#i feel like it would be very necessary to us and our belief

[solaariia]

the self-concept

hellour! this is gonna be a long post!

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

i was studying for my social psychology course today (for context i'm a psych major) and read something that might be helpful for everyone who's been having doubts about manifestation subconsciously being part of our everyday lives—as opposed to something made up by the internet.

the information i'm about to provide is from actual sociologists and psychologists, so this is rooted in studies. i promise i'm not about to pull info out of my ass! this is mainly just a very very brief summary of the self concept chapter we're reading about in class.

side note, i named all the researchers in case you wanna check out their work yourself! i made this post to provide insight about our self-concept and clear limiting beliefs. :)

what is self-concept?

so we hear the term self-concept a lot in the manifestation community. Neville, Edward, Sammy, Dr Joe Dispenza, bloggers on tumblr… all of them talk about it all the time. but what does it actually mean?

the self-concept refers to the total sum of beliefs that people have about themselves. it consists of cognitive molecules that social psychologist Hazel Markus called self-schemas. these are the beliefs about ourselves that guide the processing of self relevant information. but what does this actually mean?

well, self-schemas are to the self-concept what books are to a library. if someone asks about yourself, you will probably answer with something quick like: “i am a woman” or “i am a student.” those simple attributes are part of your self-schema; if we want to go deeper, body weight is also a self-schema. for people who regard weight as a crucial part of their beliefs, something simple like a gym trip with friends or buying stuff at the supermarket may trigger thoughts about the self. but if a person is aschematic (not concerned by a certain attribute) about body weight, no thoughts will pop up.

we already know that the self is a special object of our attention. whether its a thought or a song, our consciousness is like a spotlight. this means that it can shine on one object at one point in time, yet shift rapidly from one object to another and process information outside of awareness. in this spotlight, the self is at the forefront of our minds. its what's most important to us at that moment. keep this in mind for later!

to finish with the explanations, neurologist Oliver Sacks highlighted two important points about the self:

🩷 there is a private “inner” self, and an “outer” self we show to others. if we don’t self reflect to understand how were feeling, how will we understand our emotions and actions?

🩷 the self is heavily influenced by social factors.

now–what does that last point mean? well, what we think about ourselves is rooted from childhood. if we grow up hearing “you’ll never amount to anything” or “you’re my favorite child” (extreme examples i know), then that's what we’ll ingrain in our self-concept. this notion brings me to the fun stuff–the studies!

is self-concept scientifically proven?

psychologist Gordon Gallup performed a series of studies where he put animals in front of a mirror to test if they could recognize themselves. at first, they vocalized and greeted themselves in the mirror (my dog did this too when he was a pup, he would bark at his own reflection and play with it), but after several days, only great apes seemed capable of self recognition, using the mirror just like any other human would. grooming themselves, making faces… in short, they recognized themselves!

why do i bring this experiment up? well, this proves that the concept of “me” is necessary to define our self-concept. we must first recognize ourselves as Something to become Someone.

using that same study in humans, this process of self-recognition begins between 18-24 months. which means that from this point onwards we start to define Self (consciousness).

you might read this and–admittedly–think: “oh this blog post hasn’t said anything about manifestation!” true, but i want to present the basics or self-concept first to understand how it affects our daily thoughts!

there was another experiment we talked about in one of my lectures (i do not remember who performed this study specifically, but Dr Patrick Heck did one similar to this one and the results were the same), where participants were told to take a test. half of them were told to boast about themselves, and the rest were instructed to describe themselves modestly. naturally, participants who spoke highly of themselves scored higher on these tests than participants who didn’t. so… you all see where i’m going with this.

remember how i said to keep the “consciousness is a spotlight” paragraph in mind? i’ll finally touch on it with this next and last thing i’m gonna talk about (in this post at least!).

we already established that the first step in the evolution of our self-concept is the ability to recognize ourselves as Someone. the second step, however, involves social factors. sociologist Charles Horton Cooley introduced the term looking-glass self to suggest that other people serve as a mirror in which we see ourselves. and another sociologist by the name of George Herbert added that the only way to know ourselves is by imagining the opinions of our significant others and applying them to our self-concepts. sounds familiar?

how do i change my self-concept?

Neville mentioned the “mirror-self” on his conferences too. he said that one of his favorite techniques to better his Self was to imagine a loved one speaking kindly of himself. in his book Your Faith is Your Fortune, Neville wrote: “Stop trying to change the world since it is only the mirror. Man’s attempt to change the world by force is as fruitless as breaking a mirror in the hope of changing his face. Leave the mirror and change your face. Leave the world alone and change your conceptions of yourself. The reflection then will be satisfactory.”

since the self-concept is a library (our perception of Self) made out of self-schemas (books brought to us by our peers), we can see that sometimes, what we think of ourselves is just an amalgamation of beliefs implanted to us by the people in our lives. so if we were given these books we don’t like, why should we keep them in our library?

to change these negative beliefs we have about ourselves, all we have to do is replace them with positive ones. i know, i know, this is what every person who studies loa and manifestation regurgitates over and over. its nothing that hasn’t been posted to numerous blogs or twitter threads before.

however, the point about this whole post is to tell you why that is the only way to change your self-concept. if your daily thoughts are filled with phrases like: “my sp doesn’t want me” and “i’m so broke” or “what’s the point? this is all worthless anyways.” STOP. DROP. CHANGE.

journal. write your limiting beliefs in your ipad, paper, wood, stone–whatever.

use your hands to apply muscle memory. once you have them, CROSS THEM OUT!

i can’t manifest = I CAN MANIFEST EVERYTHING I WANT

i hope i shift tonight = I KNOW I SHIFT EVERY NIGHT

i wish i had money = I HAVE ALL THE MONEY I WANT AND MORE

just those small changes are enough to rewire your entire self-concept. also, exposure. the more exposure you have to something, the more insecure it will make you. if you’re having a hard time manifesting, remove all blogs, twitter accounts, and people that limit your beliefs. less exposure to negativity = less negativity reflected in your self-concept.

problems with the Self will always be there. if you remove a negative belief, another will pop up. all you can do is learn more about your “inner” self and recognize how you’re feeling. what you can do is focus on the positives, and automatically, your self-concept will change.

persist in the assumption until it becomes your reality!

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

thank you all for making it this far! just in case, the book i got this information from is Social Psychology 11th Edition authored by Kassin, Fein and, H.R. Markus. there’s a lot of interesting information on this academic book that is similar to the ones Dr Joe Dispenza has written, so i could make another post like this in the future! take care!

[writingwithfolklore]

5 Writing Rules I Like to Break

                Listen, I am firmly of the belief that writing doesn’t have rules. There’s no one way to do it—no one schedule or technique or tip that’s going to work for everyone and produce perfect narratives. Which is a good thing! I think if we all had to write exactly the same way, our stories would end up looking very similar.

                So while in general I tend to say throw out any and all rules (and yes, even including the advice I give on this blog if you so desire), here’s 5 common writing rules I specifically and intentionally break, and why:

1. Write what you know

I already talked all about how I tend to ignore this advice here if you’re interested. The TLDR version of it is that you can absolutely write things beyond your scope of knowledge (in fact, I’d guess that’s where the majority of fiction comes from) as long as you write it genuinely—this rule should be instead ‘write what you feel’.

2. Don’t edit as you write

Booo!! Okay maybe it works for some of you—if so, by all means continue (this applies to all the rules I’m about to mention, so just keep that in mind). Editing as I go is how I get back into the swing of things in a new writing session, and also allows me to try a scene a few different times to get the most I can out of it. I tend to believe that words are words even if they’re edited, rewritten, or even deleted.

If your goal is to finish your project as fast as possible, I imagine going back to edit before you’re finished your draft might slow you down. However, I also imagine editing as you go might save you an entire draft. Whatever works for you here is what you should do, but I personally love to edit as I write.

3. Avoid ‘said’

At least I think a lot of you guys are with me when I say that ‘said’ is sometimes just the best word to use. Using lots of descriptive words like, ‘yelled’, ‘begged’, ‘exclaimed’ can be distracting. When the dialogue speaks for itself, the ‘said’ disappears into the background of the scene, while necessary for grammar, it’s a formality for the actual storytelling. As well, I like to experiment with said by adding a descriptor afterwards. ‘Said quietly’ ‘said through a laugh’ ‘said without taking a breath’ etc.

