#they literally have no choice in the matter and many are good allies to others
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TBH and Hot Take but sometimes there's posts on tumblr where I'm like "have you actually met neurotypical people?" because there is a lot overlap between types of atypical and the typical, I mean that's kind of a reason people don't get diagnosed with whatever neuroatypical thing they have/are for years if ever. But tumblr occasionally seems to think The Typicals don't have hobbies, let alone obsessions, that they don't enjoy talking about the things they really enjoy, like they don't get anxious or shy or overwhelmed to varying degrees differing from person to person. And some of the "this charater is non-neurotypical" headcanon posts are so aggressive like "they are CLEARLY this thing and if you don't see that you're a fool and probably also ableist. You're also awful if you don't like them for any reason, especially one that I have decided is A Symptom of their thing." I get it, we all project a bit, but tumblr in general does not promote awareness of that projection and willingness to accept that other people are also doing the same thing and coming to different, even opposing, conclusions and they aren't necessarily wrong either.
Just To Be Clear, I don't especially care what someone headcanons about a character as long as they leave me alone to have headcanons of my own and disagree with theirs without being called a bad person or an idiot. You know? And most of us don't carry in our heads a list of traits for conditions/identities/whatever that don't apply to us personally (or at least to someone close to us) so like... no, I don't think so-and-so obviously has ADHD, because I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking for (and frankly I don't *want* people in general going around trying to diagnose each other with things maybe neither of them have based on lists they found on the internet - *that* is potentially incredibly ableist AF) and maybe I just wouldn't see it in them anyway. Cos we don't really all see the same character, do we?
Anyway that's a bee that lives in my bonnet. Tumblr just bothers me sometimes. Specifically tumblr, because I don't see this sort of thing as much in other places.
#also there's not actually anything wrong with cishets#they literally have no choice in the matter and many are good allies to others#generally actually we probably shouldn't just slag off entire groups of people based on what they were born as#'don't pick on this trait they might be autistic' how about just don't bully anyone?#it's not somehow okay to randomly insult people if they're not in your fave marginalised groups#we're all projecting all day long here and that's fine but chill a bit when playing with others okay?#anyway guess who just read another 'if you don't automatically adopt this take you're ableist and/or stupid' post?#and i also shouldn't have to list everything i am to be allowed to have an opinion#i have visible and invisible disabilities and no i don't want randoms in street or internet attempting to spot those
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So like, this is why I call myself a Marxist feminists rather than a Radical Feminist because I primarily think that ending the relationship between heterosexuality/submission to male authority and women’s financial security will eventually end the intense prioritization of men by women. Without economic survival being assured without ties to the patriarchal family or heterosexual social structures, women will naturally just care about what men think a lot less.
There are other women who believe the opposite, that one must separate from men. I think this is truthfully impractical and cruel. It might make sense for a young woman without children and a college education, but it makes less sense for less financially well positioned women and once men realize many women who are financially well positioned are breaking away, they will use the women and children they control against independent women (or to at least, stay compliant with the scapegoating). Most women, statistically, have children that they need to care for. Most women, who work for wages, have jobs reliant on their willingness to work harder for less and to take male abuse. Most women do not live in a world where realistically they can reskill and leave their husbands without suffering dire economic and social consequences that will put them at risk for more predation. They literally either cannot afford it or live in cultures were this isn’t permissible. Not only that, but it destroys solidarity between younger and older women which we need to win. Men are 50% of the population. We need every woman on board. This cycle has already happened many times, all over the world, throughout history.
Now you may say? Why don’t women all pick up trades? I think going into the trades is a good option for a lot of women and I encourage it, but when I think about economic security, my mind drifts to more vulnerable periods of a woman’s lifespan like her later years and when she is a mother with young children. It’s easier to be economically well when you aren’t strapped by dependents or in bad health but men use our vulnerabilities against us to accept their dominion.
Women not only deserve inalienable economic security for the carework they preform through raising and educating children and caring for the old and sick but protecting women at their most vulnerable protects us all. If we want to live in a healthy post patriarchal world some, or most, women will still want to have kids. We want those women to need support via labor and $$$ from other women rather then men during that time. When women are old and need help, they need support and $$$ from female driven sources. We will all get old or sick someday, we all were children once, some of us may want to become mothers. All of these life stages are RIPE with male predation and exploitation and women forced “under” male protection , for whatever reason, are often turned against feminists but this is a false, male centered choice. Feminists are natural allies to mothers not men.
Knowing we don’t need to rely on men when we’re weak makes us strong and bold. Kids who grow up in households lead by women, with good financial health and strong female lead social bonds not only thrive but become kids comfortable with challenging male power. Adult women free from the burden of raising children without payment do not need to tie their social and political activities to a domineering and conservative husband. They also don’t need to be as desperate to work in exploitive work environments and can ally with childless women in organizing activities with less financial stress.
Wages for Childcare and full autonomy for female dominated industries IS the issue of our time. I don’t want every single woman to stay in a traditional field, obviously, I’m not in one, but I do want every single woman to know that no matter what there are millions and millions of women who earn good money to throw at lawsuits, financial assistance, who can take time off to protest, who can provide childcare etc etc…for women who do feel called to brave the world of male/het relations.
We NEED a strong base of financial autonomy and self respect. We NEED to make sure men can’t split us in camps of spinsters vs. goodwives. We NEED to make sure every woman knows we have her back, as long as she pays us back with loyalty to women first. It is so critical to the survival of this movement to create strong structures that support separatism rather then undermine it.
#im so ssrious when I say I want every woman to get so paid#SO PAID#do you even know how much the garment industry is worth?#do you know how badly teachers are paid compared to other professionals?#how many elderly women live in poverty and isolation?#finances are the invisable strings that drive a lot of pro patriarchal behavior among adult womeb#radblr#radical feminism#radical feminist#radical feminist theory#radical feminists do touch#radfem safe#radfems#gender critical#radfem
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Promise - Prince!Jake Kiska
a/n: i've had this written since november, but i never posted it bc i went on to take a break from tumblr, and i literally remembered i wrote it the other night and i really wanted to post it so here :)
warnings: mentions of/slight descriptions of wounds/cuts, a couple references to sex
word count: ~ 3k
It was a rather gloomy night, rain was heavily falling down onto the world, and you were stuck staring out the window of your room, though you were unable to see anything. It was pitch black out, however, you enjoyed the way the raindrops fell on the glass.
You were hoping Jake would be arriving soon, as he said he would in his letter that you received two days ago. He has been so busy with his father and keeping up with things, being the son of the King and all, the Prince to inherit the land when the time comes.
But things weren’t exactly looking up for the kingdom. Tensions were high and everyone in town was talking about being on the brink of war. You hoped that wasn’t true, but you knew your parents were prepared for anything, as they are allies of the royal family.
