#i think i can name two specific instances where they do the exact same thing???? off the top of my head

[feldsparite]

[doberbutts]

Hi! Very sorry about the vague bitesports ask - I wasn’t actually aware that there were multiple types!

Could you start by explaining a bit more about what you and Fenris do for mondioring?

Oh, sure, but I think first you should acquaint yourself with the rulebook: https://www.fci.be/medias/UTI-REG-MON-en-4624.pdf

(This is a PDF file, it will download, that is intentional and not a virus I promise, I have literally this exact file from this exact link saved on both my phone and my laptop)

Your original questions were:

What is the overall goal of the sport/what is the dog specifically being trained to do? Are there competitions, and if so, how are they judged?

In regards to mondioring, mondioring is a competitive protection dog sport based off of french ring, which was based off of belgian ring, which was based off of the belgian border patrol program. However mondioring itself was always intended to be a sport, not a military or police program or something to determine breed-worthiness. It was developed as a fun handler's challenge instead of anything else.

As a side note, I think this is why mondio tends to have the most relaxed atmosphere as well as tends to draw the least amount of really intensely bigoted people of all the bitesports. I'm not saying they don't exist in mondio, in fact I can name a few names right now that are rather notorious for it. But it's very unlike IGP (the most popular bitesport within the US) where you can't go a week without tripping over a nazi, a sexual predator, or a domestic abuser... occasionally all of them in the same person... being outed and then immediately defended by the wider sport-going population. I also find it tends to be more friendly to women, racial minorities, disability, and marginalized genders and sexualities- which was reflected in a recent poll done by the USMRA that stated that while it's mostly half and half, it's technically women-led in the US with 51.6% of competitors identifying as women and the rest identifying as men.

(Which either means there was no nonbinary option on the poll or what nonbinary people took the poll were not comfortable identifying as such, which tbh is fair, bc as said bitesports tend to be a hellscape for anyone who's not cishet white and abled- I know I have two nb ppl in my club but they also id as nb women so that may also skew results if not polled correctly)

The goal of mondio is, put simply, good and correct work in increasingly challenging and ever-changing environments. Mondio differs from other sports because each trial is different. They are themed and each theme can completely change the picture. Unlike in sports like agility, or even sports like IGP and french ring, where the jumps always look roughly the same and the retrieves are always dumbbells and there's always a pause table and it's a specific pattern that maybe the individual method of going about the pattern changes from field to field, the total picture always looks roughly the same to the dog... in mondio, the exercises are always the same in the vaguest sense but the means of going about them are different.

For instance, we just had USMRA nationals, which was a pirates theme. That means that the jumps looked like pieces of ships sticking out of "water" (grass), the distractions to see if the dog would break its stay included the decoys having a sword fight, cannons and splashes of water went off constantly, the retrieves were things like toy treasure chests, glass bottles with paper inside, swords, and gold coins... The work that the dog has to do remains the same- you must stay, you must retrieve, you must jump, you must bite- but this becomes more a test of how well your dog has generalized these behaviors and how strong your dog's nerve are environmentally than of precision or perfection.

That is also why you can still place on the winner's podium even if you don't qualify on a passing score. This is recognized to be difficult, so those who don't DQ are still praised for trying. Failure has the attitude of "you gave it your best! now you know what to work on for your next try!"

It also means the judge is looking more for overall correctness rather than dinging you for every possible infraction (usually)

Finally, having done both IGP (with Creed) and mondio (with Creed and with Fenris), I'd say that mondio is less mentally stressful on the dog when it comes to protection itself. There is less focus on defense and aggression and more focus on prey and play. While some exists (face attack, defense of handler), the best way I've ever heard it put is that mondio is much more of a conversation between the decoy and the dog where they are sparring partners instead of mortal enemies.

Creed genuinely wanted to hurt the decoys who worked him, and got angry at the thought of being held back from doing so, and technically that is very correct for a doberman to displace such defensiveness and anger in their protection. Fenris does want to keep biting the decoy, but it is more because he finds this to be a very fun and deeply pleasurable thing to do rather than any feelings of actually wanting to cause harm. I also have been very careful not to work him on decoys that will bring this out of him, even though I do think it is correct for the breed to be like that, because his breeder assures me that when the time is right he will with the defense he needs. I have no need for a civil dog, and what little protection in my day-to-day I've required he's more than satisfied, so to me as long as he passes his temperament tests as an adult and is competitive in sport, I don't really need him to be another Creed.

[pokememes]

I have thoughts on ttpd

And I don’t know where else to share them without my criticisms and qualms being written off as blind hatred so here goes

Quantity over quality was definitely the motto with this one. She said at one of the eras shows that this album was when she needed writing more than ever. That doesn’t however, mean that everything she wrote needed to be on this album. Part of what makes an album good is an artists ability to edit their songs into a cohesive work.

Going off of that last point: I blame the vault tracks. Swift and her team saw how much people loved the vault tracks and went overboard with the concept of “give the people more.” The vault tracks worked so well because they felt like a bonus. When the whole album feels like “vault tracks” it loses some of the allure.

The concept is pretty weak overall. The aesthetic that was used to market the album only fits about half of the songs. I was hoping for literary references beyond just name dropping various poets and artists but so far Cassandra is the closest that I can recall that actually references poetry. I’m sure there’s some connections I’m missing so please enlighten me, (my academic background is in art history, not literature).

I feel like conceptually there are at least two albums here. The first is the actual ttpd concept of poetic sad songs, and then there’s a second set of songs that feel much more modern and feel like they belong on a different album (Florida!!!, down bad, imgonnagetyouback, etc.). I wish she would’ve taken the double album concept all the way and grouped the songs into more cohesive narratives.

Imgonnagetyouback is the exact same idea as get him back! by Olivia Rodrigo. I just feel like there’s some irony there because didn’t Taylor sue Olivia for something similar (I don’t know the ins and outs of that whole situation so forgive me if I’m missing some nuance)? Not that two people can’t write about the same thing but something about these two songs in particular seems too similar. They don’t sound the same but specifically the lines “key his car… make him lunch” in Rodrigo’s and “be your wife … smash up your bike” in Swift’s are the exact same “domestic tasks/destroy vehicle” dichotomy. Idk man something isn’t quite right about the whole thing to me.

A lot of the lyrics do not fit the melodies AT ALL. so many lines feel oddly paced, either stretched out where they shouldn’t be or too many words crammed in. The melody should fit the lyrics and it’s just not happening in this album as a whole. So many of the lyrics are just too wordy and awkward. Poetry doesn’t need to be long to be good.

Some of the lyrics are just so bad that they take me out of the song. I’m sure anyone that’s read this far can think of a few instances that made them pause. Hearing the words “finance guy” in a song was absolutely jarring.

Overall I just feel like it’s a poor representation of her abilities. She’s shown that she can write better. Her other albums were better sonically. There’s just nothing about this that is phenomenal. Very few memorable songs. No standout radio hits. It’s not the worst album ever made but it’s just so mediocre.

This album was made for a specific type of fan; someone who is up to date on her personal life and will listen to find Easter eggs, someone who will buy all of the vinyls just to complete their collection, someone who will love these songs just because they are Taylor Swift songs. I think every fan can find a few songs they like but I’d be shocked if anyone could genuinely say that they enjoy every song on this album, or that they think this album is one of Taylor’s better releases.

[aroaceleovaldez]

I really dislike the inherent main plots of TSATS and Chalice of the Gods as they’re being explained to us currently, mostly just cause I feel like they take away from already established lore of the series and other plot points.

There is no way TSATS can go that doesn’t make either Tartarus feel cheap and/or the entire book just feel like Percabeth In Mark Of Athena: 2 Electric Boogaloo. Unless the twist is that they don’t go to Tartarus it is physically impossible. Because either they go to Tartarus and breeze through it, which makes Tartarus as a setting feel cheap and ruins all prior instances of it being used as a landscape of suffering, or they suffer Lots and Lots and it just feels like we’re rehashing the same exact plot over again purely for the sake of treating solangelo the same as percabeth, which doesn’t work because they’re vastly different character dynamics and putting them in the same situation has nowhere near the same emotional weights. Also it makes Nico’s original foray into Tartarus feel null because it makes it feel like his trauma doesn’t have any actual meaning, because why would he jump right back into it? Even with Nico’s character being extremely self-sacrificial, we’re at a point where we’re being told he’s improving on that and this is possibly the one circumstance he would think twice about. AND it makes Tartarus feel overused - Nico surviving Tartarus once? Okay, makes sense, he’s the son of Hades, and it’s cool that he’s the first mortal to ever survive it. Percabeth too? Getting iffy (especially since we see their trip in detail and that inherently means it’s lost a lot of potential oomph, because when you’re going for horrifying a lot of the time less is more) but okay, sure, Nico probably gave Percy some Tartarus Tips after being rescued and they had a literal dues ex machina or two helping them out, and they fell in accidentally so it’s not like how Nico waltzed in there. Third time? And it being Nico AGAIN and Will Solace (who as far as we know has little to no quest experience and most of his experience is being a battlefield medic) and then purposefully going there? Nope. It’s just a poor set-up. Plus “the major gay couple goes on vacation to superhell” is a... questionable plot set-up to begin with, especially when it’s been heavily implied it will be traumatizing for them, and we have already been told explicitly that references are being made to things like Call Me By Your Name so there is a self-awareness about the themes there (also that alone raises questions about how we’re going to be taking the tone of things - again, there’s two ways it can go and both would be extremely difficult to get right). If Mark Oshiro were not co-authoring this I’d be a little horrified. I’m very glad Mark Oshiro is co-authoring this. I don’t believe it can’t be done tastefully, and yeah it’s a situation ripe for symbolism, but it is definitely the kind of subject that would be difficult for a non-queer author to handle appropriately.

As for Chalice of the Gods, we know two things: A.) It takes place prior to TOA, and B.) The chalice Percy has to retrieve has the power to make anyone who drinks from it immortal. ..... so basically, without the book even being out, we are told “If Percy had waited like 20 minutes, all of TOA would be null.” Admittedly, this does give justification for Percy specifically to be doing this quest outside of “college” reasons, and in my opinion, “The gods asked Percy specifically because they have verified he adamantly does NOT want to be immortal” is hilarious. However, adding yet another universe mechanic to the repertoire that nullifies death is annoying as hell, because death as a consequence in the series has been completely ruined since HoO. The more avoiding death options there are, the more every death scene feels completely pointless and avoidable.

[tirsynni]

Okay. I’ve written about people’s takes on age before. Usually in the form of rants. Now I’m seeing some things pop up regarding the characters’ ages and their appearance in the upcoming RE animated movie and I’m flailing a bit. Too tired to do it too energetically, but I hope everyone knows that the thought is there.