4. Avoid adverbs

Here’s what I’ll say about word usage in general, as long as you pick your words with thought and care, you may use whatever words you want. Words have different specific connotations, and not always will avoiding the adverb have the same impact. For example, changing “he laughed lightly” to “he giggled.” We may have removed the adverb ‘lightly’, but ‘giggled’ holds a completely different connotation. It evokes a sort of immaturity, not unlike the ‘schoolgirl’ stereotype. If we don’t want that connotation, in this case, laughed lightly may be better.

                So don’t count out adverbs for the sake of it. As long as you’re choosing your words with intention and you understand the meaning behind them, you can experiment with a world of adverbs!

5. Never use passive voice

This one I didn’t realize was important to break until quite recently. We tend to be taught that passive voice automatically equals bad and I’m here to tell you that isn’t true. Passive voice should equal focus on action. Active voice equals focus on character. There may be certain sentences in which focusing on either the character or the action is more beneficial.

For example, “the alarm was pulled by Alice” (passive) kind of sounds clunky and wrong, whereas “Alice pulled the alarm” (active) is much more effective.

BUT “Alice was dragged out of the way” (passive) focuses on the action of Alice being dragged, rather than “Something dragged Alice out of the way” (active) focuses on the something that is doing the dragging, which in a moment of action, may take away from the pacing.

As long as you choose your voice with intention, both passive and active voice can be used to create strong, effective sentences.

                What are some typical writing rules you tend to ignore?

[tanadrin]

Are you totally against the concept of evil?

In the sense that "evil" is a value judgement, being "against the concept of evil" is like being "against the concept of stinky." People have their opinions about what they think is evil and what they think is not, just like they have their opinions about what they think smells good and what they think smells bad. Indeed, in this sense "evil" is just a particularly strong condemnation of things we find morally bad.

That said, as a value judgement, I don't find it a very useful one. Even among people who profess to want to think deeply about difficult moral questions, when the word "evil" is raised, it is being used as a thought-terminating cliche, a signpost that says "I am unwilling to be challenged on this opinion further." Like, I see this a lot in rat-adj types here on tumblr who would balk at you shutting down a conversation on sexual ethics or economics or recreational drug use with a cry of "evil!" using it the exact same way when it comes to their own ethical bugbears.

And the reason that a cry of "evil!" shuts down conversations more than even other pure value judgements is that it doesn't appeal to anything, except an affective sense of ethics. If I say (for example) "legalizing weed would be bad, because of consequentialist concerns X, Y, and Z," or "foreign military intervention is bad, because we ought to adopt a strong deontological rule against violating other states' sovereignty," then you might disagree, but at least there is a conceptual basis for our disagreement. If we want to have a conversation about it, we could; it might be a frustrating conversation where neither convinces the other, but we can at least understand each other in principle, even if we continue to disagree quite strongly.

But if I say, "we cannot legalize weed, because doing drugs is evil," or "we should disband the American military, because the Pentagon is evil," what is there to discuss? We're no longer talking about beliefs about the world, just attitudes. If someone thinks I am or believe something that is evil, what am I supposed to do with that? Yelling "you are evil," or "you believe evil things" is not going to change anybody's mind. It's not going to shock them out of their moral complacency, they're not gonna think "oh, this person think I am a bad person, I should really care what they think." Of course not! They're gonna think "oh, this person is an asshole," or, even less productively, "no, you're evil!", and the traditional way of resolving those kinds of conflicts is burning an entire continent to the ground.

Nowadays, we mostly just have shitty flame wars, but those are still kind of unpleasant and I would prefer to avoid them. I can't tell you or anybody else how to use language or how to think, but if someone were asking my advice, I would say: when you have the reflexive feeling of outrage and disgust that you associate with "evil," it's worth reflecting on 1) what your actual moral objection is, and 2) the reason why someone might actually believe or do something you think is evil. And that's not "because they're evil." Again, that is a value judgement, not an explanation! No one goes around thinking to themselves, "today I shall be evil because I love evil."

I must emphasize that making value judgements is not bad. Making value judgements is a necessary component of living in the world and thinking about ethics and caring about other people. But on the basis that "evil" seems particularly prone to being reified as an objective force in the world, and a value judgement that suffices for and replaces actual understanding, I have made a self-conscious effort to exclude it from my analytical vocabulary.

[4dkellysworld]

Neville Goddard: I Am and The Promise

I was curious to find Neville's more ND-related texts so I skimmed The Law and The Promise and Power of Awareness (only the relevant chapters). I don't agree with everything Neville Goddard says as he says God is imagination but from ND-perspective, God is an imagined concept too so I guess he's right actually lol. At least in The Law and the Promise he speaks only of God as if it's the highest form of being while from an ND-perspective, I AM (Self) is beyond the concept of God (He does speak of I AM in Power of Awareness but that book was published 9 years before The Law and The Promise). Nevertheless, these particular excerpts from these two books were interesting to read and ND-relevant so I thought I'd share.

From Power of Awareness:

I AM is a feeling of permanent awareness. The very center of consciousness is the feeling of I AM - I may forget who I am, where I am, what I am but I cannot forget that I AM. The awareness of being remains, regardless of the degree of forgetfulness of who, where, and what I am. When you know that consciousness is the one and only reality -conceiving itself to be something good, bad, or indifferent, and becoming that which It conceived itself to be - you are free from the tyranny of second causes, free from the belief that there are causes outside of your own mind that can affect your life. Thus, it is abundantly clear that there is only one I AM and you are that I AM. And while I AM is infinite, you, by your concept of yourself, are displaying only a limited aspect of the infinite I AM.

From The Law and The Promise:

My mystical experiences have brought me to accept literally, the saying that all the world’s a stage. And to believe that God plays all the parts. The purpose of the play? To transform man, the created, into God, the creator. God loved man, his created, and became man in faith that this act of self-commission would transform man - the created, into God - the creator. The play begins with the crucifixion of God on man - as man - and ends with the resurrection of man - as God. God becomes as we are, so that we may be as He is.

When He rises in us, we will be like Him and He will be like us. Then all impossibilities will dissolve in us at that touch of exaltation which His rising in us will impart to our nature. Here is the secret of the world: God died to give man life and to set man free, for however clearly God is aware of His creation, it does not follow that man, imaginatively created, is aware of God.

The drawing of oneself out of one’s own skull (my own interpretation: quieting the mind, letting go of ego identification) was exactly what the prophet foresaw as the necessary birth from above, a birth giving man entrance into the kingdom of God and reflective perception on the highest levels of Being.

Our dreams will all be realized from the time that we know that Imagining Creates Reality (note: I AM imagining, not ego though) and Act. But Imagination seeks from us something much deeper and more fundamental than creating things: nothing less indeed than the recognition of its own oneness, with God; that what it does is, in reality, God Himself doing it in and through Man, who is All Imagination.

[words-of-wolf]

Having some Thoughts once more.

Specifically thinking about self-policing identity. Obviously policing others is a huge issue in the alterhuman and adjacent communities, but setting up my soap box here to talk about how we internalise the need to police identity.

Putting a cut here because god do I need to stop writing these walls of text that people then have to scroll past for eternity even if they're not interested in reading it asjdkhjksah !!

When I was a teen, I saw otherkin and therians self-policing and I respected them. I thought they were really strong for doing that; I thought it was necessary, and that the only way we could ever be accepted as a community is if we leaned hard into minimising our experiences, making things "palatable". It wasn't a conscious belief, but it was very present.

So that's what I emulated. Any discussion of my experiences, or my feelings, usually would get a lot of reassurances sprinkled in there: "this is just my beliefs", "it's okay if you don't believe this too", "I know this sounds far-fetched", "this is just my internal identity".

I thought that made me sound reasonable and respectable. Maybe it even did.

But nowadays, I see people doing this kind of thing - minimising their experiences, adding disclaimers, policing themselves - and mostly it just makes me feel sad for them. Not in a condescending way, cause I've been there, I know how it feels to believe you've gotta make yourself sound "reasonable" to be respected. But I don't feel respect for that attitude, it just makes me sad.

And now, I'm here growing into a version of myself where I finally start to feel like I'm an adult, and I finally start to feel like I'm myself in a way unhindered by that constant fear and self-regulation, and I can see plain as day how much the self-policing doesn't actually work.

