#i do not have to be kind to their memory to prove my moral superiority to them — my distinct lack of billionairedom proves it already

[wickershells]

the only thing i will say about the titan, specifically the reactions of poor and working class people, is that i don’t blame anyone for finding some degree of humour or poeticism in the implosion. for once (just once!!!) the rich cutting corners in safety just to make the largest profits actually blew up in their faces, instead of ours. it shouldn’t have happened and i’m always sorry to hear of death and loss in such preventable (and also horrifying) circumstances — especially that of a teenager — but this also applies primarily to cases of factory explosions and mine cave-ins and mall collapses etc. where the death tolls are considerably higher, the victims much less wealthy. there’s a sense of irony here. that’s all

[pudgy-planets]

Although Al kind of just reawakened this memory in my mind from people getting mad about the wrong things. It still pisses me off.

Do you know the mental strain of being accused of shit when you have no idea or any knowledge of certain facts or information? It’s stressful.

Like when that dumbass Anon accused me of not having morals or any moral ground to stand on because I run a kink blog AND reblogged some art from an artist who drew kink art of Anya Forger before.

Fun fact: I HAD NO FUCKINg idea THEY DID THAT???

I don’t even use deviantart that much anymore outside of posting MHA stuff here and I vehemently oppose going on Twitter. Like Al said, people are not chronically online and even if they are, it’s still not a justification to attack people for being unaware.

It’s why I make OC’s nowadays as opposed to more canon portrayals. So people aren’t attacking me and accusing me of being a creep. Because at least it’s my own creations whose ages I can explicitly state and no one can tell me otherwise.

And it’s the fact people were ATTACKING ME for writing MHA characters when several other people have done the same here- It feels like no matter what I can’t enjoy anything without someone putting their two sense that no asked for.

Like yes. I’m a naive, fucking idiot with no real experience in life as a whole, I understand that. But God’s sake I don’t want shitty people ruining one of the few things in life that brings me unparalleled joy.

I know I’m asking for too much, but just ugh… always someone trying to prove themselves "morally" superior…

[hermitcraftheadcanons]

Hermitopia AU Conclusion

The last ask has been answered, the masterposts are complete, and (although art, writing, and Discord discussion are still accepted and encouraged) it is finally time to officially wrap up the Hermitopia AU! Because this was such a massive event - and no small thing to moderate - there will be a pause in blog activity for a day or so before the inbox will open for regular headcanons again. I apologize in advance for the wait!

In the mean time, I would just like to say: I am so, so thankful to everyone who participated in the AU. Your ideas and your creativity have made this blog a better place, whether you sent in one headcanon or dozens, and I am constantly in awe of the energy and enthusiasm of this community. Thank you, all of you, for making this universe we’ve created as vast and as interesting as it turned out to be.

Below are a collection of my own ideas, for those of you who like a satisfying (but still not entirely closed-ended) ending. These events take place as many days, months, or years into the future as you need them to make your own ideas work, and none of them are set in stone. You can take all of them, some of them, or none of them as truth if you want to...but either way, it has been an honour to build on a project like this one alongside you all.

And with that...the Hermitopia AU concludes! Finished, or barely begun, like so many good projects are. Have a great day everyone, and happy headcanoning!

- Mod Shade

"People of Hermitopia."

The man on the screen shifts, running a nervous hand across his bald head and squaring his shoulders. The broadcast quality is unstable, but it's more than enough for every citizen in the city to recognize who's speaking.

"This is your Concorp Branch Director, Cub. As I'm sure you are aware, I am the head of Project VEX in this city. You all know the VEX initiative as groundbreaking, life-saving, a shining success and a step towards a new era for humanity...and some of you may even see me as a hero for creating it.”

He closes his eyes, a brief look of pained remorse crossing his face. For a moment, he looks utterly defeated, almost small in the face of his impromptu audience of thousands...but finally, he fixes the camera with a steady gaze once more and begins the great unravelling.

“Maybe it was all those things, in the beginning. Maybe *I* was, once. But today, after far too long, I have some confessions to make...."

~

- For years, Cub had been desperately scrambling to hold the tatters of his life’s work together. Project VEX had started so well, and he had poured so much of himself into it, that when the failed experiments and rebellions became more and more frequent he was unable to accept a change of course. He covered up the project’s failings to maintain funding and public image, but mostly to maintain his own image to himself - that he was still the hero he’d set out to be and create at the project’s start. However, his denial was wearing on him heavily, and eventually he had a breakdown and decided to go public rather than keep drowning the city in lies.

- This breakdown was prompted by xB, who after his own moral breakthrough, confronted Cub and urged him to stop withholding knowledge and truth. xB also informed Cub of his own unknown truth - that the unintended power of his presence was the thing that was keeping the experiments successful when Cub was around. This was the final straw in breaking through Cub’s denial

- Along with Cub’s broadcasted speech, files were released to the media containing proof against most if not all of Concorp’s falsehoods. Many names were cleared of crimes that had been pinned on them, including Beef, Impulse, Doc, Cleo, and the majority of the other Unrestrained and Unaffiliated former VEX trainees that the company had tried to cast away

- Understandably, it took a very long time for the chaos to die down and all that information to be processed by society and the justice system. It may be years before the community can see some of their heroes in the proper light again, but at least they are now free to begin rebuilding their reputation without being labeled as villains and traitors.

- Those who actually did commit villainous acts are given a fair trial, with consideration for their motives and the new Concorp information as extra evidence

- The VEX program is withdrawn by Cub’s superiors and put under a strict review. It is reborn after a massive restructuring, with a new director, new limitations on what experiments can and cannot be attempted, and a greatly extended screening and training program to reduce the chances of graduates becoming villains. The new project will produce far fewer heroes with much subtler powers at first...but if that is the cost for the safety and stability of the city, then most people would agree that it is a small price to pay.

- Cub is not permitted to work on the new Project VEX in a management role, ever again. It’s a harsh blow for him, to have to watch his dream from the sidelines...but he knows he gave up the right to guide it when he abused the control that it gave him. At least his superiors allowed him something to do while he awaits trial: he is present (although guarded) at every new VEX trainee’s first experiment, lending his power to increase their chances of success.

- Mayor Scar resigned willingly. Nobody had enough evidence to accuse him of anything, and he didn’t plan on giving them a reason to look by trying to stay in office. Instead he chose to make his exit from both Concorp and government matters complete, at last. Or so he thinks. Who knows? Maybe he’ll learn what most of the people he’s helped to manipulate have already found out: that connections and old grudges don’t easily lose their grip.

- Scar is replaced by TFC, voted in by almost unanimous community support and funded by donations from all the people he’s saved over the years

- The greater Convex company offers a choice to the survivors of the old program: Come to work under their new, more honorable system, or take a generously large settlement and be free to build new lives

- Team ZIT declines the job offer, pooling their payment and using it to buy a shiny new base together for their independent hero venture. There are still a handful of real villains to fight, after all, and there are bound to be more once people start successfully copying Concorp technology. Now that Impulse is back at their side, they wouldn’t give up their roles saving the community for anything - but they’re done with being used by some guy behind a desk. From now on, justice and bravery will be their only guides!

- ...justice, bravery, and TFC, that is. He isn’t their boss by any means, but the more experienced hero does drop by often between his mayoral duties to make sure the youngsters stay out of trouble and in one piece.

- The nHo, according to all official records, took their settlements and split up, leaving Hermitopia far behind. However, Team ZIT suspects that the vigilante life hasn’t left them so easily. They’d be the last ones to report the odd sighting of a whipping vine or a distant masked figure, though - unregulated as they are, the nHo’s shady methods for a good cause prove useful from time to time. (And their base has really good tea. Okay, maybe it’s a little bit more than “the occasional sighting”...)

- Ren settles back into his meadow cabin, but after that massive release of info and a long, LONG period of processing, he now has Iskall, Stress, and Cleo as regular visitors. Every morning he wakes up and forgets for a moment that it’s real, that they’re really alive and with him again...but they are, and he is happier than he ever thought he would be again.

- Jevin and Mumbo visit the cabin occasionally. It took a while for Mumbo to get his memory back, but he now remembers all of his friendship with Iskall and Grian, and they come together for fun and shenanigans regularly with the rest of the cabin crew.

- Grian still spends his time looking for his clones, but honestly, he doesn’t mind. The adventure always did hold more meaning than the conclusion for him, and now, he has friends to help out!

- False disappears into thin air to wait out the fallout of Concorp’s information release. She snags herself a quiet job and a small apartment on the outskirts of town, fully intending to return to her mercenary work just as soon as the dust has settled...next week, maybe. Or the week after that. Or maybe, once the garden has been fully planted. She’s really enjoying having time for stuff like that now...but she’ll get back to work, really, she will! Soon.

- Joe and Cleo tearfully reunite through xB, and Joe becomes another frequent visitor to the cabin. Cleo also visits Joe’s base in the time exclusion zone, but she really prefers the cabin. Time skips are disorienting, and they make her want to sneeze.

- Keralis and Void come to an agreement. Xisuma isn’t entirely clear on what that agreement is - something to do with an allowance of cookies from Biffa’s bakery in exchange for not killing anyone - but he’s more than happy to be less sore and tired all the time.

Hermitopia is making progress. Real progress, this time - not just the breaking of humanity’s limitations, but breaking them with true heroic care, with the good of everyone in mind. There are some hurts that will never fully heal, mistakes that can be learned from but not undone, and yet...now there is a path, a way forward. It won’t be easy, but a kind and gentle future waits for them, welcome and well deserved. They will figure it out, together.

And together, they will step forward, into the new world that each of them has helped to create.

[pseudospectre]

Had a conversation recently with some friends about how stories with a heaven/hell dynamic love the idea of fallen angels, but I’ve never seen anything that goes the opposite direction. So I wrote one.  It’s been a long long time since I’ve written anything so please forgive the quality, it was just a quick bit of fun. :)

Rise

I fell for a reason. I burned for a reason. I remember so little of my previous life, so many years, even centuries ago, but I remember that much.  I have no tragic story of innocence betrayed or manipulated, no heart-wrenching tale of self-sacrifice or loss. I was just, as they say, a bastard. That’s all I can tell you, all that survived the fire, so to speak.

They’ll tell you, gleefully, about the hopelessness, when your soul arrives after judgment and they offer you a position. This is all there is left, they say. You are lost, you are evil, this is all you deserve for eternity. Most damned souls don’t truly understand, in my experience. Everyone believes, to some degree, that they were at least all right, in the end. And they fight the idea of damnation and punishment, think somehow that resisting the new temptation and heading to their torment is somehow going to prove that, or help. As if they can weasel out, eventually, if they aren’t contracted. It always seemed remarkably shortsighted; of course you can’t. I already enjoyed the cruelty, I knew what it meant, so the opportunity to spare myself the pain in return for causing it? Well, what is a demon if not selfish? I was fine with the requirements, already there and unsaveable, it’s not like it can be worse? You can either suffer or be a part of the system, and I made a damn good demon. A little hell humor. And that’s supposed to be all there was, the end, fin.

Turns out, they don’t quite give you all of the information

What you need to understand is that there’s a lot of misinformation out there about how all this is set up. Most beliefs have some concept of punishment or reward, but strictly speaking, we’re not really associated with any one in particular. Funnily enough, it has more to do with your social beliefs than whether or not there’s a god. Nobody gives a fuck who’s name you take in vain, for example; it’s all about balance. And there are absolutely folks that fill the roles of what you’d call god or the devil, make no mistake. The cultures that talk about weighing souls have that part the closest, although it’s a hell of a lot more complicated than that, ha. Not that I cared at the time, but actions, with very few exceptions, cannot be good or bad in and of themselves. Something you do nice for someone could in fact have a negative result for someone else down the line, unintentionally or unknowingly. All of that has to be carefully picked apart and scrutinized to truly reach a conclusion, and I’ve even seen a net “loss” overall be rewarded and net gains get descended, based on factors even I don’t understand. Wasn’t my job; I didn’t judge, I just turned the screws on the ones they sent me. But as with any large-scale operation, it’s not infallible. I know it seems like it ought to be, but here we are. Hell, here I am. The thing is, it’s a lot easier to correct an accidental reward than an accidental punishment, because everyone down there wails their innocence. No one believes them, of course, they all think that. There’s no point in following up, usually. Mostly, souls I worked on were one of two things: screamers (self explanatory) or talkers. Talkers are the ones who still think they can wheedle their way out, or want to share their life story again, hoping they can find a loophole or something to get them out. Some of those souls had been there longer than I had, sometimes; pitiful. Didn’t matter to me, I was having a gre- well, it was a time. And then I was passed a recent acquisition for punishment; not that uncommon, although by then I usually mostly had the old-timers who needed the skills of someone who really knew their stuff. But this soul? 

