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marvelmusing · 1 year

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Our Souls

Pairing: Aleksander Morozova x Fem!Reader

Summary: His Dark Materials inspired AU. As a well-known scholar, you’re invited to a gala at Lord Morozova’s estate. What you don’t expect is for the man himself to show a particular interest in you and your dæmon.

Warnings [18+]: mentions of sexual content, Aleksander is very suggestive and alluring, dæmon touching is a metaphor for intimacy and I’m really running with that metaphor, I’m also just twisting up the lore here.

“Well now they’re just showing off,” Fabian, your dæmon, remarks quietly while you observe the host of this gala.

Glancing down at the fox that is your lifelong companion and physical embodiment of your soul, you almost laugh at how primly he’s sitting beside your feet. Then you follow his gaze and find the dæmon of your host.

Lord Aleksander Morozova. His dæmon, a dark wolf with marbled grey fur, sits on the small dais at the side of the room whilst her human counterpart mingles with the crowd.

Standing such a distance from his dæmon is an impressive feat and you’re certain it is some sort of subtle intimidation technique to remind tonight’s guests of his power.

The majority of the people at this gala are scholars and other academics. Their research is all funded by Lord Morozova - as is your own.

There aren’t many of your fellow academics that you would consider your friends. Throughout the night you manage to make some minimal small talk, though you mostly keep to yourself with Fabian as your only company. That was how the two of you liked it.

It’s as you’ve finished a plate full of desserts that the host of this evening approaches you. Once you notice him, you brush down your black dress as subtly as you can, ensuring that you look presentable.

When he inclines his head politely in greeting you mirror the action with a small smile.

“Lord Morozova.”

“Aleksander, please,” he corrects you with a rather kind smile. “You study dæmonology, yes?”

“I do, sir.”

“A fascinating field,” he remarks appraisingly. “I must admit I’ve read most of your papers, you have a rare talent of perception.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The study of dæmons, particularly their behaviour and the relationship between them and their human counterpart has always been an interest of yours. Knowing the meaning behind certain dæmons has always helped you figure out what kind of person you’re talking to.

“Might I ask for your personal analysis?” He gestures down to where his dæmon has appeared.

“A wolf,” you state, the hint of a question at the edge of your tone. He nods encouragingly.

“Yes.”

After pausing for a moment, you recount the general characteristics of someone with a wolf dæmon.

“Strong, intelligent, loyal.”

He surveys you for a long moment, and you begin to fear that you’ve disappointed him, then he remarks,

“If I wanted flattery I would have remained with Miss Nazyalensky.” The amusement in his words fades as he holds your gaze. “Tell me the truth.”

Unable to look away from his dark eyes, a shiver runs down your spine and a strange warmth prickles over your skin - like a flustered sense of embarrassment mixed with an unfamiliar pleasure. Almost breathlessly, you say,

“There’s a violence in your soul. A vicious need to protect and possess. To take down whoever stands in your way, no matter what.”

He hums, approval shining in his eyes as he steps closer.

“And what about your little fox?”

At that, you glance down at Fabian and a bolt of surprise hits your chest as you see Aleksander’s dæmon nuzzling herself against your dæmon. Dark fur brushing firmly against Fabian’s glimmering red.

Hardly able to breathe with the flood of sensations running through your body, you barely notice that Aleksander has taken your chin between his fingers.

To see your dæmons entwined, playing with one another, feels too intimate. Especially in public like this.

“Look at me,” he demands gently. When you do as he says, you almost melt at the casual dominance resting on his features. “Answer the question.”

Words spill from you without any prior thought.

“Foxes are clever. Adaptable and cunning. They enjoy the hunt.”

He smiles darkly.

“It appears your soul is just as vicious as mine, wouldn’t you say?”

He steps closer as Fabian rolls happily onto his back and Aleksander’s dæmon rubs her face enthusiastically over his fluffy underbelly.

Sensing where your gaze has fallen once again, Aleksander breathes out a small huff of laughter at the sight of your dæmons together.

Then he asks in a low voice,

“Have you ever touched a dæmon before?”

Amusement glimmers in his eyes as you inhale sharply in response to his question. Touching someone else’s dæmon is regarded as taboo. Even in an academic context, you’ve never even considered such a thing.

“Surely you of all people should know that it is only common courtesy that prevents us from doing so,” he muses quietly.

Then he lifts a dark brow.

“I’m assuming no one has ever touched your dæmon?”

You shake your head.

“Poor thing,” he coos, stroking your cheek softly. “With consent, it can be quite a pleasurable experience.”

“You want to touch my dæmon?”

The words are stammered and fumbled as they leave your lips but Aleksander smiles indulgently all the same.

“Yes. And I’d very much like you to touch mine.”

Just the thought of sinking your fingers into the thick dark fur, imagining how Aleksander’s eyes might flutter closed, his head tilting back slightly, has you thoroughly enticed.

“Perhaps we could go somewhere more private to continue this discussion,” he suggests.

Holding his gaze for a long moment, you find yourself slipping away from reality, utterly mesmerised by the man in front of you and the feeling of his soul curling around yours. Once again, your eyes drift over to your dæmons.

“What’s her name?” you whisper softly. When the hint of a frown touches at his brows you add, “Your dæmon.”

Something in his expression softens.

“Andromeda.”

The corner of your mouth lifts with a soft smile.

“Pretty name.”

“Thank you.” He tilts his head so that his eyes can bounce between you and your dæmon, then he adds in a low voice, “Fabian, isn’t it?”

A visible shudder rolls through your dæmon as you nod with a dazed look in your eyes.

Aleksander looks almost sympathetic as he observes the state of you, curling each of his hands around your forearms to steady you.

“If you want me to stop this-”

Shaking your head, you interrupt him with a quiet plea.

“No, please, don’t stop.”

“Come with me,” he insists, though he makes no move before you nod in consent. When you do, he breathes out a soft smile and begins to lead you through the throngs of people.

It all passes by in a blur. Aleksander’s arm curled protectively around your waist. Andromeda pressed closely against Fabian as they follow you.

As soon as you reach a deserted hallway, Aleksander is pushing you back against a smooth stone wall. For a moment he watches the heavy rise and fall of your chest, your lips parted and eyes wide as you stare up at him.

His fingers ghost over your lips in a silent question, to which you nod and allow your eyes to flutter closed in anticipation.

Then his mouth descends, meeting yours in a fierce kiss that steals everything from you. Mind filled nothing but thoughts of him, you grasp tightly onto the front of his kefta to support yourself and bring him closer. The way he takes the air from your lungs makes you dizzy.

He withdraws slowly, after several more lengthy kisses that pick apart your sanity piece by piece with every movement of his lips. When he does half his assault, he doesn’t go far, your noses brushing together delicately.

“My apologies,” he murmurs, his own breathing ragged as he rests his forehead against yours. “I had intended on making it to my quarters before doing that.”

The smile that spreads over your face is rather giddy as you laugh softly. His own smile is boyish, with a twinkle of amusement sparkling in his dark eyes.

He noses affectionately at your cheek, tilting his head so that he can press kisses along your jawline.

“They appear to be enjoying themselves,” he observes lightly.

Following his gaze, you see Fabian and Andromeda curled around one another on the floor. Fabian nips playfully at her ear and a low sound rumbles from Andromeda. Little pink tongues flicker over fur as they continue to pet each other.

It’s rare for dæmons to get along so well. Even the dæmons of married couples aren’t as forthright as yours are right now.

“We must be quite compatible,” you suggest.

His body presses firmly against yours and you can feel his hardness digging into your stomach. It makes sense that the sensations you’re experiencing are also being felt by him. After all, your dæmon is just as eager as his is to touch and play with one another.

Still, you’re surprised to see the usually reserved Lord Morozova look so unravelled - by you.

His hands are firm on your body as he all but drags you down the corridor, stopping occasionally to kiss you against a wall or a closed door. The idea that someone might see you both has a warmth prickling under your skin.

Then you reach his rooms.

He closes the door behind you, pressing you against the dark stained wood. Caging you between his arms, he stares at you for a long moment. Leaning in slowly, he brushes his lips lightly against yours.

His delicate touch, after the almost violent hunger displayed in the hallways, makes you moan quietly, filled to the brim with yearning and desire.

“Aleksander,” you whisper against his lips. “Please.”

He steps away and you whimper.

Shrugging his kefta from his shoulders, you watch as he hangs it over a chair and begins to roll up the sleeves of his shirt. He toes off his expensive dress shoes and unbuttons the top few shirt buttons to reveal a generous amount of his bare chest.

Then he reclined himself casually over his bed, propping himself up with an elbow resting against the mattress.

“Fabian, come here.”

There is a moment of hesitation from your dæmon. People don’t usually address them directly and your poor soul seems conflicted. But curiosity and the need for Aleksander seems to win him over.

Inhaling shakily, you watch as he trots across the room towards the bed, leaping up in a nimble motion, before he approaches Aleksander.

Aleksander’s eyes flicker up to where you’re frozen by the closed door.

“This distance doesn’t hurt you, does it?” he asks.

You shake your head. Some people are better than others at maintaining distance from their dæmon. Some can barely move a few feet without feeling a sting of pain, whilst other dæmons can wander into other rooms without any discomfort.

Aleksander nods in acknowledgement.

Then he brushes his hand delicately over Fabian’s fur. Nearly choking on your breath, you gasp and lean heavily against the door. Both Fabian and Aleksander watch you intently.

“You can join us,” Aleksander suggests with a soft smile.

In all honesty you’re not sure if you can walk steady. Then Andromeda licks your hand in affectionate encouragement. Staring wide-eyed down at Aleksander’s dæmon, you give her a tentative pat on the head.

Aleksander hums softly in pleasure and you smooth your fingers over the soft fur at the top of her head before you scratch gently behind her ear. He groans lowly, his eyes fluttering closed as he inhales deeply.

Stumbling a little, you move hurriedly over to Aleksander’s bed, tugging at your heels and discarding them carelessly. He smiles widely as you lie down beside him on your back.

Fabian presses himself against you immediately and you curl your arms around his body as he drapes himself over your chest. The familiar weight soothes you and instantly both of you relax.

“You have quite the bond,” Aleksander observes quietly.

Self-consciously, you bury your face down into the fur of your dæmon.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he assures you, threading his hand through Fabian’s fur. “Too many teenagers shun their dæmon in an attempt to seem more of an adult. Evidently, you didn’t do such a thing.”

You shake your head.

After your dæmon settles, it’s generally thought that you should limit talking to and touching them in public. Some people even think in private your dæmon should remain reserved. That’s something you’ve never believed in. Fabian is your soul - the two of you are the only ones you can rely on. Pushing him away would hurt too much.

There are lonely nights where nothing except his weight on your chest and the softness of his fur against your fingers can help quieten your mind. He gives you some of the best advice and you can’t imagine life with a dæmon you couldn’t talk to.

The distance Aleksander is able to put between himself and his dæmon is impressive, but his admiration of your bond with Fabian makes you wonder.

“You and Andromeda…” you begin slowly. “Are you separated?”

He seems impressed by your observation, though there is a touch of sadness in his eyes. Some people purposefully separate themselves from their dæmons, whilst sometimes it happens during a trauma.

“Not quite,” he says in a quiet voice. “Even before she settled, my mother insisted that I should be able to move a great distance without my dæmon.”

