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Kylo Ren, systemic abuse, and why calling him an emo kid isn’t helping.

Let’s talk about Kylo Ren, shall we?

(I’m going to spoil some aspects of the movie, so if you haven’t seen it yet, get thee to a cinema!)

Kylo Ren is an ongoing victim of severe psychological and mental abuse. He is a scared and very dangerous victim who is continuing to attempt to please his abuser.

In the context of the film, he does many indefensible things; I will not attempt to defend them. He’s a turd.

But let’s talk about why, and let’s do it in a way that takes into account the fact that Ben Solo was groomed by a sadistic abuser from a very young age. As the Force-sensitive son of a high-profile member of the Republic and Resistance, he was basically a sitting duck for Snoke. The conversion of Ben Solo to Kylo Ren, potential Sith Lord, is killing blow meant for Leia and Luke.

I’m going to address a comment that frustrated me when I read it this afternoon. The claim was:

“Ben Solo should have known better, he was raised surrounded by love and supportive people.”

This, in my opinion, incorrectly places the onus on Ben Solo (Kylo Ren) to resist his abuser and creates an expectation where we, the audience, assign the blame of abuse to the abused. This is often something that happens to men who’ve been abused or sexually assaulted. Kylo Ren’s actions often support this narrative.

He is still trying to please his abuser, but does not idolize him; he fears him. He has literally been forced to murder his own father to prove that he’s evil enough to be a good servant, and has been ordered to murder his uncle/mentor as well. When Kylo Ren reveals to Snoke that Rey is strong, it’s both a cringing apology for his own inability to get intel from her and a plea for a second chance to subdue her. He is afraid.

He was groomed as a “Chosen One”, to the point where he can’t believe a mere “girl” would be strong enough in the Force to challenge him.  His idolization of his grandfather, prophesied Chosen One Anakin Skywalker, reflects this—even if he has bent the narrative to suit his needs.

He desires very strongly to have control over others, as he feels powerless when faced with his own abuser. This is why he restrains his prisoners and intimidates them before he uses the Force to get in their heads. He craves the psychological upper hand.

Any support he had from his family growing up likely felt tenuous, considering the fact that he was constantly bombarded with insidious and poisonous abuse from within. He is literally made of chaos, which is Dark Side catnip. Doubt, anxiety, anger, fear and pain is exactly the nasty stuff that makes the Dark Side look better; by seeding a young Force-sensitive child with these traits, Snoke partially inoculated Ben Solo against the Light.

It bears remembering that he also has a family history of men who struggle with staying away from the Dark Side of the Force, and we are encouraged to infer that some Jedi always struggle with that temptation more than others. The movies indicate that Force-sensitivity is hereditary, and leave open the imputation that the strength of the pull to the Dark Side may also be. This would make Ben Solo a more suggestible and malleable target for Snoke, again through no fault of his own.

The parallels to sexism/toxic masculinity aren’t accidental. The scene where he tells Rey he can “take what he wants” is a clear reference to sexual assault. When she resists him, that’s where the power balance shifts away from Kylo Ren, rendering him a little off-balance; when Rey gains more control over the Force, he is further chaotic and weakened. This has happened to him before, but here, he feels he is meant to have the upper hand, and his worst fears are confirmed: he is not strong enough to overcome Rey, and therefore will not be as strong as Darth Vader, the idolized ideal of the strength the Dark Side can produce.

We need to stop dismissing Kylo Ren as a spoiled emo kid who feels entitled to get what he wants; this narrative is unsupported by the text and particularly damaging in light of the ongoing abuse he suffers.

Kylo Ren should definitely be held accountable for his actions. (Han Solo isn’t ever going to be unkilled.) Whatever Kylo Ren’s motives are, whatever his reasons or trauma, he still did those things. But I strongly suggest we change the language around why. By assigning blame to Kylo Ren for not being “strong enough” to resist Snoke, we effectively blame him for being abused. And that idea is toxic.

