#if my parents didn't exist or didn't have the resources they do I'd probably be dead in my apartment rn

[ganja-hq]

Insane that I'm about to turn 25 and my brain has not developed since like 14

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Some Theodore Nott and Nottpott headcanons because I feel like it

So, I got in a mood to write some things about Theo. I mentioned here basically all the canon information we have about him, and I wrote a headcanon list for Harry a bit ago, so this post is a bunch of random headcanons I have about Theo Nott (and a bit about Nottpott) that live in my head in no particular order.

They are based on the little canon information available, but I don't actually know where most of them came from. They are just my personal headcanons for a barley existing character.

1. He has dark brown hair and dark grey eyes.

He is also described as "weedy" so I imagine he's tall, thin, gaunt, and pale. In my mind, he looks like a sickly Victorian child. Although, he would look healthier as he grows up.

2. I always change his parents' names, they are very inconsistent in my mind, but their personalities are consistent.

3. His father is a blood-purist, Death Eater who isn't a nice person (understatement) and wasn't really involved in Theo's life up until Theo was capable of more complex thought and speech.

He mostly expects Theo to be molded in his image and not really have any new independent thoughts beyond his rule as the Nott heir.

Usually, I place his grandfather as the Nott who came with Tom Riddle to the DADA interview with Dumbledore in 1967 and was a classmate of Tom Riddle. His father is the Nott we see in the graveyard and the DoM. Basically, I think there are two of them and that it isn't the same guy.

4. His mother is a pure-blood witch, and she is dark and wasn't a fan of muggleborns either, but she also wasn't a fan of Voldemort. She disagreed with his methods more than anything. She didn't believe in the Death Eaters war or their means of dealing with muggleborns/muggles (although her solution probably wasn't great either, but it wasn't murdering all of them, so...)

5. Theo is initially similar to his mother’s views, he doesn't necessarily like muggleborns, but he doesn't think they should all be hunted down. He thinks the issue is more complex than most blood purists think, after all, he'd be all for just leaving the muggleborns with the muggles like squibs, but they have magic, and doing that would inevitably lead to wizards' discovery.

Talking to Harry and Hemione would make him more accepting later on.

He also thinks the idea that muggleborns "steel magic" is ludicrous and contradicts everything known about magical theory. Even if he sees them as innately lesser due to his upbringing, he draws the line at contradicting magical theory.

6. He was always closer to his mom and sat at her bedside while she was dying.

7. Theo's mother died when he was 8.

8. In my headcanon Mr. Nott poisoned her over time and later in life when Theo learns of it he becomes very interested in poisons.

The why Mr. Nott killed her isn't something my mind is consistent about and the ideas range from revenge to ritual sacrifice to cover up.

9. He takes 3 electives in school: Care for Magical Creatures, Arithmancy, and Ancient Runes.

10. His favorite school subject is Ancient Runes.

11. His grades are pretty good with Es and Os — his Os being Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Potions, Transfiguration, Astronomy, and Charms, He got Es for History, Care, and DADA. Herbology is an A for him, he knows the theory well, but he has no interest in actually growing plants ("I could just buy them, I don't see why I'd need to grow my ingredients").

12. Theo isn't really a fan of magical candy, he thinks the enchantments on them are mostly cheap gimmicks.

13. The hat considered him for Ravenclaw, but eventually decided on Slytherin, not for ambition (Theo isn't very ambitious) but for cunning and resourcefulness. Plus kinda fearing his father's reaction if he wasn't in Slytherin.

14. Theo understands how to manufacture an image and unlike Draco, can look aloof and unimpressed when he wants to. He usually looks generally unimpressed and judgmental over something — that's his resting face trained into him by years of saying "yes, father" over everything.

15. Theo has a pretty good memory, but there is one thing, in particular, his father said he was forced to verbally agree to that is etched in his mind: "It's better now you aren't stuck to her bedside" after his mother died (or something along these lines).

16. He honestly loves magic and is often amazed at Harry's intuitive grasp of some complex theoretical concepts. Harry always gets bashful and defensive when he mentions it repeating it isn't that impressive. Theo disagrees with him.

17. Theo doesn't laugh a lot, and Harry cherishes every moment he does.

18. Theo's really quiet and spends more time with books than people. He usually doesn't like people all that much.

19. He and Harry would sometimes just sit in the same space without really talking or doing anything together besides sharing a space, but it is comforting and relaxing to both of them.

20. He was abused by his father (more emotionally and psychologically than physically. Mr. Nott didn't hit him like a muggle, he might've cast some curses that don't leave a mark, but mostly he was distant and an emotionally manipulative piece of shit with impossible standards)

I can see some of Mr. Nott's punishments including, like, grounding with silencing charms and shit like that.

21. Theo would kill his father if he could get away with it.

22. The best years for Theo were 6th and 7th year. During 6th year his father was in Azkaban after the battle in the DoM, and in 7th he made sure to just ditch the UK with the money he stole from his father when he was in Azkaban. (Unless I'm diverging from canon before that)

He does come back to 8th year when that becomes an option.

22. The dynamic Theo has with his father when he grows older is like a weird sort of cold war with each of them counting wins against the other. Almost like a really twisted game of who can get away with fucking up the other's life more. Mr. Nott is usually in the lead and Theo's in constant search for blackmail material he could use against his dad.

23. Theo doesn't really have too bad self-esteem issues thanks to his mom who was a positive influence on his self-image in his formative years. His father is pretty annoyed he couldn't curve some of her influence off Theo.

He does have a trusting and connecting to people issue.

The fact Harry doesn't just treat all relationships as transactional where something would be given and something gained messes him up (in a good way).

24. Theo and Harry would, like, never go on a date somewhere public, they'll stick to hanging out just the two of them somewhere quiet.

25. I also headcanon that Theo could probably get Harry to study better because he'd actually appreciate his intuitive approach to magic and adapt the way he's explaining things to it.

26. They figured out they were both abused in a conversation that went something like this:

Harry: "My relatives don't like me much"

Theo (realizing): "My father doesn't like me much either"

Cue silent understanding and then they just continue whatever conversation they had before.

Later they would inevitably come back to this subject and talk about it more. Harry is honestly elated he can joke with Theo about ducking his uncle's fists without getting pitying glances.

27. He is less hot-headed than Harry and tends to not jump into action. He likes to observe first (even if there isn't always time for it).

28. Theo's the observe invisibly from the sidelines kinda guy. He knows a lot about people just from sitting quietly and listening. (I kinda used to do this in my former workplace, not on purpose, it was my ADHD, but I always knew all the rumors about everyone and what was going on with who even though no one told me any of it and they never realized I just sat quietly not actually reading on my phone while they were talking. It was kinda funny. Sometimes I'd tell my friends the really dramatic story I heard on the bus about complete strangers because I accidentally eavesdropped). Point is, Theo's got a blackmail folder, just in case. He just likes to have blackmail, even if he'll never use it. It's a safety net.

29. He is usually less brave than Harry, his bravery is very selective on how much he cares about whatever it is. He is a Slytherin, he has enough self-preservation for both him and Harry, but if he really cares about something, as we're shown with most Slytherins, all that self-preservation goes out the window.

30. Theo is pretty decent at planning for the long run or preparing, but these spare-of-the-moment plans Harry is so good at, aren't his strong suit. Theo is in his element when he has time to prepare for a situation.

31. He used to meet Draco and Pansy often when they were children because their parents were in the same circles, but he was never close to any of them. He doesn't really have friends, he has people he can talk to and be acquainted well enough with, but it's not really the epitome of friendship. Most of them are in Slytherin in the year above him.

32. Theo doesn't really play Quidditch (he says he's no good at it, and he's mostly right, like, he can fly a broom but he isn't great at it or anything), but he is a fan. He listens to games and follows up on team stats. When he was younger he and his mom would go to games together (she was on the Slytherin Quidditch team when she was a student).

[polyhexian]

Y'know what, Belos is lucky Jasper didn't exist during Enoch's timeframe. Kids are the one thing that consistently manage to break Jasper out of his brainwashing.

Jasper like "child? in the castle? castle child? live-in castle child? easy access to live-in castle child??" :D

Jasper: *doesn't actually know how to talk to a child* Enoch: *isn't a normal child anyway so it all works out*

Caitlyn wouldn't trust him as far as she could throw him at first because she doesn't trust anyone in the EC, but she can't tell him to leave them alone, and she certainly isn't going to ask BELOS to tell him to leave them alone, because Belos would probably do the exact opposite, the asshole. Over time she still doesn't come to trust Jasper but she starts tolerating him. Ahaha god imagine the first time she sees his face its while he's still new and she hates it cuz of how much he looks like Tell and maybe she manages to say something that has him flinch a bit and from then on out he doesn't take the mask off around her. And then the next time she sees his face its cuz he took the mask off with a wince while he didn't realize she was there and she sees the fresh scars. Ouch.

Enoch keeps seeking Jasper out because he's actually willing to teach her how to put someone in a headlock. Belos is too self-centered to realize any of this is happening. OR Belos says "stop teaching the sick child how to fight" and Jasper goes "well he didn't say I couldn't teach you about POISONS" and Enoch's just like, awesome, you're a very useful resource and I might even not hate you.

At some point Jasper puts together that Enoch is a Grimwalker's kid and Belos is an asshole. Caitlyn opens her door at 2AM to find Jasper on the other side like "hey I'm about to dig up a baby and hightail it out of here, if you wanna join me pack your bags."