Just as you had hoped, a knock came on your door, your handmaiden letting you know Jake was here to see you. In an instant, you ran out of your room, politely running past her, and down the massive stairs that you two have spent so many nights talking on.
Your parents adored Jake. They knew it would be better to marry someone more like an aristocrat, but they could see how much the man cared for you and how much effort he made to just visit you; they obviously know of all the letters he sends you any time he can.
It was only a matter of time before your parents got together with the king’s people to talk of a marriage between you two. Sure, it wasn’t entirely viable, but allies are allies; the king knows your family are good people, what’s the hurt in letting their son marry their daughter?
As you finally make your way to the grand entrance of the castle, you see Jake pacing back and forth in front of the door. He appeared to be soaked, but you were sure that he owns horse-drawn carriages that are covered.
He spots you and races towards you a little. You crash into his arms and his wrap tightly around you.
“Oh, how I’ve missed you,” he whispers into your neck, his eyes shut tightly as he takes in everything. The feel of you in his arms, the scent of his favorite perfume you always wear just for him, how your skin feels under his fingertips, and the way your hair brushes against his face.
“I’ve missed you too, Jake. You stay away for far too long, it’s starting to feel like you don’t want to visit anymore,” you try and lightly joke, but when you pull away, you notice Jake’s expression has fallen.
“Um, I fear I come with bad news, my dear.” Jake rubs his hands together nervously after letting you go, stepping back to continue pacing. “War has finally broken out and we need every set of hands we can get.”
“Oh,” you mumble, toying with your hands. Your heart starts to race as he tries and gets the courage to get his words out. He messes with the sword on his hip, one of his many nervous habits you’ve picked up on over the year.
“And I’m going to fight with them,” he says turning to you. There were clearly tears in his eyes, this was just as hard for him as it was for you.
“But Jake, what about-”
“I have no choice, and frankly, there is no other choice I would make, even if I wasn’t being practically forced to. This is the kingdom that I am going to rule one day. The people should see that their future king is going to fight to protect them.”
He storms out of the castle and into the rain. That’s when you notice his beautiful white horse standing, tied to the fence, waiting for Jake to return. You follow him like a lost puppy, terrified of what was to come in the future.
“You can’t…I’ve heard the stories of what happens to men at war, I don’t want you going through that, and what if you are injured, what if you are killed?!”
“Then I die for my people! I have served them well and they will know that their prince fought for them the very last second, up until my last breath.”
Your own tears had finally fallen from your eyes and they were mixing with the rain dropping onto your face. Both yours and Jake’s hair started to stick to your skin, and your dress was soaked within just a few seconds of being outside.
“But what about me? What am I supposed to do without the man I love? The man I was going to marry?!” You were screaming at him, but you didn’t care. You needed to direct your anger somewhere, and Jake just happened to be that person.
“You’ll find someone else. If I’m destined to die on this battlefield, you are destined to find a man who will provide you with a life as good as I lived. I promise you that.” You shake your head at his last comment.
“Promise me you’ll come back to me? Promise me you’ll keep yourself safe, for you, your family, your people, and especially for me?”
Jake grabs you once more, his hands wrapping around your waist, bringing you as close to his body as he can.
“I promise that if I make it out alive, you are the first person I am going to see. Forget my family, my father, everyone. If I somehow survive, I am going to be on your doorstep, with you in my arms.”
A choked sob makes its way past your lips, and Jake attempts to wipe your tears away, but it’s no use, as he can’t really tell what are tear drops versus rain drops. He moves his hands up to hold your face in his hands, and kisses you as passionately as he can.
He was just as much of a mess as you were. He didn’t want to do this, he wanted to marry you, more than anything in the world; this is just the absolute most unfortunate timing. But this was something he had to do.
Pulling back, he makes a quick getaway and mounts the horse, but before he rides off into the dark and stormy night, you run right over to him, resting your hands on his thigh.
“Please don’t go, Jake,” you whimper, sniffling a little, in part of the chilly weather the rain has brought. Jake sighs softly and caresses your cheek once more.
He leans down and kisses you again, softly this time, his lips ghosting over yours after it ends.
“I have to, my love. But just know, you are the one that’s going to be getting me through this battle.”
He grabs onto your hand, and slowly, the horse rides away, and soon, he drops your hand, and you already miss the warmth of his skin. Jake rides off, disappearing very quickly, and everything finally sets in
That could have been the last time you saw Jake. Or rather his regular self.
A voice calls for you from behind, and as you turn around, you see your handmaiden, Alice, standing at the large entrance doors. You trudge back slowly, the weight of your dress dragging you down a little.
Stepping inside, Alice is asking you tons of questions, but you don’t answer any of them, too numb from the idea that Jake is gone, and has the possibility of never returning.
As the weeks go by, every day, you wonder what Jake is doing. If he’s okay, if he’s gotten hurt, how many battles he’s partaken in, or worse, if he’s dead somewhere; that was a frequent nightmare of yours ever since he left.
You waited every day to see if you got a letter from him, and nothing came. Most of your days were spent alone, in your room, journaling your thoughts and dreams, or even little thoughts you had for Jake, even addressing some entries to him directly, like you were writing him a letter.
It helped you some days, living in the alternate reality that everything was okay, and you were writing him like normal. But this circumstance was horrifying. And you were ready for it to be over.
Your parents tried inviting you to events like dinners and balls to get your mind off of things, but you were never up for it. You knew they were wanting you to find a husband at these events, and you were not going to even look at another man until you knew what Jake’s status was.
An agonizing two months later, you are sitting in the spot you sit in every day, in the drawing room, staring out the window to the garden. However, it had turned to night by now, and you had been staring out the window, not really focusing on anything but your thoughts.
A soft knock sounds on the door, interrupting you, and making you jump.
“Someone is here for you,” Alice says softly, trying to hide the smile on her face. Though you don’t notice it, keeping your eyes glued to the floor as you head out of the room and down the staircase.
You are slow with your movements, as there wasn’t a ton of energy in your body recently. Every day felt like a year, wondering if Jake was going to return or if someone was going to show up with a letter informing you of his death.
But as you get to the bottom of the stairs, prepared to deal with the worst news possible, a familiar laugh echos in the entryway.
“I figured you’d be much more excited to see me,” Jake’s usually cheerful voice was now slightly dull, filled with exhaustion.
Your head shoots up and a gasp leaves your body, and within seconds, you are hurling yourself to Jake and into his arms. He catches you with ease, laughing loudly, a huge smile on his face.
You sob loudly into his neck, and he just holds you tight, beginning to weep as well.
“I thought about you every single day,” he cries out, his hand coming up to hold the back of your head. “You got me through this war. I love you.”