If I have the timeline right, the characters in the new Death Island (someone just told me the correct name) should be in their late 30s to early/mid 40s. Now, we all know that Capcom is weird with ages. They like to make characters unrealistically young for the amount of experience/rank/education they have. They do that fucking ageist shit with women where they always look young and beautiful and perky, and btw, here’s some unnecessary skin shots. (Do some fucking skin shots with Leon, you cowards.) Thus, frustrated fan responses are to be expected.

Except some of these fan responses are just... wtf, people??? I’m cool with “Let characters look their age,” but then they get specific with how they think the characters should look. “Give them wrinkles! Give them grey hair! Give them things that don’t actually match their ages!”

How old do people think that age range is? People are considered young adult until they hit thirty-five years old. Thirty-five. 35. 3. 5. After that? Adult. You’re still going through puberty until you hit 25. At 35? At the bridge between young adult and adult. You still have years to go before you hit retirement age. I promise.

This reminds me too much of that bullshit online where people get on adults (especially women) when they reach a certain age and they’re still online. Like, once you reach a certain age, you’re no longer allowed to have fun. You are no longer allowed to interact with people below that line without being considered a predator. You’re supposed to follow this normative (typically heteronormative, ironically enough) pattern of being married with kids and only dealing with “adult, boring” things. “Wait, you’re how old? Get offline, you weirdo, and do your taxes or something.”

It feels like people want to deny to the death that they’re influenced by societal ageism. They have unrealistic, often creepy expectations of how people are supposed to look and act when they hit a number which usually has a creepy parallel with Conservative purist beliefs. They get angry when they hear about the ageism in Hollywood and then say the same things but just with different wording. Isn’t that funny? How you have two, supposedly opposing sides with the same exact nasty opinion? It’s all in the language and wording. Each side has a different dictionary, and as long as they use the words appropriate for their individual sides, it doesn’t matter if the message is the same.”Ugh. You’re a woman and you’re how old and still writing fanfiction? Shouldn’t you be taking care of your kids?”

A popular argument is that these people are traumatized and of course that would age them. That further enrages me. Can trauma have a physical impact like that? Yes. But there seems to be this popular concept that trauma must have a visible impact. I’ve seen over and over again that finally Leon looks as traumatized as he actually is in the RE4 Remake. Trauma has to have a physical appearance: otherwise, is that person truly traumatized?

That’s not how it works. That’s not how it works at all. I’ve written a fic myself where Leon experiences heavy trauma and it leads to premature greying, but that was for individual fic purposes and I hope people recognize the difference, how one fic or one instance doesn’t make something automatic or universal. People can go through horrific trauma without a physical mark to show for it. No scarring, no premature wrinkles. Their hair won’t magically turn white overnight. Fuck, some people go through trauma without PTSD or lifelong issues. It is based on their history, their genetics, their role in the traumatic action, level of support, what happened before/during/after, etc. Not everyone goes through trauma and welp! Immediate PTSD and triggers and nightmares and grey hair and weeping fits. (And no, for fuck’s sake, this isn’t an insult to anyone who went through trauma and now deal with these issues: the point is that trauma and trauma response is individualized and needs to be recognized as so.)

There are an insane amount of real stories where someone commits suicide and everyone comments that they never saw it coming, that there was no indication prior. The person seemed so happy! They were always friendly! Hell, maybe they were even the group comedian! If you look at warning signs for suicide, sometimes visible depression is one of them but it is usually far more subtle things. 

Trauma hits people differently, with different responses, different signs. Two people can go through the same exact thing and one comes out with PTSD and the other not. One person has nightmares and the other doesn’t. One has nightmares but no triggers, no PTSD. One can’t stand certain smells or sounds anymore but sleeps reasonably well and has a good life.

People have this thing where, if your trauma isn’t visible, if you aren’t acting appropriately, it didn’t happen or it wasn’t that bad. Raped women are often told that surely it couldn’t have been rape: they weren’t acting traumatized. One airplane crash survivor was scorned and called heartless for not being in hysterics when she was just in shock and oblivious to the fact that she was the only survivor. If you don’t show your trauma in certain ways, people dismiss you or insult you. To be accepted, you have to act traumatized. It has to show like the blood is still painting your skin. You have to have dark circles under your eyes. You must always, always visibly carry your pain and grief.

It’s exhausting to see this everywhere, but it’s even more frustrating to have supposedly “woke” people parroting these lines: if you are above a certain age you are old and you better look it; if you really went through trauma it had better show.

Fuck, too much time in the sun and too much smoking will age your skin more than trauma will. Yes, I want them to make the women look like they can legally drink, and when the time comes, I would love to see these characters with grey in their hair and wrinkles. In their 30s/early-to-mid!40s? Probably not going to see too much unless you have the genetic disposition for it.

Sincerely, someone who is in the same age range as these characters and who is sick and tired of hearing comments about her young appearance.

[icharchivist]

Weird thought I had today. So, the Tetrarchs are 2 women and 2 men, right? I'm guessing they wanted it to be balanced between the gender, which is fine, but Gabriel and Michael are traditionally male names. Do you think they chose those two to be women because their names have very similar sounding female versions? Gabrielle and Michelle, respectively? I don't think there's female versions of the names Raphael and Uriel

I mean yeah in some level, though i don't think that stopped granblue before. (i mean GBF's Gareth was a woman, even though it was her name when she was crossdressing, and i could swear there's been other instances of that phenomena)

That said: there is no difference in Japanese with the writing of Gabriel/Gabriel (both would be written ガブリエル (Gaburieru), and for Michael it's already it's own can of worm since the name they use is the Hebrew pronunciation as a basis, so not pronounced the english way (would be written ミカエル (Mikaeru)).

In my language, French, "Michael" is "Michel" which is pronounced the exact same way as Michelle. Names deviating from the actual biblical angel have been a thing for a while.

I've met women called Raphaelle, so to me the logic stops there, Uriel is just, not a common name in general (too biblical to be modernized). (also tbh in modern times at least in French, the spelling doesn't really matter anymore, women can be named Gabriel without having to insist on the feminine spelling, so, it's something that genuinely can be heavily neglected)

The difference between el / elle doesn't exist in Japanese, so more than "because there's female versions of the name", it's just a question that they can sound more feminine in general.

I'd also say it's not impossible it would come with the association with the angels themselves, as Gabriel has been known to be, for the Christian, the one to tell Mary she was pregnant, as such, you can link Gabriel to the idea of motherhood.

And it would be completely pointless from the translator perspective to try to feminize the name in a modern fashion since it's all about the Biblical angel being pasted onto the gbf mythos.

But honestly i think like, for the Japanese devs, it's not like it's usual names to start with, they can just as easily have gone with the flow because they don't specifically care about the hard rules of name feminization, which varries from language to language to start with.

Did they just go with associating those names to the girls because of the fact they’re androgynous names? yeah sure why not, i don’t know how much they cared about that but it’s likely a reasoning.

You want something fun though? linked to their name?

i've made a whole post in the way back on how tongue-and-cheek the naming convention of the Luci-faces was, but i'm just going to bring back this bit (the post itself was long and this bit was as well but it might feed your musing aha)

Take care meanwhile ;D

Lucilius’s Japanese name is ルシファー (Rushifaa) and Lucifer’s Japanese name is ルシフェル (Rushiferu).

But the kick is that “Rushifaa” is actually the way you’d write “Lucifer” in Japanese - Not the Feru alternative.

The way Japanese interpret English words is to generally transcribe them in Katakana from the way it’s been introduced to their country. On that case what interests us, is that still they will go with a non-rhotic variety of English.

“Rhotic” English varieties are those that will pronounce the r letter as /r/ no matter where it is in the word. For exemple, Irland’s English is a rhotic variety.  But the English variety that is taught to non-English people is a Non-Rhotic one - non-rhotic varieties doesn’t pronounce the r if it’s in front of a consonance or at the end of a word, usually prolonging the previous vowell.

As such, “er” in Japanese will almost always be transcribed with a “aa-” sound. (see too: Percival = Paashivaru)

So ironically: Lucilius is the one who is supposed to be the Actual Lucifer. He is the one who is named after the biblical angel. 

“Rushiferu” is an alternative way to spell Lucifer’s name, in a rhotic way, that puts insistance on how the word ends if you don’t transcribe the English sound but instead try to read the ending “cifer” with a Japanese pronountiation.

But the other fascinating thing with this choice is that as a result, Lucifer alligns himself with the others angels in a fascinating way.

The suffix of most Angel names, -el or -iel, means “Of God” (note also as i said eariler that El was the name of the God of creation as per the Canaanite). 

But in Japanese you would pronounce “el” “eru”, since they have a sound that is halfway through r and l and as a result is the sound that is always used to transcribe either of those western letters.

So in Japanese, all of the Primarches have their name finishing in Eru: Michael=Mikaeru / Gabriel=Gaburieru / Uriel=Urieru / Raphael= Rafaeru, and so on and so forth.

but therefore, in a weird play on Japanese language: Rushiferu ends up following the paterns of the “-Of God” angels. 

In an interesting way, we have therefore  Rushifaa having set himself as a new god, just like his purpose was all along, and has named his creations in a way that they were his. and that includes Rushiferu, who is a version of “Lucifer”, of himself, but who belongs to him.

food for thoughts? <3

Take care!

[furinana]

When I was playing the iOS version of SMT1, nobody could drink. If you tried, there was an extra line of dialogue where the bartender says something like, "Aren't you a little young?" and gives you juice instead. I don't know if it's just an international release thing, if it was added in the GBA or PSX port, or what. Felt a bit like they were trying to weasel out of a 'representing minors consuming alcohol' offense.

I always thought the Heroine was in her twenties by the present, but since she's the rebel leader and everyone's after her, she never shows anyone her ID.

Enforcing drinking laws might have made sense in the present, but after Tokyo is destroyed, why do the bartenders care? And how would they know that these random travelers are under twenty, if IDs aren't produced anymore?

I think it makes more sense if nobody cared about underage drinking laws by the time you reach bars. If memory serves, Kichijoji only has a cafe, and you only get bars once you reach Shinjuku. By then, things have gotten so bad that bars might start selling to anyone who can pay.

But really, we all know that if anyone's irresponsible, it's the bars of SMT2, for serving alcohol to two-year-old Aleph.

Hah I was very much suspecting it was a retcon. And that's because MT2/SMT2 already had an euphemism for beer which was Magical Fizz. 

So I'm guessing they gave up on trying to be subtle and removed the lore of the protagonist having alcohol altogether for later rereleases? So teenager drinking bad but using guns and killing people still good?