Andromeda noses against your side and you can’t stop yourself from giving the poor dæmon some affection. The idea of Aleksander’s mother encouraging them to be parted at such a young age makes your heart ache.

“It’s taken us several years to rebuild our bond,” he admits as he rests his hand against the dark fur of his dæmon.

The two of them seem so in tune with one another, it’s startling to think that their bond had to be recreated as an adult.

“Fabian thought it was a power display,” you remark. “Publicly putting that much distance between you both.”

“I did not,” your dæmon grumbles in a small murmur. At that, you give him a pointed look of disagreement.

Aleksander chuckles.

“He was right. If people see how much distance I can put between myself and Andromeda, they will wonder what else I am capable of.”

Fabian turns his head to look at Aleksander and in response he curls his fingers under your dæmon’s chin. He scrapes his blunt nails through the short hairs there before he moves his attention back to you.

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

Sighing in pleasure, you smile softly.

“Good.”

He hums in approval.

“You’re doing very good. A lot of people lose consciousness the first time their dæmon is touched.”

You frown.

“Really?”

He nods.

The silence is comfortable between you both as you continue to gently pet one another’s dæmon. Occasionally, your dæmons will give each other some attention, murmuring quietly to one another as they nuzzle and lick at their faces and fur.

Soon they’ve settled in the space between you and Aleksander. Fabian pressed against Aleksander’s ribs whilst Andromeda rests her side against your stomach. Both you and Aleksander have turned on your sides to face one another and watch your dæmons.

“Shouldn’t you be at your gala?” you ask him quietly. He shakes his head.

“I can’t think of a single person there that would deserve more of my attention than you do.”

His words set a fire within you and your gaze drifts down to his lips.

“Aleksander…”

“No.”

“You don’t know what I was going to say,” you protest weakly.

He chuckles.

“I do. And the answer is no.” Both you and Fabian huff lightly. “As much as I want to…” He traces his thumb over your lower lip. “You’re not thinking clearly and I won’t take advantage of that.”

“But-”

“No buts. If you need a moment to yourself I can draw you a bath.”

Blinking in confusion, you frown at him.

“A bath?”

He hums with a small smirk.

“Or I can wait in my study, for however long you need, if you would prefer my bed.”

The frown on your face deepens.

“Are you…?”

His smile widens into something that makes your stomach flip. He takes his hand away from where he’s been petting Fabian and traces his fingers gently over your cheek.

“I’m telling you to touch yourself, darling. You’ll feel better once you do.”

A burning blush floods through your body. The thought of touching yourself in Aleksander’s rooms makes you a little embarrassed, especially when you imagine accidentally making a mess of his sheets.

“Can I have a bath?” you ask shyly.

He presses a gentle kiss to your forehead.

“Of course.”

marvelmusing Tag List: @dreamlandcreations @blanchedelioncourt @idaofinfinity @slytherheign @ellooo0ooo @vixenofcourse @dumb-fawkin-bitch @jane-arthur @ilikefictionmen @budugu @watersquirtpewpewboomm @mysweetlittledesire @dhampiravidi

S&B Tag List: @motheroffae

Aleksander M Tag List: @nyctophiliiiiaaa @jazmin2211 @wooya1224 @seronsalk @veescorneroftheworld

BB Characters Tag List: @rachlovesactors @noortsshift @aikeia @weallhaveadestiny @two-unbeatable-beaters

#aleksander morozova #aleksander morozova x reader #the darkling x reader #the darkling au #shadow and bone au #shadow and bone x reader #the darkling moodboard

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ao3cassandraic · 7 months

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Angels, demons, language, and culture part 4: Literalism and metaphor

Part 1 (angels are never children, and that matters), Part 2 (written language is mostly coded human rather than ethereal/occult in Good Omens), Part 3 (human writings contain useful social rules, which is partly why Aziraphale values them)

It may be time to restate @thundercrackfic's original questions?

How good is Aziraphale’s reading comprehension? How much does he understand subtext and metaphor? Because his behavior this season struck me with the impression that he didn’t really understand the books he collects. He’s clever at puzzle solving, and contains vast knowledge; but he always seems to take things at face value (when he’s not willfully misunderstanding), and refuses to give up black-and-white thinking, which would make it very difficult to analyze texts.

I think there are definite reasons to believe that reading comprehension of human literature (as defined in the question) is difficult for Aziraphale. One of them, as stated in part 1, is that Aziraphale doesn't get the tremendous advantage of childhood and its brain plasticity, which (among other things) is known to help with learning language. I'm not surprised his French is pretty bad. Learning another language from the ground up as an adult can be a cast-iron PITA (yes, experience speaking).

Another is simply that Aziraphale is not human. He's an outsider to humanity. He's fairly empathetic, and he does learn (unlike almost all his fellow angels!), but that leaves him without much of a yardstick to gauge when human literature is being literal and when it's not. There also seems to be a general angelic tendency to believe what they're told? Muriel definitely has it, Michael seems to as well, and even s1!Gabriel can only (and barely) muster skepticism on one occasion that I recall (the photo incident). I can see this making Aziraphale's reading, especially early in his existence on Earth, a good bit harder for him than reading is for, say, me. I'm used to unreliable narrators and figurative language and other sorts of clever fun productive lying. Aziraphale's acquaintance with lying is -- well -- his lies don't usually involve much metaphor? I suppose one could argue that "big sharp cutty thing" is a kenning, but not really in the human way of kennings because he only uses it the once.

Moreover, it appears (based on the s1e3 cold open, mostly) that he bops around the world quite a bit until finally settling in London (with the occasional jaunt elsewhere when he gets peckish). Nothing at his creation other than the auto-polyglottism She bestows on Her angels seems to give him any tools for navigating the bewildering variety of human cultures and customs... and literary metaphor (along with lots of other literary things) is commonly culturally-bound, culturally-specific.

I mean, if you read something (maybe in high school (or analogue) or college) that was written A Long Time Ago and/or Very Far Away, didn't it probably have a ton of what lit-critters call "apparatus" in it? Explanatory introductions, bibliography, and above all footnotes/endnotes/margin notes, many of which explain figures of speech that otherwise wouldn't make sense? Not to mention stuff like (just as an example) which local then-current political morass Dante threw this particular historical person in this particular circle of Hell for. Stuff that if you're not there, not embedded in the culture and the time, you're just plain gonna whiff. Hell, even Shakespeare editions have a ton of apparatus, and Shakespeare's in Early Modern English for pity's sake!

(Which is not to say that something has to be ancient or not-from-here to benefit from some apparatus. What is The Annotated Pratchett File if not apparatus for Discworld?)

So our peripatetic angel reading literature of whatever time he's actually in (which mostly won't have apparatus he can rely on for help) will often find himself not clued-in enough to a given human culture to completely understand its literary figures, metaphors included. And sure, that's going to lead to some misreadings and misunderstandings and overliteral takes! I can't read Dante's Inferno and understand everything in it! It takes Italianists years, if not decades, to do that!

And to make the problem even more difficult, literature feeds on itself, and on other arts as well. (Hi hi hello, comparative literature major, I totally studied various flows of literary and artistic influence in college and wouldn't trade that major for anything ever, it was the best major.) Think about all the time and effort GO meta-ists have spent of late teasing out callbacks and allusions and references in GO s2. That kind of work is also part of what Aziraphale has to do to understand fully what he reads... and it's a lot of work, even for a reader as voracious and possibly sleepless as our angel.

So yeah, in sum, I don't think Aziraphale has a perfect -- or even good -- track record on understanding what he reads. I adore him because he reads anyway! He never gives up on trying to understand! That's absolutely praiseworthy! (Crowley has something of an analogue to this in his love for human inventions. He doesn't understand how anything actually works, for the most part, but he loves it all the same.)

I think there's also an outstanding question about what Aziraphale gains from reading, a sense of social rules (Part 3) aside? Well, it's known that reading (especially fiction, especially fiction about characters who are Not Like The Reader) increases empathy. I don't know if Aziraphale reads specifically for that reason, but I'm absolutely willing to believe that fiction works on him that way, just as it does on us, even if he doesn't fully understand everything he reads. Did you fully understand everything you read as a child? Or even as an adult? I would never claim that of myself. Yet I certainly will claim that I picked up a lot of what I suppose I will call my character -- it runs deeper than personality -- and my general understanding of life (insofar as I have one) from reading.

If I had to answer why Aziraphale reads, though? I'd think back to my own childhood, as a bullied child with somewhat neglectful parents who held outsized expectations of me. Reading for me was peace, was escape, was enjoyment, was something to think about that wasn't my own unhappiness, was -- now and then, honestly not often enough -- seeing myself reflected in a book and feeling less alone. I hope and believe that human literature and music served similar purposes for our poor angel.

#good omens #good omens meta #aziraphale #language and culture

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sapphicsigh · 7 months

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I don't want a 3rd szn without Izzy. I just don't. Call me dramatic or whatever, but I'm so genuinely heartbroken by his death. I feel so betrayed. Izzy was the heart of the show, and now he's gone.

The aftermath of his death felt rushed, he wasn't buried at sea (like what the fuck, a lifelong pirate like Izzy would've wanted to be buried at sea) and the crew was just happy to get back on the revenge and set sail without their unicorn? Everyone just gets a happily ever without Izzy? Izzy died a painful death shot by a pompous asshole and for what? Some metaphor about the end of the golden age of piracy? Piss off. Closure for Ed? That could've been achieved a number of other ways. Izzy couldn't get any assurances that HE was loved? Even on his fucking deathbed? The man who protected the crew with life and limb? It doesn't feel right, and it never will. Izzy deserved so much better, and so did Con.

And worst of all, perhaps, is that Djenkins was planning on killing him all along. The whole time, while we were falling in love with the little angry man, rooting for him and rejoicing when he wore makeup in front of the crew and was vulnerable with them...he was a dead man walking.*

*I've seen ppl make rlly good points about how death was treated throughout the show and I wanted to add that context here. If I can find whose post I'm thinking of, I'll tag them

**Edit: Izzy's death was an incredible shock. EVERYONE ELSE IN THE SHOW survived their near death experiences!!! Stede got choked near to death, stabbed (twice!), and survived all of that unscathed. Ed got his head smashed in by a FUCKING CANNONBALL, pumbled by the crew and made it out with barely a scrape. Even Calico Jack could've (apparently) escaped death after being shot with a goddamn cannonball. The Swede was poisoned but was already immune to it. Wow! We (at least I felt this way), as an audience, believed that there wouldn't be any character deaths due to the overwhelming evidence we'd been given thus far. So after alllll the in show evidence that the laws of medicine or physics don't apply to ANY of the pirates, why suddenly apply it when it comes to Izzy? Hmmm??? It makes no fucking sense. It's cruel and unusual punishment. They really killed off the queer disabled elder??? Jesus christ. Did not a single person in the writer's room have a qualm about it? The optics alone are bad. But more importantly, killing off the queer disabled elder is inherently political, whether djenkins thought of it that way or not (& i dont think he did). The mere existence of queer people is inherently political in a society (the US), which wishes for our eradication. So killing off a beloved queer disabled elder, on a show which seemed to promise us queer joy and a happy ending, IS POLITICAL. it's a slap in the face and a punch through the fucking gut.

It feels doubly awful because we, as an audience, were given something we've never had before, an unapologetically queer show. One that didn't soften or censor itself for straight viewers. It was created with such love, at least it felt like, for us. So to be given that gift, and to feel recognized and seen and appreciated, only to have it snatched away...

