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#and you can make pretty compelling arguments in either direction
panickedscribbles · 3 months
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I've been thinking about Star Wars discourse lately, and I think a lot of the reason so much of the fandom is constant back and forth arguments is because a lot of the time, two characters can be right simultaneously while also disagreeing completely with each other.
Take the whole "Too old, he is" thing.
On one hand, obviously wrong. Anakin is nine, he's at most a few years behind, and textually managed to catch up pretty well. Like, if Palpatine and the Sith Plan weren't constantly messing him up, there is every possibility that Anakin could have become a well adjusted Jedi. Nine is by no means too old to learn a skill.
On the other hand, the council demonstrates perfectly in that scene that they are completely unequipped to deal with a nine year old who hasn't been raised in their culture, especially one from a heavily traumatized background. The pop-quiz they ask him would be perfectly acceptable for a nine-year-old youngling, but Anakin literally just walked in. They are giving an end-of-year exam to a kid who has never even seen a school. And they assume this is fine, because that's just what you do with nine-year-olds.
More to the point, they are completely failing to take into account the previous nine years of his life. They ask a kid, who up until all of about 18 hours ago had been enslaved since birth, to be open and honest about his emotions, in a room full of complete strangers, most of whom answer to "Master"! They have somehow engineered a situation so psychologically damaging that Palpatine is taking notes in the corner, entirely without realizing. When the council says they shouldn't take him in, they are one hundred percent right. Nine is WAY too old when you've spent that time as a slave, and are being entrusted into the care of people who have never had to raise a nine year old who wasn't raised like they were.
Or how about Anakin not being made a master. Was he right to insist he get the title, or was the council.
Well, Anakin should be made a master, you see, because,
He's one of the main Generals fighting and coordinating the war
And he's one of their most successful warriors. Like, he's the guy they call in whenever they need an impossible mission completed
He's more or less the face of the war effort, as "The Hero Without Fear"
As an ex-slave, obtaining the title of Master would be a huge psychological weight lifted off his shoulders.
Since they're making him part of the council for espionage purposes, making him a master as well serves as better cover
Giving him more reason to stay loyal to the Jedi after they just asked him to betray the trust of one of his oldest and closest friends wouldn't be the worst idea
Like, if ever there was a reason to give someone a promotion, those are some pretty good ones.
However, on the opposite side of the issue, literally none of that has any bearing on "Mastery" as the Jedi define it. Being a Jedi Master is all about mastery over oneself, having a deep understanding of the force, and a certain level of inner peace.
You'll notice that at no point does being really good at large-scale violence, being well known for being really good at large-scale violence, or wanting it a lot factor into being made a Jedi Master. Everything Anakin is good at, Everything Palpatine, and the war, and the council have pushed Anakin into being good at, do nothing to bring him any closer to Mastery, and in fact often push him further away from it.
In both of these examples, you can make a very compelling argument in either direction. Hell, you can make a compelling argument in both directions at the same time. And I think that's really neat.
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howtofightwrite · 1 year
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Hi, thank you for your blog. I have a greatsword wielding warrior and a dual shortsword wielding rogue that I would like to have work as a team to take down enemies. How can I write this in a realistic and believable way?
By remembering that the greatsword is a front line combat weapon, and the rogue's combat style is shanking people in the back. This isn't the kind of pairing where you get two characters working in tandem, rather it's a situation where you have two very different approaches to combat and problem solving. Ironically, even before you get to the weapons, these are going to characters who would approach each challenge in very different ways, if they were left to their own devices.
It's up to you whether they bicker over the merits of their approach over the other's, or work together smoothly, playing to each other's strengths. Either route can result in a satisfying narrative, and transitioning from the former to the latter over the course of their adventures can create a compelling arc for them.
As for what to gear them with, that's a more difficult question, but one thing to keep in mind is that both of them would be likely to keep a few weapons on hand. The warrior might keep a smaller sword, a dagger, or a hand axe on their person (probably more than one of the above.) The rogue might also have a bow and some daggers. They might also have a longsword or rapier, depending on the weapons available in their setting. If you're going for realism, a rapier would probably make more sense than dual wielding shortswords. With them off-handing a parrying dagger when they need it.
So, some things that are worth thinking about. Greatswords (and the rapier) are a fairly late sword design. By the time greatswords were in use, militaries were already transitioning into shot and pike tactics. Which is to say, firearms were on the table. In most cases, modern Fantasy, inherits a lot of it's technological approach to Lord of the Rings. There's nothing automatically wrong with this, but it does result in a curious absence of early firearms that would have already existed by the time the greatsword came into use. The existence of magic, or even geological differences in the fantasy world could explain this omission, but many authors simply don't think about it.
There's a lot of reasons why your rogue or warrior might not carry a gun. For the rogue, they're loud, clumsy, and expensive. For your warrior, they're clumsy, expensive, and difficult to maintain. Though it may be worth considering that other characters might shove a blunderbuss against your hero's head to punctuate their argument.
Some other frequent technological stumbling points are, armor designs (a lot of writers are not careful about picking the correct time period for armor designs. Similarly, armor production is very material intensive. So, people living in areas with limited metal won't be able to invest in full plate armor, versus mineral rich nations), fortifications (especially, “ancient ruins,” that are more technologically advanced than the chronology allows), ships (if I had a nickle for every time I've seen a sea going vessel designed to mount cannons in a world without gunpowder, I'd have a couple bucks), architecture, and agriculture. If you have a specific technological level in mind, it's probably a good idea to research that era of history until you have a pretty solid grasp of what life was like. (Fortunately, archaeology should have you mostly covered here, and the stuff you find will be fascinating.)
The short version would be to think about your characters bouncing off each other, rather than just their weapons, and build a believable world for them to inhabit.
-Starke
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wisecrackingeric-2 · 9 months
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Death Island Spoiler-Free Thoughts post!!!
I JUST finished seeing DI last night (In Aotearoa) and oh my GOD???????? It was S O G O O D????????? It ABSOLUTELY lived up to my expectations!!!!!!!! I’m gonna do a spoiler-free thoughts post first and then I’ll post my spoilers post!!!!!! And if anybody wants any clips of the movie I managed to sneak in, please just ask!!
Ok first off,,, holy FUCK that beginning was S O tense. My friend and I were gripping our seats the entire time and it takes place during a pretty important moment in RE history and I think people are gonna LOVE it
And the villains motivations????? His backstory???????? LITERALLY HEARTBREAKING. It’s ACTUALLY GENUIENLY COMPELLING AND INTERESTING. His backstory is all laid out in that beginning scene and dear GOD it’s SO SAD. I’m trying to keep it Spoiler-Free obviously but I will D I E on the hill that him and his “best friend” were actually gay lovers. You CANNOT convince me otherwise
He was also just genuinely pretty frightening of a villain. He has this one repeated ‘motion’ he does throughout the movie that really makes you tense up, and there’s this one scene with a doctor character that had my friend and I on the edge of our seats
Again, his motivations were actually interesting and made sense!!!!!! And him calling out the main gangs respective organisations (BSAA, DSO, Government, Terrasave, etc etc) for being hypocrites was actually a compelling argument!!!!!!!!! It actually made the characters think!!
I’m trying to word this as best as I can without giving any of the plot away, and @highball66 has talked about this in their posts too, but throughout the movie the main gang are called ‘Pawns’ or ‘The Governments Weapons’ repeatedly quite a lot, and it makes me wonder if that’s gonna come up as an important plot point in a future game or something???? It’s very interesting to think about coupled with the implications of their respective organisations being hypocrites
You’ll all be delighted to know there is SO MUCH shipping content in this movie my GOD. S O many good Chreon moments. So many good Valenfield (for both siblings) and Chamberfield moments (in fact, every scene Rebecca’s in, Claire’s in there too :)) Shippers will have a BLAST
Just as expected, Jill and Leon are the PERFECT duo. They’re SUCH GOOD BESTIES, they work off of each other repeatedly SO WELL. They’re constantly giving each other silly goofy one-liners and saying something sarcastic to make the other one laugh, it’s great
Also, I don’t think Leon has a single serious line in this movie HXNSHDNDHXN everytime he’s on screen he’s ALWAYS saying something goofy or silly or making a pun. It’s GREAT
Also, the characters traumas actually get explored in an interesting and compelling way!!!!!!!! ESPECIALLY Jills!!!! Which makes sense cuz the movies about her, but they all get their moments to talk about how X event effected them etc etc, unfortunately none of it really gets resolved but I’m assuming they’re saving that for a future game
Jill’s kinda does???? She has a Good-For-Her moment with the villain which is fantastic and her and Chris have a good heart to heart at the end
Also, Chris Redfield fans are gonna be delighted with his character exploration in this movie
LOTS of references to Re2 & 3. In fact a BIG plot point/ motivator of the movie all stems from RE2, so Raccoon City fans are gonna have a blast!!!!!
Also, HEAPS of old characters are either mentioned or do actually show up!!!!! Nobody that I think anyone would be screaming to be excited about, but still!!
Unfortunately, Rebecca does get the exact same treatment as she did in Vendetta, but like, in the opposite direction…… she dissapeares for basically the entire movie and randomly shows up to save the day. I can’t complain though cuz seeing her work together with everyone else was FANTASTIC
This truly did feel like the avengers endgame of the RE movies, but there were also PLENTY of hints and open ends to a sequel
Finally, this truly was JILLS movie. When I was told that Jill was gonna be the main character I wasn’t really convinced, but M A N she truly SLAYS in this film. She IS THE MOMENT. This is HER movie and it shows
Aside from Leon’s random goofy one liners, I think my favourite part of this movie was the villain. I WISH I could just spoil his motivations in this post because for resident evil standards they’re SO INTERESTING and AGAIN, his thoughts on the main gangs respective organisations leave a lot to think about when it comes to future instalments!!!!!
10/10 movie, would 10000000% recommend. Truly lives up to my standards. My only negative is that Rebecca was hardly in it for the middle half but that’s it. SO glad we FINALLY got to see everyone working together (Capcom, PLEASE put your characters together like this again!!!!!!)