Completely silent.

Really. Didn’t make a sound. Threw me for a huge loop, centuries as a literal nightmare and suddenly, no begging, no crying, nothing. Not even if I taunted, not even when I got started. And in that moment, it became the worst day of my afterlife-me, a piece of shit human voluntarily gone horrifying demon. Because I felt something. First mistake. If I’d stopped there things might have gone on without changing, but I was never what you might have called smart. Average is probably being generous. But I was so bowled over by that little spark of whatever it was-I couldn’t even recognize that it was an emotion, isn’t that sad?- that I made my next mistake: I asked why. Turned out I’d been handed my first actual misjudgment, this poor thing never protested a single action since they got here, never once defended themselves. They’d convinced themselves in life so completely that this is what they would deserve, that they just didn’t have any desire to try to fight it. I asked what they’d been judged for, and they just looked at me, and said they were ready. But when I pushed (at that point I was panicking over whatever was happening in my brain and figured I could count more questions as emotional manipulation or baiting or something) they didn’t list a single thing I had ever heard of stacking up to damnation. Someone at the gates really fucked up, in other words. Someone came in shortly after that and whisked them off, everyone had a good laugh over it for weeks after, jeering and asking me how much I got to put them through before they got picked back up. It should have been easy to join in- before this I would have been in the center of the mockery, but something was wrong, that flare was still inside me and I was having trouble handling it. You ever have a secret and you’re just sure everyone knows what it is just by looking at you? It was like that. And eventually I figured out that’s all it was, just a little bitty emotion, but that almost made it worse because it wasn’t supposed to be there; from what I even knew how all this demon shit worked in the first place, I was pretty sure it wasn’t even possible! But all I had to do to go back to my routine was ignore it, suppress it, reject it. Easy peasy, I’m a goddamn senior demon.

Except, to my shame, I couldn’t let it go. Does that even make sense, a demon feeling shame? Pretty sure that’s what it was at that point. But it was like having a little secret treasure that no one else could see. I would hide it, and then in little moments alone or whatever, bring it out and feel. I didn’t have the context anymore at the time, but now I can compare it to having lived in the dark and suddenly feeling a moment of sun. I had felt sorry for the soul, for just a moment! And the thing about emotions, they can grow the more you think about them. And I started thinking about it a lot. And then I started feeling happy (the horror!) that the mistake was caught and they got to leave. In case it’s unclear, feeling stuff like that for non hell-related reasons makes it pretty hard to do demony things. And if you remember, I’d never felt a whole lot of that kind of thing even before I got here. I literally tortured the souls of the damned, how do you do that when you start feeling sorry for them? But that little crack of light inside me, the shard of humanity, started bring back memories, or at least concepts, from when that’s all I was, and I suddenly started recognizing them as lost. And it hurt? And for the first time, I was mourning. After all, damned is forever. A demon is forever. So I was some weird fluke who caught some feels somehow, it couldn’t change that. But, you know, when your work starts to suffer, people start to notice. They started to talk. And they were right, my game was slipping hard. I felt bad! After a while I couldn’t just not say anything to the ones who just barely tipped the scales! As secretly as I could, I was giving them comfort. And I had to defend myself from my superiors over stuff I couldn’t stomach anymore but had to keep up with, or risk getting kicked back down. The wildest part was, my first thought about losing status wasn’t to save my own skin, of course not….now I was thinking about what the folks I got to talk to would do without those brief moments of respite I’d been passing out.

Point is, I was a demon who didn’t want to be a demon anymore, after centuries of not giving a fuck, and knowing full well that I was solidly fucked and that this was only going to get worse. I was miserable, but I still couldn’t put away the way the tiniest good feelings and I hoarded my experiences like someone who’s drowning clings to a raft. Except this raft was ruining my afterlife, and I didn’t really care for some reason. But I wanted to do my best, and not in the way I was used to. I had no idea what was going to happen but it probably was never going to get better.

But then, the crossroads.

Not the regular demony kind of crossroads. Oh no, I got stuck with the moral kind, although I didn’t realize what it was going to mean at the time. It had gotten bad enough for me that I was back to working under supervision, just like old times, the bad ones from when demons are just getting started. It was hard to do much that way but I’d figured out that even just smiling helps some people apparently? Or at least, once I first figured out how to smile so that they knew it wasn’t a threat. You ever seen a demon? I was not precisely what most people would prefer to look at with any expression. But it was already a hell of a day (more jokes!) and I was apparently near a limit I wasn’t aware of, and we got assigned a new soul. A new soul who didn’t say a word, just like where all of this began. And my supervison grinned at me, and snarled, and raised an arm, and I didn’t even have time to register that I had stepped between them to take the blow. Cheesy, I know. But there was a sound like one of those big industrial light switches snapping off, and it felt like time stopped or something. Maybe it did, I’m still not sure. But the literal, actual judges showed up. I was relieved someone got there so fast before anything else happened, I hadn’t even thought about what was going to happen to me yet. Proof positive I was completely broken by then, hadn’t even thought about my own skin yet. A couple of the judges took the soul away, and I waited for my bosses to show, but the judge still standing there was just watching me. After a moment, they said “Are you coming, or not?”

What.

I don’t think I was processing yet, but I think that’s probably all I actually said. So they gave me a look like you give to the dumbest guy in the room (I’m familiar with it) and said “Are. You coming? You have work to do. Unless you really think you’d prefer to stay?”

“Coming to what? You already picked up the error, it’s not me. Why would they let me leave, anyway? Not that I’m in a hurry to get my asskicking for this.”

There’s that look again. “Then don’t stay for it, they have no claim at the moment. Your balance tipped. Your call, stay, or take your out and rise.”

First time I’d ever heard that word. “……Rise?”

“Yes, rise. I suppose they wouldn’t want it to be common knowledge around here; then again, it means the few cases we get tend to be pretty solidly legitimate. Angels can fall, after all….why couldn’t a demon rise?”

“Sorry, got brimstone in my ears or something, are you telling me, of all creatures, that I’m heading upwards?” I definitely laughed. Demon laughter is very unpleasant. Recognizing this when you’re the one laughing is not fun.

“Something like that. As I said, your call. If you still prefer all of this for eternity, by all means, stick around.”

And that’s how I found out risen demons are a thing.

It’s not easy, no longer being of hell but not being of heaven, but it’s probably easier than you might expect. People think about heaven and hell in terms of punishment and reward, and while this is mostly true, like I said before, it’s really more about balance. The slate’s not wiped clean, but it’s not like I have some impossible restrictive rules that set me up to fail, it’s not like one tiny slip will shoot me back to the inferno, but I have bosses who check in now and then, keep tabs. And they’re here to help me, I’m not just stranded to make my own way. I’m not human, but I’m probably closer to that than I am to angel or demon anymore. And I gotta say, I look a whole lot better. I still put most people off at first, at least a little, but I’m way less spiky and you know. Fewer teeth, fewer arms, that kind of thing. But I guess you could say I’m doing pretty well now, dragging my way back to something I’m not sure I ever was, to be honest. I’m grateful for the chance.

And I’m looking forward to seeing who I can drag along with me, and that part feels pretty good.

[hellzyeahwebwielingessays]

Why Doc Ock WOULDN’T be a goddam rapist!

I can’t believe I have to spell that out, let alone outright explain it. But fine, let’s talk about why Otto’s actions in Superior with MJ are way out of whack for his character.

Basically, Doc Ock wouldn’t view using MJ’s feelings for Peter or her history with him as rape. I just don’t think he’s so dumb not to realise that that’s immoral and him taking advantage of her, which he wouldn’t do.

Now, Doc Ock has  taken advantage of people, including women, before and even visited violence upon them. But there is a big difference in each of those situations.

Obviously with Betty Brant, Aunt May, Felicia, Mary Jane and certain other women, Otto has kidnapped them or threatened to harm them. But this has been a strictly functionary action on his part. Person A is of value to Person/People B. Otto wants something from Person/People B, therefore he will threaten Person A in order to get it from them. It’s a clinical and functionary decision. He would (and has) done this with male abductees. It’s not a signifier of his feelings towards women as a whole.

By extension in his pettier moments he’s attempted to harm people as a form of revenge. But it has never been strictly gendered. He bears the world malice in general.

Let’s get a bit more specific though.

With Aunt May he was ostensibly being himself (in personality and  body) whilst omitting the fact that he was a super villain. However, his main use of her was as a means of escape and furthering his one true love, science. He wasn’t pretending to be someone she knew. He wasn’t putting on the face of someone who looked noticeably younger or different from himself so that could never have been a factor in May’s affections for him. And he wasn’t sleeping with her!  Yeah, that’s kind of a critical difference between his relationships with Anna Maria and Aunt May. Hell, it’s highly unlikely he felt legitimate romantic feelings for her. More likely he had a soft spot for her because she reminded him of his own dearly departed mother.

And let’s remember he displayed lingering affection for May even after she ceased being useful to him. He privately praised her kindness. 

He sought to connect with her at Christmas and chose to leave when he realized he’d spoil the holiday for her. 

He was upset when he learned she was in a coma and had flowers sent to her.

What about Black Cat? He clearly liked her and forced her to remain in his hideout. Later he nearly beat her to death. The difference here is that Otto never forced himself upon her or tried to use deception to get her into bed. His attempts to kill her only occurred after she betrayed and stole from him, going on to team up with his enemy and actively work against him. Again, this wasn’t a gendered thing on his part. He was avenging himself on a specific person for specific slights against him.

We then come to Angelina Brancale, a.k.a. Stunner.

Along with his associate, Carolyn Trainer, Otto planned on creating a virtual reality construct that could interact with the real world. This construct would be of Otto himself and assume his place in order to avoid Otto risking his life. They needed a test subject though, someone who wasn’t going to be missed. Otto selected Angela Brancale who was enamoured with him and would’ve done anything for him. Angela went through months of sometimes painful experiments with the end result being the creation of an interactive avatar of her own.

This was Stunner, the super strong, beautiful, Amazonian companion to Doc Ock. Stunner reflected the obese Angela’s ideal self-image.

Superficially this one might seem like a clear-cut case of exploitation. To a certain extent it absolutely is, but it is more complicated than that. For starters it’s obvious that Angela wanted  to become Stunner and enjoyed  being her. There is also no indication that Otto strictly speaking forced or tricked her into doing anything. Yes, she was selected because of her affections to him and how she wouldn’t be missed.

But we do not know if she was briefed about the potential ordeal she would have to go through or if she had the option of bowing out at any point. Carolyn Trainer referred to her as a ‘trooper’ for putting up with all the experiments and the pain they entailed. Carolyn is a villainess but it at least implies that Angela had agency in this situation. Angela and Carolyn later teamed up and seemed civil with one another, which further implies that there was no ill-will between then. If Angela had been tricked or lacked agency that’d unlikely be the case.

Additionally there is no evidence to suggest before or during Angela’s transformation into Stunner that Otto was having sex with her or using sex to manipulate her. There isn’t even any evidence that they were having sex after she became Stunner. 

As final food for thought, he genuinely loved her when she was Stunner and it seemed that he connected to her because he understood the suffering she endured due to her weight.

Oh, and of course, Otto wasn’t pretending to be someone or something he wasn’t with Stunner. If anything he was startlingly vulnerable with her.

The only other significant relationship Otto had pre-Superior was with his fiancée. However, there is 0 evidence of him manipulating her during their courtship. He wasn’t even a villain at that point so he’d have had nothing to lie to her about.

Let’s also consider the following regarding Otto’s interactions with women.

This is the man who literally tried to cure AIDs just to save his ex fiancée Mary Alice.

This is the guy who kidnapped Betty Brant and Aunt May to lure out Spider-Man and then offered them tea.

This is the guy who was pleased to see Peter and MJ happy together because it meant his enemy was back to his upbeat and normal self and would thus continue to be the adversary he Doctor Octopus deserved.

And yet @danslott-blog, Slott-stans, Superior-stans, Spider-Fans who are none of those things and just people in general are willing to accept that this  guy would be a rapist?

We are happy to say he really  wouldn’t even imagine that sex with MJ or Anna Maria would be morally reprehensible?

