#we are their experience of the world it is a moral obligation to make that experience a good one!

[micamicster]

This is going to be a controversial take but i actually think if you make eye contact with a small child in public it’s a moral imperative to smile at them

[tritoch]

i have seen people be like "if you think what the dawntrail protagonists do in zone six is valid you have to conceded emet's approach/perspective was valid, what you do is basically what he does" and it's like...nah. it's obviously intentionally very similar ("it's like poetry, it rhymes") but there's some key differences:

emet is disgusted by sundered life, which he sees as inhuman, and longs to return to the unrecoverable past. so he does seven(ish) planet-wide genocides. the endless aren't new life, their ability to grow and learn is specifically in question (at the very least they are fundamentally incapable of taking in new sensory experience of certain forms), they're shades from the unrecoverable past, and you are destroying them in favor of those still alive.

also, we aren't disgusted by them nor do we think anything is fundamentally justified if done to them (everyone pretty much no-sells cahciua "we aren't alive so it doesn't matter if you kill us :)," in fact). we don't have like 12,000 years and the most advanced magic known to anyone alive. we are forced by serious exigency to destroy them due to a political impasse with their leadership's policy re: resource extraction. this tonal difference is in fact extremely important.

the endless themselves seem pretty ambivalent about the whole deal. they're bored or they're wary of the way their world keeps shrinking, and it's very explicitly neither a functioning society by any recognizable human terms nor a paradise.

related to the above, basically every named endless turns to the person most relevant to them (cahciua to erenville, krile's parents to her, namikka to wuk lamat, otis to you) and is like, huh, i really appreciate having this moment of grace at the end of my journey to see that it was all worthwhile and to resolve my lasting regrets, but i understand what you're here to do and yeah, it's probably time for us to go. (does the writing put a finger on the scale by doing this? sure, but the writers also designed and built the scales and everything they're weighing on them, so i find it hard to discredit any one aspect for being the writers' invention.)

finally uh no one in the party has kids with the endless or lives a full human lifetime as one of them lol.

it's important to remember that emet was definitely at least somewhat lying about not seeing the sundered as real people. the fact that he has "lived a thousand thousand of your lives . . . broken bread with you, fought with you, grown ill, grown old, sired children and yes, welcomed death’s sweet embrace" makes everything he did soooooo much crazier than what you do. if i managed to convince an endless to fall in love with me and i had a kid with them and i loved that kid so much that their death threw me into a permanent grief spiral then like. yeah i guess i would have to be like "well hats off to emet, folks." but luckily the game doesn't make you do that.

even if you insist everyone in living memory was a full living person that we killed, you're still weighing like a city of people versus 7+ planet-wide mass murders. you do not under any circumstances got to hand it to him.

living memory absolutely is evocative of everything that happens in shadowbringers. but rather than placing us in emet's shoes, it forces us to relive what we already did, to really fully face up to what we have done by promising to remember emet's culture after destroying any chance of its return. after two games going hard on the hope part of the game's central theme of hope arising from grief, now we're doing grief. we are forced to see the past of our memories not as a cold, ghostly art deco cubus-plagued socratic method hellscape but as the most beautiful technicolor theme park where everyone's happy and no one's sad and there's parades every day and your parents are alive and they love you so much. and then the game's conclusion is, yeah, you were still right to let go. in fact, you were and are morally obliged to let go. the living were and are worth more than the dead. our grief in letting go of them may be immense and turns our world to bleak nothingness for a time, and that is important to recognize, but at the end of the day our most pressing duty is to those we can yet save, not those we have lost.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

idk if this is something you would answer but how do you unlearn shame of being horny 😵‍💫

hi anon,

this is a complex question. unlearning shame of any kind can take a long time to sort out, and will be driven more by internal work you do to challenge and shift your own thinking than by anything else.

a good place to start may be by doing some reflection as to what you find shameful about being horny in the first place and working back from there to recognize sexuality and desire as morally neutral things.

for instance, I get a fair number of people asking if it's okay to think about real people that they know when they're horny, or masturbate to fantasies about those people. they feel a lot of shame about this, as if they're causing harm to these people by imagining them in sexual scenarios. but making up funny little scenarios in your head to nut to is a harmless act that only you will ever know about. it's not like whipping out your dick (gender neutral) and masturbating at strangers on public transit; what you do to get off in your private time only impacts you.

a problem would only arise if you decided to start treating your real, actual acquaintance, not the imaginary sexy version of them, differently, for instance by making untoward comments about their body, treating them as if they are obligated to be interested in spending time together or having sex with you, or, god forbid, telling them in detail about your sexual fantasies. now you're doing sexual harassment, which is inappropriate because of the hurt and discomfort is causes the recipient. being horny isn't the problem here, it's how you're treating another person.

people also feel a lot of shame around many other types of fantasies, especially if they involve dynamics that are off-limits or illegal in real life. often, the worry seems to be that being aroused by these imagined scenarios is akin to expressing support for these things to happen in real life.

listen: sexual fantasies about rape are some of the most commonly reported among cis women, and that's not because tons and tons of cis women secretly think that rape is a cool thing that should happen more. the people playing Baldur's Gate 3 and fucking Halsin while he's wildshaped into a bear aren't all chomping at the bit to commit a sex crime against a real animal. noticing that "teenage" characters on TV played by actors in their 20s and 30s are hot does not make anyone a pedophile. fiction is a safe realm to explore and enjoy things that we would never in a million years want to see happen in real life. I love Batman, but I can assure you I would not be a happy camper if a real-life billionaire started running around doing vigilantism in a fursuit while endangering a gaggle of teenage sidekicks.

and if you want to explore some of the stuff you're into in real life, awesome! great! there are ways to go about negotiating a lot of different kinks safely and responsibly (although probably not the bear thing, sorry about that). the world is full of people who want the experience of being stalked, beat up, kidnapped, and sexually assaulted - all mediated through pre-negotiated arrangements with people that they have chosen to enact these fantasies with them. so what is there to be ashamed of in that situation? sure, the situation you're engaging in might sound scary without proper context, but so do a lot of things. a stranger cutting open my skin, very likely causing bleeding, and leaving me with a mark that I'll have for the rest of my life sounds scary, and it definitely would be if it wasn't a situation that I agreed to! but that's also what getting a tattoo is, and that's an experience that I love so much that I pay for the pleasure. nothing to feel bad about there as long as you're playing safely!

listen: there's nothing wrong with being horny. the human sex drive is a completely natural one born from biological need that makes getting off feel good. there's no more sense in feeling shame about being horny than there is in feeling shame about being hungry or needing rest, although people do of course manage to feel bad about those as well. regardless of what causes it, when you feel the shame well up you have to push back on it and ask yourself who actually directly benefits from you feeling badly about yourself in that moment, and who is actually tangibly hurt by the actions you're shaming. and if the answer is "no one," move it along!

[corinthianism]

last kiss | sam winchester (1)

pairing: sam winchester/f!reader additional tags: best friends to lovers (?), fluff, angst

summary: you and sam were inseparable; two like-minded souls brought together by a life of saving people and hunting monsters. when the world is about to come to an end, he's forced to make a choice, one that might just haunt you forever. - set in the season 5 finale

masterlist | next chapter | ao3

CHAPTER ONE: SAVIN' ALL MY LOVE

Trusting a demon, especially the king of crossroad demons, was not what you had in your itinerary for saving the world… but perhaps you should’ve known. After all, being a hunter wasn’t exactly a cut-and-dry profession, especially when you’re working with the Winchesters. Still, you were wondering if being left in an abandoned house with Sam, while Dean and Crowley, of all people, tracked down Pestilence’s demon assistant, or as Crowley liked to put it, “the horseman’s stable boy”. Leaving Sam out of such an important mission left a bad taste in your mouth, but you knew that your best friend wasn’t exactly the most trustworthy candidate to save the world right now.

Not after what happened with Ruby. 

You grimaced. Best not to think about that too much, unless you wanted to match Sam with a cranky, scrunched up face of your own.

“Keep an eye on him, would you?” Dean pulled you aside before he left with Crowley. “If I know anything, sweetheart, it’s that he sure as hell listens to you more than he listens to me.”

You let out a long breath through your teeth as you glanced at Sam, who was, unsurprisingly, drinking his feelings by the fireplace. There was only so much to keep you busy in a place like this, so you decided that you might as well join him.

“Got room for one more?” you asked gently, not wanting to irritate him further. He gave you a look, which you had affectionately called “Sam’s kicked puppy look”, and huffed before scooching over to let you sit on the worn-down couch next to him. “This reminds me of Cedar Falls.”

Sam laughed quietly, shaking his head, “This is nothing like Cedar Falls.”

“True, but it made you laugh,” you grinned victoriously at him. “Penny for your thoughts, Sammy?”

He took one big sip from his bottle of whiskey, and turned to face you, his eyes doing that thing where it got bigger and sadder and you couldn’t help but give him whatever he wanted. What an asshole. The corner of his lips turned upward into a tired smile, “You don’t really wanna know that.”

“Actually, yeah, I don’t,” you rolled your eyes. “But I did kinda grow up with you and I’m your only friend besides your brother and an angel, so I’m morally obligated to know.”