“I l-love you too, Jake,” you manage to get out through your sobs. Lifting your head, you crash your lips against his, your hands holding his face as he’s set you back down, so you are grounded a little bit better.
The kiss lasts for what seems to be forever, neither one of you ready to pull away just yet. Eventually, though, your knees buckle and you start to fall to the floor, and Jake just laughs, taking a seat with you in his lap.
You straddle his lap and rest your hands on his chest to stabilize yourself some. You go back to kissing him and his hands never leave your body. He keeps them on your waist for a bit before trailing them up and down your back, feeling your curves, taking the feel of you in again after being deprived for two months.
When you finally break away to catch your breath, you take a moment to admire Jake, who has changed some. His hair was longer, and way more tangled that it used to be when he was able to keep up with it.
A mustache had grown on his upper lip, as well as a small patch of hair on his chin. It suited him well, and you planned on telling him you didn’t want him to shave just yet. But one thing catches your eye.
A scar adorns the apple of his right cheek, and a frown appears on your face. He notices this, especially when you reach up to run your finger along the permanently raised skin.
“I’m alright, love,” he whispers, grabbing your hand and bringing it away from his face. You figured it was difficult for him to relive that, and your face heats up with embarrassment.
“Are you?” You whisper. The look in his eyes tells you he’s seen some horrible things, but you didn’t want to push that out of him if he wasn’t ready to talk.
“I…I will be,” he replies, gulping. You nod and drop the topic, moving your hands down to rest on his neck.
“But you’re alive,” you say, mainly to yourself. Jake smiles, a sight that you’ve longed to see, and your heart flutters.
“I am. And I am for good. My father says my duties as a soldier are over, and I should focus on my duties as Prince and helping with the logistics rather than physical aspect of war.”
“I’m so glad,” you sigh out in relief. He wraps his arms around you again, very tightly, nuzzling his nose in your neck.
“You are staying with me for the next few days, right?” You ask. He nods against your shoulder, a few more tears spilling out.
“I’m not leaving, I promise. I’m never leaving you again.”
After sitting there for a little while longer, you two finally move up to your bedroom, but you have other ideas. You ask Alice to draw a bath, and thankfully she does, especially after seeing how dirty Jake appeared and the look on your face of just wanting to care for him.
You carefully help him into the tub and he settles into the lukewarm water. He didn’t care if it was hot or cold, he was glad to finally get and feel clean.
You help scrub his body, ridding the dirt that was caked on in some places. But you are gentle with him, noticing some cuts and scrapes were still healing, making sure to not scrub at those with the sponge.
You also take notice of the scars covering his body, some rather large and red, others faded but still visible due to it being so raised.
Neither of you say anything as you continue, moving on to wash his hair, and attempting to comb through the knots. Thankfully, Jake was hard-headed, so you tugging in some spots wasn’t the worst, but you still felt bad, given his condition.
However, he told you silently that you weren’t doing anything wrong, with the hums of approval sounding from his throat and the fond look in his eyes every time you made eye contact.
Once you finished, you allowed him to dry off and get dressed in the items of clothing that were secretly left over for him a year ago, when you first started seeing one another.
It was a rather funny story. You two had met in town, when he was trying to escape some women chasing him. He ran into you and pulled you into some stables to throw the women off, and since then, you began sneaking around. He would come visit you late at night, and with the help of Alice, a relationship began to blossom early on.
But that was until your parents and his parents threw a ball and ‘introduced’ you to each other. So, through laughter, you and Jake had to act like you didn’t know one another, that you hadn’t kissed many times, and that he hasn’t seen you naked, on top of him.
In that moment, under the eyes of your parents, he placed a kiss on the back of your hand ever so delicately, so innocently compared to the previous night, where he fucked you so hard you were seeing stars; though the look in his eyes when he gazed up at you, your gloved hand in his as he kissed the material, said everything, and you had to keep yourself from breaking into a smile.
Neither of your parents have yet to know that you met each other prior to that, but it’s not really something they needed to know to begin with. You were just glad with how things worked out, and now, you were going to be marrying your lover.
After combing through his hair one final time, you settle into your bed, Jake holding you as close as he can to his body, your bare skin pressed against one another, a request from him, which you didn’t mind one bit.
There was nothing sexual about it, at all. You were simply relishing in the fact that he was alive, and he was right here beside you, as well as him basking in your touch, something he dreamed about every day for the past two months.
He didn’t think he would live to see you again, so this was far more intense than he was expecting. But he wouldn’t trade it for anything.
He ends up curling up into your side, and just like you did in the bathroom, you have a clear view of his back, where most of the scars lined, you assume from sword fights and grazes of the blade.
You carefully and softly caress every inch of his body, telling him with your touch how loved he is, and that he’s safe now. You even write out ‘I love you’ with your fingertips along his skin, and he senses this almost immediately.
“I love you, (Y/N), and even though it’s not official, I cannot wait to marry you. The way you care for me, the way you have been so patient with me tonight, how you have consumed my mind for the past year and a half, you are the woman I am meant to be with.”
He raises his head to gaze up at you, a small grin on his lips.
“I love you too, Jake. I don’t know what you saw or went through these past couple months, and you don’t have to tell me, but I am going to be here for you every step of the way. You are my love, and I’m not leaving your side. That’s my promise to you.”
“I kept my promise, now it’s on you to keep yours,” he giggles. You laugh with him and cradle his cheek, your thumb running along his skin, along the scar. This time, he doesn’t shy away.
“I plan on keeping my promise until my last breath, my darling,” you whisper.
taglist: @sacredthethread @doodle417 @digitalcalamity @rocknrolls-child @fan-girl-97 @writingcold @thecoldwind @allieisacrybaby @ourlovegrows @jordierama @streamingcolors-gvf @stardustcatcher @stardustchxrds @sacredthefran @gvfungi @gretavankleep37
#jake kiszka#jake kiszka imagines#jake kiszka x reader#prince!jake au#jake kiszka au#jake kiszka fanfic#prince!jake kiszka#greta van fleet#gvf#greta van fleet imagines#gvf imagines#greta van fleet fanfic#gvf fanfic#josh kiszka#danny wagner#sam kiszka#imagines#fanfiction#fanfic
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I think a lot of what's happening is that many players are legitimately burning out because of the way bungie models the game (people don't call it FOMO: the game for no reason, there's definitely a truth to that feeling), increasing prices putting further strains on wallets as people continue to struggle financially (getting priced out of a beloved hobby is painful), and various genuine harmful choices over the life of the series, etc. but all of that's being co-opted by bad faith actors who are looking for a reason to tear Bungie down--I think you're at least partially right that there's a lot of anti-LGBTQIA+ people targeting them for being visible allies (and members of our various communities!) and just just hollow rainbow capitalists. And there's probably people who just want to stir up drama because they find it fun. So they're all distorting the actual complaints and making it so hard to have a frank discussion about good and bad practices. The real stuff gets drowned out and people tired of the BS shut down genuine complaints without realizing because it's hard to sort through it all. I think the technical term for the current situation is "clusterfuck"
For real. Burnout is a real problem that very few people recognise and often they just refuse to recognise it when it hits them personally. And like, burnout isn't just "I'm a little bored of this," continuous burnout can lead to actual health problems.