Just creatively speaking, not in terms of his character or personality, we’re happy to say THAT guy would play in that ballpark and be depicted this way? Shall we be chill if Carnage was outted as a pedophile while we are at it too?

Of course the counter arguments to the above would be that his attempts to sleep with MJ at least were attempts to prove his superiority over Spider-Man. Or to avenger himself upon him in some way.

First of all the entire concept of Superior is broken. It postulates that Otto is seeking to prove himself better than Spider-Man by becoming an improved version of him. But the problem is that the logic doesn’t line up there.

If the only way he can prove himself better than Spider-Man is by literally becoming him  and in turn turning him into Doctor Octopus, that’s tantamount to admitting Spider-Man was always better than himself. The only way he could have won is by becoming the guy he always claimed was inferior to himself.

Second of all in regards to his attempted ‘conquest’ of MJ, sleeping with her wouldn’t even prove his superiority. It’s made clear by issue #2 that he’s merely interested in MJ for sex and no other reason. He accesses Peter’s memories of being intimate with MJ and experiences the sensation of her body that way, being implied to masturbate during this internal screaming. Afterwards, he states he’s got her off his mind and the story clearly conveys that he’s going to turn his attention to other romantic/sexual pursuits.

So he only wanted to sleep with MJ and nothing else. Not even that, he just wanted to know the sensation of sleeping with MJ and was content to access Peter’s memories and wank off to that end internal screaming intensifies.

By this logic then he’s proven himself if anything inferior  to Peter. And no, I’m not making some kind of judgement about masturbation. My point is if Mary Jane consented to sleep with Peter, but has not done that with Otto, then by definition Peter would have accomplished something Otto would not have. If you remove sex from the equation and just said Otto was trying to ‘win’ a mere kiss from Mary Jane and she didn’t do that, but she had done so for Peter, then by definition Otto would’ve failed where Peter has succeeded.

The fact that he was content to move on from her by simply browsing Peter’s memories (from his POV Peter’s ‘accomplishments’ if you will) means that he was never trying to sleep with MJ to prove his superiority in the first place. He was just a horny creep. Nothing more.

Not to mention, he is aware Peter had slept with Mary Jane and done so on multiple occasions. How would even regularly sleeping with her prove himself superior? It’s just sex. He’d know that. He’s both an adult and an incredible clinical person who clearly knows how to romance a woman. One of his biggest regrets in life was giving up his fiancée.

So Otto would be aware that sex would be no proof of his superiority and it wouldn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. What would really  prove himself superior would be having and maintaining a relationship with MJ that was either longer lasting or over all better than the one she held with Peter.

But he’s not interested in that because he moves on after wanking off. And he is trading off of trickery to even get his foot in the door in the first place. This isn’t a case of him being a younger or more attractive man and using his own charms and traits to court her.

He is only got as far as he did because he looks like someone she knows, because she believes he is that person, because he’s using Peter’s memories to pander to what she likes (like her favourite movie) and circumvent what he knows will turn her off. Hell in ASM #698 he jumps immediately into a relationship with her but it’s obvious to both him and MJ that the emotional groundwork for that had been laid in preceding months.

So even if Otto was enough of a slimeball to not consider this rape, a man that intelligent and egotistical would still recognize that sex wouldn’t be a badge of superiority on his part.

If anything his own romantic life would be something more worthy of pride.

Let’s say we accept for the moment that Otto conforms to stereotypical standards of attractiveness. Well then what would be more impressive from your POV?

a)    Wooing a stunning actress/supermodel when she believes you are someone else she knows, someone much in their 20s or early 30s, very in shape and at least fairly handsome

Or

b)   Being a rotund, arguably ugly (but at least typically unattractive) middle aged man and wooing a relatively attractive woman your age, a younger more attractive woman who was immediately smitten by you and a younger woman smitten by you that your own genius transformed into a veritable vision of stunning beauty?*

Yeah, obviously the latter right?

Also, the idea that sex with MJ would constitute a form of revenge is highly out of character for Otto.

That is more of a Norman Osborn tactic. Otto actively despises Norman’s ideology, as elaborated upon in Superior Team-Up #11-12. In those issues Otto and Norman endeavour to work together in spite of a philosophical disagreement. Otto feels that Spider-Man should be defeated through science whereas Norman feels they should attack his soul. 

To prove the point Norman infects Otto’s old fiancee Mary Alice with a deadly virus (read: AIDs, this was the 1990s) so Otto will understand the torment they could inflict upon Spider-Man.

Initially Otto seeks bloody revenge upon Norman. However, he defies Norman by instead reaffirming his original belief. He sought to defeat Spider-Man through science and thus prove his philosophy superior to Norman’s.

Okay. That wasn’t published at the time of Superior #2 so let’s say we ignore it.

Even doing that, Otto had been defined for decades as someone who wouldn’t go in for such spiteful attacks on his enemies.

In Spec #221 (part of the ‘Web of Death’ storyline) Peter himself states he doesn’t believe Otto will target his loved ones, even though he just learned his secret identity.

Hold them hostage to lure him out? Okay.

Maim or kill them for revenge? He’s just not that sort of guy.

Or at least he wasn’t until this  creepy ass scene from ASM #700. Among other things, he specifically refers to the prospect of sex with MJ as ‘another victory for the Master Planner’. 

Let’s try coming at this from a different angle then.

If Otto believes himself to be  Peter Parker because he inhabits his body, perhaps he doesn’t regard sleeping with MJ as unethical at all. She is giving her consent to Peter Parker and he is  Peter Parker now.

That’s a rather huge stretch to make about the character considering he actively tried to hide the fact that he was secretly Otto Octavius from so many people in Superior.

Moreover, during ‘Dying Wish’ it was clear (due to mischaracterization) that Otto was doing what he was doing for revenge, that was even partially why he wanted to sleep with MJ (see above). He wanted to ‘have something Peter hadn’t had in a while’ (...ugh...). Furthermore in ASM #700 he was bombarded with Peter’s morality (or some shit like that, I don’t know...) and this convinced him to be a good guy.

But that was seemingly thrown out the window when Superior started as he seemed to just be a bad guy who battled crime to again be superior to Spider-Man. He wasn’t honouring his fallen comrade and didn’t have his moral compass as seemed to be implied in ASM #700 because if he did why was he still trying to rape Mary Jane?

Shit in fact in Avenging Spider-Man #15.1 he’s LAUGHING at Peter’s demise and the fact that he’s gotten away with this. He refers to Spider-Man in the third person as he does this. This event also happened literally the day after ASM #700, so it was less than 24 hours since he had been blasted with Peter Parker’s memories and resolved to be a ‘hero’.

Not to mention in various issues he clearly refers to himself and Peter as separate entities. In Avenging Spider-Man #15.1 his thoughts drifted to MJ and he called Peter a fool.

He does the same in Superior #2 where he refers to Peter in the third person.

His dialogue utilizes quotation marks when using Peter’s full name; “Peter Parker”. This demarks how he is making a distinction between himself and the real Peter Parker. He is acknowledging himself as a pretender.

In Superior #4 internally reprimanded ‘Parker’ for never finishing Grad School. At the same time he negatively compared Peter’s efforts to when he received his own doctorate, referring to himself as ‘I’.

In Superior #10 he referred to Peter as a separate person, referencing how he expunged him from his mind in the prior issue. 

He also chastises Peter as a ‘reactionary fool’ who allowed ‘his’ enemies to make the first move. Where ‘Parker’ dealt with symptoms he plans on dealing with the disease. He even refers to himself by name as Otto Octavius.

When he runs into MJ he wonders what ‘Parker’ would say and gripes that fooling her was easier before he purged ‘his’ (meaning Peter’s) memories. 

In Superior #21 he refers to his “…life as ‘Peter Parker’…”. He’s clearly making a distinction between the real Peter Parker and himself as a pretender.

In the same issue, when Stunner blames him as Spidey for murdering Doc Ock, it takes Otto a moment to register what she is talking about. He then attempts to reveal the truth to her. He starts by saying “I’m actually…”

These moments when taken with all his other unethical actions in Superior also undermine another defence of Otto’s raptastic efforts in Superior.

This is the idea that ‘he’s changed’ in the interim leading into Superior. Now  his attitude towards women and morality is different so it’s believable for him to act this way.

Let’s ignore how again, Superior Team-Up disproves this. Otto’s actions clearly showcase that he in fact has not changed as a person. He’s not grown or evolved. He just happens to be crime fighting now as a form of ego boosting and to prove himself better than Peter.

More importantly if Otto was going to so noticeably change in his attitudes to women then we should have seen that happen!

You can’t just jump forward and tell readers to just accept a character has had a change of heart and is now open to the idea of fucking rape!

How, when and WHY did he change to be this drastically different predatory creature? This wasn’t like how Aunt May or Norman were different when the former was resurrected and the latter was written by JMS. Those were extrapolations of aspects of those characters that were already there. This was essentially something wholesale new and starkly against how he was previously defined. Its akin to what Slott did to Ben Reilly in ‘Clone Conspiracy’ or to Ashley Kafka when he had her declare someone irredeemable (even though she believed Carnage  was redeemable).

Finally, lets pretend to ignore all of the above.

Let’s say Otto being a rapist would be entirely believable.

That doesn’t mean you should actually DO it!

Doc Ock is a classic goofy mad scientist archetypical villain, even if he was (allegedly) on a redemption tour in this story. Adding something so creepy, disturbing and vile from the real world to his character taints his character. It took him to a bad place where he was peers with the likes of Purple Man and Doctor Light. It makes him practically irredeemable. Maybe a skilled writer on a MAX book could pull off a redemption arc for a rapist or attempted rapist. But not only is Slott not that skilled, but he’s played it for comedy!

Frankly, unless you have seriously  done your research on this topic you shouldn’t even be touching it.

To touch it so casually for humour  is seriously FUCKED UP!

I don’t even want  this topic really raised in mainline Spider-Man titles period personally but to do it like this?

*gagging noises*

Not to mention it was entirely unnecessary.

Otto had attempted to mass murder half the planet in an arc just the year before Superior. Surely that  is enough fuel for a redemption story, you don’t need to make him a rapist/attempted rapist on top of that.

But no. Gotta milk that crass shock value for all it is worth!

Shit, the topic with MJ was handwaved within one issue!

Fuck Slott.

Fuck Superior.

Fuck everyone who defended this disgusting garbage!

*This also dismantles the myopic idea that an older man who looked like Otto would be jumping at the chance to have sex. That’s another defence I’ve heard. The fact is multiple women found Otto attractive as he was.

[carewyncromwell]

Since you know what happens in Y6C42. I'm really curious to know; when it comes to deciding Rakepick's fate, what would Carewyn do in that moment? And would your Jacob approve of her decision? (Based on what I've read from other posts and discussed with my peers, I've come to the conclusion that turning her in seems to be the moral option while trapping her in vault, condemning her to a fate not only similar to Jacob's, but worse than damnation itself would be the immoral option. Do you agree?)

*flexes hands* Oh boy, a moral quandary...

All right. For Carewyn, if given a choice between leaving Rakepick in the Sunken Vault or turning her in to the Aurors...she would turn Rakepick into the Aurors, no question. But it’s not just a moral thing -- as paragon and justice-focused as Carewyn is (hell, she becomes a lawyer), there’s also an element of pride and spite in her decision.

Carewyn in her storyline is a heroic foil to Rakepick. She’s consistently reminded of how similar she and Rakepick are, not just by Rakepick but even by her own friends. Both Rakepick and Carewyn are ambitious, determined, resourceful, organized, courageous, proud people who have a talent for gathering others around them, inspiring them, earning their admiration, and leading them while often sharing next to nothing personal about themselves or showing any of their “weaker” emotions. They even look a lot alike. And Carewyn has to come to grips with that, after what happened in the Portrait Vault. She shuts out her friends just like Jacob shut her out, and lied to them and betrayed their trust just like Rakepick did -- and yet, as Carewyn comes to realize, just because she and Rakepick are alike, that doesn’t mean they’re the same. One of the biggest things Rakepick lacks that Carewyn has in spades is empathy -- and through that, Carewyn realizes more deeply how much harm her behavior causes and becomes determined to fight against it. So as similar as she and Rakepick are, Carewyn has the choice to not be like her.