Cause you could present the weirdest, most outlandish identity possible to someone, but if you don't make a big deal out of it they probably won't either. Casual but unapologetic is, I think, the best way to go. You don't always have to hide yourself. (Obviously, take time to judge your situation first, but, same goes for most things outside of "the norm").

But presenting yourself as some vulnerable thing who has to placate any aggression before it even happens - well, that just makes people uncomfortable, and the mean ones will single you out as a target for it more than they'd do with someone who's just kinda "whatever" about the whole situation.

And the same thing goes for if you have an identity that feels weird by alterhuman standards, y'know? Chill but unapologetic will get you far. You'll feel more comfortable in yourself, too. Cause when everything you say is minimised, you can start to internalise that too - and it can make you feel like embracing your identity wholeheartedly is a bad thing, or like your own perception of self should have the same uncertainty to it that your descriptions of it do.

I think... the desire and impulse to self-police and minimise is not something you can just "switch off". But I hope reading this can get the ball rolling for those of you out there who struggle with this in the same way I did!

You don't need to police yourself. You don't need to censor yourself.

Doing this doesn't help the community, and it doesn't increase our standing and validity in the eyes of people on the outside. At best, it does nothing; at worst, it makes us seem uncertain, nervous, and an easy target.

And doing this hurts yourself. It affects things in ways that are hard to even see, but take it from someone who's experienced it: these feelings can pierce so, so deep.

You don't need to apologise for who you are. I don't care how "weird" your identity or experiences are - it's you, it's who you are, nobody can touch that. And if you're genuine about it, people will accept you for it, and sometimes gravitate towards you, even; particularly the others who feel the same way, who are the "weird ones" among the weirdos.

Cause when you're unapologetic, when you're genuine in a way that's not flavoured by fear, you kinda... become a safe space. You create an atmosphere around you that gives other people permission to do the same. To just be themselves, without the uncertainty and fear.

And that's really special! It's important.

[multiplicity-positivity]

Okay so I’m anti endogenic and I want to learn more about Endo systems but I find that most of the Endo blogs I come across support transid people/are in the transid community themselves and I just kind of made me scared cus transid people aren’t good and should heal form trauma they have, but my question was are all Endo systems transid supporters and are Endo systems part of the transid community ( asking cus a lot of Endo blogs said yes to both of those questions )

hey… I’m the designated syscourser and we have been getting a few asks about syscourse in our inbox lately, so here i am.

we have not had that same experience. we know of one big blog who supports trans-ids (the user who is still in our dni), and she may have a circle of followers who are also trans-id supporters, but for the most part, we have met and interacted with countless endogenic systems who want nothing to do with trans-ids or the radqueer community.

we see how lots of anti endos might make this connection. it’s an incredibly common talking point in anti endo spaces that endogenic systems “just want to have a disorder” and aren’t actually experiencing the plurality that endo systems claim to experience. but the truth is… plurality and multiplicity simply mean being more than one. that’s it. and there are so many diverse and beautiful people out there who experience life as more than one, without having a dissociative disorder, and without being members of the radqueer community.

so to answer your questions:

no, not all endo systems are trans-id supporters. endogenic systems are not a monolith - they are a diverse group of people with a vast range of ideas and beliefs about the world. if you’ve been seeing lots of radqueer endogenic systems, that’s likely because you’ve been looking for them in trans-id or radqueer focused spaces.

no, being endogenic does not inherently make someone a part of the trans-id community. simply having a system that did not form from trauma doesn’t suddenly make someone “transplural.”

we really would encourage you to read our psa on transx/trans-id and radqueers from our pinned post. we’ll link it below:

that post ^ will likely answer your questions in more detail, so we’d really encourage you to read it if you have the time/energy.

honestly, thank you for coming to us with these questions. we are very much firm supporters of endogenic systems on this blog. at the same time, we understand anti endos are people, often scared, hurt, angry, and traumatized. we want to be available to answer any question from anti endos that can be asked from a place of wanting to learn, and facilitate productive conversations and discussions. remember, endo systems are people too, and they’re deserving of kindness and respect just like you and me.

we hope you’re doing well, anon. feel free to reach out to us again if you have any further questions about endogenic systems in the future - we’re happy to help anti endos come to a better understanding about these sorts of things.

[compacflt]

Hi, big fan of your fics. I've just found your Tumblr and binged everything Icemav-related. When reading about Icemav's political beliefs, I've gotten curious. Does Bradley share the same political beliefs as Ice (and Mav)? Does being raised by them or them pulling his papers influence how he votes? Or there are other factors in the play (e.g. generations, social media)? How about Jake and the other Daggers? How does this young generation of the Navy perceive politics (elections, gender, etc.)? My apologies for bombarding you with questions. But as a non-American, American politics have always been something we must pay attention to. I've seen many interesting interpretations on Tumblr but it feels more or less wistful than realistic, but I might be wrong (again not an American) so I would love to see your perspective on this. Thank you.

a good politics roundup post before i leave this blog

icemav & their conservatism: here, here, here

ice’s NECESSARY conservatism as commander of the pacific fleet (i.e. officers who are most likely to get promoted to the highest ranks do NOT break the service line when it comes to domestic politics, so by necessity ice would’ve had to keep his mouth shut, he Cannot be both a four-star and a revolutionary, like he just can’t; and being a revolutionary is otherwise antithetical to his character anyway): here, here.

and the original “ice & mav politics post” which is being updated here: here

I’ve gone back and forth on everyones politics over the last year of me being involved with these characters, but let me just tell you where I’ve ended up headcanoning them politically, if ur interested

ice: reagan democrat. “educated moderate” who was more right-leaning pre-9/11. now just a regular ol liberal (did you SEE those gay little round glasses in tgm? no way this guy isn’t a straight-up lib) with absolutely no strong feelings about most domestic politics besides “fascism bad”. Has some foreign policy opinions that areeeee questionable at best, like all members of the military elite (hangman voice: DO NOT ASK ICEMAN ABOUT CHINA. WORST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE). foreign policy neoliberal favoring the dovish side of the spectrum. A force conservator (“let’s save our military assets [read: my boyfriend maverick 🥺] for when we really need them, not for any old conflict. the deterring specter of the American war machine should outweigh the risk of underperforming”). He’s in favor of marriage equality of course, but treats it like a privilege and not a right. would be sad/upset if it got repealed but wouldn’t necessarily fight for it. “well at least my marriage will always be legal in california so i just won’t leave, problem solved.” Normie median Biden voter.

mav: political wildcard tbh. original 1986 mav is DEFINITELY right-leaning (i think i’ve written elsewhere, “he fully believes bill clinton is an affront to god”). i get young republican vibes from him. Full on patriotic (but dispassionate) 1980s reaganite anti-commie neoconservative. but after the 2010s i am very confused tbh. Tom cruise’s political aura is an insanely confusing one. idk. No matter what, Mav has some Hot Takes that a.) can immediately be shot down by ice using Facts and Logic at any time and b.) are not strictly partisan. He’s registered democrat just to support marriage equality (his marriage is his top priority but he doesn’t care about Other gays’ marriages, only his own), doesn’t care about any of the party’s other lines. Votes however ice tells him to. I get real “kind clueless libertarian” vibes from 2022 maverick tbh. Especially with the “isolating himself in a hangar in the middle of the mojave desert.” that has a political connotation to it for sure. bro just does whatever he wants out there

also, ice & mav live in San Diego, which… while in blue/democrat leaning California…is famously a bastion of right-wingers & has a hitler particle level off the charts… (sorry its not my favorite place in the world). That’s why they’re both continually so disgusted by San Francisco (a metonym for effete liberal homosexuality). Theyre from San Diego, hatred of SF & liberal SF politics is kinda par for the course down there.

Bradley: as u will see in the extras i definitely hc Bradley as an activist, but because he’s… in the navy and also like in his 30s… It’s not college campus activism, it’s just “things all of us in the left wing can agree upon” activism. so, like, BLM or pride, etc. He’s an “in this house we believe” yard sign liberal. He is 38 years old. hes a solid millennial so not politically hip with the kids (me)

Bradley & ice/mav disagree on the VISIBILITY of politics. Ice & mav, who did live through the vietnam era draft/near-dissolution of American society in the 60s and 70s, are not in favor of possibly losing their job/honor they have fought and killed for, for the sake of a political statement. And they believe their relationship IS a political statement, whereas Bradley would rather encourage them to treat their relationship like, I don’t know, a relationship that has a right to exist independent of politics!