I always tell people that if you log into a game and you're not feeling it, you're only there to mark a checklist and you're annoyed by every moment spent playing, please take a break. FOMO stuff is also a real issue, but I also always tell people to just try and think about it from a broader perspective. Will you miss out on stuff? Probably. Will this matter to you, truly, if you have no interest in the game anymore? Like, if you think about it, missing out on content from a game that doesn't bring you joy should not be that big of a deal. You're not enjoying it anyway, so who cares if you miss things that you don't enjoy?
FOMO design is really awful and it's unfortunately everywhere and it takes so much energy to get yourself out of thinking that everything around you is super urgent and you have to latch onto it NOW or else.... In truth, this is just a sneaky method to keep people hooked. It's not real, you're not really missing out on anything. Even if you are, I promise that it's better to "miss out" than fall into burnout. You're the only one who can break your own FOMO.
A lot of gamers don't get it and don't even try to get it and actually get super defensive when you tell them that they're exhibiting symptoms of burnout. This is also another way that people try to deflect criticism. Sometimes someone will incessantly shit on a video game and you'll tell them "you have burnout bro, you need to take a break for your own sake" and they'll insist that you're just saying that because you're bootlicking a company or whatever.
On the other hand, sometimes you will criticise something legitimate and people will try to shut you down with claims that you're just burned out. Differentiating between these two is super difficult, especially when the community is acting like the Destiny community is acting like now. As you said, we're dealing with a clusterfuck. There's legitimately burned out people hateplaying the game who refuse to recognise it and there's people who want to talk about genuine problems and the former are making this an incredibly difficult conversation to have.
Two other related asks under:
It's utterly bizarre. The cynicism is so high that people are literally ignoring easily verifiable facts they can find with one google click away because it means they get to join their pitchforks against Bungie. And like, you can hate a company all you want but at least hate the real things they've done? The Bungie Foundation is legitimate work that helps people all over the world. This one aint' it chief.
This is the reddit thread where people were having a meltdown over the post about the foundation stuff for Bungie Day to the point that a moderator had to make a pinned post about this and there's one other most upvoted post about it just beneath. A lot of the shitty comments have been deleted and some are still there but downvoted, but people for real showed up to say crap about Bungie and lie on a call for charity.
It happened on twitter too (link if you're brave enough to go into replies and quote tweets, I don't recommend it), because of course it did. People are largely upset that some of the bigger goals have an emblem and shader as a reward and now they're calling it the "100k $ shader." And like. It's not for you. You don't need these two items. They're not here for you to buy. They're here to incentivise donations to charity. Bungie isn't getting rich from this; they will literally not see this money. It's going to charity.
I could bet my entire ass that the same people crying about this shader being unobtainable (we don't even know what it looks like btw) are the same people who are standing by their favourite streamer when they say that some in-game activities and rewards shouldn't be obtainable to the majority of the players. It's baby behaviour, and worse now because the post about Bungie announcing a charity is littered with comments from ghouls who think that THIS is the right moment to stick it to the big corpos (and ask to "fix servers").
LMAO! Literally though. I, unfortunately, play a Blizzard game and like. I'm sorry but you will not convince me that Destiny has worse monetisation than Overwatch. Like, maybe you can convince people who don't play anything else, but I do.
And honestly, if some other game is better to someone? Please feel free to play that then. I do my absolute best to limit the amount of money I will ever again give Blizzard to as close to 0 as possible, but if Blizzard's monetisation and morals are fine to you, go wild I guess. Applies to any other company for that matter. I personally find it baffling that we've spent YEARS learning about all the ways Activision is actually being led by demons from hell and that they deal with lawsuits every few months and treat their employees like crap, but we're totally fine hyping up Diablo 4 (and I guess we forgot all controversies from before about Diablo 3 and Diablo Immortal and everything). But to each their own. I'm not on Diablo twitter posting about this. It's not my problem. Hell, I'm not even engaging with Overwatch stuff because I know that I will just be negative about every aspect of it, even though I'm still playing here and there. I disagree with what they're doing so I play less and don't buy stuff and then I'm not angry about a video game every day of my life. Life hack.
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artificer, fighter, and warlock for riya and iggy!!
i give u kees mwah // d&d character class asks
artificer: How good is your muse at picking up new tools/skills? Are they proficient with any tools? How are they at making things with their own hands?
RIYA — if she's interested in the tool/skill and it's a hands on activity, then she'll be a quick learner! otherwise it takes her a bit to pick things up either from lack of intrigue or the struggles she has with continual study of text. she's proficient with alchemist’s supplies and i have to assume that's from her fucking around and finding out through her years at the college lmao. i hate that i have to do it to her but riya's a weaponized incompetence girly and i've gotta call her out on it. she's never made anything with her own hands and she'd rather flirt her way into having literally anybody else do it before she gives it an actual try. give her proper instruction and a veeeery long period of practice, then she'd probably do an Okay job on something she has an excitement for doing, otherwise it's trash. don't waste the resources babes
IGGY — unfortunately i think iggy’s memory troubles would hinder her ability to pick up new things with ease, and contributes to the fact that she has zero tool proficiencies as of leaving vyrantium. that said she would be great at making things with her hands! as long as somebody’s there giving her instructions and occasional gentle reminders to stay on task if something else nabs her attention. she’ll be a great workhorse for the grey wardens tbh, just stick her on wall/reinforcement building when she’s not out there cutting down darkspawn and it’ll get done well enough to feel secure.
fighter: What's your muse's fighting style? Are there any weapons your muse is comfortable with, or a weapon they'd like to learn to use? What drives them to fight?
RIYA — she's a little all over the place when it comes to strategy (she'd swear there's a method to it but if you ask for the explanation you'd be there for like 15 minutes hearing the debrief on how chaotic her head is during combat), but the classic Glass Cannon is a nice default no matter what her prepared spells look like. has a little bit too much fun rushing the enemy if i'm being honest. she's best friends with staffs, a few types of blades, and technically she can handle a couple of other weapons but she doesn't particularly care for them. she's learning how to use herself as a conduit for magic instead of the bestie staff. she fights out of a desire to live, for the thrill of action, to protect her allies and those needing her aid, and to make her family proud.