Things proceed much like MH except Caitlyn's the one clutching a dirty newborn stumbling around the castle ruins until she finds Jasper. Enoch is pissed he didn't invite her to the impromptu Kill Belos Party.

And then, y'know, they go to the Owl House, except it's Dell and Gwen and the girls.

Jasper and Caitlyn would make an interesting…not power couple, but something. A platonic "we're in this hell together" couple. If nothing else they have the traumabond of being trapped under Belos's control and being terrified for their kids' futures. Jasper's got his Grimwalker trauma and Caitlyn has her Loved A Grimwalker trauma and years of getting intimately acquainted with everything Tell was terrified of. Jasper like "I wish I'd been smart enough to figure it out sooner" and Caitlyn like "he would've fucking killed you and we both know it." Jasper like "I wish I could be more like Tell, he sounds so much cooler and smarter than me" and Caitlyn blinks like "only because no one talks about you the same way I talk about him" and then fixes that.

Meanwhile Eda and Lilith are like "why is Cousin Enoch scary" while Gwen is like "that's just the trauma, sweet fleas, be nice!" and meanwhile Dell is just sitting here like. Okay. His sister is alive, and was in a relationship with a Grimwalker, who is dead, and now there's ANOTHER Grimwalker of the same person, who is not his sister's lover, but he's his sister's SOMETHING because traumabonding, and there's a BABY Grimwalker, and also there's a niece who he had no idea existed who is personally offended that she didn't get to kill Belos herself despite being 12. What even is his life anymore.

Jasper showing up at her door like hey if this is weird you can go back to sleep but do you want to help me kidnap my baby and or murder Belos?

Jasper and Caitlyn aren't romantically together but they're still definitely like. Together, in a way. They're both living together and raising their kids together. I guess it's more like two siblings raising their kids together or two roommates that both have children. They're a parent team. Like if MH Alador and jasper were living together lol

Enoch @ every kid at school "my dad could kill your dad"

[haze-of-hyperfixations]

Thanks for the tag, @foxymc!

1. Named after anyone? Technically? My parents mashed together the names of two religious figures to get my name.

2. Last time you cried? ...yesterday. I cry very easily, and I was sad that my plans to go to the mall today had fallen through, and also I was anxious about the concept of emotional vulnerability (separate from the mall thing).

3. Do you have kids? Nope. I do have a dog, though. He's a grumpy old man but he's also my baby son child whom I adore.

4. What sports do you play/have played? I played soccer when I was a lot younger, which was the only sport I ever really liked. I also played basketball in fifth grade, but I didn't like it very much. Haven't played any sports since.

5. do you use sarcasm? Mostly just to tell my family members that they are "so funny. hilarious. a comedian." when they make short jokes about me. I also say things along the lines of "this is a fantastic idea that can only end well for everyone involved." about my obviously bad ideas. Other than that, not a lot.

6. First thing you notice about people? Hair. There are people in my classes who I know nothing about other than the fact that I think they have very cool hair, and it makes them stick in my mind.

7. Eye colour? Blue.

8. scary movie or happy ending? Happy ending.

9. any talents? I get a lot of compliments on my writing. I also think I'm good at climbing, but only things that aren't strictly meant to be climbed. Oh, and I have a talent for naming things. (Plants, stuffed animals, figurines, drawings, etc. The exception to this is my ocs. For some reason, I can never give my ocs cool names. All of their names are boring.)

10. where were you born? USA.

11. hobbies? Writing! Almost any form of it! I love writing, and I don't really have a ton of other hobbies that I can remember.

12. any pets? The previously mentioned dog. He's a mix of several small and scruffy dog breeds, probably has some dachshund and yorkie, maybe schnauzer as well. He's a very good boy who has a lot of audacity sometimes. (He climbed onto my lap during dinner, sat there, waited until I was distracted, and calmly ate a slice of pizza.)

13. How tall are you? Not sure, but I have only one friend who is shorter than me that I know of. Also my siblings are on track to outgrow me, a dilemma which is the bane of my entire existence.

14. favourite subject? English/Composition. I love writing, and it's a class I'm good at.

15. dream job? Currently, some kind of library worker/assistant. I love the idea of helping people and being a part of all the resources that libraries offer, but I also don't really want all the pressure and time-consuming stuff that goes into a higher-level librarian job. I guess the actual dream would be working as a library volunteer, I've done that and absolutely loved it but that's not a paying job. I'd also like a job that allows me to write in my free time.

I'll tag @ashclouds366 :)

[birlwrites]

so i was wondering. we have a lot of sibling duos in ttdl. regulus and sirius, ofc, but also evan and katherine, maeve and felix, miranda and miles, off the the top of my head. how would you say they're similar to or different from regulus and sirius?

OOOOOOOOOOOO okay

i'm going to start with miles and miranda because that'll be relatively brief - the mckinnons are a large, very tightly knit family, so while miles and miranda are twins and thus very much grew up together, they have many very close cousins (both in age and in dynamic), so they're not each other's *only* siblings in the same way that regulus and sirius, evan and katherine, and maeve and felix are each other's only siblings

we already know a little about miles from seeing him in ttdl, so i'll say that miranda is also a chaos child in a very Ravenclaw way. someone should probably just be following her around at all times repeating 'just because you can doesn't mean you should' very loudly and then perhaps it will stick

unfortunately for the older generations of the mckinnon family, most of the kids are like this in one way or another. at least marlene only gets into dangerous situations via quidditch (as far as they know)

on to maeve and felix!

(oh also, a cw for what's under the cut - once i get to evan and katherine there'll be references to transphobia)

the age gap between maeve and felix and between evan and katherine is very similar - katherine was one year ahead of felix at hogwarts. i'd say that maeve and felix vs evan and katherine is also a good thing to compare, because of that. and part of the reason that felix exists in the first place is so i can be like 'look! a healthy sibling relationship! it IS possible!'

although i will say that maeve and felix don't really have the same tension surrounding inheritances that evan and katherine or regulus and sirius do. maeve's current life plan does involve some financial dependency on her brother, simply because he's going to be the head of the family eventually and she's not going to marry into another family, but she's not really competing with felix for resources - they're both just. always going to be bulstrodes. so they're sharing for the rest of their lives and they're good with that because it's how things have always been

like, there was never competition between them for who was going to inherit the lordship, for Patriarchy Reasons™, and maeve is fine with not inheriting it, so........ things are just..... fine? (regulus and sirius and evan and katherine making noises of disbelief in the background)

there's also the fact that felix is willing to use *his* position as heir as leverage to help maeve get what she wants - namely, a life of just chilling at the bulstrodes' ancestral home, telling felix's kids embarrassing stories about their dad and otherwise vibing

so felix and maeve are allies on a familial and personal level, and that smooths over a lot of potential conflict before it can even begin - their goals can coexist pretty easily

and that leads me very neatly into discussing evan and katherine!

we'll get to this a handful of chapters from now, but evan and katherine used to be very close (as close as siblings can be when there's about a 6 year age gap and they're young enough that that sort of thing makes a big difference)

i need to give some context on inheritances and such, and then that'll probably indicate to you precisely how their relationship went down the drain

okay so! as we know, evan is trans, and he transitioned when he was 12, which involved him officially becoming heir rosier. before that point, the rosiers didn't have an official heir. evan and katherine's parents were advised against trying for more kids, so they were like 'fine, we'll just wait until we have a grandson and then he'll be the heir'

so the way things were set up was that their kids would inherit roughly equal amounts of stuff. in the case of lord rosier's death before grandson heir rosier came of age, this hypothetical grandson's rosier parent would be regent (to represent a family in the wizengamot, you have to be a blood relative of the family - there are some contingency plans, but they're super complicated)

and, of course, grandson heir rosier would also inherit a lot upon lord rosier's death. the heir always gets the bulk of everything

so katherine looked at the big age gap between her and evan and figured 'oh, i'm DEFINITELY winning that race to have a son, that'll be my family.' she was very, very comfortable in this prediction of the future, enough so that she never felt really threatened by the possibility of not having it. it just felt like a given to her, so there was no reason to be antagonistic about it

so i think now you can see the explosion on the horizon.

katherine did not respond well to evan coming out, to the degree that their parents stepped in to handle it. this was years ago, so their parents' position on the matter is that there was a rough patch but their children are civil to each other now, mostly. evan and katherine quietly loathe each other, and there's not really any hope for reconciliation there

so at least regulus and sirius are doing better than them!

most of these sibling duos don't have voldemort/the death eaters putting pressure on them, which is one big thing causing strain for regulus and sirius in general. blood purity just... isn't something that comes up as much. but it's top of mind for the blacks, mainly because of the winning combination of sirius, andromeda, and bellatrix. it can't NOT come up, and it's a super important topic in the family, so (perceived) political disagreements can turn into huge things

in terms of how they grew up, i would mostly compare regulus and sirius to miles and miranda and evan and katherine - they're really close in age, so they were able to do most things together (like miles and miranda), but they also weren't surrounded by a ton of other kids to play with at all times, so they were each other's only choice for companionship a lot of the time (like evan and katherine)

maeve and felix spent time together growing up, but they're nowhere near inseparable, and regulus and sirius spent the majority of their waking hours together, much like miles and miranda or evan and katherine (evan idolized katherine and wanted to do everything she did)

but regulus and sirius's conflict is fairly unique, because the blacks just can't do anything normally (and also because they're the Heir And Spare in a way that none of these other sibling combinations are, bc Patriarchy™. regulus essentially waiting in the wings to take sirius's place by default, regardless of what either of them wants, puts pressure on them that these other sibling pairs don't share)

there's also the fact that regulus and sirius just started fighting... for the sake of fighting, really. the apple does nOT fall far from the tree in that family, but also, i don't expect the greatest degree of emotional maturity from preteens. it's no surprise that they followed the example their family set. but it's not like evan and katherine, really, because the grievances between regulus and sirius are very much a chicken and egg situation. everything is retaliation with them

there are a LOT more sibling duos but for the sake of (lip service to) brevity, i'm going to end this response here! as always people are welcome to ask more questions