That earned you a scoff from him, but he spilled the beans anyway.

“It’s Dean. I mean, I know he’s not exactly wrong for not trusting me right now, but trusting Crowley?” he ranted, his voice growing tighter and louder in frustration. 

“He doesn’t trust Crowley,” you made your point as softly as you could, knowing he was thinking of a million possibilities right now. You didn’t want to add to that. “He just doesn’t have any other option at the moment.”

“He does have an option though, and it’s not working with a demon. Trust me, I know firsthand that it doesn’t end well.”

You probably made a face at the mention of his “firsthand experience”, because he chuckled again and took another swig of his drink. 

“Well, on the bright side, you got me. And that’s about as good as it can get, Winchester,” another small smile from him. “I think we need more drinks. For me, I mean,” you commented, happy with your small victory. You stood up once again to get the mini-cooler in the other room. He nodded in agreement, going back to spacing out as you left. Taking one last look at him, you couldn’t help but imagine the weight he must’ve been carrying. You knew him. You knew him deeply, and that made things suck even more. 

Of course, there was no other solution besides burying the emotional damage every world-ending problem left on you. There was no time for heart-to-hearts in the life of a hunter. For now, the only real help you could give Sam was to lend him an ear and to toss him a few more drinks.

A flash of blue in your peripheral told you that you found what you were looking for. Cold mist pleasantly greeted your skin as you opened the cooler up, finding it full of ice and an assortment of drinks. “Leave it to the Winchesters to save the world but also somehow always be fully stocked up on alcohol,” you smirked, pushing the lid back down and picking it up to bring it to the living room. 

Sam’s voice made you stop in your tracks. He was talking to someone. On the phone, you thought.

“What if you guys lead the devil to the edge… and I jump in?”

What?

You found yourself inching closer, just to see if he would say anything else.

“It’d be just like when you turned the knife around on yourself; just one action, just one leap,” he persisted, voice heavy with desperation.

Everything he said after that was a blur, but you figured he was talking to Bobby. And God, you hoped the old man talked some sense into him.

“Was that Bobby?” you finally walked in, setting the cooler down on the floor. Sam straightened up, shoving his phone back into his pocket as he heard the clipped tone in your voice, no matter how much you tried to sound casual.

“Uh, yeah,” he mumbled before furrowing his brows. “How much of that did you hear?”

“Just enough to call you an idiot,” you crossed your arms, unimpressed.

“You sound like him,” he rolled his eyes, facing away from you and sitting back down on the couch, as if he could avoid your incoming sermon if he wasn’t actively looking at you.

“I damn hope so, because he’s the only one here with any sort of sense! Do you even hear yourself, Sam? We just managed to convince Dean not to say yes to Michael, and now you wanna let the devil ride your meatsuit? What’s wrong with you?!” you yelled at him, setting the cooler down so you could focus all your energy into conveying to him that he was, in fact, an idiot. “No, Sammy. I won’t let you do it. I won’t… I can’t.”

He must’ve noticed the panic in your voice; how the anger melted away into fear. Sam was familiar with that tone. It was what he heard in Dean’s voice nearly every goddamn day for the past two years. He just hadn’t expected to hear it from you. Even when he was sneaking off to meet with Ruby, you stood by him, protecting him from the worst of Dean’s paranoia. When it all came to light and his brother’s fears came true, you still held his hand like he had knocked over a vase instead of starting the apocalypse. He knew he didn’t deserve your kindness, and yet you still gave it to him so freely.

Hearing that desperation from you, it squeezed his heart in a way that made him forget how to breathe. The alcohol was already tearing away at his system, forcing only his most basic instincts to push him forward. Those instincts told him to look at you, to not be a coward and not be the reason for your worry. He hated making you worry.

Something wet trickled down your cheek and as you brought a hand to wipe it away, Sam had already turned around and seen the second tear fall. You hated being seen like this. It was weak, it was juvenile. You kill demons and vampires and shifters, for fuck’s sake. There was no time for crying your heart out.

But the possibility of a world that didn’t have Sam Winchester in it was enough to stop even you, in your tracks.

“Hey,” Sam pulled you out of your thoughts. “Look at me.”

“I don’t want to, asshole.”

He only smiled. Damn him.

Setting down his bottle of whiskey on the floor, he grabbed your shoulders, “I’m not gonna do it, not unless we all agree. It’s like you said, we don’t have a lot of options, so we need to make our own.”

“Why is killing yourself an option?” you argued, struggling to look him in the eye as if he was already dead. Like he was just a figment of your imagination designed to haunt you and taunt you for words left unsaid. He was still here with you but your mind, treacherous as it was, was already imagining his hunter’s funeral. How the wood would burn and how you wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about him in hell. The chance of him dying, of losing him, had always been a real thing but now, more than ever, it felt real. 

“It’s me or 7 billion people,” he pointed out gently, swiping his thumb over your cheek to wipe a tear away. “I’m not that important of a person, but I can make an important decision. That has to count for something, right?”

“We’ll find something,” you promised. “I’ll find something.”

He smiled again at your determination, “That’s my girl.”

He pulled you in close. Underneath the smell of whiskey, you could smell the minty soap he always uses. You breathed it all in, trying to ignore the fact that learning his new plan felt like being splashed with ice cold water. He seemed to notice you tense up, because he spoke up again, “Do you wanna dance with me?”

“What?”

“It’ll be just like Cedar Falls,” he offered teasingly. “And besides, it’s just you and me here anyway.”

The corner of your lips twitched upward at the memory, “We have no music.”

A beat. 

He stood up, making a show of clearing his throat. Liquid courage was truly something else.

“A few stolen moments is all that we share,” he began, grinning stupidly at you. Though Dean was usually the singer between the two (as much as he tried to deny it, him belting out Toni Braxton in the shower told you all otherwise), Sam wasn’t bad at holding a tune. He gave you that look, telling you that what he was doing was just for you, and only you, as he guided your hands to rest on his shoulders, “You’ve got your family and they need you there.”

He started swaying, so you attempted to return the favor by continuing the song, “Though I’ve tried to resist, being last on your list… but no other man’s gonna dooo…”

“So I’m saving all my love for youuu…” you both sang in unison, wide grins on both of your faces at the sheer cheesiness of the situation. You took turns singing the lyrics, dancing slowly by the fireplace. For a moment, you could almost forget that the world was about to end, but you thought maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be so bad if Sam’s face was the last thing you ever saw. Not bad at all.

▼△▼△▼△▼△▼

It was the year 2000. You were comfortably tucked under the cheap motel blanket, watching reruns of the Golden Girls. John had taken Dean out to do a salt and burn somewhere near the outskirts of town, leaving you alone to guard all your belongings as Sam went to his senior prom. Bobby owed him one, but sent you instead since the old man was busy helping other hunters. The room telephone rang a few times, and you had half a mind to answer it, before eventually deciding that it probably wasn’t the best idea to leave it hanging in case the Winchesters needed help. 

“Hello?” you rolled over to answer the phone.

“Hey,” came Sam’s voice, sounding smaller than you were used to.

“Sammy,” you sat upright, now holding the phone with both hands, as if you could reach through and pull him next to you. “Are you okay?”

He let out a deep sigh, “I, uh… yeah, I’m okay. I’m coming back to the motel though, I think.”

“What do you mean? I thought prom didn’t end until 10? It’s only 8:45, Sam.”

“So, my date kind of, um, ditched me, I guess?” he replied meekly, drawing breaths between each heavy word. “You know, it’s fine. I should’ve known.”

“No.”

“What?”

“You give me 20 minutes, Sammy. Just stay where you are.”

In less than a fraction of a second, you were up and scouring through your duffle bags in search of something that would resemble a prom dress. Hunting required you to own a small collection of various clothes and finally, you managed to pull out a dress that wasn’t marred in some way. It was deep blue satin, and it wasn’t until a year ago that you were able to grow into it. Feeling the smooth fabric in your hands, you thought of the one time you got to wear it, posing as a lawyer’s (played by John) spoiled daughter. Shockingly, Dean had thrifted it somewhere, somehow not opting to choose the most hideous frilly dress for you. He argued he liked the color, and he didn’t really want to think about what your bust size was, so it stayed unused for a fair while because it didn’t fit you well enough to be convincing.

You slid the dress carefully over your head, and decided that perhaps a little bit of color to your face was needed, lest Sam mistook you for a vengeful spirit. Once again, you dug through the endless pockets of your duffle bag to grab the old red lipstick you had quietly nicked from a witness’ house. It was old, probably expired, but you dabbed the rouge on your cheeks and lips anyway. Ultimately, you decided your hair was better off as it was. You slipped your feet into the uncomfortable and only pair of heels you owned. Even with the dull ache already forming in the balls of your feet, you smiled to yourself.  For once, you weren’t a dirty, bloody, beaten hunter. Tonight, you were just a girl. And even if you weren’t doing this for Sam, it felt wonderful to have a taste of normal.