I can only speak for myself, of course, but it's genuinely heartbreaking. I'm so utterly disappointed. I wish so badly that Con got more time with Izzy. I think Izzy means a lot to him, and he means a lot to us, too.

❤️‍🩹🦄❤️‍🩹I love you, Izzy, and I always will. Rest in peace, my little meow meow, you were and are so loved.❤️‍🩹🦄❤️‍🩹

#ofmd #our flag means death #today on tumblr #ofmd s2 #queer #lgbtq #lesbian #omfd s2 spoilers #izzy #izzy hands #israel hands #con o'neill #ofmd s2 spoilers

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cailenbraern · 10 months

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Not sure if I can fully articulate my thoughts about Jaskier’s growth as an artist throughout the seasons of The Witcher but I'm going to give it a go.

Because when we meet him in season 1 , he's more or less just starting out. He's fresh from Oxenfurt and determined to make a name for himself on the continent. The trouble is, he's got nothing to draw on. He's still young so his experience is negligible. He performs songs about monsters and creatures with little accuracy or meaning, and we meet him being jeered and pelted with food.

Meeting Geralt gives him a new inspiration for original songs, although he's not truthful, particularly in Toss a Coin. As Geralt said, that's not what happened, and Jaskier responds with respect doesn't make history. He's still too young and too inexperienced to realise what impact his songs can have, and he's solely determined to improve the reputations of Witchers along with his own reputation.

The two other songs in season 1 are Fishmongers Daughter, which I'm not going to discuss in any detail, and Her Sweet Kiss. Now one cane argue that the latter is heavily drawn from personal emotion and feeling, but the end result is a fairly normal ballad style of song with poetry as lyrics and vivid imagery and metaphors. It's a start, but Jaskier still has a long way to go.

Then we get to season 2, where we find Jaskier in the early stages of recognition. We see him performing in a packed bar, with accompaniment, and the crowd are lapping it up. It helps that the song he's singing comes, as per his own words, from the heart. Burn Butcher, Burn is 100% emotion, 100% authentic, and gone is the poetry. The lyrics are raw and passionate.

Despite this, we're led to believe that he found his fame with The Golden One. In contrast with BBB, this song lacks any emotional punch. It's purely a story or anecdote set to music. A fun little ditty, but unless you can suspend your disbelief, if open to criticism. As happens when attempting to smuggle the Elves onto the ship.

Now, we know that at this point, Jaskier has done and seen and experienced far more things than he had in season 1, and this has left an impact on him. He has matured and developed his sense of empathy and his kindness so much more than the immature travelling bard showed in Posada, thanks tp witnessing the violence and persecution of the elves, while also dealing with his own broken heart. Yet he's still clinging on to his want and desire to be respected and applauded for his skill and talent in writing and singing songs, so we see that he does not take criticism well.

More happens in season 2 to shape and form him, Rience's torture for one, the massacre at Kaer Morhen, his friendship with Yennefer and his mending (such as it is) of his friendship with Geralt along with the continuing politics all across the continent.

I do have a soft spot for Whoreson Prison Blues. The first two verses are beautiful, followed by a very crude, very catchy chorus. I can't imagine he would include it in future sets, but it's so personal to him in that moment that I love it.

Little wonder that by Season Three, we are met with yet more changes in our bard. His words to Radovid stating that he doesn't 'do pretty' suggest to me that he has consciously decided to move away from filling his songs with poetry and imagery and is focused more on honesty and truth. Extraordinary Things which immediately follows is a perfect demonstration of Jaskier singing openly and from the heart.

But what I wanted to get to in this long winded post, is that this is the season we finally see the Emotional Impact Jaskier's songs have on other people. No criticisms, no jokes, just the power of his music.

Whatever your opinion on Radovid and his motivations, Extraordinary Things affected him. You can see this in his reaction as he hears it for the first time, and he so clearly can't get it out of his head after hearing it only one time, that he goes above and beyond to learn it.

Next is Ciri, and we see Jaskier singing a lullaby (which he may or may not have written himself, jury's out on that) to her. Later, in the desert, she sings the lullaby back to herself, drawing strength and courage from it. This power has been given by Jaskier through his singing, making her feel safe and loved in a vulnerable moment.

Finally, Eternal Flowers, which I'll say here, is the best I've ever heard Joey sing, both on the album version and in the live performance on the show. He has his lute, but he lays it down like laying down a weapon. It's just him, stripped bare, open, vulnerable, honest, true. This is not his song, but he feels the emotion and the message as thought it was. His empathy is shining. It moves him to tears, but not only him, the Dryads also feel the emotion he is channelling, and it moves them to tears.

I don't have much of a conclusion to this ramble, but TL;DR, Jaskier’s songwriting and art has evolved over the three seasons and his bardic power is a might force to be reckoned with. He will be remembered long after Valdo for his honesty and beauty.

Not pretty. Real.

#jaskier #the witcher #spoilers #season 3 #twn spoilers #twn season 3 #joey batey #i cant articulate

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thenightfolknetwork · 1 month

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I am an antichrist.

The Real thing, born to a seventh virgin daughter after her soul was consumed by my father, Satan, in a ritual of fire, glory and light.

I was raised as instructed by The Book— Don't ask which Book, you don't want to know, the knowledge would melt your eardrums— to be the destroyer of the world, the prince of sins and the devourer of souls. I am the One Who Will Bring Fire to the earth, I am the One who will run the blood of innocents through the streets and boil the sea with my mere desire, I am the dark side of the moon, I am humanity's nightmare, I am—

I am 12 years old.

And I'm at school.

I just learned about ecosystems: The delicate balance of a food chain, the harmony that exists in the earth when a network of fungi extracts nitrogen from the earth and a rotting tree leaves the soil rich for next spring.

I found out about corals recently too. They are alive and an extremely complex life form for something that will never move, corals don't die as long as nothing kills them, isn't that a strange and wonderful concept?

I always wanted to be the World Destroyer.

It never occurred to me that bringing hell to earth would mean no deer or bees or coyotes.

If you increase the average sea temperature by more than two degrees, millions of corals will die. I don't know if I want to boil the sea if that's the end result.

But I am the Antichrist and I like being the Antichrist. I like to be Apotheosis, the crack in the glass, the rotten apple, the mercury in the water.

But I also like the world as it is, even if it doesn't bow down to me in fear.

What do I do?

(What do I say to my father?)

This is the problem with prophecies – they always put the subject under such a tremendous amount of pressure! I feel sure that, if your father had simply not mentioned his plans for your future, you would have grown up without these anxieties and likely gone on to fulfil your unholy purpose without a second thought, in a time frame that felt sensible and natural to you.

Instead, you've been burdened with a terrible and unreasonable amount of responsibility. No wonder you're feeling torn! This is more than any twelve year old should have to consider.

The important thing to remember is that you don't have to make a decision about this right away. You are the Antichrist and you will remain the Antichrist while you take a little while to decide the best course of action for you. The end of the world will still be there when you're ready for it.

As to the apocalypse itself, this is the other reason prophecies can be so frustrating. They are simply never specific enough to be helpful. Yes, you may be destined to end the world – but which world, exactly? And how much of that 'blood of innocents, boiling seas' stuff is literal, and how much is just a religious scribe getting carried away with himself?

In my experience, there are many, many ways a person might fulfil a prophecy without having to bring a fiery demise to this particular realm of existence. You might take a short hop over to another reality and destroy an uninhabited world, for example.

Alternatively, you might take your prophecy in a more metaphorical sense. “The world” we live in today is one that allows billionaires and business magnates destroy our environment in the name of profit. Perhaps you could fulfil your great purpose by destroying the social and political structures that make that world possible.

I understand your trepidation about bringing this up with your father. However, I really do think that you should consider it. Looking after you is his job, after all, and I'm sure he wouldn't want you struggling with these feelings alone. Reach out to him, and let him know how you feel.

You don’t have to decide this all at once. Whatever else you say to your father, you need to make it clear that you will not be embarking on any sort of apotheosis until you've at least finished your GCSEs. You are a child, and you deserve to have a proper childhood, whatever the future might hold for you.

#answered #the nightfolk network #monstrous agonies

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romchat · 8 months

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My Journey to You Ep. 11 visuals: Peering through paper doors

Something I love about historical (-esque) dramas is a director's ability to use architectural framing to represent character emotions and change. Episode 11 gave us some interesting character moments for the two main couples and each happened through paper doors.

This was one of the first episodes where I finally felt Gong Ziyu intentionally stepped into his leadership position as Sword Wielder by not giving in to his natural impulsivity and naivety. He's made aware of Yun Weishan's possible betrayal, and while he's clearly trying to give her an opportunity to explain herself and join him, he's also refreshingly cautious.

Him keeping the door closed is both a political and personal choice. Ziyu can't reasonably let her go without addressing the medical records, but he wants to reassure Weishan that he won't recreate the political cage he believes her to be trapped in. They both desire freedom and the soft life, but she needs to articulate what she's going through so that he can politically maneuver the situation.

Ultimately, she (literally) opens the door to that possibility—and (literally) steps into the light of her true feelings.

Now, returning to our favorite emotionally repressed and overly cocky couple...

(Side Note: I'm obsessed with this pool in the center of Gong Shangjue's chambers and really hope they make more use of it in future episodes. Think! Of! All! The! Metaphors! I'll take a suggestive shot of dipping her hand into those still waters for $400 dollars, Alex. Please, show, give me something to hold me over until the sexy bath scene from the trailer. Anything.)

Do I sense a disturbance in the Force or is Shangguan Qian actually starting to feel something other than blood-thirst? Of course, she's angry at having been bested by Weishan (and probably a bit wary of having to recalibrate her perception of the other assassin), and Lu Yuxiao is doing some lovely acting letting that jumble of emotions play out on her face. And then she turns her gaze to Shangjue. It's in that shot through the open door that we start seeing the stirring of something else. Whether it's guilt, concern, or just a healthy dose of empathy who knows but it's there.

What I appreciate about the architectural framing of the scene's last shot is that it works on multiple levels:

Shangjue's isolation and shame after obliterating his reputation with the clan's elders. This man wants to be the Sword Wielder because he truly believes he would be a more capable leader. Being seen as having to rely on petty tricks is incredibly humbling.

The depth of the shot through multiple doorways—barriers—makes it seem like Qian's master plan for Shangjue is even further from her grasp now that he is less secure in his plans to depose Gong Zuyi.

And yet...she is also seeing him through the door. Usually, the camera films Shangjue to look powerful: he's shot to look tall and untouchable, looking down from his horse or surrounded by regalia. But here, blocked in by these two doors, he's stripped of all of it. I could imagine Qian feels vulnerable seeing the man whom she has envisioned as larger than life since he rescued her years ago tucked away like this, and so I'm super excited to see if and how she attempts to cross this literal and metaphorical threshold to get closer to him to execute her mission.

#my journey to you #云之羽 #zhang ling he #esther yu #lu yuxiao #ryan cheng #cdrama #it's all about doors

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zumurruds · 1 year

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JOKASTE, DAMEN, & THE SYMBOLISM OF REBIRTH

The relationship between Damen and Jokaste throughout the series is characterized by tension, conflict, and betrayal. Jokaste, a powerful figure in the Akielon court, sends Damen away to Vere as a slave while she is pregnant with Kastor's son. As a mother-to-be, Jokaste's decision to send Damen to Vere may have been driven by a desire to protect her own child and secure its future, even if it meant sacrificing her relationship with him. Additionally, this decision can be viewed as an act of mercy, as it ultimately spared Damen's life. As the story progresses, their paths cross once again, and their reunion coincides with Jokaste giving birth. Through the motifs of rebirth and motherhood, their relationship takes on a symbolic significance, ultimately revealing the complex web of power and legacy.