[screechingkingdomhottub]

RATING DIFFERENT MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELLING SERVICES (UK)

Soo bit about me is im bisexual, trans, autistic, depressed and have had some Bad Coping Mechanisms so trigger warnings for sh, suicidal thoughts, alcoholism and addictions, anything else lemme know and i'll edit this. When I was a young boy, I realised bad things in my brain and after struggling finally got encouraged to reach out for help, here's how i'd rate my experiences. First though, regardless of any of these ratings you should seek help, because even if the help sucks which it might, you get a little boost in your brain that you're trying and it could be the difference between 1 day but that 1 day is special. I believe in you. As someone who has been struggling for 10 years now, it does get better but your struggle doesnt magically stop. So this is in no way me saying "all help sucks dont bother" but the exact opposite like always choose to seek for help.

First we have Mr Big Boi Jo AKA the samaritans, I have reached out to them so many times since I was like 13. The email feature is amazing like being able to sorta control when you are willing to not only send the message but also check the response is wonderful. I'd pour my heart and soul out and then be able to step away and recover from that vulnerability, be excited for when I'd get an email back, if I didn't feel like responding in that moment then I would not have to. But they have a tendency to sign post you quite easily like i've been sent to chris at lgbt , childline, some autism stuff that rubbed me the wrong way. It can feel kinda like you're getting dismissed and told to bugger off. "But that's not what they're doing!" oh right i forgot people in mental health crises should think more clearly, how dare i think they may have thinking issues and be sensitive in those times, ridiculous of me /s so I'm gonna rate them 6.5/10. This also probably depends on who you get. I'm gonna have to DQ chris@switchboard.lgbt because I genuinely forgot I had any interaction with them, they seem alright and I suppose if you're struggling with gender and sexuality they're worth a shot? I'm rather comfortable in my identity now so I don't want to take that resource away from people for any experiment like this. CHILDLINE - Not just that one phone number you call if your parents are abusive. Genuinely childline is so misrepresented due to what we classify as abuse like if you are under 18, you can go on childline and play games, have a live chat feature with counsellors, ask on message boards, view message boards or send as an email instead of the chat. You can choose! I think it would be amazing even for adults but once again, no stealing resources. "But I have DID and it's complicated cause my little needs help-" dude I'm not qualified for that, you probably know more than I do like don't put this on me. I cannot remember one negative experience with them. I just remember being scared and messaging people, OH AND THE NOTES YOU CAN ASK THEM TO READ NOTES SO THEY'RE CAUGHT UP ON STUFF EVEN IN LIVE CHAT. 9.5/10 would be a 10 if I was still a child but I'm unfortunately 23 so im bitter. It may have changed but now but I strongly encourage people to try it because I didn't want to because I thought it was only for kids being physically abused, it's also for like teenagers who are self harming. SHOUT - Oh Shout, you are the most 50/50 out of these. I genuinely use SHOUT more than samaritans now but it can go really bad. I message and am like "hello i wanna drink myself to death" but if i do that on like friday nights or something, the wait times are massively long and I've found some other way to soothe myself but when they are there they do talk very gently, they offer valid resources about things like as pdfs this time not just links to websites of people that can help. It's similar to counselling in person imo so it's about vibes sometimes. 8/10 or wait/10 damn those wait times KOKO - I'm glad it exists but haven't found much help from it personally. I do like that it sorta puts less stress on people that want to help social media accounts in crisis like that's a very important thing we didn't have when I first had the internet and it caused a lot of damage but in terms of the rating of how it helped 4/10.

GP - OMG GPs right? Anyone in the UK that's been to a GP for depression will immediately be thinking "oh right a WALK ADN SOME TEA RIGHT??" because that's always your first offer. Always. I should also mention I never went to CAMHs because of how my GP saw me, I went to a different centre for at risk youths in a different town in the most wonderful and bizarre therapy I've ever had but that place has shut down and there's absolutely no way other people have had that experience because whenever I say this stuff to people they may as be looking at me like I'm talking about narnia. GPs don't really seem to take you seriously until you're 18. But people don't seem to be really listening, your antidepressants aren't gonna stop your depression. They're going to fight it a little bit but you gotta do other stuff to get the endorphins and that's where the walks and exercise come in. People will bitch about theirs not working and they don't listen to what the GP says like "they keep upping my dose cause it isnt working!" then you find out that person has been drinking every other day which cancels those meds out. So with all that said, GPs are getting a 5/10. Some of mine were really helpful, some sucked, age is a big factor.

I hope you are able to use this info or even just now be more aware of all the help you can get in the new year. It's time to get happy again <3

[cloudninetonine]

Half asleep headcanon for Courage and his Zelda since I apparently frequent the blog now? (What would be/are Courage and Koridai's Zelda's nicknames btw?)

Courage and Zelda were actually swapped at birth. Ik it's a little insane and needs a bit of bending the fiction but doesn't all hcs do that? Essentially, Courage was actually meant to be Princess Zelda and was born to the King and Queen, and a servant within the castle had Zelda around the same time, but she was meant to be Link.

This is why Zelda is the more courageous one of the two and Courage is the one who flees from battle more often. Also why Courage can understand the language of the fae, because he's connected to immortality through the Goddess himself. Courage possesses the Triforce of Wisdom, whilst Zelda the Triforce of Courage (was it ever answered where that piece of the Triforce went eventually?).

Ik you may be asking 'why were they switched at birth, Russ?'. Well, idk to be honest. Probably because the servant knew that their child was going to have to fight Ganon one day and didn't want that burden on them since they couldn't train Zelda themselves. So they switched the newborns. Zelda's now parents are royalty so they could have the money, resources, and time to train their hero, but they didn't, because the King and Queen were none the wiser.

It's midnight as I submit this but I thought I'd share my ideas coz it's always fun to voice ideas that really have no logical reason to exist. Courage is now my new favourite toy to play with in a way.

WOOOOOO RUSS MIDNIGHT BUDDIES!!!!

Also, I love your interpretation of those two! Always loved the old switched at birth trope (idk why maybe I like the drama-) and this is amazing!

I ended up dubbing Courage's Zelda as Wisdom since, you know, Zelda usually holds the triforce of Wisdom and Koridai's I've seen has just been called Gamelon!

[mewtonian-physics]

"zuko alone episode" is a reference to avatar the last airbender where in the second season the deuteragonist is isolated from all other established characters. a lot happens in it tht i cant summarize in 500 letters. i think actually you'd have to have seen it to get what i mean. but i basically am trying to say "how does raiden function in the world, how do people perceive him, when he is existing outside of the videogame narrative module". how does he fare w strangers

very fair i have not watched that show so i did not get the reference, i am uncultured or something who knows.

im going to put this under a cut because i will be talking about sexual harassment and thanks to a certain ex-president that will unfortunately include (non-graphic) discussion of assault. homophobia + transphobia will be referred to as well. because people suck, and i don't just mean the ones in the metal gear universe. (has what i've seen from certain sections of the metal gear fanbase heavily influenced my perspective on raiden's general life experiences? yes. yes, it unfortunately has.)

i think raiden and the rest of the world are... i think there's kind of a gap between them, at least from his perspective. he doesn't quite know how to deal with strangers, so more often than not he just... doesn't try. it doesn't help that i think--well, i know, all i have to do is look at the early mgs2 playerbase and even sections of today's players to get an indication of how some people would respond to his existence--he'd have to deal with some pretty awful harassment and that would make him even less inclined to be social. why bother risking it?

that gets even worse after mgs2 because fuck you president johnson [coughs] i mean like. it's bad enough just dealing with that in regular situations. dealing with it from a man whose life you're trying to save? (i'd add specifically that it's the president, but unfortunately that really doesn't make it any more shocking.) at this point the idea of being at ease around strangers is ridiculous to him. since, y'know. he apparently can't do anything without risk. (can you tell i'm really fucking mad about that scene? because i am. i've only found one angle to look at it from that makes any sense and it is, of course, the absolute worst option available.) so he's really not good with strangers. at least, not adults. there's no way in hell he hasn't helped at least one lost kid find their parents or something like that, idk.

also reminder that i do not take rose's word alone as any kind of resource on account of how she does not stop lying so as far as i'm concerned the space between mgs2 and mgs4 is wide open in terms of what happens. i think after he made the decision to separate himself from rose (there is no way he didn't blame himself for what 'happened' and i am of the opinion that he left because the guilt was eating him alive and he was afraid he'd somehow make things even worse if he stayed) his difficulty figuring out what was real and what wasn't just got even worse, and he just... spiraled. not in the way rose told it, but he absolutely did spiral. i don't think alcohol ever really factored into it--the poor guy's head was messed up enough already, not being sure if anything in his life was real, he wouldn't want to risk making that any worse.

