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cuddlytogas · 2 months

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So I accidentally almost got into an argument on Twitter, and now I'm thinking about bad historical costuming tropes. Specifically, Action Hero Leather Pants.

See, I was light-heartedly pointing out the inaccuracies of the costumes in Black Sails, and someone came out of the woodwork to defend the show. The misunderstanding was that they thought I was dismissing the show just for its costumes, which I wasn't - I was simply pointing out that it can't entirely care about material history (meaning specifically physical objects/culture) if it treats its clothes like that.

But this person was slightly offended on behalf of their show - especially, quote, "And from a fan of OFMD, no less!" Which got me thinking - it's true! I can abide a lot more historical costuming inaccuracy from Our Flag than I can Black Sails or Vikings. And I don't think it's just because one has my blorbos in it. But really, when it comes down to it...

What is the difference between this and this?

Here's the thing. Leather pants in period dramas isn't new. You've got your Vikings, Tudors, Outlander, Pirates of the Caribbean, Once Upon a Time, Will, The Musketeers, even Shakespeare in Love - they love to shove people in leather and call it a day. But where does this come from?

Obviously we have the modern connotations. Modern leather clothes developed in a few subcultures: cowboys drew on Native American clothing. (Allegedly. This is a little beyond my purview, I haven't seen any solid evidence, and it sounds like the kind of fact that people repeat a lot but is based on an assumption. I wouldn't know, though.) Leather was used in some WWI and II uniforms.

But the big boom came in the mid-C20th in motorcycle, punk/goth, and gay subcultures, all intertwined with each other and the above. Motorcyclists wear leather as practical protective gear, and it gets picked up by rock and punk artists as a symbol of counterculture, and transferred to movie designs. It gets wrapped up in gay and kink communities, with even more countercultural and taboo meanings. By the late C20th, leather has entered mainstream fashion, but it still carries those references to goths, punks, BDSM, and motorbike gangs, to James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Mick Jagger. This is whence we get our Spikes and Dave Listers in 1980s/90s media, bad boys and working-class punks.

And some of the above "historical" design choices clearly build on these meanings. William Shakespeare is dressed in a black leather doublet to evoke the swaggering bad boy artist heartthrob, probably down on his luck. So is Kit Marlowe.

But the associations get a little fuzzier after that. Hook, with his eyeliner and jewellery, sure. King Henry, yeah, I see it. It's hideously ahistorical, but sure. But what about Jamie and Will and Ragnar, in their browns and shabby, battle-ready chic? Well, here we get the other strain of Bad Period Drama Leather.

See, designers like to point to history, but it's just not true. Leather armour, especially in the western/European world, is very, very rare, and not just because it decays faster than metal. (Yes, even in ancient Greece/Rome, despite many articles claiming that as the start of the leather armour trend!) It simply wasn't used a lot, because it's frankly useless at defending the body compared to metal. Leather was used as a backing for some splint armour pieces, and for belts, sheathes, and buckles, but it simply wasn't worn like the costumes above. It's heavy, uncomfortable, and hard to repair - it's simply not practical for a garment when you have perfectly comfortable, insulating, and widely available linen, wool, and cotton!

As far as I can see, the real influence on leather in period dramas is fantasy. Fantasy media has proliferated the idea of leather armour as the lightweight choice for rangers, elves, and rogues, a natural, quiet, flexible material, less flashy or restrictive than metal. And it is cheaper for a costume department to make, and easier for an actor to wear on set. It's in Dungeons and Dragons and Lord of the Rings, King Arthur, Runescape, and World of Warcraft.

And I think this is how we get to characters like Ragnar and Vane. This idea of leather as practical gear and light armour, it's fantasy, but it has this lineage, behind which sits cowboy chaps and bomber/flight jackets. It's usually brown compared to the punk bad boy's black, less shiny, and more often piecemeal or decorated. In fact, there's a great distinction between the two Period Leather Modes within the same piece of media: Robin Hood (2006)! Compare the brooding, fascist-coded villain Guy of Gisborne with the shabby, bow-wielding, forest-dwelling Robin:

So, back to the original question: What's the difference between Charles Vane in Black Sails, and Edward Teach in Our Flag Means Death?

Simply put, it's intention. There is nothing intentional about Vane's leather in Black Sails. It's not the only leather in the show, and it only says what all shabby period leather says, relying on the same tropes as fantasy armour: he's a bad boy and a fighter in workaday leather, poor, flexible, and practical. None of these connotations are based in reality or history, and they've been done countless times before. It's boring design, neither historically accurate nor particularly creative, but much the same as all the other shabby chic fighters on our screens. He has a broad lineage in Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean and such, but that's it.

In Our Flag, however, the lineage is much, much more intentional. Ed is a direct homage to Mad Max, the costuming in which is both practical (Max is an ex-cop and road warrior), and draws on punk and kink designs to evoke a counterculture gone mad to the point of social breakdown, exploiting the thrill of the taboo to frighten and titillate the audience.

In particular, Ed is styled after Max in the second movie, having lost his family, been badly injured, and watched the world turn into an apocalypse. He's a broken man, withdrawn, violent, and deliberately cutting himself off from others to avoid getting hurt again. The plot of Mad Max 2 is him learning to open up and help others, making himself vulnerable to more loss, but more human in the process.

This ties directly into the themes of Our Flag - it's a deliberate intertext. Ed's emotional journey is also one from isolation and pain to vulnerability, community, and love. Mad Max (intentionally and unintentionally) explores themes of masculinity, violence, and power, while Max has become simplified in the popular imagination as a stoic, badass action hero rather than the more complex character he is, struggling with loss and humanity. Similarly, Our Flag explores masculinity, both textually (Stede is trying to build a less abusive pirate culture) and metatextually (the show champions complex, banal, and tender masculinities, especially when we're used to only seeing pirates in either gritty action movies or childish comedies).

Our Flag also draws on the specific countercultures of motorcycles, rockers, and gay/BDSM culture in its design and themes. Naturally, in such a queer show, one can't help but make the connection between leather pirates and leather daddies, and the design certainly nods at this, with its vests and studs. I always think about this guy, with his flat cap so reminiscient of gay leather fashions.

More overtly, though, Blackbeard and his crew are styled as both violent gangsters and countercultural rockstars. They rove the seas like a bikie gang, free and violent, and are seen as icons, bad boys and celebrities. Other pirates revere Blackbeard and wish they could be on his crew, while civilians are awed by his reputation, desperate for juicy, gory details.

This isn't all of why I like the costuming in Our Flag Means Death (especially season 1). Stede's outfits are by no means accurate, but they're a lot more accurate than most pirate media, and they're bright and colourful, with accurate and delightful silks, lace, velvets, and brocades, and lovely, puffy skirts on his jackets. Many of the Revenge crew wear recognisable sailor's trousers, and practical but bright, varied gear that easily conveys personality and flair. There is a surprising dedication to little details, like changing Ed's trousers to fall-fronts for a historical feel, Izzy's puffy sleeves, the handmade fringe on Lucius's red jacket, or the increasing absurdity of navy uniform cuffs between Nigel and Chauncey.

A really big one is the fact that they don't shy away from historical footwear! In almost every example above, we see the period drama's obsession with putting men in skinny jeans and bucket-top boots, but not only does Stede wear his little red-heeled shoes with stockings, but most of his crew, and the ordinary people of Barbados, wear low boots or pumps, and even rough, masculine characters like Pete wear knee breeches and bright colours. It's inaccurate, but at least it's a new kind of inaccuracy, that builds much more on actual historical fashions, and eschews the shortcuts of other, grittier period dramas in favour of colour and personality.

But also. At least it fucking says something with its leather.

#everyone say 'thank you togas' for not including a long tangent about evil rimmer in red dwarf 5x05 #Our Flag Means Death #Togas does meta #and yes these principles DO fall apart slightly in s2 and i DON'T like those costumes as much #don't get me wrong they're fun and gorgeous - but generally a bit less deep and more inaccurate. so. :(#I'm not sure this really says anything new about Our Flag but I just needed to get my thoughts out #i hate hate hate Gritty Period Drama costumes they're so boring and so ugly and so wrong #god bless OFMD for using more than 3 muted colours and actually putting men in heels (and not as a shorthand for rich/foppish villainy) <3 #looking at that Tudors still is insane like they really will go to any lengths to not make men feel like they've got bare legs XD #image descriptions in alt text #and yes i DID just sink about two hours into those so you'd better appreciate them

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writingwithfolklore · 8 months

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Stripping away Supports

In classic outlining structure, the midpoint is where your MC loses all the advantages they’d relied on up until that point—allies, resources, powers, etc. In fact, this structure is used in so many films that the ‘characters fight at the midpoint’ is an easily found cliché throughout media.

However, there are other ways of stripping away your MC’s supports to achieve the same effect.

They fight

Okay I know I just implied we might want to avoid this, but why fix what’s not broke? The important part about following the ‘characters fight at the midpoint’ trope is to ensure the fight doesn’t start at the midpoint, but rather starts from the very moment the characters are seen with each other/meet. The fight should be about something that’s been brewing underneath all of their interactions from the beginning—the one thing they should’ve talked about but didn’t. The ‘elephant in the room’.

This fight is less of a fight but an unearthing of feelings, thoughts, and problems that have always been there, but have been ignored or avoided up until then. What’s the event that unearths these truths? Typically, something threatening or scary causes people to speak ‘out of turn’…

2. The protagonist chooses to go on alone

Something big happened, something so dangerous and scary that the protagonist intentionally pushes away their allies in order to protect them… Of course, later they might realize that they are stronger together anyway. This is also a bit of a cliché, but done thoughtfully can be very impactful.

3. The allies are in over their head

The reversal of the last trope, instead of the protagonist pushing their allies away, the allies decide this quest is far too dangerous and risky for them… The protagonist is abandoned by their allies. Later, these supports may return, their love for the protagonist stronger than their fear of the situation, but whatever happened must have spooked them bad enough to lead them to betrayal.

4. An integral piece they’ve been relying on has been destroyed

The hideout was found and torched, the old man’s journal was tossed into the sea, the leader/mentor/keeper of information has been kidnapped or killed. Maybe the allies and the protagonist are still together, but one important thing that’s been keeping them together or leading them has been lost, now they have to adapt and improvise on the fly if they wish to continue their quest.

5. An integral piece they’ve been relying on turned out to not be true or important

Similar to the last but with a bit of a twist. They’ve been following the wrong lead all along—where to go next now that the very foundation of their quest is crumbling beneath them?

