily one of tangible nature, rather it could be the creation of a life filled with anxiety, negativity, unhappiness, and worse.  Don’t get me wrong, anger has its place. Righteous rage has its place. Revenge also has its place, when warranted, but these cases are few and far between. If you are considering cursing someone you better be prepared to deal with the repercussions.  When that wheel turns, it will bring with it all the ills you have projected.

As in most spellwork, no one can passively spat out a curse and expect it to be effective. Also, there are plenty of other factors to consider. Free will and the strength of the victim’s mind, being the biggest.

Serious curses are not for instances of fleeting anger. They are not for the anger felt when someone cuts you off in traffic or steals your boyfriend. Although there are some fun ones out there for such occurrences. To me when we use curses in such a way we cheapen their effectiveness and severity.

Let’s shift our discussion to being a victim of a curse.

Someone with the necessary skills is pissed off at you and you are stuck with this cursed life. What now?

When I have someone come to me as the victim of a curse, asking how to break it I have several questions I pose to them before we do anything.

I might start with these:

Why do you think you are cursed? What has occurred over what period of time to convince you that you are cursed?

Who could have done this to you?

Does this person(s) have the ability to accurately perform a curse?

How is your mental state? Are you feeling guilty, dejected, or ousted?

Have you taken a good look at your own habits that could play a role in the ills or bad luck you experience?

These questions take time to retort. The person answering may not be ready to dig deep to get answers and those who do need time. Take some time and take a long hard look at you.  It is so very important that you look deep, and make sure that your misgivings are not self-inflicted.

I would say 98% of the time, curses are self-inflicted. Honestly, you have a MUCH greater chance of becoming a victim of a Psychic Vampire over a curse.

Breaking curses is tricky work. Without knowing exactly what curse has been placed on you, it is very difficult to directly break the curse. Never fear, you have options. Difficult, does not mean impossible.

I will share with you a list of mental exercises and states I have found useful. I find them to be very effective in breaking and blocking curses. If you take time with yourself every day, curses will have no chance of being effective

A positive mental attitude: Have you ever observed someone who has a positive mental attitude. Sure some people can be over the top sickening, but there is something in there, beyond the bubble gum, bunnies, and rainbows. Things don’t bother them easily. It almost seems like good fortune seeks them out.

This is key to building a solid defence. Build a wall of “I can” instead of “I can’t”, “I’m worth” and “I am powerful” instead of “Why Me”. Another important lesson in observing positive, forward-moving people is they don’t ask “Why me?” Instead, they seem to ask, “What can I learn from this not-so-pleasant experience?”

Balance yourself so that you are leaning away from the Debbie Downer ledge. Stand up straight and direct yourself with deliberate positive self-talk. Look at a personality like Wednesday Adams. Even though she is fictional, she makes a good example. Her character is strong and confident, she is positive, and yet dark. You can achieve such a contrast without losing who you are. Mind your thoughts and when you find that inner mean girl is coming out to sabotage you, blast her with your unyielding positive self-talk and make her go away.

A solid support system: Having supportive, loving people near you is always helpful. They can act as sounding boards for your thoughts, concerns, frustrations, and they will help you sort through the tough times. Keep at least one solid friendship with a positive person.

Regular Cleansing: Sage, Black Destroyer Oil,  herbal floor washes, you choose your preferred method. Take time every day, month, or every 3 months (depending on how you feel) and cleanse the place where you live and work. Get into the corners, crevices, and any dark spaces where negative energy can hide. Also, make sure your sleeping area/bedroom is cleansed and clutter-free.

Use meditation and self-reflection to perform an inner cleansing. This is a great way to refresh and refocus.

A solid set of personal values: What do you value in your life? Think about it. Write them down. Do you value relationships, peace, prosperity, love???? Values are important and often overlooked defences. Values help shape our moral compass, so get a few and make them good. When you live by your own personal set of values you will live life with purpose. You will be focused and less likely to step in a trap.

A Solid Moral Compass: Don’t give anyone a reason to curse you. Usually, when we act like civil human beings, we avoid trespassing against others. Admittedly, this is no guarantee. People can be vengeful even when you have done nothing wrong. Regardless, establishing a good moral compass is very helpful and at least offers you a great defence.

A strong mental focus with and wavering personal will: When you focus yourself and develop an unwavering will, you cannot be placed under the control or suggestion of anyone else. Simply put, you cannot be cursed. So meditate, listen to your intuition, know your mind, know your triggers, and know your higher self. Use and trust your inner guide and you will be strong enough to resist and even deflect curses.

So there you have it. Curses in a nutshell.

Yes they stink and they are most certainly tricky, but I am not sure they are NOT something you should feel anxious about.

I wish you the brightest of blessings and I invite you to comment and share this post. Thank you for stopping by!

http://www.themagickkitchen.com/curses-hexes-magickal-attacks/

[theconservativebrief]

As allegations of sexual assault and misconduct swirl around Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, many conservatives are deeply concern that Kavanaugh is being “Borked” — a reference to the failed 1987 nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court.

According to Merriam-Webster, “to Bork” means “to attack or defeat (a nominee or candidate for public office) unfairly through an organized campaign of harsh public criticism or vilification.” And as conservative pundit George Will (who served as an usher at Bork’s wedding) wrote in his Sunday column for the Washington Post, the allegations against Kavanaugh are a perfect example of a “Borking” in progress:

Hence, the confirmation process has followed the crumbling, descending path the rest of American politics has taken into the depths of cynicism, faux outrage and pandering to the parties’ hysterical bases. The utter emptiness of everything is an intellectual vacuum into which have flooded histrionics.

To a generation of Republicans, the legacy of Bork was one in which, as the Wall Street Journal described in August, “character assassination proved an effective tactic” and “special interest groups” discovered “they could demonize judicial nominees based solely on their worldview.”

The political polarization that came to epitomize Bork’s nomination remains just as visceral, if not more so, as Kavanaugh’s nomination is debated. But Bork’s legacy, and the idea of “Borking,” has been misconstrued.

In Bork’s case, there were real and valid reasons for many Americans to not want him on the Supreme Court, based on his rulings in cases as a Circuit Court judge, his views and actions as solicitor general, and his past statements and writings. In his writings, he argued that only political speech was protected by the First Amendment; as a circuit court judge, he ruled against the right to privacy and in favor of a company whose employees had undergone sterilization procedures to keep their jobs. He wrote extensively in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and even argued that a poll tax struck down by the Supreme Court was just a “very small tax.”

And today, Brett Kavanaugh is facing serious questions about his history with women, which is incredibly relevant to the work he’d do on the Supreme Court.

Plus, Bork’s failed nomination to the Supreme Court was more than even these factors. He was one of the first Supreme Court nominees to endure televised hearings that gave senators the chance to speak to the American people en masse, and he was the subject of heavy (and involved) questioning — questioning for which he was woefully unprepared.