Forgot to add this, but Jill is cannonically a Jurassic Park fan. In fact, the entire last half of the movie is just a giant Jurassic Park reference
And I can’t PROVE this, but,,,,,, I’m 90% sure there was a Mr Beast reference. You’ll know it when you see it
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heartofstanding · 8 months
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So, Helen Maurer thinks Margaret Beaufort killed the Princes? But... Maurer is a respected historian in the WOTR field, isn't she? She had a book on Marguerite of Anjou, right? Have you read her article, her reasons to think it was Margaret Beaufort? I'm baffled, I thought this theory was just admitted ok the "Gregoryverse", and that serious historians had more likely candidates (like Uncle Richard)
Hi, sorry for the delay in responding to this ask, I wanted to read the article before doing so. Yes, Helen Maurer is a respected historian and was one of the first to re-evaluate Margaret of Anjou's reputation and her research directly challenges a lot of pre-conceived notions of Margaret as the evil she-wolf - her book on Margaret is pretty much the standard and it's really good. Maurer is also, afaik, the first person to name Margaret Beaufort as a "main suspect" in the deaths of the Princes.
Does Maurer actually think Margaret Beaufort killed the Princes? Well, yes and no. Firstly, she says in the preface to the 2000 republication (the article was first published in 1983; the 2000 republication can be read here (pdf)) that her intention was to have "some fun" and construct a story "consistent with the arguments laid out, which would also compete on the level of 'story' with Shakespeare's marvelous concoction". In other words, her theory isn't an academic argument for What Really Happened (she's evasive about whether she really agrees with the conclusions of her article), but an attempt to offer up an alternative story that's just as compelling as Shakespeare's version.
Secondly, her conclusions are significantly different from the usual "Margaret Beaufort killed the Princes" story. For Maurer, Margaret may or may not have influenced the Duke of Buckingham into realising the Princes had to be killed but it was Buckingham who convinced Richard III that it had to be done. Then, "the order [was] given, by the only man" (that is, Richard III) "who had the power to give it".
I'm not very familiar with this stage of the Wars of the Roses to be able to properly assess Maurer's arguments and judgements. Keeping that in mind, I think it hangs reasonably well together as a story of one possible version of their deaths. We don't know what happened to the Princes, we probably never will - even if their remains are found and conclusively identified as them, it won't tell us who killed them or the exact details of their death.* As it is, this reconstruction fits with the evidence and arguments Maurer presents and it does make some sense - it's the least idiotic version of "Margaret Beaufort killed the Princes" that I've read.
That's probably because, in Maurer's reconstruction, Margaret's guilt is limited. She realises the "need" for their death and might have nudged Buckingham in that direction, if he needed nudging, but it is Buckingham who convinces Richard and Richard who orders their murders. Maurer's version of Margaret's intriguing also casts doubt on the idea that Buckingham needed much convincing, if any, to kill the Princes:
Once Richard's replacement had been contemplated, within the perceived instability of a situation where rivals to his throne (the Princes) already existed, it was but a short step to recognizing that the Princes would have to go. If they threatened Richard, they would be an even greater threat to anyone who supplanted him. I believe that Margaret understood this. She would have had more reason to think about this aspect of the situation than Buckingham. It was her son who, at this early point, toward the beginning of Richard's reign, was directly threatened by the sense of instability. Buckingham was not. But it may be that Buckingham had already, on his own, considered murdering the Princes, either to further secure Richard's title and his own ascendancy, or for other, more far-reaching reasons. Whether Buckingham had already thought about it or whether it was just now suggested to him by Margaret, I believe it most likely that their communication on the matter was circuitous and cautious, neither one willing to openly commit to such a course in the other's presence. One of them may have observed that if Richard were to order the Princes' deaths, the suspicions already being cast upon him might be expected to multiply and turn to active opposition. And there I believe they left it, without a definite conclusion.
It's worth noting that the original article is 40 years old and very little was changed for its republication. There appears to have been minimal scholarship on Margaret Beaufort when the article was written and it shows its datedness in other ways, such as the summation of Elizabeth Woodville's character. There have been a lot of new theories about the Princes since then, including the now-popular multitude tof theories that one or both survived (which Maurer, writing in 1983, felt these theories were unconvincing). Maurer also acknowledges, in her 2000 preface, that should she write the article from scratch again, it would be a very different piece.
* This is assuming that the Princes were killed (which I think they were) and that the skeletal remains said to be Princes in the urn at Westminster Abbey aren't actually the Princes, which seems likely. At any rate, the skeletal remains would need to be DNA tested to properly identify them and we still wouldn't know who killed them.
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georgieluz · 3 months
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Hello, tell us 1 and 2 for the choose violence game, please 😊
iris!! hello!!! i actually wrote the reply to this out the day you sent me it and then thought i'd posted it but just found it in my drafts so i'm so sorry for being such a mess!! but i'm finally here!
the character everyone gets wrong
harry welsh... sorry i've already ranted about this today (well, it was that day when i was originally writing this but now it's been like a week), so i'll just direct you over there instead of doing it all over again.. but i also feel like sometimes people get burgie really wrong as well. he's sometimes written/headcanoned as this responsible 'straight-man' to snafu's chaotic antics and sledge's angst, when it's just not really what he is. and i mean straight-man as in the comedy trope, not the sexuality. i feel like people make him out to be way more 'boring' than he actually is. yeah, he has to take on more responsibility than most of the others bc of his role, but he also let's snafu act like a mean little bitch to everyone and smiles whilst he watches on in silence. he's a partner in crime, not an intervention. he's also tired. you can tell he wasn't prepared for everything he'd have to do, but he does it because he has to, and because weirdly, he's mostly good at it. in a winging-it kind of way. he somehow manages to be what the boys need most of the time, even though it's pretty clear he's fucking Stressed too. he's good at observing from a close distance and making himself known when he needs to, but he's got this quiet chaos running through him under the surface, people are just too distracted by snafu most of the time to see it. idk, i just think he's a lot more interesting than some of the headcanons i see.
but i've also seen some really interesting and amazing headcanons about him so don't think i think everyone in the fandom gets him wrong or anything, it's not even widespread
a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom
ok so i wrote a pretty long answer to this originally but then decided to just keep it simple instead. i honestly don't really think you can argue that someone will never top or bottom. most people have preferences toward one, a lot don't mind either way, but the thing is, even if someone has a preference, unless they explicitly say it out loud you really can't argue for sure that they would never. so honestly, most of them i wouldn't be able to argue for only ever doing one. like a few i can definitely say would lean one way or the other, but there are always circumstances with characters and their different dynamics where someone could do the opposite. i think it's more accurate to say that readers have a preference for whether they enjoy reading their fave top or bottom and a lot of that is bc of their own preferences and feelings about top/bottom dynamics.
for the choose violence ask game!
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Looking For Somebody (To Love)????
TRIGGER WARNINGS: mentions of guns, shootings, hun violence.
I started to write this in response to a thoughtful reply by @kscheibles to the asks about the song. Then I began to wonder what other people think, so I’m making this as a post instead. Tell me how the song makes you feel and whether you’re from the US or not. I’m really curious!
For me (from the US), it’s such an u comfortable experience, but not necessarily in a bad way. Matty has spoken about why he chose to write the song and what it meant to him, and I find all of that compelling, intellectually, but emotionally, it’s still like “oooo yessss. Hmmmm noooo. Okay maybe??? I don’t know mannn” like I go through all of those emotions when I listen to it.
Sure, The 1975 are subversive and stuff but I don’t even think this song is that subversive. Nor do I think it’s trivializing hun violence or anything. I actually find that it’s making a pretty strong argument. Gender IS a factor that we often neglect in our so-called “debates” (they’re not really debates, honestly cuz as long as the NRA is funding politicians there’s no real debate going on but I’m not here to talk about that). Of course it IS first and foremost a gun issue, but it’s also revealing something deeply fucked up about youth and masculinity. The theme of gender is reoccurring throughout the record so nobody’s surprised there.
I THINK, at least for me, the reason that the song makes me feel uncomfortable is because it gives the mass shooter a voice. A point of view. I think that’s something that my brain either doesn’t understand or refuses to understand. To look at the shooter’s pov. And I know the song isn’t really glorifying it either. They literally say “you gotta show me how to push if you don’t wanna shove.” Which is all very true! I think maybe it’s the fact that “I wanna show him he’s a bitch” can be the direct result of someone “looking for somebody to love” that makes me feel awful?
To be clear, I think this is all INTENTIONAL. Like I think the song is trying to inspire discomfort within the listener because political action doesn’t really happen when we’re all in a room agreeing politely with each other. Nor does it happen when people on opposite sides are going “oh my god you’re so absurd I can’t even listen to you anymore.” Like we NEED to be made uncomfortable. And the reason that I love Matty’s chaos (and the band’s aesthetic) is because it’s base in this kind of thing. It challenges us. Makes us think.
Yeah, I guess I’m curious if that’s my own experience or if other people, to whom gun violence is a big issue (if you’re of my generation or younger, and you’re in the US this is a reality for you) feel the same way? What about those of you who aren’t in the US/ the question is more abstract than it is for us? What’s your experience of the song? Very very interested in all this. Yeah. That’s it.
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hybrid-royalty · 1 year
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Continued from [X] @ladamedemartel
After making her exit, Aurora detoured from her journey to her hotel. Normally, she’d have taken this task on herself, but she had told Klaus that she was leaving to make herself pretty, and if she returned wearing the same clothes, he might wonder what she’d been up to instead of what she’d claimed. Aurora did not wish to give his suspicions anything to latch on to, especially when he was justified in having them. So rather than undertake the task herself, she turned to mortals. It was easy enough to compel a group of tourists to continue to sit outside the café, watching the entrance to the Mikaelson Compound to see if Klaus would move his siblings to another location, or, worse, see them wandering out under their own power to hide themselves from her sight to conspire to trick her.
The mortals reported nothing of the sort when Aurora returned in a fresh black dress. Though she’d sauntered in to have it expertly hug her figure, he didn’t even bother to look up at her as she made her entrance. Some what annoyed, she stopped, barely halfway into the room. “Do you really think that I’m so simple that I cannot want more than one thing at a time?” she scoffed. She turned then, hoping to find wine waiting but instead finding only a decanter of bourbon. While it was not her beverage of choice, Aurora poured herself a glass. She was going to need it if this is how intended to spend the evening.
“I will not apologize for valuing my own safety as the highest priority. We could hardly revisit our relationship if we’re both too worried about Rebekah.” She took a long sip of the bourbon, disliking the way it burned in her throat. “You know Niklaus, I dressed for you to take me out, show me your city, not have a row with you for doing exactly what you would have done in my position.” Another sip. This one burned less. She could give him a row. Perhaps they ought to have it out if only to cure him of this sullen disposition. Aurora had met so many tortured artists over the centuries, been muse to many of them, but she had now desire to allow Klaus to live in that mood.