IGGY — when she’s in control of her faculties, her default is protection duty as that’s been her most frequent directive for so damn long. i, tabby the player, had it to where any activation of her lycan order hybrid transformation meant that she’d fully lost control of any logical thoughts and decision making. aka it’s her going full feral mode, only animal instinct (and rage, if that’s active) pushing her forward until it wears out, she’s knocked unconscious, or one of her runes is activated to rein her in. she’s capable of wielding whatever weapon is put into her hands because of the long decades she’s spent training and fighting, though she favors a sword or axe if given a choice. she’s driven now by a desire to do good with what time she has left, devoting her capabilities to ridding the world of however many darkspawn she can because surely it all makes a difference (she desperately needs it to make a difference, to maybe in time even slightly make up for all she’s done). tbh??? she’s probably made some kind of vow to herself to never harm another person again which motivates her efforts elsewhere.
warlock: Has your muse ever made a deal to get something they wanted? Is there anything your muse wants enough to broker for it? What would your muse sacrifice to get what they want?
RIYA — i imagine a joking thing between the clairmont kids came out of their mother being The business woman where they’d make silly nonsense deals with each other, either to have fun or be difficult depending on their mood (riya would constantly make deals to have her absence at boring events be covered by one of her brothers). she negotiated with warden recruiter rasha while in a whole ass prison cell to save bastian’s life, and would have given him anything to see it through. recently made a deal with warden commander satine and she puts that down to having experience requesting insane things from her own mother. unfortunately i think she'd sacrifice quite a lot for something/someone she cares deeply for, and she wouldn't think twice about it in the moment.
IGGY — her only genuine deal would have been with the magister during the oneshot, because she was actually given something of real value in return for her efforts. any deals made with the family that had her enslaved would have been small things just to appease her or trick her into thinking they were giving more than they truly were, y’know all about furthering the control and dependence.
#ch: valeriya de clairmont#ch: ignota#me before my nap: i'm gonna wake up and double check everything here to see if it makes sense#me now: so anyway i hit the post button the moment i loaded the page
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An unpolished review of Stranger Things 4′s Henry Creel and ableism. Eleven vs Henry, the good neurodivergent vs the dangerous mentally ill. Character analysis
Tldr, Stranger Things made some wild (insensitive) choices.
Umm so I watched the ep 7 of Stranger Things S4 and I have... Mixed feelings. I started writing this before volume 2 was out, and I’m finishing it in the end of july. I’ve had plenty of time to let it marinate, think and debate with others on it. It took this long for me to sort out my feelings and build up the courage to make any post in support of Henry Creel’s experiences and humanity, but I’ve gotten there, kind of.
I guess I should mention this too, kinda important, but I’m autistic. I was diagnosed at 18 and got all sorts of messed up and some internalized ableism I’ve worked through. The way I see it, currently in Stranger Things, the characters of Henry Creel, Eleven, Robin and even Will all have significant back-up to support them being autistic. Here what matters most is Henry’s, because his is the most overt and less masked, and Eleven’s due to the topic, but Henry having autism is the only actual diagnosis one I’m determined on defending. Regardless, canonically stated or not, much like being diagnosed or undiagnosed, it isn’t because you don’t have a label for it that you aren’t, and that the symptoms and experiences you have because of your autism don’t exist and don’t manifest. A character can have a mental illness or disorder without authorial intent, because things don’t exist in a vacuum.
A few important things to keep in mind before we start, well summarized by the following posts. I’ll still be reiterating these things as I go though bc people have no chill:
https://nemevex.tumblr.com/post/676815383203840001/mental-illnesses-can-increase-the-chance-of-being
https://psychonarc.tumblr.com/post/664768075380441089/its-interesting-to-watch-neurotypicals-grapple
https://theegosystem.tumblr.com/post/657136958513037312/id-title-of-picture-says-how-can-someone-have-so
Tldr:
https://mibasai.tumblr.com/post/669402579694993408/reminder-that-if-your-horror-is-reliant-on
note: regardless of how many decent neurodivergent portrayals you have in your show, if one of them is an actively ableist portrayal, your show is still ableist. Being an ally to neurodivergent people isn’t about picking and choosing who is too scary to empathize with and not just “these few misfit kids were good and deserving of acceptance despite being a bit quirky all along”
shortest tldr: https://aeon-of-neon.tumblr.com/post/685452896681230336/also-can-i-just-say-the-autistic-child-is-evil
My tldr: The way Henry Creel was handled is literally autism & aspd fearmongering lol.
It may sound like I’m excusing Henry in this post, and I want to be clear that my goal isn’t to defend Henry’s actions, my goal is to defend Henry’s humanity and complexity as a full human with emotions and thoughts for whose whole identity isn’t the innate want to cause harm and be evil, since everyone is so set on strictly seeing him as such. Perhaps, you could use your empathy, which you condemn him for not having, to not deem him an irredeemable heartless monster whose abuse is justified.
Warnings for spoilers and discussion of heavy themes such as ableism, abuse, animal torture and the targeted ableist killing by the nazi Hans Asperger.
Disclaimer: This is not a clean essay. I was and am hurt and very defensive of these experiences and feelings which I identify and sympathize with, and I am confused. There are ways you can interpret the canon text in good faith, where everything is aligned in a way that lessens the ableist damage, but you have to dig and theorize so much that it doesn’t feel genuine to say that in this one case the narrative wouldn’t be ableist. I find it very hard to contain all my thoughts in one essay, especially since there’s so much analysis to set up before you can even attempt to humanize Henry’s mentality and choices, so I’ve chosen to reduce this as a casual review rather than an essay, and explain Henry Creel’s various ideologies and actions in other, later posts. I might come back to polish this one at some point later though, yet once again. I have written and rewritten the same points as below in so many ways scattered on multiple private platforms. To “polish” this for posting, I’ve spent literally 8 hours nonstop today. God. Anyways, let’s move onto the thing.
Part of this essay was written before volume two and it’ll be apparent in the language and chronological order most times, but I did go back and organize ideas better and add in a few paragraphs so it might jump back and forth a bit.
The whole twist of Creel being One was sooo well executed and interesting and it had me hooked, I LOVED all of the build up to the reveal. I love mysteries that come together like puzzle pieces, and the way a lot of plot points and parts of the intrigue just tied together seamlessly felt so “wow” and satisfying. But then... They made him be evil because of neurodivergence...?
Like, it’s not about giving your villain a complex backstory and grey morals, it’s about the framing. And yes, the framing absolutely was ableist.
The framing
Because, the show is explicitely saying that Creel is evil because he was inherently different since birth. The show suddenly stops highlighting the abuse and stygmatization he has suffered (such as “all the teachers and doctors said I was broken”, the corporal punishment for speaking to El which we were made to sympathize with before the reveal),and starts treating him like he’s some exotic beast, not like us TM, a monster.