Anyway since we’re at it, let’s compare the 8/16-bit era of mainline games chronologically on the drinking aspect:

In the SNES version of Megami Tensei, while they don’t specify what kind of drink you’re having, from Nakajima’s reaction it seemed very satisfying. The name of the shop is even “Poison Bar”, for goodness’s sake. 

That being said, considering the game is a completely different (and far simpler) take on the story from the original novel, we can easily label Nakajima doing underage drinking and frickin gambling in the Underworld as non-canon. 

ACTUALLY, I skimmed through its NES version and I don’t think any of those features were supposed to exist in the first place. Which means MT2 was where bars started being a thing:

NES and SNES for comparison. Yeah, the exact same English words are written in the Japanese text for the drinks. You know, something I can’t help but get awfully curious for is that while in later SNES titles the main character freely drinks liquor, in the game where this feature made its debut he’s literally the one who can’t have it.

No booze allowed for the MT2 protagonist. Only soft drinks. Even though both of his partners can have beer. It’s never commented why. If there are age differences, it’s not apparent. And they live in devastated version of Tokyo so rules would be far more lax.

It’s funny because this is the same game where the protagonist can go to a drugstore to get high from herbal medicine. Yeah you read it right.

And he can keep going for a LONG time.

...and overdose to the point of falling on the floor paralyzed and unable to do anything, much to the heroine’s chagrin.

On that note, there’s a single instance in the entire game where the MC finally is offered actual liquor. From... a guy that was Satan's disguise.

Paralyzed AGAIN, Takuma? And imagine getting roofied by goddamn Satan. 

Maybe the reason bartenders don’t serve him specifically is because people that are familiar with him know he’s a danger to himself. Considering that [redacted] happens in a point of the game... yeah. You better stop and just fucking listen to what Asuka says to you, boy.

SMT1 is where the protagonist finally can join the fun with his companions. Everyone drinks the same thing. Equality baby! And no euphemisms!

They could drink in bars both when Tokyo was normal and after it got destroyed by the missiles, so I don’t think the excuse of “oh, the apocalypse made people stop caring” work, at least with the same weight as in MT2.

...AND THEN the sequel brought Magical Fizz back. Probably because SMT2 took cues from MT2 and/or they thought the word was still hilarious (I also do, ngl).

This little dialogue of the barman not letting you drink any more doesn’t show up in other games with the bar feature. Makes you wonder if Aleph is a lightweight since [redacted] or if other bartenders are just... irresponsible as fuck. And yes I’m also counting you on this, crazy MT2 drugstore girl.

One of the big highlights of SMT2 is getting Aleph shitfaced so he can temporarily get enough MAG to win the dance contest. Look at this madlad. Aleph must be great at parties.

You know which other infamous drink makes a comeback?

SUPER MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILK

Fairly enough, it’s exclusive to the Center’s bar. You know... the place where the Law side is located. No sinning next to angels, Aleph.

SMT:If is the game where some surprise factor indeed reaches the player since it happens inside a high school (and yet somehow our first-year protagonists can have liquor bottles stored in their pocket to either offer to demons or chug them down themselves). 

Let’s be honest, this would be an unusual thing to keep around even for adult staff! It’s a school goddamnit. Unless they got it somewhere else like... perhaps the Underworld since Hazama connected both places together.

Actually, such “is this allowed?” age aspect is even commented by a NPC but for the gambling feature:

Considering the type of people you partner up with in SMT:If (and subsenquently the P1/P2 cast to some degree), the protagonists displaying delinquent behavior might very well be what they went for compared to the more ambiguous “left-to-the-player” interpretations for MT2/SMT1/SMT2.

With the exception of our good glasses girl, look at the rest of these hooligans!

Anyway I stick with my interpretation of the main cast of SMT1/2 being on their twenties (or looking as such like Aleph) while the rest are just teens playing with their luck.

[atpaftmoom-bily]

Thoughts about Erik, why Wilhelm wasn't allowed to come out, and more.

Be warned, this is long, confusing, and I'm not even sure if I made any valid points. But I had thoughts on Young Royals, with no one to talk to, so here you go.

I've seen various different takes on Erik and what people thought his reaction would have been if Willie had come out to him, most of them being positive, and some as well saying how sad it was that Willie never got to come out to his brother. I have a different take, but bear with me it's gonna take a second to get there.

Something that I found interesting in the first place was that when August found out it was Simon and not a girl, he just seemed shocked, but not in a homophobic way that I had kind of been expecting.

Additionally, let's take a look at the comments on the video, I've split them up into three different groups. General comments (disbelief, surprise, pity, etc.), comments sexualizing them, and negative comments. (I've translated these as well as I could as they were not all captioned, but if I've made a mistake feel free to let me know!)

General Comments "OMG Have you seen this?? The Prince is gay!!!!" "Who's the other guy?" "I'm dead" "Finally some news to put Sweden on the map!" "Poor boys, I feel sorry for them" "So clumsy to get caught on film" "I know where he lives!" "I think the video is fake" "Love for the boys"

Sexualizing Comments "Royal porn" "Sexy" "Love" "Sexiest video ever"

Negative Comments "How will the monarchy survive this?" "The end of the royal family, time for Sweden to become a republic!" "Never been ashamed about being Swedish until now" "Class traitor! Your mother cries for your sins"

Now, there are quite a few things I want to point out about Sweden that I feel should be taken into account here. Of course, we don't know the exact dates that the show took place, but we do know it is modern-day, and though it is a work of fiction, I am going to assume that anything that is currently true in Sweden at the moment, give or take a few years, would also be true in the Young Royals universe.

The first point I would like to make is that Sweden is one of the most LGBT-friendly countries, even being named the most friendly country in 2019. Looking back in history, 1944 was when Sweden decriminalized sexual relationships between consenting adults of the same sex, though it was still thought to be an illness. However, in 1979 it was no longer considered an illness. Fun unrelated fact, but Sweden was the first country to legalize gender change in 1979. (If you'd like to read more on LGBT rights in Sweden here are some resources. One. Two.) If Sweden is that progressive and is that LGBT-friendly, then I wondered what the problem was with Willie coming out, so I dug some more.

I'm American, so my understanding of many parts of the world is unfortunately skewed or incomplete, but I'm working on changing that. However, because of this, one thing that surprised me in my research was that the monarchy in Sweden is more of a unifying symbol than anything else. They have no political affinity or formal powers, but rather "the King’s duties are mainly of a ceremonial and representative nature." Of course in the case of Young Royals, the Queen inherited the throne, and Wilhelm would after her.

Something else I found interesting about the monarchy in Sweden is that the current Queen, Queen Silvia, did not come from a line of nobility, so when Queen Silvia and King Carl Gustaf married in 1976, it was highly unusual. (See more on the Swedish monarchy here.)

There is one last thing I want to point out about the current King and Queen. "In summer 2000, King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden made history when they ate under the rainbow flag at Djurgårdsterrassen, a Stockholm restaurant owned by gay owner Arto Winter. At that time, the decision was seen as controversial, and played a valuable role in moving conversations forward – while making the royals’ position abundantly clear." (Source)

Now, of course, I understand the difference between a fictional work and real-life situations, but at least in my opinion, these same ideals should carry through to the show that we see. If the King and Queen in real life have been openly supportive of the LGBT community since at least 2000, then although specifics might not be the same, some of those ideals should carry through to Young Royals, so what is the problem, right?

I'm not trying to erase the reality of homophobia altogether, because of course, that exists. We even see in the show through comments that there are some people who are worried about the state of the monarchy, are disgusted, or downright still think that not being straight is a sin, but we also see other comments as well. If Wilhelm were to come out, what would happen? Would there be some backlash? 100%. Would there be people who would support him? Also 100%. Would it make his life harder? Probably, but would he be happier? In my opinion, yes, but I guess that's a question that Wilhelm would have to gauge on his own.

Now I want to look deeper at the conversation that Wille has with his mother, the Queen, in the car on the way home so he can give a statement to the media. Below is an excerpt from their dialogue.

---

Wilhelm: Why can't I just have a relationship with him? And not say anything. Just live a normal life.

Queen: You're the crown prince. And that's a privilege, not a punishment.

Wilhelm: Yes, but I didn't ask for this!

Queen: Well, nobody has ever, ever asked for this! You are the only one who can take over the throne after Erik. Don't you understand that? You are so young. When you're young, love feels like the most important thing in the whole world. When I was your age, I too had an unfortunate romance. That was before I met your father. What I mean is, is it worth it? If you feel that the attention you've been getting so far is unacceptable, it's nothing compared to what you will endure for the rest of your life. We have a chance to cover this up, I urge you to take that chance. You may not get another."

---

Something I find interesting is how much Willie just wants to live a normal life, which I get. He is under so much pressure, from being a role model, his brother's death that he hasn't even had time to process, preparing to be king someday, and (kind of) being outed to the entire world, but at least his school. It's enough to make anyone want to live normally. I think the biggest thing we have to think about here is the Queen's question as well. Is it worth it? She is right of course, the attention he will get will always be there, but I do think that Willie would be able to find a way to be happy along with being King. It shouldn't have to be a case of either-or, and ultimately I don't think it is.

Now I'm going to move back to Erik, and really, this ties everything back to the start where I mentioned I had a different take on Erik's reaction to Willie being not straight. I think that Erik already knew. It would make sense for a variety of reasons. In the show, it is obvious that the two of them have a good relationship. We also hear Erik tell Willie, "you can trust him, he's like a brother," in episode one when speaking about August, showing that trust is something strong between them as brothers. I'm not exactly sure how old Wilhelm is meant to be in the show, but I estimate somewhere around sixteen. I would like to assume that sometime before attending Hillerska, he may have had a crush or felt some attraction to a guy. We also can see from their phone call in episode three, that they're not afraid to joke around with each other about such things, meaning that Erik would most likely be the first person that Willie would go to about such things.

Another thing that makes me believe Erik already knew has to do with people assuming that Simon is the first guy that Willie has liked. Now, I know things are not the same for everyone, but if we consider what happens when the video is posted, and Willie had to deny it is him, we can conclude that being anything other than straight in their family is not okay, simply because they are royals, and the media attention will be too much. Imagine you've known your whole life, you can't be something, the first instance you encounter that, you're probably not going to give in right away. I'm talking at least some minor internalized homophobia here or something.

So put that into the context of Simon and Willie's first kiss in episode two. Simon kisses Willie twice before Willie says "Well, I'm not... I'm not... Stop! Wait, wait, wait!" and immediately pulls Simon back towards him. Let's reflect back to episode one where Willie says "I’m not… I’m not allowed to speak about political issues." I'm not allowed. Of course, there are TONS of restrictions on what he can and can not do, kissing guys, probably being one of them. But if he was going to say I'm not gay or I'm not like that, why would he instantly pull him back in, contrasting what he was just going to say. In episode three, Willie does say, "I'm not like that," which makes sense. He's had time to think and isn't in the heat of the moment. What other explanation can he give? Sure, he could say he's not allowed to be like that but saying that would admit that he is. It's a circle, a very messy circle, but it is a... loop.

