ultimately i think my insistence on aro positivity honestly is as much a political stance as a personal one.
when i say aro positivity is crucial and that i dislike doomer-ist posts that express sentiments like 'I hate being aro so much I wish I was dead instead’ it's not because I don’t think there can and should be a space for negativity and acknowledging self-hate, or the many ways being aromantic can really suck sometimes. i find that to be very important!
that being said. there is smth here about how self-hate posts are sometimes just arophobia that we inflict on ourselves. and when we put that out into the ether it (intentionally or not) can become arophobia that we inflict on other members of the community. i think there absolutely needs to be a place for negativity and the expression of anger and frustration and self loathing even - these are all good things to talk about because these are things that we experience. that being said, it can also be genuinely upsetting and triggering to people to have what is essentially arophobia shown to them and then have that be validated by other aspec people. your personal thoughts can affect your wider community on a level you may not anticipate. and i understand it i truly do! it took me so long to be able to recover from accepting being aroace - it threw my entire world off kilter and made me question everything about my place in the world.
but my insistence on aro joy and positivity is because ultimately i do believe that building is at the core essence of it all. that ultimately discussions and the purpose of community should be about construction, not destruction. and this is both a personal and a political stance. talking about how much you hate yourself and cultivating online discussions/spaces where negativity about aspec identity is the main and only theme is destructive - if that’s where we let the conversation end. these thoughts can and should be used as a vehicle to look for a path forward!
joy and positivity create a space where the focus can become on forging a path forward, on construction, on community building instead of tearing ourselves and others down with negative thoughts. it’s not productive or healthy when it stops at a place of negativity - it becomes actively destructive to the essence of community.
and i do think that this is especially poignant considering the fact that being any kind of queer, but especially aromantic (and/or asexual) means forging a path for yourself and making your own happiness where there is no obvious way forward. our communities exist mostly online (right now, anyway), there is little recognition of our existence in the real world, the effects of amatonormativity are both pervasive and actively dehumanising, and there are legal, economic and social structures in place actively making our lives more difficult. yes that all sucks! it’s good to acknowledge that. we need to in order to change it. but more importantly, that’s not the end. we are still here and our happiness, our future is for us to determine. even if we can’t change the laws or society, loving yourself and understanding aromanticism as a political identity (as well as personal), as a radical worldview, and as a protest against amatonormativity is essential for both community and personal well being. the personal is political.
tldr. i guess my point is that as a community, we should focus on building, improving, and nurturing ourselves and each other (construction) as opposed to destruction. we should recognise aromanticism and asexuality as political identities as well as personal ones and rely on community and self-love in the absence of anything else as a form of protest and political power. destruction (the recognition of everything that is wrong) is essential as a starting point - but where do we go from there? we rebuild.
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I think my ultimate thoughts re; Kipperlilly is that I wish we got a scene where a character was allowed to show her... sympathy. I know there's a tone you wanna hit with a victorious season finale, and a somber note of a teenager falling into a deep well of rage doesnt match that tone but it would've been nice to see.
In my dream world, we get an extra epilogue scene where Riz goes to see Jawbone to go and talk to him, and brings up the thing he mentioned about "seeing Kipperlilly in himself" -- relating that to what Jawbone said at the beginning of the year, and wanting to talk about that deeply set in need for control, and the latent anger he has, and all the ways he is like Kipperlilly, and doesn't want to be.
And in response, Jawbone is able to address the ways in which he failed Kipperlilly, and let her down. That she needed more help than he could provide, that she needed someone who wasn't too afraid of their own biases to shut down her anger, someone who could maybe have given her a support system to turn to instead of Porter. Someone external to the school and the social dynamics within it. Just an acknowledgement from, as far as we know, the only adult in Kipperlilly's life who earnestly tried -- and earnestly failed -- to help her find a better path than her rage.
Just a small moment of acknowledgement that Kipperlilly was a child, an angry, scared, biased and deeply insecure child who was looking for help when she first walked into Jawbone's office, and because of all the adults who failed her, she was turned into something unrecognisable by the time she was 17.
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Haha wouldn’t it be so weird if when soap was taken and brainwashed he was constantly being compared to this soldier named “ghost” haha
Anyways explicit descriptions of psychological torture and violent intrusive thoughts under the cut
He would be beaten and berated constantly. why wasn’t he stronger than ghost, why wasn’t he faster, more skilled, better, stealthier, healthier.
Ghost could’ve done better in worse conditions.
Ghost has done better in worse conditions.
Why was soap not better even after all this?
It drove him up the wall, the way he would wonder who he was, seething and bleeding by the lip. After all that he’s gone though, all that he’s endured, everything.