Circle this back to the dilemma in the Sunken Vault we get in Chapter 42 -- trap Rakepick in the Vault forever the way she tried to do for Jacob, or give her to the authorities...and you can see why Carewyn can’t do the first. If Carewyn chose the first option, she’d be no better than Rakepick was in her own mind. She refuses to treat other people’s lives as “disposable” the way Rakepick did for Rowan and Jacob’s -- so she doesn’t want Rakepick to die or to be tortured. Instead, as Carewyn explains in that one AU I’m working on --

“I want [Rakepick] to live a very long, lonely life – locked up where she can never hurt anyone again, with only her own failure as company. Just as I want Rowan to always be remembered…I want her to be completely forgotten…for no one to speak her name, with hatred or admiration. At least in Azkaban, her life can be a reminder. A reminder…that there is no glory for people like Patricia Rakepick.”

Due to her extreme level of empathy and her ability therefore to understand people more deeply than Rakepick ever could, Carewyn knows a Gryffindor like Rakepick longs for glory and recognition. She knows that a Gryffindor wouldn’t truly dread being hated, as one can twist that into a thrilling “them VS. the world” narrative...so much as being forgotten -- being insignificant not just in the world but also in retrospect by the individuals she’s collided with. Carewyn knows that Rakepick not having the satisfaction of knowing what’s in the Vault and being locked up in Azkaban, tormented by the thought that she not only failed, but also that her efforts were ultimately meaningless and she’s left no real impact on anyone or anything, is a very cruel fate -- and yet one Carewyn finds more appropriate, as it allows her to feel no guilt or shame toward how she’s treated Rakepick and discard her memory forever, and it also theoretically could give Rakepick the chance to take a long, hard look at herself and possibly come to grips with how inherently wrong she was. And if she doesn’t, well, that’s her choice to not adapt and grow in the face of self-reflection. That feels like justice to Carewyn, far more than just locking Rakepick away seemingly with no chance of escape.

Personally I think it likely that we’ll find out that neither choice was particularly good and will have some kind of negative fall-out. Rakepick being trapped in the Sunken Vault and going insane could 1, give her a helluva lot more reason to want to kill MC and their friends later and 2, probably would result in her having a few extra screws loose when we meet her next, which could only make her more dangerous (I’m imagining a Bellatrix-style!Rakepick and I’m kind of terrified). But on the other hand, if the Ministry’s authorities are in league with R, we could be handing Rakepick back to her superiors unscathed. But at the same time, to a limited degree, if one chooses to spare Rakepick, Rakepick sort of owes them, not a life debt exactly, but a debt all the same. We treated her better than she treated our brother. We spared her a fate worse than death. We showed her mercy. All things that I’m sure Rakepick and the rest of R would’ve never done, in our place. And as a writer, I can’t help but feel a choice like that would have to have real positive consequences in the future. I admittedly don’t love everything about how chapter 42 was written (if nothing else, I feel we came to the conclusion the treasure’s too dangerous to try to let out way too soon without much evidence to do so -- us failing to get out of our memories doesn’t prove that at all and we learned absolutely nothing about what the Vault’s power even is!!), and I certainly don’t think if you chose to trap Rakepick, you’re wrong or a bad person or anything...but just from the perspective of MC being the protagonist, I do think the second choice is the more standard “heroic” choice. Mercy is almost inherently seen as nobler by society than vengeance -- but there are anti-heroes in fiction for a reason. There are many ways to be a good person.

Jacob Cromwell would always support Carewyn in whatever choice she made (he’s a true ride-or-die, and he wouldn’t actually be above killing Rakepick himself), but he’s very proud seeing how much his sister’s grown up and how wise she’s become both about herself and others. :)

[preathfics]

Answers to the burning questions

Hello all, 

I guess the discord has decided that I should prove my worth as InfoDesk. So, when I returned to my laptop this evening at 9:45 pm, I found this: 

Rather than burden all of your feeds with 20 replies, I will answer them in bulk here. Behold the mega-reply. May you never encounter this again in your lifetime. 

1. Although they both belong to the primate family, monkeys are not apes. As such, I do not see why they would be precluded from using this phrase any more than are humans (also primates). However, I recommend this insult only take place in the planet of the apes movies or be directed exclusively at actual apes, because, ya know... history. 

2. As far as we are aware, goats do not have the metacognitive abilities necessary to realize their own superiority, much less to develop a complex. They likely have a sense of self, but don’t quite show the ability to think about other minds. 

3. As far as we are aware, Rhino’s do not have the metacognitive abilities necessary to grasp their own looming extinction. Apparently, given recent events, neither do humans. 

4. Completely submerged? No.  

5. We are certianly not fully “clean” when we exit the shower and water resting on cloth surfaces can cause mold. Wash your towels, people. 

6. They are both dirtier than they were before. Soap can get dirty, my friends.

7. If he’s wrong in front of a woman, he is wrong in all contexts. Nobody needs to hear you for you to be wrong, as millions of Twitter users demonstrate every day. 

8. Probably like anyone put on house arrest: restricted and ready for quarantine to be overrrrrrrrrrr (but also respecting the health of the broader global community and happily complying with stay-at-home orders). They’d also feel really stressed because they don’t have a house to be arrested to and can't leave any house they do get to get a job to pay for the house.

9. Wasps sting because they feel threatened. It is a defense response. Put another way, they sting because they perceive YOU to be an asshole. 

10. Both, plus health insurance. Life insurance pays other people out after you die, it is not useful when you’re alive. In addition to paying for repairs to your car, car insurance also covers you hitting other people, which life insurance does not. Health insurance covers you staying well and getting checkups. He’d need that, too. 

11. It does become expected to you, but it may still be unexpected to someone else. 🤯 

12. I guess that depends on what you mean by “you.” Let’s take a dualist approach here (one of the few times this actually makes sense, Descartes): my mind and my function in life--I am entirely replaceable. My body? The physical law of conservation of mass suggests that matter cannot be created or destroyed. So, I am not replaceable because I can neither be created nor destroyed (insert villain laugh). So, both! 

13. The bus driver closes and locks the door from the outside. Just because you only see something operate one way, doesn’t mean it can't be operate in another way. 

14. The primary reason we dream is to consolidate and store memories and to process life events. Other evidence suggests that dreams help facilitate neuronal connections and growth. In essence, dreaming helps our brains!  

15. I have four answers to this: 

a. 42

b. To create and maintain further life 

c. To connect with and show kindness to others

d. To attempt to find meaning in meaninglessness

16. They know who they are 😉 

17. Only to the extent that you have to untuck your pants from your shirt to take them off 😏

18. It’s actually a whole different thing. There are no minds involved at that point, just that annoying sound that happens when two people try to be on speakerphone or zoom in the same room. YOU CAN’T BE ON SPEAKER AND BRING YOUR PHONE INTO THE ROOM WHERE HE IS ON SPEAKER, MOM. 

19. Yes, morals are real, though they are generally socially-constructed and not necessarily innate. Yes, animals have morals including a sense of "right and wrong.” Please watch this fantastic video that shows how monkeys react to inequality in pay.

20. Yes. They can read our body language and track our intentions. They can also learn at least portions of our languages. Unless you mean “understand,” like, could they explain why my neighbor is had a 50-person party during a pandemic. Probably not. The explanation eludes us all. Also humans are animals, so, depending on your definition of understand, definitely!

[theveganwakes]

When I was 17, I took a philosophy class in high school and wrote about animal rights. Thought I'd share my essay here because why not?

Ethically, people should not eat animals or harm them in any way. Consuming and abusing an (non-human) animal is morally wrong. Animals and humans should share the same rights because animals are equal to humans, have similar qualities and the love one feels for animals should be respected. A clear sense of morality is one that does not advocate abusing creatures of the Earth, even if it is advantageous for another human being. Many people see animals as a primary source of food, entertainment, and fashion; but, if animals do not have a choice as to whether or not they would like to participate in such monstrosities, is it morally right for humans to make the choice for them?

Animals are equal to humans, and should therefore be treated in the same way humans treat each other. Animals are not just material, they have a soul. According to a philosopher by the name of Pythagoras, animals and humans share a parallel soul; it is the duty of humans to respect animals because, if they ultimately choose to exploit an animal, humans are essentially exploiting their relative. (Honderich) Humans have a right to live freely, without fear; animals should also be allowed to have this right because humans are essentially animals, and if humans are animals, then wild animals should have treatment equal to humans. A similar soul should equal a similar, fair outcome; if there is no fair outcome, there is no fairness at all.

As long as humanity continues to be the ruthless destroyer of other beings, we will never know health or peace. For as long as people massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love. (Pythagoras)

According to Rene Descartes, a rational philosopher who lived during the Enlightenment, animals are like machines. (Sorell) Descartes proposed that animals have no feelings or consciousness; this has been proved wrong by mere observation. Animals, in fact, do have feelings, or at least do feel. It does not take a scientist to realize animals can feel pain, sadness, and a variety of other emotions. For example, when a person has burned themselves while moving a hot pan from an oven without any oven mitts, they will inevitably yelp or react in some other manner. If an owner of a cat filled their cat’s water dish with hot water instead of the usual cold, and the cat drank said water, the cat would react in a way similar to the human’s reaction when they foolishly pulled out the pan from the oven. Because animals can feel, people should not take advantage of animals for they know what it is like to experience pain, and should therefore empathize with animals. Hurting an animal is a lot like tormenting a newborn baby; they do not have control of situations, meaning people who are intellectually fit should control their feelings of superiority over beings with intellectual inferiority. Animals and humans share common characteristics. If a being has sense perceptions, they are automatically apart of a community with those who also have sense perceptions. (Wilson) For instance, humans and animals have sense perceptions, making them apart of the same community. So, if they apart of this community, they must act in a way that is beneficial for both species. Equality between humans and animals exists; however, it has not been fully realized by the masses, and many continue to regard animals as an inferior species.

Animals should have rights equivalent to that of a humans. In order to achieve rights for an animal, people must first treat animals differently -- with respect. Changing ones attitude toward animals generally means not raising them for food, and not eating them. By in taking meat, one is exploiting the rights of an animal. Moreover, animals deserve these rights because, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, they are strongly linked to humans. Furthermore, if humans eat one of their own, they can suffer serious consequences, but when they eat an animal, there are no consequences. Humans do not rely on eating other humans for food so why rely on animals. People have the right to determine their own lives. (Wilson) Animals, on the other hand, do not have that right; they are not free in a world where they can be free. If animals were free, animal testing would not exist, and neither would circuses. Every living thing on Earth should have a choice regarding what they want to do with their lives. No one owns another person or animal (one may think they do, but they do not own the thoughts or emotions; therefore, they do not fully own anything), and cannot choose a path for another without facing immorality. If one decides to butcher an animal for their own benefit, and even for the benefit of others, they are immoral because they did not allow the animal to have a choice. Animals can feel a wide range of emotions, and again, have characteristics similar to human beings. (Wilson) A man by the name of Arthur Schopenhauer put forth the idea that animals have emotions, memory, and reason, contrasting the views of Rene Descartes. Schopenhauer said, “Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character; and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.” (Wilson) Because animals have emotions, reason, and memory, they must also have rights.

People should empathize with animals, and animal lovers, because animals are handled as though they are of lower quality than humans are. Animals are exploited and abused by humans in a way that should not be tolerated. Eating, using animals to test certain chemicals, and being generally disrespected by the human race, exemplify that animals are maltreated daily. Some people even kill animals for the fun of it. According to Peter Carruthers, “Such acts [as torturing a cat for fun] are wrong because they are cruel. They betray indifference to suffering that may manifest itself…” (Wilson) Cruelty to animals continues to exist in today’s society. It is indirect theorists who say that one should not harm the property of others, and should therefore not harm animals. (Wilson) When harming an animal, a person is not only affecting the animal they physically hurt, but those who “own” the animal. Rather than injuring an animal, one should consider what they are about to do and wonder if they were an animal; would they want the same treatment? Alternatively, if they were a vegetarian, would they want support for their decision to be one? Respecting a person’s choice to not eat animals and supporting kindness toward animals affects the lives of others. If vegetarians, vegans, and general animal lovers are disrespected, their morals are disrespected. Indirect theorists propose people should not offend another based on their morals. (Wilson) By offending a fellow human being, one is not empathizing with animals; they are disregarding morals, and are only thinking of themselves. Animals are fragile, innocent, and should not be handled as if they are murderous villains.