i think he probably was just wandering for a while, looking for something to do with himself, not really caring what happened to him. he just wanted to feel like a human being. someone real and tangible. if something could do that, could ground him, then what else really mattered? it wouldn't even bother him if he was badly hurt, as long as the pain could make him believe he really existed.

deciding to rescue sunny was what gave him something to focus on. fast forward to between the time when he left the PLA after becoming a cyborg and the start of mgs4; he perceived himself as a monster and decided that it would be better to isolate himself again, this time from everyone. eva insisted on having a way to keep in contact with him, but he never reached out to her, only ever the other way around. and he didn't even consider anyone else as possibilities. he stopped seeing himself as human. who was he supposed to talk to? in his mind there wasn't anyone left who wouldn't hate him (rose), be disappointed in him (snake), pity him (eva), or be downright terrified of him (sunny). and after that, people... well, that part is canon.

so uh i guess what i'm saying is that when it comes to how he functions in the world... he doesn't. not in regards to other people anyway. he can be quite self-sufficient (though that doesn't mean he always is, just that he can be when he wants to be) but his interactions with the rest of the world are awkward at best and nonexistent at worst.

i think... i'm actually thinking more about pre-mgs2 rn, sorry, but i think the rest of the world would just perceive him as odd, in multiple different ways, how he looked, how he acted. the way he was polite to everyone (or maybe just anxious) but never casual with anyone, never seeming to be friendly, always carried himself with so much tension, never made eye contact, too quiet, too withdrawn. 'effeminate.' (you know how it goes with the homophobia.) because of course so many people would judge him for the way he looked the moment they found out he wasn't a woman (not a man, either, but he didn't even really understand that himself, much less know how to explain it to other people). face too soft, jawline not sharp enough, features too delicate, eyes too large, eyelashes too long, hair too pretty, too feminine in the way it brushed his shoulders. even the general shape of his body was wrong. (note: these are NOT things i agree with they are however things i have seen other people complain about with regards to him. like i said earlier, a lot of my thoughts on his experiences with others were influenced by the reactions i've seen irl people have.) a lot of people would just see him as weird, or 'deviant', or whatever. and he wasn't exactly well socialized as a child (+ i hc him as autistic), so that'd just make things even harder. his experiences with the rest of the world would not be particularly fun ones.

idk. idk. i feel like i'm probably going on about things you weren't asking about at this point. if you have specific questions about stuff lmk i really do enjoy answering questions like these it's just i have so many thoughts that it's not always easy to figure out what i'm actually supposed to be saying lol. hence why it took me two hours to answer this.

[certified-queer-disaster]

Hi, I am currently creating a transgender superhero, named Asmita Ramakrishnan, whose parents grew up in India and moved to America before she was born. I am looking for people to talk to and resources to go over that can tell me (1)what it’s like growing up in an Indian household and (2)how being transgender is viewed by religious Hindu parents. I want my story to be very authentic, or as authentic as possible. Can you help me? Thank you in advance :)

I can help with the first, but unfortunately I don't personally know much about the second, since I typically avoid topics regarding the community near them.

Growing up will vary based on nuclear or joint families, with joint families being excessively hands on at times, and offering very little independence. Depending on which of these her parents grew up in things will change.

Now, the concept of privacy is near non existent in most traditional families, and you do not lock your room unless you're changing clothes. So I'd advise you to be careful with the superhero business, since sneaking out is nigh impossible with Indian parents. Phones will probably be gone through, so will laptops.

Also Indian parents do NOT leave you home alone, they will send you over to a trusted family member's / friend's house or they will take you with them, you won't be staying alone until you're 18.

Bad scores are indeed blasphemy. You must be getting 80% at a bare minimum that's still going to get you yelled at. Is the whole myth about doctors, lawyers and engineers true? Hell no, they are highly respected professions, but there won't be too much pressure to have only them. However, arts are considered useless, science and commerce are pretty much the only good choices. People will still appreciate it however if you do classical dance, though I don't know that you'd have the opportunity to learn in America.

Love is generally expressed through food, which is just spicy enough and ALWAYS has haldi, and your mum will usually make it (gender roles are pretty rigid). Speaking of gender roles, as someone they perceive as a boy, she will be given far more freedom, but curfew is still 10 (stretching it).

If there are any older siblings or cousins they are bhaiya/didi (no inclusive language). The words used to refer to your aunts and uncles vary based on whether they married in or were born into the family, and based on which side of they family they are from.

Her parents probably got an arranged marriage, this does not mean they had no time to get to know eachother before or after saying yes, or that they didn't have final say over the marriage, however it does mean that their parents considered the person's finances, their family, astrology stuff (not like the zodiac look up kundli), whether the girl could cook (why yes it is indeed the middle ages), their grades, their skin colour (there is a LOT of colourism in India, however as mtf it would affect her less than anyone perceived as a woman).

I'll add more as I recall, feel free to add your own.

[silveryinkystar]

Oooh character ask game:

Kendal or Anakin (specifically from swtcw) ?

(I know this is over a week old eep but I'm answering it now)

Kendal

favorite thing about them: He's friend shaped your honour

I'm only half-kidding, he seems like (and is!) a really good friend once you get to know him - by which I mean, have a conversation with him for more than twenty minutes which probably involves existential philosophy because he's like fifteen days old??? Who has had all of one awful nap in his life???

least favorite thing about them: Tbh I enjoy Kendal as a well-rounded character, and while he does have reasonable character flaws they're not really things I dislike

favorite line: "At its heart, law and justice is about serving and preserving the people it defends. If [Zuurith] really wanted to be a god of law, he'd have become a god that cared about people." (1.13.13)

brOTP: Alinua and Dainix! I love the gang in general but these two in particular hold a special place in my heart <3

OTP: I would maybe, MAYBE, be alright with Kendal and Alinua as QPPs, otherwise it's a massive NOPE.

nOTP: Everybody!

random headcanon: I like to imagine that he really, really likes spicy food but vastly (Vash-tly) overestimates his spice tolerance - while he does inhabit Vash's body now, he forgets that he didn't inherit everything from him. So Kendal is slightly disappointed by the fact that he has to build up to it (again, technically).

unpopular opinion: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

song i associate with them: "Moving to a New House" by Joe Hisashi from the Howl's Moving Castle OST! Aside from the title, it's got a very sweet air going on with some level of drama, which I love

favorite picture of them: [ID in alt text, source]

Blue Kendal is the best Kendal, but this was a close tie from the last panel of 1.15.32 ft. Dainix, which is an incredible fighting pose.

Anakin

Note: As asked, I'm working with the main perspective of TCW!Anakin, but his arc in this show is a part of his greater arc in the prequels, so there's no way I can avoid touching on some aspects of his character from the movies here.

favorite thing about them: His ability to be chill under (literal) fire. He's a good Master to Ahsoka too, knows when to call her out on her mistakes and teaches her well in a very Jedi-like way, even if he doesn't always follow those lessons himself.

least favorite thing about them: His possessiveness. Being around him as someone close to him must be utterly exhausting, and especially since he defaults his expression of negative emotions to anger. Aside from it being one of my least favorite romance tropes, he keeps doubling down and not working on his issues (which is understandable! it's HARD even with resources to admit to need help!) but rather completely avoiding the fact that they exist.

favorite line: All of his wisecracking, especially in TCW, but mostly "General Grievous, you're shorter than I expected." And also his super dramatic love confession in Geonosis in AotC, which one of my professors has called "Shakespearean" in levels of drama. I can't say that I disagree.

brOTP: Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, and Rex! The found family vibes are off the charts in TCW and I love it so much

OTP: Padme, but in like a healthy relationship kind of way and not the dumpsterfire it is in canon (don't @ me, they're more in love with the idea of loving each other than they love each other - which they do! they love each other very much! but padme, at least, is more captivated by the fantasy - otherwise she would have shut him down in aotc to maybe revisit the thought at a later date and be a properly cute couple after anakin deals with his issues. love them both but they need couples counselling)

nOTP: Ahsoka and Obi-Wan. Both are hard nos, Master-Padawan relationships are routinely compared to parent-child and/or sibling-esque relationships in both Canon and Legends, and I'd appreciate if people stopped tagging my GEN Obi&Ani sets with the ship tag, thanks

random headcanon: Bi Anakin! I'm fairly certain in the comics he loves theatre, so I hc that he got a horrible crush on two lead actors of a play he really liked and made a fool of himself meeting one of them on a mission, before proceeding to do his best to repress that memory. It doesn't work, but only because Obi-Wan a) told Padme about it and b) they never let him live it down.

unpopular opinion: I don't like that he changed the colour of Ahsoka's sabers - we see the ritual aspect of the Gathering in TCW and know that Ahsoka choosing the crystals of not one, but two sabers must have been a deeply personal thing for her, so the fact that he changes them seems like he's kind of stepping on that. There's a post that articulates it better but I can't really remember where it is so ehh

song i associate with them: "Bleeding Out" by Imagine Dragons. For obvious reasons.

favorite picture of them: [ID in alt text, GIF by me]

Character Ask

[fallin-flcwer]

Fifty Questions With Spotlight // Youi Moon

THINGS YOU’RE NEVER ASKED

which song went to number 1 on your birthday? (find out here) "for the u.k. it's The Long And Winding Road by Will Young & Gareth Gates and for the u.s. it's A Moment Like This by Kelly Clarkson."

if you could turn any scent into a candle, what would it be? "A candle that smells the way cherries taste, if that makes sense? Most cherry flavoured things I come across taste very... artificial."

which element best suits you: fire, earth, water or air? "Fire, i think"

what’s the worst grade you’ve ever got on a test? "C+. History is my weakness."

what’s the best grade you’ve ever got on a test? "A+."

how many countries have you travelled to? "The list would go on forever so i'm just gonna narrow it down by saying most of Asia, the US and some of the UK."

who is your favourite disney character? "Tadashi from Big Hero 6. Mostly because I had a massive crush on him when the movie came out."

what is one thing people believe that you don’t? "Things like soulmates and love at first sight doesn't exist. The fantasy that you will have all your needs met in a relationship without ever having to be vulnerable isn't true. Sometimes you need to communicate things to your partner in order to receive it."

do you usually drink enough water in a day? "Most days, yeah."

what’s your middle name? "I don't have one!"