“And besides, if either of us can accuse the other of leaving once they had what they wanted, I believe I am owed that. Not once, not once in a thousand years, even after you learned of compulsion, not once did you question what had prompted my sudden change of heart?” It was out there now, out in the open. She could twist the knife. She could tell him that she’d once thought him smart enough to figure things out over the years. It was the truth. After the compulsion had broken, after she’d started to come back to herself, she’d thought that he’d come back to find her with sweet apologies for Elijah’s treachery. He never had. Aurora rolled her shoulders to try to shake that thought off before it could take root. No, she didn’t want an argument. Neither of them would win. She forced a strained smile to her face. “But that’s the past. Are you going to take me to dinner or shall I find something myself?”
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"What was I meant to think Aurora? Your love for me burned as bright as your ambition." A row was exactly what Klaus was in the mood for, anything to get out the negative energy threatening to consume him from the inside out. Learning of his brother's treacheries from nearly a thousand year ago, at the beginning of everything, had shaken him to his core. The fact that Elijah had stood by his side ever since, never once coming clean - the good and moral brother currently lay desiccated and justly so.
"You had no issue risking death to get Rebekah's blood in your stomach, because you wanted to be a monster so badly - despite my repeated warnings against it. So was it so farfetched that I believe Elijah when he said you abandoned us when my father came calling? A life of running did not seem to fit you at the time."
Klaus was far more frustrated with his brother in all of this, but he could not help but spit it in her direction. Emotional regulation was not exactly his forte. The unholy trinity had run from them, but as far as he'd known it was their idea. Aurora had been his first true heartbreak, a scar that had never healed.
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alltingfinns · 2 years
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I think I’ve cracked the code of what makes a Marvel Cinematic villain interesting or annoying.
Very oversimplified there are two extreme directions you can take a villain. Either they’re so sympathetic that they become a tragic hero of their own story, or they’re just unapologetically evil and hamming it up.
The Marvel Cinematic universe’s best villains have been one of either extremes. Prime examples are Erik Killmonger (hero in his own story) and Hela (evilly hamming it up all over the stage). These villains are interesting because they either compel us to reconsider the morality of the story or simply entertain us.
One may be more highbrow than the other, but both are generally memorable and interesting, and will work very well in elevating the right type of story. (Killmonger’s role greatly deepened the character of T’Challa, who otherwise would have come off as a bit too perfect in his own movie. Giving him doubts and new matters to consider. Hela played a similar role of lifting up the sins of the father, but she also showed how bad things get when someone of her power doesn’t give a shit, contrasting both Thor’s royal responsibilities and Bruce’s concern with Hulk.)
Then there are the forgettable villains that fall somewhere between the extremes, they’re neither really made to be sympathetic nor allowed to go overboard. They’re there to antagonize the protagonist, and as far as that is concerned, they can do a pretty decent job.
But the real problem, the villains that are memorable for all the wrong reasons, is trying to put both extremes into one character.
Thanos is the absolute prime example of this.
He is simultaneously “Ahahaha! Look at my evilness and despair!” while also made out to be the “hero” of his own story.
Several beats in Avengers Infinity War make it clear that we are supposed to sympathize with him. That we are supposed to think that he’s “only doing what he thinks is best” and that we only disagree because of a different moral view on the sanctity of life.
First and foremost; no.
His whole deal about population control falls apart even in his own argumentation. But that’s beside the point.
Because they still intersperse it with hammy villainy.
The most glaring dissonance coming when he “sacrifices” Gamora. Because in just a few scenes earlier, he had been pushing Peter Quill to kill her. While roughly holding her head in his hand.
It doesn’t matter if the reality stone kept her safe. He was still demonstrating a huge disregard for her safety and well-being, only keeping her alive for the info she had.
The “sacrifice” felt empty because we had no real reason to think he really loved her, in a twisted way or not.
Because they wanted him to be as villainy as possible, as he destroyed their hopes of stopping him.
So you get a character for which there is no consistent thread of emotional investment for the audience.
Are we supposed to hate him? Understand him? Want to bonk sense in him? Should we bask in his success or in his potential downfall? Are we supposed to think he’s right “from a certain point of view”? Or that he’s wrong not just morally, but like logistically.
(Not to get into it since it’s tangential to my point, but: if you can divide a populace into rich and poor people, is it really the whole population’s fault that resources are dwindling? Maybe try redistributing the wealth first, you fucking Malthusian genocidal asshole! Also why half? What arbitrary mathematics lead to 50% being the perfect “balance” of population?)
In short:
Sympathetic villains = good
Evil villains = good
Neither = meh
Both = stop, no! Please don’t.
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sleepyowlwrites · 2 years
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find the word tag CCLXXXXI
ooh, I'm getting closer to 300! I'm listening to my parents and grandma watch Father Brown and I find it just about as interesting as watching it myself. it's not a bad show. it just doesn't really compel me at all. midsomer muders is better, I think. last time I watched it there was this song that is now on my "for road and mountain" playlist. I listened to it today. I forget that I really do like pure folk songs. @zmwrites ghosty I hate it when you almost alliterate. but also whatever not really. you know. I'm soup.
cry + sore (heartbeat, 2021 - I don't think "carrying" is a trope but I really do love it regardless, which is why I write about it)
But his ouxiang doesn't seem embarrassed when he's suddenly right in front of him, and then behind him, catching Liu Sang before his knees can make contact with the unstable ground. His ouxiang's arms are lithe and strong as they pull him close, slipping around his waist and then, and then-
Liu Sang can't help the little cry that escapes him when he finds himself scooped up into ouxiang's arms. Not even Wu Xie has been carried like this, like a damsel in distress, like a child, like nothing. His ouxiang lifts him easily and Liu Sang feels his heart drop out of him completely. He's less than useless, less than an extra member to a perfect team, less than even a whole, grown person. There are black splotches at the corners of his eyes but he blinks hard to drive them away.
"Ouxiang," he whispers, all his courage and fortitude swept away by the situation, by the strength of his rescuer, by how terrible he feels. His head is so heavy, his ribs are incredibly sore, his whole chest feels like its breathing for six people and if he shifts his legs slightly he can feel his whole nervous system protesting. His ears haven't stopped ringing. They continue their plaintive echoing even when he presses his hands against them.
comfortable (meta-portal, 2021)
(Besides Jacob being a natural worrier, he’s a witch. Witches tend to be very level-headed and then worry on top of that for good measure, simply because they can.)
“I should’ve stopped him, but he’s too tall,” Haknyeon says, in a voice very close to a whine which is very unlike him.
Jacob looks him up and down tiredly. “I’m taller than you and I wouldn’t be able to stop him either. He’s a trouble magnet.” He eyes Jisung warily. “You should come home with me, I guess. We’ll be more able to tackle the situation if we’ve eaten dinner.”
(This is a very common witch-reaction: confront problems with food. It’s also a very common Jacob-reaction: confront problems with food at my house, specifically, where I feel more comfortable.)
cushion pillow (heartbeat, 2021)
If Liu Sang thinks about it, he can remember them helping him change clothes and Wu Xie holding him up as Pangzi’s deft hands bandaged all his hurts. At one point he’s pretty sure his ouxiang was holding onto an ankle as a gesture of comfort. But Liu Sang doesn’t want to think about it, doesn't want to admit to that intimate of a level of vulnerability, so he doesn’t.
He does lean against Pangzi in the car after giving up the argument about them putting off exploring the tunnels until Liu Sang is showing less concussion symptoms and his breathing sounds better. He’d been ready to put up a real fight, but then his ouxiang just look at him, which cut off his words mid-sentence. And then hands were guiding him, stumbling, to their vehicle and his ouxiang directed him to use Pangzi as a pillow.
It was very hard to refuse his ouxiang, and Pangzi did make for an excellent pillow. So Liu Sang leans, and lets, and when his brain is less foggy he’ll remember that he hates this and it might bring back his panic, but for right now, he is safe. Wu Xie is driving less like a madman, which is nice. Pangzi is humming, the vibrations carrying over to Liu Sang’s skin. It feels good, actually.
oh. it ended up being all fics. well, that's nice. I do love them so. water, earth, air, fire. BONUS: spirit, soul. @ren-c-leyn @ink-fireplace-coffee @kosmosian-quills @mp-golfin @woodhousejay @oh-no-another-idea OR ANYBODY or nobody
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exfriends · 2 years
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tw mild s*icide ideation
i'm so OVER the housing market and the adults in my life just refusing to see the truth of what the economy looks like to people who are trying to create equity
like, my cousin bought his home in 2019 before EVERYTHING exploded and honestly doles out the most useless advice to me in regards to buying homes but i feel compelled to keep including him because he is really good at fixing homes, and keeping him in the loop means i could gain assistance when i actually get something. but he also told me that there was no point in renting because i was just throwing money in a hole, and that i just needed to work with my abusive parents better. i literally screamed at him the day i signed my lease because he told me i made a bad choice and i was like "when are you going to blame her for anything? like, am i just supposed to get beaten and terrorized on the daily in exchange for maybe buying a house in a few years?" he was notably quiet after that but now in looking for houses, he just keeps telling me to wait and wait and wait and waiting is useless.
at this point i'm looking at a BEAUTIFUL trailer on a beautifully managed property near my current apartment and he's convinced that this is the worst financial decision i could ever make because i don't own the land under the trailer. obviously that's a risk, i get that, but what am i supposed to do at this point? i'm paying nearly 1800 a month for a 700square foot one bedroom apartment 1 HOUR away from my current job. buying the trailer would eliminate a mortgage for me and i'd be paying 700 a month for the land/water and less for everything else. he told me to get more income. okay. should i just open up the cesspool of "my job lied to me for two years about the ability to gain my license with the state so now i have two years of experience but cant work independently so my income is literally CAPPED at 63k a year if i can EVEN find a place that will pay me that at this point?" yes i have a master's degree but i picked the WRONG FIELD apparently to want to live in new jersey!!!!!!!!! and i'm a spoiled millenial for refusing to get a second job when a second job would push my working hours to nearly 80 a week on top of driving extra?? my fiance ALREADY works two jobs and i see how much it messes with him. i'm mentally ILL for fucks sake
and i got into an argument with my aunt about the trailer too because she thinks i'm just impatient and that the market prediction stuff i read about is nonsense. meanwhile she's sitting pretty on a 136k salary in a house that's already paid off. my cousin is an engineer and he's marrying a nurse. none of them are economically disadvantaged in the slightest and they're trying to convince me that one day the markets will just go back to what they used to be and i should save my money and just wait to get a nice townhouse. i can't afford a townhouse, they're over 300k within an hour of either my fiance's job or mine--unless i want to pay 250k for the EXACT same apartment i live in now (i do not).