Going back to what I'm supposed to be talking about here, Erik. This isn't Willie's first rodeo, but Erik was there for the first. One last thing I want to talk about is the phone call that Erik and Willie have in episode three. Below is an excerpt from their dialogue.

---

Erik: You've met someone.

Wilhelm: I, uh... Yes, okay, but I... I don't think we're a couple or anything. I don't know what it is but can we just...

Erik: I get it. I get it. You don't have to tell me any... I don't wanna hear any details. Hey. Willie, enjoy yourself. Soon enough people will start having opinions and-

Wilhelm: They don't care about me. 'Cause you're the Crown Prince that they have opinions.

Erik: I don't get it. Why are you sitting in your room sulking when you have a crush to hang out with?

---

Firstly, Erik refers to Willie's crush as completely gender-neutral. "You've met someone" could very easily be "you've met a girl". The same goes for "you have a crush to hang out with". Very well could have been "you have a girl to hang out with". Sure, it could be completely coincidental, but we live in such a heteronormative society that it would just make sense for Erik to use female-gendered words. Unless, of course, he knew.

Secondly, "Hey. Willie, enjoy yourself. Soon enough people will start having opinions". This sounds very much to me like, enjoy your time while you can be yourself without backlash because soon you won't have that privacy. While I feel that, yes, the same may happen with anyone Willie was to date, him having a same-sex partner multiplies that, by a lot.

In conclusion, Erik knew Willie was not straight, Willie should come out, but when he is ready, and August is a really deep character that people don't give enough credit to. Gosh, I hope I covered everything, I probably forgot so much, but it's fine. Please let me know your thoughts if you've made it this far into the post.

One last thing. I hope you'll notice how in this post, I never referred specifically to Wilhelm's sexuality, and I did that for a reason. I often see gay used to label him, and though I am unsure if that's being used as an umbrella term or specifically as in he only likes men, I think it's really important to realize that they're specifically making him unlabeled. In this youtube video Edvin Ryding, the actor who plays Wilhelm, says "What we're trying to do... We're not labeling Wilhelm's sexuality. I think that's good because it's like, it portrays that it's okay that way too. You don't have to. You shouldn't have to come out. It should be allowed to be a bit fluid, a bit out there." I just think that it is important as it's another type of representation that is not seen often.

[your-ace-cousin-clover]

Different, But Same

[Part 1 of my Tomgreg Analysis Series]

TL;DR - Shiv and Greg tend to mirror each other a long in the sequence of the story especially in regards to Tom. This is interesting as Shiv is Tom's romantic partner which the same relationship is echoed very strongly with Tom and Greg.

One of my most interesting observations in regards to the whole Tom/Shiv and Tom/Greg situation is how Greg and Shiv's narrative arc seem similar in regards to their relationship with Tom. However, because of certain reasons, the relationship that Tom has with Greg is more stronger despite the same narrative followed for Shiv as well.

Also disclaimer : THIS IS TINHATTERY! THIS IS ME THEORISING! YOU CAN ALWAYS DISAGREE / AGREE WITH ME.

I'm just having some fun here.

1. Initial Circumstances of meeting Tom

In S01E01, we see the circumstances in which Tom and Greg meet each other for the first time. Yes, with the volatile reaction that Tom has of "would you kiss me if I asked you? if I told you to?" (That is a whole another topic that I'll later delve into about shame and queerness in Succession) However, but the time Greg dejectedly stands at the door Logan's hospital cabin with uncertainty about his job at Waystar, S01E02, Tom makes an important offer to Greg. He offers to "look after" Greg in his time of need and help him.

Interestingly, later in the series, in an offhand comment, Shiv mentions how she herself was not in a good state of mind or in a stable position of life when she met Tom. [I don't recall the exact episode where this conversation takes place - but I'm pretty sure this happens]

Regardless, in different times of the show, Shiv depends on Tom to help her through stressful circumstances.

Tom is a dependable person for both Shiv and Greg through his emotional support as well as professional support for these people.

2. RECNY BALL Incident

In S01E04, the notable RECNY Ball takes place which is overshadowed by the fact that Tom receives papers about the Cruises Scandal from Bill. There are two people that Tom informs about the papers : his assistant, Greg Hirsch and his wife to be, Siobhan Roy.

This is one of the multiple instances where Greg and Shiv are placed in the same context for Tom.

When Gerri confronts Tom about the holding a press conference. However, (this is the point where the Tomgreg subtext becomes stronger) when Greg defends himself, Tom seems to believe him which ends up casting strong suspicion on Shiv. This is interesting as this takes place, weeks? days? after having met Greg for the first time and despite, fact that Tom is going to be married to Shiv, he doesn't trust her.

Greg's subordinate status to Tom and his disconnect from the Roys (the situation happens to be opposite for Shiv) is what makes Tom believe him in the first place. Tom has never felt secure in his relationship with Shiv because of his perceived inferior status. However, in regards to Greg, he's in a more balanced position (even superior to Greg) which is why he feels strongly about protecting Greg as well as is comfortable in his relation (though he expresses jealousy? at Greg's closeness with Kendall professionally later on).

He assigns the job of burning the papers to Greg which brings the both closer as they have a secret between them. (Even Shiv doesn't know about the papers until their wedding) Greg and Tom can trust each other to some extend because of the Cruises burning incident because if one of them reveals it then the other goes down. (This analysis does not currently take into account Greg revealing the papers at the press conference - by that point he's reached a position where he can reach out for things other than what Tom can offer him)

3. They both betray Tom as well as Logan

Shiv joins Nate professionally which leads her to not only later cheat on Tom despite their ongoing engagement, but it also brings her into conflict with Logan Roy as she decides to align herself with Senator Gil Eavis who is extremely anti-Logan. Her alliance with Nate causes strong jealousy for Tom wherein he asks Shiv about Nate (which also later is apparent with how Tom humiliates him later with the wine).

In a similar vein, Greg encourages Kendall during the night of Shiv's wedding with "things have to change here". And later on, not only aligns himself such strongly with Kendall that prompts Tom to ask him about it during Hungary and says "a girl can start to wonder."

Both of these alliances are detrimental to Logan as they challenge his place in the throne. However, Shiv's alliance with Eavis collapses easily due to difference in views. It would be interesting if the Kenstar Gregco alliance lasts longer due to the consequences that might result if they try to break apart as well as the blood bond which makes the link more stronger.

4. They both negotiate with Gerri using the Cruises Papers

Tracking on the fact that Shiv and Greg are the ones that mainly know about the papers. They leverage this information in a way that benefits them or creates additional favours for them.

This is initially seen when Greg rats out Tom's plan to do a new conference exposing Cruises to Gerri which is how she shuts him down quickly. This gives Greg a favourable opinion from Gerri, a proximity to the power of Waystar and benefits him even though it screws Tom over.

In a similar vein, Shiv does the same thing when she negotiates with Gerri, Logan's spokesperson, during her wedding night to stop the attacks on Eavis. She uses it to benefit the person she is working for.

This is a very small similarity, but is also another way they both mirror each other in the arc of the story.

5. A sense of moral superiority

Again minor point, but interestingly, both Shiv and Greg have a sense of moral superiority over not being as involved in the business and their sense of doing the right thing.

(This may later diminish as both get more and more stuck with the core of the business, but this is at like early S2)

Greg brings it up first when Tom brings him to ATN with his whole speech on "principles". Tom admonishes Greg with "of course, we're trying to do the right thing. We all are, so don't go talking about principles."

A similar thing repeats when Shiv admonishes Tom about Logan's decision to purchase Pierce. She makes a point about how terrible ATN is the fact that she needs to get proper news from a "respectable" source.

Both of them throw Tom's involvement with ATN as well as Waystar by a way of sticking to principles while being incredibly hypocritical themselves.

6. "Open Marriage"

This is self-explanatory for the most part, but at the same time, it's one of the biggest points for this mirror as well as for Tomgreg.

As mentioned before Tom feels a sense of inferiority with Shiv, which is why he is the more meeker one in the relationship. Which makes him accept the "open marriage" idea with Shiv even though he is essentially being cheated on the entire time.

However, in regards to Greg, the same inferiority does not appear. And by the time, the famous "I will not let go of what is mine" scene, Tom and Greg are friends to a bit. They go out for the ortolan scene (which has a separate analysis about physical hunger and queerness as well later - food metaphors are strong in Succession), Greg tells Tom about Shiv's cheating and Tom has brought Greg into ATN.

[These small things cement the relationship between them and show that Tom and Greg enjoy themselves outside the confines of Waystar which Tom and Shiv struggle with as seen in the case of their honeymoon]

However, Greg's use of "open marriage" causes Tom to not only express his anger, but provides a space to express the anger. He publicly declares how upset he feels that Greg wants to leave and interestingly, uses relationship specific terms like "break up" to talk about Greg's proposal. He repeatedly asserts that Greg is "his" and this brings in a context of jealousy with Kendall when Tom questions about Greg spending more time with Kendall later on in Hungary.

7. They both ask favours from Tom which put him in trouble with Logan

In the Hungary episode, both Shiv and Greg ask Tom do certain favours (In case of Shiv, it is for Tom to ask Logan about the Pierce deal and convey everybody's dissatisfaction. And in case of Greg, it is to hide that fact that he met with Pantsil from Logan).

Now, Tom has been clearly established as a strong sycophant in regards to whoever is at the helm of Waystar (conveying Kendall about Ewan coming to the board meeting as well as cheering on Logan when he announces Pierce) so the only way he would take a risk for a person is if he's close to them. This makes sense in case of Shiv as she is his literal wife, however, this comparison is interesting when we think about Greg in this context. Tom goes lengths to protect Greg to the point he is humiliated by the employees and his in-laws only which is huge as throughout the entire series Tom has simply been trying to fit in with the Roys to the point, he wants to change his last name after marriage.

8. Both are put in position where they are can be the successor of the company and in turn, can become Tom's boss

This happens mostly at the end of S2, but, the entire time Shiv is championed as the Successor by Logan Roy himself which makes Tom assume that he will later on succeed her. However, this is turned to the head when Shiv proclaims that she does want to run the company. In doing so, she will become Tom's boss which is disappointing to Tom because, it will only emphasis on his sense of inferiority as well as the fact that he cannot take care of her (because as established before he is the person that cares for people, especially ones that he loves).