Why wasn’t be better? Why can he never, ever be better?
They drove his sanity to the ground, spat and kicked at it until there was nothing but a shell of who he once was, and rebuilt it to fit their ideals. Soap couldn’t remember who he was before this, before the experiments. He couldn’t think, do, say anything without being ordered to do so by someone else.
Some days, soap would pull on the thin stripe down his scalp, eager to find some semblance of control over himself, even if it were pain. He would always get punished.
“It was the only thing he can and will recognise him by.”
“Ghost likes that on you.”
It made him hate the Mohawk even more.
He hates Ghost. He was sick of it. He was done waiting. He was done being compared to. He was done with being second to him. He wanted to pull him apart limb from limb, feel the hot blood spill over his teeth and he rips his throat apart, hear the sickening crunch of his neck being twisted, feel the smooth muscle of his skin ripple and tremble in fear of the one that he was supposedly supposed to be stronger than. Soap will never, ever get anything else in his life but the pure, white-hot rage of revenge. He maybe thinks this had lingered on since he was younger, before everything. It felt like an old friend, more so than his other emotions.
His first mission.
He will be better. He will be better. He will be the best. He will be good. This might be his only shot. This is. He will be the best. He will succeed. He will not fail. He will not fail. He will not fail. He will not fail. He will not fail. He will not fail.
He runs into ghost.
At first, he didn’t know who he was. Soap was in a room with a few others, guns up and masks drawn, ready to shoot anyone who tries to come into the room. They had been infiltrated, and soap wasn’t told more than that. He didn’t really need to know more. Shoot the hostiles, keep people safe. Suddenly, bullets start to rain from outside the door, and soon enough, more and more bodies start hitting the floor. Soap does not panic. He hides behind a bookshelf, waiting.
A big ass motherfucker in a skull mask walks into the room and it looks like the shadows are warping to his presence. Soap does not panic. He reaches for the knife strapped to his thigh, flicking it up and holding it ready. He waits patiently until he stalks near the bookshelf, tightening his grip on the knife. They make eye contact, and through the skull mask stained with blood, he can see jet black eyes staring at him in shock. Death incarnate. Soap does not panic.
“Joh-”
Soap quickly slips out of his hiding spot, wrapping a forearm over his neck and attempting to jab the knife right into his socket. He feels a hand grip tightly onto his forearm, and he goes weightless. All the air escapes his lungs as his back slams against the floor, his head spinning. He screams at himself to get up, fight, be better, before he hears the familiar crackle of a radio.
“Ghost, how copy?”
Ghost.
This is Ghost.
Ghost just fucking flipped him.
Soap does not panic. He does not panic but he feels a chill go down his spine as he sees red, scrambling back up onto his feet. The adrenaline starts to kick in now, and he lunges at him, ripping the radio off his vest and slamming it on the floor. He’s not completely sure why he did that, but in all fairness soap feels like he’s losing his goddamn mind, if his captors haven’t done so already. He punches Ghost, wincing slightly as his knuckle hit the cheekbone corner of his stupid skull mask. Soap starts to reach for his gun before Ghost punches back, hitting the mask clean off his face, pushing his back to the floor, one hand on his wrists. Soap starts to get really agitated now. After everything that he’s gone through, he’s still not good enough to beat ghost. He still hasn’t improved. He hasn’t gone anywhere. He makes eye contact with Ghost and is slightly taken aback when he is reflected with an equally crazed stare.
“Johnny.”
What the fuck?
Soap doesn’t say anything. Ghost’s eyes are brown, not black. Why hasn’t be killed him yet? Why isn’t Soap struggling? Ghost has blonde eyelashes.
“Where have you been?” To soap’s absolute horror, those brown eyes start to become glossy. He flinches back as if he’s been hit, and grits his teeth. No shit, he’s been here the whole time, where else is he supposed to be?
Soap surges forward and headbutts him in hopes of him letting go. He doesn’t, and it makes soap all the more dizzier, more frustrated. Why isn’t he fucking dead already? He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to get his mind right.
“Johnny. Johnny.” Can he just shut the fuck up? It’s getting increasingly hard to concentrate for some reason. Shit. He feels overly exposed without the mask, feeling his body temperature rising steadily.
“Stop calling me that!” he growls out, twisting out of his grip and punching his across the face. The twisted skull mask looks almost comical out of place, but he can still see those eyes. Ghost’s hand comes to cup his cheek, and soap flinches back. His eyes look like Soap just mauled his puppy right in front of him. It makes him freeze in place, head awkwardly hovering between the floor and Ghost.