Jake and the other daggers: idk. i don’t really give a shit about the daggers sorry. They r blank slates 2 me. jake especially is canonically frat-boy sexist in a way that gives me the heebs, much like original 1986 maverick and ice. But the navy tends to be the most left-wing (or thought of as left wing in common thought) service of the military, if that helps. But it is also the most traditional service of the military, and by traditional I mean BRITISH!!!! 🇬🇧💂there’s so much pomp and circumstance and hoity-toitiness that comes from the navy’s origins in the Royal Navy. A lot of sticking to outdated tradition in the very fabric of the navy itself, while the navy’s enlisted demographics shift younger and more left-wing/“revolutionary…” some interesting conflicts there. Like that one sailor who got blasted by multiple congressmen on social media for (with permission!) reading a poem about their queer identity on the USS Gerald ford’s intercom a few months back, if I remember correctly. Hoo boy the Takes that day were wild. Younger Americans tend to be more liberal but YMMV with officers, who are by nature trying to uphold outdated traditions of the navy for the sake of keeping the navy a unified service

i am of course writing carole as a christian republican who has gay friends and a gay kid not by choice but by the Grace of God

[tanoraqui]

I love your world building! Your name ideas are awesome. Love the idea of Indis being a true prophetic mother name

-@outofangband

Belated thank you! Also, sharing my thought process on that one because it's a very classic Silmarillion headcanon origin: it bothers me that Indis's name means "bride." I hate how it reduces her to a feminine trope - at "best", only here to have a troubled marriage; if you're a staunch Fëanorian, a femme fatale homewrecker. I immensely dislike how this is, in fact, an fairly accurate description of her role in the story...

Which is deliberate on Tolkien's part! The "canonically correct" way to ameliorate this misogyny (though neither erase nor excuse it) is to remember that this whole text is a mixture of history, legend and myth passed through multiple storytellers over thousands of years, translated and re-translated and interpreted through the eyes of elves and men and hobbits and men again, until even if this person ever actually existed in the history of Middle Earth - IF! - "Indis" probably wasn't even her epessë, much less her commonly used name. Probably her name got ink blotted on it at some point, or mixed up with someone else's name, and the next Númenorean scholar to rewrite the text followed the Archetypal School of historical interpretation and decided to name her "Indis" because of her role in the story...

But this, too, bothers me. Because I love the framing device of these various books, I love the historian-given dubious canonicity of literally every detail of The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and especially of The Silmarillion. But! We need some solid canon upon which to hang all our headcanons, so it's imperative to retain a delicate mental balance of knowing everything could be made up (more than it already is by being fiction!) while also adhering to as much as possible as something that Really Did Happen - and names are pretty solidly in the latter category. I mean, everyone has multiple and for those who don't, we tend to make more up, but a belief in the basic premise of the text is necessary in order to function in any fandom, and "names of characters" is pretty "basic premise."

So it's impossible to ignore that her name is Indis; and it's impossible to ignore that the name "Indis" is closely connected to her place in the narrative, more than most characters, and that said place is uncomfortably non-feminist - you can round out her character all you like, but you have to admit that her role in the story is to be the Second Wife and Mother whose acts of being a wife and mother cause trouble! That's a fact! And it's not great! And the name "Indis" isn't helping because if she was named anything but her literal narrative role, that would be characterization! She could be noble like Artanis, she could be of the sea like Eärwen, but she's not! She's just "bride"!

...so, I redeem this by making this definition of her life deliberate within the text - and not just by a future Númenorean scholar, but by Indis's mother. (Female! O! Cs!) Furthermore, names of prophecy are implicitly grand (even if they're not necessarily either good or bad). It makes being a bride itself feel more active - and why not! Do Indis's acts of love and marriage not change the fate of the world just as much as Lúthien's? Consider that Indis's act of marriage is so important that it echoes back through the Great Music to be known by her mother as she held the future bride as a babe in arms. Consider a mother holding her child under stars beside a lake and going, "damn, this kid is gonna have ripple effects. I should add a bragging warning label."

Also, if you accept the headcanons that

a) most Elvish languages treat "sex" (physical) and "marriage" (soul-bonding) as basically synonymous; and

b) Indis spends thousands of years in the Second/Third ages patiently and stubbornly figuring out how to Make It Work between herself, Finwë and Miriel, such that all three of them can marry with genuine all-around mutual love unto the end of days, for peace among the still-troubled Noldor but mostly for happiness for herself and those she loves most (also an act of bride-ship worthy of prophecy, note) -

then you can with a straight face imagine Indis saying, "I fucked my way into this mess and I'm going to fuck my way out of it."

Feminist critique + consideration of canonical historicity + elaborate headcanon web = sex joke! Now that's good fandom!

[dulciechi]

Hello! I don't know if you're still interested in your COTL Witness AU, but I hope you don't mind me asking something. In one of your art piece of Witness AU, why was Narinder crying in the one depicting Apollyn offering him a flower crown? Was he reminiscing of some heavy past sorrow or frustration? Also, your "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" is very fascinating! I hope both of your fics still interest you enough to keep writing for them without weighing you down, they're just wonderful to read!

Have a good sleep and meal!

The sermon ends just a bit past noon; rays of sunlight streaming through the cathedral windows until everything in the temple is drenched in blood. Narinder remains behind the pulpit hours after the last of his worshippers have left– unwilling to return to the Veil just yet.

He doesn’t remember what he said. It doesn’t matter. Sermons are a necessary part of mass and he has performed enough of them that it’s become muscle memory. Even if his belief falters, he will never show it.

Besides, what else could be said of Death that he hasn’t said before? What else could he offer them other than a promise of a calm afterlife?

Death is inevitable.

‘…It must be inevitable, or the foundation of our Faith will weaken. Everything else may change, but not Death.’

‘Never you.’

He should be grateful. Of all his siblings’ domains, his is the one that cannot be destroyed. Even gods eventually succumb to Death.

‘What more can you want? Our followers? Our Crowns?’

‘Don’t you have enough power?’

‘If you continue to pursue this path, know that we cannot accompany you through it.’

‘You will chase your destruction alone.’

He doesn’t know how long he stays there, echoes of his siblings’ and his words tossing and turning in his mind, unable to rest. Time is easy for gods to forget, so easy to ignore when neither hunger nor sleep are there to remind them of its passing.

In the end, a familiar voice is what rouses him from his trance.

“My love?”

Narinder turns from the window to find his Witness atop the pulpit, a tiny crown of flowers in their hands.

He blinks, and feels something wet slip down his cheeks. He raises a hand and touches his face, surprised to feel tears.

Ah. So that's why they hadn’t used his proper title. They knew he would’ve panicked at the thought of being seen by anyone else in this state. Incensed.

And they both knew only one creature was daring enough to refer to him so intimately.

Apollyon holds out the crown beseechingly, an ever-loving smile on their face, “Though paltry, I hope my offering pleases you. Let it be a reminder of what you have cultivated here, and of the paradise you will create in the future.”

“Should my Witness not be somewhere else of importance? I seem to recall assigning you to a mission right after the sermon.”

He should punish them for this. Gods should never appear so weak. But Apollyon is not just any follower, not just anyone at all. Even now, he can feel nothing but devotion pulsating through their soul. And Narinder is tired of shoulds.

“My duty is to serve you,” Apollyon replies, before tilting their head and giving him a mischievous smile, “My vow is to protect you… from everything that would hurt you. Even if that something is sadness itself. I won’t leave here until you smile, or else my heart would only weigh me down in battle. And that would make it harder to succeed in the mission.”

The crown is made entirely of camellias, his flower of devotion. Though the blooms are found in abundance around his temple, Apollyon had expressly forbidden anyone to use it as a gift to anyone other than him. Despite himself, Narinder feels a smile tug at the corner of his lips.

“And what an important mission it is. So I suppose I must ensure your victory,” He lifts his finger to them, pleased at the beaming grin that he knows only he can pull from his Witness, “I accept your offering, and offer you my blessing in return.”

Without further words, Apollyon slides the flowers down his finger like a ring, then places a reverent kiss on his hand. Just like every other time they’ve done this, Narinder feels a rush of warmth run through him, their vast devotion pouring through his veins like liquid gold.

He relishes the feeling, brimming with power. It’s giddying as ever, and he doesn’t resist the temptation to do what’s next.