A same dynamic emerges as Greg aligns himself with Kendall. This exponentially increases his chances of being the Successor (especially if Kendall drops out somehow either due to drugs or any other circs) which would also untie the two Roys. This would similar draw the same conflict Tom faces with Shiv as the successor.

Therefore, in bringing Shiv and Greg together again and again, I feel like it enhances the romantic subtext between Tom and Greg (as it literally swaps out the man's wife for his lanky assistant) as well as brings out a stronger comparison as Tom and Greg have done things to each other as well as for each other which ties them together more closely than Tom and Shiv.

Just imho.

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[cassandraclare]

Hi Cassie, ever since I started reading your Shadowhunters books I've loved the world you created and I'm amazed at how you manage to build it out more and more with every book you write. Do you have any tips or tricks regarding worldbuilding? How did you go about creating this amazing world?

I could write a whole book about world-building — in fact, there are lots of books about it! Every book, even contemporary fiction, requires world-building: you are always creating a sense of place, time, and character in a story, which is essentially what world-building is.

Obviously fantasy has specific elements of world-building that other genres don’t have, so that’s what I’ll talk about — briefly — here. These are a few steps you need to consider when you’re building a fantasy world, be it an open world or a closed one.

1) What’s your normal? 

You’re always going to establish what the norm is in your world before you do anything else. You don’t have to get into the nitty-gritty, but set your basic ground rules. Is there magic? If so, what’s the cost of magic? (Power is never free — it always costs in effort, knowledge, body parts, etc.) Does everyone know about magic (in which case yours is an open fantasy world)? Is it a secret (closed fantasy world)? What’s your time period? Tech level?* What are the major antagonists of your world? What are the biggest dangers? And finally, what’s the main thing your character wants? That may seem like character work, but it’s intrinsic to world-building. If your character wants above all other things to be King, for instance, then you know you have a monarchy. 

*Remember Clarke’s First Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. In other words, you can usually have magic or super-advanced technology, but not both, because they do the exact same thing in a story. Location spells are pointless if you have GPS tracking devices implanted in everyone. If you are going to have both, you have to figure out how what they do is different. Otherwise you are giving Spiderman the power of flight, thus rendering his web-slinging useless. So give it thought!

2) Make your rules.

Otherwise known as internal consistency. Our world is governed by natural laws that determine what people can and cannot do. A world you make up must be the same. What if only some people can do magic? Then you have to figure out who they are, why they can do magic, what rules govern the practice of that magic, how the rest of the population feels about them, and what that magic is based on. While you don’t need to — and shouldn’t — explain every detail of these rules on-page, your characters have to abide by them. We need to believe these are real people who are governed by an internally consistent set of strictures that shape and define their behavior. If your main characters live in a walled city that closes at night, show us that by having them worry about getting back before the gates shut.

3) Break your rules.

Half the reason you established your normal is so you can fuck with it. Stories are about conflict. They’re about the moment things go wrong, not about things going right. They’re about things suddenly not conforming to expectations. If you have a land ruled by a benevolent King everyone adores, assassinate him. (Even better if your main character does it.) If you have a world where women can’t do magic, you need a badass sorceress to rise. If parabatai can’t fall in love, make sure two of them do. If Shadowhunters are the descendants of angels, what happens when one is a descendent of demons? Once you build your world, your first question should be, What is this story going to do to change it?

4) Everything hews to a theme.

Think about the thematic implications of your world. If you’re building a low-tech, high-nature faerie world, think about the way not having tech, and having nature magic fill a lot of those uses, will influence the way the characters talk, the expressions they use, what they wear (nothing with zippers, nothing mass-produced) the way they live their day-to-day lives (alas, no flush toilets). For instance, the thematic character of the Shadowhunters books is defined by the overarching mythology of angels and demons. Seraph blades, which have to be activated by speaking an angel’s name, hew to that theme. Everything the Shadowhunter characters do is defined by their belief that they have angel blood (or fear they have demon blood.) Whenever I build new mythology into the Shadowhunter world, I have to think “Does this fit with who the Shadowhunters think they are, their priorities, beliefs and history? Is this something that could or would happen in this complex, small, militaristic society?” 

It can help to think of it as an aesthetic, as if you were putting together a house. Does this piece go, or does it clash with everything?

5) Small details. 

Little pieces that feel unique and true help build out a world. Rather than spending your time detailing the entire history of the Royal Family for a thousand years, create a room in the palace where the faces of royal enemies are dried, stretched and mounted in glass. Now we know the Royal Family is creepy, which is more interesting than knowing everyone’s grandparents’ names. Stuff that isn’t momentous is fine if it’s interesting. Random stuff I know about Castellane, the city in Sword Catcher: interior light comes from carcel-lamps, dentures are made from the teeth of dead soldiers, the Queen loves kalamansi fruit, and if you fall in the bay, a crocodile will eat you.  Think of the big world-building details — names of countries, the type of religion, the way magic works — as the walls, beams, and floors of your house. The small details are your paint, wallpaper and furniture. One is a structure; the other is the sense and character of that structure.

There’s a lot more to say about world-building, and I’m always happy to answer writing questions. It offers me an amazing opportunity to procrastinate. :) Good luck!

[khaireis]

so i’ve been doing research on the word hubris lately because ancient greek philology and translation is a special interest of mine, and i’m posting the results under a cut here because it’s a little long, but the tl;dr of it is that hubris is no more of a religious term than theft or assault is, and it would be better to just say impiety if you mean impiety (or asebeia if you want a greek word)

tw in here because i do mention violence, sexual assault, and one instance of suicide in a tragic play

(prefacing this with sorry if i keep switching between hubris and hybris, they’re both two ways to transliterate ὕβρις, they mean the same thing)

I’ll start with the Liddell-Scott ancient-greek-to-english dictionary definition, which translates hubris as “wanton violence, arising from the pride of strength or from passion, insolence, freq. in Od., mostly of the suitors.” Hubrisma is an outrage, hubristes is a violent, overbearing man. There is also a verb form, hubrizō, to do hubris. I very intentionally say to *do* hubris, rather than to *be* hubristic, because while hubris was associated with a certain attitude, in practice the word indicated one’s resulting actions. Demosthenes uses forms of hybrizō in his speech “Against Midias”, to describe the man punching him in the head during a festival. Nowhere in this is mention of piety, because the opposite of hubris is sophrosyne (sound-mindedness, self-restraint). The opposite of eusebeia is asebeia, an absence of piety.

Next I’m mostly going to summarize an article called “'Hybris' in Athens.” by Douglas MacDowell, because it’s quite a nice exploration of how hubris is used in both literary and legal contexts. He actually argues that there’s no evidence or reason to believe definitions change between either setting.

He begins with a discussion of all the ways hybris can be used in texts, including its use describing rowdy and loud animals. Sound seems to be an important factor, because he also cites a legal document where hubris could have been charged against the defendant (rather than just assault) for jeering and clucking at the man he struck. The myth of the Lapiths and the Centaurs is a fitting example of a hubristic dinner party, considering uses of hubris to compare people to horses (an especially hubristic animal). Hubris for men involves eating and drinking too much, being loud and making rude jokes, being sexually inappropriate, engaging in useless pursuits, doing violence and murder, and being disobedient to name just a few acts.

This disobedience is where one might get accused for hubris toward the gods, but in this sense it would be the same severity of crime as disobeying a king or stealing from a temple, because as MacDowell states, “...hybris is not, as a rule, a religious matter” (22) and also that “there is nothing to show that the Athenians generally thought that hybris had any more to do with the gods than any other kind of misconduct.” (22-23) Denying the existence of gods might be another example of religious hybris, at a time when atheism and antitheism were not separable, but this was also during a time when impiety was punishable by death, so take that as you will.

The definition of hubris that MacDowell comes to is self-indulgent misuse of energy or power. The exact reasons for hubristic actions are unclear, whether it arises from the arrogance of tyranny, or having enough wealth to be disruptive in public, or simply the energy of youth. Kambyses does hubris to his subjects by killing them without trial. Aeschylus in “Suppliants” uses hubris to mean lust and entitlement of men toward women’s bodies. Plato says a child is the most hubristic of animals, and hubris is definitely associated with teenagers and rich people, but not exclusive to them. A case appears in Athenian law where a father had to defend his son from accusations of hubris for killing another student with a javelin while messing around and not taking training seriously, and the defense was that the act was unintentional. Hubris is something done knowingly, without care for whom it may harm.

On that note, hubris very often has an identifiable victim. Victimless hubris does show up in texts, such as a story of a party of rowdy young men traipsing into the desert simply to explore, but is less common as what most texts are concerned with is the *crime* of hubris. Aristotle differentiates the crime from simple assault by saying hubris is doing harm for the pleasure of feeling superior. Other scholars have defined hubris as treating another as one would an enslaved person, but it’s interesting to note that Athens specifically had a law protecting enslaved people from hybris.

In literature, the term is sometimes used meaning “depriving someone of a prize or privilege which he has earned” (MacDowell 19), such as Agamemnon’s seizure of Briseis, or Menelaos’ refusal to bury Aias. Yet, hubris can also be done to oneself against other’s wishes, as with the case of Deianeira killing herself with a sword. “If committing suicide in sorrow, shame, and despair can be called hybris, that shows that hybris does not necessarily involve pride or arrogance, or setting oneself above the gods, or a desire to disgrace another person” (MacDowell 19).

So, to summarize, hubris in ancient Greek is not the same as hubris as it’s used in English, and it does not carry religious connotations. Hubris in ancient Greek referred to unruly behaviour without care for authority or those around you that could get hurt. Hubris can be attempting to control or disobey the gods, but thinking yourself on the same level as the gods is more accurately described as impiety or asebeia, a separate crime that could be of similar severity.

Sources:

LSJ definition: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=u(/bris1

MacDowell, Douglas M. “'Hybris' in Athens.” Greece & Rome, vol. 23, no. 1, 1976, pp. 14–31.

Further Reading:

Cohen, David. “Sexuality, Violence, and the Athenian Law of 'Hubris'.” Greece & Rome, vol. 38, no. 2, 1991, pp. 171–188.

Filonik, Jakub. “Athenian Impiety Trials: A Reappraisal” https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/Dike/article/view/4290

[dontbipanicjonsa]

The Unkiss

TW: discussion of sexual assault

The purpose of this post is to explore how and why the Unkiss came to be, and speculate (poorly) on what purpose it may serve in the future. Read under the cut  (thanks @esther-dot )

So, I’m going to tell everyone right away that I’m not a very big fan of the pre-existing theories surrounding the Unkiss. Specifically, I tend to disagree with the “how”. This is partly because I think all the explanations offered are too Freudian (*shudder*) and partly because I’ve had a similar instance myself so I tend to project (sue me). 