What are some other ways of fulfilling the midpoint reversal?

#writing #writers #writing tips #writing advice #writing inspiration #creative writing #writing community #books #film #filmmaking #screenwriting #novel writing #fanfiction #writeblr #midpoint #midpoint reversal #stripping away supports #outlining #planning

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mckirkevents · 9 days

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Welcome to McKirk Week 2024!

Held from 20th – 26th May, McKirk Week is a creation event focused on the Kirk/McCoy pairing, across all universes.

HOW IT WORKS:

There are three prompt lists – Trek, Gen, and NSFW. Trek are prompts based on the Star Trek universe, Gen are general prompts and tropes, and NSFW are of course the NSFW prompts. You’re welcome to pick from any prompt list (or even combine a few), and you can fill as many or as few prompts as you fancy.

Your creations can be any form of media: art, fic, edits, videos, web weaves, memes, playlists, fic rec lists, cosplay… the list goes on! As long as you can make it McKirk, it counts.

And on that note: this is a McKirk event so McKirk should be the main pairing in your works. Background ships, side pairings, and poly ships are okay as long as Kirk and McCoy are the focus.

NSFW prompts, plaintext transcript, and rules below the cut:

PROMPT LISTS:

TREK PROMPTS

Day 1 (20th): First Contact Day 2 (21st): Shuttle Crash Day 3 (22nd): Clones / Doppelgangers Day 4 (23rd): Shore Leave Day 5 (24th): Old Married McKirk Day 6 (25th): Transporter Malfunction Day 7 (26th): Diplomatic Dinner

GEN PROMPTS

Day 1 (20th): Amnesia Day 2 (21st): Taken Captive / Abduction Day 3 (22nd): Huddling for Warmth Day 4 (23rd): AU Day 5 (24th): Drunken Confessions Day 6 (25th): Sickness / Injuries Day 7 (26th): Reunion

NSFW PROMPTS

Day 1 (20th): Lingerie Day 2 (21st): First Time / Virginity Day 3 (22nd): Sex Pollen Day 4 (23rd): Crying After/During Sex Day 5 (24th): Only One Bed Day 6 (25th): Semi Public Sex Day 7 (26th): Sex Toys

THE FINER DETAILS:

You’re welcome to start on your piece(s) whenever you’d like, but please refrain from posting them until the relevant day(s) where possible.

When posting your works to tumblr, please use the tag # mckirkweek2024 and/or tag us @mckirkevents so that we can find your posts to reblog.

There is an AO3 collection HERE that you’re welcome to add your McKirk Week 2024 works to.

There is no deadline to post your works (we get it, life gets in the way sometimes), and the AO3 collection will be open indefinitely.

You’re welcome to create whatever you want, but please do tag/warn as appropriate for NSFW and other sensitive content.

For tumblr posts, please do add a mature label to explicit imagery, and/or crop and link externally to the full image, in order for us to be able to reblog.

And most importantly: have fun, be yourself, and keep it McKirk!

ANY QUESTIONS?

FAQ coming soon, but until then, send us an ASK!

#mckirkweek2024 #mckirk events #mckirk #star trek #star trek events #prompt list

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genericpuff · 1 month

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I have no idea if this is intentional, but with how you've written Kore/Persephone, I very much get like,,, DID, specifically a very wrathful protector alter vibes from Persephone?? And I dunno, I have DID myself and my own protector whose very much determined in his rage to keep us safe, and it's very sweet to be able to see us in a piece of work for once and not have it be demonised. So even if it was completely unintentional, thank you!

Aww anon! This was sweet to read, and I'm happy to inform you that you're not the only one with DID who's relating to Kore's story in the comic! We have another reader in the community who's very outspoken in the Discord server and always speaking on their experiences with DID and how it relates to their analysis of Kore. So you're not alone in feeling that!!

I will say that while I didn't explicitly set out to make Kore a DID-specific character, I can certainly see why and how people with DID are relating to her and I think it's wonderful. I've been writing characters like Kore for years now, as a fan of the "alter ego" trope in media (and it's a big reason why I felt so attached to LO in the first place through the initial S1 setup of the AOW and Persephone being her "wrathful" side) and I've definitely had my own mental health struggles over the years that I think have certainly contributed to that (I don't have DID as far as I know, but I do have those mental "splits" in times of high stress that's almost similar to mania, so I'd be more likely to believe it's either just autistic meltdowns or MAYBE borderline personality disorder lol) Writing characters like Kore has always brought me comfort through personifying the processing of emotions and perspectives and conflicting thought processes.

So I'm glad Kore has brought you that same comfort 🥰

The only thing I will caution is that the topic of Kore and Persephone will get dicey at times. Kore will go through many ups and downs in the plot that will simultaneously be presented through Persephone. There will be just as many lovely moments to be had as well as ugly. Proper trigger warnings will be provided when necessary but much of their plotline will address some rather emotionally devastating stuff, to say the least LOL At the end of the day though I want to give them both a satisfying ending, so I hope we can all weather the storm together until we get to the light on the other side 💖

Thank you so much for reading, I hope you continue to find joy and peace in their story 🥰

#ask me anything #ama #anon ama #anon ask me anything #lore rekindled #lore rekindled ama

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celestial-quill-n-ink · 8 months

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What They Think Of You (Season 1):

🎮Leviathan🎮

✦ To be honest, Levi pretty much forgot that the Human Exchange Student was going to be arriving that day. I mean, he had so many more important things to worry about, so what reason would he have to care about a simple human?

✦ …Actually… He could use this to his advantage. Would it be petty? Maybe, but it would serve Mammon right for being such a scummy brother!

✦ And surprisingly enough, his plan worked! But despite what his brothers were insinuating, he didn't care for you in any way! Not at all! Not one bit!

✦ It's not like he was practically living within one of his favourite anime tropes, having become the unsuspecting onlooker to a real life isekai! An innocent human suddenly thrust into a world of magic and demons! An instantly compelling setup that had made him fall in love with many a main characters…

✦ But regardless of any of that!!! He was just a stinky Otaku who gamed his days away in the comfort of his room. There was no need for him to get involved with whatever daredevil antics the human and his scummy brother were bound to get up to.

✦ …That wasn't going to be as easy as he wanted, however.

✦ Because this human just didn't know when to quit! I mean, why do they get to have so much fun binging TSL and then act so confident as if they know what they're talking about? It just wasn't fair.

✦ And now here he was, standing in front of a terrifyingly large crowd in the main hall of RAD, just to prove to one singular prideful human that he was the ultimate TSL fan!

✦ …He really didn't want to hurt them. He honestly felt downright awful after his outburst. But most of all, he felt defeated.

✦ Did he believe that you cheated during the TSL Showdown? …Kind of, yeah. Actually, yeah, he did think it was a scummy thing to do!

✦ But… it's not like he was in a position to have the rarest of merch or all the insider details of his favourite story. And that's simply because he was a shut-in. He keeps to himself and he never tries to interact with others.

✦ Whether he likes it or not, you got the advantages and opportunities you had because you actually interacted with people and made your own impression on them.

✦ And that made him so jealous.

✦ So he agreed to the pact. He conceded that you had something that he didn't, despite how desperately he did want it.

✦ And then you apologised to him. For using dirty tactics to get your way, because you would feel the exact way he did if someone tried to do that with your favourite pieces of media.

✦ …Wait, what???

✦ You actually enjoyed video games and anime too? Just like him??? ...I mean, maybe he could forgive you, but that didn't make you two best friends or anything!!!

✦ Spoiler Alert: It definitely did to him.

✦ He actually got to know you on a deeper level, watching how you'd interact with his brothers, like you were just always meant to fit with them. These… misfit fallen angels that they were.

✦ And the craziest thing of all was that you actually wanted to hang out with him!!! You wanted to share your favourite Human World anime and manga with him, and soon enough (way faster than he was ever willing to admit), he did the same for you with Devildom media.

✦ Which was all fine and dandy, sunshine and rainbows, but why in all of the three realms did his brothers have to be so obnoxious about you? Constantly vying for your attention, while you argued that you'd already scheduled this time for you and him.

✦ And wow, did hearing that pacify his envy quicker than any of the anime merch he's ever bought…

#obey me #obey me x reader #obey me x mc #obey me imagines #obey me imagine #obey me headcanons #obey me hcs #obey me shall we date #shall we date obey me #obey me leviathan #leviathan x reader #celestial writings

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chubs-deuce · 3 months

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I think I also saw a post explaining that if a ship in the fandom got too popular, the network producers would try and force that ship to become canon.

It's like, I love Charlastor, but I really don't want it to be canon. I feel like non canon ships are more fun!

yeah!!! 100% agreed, and I despise it when producers actually let that happen too :/ Glaring very hard at the grossly entitled people a good while back to tried to sway their preferred ship into canonicity by doing petitions....

I wouldn't want charlastor to be canon tbh.

It's, frankly, wild to me that so many people even equate shipping to exclusively mean "to root for two or more characters to get romantically involved in the source material", and any exploration of dynamics beyond that is then frowned upon, shamed or invalidated.

To an unfortunately large amount of people, shipping is little more than a popularity contest :')

To me, a huge part of the appeal in shipping is that it's a means to explore interpersonal character dynamics from a piece of media in ways we don't necessarily see happen in canon.

I LOVE non-canon ships for the fact that they leave us with SO much creative freedom! [more in-depth thoughts + what appeals to me about charlastor under the cut]

It allows us to hypothesize and experiment in-depth with how these characters would find their way from one type of dynamic into a different direction in so many different ways, without canon to give us one solid path to stick to.

One trope I'm very fond of in fanfiction in particular has always been slowburn with a touch of mutual pining - when a dynamic is truly given room to breathe and naturally grow into different directions and REALLY digs into the involved characters, it enables the authors to thoroughly lay out why and how their feelings change, what affected them in the process and how/when they eventually choose to act on them!

Character analysis is my bread and butter, so if a dynamic strikes my interest it's almost always because it has something unique about it far beyond just wanting to see them all lovey-dovey bc it's cute (though that can be part of it lol).

Charlie and Alastor as a combination are so intriguing to me because they're in many ways polar opposites, but simultaneously also have just enough similarities to leave a lot of potential for a genuine bond.

They combine the most conniving, manipulative, steadfastly and proudly immoral person with someone whose good intentions color absolutely everything she does, who also has the willpower and moral code to see it through.