After all, it’s greatly amusing to see his vicious little Witness turn bright red when his lips meet the top of their head.

“Go forth, my Witness, and spread our truths to Lands Beyond,” Narinder pauses, then throws caution to the wind, “--Show the heretics the glory and cruelty of Life and Death.”

If he must choose change alone, then so be it. Even without his siblings, Narinder knows that he’ll succeed.

Especially when Apollyon mirrors his bloodthirsty grin.

“As you wish.”

—————

I wrote this on a whim after seeing your message so it’s completely unedited lol. Sorry for any clunkiness. But yeah, Narinder was (subconsciously) crying from the frustration of having his siblings not recognize the ennui and imbalance his position was bringing him, and the realization that he might have to choose between them or his desires.

Apollyon ofc, supports their god’s rights and his wrongs 🤗

Tysm for the ask <3 I’m so happy to hear you’re enjoying my fics. I’m trying to finish a drawing rn, but I hope to update “Wolf in Lamb’s Clothing” right after! :D

I still like “Courting Death”, but it’s more of a snippet collection so I can only update it whenever I get ideas.

Happy Lunar New Year! 🧧✨🐉

[esther-dot]

We should talk more about the fandom's love of violence as a response to the injustice.

Bcs i think they're (english isn't mother lenguaje 😅) being played by Grrm? He knows we like to escape to fantasy worlds and seeing the evil be defeated, but also he knows of our taste for blood, vengeance and retaliation.

I know what he said about he not being a strict pacifist believer. But is still contradicts his beliefs to burn alive someone for example, crucify a bunch of people, torture of innocent girls, or torture, simple torture.

One of the mayor problems of Grrm is the ethics and morals of his readers(and his).

Oh, I certainly agree that our acceptance of casual violence as a culture (I say this as an American, perhaps it is different elsewhere), has made a lot of fans miss how critical he is of violence in all forms. There’s a disconnect between what we believe the solution is (killing) and how he shows that to be ineffective. As in, Aerys starts killing people in an unjustified way which leads to a justified rebellion, but in that rebellion, innocents die (Elia, her children) and characters like Ned and Robert, who are victors, have their relationships changed, change as people, never recover what they lost--themselves or their loved ones. It's not a happy ending, not merely because both of those men die by the end of the first book, but because we also know that Aerys’ daughter is coming for revenge and will unleash devastation on Westeros in her effort to reclaim it.

Or we can look at Joffrey killing Ned (unjust), the North going to war (totally understandable), but we’re shown how the smallfolk suffer, that it doesn’t save the Starks from further suffering, and Robb and Cat die. Even when wars seem justified or necessary, Martin refuses to glamorize them the way the fandom wants and might expect. I’ve said before, depicting something isn’t condoning it, and we all land in very different places on certain subjects, “is this for a purpose or is this revealing a disturbing thing about the author”? But justice, mercy, war, peace…that all seems to have been of great interest to him from the get go which means we as readers should try to listen very carefully for that authorial guidance when determining what he is saying about it. Ned chose to save Jon (commit treason), he was ready to defy Robert over Dany, he warned Cersei in an attempt to save her children, and I think fro all his mistakes elsewhere, in these moments, we were meant to see that his was the moral choice:

What strange fit of madness led you to tell the queen that you had learned the truth of Joffrey's birth?" "The madness of mercy," Ned admitted. (AGOT, Eddard XV)

I understand how we get swept up in that feeling of power when a hero can easily kill the bad guy and guarantee a happy ending, but that isn't Martin's world, and in fact, he used Ned to show us how much he valued mercy instead. I recently watched The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die and Uhtred told someone that if you kill a man it only means three sons will rise up to kill you. It made me think of Ned's death, his children who want to kill Lannisters, of the North's loyalty to him, the reality of Dany returning, there is a cost to violence in Martin's story. Obviously, the good guys kill, you're right, he doesn't create a way to be a complete pacifist, and yet, I do think there may be a misalignment between his generation of hippies and our own which is also anti war but otherwise...shall I say, a little more open to violent means.

If we look at Ned's answer to a potential problem (whether that was Jon being a Targ who might grow to hate "the usurpers" for what they took from him a la Dany, or Jon being a bastard who might resent his trueborn "siblings"), he thought love would save them. That Jon growing up loving and being loved by his children would be the solution to a potential future problem. I've said before, I believe Jon will help in retaking Winterfell, will protect Ned's children when he failed to, because Ned, even if he is naive and people suffered for it, had the right ideals.

I believe this is why Sansa is so important because she has that ability to care and show mercy for enemies of her house and people who wrong her specifically, so it seems to me, that she would be someone who might strike compromises for peace rather than resort to further violence. War, death, that doesn’t seem to be Martin's preferred solution, and certainly, cruel deaths, torture, slavery, none of that is acceptable to him which feels like a silly thing to point out, but it is of course, an unpopular stance in the fandom, nonetheless true, and one we should keep discussing! I quite frequently see people act like those of us who write “anti Daenerys” (a tag we use out of consideration for her fans, a consideration that anti Sansa people have never given us) content are engaging in a ship war, but if one wants to understand what the author is saying, I don’t think you can avoid it? Is it really more reasonable to conclude Martin wants us to be fine with burning a slave alive than that we’re meant to be horrified? Tbh, if he didn’t want us to condemn it, doesn’t that demand we condemn his moral framework? It’s a different kind of fandom engagement, perhaps, but trying to understand what the author is saying is the basic form of engagement with a novel, shouldn’t be as offensive as people pretend.

I say this a lot but I always want to reiterate, I love that people who speak English as a second language still engage with the fandom. I know that English speakers are spoiled with content and ease of engagement, and that it can be intimidating to reach out for anyone, more so if there's anxiety about the language barrier, but I'm very happy you did it anyway, and hope you know how much I admire you for it!

[utilitycaster]

What are your honest, unfiltered thoughts about everything going on currently with this “are the gods really good and necessary” line of thought the latest cr episode has been tackling, both in terms of your feelings on the subject in general and also how it’s being portrayed/discussed.

I don't agree with the idea of gods using mortals as batteries - I don't actually think we have any official canonical support that the prime deities (or, presumably, betrayer gods) do need worship to sustain them - but in terms of a conversation being had I don't actually mind it because the general attitude among Bells Hells and among Deanna and FRIDA is "does it really matter how important the gods are? Actively unleashing them seems like a cataclysmically bad idea." It's actually really interesting to me that this is the focus! A lot of D&D in which there are divine entities explores religion and faith in a scenario where the existence of gods is unquestionable. This is instead exploring whether it's legitimate to destroy something simply for not being important to you personally.

I'd also add that what Deanna is saying and how she's acting are not always in sync - which to be clear I believe to be a deliberate choice from Aabria in her portrayal. Like, I think it's obvious that Deanna has complicated feelings towards the Dawnfather, but that's the key - there are positive and negative feelings, and when she says "batteries" there is a symbiosis here, not a simple "they're using us and controlling us".

Just to give a brief overview of where I am personally coming from, like, IRL, philosophically: I'm Jewish, and my personal religious practice is heavily focused far more on what one does rather than what one believes, which I feel fits very well with Bells Hells. The Yom Kippur service, which one reads while fasting and spending a day in prayer, actively includes a reading (from Isaiah) that boils down to "It's cool that you're fasting right now but if, tomorrow, you go back to engaging actively in systems of oppression that you have the power to fight against, this was all meaningless and performative."

This covers two things I feel very strongly about religion and morality: First, actions speak way louder than words and religious observance should serve as a reminder of what you need to be doing during the rest of your life, ie, you can't show up at your place of worship with an attitude of "ok cool gonna cleanse my soul and then it's ALLLLLL fixed and I can go back to kicking puppies". Religious services, should you choose to attend them, are more about the meditative process of setting one's intent via symbolic rituals, but really, it matters way more that you are not a fucking dickhead in the rest of your life. And second, you, as a mortal finite being who is not a god have the power to throw off these systems of oppression, because in a world where divine entities step in constantly, we as mortals do simply become mindless puppets, and that would suck.