Animals and humans are alike in mind and spirit, and they should therefore be treated in related ways. Until animals are realized to have comparable qualities by people, they will remain unequal to humans. It was an Irish writer named George Bernard Shaw who once said, “Animals are my friends; I don’t eat my friends” (Favourite Vegetarian & Animal Rights Quotes)Favourite Vegetarian & Animal Rights Quotes), and neither should anyone else if they want to live a life that is considered moral.

[nadziejastar]

What do you think Axelnort would have been like if he had been targeted as a vessel instead?

In Jungian psychology, the “shadow”, “Id”, or “shadow aspect/archetype” may refer to (1) an unconscious aspect of the personality which the conscious ego does not identify in itself, or (2) the entirety of the unconscious, i.e., everything of which a person is not fully conscious. In short, the shadow is the unknown side.

To be perfectly honest, Axelnort probably wouldn’t have been a very interesting Seeker of Darkness, from a story perspective. He was too similar to Sora and Ventus. Lea was naturally cheerful and wore his heart on his sleeve. He seemed like he had really good self-esteem. He didn’t really have any crippling insecurities to exploit. Isa was more like Terra and Riku, which is why he was a better choice. Like the Moon, he had more unconscious sides to himself than Lea. I’m having trouble thinking of what Axelnort would even be like, other than just a sarcastic humorous version of Xehanort. I just don’t think Lea had enough of a Shadow Self to even get fully Norted.

The ‘shadow’ is the side of your personality that contains all the parts of yourself that you don’t want to admit to having. It is at first an unconscious side. It is only through effort to become self-aware that we recognize our shadow.

As an adult, Axel kept his feelings hidden from Roxas and Xion, but he was still very self-aware. His feelings were painful, but he didn’t try to actively suppress his feelings or avoid them. He cherished his memories of the past. He tried and tried to fix things between him and Saix. Saix was the one who put up the barriers, not Axel. Axel was very straightforward. He was more like Sora. Saix was more like Riku, in denial and trying to fool himself.

For the most part, Axel had a weak Shadow Self. He had a strong dark side, but not much of a Jungian shadow. Even when he tried to convince himself that Roxas and Xion were his REAL best friends, he wasn’t fooling anyone, especially himself. Axel was just not very good at lying to himself.

“Shadows are the lower parts of the psyche everyone has… Suppressed human thoughts given physical form. When people are unable to face their darker selves, they break loose, free from all control.”

In the Persona universe, a Shadow is the person’s suppressed thoughts given physical form. IMO, that’s what a Seeker of Darkness is. This is what Ansem Seeker of Darkness, Riku Replica and Saix were. Suppressed human thoughts given physical form. They are simply an aspect of the person, though. Not literally them. Shadow Aqua was not the real Aqua. Namine was just an aspect of Kairi.

To be a good Seeker of Darkness, you need a REALLY strong Shadow Self. You need an interesting weakness or insecurity in your heart to exploit. Sora had some shadow, but overall he wasn’t really a good choice to be a Seeker of Darkness. Kairi definitely didn’t have enough of a Shadow Self. Namine was still really pure. Same with Ventus, which is why Xehanort had to forcibly extract Vanitas. Roxas had darkness, but he still wouldn’t have made a great Seeker of Darkness IMO. Aqua only had a strong Shadow after being in the Realm of Darkness for so long. Before that, she was confident, strong-willed, and had good self-esteem.

Huh? I’ve just been talking about things I hate, but… don’t love and hate come from the same place? It’s not like that’ll be interesting to talk about. Well, I guess it could be. Things I love… What can I say I like—oh, that’s right, I don’t like anything. Everything sucks. So, if I say I hate something, I don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea that I have any special feelings about it or anything like that.

Marluxia and Larxene were pretty good choices. Especially Larxene. She had a strong Shadow Self. She had an aspect of her personality she couldn’t accept, which was love. Among the main cast, Riku, Terra, and Isa were definitely the best choices because there was a part of themselves they couldn’t accept. Let’s compare them.

Terra

— Is that to say that there’s a possibility that within Xehanort’s Heartless, the darkness that sleeps in Riku’s heart, there might remain something of Terra…?

That’s also a riddle connected to the next story, so everyone please use your imagination.

I think Ansem Seeker of Darkness was essentially Terra’s Shadow Self.  

Terra’s Shadow Self: I embrace darkness. Darkness is the heart’s true essence. I have given myself over to darkness. Darkness is strength. I do not fear the darkness.

Terra’s Suppressed Feelings: I’m afraid of the darkness inside me. Darkness is bad. It makes me unworthy of Eraqus’s love. Even Aqua doesn’t trust me anymore. I’m not worthy to be a master. No matter what I do, I can’t get rid of the darkness inside me. I can control the darkness. I don’t have to give into it. Right? Right!?

Riku

Riku’s Shadow Self: Riku’s a weak coward who’s afraid of the darkness. I’m nothing like that. I’m strong. I don’t need Sora to worm his way into my heart. I’m better than him. I’ll rescue Namine and finally prove it. I’m the real Riku.

Riku’s Suppressed Feelings: Sora is better than me. Even Kairi likes him more. Sora and Kairi are leaving me behind. They probably wish they could take the raft and leave without me—just the two of them. They don’t care about me as long as they have each other. I’m a third wheel.

Riku’s Suppressed Feelings: Now Sora is the Keyblade’s chosen one. That was supposed to be me! He really is superior to me. Maleficent was right. He’s got new friends and doesn’t care about me anymore. Maybe if I save Kairi, she’ll care about me, unlike Sora.

Riku’s Shadow Self: I’m superior to Sora. I’m so much better at stuff than him. I’ve been showing him up ever since we were kids. He can never beat me at anything.

Riku’s Suppressed Feelings: Sora’s better than me. I wish I could be more like him. Just following my heart and connecting with other people so easily.

Resolution: That’s not true. I am more like Sora than I think.

Quasimodo: Master Frollo–he made me live inside the bell tower, but the real walls were the ones I built around my heart. You helped me see that, Riku.

Riku: I was…speaking from…personal experience.

Phoebus: I’d say you still keep a lot locked inside.

I just need to let the walls of my heart down.

Terra: No more borders around, or below, or above, so long as you champion the ones you love.

I can connect with others, just like Sora can. After all, Terra chose me for a reason. I just need to champion the ones I love and I will have no more borders. I can confront my darkness and insecurities and be the person I want to be. The “other me” can have that broken Keyblade. I don’t need it anymore.

Riku had a strong connection to Terra’s Shadow Self and it helped him overcome his own. I think that was supposed to be what happened after Riku got swallowed by the Demon Tower. He’d confront his inner Shadow Self and have a boss fight where his Keyblade breaks. But he’d be strong enough to get a new one and leave the broken one behind. It felt like we got some kind of  Cliffnotes version of everyone’s development in KH3…

Isa

According to Jung, the shadow, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to psychological projection, in which a perceived personal inferiority is recognized as a perceived moral deficiency in someone else.

Saix’s personality is essentially Isa’s Shadow Self. Not really Isa, but an aspect of him, like Shadow Aqua. Saix gives voice to Isa’s feelings he doesn’t want to admit to having. And you can tell that Saix was HUGELY insecure a master of projection.

Isa’s Shadow Self: I am strong. Xion is weak and useless. A failure! She failed her mission and fails at life. She’s nothing like me at all. I am strong and a TRUE member of the organization. Nothing like that worthless puppet. Why is Axel so attached to her?

Isa’s Shadow Self: I am very mature and independent. It’s pathetic and childish to rely on someone like Axel for everything. Roxas needs Axel to hold his hand and walk him everywhere. I’m certainly nothing like that. Grow up, Roxas.

Isa’s Shadow Self: Lea is such a loser. He’s lame. And laughable. I try to forget him all the time.

Even as a kid, Isa had a strong Shadow Self. It wasn’t anything malicious or bad. He was just similar to Riku and Terra in that he had a tendency to suppress his feelings and probably had a hard time admitting them to himself. To what extent Isa was like that, I don’t know. 

“He worries too much. Thinks he has to help Sora do everything…” Axel grimaced in irritation. 

“But, Axel, aren’t you the one worrying about Riku and Sora?” Naminé giggled softly. 

“Me, worry? You think I need to be worried about those two?” He stretched backward and rocked the chair back and forth, like a restless child.

I think it’s safe to say he was a lot more insecure than Lea. He was probably ashamed of his tendency to be clingy with Lea.

Genie sounded really worried about his friend–some guy named Al. But then he said that you have to respect your friend’s wishes. I guess you can’t always jump in and do everything for your friends– even if you want to..” Xion bit her ice cream, swinging her feet.

Axel leaned his head to one side. “Your friend’s wishes, huh…” It feels like I have heard that before, a long time ago, when I was human.

And it seemed like he was embarrassed that Lea would try to do everything for him. But he probably was nowhere near as bad as Saix. Saix is an exaggeration of Isa, like Riku Replica.

Isa’s Suppressed Feelings: Lea is very special to me. He’s the only one I can come out of my shell with. I can’t connect with other people as easily as him. I don’t have other friends besides him. He means everything to me. I need Lea. I don’t like how he picks up other stray puppies. He’s my best friend. I don’t want him to make other friends like Ventus. What if he starts liking them more than me? I want to be the most special person to him.

Isa’s Shadow Self: Axel’s a worthless traitor to the organization. I hate him. I don’t care about him at all. I’m glad he’s dead. He sacrificed himself for Roxas? How stupid. Nobodies can’t feel friendship. He was deluding himself if he thought he and Roxas were actually best friends like me and him were when we were human! Axel got what he deserved. He was foolish and weak. I’m certainly nothing like that.

Isa’s Suppressed Feelings: I need you, Lea. I’m so jealous that you have new friends. I want you to coddle me, not them. Please love me again. Please!

I don’t think Lea could have been a Seeker or Darkness like Isa could. I don’t even think Lea’s feelings for Isa were suppressed or unconscious. I think he was well aware that he loved Isa. 

[sineala]

Hey! I read that Tony is a corrupt person because of what he in CW &when he was the director of shield. Ive not read the comics, just MCU. Can you help me? I was on his side in MCU. Is he evil in d comics? I read that he can’t be trusted because he wiped the minds of the entire earth, imprisoned his friends and his alcoholism caused breach in national defense? It also states that he is still a warmonger and creates weapons for highest bidders? Are these all true? I would appreciate your help. xx

I, uh. I really don’t know what you’ve been reading, anon, because of all of those things, most of them are… not really true, and only one of them ever even happened during the Civil War/Director of SHIELD era. (That’s the one that’s true. Mostly.)

Wiped the minds of the Earth: This is probably referring to an incident in the Captain America/Iron Man 1998 Annual in which Tony chooses to wipe the knowledge of his secret identity out of the minds of the people who know it. He did this because a lot of villains had learned who he was and he wanted to preserve his secret identity. The mindwipe also affected all his friends but then he went around telling all his friends his identity again which made it somehow like they’d never forgotten. It wasn’t the case that he mindwiped the entire Earth permanently; it was only intended to be used against villains, and that was how it worked.

(The plot of Hickman’s Avengers run involves Tony – or, actually, Stephen Strange, but at Tony’s request – mindwiping Steve specifically. It should also be noted that Strange has historically been kind of cavalier about mindwiping people himself and has in the past mindwiped his own friends knowing his identity, Thor and Tony’s knowledge of each other’s secret identities, the entire world knowing about the Defenders existing, and so on. So you should kind of keep that in mind when thinking about mindwipes in 616.)

Also, Tony has willingly mindwiped himself to, essentially, save the superhero community, so there’s that. He still doesn’t have those memories back.

Imprisoned his friends: Okay, this is the one that is true, and this is the one that actually happened during Civil War and Director of SHIELD. However, Tony was not the only person on the pro-Registration side, if it matters – there were other people involved in doing this – and, even though it is a horrible thing to do, he gives what seems like a pretty reasonable justification, given the state of the government on Earth-616: namely, he’s a hero, he cares about his friends, and if he lets other people do this it’s going to be even worse than imprisonment because there are an awful lot of people on Earth-616 who would want to really, really hurt superhumans if they were in charge of them. So he doesn’t want the job (in fact, he is literally blackmailed into taking the Director job), but he thinks he can do it with minimal harm to his friends.

(And as it happens, canon basically proves him right for two reasons. One is that when Tony canonically loses the Director job and it goes to Norman Osborn (the Green Goblin), Osborn makes everyone’s life a living hell and… a lot of things go wrong and it’s pretty terrible and also Osborn invades Asgard. The other is that in a What If issue we see a glimpse of an alternate world where Tony died before Civil War would have started. On that Earth, Henry Peter Gyrich becomes Director, and pretty much every superhero on that Earth dies horribly in battle against Gyrich’s forces.)