i wish i could let go of my need of approval from these people. i'm buying the fucking trailer if the realtor gets back to me. it's beautiful. i will not let the stigma of my upper middle class family prevent me from doing something that will work for me.
but at the same time i'm sitting here like, what's the point. obviously i want to stay with my fiance and raise our cats but like, i read all the time about people who off themselves because they can't handle the direction the economy is going and like...i get that. i feel that. suicidal ideation is a near constant for me, it's like a little friend on my shoulder that screams "oh you stubbed your toe? you could kill yourself! won't hurt anymore :)" and obviously my life is OKAY and i don't WANT to hurt myself but if its not getting any better and i'm just supposed to accept living in a water damaged, bug infested, falling apart apartment for nearly 2k a month and barely be able to afford emergencies without dipping into all the dead people money i have its like...why the FUCK am i bothering to try and do better? i won't be ABLE to because people who don't live this life are trying to tell me it isn't real.
and its like, i have to take a second to acknowledge that because my mom, dad, grandparents died, i have it VASTLY better than many others the same age as me. for one, i have no school debt. traded parents for a masters degree basically, which makes me angry to remember that i hold privledge more than others (bc it doesn't feel as heavy as the guy who was just BORN into money, but just because i fell into state loopholes and got a chunk of change from a house sale doesn't mean i still didn't benefit)
i owe the government money every tax season despite giving them 1/3 of my paycheck or more, my job refuses to pay me what i'm worth, i'm being squeezed and drained for every dollar and it's like...what's the point if i can't get somewhat of a good life?
my life here isn't TERRIBLE, and my fiance wouldn't change anything about our living situation because he just doesn't see the problems. i'm the one that fixes the closets, sprays the bugs, tries to fix the air conditioning, shampoos the carpets to try to get the mold smell out from when our CEILING crashed in last year from the roof not being installed properly. I'm the one who holds the burden of shit not working and i'm tired of wanting something everyone else has but i'm not able to get for some reason.
and that reason being all the people who were born with money who think an apple costs 2 cents

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tastydregs · 11 months
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MIT Professor Compares Ignoring AGI to “Don’t Look Up”
MIT professor and AI researcher Max Tegmark is pretty stressed out about the potential impact of artificial general intelligence (AGI) on human society. In a new essay for Time, he rings the alarm bells, painting a pretty dire picture of a future determined by an AI that can outsmart us.
"Sadly, I now feel that we're living the movie 'Don't Look Up' for another existential threat: unaligned superintelligence," Tegmark wrote, comparing what he perceives to be a lackadaisical response to a growing AGI threat to director Adam McKay's popular climate change satire.
For those who haven't seen it, "Don't Look Up" is a fictional story about a team of astronomers who, after discovering that a species-destroying asteroid is hurtling towards Earth, set out to warn the rest of human society. But to their surprise and frustration, a massive chunk of humanity doesn't care.
The asteroid is one big metaphor for climate change. But Tegmark thinks that the story can apply to the risk of AGI as well.
"A recent survey showed that half of AI researchers give AI at least ten percent chance of causing human extinction," the researcher continued.  "Since we have such a long history of thinking about this threat and what to do about it, from scientific conferences to Hollywood blockbusters, you might expect that humanity would shift into high gear with a mission to steer AI in a safer direction than out-of-control superintelligence."
"Think again," he added, "instead, the most influential responses have been a combination of denial, mockery, and resignation so darkly comical that it's deserving of an Oscar."
In short, according to Tegmark, AGI is a very real threat, and human society isn't doing nearly enough to stop it — or, at the very least, isn't ensuring that AGI will be properly aligned with human values and safety.
And just like in McKay's film, humanity has two choices: begin to make serious moves to counter the threat — or, if things go the way of the film, watch our species perish.
Tegmark's claim is pretty provocative, especially considering that a lot of experts out there either don't agree that AGI will ever actually materialize, or argue that it'll take a very long time to get there, if ever. Tegmark does address this disconnect in his essay, although his argument arguably isn't the most convincing.
"I'm often told that AGI and superintelligence won't happen because it’s impossible: human-level Intelligence is something mysterious that can only exist in brains," Tegmark writes. "Such carbon chauvinism ignores a core insight from the AI revolution: that intelligence is all about information processing, and it doesn’t matter whether the information is processed by carbon atoms in brains or by silicon atoms in computers."
Tegmark goes as far as to claim that superintelligence "isn't a long-term issue," but is even "more short-term than e.g. climate change and most people's retirement planning." To support his theory, the researcher pointed to a recent Microsoft study arguing that OpenAI's large language model GPT-4 is already showing "sparks" of AGI and a recent talk given by deep learning researcher Yoshua Bengio.
While the Microsoft study isn't peer-reviewed and arguably reads more like marketing material, Bengio's warning is much more compelling. His call to action is much more grounded in what we don't know about the machine learning programs that already exist, as opposed to making big claims about tech that does not yet exist.
To that end, the current crop of less sophisticated AIs already poses a threat, from misinformation-spreading synthetic content to the threat of AI-powered weaponry.
And the industry at large, as Tegmark further notes, hasn't exactly done an amazing job so far at ensuring a slow and safe development, arguing that we shouldn't have taught it how to code, connect it to the internet, or give it a public API.
Ultimately, if and when AGI might come to fruition is still unclear.
While there's certainly a financial incentive for the field to keep moving quickly, a lot of experts agree that we should slow down the development of more advanced AIs, regardless of whether AGI is around the corner or still lightyears away.
And in the meantime, Tegmark argues that we should agree there's a very real threat in front of us before it's too late.
"Although humanity is racing toward a cliff, we're not there yet, and there's still time for us to slow down, change course and avoid falling off – and instead enjoying the amazing benefits that safe, aligned AI has to offer," Tegmark writes. "This requires agreeing that the cliff actually exists and falling off of it benefits nobody."
"Just look up!" he added.
More on AI: Elon Musk Says He's Building a "Maximum Truth-Seeking AI"
The post MIT Professor Compares Ignoring AGI to “Don’t Look Up” appeared first on Futurism.
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ramshacklefey · 1 year
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I need to know more about your list of "non-humans who are probably people" please please please
Ok! But this may be more of an answer than you were looking for.
One of the things that we philosophers are very interested in is the question of what makes a being a person. This is an important question. It has applications to a lot of fields and ends up affecting everything from animal ethics to xenobiology to AI to abortion.
Now, we don't have a definite answer to the question, but we have some theories that seem pretty plausible. Some people hold that to be a person just means to be a human, but that isn't a particularly satisfying answer. There aren't really any traits that all humans share that aren't shared by a number of other creatures beyond our DNA. From an ethical standpoint, saying that DNA is what makes a being a person is pretty weak. Personhood is an important quality when we're talking about the moral status of a being. We think that persons have certain rights and have to be treated with a certain kind of moral consideration. And when we try to say why this is so, we don't just appeal to DNA. We need to find something else that's what really matters when deciding whether something is a person.
But what could that something be?
There are any number of theories, and I'm not familiar with all of them. Indian philosophy has some very interesting ones, but that's outside of my expertise, so I'm not going to get into it. Personally, I think that one of the more plausible ideas comes from a paper by Mary Ann Warren on the ethics of abortion.
Warren claims that personhood is a quality that a being can have that consists in five different traits or capacities. These are:
consciousness of objects and events external and/or internal to the being, and in particular the capacity to feel pain;
reasoning (the developed capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems);
self-motivated activity (activity which is relatively independent of either genetic or direct external control);
the capacity to communicate, by whatever means, messages of an indefinite variety of types (that is, not just messages with an indefinite number of possible content, but on indefinitely many topics); and
the presence of self-concepts, and self-awareness.
Warren acknowledges that each of these things is a wibbly category. There's a lot of debate about exactly what most of these terms mean and whether they are actually binary categories. Most of them aren't. For example, the ability to solve new problems is clearly a quality that different beings possess to different degrees. That's going to be something that we come back to later though.
Considering this list, something should be immediately apparent however. Not every human always has all five of these capacities. Some people argue that this is by itself reason to reject Warren's definition. They argue that it is unacceptable to define personhood in a way that would mean that, say, brain-dead humans, newborns, or the severely mentally disabled aren't persons. This is a compelling argument, and I very much respect those who hold this view. However, an attempt to expand the definition of "person" to include every single human, we will see in a moment, is going to end up including a lot of non-human animals. On the other hand, almost any moral philosopher will tell you that simply not being a person in no way removes you from the list of beings that we have significant moral obligations to. This makes sense, for we definitely think that we have serious moral obligations to many non-human animals, and on the flip side we do think that we have different moral obligations to infants than to adult humans for instance. We don't grant infants all the moral rights to autonomy that we give to adults, because we recognize that they aren't capable of exercising those rights. They can't make many decisions, their ability to communicate is quite limited, etc. So it may not be as big a problem as it seems at first if not all humans are persons.
But what does this have to do with non-human animals? Well, there are a number of non-human animals who seem to meet all or most of the criteria on that list. Elephants, for instance, are clearly conscious of outside events, can solve new and complex problems, engage in self-motivated activity, and we're pretty sure they have a serious amount of self-awareness. It's more difficult to figure out what their abilities for communication are. We know that elephants pass down information from one generation to the next, but it's hard to say whether that results from each generation "telling" the next about things or from younger elephants imitating older ones. (It is imperative that you understand that this isn't a discussion about whether elephants have a language. Communication consists of far more than just language.)
Other non-human animals that seem to check off at least four, but possibly all, of these boxes are:
most of the larger apes (gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans);
some species of parrots and corvids;
perhaps pigs and rats;
possibly octopuses (it's very very hard to gauge many of these qualities in a species so different from us).
In fact, there's a significant amount of agreement between philosophers that our ape cousins are at minimum significantly close to being persons that we should seriously rethink the ways that we treat them.
Now let's go back to the question of what to do about a definition of "person" that would exclude some humans. I think the knee-jerk response a lot of people have here is because they make the assumption that if a being isn't a person, then we could treat them the same way we treat any of the other animals on that list. My response there is that they have it backwards: the conclusion we should be reaching there is that we need to treat these other beings much much better than we currently do.
However, let's say that we ought to find a definition of person that does include all humans. We already saw that "having human DNA" isn't really a good definition. So what else can we do?
One option would be to come up with a shorter list. But if we do that, we are logically committed to saying that an increasing number of other animals are persons.
Another possibility would be to decide that being a person isn't a simple binary. In that case, "person" would become a qualitative trait that a being can possess to a greater or lesser degree (like being tall or smart). In that case, we could say that an adult human being is "extremely person," a newborn human is "very person," etc. While this is also a good option, it leaves a difficulty in trying to figure out where the cut-off points would be for assigning various moral rights (and duties. We do need to know whether we can hold someone responsible for certain actions).