They're like a forbidden, alluring dance, endlessly circling in each other's gravitational pull - which parts of them will prevail? Who will inevitably buckle to the other's influence first? What draws them in? What drives them apart?

I love watching Alastor's masterfully crafted plans get absolutely thwarted because he can't get a consistent read on her - a being who's - by her very nature of being part demon and part angel - a bundle of contradictions.

I'm also extremely fond of Charlie 100% seeing through him every step of the way and still keeping him around - regardless of his motivations, he is a vital, helpful part of the hotel, and she won't give up on trying to win him over for her cause in earnest.

There are very few things as funny to me as the idea of Alastor -master manipulator - being so far up his own ego, obsessing over getting a figurative hold over this fascinating and yet frustrating princess, that it takes forever for him to realize he's the one being used all along, expertly playing right into her cards.

Simultaneously, there's so many other ways to write them!!! It's just so damn fun to explore all of the what-ifs.

#there's more I could say abt all this but the post is long enough lmfaoo #charlastor #radiobelle #shipping #chubs answers #long post

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dreammeiser · 22 days

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Is it okay to ask what where the inspiration for the characters of Dream along?

Of course! I'm always dying to talk about their creation and inspiration but worry about getting too wordy/annoying about it, so I hardly talk about it unless asked (please ask me about my brainrot heeheehee). I can only fit so much on an Instagram Story or a Tweet, so I'm glad you asked here. I guess this will be the master reference for them. Sorry in advance that this is wordy!!

I made these characters spanning the past 14-15 years, with their story only being worked on about 10+ years ago, give or take. I will mention that they were made with Earl as a starting point while I was working at the cool puppet place; the show I was interning on wasn't scratching the creative itch I had, so it was recommended to me to make the project that I wish I was working on. :oD

The Muppets, Sesame Street, Osamu Tezuka's works, and Moomin were some animated/puppet media off the top of my head that always stuck with me my whole life and have influenced my retro inspired work the most. They all had such sweetness and charm to them, and all felt like a found family :o) My favorite trope. Puppets were also just deeply meaningful to me because they were physical forms of creativity and childlike wonder you could hold and play with! I thought whenever you made one, you put a little bit of your heart and soul into them.

I wanted the Dreamalong Gang to have the charm of Jim Henson's and Tove Jansson's characters, but I wanted them to have the humor and intrigue of Gravity Falls, Over the Garden Wall, Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, and Welcome to Night Vale. DHMIS and Night Vale actually inspired the story the most because they were both a really nice mix of absurdist humor and horror! Sleep Paralysis Demons were a point of intrigue for me that I thought were perfect for a Dreamscape setting, so I started working on including those.

The Dreamalong Gang has little bits and pieces of friends that I had loved, but I leaned into the group dynamics more for them. They're composed of friends I wished I had growing up!

Visually, I'd think of a fun/dream adjacent theme for the characters to tie them all together thematically. I know people tend to bark at me when they see what I'm inspired by but, I don't like to copy directly from my inspiration sources. They're just there to inspire you, ya know?

Archie's theme was Wishing Stars and Bedtime Stories; Hunson Abadeer from Adventure Time used to be on here, but I moved away from anything that might've made Archie spooky. I forgot to include Peter Pan and his Shadow on here, but they inspired him as well!

When it came to palettes, sometimes I'd have something in mind for them already like with Roy G Biv, Archie, and Mae-- Roy has his kidcore rainbow/SMPTE bars, Archie had some of my favorite blues and creams with a pastel minimal rainbow, Mae's were based off the colors of a golden hour rainstorm I had seen on my travels. Other times I had to play around with what color I hadn't used much of yet. I wonder if you can tell which colors are my least favorite and which ones I like a lot hahaha :'o)

I would also think about stories and songs that went with the characters thematically and use those to shape their character a little further, like looking to The Impossible Dream from the 1972 Man of la Mancha and Moon River for Archie, as well as old Ole Lukoje fairytales. He used to draw inspiration from Hijo de la Luna, but I wanted his story to be more upbeat on surface level with hidden tones of sadness instead of dramatic.

I don't want this to get tooooo long, so I'm going to put a pin in it there. If people want to know more in depth inspiration sources for specific characters feel free to ask! I like being open about my inspiration sources and my process since so many other artists gatekeep stuff. I hope this was a nice read!! :o)

#thank you for the ask!#please ask me questions yes yes #If you are curious or unsure! Always ask!#I will get to them hopefully soon!#dream along with me #dawm project #dawm asks

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sleepy-gee · 22 days

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snowjanus week take 2!

due to the success and passion behind our first snowjanus week, i decided to host a second one, spanning from April 14th to April 20th! Below are the prompts and their information, as well as rules.

prompts:

day 1, april 14th, literature: many of the characters from tbosas and their names come from classic literature! create something with inspiration from a classic tale, such as your favorite poem or shakespearen tragedy.

day 2, april 15th, music: music is a big part of tbosas' story. create something based on a song!

day 3, april 16th, mythology: bringing it back to literature, today we're focusing on myths and legend. create something based on your favorite piece of mythology/folk lore

day 4, april 17th, trope: create something based on a favorite trope of yours! can be a character/ship dynamic, a popular plot line, anything!

day 5, april 18th, modern au: create something based in a modern au!

day 6, april 19th, crack: create something silly and stupid– have fun with it!

day 7, april 20th, free choice: create whatever you want regarding snowjanus :]

rules/notes:

media of all kind is allowed– fics, drawings, mood boards, edits, amvs, pmvs, etc..

other ships are allowed, but snowjanus must be the main focus

nsfw is allowed, just please tag it accordingly!

prompts do not have to be uploaded on their specific day. life happens, i understand :]

please tag me in your creations and use the tag #snowjanusweek2 so i can see your wonderful creations!

comment on this post/message me if you have any questions

reblog this post if you're interested :p

#the ballad of songbirds and snakes #tbosas #tbosbas #thg #the hunger games #coriolanus snow #sejanus plinth #coryo snow #sej plinth #snowjanus #coriolanus x sejanus #coryo x sej #snowjanusweek2

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misscammiedawn · 4 months

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Dissociative Identity Disorder in Mr. Robot

So I have been writing little essays about Mr. Robot recently.

Dom's Sexuality, Gay Marriage and Whiterose

Back to the Future and Brainwashing

Today I wish to talk about the DID representation in Mr. Robot.

Actually I want to talk about the DID representation in the Hulk comics but there are 40 years worth of storylines involving it and it would require me to write about clinical understandings from the 1980s when it was called MPD (admitedly Mr. Robot's stumbles at the finish line with some of these same outdated treatment models) and that would take a while. Suffice to say it will happen eventually*. I shall make a new tag "Media Myself and I" and post it under that when I have more time to do it justice. Maybe I'll do others. I am uncertain. I believe I want to focus on positive depictions where there are no murder alters. The goal is to get people to want to enjoy things, not to steer them away. I have a few shows and games in mind at the very least.

Regardless… Mr. Robot is an easier topic to cover and is my hyperfocus of the moment.

So Mr. Robot is a show about isolation in the modern world. It's a show about socioeconomic stress, late-stage capitalism and what it means to enact meaningful change on a broken world.

But above all it is about the healing journey of Elliot Alderson, a man with dissociative identity disorder.

I say that at the start because Elliot's condition is never named until the final episode. In many ways a realistic depiction of a real world disorder was an afterthought noted in the final hour of the journey as a means of justifying the split personality trope and hiding a final twist. In spite of that the roadmap for the show was always leading to this destination and along the way they managed to get some fairly good representation out of the mix.

Season 2 even involves the only time I have ever seen a piece of fiction depict "blending" on screen. Blending isn't a symptom listed in either DSM or ICD manuals. It is, however, something one would hear about if they had a conversation with someone who had DID. I have used that scene to depict what it feels like to my partners.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

I love Mr. Robot. It is currently my favorite show of all time. If you have never seen it then please give it a shot. This post will be spoiler heavy and I'd hate to rob anyone the opportunity to watch S4E7 and have a pure emotional reaction to it. The show is on Amazon Prime and the full box set is available for $35-50 depending on format and vendor.

Go with my blessing.

The first season of the show begins with Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek) living a double life. By day a cyber security expert and by night he spends his time at his computer hacking people's accounts and satisfying a "little itch in the back of his head" that guides him to uncover the murky facts about people. The first scene of the show has him take down a cafe owner who hosts an illegal and deeply unpleasant website. I have seen individuals walk away from the first episode thinking that the show is "Dexter but with computers" but it is more lulsec activism with a Fight Club aesthetic.

The show has 4 seasons and each season depicts a different stage of Elliot's healing journey and with it completely different rules and depictions of his condition. I'll break down each season for what they do right and what they do wrong.

Season 1: Discovery

Elliot's system in season one is undiscovered but he has overt symptoms, meaning he is unaware that he has any alters but he suffers from clean breaks in his consciousness and drastically altered behavior patterns both which are a detriment to the "hidden" nature of the condition.

Commonly most people do not discover their condition until their 30s. I was 37/38 when our therapist started guiding us towards accepting our condition.

DID manifests in childhood but it's a hidden illness that does its best to go undetected. The point of the condition is to remain hidden. The internet and the educational resources it offers are helping younger individuals to recognize their symptoms and advocate for themselves at an earlier age but the standard medical understanding is that most people are developed adults before they are diagnosed.

Published statistics for DID indicate the global population of those with the condition is about 1.5% (some organizations argue the number should be higher due to how difficult it is to receive an accurate diagnosis, but 1.5% is the most consistent figure) which is rare but not to the point of never encountering it. For comparison, according to a 2023 census 1.0% of people in the USA identify as transgender. There are no tested classifications for Covert vs Overt display of symptoms but it is widely agreed that an overwhelming majority of cases within the 1.5% are covert.

We learn that Elliot is desperately lonely, abuses morphine and has paranoid delusions about men in black stalking his every move. Whenever Elliot is on screen we can never be sure what is real and what isn't, so there are times when men wearing black suits are on screen and we cannot be sure if Elliot is paranoid or delusional.

The show takes place through his perspective after all and we are a character in the show.

See… the narrative device of the show involves Elliot speaking to "friend", us. The audience. "Hello, friend." is a common refrain spoken throughout the show. The narrative begins a short while after Elliot had a complete mental breakdown and smashed up a server room, he is seeing a court appointed therapist, is socially paralyzed to the point of which we see him linger outside a birthday party and retreat home to cry in loneliness.