THE HOW

First, let’s look at the pre-existing theories: 

The Unkiss is actually a sexual fantasy that Sansa has confused with the real events that happened (exactly what Freud would say. Creepy fuck.)

Sansa invented the Unkiss to romanticize an otherwise traumatic event so she could cope with it better. 

Is there any other theory I’m missing? These are the ones I know. 

I’m going to jump straight to the second theory. The issue (for me) in this theory is that it sort of assumes that Sansa herself would consider that kiss “romantic” or that it would somehow help her cope the BoB night.

He yanked her closer, and for a moment she thought he meant to kiss her. He was too strong to fight. She closed her eyes, wanting it to be over, but nothing happened. - Sansa VII ACOK

This is the moment. She is expecting a kiss, but wanting it to be over. It’s very clear that the kiss would have been non-con. More importantly, it looks like Sansa herself would consider the kiss non-con. 

Why on earth would Sansa invent a kiss she didn’t want in the first place to make coping with an already traumatic event easier? 

He kissed me and threatened to kill me, and made me sing him a song. - Sansa II ASOS

This is the first time we are introduced to the Unkiss, and it shows that Sansa’s memory of that night is perfectly intact. The Unkiss is an addition. It isn’t replacing any other, more traumatic memory (like the threat to her life). 

Now this is what I think happened:

Her emotions were running high that night, and her mind muddled up real events with the memory of that mounting (practically tangible) terror. 

Yeah, it’s that simple. You know how you get really angry in a fight and then later you can’t recall the exact the words? Memory is unreliable. There are plenty of studies to show the varied effects trauma has on memory. There are plenty of studies to show how easily memory can distort. There doesn’t need to be a great, complex reason for Sansa to misremember a traumatic event. Also remember that Sansa may not be entirely sober for this encounter, since Cersei did make her chug that wine before. 

Being stuck in a situation where you’re terrified and anticipating some sort of assault any second? Having a single moment where the emotions peak, where you’re sure the assault is going to happen right that moment? Misremembering if the assault did or didn’t happen later? Yup. Been there, done that. I still don’t remember what happened, and it’s been years. I sure as fuck wasn’t romanticizing shit, so it never occurred to me to think that Sansa might be. So when I heard the theories I went back to her chapters and honestly, I don’t think she is either. Not yet.  

Then this happened:

She could still remember how it felt, when his cruel mouth pressed down on her own. He had come to Sansa in the darkness as green fire filled the sky. He took a song and a kiss, and left me nothing but a bloody cloak. - Alayne II AFFC

Now this is Sansa romanticizing the Unkiss. She romanticizes the kiss she remembers. That does not mean she invented the kiss to romanticize the BoB, it only means she remembers a non-con kiss from a traumatic night and chose to romanticize it to cope. See the difference? 

The kiss isn’t a way for her to romanticize her trauma to cope, she romanticizes the kiss that was a result of her trauma- to cope. 

I won’t be so sure of this theory though, because (no offense) but GRRM does seem like the kind of guy who would read Freud and incorporate his ideas in his story. There’s already a shit load of incest and let’s admit it, Sansa canonically has daddy issues. How far or in-depth did GRRM think about the “how” of the Unkiss? We don’t know. 

THE WHY

Well, this one has been explained by GRRM himself:

You will see, in A STORM OF SWORDS and later volumes, that Sansa remembers the Hound kissing her the night he came to her bedroom... but if you look at the scene, he never does. That will eventually mean something, but just now it's a subtle touch, something most of the readers may not even pick up on. - GRRM 

He also said:

File this one under "unreliable narrator" and feel free to ponder its meaning...- GRRM 

So, it’s safe to say that the Unkiss is basically being used to establish that Sansa has an unreliable memory. Of course, other characters probably have unreliable memory too (for example: Arya misremembering the name of Joffrey’s sword) but this is still most likely about Sansa. 

Sansa has always been considered an unreliable narrator by the GA anyway, since so much of her narration in the first book was at odds with the narration of Ned and Arya, who were both fan favourites at the time. This should probably indicate to the readers that the other characters are unreliable narrators as well, but it doesn’t. People carry on reading simply assuming that only Sansa’s POV is unreliable, or at least the most unreliable. So using Sansa’s POV to lay the groundwork for memory issues in someone else’s POV is...not gonna work. 

This doesn’t necessarily prove that the pay-off of the Unkiss is going to come from Sansa’s POV only, but it makes it seem likely. So I’m going to restrict myself to looking at the possibilities of misremembering stuff from Sansa’s POV. 

One more thing we need to look at before we start looking at future possibilities:

"It's not the same," Sansa said. "The Hound is Joffrey's sworn shield. Your butcher's boy attacked the prince." - Sansa III AGOT

On the surface, this looks like another memory edit. The situation is remarkably similar; it was a traumatic event for Sansa, she was not entirely sober when it happened, and now she is misremembering what happened. We know that Mycah did not attack Joffrey, Joffrey attacked Mycah. However, it’s not quite the same. For one, we don’t actually know if Sansa believes that, or if she’s just trying to be contrary to Arya. 

Also- 

"Sansa, come here." Ned had heard her version of the story the night Arya had vanished. He knew the truth. "Tell us what happened." - Eddard III AGOT

Sansa had told Ned what happened. But then she said-

She blinked at her sister, then at the young prince. "I don't know," she said tearfully, looking as though she wanted to bolt. "I don't remember. Everything happened so fast, I didn't see …"- Eddard III AGOT 

So.......is she lying or did her memory actually get fuzzy afterwards? What exactly did she tell Ned? Considering that he’s the one who asks her to “testify”, I’d assume she told things as they really happened (as in Joffrey attacked Mycah). Did her memory of the events slowly fade...and then reverse (as in Mycah attacked Joffrey)? Or is she just taking the neutral stance here, and later the opposing stance (Joffrey’s side) in her fight with Arya? We don’t know. 

PURPOSE IT MAY SERVE GOING FORWARD

First, let’s assume that the Trident accident really does count as a memory edit. This would mean that Sansa has edited her memory twice now, which makes it very likely that a third memory edit is coming. There are two directions this can go-

The third memory edit has already happened pre-canon (so technically it would be the first edit)

The third memory edit is going to happen sometime in the next two books.

Warning: this is where I get back on my Jonsa bullshit. Turn back now if you don’t wanna watch me make everything about Jonsa.

Pre-canon Jonsa crush 

If the first option is true, and Sansa has already edited her memory once that we don’t yet know about, then a pre-canon crush/moment between her and Jon is...a pretty strong possibility. 

I’ll admit, I’m very very skeptical of the pre-canon crush, simply because I think there isn’t enough evidence or foreshadowing for it. On the other hand, the groundwork has already been laid, if GRRM were to go in this direction..it would be believable. Shocking, but believable. 

We have numerous mentions of kissing games in the godswoods. We have a pre-canon conversation between Sansa and Jon about How To Hit On Ladies. And much more. The possibility is there. 

Sansa having a crush on Jon and being so traumatized she replaced Jon with Waymar Royce?? Sansa getting tipsy on watered down wine and giving Jon a blue rose-

There are other possibilities though, for example, a fight between Sansa and her father and/or Arya that she’s not remembering correctly. It would explain her daddy issues (even more) and work to create conflict between her and Arya (why though). But I don’t THINK there’s any evidence for that..? I don’t know I’m just throwing out ideas.

Moving on to the second option- a third memory edit to come

These memory edits are not likely to be nearly as innocent. 

One possibility I’ve heard about is Sansa forgetting her identity and sinking into Alayne. No. Very Unlikely. Sansa’s Stark identity appears to be going strong even in the TWOW preview chapter.

Second possibility- Sansa memory edits Lysa’s death. 

She was mad and dangerous. She murdered her own lord husband, and would have murdered me if Petyr had not come along to save me.- Alayne I AFFC 

It’s...possible? But it looks like she does remember what Lysa said and how she died. She’s just suppressing/dismissing the parts that implicate Littlefinger, which is not the same as a memory edit, where the memory is changed somehow. 

More possibilities- Littlefinger will do something and that will lead to a memory edit. She’ll flee from the Vale and run into Ramsay (I dearly hope not) and bam trauma -> memory edit. The possibilities are pretty much endless. 

Now let’s assume that the incident on the Trident was not a memory edit. This means she’s only had one memory edit yet....in which case the pay-off is probably something kiss-related, or it is something she remembers, but which didn’t really happen. A pre-canon kiss, or some serious Freudian shit that I’ve been trying desperately to avoid, a Sansa-Sandor faceoff....yea I’m not actually good at speculation.

[quissum-ego]

A Look At Whip It (2009) Through A Trans Lens

** A preliminary note: throughout this post, I will be referring to Bliss with he/they pronouns, both out of respect for Elliot Page, as well as the fact that it feels right for the character. You’ll see why. Thank you for understanding! (:

I rarely make my own posts on Tumblr, but this feels important enough  to deviate from that streak a little bit, since I think this is something more people should be talking about. Now, as some of you may know, Whip It is a 2009 comedy-drama film directed by Drew Barrymore. The film is an adaptation of the 2007 novel Derby Girl (a.k.a Whip It) by Shauna Cross. Both the film and the novel follow the life of Bliss Cavendar, a Texas teen pursuing their newfound roller derby dream behind the backs of their parents. While I am by no means saying the novel or the film intended for Bliss to be trans, as a trans masc person myself, I cannot help but pick up on the similarities. Let’s dive right in with some quotes from Cross’ novel.

There are a couple instances throughout the text where Bliss expresses a dislike for his given name. 

“ [ ... ] Bliss is not gonna cut it (I’ve been telling Brooke that for years.)”

Bliss’ struggle with his mother-given name and his complete awe at the fact that people (specifically the roller derby girls) so freely adapt an alternative name really hit home with me, personally. His feelings towards his birth name mirror the way myself and many of my trans friends feel, and these feelings were especially strong for me when I was around Bliss’ age. It is apparent that he has wanted a different name to better express himself for years, something that his mother looks down upon. 

On a similar note, there are multiple instances where Bliss wonders who he really is, and how he can find and reclaim his own sense of self. 

1. “I suddenly wonder what else I have in me that’s been stunted by too many years of pageant participation.” 

Bliss would have little-to-no chance to explore how he wants to present himself when around his mother, but the world of roller derby slowly begins to open that door. Leading a double life that his parents don’t know about becomes his ticket to exploring aspects of himself that otherwise might have been pushed down.

2. “In an effort to shake off the pink-suit residue and reclaim my personal identity [...]”

Bliss resorts back to what he feels most comfortable in (graphic t-shirts) in an effort to “reclaim [his] personal identity”. Instead of the traditionally feminine ways that his mother has come to expect of him, Bliss finds comfort in his personal identity that is the exact opposite. 