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For anyone worried about missing anything in BG3 or replaying the game and wanting to find something they missed there’s a ton of checklists available online and I’m just gonna post the ones I’ve been using for all the acts in case anybody else wants to reference them!

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I get the feeling Astarion is like, suuuper manipulative. I just started playing bg3, and it’s really fun, and of course I started romancing Astarion. It took me almost 100 hours but I’m beginning to realize just how manipulative he is.

I probably should’ve noticed it was sooner but I’ve never exactly been the most noticeable when it comes to that. But starting from the beginning when he almost kills you instead of letting you talk, then joins you, then sweet talks you into you letting him bite you, to the constant flirty and generally ‘sweet’ demeanor. But like, there are some stuff that I didn’t notice until I got to act three and ascended Astarion and it made it so much more obvious because it’s so much more prevalent than it was before.

Like his disdain for almost everyone. He jokes about murder so casually and carelessly. Jokes about slavery which was super surprising to me because he IS a slave. Or was rather. Then his pet names. Like I don’t think I’ve ever heard him just save the name or anything just ‘thing’ and of course theirs darling, love, all that but he usually calls you a sweet thing or a generous thing, and now he calls me pet all the time or little love but mostly pet.

Which I have to say is super shocking because of his disdain for animals. Like he basically hates animals and enjoys torturing them. He even likens goblins and koboloids to them and says they’re pretty much good for feeding and torturing and that likes…it…and I’m playing as a high elf but he is calling me a pet.

I know there’s that heartwarming scene in act two but it comes off kinda manipulative too. The whole ‘I don’t know what I’m doing I’ve only done these things on the whim of my master and so you’ll have to be patient with me if I fuck up and I need your help to really understand myself’ which I totally fell for. I’m guessing if you don’t let Astarion ascend there’s a less demanding Astarion, but at the same time I’m seeing people say he goes back to being his regular self but his regular self is incredibly manipulative to a fault, and enjoying the humiliation and shame of the person he claimes to care for

Don’t get me wrong. I love a well done fantasy bad boy. And it was pretty clear Astarion wasn’t a good guy given how much he approved of murder, humiliation, and shaming. I’m not mad or anything in fact it’s almost amazing how well his character is written and I’m somewhat baffled by just how perfect it was. I’m just shocked I didn’t notice how manipulative he was to the main character until act three. The whole master slave relationship he had with Cazador really had him blinding me lol.

I’ve also seen people say he isn’t bad it’s just trauma. I mean, maybe, but if that’s the case why doesn’t he have sympathy for other slaves like himself? If it was truly just trauma he should feel bad but he gets super disapproving if you help the slaves out. And why would he revel in the power he has over other people when scenes like loviatar come up. Even Shadowheart seemed a bit…eh…on that scene but Astarion was practically drooling. Not to mention the whole ‘don’t you dare say no’. I’m kinda curious what would happen if I did say no.

As a whole Astarion is a lot more abusive and dominating and sadistic than I had previously noticed. Not that I mind. I love a good evil character. Especially in games books and tv (not irl of course) but they aren’t usually done with such perfection. And I haven’t don’t other walk through yet but apparently he changes his phrases based off how you come onto him and what you say. Rather than having a generally similar outlook irregardless of what you say, like shadowheart, gale, Wyll, laezal. Pretty much everyone else.

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WYLLVEMBER DAY 12: astarion

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Neil's acceptance speech at The Game Awards for Best Performance as Astarion 🩷

"You're not alone in this. None of us are."

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Astarion lectures of disappointment >>>

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Did you have to dress like that? Girls love guys in uniform.

ROOKIE COPS (2022)

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Loki’s Backstory: Teased or Taunted?