The motel you stayed at was a short motorcycle ride from the Cedar Falls High School, so you opted to carry a silver dagger and a silver bullet-loaded gun with you for protection. Underneath the dress, of course. Without even stepping foot onto the school property itself, you could already see the familiar silhouette of Sam sitting by himself on the steps of the entrance. The stairs weren’t high at all, and it emphasized how tall he’d gotten in the last couple of months. He hugged himself, hunched over with his eyes closed as he inhaled and exhaled slowly.

Taking in a few breaths of anticipation yourself, you awkwardly walked over to him, steps wobbly and unsure. He looked up at the sound of heels meeting concrete, and you froze. He was wide-eyed, and looking at you. God knows you never thought he’d be able to look at you like that. For a moment, it was like time itself had stopped. The dust floating in the air stilled and butterflies stopped flapping their wings. Sam Winchester, in the suit that was much too big for him, in leather shoes beat up by hours of running around and chasing monsters, sat on the concrete stairs of his school and stared at you like you were the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“Hey,” you were the first to break the silence. 

“Hey,’’ a small smile appeared on his face. He pat the space next to him, taking your hand so you could sit down without falling over. “I like the dress. Isn’t this the one you wore last year? When we did that shifter case in Oklahoma?”

You chuckled, “Yeah. I’m surprised you remember.”

“Of course I’d remember.”

Heat blossomed in your cheeks at how casually he said it, and suddenly a random streetlight was the most interesting thing to stare at. Anything was more interesting to look at than his stupidly beautiful and kind eyes.

Sam spoke up again, “You didn’t have to come here, you know. I could’ve just gone back to the motel.”

“And waste this outfit?” you gestured to his ill-fitting suit, grinning wide. “I don’t think so.” 

He laughed, and somehow you think this was the first real laugh he’d let out in the past week. He was less tense now, more open. This was the Sammy you knew. This was the joy you wanted him to feel for as long as you were around. 

“Dance with me,” you stood up, offering your hand to him. “That’s what you’re supposed to do at prom, right?”

His eyes widened, his back slouching as if he was trying to hide from you, “Uh, no.”

“Come onnn, Sammy!”

“No!” he laughed, trying to scoot away from you. You tried to grab his wrist, but his sudden movement threw you off balance, causing you to nearly fall over... but Sam caught you. He held a firm grip on your arm, forcing you to notice just how much he’s grown up. His arms were strong; toned from years of John’s training in addition to hunting. Now standing, he was taller than both his father and brother, yet he felt uncomfortable in his body. Like he didn’t know what to do with all of it. Like he was still just awkward, nerdy Sam. But he wasn’t. Not anymore. You didn’t really know how to feel about that.

“Thanks,” you said breathlessly, trying to come back to reality. “Dance with me? I can hear your school’s speakers all the way from here. Let’s make the most of it, hm?”

“Okay,” he agreed, finally, looking a little awestruck by what just happened. Gently, he placed his hands, which were much larger than yours, on your waist as you wrapped your arms around his shoulders. The muffled sound of Whitney Houston’s “Saving All My Love For You” echoed from inside the school. The two of you started swaying slowly to the music, just enjoying each other’s company. There were no monsters here tonight, and there was no hunting to be done.

Your eyes flickered upwards to look at Sam, his own eyes closed and his lips pressed into a peaceful smile. For once, he looked 17. For once, he was just a boy.

Resting your head on his chest as the music swept you away into another world, there was one thought that lingered in your mind: this was how things should be.

[galacticwiseguy]

re the red flag shirt post

the thing is that any man who's paying attention realizes that loud male sexuality is scary. not inherently, not to everyone; but it's scary to a lot of women as a result of the world we live in and the experiences they have had at the hands of other men. and so we have to reckon with that

we don't get to be confidently, aggressively sexual in public*. because that's harassment. some people say this and they mean "that's what those feminazi SJWs will call 'harassment,' and it's oppression" — please understand that's the opposite of what i'm saying. I'm saying, if a man confidently, aggressively displays sexuality in public, that is in fact harassment. it scares and hurts people, it makes them feel threatened, it makes them feel like they can't just safely exist in public. it causes all of the feelings in some bystanders that we are trying to prevent and avoid when we take steps to prevent harassment.

i would love to be a visibly sexual being! i'd adore an opportunity to "display myself as sexually available" or "present myself to the female gaze" or whatever else the notes on that post said. in the vanishingly few places i get that opportunity, i take it immediately. but generally, men don't get to do that. because of the shitty behavior of other men, no men get to "confidently" display their sexuality. only women get to do that, because women's sexuality is not inherently, automatically a threat. men's is. we get to display our sexuality with explicit consent, or within very specific, clearly delineated spaces that defang it and make it safe,** and otherwise we are morally obligated to try to be sexually nonthreatening in public.

meanwhile other men who simply do not care about any of the above and do not think they have any obligation to care about other people's feelings do go around Confidently Displaying their sexuality. and as that poll showed, 60% of women go "ooh cool sexy" so those men are sexually successful. and 40% of women continue to feel scared and uncomfortable. same as it ever was.

i hope one day this stops being true, i don't think it's inherent in any laws of the universe (gender is fake, it's all made up). it's just a conditional result of the world we currently live in where so hugely many women are being harassed and assaulted by male sexuality on a constant basis. once that stops happening, then a display of male sexuality can become acceptable and fun

* unless we're being fruity about it, which also clearly defangs it—if it's clearly a display of gay sexuality then women know it is not a threat to them. that's why this isn't nearly so much of an issue for gay men.

** or, third case, if we're simply extremely attractive, in which case we often get given a pass. lots of people who'd be bothered if it was an ugly dude with the slutty shirt (or whatever) will be okay with it if he's hot. that's just the classic "hello, human resources???" dynamic at work. but even then you're still making a bunch of women feel unsafe, just a smaller bunch; it's not really okay, you're just more likely to get away with it.

[littlemisssquiggles]

In today’s episode, Jaune revealed that Lewis and Alyx were actually residents of Vacuo Kingdom (surprise, surprise) during a time before the Great War. And since we know that Lewis actually returned from the Ever After, it make wonder something curious.

If Lewis was the author of the Girl Who Fell Through the World fairy-tale then it would make perfect sense as to why he omitted himself from the written adventures in the Ever After and chose to make Alyx the protagonist. It makes sense since, unlike Lewis, Alyx never returned home and basically “died” in the Ever After.

So my assumption is that Lewis must’ve maintained his sister’s story through his story about her. That way Alyx’s legacy was able to live on in some shape or form despite the real Alyx practically ceasing to exist after never returning home.

Since Jaune was shown to still be have some qualms over his time in the Ever After, it got me thinking.

What if…Jaune were to (somehow) discover the original journal of Lewis which he had used to record his experience in the Ever After in the Vacuo archives?

What if…Jaune were to meet someone closely connected to Lewis and Alyx while in Vacuo? Like a surviving member of their family bloodline still thriving in modern Remnant.

What if… Headmaster Theodore was that surviving member? I know the main popular theory is that Lewis was one of Ozma’s reincarnations but imagine if Lewis wasn’t an Ozma reincarnation but Theo’s ancestor instead?

I haven’t read either of the RWBY After the Fall books so I’m not familiar with Headmaster Theodore in terms of characterization or like what his backstory is.

That being said, I do, however like the idea of the final maiden being connected to Theo in some shape or form.

For me, I like the prospect of the Summer Maiden being either Theo’s daughter or younger sister or cousin or niece or some important person to him as she’s probably the only family he has left.

Again, I don’t know anything about Theo but thus far, none of the other headmasters of the huntsmen academies have had any reason to be protective of their respective maiden outside of a moral obligation as per Ozpin’s instructions.

To make Theo stand out more, I think it would be a nice change of pace if Theo, the final headmaster, were to share an actual connection to the final  maiden as she is a beloved relative of his.

Why bring this up? Well I like the idea of Jaune forming a close relationship with another Maiden candidate. Maybe he could even fall in love with the Summer Maiden.

Technically, Jaune hasn’t had a legit love interest since Pyrhha and I don’t know about ya’ll but…after six seasons (and half a movie), I’m kind of tired of being reminded of Arkos, ya’ll.

It was the Ship that was meant to be that never got to be because Writers decided to kill it off early.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Arkos. Arkos was a great ship that was gone too soon.

To (finally) close the chapter on Jaune moving on from Pyrhha (since even after all of his growth, I still don't think he's over her as the show keeps constantly bringing up whenever they can)...

I think it actually might be cute if Jaune does end up being romantically involved with the Summer Maiden who he actually succeeds in protecting from Cinder when she comes to steal her powers.

I’ve grown tired of new maidens showing up in the story just to die for the sake of the powers being passed onto a main character.

Since Summer is the last maiden, it would be nice if Summer is the one to stop the cycle of original maiden deaths and she actually gets to live on even after opening the vault.

As much as I like WhiteKnight as a ship, I honestly gave up on it becoming canon after V5 dropped and nothing else was done to further develop Weiss and Jaune’s relationship as a prospective romance.

Yeah sure, V9 tossed us a crumb of Weiss being attracted to Jaune in his more mature Rusted Knight persona.

But after further deliberation, I’ve concluded that that little nugget of hope isn’t enough to get me back on the horse of hoping for a romance between these two.

Do you know what would actually be pretty wild?