Robert Bork wasn’t the victim of “character assassination.” Robert Bork was the victim, ultimately, of Robert Bork.

On July 1, 1987, Ted Kennedy, then a senator and a leading light within the Democratic Party, took to the Senate floor to denounce Robert Bork, whom Ronald Reagan had just nominated for the Supreme Court. In his remarks, Kennedy said that adding Bork to the Supreme Court would force women into back-alley abortions and black Americans back to segregated lunch counters, adding that with Bork, “the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is — and is often the only — protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.”

At the time of Kennedy’s speech, Bork was a circuit judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit (where he served from 1982 to 1988). Before serving on the court, Bork, a graduate of the University of Chicago and a former Marine, had taught law at Yale Law School, where his students would include both Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as Anita Hill and future California Gov. Jerry Brown. Suffice it to say, he was very well known in the upper circles of American conservatism.

And in stark contrast to Kennedy, many of those conservatives were thrilled about Reagan’s choice. To many Republicans, particularly religious Americans who leaned right, Bork’s rulings in cases like Dronenburg v. Zech — a case in which Bork and future Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had ruled that there was no “Constitutional right to engage in homosexual conduct” and thus no right to privacy for it — provided hope that putting Bork on the Court would move the Court further in their direction (though Reagan himself pitched Bork as a “moderate,” which in turn enraged conservatives at the Justice Department).

But many on the right, including those who laughed at Kennedy’s doom-and-gloom portrayal of the nominee, widely underestimated just how much liberals would fight back against Bork’s nomination; to them, the mere idea of Bork on the Court was a terrifying one.

In their view, this was not just a man who had ruled against a constitutional right to privacy for gay people — raising concerns that his views on privacy would lead to the overturning of Roe v. Wade — but also the man who ruled in 1984 in favor of a lead pigment company whose employees had undergone voluntary sterilization in order to keep their well-paying jobs. (Bork ruled that making sterilization a policy for a job didn’t violate the Occupational Safety and Health Act.)

He also believed that government-sponsored school prayer did not violate the First Amendment, and in 1985, he said in response to a Baptist minister who referenced a Jewish friend who had been required to engage in Christian prayer in a public school, “So what? I’m sure he got over it.”

During his confirmation hearing to be solicitor general, Bork had also seemingly argued in favor of a Virginia poll tax that had been struck down by the Court in 1966, saying, “It was a very small tax, it was not discriminatory, and I doubt that it had much impact on the welfare of the nation one way or the other.” That same year, he also wrote in opposition to the Court’s ruling against the use of literacy tests in voting.

And there was more: Bork described the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as state coercion, writing in 1963 that the law would cause a loss of “personal liberty” and put forward “a principle of unsurpassed ugliness.” On the First Amendment, Bork wrote in 1971 that the Constitution only protects political speech, adding, “There is no basis for judicial intervention to protect any other form of expression, be it scientific, literary or that variety of expression we call obscene or pornographic.”

Liberal groups including the AFL-CIO and People for the American Way responded with an outpouring of direct advertising aimed at stopping Bork, like this ad, voiced by actor Gregory Peck. “If Robert Bork wins a seat on the Supreme Court, it’ll be for life. His life, and yours,” Peck intones.

[embedded content]

The reasoning behind Bork’s judicial rulings and viewpoints is straightforward and, to many conservatives, extremely logical: Bork was a constitutional originalist who believed that the Constitution and the laws it set in place should be interpreted the same way they were when the document was first written. And had Bork been able to adequately explain his viewpoints to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and to America, through that lens, perhaps his nomination would have been successful.

But that’s not what happened.

Until 1955, it wasn’t unusual for Supreme Court nominees to not answer questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee about their views or rulings, or to not even show up for their hearings at all and still get on the Court. Televised Supreme Court nomination hearings only began in 1981. And in 1986, the year before Bork’s nomination, the Senate finally agreed to televise its proceedings.

Why does this matter? Because only with televised Senate hearings did the American people see Sen. Ted Kennedy call Bork a danger to American life, and only with televised Supreme Court nomination hearings did Americans see Sen. Joe Biden, then the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, perform what the New Yorker called “a meticulous dissection” of Bork’s career.

Before his nomination, Biden had said that he would support Bork, seeming to reject Kennedy’s rhetoric (he also refused to subpoena Bork’s video rental records to see if he’d rented any pornographic films). That gave many conservatives a great deal of confidence about Bork’s chances of getting on the Court, though, worryingly, a committee within the American Bar Association announced that while it would give Bork its highest rating, its members were split on his qualifications for the role. But Sen. Orrin Hatch, one of Bork’s biggest defenders, said that Bork would do “very well” in televised hearings, adding that “I think those who have been vilifying him are going to have to eat a lot of words.”

Perhaps the most confident about his chances for the Court was Bork himself, who did very little preparation for his hearings. Typically, Supreme Court nominees go through a process known as “murder boards,” where they are put through extensive questioning similar to what they’ll face from the Senate Judiciary Committee. But Bork didn’t, partly because his allies, like his old friend Antonin Scalia, told him he was so qualified for the position that he wouldn’t need the preparation. One friend who helped Bork through the process would later say, “It was a mistake not to make him do more murder boards. I should have rolled him on that. But he was a genius, the Einstein of the law.’’

And arguably, that’s where everything went wrong for Bork and his allies. Before the hearings, a majority of Americans polled by the New York Times and CBS had no opinion of Bork one way or the other. But the hearings, which began on September 15, 1987, were an absolute disaster for Bork, whom Tom Shales, the television critic for the Washington Post, described as “cold-hearted and condescending.” He added, “He looked and talked like a man who would throw the book at you — and maybe the whole country.” (You can watch Bork’s Supreme Court nomination hearings in full on YouTube.)

In response to a question about the sterilization case, Bork said of the women who had undergone sterilization in order to keep their jobs, ‘’I suppose that they were glad to have the choice.’’ And when asked about the poll tax case, he said, “It was just a $1.50 poll tax.”

When asked why he wanted to be on the Supreme Court, Bork responded that such service would be “an intellectual feast.” But what concerned many people watching the hearings was that Bork seemed to argue that the viewpoints and ideas he’d espoused for decades wouldn’t apply to his judgment on the Court, that what he said in 1971 about free speech didn’t apply anymore in 1987 when he just so happened to be asked about it.

By October, a majority of Americans polled by the Washington Post opposed his nomination to the Supreme Court. On October 6, Bork was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and on October 23, he was rejected by the Senate itself, by a vote of 58-42.

But there was even more to Bork’s story, which came up during his nomination hearings and played into both how Bork was perceived by the public and the ultimate failure of his nomination: his involvement in the Watergate scandal.