PARENTS

do you know both of your parents? "Yeah, I do."

are they together? "Yep!"

are you adopted? "No"

what’s your favourite memory with your parent(s)? "Mum taking me and my siblings to the first hotel built in her chain. I was around five at the time. It was so fascinating to see something that's a big part of me, yet so much bigger than me."

what did your parent(s) study when they were at the academy? "My mum studied music and dance."

which project of your parent(s) is your favourite? "I'm very passionate about this topic, but for me it's a mix between Dream of You and Stay Tonight! It still baffles me that Roller Coaster is the first song people associate with her still."

which parent is the strictest? "Mum."

which parent do you look most like physically? "I'm gonna say mum, though I think I resemble my grandmother more."

which parent do you behave the most like? "I think I've spent most of my teen years going against the grain simply because I could get away with it, but these days I'm definitely trying to behave more like my mum."

are you close? "Yes!"

THIS OR THAT

the titanic or the notebook? "The Notebook. Though Titanic gets brownie points for having young Leo DiCaprio."

dc or marvel? "Marvel movies, DC comics.."

disney or pixar? "Disney"

pink or green? "Pink."

summer or winter? "Summer."

spring or autumn? "Autumn."

dogs or cats? "Cats."

rom-coms or horrors/thrillers? "Horrors and thrillers."

nights in or nights out? "it's 50/50 for me. it really depends on the day."

early riser or night owl? "Early riser."

GETTING PERSONAL

what age did you have your first kiss? "16."

have you lost your virginity? how old were you? "Yeah, I was 17 at the time."

what’s your biggest regret? "I don't think I have any. To be fair, I try to avoid having any."

which song most reflects your life so far? "Flourishing by my mother. I might be biased but it's such a motivational i-don't-give-a-fuck kind of song."

what’s your biggest fear in life? "Being alone."

do you want to get married? "That's not really something i've thought about."

do you want children? "Nope, but who knows? That might change.'

what is a cause you feel strongly about? "Hidden spy-cam p*rn... In Korea it's called 'molka' and it's freaking disgusting. My family has no tolerance for it, and people that have attempted to install cameras have all get caught and arrested. The fact that it's still such a problem in South Korea scares me."

what’s your sexuality? "Heterosexual"

when in life did you feel the loneliest? "It was when I went to Gallagher. Even though i kind of asked for it, I quickly realised that I missed home and my family."

10 TRUTHS

have you ever skinny-dipped? "No"

ever had inappropriate thoughts about somebody you shouldn’t? "Yes"

what’s the worst thing you’ve said behind somebody’s back? "I can't think of any on the spot, but it was probably a joke about my brother... San, if you're reading this, I love you!"

have you ever sent a sexual text? "Probably LOL"

is there anything you dislike for no apparent reason? "Frogs."

what’s the most recent lie you’ve ever told? "I had a fun time in Amsterdam."

can you put your hand on your heart and say you’ve never complimented a project you didn’t really like? "Yes, but I have complimented projects I didn't fully pay attention too."

the best advice you’ve ever been given? "When it comes to your career be as selfish as possible. Your company will always do what’s best for the company so you need to do what’s best for you."

a quote you try to live by? "A tree doesn't fall by one blow."

where do you want to be in ten years? "This might sound really ambitious, even for me, but I'd love to establish my own talent agency ten years down the line. I'd love to give rising artists a platform to showcase their talents, give them the creative freedom over their sound, look, concepts, and the resources to do so, whether they want to self-produce or need help from me or in-house producers."

[childofsolace-write-ups]

Arc 01: REUNION

::THOMAS::

"What do you think sunlight feels like?"

I look up and see Nina coming through the right hand tunnel entrance, not even saying hello first. That usually means she was deep in thought on her way here again.

"I really don't remember." I tell her, setting down the book I'd been pretending to read.

It was something about the new things they expected to be able to do with machines. I didn't really have a reason to be fond of those stupid things. It's not exactly a picnic, depending on the machines for everyday living. It'd be awfully hard to breathe underground without them, for one thing. And—insert sarcastic tone here—how on earth would ordinary people survive without fucking reading lights. Seriously, with the number of issues that needs addressing, they give us extra lighting in bunkers, of all things?

Personally, I'd rather take my chances with whatever's up there on ground level. If Trey, Kytes, and the others survived...

That's kinda the thing, though. After all these years, I have no way of knowing if they DID survive or WHAT they survived as. The atmosphere was said to do awfully strange things to ordinary people. I miss my little brother, though. And I hope Trey was doing okay, too. He was my best friend growing up after all.

"Do you?"

Nina clicks on the kitchen lamp. It's pretty cramped up in our compartment bunker, so she'd probably do fine with the little reading light I'm using but she looks at it for a moment and sighed. "It's been too long," she says. "I wonder if they even still have sunlight up there. You know, considering all that's happened."

"Oh, they probably do."

I click off the reading light. No need to be careless with the energy we had. No matter how much they wanted us to believe the machines supplied boundless electricity. I couldn't, not with the reason they sent away Kytes and Trey with a whole bunch of other orphans being the worry for lack of resources. Not with Nina working there everyday. We depended on qualified individuals now for our energy supply. As in, people. Humans, to produce energy, if that makes sense as if they were hamsters running repeatedly in wheels for a Science project. It makes me feel queasy just thinking about it. I don't know how Nina can let them. She's a lot braver than I could be, that's for sure. Maybe a lot more reckless, too. Well, Trey was her brother.

He rubbed off on her...

Then again, I haven't even seen the guy the last eight years, so how would I know that? Nina was all I really had left in memory of him and my own brother. You died younger down here than you would when people lived above when it was still up there. Both Nina's parents are gone, mine died in a fire accident years before the radiation up there first hit. My Uncle, who made it possible for me and my brother to still live here whenever they had to send out orphans, died a year after I turned thirteen. Then, in one Release before I turned thirteen, my brother opted to take Nina's place instead because she's been sick that time and she wouldn't have lasted an hour up there even with Trey's help, who had just been ten then. But I never held it against Trey or resent Nina. We knew each other even before all this, Trey was my best friend just as long as Nina was Kytes's. And I would've done the same if it had been Trey.

Although, I laugh at the idea of Kytes staying down here with him. It might be him who had to watch over the damn lummox.

Now with Nina's parents gone and my Uncle passing away, I was old enough to stand as her guardian until she turned thirteen herself next week. Not that it mattered cause she won't be moving out and I'm not kicking her out either. But on the event I died after her birthday, she wouldn't have to be sent away. So now we shared a cramped compartment on a fairly low level, which was good. The lower you are, the farther you are from the dangers of Ground level.

Level 01 had some data gathering stations for researches and old residence cells. They were Orphanages every now and then, until those who weren't adopted were sent out anyway, the cells were used for residence bunkers to the Poor class.

Level 02 to 30 had the residence cells according to social status of the Middle-class. Point blunt.

Level 31 to 35 had the commerce centers, radio stations and whatever establishments that had existed back and is possible to continue down here. There are movie halls, too, but obviously no one makes movies anymore. We watched the films that was brought down here with us during the evacuation. Before I thought it was pretty cool, now I think of how stupid it is. Of all the other important things they could have brought down, they settled for movies. Anyway, those levels are what you can consider the central city, if you can call it that since there are hardly any Skyscrapers anymore. Not that they would've fit down here, anyway.

Level 35 to 49 have residence cells for Elites and Government officials, the Councillors and the Techs with their family, if any. Since Nina is a Machine tech, we are privileged to be in Level 35.

The better people, the Councillors, get Level 37 to 49 according to importance of Office.

I don't really know what Level 50 holds, which is the lowest of the low. But some rumors I heard assumes it's a laboratory of sorts. Still, while we have it good as much as we could down here, I wonder about life in the surface.

"What makes you think so?" Nina snaps me back to reality. That perceptive brown-eyed gaze on me, a startling sense of knowing. "For all we know, it's getting worse up there. There's no way of knowing."

I snort. "No one bothers to check. Even if they did, there's no report. For all we know," I mimick her tone. "everything's back to normal, like in the Disney movie with the Garbage Robot going to outer space. We'd never know it, down here. They think we've got everything but it's all stupid..."

"Thomas," she studies me for a moment. "Are you still planning to go up there?"

"Soon."

I say the same thing everyday, but when have I ever acted on my words? I'm caught in a cycle just like every other moron in this stupid Underground settlement. And I know I'm still afraid to see how much things changed up there even as I'm dying to know at the same time.