Alcoholism caused breach in national defense: My best guess is that this is referring to an incident in Avengers Disassembled when Tony – who was at the time the Secretary of Defense – was drunk at a UN meeting and threatened the Latverian representative. The thing is that this was non-consensual alcoholism; Wanda Maximoff, who was losing control of her powers, magicked him into a mental state so that he felt drunk. But he didn’t actually ever drink, and he didn’t end up in this mental state of his own free will. (He did lose his job because basically no one – except Steve, FWIW – believed that he wasn’t really purposefully drunk.)  So, I mean… this sort of happened, but also it was non-con? So I personally am not holding it against him.

Still a warmonger and creates weapons for the highest bidder: Absolutely, categorically untrue. Tony explicitly got out of the weapons business in comics way way back in the 1970s. There have been various plots since then about how SHIELD or some other government organization or whatever has been mad that Tony isn’t selling weapons to them. He’s been in the tech business, the consulting business, the energy business. He hasn’t been selling weapons. (There is one exception: he was doing this in the miniseries Superior Iron Man, but this is also a miniseries in which Tony literally became a villain due to a magic spell gone wrong, so everything he did then was something the real Tony Stark would not have done, including selling weapons.)

(He does occasionally make weapons for his friends for the purpose of saving the Earth, as with the weapons he forges in Fear Itself. These are, uh, not available for sale. The one debatable point is that he does help make planet-destroying bombs in Hickman’s Avengers run, but the moral question of whether these bombs should be made and used (on inhabited planets) is a big, big theme of this run, and as it happens, Tony ends up personally refusing to use them and does not condone their use.)

I hope that helps.

[13eyond13]

The Rest of the “What If?“ Questions:

I’ve had a huge influx of “what if” alternate scenario type asks the last 2 days, and I’m not sure if they’re all from the same person or several people. I really do appreciate the interest in getting my take on this stuff! But to avoid spamming the dashboard more with all these answers I’m just going to put the rest of them into one ask here:

FEM!LIGHT’S STANCE ON WOMEN:

I think she would both resent being a woman and also still look down on other women, but still be extremely confident and sure of herself on the inside. She’d probably have some internalized misogyny and still view men as superior and wish to compete with them more than with women, but she’d also resent men for being valued more highly within the patriarchal culture she was raised within, so it would be a bit of a complicated mix. She’d probably still grow up idolizing Soichiro instead of her mother, because even though Sachiko is no doubt also smart and talented she is submissive and seemingly content with carrying out her supportive, servile domestic role as a mother and a housewife. Light would probably dream of far more ambitious things for her own future with the idealistic and egotistical personality she has and all the accolades she’s gotten in her academic and athletic and social pursuits. I also think she’d be a lesbian, but that it would only really awaken in her once she met L, who would also be female in this AU, and the first woman she found genuinely fascinating and truly “worthy” of respect.

HOW L WOULD CONVICT A MEMORYLESS LIGHT:

I’m not really sure. I guess L would have to get irrefutable physical evidence that proved Light had been Kira originally. Even if Light denied it the entire time he obviously could still be condemned as Kira if the evidence against him was strong enough. I think proving some of the rules fake would’ve brought L a lot closer to proving Light was guilty, but I’m a bit too lazy right now to try to think this AU scenario out the whole way through from beginning to end. It takes a lot of mental energy and revisiting of the source material to do so entirely accurately, so I definitely very much admire Ohba for keeping the canon plot so free of holes. There are always so many technical little things and different characters’ points of view to keep in mind!

IF THE DEATH NOTE WAS A “LIFE NOTE” INSTEAD:

Lol, I mean I guess a Life Note would probably revive people who had already died, or something like that? That could also cause a lot of worldwide havoc, though I’m not sure it would technically be a crime to bring people back from the dead! I wonder how Light would use something like that to achieve his New World… revive all the innocent victims who had been unjustly murdered by evil criminals or something? Lol I don’t really know, my brainpower is pretty zapped for thinking these things out right now…

However, this does remind me a bit of the “Death Eraser” that was included in the original Death Note pilot chapter! Ohba initially toyed with the idea of having an eraser that went along with the notebook which would bring the Death Note victims back to life. You can find that pilot chapter online with a little Googling if you’re curious about it. I’m so glad they decided to scrap that silly idea for the actual official series, haha.

HOW INNOCENT!LIGHT WOULD REACT TO MISA TELLING HIM HE IS KIRA:

@whiteroes1977 I think he would be both horrified and also know that it made sense, since he was already thinking that Kira’s ideals and methods lined up pretty closely with his own. He also thought that he would probably try to catch himself if he’d lost his Kira memories. It would definitely be a big internal struggle between Light’s desire to see himself as a good/innocent person who operates within the Law and his ego/ideals/belief that he was the only person who could truly bring about the new world he envisioned from the start. I’d love to see him have to make a big moral choice about becoming Kira again like that when he was still amnesia!Light, since he really didn’t know he was going to regain his Kira memories when he touched the Death Note in the helicopter at all.

IF SACHIKO PICKED UP THE DEATH NOTE:

Hahaha hmmm… I like to think that Sachiko is where Light gets most of his brains and also his more mysterious and sneaky side! There isn’t much to go by in canon about Sachiko’s character other than her role as a supportive and hardworking mom and housewife, but it would be very interesting if she decided to do something with a Death Note that would go totally against what everyone expects from her somehow. Maybe she’d also have a strong vigilante streak based on the frustrations she felt about Soichiro’s career; or maybe she would do something totally for herself with it and way outside of the box, and end up carrying on with this secret life that was both a guilty thrill and an escape from her humdrum duties in the home. It’s a bit hard to say without fleshing out her character a lot more than Ohba did in canon though, and I’m not really feeling up to doing that right now, sorry.

WHAT IF RYUK HAD KILLED EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WAREHOUSE INSTEAD?:

I think that Light would have been very happy if Ryuk did that, and he’d have continued right on with his plans to become the God of the New World. The SPK and task force was pretty much the only thing standing in the way of him achieving this goal at this point, so he’d just see it as serving them right for defying him like that. I don’t know the exact specifics of how he would achieve actual godhood, like if he would choose to make himself a public figure as Kira or just continue to work behind the scenes forevermore? I’ve always wanted to read a really detailed and realistic AU about Light actually winning and the crazy ways the world would change, but I haven’t managed to think it out myself to any satisfying degree yet. I definitely don’t imagine it would be the idealized world he imagined though, as even if crime was completely eliminated it would be a totalitarian dictatorship under which everyone was living in constant fear and feeling very oppressed.

HOW LIGHT WOULD REACT TO MALE!MISA:

Male!Misa could be pretty interesting too, with both canon Light and fem!Light. I imagine it would still be very off-putting to Light for a guy to show up at their house and come onto them that strongly, no matter how you headcanon Light’s gender or sexuality. I guess Light wouldn’t automatically look down on male!Misa for his gender, so that might be a small advantage that male!Misa would have over female Misa. But it could also potentially work against male!Misa since Light would probably expect more from guys and find that kind of behaviour from a man extra unsettling. What i find the most interesting to think about with male!Misa is how the fandom’s reaction to the character might differ, honestly. I think male!Misa would both have way more stans and also way harsher criticism piled upon him, maybe? I think he’d be shipped a ton with the male characters as well. Certain flaws and behaviours would be treated with way more lenience and forgiveness, and then other ones would be pointed out much more harshly, as well. It’s always pretty interesting to contemplate this stuff, but unfortunately I’m a bit too tired to add a whole lot of detailed insight on the topic at this point.

[modernlcve]

*  —  stats —   colton thacker !

* — basics !

full name:   colton joseph thacker. nickname(s):   prefers none. age:   twenty - four. date of birth:   may first. place of birth:   barlow,   kentucky. gender:   male. pronouns:   he / him. sexual orientation:   questioning level of education:   high school graduate. recipient of a bachelor’s degree in history, currently pursuing his master’s.

* — physical !

tattoos:  none. piercings:   none. notable features:   his nose is distinct?  quite tall also.. didnt fact check that he just looks tall. weakness(es):   injured his left shoulder playing baseball in high school,  it never fully bounced back. scar(s):   one on the upper Bit of his left arm.

* — domestic !

occupation:   line cook at a diner.  ta. residence:  lives alone and lives humbly. social class:   lower middle class. parents:   jody thacker,  age 54,   works at the factory,�� a strong and silent type  ( which makes it all the better when he gets in a good joke now and again ).   tanya thacker,   age 49,   a school teacher,   one of those nice church ladies that always has her nose in other people’s business. siblings:   kyleigh thacker,   his sister.   i picture them to be pretty close,   even if differently dispositioned. extended family:   large,   spread throughout his home county.   especially close with his paternal grandparents, farmers who are well known within the community.   two beautiful nephews he would Die for.

* — personality !

positive traits:   insightful.   courteous.   reflective. negative traits:   obstinate.   envious.    myers-briggs ( x ):   istj,   the logistician. temperament:   phlegmatic. moral alignment:   neutral good. horoscope:   taurus,   the bull. hogwarts house:   ravenclaw.

* — favorites !

movie:   raiders of the lost ark. tv show:   game of thrones. book:   child of god by cormac mccarthy. drink:   ale 8. food:   sheperd’s pie. animal:   crows. color:   red. song:   give my love to the rose by johnny cash. artist:   willie nelson. celebrity crush:   ariana grande.

* — impressions !

first impression:  he doesn’t make a strong first  impression.   he’s quiet,   polite,   but he isn’t exceptionally forthcoming.   he’s nice enough to get by but could be intimidating on first look alone. self impression:   he doesn’t quite know What his deal is.   he knows he’s bit odd,   at least for where he’s from,   but he doesn’t think that’s a bad thing. he’s used to thinking of himself as different,  but he’s learned to embrace that over the years. lover impression:   he’s a romantic,   at heart. he’s a gentleman who has like perhaps bit old - fashioned ideas of what that means.   he’s not like gonna be shitty about an independent woman but boy he does believe in like paying for dates and opening doors and shit.

* — et cetera !

turn ons:   intelligent.   shiny hair.   bit of a smart mouth. turn offs:   a superiority complex.   aversion to nature. drink/drugs/smoke:   yes/no/sometimes. dominant hand:   right. clean or messy:   clean. early bird or night owl:   early bird. hobbies or special talents:   he played baseball through high school.   got a bit good at racing in his old truck  ( rip )  hasn’t given the new one a real shot yet.

* — QUESTIONNAIRE !

01. where was your character born? what brought them to st louis? what do they like most about the town?

colton was born in barlow,  kentucky.   he came to st louis for grad school.   on the surface,   its why he came to st louis specifically.   in general though,   he was brought to anywhere out of barlow just because small town life just simply isn’t for him.   he likes st louis because it represents potential.   it’s all the excitement and change and opportunity he’s been looking for,   even now,   after being settled here a few years.

02. who are your character’s friends and family? who do they surround themselves with? who are the people your character is closest to?

colton’s immediate family consists of his parents and his sister,  and,  by extension,   her family.   he gets along well enough with his parents,   even if they don’t always see eye to eye on certain things.   he’s closer with his sister and spends a decent amount of his weekends loitering around her place,   hanging out with her kids.   he surrounds himself mostly with his classmates,   enjoying the conversation that comes from like minded people,   even if they can’t always relate to him.   he’s closest with his sister,   or his grandfather,   whom he calls at least once a week,   more in the rare event that he’s homesick.   pa may not always get what colton’s going on about but he tries and that’s what matters.

03. what is your character’s biggest fear? who have they told this to? who would they never tell this to? why?

colton’s biggest fear is that he’ll always be Yearning for more.   he feels pretty satisfied in st louis,   but he also once felt satisfied in the town he did undergrad in,   and his hometown,   but he always ends up ready for something more.   he comes from the kind of place where you’re supposed to have deep roots,   to live on the land that your family has lived on for ages,   and he really does wish that was enough for him.   it’d make things easier.   but he always wants to be moving and growing and really is afraid he’s going to miss out on getting just like happy,  simple,   domestic times because of that.   he wants more out of life than his town had to offer,   but he didn’t want to abandon the idea of family and home completely.   he’d never tell his family this,   because he feels like he’s got to keep some kind of strong face,   for #toxicmasculinity reasons just as much as needing to prove that he made the right choice in leaving.