From 1973 to 1977, Bork served as solicitor general of the United States, arguing cases before the Supreme Court on behalf of the federal government. (If you’ll recall, it’s during the nomination proceedings for this role that he made his comment about poll taxes.) On October 20, 1973, President Nixon ordered the firing of Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor investigating Nixon’s knowledge of the June 1972 break-in and attempted bugging of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate Complex in Washington. More specifically, Cox wanted 10 hours of Oval Office tapes, which included Nixon’s discussions of the break-in, and rather than give up the tapes, Nixon wanted Cox gone.

Both Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus refused to fire Cox, and both resigned from their positions in protest, leaving Bork as acting attorney general. Bork did fire Cox, and though he had planned to resign immediately after doing so, he said that Richardson and Ruckelshaus had urged him to stay for the good of the Justice Department. According to Bork, Nixon promised him the next open spot on the Supreme Court if he fired Cox. The firing of Archibald Cox became known as the “Saturday Night Massacre” and helped to seal the end of the Nixon administration.

To Bork, the decision to fire Cox was one he made as a means of protecting the Justice Department and, in effect, the country. In 1987, the day he was nominated to the Supreme Court, he told the New York Times, “I had, I thought, to contain a very dangerous situation, one that threatened the viability of the Department of Justice and of other parts of the executive branch. … If that had happened, the Department of Justice would have lost its top leadership, all of it, and would I think have effectively been crippled.”

But Bork’s decision to follow Nixon’s orders had consequences. Althea Simmons, the chief lobbyist and director of the Washington bureau of the NAACP (which opposed Bork’s nomination), testified at the nomination hearing in 1987, and said:

Judge Bork’s writings about constitutional or judicial philosophy are not the only issues of concern to this organization. We have grave reservations about his firing of Archibald Cox. This was an illegal action according to the court and yet, during his confirmation hearings, Judge Bork contended that his actions were lawful.

And she wasn’t alone. Alan B. Morrison, co-founder of the Public Citizen Litigation Group (which had sued Bork over his decision to fire Cox), submitted testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying in part:

… the most disturbing thing about Judge Bork’s firing of Archibald Cox is what it shows about his views of executive power and his willingness to disregard a solemn compact made between the President of the United States and his Attorney General nominee, on one side, and the Senate of the United States on the other.

Bork would go on to become a widely admired stalwart within conservative circles. He wrote books on morality and virtue and what he viewed as declining moral standards in America. He also argued extensively for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, saying in the conservative religious journal First Things in 2004:

By equating heterosexuality and homosexuality, by removing the last vestiges of moral stigma from same-sex couplings, such marriages will lead to an increase in the number of homosexuals. Particularly vulnerable will be young men and women who, as yet uncertain of and confused by their sexuality, may more easily be led into a homosexual life.

And though Bork died in December 2012, the memory of his failed Supreme Court nomination would remain, specifically in the term “Borking.”

In 1991, a woman named Florynce Kennedy told a National Organization for Women conference that with regards to then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, “We’re going to bork him. We’re going to kill him politically. … This little creep, where did he come from?” And since then, “Borking” has expanded. In January 2001, the New York Times even featured a chart of “likely borkees and their probable score on the bork-o-meter,” referring to potential nominees for high-level positions within the Bush administration (John Ashcroft, for instance, received nine Borks).

“Borking” is now viewed as a widely used practice for both Republicans and Democrats, though now it generally means attempting to bring down a high-level candidate with “personal attacks” on something seemingly irrelevant to their jobs. For example, Bill Clinton’s first choice for attorney general, Zoe Baird, was “Borked” in 1993 when news that she had hired an undocumented immigrant as a nanny for her children came to light (her nomination was withdrawn).

And in August of this year, Sen. Hatch — the same senator who had so fervently defended Robert Bork’s nomination — wrote in USA Today, “In their zeal to portray Judge Kavanaugh as the embodiment of our greatest fears, Democrats have gone borking mad.”

But what happened to Robert Bork wasn’t a tragedy. Rather, it was the result of the Supreme Court’s increased importance in American life, and a wild miscalculation by Republicans and Bork himself of how his viewpoints on laws and statutes that, for instance, desegregated American schools and public institutions — and his work on behalf of the only president to resign from office — would be perceived by the American public.

William T. Coleman, a black Republican attorney and a prominent supporter of Ronald Reagan, was a longtime colleague of Bork. But in September 1987, he wrote an op-ed for the New York Times titled “Why Judge Bork Is Unacceptable.” In the piece, he detailed how he believed Bork might overrule landmark cases that hinged on the idea of personal liberty beyond simply not being physically restrained, and curtail the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. “When it has counted,” he wrote, “Robert Bork has often stood against the aspirations of blacks to achieve their constitutional rights and to remove the vestiges of racial discrimination.”

But most importantly, Coleman emphasized that the information Americans already had about Bork’s views on the law should matter more than whatever Bork said during his hearings:

In the days ahead, we may hear that Judge Bork has modified long-held positions or that he will not necessarily follow those positions once he becomes a Supreme Court Justice. Such claims will lack credibility. Judge Bork has told us again and again what he believes Justices should and should not do. With an acerbity that brought him notoriety, he has denounced as unsupportable dozens of landmark Court cases, and he has also repeatedly said that Justices should be free to overrule prior decisions they believe are unsupportable. It simply defies common sense to think that Justice Bork would not effectively do what he has built his career saying should be done.

It is possible of course that, invested with the robes, Robert Bork would move within the mainstream of constitutional law. It is against the public interest, however, to take the chance that he will not.

In short, Bork was “Borked” not by Democrats or liberals, but by Robert Bork.

Original Source -> “Borking,” explained: why a failed Supreme Court nomination in 1987 matters

via The Conservative Brief

[theladyjstyle]

Back in 2006, during my first trip around the world, I met a Swedish girl. We traveled together for a bit and the following year I went to visit her in Sweden. Though that relationship didn’t last, my love for Sweden did and, in subsequent years, I learned Swedish and even tried to move to Sweden. I love everything Swedish. And so does my friend Lola. Lola and I met back in 2008 when travel blogging was in its infancy. Unlike me, she’s had success in making a life in Sweden, where she now lives with her husband and son. She’s one of the favorite people in the industry and I love the imagery in her writing and the beauty in her photography.

In her new book, Lagom, she discusses life in Sweden and Swedish culture. Today, I jealously interview her about life there.

Nomadic Matt: Tell everyone a bit about yourself. Lola: I’m a Nigerian-born, US-educated, Sweden-based writer and photographer focusing mostly on exploring culture through food, tradition, and lifestyles. My photography is represented by National Geographic Creative, and I was recently awarded the prestigious 2018 Travel Photographer of the Year Bill Muster Award from the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW).