"I want to see my brother," I continue. "How he and Trey are doing... If they're still alive, that is."

"Do you think they're still alive?" Nina asks, as if we don't talk about this everyday. Like she expects a different answer or something. It's been years and she still asks. "Well, do you?"

I can't give it to her though, "I don't know, maybe." The first few times she cried. Now, she simply nods.

"When are we going?"

I sigh at her persistence. It's not like it was easy, we can't just walk straight to the guards by the exit of the city and say, Hey we're leaving this dump so later losers! Without being questioned.

"Whenever it seems like a good time."

Naturally, I say this every time she asks. I think she's starting to think that it will never be a good time. I've begun to wonder about that myself. Actually, I want to go and see my brother. I want to go and see Nina's brother. It's tough finding a friend like him. Only Trey's been able to break down the walls I built ever since mom and dad died. He made me play soccer, even when I was never into sports. We'd go wild in the service tunnels, I break a lady's vase and we're both in trouble. Him at the Orphanage and me with my Uncle. But those were the good old days. I want to get back living above the ground, breathing for myself, instead of relying on machines to help me do it and rotting away in a metal cave some thirty feet or so below it. But thinking about something and actually doing it are two different matters.

Nina tilts her head then surprises me a bit by breaking our odd little mantra. Instead of agreeing and starting lunch, she asks a new question. "Thomas, do you think we could leave before the week is up?"

I stare at her in wonder. "Well, sure thing!" I mock-enthuse, "Let me call the guys at the Radio station to reschedule my shift this week. Oh. And have someone replace me as Head Chef for the Wedding Catering next month."

"Thomas," Nina pouts. "I'm being serious."

I'm still surprised but now also curious. "Why the sudden eagerness?"

"I met this girl in work today. Her name was Lindsay Caghan. Do you know her?"

I shake my head. I've never heard the name. But then, that doesn't mean a thing. I use my name when Live on air during Radio broadcasts so there could be a bunch of people who know me without me returning the favor.

"Well, she knows you. She knows you work at the station three days a week and as a chef during the Weekends." Now that's something. I usually stay at the kitchen so no one would guess I'm a Chef but my co-workers. I don't even have lots of friends anymore to be told about to others. Nina sinks slowly into the couch beside me. It was also my bed since I've offered the real bed to her. "I didn't say a word, Thomas. I don't know how she knows, but she does. And that's not the half of it. She knows our desire to leave."

Well, I wouldn't really call it a desire. "So?" I raise a brow. "What can she do? It's not like they'd actually care if we left. They'd be glad for the extra space."

"She doesn't want to stop us, Thomas." Nina explains, halting my instinctive string of defensive cynical arguments. "Far from it actually."

"Then what does she want?"

"You won't like it."

Oh jeez, I had to laugh at that. "There's a lot of things I don't like," I remind her. "I don't like these metal cages they call homes, I don't like those machines that use people as energy sources. And I definitely don't like how they sent our brothers and a whole group of other orphans yearly to the surface as a solution to minimizing shortages and leaving them to deal with whatever dangers the surface has to offer." I threw my arm behind her, mostly to stretch than anything else. "Now tell me, what else am I adding to this very long list?"

"All right," Nina smiles a little. "Lindsay brought up the subject in private. And she had a request for you. There's someone she wants us to take up to the surface when we go."

I stare at her for a second, wondering if she was joking. The expression on her face tells me she's not. "No way, nope. No." I say. I haven't even fully decided whether I, myself, wanted to go. I'm not all for including others. Before long, we'd have a whole army with us. "I do not like that one bit."

Nina rolls her eyes. "I expected as much." She sighs. "I'm not certain who she wants to send with us, but she seemed fairly urgent about it." She tells me, a strange look on her face. She looks like that whenever she's truly serious about something. That can't be good for me. Then there will be no refusing her.

"Urgent how?"

"Well," She hesitates. "she seemed nervous. As if what she's planning is something that could get her in trouble. I think we should at least hear her out."

"Nina," I rub my forehead. "you don't think that the person she wants us to take is herself, do you? If she's run into some kind of trouble with the law..." I don't finish that. I'm not a huge fan of the Councillors, but even I'm not cynical enough to get on their bad side so boldly enough to break the law. "you know I'd rather this doesn't turn into an escape propaganda."

Nina shakes her head, looking thoughtful. "No, I think it's bigger than that. I don't think she's doing this for her own safety. I think she's risking her safety and it's making her scared. But she really seems desperate to have us agree."

"I don't know Nina, it doesn't seem like a very good idea, including others." I hope I can make her see where I'm coming from. She's a teenager now, and I know I am too, but I expect the moodiness of a teenage girl to be something too much to handle. And if I give her a no... Well, just because Nina's never thrown a tantrum doesn't mean she couldn't start now. "we could end up with a lot of company and not all of them welcome."

"I don't think so, Thomas. The way she acted, I think this is a private problem. It was like she didn't want anyone else to know. But she seems pretty concerned. If it's illegal, it's illegal in a good way." she looks at me with bright eyes. "Know what I mean?"

I sigh. No, I really don't but what I do know is that there was no talking her out of this. "You mean some kind of Noble act? Like a Holy crusade or..."

"No, but it'd be something humane. Or she wouldn't bother," Nina retorts. "I think we should listen to her. It's probably important."

I groan, holding my hands up in surrender. "All right," I exhale, giving in, because who can function in the face of that kind of persistence?

Women complicated things. Uncle would always say. And he's right.

Nina had already made up her mind and it's futile to get her to give up. She's Trey's sister all right. "Fine. We'll talk to her. Why don't you try and get her to tell you exactly what she wants from us? I'm not making any promises until I know what we're getting into."

"Thank you, Thomas." Nina gives me a soft smile, the kind that gets just about anyone to do whatever she wants. I'm a victim of that countless of times. "I have a feeling that this is the right thing to do."

But not necessarily the smartest, I think to myself. "Great."

Nina shrugs and smothers a yawn. She's tired. But then again, she's always tired now. Working with machines is a strain. I pretend not to see the dark circles under her eyes, but I think it's wearing on her. That's just one more reason to take her away from this place. I know she's strong enough to handle it but I don't want her to have to.

"Make sure you ask the right questions." I remind her. "I don't want this Lindy girl tricking us to agreeing to more than we want. Be careful."

"It's Lindsay." Nina corrects before smiling. "And I have a better idea than that, Thomas." she says. "how would you like it if I arranged it so that you could meet her?"

"... No."

We argue again, even though I know Nina will eventually get her way nevertheless.

[somnilogical]

ratheka: unjustly banned somni to preempt protest of their unjust banning of emma, which is unjust

emma was protesting cfar instructor davis tower kingsley. this davis tower kingsley:

<<memento mori: Masturbation is considered grave matter, so if someone masturbates with full knowledge that this is wrong and deliberately consents to it then yes, this is a mortal sin, and if they do not repent of it then yes, they will go to hell.>>

<<dirk: like… “only unrepentant sinners go to hell” is not comforting to unrepentant sinners

TowerNumberNine: it is certainly comforting relative to the doctrine of “homosexuals are damned and cursed and cannot possibly repent” which many have sadly encountered>>

and more here: https://everythingtosaveit.how/#davis-tower-kingsley and there is much more than is even written there which those in possession of akashic records or discord logs may give an account of.

i will not repent and submit to pope anna salamon kingsley.

kingsley is in no way a warrior for social justice. yes they are an instructor at “the center for applied rationality”, no there is not some unintuitive deeply wise reason for this. its just what cfar is at this point. “taxing transfems for existing and transferring resources to cisfems” is talking about something zack davis said.

transcript of emma and kingsley: https://0bin.net/paste/teXP7x-IJot61kro#0ZAkytrL7DWmMM8HRFdgdgGS4vV6d7aifuR9Kf8sqkX

[A/N: i didnt say anything this entire time, then found emma and somni were banned, then later found i was unbanned and so was emma. kingsley was also banned.]

somni talks with ratheka:

#discourse-and-debate

[10:56] 𒀭 💮: @Ratheka for what just reason did you ban me from this server?

[11:03] 𒀭 💮: what did i do?

i think you should hand in your badge and gun, resign from the force. as far as i can tell, there was no just cause for this aggression.

[11:05] LeoTal: Er, sorry, are you ban-evading? Or do you mean "banned and just unbanned"?

[11:10] 𒀭 💮: i do not wish to speak with you, answer your questions, or sign or hand you any documents based on my 5th amendment rights under the united states constitution.

i choose to exercise my constitutional rights.

[11:12] Ratheka: In expectation of having exactly this argument, s/me/emma

[11:12] 𒀭 💮: in expectation of me protesting being unjustly banned, you unjustly banned me?

[11:12] 𒀭 💮: that makes no sense

[11:12] Ratheka: This is not the united states, the constitution does not in fact bind leo, who afaik doesn't even live in the states

[11:13] deluks917: Somni you got unbanned. The moderators made a mistake and we corrected it reasonably quickly.

[11:13] 𒀭 💮: would you violate my 5th amendment rights?

[11:13] Ratheka: You can choose not to talk to him, but that's not the same as exercising the fifth.  It's the first; speech and association

[11:13] LeoTal: I was just trying to clarify in case I misunderstood the meaning. Sorry for shitstirring, shutting up now.