If Jaune fell in love with the Summer Maiden who is not only a red-head (like Pyrhha) but is also a descendent of Lewis who is the author of the Girl Who Fell Through the World and thus a relative of Alyx.

And unlike Alyx and Pyrhha who Jaune failed to protect/help/save, Jaune is able to do just that with the Summer Maiden by protecting her from Cinder and thus, the two are able to live happily ever after.

That would actually be wild.

Not saying this would become true in the canon. I'm just tossing it out into the RWBY FNDM ether as a food for thought.

~LMS (2024)

[whatever-you-can-give-me]

i was talking about this in a reblog, but i decided to make this its own post, because i've seen some conversation that's expressing discomfort with stampede asserting that dependent/bulbed plants don't have souls, and that's not what's being conveyed in the slightest.

tl;dr: conrad's speech about souls is not something we're supposed to take as objective fact about the stampede universe — the thesis isn't dependent plants don't have souls, the thesis is oh holy shit, they're doing eugenics.

conrad's not an unbiased narrator. he's a half-dead, guilt-stricken eugenicist parroting the talking points of an obsessive cult leader whose history book was the bible.

so let’s break down exactly what the fuck we’re being told, because it’s not exposition we’re meant to take at face value.

(under the cut for length, spoilers, and discussion of eugenics, ableism, christianity, cults, experimentation, and sexual assault — both as metaphor and taken literally, as seen in ep11)

first, some context. we can't trust the exact visuals of what we see in the flashbacks in ep11, given that what knives is doing is explicitly memory manipulation, but we can get a few broad strokes about knives' childhood experiences:

a significant, memorable source of his understanding of humanity came from the bible. now anyone with even a passing knowledge of the bible (especially raised-xtian kids who had the opportunity or the obligation to read it at a young age, possibly to the exclusion of other, secular entertainment) will understand how much that explains. 

what the scene with the bible is also conveying, is that knives' mental/moral framework is a christian one. which, obviously — the eye of michael is evangelicalism but even more of a death cult. this also explains knives' fixation on the concept of "souls", but put a pin in that, we'll come back to it. 

knives and vash are painfully recognizable as gifted/neurodivergent/disabled children. vash is the underperformer, the high-needs kid — treated gently, told how he’s loved for how he is, but always aware of his own shortcomings. and knives is the golden child, the gifted one. he has powers (special powers, rem tells him, that he should hide from everyone, because if Anyone But I Knew, They Would hurt you — put a pin in that, we will come back to it)

finding tesla cements knives’ worldview that humanity will hurt and exploit plants given the justification, which makes him fear for vash, who can’t provide anything for humanity — but tesla also teaches knives that there is something particularly special about independents. something worthy of study. (see: knives still allowing experiments with presumably plant tissue to continue for 150 years)

and then we meet knives as an adult, and conrad tells us what knives believes: that he has a soul, and vash has a soul, and dependent/bulbed plants do not, that their souls are on some higher plane, and if knives gives them souls, everything will be okay. they won’t need humans anymore, because he doesn’t need humans. he doesn’t need to eat or drink. he can make all his sisters Just Like Him, and that will fix their exploitation.

this is, of course, some fucking bullshit. there’s a reason, narratively, we see vash communicating with his sisters before this reveal — they’re not “husks” or “soulless”, they move and react, they’re clearly conscious and sentient. they don’t speak, but they communicate, they act willfully.

so, what is knives thinking, where did he get it, and what’s actually happening?

our Context Pins, for context:

as much as knives believes himself separate from humanity, his view of the world is very human, albeit held at a distance from humanity, and very specifically christian

knives was told, over and over and over by rem, that he was special. that he had special, wonderful powers, and that made him different from everyone else. his brother, and other plants. he’s special.

so the train of thought goes like this:

plants are exploited by humanity (a true statement) => the only way for plants to not be exploited is for humanity to not exist (an understandable conclusion, given his experience with tesla) => but plants need humans to survive => knives is completely self-sufficient => if he makes the other plants like him, they’ll survive on their own.

add the golden-child personal superiority from rem’s… interesting parenting (believe me, she’s a whole different post on her own) and the concept of souls cribbed from the christian framework he was raised in, used as a placeholder word for whatever knives believes he has that his sisters don't, and it starts to makes sense how knives got from point A to point E(ugenics)

and it’s pretty clear we’re supposed to find this framework horrifying even before anything else happens, because — what about vash? what about the percentage of independents who don’t produce anything? who are conduits, specifically “useful” for communicating with dependent plants, who can’t communicate like humans. who eat food and drink water to survive.

that could be up to 50% of independent plants. who would die without humans regardless of whatever knives does to them.

and speaking of what knives does to them…

stampede is not a subtle show, especially not with its visual language. we aren’t supposed to listen to a word knives is saying, or take anything he says (or his lackeys/cult members say) at face value, because what knives is doing, in between breaking vash’s brain to get him to sit and stay, is using vash to assault his sisters.

there’s a reason the visual language of that scene is forced impregnation — whatever knives is doing to them, “souls” or otherwise, he certainly didn’t ask what they wanted before he did it.

[auschizm]

Just wanted to share a reflection on a nice little area of autism+schizo-overlap

I’m autistic and my best friend is auschitzic and I’ve found that I understand so called “word salad” better than others. (Not just in my friend but also in people I met in the soup kitchen and others who have it)

My pet theory is that perhaps with autism, there are less perceived notions about what someone should say.

I feel others get distracted by the projection that the person “isn’t making sense” rather than just listen.

I think it’s a nice moment of solidarity. We have so much more in common than apart. Especially in the struggles with communication. In many ways we have very similar needs too

Sensory needs, needs for predictability, need for routines, need for very clear instructions, cognitive support.

I see it as auschizm mirrors my experience a LOT and at the same time that the overlap adds an extra layer of marginalization which makes it so that when fighting for freedom, against the coercion and other flaws in healthcare, I see it as us who are autistic or otherwise disabled needing to listen to auschizic and schizospectrum people first.

Oftentimes auschizic people experience everything I do (miscommunication with doctors, coercion while outpatient, financial punishments for cognitive deficits, dehumanization, etc) but a hundred fold.

Similar; same type of things. But at the same time completely different; we who are autistic and only experience minor symptoms of other things from time to time, we have to understand that there are levels of incarceration and violence that we dont have to deal with due to not being schizospec

The way I see it this gives us a moral obligation. To fight in our day to day lives for the dignity of our schizospectrum siblings.

We have to speak up when people stereotype and fearmonger. We have to be vocal in our critiques against psychiatry. We have to fight to make the world accessible for all of us.

Rather than mask because we understood that what was said was meant as a joke, if it was cruel or “unreality” we should still demand it be explained.

Be outspoken about all of the cultural discrimination and misconceptions with our friends who might be even further removed from psychiatry than we are.

It’s like a set of circles where my auschizic friend can tell me about the experiences they heard from others even more marginalized who were in the ward. They are in the middle of the circle. Then is my friend who is mostly outpatient. Who can talk to me. Next circle is people who are neurodivergent but “functioning”; maybe they have jobs and stuff. So I can talk to them. Then those people can talk to people at their jobs etc who are even further removed

We can each do our work in fighting to create spaces. When we are in social spaces, that in and out of itself, is a privilege. We can fight to try to fit others in these social spaces

Sorry about the very long and rambly ask. There are many thoughts on this subject that I have yet to articulate

I guess what I wanted to say was thank you for making this blog. Thank you for creating this space.

It is so important that this gets talked about

Im extremely grateful to get the opportunity to read about even more auschizic experiences and learn more about the perspective

Thank you so much

Solidarity

🤝🤝🤝

This ask is making my morning. I really appreciate your compassion and solidarity! Although I gotta note that I don't believe in simple hierarchies of oppression and discrimination. Like I wouldn't say that a low support needs auschiztic person who is stable and functional enough to live alone and work is inherently more oppressed than a nonverbal high support needs autistic person who needs extensive support and supervision simply because the person in the first scenario has two diagnoses instead of one.

[laatmaar]

The thing I like a lot about sidestep as a character concept is that in my eyes they feel like such a natural conclusion to the setting and the themes in fhr. Taking as examples for this post the body as a tool and the social performance to being human(don't know if i worded this right but bear with me).