I actually took a nontraditional path to this new life, as I worked as a web programmer and GIS system architect for 12+ years before the full career shift into the travel media industry.

I’ve always been fascinated by the nuances of culture: what makes us different and what our similarities are. And so this curiosity and acknowledgement really underpins pretty much all my work as a travel writer and photographer.

How did you end up in Sweden? I met my husband in 2006 while living in the US. After logging thousands upon thousands of air miles, as well as temporary stints in Stockholm, I officially moved over in 2009. It really was an intercultural, interracial, and intercontinental union in many ways. We now have two kids, so Sweden will be home for a while for many reasons, the prime one being that it’s pretty darn perfect for families.

How do you find life in Sweden? Good? Bad? Life in Sweden is what you make of it, and that’s why I also wrote this book — as a handy cultural guide that can help you integrate and deeply understand Swedish culture and its nuances. Having lived in both Nigeria and the US for extended periods of time, I appreciate living here with a young family. Overall, the quality of life is fantastic in terms of stress levels. There is enough time to dedicate to the family, as well as generous benefits, which we all contribute to through our taxes.

What’s your least favorite part about living in Sweden? I often say Sweden is the most open society run by the most private people, and I explain why in the book. Sweden does have its dark sides, and I always say the main difference is this: I can be like Oprah Winfrey if I want to as a black woman in the US, despite all the racial tensions. In Sweden, while you’ll be left in a small corner to live your happy life, trying to be a CEO or magnate like Oprah is a gargantuan task. There are people who still don’t get called for job interviews because of the names on their résumés. So overall, while I love living here, no society is perfect, and Sweden has a lot of integration issues it needs to work out.

Why did you write this book? So, the Swedish word lagom has recently emerged as the lifestyle trend of 2017 and of course, publishers are jumping on it with different lifestyle books — from recipes to interior decor.

But I needed to put a book out there that was beyond cinnamon bun recipes, because lagom is not a word that is warmly embraced or even liked by many Swedes themselves for various reasons, including the fact the ethos has over time morphed to denote average, boring, and middle-of-the-road. I detail all this in the book, as well as explain why lagom itself is inherently a good ideal as opposed to jante, which is the negative parasitic ethos that attaches itself to lagom and brings the negativity. But it is the key to understanding the Swedish mindset.

I have been living in Sweden for eight years, and writing about the country and its culture for even longer. I am also married to a Swede and have a unique vantage point of observing the culture both objectively and subjectively. So I explain lagom in a way that a foreigner fully gets it, as well as holding up a mirror to Swedes so they see how lagom is expressed in interactions with other people. It can be very difficult to write about something that’s very intrinsic to you in a way that others can fully understand without coming off as patronizing and condescending.

It really governs the Swedish psyche, and individual bubbles of lagom are definitely changing and morphing with each passing generation.

I needed to write a well-balanced cultural book that could still stand once the Scandi-trends wave washed over.

What does lagom mean and why is it important? On the surface, lagom is often described as “not too little, not too much, just right,” but it’s a lot more nuanced than that and lies closer to “optimal.” It is the key to unlocking the Swedish psyche and governs almost all aspects of life and culture in the country.

It also transforms its meaning in different contexts — from “less is more” in terms of décor and “moderation” in terms of food to “harmony and balance” in terms of society and “mindfulness” in terms of well-being.

If one were to boil down the true essence of lagom to its very core, it means striving for the ultimate balance in life that, when applied to all aspects of one’s existence, can help guide you toward operating at your most natural, effortless state.

The state and measurement of lagom mean different things to different folks. My satisfaction may vary from yours, but we can both be satisfied. Lagom represents the ultimate sweet spot or golden mean in your own life, and more importantly, it encourages you to fully operate within that sweet spot that’s just right for you.

For travelers to Sweden, how can they detect lagom at work or play? Many people often describe Swedes (in Sweden, not outside of Sweden) as reserved, inaccessible, and maybe even cold and flippant, but it’s often just lagom’s mindfulness at play. Locals will give you your space and ensure you’re not inconvenienced by their presence. So, Swedes naturally keep their distance from a place of mindfulness, not because they don’t want to be around you. (Outside of Sweden, they are quick to ditch lagom in social settings.)

At work, lagom is always looking for the best solution, so there’s a lot of planning, lots of meetings, lots of consensus, lots of teamwork, you get the gist… to make sure they arrive at the optimal, lagom solution to all problems.

For example: Many foreigners working or doing business in Sweden often lament the amount of time Swedes put into upfront planning and preparation. Agendas are triple-checked, and several meetings are called to plan every single item on said agendas. Plans can take months to put in place before moving to the next step of implementing each item on those plans.

For a culture that prides itself on efficiency, it could seem these inherent acts of zealous planning are counterproductive, and they can be seen as wasting time and resources. However, because lagom craves balance by trimming excess around its edges, it requires adequate planning. “Adequate” is measured by whatever it takes to prune irrelevance, regardless of how long it takes.

To be efficient means to perform and function in the most optimal manner possible with the least waste of time, resources, and energy. This very definition of efficiency mirrors the core of lagom.

So lagom says it is perfectly OK to spend as much time as needed to prepare ourselves and strongly develop our plans, because that’s the only way we can guarantee efficiency.

For travelers who would like to date a Swede, how can understanding lagom help them? Swedes don’t naturally divulge information or overshare, so sometimes it can be hard to even gauge or assess what’s going on in a relationship. And it’s not a culture that overly gesticulates with hands or uses flattering words, so knowing if a Swede is interested in you can be denoted by their unusually prolonged eye contact.

So, when out on a date, always have follow-up questions to keep the conversation going and to avoid your date awkwardly ending at “yes or no” answers. Because they will do so, in an effort not to overshare without being asked.

For someone going on a date expecting to be lavishly wined and dined, Swedes are generally conditioned to split their bills, to always repay favors, and to not be duty-bound to anyone, especially financially, by keeping that scale balanced. So this can come as a nasty surprise at the end of the night if you haven’t discussed it before the waiter brings out the menu.

And if you’re in relationship with a Swede and have issues or questions, just ask straight out because Swedes are very direct. And be prepared for those direct answers!

Why are people so fascinated with Sweden? I think a lot of the fascination comes from the quality of life and just how progressive the society is. Another more superficial angle has to do with physicality — from people and landscapes to interior décor and architecture. I mean, the city of Stockholm itself is absolutely stunning, and it spreads across 14 islands, which you can view from some nice vantage points in town. Sweden consistently ranks in the top 10 happiest countries, so there are clearly things Sweden is getting right.

What’s the one thing you want people to take away from your book? Lagom is a mindset that fundamentally battles stress. Having too much or too little causes stress, so lagom tries to find its balance between both with the optimal solution by reducing excess. Not perfection, but the best solution.