Which I should note also means that one's issues with an organized religion must be taken up with the mortal leaders of that institution. I mean, in our real world, if you are an atheist, I think that's a completely valid belief, but also, in the end, it does not matter if or if not there is any cosmic entity or higher power. If you're an edgy FACTS NOT FEELINGS neckbeard 4chan atheist bigot, or a hard-right evangelical bigot? the bigotry is what matters. The existence of deities is a moot point. What people are being shitty? How do you stop them? You are welcome to overlay religion if it helps or avoid it if it doesn't. Like, one last note re: Jewishness, which is that there's a parable that a guy once said "I will convert to Judaism if you can teach me the entire Torah while I stand on one foot," and the first rabbi he asks scoffs and sends him off, and the second tells him the golden rule ("that which is hateful to you, do not do unto your neighbor") and it's fucking great not just because it's a good moral principle, but because it also removes religion from the equation. If this guy were scamming you? You've given him some solid advice at no cost to yourself that requires no adherence to any religion. If he were in earnest? You met his conditions.

Another relevant way to put this: The oft-used but really good Brennan quote! " 'On the level of individuals and civilizations, personality predates ideology.' Meaning that before you were a fascist, you were a bully and an asshole." Replace fascist with hateful religious right-winger; it's not about god, it's about a system that lets you feel justified in hating other people for who they are or like you're getting a reward for not doing stuff you weren't interested in anyway.

So uh, getting back to CR, it's interesting in that it's managed to recreate the real-world argument in D&D. I happen to prefer stories in which characters are actively engaging with deities in a positive manner, as we've seen with say, Pike, or Vax, or Fjord, or Caduceus, or Jester, or Yasha. However, in the end, all the theological arguments are purely academic. The point is that no one's controlling the Vanguard - Tuldus's quarrel is with his abusive family, not their gods. Ludinus says he's mad the gods didn't step in to stop the Calamity...but in many ways the Calamity happened because the gods let the people have free rein. If the gods stop everything bad from happening, how far do they go? Sure, stop the Calamity. Do they stop every individual accidental death? Do they stop all wars? What happens if they slip up? Can they slip up? It's an inherently contradictory spiral if you start getting into this - are you saying the gods are perfect and infallible and choose not to use this, in which case, wouldn't that make them fallible? If the gods are actually powerful enough to constantly control you, why are you openly talking about their destruction and Kord hasn't vaporized you with a bolt from the blue?

And you can tell this because the only arguments that matter in the end are people like Orym and Ashton saying "I don't fucking know about the gods, but these guys are murdering innocents, which seems really bad." Like, sure, I'd like to see some more for lack of a better term traditional clerics or paladins pop up, or someone with a high religion score who can talk through the theology, but it's kind of nice to have a story where most people are like "I can take or leave the gods, but actively unleashing an even more powerful entity to kill them seems dumb and unnecessary" and I think that argument is ultimately more successful than a head-on discussion of the role of the gods.

[hillaryisaboss]

“If it is your personal belief, based on whatever, that there is no legitimate basis for abortion — even if you're in the hospital and you're bleeding out, even if you're told that you have cancer and chemotherapy is necessary and therefore an abortion is necessary — no matter what, you get to make that decision. I might not agree with it, but you get to make that decision.

But you, and those who support your particular point-of-view, cannot dictate that decision to every other woman.

In a pluralistic democracy like ours, the court in Roe v. Wade said the government is not going to make this decision.

If these Supreme Court justices and the very extreme Republicans who support them really cared about children, why don't they support health care for every pregnant woman in our country? Why do they let a big state like Texas deny health care, because they won't expand Medicaid, to mothers who want to have their children? And they therefore have the highest rate of maternal mortality in America.

Why don't they support child care, so that, if a mother is going to be forced to give birth to a child, that mother will be able to support herself and her child because she will be able to go out and work. And the list goes on.

This is not, at the end of the analysis, about anything other than controlling women with some kind of patriarchal view of society that they want to impose on the rest of us.

Democrats need to be willing to point out the extremism that has captured the Republican Party and to make it clear this is not about special interest groups. This is not about one group of Americans vs. another. This is about the rise of authoritarianism within our own country.

This is a direct attack on our democracy.

Americans took for granted that, despite opposition to reproductive choice, it would not go away.

There was a complacency, an acceptance.

During the 2016 campaign, I gave speeches about this. I talked about the dangers that would be posed to this right and other rights if my opponent were elected, because of the promises he'd made to the extreme factions within the Republican Party.

And, honestly, people didn't believe me.

Their attitude was, oh, that sounds really farfetched. That will never happen.

Oftentimes, in politics, the entrenched status-quo position is not as vigorously defended as the opposition position. And so those who wanted to overturn Roe, those who wanted to turn the clock back, were very motivated. And those who said, oh, well, that's settled law, including people sitting on the court, when asked in their confirmation hearings, gave every reason to reassure the American public — telling us they follow past precedent.

Either they have had some kind of brain change, or they were deliberately misleading the American people.

So, yes, the energy was on the side to overturn. Now I hope that energy will shift to the side of those of us who want to protect the progress we have made.

This is a direct assault on the dignity, rights, and even lives of American women.

It is heartbreaking to see this court dominated by extremists who do not represent the majority of Americans, men and women, who believe that this is a right that women should have — doing all they can to set the clock back.

This is the first time, perhaps, that I'm aware of, that a right will actually be taken away.

So, what can be done?

There has to be a recognition that, as horrible assault as this is on women's rights, it is perhaps only the beginning of this court trying to undo so much of the progress of the last 50 years.

Now saying there is no right to privacy — that Roe was decided wrongly.

Roe followed a case called Griswold, which struck down a law prohibiting married heterosexual couples from having access to contraception.

It served as the basis of decriminalizing consenting sexual behavior between gay people who were adults and able to express their own feelings toward one another. It certainly underpins gay marriage. So, this is a real threat to our democracy, not just to the rights of women.

I don't care what political party or religion you are — the question is, who decides?

Is the government going to be in your bedroom?

Is the government going to be making these decisions?

We're only at the beginning of this terrible travesty that this court has inflicted on us.

The ultimate goal of the decision is truly to erase the progress that women have made from the last 150 years.

There are so many things about it that are deeply distressing, but women are going to die.

Women will die.

These justices were selected for this very purpose.

You’ve got to give the other side lots points for their relentlessness, their total commitment to getting what they want done, regardless of who is hurt by it and regardless of who is stripped of rights.

Everybody now understands that this is not necessarily the only effort that we're going to see this court undertake to turn back the clock on civil rights and gay rights and women's rights beyond abortion.”

—Hillary Clinton

[fatalism-and-villainy]

I think a lot about Chiyoh’s arc, and how it aligns with the broader topics season 3 is touching on wrt justice, prisons, and moral responsibility.

Because what’s so striking to me is how unapologetically ruthless she is in her handling of the prisoner, in a way that even Will calls her on:

Chiyoh: He wants you to look at him, speak to him. But you’re not going to. Will: You’ve cast aside the social graces normally afforded to human beings. Chiyoh: He’s cast them aside. All he’s allowed is the sound of water. It’s what the unborn hear. It’s their last memory of peace. Will: You’re keeping him like an animal. Chiyoh: I wouldn’t do this to an animal.

The kind of solitary confinement she subjects him to is, effectively, torture. And yet she feels so strongly about murder! Her self-defense murder of the prisoner and its immediate aftermath marks the only time when she’s truly emotionally rattled, and everything about the situation suggests that not killing is a very stringent moral standard she’s held herself to. And no matter how wearying the prolonged imprisonment is to her, it’s not one that she has a moral objection to - she believes it’s justified by the severity of the prisoner’s crimes. (It’s questionable whether she considers her treatment of the prisoner to be violence, but if she did, she’d certainly term it “necessary violence”.)

(There is something similar to consider about the random mooks she shoots to ensure Hannibal and Will’s escape in Digestivo - is this “necessary” violence to her? Apparently, but if so, she considers protecting the man she considers to be family something for which it is worth taking lives. And the fact that those murders are far-off sniper shots suggests that perhaps she is averse to violence when it’s up-close, personal, and bloody, but is still willing to enact it when she can distance herself somewhat from its effects.)