Firstly, in the setting of fallen hero there seems to be a greater move towards the use of bodies as military tools, both through the hero drug and of course cybernetics. This is most reflected in steel and ortega. Where they both have had their bodies modded for of course their own well-being, but are also now contractually obligated to serve the military/government in exchange for these modifications. Especially with steel the knowledge that while the cybernetics improve his life and are of great benefit to him, he would probably not have received them or at least not of this quality if they did not also make him a great tool kinda looms over his character. However, with both ortega and steel there seems to be some pretense of care for or at least acknowledgement of the person that comes with this body. Which gives way to the natural progression of such setting, what if you can create a body just as a tool and not have to bother with the person behind it (and the accompying things such as bodily autonomy, personal rights, moral codes, identity, etc.). Which seems to me very much where the regenes come in. As far as sidestep knows (and as far as we as readers/players know) their body was created purely to serve as a tool, and any personality sidestep displays "a breach of protocol" ( I think the narrative explores how difficult/near impossible it is to just use a body as tool since to use a body means that there is always a person experiencing the world through that body and thus the body becomes something more than just a tool something something the puppet? but i'll probably only be able to be definitive on this after the series ends)

Second example is how fallen hero is, as mentioned by others, very concerned with, well, the social performance of being human. With how in order to be respected as a person and granted the privileges that come with being human one must adhere to social rules and codes in appearance, behaviour, and interaction with others (and if you're lacking in one category better make it up in others). This is i think very apparent in almost every major character in fallen hero. However their various hangups and struggles with how to present yourself to the world and others, and others expectations of them in turn are written realistically. In that they are born out of a lifetime, of having grown up and being taught the rules through experience and shame, and of course the implication that these rules are just what is naturally expected and never truly explicitly said outloud. The fun thing about sidestep and the cuckoo regenes is that this is all explicitly spelled out and taught, in order to be accepted and seen as human (and gain the privileges that come with being human) you need to behave and look like this. It is canon that Sidestep didn't have a childhood and i think heavily implied that the farm just gave the cuckoo regenes lessons on how to be a human being. It makes the implicit explicit.

There are a ton more themes in which sidestep as concept is just the implicit made explicit or like the natural conclusion to that theme (self-actualization probably being a big one). It makes the relationships (whatever form they may come) in fallen hero fun, because no matter what kind of person a specific sidestep is their concept as a character always kinda holds up a mirror to all the other characters in the story.

[sehtoast]

I saw the words “failed relationships” when I was starting chapter 2 of tender threads and immediately came here to ask if Ben has a MJ-equivalent? Mostly bc I’m thinking jealous homelander would be so funny (and terrifying for anyone on the opposite end of that lol)

Oddly enough, I think of Homelander as Ben’s MJ.  

There was a ficlet where I sort of established that Ben has an ex partner or two but really never went too far in depth with it beyond using it as a way to touch on the boundary violations a lot of trans folks experience from inconsiderate partners.  When I wrote the line about failed relationships in Tender Threads, I was initially imagining it as Ben, probably ages 18~early twenties, trying really hard to put himself out there and find a partner but ultimately failing because of him bailing on them to do the right thing and help people.  And, because he clings very tightly to keeping the streams of his personal life and hero life from crossing, he was never quite honest with them and it cost him his relationships.  Dating as a trans person is difficult as is, so I imagine dating while trans and secretly a superhero is an olympic sport that Ben just couldn’t keep up with and lost.

But yeah, I definitely think of Homie as Ben’s MJ.  Here’s someone who isn’t a good person, who kills indiscriminately, who views humans as lesser, altruism as pointless, and is just all around not great that simultaneously pulled Ben out of the pain of his dual life, makes being a supe fun and not merely an amalgamation of responsibilities and obligations, grows to not just fixate but actually have love for Ben, makes Ben bold, and doesn’t particularly care if Ben is trans– which, believe me, can be quite the rarity.  From the start, Homelander sees through the barrier of the mask.  Ben isn’t just Ben, and he isn’t just Spidey when he’s with Homie.  He’s both.  There’s no need for his identities to clash, and there’s an odd peace in that, I think.  And even though Homelander tests him in a lot of ways because Ben's moral compass points very much in the opposite direction, he unveils a world of different freedoms to Ben.

On the other hand, Ben is (and I say it this way since we barely know anything about his relationship with Maeve) Homelander’s first genuine partner.  There’s no ulterior motives.  He’s not baiting Homelander with love in return for good behavior or career advancement/stability, and he’s certainly not doing it a la Stormfront who had been using him to establish a supe’d up n*zi world.  And, while I know everyone has different interpretations on Firecracker and her motives (and I’m running along with my interpretations here), Ben’s not baiting Homelander with something he’s very vulnerable with to cement his place on the team and protect himself from others.  It’s not PR, it’s not friends with benefits, and it’s not nothing.

Ben shows him that vulnerability is okay, opening his heart is okay, and that they can grow together. That Homie's boundaries can, should, and will be respected even if he doesn’t quite know where they are yet himself– they’ll find them together.  Homelander gets to know what it’s like to be treated with love, dignity, and humanity as a foundation, not a reward that can be deprived at any moment.  And yeah, Homelander is shallow, he’s impulsive, murderous, and all around kind of awful, but here’s someone who wants to dig deeper than that. Here's someone who holds him when he's covered in blood, when he wakes from nightmares. When the world is too much, Ben holds it on his own back to give him a break. And when the world takes all that Homelander has ever known (in my lil depowered series), Ben helps him build something new.

I think they fill the voids in each other, no innuendo intended, and become each other’s wings just as much as each other’s rocks.  Sorry this got long winded lol, but yeah.  I think Homelander is Ben’s MJ.

[autumnmobile12]

D. Gray Man: Morality vs Victory (and Survival)

D. Gray Man has a unique situation as far as conflict goes. The enemy is an army of millions of demon machines that are commanded by a race of humans that are virtually immortal from the perspective of ordinary people...and they can only be harmed/killed by a weapon that is so selective that only a handful of people in the world can use it. This isn’t a situation where anyone can just enlist and train to become an exorcist nor can the Black Order simply conscript new soldiers; this is a world where the chosen few and only the chosen few are physically capable of fighting the enemy.

This is the reality. This is the shit hand humanity in this world was dealt. So from from the perspective of ordinary folk who have no power against this fate other that to rely on the exorcists, many of whom are children, it's easy to see how and why they got desperate.

The other thing to consider is this isn't a normal war. The Black Order isn't the aggressor and the Earl and Noah Clan's ultimate aim is complete and total annihilation of humanity. So there is no hope of a ceasefire. There is no treaty the Order can sign, no way to negotiate, no way to appease the enemy. The only outcome that can happen is the destruction of one or the other.

In the grand scheme of things, the Order has nothing to lose. Lo Fwa recognizes the barbarity of the Third Exorcist Program and says what a ‘good person’ would say,  “This is not how I want to win.” That is a noble thing to say, but for the above reasons, the unspoken (and even spoken) outlook of the Order's leaders seems to be, “Do we win or do we die?” 

In spite of his photography 'hobby' and unhealthy obsession with Lenalee (cause that part of this character is really fucking creepy when you look past the fact it's supposed to be a joke,) Bak is actually one of the better leaders as far as morality goes.

When the Third Exorcist Program was unveiled, Bak was the only one verbally against it. He's the only one to called out Epstain for her part in the project.

Taking his background into account, this is understandable. His parents both martyred themselves in order to shut down the Second Exorcist Program and to hopefully prevent any similar experiments from taking place in the future. On top of that, when the scandal of what Lab 6 was doing got out, he probably took the brunt of the backlash in his parents' place.

Adding to this, when the Level 3 attacked the Asian Branch, his primary goal was keeping Allen safe. He acknowledged he couldn't fight and refused to throw him into the ring with a 'figure it out' mentality. So Fou took Allen's place. Even at the cost of her life, neither she nor Bak were willing to sacrifice a child. (He was even willing to risk blackmail with the aforementioned photos.)

We've already seen that Komui's the one who put an end to the human experimentation and he actively advocates on behalf of his sister and the other exorcists. He's also the odd one out as far as the other leaders of the Order go as he's the only one who doesn't have a generational obligation to be there, as both Lenalee and himself came from outside the Order and are the only surviving members of their family. Which in an organization where nepotism seems to be the commonality, that makes his position in the Order pretty impressive. He's the Alexander Hamilton of the Order.

During the attack on headquarters, Komui mobilizes the remaining exorcists to repel the akuma and made the practical decision to destroy the Egg in order to prevent the Earl from reclaiming it. But with the Level 4's appearance and the unknown status of their fighters, he chose to retreat. Like Bak during the Asian Branch crisis, he chooses not to endanger the lives of the exorcists who couldn't fight.

However, during the Third Exorcists arc, this standpoint of his starts to waver. Like Bak, it is to Komui's credit he didn't know about the Third Exorcist Program, but there is still the undeniable fact that he did not oppose the project when it came to light. He's uncomfortable about it, for sure. You can see he is not at all okay with any of this.

But he still says nothing.

The likely consolation in his mind is the Thirds were willing volunteers for the project and are honored to sacrifice themselves if need be, but this is still undeniably a slippery slope that can blow up in their faces. Which it does, resulting in the loss of the Thirds and four exorcists.

A silence of Komui's that speaks louder, though, is the treatment of Allen during his last days at the Order. Komui was in a bad spot here. On the one hand, he still views himself as an advocate for the exorcists. On the other, one wrong word and he might be the next one they lock up. So rather than speak out, he stays quiet in order to protect the others, which effectively means abandoning Allen. He doesn't even seem to be advocating for the Science Division's efforts to help.

There's already conflict between him and Lenalee over this. She's shown arguing with him in Night 204. We don't know what about, but given the context of the chapter, this probably isn't a petty sibling disagreement. Furthermore, where the current chapters stand, she and Marie are refusing to give him any information about Kanda and Johnny's whereabouts. This goes to show that while he does have good intentions, he no longer claims the same level of trust he used to, and that is likely killing everyone on the inside.