Think of it as a scale that always needs to be balanced. Too much or too little tips the scale sharply to one side or the other, so lagom balances itself (“just right”) by trimming excess and getting rid of all sources of stress within our control — from material things to relationships that drain us.

Lola A. Åkerström is an award-winning writer, speaker, and photographer with National Geographic Creative. She regularly contributes to high profile publications such as AFAR, the BBC, The Guardian, Lonely Planet, Travel + Leisure, and National Geographic Traveler. Lola is also the editor of Slow Travel Stockholm, an online magazine dedicated to exploring Sweden’s capital city in depth. She lives in Stockholm and blogs at Geotraveler’s Niche. You can pick up a copy of her book on Amazon. (It’s really interesting and I highly recommend it!)

The post Living Lagom in Sweden: An Interview With Lola Akerstrom appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

Living Lagom in Sweden: An Interview With Lola Akerstrom http://ift.tt/2k9Ba4r

[touristguidebuzz]

Living Lagom in Sweden: An Interview With Lola Akerstrom

Back in 2006, during my first trip around the world, I met a Swedish girl. We traveled together for a bit and the following year I went to visit her in Sweden. Though that relationship didn’t last, my love for Sweden did and, in subsequent years, I learned Swedish and even tried to move to Sweden. I love everything Swedish. And so does my friend Lola. Lola and I met back in 2008 when travel blogging was in its infancy. Unlike me, she’s had success in making a life in Sweden, where she now lives with her husband and son. She’s one of the favorite people in the industry and I love the imagery in her writing and the beauty in her photography.

In her new book, Lagom, she discusses life in Sweden and Swedish culture. Today, I jealously interview her about life there.

Nomadic Matt: Tell everyone a bit about yourself. Lola: I’m a Nigerian-born, US-educated, Sweden-based writer and photographer focusing mostly on exploring culture through food, tradition, and lifestyles. My photography is represented by National Geographic Creative, and I was recently awarded the prestigious 2018 Travel Photographer of the Year Bill Muster Award from the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW).

I actually took a nontraditional path to this new life, as I worked as a web programmer and GIS system architect for 12+ years before the full career shift into the travel media industry.

I’ve always been fascinated by the nuances of culture: what makes us different and what our similarities are. And so this curiosity and acknowledgement really underpins pretty much all my work as a travel writer and photographer.

How did you end up in Sweden? I met my husband in 2006 while living in the US. After logging thousands upon thousands of air miles, as well as temporary stints in Stockholm, I officially moved over in 2009. It really was an intercultural, interracial, and intercontinental union in many ways. We now have two kids, so Sweden will be home for a while for many reasons, the prime one being that it’s pretty darn perfect for families.

How do you find life in Sweden? Good? Bad? Life in Sweden is what you make of it, and that’s why I also wrote this book — as a handy cultural guide that can help you integrate and deeply understand Swedish culture and its nuances. Having lived in both Nigeria and the US for extended periods of time, I appreciate living here with a young family. Overall, the quality of life is fantastic in terms of stress levels. There is enough time to dedicate to the family, as well as generous benefits, which we all contribute to through our taxes.

What’s your least favorite part about living in Sweden? I often say Sweden is the most open society run by the most private people, and I explain why in the book. Sweden does have its dark sides, and I always say the main difference is this: I can be like Oprah Winfrey if I want to as a black woman in the US, despite all the racial tensions. In Sweden, while you’ll be left in a small corner to live your happy life, trying to be a CEO or magnate like Oprah is a gargantuan task. There are people who still don’t get called for job interviews because of the names on their résumés. So overall, while I love living here, no society is perfect, and Sweden has a lot of integration issues it needs to work out.

Why did you write this book? So, the Swedish word lagom has recently emerged as the lifestyle trend of 2017 and of course, publishers are jumping on it with different lifestyle books — from recipes to interior decor.

But I needed to put a book out there that was beyond cinnamon bun recipes, because lagom is not a word that is warmly embraced or even liked by many Swedes themselves for various reasons, including the fact the ethos has over time morphed to denote average, boring, and middle-of-the-road. I detail all this in the book, as well as explain why lagom itself is inherently a good ideal as opposed to jante, which is the negative parasitic ethos that attaches itself to lagom and brings the negativity. But it is the key to understanding the Swedish mindset.

I have been living in Sweden for eight years, and writing about the country and its culture for even longer. I am also married to a Swede and have a unique vantage point of observing the culture both objectively and subjectively. So I explain lagom in a way that a foreigner fully gets it, as well as holding up a mirror to Swedes so they see how lagom is expressed in interactions with other people. It can be very difficult to write about something that’s very intrinsic to you in a way that others can fully understand without coming off as patronizing and condescending.

It really governs the Swedish psyche, and individual bubbles of lagom are definitely changing and morphing with each passing generation.

I needed to write a well-balanced cultural book that could still stand once the Scandi-trends wave washed over.

What does lagom mean and why is it important? On the surface, lagom is often described as “not too little, not too much, just right,” but it’s a lot more nuanced than that and lies closer to “optimal.” It is the key to unlocking the Swedish psyche and governs almost all aspects of life and culture in the country.

It also transforms its meaning in different contexts — from “less is more” in terms of décor and “moderation” in terms of food to “harmony and balance” in terms of society and “mindfulness” in terms of well-being.

If one were to boil down the true essence of lagom to its very core, it means striving for the ultimate balance in life that, when applied to all aspects of one’s existence, can help guide you toward operating at your most natural, effortless state.

The state and measurement of lagom mean different things to different folks. My satisfaction may vary from yours, but we can both be satisfied. Lagom represents the ultimate sweet spot or golden mean in your own life, and more importantly, it encourages you to fully operate within that sweet spot that’s just right for you.

For travelers to Sweden, how can they detect lagom at work or play? Many people often describe Swedes (in Sweden, not outside of Sweden) as reserved, inaccessible, and maybe even cold and flippant, but it’s often just lagom’s mindfulness at play. Locals will give you your space and ensure you’re not inconvenienced by their presence. So, Swedes naturally keep their distance from a place of mindfulness, not because they don’t want to be around you. (Outside of Sweden, they are quick to ditch lagom in social settings.)

At work, lagom is always looking for the best solution, so there’s a lot of planning, lots of meetings, lots of consensus, lots of teamwork, you get the gist… to make sure they arrive at the optimal, lagom solution to all problems.

For example: Many foreigners working or doing business in Sweden often lament the amount of time Swedes put into upfront planning and preparation. Agendas are triple-checked, and several meetings are called to plan every single item on said agendas. Plans can take months to put in place before moving to the next step of implementing each item on those plans.