Damen's experiences in Vere can be seen as a parallel to Jokaste's pregnancy and birth. During his time in slavery, he undergoes a profound transformation and emerges as a different person, one who is more aware of the complexities of power, politics, and the nature of schemes between opposing nations. This transformation can be seen as a rebirth, a symbolic parallel to Jokaste's own experience of giving birth to her son.

The fact that Jokaste and Damen's experiences occur at the same time highlights the interconnectedness of their stories and the ways in which their actions and choices impact each other. Jokaste's betrayal of Damen ultimately led to his rebirth in Vere, just as her own experiences of motherhood influenced her decision to send him away.

From a symbolic perspective, Jokaste giving birth could be seen as a metaphor for the birth of a new generation, and the continuation of a legacy. In the context of the story, Jokaste hopes that her son will one day become king and cement her influence over Akielos. However, Damen's experiences in Vere have fundamentally changed his worldview, and his existence poses a threat to Jokaste's legacy.

Damen's reunion with Jokaste at the same time as her giving birth could be seen as a moment of reckoning, where the two characters must confront the consequences of their actions and choices. For Jokaste, this means facing the fact that her plan to send Damen away to Vere has not played out as she had hoped, and that her son may not be able to inherit the throne as she intended. For Damen, this means confronting the fact that Jokaste betrayed him, and that her actions have fundamentally altered the course of his life and the kingdom he now rules.

It's worth noting that Damen is something of a motherless figure. His birth mother, Egeria, dies giving birth to him, leaving him without a maternal figure for much of his life. This makes his relationship with Jokaste, who sends him to Vere while pregnant and then reunites with him during the climax of her labor, particularly powerful. Their reunion can be seen as a significant moment of rebirth and renewal for both of them. Jokaste, in a sense, is meeting the product of her actions for the first time in Damen, someone whom she inadvertently helped to create and shape.

Overall, the complicated relationship between Damen and Jokaste highlights the intricate interplay of power, legacy, and the consequences of our actions. By bringing these threads together in such a dramatic and symbolic way, the story offers a powerful meditation on the nature of sacrifice and the choices we make in pursuit of power and influence.

#captive prince #jokaste #damianos of akielos #meta #rebirth #*

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katyspersonal · 29 days

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What are your opinions on our Lord and Savior Gywn?

He didn't save SHIT!! He took the perfectly (?) functioning humanity and ruined it! Look at it, it got Hollowing!!

Okay, I am making the 'Marika is a MILF Gwyn' jokes here and there, but 1) Marika is a bit more of a straight up cold and mean person, all things considered 2) Yet she still has enough nuance, and a lot of her actions might be written on reasonable fears and 3) Gwyn is even MORE nuanced than Marika, from what I have concluded so far! Laurence is a similar kind of sinner too. Comparison of the characters that share a trope is helpful for my thought process, so bear with me a little! With Marika I see a more direct disdain and fear before the very nature of life, cyclic and treacherous, uncontrollable, being meant to perish one day but with new life sprouting from it, and thus doing lovely things like shunning Crucible-related lifeforms. With Laurence, we have enough evidence so far that beasthood was not created by Healing Church but something already lingering in the human code after Pthumerians and Loran, so ambition to seize and control it it was risky but understandable!

But with Gwyn, we are confirmed that human nature itself is dark, undesirable an terrifying, as well as how he sorta had the chance to see it 'in action' during uniting with humans to take war on dragons. And also in Dark Souls the cyclic nature of Ages is just a fact, and it would make sense that should Age of Dark come, he and his family would be the first to go as beings of Light. It is a combination of things: his kind being in true danger and not just "risking to lose power", the treacherourness of how political allyship simply works (your today's ally country against the common enemy could tomorrow ally with someone else to start the war on YOU) and simply the not-so-metaphorical horrors of the Dark itself! is not a speculation, the dangers are RIGHT here!

Gwyn messed the natural order of humanity in a way that I personally dislike and express it on multiple occasions: trying to get rid of what's barbaric and dangerous yet natural and not accepting that there is no light without shadow, or life without death. But I also feel sympathetic because he had a legit reason to fear the darkness within men. In is not as much philosophical but a literal concept in Dark Souls lore. He acted out of fear, backed up with a precedent, and it brought the ruin to himself and everyone else. Writing this I'd say he sorta falls for the type of a person I can only like in fiction but resent in reality. I guess I don't need to explain what kind of people this is, paranoid "but for a valid reason", being "preventive" with their drastic measures.. Good intentions path to hell self-fulfilling prophesy blablabla. His specieism doesn't help his case in the slighest. Ironically, all extremely human behavior of him!

(LOL thank you based Goldmask as usual xddd) At the same time, he is not entirely corrupt with the power he seized and used to strip humanity of what was natural for them; he, in the end, committed to what he believed was better for everyone and sacrificed HIMSELF too. I can respect the cunning and machiavellian person who, in the end, is above the vanity of a 'savior' and can give themselves too, not only others. He also did share his power with some humans, showing that he can take kinda benevolent choices even with those he fears. Yeah, part of calculated risk could be there; dude gave the city and his daughter to the Pygmy to, again, preemptively avoid some animosity. But in the case with the four kings, did he HAVE to? Or Seath for that matter, who is a dragon, another species he doesn't like?

I find it hard to detect 'truly' corrupt people in Soulsborne setting in general, and yeah we can fiddle with 'nuanced character' and 'everyone is morally grey' forever and never discover THE big bad we'd love to hate. But, out of those big bads, I think he deserves the benefit of being seen as a way more nuanced character than the corrupt leader the most! It is the case where he should not have done anything, but also should not have NOT done anything.. Soulsborne is eager with placing characters in a position and knowledge where every choice is wrong and they just pick a poison for themselves (and everyone else xd). Jokes about "haha people in power moment" are still mostly jokes for me. He is sympathetic in a way not like I think I'd have done the same (let's be real, I revel in darkness gfjjghk) but in a way where I understand too much to feel negative 🤔

#though you can NOT take my word since I apologize aldrich and mico lmao #dark souls #dark souls 1 #gwyn lord of cinder #I say all this but after writing all this I feel like liking him more xd #closer examination helps!#also sorry this is not my average infodump essay I just need more time!#i try to cram more DS lore in my brain but it gives me 'STORAGE FULL REMOVE SOME BB/ER LORE' error gghhh #again I just need (more eyes on my brain) time xd #also am I tripping or I had ask about Gael too?#i need to fix my inbox its so broken #but also yes advantage of asking my DS opinions is that they're ACTUAL opinions #and not autism xd #ask replies

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umhuhwellthen · 4 months

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Uhhhh

Usagi Yojimbo

Fake Marriage AU:

Tomoe Ame x Usagi x Mariko x Kenichi

LISTEN LISTEN HEAR ME OUT OKAY

You know how that one advisor/vassal bastard whatever-his-name-is that convinced Noriyuki to marry off Mariko(lords could pick out spouses for their samurai)

What if...some staff in the court heard this plot and alerted Tomoe Ame before the fucker could bring it up to Noriyuki

And she's like fuck the only way I can think to get out of any arranged marriage is by being married but who can I...

Like always our boy Miya popping up at either the worst or best times possible

Now I don't know what logical loops Tomoe Ame goes through for asking Usagi plus his childhood friends to marry her but even though I don't know the why I know the what and how so let's get this AU rolling

She asks Usagi to take her with to visit his hometown for...reasons, yeah... And when they get there she goes dogeza(because girl is desperate and knows that lil shit gunning for her position will not only do a shit job as Noriyuki's right hand but definitely has the vibes of turncoat for self-preservation and so she needs this marriage) asking them to marry her

And they're like um, who are you asking????

Because the way they're positioned it looks like she's proposing to Kenichi, who is y'know married to Mariko(i wanted this to be pre-marriage but then i remembered Jotaro so sacrifices must be made for best boi)

And she doubles down "the three of you, a polyandrous marriage."

"WHAT!?"-childhood friends gang

Then she explains how it's to prevent a plot to weaken her lords court etc etc maybe some other stuff too to convince Kenichi and Mariko(Usagi is always down to help his friends, he's lied to shogunate spies and cops to protect himself or his buddies, ride or die)

A (reluctant) agreement is made and they do the wedding

Now it's basically

Mariko: Bi-crisis ⁄⁠(⁠⁄⁠ ⁠⁄⁠•⁠⁄×⁄⁠•⁠⁄⁠ ⁠⁄⁠)⁠⁄ women...hot?????(living out her teenage fantasy)

Kenichi: Bi-crisis(Demisexual) (⁠‘///◉⌓⁠◉⁠///’) people outside of Mariko... hot?????USAGI HOT????? [Mariko was the only person he had ever had romantic or sexual attraction too so he assumed she was the only one for him, turns out if she hadn't been his first crush and thus birthing a rivalry with Usagi he would've developed a crush on him too, his type is strong sense of duty and good with a sword]

Usagi: Outwardly= worried about Tomoe's situation and how long this good thing will last before it's snatched away like all the things he's ever loved. (⁠・⁠–⁠・⁠;) Inwardly=YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHH!!! every secret desire and teenage fantasy is coming alive. \(⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)/ (huh, so I did have a crush on Kenichi back then...)

Tomoe: ya girl is STRESSED. Having to deal with political scheming, making sure her charade isn't found out, making sure that box she locked up her feelings for Usagi with stays buried deep, AND whatever blossoming feelings she has for his childhood friends because Oh No They're Hot (what is in the water for them all to turn out like this)

Jotaro is out here living his best life, finally getting the two dads he wanted PLUS a cool new mom?? SIGN HIM THE FUCK UP!!!