So, I’m looking at this thread of post that originating from Thor fans who claimed to have Loki as their “favorite” character going around into Loki’s fans post to justifying Loki’s electrocution scene and completely demonizing him by twisting his character interpretation in the most negative way possible, such as his motives, backstory, etc: ( http://kurukka.tumblr.com/post/169091186112/helshades-star-sought-light-whitedaydream )

When I read the post, I feel the urge to counter almost of their points. I was firstly made this in my re-blog (I feel so stupid about this) which I wrote that in a hurry so it resulted in a mess that’s hard to be understood (like seriously, the language I made was so complicated and that’s the reason on why I edits that in this post), but then I think about just posting it as my own (I really didn’t think through this. I feels like my mind isn’t that clear).

Since there’s so many subjects of discussion I want to counter from that link, I’m planning make other posts about countering those statement in different way. 

And this is the part 1 of my thread:

So what I’m now doing is to counter about this particular subject that I found in that post. 

In the link above, one of the statement that you can see is that they’re undermining Loki’s backstory by saying that all warriors 3 did to him was only “friendly-teasing”. 

Also, I beg to differ with you on “bullied […] all the time”.

Volstagg teased Loki about his silver tongue turning to lead, which is a type of joke common in friendships where we often tease one another, and was more ‘banter’ than ‘bullying’. I’ve heard friends say much worse from ‘fuck off’ to ‘dude, you’re such an idiot’ … it’s not typically bullying, as so much depends upon tone and established boundaries by those parties and cultural differences.

Sif did suspect him of treachery, but - hey - she turned out to be right.

Now, I’m saying this with Loki as my favourite character, but he is not routinely bullied or mocked by his friends

Let me debunk about those particular section of statements by breaking down points per points:

a. There’s the difference on what called as friendly-teasing and negative-taunting. Let me make this thing clears here: Both friendly-teasing acts and negative-taunting acts exists and displayed in many forms/ways of expressions according to the each difference of those cultures. However, there’s the core thing that really sets these two actions apart and as two different acts regardless of the cultures differences or not.

And that core thing is the person who got teased/taunted’s reaction itself. The person’s reaction is what you must measuring in order to differentiate between the two acts whether that’s a teasing or taunting, and this is a core thing of the two acts difference, and this basic applies to all different cultures.

Here to explain the basic difference between teasing and taunting first.

Teasing:

Is intended to get both parties to laugh.

Isn’t intended to hurt the other person.

Pokes fun in a light-hearted, clever, and benign way that doesn’t hurt a person part of identity.

Is discontinued when person teased becomes upset or objects to the teasing.

Taunting:

Includes laughter directed at the target, not with the target.

Is intended to harm.

Involves humiliating, cruel, demeaning, or bigoted comments thinly disguised as jokes.

Continues especially when targeted kid becomes distressed or objects to the taunt. 

And also, this is the condition on when the act of teasing can be continued: 

Both parties are laughing, smiling and joking with each other.

Both individuals sense that the teasing is playful and not meant to be hurtful.

The person being teased responds in a playful way, which increases his or her like-ability in the group.

And this is when the act of teasing should stop immediately:

Facial expressions convey that the other person is feeling hurt by the comments.

Comments are derogatory in nature, insulting and mean-spirited.

The teaser shows disdain and dislike for the other person.

Let’s examine the scene and Loki’s reaction when Volstagg made the joke. 

Did Loki laugh together with Volstagg after that? Did his facial expressions showing happiness/laughing together with the jokes?

And in addition, I quote something from the script of the first Thor:

Volstagg and Fandral share a laugh.

Only Volstagg and Fandral share a laugh, not Loki. 

Loki never laugh when Volstagg made that “joke”. In fact, his facial expressions convey that he’s feeling hurt by the comments, that he definitely never sense that “joke” as playful. That wasn’t an act in which both parties were laughing and smiling. It’s an act in which only the person who made the joke laughing while the person that got taunted was expressing discomfort. 

And surely this isn’t the first time Volstagg attempted to “joking” with him in those 1000 years, right? Did Volstagg never noticed Loki’s reaction or did he just intentionally ignored it? Considering that this isn’t the first time Volstagg doing it to him either, why didn’t he discontinued this act if he saw Loki’s negative expression? 