The entire first season Mr. Robot is depicted as another character, akin to Tyler Durden, a wild revolutionary who wants to encrypt the data of the world's largest bank in order to seal the debt records and reset everything back to 0. He starts off appearing in scenes involving the men in black stalking Elliot to mingle him in with the paranoid delusions and eventually begins interacting with him in earnest. Though the reveal is treated as a twist 8 episodes into the show Elliot does accuse the audience of knowing the entire time and he refuses to speak to us for some time, even going as far as to keep secrets from us because he cannot trust us any longer.

It's at this point that I will note that media depictions of DID tend to lean heavily on the phrase "it's a visual medium" and depict ways that characters can see, interact with and communicate with alters/parts in a dramatic setting. Off the top of my head Hulk is about the only form of fiction I've seen where the temptation to do this doesn't take over and even then the old "other face in the mirror" trope shows up there.

So for what it's worth the paranoid thinking and hallucinations are not DID symptoms and typically a person with the condition cannot see or hear their alters. In fact a testing criteria included in the MID exam is to rule out schizophrenia by eliminating the possibility that the voices heard are external or that any hallucinations exist. In Mr. Robot they are likely caused by Elliot's morphine addiction, but he gets clean after season 1 and Mr. Robot is always there.

There are some plot elements which I want to talk about but they do spoil the final "twist" of the show. So I want to warn again that anyone in the process of watching should be warned we are getting into entire show spoiler territory.

The Elliot we see in the show is the result of the stress fueled breakdown that Mr. Alderson had 6 months prior to the show starting. The timeline is fuzzy in my head but there were two triggers which set him off and began his condition flaring up (and/or caused him to lean harder into his drug addiction which in turn fueled his condition). The one we know about is that he was locked in a server room and forced to work long into the night on an issue and the already upset and stressed Elliot snapped and had a black-out.

We come to learn that he has had these his whole life but this is the first time such an incident occurred that he couldn't self-justify what had happened. He smashed up a server room, something he felt himself not capable of.

But the second trigger is the more important one.

His sister, Darlene, moved to NYC and started visiting him.

The bigger and better twist of season 1 is that Elliot and Darlene are siblings. This is hidden from Elliot and the audience for the first 7 episodes and her presence is treated much like Marla Singer from Fight Club, of whom she likely contains some inspiration, where she keeps showing up in Elliot's apartment and acting overly familiar with him.

In the earliest episodes when we are learning about Elliot's lonely life he looks at a photograph of himself and his mother at Coney Island. Due to some hallucinations we know that Magda is an abusive mother and screamed at/hit Elliot a lot. We learn more about her in future episodes and she is a truly horrible parent. Likely more than was ever depicted in the show.

The photo is actually of the full Alderson family including Darlene and Edward but is not shown as such until the reveals that Darlene is Elliot's sister and Mr. Robot is modeled after Elliot's father. The photograph is a reference to Back to the Future.

But it also is a fairly good visual representation of self-filtering information, even when it is contradictory in nature. This is common not just in DID but in all forms of CPTSD.

Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a condition that develops during prolonged exposure to trauma and makes radical changes to the nervous system. CPTSD is considered a root of DID and it is universal for those diagnosed with DID to have a CPTSD diagnosis also.

One of the ways CPTSD symptoms manifest is "Emotional Avoidance". The nervous system is activated when triggers related to the trauma exist within the person's life. In order to function their brains push away these reminders and naturally avoid interacting with them. This causes those with the condition to become withdrawn, to isolate and to have distorted and often contradicting patterns of thought. For instance Elliot needs connection and safety that he associates with family but his family were his primary abusers and so he edits his memories to focus on positive associations such as a family trip to Coney Island that has become an obsession to him in adulthood. We later learn that Elliot's obsession with movies was born from it being his primary way of connecting with his father... which is fairly relatable.

His positive memories of his parents are held in high regard even though we know that his father "pushed him out of a window" and his mother used to put out cigarette butts on Darlene, tried to force her to commit animal cruelty and is often depicted in hallucinations as beating and screaming at Elliot.

In a case where it is impossible to avoid the traumatic trigger, for instance the return of relative who is a living reminder of his abusive childhood, the individual may begin to dissociate. Dissociation being where a person, overwhelmed by what they are experiencing has a separation from their normal state leading to a disconnect from emotions, sense of self and reality.

Episode 8 in particular contains a visual depiction of it when Elliot is having a quiet meltdown over finding out he has a 2 day deadline and his boss at work has known about the server exploit he installed all along.

(the show often uses the camera in ways to emphasize emotional walls, dissociation and isolation like this. This sequence does so by having hard cuts, shaky cam and frantic pace melt into a gliding slow lull where the background noise filters out and we can share in Elliot's distance from his situation for a moment)

Elliot's form of blocking out is extreme but has half a foot in reality (and half a foot in the logic born from the "twist" ending) in that in order to continue interacting with Darlene he views her as a member of Fsociety and edits out their connection until it is revealed in episode 7.

A small brilliancy about Fsociety is that the entire group is formed around Elliot and Darlene's need for childhood safety. The hacking elements of the show undoubtedly born from 9 year old Elliot spending time at Mr. Robot computer repair with a smile. The anon-mask that the show uses comes from an in-universe movie that Darlene and Elliot watched every Halloween and their base of operations is Coney Island. A place that both siblings seem to associate with safety and happiness...

Which is extra messed up when you factor Season 2's revelation that Darlene was kidnapped while on a family trip to Coney Island.

Darlene's panic attacks, need to feel special and her abusive upbringing are not the topic for this essay, but I wanted to make mention that Magda was such a horrible mother that a 4/5 year old Darlene thinks of being kidnapped from a family trip to Coney Island as one of her most precious childhood memories.

The desire to reach into the past and change things to create an ideal future is a heavy theme of the show and I feel it's important to note that though the Alderson siblings reject Whiterose and her scheme, they are both living in an almost literal fun house distortion of the few unambiguously GOOD childhood memories that they each have and have wrapped them around themselves like a protective blanket.

The plot of season 1 gets a lot more uncomfortable when you realize how much of Fsociety is two traumatized kids recreating positive elements of their childhood and trying to live inside of those memories while lashing out at those who took their father away from them. The entire plan is centered around events from 1995. The show takes place in 2015.

Mr. Robot himself is, of course, the ultimate symbol of that take on events.

Edward Alderson was a monster. He's referred to as such overtly in Elliot's detox fever dream. Everyone asks him who his "monster" is while handing him the key that we learn was to his childhood bedroom. A key that he hid to prevent Edward from entering his room late at night.

Yet throughout the first 3 seasons of the show we are only shown him in context of the positive memories that he and Elliot shared. Elliot was 9 years old when Edward passed away from leukemia.

At a point, Elliot is picked up from school. He has a bruise on his cheek and the scene begins with Edward asking "If I had to guess, you didn't tell Principal Howard your side.", assuring him it's okay to share his side of the story. Because Edward is convincing him to tell his side I am going to assume Elliot got into a fight but it's not impossible to assume that the school pulled Edward in to discuss the signs of physical abuse on the child. Edward would never tell Elliot to tell his side of that story so I assume it was a fight.

It's unclear if Mr. Robot is the one who participated in those fights (we only have 2 confirmed instances of Elliot's alters showing up in childhood. The window incident and the day Edward died) but Edward picks him up and protects him from his mother's wrath and bonds with him during that drive, he reveals his diagnosis to Elliot before inviting him to work with him at the computer repair store. Likely this is what leads to Elliot's hacker skills being born.

A hauntingly similar event in my own life is why I am a photographer.

Given that the majority of Season 1 has Elliot in the dark about his condition we are only given context as to why he is the way he is and see the display of dissociative symptoms which manifest from CPTSD. Mr. Robot existing at all is actually not required for this to be a good depiction of adults who grew up in abusive environments and the way they maladaptively cope.

I also want to give a little praise to the "itch at the back of [Elliot's] head" that shows up when he feels the desire to hack someone or dig deeper and the way he pushes forward with his own will until he calms down enough to let a creeping hesitation overcome him and prevent him from acting.

Passive Influence is part of DID. It's a situation where a "fronting" (that is to say part that is in control at a time) performs an unthinking action or is emotionally swayed by the influence of another part/alter that is not presently conscious. These are one of the biggest ways that the condition flies under the radar for many. When they are close to discovering proof of their condition they will often feel an unconscious push away from it. The phenomenon is fairly easily brushed aside internally as "a gut feeling" or an "impulse" but it's observable under the right conditions.

An instance I can think of in my own life is when our survival part is trying to push people away and our emotional part desperately tries to reach out. I will often find my hand grabbing a person's wrist and clinging tightly to it without even noticing that I've done it.

In the show Elliot is compelled by Mr. Robot when he feels someone is a danger or has a weakness that can be exploited. Part of him knows he needs to do something about it and so he lets himself be guided.

The season ends with The 5/9 Hack succeeding, all the financial data being encrypted and Elliot sent to prison for (minor) hacking charges.

He knows who Mr. Robot is now and he fears him as his enemy.

Season 2 (and the book): Exploration

The first 8 episodes of Season 2 are a filter for those watching the show, many drop off. Personally I love it but I can see why it's not for everyone. Season 2 is much slower than the first and Elliot is in prison for those 8 episodes. He's also imagining that prison is his mother's house.

That daydreaming coping mechanism is largely there to add a fairly unearned sense of mystery to a character development season and make things a little more visually interesting. For the most part I don't really want to focus too much on it or the way Elliot treats "us"/"friend".

The fact is that for this season Mr. Robot and Elliot are in direct conflict but they are feeling out their landscape and trying to find common ground. They are pulling in different directions but they are reacting and responding to one another. The show uses a chess match as a visual symbol of this and in such they are keeping one another in a constant state of check. They are opposed to one another but they are communicating and working things out.

So let's start by looking at the book. The book is a recreation of the in-universe journal that Elliot keeps while he is in prison. We see him writing in it during the show and the entire thing is available, it even includes little ARG elements to let you decode the messages Mr. Robot is receiving from The Dark Army.

The book is detailed like this and it's possible to note when Elliot's handwriting turns into Mr. Robot's handwriting. There are even points where there is "blended" handwriting. It's easy to spot in the above image because Mr. Robot writes with a heavy hand and in all caps where Elliot is soft and uses lower case, in the top line of the second page "you NeeD atteNtioN aNd aRe Willing to pay a lotta MoNey to get it." you can see Elliot slipping from one headspace to another while becoming upset at society.