In summation: Tomoe Ame is living in drama/action/romance anime while everyone else is in a romance/comedy/slice of life anime

Endgame is polycule and Tomoe Ame being confused over how things ended up like this

Tomoe Ame tops them

EDIT: Tomoe's type is cringefail losers, the boys are for obvious reasons but you better believe I'm counting Mariko as one, look at the whole Jotaro reveal situation and say she made no cringefail moves

It's fine now tho, Jotaro gets his two cakes in the end with bonus free desert (does this metaphor even work)

Deberían decir gracias a @ranarenee por la inspiración indirecta para esto

Specifically this Art

#is this what happens when you down two bags of green tea #usagi yojimbo #miyamoto usagi #tomoe ame #usagi yojimbo tomoe ame #mariko #mariko usagi yojimbo #kenichi #kenichi usagi yojimbo #jotaro #jotaro usagi yojimbo #SCREAMS//WILL THESE SAMURAI RABBITS STOP GIVING ME AU IDEAS #will i be making art for this yes will i be writing fic NO #I've already sketched out ideas #fake marriage au #usagi yojimbo fake marriage au

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librarycards · 1 year

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hi!! could you explain what alterhuman is and what it means to you? it seemed really interesting

i think my brain is still very used to having to defend my humanity as a multiply disabled trans person so tearing away the concept of being human is very surprising/confusing maybe!

the folks at alt-h have a much more comprehensive description/set of operational definitions than me, but personally, i view alterhumanity as an umbrella term that encompasses many forms of non-/anti-/and dis-identification with the category of human. i've seen plural/multiple systems, otherkin, furry, and/or neoidentity users (such as voidpunks, whose reclamation of "void" functions as a reclamation of dehumanization/abjection by oppressive systems) identifying under the umbrella.

i've never felt human, and felt more proximate to an android or similar since i learned about them. i don't really feel "whole" or "complete" or "individual" in a way that aligns with both pre- and post-enlightenment mythologies of exceptionalized human personhood. never really felt inclined to id with being otherkin or similar, i'm not sure why. i don't think i really felt like i belonged to / in / with otherkin communities when i first encountered them. i also don't really feel... "other"? in the sense that my disconnection from my physical form and my orientation against the species i was assigned (as it were) only seemed tangentially connected. this is also true for the relationship between my (lack of) gender and my body.

now that i write that, i think that being genderless + being nonhuman -- that somewhat paradoxical identification w/ void that i come to understand these days as voidpunk -- are the most related parts of all of this.

as i engage more seriously with critical alterhuman scholarship, i am coming to find meaning in an explicit personal-political identification with the term, much as i do with the term queer. less because i immediately saw it and was like whoa, that's the essence of "me" (i don't believe in essences). more because i care about the political project of unseating "humanity" from its status of epistemic/material/spiritual supremacy, as it is bound up in white, cisheteropatriarchal, abled, sane supremacy, too. in short, "alterhuman" is a nice proxy (and, it seems, really vibrant and varied community!) for talking about my longtime disidentification w/ the human label, and my political orientation against it. (again, like queer!)

Some more ramblings on humanity, personhood, and oppression below the cut.

for me personally, again, i've never felt like a human being and as a result have never felt the declaration of "i am a human" to be meaningful, liberatory, or useful for me. i question the paradigm of "dehumanization" as out go-to metaphor for abjection, for the same reasons that i and others object to the phraseology of being treated "like a child" - okay, if you feel it is unjust to be treated as if one was under the age of legal majority, what does that say about how we, collectively, view kids?

likewise for statements re: being treated "like an animal" or "as subhuman." that these are our go-to shorthands for referring to violent oppression, i think, should lead us to think critically about the centrality of "humanness" in determining who and what is worthy of protection, of respect, of dignity.

ultimately, attempting to gain access to the category of human, for those who face dehumanization (that is, abjection), is as futile as any other bids for respectability and inclusion within violent systems. for us as trans disabled people, it can be really easy to cry out "i'm a human being!" in the face of eugenic systems, yet these systems are fundamentally incapable of granting humanity to those whose deaths uphold them. any tentative offer can be immediately withdrawn; any promise of permanent regard will inevitably further oppress those lower on this perverse social latter than we are.

so, the idea of "dehumanization" and reactive identification with "humanity" reinforces the idea that the human is always and already superior to the nonhuman (and more worthy of care and respect by mere virtue of the human label), that humanity is a fixed "thing" and not a capricious discourse that the oppressors manipulate to consolidate that power, and that there will somehow come a time where a privileged category, of any kind, will not by virtue of its existence do violence to those who do not fit.

so, what do we do? i'm very compelled by critical discourses of personhood, and particularly of crip works on de- and un-personhood. My first encounters with the difference between humanity and personhood were in conversations about ontology and abortion: namely, that an embryo or fetus can be, descriptively, a member of the species we call homo sapiens sapiens, and therefore "human" by any measure, and yet lack the legal status of "person" as in "rights-bearing subject", whereas the gestating parent *is* a person (despite, of course, the best efforts of anti-choicers).

to think about personhood denaturalizes the status of "human," and allows us to remember that material/epistemological parity is not merely a matter of "biological fact" or "innate species." species is itself a social construction. while humanity is generally, even by activists with great intentions, used as a proxy for personhood, i find the latter to work way better when it comes to advocating for autonomy + liberation. check out Mel Baggs's (z"l) post on Xing and Johanna Hedva's In Defense of De-Persons to see more of my intellectual genealogy here.

Sylvia Wynter is the preeminent scholar in understanding white supremacist cisheteropatriarchy in the invention & reification of "The Human." In her opus, "Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom," she traces the ongoing history of the category of (hu)Man as metaphysical and biologized concept, and its antiblack design. Alexander G. Weheliye draws on Wynter's and others' theorizations on Blackness and humanity in his book, Habeas Viscus. Sunaura Taylor writes brilliantly on the entanglement of nonhuman animal liberation and disabled human liberation, as does multimedia scholar Olivia Dreisinger. Lots of other stuff out there but this is already too long.

Anyway, if you read this far, ty. no worries if not. but i hope that gave you some insight into my thoughts on alterhumanity, identifying against / without the "human," and the kinds of discourses i'm thinking with when i talk about the project of shared personhood rather than essentialized humanity / the pitfalls of "dehumanization" as our go-to language for depersonhood.

#ask #anonymous #disability #multispecies justice #alterhuman

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whinlatter · 9 months

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author's note | chapter 7: caged 🪽

thank you for reading chapter seven of Beasts! this chapter, we see the fallout from the controversial punch, watch harry and ginny go through about ninety bottles of ink writing precisely one bazillion letters to one another (my loves), and fret as the residents of grimmauld place fight a losing battle with pixies that may or may not be a metaphor for our characters’ own multiplying traumas, chasing everyone around and refusing to be contained. pray for our babies, for no-one is thriving - let's chat chapter seven! (plus a sneak peek of chapter eight, which includes a letter from a character yet to make his Beasts debut...) 👀

✨ spoilers for this chapter below the cut ✨

writing notes and headcanons:

vibes: this chapter, i wanted the vibes to be claustrophobic, tedium, all hogwarts, real focus on ginny and her restlessness and over-it-ness, her starting to write a lot, both to harry and to others, and her starting to push the boundaries and rebel now she's lost her sense of purpose in returning. (@pocket-lilacs brought up pandemic-era uni vibes of 'what is the point of studying when all this is going on' and that is exactly the energy here). the politics is more a backdrop to ginny's arc in this chapter, though the thicknesse trial has uncomfortable echoes for gin's own set of experiences, and i'm having so much fun but also banging my head up against the wall/grappling with turning up/turning down the volume on the different macro/micro plots in different chapters to try and get different effects and to follow ginny's own engagement with the Big Questions of the postwar wizarding world. scale is hard, who knew!

quidditch: by far the hardest part of this chapter to write was the quidditch scene. it was 3000 words long originally, and i had to go at it with a sledgehammer to bash it into bits, dump most of it, and then just keep the most important parts to fold into this much quicker, punchier scene. the worst part of writing is spending days crafting a section and in doing so learn that you don't need it lmao. so yeah that's why this chapter was a week late. this one was a nightmare but we got there in the end lmao

the forest detention: our first flashback to the war year at hogwarts! why haven't we had more? answers on a postcard, all will be revealed, including the context for the silver trio's forest detention, but for now will just say the fact that snape sent the gang into the forest with hagrid for detention after stealing the sword has a) always had me in a chokehold because all of the endless ginny/forest foreshadowing but also because i've never been satisfied with the explanation that the detention was just an obvious easy option. can't wait to share more !!!

harry and ginny: all i want to do is write more letters for those two. 'sneaking out of grounds, booze, leather gangs' - that was how @madammalkins23 summed it up beautifully, getting at the vibes i keep coming back to with both of these characters: the sirius-black-shaped elephant in the room, basically. escaping from hogwarts with buckbeak? the risk being what makes it all fun? harry fixing up the motorbike? fighting a war against grimmauld place and getting on the whiskey? the looming shadow of molly weasley? it's truly giving padfoot. the idea of harry and ginny in cahoots, as partners in crime, really kept me going when writing this chapter - like, what if harry for the first time did have another person in his life who was of the 'fuck it' school of thought? (i even went back and read that jkr short story of sirius and james on the motorbike lol). basically, the sirius echoes just sort of ended up writing themselves, as they always seem to do in this fic. when it comes to the letters, it's striking to me that in canon harry is very preoccupied with who does or doesn’t write to him - at the dursleys', but also after sirius' death ('It’s just hard,' Harry said finally, in a low voice, 'to realise he won’t write to me again.' - HBP). i've never really got fics that have harry as a non-loquacious letter writer in the post-war period, especially to ginny - harry seeks huge comfort and reassurance in getting letters from people who care about him, and channels his worries about people he's close to into letters, especially people he views as family (sirius, ginny). that harry and ginny would become a bit emotionally codependent through letters seemed in some sense a natural choice, basically, and although they're still being very avoidant, in some ways, i think they're building a foundation towards becoming each other's person in ways that's important. (i am putting together a sirius and ginny parallels meta playing with these ideas and character-trait overlap that i'll share hopefully soon, so stay tuned on that one)

why won’t ginny open up? by far the question i've been asked most this week! i am really really excited and happy about the arc i’ve got in store for ginny on this question, so don't want to reveal too much, but there have been some beautiful insightful guesses in the comments section about why ginny is struggling to come clean with harry or her family. here we see harry begin to see through gin's defences, a little bit, but also show his own blindspots that come from him not having asked the right questions or always probed about her interior life before now. i'm always so grateful and blown away by the trust readers have put in me to deliver on all these protracted question marks but this week especially i felt v glad for readers' compassion towards these characters and especially for ginny and hermione, as they fuck up and get it wrong and struggle yet still get grace in the comment section. both are on a journey, but i know more impatient readers could be sick of waiting for them to get there, so just to say i am really glad everyone is getting it and seeing where both characters are at with empathy and kindness, because ofc what they’re both doing is frustrating (and, when it comes to gin, harry is beginning to think so, too)

plus thicknesse: had a long chat with @saintsenara about ol thicknesse, because he's kind of a baffling figure - ex-auror who gets successfully imperiused, becomes minister and then goes on to actively commit horrific war crimes while under yaxley's control. what's fun about the trials, though, is that you can use them as a conduit to raise these big moral questions for postwar wizarding society - in thicknesse's case, it's questions about agency, free will, and culpability, in ways that has real implications for ginny's reflections on her own experiences. so cheers pius love u

harry's patronus: i am salivating at all of your theories for this one - obviously i'm saying nothing for now, but keep them guesses coming, i live for em! and if you guess right, i'll come up with some kind of prize lmao

detention, career advice (and graves' apathy): back in the site of former detentions, ginny shows her remarkably sparse knowledge of wizarding careers in a scene that i hope shows her trying on for size different role models/authority figures and seeing which ones she feels most like. (i like the idea that ginny would actually be a bit interested in being an auror, if only she'd been in of age and able to benefit from kingsley's hiring amesty after the battle). having ginny hover over the idea of being an unspeakable was particularly important for me, because i like the idea of the dept of mysteries being quite a formative space for her (i feel like all i do is say 'wait and see!' but... i have things to do and say with this dimension i swear!) graves is like, do what you want, babe, i don't care. i'm here for the pension, frankly

michael corner: 'surprise bitch!' - michael corner, probably. do i think michael and ginny were mates after the breakup end of ootp? no i do not. but i have always been so struck that ginny and michael must have actually spent a lot of very intense time together during DH as die-hards in the DA (michael is the only character we hear whose torture by the carrows after attempting to rescue a younger student is described as particularly severe, which i think suggests his level of commitment to the cause). readers will recall my open disdain for michael corner up til this point - i have described him as the jack berger of hogwarts quidditch, for my satc fans - but i'm afraid to say i have now decided i quite like him and am excited for him to rock up in person real soon. i think he's a know it all softboi but with a goodie core. also as a writer there's something quite refreshing about bringing in a character who is an ex who probably can see through some of ginny's shit by virtue of having spent a lot of time with her but no longer needing to/caring about impressing her, placating her or keeping her on side lol

hermione: alaskanastro left a comment that summed this up: 'Man, Hermione is really just doubling down on the whole "I'm going to try desperately to control something in life to feel like I'm in control even if it's my friend's life" isn't she? Or at least trying to'. yep, that's what she's doing! we still don't know all that hermione's going through, but this hit the nail on the head fr. i feel bad that this fic is ginny pov at this stage in its arc, because i think ginny sees hermione in a particular way rn (their final conversation in this chapter really speaking to these tensions - ginny does not want to feel mothered, at least not by hermione...), but these two have a long way to go to get to a point of mutual understanding. wanna write a meta on their friendship soon, hopefully will get chance to before i finish chapter 8. but anyway - wonder what's going on with her and ron... hope we find out soon... hope someone tells us... :) :) :)

everything but the ghoul: the dumbest pun, but had to use this joke in a chapter where ginny skips school (everything but the girl's most famous song is called 'missing'... get it)

songs from the playlist for this chapter:

girls getting grouchy and teenage in their feelings is the big ol mood this week:

i did promise a sneak peek didn't i...