Let’s also talk about Asgardians culture. 

Was “teasing” like that was something that usual in their culture? Asgardians definitely often joking a lot, but did you see they’re “joking” something that degrading a person’s ability other than when they did that to Loki? They never joking about something that degrading Thor’s ability as you can see in both Thor 1 and Thor 2, and in fact, what they’re doing the opposite. It’s clear that they’re favoring Thor while just regard Loki as something inferior, and also show disdain and dislike to Loki. 

Warriors 3, Lady Sif, and Thor was directly ignoring Loki’s reaction/words/opinions as shown by the scenes in the earlier beginning part of the movie. Many of what they said to him was derogatory in nature (about his “tricks”, taunting his ability to persuade), and treating him as inferior person. 

The joke that Volstagg made was actually taunting Loki’s ability to persuade others. By doing so, he degrading Loki’s ability and highlighting his recent failure.

What they did to him in that bridge scene was taunting, not teasing.  

I mean, let’s pretend that what Volstagg did was really “teasing”. But act of teasing itself has division called as positive teasing in which the impact to the person who got teased is either positive/neutral and negative teasing in which impacts the person negatively. Not even teasing behavior itself is all positive, and as much whether it’s a good intention or not, the negative impact of negative teasing isn’t what you should dismissing it as nothing considering how much it affects on person’s behavior /personality /thoughts /upbringing.

And this is what you should regard Loki’s problem as, not as something that only exist in vacuum or only small problem. Emotional bullying is never a small thing to be undermined. 

b. And let me now  there’s this solid reason called as NARRATIVE REASON.

The first Thor movie is used to established the initial condition/environment/circumstances regarding character’s status, personality, condition, and their relationship with others around them. It’s to tell the viewers about the initial habit of the character before there’s something change. 

In this case, those scenes about Thor interrupting Loki with “enough” and telling him to “know his place” in which Thor done that in just couple of minutes/hours basically telling you about his initial personality and habit, in which he unconsciously treat his brother as inferior and a self-centered person who’s arrogant and boastful before there’s an event that changing it all for him to got development regarding his bad behavior/personality. 

The very first act of Thor movie isn’t without the use. There’s the reason and point on why those shots exists, those scene exists. Those things aren’t exist in vacuum only. Ignoring the narrative and point of these scenes is the very basic ignorance. 

So, what I want to say is that, don’t dismiss Loki’s problem as nothing, don’t undermining of what he had gone through as only imagined slight, don’t try to change the fact that what Loki being often mocked/taunted by changing it into that “but he’s just being teased not bullied”. The narrative reason of that scene wants to tell you that Loki’s feelings/opinions often ignored by Thor and his friends, and this is true. You can easily just get this feeling by observing the “get help” scene in which Thor ignoring Loki’s direct expression of dislike just because Thor likes it. 

As to counter some statement that I quoted for the link above: 

Thor teased him about his helmet, but Loki gave back as good as he got and took it in good humour.

But Loki never returning Thor’s “some do battles, some do tricks” mocks with counter-jokes, nor when Thor ordering him to “know his places” either. He just there took it all in silent. It’s usual for him to receive that, so no surprise for him at all. 

in fact, even with Thor gone, they still accepted him into their social circle and included him in their interactions, and it was he who rejected them by hiding his promotion to 👑and alienating them from both Frigga and Thor and restricting their freedoms.

There’s a reason on why Loki “rejected” them and hiding his promotion as a king. Loki “rejected” them because he distrust them and never regard them as his close friends.  

Why he never regard them as his “friends” in the first place? What’s the reason? If you observe The Warriors 3 and Lady Sif’s treatment to Loki all the movie, they never have respect for him and his position, always suspecting any negative about him even if the reason they had was only a weak and biased assumptions due to their blind side/loyalty to Thor. 

Just look at the warriors 3 and Lady Sif’s reaction when they found out Loki was their king. They couldn’t even stop disrespecting him in every way possible by laughing when calling him as the king, not to mention their disbelief also displeased expressions. Loki must assumed about their reactions before, and he turned out to be right. 