Even still if you look above the FUCK SOCIETY image you see Elliot's calmer handwriting as clear and flowing.

When we were in denial of our condition we poured through journal after journal and chatlog after chatlog hunting for evidence to prove or disprove the theory.

It was when I looked at our old gaming journals (we took notes in pen/pencil live during TTRPG sessions because memory issues are gonna memory issues) that we noticed similar. Cursive used in some phrases, individual letters separate on another, the letters g and y getting curled at times and not at other times.

Subtler than what is displayed above but no less real.

Season 2 introduces us to Ray the warden brilliantly played by Craig Robinson. He empathizes with Elliot because he speaks to his dead wife as a means of coping with grief and assumes that Elliot is the same.

He offers Elliot guidance by asking him to play chess "against himself" and this leads to Elliot and Mr. Robot playing endless games of stalemate against one another with deletion on the line for the loser. It's the same brain and neither side wants to lose (nor do they truly want to win, Elliot admits as much in Season 3 that he likes having Mr. Robot and misses him when he's not around) and as noted above with passive influence, the games are always guided to end in a stalemate because no matter how opposed they are as forces, they both want the same things.

So... how about the Sitcom episode?

Elliot breaks his promise to Ray and looks at the website that he is tasked with doing tech support on. It's--- not good.

Ray uses a combination of crooked cops and convicted Neo-Nazis to have Elliot beaten into submission so he won't report what he saw. Elliot cannot handle this and has a mental break and wakes up in a 90s 4 camera sitcom world.

Alf is there. Because old episodes of Alf are playing in the medical ward at the time Elliot is being treated for his wounds.

The entire time he is taking a beating Mr. Robot is protecting Elliot by fronting and forcing him into an inner-world fantasy.

Okay... so Inner-Worlds.

In the show we actually had one of these in Season 1 during the detox trip but I want to talk about it now and round back and talk more in Season 4.

Inner-Worlds are a thing within DID treatment. Emphasis on the word treatment. It's one of the more commonly misunderstood things within discussion on the condition because it's regularly reported as part of the experiences within those who are diagnosed with DID but it's important to know that the existence of the diagnosis indicates the existence of treatment.

During any adapted 3 or 4 phase trauma treatment program that includes parts work, whether this be Internal Family Systems model which is used for individuals who do not have DID or system mapping and stabilization for those who do, the patient must work on creating a "meeting" space to visualize (or sense out emotionally for those with aphantasia) and much of the work of developing safety and structure within comes from filling that space with comforts and generating communication between parts.

I'll talk more on the "conference table" in Season 4.

It is possible for those not going through therapy to create one outside of the context of a therapeutic alliance but the creation of one is an intentional act. Not something that comes free with your childhood trauma.

Elliot's trip to the inner-world keeps him from experiencing any of the beating that the body is receiving and at the end Mr. Robot earnestly says he only wanted to take the punches for Elliot, nothing more. Elliot falls against him, tearful and whimpers out "Thank you" before we are given the flashback of the day Edward picked up 9 year old Elliot from school after the fight and confesses his leukemia.

For the record, my heart swells every time I see Mr. Robot acting as a protector.

So, let's talk S2E9 and the "blending" incident.

Blending is what happens when two parts/alters are co-conscious and are present enough that they are sharing control of the body. It's an uncomfortable experience. Co-Consciousness means that more than one part/alter is actively perceiving the world at any given time.

It's more complicated than binary yes/no. Every one of these experiences exists on a spectrum and no two people with the condition experience it quite the same way but there are levels of presence that one has.

The following is me talking more from anecdotes and personal experience than textbooks. I like to be clear when I'm not being academic because I do not want to spread misinformation in my arbitrary analysis of TV shows that will get 20 notes on Tumblr Dot Com.

Front is to be driving the body, to have your inner monologue playing (if you have one, most people do, but it's not a given) and have your emotions interact with the nervous system if you are grounded enough to feel your experiences. As I said, it's a spectrum. Everyone gets dissociated at times and can just go into auto-pilot or a trance. That all still counts as being in front.

To be conscious but not front is to exist in an emotionally reactive state. If Fronting is driving then co-consciousness is to be in the passenger seat.

It's truly difficult to describe and my therapist doesn't even fully comprehend it despite her being the one who educates me on these topics. Presently as I type this I can only feel one of our system (5 parts) active and "with" me right now. She's not speaking but she's reacting. I can feel her apprehension to us typing this much about our personal life, little flits of paranoid thinking that we'll get anon-hate or that people from our former life will see this and judge us. It's a presence and exists on a gradient. She's "awake" right now but I do not consider her fully "co-con" because if I asked her to tell me what she thinks about this sentence I can feel an emotional reaction (apprehension) but not a direct answer akin to "I think you should edit out references to our journal and focus on talking about the show" (which is what I imagine she would say right now). That's the spectrum.

Closer to the front a part/alter is the more direct communication happens.

There's also "asleep" and "dormant" when they are unresponsive. Pretty self explanatory. Elliot's system has 5 parts(plus "friend") and until Season 4 we only really see Mr. Robot and the main character version of Elliot. Magda and Young Elliot show up in hallucinations in Season 1 and Young Elliot is co-con in Season 4. Magda never shows up outside of emotional flashbacks and the inner-world.

So after Elliot and Mr. Robot combine forces (though Mr. Robot is still working with the Dark Army and is trying to move in secret) they have moments where they rapidly switch and cannot keep straight who is fronting at any given time.

There's a scene where Elliot is in another room thinking to "friend" when he hears an argument in the next room and realizes Mr. Robot is in the argument. As he walks in, Mr. Robot is surprised to see that Elliot is aware when he is fronting and he trails off and they switch.

Mr. Robot says that something feels off about how they are acting and that they feel like they're overheating.

A later scene depicts Elliot phasing out mid-conversation on the subway and picturing himself in the next car observing Mr. Robot talking to Cisco while a passenger plays erratic music on a keyboard.

That is such a horrifyingly accurate depiction of something we live with that I was stunned to see it on screen. I've included it in some of my stories that go over living with these experiences but the idea is when we are stressed out, can't keep our head straight and are blended like this we tend to have snippets of music playing over and over in our head. We also get what I refer to as "static" and that seems to be relatable in support groups.

A++ for the show depicting something about the DID experience that simply does not get spoken about outside of the spaces of people dealing with it. It was the moment I knew they actually spoke to people who experience this stuff and did proper research that wasn't just media depictions and medical textbooks.

The final part of Season 2's wild ride I want to talk about is the "lucid dreaming" bit.

Mind awake. Body asleep. Mind awake. Body asleep.

This again goes into Overt DID which I cannot comment on as much as covert depictions but the idea is that Elliot trains himself to remain awake when Mr. Robot takes over. We have seen from the blending experience that he is starting to remain when Mr. Robot is active and so he tries to force himself to stay when Mr. Robot is active.

In therapy this would be achieved through trust, communication and awareness. It's said in communities that systems tend to become more overt as they go through treatment as they are able to identify lines, parts can advocate for themselves and there's better understanding of what "self" means for every alter.

In my experience there's also an element of trying to pretend to be consistent and whole. We were coming out transgender when our therapist guided us towards DID diagnosis and there was a lot of tearing ourselves apart because we needed to act in a certain way for our safety and inability to do so put us at risk of being targeted. In accepting our system we have stopped trying to be the same individual and that has lead to a more overt presentation. As I tell my therapist "we need to act out our gender expression anyway. Every action we take is a performance."

That is to say, Mr. Robot has never attempted to maintain the illusion that he is Elliot Alderson (albeit he never identifies himself. He's even surprised to learn that Elliot calls him that) and Elliot doesn't even know he is "The Mastermind".

In opting to remain hidden and conscious he gains a greater degree of control and agency in his situation.

These things get easier as you learn your condition, build system trust and allow yourself to experience that which you feel comfortable experiencing. With the example of the beating earlier, Mr. Robot shut Elliot out and took the beating for him and Elliot resisted but ultimately did not want to be present. In this episode he learns that if he wishes he could have pushed through and been there and experienced everything, albeit as a passenger rather than the driver.

Therapy also teaches how to "go into the back room" to maintain stability. A technique that lets you volunteer to not be involved in a situation. My system all use this whenever I (Dawn) perform erotic intimacy of any kind. They cannot handle the thought of associating with those acts and prior to treatment it would emotionally disregulate our nervous system if parts that couldn't handle the concept were to be present during those moments because parts of me would be trying to dissociate while I am trying to act. It would either trigger a switch, cause blending or make a part shut down and become unresponsive for a large period of time- one of our partners actually discovered our system this way. She saw us shut down during a scene and realized it wasn't just a "mood swing" as we had insisted.

Elliot learns how to intentionally open up and be present when Mr. Robot is active and because Plot happens he is shot and decides to use this skill to close himself off and create a stronger divide between parts.

Season 3: Rejection

If Season 2 was the pair working things out on a chess match where they keep one another in check then Season 3 is after Elliot has tossed the board and decided to shut Mr. Robot out completely.

The arc words are "battling in our own voids", in Season 1 Mr. Robot was always aware of what Elliot was doing but Elliot was unaware of Mr. Robot's actions and in Season 2 they were fairly co-conscious to the point of overheating. Season 3 the connection is shut down. Mr. Robot has no concept of what Elliot is doing and Elliot no concept of what Mr. Robot is doing.

This goes back to the Overt/Covert thing mentioned at the start. It's a rare thing even within a rare disorder to have that level of amnesia barriers between parts and so I can't really comment on accuracy. It's a frustrating season for me in that regard because Season 2 was doing so well at depicting something that I have lived through that going back to Fight Club tropes was fairly disappointing to me.

Season 3 is great by the way. It's a debate on if 3 or 4 is the best but it's close enough that there is a debate.

The real meat of the discussion, spare for the events of the final episode where they reconcile, is in how other people treat them and talk about their condition.

Angela Moss is Elliot's childhood best friend and also lost a parent to the disaster that claimed Edward Alderson's life. She discovered Elliot's condition during his breakdown in S1E8 and was brainwashed by the show villain Whiterose in S2E11 (I have a write-up of the psychological principals at play with the brainwashing here).