There is a distinct divide between 'Komui is Lenalee's brother' and 'Komui is Lenalee's commanding officer.' All the way back in the Fallen One arc, he is rather withdrawn in his instructions for her to recover Suman's Innocence and telling her point blank that he is beyond saving. There is also the post-Barcelona funeral where he strictly adheres to the Order's policy of cremating their dead and refusing to allow the finders to contact the families. Later on, he is even telling himself he can't afford to be sentimental even though we can clearly see how much the losses have affected him.

After the disaster of the Second Exorcist Program, Bak and Epstain both swore they would never be a part of any experiment like that again.  They lost their parents, Epstain owes her life to the Changs for shielding her from Alma's rampage, and they were left picking up the pieces of the disaster. It was her testimony to Central that put an end to the program.

So why does she go and dredge up all that bad blood to create the Thirds?

Bak, Komui, and Epstain all definitely went through a period of recovering mentally from the attack on headquarters, the appearance of a heretofore unheard of Level 4 akuma, and had to contemplate what this would mean for their organization going forward. It's not entire clear exactly when Komui became the branch chief, but he was 23 when he and Lenalee reunited, so it was around that time. (Lenalee would have been eight when word of the Second Program got out, so he definitely would have heard about it.)

So these three made their promises when they were in their early 20s at the most. In Bak and Epstain's case, they were handed responsibilities that should have remained with their parents for a few more years. Komui was still a teenager when his parents died.

They weren't children, but they were barely adults. In the face of tragedy, they all said, "No. We can be better than this," and they upheld those ideals admirably.

However, after nine years, hundreds of casualties, and catastrophic loss of life later, the Level 4's attack called back everything into question. It's the brutal reminder of their situation and of the three, Epstain is left questioning the stance she took a decade earlier. In short, the appearance of the Level 4 and the prospect of near annihilation scared her.

It definitely scared Komui and Bak, too, but as stated above, only one of them verbally opposed the Third Program. And even Bak gave in eventually.

Fear fueled desperation and desperation blurs where the line should not be crossed, and all three of them are now grappling with the idea of surviving and hanging on to their morality.

And unfortunately, there are the members of the cast that say,  “Victory no matter the cost.”

Which brings us to this guy.

Leverrier is definitely in the category of 'Characters you hated more than the villain' and his character design definitely didn't help things. From his first appearance in the series, he's callous and cold-hearted towards the exorcists, regarding them as less than people and more weapons and property of the Church. During the Level 4's attack, when Komui gave the order to retreat, Leverrier disagreed and said they should stand their ground in spite of the fact they had a one in a million chance of winning the battle.

However appalling as this decision was, though...it still worked. Sheer, dumb luck that it was, but we still have to acknowledge that Leverrier's decision and Lenalee's resolve were the main catalysts that, for better or worse, led to the discovery of the Crystal Innocence.

Unlike Komui, Bak, and Epstain, we don't have much in the way of backstory for Leverrier's character. There is definitely an element of family pride behind his motives. That is apparent by the vague storyline of the 'daughter that was offered up as a saint' as well as his rant to Link in Night 213 about using Allen and the 14th to win the war and that it's his victory, not Central's.

But there are two moments for this character that I think are telling. One is Link's statement in Night 247. "I have someone whom I wish to save...someone who lives his life restrained and filled with nothing but hatred." Link is pretty biased, so it's hard to gauge exactly what is genuine loyalty vs blind brainwashing, but the point is Link still has some reason to stand in his employer's corner. However, the other key moment is the very brief flashback we get in Night 150 where Leverrier, as a child, is calling out Hevlaska for her part in the human sacrifices, telling her she is murdering her own people.

This is a really odd stance for an otherwise harsh character, which does maybe indicate there was a time where even Leverrier thought the extreme actions of the Order were wrong? If this is true, what happened? If he used to be like the others and did once regard the exorcists as people instead of weapons, why the change?

There's a bittersweetness to the events of Lab 6 and the perpetrators of the Second Exorcist Program.

What's important to keep in mind is that even though Alma and Yuu were lab experiments, the scientists didn't treat them that way at all. They didn't keep them locked up in cages, the pair had free range of the lab as we can see them wandering all over the place unsupervised. The scientists gave them gifts. Alma knew what winter was despite having never been outside, so that means someone had to have told him about snow. When they had to 'dispose of' Yu, Tui and Epstain are openly weeping, and even Sahlins looks affected.

It's not a stretch to say the scientists loved those two, and so the entire lab did not hesitate to say, "No more." They put an end to the project and martyred themselves.

I think there also was an element of fear in this decision. Tui and Edgar Chang also probably had a line they thought they would never cross, and then they did. Once you commit something you previously thought was unthinkable, the question then becomes, "Where is the line now? How far are we going to go?"

Were they afraid of what they could become?

Finally, we come to the last character we're going to examine:

On his deathbed, Zhu Mei Chang confesses he is the one who began the human experimentation, that he was 'proud and cruel' and sought only the glory of his clan as he trampled on the lives of hundreds. This was an unexpected point of development for a character who's first appearance was a joke. When he first shows up, he's humbly chopping cabbage in the kitchens completely oblivious to Fou yelling directly at him through a megaphone. This introduction is hardly indicative of a heartless man who possibly tortured and killed many innocent people to have the 'honor of winning the war.' So the humor of him working as a lowly cook in the kitchens takes on a quality of possibly him trying to repent for everything he'd done.

So I'd like to acknowledge the age gap again:

Komui, Bak, and Epstain are still young adults. In their early twenties, they drew a line and stayed firmly behind it. Now they are 29-30 years old and they are toeing the line they themselves drew. That's a nine year difference. Nine years of hardship and a hopeless war that's been going on for a century already. As the audience, we have the benefit of assuming this war is going to end within their lifetime; they don't have that luxury. If nine years, and the prospect of carrying on through this the rest of their lives, did that to them, what did twenty or more years do to Zhu Mei Chang and Leverrier. Tui and Edgar were 39 and 43 years old respectively when they were killed, so their sacrifice may also have been viewed as an escape from a lifetime of warfare.

Allen and company have lost Suman, Daisya, the other Barcelona casualties, Tapp, countless members of the Science Division, General Yeegar, and many others through the course of one year.

With that kind of odds, it's tragically understandable how characters like Zhu Mei Chang and Leverrier may have ended up where they did. I don't like the idea that a character is inherently evil. D. Gray Man is a series full of many characters who are complex and nuanced, so writing off some of them as 'just cruel for no reason' is kinda out of place. Especially when the main villains are just as detailed. With the way things are going for Komui, Bak, and Epstain, I do genuinely wonder if Zhu Mei Chang and Leverrier once drew their own line of morality (as the Night 150 flashback may imply) and then decades of losses led them both to ask, "Survive as sinners or die as saints?"

Personally, I think every last one of the characters listed above who are still alive are headed for a Thanos-esque, "What did it cost? Everything..." tragedy.

Further tragedy has the potential to push even Komui, Bak, and Epstain, further down an ever darkening path. D. Gray Man is not a normal war. Whether they fight for vengeance or pride or to protect those who are left or they feel winning the war no matter the cost is owed to the countless people who have already died, it's still victory or death in the most literal sense for the Order.

That said, for the characters who have already gone too far and crossed the line, there's no redemption nor should there be redemption.

Castlevania Dracula says it best:

There comes a point where even the most determined of soldiers have to ask, "Does the victory justify the atrocities?" and "If this is what it takes to win the war, then maybe we deserve extinction."

Honestly, I really hope Leverrier's character arc ends with him getting yeeted out a window like it's a Prague regime change.

So where's it all going for the younger generation of the Order?

While they don't have the audience's benefit of knowing the war could end within their lifetime and there is in fact a light at the end of the tunnel, they do have the hindsight of knowing what the Order has done, all the mistakes that have led them to this point. Similar to Komui and the other branch heads, they doubly have the stance, "Our predecessors fucked up. In spite of the odds, we can be better. We can break this chain of generational trauma and win the war without the abhorrent methods."

Wanting to be destroyers that save people.

Hanging on to hope.

[sunyot]

Must See T.V. Moments - Invincible 2024

*****SPOILERS for SEASON 2: EPISODE 6*****

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I'm in my T.V. Phase now...

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*******I MEAN IT. SPOILERS AHEAD******

The 'parasitic alien' remains a classic Super Hero villain. My personal first introduction to this villain came from watching Batman Beyond. In a two-episode Saga, Terry gets the opportunity to fight alongside The Justice League of his era. Naturally, he finds discord only to discover... well you get the idea.

This concept plays on one of our fears as people: being controlled. As gamers, we're so used to being puppetiers. Yet imagine Being the puppet. Imagine further maintaining a small hint of consciousness; an out of body experience where you watch your every action taking place. We might wonder if we'd still feel pain? Would we feel anything at all? The parasite would probably have a total lack of self-preservation, and that scares us.

This show still reigns as one of the best-written shows on television. Robert Kirkman handles tension so well. I'm avoiding reading the comics, but when I see an episode as good as this one it's very tempting. The series integrates so many layers, adding a density to the storytelling. Amazing story craft like this, in my opinion, is the cause of fiction withdrawal. I know the feeling well.