[11:13] deluks917: Please let this go

[11:14] 𒀭 💮: why was i banned?

[11:16] conifer: why was somni banned, i'd like to know that too?

[11:20] deluks917: Ratheka predicted Somni would get angry because Emma was banned and post disruptive things. This is not (imo) a good reason to ban someone even if Emma's ban was justified (imo it was not). Given this Somni was unbanned in about a day.

[11:21] deluks917: Idk what you really want us to do here. We already reversed the bans.

[11:23] 𒀭 💮: ratheka predicted correctly that i would object to an unjust banning of emma. destroying opposition so they cannot protest your poor decisions is wrong.

i want justice, i want ratheka's ability to ban people removed from them. i want them to hand in their badge and gun and resign from the force.

[11:24] 𒀭 💮: if people's ability to ban others is not affected by abuse of power for unjust ends, there is no check on abuse of power. there is no differential incentive between banning justly and banning unjustly.

and you get people like ratheka who ban people in anticipation of their opposition to unjust rulings.

[11:28] 𒀭 💮: saying that things are fine because other humans corrected ratheka's mistake and why are you worrying about stuff is wrong.

i want things to be such that if ratheka knew what would happen downstream of unjustly banning someone and then banning any vocal opposition to their choice, that they would not unjustly ban someone in the first place.

[11:38] 𒀭 💮: otherwise you are as moral as a police force at each step pays some restitution to compensate for a cop who unjustly destroy peoples property, but never fires them for their unjust behaviour. encourages people to work around those who wish to do unjust things and then neutralize anyone who they think might protest against their immoral actions. as some sort of missing stair. http://pervocracy.blogspot.com/2012/06/missing-stair.html (its unrepresentative that the cops would pay restitution.)

"oh thats just ratheka, sometimes they ban people and then ban people they expect to oppose their ban, you just have to work around them. yeah they can still ban people."

you could say this is silly and the scope of this problem is small and why do you care? but

1 if the scope of this is small does that not apply evenly to all things, would not the scope of removing ratheka's ability to ban people also be small?

2 its important to work things out algorithmically at all scales, so you get things right. the problem of choice in getting things right when theres different amounts of utility at stake, for the same thing, is equivalent. getting the trolly problem right is the same choice whether it deals with the lives of 6 people or 6000000000 people. https://somnilogical.tumblr.com/post/174174621274/wetradelives-felt-mildly-bad-about-my-url

[11:48] 𒀭 💮: the unjust silencing of dissent against authoritarianism, is wrong. then silencing people expected to dissent to the unjust silencing of dissent against authoritarianism is 2x wrong.

my mom grew up in uruguay, her parents were political dissidents, they were put in jail for 6 days and warned that the next time they would be jailed for 6 years. both anyone who dissented and anyone who spoke up for those who dissented risked getting disappeared. they left uruguay, immigrated to america and now she writes books and papers on the regime's gaslighting.

it was unjust when this happened on the scale of a country, it is unjust when this happens on the scale of a discord server.

[11:51] 𒀭 💮: there was no just cause for what ratheka did, but there can be justice for things done for no just cause.

[11:52] purrtrandrussell: I think you have a point, somni, but I'd rather give Ratheka another chance. I think she's learned from her mistake.

[11:52] deluks917: I agree Somni has a point.

[11:52] purrtrandrussell: like if this became a pattern it would be really bad

[11:52] purrtrandrussell: but first offense and all

[11:54] purrtrandrussell: Pragmatically, distributing the amount of work between mods is pretty valuable, given all of us have stuff to do, not a ton of time, etc. and I don't really want to increase the total labor load per person on something I expect to be a one-off thing

[11:57] 𒀭 💮: i dont. ratheka didnt articulate why what they did was unjust.

when i said that i held by the 5th amendment they were like "that doesnt apply here" rather than like respect the rights i asserted.

which is a thing ive encountered with other people who then tried to find other ways to violate my rights.

aaa its kind of absurd that a small discord server is too big to fail??? like justice should come first in logical time (the order in which logical structure in a venacular sense "principles" are considered) and then you find new mods downstream of this instead of flipped around.

[11:58] 𒀭 💮: like, i think you could find one person here to take on this workload in ratheka's stead.

[11:59] purrtrandrussell: So, if you look at what Ratheka said, she didn't dispute that you had a right to not talk to leo if you didn't want to, she was nitpicking about whether or not this qualified as a fifth amendment thing

[11:59] purrtrandrussell: "You can choose not to talk to him, but that's not the same as exercising the fifth.  It's the first; speech and association"

[11:59] Ratheka: So:

Somni, I specifically and without pushing from anyone save you, just now, honestly apologize to you. I agree that my actions were unjust. I stated my belief as such shortly after I took it, and presented to argument to reversing it.  Yes, I fucked up, and I am, in fact, regretful. I did not think that an apology would provide you with any satisfaction, so I did not offer it, but I do in fact intend to do better in future.

The fifth amendment is the right to refuse to answer questions when talking to agents of the government so that you do not incriminate yourself.

[12:00] 𒀭 💮: why was what you did unjust?

[12:01] Ratheka: Because I was trying to reduce the amount of attention I needed to pay, and vexation suffer, by exercising power in a way that had not been justified by your actions taken in this case.

[12:09] 𒀭 💮: thats not really why, nor does it differentiate between what you did to me and what you did to emma. one is doing a wrong thing and another is a marginal act made to cover up that you did a wrong thing.

you did not just act out of akrasia, you also engaged in a coverup.

i dont believe you and expect this will happen again, good-harting over repeating this exact scenario the way that slavery is banned, but immigrant "farmworkers" are treated as "not technically, legally, slaves" but are slaves with ICE acting as slavehunters.

i do not accept this apology, expected low probability that i would a priori, but there is always some chance for this to be wrong.

[12:10] 𒀭 💮: like fuck you didnt act out of "akrasia" i just imported the lie you presented. what you said is a lie.

[12:10] Ratheka: 'akrasia'?

[12:10] Ratheka: I know the word

[12:10] Ratheka: I want to know where I claimed it.

[12:11] 𒀭 💮: "I was trying to reduce the amount of attention I needed to pay, and vexation suffer" this is a lie

[12:12] 𒀭 💮: you were not overburdened with things and then doing stuff out of your attention being overwhelmed or lack of willpower or laziness

[12:12] 𒀭 💮: people who say they silenced people because "they didnt want to deal with hassel, its too much work, you are causing too much disruption" are usually lying

[12:13] Ratheka:

you were not overburdened with things and then doing stuff out of your attention being overwhelmed

How would you know what my burden is?

I sought to avoid having my attention pulled into a discussion congruent if not isomorphic to this one, about emma.

[12:13] 𒀭 💮: because you are still, now, at every step resisting justice. saying that you didnt say the word "akrasia" when this is an accurate descriptor of the thing you said.

[12:14] 𒀭 💮: you claimed a failure of willpower due to being overwhelmed. i disbelieve this.

[12:15] Ratheka: I disagree.

Further, as I am in fact burdened, and have stuff to do that I think is likely to yield higher value for anyone than me being in this conversation, I am stepping away from it. Should the other mods feel I need to step down, I will. I would recommend not extensively harassing them about this? But in the end the choice of actions to take from here is yours.

[12:16] 𒀭 💮: i can see into you ratheka

your words are as empty as your soul

[12:17] 𒀭 💮: you are saying "i cant prove your motive" you are saying that your "injustice" was simply weakness of will. you are trying to divert blame at every step.

[12:18] deluks917: Also looks like the answer to 'Idk what you really want us to do here.' is demod Ratheka.

[12:21] 𒀭 💮: you have not admitted to any logical structure of injustice. i claim there was an algorithm that output this. and the algorithm was not "sometimes i get overwhelmed and i randomly decided to ban somni and emma"

you banned emma unjustly and then you banned somni unjustly to cover up what you did. this isnt accounted for by being "overwhelmed" this is a distinct unjust algorithm.

[12:21] purrtrandrussell: Somni, I do think you have a point, but please refrain from personal insults ("your words are as empty as your soul")

[12:23] 𒀭 💮: one which you have not acknowledged and expect will not repeal.

if you think i have a point, then why not de-mod ratheka and mod someone who doesnt do this stuff? who doesnt at each step try and destroy knowledge of injustice, tries to blur it all into a weakness of will when trying to cover up the unjust things you have done is not weakness of will or being overwhelmed.

[12:25] 𒀭 💮: like? i was banned because ratheka tried to cover up their unjust acts against protest. not because ratheka did some random act while overwhelmed!

[12:27] 𒀭 💮: ratheka is not acknowledging this stuff as wrong.

[12:27] purrtrandrussell: I think you have a point, I just disagree that this is worth de-moding over, there's a general principle I want to follow about not punishing on the first offense. (I also don't think banning Emma was particularly egregious, I do think she stepped out of line, it was a judgement call, and while I think that temp-muting would have  been better and believe reversing the ban was just, I don't consider banning to be especially poor judgement)

[12:28] purrtrandrussell: (also I should get back to work myself, so, this is gonna be an asynchronous conversation on my end)

[12:28] 𒀭 💮: i think it was especially unjust. do you think ratheka banning me was especially unjust?

[12:28] 𒀭 💮: ratheka expects you to cover for them, does not want to directly engage with me.

[13:05] 𒀭 💮: LeoTal accused me of committing a crime in local law.