And all this while having him say such neurodivergent things to say... It was actually painful for me to hear him say everything, especially the whole spiders thing, because it was so relatable and accurate, and for it to be framed with ominous music in tandem with the narrative and ambiance that we should be repulsed with everything that comes out of his mouth & everything he stands for. It honestly felt like the show was calling me crazy and evil because I was relating as he was talking.
But hey, I guess if they were going for historically accurate story & character tropes then ableism is def a pick.
Wow, you’re so creative, the antisocial kid tortures animals and that lack of empathy means he’s a monster! It’s overdone, guys. It’s Split level of ableist horror sensationalization. It’s not that deep. Intention matters, we’re always saying how intention matters, why is Henry defiguring animals the proof of his demonic nature when it was done out of a lack of self-awareness to difference right from wrong, which kids are famous for not having, much like when you burn ants through a magnifier glass? It’s not that big of a jump. People hunt recreatively. People often hunt unethically. Are recreative hunters demonized by society at large? It was done humanely without any ill intention mind you, but was I demonic as a child when I held the corpse of hares my family got in hunting traps and not thinking anything of its death? Henry wanted to practice his skills, and that’s what he did, on living moving targets. It wasn’t done for a pleasure of animal pain, it was done in an objective efficient detached mindset. That doesn’t make it not disturbing or alright, it just means that doesn’t make him a subhuman or something. That kinda was the line when I debated about Henry being deserving of a modicum of sympathy with my mother for her, and it’s wild to see how quickly people are to refuse sympathy to another human because they sympathize with animals more and want to overtly attribute morality to its death. “Yeah Henry was abused in the labs and that sucks I guess, but he did torture those animals” to practice his skills, yeah! Even with Eleven we were shown that killing, and even just pushing someone back, with psychic powers isn’t that simple, straightforward and without other effects, and if Henry could kill quickly without pain and other disfigurations, then better practice would maybe be to disfigure intentionally instead of going straight for death. It seems terrible talking about this, and that’s because it is, but once again I’m explaining thought processes and how they’re not super wild demonic ones that people can’t understand. I had to bust out the “I can tolerate abusive and traumatic human bigotry, but I draw the line at animal abuse” quote and then my mom conceded lol. Y’all need to demistify these sensationalized things and put them down from the pedestral of innate morality you’ve put it on, the show is manipulating you and kids don’t experiment with killing animals because they’re some widow spider demons coming to kill everyone. Empathy doesn’t equal compassion. Kids are kids.
It’s the way Stranger Things wanted Eleven to push him away with disgust and horror with 0 nuance, even if they were the closest thing each other had to friends in such a cold, abusive place for so long. It’s the way all the abuse he endured was no longer treated as such, the way the show now showed that abuse as deserved. It’s the way the pieces of the puzzle all came together for the grand evil villain finale and the explanation for his motivations wasn’t “I am angry at the world/I want justice/they’ve kept us prisoners and mistreated us” but was “I’ve always been different”, and without saying it so obviously wanting the audience to continue that statement with “which makes me want to hurt and kill people”.
It’s the way the show suddenly did an 180 from before and after telling his backstory and wanting him to become entirely unsympathetic. God I hope I’m wrong and the second part of the season spins that on its head.
It’s not the fact that Henry is ND [NeuroDivergent], I think with his story that’s interesting and compelling, but it’s the way the show wants us to shake in horror at the Big Bad ND.
Henry is a traumatized abuse survivor, he needs support and guidance, not to be killed on sight, like the vibes are supporting in ep 7. Henry massacred everyone in the labs after he’s been forcefully kept under its control for years and mistreated there by everyone, after a lifetime of trauma and the strong self-preservation survival instincts it caused, and the person he risked himself so much to help, who has gone through so much so similarly to him, that he feels a connection with, just immediately turns on him murderously after seeing what he’s done, no attempt to talk, no confusion, no heartbroken words, just “oh yeah I guess you know who I really am now, I’mma have to kill you too ig” and “I can’t believe you were so evil all along :(( I hate you & I have to kill you now”.
Why so black and white? Like I almost feel gaslighted, I can’t be the only one to think that a step was missed here, how did we go from extremely abusive living conditions to fully dehumanizing the marginalized victim with 0 recognition that at least part of his resentment and agressive lashing back is justified?? It would have been so much more compelling and heartbreaking of a scene like it seemed they wanted it to be if they had Henry attempt to comfort/explain it to Eleven more on her level, like how he’s doing it for them or how they hurt them and all. He did, in a way, but even that felt through the lenses that Henry is only capable of manipulation. I still believe by his massacre Henry thought he was doing the right thing/what he needed to do. They wanted to get out and leave the life behind, Henry wanted to make sure it’d never come back for them, or hell, never continue and bring more people into the misery, with maybe that “purging evil from the world” stance yeah since it seems like the show is going for a Thanos situation. The point isn’t that that motivation makes it ok, the point is that Henry isn’t depicted as some one dimensional monster born and raised villain. The way he cares for Eleven’s wellbeing is so obvious, how did it end like that? Surely if he felt like himself and Eleven were really so similar, he would have tried reasoning with her when he saw she wasn’t on board with what he had done?
The problem isn’t that Eleven, another traumatized abused child, reacted intensely and violently to the very personal and upsetting events, it’s that the show, the narrative, the atmosphere and everything, takes her side on her reaction of killing him without any second guessing was just and right without nuance. The show giving any hint at all that Henry might have been deserving of sympathy or a chance was in the last episode, executed very dismissively.
The good neurodivergent vs the bad neurodivergent, and the lack of nuance
God, the parallels between One and Eleven through the season now are nauseating, because it’s the trope of the “good misfit everyone should actually love” vs the “misfit that everyone is right to reject bc they deserve it and are inherently bad”. What???? What?????? How does that not destroy every meaningful lesson and theme you’ve ever attempted to build? It’s the model minority schema, guys.
Do you know why Asperger’s is a very outdated term for “high-functioning” autism? Because it doesn’t exist, and was rooted in ableism. Asperger’s is a subjective assessment of an autistic person to evaluate if they’re smart despite being autistic and if they can function to the treshold they wish for, despite being autistic. Asperger’s was the difference between the “exceptional autistic genius that’s surhuman” trope and being labelled “mentally handiccaped”. You know what’s the difference between Asperger’s and autism? Masking. Masking, the act of suppressing your neurodivergence and mimicking neurotypical behavior which is detrimental to your mental health and exhausting to the point of often causing chronic fatigue. Masking, which is a defense mechanism and oftentime, a trauma response. The only way for them not to be rejected by society growing up, even through a lifetime of feeling like you don’t belong and not knowing what’s wrong with you, why you’re broken and why no one can fix you. Autism is a spectrum, it’s in the diagnosis’ name, and what that means is that everyone has different levels of symptoms, different limits and different tresholds. There is no “high-functioning” and “low-functioning”, it’s “how visible are your quirks, how easy is it for you to hide your problems in this society which was not made for people like you, how long and consistently can you keep it up, how much are you willing to damage yourself to fit in?”