04. has your character ever been in love? had a broken heart?

yeah colton had a high school sweetie.   her name was lacey,   they started dating when they were fourteen,   fresh into high school,   went to the same place for undergrad,   lived back home together for a year,   and then called it quits when colton decided to go back to school and move to st louis.   she’s his first and only Real Love,   but,   she got a job teaching at their high school,  and was ready to just settle into living in their hometown again.   even when they decided they could make long distance work while he was at school,   he knew he wouldn’t be able to just finish up in st louis and move back.   yeah it broke his heart a bit but he ended things a week before he headed out.   hurt like hell but maybe deep down he does still imagine that something will happen and they’ll get back together without him moving home one day,   you know,   like an idiot.

06. it’s saturday at noon. what is your character doing? give details.

again,   he likes to fuck around with kyleigh and her kids on the weekends.   when he moved,  it was never to get away from his family,  just the place,   and it’s nice to have them around and still be able to hang out with the kids and stuff.  if he’s not with them,   he’s probably reading.   fucking nerd.

07. what is one strong memory that has stuck with your character since childhood?

back when their grandfather was a little more Spry,   whenever spring came,   he’d go on long meandering walks out in the woods on sunday mornings  ( before church ).   he had never been a hunter,   or a fisher,   it wasn’t anything like that,   just a nice little walk.   when he was like 12 colton decided he needed to be his annoying tag along who probably ruined the purpose of the walks by breaking how quiet and serene the woods were that early,   but pa just ran with it.   they’d talk about whatever came up and it made colton feel special to be a part of something that had always been a special ritual every spring.

09. what is something that upsets your character? where do they go when they’re upset?

i feel like it takes a lot to actually upset him.   he’s pretty chill.   smaller things,   he’s pretty good at just brushing off and moving on from.   he’s upset by like rational things  ( assholes, people coming for his family, questioning his choices )  i guess can’t relate.  he still finds walks in the Woods comforting,   good for clearing your mind,   but most likely he just tries to distract himself with a book or some mindless tv  ( yeah he has a few pawn shows bookmarked for this exact reason ).

10. when your character thinks of their childhood kitchen, what smell do they associate with it? why?

whatever the smell is,   it’s heavy.   something meaty and greasy that would be accompanied by starchy,   weighty sides and some kind of bread,   because that’s what makes a meal,   obviously.   they’ve always been a big dinner around the supper table kind of family.  porkchops,   cube steak,   and chicken anyway you could have it were all on frequent rotation.

[resurrged]

AN ANALYSIS OF CHARACTER DECISIONS THE WARRIORS    /     AND WHY YMIR CHOSE ‘THEIR SIDE’      —

                   first and foremost, let me just address some incredibly important tidbits on my own interpretation of ymir’s characterization,  just because it’ll set the fact that this whole post is pretty ?? against the grain to everything i’ve seen on ymir so far & affects a lot on how i play her.

one :       her death was necessary, and she was likely set to die from the start.

this manga is meant to tug at your heartstrings, and ymir’s death, to me, is probably the best one to hit that bullet.  no one’s getting a truly happy ending, and ymir’s was beautifully forlorn.  the best isa has done in building a character just to crush them in the worst way possible, imo. and i mean, yeah, sure— would it have been NICE to see ymir overcome this and find a happy medium? yeah, totally. BUT THIS ISN’T THAT KIND OF STORY ???? it’s not like she really has the chance to work on it fully & like holy shit y’all we literally watched the main protagonist get EATEN within the first 4 chapters what do you expect ????

two :       ymir leaving does not, in any way,  “go entirely against her character”  by choosing R&B over historia

in fact, it aligns perfectly with every aspect of it —  as per isayama’s given outline / point focuses when it comes to her.

as much as she cherishes, supports, and loves the girl, YMIR IS SO MUCH MORE THAN HER ATTACHMENT TO HISTORIA OH mY GoD

THE WHOLE RELATIONSHIP IS LITERALLY A PRIME EXAMPLE OF WHO SHE IS NOT HOW SHE BECAME THAT WAY.

now back to randy with the news

PERSONALITY     /          ymir had always been looking out for others, with a particular emphasis on historia, sure, more on that later— but we see how someone like reiner was instantly able to clue into how something apparently crass, such as laughing ruthlessly at connie’s “idea”,  had been done to look out for him.  

she’s clearly close to her comrades, and we see her being physically touchy with both connie and eren without either of them twitching away / reacting like this is strange.  even though she’s known to behave boorishly, she has this level of closeness with them, something that wouldn’t be a thing if they were truly on bad terms, as her bluntness would often imply.  they seem to all have a comfortable friendship / understanding, one that recognizes she isn’t inherently looking to shit all over them 24/7.   even when she had the chance to simply save historia alone during the CoT arc, she went out of her way to ensure she got all 4 cadets that were left on the tower.   not to mention she saved erwin despite being right pissed at him at the time, something she honestly had no reason to do.   so no, historia isn’t the only person on her mind 24/7.

as much as ymir has said her goal was to live her new life for herself, she was never able to.  we see time and time again that ymir tries to be crass, tries to be blunt, gives in to being selfless, and then tries to play it off.  she’s trying to force herself to change, but it doesn’t work.  at no point in the series had it ever worked.  nothing about her inherent character changed, she never received ‘character development’ on that end, but guess what? that’s actually an incredibly realistic development. she realizes & succumbs to the fact that she was doomed from the start. i cannot emphasize enough how hard it is to change something so integral about who you are as a person. it takes a lot to do that.  we have an entire section of our brains dedicated to not doing it.  

in fact, no character in snk has gone through dramatic change without struggle or major prompting ( levi had to watch his comrades die, mikasa had to break her superior’s leg, and most importantly in this context, historia had to watch her best friend leave her ) .   and NONE of these happened in a flash, either. we have a 6-year skip to levi’s current behaviour, which is still crass / cold even if it is more selfless.  mikasa needs to be reminded of watching how her attachment plays into her choices during the serum bowl before succumbing, and (listen up this is important) historia only truly listens to ymir’s words of advice when confronting her father.  don’t forget that these two had known each other for years before current events, and ymir had been trying to get historia to stop acting the way she does the entire time.  WHICH MAKES SENSE.  in real life, PEOPLE DON’T JUST CHOOSE TO ‘CHANGE’.  it happens naturally, with a shitton of effort and mistakes, if at all. and i’m convinced isayama knows this.

in the end, ymir succumbs to her own state, a doleful  ‘i guess some things never change’  in giving herself up for reiner & bertolt to take.   she feels indebted to them, and knows she can’t deal with the guilt of it, and she’s done trying.  she got her second shot at life and couldn’t ever complete the one task she set out for herself : to just live for her own sake.  

she is pathetic, and i think that’s what porco was getting at in referencing her memories in the marley arc.  and i think his choice of words are really intriguing here? because he uses “を返し[て]くれ[た]” to refer to ymir giving her his brother’s titan back, with both を返し and くれる being things you typically say about someone who’s doing you a genuine favor, like out of good will.  the way he’s saying this aligns heavily with how ymir felt she was indebted to them, despite how he clearly disagrees with her views by calling her straight up pathetic for them lmao.  

the last things we hear her say are that it “doesn’t feel so bad to be a goddess”, again emphasizing that she does these things because they are, in essence, what makes her feel nice.  she feels genuine happiness in giving herself up.  a feeling that goes unmatched by any selfish deed she could ever do.  she even mentions in her letter that she has no regrets, likely through finally realizing this very fact and being able to put it into words, as before we see she doesn’t quite understand the behaviour herself.  and she mentions she regrets nothing, save for getting to marry historia, as if saying maybe this was the very thing that would have possibly felt just as nice.  

so again, i emphasize— she wanted to live selfishly for the rest of her new life, knows she should be happy that way, like everyone else seems to be — but in the end, she couldn’t.  not because of stupid plot devices, but because she genuinely couldn't live with herself unless she did.  when she apologizes to historia, i’m convinced it’s not just for abandoning her, but for proving she’s been nothing but one huge, fake hypocrite this whole time.   after all, ymir’s just like her ;  she wants to do good, wants to help others, and can’t fathom the thought of ever feeling worthy enough for a shot at true happiness.  really, she was being selfish to the end, as she was chasing what made herself feel good as opposed to what someone like historia might have preferred from her, or what R&B even offered to let her do.

HISTORIA     /          now another point i feel i should bring up is that ymir was actually going to bring historia with her, but only under the pretense that she’d live a better life.  

don’t forget ymir lived lavishly up until she was caught as a false prophet, and she likely assumed that with her royal blood, historia would too.  she thought paradis was done for, but when she realized they weren’t, she made the split-second decision to both sacrifice herself for reiner to have something to bring back with him ( thus preventing him from possibly going after historia in place of eren again ) as well as letting historia continue her life as historia, where she was already happy.  

at this point, ymir had seen historia finally spit back the words she’d spoken for so long, and was likely under the pretense that she would be fine, that they had finally stuck.  she saw no reason to keep herself present in hisu’s life ; she’d finally been able to break through to her.  but no matter what, at that point, she had already chosen to sacrifice herself for historia’s sake, and the more she listened to R&B, the more she solidified this idea.

EMPATHY     /         ymir felt fucking bad for R&B.  we get a ton of cutshots to her expression when eren tries to confront bertholdt’s morality, and practically defends him by telling eren he’s being childish for immediately wishing death on him.  we see her getting quiet when she brings up marcel,  and then again showing empathy for bert’s position in all of this.  this is again emphasized when bertholdt asks why she saved him.  but the last two don’t even matter, because by the time they begin leaving the forest she had practically already cemented the fact that she was going to go with them in believing she would never see historia again. 

of course, we might still get more insight on ymir and her motifs, but for now, this has always been how i interpreted her actions, and i never once questioned them.   yes, it would’ve been nice for her to finally set aside that aspect of herself and return with historia, but as i mention in my paradis verse, doing so wouldn’t have cured the innate guilt she feels towards living.  especially now that she’s spoken to R&B.   she realizes she took this from them and feels undeserving of this second shot at life when she couldn’t even do anything with it.  she was supposed to live for herself, and there she is doing everything in her power to save historia instead.  i’m sure ymir feels like a failure over that, and i’m sure it really fucks with her psyche, and factors into why she’s so willing to literally accept death by going back with them.

so by having ymir choose R&B over historia, she was going against  ‘development’  her character literally never had. every single ymir cut shot / flashback in these chapters literally emphasize just how much she does for others, all while trying to hide it under a mask of false ambiguity for her own sake. 

so yeah.  i love ymir.  she deserved better.   thanks for listening to my TED talk.

[anime-watch]

Shinsekai Yori - Part 2

It is extremely startling to see one child decimate an entire village. It was also very strange to see all the friends fall away from the society, disappearing without a trace. I kept expecting all of them to return by the end with some great secret: a solution to free them from the rigid society they live in. However, all that happened was that the two remaining individuals of the friend group became more and more integrated into their home civilization; though they learnt of more strangeness about their home, they accepted it all, holding onto the concept of 'for the greater good'. Meanwhile, the other friends simply disappeared, leaving broken memories behind.

I have very little sympathy for the monster rats. What I do find strange, however, is that those with powers were able to genetically modify humans into rat creatures while burdened by the Death of Shame. Or maybe, this method was developed at the same time that the Death of Shame was developed, meaning they turned humans into monster rats before they implemented the Death of Shame. That makes more sense and is probably what happened.

I wonder why those with powers did not just slaughter those with no powers, as they do to the children. I am sure that no one would voluntarily become a rat creature; was it just some way for PK individuals to feel morally superior? Or, were they just manifesting their scorn on normal folk by turning them into monster rats? Either way, it is very cruel. Instead of creating a race able to feel shame, pain, scorn, and all the emotions that come along with complexity and intelligence, they should have just added the murders of normal humans to their ever-growing record.

My heart goes out to the monster rats, as horrible as some are. That fuzzy monster man who helped the two main characters was extremely charming and warming. I think his character was meant to be so: to show the flaws in the human's sense of neglectful superiority and racism. He was designed extremely differently, with long fluffy hair, more integrity in his form, and eyes with striking personality (kind of like Haku from Spirited Away). Even though his mannerisms and morals are far different from the war-crazed monster rats, his kind was treated the same. I think this really captures well the blindness that those who believe themselves to be 'superior' take to those they deem inferior. It is incredibly sad how Kiroumaru died: a disposable being, a tool, to the very end. But he was someone with valiant wishes. I hope that his mother and colony continues to prosper, though that is probably unlikely to happen.