In Season 3 she acts as Elliot/Mr. Robot's handler and is responsible for helping Mr. Robot continue his hacktivist terrorism without Elliot finding out. She betrays Elliot and exploits his condition. She also tells people about it without his knowledge or consent, which is pretty fucking monstrous in my eyes.

Don't out a person. Just don't do it.

When Mr. Robot asks how she can tell who she's talking to she responds "Your eyes. You're never trying to look away." which is accurate enough that I messaged my girlfriend to be sappy and grateful towards her as the first time she noticed our condition she told me it was our eyes.

From a 2022 IM chat, shared with permission:

"it's ... well, it's [...] your eyes soften, kind of, when going to Cammie. Dawn has this piercing gaze, like she's looking right into my heart and soul. Camden is just very alert, noticing so many things but not the level of piercing. Cammie... her gaze is softer. More focused, but in a ... drinking everything in, rather than seeking it out sort of way"

and added today when I asked for permission to share the quote:

"(for the record, Craig draws his eyebrows down in a particular way that makes his gaze intense in a good way)"

The show works as hard as it can to never let the audience wonder who they are seeing on screen at any time. Most scenes where Rami Malek is depicting Mr. Robot it is a brief perspective view to remind us what the other characters are seeing before switching back to Christian Slater playing the character. There are a few scenes which involve Rami playing the character for a full sequence. One is the context for a flashback where we see a scene Slater performed through another character's eyes where they see Malek.

The others usually involve us being in Darlene's perspective to highlight her unease and uncertainty of what is happening with her brother.

The only scene where it is ever treated as a surprise is when Darlene plants a bug on Elliot's computer while staying overnight and is roughly interrogated by "Elliot", only to realize midway through the conversation "Jesus. It's you".

The camera cuts back to reveal it has been Mr. Robot the entire scene. They avoid that trick throughout the show so it has large impact when it actually happens.

I feel like that scene (as well as the scene where Elliot wears the real Mr. Robot jacket and gives birth to the 2 Stage plan to take down Evil Corp) are important for reminding that no matter how differently Malek and Slater play their roles, to an outside observer they are the same person and when he acts "out of character" it could easily just be an emotional outburst.

Incidentally you can see the physicality of the acting if you go back and watch it again.

The end of the season has Elliot, betrayed, alone and terrified for the safety of his sister; finally reach out to Mr. Robot and open a dialogue.

He even goes out of his way to have this discussion on the Ferris Wheel at Coney Island both as a Season 1 callback and as a sign of trust. Elliot admits in this conversation that he missed Mr. Robot while he shut him out and wants him to be part of his life and in the season finale Mr. Robot says that he wants the two of them to keep talking.

Elliot also finds out that the window incident wasn't his dad pushing him out of a window. They jumped. Elliot asks in a kind and soft way to Mr. Robot, representing both his protector and an element of the loving father he wished he had, "did you know?"

Mr. Robot, the one who jumped. The one who wanted to protect Elliot from Edward says nothing. But he finally feels an alliance form with Elliot.

The road to healing finally has opened.

Season 4: Integration and Fusion

So let's address the elephant in the room right away. The show uses the word "real" to describe the Elliot who existed before the show started and considers him to be the only legitimate alter. There is enough wiggle room within the show to think that is in-universe ignorance but the show does nothing to prevent the fumble at the finish line.

I want to say upfront and before I start dissecting this season that outdated models of DID believed that there was a crack formed in a person's sense of self and that healing involved restoring the identity prior to the crack.

This is 100% UNTRUE and it upsets me that people once believed it. DID is formed in childhood during a time of a person's life (between ages 4-9) where the child is taking in data from their surroundings and integrating it into their socialized survival mechanics to form a personality. The child is working out what traits it can exhibit to receive nurture, care and protection from other humans and will adapt to those processes. Attachment Theory goes into greater detail about how this relates to the formation of psychological disorders, especially personality disorders.

For a traumatized child they will find that their environments do not offer consistent and reliable safety and thus they are unable to adapt to a version of their reality where they are able to maintain stable safety. This may be horrifying forms of physical, emotional and sexual abuse placed upon a child and is often depicted as such but it can also be a confused child trying to get affection from a cold and distant parent or having a parent who abuses alcohol and becomes inconsistent in their ability to give affection and care. Child psychology is a heavy and depressing field, sadly.

The result is that the child never forms a permanent sense of identity. This is a large factor in the formation of Borderline Personality Disorder and is why DID and BPD are so often thrown together within medical treatment and diagnosis. It's at the point of which when my therapist gave me our diagnosis she presented a clinical list of "myths" regarding DID and "BPD is the same thing as DID" was 5 on the list of 6.

The point of this detour is to say that there is no original self. A person who has DID never managed to form a stable sense of identity in childhood and thus they find themselves acting as chameleons in their day-to-day life, adapting to what they feel they need to become in order to receive the things they need from their surroundings. It's why there is a stigma in the BPD community over the concept of being "manipulative". In reality people with that condition are unconsciously adapting to their environment as a survival mechanism. With DID the added layer of dissociation is there to help the self function even when they are forced to interact with materials that are incompatible with their ability to function.

Pre-show Elliot was living a fairly comfortable life but his emotional needs were not met and at the time he was alienated from his sister. He was miserable and lived in a society that he felt was crumbling. His daydreaming gave birth to "The Mastermind" to remove the threats from his reality and Mr. Robot who had been there all along went into Protective Sicko Mode and decided to expedite the process in a way only a protector's morality could.

We'll get into system roles a little later.

The point is that day-to-day life Elliot (Janina Fisher's book "Healing the Fragmented Self" refers to the part untouched by trauma as the "going about daily life" part) is not Real. He is not The Original. Those terms do not exist and are meaningless in this space.

True/Real/Orignal-Elliot is as much a construct as Mr. Robot. He's a version of Elliot who does not have to think about the trauma, he can just live a happy normal life. The kind that Elliot speaks often and derisively about in Season 1.

With that out of the way, I'm going to ignore the bad use of language and talk only about what is depicted on the screen and not said out loud. Because if you remove the misconception about real/original from the mixture, this is a perfect depiction of final fusion model healing.

Season 4 introduces us to the conference table in the inner world. A conference table is a therapeutic technique used in trauma therapy where you bring the alters/parts to a conference. The idea is that it needs to be a neutral ground where everyone is comfortable and able to share their thoughts and ideas. With practice it can be a space one can close their eyes and imagine, seeing their system and allowing communication to happen between parts.

Mine is based on the Minerals Gallery in the Natural History Museum in London. I refer to it as The Library. You didn't need to know that but I didn't want to discuss this section without mentioning it.

Elliot's is the conference room in Evil Corp where he and Tyrell spoke in the first episode.

Interestingly enough there are only 4 seats in this set. I'm not sure what the implication is here as in the scene depicted above Magda (Persecutor Alter) is scolding Young Elliot (Child Alter) for sitting in a chair that isn't his. They mention all 3 alters who are not present (Elliot, Mr. Robot and The Other One).

My thought is that this is the show going all in on the idea that Elliot ("Real") is not an alter and does not take a seat at the table. Which I have issues with.

I'll note as I did with the inner-world that this is a therapy technique and not something Elliot would just have in his mind. It's an accurate depiction of DID treatment but Elliot isn't being treated for DID. Krista is no way near close enough to be able to help Elliot. She's wonderful and deserves the world and more for how she handles things in this season but she's in the pre-stabilization phase of therapy where she knows more than Elliot is willing to accept and needs to wait for him to come around.

Speaking of Krista. Episode 7 is the greatest hour of television rivaled only by Ozymandias from Breaking Bad and the M*A*S*H finale. At present it has a 9.9 on IMDB.

The episode is structured as a bottle episode in way of a 5 act play depicting the stages of grief. This is the episode where Elliot peels back to dissociative layers and understands the truth. The truth of what his father did.

I won't type it.

I don't need to.

The next episode involves Elliot seeing Young Elliot and following him to a museum exhibit with a model of Manhattan. In Season 1 when Elliot had his psychotic break after realizing Darlene is his sister Darlene and Angela checked this location stating it was a place he used to go in times of crisis.

It turns out when he was young Elliot hid the key to his bedroom here to prevent Edward from getting in. All these years later adult Elliot (or "The Mastermind" if you prefer, which I do not) discovers it and has a heart-to-heart with his younger self, screaming into the emptiness that he's sorry for not protecting him. Sorry for letting him get hurt.

The scene is lit in the golden hues that symbolize safety in this show. The final season also takes place during Christmas in New York so it gets to show off that color palette more often which is great for symbolism and aesthetic.

Young Elliot shows that the act of hiding the key from their father was protecting him. It was fighting back. Sometimes surviving is the best you can do and you need to forgive yourself for not being able to do more.

God I love this show so much.

That episode ends with the scene I most want to just overtly show off to an audience.

youtube

I already loved the show. The final episode may have broken my heart a little with its talk of "Real" but this scene? This scene gets it.

Prior to the above video clip Mr. Robot cautiously approaches and says "Hey, kiddo". Something he always says. It's who he is. Regardless of anything else he, Mr. Robot, is designed from the father Elliot wishes he had and when he hears Mr. Robot-- no Edward's voice he tenses up in terror, allowing the above scene to take place with Mr. Robot so scared that he has failed as a protector by allowing Elliot to remember and that he cannot be there for him any longer because of who he is based off of.

Those with the condition commonly create alters who are based on the traits of those in the child's life at the time the symptoms developed. I... have experience.

The lines I want to focus on the most are:

Mr Robot: If I could go back in time and change everything that happened to you... just make it all go away...

Elliot: Then I wouldn't be me... *He turns to finally look at Mr. Robot* ...and I wouldn't have you.

The final arc of the show is where the "Mastermind" twist takes center stage and Elliot enters his inner-world and finds out that he created a peaceful reality for "Real" Elliot to exist in so that he is unharmed by the horrors of the world that is crumbling in reality. Mr. Robot, as a protector, wanted to expedite the whole hack and destruction of capitalism in order to rescue "Real" Elliot from the inner-world prison. In time he came to accept "Mastermind" as a part of the whole and not a rogue alter who was endangering the body and their "Host".

S4E13 lays it all down. An imagined version of Krista speaks directly to Elliot and explains the system and their functions. Mr. Robot a father and protector who could prevent Elliot from intolerable situations. Magda, a persecutor who blamed Elliot for the abuse. Young Elliot, who Elliot could push the traumatic situations on, a common thing that many do unconsciously in CPTSD situations, dissociating from the person the trauma happened to, disconnecting until they are just another version of self.