3. “Who are you [...]” “[...] I’ve been wondering that my entire life.” 

Bliss struggles with his identity, and obviously has for as long as he can remember. 

4. “You don’t even know me!”

“Bliss, you’re only sixteen. You don’t even know who you are.”

“I know I’m not Miss Bluebonnet [...] I know that much.” 

Bliss emotionally retorts to the fact that he may not know who he is with the fact that he knows he is not a pageant girl. The identity he has found through roller derby triumphs over the Miss America cage Brooke has tried so hard to secure. He knows who he is, and she can no longer dictate that for him. 

In the final two passages, Bliss’ parents begin to come around to the idea of him playing roller derby (an identity of his that feels like an ongoing metaphor for being LGBT). 

“But you - you’re Babe Ruthless.” 

“[...] she’s not only giving me my skates, but my freedom.” 

In the end, Bliss’ mother accepts that he has come to be “Babe Ruthless”, and in giving him his skates to compete, she is giving him freedom. Brooke has finally accepted that Bliss may not be the person she believed him to be, but she wants him to be happy regardless. 

“Not that Earl would ever say it, but I’ve always had a feeling he would have loved to have had a football-playing son. I think me playing Roller Derby might be the next best thing.” 

Earl would have loved to have a sports-loving son, and Bliss sees his love for roller derby as the next best thing. He is, in his own way, the son Earl never knew he had. 

The film adaptation of Whip It offers many great moments that carry this theme of roller derby being used as a metaphor for Bliss being trans. 

After dying his hair blue before an important pageant in what feels like an act of defiance against his mother, Bliss is saddened to return home from the hair salon with it all washed out. When Earl notices the family coming home, he exclaims, “Dang it, girl, what has gotten into you?” to which Bliss replies with, “Just defective, I guess.” 

Bliss feels defective in the world of beauty pageants because it is so opposing to who he is, and the life he wants to live. All he’s known thus far has been a complete 180 from himself, rendering him to feel out of place. 

When Bliss first sees the derby league out in Austin, he is instantly enamored. His wish to live as freely as they do and express himself away from his mother is what drives him towards wanting to join the league. 

After the game, Bliss expresses that the league are his new heroes. Maggie encourages him to be his own hero, to go out and live freely. 

The film evolves into Bliss leading a double life. His parents believe he is studying with an SAT prep group, while in reality, he is training and playing with the roller derby league. One life where Bliss has to practice for pageants, study, and be who his mother wants him to be, and a second life where “Babe Ruthless” can follow his heart and be himself. The more Bliss embraces his inner Babe Ruthless, the more confident he becomes, both on the track as well as in school, as he finally begins standing up to bullies. 

A key moment in the film comes when Bliss’ parents discover his roller derby promotional poster, and his secret double life becomes a lot less secret. The dialogue throughout the scene feels heavily trans-coded, particularly as Bliss cries out for his mother to “[...] stop shoving [her] psychotic idea of 50′s womanhood down [Bliss’] throat”. Bliss explains how he knows his parents wouldn’t have accepted the life where he feels he is truly himself, and the confrontation ends with them parting ways, and Bliss temporarily running away. 

After reconciling with his parents and agreeing to participate in the pageant, Bliss initially believes his roller derby dreams to be a thing of the past. On the night of the pageant, however, Bliss’ father warms up to the idea, and seeks out Bliss’ teammates. They all arrive at the venue of the pageant to surprise Bliss. 

When Brooke (naturally) disagrees with Earl’s change of heart, he expresses that he “[...] can not taking losing the chance for (our) kid to be happy.” 

His parents make it to the game, and end up coming around to the fact that this is who Bliss is, and perhaps who he has always been. After the match, Bliss meets up with his mother to talk with her. 

She comes to terms with the fact that she can’t change what Bliss is going to do in life, and he expresses that he needs to know she can accept him. She admits that it will be hard, but ultimately she will try, which is all that Bliss truly hoped for. 

The film closes with Bliss’ mother reading his pageant speech and putting away the custom gown (perhaps accepting that this chapter of their lives has closed), Earl putting up a Babe Ruthless sign on the Cavendar’s front lawn in support of their kid, and Bliss sitting atop the Oink Joint, seemingly at peace with this newfound joy in his life. He has found himself, and found what he truly loves doing, and he now knows that he has people in his life who support him through and through. 

All in all, while I am aware this is just one way to interpret the film, I wanted to share my thoughts because this has made his film truly special to me. If you haven’t already, give the film a watch. It is more than worth your time. I’d love to hear your thoughts, if you picked up on any of the same themes as me, or what you thought if this post ended up encouraging you to watch the film.

Thanks for sticking around and reading to the end. You’re the coolest. (~:  

[dragynkeep]

I saw that you did top 5 best female & male characters in rwby and why, so i was wondering could you do the same but for 5 rwby worst female & male characters you dislike and why.

luke did this ask before along with the best one so i’mma steal this for me.

worst female characters.

robyn hill  —  hands down one of the most annoying additions to the show. she is meant to be robin hood yet fails in the character’s motivations & ideals in every instance, her outfit / general design are clunky & poorly thought out, her personality has the exact desirability of hot garbage juice & she herself is just as appealing. the only slightly fun thing about robyn is her voice actress, the amazing christina vee & the potential she could’ve had that i really enjoy seeing be brought out in fanfics instead. in canon? robyn can go rot.

blake belladonna  —  our resident all lives matter queen who was meant to be a champion for all minorities watching the show, a bisexual icon & a shining example of an abuse survivor ... only to fail on all three. blake’s influence on the racism storyline only makes her come off as a privileged brat who would lecture those who are just trying to survive & blame them for the actions of a terrorist organization she was part of, & it was dropped as soon as her abusive ex was killed. her actions as an abuse survive are nonsensical at times. & blake wasn’t even confirmed to be bisexual representation until eight years into the show & she / her female love interest still aren’t canonically together while the cishet writers hide behind a slow burn excuse that was never applied to their m / f couples.

ruby rose  —  it sounds nonsensical to say this about our main character & i wouldn’t have put her on this before v7 & 8, but her favouritism by the narrative in those two volumes to the point the story would break it’s back to justify her drove me crazy. i was watching this character who we were meant to root for make mistake after mistake after mistake & hide behind her age & inexperience like a coward; like she hadn’t shoved her way into this war & rejected everyone around her who had experience & wanted to help because they didn’t want to do it her way. ruby behaved like a petulant child & i have no doubt that this isn’t going to change.

cinder fall  —  listen she was always a middling type of character for me, i didn’t hate her but i didn’t love her either. cinder was just cinder, a kind of flat antagonist who didn’t go anywhere; until they tried to make her go somewhere & in doing so had her repeat the same character arc like three times. her “backstory” that was just cinderella lazily copy & pasted eight years after people had been asking for it was the final nail in the coffin for me. they waited too long & got too lazy.

nora valkyrie  —  again, not really a character i thought i would’ve put on here after i really started to like her in volume 4 when she & ren finally began to get character development. they were kind of in the background which annoyed me but they weren’t being obnoxious so it was fine. i want to go back to v4 - 6 so bad lmao; nora in these two volumes has been horrendous. not only did she ignore all of ren’s boundaries when he was trying to ask for space, she thought the appropriate action to him asking for that space & struggling to vocalize it was to kiss him without consent. and then, she co opts his entire arc anyways for v8 & now it’s nora who wants the space & ren is being unreasonable, ren is forcing her boundaries, ren is in the wrong. fuck her stupid ass one liner backstory too. nora dropped so far on my shitlist because of her actions the last two volumes smh.

worst male characters.

qrow branwen  —  again much like ruby & nora; i never thought i’d put qrow on here but his behaviour in these last volume especially has just dropped my fondness for him all the way to the grave lmao. he acts so much like ruby, a petulant child who was told no & lost his favourite toy, while acting like he didn’t specifically break that toy. he went from someone who was level headed, if an absolute asshole to a whiny manchild who spent the entire volume crying in a jail cell about how he was gonna kill his dead boyfriend’s boss because he doesn’t wanna admit he got him killed. & then he forgot about that in the last five minutes to cry about his potentially dead nieces, which only left me thinking, where was your concern about them the rest of this volume qrow? so yeah. on the shitty character list you go buddy.

ghira belladonna  —  i would change my mind & make this dumbass number one but he’s always annoyed me so i’m more settled with that emotion whereas qrow is a new development. but ghira is literally worse than annoying, he’s a useless character who takes up space & actively worsens the plot & the character  —  mainly blake  —  that he’s connected to. everything from his useless pacificism to the fact he’s a privileged faunus living in a mansion while his people are in huts to the fact that he’s now retaken the helm at the head of the white fang like?? what about his mentality has changed & how will that prevent another terroristic faction raising up in result of his negligence towards their people in favour of his own comfort driven pacifism?

hazel rainart  —  sir, your motivation is hokey & your hair is dumb & your braid ribs are giving me nightmares. originally i didn’t have as much of an issue with hazel infantilizing his grown twin sister because i thought we were at least going to get some rebuttal to this man using her death to metaphorically & then physically beat on ozpin. but no, he was validated & then had the gall to use her name in order to guilt trip ozpin in the “ no more gretchens ” line  —  like he hadn’t created dozens of gretchens in mistral with tyrian? sir you are a mass murderer  —  & then went out like an ass in one of the laziest redemption arcs i’ve ever seen. bravo, you suck.

adam taurus  —  he’s really not the highest on this list because i recognize that this is more because of milk & kornflake’s white comfort bleeding into their writing of a marginalized man & less of actually him as a character. adam is a bastard but he’s so much of a hate sink that i can’t take him seriously or hate him because of these traits; if mkek told me he killed puppies as a hobby, i wouldn’t hate adam for that, i’d hate them for continually making him edgier & edgier while ignoring their own racism around his writing.

scarlet david  —  this one’s a little bit of a joke one but also, i just hate this catty fay gay. get back in the closet sir because your face annoys me & your attitude stinks. i’m renting the down with cis bus just to run him over. ♥

[knickynoo]

I loved your recent post about Marty and his ADHD! It was soo spot on. And, I saw in the tags that you mentioned Alex Keaton and how you believe he’s not neurotypical either. Care to elaborate? Do you have any headcanons about neurodivergent™ Alex? I’d love to hear your thoughts! :)

Oh, hey, thank you! Marty having ADHD seems to be one of the most common headcanons in the fandom, so that post was a lot of fun to work on.

As far as Alex goes...yes, I will elaborate, BUT I'm putting it under a cut because ya girl is really going to E L A B O R A T E.