Hans Asperger’s studies, in the era of world war 2, which resulted in the diagnosis and its different classification from autism, was literally, without going into gritty details, him gauging which autistic people seemed “smart” enough, functioning enough to be useful to the rest of society, which were exceptional enough to be worth studying and learning from, and differenciating those autistic people from the autistic people who should be sent to die.
I’ll be quoting this article for the next bit: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-truth-about-hans-aspergers-nazi-collusion/
Sheffer reveals how the Nazi aim of engineering a society they deemed ‘pure’, by killing people they saw as unworthy of life, led directly to the Holocaust.
With insight and careful historical research, Sheffer uncovers how, under Hitler’s regime, psychiatry—previously based on compassion and empathy—became part of an effort to classify the population of Germany, Austria and beyond as ‘genetically’ fit or unfit. In the context of the ‘euthanasia’ killing programmes, psychiatrists and other physicians had to determine who would live and who would be murdered. It is in this context that diagnostic labels such as ‘autistic psychopathy’ (coined by Asperger) were created.
Sheffer lays out the evidence, from sources such as medical records and referral letters, showing that Asperger was complicit in this Nazi killing machine. He protected children he deemed intelligent. But he also referred several children to Vienna’s Am Spiegelgrund clinic, which he undoubtedly knew was a centre of ‘child euthanasia’, part of what was later called Aktion T4.
This was where the children whom Nazi practitioners labelled ‘genetically inferior’ were murdered, because they were seen as incapable of social conformity, or had physical or psychological conditions judged undesirable. Some were starved, others given lethal injections. Their deaths were recorded as due to factors such as pneumonia.
Sheffer argues that Asperger supported the Nazi goal of eliminating children who could not fit in with the Volk: the fascist ideal of a homogeneous Aryan people.
This is incredibly serious for an Henry Creel tumblr essay, I am aware, and I am crying copy pasting this, and that is why this is important. Important for people to think about when they deem Henry Creel as a born monster. Why this is important to me. Do keep on telling me how Henry Creel was only ever good to imprison in a lab and experiment on, go on.
Because yes, Henry has explicitely neurodivergent experiences and displays over neurodivergent mannerism. Him not fitting in, having doctors trying to fix him as a person, and the whole feeling different (literally said by Henry as "I’ve always been different"). The whole relating to stygmatized animals is literally a very, very common experience in neurodivergent people with that sort of disorder. Even if it wasn’t intentional, it is so obvious that it cannot be ignored, and if the authors decided to ignore it anyways then that’s still ableism, you simply don’t want to admit your horror is rooted in ableism.
But I do think it was intentional, because like I said they went out of their way this season to make Robin autistic. But especially because they did so many parallels with Henry and Eleven; they kept talking a about how "we’re the same you and me, we’re different" only being confirmed/reinforced by Henry being neurodivergent and saying neurodivergent experiences 24/7 and aaaaall the times people said like, "Oh Eleven is different. She doesn’t fit in" like so many times through the season and all the stuff in the labs and ugh. And yeah, the Eleven vs Henry parallels capitalize on ableist horror, the horror of the "good neurodivergent vs scary dangerous neurodivergent" trope, where one argues that one is fine and good while the other deserves no human rights. Because someone you don’t understand nor control having the power to snap under your abuse, just like any neurotypical, is a scary concept to many. It’s the unpredictable animal. You don’t trust that there is good in what you don’t know nor understand. And that goes both ways, you see no good in Henry, and Henry sees no good in humanity in kind, and with his experiences, it’s in part literally justified.
The thing with the Eleven vs Henry parallels though is that Henry was engineered to be “What if the villain was just like Eleven, but chose evil?”. That’s why in ep 8 the guys are like “Vecna is just like Eleven! How do we fight that?” That’s why the season kept having characters say how alike they are, having Henry say it, have other characters say how Eleven doesn’t fit in, all of it! They wanted dark!Eleven for the aesthetics, but didn’t bother making deeper themes, didn’t bother making it a true parallel because they wanted to dehumanize Henry as the epitome of categoric evil. It doesn’t work or register to the audience much, because they failed to treat him as they would have Eleven. Literally, they did the "Eleven thought she did it but actually it was Henry" while continually pointing out how "similar" the two are. Henry is literally a narrative of dark!Eleven, except they don’t offer him the sympathy that they would have offered her had their roles truly been reversed.
Oh hurray!! Eleven didn’t actually kill all these people, she’s too good for that! She could never, in fact she’d rather kill the meanie who did it in righteous anger! No need for an identity crisis! No need to feel such guilt! Yes, the good girl could never deal with such a morally ambiguous revelation of something terrible she has done, there is no hidden evil sides to El like you might have thought with her assaulting her bully, she’s clean! A murderer is born, not made! <3 Because there are ways to respond to trauma that make you innately evil, of course.
We had fricking Billy hargrove. Billy Hargrove. Billy "tries to run over kids and torments everyone personally" Hargrove. They had Billy Hargrove get more depth, sympathy and respect than Henry "I’m Eleven but if she had snapped" Creel. I’m sorry but if Billy gets to almost run over kids to make a point and gets largely forgiven by the fandom then why can’t Henry who’s been intensely abused for a decade in the place he’s breaking free from and lashing out, like, the line to end all lines. You want to tell me emotionally stunted abused boy violently lashing out in a breakdown at his agressive cellmates and captors of 10 years is marginally worse than Eleven wanting to use her powers on Angela and impulsively hitting her head with an object for verbal bullying of like, some months? Yeah Eleven kinda regretted it, kinda, and the injury wasn’t super serious, but the initial intent was there, the impulse was there, if you lose control and give into the impulse, are you forgiven because the action failed to be as grave as you wished, or hadn’t thought through the possibility of serious/fatal damage? No, that makes you a Billy Hargrove who was willing to bet on kids’ lives that his sister would give into him before his car ran them over. Henry is dark!Eleven, indeed. Tell me, which of the two is the high-functioning autistic? We can talk all day about how they’re different, who is irredeemable and if that matters, but can’t we all just recognize the nuance? The shades of grey? It doesn’t have to be either "you’re an evil monster who can never change" or "misunderstood cinnamon roll who deserves all the good faith in the world", it can just be "you’re an ugly, hurting human being, and you suck, but I see you, and I recognize your pain and humanity. Your pain explains your actions, but doesn’t excuse them." A show shouldn’t bend the line of who has good in them and who doesn’t because one is your problematic fave while the other is supposed to be your big villain so you make him neurodivergent and different, forgetting that he, too, experienced the tragedy of his tragic backstory.