Elliot then says "I guess she doesn't know about you." referring to us, the audience.

Krista(*) looks into the camera and addresses us directly, calling us the voyeurs who pretend we're not a part of it even though we have been here for it all. She even claims we are on her side in getting "Mastermind" to accept he is a constructed personality who was there to lash out at the society that caused him so much pain.

"You loved him so much you wanted to keep him safe, no matter the cost."

The episode ends with "Mastermind" Elliot waking up in a hospital and reuniting with Darlene only to realize that she has known the entire time that the person we have been following throughout the show wasn't her "real" brother.

...and god damn it I hate this element of the show so much.

I'll accept that they had very little time to clean things up and needed to get a way to have Mastermind agree to the fusion. I'll even demonize Darlene and say she was being selfish and ignorant in saying something hurtful because she missed the version of her brother that existed before Fsociety.

But Our version of Elliot says that he loves her and she doesn't reply. Her disappointment and resignation causes Our Elliot to go back inside and agree to the fusion.

The show ends in a first person perspective of Darlene seeing her "real" brother wake up and that's it. I'm glad we never actually see "Real" Elliot, that feels fitting.

Here's the thing about that last minute fumble though.

Let's talk about Integration and Fusion. They are different things.

Integration is when dissociative barriers come down. The system is stabilized to the point of which the alters are capable of communicating openly, sharing thoughts, memories and experiences and every part has the ability to opt in or out as life goes on.

"Functional Multiplicity" is what happens when a system is in harmony, no memories are being withheld and the system is able to go about everyday life with minimal disruption or disregulation. It is a valid goal for trauma therapy and there's a decent amount of medical stigma around it being used as the goal and not a step towards the goal. Many clinicians prioritize the appearance of normalcy over the function of the individual(s).

Fusion is when you go the extra step and take this communication and sharing of memory and experience and as you tore down the dissociative barriers you tear away the division between parts.

A system is made up of parts that make up a whole person and Fusion is the process of all parts uniting to "become" that whole person. It is a valid and normal goal for treatment. It shouldn't be held up as the only legitimate method of healing but it shouldn't be demonized for being an option. I say this because I have seen some people in support communities get real upset when the topic comes up.

The final sequence of the show, prior to Elliot opening his eyes, involves the system at the inner-world conference table agreeing to go through with it and walking towards a cinema screen. Elliot says this will only work if we go too.

The family (and audience) sit down in the movie theatre and memories flood onto the screen and pour out until all experiences and emotions are shared in one pool and Elliot Alderson opens his eyes with all 5(+audience) alters fused into one.

It was almost perfect if only Darlene hadn't have rejected the "not real" brother.

The cinema screen projecting memories, all the thoughts and experiences being shared as the Alderson System accept their parts in the whole and agree to the process? It was a beautiful visualization of a healing journey.

There are imperfect moments here and there. There are great moments I skipped over such as S3E8 (I'm not up for talking about Self-Deletion today) but all in all it's the best depiction of DID for a main character we'll likely get on TV. It's a whole and complete narrative and I love it so much. It makes me feel seen.

#dawn posting #mr robot #dissociative identity disorder #elliot alderson #did #plurality #domo arigato mr alderson #media myself and i #watch me post my trauma in public #Youtube #media essays

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tourneys-by-me · 3 months

Text

We were specific… but now… we are multiple…

Welcome to the Multiple Elements Character Tournament!!

This is a tournament for characters who can use 2 or more elements!

Rules:

Remember, this is a tournament about fictional characters so please! be nice! I don’t want any hate or bigotry (racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, stuff like that) here.

No real people! That includes streamers and MCYT! I’m fine with most things but will ban certain characters/media depending on how much unnecessary discourse they will create and how much we can separate the art from the artist. So HP won’t be allowed if you want a metric.

You can submit as many characters as you want, but please submit them one form at a time.

Do NOT submit the same character over and over again!

Make sure you spell the name of the character and piece of media they are from correctly please.

The character doesn’t necessarily have to use magic to get in. A character could use a flame and water sword and they would still be eligible for the tournament.

Characters who are more proficient in one element are allowed, but the character has to use other elements somewhat frequently. The other elements shouldn’t be an afterthought essentially.

I will allow media if they have their own unconventional “elements" in. Elements that weren't necessarily featured in the last tournament (Water, Earth, Fire, Air, Electricity, Ice, Vegetation, Metals, Light, and Darkness). What I mean is that, yes, the fighting type from pokemon and almighty skills from megami tensei are considered as elements in this tournament.

That being said, power systems like the hunter x hunter nen system won’t count. This is because Nen is more like using different techniques not actual elements. While the aura types for nen are more like categorizations for a character’s abilities. It’s kinda like the quirk categorization (emitter, mutant, and transformation) in my hero academia for a more simple comparison.

The Demon Slayer breathing styles are NOT allowed! They’re not actually summoning elements, it’s a visual metaphor.

When it comes to Pokémon, they are allowed, but under specific circumstances. Either: their ability changes their type (protean, multi type, etc), have a wide and diverse move pool regarding types, if a pokemon is a dual type, and/or if a pokemon has a gimmick that meets the prior criteria (think the rotom forms or the ogerpon masks). I’m not including Terastallization as an excuse for any Pokémon who don’t meet the prior criteria because it feels like such a cop out using a gimmick, that most likely won’t appear in later gens, to include certain Pokémon.

Trainers from Pokémon are allowed! As long as the pokemon they use are diverse in their typing and/or fit any other criteria listed above.

I might add more rules later on if necessary.

Also, if you want a list of "unconventional elements" that I'd most likely allow, please look at the "Elements and Their Associated Powers And Traits" tab on the "Elemental Powers" TV Tropes page.

I made totally different form for pokemon due to how many submissions I anticipate to get from that franchise. So submit characters from pokemon to that form please.

I’m gonna try to shoot for a 128 character tournament, but idk how many characters from the same franchise will be allowed in. Probably around 2-5 characters depending on what the submissions are like.

Going to shut the forms down on April 6th or at around 700 submissions. The last tournament was 1,530 total submissions and that was a lot, so I’m going to cut this one down a bit.

Blogs I’m tagging under the cut (Not forcing y’all to reblog this post, I just want some fresh eyes on this tournament)

@tournament-announcer @fefuckability @favoritepokemontournament @best-kirby-character-tournament @foundfamilyadoptionagency @doyouknowthischaracter @haveyouplayedthisgame-poll @weeb-polls-with-pip @ultimate-blorbo-bracket

#multiple elements character tournament #rules #announcement #submission form #tournament #character tournament #tumblr tournament #tumblr polls #tumblr bracket

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aksm · 10 months

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Doomed by the narrative is a popular, fun trope. It's what superhero movies are all about. If you take the average superhero you already probably would know how their story is, what tragic backstory they had, what events shaped their life, etc.

So what you'll see whenever there's a new story about them is those major backstory elements rehashed or subverted or played with or at least mentioned in some way. Because that's the story. That's the narrative. And the character is established by that narrative and therefore also doomed by it.

ATSV is no different. In fact it goes full meta with it. (There used to be a time when being meta was so cool until it was so goddamn overdone that it became stupid and you just want the earnestness of the pre-meta stories. You can only furiously 'wink wink' and violently*nudge nudge* the audience so much before you lose their interest. Anyway ATSV is fully earnest in it's meta that you don't even register it as being meta until you take a step back and look at the story being told. Like it's a proper metamodernist piece. Also I like how the two great examples of metamodernist media are both multiverse stories. The other being everything everywhere all at once, of course)

What the movie does differently is having how different people react to the 'Doomed by the Narrative trope’ be the forefront of the story. That is the story, actually. It also explores how valid everyone's reactions are. Even Miguel's (my hot take).

Like Peter B has lived as Spider-man long enough and has gone through most of the Spider-Man canon and was in a slump when we first met him. Like he even separated from MJ. But he rolls with it. Because that's just who he is. But now?

It was because of Miles Peter B got back into his groove and found his place again. It was essentially because of Miles he got back with MJ and had a baby and found stability in being himself.

'How do I know I'm ready, Miles?'

'You can't. It's a leap of faith.'

Miguel is angry but resigned because the one time he tried to defy the narrative it fucked everything up so bad. An entire universe was lost because of him. So now he’s doing what he genuinely believes is the right thing to do. He built the spider society to really make sure no one else can repeat his mistake and lose everything. Like what Peter Blond said in the first movie, 'because the only thing standing between this city and oblivion is me' except change 'city' to 'arachno-humanoid poly-multiverse'.

So of course he’s angry when Miles suggests that canon can be changed. That he can deny fate. Both because he’s convinced Miles is wrong and is going to get people killed and also if Miles is right than Miguel has to reckon with the fact that he’s convinced so many Spider-people to just adhere to the canon that had engulfed every aspect of his life now and let their loved ones die because he was convinced there was no fighting the narrative. That not everyone is as doomed as he is. Miles challenging that notion while there is concrete evidence of the notion being correct is cool af.

And Hobie, who probably knows he's doomed but has his own agenda for joining spider society. He's stealing knick knacks, building his own watch and shit. He might accept the narrative but he's not gonna live by it. If the narrative is gonna take him down he’s not going down limp. So of course when he sees Miles rebelling against the narrative he is fully on board. Miles exemplifies Hobie's traits. That is a proper punk.

And Gwen. My god. She escaped her narrative of being a dead spidey gf only to become a spidey trope herself. Seriously, an alternate universe gwen that doesn't die at the bell tower and instead is that universe's spider-woman? How cool is that? Oh wait. Your dad's gonna die and your Peter is also dead. Sorry. Haha.

Anyway, the movie opening with her and us seeing her current mental place was done so well. She misses Peter. She misses Miles. But both of these people aren't in her life anymore. Her dad hates who she is. She's depressed. But she's still spider-woman. And then the story happens and vulture and Miguel and then boom. Her father knows her identity. And essentially disowns her. She flees to the spider-verse. She can't go back home and she’s even more stressed out and angry when she learns that as Spider-Woman she's gonna lose her loved ones no matter what.

She lost Pete. And now she might lose her dad. So now she's in a limbo. By not going back home she is saving her father because he can't die unless she's there to not save him. The narrative will still eventually doom her. But she can put it off by having spider-people adventures and upholding the narrative that wants to doom her. Goddamn irony.