Tell me how they “accepted him into their social circle” again? I just can’t see it at all. 

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Word of Honor Daily Summer Event: Wen Kexing (1/31)

""You're not a monster." I said, but I lied. What I really wanted to say was that a monster is not such a terrible thing to be. From the Latin monstrum, a divine messenger of catastrophe, then adaptaded by the Old French to mean an animal of myriad origins.... To be a monster is to be a hybrid signal, a lighthouse: both shelter and warning at once." On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

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Masterpost - Word of Honor

Here’s all of my Word of Honor original content

Costume Appreciation

Search tag “woh costumes” on this blog to find all of these together (on the days when tumblr’s search is working). Core family is at the top of the list, everyone else is alphabetical.

Wen Kexing   1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |15 

Zhou Zishu    1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |11| 12 13 |14 |15 |16| 17 |18 |19 

Gu Xiang       1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 (NEW)

Zhang Chenling        1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 

—————————————————-

Du Pusa (Scorpion Hottie) 1 | 2 

Gao Xiaolian   1 | 2

Gao Chong 1

Gu Miaomiao 1 | 2

Jing An (Noble Lady/Sister-In-Law)   1

Jing Beiyuan and Wu Xi    1 | 2 

Liu Qianquio (Beauty Ghost) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 (NEW NEW)

Luo Fumeng (Aunty Ghost) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 

Qiao Luohan (Stabby Scorpion) 1 

Qin Song (Scorpion Pipa Player) 1  

Qin Huaizhang  1

Qin Jiuxiao 1 

Rong Xuan   1 | 2 

Tao Hongpo  (Granny Watermelon) and Lu Liuweng     1

Xie Wang (Scorpion King) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 

Ye Baiyi       1  | 2

Yue Feng’Er  1 | 2  

Zhao Jing     1 

Soldiers: Ghost Valley   1 

Soldiers: Window of Heaven   1  

Fanvids

Under the Sea

Pour Some Sugar

Gifs and Memes and Other Stuff

Wen Kexing Waking Up 

Cao Weining explaining romantic love to Gu Xiang

Zhou Zishu asks the wrong question 

Breathless 

Mouth Skills 

Wei Wuxian & Wen Kexing 

Fic Prompt

Professional Dumbasses

Unaltered Screen Cap

Reincarnation theory (spoiler!)

A Friend of the Bosom (clip from Rebecca)

Heather Has Two Daddies

WOH as Psychology Today Articles Part 1 | Part 2

Picrew Hug Maker

Happy Camp Pink Powder Antics 1 | 2 | 3 

Happy Camp Tongue Skills

Child actor Li Zhen Zhen 

How Did You Express the Pain…? (spoilers for NIF, WOH, CQL)

Thirst (Gong Jun)

Crueller than my Master

Thirst (ZZS)

Zhou Zishu in Other Stuff

Crossover AU Writing Prompt

Cosmetics 

Warning: Self-Whump

Hands of a Killer

Yawning and stretching

Shoulder blades

How did you discover that you were soulmates?

In-Show Advertising

Memorable Scene, Episode 28

Wolong Daily Nuts

The Jingshi makes an appearance

Pain in pubic region

Thoughts/Meta

Shaving + Fake Stubble 

Peak Intimacy

The Afterlife

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TAEMIN | 'Guilty' Trailer & MV Behind Ep. 3 [x]

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TAEMIN - The Rizzness Performance Video

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Taemin Guilty Music Bank 231110

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TAEMIN 태민 'Guilty' MV

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I don’t feel like I’ve seen Guilty until I’ve seen it in multiple variations - different outfits - different lighting - different hair - the plethora of live performances is feeeeeding me

He’s born for the stage. And the choom performance?

The only people who work harder than this guy are all the gif makers on tumblr.

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E02 : My Journey to You | 云之羽 (2023) dir.Edward Guo