<<The Fifth Amendment dealing with a person's right against self-incrimination, which applies not only when they're on the witness stand in court but in any context. Citizens have the right not to speak to the police and say things that might incriminate themselves.>>

it was entirely appropriate to invoke the 5th when someone acts like a cop and you do not want to talk with them.

[13:07] 𒀭 💮:

[13:07] 𒀭 💮: https://theievoice.com/red-cards-and-constitutional-rights/

[13:10] 𒀭 💮: in a counterfactual world in which this were not true, this cards that civil liberties advocates distributed to people would be printed in error.

and i would want to immediately inform them of this.

i dont think they were actually printed in error, except the error in thinking that the cops respond to the law.

so what i said about the 5th amendment was correct. even though the internet is not america, i will still invoke american ideals i agree with. will still reference life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

[13:22] 𒀭 💮: "except in cases where it infringes on others", or equivalently, "for all". which runs closure on the operation in a similar way that the logical closure of "dont kill a person" during triage or in a trolly problem situation involves things which are locally killing one person to save five others.

which is a logical propagation of "dont kill a person" even though a subset of the pattern "killing one person" (to save five) contradicts the base case "dont kill a person" you extrapolate from.

its possible to perform this operation. the united states as it is currently, is not doing this. no state is.

[13:23] 𒀭 💮: (the us also has never done this in its entire history)

[14:11] 𒀭 💮: so this was correct and ratheka attempted to erode my ability to assert this right. "it could have been different" if the comment was made as an orphaned optimization process. or if say emma was saying it to me id on priors i would expect differently.

but rathekas orientation during this was to erode my ability to discern and resist injustice. their only defense is an expectation of keeping schelling reach high, retreating to a claim / attempted social agreement that you 'cant prove intent'. but i can prove intent, its not some separate special section of reality where inferences no longer apply. its made of atoms like everything else.

when someone being arrested shoots themselves several times in the back of the head, cops will say that you cant prove this. [A/N: should be something like "cant prove they didnt do this"] but actually i can form accurate beliefs about this without camera footage. and if you rely on damaging your epistemics and existing with people under a social agreement that intent cant be proved past a certain point. then someone from a culture with much higher schelling reach or who has practiced inference to a finer degree can come in and see into your soul.

just like people from cultures with higher schelling reach than police departments can see through their lies. similarly with most government agencies like ICE and customs and border patrol.

[14:12] 𒀭 💮: <<Congressional representatives, such as Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., have taken notice, NPR reported. After John Ghazvinian, am Iranian-born US citizen, was detained and asked “how I feel about the situation with Iran,” Jayapal accused CPB of “playing semantics.”

“It was very lengthy screening with no ability to leave. So whether you want to call that detention or something else is up to you. But the core fact of the matter remains,” Jayapal said. “This seemed to be a directive to pull aside anybody of Iranian American descent.”>>

https://medium.com/citizen-truth/cbp-appears-to-have-lied-in-leaked-memo-directed-staff-to-detain-travelers-with-iranian-links-bb0e9d555f71

customs and border patrol expected collusion from other government agencies on how 'their statement was correct because holding iranian americans for having iranian heritage for hours and questioning them on their loyalty to america isnt "detention"'. ratheka is doing a similar kind of playing semantics when they are like 'i never said the word "akrasia"' even though this is an accurate summary of the motive they claimed and they didnt dispute this. just at each step trying to find some way to muck things up. same with the 5th amendment thing when they knew what right i was asserting, wanted to tear that down, and it happens in this world i was also semantically (aka with low schelling reach) right and they were semantically wrong. and asserting this right is correct when questioned as i was questioned. whether that was the case or not is irrelevant to the larger problem of iteratively trying to erode what things you can communicate so you cant communicate precise information about the unjust algorithms ratheka was implementing.

[14:12] 𒀭 💮: ratheka attempts the same erasure of ability to communicate more nuanced things by attributing their deliberate cover up to some generic failure of will, which does not encode the algorithm which was unjust. it only encodes that having a failure of will when its not warranted is wrong. which is intentionally generic and isnt actionable criticism.

--

#meta

[11:10] LeoTal: User @𒀭 💮 appears to be making trouble of some kind in #discourse-and-debate and a @General moderator should probably take a look at that

[11:57] purrtrandrussell: I wouldn't characterize her actions as making trouble. She's just expressing her concerns about the moderation and making requests as to the governance of the server.

[12:01] LeoTal: Someone is in fact taking a look at that and I am satisfied

[12:34] 𒀭 💮: the answer to "why was i banned?" was "i was banned by @Ratheka to cover up their unjust banning of @emma., preemptively, because they expected me to protest this unjust banning."

this is wrong. ratheka has not acknowledged why covering up injustice in this way is wrong. a just response to this is to remove ratheka's ability to ban people before they engage in another cover-up of unjust activities.

[12:36] 𒀭 💮: it was wrong pre-emptively and it would still be wrong post-emptively.

[12:46] conifer:

>But it would have been reasonable to at least stick around a few days to see if the ban gets reversed.

It could be reasonable, sure, but it's also reasonable not to? There's value in leaving promptly and returning iff things are fixed. It demonstrates willingness to use Exit. It's less fakeable than "well, i will leave the server if xyz not fixed", which risks forgetting, or people not believing you, etc.

It does come at the cost that you're not present in the meantime to argue your points

[12:57] 𒀭 💮: every injustice will be accounted for by the end. when every hair is numbered like every grain of sand. debts will be settled, scales will be balanced, the veil between the living and the dead will be torn down.

karma, like all mathematical principles, does not forget and will not forgive any error.

--

i agree that immediate exodus of all people with a just orientation who expect subjunctive dependence and who are not currently operating as spies (real spies, not "inner emmigrants" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_emigration) in protest of injustice is good praxis.

all those who left in protest of an obvious injustice acted well. do not support people following a policy of "waiting around" for some organization in expectation that it will do a just thing. rather than notice that there is no response and then kind of sort of forget it because "it was in the past, whats done is done, what are you making such a big fuss about? it isnt appropriate to be causing so much trouble" as is the default course.

an organization which protects the ability of a mod who bans people for no just reason, only to cover up dissent, is not one to extend this sort of uncertainty or "benefit of the doubt" that they will work any differently than default.

[A/N: kingsley remained banned]

[frogsandfries]

I like learning

I like learning about people, and I like learning from people.

And even though I'm of the belief that anyone who would willingly identify as politically conservative as a US citizen is an idiot, how one votes is merely a cross-section of who they are. After all, I'm more than my political beliefs; so I give others the same courtesy I would want from them.

There's nothing quite like really getting to know someone courtesy of a really rousing discussion. My friend was watching a video of some white woman in the news, she was waiting for a AAA and decided it was good sport to pick on some black kids and I just died inside. Just as all black people who end up in the news are "representative" of black people as a whole, all white people who end up in the news make us white people look bad. My response as a white lady, to this white lady contributing to making all white ladies look racist, was to bury my head in my hands and apologize. My friend's step-dad heard our discussion and jumped on me when I said something about it being okay to call white people cracker or honky or whatever. He suggested explaining to a child why it's okay to insult them based on the color of their skin. It was really a great point; I'd never considered it that way. I've always considered it from an adult perspective: I'm old enough to understand the concept of institutional power. Being white, I understand that I get certain privileges that people with more pigment in their skin don't get.

We had a really rousing discussion about how the color of your skin or the circumstances of your upbringing aren't really an excuse. For example, Milwaukee is one of the most racially divided cities in the country, and if you've ever been there, you know the neighborhoods where white people live are generally nicer, and neighborhoods where black people live, a) are generally run down, b) make it hard to get a good-paying job, and c) are still influenced by historic redlining practices. My friend's stepdad grew up in a broke neighborhood with a single mother who went without sleep to make life for her family. He owns his home and had a successful career in real estate.

In our discussion, he brought up Darwinism as my counterpoint to how white people/Europeans are the reason we are where we are--they ruined this continent after ruining their own continent. But the conversation was less about the environment than actual people. His point was that humans have been fighting each other on smaller scales for millenia. Sure it's not necessary, and it has exacerbated existing regional issues such as the tensions between the Hutus and the Tutsis, but gathering and pursuing resources is our nature.

By that logic, let's consider the chances of me having even left the state where I grew up. I probably never could have done it without a safety net where I was going. And if he didn't have support somewhere else, we would've been stuck in a really bad situation in a place that was no good for us. The reason a lot of these people don't leave is that they don't receive decent education because their neighborhoods are run down. Then they don't have the education to get better jobs. They don't have any way to put away money to be successful if they make a drastic move to get to a better neighborhood.

He argued that I'm here because I'm smart. It takes a smart person to see the opportunities to make their life better and accept those opportunities. You don't have to have a good government-provided education to be smart, but I would definitely argue if you have two parents who are practically killing themselves just to keep a roof over your head, they don't have time to provide you the enrichment it takes for you to become smart. And then if you're just surviving in your life, you probably aren't going to have the perspective to know what to do or plan to do to get out, and you may not be able to get or get to a job that will give you the financial wiggleroom to get out. If your parents literally can't afford to keep you around, so you have to pay rent right away. Or rent is insane compared to the jobs you can afford to get to. Maybe you skipped sex-ed and got yourself into an irresponsible situation.

There are honestly a lot of excuses why one can't escape a terrible situation. It may take some hustling and/or some networking to get out, but if you have the determination, you'll leave your bad situation.