From the desk of the MINISTER OF MAGIC Whitehall, London Dear Ginny, I hope you’re well. I’d like to meet with you on Saturday the 12th of December at 11 o’clock. It’s important that we’re discreet. Please vanish this letter after reading. Sincerely, Kingsley

#beasts #author’s note #all of your theories give me endless life and for that i am very grateful #me at the beach this week kicking my legs and giggling at the sleuthing going on #obsessed!

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lucas-deziderio · 4 months

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Dezi reads Pact: Signature 8.7

Let me tell you something about Maggie Holt. This poor girl's backstory is that she is the survivor of a specially mean episode of The Twilight Zone. And then things got A Lot Worse. But, you know, it isn't all bad. She has some victories to her name. Two loving fathers, a handful of goblins on her back pocket, the friendship of an up-and-coming diabolist...

Now the Girl with the Checkered Scarf is a whole other story! If she were an RPG character I could easily show you her inventory and you would see that the only things she has for herself now are one (1) scarf, one (1) goblin, one (1) gender and a dream. OK, I'm exaggerating a bit, but my girl do is struggling as reality is trying to shake her off itself.

This chapter starts with a very interesting conversation with Johannes, the sorcerer famous for having a demesne big enough to fit your mom in it. Up until now he had come off as some kind of secondary or maybe even primary antagonist that Blake would have to face against at some point, but now I'm not so sure. His perspective does make sense and the fact that he's being so kind to the underdog that is our current protagonist does make him more endearing.

The first thing I want to discuss is the idea of demesnes; places a practitioner has claimed for themselves and now have full control over, being able to draw energy from it to power their practice. One of the big three milestones a person in this world must achieve to be considered a grown-up wizard.

To me, the process of claiming a demesne seems to equate the process of forming a nation or kingdom. Through the ritual, a practitioner takes over an area that was until then public and makes it their own. But to do that they need the approval of all Others, spirits and even practitioners in the surrounding region. Or, at least, to overpower them through the challenges that are part of the ritual. If successful, what was once free range becomes infused by the identity of its new ruler. We have seen before practitioners both bargaining for and coercing Others into lending them power, but this is different. This ritual is both way broader in scope and way narrower in what it rewards: a geographical, almost political, type of power.

The main rule of this magic system is so maintained: all power comes with a price. In this case, the practitioner scrapes off bits of the liberty of an entire group to make themselves the sovereign monarch of their own kingdom; a social contract born out of the rules of magic itself. As time goes on, Laird Behaim's metaphor about countries becomes poignant once again.

Still, the mystery of how Johannes was able to conquer such a large territory remains as he refuses to concede us any details. Whatever it is, I'm sure it'll become essential later. Considering Blake's streak of luck, he'll probably need to use this secret to stablish a demesne for himself.

After a very interesting game of 20 questions, our protagonist manages to get some necessary resources basically for free and steps back into reality to put her plan into action. Except that reality is kinda fed up with her. She dodges the cracks in existence, bombs a handful of goblins and starts to jury-rig a variation of the demesne ritual to claim a new name for herself.

That makes me think that, just like political power, identity itself is something that is determined by our relationship to others. Sometimes it's something we can agree upon, and sometimes it's something we must fight to stablish against discordant voices. Luckily, the girl in the checkered scarf spent this entire arc making all other powerful practitioners of Jacob's Bell pity her. She finishes the ritual, craps in a bucket and wills a new place for herself into existence. I'm proud of Mags.

A couple other questions now remain in my head. Had she fallen down into one of those cracks in reality would she end up in the same place Blake is in right now? After all, he also had his connections to reality stripped from him. And if Padraic is still occupying her previous role as the child of a family, would that make of him a changeling? Or would that be a different type of fey?

Previous • Next

#Dezi reads #pact web serial #pactblr #liveblogging pact #wildbow #otherverse #Signature 8.7 #pact spoilers

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journeytothewestresearch · 1 year

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The Entangled Relationship of Sun Wukong and Six Ears

A friend recently asked me an interesting question: "Do you think that the Six-Eared Macaque has Sun Wukong's fire eyes and golden pupils [huoyan jinjing, 火眼金睛]?" My initial thought was "no" since he was never subjected to Laozi's furnace, but then I remembered that chapter 58 reads:

His looks were exactly the same as those of the Great Sage: he, too, had a gold fillet clamped to his yellowish hair, a pair of fiery eyes with golden pupils (emphasis added), a silk monk's robe on his body, a tiger kilt tied around his waist, a golden-banded iron staff in one of his hands, and a pair of deerskin boots on his feet (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 104). [1]

模樣與大聖無異：也是黃髮金箍，金睛火眼；身穿也是綿布直裰，腰繫虎皮裙；手中也拿一條兒金箍鐵棒；足下也踏一雙麂皮靴

In addition, the Buddha refers to the twin monkeys as "two minds" (erxin, 二心) (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 113), thereby revealing that both represent the dual aspects of Sun Wukong's troubled mind. Their battle is a metaphor for the struggle between the "true mind" (zhenxin, 眞/真心) and the "illusionary mind" (wangxin, 妄心) within our hero. For more information, see my previous article:

Six Ears is, therefore, a manifestation of Monkey's mind. It's only natural then that he too would have the same appearance and carry the same scars. But this raises the question: When did the two split? One scholar suggests that Six Ears was once Sun’s sworn brother, the Macaque King (Mihou wang, 獼猴王), because "[t]he latter’s other agnomen, 'the Great Sage Informing Wind' [Tongfeng dasheng, 通風大聖] suggests further that its ears are as good as the six-eared macaque’s in information gathering" (Lam, 2005, p. 168). If true, this would suggest that they split prior to Monkey's turn in the furnace. This makes sense as an early split would allow Six Ears to gain the same magic powers at a similar pace.

But an early split carries with it a certain implication: Six Ears would have experienced the tortuous heat and smoke of Laozi's furnace while physically separated from Sun Wukong. It would be like the two were connected by an invisible link, similar to entangled particles in Quantum physics.

Can you imagine it? The sheer terror of your super ears hearing that your counterpart is about to be shoved into a celestial furnace, and then the feeling of torturous heat and smoke assaulting your body and eyes. Perhaps Six Ears would try rushing to heaven to stop this but is overcome by the pain affecting him...for 49 days (or 49 years depending on his location). [2]

Update:

It just occurred to me that Six Ears would have also been subject to imprisonment under Five Elements Mountain (Wuxing shan, 五行山). I'll let you decide if he is weighed down by an invisible, metaphysical mountain or a physical object (see the paragraph above figure 2 here for one possibility).

The Quantum physics-like entanglement shared by the twin monkeys also explains why Six Ears has a golden headband (refer back to the quote above). The novel establishes that the tight-fillet spell also causes the doppelganger pain (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 106, for example). They are after all two sides to the same person.

Note:

Translation changed slightly. I have made it more accurate.

The novel establishes that "one day in heaven is equal to one year on Earth" (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 1, pp. 150 and 167).

Source:

Lam, H. L. (2005). Cannibalizing the Heart: The Politics of Allegory and The Journey to the West. In E. Ziolkowski (Ed.). Literature, Religion, and East/West Comparison (pp. 162-178). Newark: University of Delaware Press.

Wu, C., & Yu, A. C. (2012). The Journey to the West (Vols. 1-4). Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.

#Six Eared Macaque #Six Ears #Sun Wukong #Monkey King #Journey to the West #JTTW #Lego Monkie Kid #entanglement #quantum physics

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ssaalexblake · 1 year

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@sapphichymns

It makes sense and I agree tbh, people are hanging onto how Cool Gallifrey is with its houses, and how you can live basically forever and travel through time and have all this awesome technology but actively don’t Want to see that it’s the proverbial rotten apple in a cartoon. It looks So good until you take a bite out of it and it’s rotten and filled with worms.

Feel like it should also be said that the gallifrey british empire metaphor ALSO takes the rotten to the core class system in the uk and makes it even More explicitly awful (as opposed to generational inherited power where the same families have the same political sway and power hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years down the line with no sign of it ever stopping, it’s literally just the same people who don’t die. Permanent stagnation. No progress.) and you only really get to see the aristocrats and royalty in dw (save for our plucky hero, i guess) and it taps into that specific class envy. The kind where people hate the aristocratic system only bc they’re not at the top of the pile, Not because of any moral objections to it. Jealousy, not opposition.

To them it’s that, if you’re a time lord, not only are you a cool alien who can travel through time, you have pseudo generational wealth and power to go with it! How COOL.

People still don’t wanna admit that these scummy aristocratic monsters are bad in real life, it’s not surprising slightly metaphorical but “cooler” versions of them aren’t hated.

Gallifrey is the british class system on crack in the worst way possible. Your superiority for being Upper Class is now Literally Genetic on Gallifrey.

I cannot read anything about the place without immediately clocking it as a nightmare to the point I can’t fathom an escapist fantasy of wanting to be a part of this. This was before the whole timeless child thing. Now it’s just... wow.

I mean, I’m not Surprised, because i remember everybody saying how cool it’d be to compete in the hunger games and i think that’s a worse fandom thing to be aspiring to, but I guess in that weird little fantasy they’re not actively wishing to be the evil people??? i guess? Fucked up anyway.

(also, I don’t actually think the show has been bad at portraying Gallifrey as bad? Like, yeah sure the doctor goes all nostalgia glasses sometimes but Only when they cannot go there which says things. And generally speaking they’re being nostalgic about local wildlife and flora, not, you know, the society. And strictly speaking, when actual time lords Do show up they’re usually doing something awful. So they don’t often say ‘wow these guys suck’ but it’s generally obvious.)