My view leans toward this option, and I think that the actual distinctions would go down to the individual level. However, I also think that for most purposes it's going to be better to make broad classifications and accept that they are going to admit of exceptions. I also hold that we need to seriously rethink our treatment of many, many species of non-human animals and should bring them more in line with the way we treat humans who are lacking some of the traits that we use to define personhood, or who possess them to a lesser degree.
In short, I believe that there are a number of non-human animals that either are persons or are enough like persons that we ought to be treating them with at least as much moral consideration as we give to humans with severely limited mental capacity.
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heroofthreefaces · 2 years
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This is the message I wrote to my siblings May 2022, edited for clarity into a blogpost, when I announced to them my decision not to answer my dad's contact attempts any more; because I think it's an excellent sum-up of the situation and because I think it’s an excellent bit of writing.
Thinking about concerns I began to have during the correspondence with my siblings in March 2022 after I told them about my contact from Dad December 2021, I decided I'm not sure enough of Dad's ambient mental state, in the future or in the present, to continue sending him the lengthy diatribes which are all I have left to say to him. I've always told everyone including Dad that the therapy for me, when I journal his ongoing and past emotional abuse in second person, is in the writing of it not in the sending of it. Now I grok an unexpected but significant possibility that I'm approaching, or have even inadvertently passed, a point at which sending the writing is punching down. So it's time I put my money where my mouth is and exercised the better part of valor and, with nothing good to say, said nothing. I was already drafting what I would have sent next time he writes, and I'll continue the writing for my own sake same as I ever did; I'm sure he'll continue making contact, and I doubt I'll stop reading it; but I've decided to stop sending Dad my writing when he writes me.
My brother wrote in March 2022 that "writing him tells him you want to talk. It does not tell him to read it, nor to process its content". This is obviously true from Dad's responses yet he must have read and processed at least some of it, because my sister said to me in November 2019 that Dad told her he didn't understand how our differences could have been resolved in correspondence as I insisted.
Well they certainly couldn't have been resolved in person when Dad's unrepentant unrelenting lifetime of toxic behavior in face-to-face conflict was the whole fucking point. Not, as I said directly above, that he displayed any capacity since 2017 to behave any better or any differently in correspondence either. The only thing he wrote me that was a direct enough reply to my writing to demonstrate he ever read any of it at all, in the same December 2019 message exchange when he stated he'd been "studying" what I wrote, was to complain that I called his behavior "toxic" as if this obviously couldn't have been what I actually meant. Nothing of what he told me in reply to my reasons for setting this boundary indicated that he cared to have read and processed anything except that I refused to go back to his abusive and performative "normal" which I can no longer bear. Then with his December 2021 message it seemed apparent he’s convinced that my eventual capitulation is inevitable regardless of his action or lack of action and is the only ultimate outcome he need anticipate.
I don't doubt Dad believed reconciliation by correspondence was impossible but he never deigned to tell me. Pretty sure anyone approaching a dispute in good faith would have considered this something kinda sorta important to make absolutely certain the other party was clear on, the same way I continuously made my opposite position clear for him, with some apparent success. If it was that he believed he did explain himself or did even mention it then he's wrong, or it was in a message I never received. If it was that he believed stonewalling my written arguments must compel me to come make my arguments in person then he gravely overestimated how desirable or necessary or possible I considered reconciliation to be. If it was that he believed anyone would and should recognize that meeting were so essential for reconciliation that it goes without saying then he likely all along took whatever of my statements of grievances he did read and understand to be "pissing contests" like he called the first one, inferring a hidden agenda beyond my words' face value, which would have been the worst possible mistake he could have made: My writings are written for me not him, yes, but to serve this purpose as effective recovery tools they necessarily must nevertheless comprise the candid and comprehensive analyses Dad would have needed and wanted if he had been going to respond in good faith. This is partly why I'd send them despite being ninety-nine-and-forty-four-hundredths percent convinced by his response to the first one that sending them was useless: just in case I was wrong. For 2017-2021, for five years when he could have asked about anything he wasn't clear on, I sent Dad 20,000 words bluntly if not harshly explaining the same reasons over and over again why his abuse in person made reconciliation prerequisite to any face-to-face meeting. Anything he still doesn't understand, he can (as the kids say today) die mad about it.
Perhaps receiving no more answers may at least make clear to Dad that the first obstacle to the reconciliation he's taken for granted is the way he's taken reconciliation for granted.
To this blog’s masterpost of entries tagged dad
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starshipsofstarlord · 3 years
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Hi bb congrats on 3k followers 🥺 you deserve it!! How about a smutty/angst blurb with nat, bucky, and reader being in a relationship and right now it’s going bad because something(idk what could happen it’s up to you) happened leaving bucky and nat at odds with reader trying to figure out how to get them to love each other again
Also you aren’t dumb 😡 it was an honest mistake bub
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𝐼𝑁𝑉𝐴𝐿𝐼𝐷𝐴𝑇𝐼𝑂𝑁
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Summary: based on the request
Pairing: BuckyNat x reader
Warnings: 18+, polyamory, angst, arguing, swearing, blame, smut, threesome, oral (male -> female & female -> female), face sitting, fingering, unprotected sex, penetrative sex, p in v sex, cum eating, talking of death
Word Count: 4617
Masterlist Link
Caught in the crossfire yet again, a worry condoned your face into a suitable expression; one of agony as you listened to the pair of your beloveds argue in your shared home. Their raised voices made it sound as though you were entrapped in a war zone, the attacks were consistent, and adjacently brutal, as they passed through your ears, succumbing terror to your being as you feared of what was to be of the three of you. The idea of such an ending was expected, all had been good, up until a few weeks back, coming home to one another had been a haven, now for them it were a dragging chore. Once, they had valued one another’s presence, hugging you in the warm embrace of peacefulness, it had been somewhat of a dream. Despite all the words and judgemental thoughts that you were shunned with in public, nothing became a barrier in the triangular relationship that you were involved in. It wasn’t a flaw in the mechanical works of your emotions to break you apart, it was simply normal for you to endure, but this, their constant screeching at one another had not been.
Glass infrastructure; a vase plummeting against the wall made you jump, shocked by the violence that they were presenting in the household. That vase had been a housewarming gift from Steve, whom seemed to be the centre of their problem. Bucky was angry with Natasha for her constant flirting with his best friend, he wasn’t appreciative of how often, even when you were all tucked up in your king sized bed, that she would be on her phone, texting the blonde for hours on end, making the man on one side of you grunt at the woman on your other. Nat scoffed at Bucky’s derelict behaviour, crossing her arms over her chest as she passed judgement onto his destructive action. “That was such a necessary thing for you to do Barnes, if I were you, I’d clean it up before your ratty little cat steps on a shard.” Alpine was seated on your lap, nuzzling his pink nose into your stomach as though he were trying to escape away from the midst of the argument and the brief mention that he was given. Lightly, you stroked comfortingly over his soft white ears, imagining that would mute the sound out from passing through them.
“You are such a bitch Natalia!” He knew that she didn’t like to be called that, a scowl frustratedly pulled at her face, as her emerald eyes pointed a squint in his direction. “Why do you have to be like this, a pathetic whore for attention from any man or woman that gives you the time of day? Steve didn’t ask for you to constantly fondle his arms at Tony’s parties, he tells me everything. Like how you have an inclination to flirt with him and offer to go away with him on a fucking road trip. All these secrets are mounting up, and I am getting sick of it. Why can’t you be more like y/n?” His voice sincerely cracked, making your eyes widen from the mention that stringed you into their serious and painful bickering. That was certainly the wrong thing for him to have said, Nat took a step of disbelief back, frowning at him as he kicked the pieces of broken porcelain about with his foot. Tears began to build up in Natasha’s eyes, making you recoil with Alpine in your arms, and stand, carrying the little fella out of the room as you entered the shared bedroom and slammed the door shut.
To topple the wavering current that was overflowing the house like the events of a tsunami, you swiftly locked the door from the inside, a reassurance that they could not enter and that you’d be left alone, and hopefully in a somewhat surrounding of peace, even if that be for the limit of a few minutes. Bucky huffed, gripping his scruff in the palm of his hand as he shook his head at Natasha, tensing his nostrils as he glared at her. “Now look what you did.” He blamed her, though if he were to comprehend an accurate fault, the dismal accountability of all things that had urged you to leave and trap yourself away with the precious feline was a balance on both of their parts. At his childish and metaphorical finger pointing, Natalia as he had called her, crossed her arms over her chest, taking a few steps back as she were ridiculed by the circumstances that he proposed upon her. “It’s so rich of you to cluster a web as disgraceful as this, Black Widow, it is clear that you were trained in the red room, a habitat for the sinners that deter the prospect of having serum running through their obsolete veins.”
The condemned usage of her heroic title belittled her, though she remained standing strong against one of her lovers, whilst the other, which was informally you, were cloaked away in the dense atmosphere that was once filled with the notion and ambience of intimacy and endearment, but was now stifling under the thumb of hoisted reverence. Natasha knew, and was concerned for your well being, aware that you’d be tearing profusely up at all of which you had witnessed; it was no pretty sight, you had for a long time evened out the ground for her and Bucky, but it seemed that your attempts at validation were no longer enough. They were falling out of love, leaving you in the middle of their poisonous and collapsing feud, of which made you substantially torn between both counterparts. Nat opted for biting her lip, and screwing her fists into balls of restraint, as she whipped her back into Bucky’s sight, and headed towards the master bedroom, rapping her knuckles against the door, halting your movements of running your fingers through Alpine’s snowy locks.
Each time you combed your hand through his soft coat, small strands slid from the outer layer of his shell, coating your leggings in small follicles that promptly stood out. It was a coping mechanism for the ravenous banging that obstructed the other side of the door; it was driving you mad, and admittedly it’d be a lie if you were to say that you weren’t tempted to unlock your barrier of security, but you had to remain strong and stand your ground against their unchivalrous bullshit, that was until they had the means to sort their transgressive mess out on their own. You had no intent on being pulled in by the strings, being controlled and manipulated like a puppet, dangling from the hands of an opposing man and woman whom were supposed to adore one another as much as they did you. Alpine’s staring was getting too much, it was as though he were judging you with his moonstone blue eyes for your ignorance of every singe thing outside of the room. Bucky stepped behind Natasha, his demeanour infuriating her all the same, but she continued to hold her ground steady, adamant to not step down from her position.