But she stops going along with it when she sees Miles' reaction to finding out he’s doomed. He doesn't give in to the narrative. He doesn't care about canon. He fights back. And that one little push gives her the spark to try and find out just how doomed she really is. And that ending scene when her dad stops being a police officer and really just becomes her dad. The doom lingering over her 'canon event' vanishes. He's no longer the capt stacey doomed to die in a spider story. He's a dad who's accepting his daughter wholly. I fucking love Gwen's whole arc in this movie.

And then there's Miles. Goddamn Miles, man. He was trying so hard to figure out what his narrative even is, but is determined that he can figure it out, that he can spread his wings and manage on his own and find his place and be himself.

Like, I would've written a paragraph dedicated to Pavitr on here but Miles already saved him from the narrative. Pavitr, my wholesome boy I hope you face no strife in life and everything goes absolutely splendid for you at all times my precious baby boy I love him.

Anyway, Miles finding out he's doomed? And how he finds out is from the people he thought would truly understand what he's about? And them not only accepting the fact that him (and all other spider-people) are doomed but going along with it? That has to be the biggest 'what the actual fuck' moment for him. It's so out of left field for him, understandably so. This whole building of heroes are all 'yeah. Peter from universe 573683 can't clock in today. He just lost his uncle' like that's such a fucked up concept that Miles will not even look at the reasoning Miguel or anyone else puts in front of him.

And this radical rejection is the best character take. I seriously seriously can't wait to see the next movie and see just how Miles deals with a narrative hellbent on dooming him. Spider society will be in shambles.

Obligatory 'Do it, Miles. Break the fucking canon.'

This post was inspired by another tumblr post that I can't find but it expressed my thoughts about the 'doomed by the narrative' aspect of it all but not in the words I had in mind so I wrote it myself

#across the spiderverse #spider-verse #Spider-Man #spider man across the spiderverse spoilers #miles molares #miguel o'hara #gwen stacy #atsv #atsv spoilers #atsv pavitr #atsv hobie #peter b parker

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cursedvibes · 3 months

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jjk having queer-coded villains seems to be an intentional choice. what are your thoughts on this

Honestly, I think the queer themes and characters we've gotten in jjk are pretty great. Yes, some of them are villains and that is a common harmful trope, but first of all it is not just the villains and second you have to look at how their queerness is portrayed and implemented into their characters.

We have characters like Kirara and Hakari and I think you can count Tengen too, who are queer(-coded) and not villains. Their queerness is pretty explicit in case of Kirara and Tengen with Kirara having clearly transitioned and being some flavour of trans and Tengen also openly stating she's lost interest in gender and is if anything a gnc woman. Queerness is also not their entire character, just one minor aspect of it that is honestly not that important. Tengen being responsible for the creation of jujutsu society and Kirara rebelling against the school and then choosing to aid the kids in the Culling Game is much more significant than their gender. Tengen corrects Yuki about being a man and then we move on, it is not actually a big deal. Yuki is more concerned with Tengen's actions than her gender.

The comment from Panda insisting that Kirara is a guy was weird, but it isn't brought up again, everyone just doesn't gender Kirara when seeing them without making a big deal about how "weird" it is for a presumed guy to have boobs like you might've expected in other pieces of media. The implication here I think is just that Panda hasn't seen Kirara in a while nor knows them very well. The comment was unnecessary in my opinion, you could've shown in a better way that Kirara transitioned, but the way it is treated afterwards makes it better. I think it especially helps that we see Hakari so accepting of Kirara, it is something normal and their relationship is loving. Kirara's gender or presumed sex is no issue at all between them and the other characters just roll with it too.

Same could be said for things like Geto and Gojo's relationship for example, the most prominent example of queer-coding in jjk as is also heavily displayed in marketing for season 2 of the anime. Obvious choice, they are by for the most popular ship and tapping into shipping sells. Their the sasunaru of jjk. I don't think you could call it queerbaiting though because contrary to sasunaru you don't have this "jk they both ended up marrying some random women like the heterosexual men they are" and there are literally no confirmed relationships in jjk anywhere except for the people who are married (and those usually don't love each other). stsg have as much ground to stand on as Kirara/Hakari or Muta/Miwa. They are milking that money cow, but with the way it is handled in canon, it doesn't bother me much ignoring their fanbase.

Another aspect we see in stsg that also applies to how we see queerness in some of the villains is that their relationship (of whatever nature that might be) is there to humanize both Gojo and Geto. There is actually some meaning to it, not just shipper bait or an insane villain being gay and that being included as another aspect of him being reproachful like you see with many Disney villains. Geto's bond with Gojo (and his family) is portrayed as the last bits of sanity left in him and also any criticism you'd leverage against that could apply to Gojo as well, a main character.

Similar with the queerness of the other villains. It is either an unimportant detail of their identity or it is actively used to humanize them. Uraume's gender is purposefully unconfirmed, nobody even makes any assumptions and that fact is about as important as their hair colour. It's just part of their identity, nothing more. It is not portrayed as predatory or used for any "trap" jokes. At least not in canon, the fandom is its own beast and I think their behaviour comes from what they are used to seeing in other media not due to anything done in jjk.

Kashimo falls into the same category of unconfirmed gender. Fans and some fantranslators assume Kashimo is a man based on what they looked like in the past, but it is actually never confirmed in the manga. Neither Hakari or anyone else ever genders Kashimo. There being no assumptions made or their possible gender or androgynous appearance discussed. People just roll with it and it isn't made to stand out in the story. I don't think you can even call Kashimo a villain, more like an antagonist similar to Higuruma was one with selfish morality. Their gender or appearance doesn't play into that at all.

With Kenjaku I guess you could see them taking over Kaori as predatory towards Jin, but it is played different than the common tropes. For one, Jin is as it seems aware of the change, just chooses to ignore it. It isn't played as a "man tricked other man into sex" or "man disguised as a woman", in fact the story goes quite out of its way to state that Kenjaku isn't (cis) male actually. Both Wasuke and Jin address Kenjaku as a women, even when they have suspicions. Kaori stays in some form with Kenjaku, she isn't just a cheap disguise and pregnancy overall is an important topic for Kenjaku both in good and bad ways. When Kenjaku says "thank you for getting along with my son" it is the first big step towards giving Kenjaku more depth than just them being a big bad mastermind. Kenjaku cares in some way for their child and doesn't just see him as a test subject. So the time in Kaori's body clearly had value to them as well beyond just getting a vessel for Sukuna. Same goes for their meeting with Takaba for example, which is the biggest example we got so far of Kenjaku being proven to care about other people and gaining depth through it. Their relationship with Tengen could count as well.

So the queer aspects we got of Kenjaku are there, but they aren't shown in canon to be something strange, quite the opposite usually. I think you see it best when you compare Kenjaku to Orochimaru, who clearly, as stated by Gege too, is a big influence for the character. Orochimaru has the body of a woman in the first part of the series, takes over the bodies of children and shows interest in Sasuke that is often seen as gay. Orochimaru is portrayed as predatory particularly towards children/boys, a persistent stereotype of gay and/or effeminate men as well as trans people. When Orochimaru reveals in the fight against Hiruzen that he inhabits the body of a woman, the characters around are disgusted and not only because this means another person's body was violated, the uncertainty of Orochimaru's gender unsettles them. You see the same thing in Boruto. Multiple characters make mean or disgusted comments about Orochimaru because they can't tell their gender and the whole "are you a man or a woman, a father or a mother" gets pushed a lot, often used as a joke. Mitsuki is being supportive and corrects people, but that doesn't stop Orochimaru's gender being brought up almost every time they feature in the series. "omg I can't tell this person's gender this is so weird and creepy" don't you have more pressing concerns like the fetuses swimming in those tanks or the human cloning?

Compared to that, Kenjaku is handled much better. There is no weird fixation on children, they have only taken over adults from what we've seen so far (due to the size of their brain and it being a real organ I think that is even a necessity) and the bodies are also mainly there for practical needs, Kenjaku isn't shown lusting after them no matter the person's gender. Choso goes from assuming Kenjaku is Yuuji's father to calling them a parent. It isn't commented on, we just assume Tengen informed him. Kenjaku being revealed to be Yuuji's mother isn't shocking because "wtf that's a man in a woman's body", it is more so about the implications of them being related. It is also used to show that Kenjaku is actually not a cis man (everyone at that time even doubting Wasuke uses she/her naturally with Kenjaku not objecting to it despite not really pretending to be Kaori) and by being his mother they have a closer personal connection to Yuuji. The fandom usually puts more harmful tropes into this moment than there actually are in the manga. I'm pretty sure Yuuji was more concerned about Kenjaku actually being related to him than Kenjaku being his mother aka exhibiting a gender he might not have expected. The "my father is your mother that's so mind-boggling and weird" is something that only exists in fandom. I don't see a reason why Choso or Yuuji would care and everyone else even less.

Takaba putting Kenjaku in a nurse outfit is also only portrayed as another fun part of their shenanigans, being neither overly sexualized nor seen as off-putting or weird. I think it was actually put there because Gege wanted to emphasize once more that having a female body doesn't unsettle Kenjaku, they see it as normal. It is part of their identity, but that itself isn't the thing being made fun of, it's a joke about sexy nurses that's detrimental to Takaba if anything.

In the same way, Kenjaku being pregnant with Tengen isn't made a big deal either beyond what it means for the Culling Game or the merger. It isn't a strange pregnant man, just another instance of pregnancy symbolism in this manga where cursed wombs are quite a common thing. And Kenjaku's whole deal is motherhood, birth and pregnancy down to the choice of their name, which is derived from an ambiguously gendered or Virgin Mary-adjacent bodhisattva. These pregnancy themes are shown as both a good thing and a bad thing depending on the context and not on principle as disgusting or bad. Kenjaku's gender fluidity has thematic relevance, but it isn't mocked or portrayed as bad by itself.

Beyond Uraume, Kenjaku and maybe Geto depending on how you look at it, I don't think there are any other queer-coded villains? Mahito was a high school girl for a juju sanpo, but that episode was more wholesome if anything and I think it was just there to show his fluidity in sex and gender. Once again not mocked or brought up as a reason for why he's evil (she isn't even that evil in that high school AU).

So yeah, I don't see a problem here, I actually wish more mangas or animes would portray queer characters this way. Make sure villains aren't the only queer characters, don't make queerness their entire character trait and treat the characters with respect.

#asks #jujutsu kaisen

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