Really, I think the bottom line is people see the concept of being a time lord as some escapist fantasy of coolness where you’re some kind of hero, both missing that A) if you’re not earth level aristocracy you’re the poor people they oppress and B) that the only actual ‘cool’ time lord is the one who is objectively a moron whom did a runner from said society. And that doing that runner is what started their journey into the realms of ‘good person’ and that they’re hated en masse for it back home.

can’t acknowledge that gallifrey is just a monstrously evil fascist space state with nothing but a good PR (propaganda) team if you wanna be part of it i guess

#sapphichymns #dw shit #dw meta #it's an empire guys empires are always bad lol

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caparrucia · 1 year

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Dog whistles and you: why the words you use matter.

You've probably heard of them, but you have definitely heard them. Dog whistles are a problem in the modern internet, with our hyper focus on respectability politics and social media's aggressive push to simplify all concepts and erode all sort of nuance.

When people use them and when people point it out, people get really fucking angry, both ways, and it can be a little hard to understand why and what people are actually angry about. So let's try and untangle that a bit.

Content warnings! We're gonna be talking about Nazis and other genocidal groups, so that's always fun. We're also gonna tangentially discuss misogyny, antiblackness, antisemitism and sexual assault, sexual abuse, pedophilia and zoophilia. The tangential warnings are only applicable to non-explicit discussions of dog whistles in section 3. Sections 1 and 2 do not go into detail about specific dog whistles. I will reiterate the content warnings in section 3.

1. What are dog whistles?

Dog whistles are not actual, literal dog whistles, but it does help to know what an actual, literal dog whistle is, to understand the metaphor. A dog whistle is a whistle designed to be heard by a dog, but crucially and most importantly, not by a person. When you toot on the thing, it makes a quiet, almost imperceptible sound, but if you've trained a dog with it, the dog will go fucking bonkers. The science of it is actually really cool and has to do with the range of intensity of stimuli that different animals can perceive. You know how dogs have an infinitely better smelling sense than you or me? Their hearing is different. That whistle you and I can't really hear, they hear loud and clear.

So what are the metaphorical dog whistles about then? They follow the same principle. Metaphorical dog whistles (I'm gonna call them just dog whistles for the rest of this thing, because I'm lazy, but you're smart and we already defined the terms, so I trust you to keep up) are words with different meanings depending on the audience. That's not inherently malicious, or unique to dog whistles. 99% of the crude humor of humanity comes from that sort of thing: cock is a male bird of a domestic fowl species, and also a bad word that will get you demonetized from Corporate controlled internet if you say/type it anywhere a payment processor can see. So there has to be more to them, than having multiple meanings.

Specifically, dog whistles have "Jekill and Hyde" style meanings. One of them is pretty harmless, benign even. Completely innocent and not at all suspicious. The meaning equivalent of that scene in Snow White with the forest animals being all cute and soft and nice. But then there's the other meaning, and that meaning is not so nice. It can be a shorthand for a slur, or one of the highlights of a conspiracy theory, or represent a shorthand for something genocidal in nature. I'll go in more detail in the next section.

This is where most people stop talking about dog whistles, but I'm not gonna do that, because I think the next two things, that are also required for a dog whistle to be a dog whistle, are actually the most important. And the fact most people never stop to think about them is why dog whistles are so effective. So let's say the quiet part out loud now.

The third characteristic of dog whistles is that their nefarious meaning is in fact a nefarious secret meaning. That means this meaning is part of a closed system of belief. It's like the secret wizard password to enter the forbidden tree house club, except the wizards are Nazis, members of the KKK and other assorted genocidal fucktwits. It's not a nice club to be in, is what I'm trying to say, and the people in that club are generally acknowledged to be not very nice themselves. You might think I'm being glib here, but this is the important bit. Socially speaking, these clubs for genocidal dickheads are considered bad to some degree. There's at least a modicum of societal pressure to discourage people from belonging to these groups. If you're a Nazi and your boss finds out, they will fire you. If you're a Nazi and you walk into a bar, you're likely to get beaten up and told to never come back. Blatant, open membership to these groups is discouraged*, and therefore they need to come up with language and symbols that they understand to be supporting their ideology, but which might not get immediately recognized by outsiders, thus prompting that social retribution they're trying to avoid.

*This is why people are really freaked out by the rise of extremist social and political movements in today's world, because every time an alt-right dudebro feels comfortable just spouting the N word or beating a random trans person in the subway, and they're not immediately and swiftly punished by anyone from bystanders to the actual legal system, those social pressures start letting up and the scum starts to float up into the surface. This is why the punching Nazis rhetoric works. It's a 0 tolerance policy that keeps genocidal ideologies marginalized and out of public consideration.

And let me just say this on its own, yes, genocidal ideologies should be marginalized and kept out of public consideration. Because they're genocidal. There is nothing of value to be found in genocidal ideologies, and extending them any kind of consideration makes you complicit in the very real, actual genocide they're working towards. Yes, really.

The last characteristic of a dog whistle is also the most important and the one people get tripped by the most: It refers to a dog whistle's ability to launder the philosophy of the group that created it, planting the seeds of it in the public sphere and priming people to be radicalized. One of the most common, and frankly distressing, reactions I see whenever someone gets called out for using dog whistles is "it's okay, I'm not a [insert relevant genocidal group here], it's okay if I use it, because the idea behind the word is actually useful!" Intent does not change the nature of a dog whistle. Dog whistles are in fact designed to trick you into doing their work for them. Dog whistles are bad, because when you use them, you lend your credibility to them. So the next time your friends/family/followers see an actual Nazi use them, they will use you as a frame of reference, and give the Nazi a pass. "My friend/relative/fave uses this word all the time, and THEY aren't a Nazi, so what are the chances that this guy is? Besides, all Nazis wear swastikas and like, shaved heads or something. Nah." Congratulations, you have become complicit in the breakdown of the system that's supposed to keep those Nazis out and allowed one of them to walk in and make themselves at home in your community.

Hearing people constantly use dog whistles desensitizes people and erodes their ability to see them for what they are. It makes it normal to use loaded language - and all dog whistles are loaded language - and makes it hard to police and expel those who use that loaded language for its actual nefarious intent.

It's also important to know a lot of dog whistles are "ship of Theseus"'d into sounding reasonable, for the purpose of making people more receptive to extremist ideas and concepts. By that I mean, they start from their very obviously genocidal talking point, and then slowly replace bits and pieces, laundering it until it sounds... you know, reasonable. Understandable. Most of the time they achieve this by targeting strong emotional responses and priming people to accept concepts that are fundamentally against their best interests, but presented in a way that appeals to emotionality and discourages thinking through the implications.

2. "If you hear the whistle, you're the dog" and other bad takes that need to go die in a fire.

So now that we're all on the same page about what dog whistles are and what purpose they serve, we need to talk about what to do about them. Yes, I'm gonna go into that before going into a not extensive and definitely not exhaustive list of dog whistles, because I love you and also because this is tumblr and you guys have a habit of trying to turn everything into a fucking standard rule to then beat up people with. No-nuance, all-outrage mentality in social media is the thing dog whistles are designed to exploit. So let's do our part to not... you know. Do that.

My least favorite rule that people have come up with to try and deal with dog whistles while doing the least amount of critical thinking ever is the infamous witticism "if you hear the whistle, you're the dog." This means that if you understand the dog whistle, you must be its target audience (you know, the Nazi one) and therefore you're a bad person. This is extremely stupid if you spend two seconds thinking about it, so let's do that: if the ideal is for people to "not be the dog", ie, "not hear the whistle" and therefore not understand the second, hidden meaning of the dog whistle, that would mean the ideal is for the dog whistle to work just as intended. Which is a bad thing, need I remind you, since the thing dog whistles are working towards is normalizing and encouraging the acceptance of explicitly genocidal ideologies. Which are bad! And you know they're bad! Because they're explicitly aiming for genocide! But this stupid nugget of stupidity goes one step further and also penalizes those who are being targeted by the dog whistle's users. Remember, genocides target people. Groups of people, to be precise, that the genocide promoters have built an entire ideology to justify why they get to commit genocide against this specific group of people. The justifications and reasons don't have to be very good - they can't, in fact, be good at all, because genocide is never okay, and if you find yourself trying to argue, you might want to take a few steps back and figure out when you got poisoned by genocide ideologies - in the sense that they don't need to be logical or reasonable. They just fill in a gap in the thought process. Whenever people do something, someone will ask them why, and genocide is surprisingly no different in that regard. So the justifications and reasonings are all salad dressing. They're all bad and meaningless and stupid, because they're being used to justify genocide, and genocide is unjustifiable by definition. The point is don't try to argue about the reasons, the reasons are fake and don't matter and they're there only to trap people into perpetual argumentative sinkholes which often only create more net harm by virtue of putting all that genocidal rhetoric in your public space. Incidentally, this is why deplatforming and denying the space to defend/argue/discuss genocidal ideologies is the preferred method to deal with them, exposure to them is in itself inherently harmful and there's nothing productive to come with allowing them the chance to explain why they think genocide is actually a good idea.

ANYWAY, the point is: if you're a group that has been targeted by these genocidal ideologies, you need to be able to decode and understand the secret, hidden meaning behind those dog whistles. You have to. Otherwise you're gonna end up a gruesome statistic some dipshit politician will try to use to two-side the issue on Fox News. You can then see how it's incredibly stupid, not to mention unspeakably offensive, to tell people who are being targeted by genocidal dipshits, that if they understand what the genocidal dipshits are really trying to say (remember, that THEY specifically should be genocided), they might in fact be the genocidal dipshits themselves.

Yes, "if you hear the whistle, you're the dog" is a very witty, very snappy, very catchy phrase. It's also incredibly fucking stupid and also goddamn insulting. Stop using it. Stop rewarding people who use it. Be fucking better.

Okay, so. What now? What to do if you catch someone using a dog whistle? Well, the most important thing to do is to not immediately accuse them of being a Nazi or belonging to the assorted genocidal dipshit group of choice. Super not do that in public. I know, it sounds counterintuitive, specially since we just affirmed that "punch the Nazi" is a perfectly valid and effective rhetorical device to get rid of Nazis. But the thing with dog whistles is that they're also bait. They're juicy, tender bait almost lab designed to get normal people - you know, people who don't hold genocidal beliefs and in fact think genocide is super bad and forever unjustifiable - frothing mad. Remember that dog whistles have two meanings, and that allows the genocidal dipshits to go "see? These people are mad! They're insane! They are the real reactionaries, they see malicious evil in every little thing!" and they will use every single dogpile to punctuate their statement and justify themselves. That's what dog whistles are designed to do, remember? They condition people to find genocidal ideology acceptable even when they rationally would not.

Ideally, if you know this person and you have the emotional and psychological bandwidth to do some education, you should reach out in private and offer to explain why the seemingly innocent thing the person posted is actually super bad. And I do mean explain. You need to explain on the history of the dog whistle, the purpose of the dog whistle, and emphasize that it's not an indictment of their character or an attempt to imply they're nefarious or malicious themselves, but rather that they've fallen prey to a scam by literal genocidal dipshits. This is... a lot. It's hard. People are very defensive at the smallest insinuation that they might be spewing Nazi talking points. It's often demeaning and exasperating work, and while it does work, it's just a sinkhole of resources that could be better spent in other, more pressing causes that also need attention because we have a bit of an epidemic and these genocidal dipshits keep popping up everywhere. It's also very exhausting for actual targets of the genocidal dipshits to have to argue with people that "that thing you said is used to call for the genocide of people like me, no really, please stop" and have to spend time pampering and reassuring people who go into literal hysterics trying to prove THEY are not the bad ones, how DARE you.