“If she doesn’t want to see me, then you’re definitely not going to sway her judgement and conception of opening the door.” Bucky squinted at her, taking offence from her words, without so much of an ounce of concern, pushing her out of the way, and tapping his scarred knuckles against the door, earning a similar lack of response, causing Nat to become smug with his deflation of confidence. Just hearing them bicker was driving you mad; Alpine, though considered to be formally owned by Bucky, one of the lovers whose words were torturing you, was the only source of comfort that you were reviling in. You hugged him to your chest, stroking the side of your face alongside the surface of his coat, as you tried to compel regents of coaxed calmness. They were toxic for one another, as had recently been revealed, but they still strived towards one of their selfish desires; and that was you. No longer did they have a hook line and sinker to reel you in, you were standing your turf as you awaited for their insistent bickering failed to cease.
“Y/n, doll, open the door.” Bucky made his attempt, speaking through the barrier and still not gaining a response from you. It was moulding his voice into a muffle as he tried again, but groaned simultaneously. To say Natasha was not impressed with his failure at getting through to you came as no surprise to her, she couldn’t quite blame you fit not wanting to talk or respond to him; she wasn’t keen on that entailment either. And it was definitely because she was majorly pissed at him, he had gotten so far up his own ass and it was irritating. He was feeling severe pity for himself, and whilst it was sometimes understandable why he was feeling so, it was not fair for him to take thus emotional charge out on Natasha. But the treatment went both ways, she was picking at him on purpose, trying to irritate him to the point where he would feel invalidated, and that she was the target of his cold brashness. You couldn’t quite your finger on why it spurred into such a terrible environment to inhabit in, however to your own dismay, it had, and it now basically mirrored hell with the torture that you endured through your cowering ears.
“Y/n honey, can you please open the door for me?” Natasha’s voice came across as sweet and collected, and could deceive anyone whom didn’t know the problematic endorsement into thinking that there was nothing wrong out in the hallway. But you knew, far too well for your own liking that that the pair of them were struggling to feel an ounce of remorse for one another, let alone love, which left that as a far fetch in their pessimistic eye lines. They loved you, and only you, congregating your three person relationship into nothing more than an accepted love triangle, and they seemed to be temporarily stable with it (if that is how it could be recorded), however, you were anything but pleased with the end result. You had tried to help make things work between the pair, but everything that yo put into action only appeared to drive a deeper wedge in the middle of them, and make a piece off them crack and wasn’t you to themselves, greedily so.
“Yeah, cause she’d sure open it for just you. I’m the golden ticket here, we all know she prefers new, and for good reason. At least every time that she wants to see me, I’m not busy with work or kissing Fury’s ass because I have a constant fear of having my intentions misinterpreted for being pardoned after all the crimes that I have committed. Half thee time you’re not even around, I’m sure she thinks that you go out of your way to avoid her, and even I don’t appreciate that fact. That’s why she clings onto me like I’m her last hope, and the reason as to why she wants us to move closer to the Wilsons; so she’s not as lonely as she currently is. I bought a cat because i knew that she is by herself half the time, what’d you do, install cameras so you can ensure she’s safe? Safe isn’t the word for that if you’re going to make sure that she’s watched in her own home, she waned time away from the compound after everything that we have been through,yet you still make her feel like its following her to eve bleak corner of this home.”
“More like you’re the golden ass here because that’s all you’ve been since Steve decided to give up the shield and pass it to Sam. Anyone’d think that you’re jealous Barnes, and that you want to be Captain America. Spoiler alert; no matter what title that you frame yourself by, or decide who you are that day, you will never carry that shield or don the helmet of true patriarchy, you don’t know how this day and age works. You will never lose the looks from people that you have stolen from, to some of them, the White Wolf is just a pathetic charade, in their eyes, you will always be the Winter Soldier.” Her words were like venom, causing discourse that diverged through the household, splitting the members apart and diminishing their morals. Though you still held onto your own strong, despite their perpendicular quarrels that formed enemy lines against ione anther. You were the white flag, wishing to prohibit a truce for the potential future that you shared together, but they were clearly still deciding on that matter. It was exhausting to endure really, even as you arm constantly waved the blank canvas in their faves as though you ere fine to start all over with each other, and you were if only things could work out; that was your largest concern, minus the fact that you often worried that they may murder one another in their slumber and you’d awaken to bloody sheets and a possessive one partner.
“You want to go there Romanoff? At least I never was prepared to sacrifice my life so that I could save the universe. But you’re back, and that’s one of the many times that you have fucked with my girl’s head. You wonder why she no longer wants to save the world - it’s because you’ve ruined it for her, one second she’s in mourning from your selfish actions, the next she’s relieved that you’re alive. That is one apparent difference between us, I am prepared to give up all this superhero bullshit up, yet you’re not. And it doesn’t just fuck with her, I’m victim to it too, and you’re not even just oblivious to how I feel - you’re ignorant. Please just get a grip Nat, and choose a priority, because this is not fair any more, and I am almost done here.” She analysed him, and you could hear his voice crack through the sternly closed door. Water pooled in his baby blues, but he ensured that no tears escaped, even as he sadly with conflict looked on at her.
“At least I didn’t kill Tony’s parents. Or y/n’s.” It was affirmative that she wanted the attention that was brought to her other commitment to dissipate, but Bucky wouldn’t release it, he was like a dog tugging on a rope. He was relentless as he verbally tore into her, and made her feel conflicted about the life that she wanted. In theory, that was the worst thing that she could have switched the pointed focus to, and you picked Alpine off from your lap, and set him on the bed. With silent footsteps, that you had no doubt that Bucky had picked up on with his enhanced senses, though he remained silent and said nothing of your movement, as he stared Natasha down, tensing his jaw as he ran through his brain of what to say. He was trying not to burst, he absolutely resented being reminded of all the things that he had been coerced into doing by HYDRA, and the fact that you were listening in made the situation that bit more vivid. Of course you knew of the murders that he had made upon your bloodline, however it was rather obvious why it was not brought up often, and yet, Natasha just couldn’t let that one slide. It had taken much time for you to warm back up to Bucky after you had discovered the crime that had taken a toll on your quality of a life as a child, but eventually you had been able to look past the things that he had done as a brain washed assassin and see the real him.
“Are you shitting me?! That’s what you bring up, right now of all times. She’s never gonna open that damned door if you keep running your mouth like you’re a fucking god, privileged to say what you want without consequences. The subject is consequences is why I’m so fucking done with you, one day I’m going to wake up to a call that says you’re dead, and that’ll be on you. And then it’ll be left to me to break the news to y/n. Stop acting like being an avenger is your only purpose, and if it is, I’d leave, that level of premature emotions in a relationship when you have a preference of being somewhere else with us is thoroughly not needed. You think I’m being a dick, sure, whatever, but at least I’m not lying to you or y/n, or my godforsaken self for that matter.” His hands made destructive gestures as he spoke, it was overall emphasis on how she was frustrating him - in other terms she had turned him into a time bomb, and he had blown. He had congregated into a mass of flame and debris, of which he was depositing within the walls, his clear anger throwing Natasha off and causing her breath to hitch as she took a step back, and braced her fingers against the wall, gulping as she became unsure of what else to say as a retort.
Your head felt like it was about to split in two, the existing lanes were overlapping; you pressed your ear to the door to confirm that strangely, for once in a long time, there was evaluated silence on the other side. For just a second you turned back, and watched as Alpine climbed onto the window sill, choosing to slip beneath the blinds so that he’d get a better view of the traffic outside. Taking a breath, you put your hand upon the doorknob, feeling the cold metal hiss against your warm skin, curling your palm around it until your slid your other hand to the lock, and pushed the fine bolt to the side, deciding to give into your own hopeful whim and open the door. The sight you were met with were the pair of them staring at one another, it almost resonated as a glare, but something else was dictating behind their adamant eyes. To soothe the commitment that they had made, of not being together but standing their in uptight silence, you walked to stand right between them so that you could snap and break their eye line. And it worked, bringing a light furrow to Bucky’s brow, and apologies of words to catch in Natasha’s throat.
“Is it over now?” It wasn’t your intent to make your voice sound as meek as it had come across, but it had, and it made Natasha feel figuratively worse about the entire ordeal. She was worried that you would call her out on the calamity that she was facing, though you did not; there was no point beginning another argument, more so when everything was now out in the open, and nothing was secluded from speech. Nat smiled at you, and raised her hand, stroking your cheek as Bucky watched with tender eyes, finally calming down. She nodded to answer your enquiry, enforcing you to sigh in utmost relief. Natasha pulled you closer, and pressed her lips against your own, as to silence the possible next words that could leave your mouth. You melted into her calm course of collision that you had moulded into, humming contently into the cavern of her wordless canal, a hand trailed over your back, it was firm and you could feel each nimble detail of vibranium that was etched into the rare metal through the material of your shirt. "Can we go to bed?" A substitutional pout made its way onto your lips as Bucky pulled you to the side, swiftly.
But instead of walking away like you feared he would, he cupped the redhead's face, and slunk his lips atop of hers, arising a wide smile upon your cheeks, finally seeing them finding solace in each other’s company. Nat pushed Bucky back to you after a minute as she backwards dragged you into the room, the super soldier picking you up as he carried you through the walls and threw you on the bed. Your body bounced for a moment, until it settled atop of the sheets, and Nat crawled towards the head of the bed, looking down at your face with her emerald eyes, engorging in the sight of your blown pupils that were directed towards her. Her hands cupped the roundness of your cheeks, descending her face lower as she purchased her lips upon your own, humming into the coven of your mouth as you reached up, tangling your hands within her red hair that she had cut above the shoulder again.
Your hips jolted on their own instinct as Bucky tore your leggings along with your panties off from your body, the cold air attacking and biting at your legs and beyond as you tried to get used to the drop in temperature below. Nat’s hands descended from your face and began to grope at your tits, leaving you in a blissful wonder, as Bucky’s warm breath hit the insides of your thighs, the contrast of his hands stroking up your legs being one of extraordinary anticipation. You weren’t sure how you hadn’t already straddled his face and set the pace yourself, though you allowed him to continue as you made out with Nat.
To provoke him into doing something more, you waggled your hips in his face, only to earn a vibranium grip on either side, holding you down and restricting you from teasing him. “I’m sorry doll.” He spoke, feeling terrible that you had heard him taunt and pry at your other third with such spite. “We’re sorry baby girl, to each other and you.” Natasha removed her lips from your own as she ogled down at you, her feline like eyes causing you to hitch your breath in your chest. She was so beautiful, each part of her was absolutely stunning, little did you know though that she was thinking the exact same about you.