Images of blood spilling and needles, dirt and coffins fill his head, the sound of a neck snapping, gagging, screams and whimpers. Hands on him, eyes on him, never letting go. Stay. Soap snaps back into place, grabbing the mask and twisting it up, covering Ghost’s eyes. He quickly gets his other hand free and pushes ghost off him, sprinting out of the room.
“Wait-!” Is all he hears before flying down the corridor, back to safety, back to where it’s familiar, where he always is, where he always will be.
Loyalty has always been Soap’s best trait.
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This gif perfectly encapsulates what I love about Tome. All girls have been this gif. Like remember having undiagnosed mental issues and your family makes you go on an outing that should be fun but you’re just pissed off constantly because youre a 14 year old girl? Tome gets it.
Like YOU’RE GOING SOMEWHERE TO DO SOMETHING THAT SPECIFICALLY PERTAINS TO YOUR INTERESTS. But youre a 14 year old girl and nobody will ever take you seriously and you’ve just got this pit of hopelessness in your stomach despite the fact that nothing is technically wrong
so even though youre on an outing planned for you you can’t shake the feeling that everyone is just making fun of you for being so upset over seemingly nothing. These are your friends and family, you deep down they wouldnt do that, but why else would they go out of their way?
They certainly wouldn’t do it for you, right? I mean nothing’s even technically wrong. You’re just being a crybaby and they all must think youre just being a dramatic teenage girl. And you are and you know that you are so why can’t you just get over it and be normal?
And when you finally can’t take the pain that’s screaming in your chest because everything feels wrong wrong and everything is going wrong and everything is wrong wrong wrong you can’t help but cry. And you’re embarrassed and you’re furious and you’re supposed to be mature and you’re supposed to not care but you cry.
Crying feels worse than the growing internal discomfort did because now everyone is looking at you. They’re staring in uncomfortable suprise at what you’re sure is the most unsuprising sight in the world - a 14 year old girl crying. You want to go home but you can’t. You’re 14. You can’t do anything on your own.
You react to the terrifying ordeal of being reacted to the only way you know how - with anger. You monologue through hot tears and sobs and snot how you didn’t even wanna be here and how you just *know* everyone is just doing this to make fun of you and how they should just go on ahead and leave you wherever you are (you know this can’t happen. They wouldn’t leave a 14 year old girl somewhere unfamiliar on her own) and something in you hopes that they’ll yell back, that they’ll treat you like you’re irrational and make you feel justified in your anger.
…But that doesn’t happen. The silence persists but you realize that it’s more contemplative than judgemental. They’re not afraid of you, though you think they should be. Rather than letting them say something sentimental about caring and being concerned or any sappy bullshit that will only serve to make you cry more, you wipe your face on your sleeve continue on your journey.
The day gets better. After everyone gathers that no, you don’t wanna talk about it, it almost feels like nothing happened to begin with- besides the slight exhaustion you feel every time you blink and the intense stress sweat you choose to blame on anything else.
By the time you get home, the day is mentally logged as a good day. You decide - albeit tentatively - that maybe you’re going to be ok. Maybe you won’t be a 14 year old girl forever.
You go to bed and have the best sleep you’ve had in months.
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for others who disliked adams greywaren ending, what do you think about the part of his ending with transferring schools?
Personally, i can see arguments for transferring (in terms of adam not having his fantasized perfectly linear path to success), but i want to see him stay and deal with his lies and mistakes. ik that sounds mean, but i intend it in the kindest way possible. like it could be helpful for him to distance himself from the person he invented at harvard and try again, but i want him to contend with that and reconcile his invention with the person he really is; i don’t think they are mutually exclusive!
maybe this comes down to your opinion of his crying club- whether you think theyre really his friends or not- but to me, i don’t think this effort to build community was wrong, even though it was unhealthy that he had to lie about his background to do it. i think adam needs to think about why he had this drive to create a friend group and why he felt like he couldn’t be the same person he was in henrietta. i want him to feel like he can be honest with the crying club, or at least that he can his genuine self with people outside the gangsey. he doesnt have to suddenly dump the whole truth on them, but i wish he could slowly let himself trust them, as they have trusted him with their troubles.
Obviously it was important for him and his character arc to leave henrietta and for him to want to leave behind the person he was there (and the fact that everyone there knew he was poor and a victim of abuse), but i’d like to see adam stay in place somewhere and work through who he is there. I feel like if he leaves and starts somewhere new, he’ll still have that instinct to leave behind this old version of adam and reinvent himself.
what do you all think? i know we all hate the adam becomes a fed thing, but wasnt sure what opinion is on this part
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