For a culture that prides itself on efficiency, it could seem these inherent acts of zealous planning are counterproductive, and they can be seen as wasting time and resources. However, because lagom craves balance by trimming excess around its edges, it requires adequate planning. “Adequate” is measured by whatever it takes to prune irrelevance, regardless of how long it takes.

To be efficient means to perform and function in the most optimal manner possible with the least waste of time, resources, and energy. This very definition of efficiency mirrors the core of lagom.

So lagom says it is perfectly OK to spend as much time as needed to prepare ourselves and strongly develop our plans, because that’s the only way we can guarantee efficiency.

For travelers who would like to date a Swede, how can understanding lagom help them? Swedes don’t naturally divulge information or overshare, so sometimes it can be hard to even gauge or assess what’s going on in a relationship. And it’s not a culture that overly gesticulates with hands or uses flattering words, so knowing if a Swede is interested in you can be denoted by their unusually prolonged eye contact.

So, when out on a date, always have follow-up questions to keep the conversation going and to avoid your date awkwardly ending at “yes or no” answers. Because they will do so, in an effort not to overshare without being asked.

For someone going on a date expecting to be lavishly wined and dined, Swedes are generally conditioned to split their bills, to always repay favors, and to not be duty-bound to anyone, especially financially, by keeping that scale balanced. So this can come as a nasty surprise at the end of the night if you haven’t discussed it before the waiter brings out the menu.

And if you’re in relationship with a Swede and have issues or questions, just ask straight out because Swedes are very direct. And be prepared for those direct answers!

Why are people so fascinated with Sweden? I think a lot of the fascination comes from the quality of life and just how progressive the society is. Another more superficial angle has to do with physicality — from people and landscapes to interior décor and architecture. I mean, the city of Stockholm itself is absolutely stunning, and it spreads across 14 islands, which you can view from some nice vantage points in town. Sweden consistently ranks in the top 10 happiest countries, so there are clearly things Sweden is getting right.

What’s the one thing you want people to take away from your book? Lagom is a mindset that fundamentally battles stress. Having too much or too little causes stress, so lagom tries to find its balance between both with the optimal solution by reducing excess. Not perfection, but the best solution.

Think of it as a scale that always needs to be balanced. Too much or too little tips the scale sharply to one side or the other, so lagom balances itself (“just right”) by trimming excess and getting rid of all sources of stress within our control — from material things to relationships that drain us.

Lola A. Åkerström is an award-winning writer, speaker, and photographer with National Geographic Creative. She regularly contributes to high profile publications such as AFAR, the BBC, The Guardian, Lonely Planet, Travel + Leisure, and National Geographic Traveler. Lola is also the editor of Slow Travel Stockholm, an online magazine dedicated to exploring Sweden’s capital city in depth. She lives in Stockholm and blogs at Geotraveler’s Niche. You can pick up a copy of her book on Amazon. (It’s really interesting and I highly recommend it!)

The post Living Lagom in Sweden: An Interview With Lola Akerstrom appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

[fadingfartconnoisseur]

Living Lagom in Sweden: An Interview With Lola Akerstrom

Back in 2006, during my first trip around the world, I met a Swedish girl. We traveled together for a bit and the following year I went to visit her in Sweden. Though that relationship didn’t last, my love for Sweden did and, in subsequent years, I learned Swedish and even tried to move to Sweden. I love everything Swedish. And so does my friend Lola. Lola and I met back in 2008 when travel blogging was in its infancy. Unlike me, she’s had success in making a life in Sweden, where she now lives with her husband and son. She’s one of the favorite people in the industry and I love the imagery in her writing and the beauty in her photography.

In her new book, Lagom, she discusses life in Sweden and Swedish culture. Today, I jealously interview her about life there.

Nomadic Matt: Tell everyone a bit about yourself. Lola: I’m a Nigerian-born, US-educated, Sweden-based writer and photographer focusing mostly on exploring culture through food, tradition, and lifestyles. My photography is represented by National Geographic Creative, and I was recently awarded the prestigious 2018 Travel Photographer of the Year Bill Muster Award from the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW).

I actually took a nontraditional path to this new life, as I worked as a web programmer and GIS system architect for 12+ years before the full career shift into the travel media industry.

I’ve always been fascinated by the nuances of culture: what makes us different and what our similarities are. And so this curiosity and acknowledgement really underpins pretty much all my work as a travel writer and photographer.

How did you end up in Sweden? I met my husband in 2006 while living in the US. After logging thousands upon thousands of air miles, as well as temporary stints in Stockholm, I officially moved over in 2009. It really was an intercultural, interracial, and intercontinental union in many ways. We now have two kids, so Sweden will be home for a while for many reasons, the prime one being that it’s pretty darn perfect for families.

How do you find life in Sweden? Good? Bad? Life in Sweden is what you make of it, and that’s why I also wrote this book — as a handy cultural guide that can help you integrate and deeply understand Swedish culture and its nuances. Having lived in both Nigeria and the US for extended periods of time, I appreciate living here with a young family. Overall, the quality of life is fantastic in terms of stress levels. There is enough time to dedicate to the family, as well as generous benefits, which we all contribute to through our taxes.

What’s your least favorite part about living in Sweden? I often say Sweden is the most open society run by the most private people, and I explain why in the book. Sweden does have its dark sides, and I always say the main difference is this: I can be like Oprah Winfrey if I want to as a black woman in the US, despite all the racial tensions. In Sweden, while you’ll be left in a small corner to live your happy life, trying to be a CEO or magnate like Oprah is a gargantuan task. There are people who still don’t get called for job interviews because of the names on their résumés. So overall, while I love living here, no society is perfect, and Sweden has a lot of integration issues it needs to work out.

Why did you write this book? So, the Swedish word lagom has recently emerged as the lifestyle trend of 2017 and of course, publishers are jumping on it with different lifestyle books — from recipes to interior decor.

But I needed to put a book out there that was beyond cinnamon bun recipes, because lagom is not a word that is warmly embraced or even liked by many Swedes themselves for various reasons, including the fact the ethos has over time morphed to denote average, boring, and middle-of-the-road. I detail all this in the book, as well as explain why lagom itself is inherently a good ideal as opposed to jante, which is the negative parasitic ethos that attaches itself to lagom and brings the negativity. But it is the key to understanding the Swedish mindset.

I have been living in Sweden for eight years, and writing about the country and its culture for even longer. I am also married to a Swede and have a unique vantage point of observing the culture both objectively and subjectively. So I explain lagom in a way that a foreigner fully gets it, as well as holding up a mirror to Swedes so they see how lagom is expressed in interactions with other people. It can be very difficult to write about something that’s very intrinsic to you in a way that others can fully understand without coming off as patronizing and condescending.

It really governs the Swedish psyche, and individual bubbles of lagom are definitely changing and morphing with each passing generation.

I needed to write a well-balanced cultural book that could still stand once the Scandi-trends wave washed over.