“Quit teasing her Buck, give our girl what she wants.” She commanded him, and delightfully he had no hesitancy nor quarrel against her words. He ushered his face closer to your crevice of instance, nestling it towards the natural heat that radiated from your pussy, brushing the tip of his nose against your clit as his tongue darted out from the oyster of his mouth, travelling up your slit as he confided his lips around your pearl, heavily suckling upon it as yo cause your back to lurch upwards and your hands coil in the sheets below you. Nat ran her thumb over your mouth, sinking it into your mouth as you suckled upon it, your lids fluttering shut from the combination of sensations that collided through your body.
“Taste so fucking good doll, you’re addictive.” Bucky’s lips brushed against your cunt, as he raised his vibranium fingers towards your entrance, sinking one solidified length into you, as your walls clamped down on the metal. Moans ripples out from your throat as he added another one and lowered his head once more, sucking on either side of your labia, his searing blue eyes gazing into your own that were heavily lidded and struggling to remain open in the long run. “So tight, can’t wait to get my cock in here and stretch it all open so that I can go again and again.”
“Why wait?” Nat asked, aiding you in sitting up as she pulled your shirt up over your head, and then began to undress herself also. “You could just fuck her now, get your pretty prick into her puffy little pussy until she creams all over you. Just thinking about that is getting me wet, do you want to eat me out baby girl?” She enquired as she licked her lips, tugging the last garment that was on her body down that were her panties. A breath staggered out from your throat as Bucky pulled away, pressing one last kiss onto your slit as he began to remove each article of clothing that covered his flawless body.
“Yes please Natty.” As soon as those words beckoned out of your mouth, the redhead held her hands onto the bed frame, and moved to sit on your face. You were enamoured to see the sight of her cunt above you, it made you salivate from the way her flower was splayed as her clit poked out, undoubtedly aroused as she descended it down onto your face, and quickly you began to eat her out, sliding your tongue up and down her cunt, until you reached her entrance and fucked get with your wet muscle. Though your pace faltered as you felt Bucky’s tip prying at your own entrance, sinking in and making you moan against Nat’s wet cunt.
“Shit you’re so fantastic with that mouth of yours, imma ride your face for a moment baby, and I know that you can handle that.” Natasha spoke, raising up and down in the air so that your tongue was penetrating her more and less as she controlled the pace. Once Bucky had settled inside of your walls, his hands clasped onto your hips as to use them as leverage to fuck deeper into you with discretion, making the bed shake as the triad of you went at it like touch deprived animals. “I’ll forgive Bucky for anything if this is what I get.” His hand slapped her ass at that, causing her to press further down onto your face, and you to moan at the flavour of her landing on your tongue.
“I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum all over your sexy face.” The pitch of her voice got higher as you doubled your efforts, grasping onto her ass cheeks to hold her against your face as your tongue traced every inch of her insides, her wetness spreading along your cheeks and splashing around your lips. Your own sounds vibrates against her mound as Bucky fucked into you, grunts coming from behind Nat’s overlooking silhouette, his flesh hand trailing down and pinching at your clit as Natasha orgasmed upon your face. You tried to clean up the mess that she made but she got too sensitive and crawled off from your face, laying down beside you as she watched your other lover fuck into you.
Her lips pressed kisses over your neck as Bucky couldn’t help but ram his length further into you, causing you to orgasm as he pulled out and stroked at his cock, finishing on the bottom of your belly as he held his head back in continuum relief. “Holy fuck.” He breathed, crawling into the bed beside you as Nat took up hearth on your other side, resting his head into the cushion as he caught his breath. Nat’s fingers ran through the cum on your stomach, collecting it on the pads as he raised it to your lips, smirking as you bobbed your head hungrily on your fingers despite your dazed senses.
“We sure do all make a good team.” Nat admitted, turning your face to hers to press a kiss against your lips, delving her tongue into your mouth as she pulled away and rested her head against your breasts. “And I love you.” Bucky repeated the words, leaving you to be the only one to say it back, and you didn’t hesitate to do so.
Bucky Tags; @tylard-blog1 @jeremyrennerfanxxxx123 @kaitieskidmore1
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do you have any theories about the india trip ?? personally, im not sure what to think about it, but i’d love to hear your thoughts !!
(Sorry its taken me so long to answer this - it just got lost in my drafts cause im an idiot lmao 🤦‍♀️)
Im not entirely certain on what I believe happened in India, if in fact anything did happen at all - but more on that later! I guess though that these are the main theories (though if you have any differing opinions/theories, feel free to discuss them!):
1. Paul rejected John’s advancements
2. John wanted to further their relationship, and Paul wanted to maintain the ‘friends with benefits’ situation they already had
3. Nothing significant happened between the two (yet something still changed in John)
I’ll try to discuss which theories I find the most convincing, compelling and substantiated - as well as offering my own opinions and hypothesis’s ^^ (discussion bellow the cut)
1. Paul rejected John’s advancements
The theory I would say im most drawn to - not the theory that im necessarily most convinced by though - is that John made a move on Paul, after a few years of pining for him, and was subsequently rejected. Its a theory that I tend to be compelled by, but I have to admit that its one I struggle to justify entirely. The problem with this theory, for me, is that this is a conclusion ive drawn based mostly off of what their relationship appeared to look like after India. It seems as though something must have happened between them to have ruptured their relationship as profoundly as it did - and because they were on relatively good terms before India*, combined with certain inferences we could draw from comments John made regarding his feelings towards Paul and their relationship, it feels as though it’s possible that he made an advance on Paul, which was rejected and thus caused the ultimate disintegration of the Lennon/McCartney relationship.
(*I mean, their relationship was always complicated and difficult - but it seems that it was okay-ish prior to India, and then just inexplicably plummeted after the trip)
But nobody (as far as im aware) has confirmed, or even really alluded to, this advancement or rejection ever having happened. And the lack of evidence substantiating the claim is a major draw back for me!
However, I do also feel as though nobody’s really come out about anything that happened in India - all ive heard is that they meditated, wrote songs, John and Cyn fought, and Ringo ate baked beans. But like, more must have happened on the trip, surely? Im not saying the absence of information regarding the trip is proof that there was a big “lovers quarrel” between John and Paul, and that everyone involved in that trip is now just sworn to secrecy or something - but like, id just like to see a biographer really investigate the holiday, and try to conclude what events might have occurred during the trip, because as of right now, with the information we have, it seems to have been, bizarrely, both a lacklustre and uneventful, yet still hugely impactful event. If the narrative of the “India trip” were to be shifted in the future in light of new information, the same way the narrative of “Let It Be/Get Back” is being changed, I wouldn’t be surprised!
2. John wanted more, but Paul didn’t
Another popular theory is that John and Paul were engaged in something of a physical affair, but in India John proposed (or perhaps demanded even) that they take their relationship further, and Paul just wasn’t compelled to do so.
Beliefs vary regarding this, based on how far you personally think their relationship went: some might say they only ever did a little drunken experimenting with one another, and that it was just a fun fling until John suggested they take it further. Others might argue that they were in fact in a committed relationship, and John wanted to go public with it - or at the very least, demanded exclusivity between him and Paul.
In entertaining this theory, im most compelled to believe that John and Paul were engaged in occasional “flings”, and perhaps by ‘68 were even acknowledging that there was some deeper and more sincere between them - but ultimately, I don’t think Paul would have ever been inclined to fully commit to John, because I think he always wanted children and a family. In addition to this, though its clear John and Paul were passionate about one another, it isn’t clear how compatible they were in the long term - and with Paul being the more grounded of the too, I suspect he would have recognised this incompatibility, which John (the idealist) might not have.
Though I admit that John could certainly be unrealistic and irrational, im not convinced that he suggested to Paul they go public with their relationship, because I think John still had a fairly strong sense of his place in popular culture, and would have still been able to recognise that if they were to “come out”, it would probably deeply and irreparably damage both their careers - as well as George and Ringo’s too - at least amongst the general public. They’d still have some ardent fans, but their following overall would have become far more niche, and the “beatlemania” would’ve worn off swiftly. Im not sure if either of them would’ve been willing to take that heat in ‘68, especially not Paul, who as I mentioned earlier, I think might have recognised the futility and incompatibility inherent in their relationship.
Then again though, John was always a little “cocky”* when it came to his sexuality - I think if an interviewer were to genuinely have enquired into his sexuality, straight up asking him “Are you bi? Gay?” I get the sense that he would have told us! Sure he’d probably have dressed the response up with a dozen quick quips and jokes, but ultimately, I think he would have given a sincere response. And so, perhaps he did feel he had the confidence, at least in India, to actually “come out”, but if Paul wasn’t willing to make this official with him, perhaps this confidence dissipated.
(*No pun intended you pervs🤦‍♂️)
Another thing to note about India is that they’d have been relatively secluded, as well as off the drugs/drinks for the most part - and this would have forced them to really reflect upon their relationship. Perhaps John saw that he wasn’t contented with Cynthia, and recognised his desire for more from Paul - and so in such a raw state of mind, I can see how he’d become so shattered if Paul were to have rejected him (that statement could relate both to the first and second theory, I feel). Perhaps John made an advance upon Paul whilst they were both sober for the first time, and that changed their relationship somehow? Just thinking out loud here!
But again, this theory overall has the same problem as the first in that, though it appears to make sense, it still lacks proof; it ultimately isn’t a substantiated claim.
3. Nothing happened between J&P, but something changed
This is probably the theory that everybody is least interested in hearing, but I still think its a pretty valid one, albeit the least dramatic (In my opinion though its still a really interesting perspective to explore though!).
Its possible that nothing of particular significance happened in India, but something still shifted in John, causing him to vilify and reject Paul. The issue with this though, is that it begs the question: why did John undergo such a significant change in India then?
Id argue that perhaps John was making very subtle and slight moves towards Paul, that Paul either ignored or didn't pick up on. Id assume that perhaps John had been hinting at this desire for awhile now, and maybe he got it into his head that in India, where him and Paul would have a lot of time to be alone and intimate, his feelings would finally be reciprocated. But then, Paul never picked up on these hints, and never made any advancements - and this broke something within John. It would fit neatly within the Yoko narrative, because it offers reasoning to the abrupt but intense attachment John formed towards her almost immediately after India - as well as explaining the sudden vilification of Paul. But I suppose that the first two theories also fit pretty neatly within the Yoko narrative, because they all relate to the same basic concept that John wanted more from Paul, and Paul didn’t - and so he tried to replace him with Yoko.