I've mentioned before that I think Alex's overall personality/demeanor comes from a variety of different places. Some parts of who he is are likely caused by all the pressure put on him to be a high achiever, due to being so academically gifted from a young age. Other parts are due to being overly coddled and spoiled by Elyse and Steven. Still, there's probably a part of Alex that genuinely enjoys being difficult and getting a rise out of people. Then, there's the obvious anxiety he struggles with, which even MJF has talked about in some interviews when discussing how he approached playing a guy like Alex.

"Giftedness" & anxiety are already included under the umbrella of neurodiversity but in Alex's case, I actually think there's even more to it than that. Yeah, Alex is a funny character whose actions/words are so often played for laughs. He can also be a really irksome character when he's dishing out the sarcasm and being selfish. But I also can't help but look at Alex and think, This guy is just so not NT and he is struggling, somebody Help Him. And since Alex P. Keaton is one of my favorite characters AND I love to analyze/ do deep dives AND the topic of neurodiversity is a particularly strong interest of mine... well, here you go....

Mans is autistic.

• Difficulty with social cues and "reading the room". Seriously, there are so many instances of everyone around him all being on the same page about something or dealing with something serious, and Alex walks in and just proceeds to miss every single cue people throw his way. Two scenes that pop into my head, in particular, are the Reflective Pajamas one and the Clam Puff one, lol.

• He frequently struggles with putting himself in other people's shoes: Alex is certainly shown to be a compassionate person. He can recognize when people are hurting and will do the right thing, but sometimes he needs some help to get there. It seems that a lot of the time, all he knows is how he feels or thinks about something, and it doesn't occur to him that another person could be experiencing it differently. Then, once Steven, Elyse, Ellen, etc, break the situation down for him and explicitly say things like, Hey, that person's feelings are hurt because... or Here is the exact reason this person is angry... Alex is finally able to connect the dots, which usually leads to him being like, I hadn't ever thought about that/ I didn't mean it. (Of course, there are also times where Alex is just purposely being a jerk, but I'm not focusing on those)

• Specific, intense interests: Politics & economics, obviously. It's made well-known that Alex has been completely fixated on these two areas since he was a toddler. He's prone to enthusiastic, overly detailed discourse on the topics and either doesn't care or can't pick up on when people are growing bored at listening to him.

• Also, can we talk about how it's established that Alex's favorite toy as a little kid was a box? Like, he carried it everywhere, played with it, slept with it, and was devastated when it fell apart. Idk, I know kids can be attached to random objects, but it's just interesting that Alex is noted as having been enamored with a box. I'm just picturing little Alex, ignoring all the toys he has in favor of just sitting and staring at a box, and his parents are like, Yeah, this is normal.

• Highly intelligent, bordering on genius/prodigy (He was doing long-division at like, 3 years old) but has difficulty connecting with peers & making friends: This is most prominently shown in "A, My Name is Alex," where we see glimpses of various events in his childhood. In the scene where Alex meets Greg, we learn that Alex spends recess inside, helping the teacher plan her lessons rather than going out to socialize with his classmates. He's bewildered at Greg's invitation to come play, meaning he likely spent the majority of his childhood on his own due to being considered an outcast by his peers and just generally relating more easily to adults. (He also mentions taking night classes at a local college at age SEVEN. So like. If the long-division story and night class thing are taken to be actual facts of Alex's childhood...we're looking at something similar to hyperlexia/hypernumeracy here. This kid must have been bored out his mind having to sit through elementary school if he was that advanced)

• Very literal at times/ misses sarcasm: Interestingly enough, APK is very fond of being sarcastic but doesn't do so well when he's on the receiving end of it. Someone will make a joke or spin the sarcasm towards him for once, and he'll either just stare blankly like ???? or smile/thank them and they're like, Yeah, that wasn't a compliment, or, I was kidding.

• Black and white/ inflexible thinking: This might be the biggest one. Alex is super concerned with rules and ensuring that everyone is following them correctly. There's right and there's wrong, with no gray areas or middle ground as far as he's concerned. My favorite instance of this is in the episode where the family goes to visit Steven's mother and Rob, Alex's uncle, is telling a story of how Steven got in trouble as a kid for refusing to put his name in the upper right corner of his test papers. Everyone around the table laughs...except for Alex, who is deeply troubled by the information.

Just...Steven's delivery. The way he pauses and stares at Alex before replying with a ridiculous punishment that obviously didn't happen, but Alex shows no signs of being aware of or amused at the joke and is just glad his father faced the consequences of his actions. It's great, and a prime example of Alex's preoccupation with "the rules."

Another good example (& one that crosses into the empathy category as well) is "Big Brother is Watching", where Alex exposes a cheating scandal at school (that involves Mallory) and then can't wrap his mind around why everyone is angry at him when he gets the students who were involved suspended. He spends half the episode saying things like, But cheating is wrong. It's wrong and I told the truth about it. I did what's right. You (Steven) told me to always tell the truth, which I did. WHY PEOPLE ANGRY???

And so Steven has to basically spell it out and be like, You got those students suspended, Alex. They are upset with you because of this. They were exposed publically, which embarrassed them, and people tend to not like being embarrassed.

And Alex is like, Oh.

• Repetitive behavior/movements: Most often seen when Alex is distressed or scared, his mannerisms definitely stand out in many scenes. He paces, taps his foot/bounces his leg, rubs his hands together or over his lap, rocks back and forth, and avoids eye contact. I made a post about this a short while back because it really is interesting (and a testament to how well the character was played). There are moments where Alex is completely confident and "calm", and you can see that reflected in the way he carries himself. But whenever he's upset or anxious, you'll start to notice a variety of the things listed above.

So. Yeah. All these things considered...I headcanon Alex as possibly being autistic?? Which is not a take I've ever seen anyone else mention (and I seriously doubt anyone working on the show had this angle in mind at all) but watching through the series, my radar just goes off when it comes to APK.

I have no idea how this will be received. (If anyone even reads it because wow, this got away from me).

Thanks for the ask. As you may be able to tell, I enjoyed being able to spew out my thoughts.

[jimmyandthegiraffes]

Names and Forms of Address in The A-Team

I think it’s really interesting to note how and when Hannibal addresses the others by rank. Under the cut is a ridiculous number of words on this subject from me, your local nerd who should definitely have used the time I spent on this for something else. This isn’t as good or in depth as I wanted it to be but it’s been sat in my drafts for months and I’m bored so I’m gona post it.

With B.A. and Face, Hannibal uses the terms Sergeant and Lieutenant to assert his authority over them, a subtle way of pulling rank on them that makes it hard for them to dispute or be insubordinate. This is perhaps especially true of Face. Hannibal calls Face Lieutenant when Face is complaining or refusing to co-operate, smartly reminding him who is in charge. Face can be a little whiny bitch sometimes, but he also often seems to feel that Hannibal asks too much of him. I know some people ship Hannibal/Face, but I would argue here that occasionally Face falls more into the trap of viewing Hannibal as his dad (which he is. Hannibal is all of their dad okay. Why do you think none of them really have canon fathers??) and of responding to him as such. Whether or not Hannibal is correct in his assertion that Face works best under pressure, Face doesn’t seem to like it very much. Hannibal can quickly circumvent any subsequent whining from Face by pulling rank on him: it comes with the unspoken remark that whatever qualms Face has with what he’s being asked to do are not as important as the task at hand, that he needs to suck it up and do what he’s told. That’s not to say that Hannibal is manipulative (he is, a bit, but that’s not really what I’m trying to say), since he is generally aware of each member of the team’s limits, and how far he can push them, and when to stop. This isn’t the case all the time and occasionally Hannibal does fuck up, but for the most part it holds up.

Hannibal addresses B.A. as Sergeant very infrequently. When he does, it’s on the surface similar to addressing Face as Lieutenant but if you look more closely there is a difference; in both cases Hannibal generally uses their rank titles to assert his authority, but while for Face this acts as a reprimand and reminder, for B.A. it seems to be more of a gesture of encouragement. B.A. thrives on structure, order, and knowing what is expected of him, and just as importantly he likes to know what to expect from the people around him. Being reminded of the structure of the Team and each of their places in it (even though any concept of a hierarchy amongst them is far more blurred than it could have been in a truly military context) seems to work to placate B.A. almost, to assure him of his value and his specific skillset, and to encourage him and spur him on. On occasion Hannibal does seem to use it to get B.A. to stand down if he’s getting too angry - its infrequency probably works in Hannibal’s favour on these occasions as an unexpected form of address may be more effective at getting through to B.A. than simply addressing him how he normally does. On the other hand, Hannibal does generally address him as B.A. even when ‘stepping in’.

When he addresses Murdock as Captain, however, it’s the exact opposite. When Hannibal wants to assert his authority over Murdock (usually because Murdock is Clowning(TM) and Hannibal wants a break), he addresses him just as Murdock. As far as I know, he is the only person in the show to actually refer Murdock as Howling Mad, and even then only once (Mexican Slayride), and not to Murdock’s face. It’s impossible to tell from this one instance exactly what meaning this confers. I take most of Mexican Slayride as canon and even though I know the external reason for discrepancies is because it’s a pilot episode, on a Watsonian level I have to admit I’m intrigued as to where this reference to Murdock as Howling Mad fits into Hannibal’s perception of him. Anyway, when Hannibal addresses Murdock by his rank title, it’s less an expression of authority, and far more an expression both of camaraderie and companionship, and of his confidence in Murdock. By calling him Captain, Hannibal says, I respect you, I know that you are capable, I see you as an adult and I will treat you as such. With what we know of the way Murdock is treated by almost literally every other character, this must be an incredibly reassuring thing to hear, and Hannibal knows this.

It places the emphasis on Hannibal’s reliance on Murdock, reminding him that Hannibal trusts him, even though B.A. and Face repeatedly express doubts about Murdock’s competence. They worry that Murdock will flake out or let them down. There is none of this from Hannibal, ever, that I have noticed, which perhaps accounts in part for Murdock’s particular reaction to Hannibal.

It’s important to remember that Hannibal has never had the same authority over Murdock as he has over B.A. and Face. Hannibal’s command over his pilot is circumstantial, not embedded in their unit’s hierarchy. We can safely assume that Hannibal and Murdock had met, possibly many times, prior to the mission with the Hanoi bank; they would have been able to interact as fellow officers, without any direct authority of Hannibal over Murdock. This is reflected in the way they address each other; address of course goes both ways, and Murdock addresses Hannibal as Colonel far, far more frequently than either Face or B.A. do. It’s a mark of respect, in my opinion, an indication that while they weren’t part of the same unit until the very end of Hannibal, Face and B.A.’s time in the military, they are now, and Hannibal remains the higher ranking officer. It remains a language between the two of them, that ties into their shared experiences of being ranking officers, and of being unorthodox and strange and hyperactive.