All of that is to say - I am convinced that Chiyoh’s insistence that she only commits violence when it’s necessary, and her repeated disavowal that she is anything like Will, despite having actively undertaken vigilante justice, is pretty hypocritical on her part! I don’t say that to demonize her - the jumble of contradictory ethical principles is one of the aspects of her that I find fascinating to crack open despite her limited screen time, and Will himself by season 3 (and almost certainly post-canon) is also pretty capable of hypocrisy. And of course she’s not entirely like Will. She doesn’t seem to take much righteous satisfaction or sadistic pleasure in her handling of the prisoner - her line that “we have been each others’ prisoner” suggests that the situation wears on her just as much as him. But it is pretty clear to me that there are truths about herself, and her capacity for violence, that she is pointedly refusing to acknowledge, and that she’s clinging to some pretty narrowly defined moral principles so as to preserve her self-concept.

And I think the question that that arc involving Chiyoh invites us to ask - whether the bare life conditions she subjected her prisoner to really were all that morally superior to murder - constitutes one potential thread between 3A and 3B. Because what it brings to mind for me is Hannibal’s line to Alana in WOTL: “Any rational society would either kill me, or give me my books.”

And like many of Hannibal’s statements… it makes a twisted kind of sense.

To be clear, I absolutely do not think NBC Hannibal is trying to articulate a thematic statement against carceral justice - it’s too apolitical a show to bear that kind of weight. (And it’s certainly not interested in rehabilitation, either). But it is a show that is very interested in how our moral beliefs as well as our darker urges and fascinations define our selfhood, and the kind of moral doublethink we all engage in. And that kind of thematic backdrop does appropriately pair with the show’s general slant towards murder as not even necessarily more ethical than imprisonment, but more honest. As something that constitutes truly owning our moral judgments, feeling for ourselves the full weight and impact of delivering them.

Alana being the recipient of that line from Hannibal - and her overall role as his jailor - also has a certain kind of irony, given that she herself has to learn this lesson in 3A. She and Margot, as per their dialogue in Dolce, intend to have Mason arrested. But when that plan goes awry and they can’t rely on FBI intervention, Alana ends up having to pay the price of getting involved with Mason by getting her hands dirty. Notably, in the cases of both Alana and Chiyoh, Will has a hand in pushing them both towards murder (and in the case of Alana, Hannibal also plays a role in that - an interesting example of the aligned-but-divergent ways Will and Hannibal might exert influence on others post-canon). The situations are somewhat different in that Chiyoh has shouldered more personal responsibility in taking on the role as jailor, rather than ceding that authority to institutional higher powers. But her situation does still overlap significantly with Alana helping Margot murder Mason, in that the result Will engineers from her feels geared to force her to face what she’s taken on, to get up close and personal and really see.

(And of course, both murders bring some sort of freedom or moral catharsis, along with an intense self-recognition that can’t be found through the complacency of more socially acceptable forms of justice.)

Furthermore, in 3B, Will himself is engaged in a similar kind of thought process. In his conversation with Walter, he’s pretty firm on not killing Dolarhyde, and sending him to a mental hospital instead. And given Will’s arc at this point in the show, it’s pretty intuitive that this intention is a product of Will not wanting to be the kind of person who kills - an intention that is arguably also present for both Alana and Chiyoh. All three do have genuine ethical objections to murder as well, of course - I can pretty easily formulate all of them feeling that fewer people dying is an optimal outcome. But their personal conceptions of themselves are certainly also a factor in their disavowal of murder.

But the culmination of the Red Dragon arc, in which Will and Hannibal jointly kill Dolarhyde, is clearly much more preferable end for Dolarhyde. The way it’s cinematically rendered, with the blood fanning out in the shape of wings, suggests that murder constituted his ultimate transformation, in which his true sense of himself was fully realized. Although defeated, undergoing change to fuel our main characters’ radiance is a much more poetically resonant and satisfying ending, and it’s hard to imagine any other way he’d rather lose. Aesthetics > ethics.

Of course, in real life, I don’t believe that killing people - even genuinely bad people who’ve caused serious harm - is a remotely acceptable ethical solution. But within the world of Hannibal, a world in which the killers conceive of themselves in terms of artistic vision, for whom psychiatric language and its corrective purpose is nowhere near sufficient - by the internal moral logic of that universe, murder is often more merciful, and displays much more genuine understanding and empathy.

All of this is to say, I think Chiyoh’s arc can be figured within these broader themes in season 3. And the lesson she learned from Hannibal - and by extension, Will - from her intervention with justice is much the same as the lesson that Bedelia learned from Hannibal: that observing and participating are the same. Taking on the responsibility of enacting justice, in the world of Hannibal, requires becoming the executioner.

[duckielover151]

OPLA and Garp and Worldbuilding

Okay. I think I've finally figured it out.

I've seen some polarizing takes on Monkey D. Garp's character in the live action adaptation of One Piece. I generally like how they brought his character to life, but there was something that wasn't quite sitting right with me. It just took me a bit to pinpoint exactly what the problem was.

So for one: I do like his live action portrayal. The live action series remains goofy and faithful to the original in a lot of ways but does give everything a bit of a grittier feel, as would be expected-- and is almost required-- of a live action story about pirates. When you're seeing real people in front of you, as opposed to cartoonish drawings, your tale kind has to reflect the real world and its darkness.

Garp's character in the live action absolutely feels... not dumbed down, but simplified from who his character is in the original tale.

And I think that was necessary. The biggest change from one medium to the other was the pacing. The live action just could not have been done with the anime's pacing, (though there's honestly very little that was missed, even with how much faster the story moved). And the pace of your storytelling really affects how your characters get developed.

So yeah, live action Garp comes across as just the tiniest bit unstable... (he's still got a bit of a wild side) but mostly in control. And a lot more proactive about his goals.

The most important thing is that I think this storyline about him chasing around after his rebellious grandson... just to give him one final test before setting him free, accepting that he's ready to handle the dangerous life he's been dreaming of-- even if it will pit them against each other more seriously in the future!-- is just more accessible to an audience used to live action storytelling. It kind of makes sense. Quite a lot of the time, anime Garp's actions and choices regarding his family... just don't make a ton of sense. And the live action does not have time to explore that complexity properly. (Hell, the anime doesn't even always do the best job of exploring it in a way that justifies his actions and beliefs, but that's a tale for another time.)

But there's still a problem.

Garp's actions in this adaptation are fine for his character... but really bad for the worldbuilding.

One of the only real complaints I have about the One Piece live action is that they do not succeed in getting across just how corrupt the world government is truly supposed to be.

And a lot of that is because of Garp, following around and cleaning up after our heroes and acting like a responsible adult for once. (That alone is enough for some people to-- honestly, rightfully-- cry that live action Garp is out of character.)

Garp shows up and reforms Morgan's base in both versions... But the live action never really addresses how much of a tyrant Morgan was. That his own marines and even the people of the town, who he was supposed to be keeping safe, were terrified of him. Garp's derision and treatment of Morgan in the live action honestly seem a little unjustified. And it's even worse that he stepped in with Nezumi. Don't get me wrong, it was fantastic to see Nezumi put in his place... But that satisfaction was brief.

Live action-only viewers will never truly understand just how hopeless the situation in Coco village was. That Nezumi was the last line of authority. Their only hope for salvation and justice, and he was all too happy to accept Arlong's bribes and let the villagers suffer.

I recently watched the Honest Trailer for this series. And it was reliably entertaining... but you could tell the crew who made it was missing some key context for understanding the vision behind this show. They make fun of Luffy for not understanding what it really means to be a pirate. And it's not a terrible joke. They're kind of right. But I think what's missing from this adaptation is the understanding that the appeal of being a pirate isn't just the potential for riches. It's about freedom. It's about being strong enough and being in a position to protect yourself when even the people tasked with keeping you safe are all too happy to take advantage of you. It's that siding with the law in this universe is often the choice that makes you the bad guy. Honestly, Koby's got a harder path to walk, as far as morality goes, than Luffy-- or any of the pirates who live honorably.

But I try to remind myself that this is just the tip of the iceberg...

Nami's backstory is what a lot of people tend to pinpoint as the place where the anime starts to get really good. And I think that's because it's where the deal with this world starts to become really clear.

That yeah, it's totally reasonable to root for a group that would normally be the villains in any other story. The civilized half of this world really is that fucked up.

I don't feel like that point really hits its undeniable, no-going-back mark until we get to Robin's backstory and the tale of Ohara... And I cannot tell you how much I hope this adaptation gets to get there.

It's okay that the live action hasn't properly established a tale where an everyday person is going to want to root for the anarchists in this story, because the anime was barely there at this point also.

There is still time to redeem this.