What does lagom mean and why is it important? On the surface, lagom is often described as “not too little, not too much, just right,” but it’s a lot more nuanced than that and lies closer to “optimal.” It is the key to unlocking the Swedish psyche and governs almost all aspects of life and culture in the country.

It also transforms its meaning in different contexts — from “less is more” in terms of décor and “moderation” in terms of food to “harmony and balance” in terms of society and “mindfulness” in terms of well-being.

If one were to boil down the true essence of lagom to its very core, it means striving for the ultimate balance in life that, when applied to all aspects of one’s existence, can help guide you toward operating at your most natural, effortless state.

The state and measurement of lagom mean different things to different folks. My satisfaction may vary from yours, but we can both be satisfied. Lagom represents the ultimate sweet spot or golden mean in your own life, and more importantly, it encourages you to fully operate within that sweet spot that’s just right for you.

For travelers to Sweden, how can they detect lagom at work or play? Many people often describe Swedes (in Sweden, not outside of Sweden) as reserved, inaccessible, and maybe even cold and flippant, but it’s often just lagom’s mindfulness at play. Locals will give you your space and ensure you’re not inconvenienced by their presence. So, Swedes naturally keep their distance from a place of mindfulness, not because they don’t want to be around you. (Outside of Sweden, they are quick to ditch lagom in social settings.)

At work, lagom is always looking for the best solution, so there’s a lot of planning, lots of meetings, lots of consensus, lots of teamwork, you get the gist… to make sure they arrive at the optimal, lagom solution to all problems.

For example: Many foreigners working or doing business in Sweden often lament the amount of time Swedes put into upfront planning and preparation. Agendas are triple-checked, and several meetings are called to plan every single item on said agendas. Plans can take months to put in place before moving to the next step of implementing each item on those plans.

For a culture that prides itself on efficiency, it could seem these inherent acts of zealous planning are counterproductive, and they can be seen as wasting time and resources. However, because lagom craves balance by trimming excess around its edges, it requires adequate planning. “Adequate” is measured by whatever it takes to prune irrelevance, regardless of how long it takes.

To be efficient means to perform and function in the most optimal manner possible with the least waste of time, resources, and energy. This very definition of efficiency mirrors the core of lagom.

So lagom says it is perfectly OK to spend as much time as needed to prepare ourselves and strongly develop our plans, because that’s the only way we can guarantee efficiency.

For travelers who would like to date a Swede, how can understanding lagom help them? Swedes don’t naturally divulge information or overshare, so sometimes it can be hard to even gauge or assess what’s going on in a relationship. And it’s not a culture that overly gesticulates with hands or uses flattering words, so knowing if a Swede is interested in you can be denoted by their unusually prolonged eye contact.

So, when out on a date, always have follow-up questions to keep the conversation going and to avoid your date awkwardly ending at “yes or no” answers. Because they will do so, in an effort not to overshare without being asked.

For someone going on a date expecting to be lavishly wined and dined, Swedes are generally conditioned to split their bills, to always repay favors, and to not be duty-bound to anyone, especially financially, by keeping that scale balanced. So this can come as a nasty surprise at the end of the night if you haven’t discussed it before the waiter brings out the menu.

And if you’re in relationship with a Swede and have issues or questions, just ask straight out because Swedes are very direct. And be prepared for those direct answers!

Why are people so fascinated with Sweden? I think a lot of the fascination comes from the quality of life and just how progressive the society is. Another more superficial angle has to do with physicality — from people and landscapes to interior décor and architecture. I mean, the city of Stockholm itself is absolutely stunning, and it spreads across 14 islands, which you can view from some nice vantage points in town. Sweden consistently ranks in the top 10 happiest countries, so there are clearly things Sweden is getting right.

What’s the one thing you want people to take away from your book? Lagom is a mindset that fundamentally battles stress. Having too much or too little causes stress, so lagom tries to find its balance between both with the optimal solution by reducing excess. Not perfection, but the best solution.

Think of it as a scale that always needs to be balanced. Too much or too little tips the scale sharply to one side or the other, so lagom balances itself (“just right”) by trimming excess and getting rid of all sources of stress within our control — from material things to relationships that drain us.

Lola A. Åkerström is an award-winning writer, speaker, and photographer with National Geographic Creative. She regularly contributes to high profile publications such as AFAR, the BBC, The Guardian, Lonely Planet, Travel + Leisure, and National Geographic Traveler. Lola is also the editor of Slow Travel Stockholm, an online magazine dedicated to exploring Sweden’s capital city in depth. She lives in Stockholm and blogs at Geotraveler’s Niche. You can pick up a copy of her book on Amazon. (It’s really interesting and I highly recommend it!)

The post Living Lagom in Sweden: An Interview With Lola Akerstrom appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

via Travel Blogs http://ift.tt/2k9Ba4r

[tamboradventure]

Living Lagom in Sweden: An Interview With Lola Akerstrom

Back in 2006, during my first trip around the world, I met a Swedish girl. We traveled together for a bit and the following year I went to visit her in Sweden. Though that relationship didn’t last, my love for Sweden did and, in subsequent years, I learned Swedish and even tried to move to Sweden. I love everything Swedish. And so does my friend Lola. Lola and I met back in 2008 when travel blogging was in its infancy. Unlike me, she’s had success in making a life in Sweden, where she now lives with her husband and son. She’s one of the favorite people in the industry and I love the imagery in her writing and the beauty in her photography.

In her new book, Lagom, she discusses life in Sweden and Swedish culture. Today, I jealously interview her about life there.

Nomadic Matt: Tell everyone a bit about yourself. Lola: I’m a Nigerian-born, US-educated, Sweden-based writer and photographer focusing mostly on exploring culture through food, tradition, and lifestyles. My photography is represented by National Geographic Creative, and I was recently awarded the prestigious 2018 Travel Photographer of the Year Bill Muster Award from the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW).

I actually took a nontraditional path to this new life, as I worked as a web programmer and GIS system architect for 12+ years before the full career shift into the travel media industry.

I’ve always been fascinated by the nuances of culture: what makes us different and what our similarities are. And so this curiosity and acknowledgement really underpins pretty much all my work as a travel writer and photographer.

How did you end up in Sweden? I met my husband in 2006 while living in the US. After logging thousands upon thousands of air miles, as well as temporary stints in Stockholm, I officially moved over in 2009. It really was an intercultural, interracial, and intercontinental union in many ways. We now have two kids, so Sweden will be home for a while for many reasons, the prime one being that it’s pretty darn perfect for families.

How do you find life in Sweden? Good? Bad? Life in Sweden is what you make of it, and that’s why I also wrote this book — as a handy cultural guide that can help you integrate and deeply understand Swedish culture and its nuances. Having lived in both Nigeria and the US for extended periods of time, I appreciate living here with a young family. Overall, the quality of life is fantastic in terms of stress levels. There is enough time to dedicate to the family, as well as generous benefits, which we all contribute to through our taxes.