So what DO you do? Realistically? No one knows for sure. There isn't a wide-spread, peer-reviewed, fits-all-sizes solution. This is exactly the kind of thing dog whistles are designed to get around: there's no dogmatic, stringent rule that will make it so you can always tell if something is a dog whistle and how to make people stop using them. But that doesn't mean there's nothing you can do. You can be critical and thoughtful about the content you consume and platform in your spaces*. You can prioritize the voices of those being targeted by the openly genocidal dipshits and listen and pay attention when they tell you "hey, this thing? this thing is BAD." Encourage self-reflection in yourself and your social circle. When you foster a culture that welcomes people making mistakes and being corrected/nudged into being better about things, the emotional tax of finding out you've been platforming hate speech in disguise is significantly less.

*Being critical and thoughtful about the content you consume doesn't mean falling into purity culture rabbit holes where you must only consume and platform THE PUREST AND MOST UNPROBLEMATIC OF THINGS, but rather understand that the framing of content is important and you can do your part to minimize harm by extending simple courtesies like adding trigger or content warnings, and being critical about the sort of thing you platform and put in your followers' feed. Sometimes the Nazis are being obtuse on purpose, hoping you will get angry enough to dunk on them in public and therefore grant them and their toxic rhetoric access to your entire platform. Their bait is very tempting, but you're better than that.

And when private/polite/off-screen attempts to get someone to stop using a dog whistle inevitably fail, stop engaging with that person entirely, and instead platform the fact the dog whistle is a dog whistle and why. I don't mean "cut that person off your life entirely", though you might have to, if you eventually realize that not only did they knew they were using a dog whistle, they were doing so purposefully all this time. And that's heartbreaking and awful, because no one likes to find out someone in their social circle is a literal genocidal dipshit. But that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about larger scale education that robs the dog whistle of its most valuable asset: plausible deniability. When you make a post explaining that a certain word or a certain phrase is a dog whistle, and explain the history and weight of it, you break the dog whistle. The more people know to recognize it, the less it works for its intended purpose. And the most effective way of doing this is by focusing on the dog whistle itself, and not the people who use them. Don't single out individuals, because then your informative post has become a call out and be dismissed as drama or grudge wank. Focus on the fact that it's not the people who say these words that are the problem, it's the people who keep insisting they should use those words.

See, the thing about fighting genocidal ideologies is that you're not targeting individual people. Or even groups of people. This is not about starting a morality crusade against X or Y. It's about dismantling the tools of genocide. It's about reinforcing those societal pressures that keep them hidden in the corners and denies them power and influence to actually enact their genocidal goals.

They are a fucking fringe minority at the very edges of society, is the point, and they should never be allowed to forget it.

3. What are some dog whistles you should keep an eye out for?

So there's a lot of them and there's not enough time in the actual universe to cover all of them. That's the shitty thing about genocidal dipshits and their dog whistles. As soon as you demystify one, they've come up with another one. Any list will by necessity be incomplete. Resist the urge to turn this urge to categorize things into your personal white whale, and remember a dogmatic, rigid approach of "acceptable vs unacceptable words" is precisely the kind of system dog whistles are designed to get around.

I will not be covering anti-black or antisemitic dog whistles. Because I'm neither black nor Jewish, and as we just discussed, you should be listening and platforming THOSE voices whenever attacks at them come up. I'm going to focus on the dog whistles in this post, which is what sent me down this rabbit hole in the first place. I replied to that post to comment on an unrelated situation but I made a point to mention the dog whistles and several people came back and asked me about it.

I'm linking to my own reblog chain of it, because OP has deleted the original post. I wanna make clear this is not an accusation or an attack on OP. I don't know OP from Adam and I don't feel qualified to say if they're using these dog whistles in any harmful way, beyond the inherent harm that comes with giving credibility to dog whistles at all. I can't believe I have to say this explicitly in this year of our lord 2022, but please do not harass, abuse or otherwise inconvenience OP. We literally just went over how that doesn't work when it comes to deplatforming dog whistles. I'm just giving context and full disclosure, okay?

Okay.

Let's go.

Content warnings! Again! We're gonna be talking about Nazis and other genocidal groups, so that's always fun. We're also gonna tangentially discuss misogyny, antiblackness, antisemitism and sexual assault, sexual abuse, pedophilia and zoophilia.

"Cancel Culture." Cancel culture began - and this is extremely common - as a term within the black community to refer to the tactic of using social pressure to force racist bigots to face consequences for their racist bigotry. It was also in use within the #MeToo movement, to sort of crowdfund consequences for people with too much social, political or financial capital, which allowed them to just... not face consequences for their behavior. And yeah, ostracizing bigots is an excellent way to get rid of bigots or at least minimize the effects of their bigotry. It's so effective that's what dog whistles are for. The thing is, Cancel Culture has now been appropriated by the very people it was meant to be used again. Racist white people decry Cancel Culture when they are faced with the consequences of their actions, labeling them instead as abusive or unwarranted. The term has been thoroughly poisoned and the only people you hear talking about it seriously, phrasing it as this big, evil thing that must be stopped, are the right wing pundits who make their money out of making people feel threatened by changing social mores. Most people think that "less net bigotry in the world" is a good thing. But if your entire grift is based on bigotry, then this is a personal attack on you. Cancel culture is being used now as a short hand to express how very obvious consequences to one's actions are in fact malicious targeted abuse. This prioritizes the bigots over their victims, makes it nearly impossible to have conversations about actual reparations and presents the notion of "hey, if you're a bigot people won't like you" as if it were an outlandish, unnatural position to take. You can tell OP is actually using the dog whistle version of this in their post, because they're not talking about consequences to someone's actions, but explicitly framing a disproportionate, malicious and unwarranted harassment campaign as "Cancel Culture." OP themselves defines "Cancel Culture" in their post, and this is actually a huge problem when it comes to the proliferation of dog whistles. When you assume you know the root of an idiom and you define it in the context of your own usage, you may be inadvertently mainstreaming something that you shouldn't. Maybe you heard this from a trusted youtuber or a friend, and you understand the way THEY use it, and you use it THAT way, you don't mean it in the weirdo way. But you should make a habit to track down the history of idioms before you use them. For one, because everyone could stand to use their words more precisely and make sure that the words they're using actually mean what they want them to mean. But for another, because understanding the history of idioms is a very good way of avoiding boot in mouth syndrome.

"Purity Culture." This is also a dog whistle! And I used it in the text of this post! Except not really. In this post I'm using the original sense of the phrase, OP is using the dog whistle version. (Are you starting to see why if you look too hard at dog whistles you're gonna end up going a little bit insane?) Purity culture originally refers to misguided, reactionary rejection of the slippery slope fallacy that "nothing is pure, therefore, there's no point." Purity culture refers to this idea of treating every single slight, infraction or "taint" equally across the board, without any space for nuance or context. There's two dog whistles around this term, actually! One of them is from the pro-censorship camp, who treats purity culture as an ideal and dresses it up in "responsible media consumption" and "child-appropriate spaces" to try and gloss over the fact they're pro-fascist censorship tools and restrictions, they just think the problem is they're not targeting the right people and concepts. You can identify this lot very quickly because they love to use the word "freak" in a derogatory fashion. They're also real bad at nuance and super fond of historical revisionism. The other dog whistle is, hilariously, the exact opposite of this. This is coming from the actual, no joke, pro-sexual abuse corner of the internet (think, pedophilia, zoophilia, incest, etc, anything that it's reasonably considered indefensible because it's predicated on forcing sexual concepts and acts upon people and living creatures who do not and cannot consent to it). Their version of purity culture is framing any negative criticism of their actions and interests as an attempt to censor and unjustly ostracize them. I need to be very clear here that I'm definitely not talking about fiction here. We're not talking about people who like to read stories about this sort of content. We're talking about people who are actually committing these acts in real life, to real people, children and animals. We need to make that distinction, because that's what the dog whistle is arguing. They infiltrate groups that are staunchly anti-censorship and frame themselves as victims of prosecution but the things they're being prosecuted for are not art, text or other materials rooted in trasgressive fiction. They're really annoying and really detrimental to the fight against censorship, because every time one of these idiots is outed for the miserable fucking monster they are, pro-censorship folk immediately rush in to reframe the conversation as if anti-censorship groups are unquestionably supporting and defending the indefensible.

"Virtue Signaling." I unironically love this dog whistle, personally, because it betrays the massive chasm within the worldview of the people who use it. Virtue signaling is the concept of doing good things, for the sake of other people thinking you're good. It's the cry of alt-right pseudointellectuals who posit that people don't actually care about racism and sexism and transphobia and homophobia and xenophobia and religious intolerance and any of the other social evils they've decided they want to champion instead. No! People secretly support these things, it's just that it's socially unacceptable to do so, so they must pretend. They must play their part in the social farce, and make sure everybody knows they have done so, waving a flag that signals all who see it that they are one of them. I genuinely love this one because they always use "virtue signaling" as a derogatory term, it is always framed in a negative way, like this is evidence of the social contract falling to pieces. The thing is, this is a feature, not a bug. Yeah, you have to publicly decry bigotry and fall in step with the social mores of your community, and yeah, we want communities that see bigotry as some sort of social suicide. Society should actually ostracize and push out bigoted, disruptive individuals, because bigotry itself is a betrayal of the social contract. If you refuse to participate in society by abiding its rules, yeah, you don't get to be part of society. And yeah, we don't care about thought crime. Be a bigot in your head all you want, I want a society that punishes you severely if you ever decide to ACT on those thoughts, tho. That's a functional society. That's a good thing. The people who use "virtue signaling" unironically are trying to grapple with their own hypocrisy, with the fact they spew out hateful, genocidal nonsense but they know damn well they would be utterly destroyed if they tried to act out on it, so instead they've come up with a way to say "society decries and rejects everything I stand for, and I refuse to be a martyr to my ideals so I'm just going to be a cowardly, hateful idiot and pretend that makes me better than everyone else."

The post itself is pushing a fairly reasonable message: harassment = bad. The problem is that in utilizing dog whistles the message is muddled, and a pretty straightforward message becomes twisted enough to allow spaces for the beneficiaries of those dog whistles to misappropriate and excuse their actions. That's literally what @jabberwockypie and myself were doing in that post, in response to Flamethrower's reply.

Notice how Flamethrower conveniently used the definition of "cancel culture" that matches the dog whistle, in an attempt to shield herself from criticism and then frame the consequences of her actions as abuse and harassment. THAT is why dog whistles matter and why it's important not to engage with them. Because they open the door for bad actors to justify themselves and skirt responsibility for their actions.

Don't let them.

4. Yeah, okay, Rie, but that's like 5K worth of words, do you have any sources for all that?

I'm so fucking glad you asked!

What’s wrong with dogwhistles

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/08/21/racist-roots-dog-whistle/

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26529439

@innuendostudios's The Alt-Right Playbook is an excellent resource in identifying the tools of radicalization, but most importantly his sources are an excellent way to familiarize yourself with all this nonsense.

5. Now what?

IDK, do your best. Keep trying. Forgive yourself for fucking up and commit to learning from it.

Mostly, be kind. To yourself and to others, but specially those who are being targeted by genocidal dipshits.

And remember, if someone tells you the solution to your problems is the complete extermination of a group of people... that person is not your friend, that's an asshole looking for an alibi. You deserve better than that.

#shut up rie

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