Sometimes, a series feels like it's speaking to you personally. It becomes a drug that taps directly into your veins. I keep a list of shows on my phone that give me this feeling. Maybe one day I'll share them. Really, I keep them to remind myself which shows give me the true feeling I'm searching for. I do this in the hopes of limiting my sometimes lengthy searches for new entertainment.

Let's start with the obvious.

Do you Ship 'Mark X Amber' or 'Invincible X Atom Eve'?

Fans of the series remain vocal about their preferences. And I get it. They prefer for Mark to spend the majority of his time as Invincible, the superhero. They want to see him at his most powerful, going on adventures, fighting alongside a crew, and receiving the admiration of beautiful potential partners. Seeing Mark in a more ordinary human life could feel less fun. And Amber is, in a way, a representation of that. Her groundedness reminds Mark, and the audience, that he's still just a guy. This can cause conflict between the audience and certain characters. Protagonists often serve a cathartic outlets for viewers. Fans of Twilight want to see the quiet, studious, normal young lady swept up into an extraordinary series of events. Seeing someone like themselves, allows them to live vicariously through the plot.

Likewise, superheroes serve as one of our culture's best self-insert fantasies...

This is good. This is healthy, I'd argue. Being able to explore yourself in an idealized fashion can help people create fragments of identity which can sometimes become the sparks of our moral centers. All that said, writers like Kirkman, understand that stitching these fantasies to universal human experiences are what make them memorable. It's the filtering of the wild through the boring that make our stories sing.

In real life, we have relationship problems. We screw up. We do poorly in school. We fail at our obligations time and time again, while the world forces us to push onward because our obligations are always with us. As Mark continues to try and do the right thing, his humanity outshines his Viltrumite heritage.

*****SPOILERS for SEASON 2: EPISODE 6*****

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Rexsplosion reads Home Decor Magazines - Invincible 2024

"I actually thought Rex died..."

This series plays with tension brilliantly. It also avoids having too many moments of relief. When the immediate danger fades, the characters still live in a state of worry. They're always waiting for the other shoe to drop. We learn something quirky about Rex, but only because he almost died. This semi-sweet moment humanizes him, yet emphasizes the ominous nature of the series. Our heroes have to take their happy moments when they can get them. The Team, now scattered, became a question mark. This world cannot afford uncertainty surrounding its heroes. We saw their near demise in Mark's absence.

And with a few quick scenes of Mark's loved ones, we're of where he's most vulnerable.

This brings me to my favorite aspect of the episode:

- The Fiction inside the fiction -

This will always be one of my favorite methods of storytelling. Seeing characters in fiction read or watch their own fiction lets us see how they relate to their world. Sometimes it's done through myths and legends. Sometimes in other clever ways...

When Mark receives a box of science fiction stories (stories written by his father) we are able to more directly relate to the character.

This look of wonder and skepticism on his face. This is all of us...

My father introduced me to Star Wars. He had the original trilogy on VHS tapes. He recorded the movies when one of the major networks aired them without commercials. I wore those tapes out, watching until my imagination expanded to the vastness of any epic tale; spilling over into my daily life sunshine I could carry in my pockets.

At this moment in the show, I am Mark. I'm sitting on my bed, hearing my father's voice as the story plays out on the pages and in my mind. And I'd wager, I'm not the only one.

In dramatic fashion, we now get to go on the journey inside this new universe. This fiction within a fiction is crucial as it becomes the notion of creation from the perspective of beings we know to be created. How funny is that. Funnier still, to Mark this tale plays as cinema. Whereas to us, it's still animated; which is a wild concept when thinking of sentience.

Even the title 'The Man with the Invincible Gun' ...feels like foreshadowing to me.

*****SPOILERS for SEASON 2: EPISODE 6*****

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I'm sure most of you caught on quick, realizing that these stories are based on Mark's Father's real adventures. I think it's funny seeing a character like Mark, superhero, space traveler, one of the strongest beings in the Universe, forget all that, and lose himself in the story. Again, this character trait displays Mark's humanity. Of course, he eventually realizes that these stories are far from lore.

Knowing his father, it's probably safe to assume these were not heroic journeys of an idealistic space explorer. More than likely they were unsuccessful Viltrumite invasions of unsuspecting alien inhabitants. I also think we'll at some point get to meet some of these aliens and learn the truth of these encounters. But still, it's fun to dream.

This episode makes me want to read a good book...

It also makes me want to write. It's been a while since I've done that either.

A few more things. Seeing the Seth Rogan alien makes me wonder when I'm going to be able to hear him as his own character because every time he talks, all I hear is Seth Rogan. His is the only character that does that to me. I'm hoping my brain eventually adjusts.

Also, let's readdress the title screen.

What does it mean this season? In Season 1, the answer felt obvious. The blood splattered across the title showed the surprising violence of the heroes world, which slowly dragged Mark deeper into its depths. In this season, the classic 'Invincible' logo cracks away to reveal a red one.

What's the meaning, I wonder. Mark might be one bad event away from turning into Omniman, a true Viltrumite warrior, like the Mark of the other Universe. And speaking of other Universes...

Our friend Giant-Brain-Outside-My-Body-Man returns to get a bespoke suit from a tailor with four arms.

This tells me that no matter the universe, timeline, or year, nothing feels better than wearing a fresh new suit. We also get to see him do a little multi-dimensional hopping.

I wonder which Universe this could be...

Cryston

[notbeyondbirthday]

When will humans figure out we actually do need to talk about and explore and channel our ugly, dark and fucked up parts into things that won't harm people or we WILL harm people? Violence sex and taboo isn't going anywhere, people are always going to do things they shouldn't and we're not going to be able to understand or deal with it if we never even allow ourselves to engage with those topics as ideas.

As a victim of abuse fuck anyone that thinks it's wrong to explore these harmful topics in stories...fuck you, genuinely. Stories help me process these experiences, it gives me a place to express myself where I don't have to worry about being palatable to the sensibilities of people who can't understand what I've gone through. Uncomfortable stories deserve to be told and must be told because this sanitized world you're imagining can't ever fucking exist.

Your discomfort/disgust is not a moral argument. And guess what! You don't have to engage with media that makes you feel that way. You're not obligated to examine it critically and justify your feelings about it, you can actually just decide it's not for you and that's fine.

You don't actually have to shame and make wild assumptions about people who do engage with it, either! An individual consuming media, in and of itself, is not an inherently harmful act. If it were, research and investigation and journalism and art and archiving would be inherently harmful, but they are not, they are necessary.

If we're going to discuss the ethics of consuming a piece of media, we need context. It is not enough to say, 'you laid your eyeballs on it, you thought about it, and that's the material harm!' No it isn't, and that reductionist, puritanical view really only keeps us from understanding where the harm is actually coming from. We need to do the work, people. Without nuance we can't address these broader social issues, we just create a neverending list of thoughtcrimes.

[the-perfect-wagnerite-again]

Can you please explain what stuff like "safe horny" is? What do you consider to be "healthy," if you can describe the subject as such, sexuality? I'm not trying to make a gotcha or own, I genuinely am curious as to what that means.

My take on healthy sexuality is deeply influenced by my Kantianism. We humans are unique in that we are simultaneously phenomenal objects and free subjects, and the categorical imperative impels us to treat all subjects as ends in themselves. Sexual desire is an immensely complex phenomenon, and at its core is the base animal instinct for copulation and sexual satisfaction. But the mere slaking of lust is beneath us; it doesn't satisfy, because we are more than just flesh.

Over and above sexual lust is sexual desire, a metaphysical search for the subjecthood of the Other that we sense in our beloved. We know that our subjectivity is the vector through which experience is possible, and so we exist not so much IN the world as on its edge, looking out from the first-person perspective, the state that allows us to utter the word "I" and have it mean something. In the beloved is a recognition of the self reflected back, a not-self in full possession of that same subjectivity, and it is the total knowledge of this alien subjecthood that sexual desire seeks to possess. Why do we get lost in the eyes of our beloved? We don't see the eye as an organ of sight, but as a window to the self. In the eyes, we see a self-possessed "I" looking back at us, which is why the gaze from the beloved has been such a powerful anchor for artists, poets, and musicians throughout the ages. This singular drive for knowledge of the subject is also why it would be insane to suggest to a man in love to trade his wife for a newer or more attractive one. The man in love isn't interested in women writ large, no matter how attractive they might be: his desire is concentrated and focused upon a singular, solitary subject for whom he seeks total knowledge.

In light of this, marriage is now understood as a redemption of the human biological drive for sexual satisfaction. In much the same way we redeem our biological need for nutrition through the cultural apparatus of cooking, meal-taking, and communion, through romance, courtship, and marriage we take the base human drive for sexual possession and uplift it to its apex as pure subjectivity.

What happens when we decouple this connection between the subject and sexual desire? What happens when we shift our understanding of sex as an exercise of epistemology to a mere conjugation of body parts? The relation falls away from that of "I to I" and becomes an "it to it" relation, objects colliding in a world of objects. The true danger of pornography, the sexual revolution, and modern sexual ethics is that they obliterate the subject in the sexual act, and reduce them to the status of object, a body with sexual organs that can be manipulated in the act of intercourse. In this new paradigm, there is no motivation for knowledge of the other, there is only self-satisfaction. The beloved vanishes and in its stead are objects to be consumed through dating apps, pornography, advertising, and menu-mentality approaches to romance as a "marketplace." The only barrier is consent, so any moral castigations beyond that are seen as backwards, oppressive, and reactionary.