What’s your least favorite part about living in Sweden? I often say Sweden is the most open society run by the most private people, and I explain why in the book. Sweden does have its dark sides, and I always say the main difference is this: I can be like Oprah Winfrey if I want to as a black woman in the US, despite all the racial tensions. In Sweden, while you’ll be left in a small corner to live your happy life, trying to be a CEO or magnate like Oprah is a gargantuan task. There are people who still don’t get called for job interviews because of the names on their résumés. So overall, while I love living here, no society is perfect, and Sweden has a lot of integration issues it needs to work out.

Why did you write this book? So, the Swedish word lagom has recently emerged as the lifestyle trend of 2017 and of course, publishers are jumping on it with different lifestyle books — from recipes to interior decor.

But I needed to put a book out there that was beyond cinnamon bun recipes, because lagom is not a word that is warmly embraced or even liked by many Swedes themselves for various reasons, including the fact the ethos has over time morphed to denote average, boring, and middle-of-the-road. I detail all this in the book, as well as explain why lagom itself is inherently a good ideal as opposed to jante, which is the negative parasitic ethos that attaches itself to lagom and brings the negativity. But it is the key to understanding the Swedish mindset.

I have been living in Sweden for eight years, and writing about the country and its culture for even longer. I am also married to a Swede and have a unique vantage point of observing the culture both objectively and subjectively. So I explain lagom in a way that a foreigner fully gets it, as well as holding up a mirror to Swedes so they see how lagom is expressed in interactions with other people. It can be very difficult to write about something that’s very intrinsic to you in a way that others can fully understand without coming off as patronizing and condescending.

It really governs the Swedish psyche, and individual bubbles of lagom are definitely changing and morphing with each passing generation.

I needed to write a well-balanced cultural book that could still stand once the Scandi-trends wave washed over.

What does lagom mean and why is it important? On the surface, lagom is often described as “not too little, not too much, just right,” but it’s a lot more nuanced than that and lies closer to “optimal.” It is the key to unlocking the Swedish psyche and governs almost all aspects of life and culture in the country.

It also transforms its meaning in different contexts — from “less is more” in terms of décor and “moderation” in terms of food to “harmony and balance” in terms of society and “mindfulness” in terms of well-being.

If one were to boil down the true essence of lagom to its very core, it means striving for the ultimate balance in life that, when applied to all aspects of one’s existence, can help guide you toward operating at your most natural, effortless state.

The state and measurement of lagom mean different things to different folks. My satisfaction may vary from yours, but we can both be satisfied. Lagom represents the ultimate sweet spot or golden mean in your own life, and more importantly, it encourages you to fully operate within that sweet spot that’s just right for you.

For travelers to Sweden, how can they detect lagom at work or play? Many people often describe Swedes (in Sweden, not outside of Sweden) as reserved, inaccessible, and maybe even cold and flippant, but it’s often just lagom’s mindfulness at play. Locals will give you your space and ensure you’re not inconvenienced by their presence. So, Swedes naturally keep their distance from a place of mindfulness, not because they don’t want to be around you. (Outside of Sweden, they are quick to ditch lagom in social settings.)

At work, lagom is always looking for the best solution, so there’s a lot of planning, lots of meetings, lots of consensus, lots of teamwork, you get the gist… to make sure they arrive at the optimal, lagom solution to all problems.

For example: Many foreigners working or doing business in Sweden often lament the amount of time Swedes put into upfront planning and preparation. Agendas are triple-checked, and several meetings are called to plan every single item on said agendas. Plans can take months to put in place before moving to the next step of implementing each item on those plans.

For a culture that prides itself on efficiency, it could seem these inherent acts of zealous planning are counterproductive, and they can be seen as wasting time and resources. However, because lagom craves balance by trimming excess around its edges, it requires adequate planning. “Adequate” is measured by whatever it takes to prune irrelevance, regardless of how long it takes.

To be efficient means to perform and function in the most optimal manner possible with the least waste of time, resources, and energy. This very definition of efficiency mirrors the core of lagom.

So lagom says it is perfectly OK to spend as much time as needed to prepare ourselves and strongly develop our plans, because that’s the only way we can guarantee efficiency.

For travelers who would like to date a Swede, how can understanding lagom help them? Swedes don’t naturally divulge information or overshare, so sometimes it can be hard to even gauge or assess what’s going on in a relationship. And it’s not a culture that overly gesticulates with hands or uses flattering words, so knowing if a Swede is interested in you can be denoted by their unusually prolonged eye contact.

So, when out on a date, always have follow-up questions to keep the conversation going and to avoid your date awkwardly ending at “yes or no” answers. Because they will do so, in an effort not to overshare without being asked.

For someone going on a date expecting to be lavishly wined and dined, Swedes are generally conditioned to split their bills, to always repay favors, and to not be duty-bound to anyone, especially financially, by keeping that scale balanced. So this can come as a nasty surprise at the end of the night if you haven’t discussed it before the waiter brings out the menu.

And if you’re in relationship with a Swede and have issues or questions, just ask straight out because Swedes are very direct. And be prepared for those direct answers!

Why are people so fascinated with Sweden? I think a lot of the fascination comes from the quality of life and just how progressive the society is. Another more superficial angle has to do with physicality — from people and landscapes to interior décor and architecture. I mean, the city of Stockholm itself is absolutely stunning, and it spreads across 14 islands, which you can view from some nice vantage points in town. Sweden consistently ranks in the top 10 happiest countries, so there are clearly things Sweden is getting right.

What’s the one thing you want people to take away from your book? Lagom is a mindset that fundamentally battles stress. Having too much or too little causes stress, so lagom tries to find its balance between both with the optimal solution by reducing excess. Not perfection, but the best solution.

Think of it as a scale that always needs to be balanced. Too much or too little tips the scale sharply to one side or the other, so lagom balances itself (“just right”) by trimming excess and getting rid of all sources of stress within our control — from material things to relationships that drain us.

Lola A. Åkerström is an award-winning writer, speaker, and photographer with National Geographic Creative. She regularly contributes to high profile publications such as AFAR, the BBC, The Guardian, Lonely Planet, Travel + Leisure, and National Geographic Traveler. Lola is also the editor of Slow Travel Stockholm, an online magazine dedicated to exploring Sweden’s capital city in depth. She lives in Stockholm and blogs at Geotraveler’s Niche. You can pick up a copy of her book on Amazon. (It’s really interesting and I highly recommend it!)

The post Living Lagom in Sweden: An Interview With Lola Akerstrom appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

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[lastliein]

why you no want mommy tell your fortune?