Even the horrid monster rats who enslaved their queen, lied, murdered, and stole others' children, it is hard not to sympathize when we have seen power-users literally kill hoards and hoards of (admittedly hostile) monster rats. That is no excuse to wage war and disregard lives, obviously. But the humans are not much better, killing their own kind for the end means.

I do not have any decisive feelings on this anime. It is sad. I wonder what kind of civilization the main characters spoke about when they talked about 'hope.' Hopefully they will be able to instill a more stable, a more happy society. If they are able to come to terms with monster rats, who I think should be called sand-puppies instead (apparently another name for mole rat), then monster rats could help to form a security that can target ogres that appear. If this proves successful, then the town could also feel less fear and focus on rehabilitation instead of presentation through murder.

I don't think Squealer cared for anyone but himself. But I am glad that Saki ended his misery. Hatred and fear of past suffering puts a halt to progression into the future. I think we see this repeatedly in the anime.

[rotationalsymmetry]

hey, i just wanted to say i appreciate your thoughts on sexuality and gender! re: a post you made a while back-- it's understandable to wrestle with the implications of wanting to change part of your body but i think that exercising one's bodily autonomy and breaking norms associated with one's assigned gender are like, totally defensible. also, i want to push back against the idea of a natural/unmodified body. 1/2

2/2 a combo of social forces and individual choice shapes everyone's gender embodiment and presentation. the way you learned to talk in a "feminine" register was likely a product of that originally-- in a descriptive sense, there's no "default/neutral" state because we're social beings in an advanced technological world. in a normative sense, why is an unmodified body an ideal? what makes it more valuable than a body which hasn't been altered? that's my two cents about this complex topic

Thanks anon! (General note: please going forward can people sending me mail responding to posts I've made link to those posts or copy a phrase from them so they're easy to find again or something? It's been over a month since I checked my messages/asks, it'll be over a month again some time in the future, my memory is not that good.) Love this note, it's taking me some time to process it, I do think you've got some great points about "natural" being kind of a made up concept here. And there are many ways in which my body is already not unmodified: I got braces for one, that's a modification. And if I lived somewhere where everyone went barefoot, the soles of my feet would be a lot tougher. So I guess wearing shoes also creates a modified body. Or maybe not wearing shoes creates a modified body. Hard to say which. And goodness knows I'm appreciative of vaccines (unnatural) and glasses (unnatural) and the internet (extremely unnatural). And I do have a certain amount of "natural = better" (that somehow doesn't catch socially normative things like braces and glasses) that could use more examining. One minor thing: it sounds like you're saying that whether someone's voice is high or low doesn't have a biological component (or maybe can't be proved to have a biological component), is that right? That's very confusing to me, because when people go through a testosterone-based puberty, their voice breaks. That's a thing you can observe happen, either through science or through your personal lived experience.

And...I think you're wrong about "descriptively, there is no default state". That sounds like there isn't really a difference between doing a thing with the intention of altering my body and not doing that, and, well...obviously there's a difference, yeah? I can't change the way society and my environment are affecting me, but what's that got to do with HRT? It's very cool to question which things are nature and which things are societal, and it's also good for that questioning to have a reality-checking component. Anyways, in case there was any confusion over this, I don't think my decision to not medically transition is in any way morally superior to the decisions of people who do medically transition, and transitioning should be way, way more accessible than it is.

[onisionhurtspeople]

Sorry I just ran into this blog, Lainey said on Twitter they're an ISFJ awhile back. I can see both them being an unhealthy INFP that thinks their Si is stronger than it actually is due to looping and them being an unhealthy ISFJ. They could be in an Si-Ti loop where they dont let new ideas in and believes their experience/conclusions are always correct without looking further than that for information. (1/3)

They’re also very tactful (auxiliary Fe) which makes them seem innocent and wanting group harmony instead of drama. An unhealthy Fe user sweeps issues under the rug to live in their ideal “peaceful” world. If an ISFJ is gripping, their inferior function is Ne. This may cause them to think of all the ways life could be and using it as an excuse that nothing could go wrong due to the likelihood (they think) of it in their life (ex. bringing 18-20 year olds into an unhealthy relationship, believing Onision didn’t cheat due to the fact many things could happen since there are infinite truths in the world and Si-Ti may think that their POV is the most correct from what they gathered). I can see INFP but I do want to see what you think of this. 

Sorry it took so long to respond! I knew this was going to be a long one, so I’ve been avoiding it because tbh you will never meet a lazier INTJ than me. I apologize in advance for the poor quality of this message, because my brain fog is really shitty today and I’m feeling not nearly as sharp as I usually am. My arguments will probably not be as convincing or wordy as they usually are.

Anyway, I believe she actually said she was INFJ. I remember because I was the one who asked her to take the quiz. >_> (Unless we’re thinking of two different incidences? This was, if I recall correctly, around the time that Billie had just left for the final time, so I want to say September or October of 2016.) Anyway–tbh, the fact that she got INFJ just confirmed to me more than anything else that she really was an INFP, because let’s be real, I’m pretty sure no INFP has ever existed who didn’t first mistype themselves as being an INFJ. (I’m mostly joking, but like.. only mostly.) Of course, ISFJs also frequently mistype as INFJs, so this is an idea worth exploring.

Anyway, I shall try to explain why I see her as an INFP rather than as an ISFJ or INFJ. I apologize in advance if you’re an INFP; if I end up saying anything rude about them, please understand that I’m not making disparaging comments about INFPs in general - I’m just evaluating Lainey, who is (I believe) a very unhealthy version of her type.

So, first and foremost: Fi. Sooo much Fi. But Fi in the most unhealthy way possible: incredibly self-righteous and self-absorbed, and excessively concerned with interpreting and relaying her own individualistic, unique identity to the world. She needs to be acknowledged for her differences. If you look back at all of the arguments she’s ever had with Greg on social media (in other words, the times when he says something that aggrieves her enough that she’s actually willing to confront him over it), they all have the same theme in common: they’re always about her feeling affronted because he invalidated her values or sense of self somehow. For example: the last fight they got in was because Greg referred to himself as being in a straight relationship, which offended Lainey because she interpreted that as him undermining her gender. I can think of a few other examples of their arguments on social media off the top of my head, and they all follow that same theme: Greg being insulted that she was hero-worshiping a musician who didn’t like him (also an Fi user); Greg arguing with her about eating fish; Greg calling her filthy because her room was dirty and she hadn’t cleaned it; Greg insulting her family (especially her mother and sister). When Lainey gets involved in Greg’s debates or ongoing feuds with other content creators (Jaclyn Glenn, Joy Sparkle BS, Blaire White, etc), it’s never to weigh in with her opinion, and only ever to express her irritation over them misgendering her, either accidentally or on purpose. When she’s rude and condescending towards her fans, it’s typically because they questioned her sense of self somehow (usually in regards to her gender, internal motivations, or relationship with Greg). It’s rarely in defense of anybody else, which I feel like would happen more often if she really was an Fe user.

I think the tactfulness and willingness to sweep things under the rug that you’re interpreting as being aux Fe may actually be a combination of Fi seeking harmony in relationships (high Fi users can do this too, just like Fe users can; the difference mainly lies in when, and for what reason, their feeling function becomes triggered when somebody crosses the line. For Fi users, this tends to be when something strikes a personal nerve or attacks and invalidates their character or sense of self; for Fe users, this tends to be when somebody rejects, abuses, or takes advantage of their warmth and care, or when somebody expresses a lack of concern for the collective (family, friends, neighborhood, club, church group, society, etc) - other words, selfishness. If you dismiss their overtures of affection after they’ve put effort into displaying warmth and consideration, then they may become offended when that same person then takes advantage of those polite gestures, or refuses to reciprocate them), and also Lainey just generally not caring enough to say or do anything to counter Greg that might rock the boat in their private life. 

Secondly: Ne. In Lainey’s case, her Ne is not as overt as I’ve observed it in other INFPs, and I’m not sure why this is. I apologize if this comes off as rude (and it really kind of is, but I don’t know how else to say this in a non-offensive way), but I think it’s really just because Lainey is an INFP of average intelligence, whereas most INFPs (that I’ve encountered, anyway) are in the gifted range, and so their Ne is much more readily apparent. Ne and Se share many qualities (being that they’re both Pe functions), including that they both have a preference for wanting to live life by their own standards, a strong dislike of feeling constrained or held back, feeling compelled to seek novelty (Se in a more physical, concrete way, and Ne in a more abstract, conceptual way), and wanting to learn through experience. Se and Ne both feel driven to be seen as cool–but in different ways. Se wants to be seen as cool in a more physical and conventional sense - for example, by being entertaining, or by dressing in a manner that is immediately impactful in a sensory way. Ne, on the other hand, wants to be cool by being unique, different, iconoclastic - it wants to be regarded as quirky and iconoclastic, cool for being “uncool”, if that makes sense. And so many INFPs are drawn to countercultures (hipsters, for example) who are unconventional, but still have a certain mystique and draw to them; and I definitely think Lainey fulfills that aspect of Ne.

Ugh. I’m sorry, my brain power is running low. Brain fog is super bad today. I think we both see Si in her, so I don’t think I have to explain that. Mainly where I see Si in her (especially in the form of Fi-Si loops) is her inability to let go of people from her past. She even did it with Billie: brought her back over and over again because she would find herself looking back on the good times, and minimizing the bad ones. She makes the same mistakes repeatedly because she reviews her memories of them (memories which are attached to emotional experiences), and feels compelled to relive them, no matter how painful they were. 

Please don’t make me write something for Te. My Te is all pooped out today. :C

Anyway, it’s lovely running into somebody on here who’s knowledgeable about the cognitive functions! =O I’m guessing you’re an INFP as well? Sorry for this shitty argument, I  might try to redo it in a few days when my brain fog dissipates a little.

Edit: I just went back to the the post; and yeah, she scored as INFJ-T on the 16personalities test (admittedly shitty and has nothing to do with the cognitive functions). In the comment section, I left a link on how to differentiate between INFJ and INFP, lmao.

Edit #2: Oh, one last thing: here’s a description of what a destructive INFP looks like from one of my favorite MBTI sites, Psychology Junkie. Doesn’t it remind you of Lainey?

Destructive INFPs are self-absorbed, self-righteous, and waver between being passive and extremely judgmental. They enjoy living in their fantasies, but care little for the practical realities of daily life. They may neglect their loved ones and family members and instead prefer to live in a world of their own making, in essence abandoning everyone who holds them dear. They may consider themselves more morally superior or “righteous” than others, married to their idealism to such an extent that any and everyone in the real world seems flawed and disappointing. They may retreat from the world and silently judge everyone they see. Over time, they may become increasingly harsh and condemning of people in their lives. They may become so obsessed with their own emotions and fantasies that they shun or berate anyone who tries to find a way into their hearts.

Healthy INFPs are extremely empathetic, gentle, and compassionate individuals. They care for the persecuted and marginalized people of the world, and strive to help them. They are honest and driven by their morals to live a life that adheres to their values. They are creative and insightful, slow to judge others yet holding themselves to a high standard.

Also, just for the keks, here’s the description of destructive ESTJs, the type that I suspect Greg is. (I do believe that he actually took an MBTI test and scored as ESTJ, which he hilariously tried to use to “prove” that he wasn’t a narcissist or psychopath. Really shows how much effort he puts into researching his “facts”.

Destructive ESTJs are dictatorial, aggressive, and controlling. They believe that they know what’s best for everyone, and that their way is the only way. They suppress their moral compass and disregard the feelings and values of other people in exchange for their own rigid views. They push forward to achieve their goals, but instead of taking time to reflect on their decisions, they steamroll over everyone in their path in order to accomplish tasks without considering alternate viewpoints or the moral implications of their actions. They may be loyal to a corrupt system or authority and suppress anyone who stands against that authority or questions it. They trust their own personal experience and disregard other people’s experience. They scoff at the emotions and values of others while they allow themselves to have their own temper tantrums and emotional overreactions.

Healthy ESTJs: Healthy ESTJs are hard-working, trustworthy, and loyal. They see the world logically and push themselves to live up to a high standard. They don’t ask other people to do things they wouldn’t do themselves, and they uphold traditions they see as morally right and effective. They are intellectual, practical, and usually outgoing. They are very supportive of their communities and families and want to make the world a better place.

(Source)