[the-fae-folk]

You’ve said much of the world of faerie, fascinating things few people have seen. But what of humans? Humanity is fascinating. How do they survive in a world like this? How do they not know?

You would be absolutely astounded by the sheer number of things that humans do not know. In fact, I believe that I could safely say that the number of things we don't know outnumber the things we do in the same way that the grand totality of the universe is much more vast than a single walnut. And humans have an utterly fascinating set of capabilities whose primary purpose appears to be to preserve their life and sanity so that they can continue doing necessary and useful things such as gathering food, having families, and generally trying to make life better for all those who come after them. However, those capabilities also sometimes prevent them from seeing things as they are. Cognitive Dissonance is what happens when humans have ideas, beliefs, or actions that are inconsistent with other ideas, beliefs, and actions. It is an uncomfortable feeling, but more than that... it is a state that is actually quite a lot of hard work for the human brain to handle. So the brain will try to find the most efficient way in which to resolve the dissonance. Now an ideal way to deal with the problem would be to do some careful research on the matter, process and logically parse through all of the information, and finally adapt the new information into your existing worldview in order to form a more comprehensive cognitive state that is free of the bothersome dissonance. Unfortunately, this scenario is a lot more rare and more difficult to achieve than anyone would really like. You see, a great number of our decisions on a daily basis are made entirely within the subconscious. We make those trillions upon trillions of tiny decisions without even thinking about them in our conscious brain. When decisions that are significantly more important are made without the input of the conscious brain they can go unnoticed for a very long time until dissonance forces them forward into the focus of your attention. Everything you do is fueled by your motivations and instincts, and even your conscious logical reasoning can be affected by it too. So even when you're finally made aware of some sort of dissonance in your own mind, it's not actually an easy task to stop and truly think through the full scope of the problem. For example: without even realizing it, a person whose unknowing motivation is to maintain their positive self-regard can discount information that is unflattering or troubling if it contradicts their self-image. This is the brain's attempt to shortcut its way past the dissonance; it takes less energy for it to dismiss the contradictory information than to carefully reexamine and adapt the existing framework. This sort of problem effects everyone, and interestingly the effect becomes magnified when concerning any subject to which the person's self-identity is directly connected to. One might be tempted to believe that only the highly educated can elude the grasp of this unintentional survival skill gone wrong, however that would not be the case. In fact, there is a good deal of evidence that suggests that the highly educated might be MORE susceptible to this phenomenon in general due to their more comprehensive and structured worldviews. It is, of course, a useful survival tool, and it is possible to work around the inclination, but it always requires a significant amount of effort against the tendencies of one's own brain. Why do I mention all this? Well think, if someone going about their everyday life happened to see or hear something that went against all of their fundamental conclusions about how reality worked, it would be very easy indeed for their brain to simply... dismiss it or find some logical way to explain it out of existence, or simply to forget it because it doesn't fit. Who knows what wonders we might have missed because our minds couldn't make sense of them?

[aesolerin]

hey. heyehyhey. remember that talk we had about Leper's broken sword and the symbolism of how he broke and all that

well, it gets BETTER/WORSE. and all the more interesting to think about! Wanna know what he says in DD2 when given a whetstone, to sharpen his broken blade?

like, on its surface, it seems simple: he's just projecting and using it as a way to mourn the loss of his looks due to the onset of his disease, right?

Except! (as we talked about): his sword breaking had nothing to do with his looks!(1)

after all, here he is, with his full blade in hand right before the deed that ended with both of them broken: already in his leper gear at this point, with all the symbolic weight that has. (plus just what it could mean in the mundane narrative sense, if we put all our reality warping headcanons aside for just a second, lol) he likely still considered blade still 'handsome', then, as it hasn't shattered yet, no? (and his word choice when talking about it is interesting, too - his blade didn't just break, it shattered. for all that they're synonyms, one word carries a lot more violent and explosive imagery than the other, doesn't it? that this is the word he comes up with when thinking about this moment... it has a lot of interesting implications for how he looks back on it. plus, using it as a way to describe the outcome of his actions here, even if only partially, brings some level of... unintentionality to the consequences, I suppose? i dunno the best way to phrase it, but, like: when it comes to how we use the word in the English language, people knowingly break things all time, whether metaphorically or literally; people break locks to get access to things/places otherwise unavailable to them; "you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet"; ending a romantic relationship with someone is called a breakup, etc. for all that the term implies some level of damage, it's often a controlled use of damage, or something that can be fixed back up later with few repercussions. it's not too dire or drastic for something to end up broken, I guess is what I'm getting at.

For something to have shattered, though? that's almost always implies that the damage wasn't a knowing/intended consequence. At the very least that they did more damage than intended; one would very rarely go out of their way to shatter someone's heart during a break up; if someone shatters a mirror due to punching it, they likely weren't thinking rationally when trying to rid of their reflection; a kid shattering a house's window is gonna get in big trouble if found out, whether that was their goal or not. And that's also part of it - if a person did expect they'd shatter something with their actions, it ascribes to them a level of cruelty and callousness that the word 'break' just doesn't come with as subtextual baggage.

all of which is to say; while the Leper may or may not have expected to come out of his own purge broken, it would have been FAR more self-destructive if he went in expecting it to be shattered by the end. As such, it's very hard for me to think the level of self-damage done was intentional on his part. BUT ANYWAYS. back to the actual topic of this ask xD) What exactly was it that he thought was 'handsome' about his symbolic self before this, as compared to after? Was it the full weight, even as necessary as he thought it was, of killing his own subjects in cold bloo,d and thus no longer being able to truthfully say he'd never knowingly brought harm to those from his kingdom? Was it some level of happiness or enjoyment he got out of the action, thinking such a thing made him monstrous or sadistic?

Was it the calculated cruelty he was able to act with, meaning he at least partially abandoned any beliefs he may have had in kindness and empathy in interacting with others?

However you interpret such a thought process, his interactions with Jester would likely be a huge fucking wake-up call. because, let's be real, the fool would feel less than zero compunctions about calling any and all murder that happens 'sexy', and he'd be joking about it only like. half of the time. if that. xD Though, to be fair, Sarmenti would probably throw around the term 'handsome' less often. Comes a bit too close to sounding sincere, after all, could ruin his reputation as an Unrepentant Silly Asshole if the others picked up on it.

-----

(1)....Though, admittedly, Leper's phrasing in saying he/his blade was "Handsome, once, before it shattered" could just as validly be read as him having lost his handsomeness even before something in him symbolically broke..... But that take is a lot more straightforward in its interpretation, and thus much less fun for me to ruminate on for hours on end. so. ;p

What's your thoughts on all of this, if anything? You agree with any particular interpretation of it, or have an entirely different take? Do you think I'm overanalyzing this too much for DD2, where the reality warping nature of the setting might make the heroes' takes on themselves less reliable than in DD1? (if so, fair!) Just interested to hear any and all of what's going on in your noggin' after reading this!

Leper has so many layers.... so many parts of both of these games live rent free in my head, but this guy and the fucked-up clown are at the very top.

i personally lean towards the more simple 'musing on his “lost” attractiveness' interpretation. it's clear from DD1 and DD2 that Leper has a deep connection to his blade, probably considering it something of a friend or a kindred spirit. it's been with him through so much!

the term 'shattered', though, i do agree is very evocative and there's an intent to it. Leper (and the writers!) didn't simply say 'broken' for a reason. perhaps he feels he shattered himselfa fine and powerful blade in a moment of rage/weakness/self-defense/fear. it's still usable though, even in this shattered state, so Leper will keep on truckin' until his body inevitably gives out.

when the time comes and he's comfortable showing the others his Shrines, though, Jester will call his retaliation a work of art, with only the thinnest veneer of sarcasm. now there's a man who was in control of his fate! there's a man who did not roll over and die when demanded! there's a man who had the guts to do what needed to be done as soon as possible instead of taking the abuse for years and years and years! i'm sure the other heroes would also take Leper's side and assure him that what he did was right on some level, but Jester's agreement hits a bit different.

here's a funny lil interaction between the two of them i formulated with another friend:

Jester, covered in blood: you still love me right?? 🥺

Leper, for the fifth time that day: yes, i do 😊

--

Leper, changing his bandages: truly i am a wretched thing, a walking corpse... 😔

Jester, kissing his forehead: absolutely not, you're hot as fuck and built like a brick shithouse 😤