I suppose though, that the this theory overall could also be countered by making the argument that Paul also began to spiral after India, and so some occurrence presumably must have happened to Paul too. I wonder though if its possible that maybe Pauls spiralling was kind of a result of Johns? I get the sense though that Paul would need a change in his life to cause his mental health to seriously deteriorate, but I don’t feel like the same is necessarily true for John - I think John is sort of the type to spiral, irregardless of whether his life undergoes a significant change or not, because I think John was the force driving a lot of the drama and troubles throughout his lifetime. So if Johns mental well-being started seriously deteriorating, I can see this being a cause of panic and anxiety for Paul.
But something that further inclines me to believe that an actual event occurred between John and Paul is this extract from Geoff Emmericks memoir (x)(id recommend reading the entire extract, its interesting!):
‘I glanced in Paul’s direction. He was staring straight ahead, expressionless and weary. He didn’t have much to say about India that day, or any other. I sensed at that moment that something fundamental in them had changed.”’
It just really feels as though there was some confrontation between John and Paul that had to have happened to perpetuate the miscommunication later seen between them. Like if there hadn’t been some kind of confrontation, then I can’t really understand why Paul would be reluctant to speak about India, or harbour any regrets or dismay regarding the journey. Perhaps you could drill it down to the betrayal they appeared to have felt by Maharishi allegedly hitting on girls - but I feel like this was a “betrayal” mostly felt by John, I never really got the sense that Paul was deeply effected by it.
But yeah - those are the main theories I think.
Overall, I think that the third theory is probably the most substantiated claim, but I think it leaves a lot to desired. It just doesn’t feel like it totally fits together, as though theres more to the story - but I guess relationships and peoples psyches aren’t puzzles, and so not everything is always going to piece together perfectly; but I dunno.
Like I said though, the theory im most compelled by is the first. I acknowledge that it lacks evidence, but it just seems to make a lot of sense to me! But really, who knows what the hell happened in India?
If anyone else has an opinion on all this, or wants to expand upon or even suggest a new theory, feel free to! I always like hearing from you guys!
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baelpenrose · 3 years
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Fallout Thoughts - Caesar, ahistorical bullshit, pulp fiction, faux-intellectualism, and the way the Legion apes a cultural misremembering of Roman culture that traces to an author most of you have probably never heard of.
This one's for you @adifferenttime
There's three things about me that are relevant to this post and we'll get to the third one part way through. But the first two are relevant up front. Thing about me everyone who follows me on this site knows because I never shut up about it and it's in my damnass bio: I'm a historian. Thing about me that people who have followed me for a bit know but aren't as immediately obvious: I am also a fallout fan. Caesar claims the Legion is "a nationalist, imperialist, totalitarian, homogenous culture that obliterates the identity of every group it conquers. Long-term stability at all costs. The individual has no value beyond his utility to the state, whether as an instrument of war, or production." This is not Rome. In no way is this Rome. "The Individual has no value beyond his utility to the state, whether as an instrument of war or production" is not Rome, it's Sparta. Rome also never obliterated the identity of every culture it came into contact with - it actually prided itself on assimilating the knowledge of everyone it absorbed and adapting the best parts of each. His rejection of technology is also fucking absurd - Romans believed their willingness to advance was one of the reasons they were conquering everything, it was a sign of roman greatness - Caesar sees it as only bringing weakness. That's not the only aspect of the Legion that's closer to Sparta than it is to Rome either - while Rome was brutally ableist, it was not eugenicist. The NCR mention that every legion soldier they see is "a near perfect physical specimen" and we see evidence that the legion start training in childhood.
Sgt. Boyd says that the Legion soldiers slit their own throats when they are at risk of being captured - again, not a Roman behavior.
Legionaries retreated all the time - standard legion doctrine was to retreat when you lost over a third of your troops, because it was better to live to fight another day than to piss away men, metal and money on a point of pride. Spartans were the ones so thoroughly indoctrinated that they pretty much suicided whenever it looked like they might be captured and refused to retreat. Now, Spartans were nationalist, imperialist, fairly totalitarian, eugenicist, statist assholes, and militaristic ones, but they were NOT terribly imperialistic ones, dedicated to stability though they were, and Spartan women enjoyed comparatively large freedom compared to most of the ancient world - had a lot of civic power. So maybe, you're thinking, "Okay, Bael, you've made your point, Caesar took notes from both Rome and Sparta. It's a mix of both, some Roman misogyny, some Spartan military training, all that." Fuckin' NOPE. See, both Spartans and Romans were militarily a heavy-infantry focused force-structure, tactically speaking. Their forces were all about large groups of heavy-armored, shield-carrying infantry with spears and swords forcing the enemy into close-contact, face-to-face, direct combat where discipline and brutal main force was the determining factor of the battle. Maneuver was strategic - once tactical, (ie "in-battle movement") commenced, movement became limited and force was applied until one army was ground into submission by the other. Rome wanted to seize territory and control it to gain its resources and make use of them. To eradicate the people living there - save in extreme cases such as Carthage, where the Republic believed a point needed to be made in an extreme manner - would have defeated the purpose. The Legion does not do this. The Legion, tactically speaking, is a light-infantry force structure. Its troops are lightly armed, lightly armored, do not actually engage in prolonged engagements for any reason if they can avoid it, and rarely take or hold territory. They're fighting a guerrilla war - and they're fighting one of depopulation, terror raids, slave raids, and torch-and-burn destruction of infrastructure and food supply. In no way does it militarily operate the way Rome did, either. In addition, Rome, while it was more misogynistic than Sparta, did have women in roles of importance - particularly religious ones - that gave them genuine societal power. A far cry from the way that the Legion represents them. In addition, the male sex worker in West Side mentions that the Legion punishes homosexuality, where Rome was permissive, bordering on binormative - it was considered normal to the point of being almost expected that young people would experiment with their closest same-sex friends, though it was considered humiliating to be on the receiving end of penetrative sex from someone lower in a social hierarchy than you were. So where the actual fuck are Caesar's gender politics coming from? Well, a friend I respect quite a bit has argued they come from Gram, but even as misogynistic as Mormonism is - hell, as Christianity is - there are upper limits. Even within those extremes they wouldn't be as flagrant as the legionaries are in openly making remarks on the beauty of newly-captured slave women. Thomas Aquinas and more than a few other Christian theologians - ones I admit I respect very very little for my own personal reasons, some of which are philosophical and many of which can be boiled down to "many traumatic memories are directly related to a Catholic upbringing and I have some scores to settle with the Catholic Church," - make compelling theological arguments regarding why women should be subservient but not wholly degraded according to the laws of those faiths, and Gram seems like a person who would have kept comparatively true to his principles in that respect. No. Caesar is very much meant to echo faux-intellectuals who misunderstand Hegel in the way Neitzche did. He makes a number of other errors as well - the Legion's Latin pronunciations are all over the place between Gothic,
Classical, and anglicanized, more
or less according to rule of cool, and their grammar is frequently mediocre. Thing about me almost no one knows: One of my big guilty pleasures is old-school pulp fiction and fantasy. Like. Original Robert E. Howard Conan the Barbarian, Original H.P. Lovecraft, that kind of thing. Insanely problematic horseshit in them and all, there is something about the really unique, neurotic/visceral writing styles that I just really like, and that I feel has sort of gone out of the world with the death of pulp fiction magazines. I bring this up because we know that to some degree, we know that pulp fiction exists in the world of Fallout, and that the Legion is okay with it - or at least willing to overlook it - Aurellius of Phoenix has copies of Grognak the Barbarian in his office. Though, I will say speaking as a Conan the Barbarian fan, while "amazing for the 1930s" is still "racist and sexist as fuck by 2021 standards" it is NOT "advocating for mass genocide or forcible sex slavery for half the population" so we're going to have to look elsewhere for Caesar's gender politics, but we've gotten our first inroad. Now, I'm sure you're thinking, "Bael, what the FUCK does pulp fiction and this admittedly funny aside have to do with Caesar's gender politics" Well, you know how in previous fallout posts I have offhandedly referred to Caesar as a "John Norman Fanboy," and I am about to explain that derisive reference. See, back in the 1960s, there was this college professor named John Norman who also wrote pulpy shitty misogynistic bondage porn as a hobby. (If you were curious, he lost me at "misogynistic" I would have been fine with "pulpy" and depending on quality I'll give "pulpy smut" a shot but I digress). It was about this random douchebag who got isakai'd into an alternate world where his shitty absent dad had vanished to, where his dad trained him as a warrior and abruptly taught him how to survive in this awful social darwinist fuckfest of a planet more-or-less stuck in the iron age where men are more or less allowed to go around slave raiding whenever and whereever and whoever the fuck they feel like outside their own communities as part of normal masculine activity. Pretty much the entire story is framed around thin excuses to have horrible scenes of humiliating women and long antifeminist spiels of pseudo-philosophical dreck about why men are naturally dominant and women are supposed to want that. It more or less languished in humiliating obscurity because his writing style sucked if you aren't a psuedo-intellectual political science or philosophy major who read Nietzche between frat initiations, but it suddenly got super popular during the backlash against second-wave feminism. Here's the thing. This unbelievably shitty series had greco-roman aesthetics with none of the actual values of Greece or Rome. It, too, has a social-darwinist "Death before dishonor makes you a real man" bullshit thing going. It, too, had a completely culturally anachronistic disdain for homosexuality, AND a view that technology and modernism were corrupting people and making them weaker and less manly or good. AND. AND. The warrior caste of this idiotic fictional world fights almost entirely through light infantry tactics of throwing spears and fast, light attacks with swords and hand-axes, from ambush, carrying away women as slaves and fleeing away. Now, critically. This shitty series, on its own, is not that big a deal. But it IS the single cultural event that resulted in Roman slavery starting to be played for nigh-constant fanservice in almost every thing set in greece/rome. Much of the "oh that's just realistic" creepy memory of how everyone in rome was just into teenage girls? This shit. I cannot begin to emphasize just how much the popularity of this FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT THAT THIS ONE FUCKING PRICK WROTE has damaged popular memory of Rome because of how popular it got with white faux-intellectual proto-MRA fuckboys. But back to Edward Sallow. Does it strike anyone else as suspicious that a man who is a very clear
faux-intellectual has created an army - granted, one he skillfully commands, one wielded well - that operates on a faux-intellectual's understanding of Rome, from an author who has the same misunderstanding of Hegel, and apparently the same gender politics as he does? Sallow is a hypocrite and so much of NV is dedicated to showing us that he is a fraud - it wouldn't shock me if some of this was meant to indicate he only understands popular memory of Rome instead of the way it actually worked.
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