Where consent is the only necessary factor for any sexual encounter of any kind or in any circumstance, male sexuality becomes unshackled from the duties and obligations that previously bound it into healthy service to femininity and family. It is once again predatory, as it would be in a state of nature, because we've cast aside our redeeming institutions of romance and courtship as regressive relics of a patriarchal past. "Safe horny" is a refuge for men to express desire without being seen as predatory, which is why we've seen such a dramatic increase in men expressing desires for dominant women and aggressive matriarchal sexual archetypes, in which relation they couldn't possibly be seen as agents themselves. This is a symptom of the larger sexual dysfunction of modernity.

[best-underrated-anime]

Best Underrated Anime Group D Round 1: #D8 vs #D1

#D8: Singer idol android goes back in time to save humanity

When highly evolved AIs set out to eradicate mankind, the carnage that ensues fills the air with the stench of fresh blood and burning bodies. In a desperate bid to prevent the calamity from ever occurring, a scientist bets everything on a remnant from the past.

Turning the clock back a hundred years, AIs are already an integral part of human society, programmed with specific missions meant to be carried out for their entire course of operation. Vivy, the first ever autonomous AI, is a songstress tasked with spreading happiness through her voice. In a theme park where she hardly ever gets a proper audience, she strives to pour her heart out into her performances, bound to repeat it day after day—that is, until an advanced AI from the future appears before her and enlists her help in stopping a devastating war a hundred years in the making. With no time to process the revelation that flips her world upside down, Vivy is catapulted into a century-long journey to avert the violent history yet to come.

#D1: Prohibition era Mafia revenge story

As a child living in the town of Lawless, Angelo Lagusa has witnessed a tragedy: his parents and younger brother have been mercilessly slaughtered by the Vanetti mafia family. Losing everything he holds dear, he leaves both his name and hometown behind, adopting the new identity of Avilio Bruno. Seven years later, Avilio finally has his chance for revenge when he receives a mysterious letter prompting him to return to Lawless. Obliging, he soon encounters the Vanetti don’s son, Nero, and seeks to befriend him using the skills he has quietly honed for years. Set during the Prohibition era, this show tells the story of Avilio’s dark, bloodstained path to vengeance, as he slowly ends each of the men involved in the killing of his family.

Titles, propagandas, trailers, and poll under the cut!

#D8: Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song

Propaganda:

Most first think that this anime is an idol show. I promise you, it is NOT. Quite far from it. Vivy is regrettably underrated despite having great animation—just watch the fight scenes. It has the best of songs that will get stuck in your head for a long time. Character growth for characters - you will adore them. It even won some recognition from anime awards, yet no one talks about it. You have to watch it at least once and appreciate how this anime is made with love as it talks about experiences that make us human. You will be surprised how well the storytelling is.

Trigger Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Cruelty/Violence/Gore, Suicide

#D1: 91 Days

Propaganda:

This series has character designs by the art director of Baccano. In fact, the setting of it being in the early 1920s in America is sort of reminiscent of Baccano. However, the story is much crueler and more grounded than that other famous series, even if it involves a similar amount of guns and blood.

The anime follows a broken and traumatized young man fueled by revenge. It’s a tragedy and a thriller and a Mafia series. We see the lengths Angelo Lagusa goes to avenge his family, whom he’s the last living survivor of. He changes his name and leads a double life, getting close to the Vanetti family, who killed his birth family. But in the process of trying to do this, he gets adopted into this Mafia family.

He must wrestle with his morality as he keeps on the bloody road of revenge. People that don’t deserve to be hurt get hurt or killed because of his actions—even dying by his hands.

It's an anime that shows just how far someone is willing to go for revenge, willing to break everything in his path for it. And considering the Prohibition era came to an end in history, was all the trickery and killing even worth it?

Trigger Warnings: Animal Cruelty/Death, Cannibalism, Emotional Abuse, Graphic Depictions of Cruelty/Violence/Gore, Suicide, Alcohol and Smoking.

This entire series is a mob story so there's lots of guns, blood, and killing. There is an assisted suicide of an important character. Also the family dog dies when the main character's family is massacred in the first episode.

If you’re reblogging and adding your own propaganda, please tag me @best-underrated-anime so that I’ll be sure to see it.

[librarycards]

please don’t feel pressured at all to answer this because i know it’s a complicated + sensitive question, but i’m very new to all this and have learned a lot from your antipsych resources etc and thought you’d be a good person to ask. how are you able to internally reconcile anti-fatphobia and it’s values with having an eating disorder that centers around weight, and wanting to lose/maintain a lower weight? i’ve found this to be incredibly hard to reconcile, knowing that i want to be thinner for a variety of reasons including my own internalized fatphobia, beliefs i haven’t unlearned about body, beauty, etc, as well as my own knowledge of how i will materially exist in the world if i am not a thin person? i do not want to be fatphobic yet to fully embody a liberationist view would also require giving up my ed, which is opposite to my own internal views but also is something that is very entrenched in my life. it feels very hard and impossible, especially because i’m just not ready for recovery yet. sorry if this isn’t a message you want to post/discuss :(

Firstly - I have a piece in @trans-axolotl's antipsychiatry zine that discusses thin anorexic/ed accompliceship in fat liberation politics - as soon as that's up I can add it to this message/send it to whoever wants it!

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oh anon, i feel this so hard. you're not alone - i think pretty much everyone with a restrictive ed/bdd who has a radical left/body liberationist politic ends up feeling this way, and, of course, feeling an immense degree of shame and frustration that our most visceral lived experiences are at odds with our political commitments. i think about it every day. i will likely continue to, because the desire to be thin at all costs is irreconcilable with liberation for all people, including fat people. so, let's sit with the irreconcilability for a moment.

here is the reality: there is no good, "innocent," or morally "pure" answer here. we cannot and should not be obligated to "fix" our Mad relationships with food/embodiment for the sake of others. neither are fat people obligated to tolerate individual / collective / structural manifestations of antifatness, including those enacted by people whose food/body relationships are psychiatrized (that is to say, if i start talking about how i as an anorexic person "feel fat" around an actual fat person, they'd have every right to smack me upside the head). but part of being in community with other imperfect people under conditions of genocidal violence (against fat / Mad people and intersections therein) is learning about which allowances we can make, which actions we can take, in order to mitigate the harm we do to the people we care about. to employ a tired recovery cliche, the point is progress, not perfection.

here is another truth: every single person mired in a culture of fatphobia has shit to unlearn. for people who are not fat, the stakes of unlearning are even higher, given the structural rewards we reap from antifatness. this is true for any system of oppression. having an antipsych orientation to the idea of "disordered/disorderly eating", i think, has the potential to aid in that unlearning process, not because it means you'll magically "get better" in terms of your own relationship with food, but because it's a bit easier to notice the discourses of disorder that also violently impact fat people. the violence we face in the name of "restoration" and "recovery" increasingly impacts fat people as so-called "ob*sity" is framed as a biopsychological medical condition that must be "cured" via eugenics. shared disorderliness, even allowing for differences in privilege and access, can serve as a site of solidarity - even when our own experiences of disorder are fueled by an erroneous fear of "fat". there is also the important corollary that fat people with restrictive eating disorders, fat people who are terrified of fatness, also exist, and that a radical commitment to imperfection and partiality also benefits people who live in these seemingly-contradictory positions.

to sum, you/i/we don't ever have to recover. however, we can, should, and must fight for a world in which we and others could repair their relationship to food and embodiment if and when we so choose, on our own terms, in our own time, without medical paternalism. this world - a world in which we can eat or not eat what and when we want - is only possible under a paradigm of body/fat liberation. after all, the same systems that seek to eliminate fat people are the ones that seek to eliminate body Madness, to "fix" restrictive eaters through governing how we eat/move our bodies. on the days that it's difficult to imagine yourself as a direct beneficiary of fat liberation (as a fat person or potential fat person) think about the ways fat liberation is simply necessary to all other forms of liberation, including for Mad eaters. likewise, remember that your own personal feelings are in many ways irrelevant to that liberatory fight: what you do, who your accomplices are, and what we can collectively dream, outweigh (lmao) the painful thoughts we experience.

these thoughts, our bodymind relationships, our fears of food and fat, don't define us, even if they take up an outsized portion of our lives. there is always time and space to find community and fight for total liberation as our imperfect selves - everyone else is coming as an imperfect self, too. i think you'll find, as you enter more conversations with people doing this work, that even the "best" advocates share your/our ambivalences and fears, and may desire things that they'd never outwardly advocate for. people are complicated, and we're living in a world that makes living in a body horrifically painful. give yourself the grace to sit with your feelings, and give yourself permission to fight on another day without feeling obligated to "get better." what matters most is the care you're able to share with the people you surround yourself with, and the care you allow yourself to receive by people who love all of you - not just the polished, good-activist parts.