Framing is important. Stories create bias and hold bias, writing is biased and we as the audience are biased.
Let me ask you, when we kept getting told that Eleven killed a whole room of kid cellmates, what were your theories? No matter how much or little you thought about it, your instinct probably told you that in a moment of overwhelming emotions El had a violent burst of powers that she couldn’t/wouldn’t control. Did you think her lesser for it? Were you going to turn your back to her? What makes me so mad is the unwillingness of anyone to give similar good faith to Henry.
This guy developed a “it’s me alone against the world that shunned me” mentality from a young age due to being ostracized by everyone in his life including his family, then handled traumatic truths about his family’s past misdeeds through superpowers and gained delusions of grandeur ideologies as a mechanism to give meaning to his life and otherizarion, was hospitalized against his will into the care of a doctor who groomed him for his purposes and unethically tested on him & then kept him a prisoner for roughly a decade (my guess). Is it really so hard to believe that his reaction to finally becoming free, getting back the power and agency they stole from him, and having to flee the place while workers of the establishment that abused him try to chain you back, you’d overly react? You wouldn’t have an emotional breakdown, an episode, a violent and vengeful burst? Who’s to say if your survival mode didn’t make you go on autopilot? That is an abused, mentally ill psychologically vulnerable young man who has never been treated with understanding or love nor therapy. He has spent more years in the lab than Eleven, and we all know how much it messed her up. In this same season 4 we saw how Eleven’s reaction to emotional distress is violence, when she tried to use her powers against her bully, and later with the rollerskate assault. We literally saw how the kids in the lab were pitched against each other and would torment each other, and use excessive force in experiment matches. They were literally raised to respond to conflict by being the stronger one in a fight. They want to survive and thrive, have learned survival of the fittest, and so prioritize themselves, it’s simple. ASPD is born from trauma. ASPD forms as a defense & coping mechanism. You would have forgiven Eleven for doing the same thing. Why is Henry Creel irredeemable even in the best world? Framing, is when.
Conclusions
You can’t just... Divorce things from their irl parallels or effects. You can’t have Henry Creel having explicitely neurodivergent experiences and encourage inherently fearing him for it. You absolutely CANNOT have the whole “these animals are misunderstood and perceived as scary by most, just like me” and DOUBLE DOWN on that by making that animal a scary symbolic thing for the main villain that is supposed to make your skin crawl and personify evil and has caused every horror that has happened in the show. It’s... It’s just so cruel. I don’t get it? I don’t understand. How can you have a speech on something just wanting to live its life unbothered and being stigmatized by everyone for no reason and going “yeah that’s 100% justified and you shouldn’t sympathize with them at all actually. If you do sympathize then that means there’s also something wrong with you”
And it’s such??? A wild take. It feels like the text is at war with itself, with what it sets up and states and what it does the next second. I can’t process that anything else but a sympathizing scene will happen in the climax with all the subtext of trauma and the contradictions that exists with the season as it currently is, but also I can’t see how they would handle a redemption or anything of the like, all while the episode/show is really going the “oh look at the scary mentally ill person!!” route so??? Wtf is going on. It’s such a wild 180, the before reveal and post-reveal season 4 characterisations, plotlines and themes feel so disjointed. What is up with the writing
They literally went "I am so rejected by my peers that I latch onto this misunderstood, feared spider because I relate to its ostracization and struggle." And then the show goes "Yeah, you should fear him and those spiders. The spiders will come at you in horrific hallucinations, and Henry was born a murderous murder whose only way to cure is to be killed" that’s just so cruel of a narrative wow ok bruh
No, you can’t have the “omg this character is not normal, so scary” trap for your neurotypical audience and then at the last ep go “actually we were woke all along :)”. You didn’t frame this as some tragic character, you framed it as a monster who finally got unleashed, someone who tricked El into helping him commit atrocities despite it not being his intentions, attitude nor goal. It’s scary how quickly people are to believe the “Henry was manipulating Eleven all along” despite him never lying, pushing Eleven to do things, or even attempting to control her. Even at his most unstable and unfavorable to Eleven, during their confrontation, Eleven was the first to strike, and Henry didn’t say anything about forcing her to join him, just tried to convince her he is the righteous one and she should help him in his mission, tbh it kinda seems as if it hadn’t occured to him she might want to not join him at all. I’m not saying the threat at that point wasn’t there, I’m saying that to say everything Henry’s done was in the goal to manipulate and groom her with ill intentions is delusional, but that’s not a random conclusion, nor your fault. The show wants you to think that, with how his character’s demeanor shift, because he has stopped masking his more off-putting posture and tone, how the reveal of him being the big bad since season 1 comes into place at the same time, wow, he’s a mastermind! No, he’s an overpowered, lost, abused young guy who just digged himself deeper in his self-destructive coping mechanism. All the Vecna stuff comes in much, much later, and all he did before that was trying to show Eleven that she’s being abused and breaking her free of that abuse, then accepting her help when she offers to free him despite his reluctance. Was Henry wrong to tell her that Papa lies, to give her the chance to flee? Should he not have done that?
And you might go “wait wait wait, you mean that facial expression and demeanor in the labs, besides a breakdown or mental illness episode, could also just be how Henry behaves when he’s not trying to appear neurotypical, when he’s not masking?” Yes. “Wow, it truly is so creepy, you can’t tell me anyone that isn’t a murderous freak would have body language like that! No wonder people wanted doctors to fix him and to forcibly internalize him into abusive psych wards, and keep him restrained!” Wow, you have so many ableist conceptions to work through and get rid off, no wonder Henry wanted you dead <3
People would have been pissed if Henry was treated just as the abused sad boy who did a bad thing for a good reason, but it’s still necessary to acknowledge that abuse and how it further shaped the abuser they have become, and I’m pissed that he’s treated just as some emotionless monster who is incapable of good or nuance ever. It’s not about changing the story, it’s about giving the right amount of accountability while not making the character one note. Stranger Things having a one note evil monster human villain would have been fine, IF they didn’t make the character & their backstory so explicitely neurodivergent coded. How even do you screw up this bad. This was intentionally done, writing & framing doesn’t just happen. Why? The choice was either to capitalize on ableist demonization horror, or have it be subversed later on, but no matter what, it’s still a wildly ableist choice. You wrote Henry Creel as a complex human, why aren’t you treating him as one?
It’s very similar to Azula from atla, really. Child with traumatic childhood and misbehavior grows up somewhat and gets pictured as a mentally disturbed beacon of evil with no other motivation than inflicting pain ever. The show clearly shows aspects that would have you sympathize or understand to a degree, but has a strange obsession with playing ominous music every time they are on screen and manipulates the viewer to interpret every single of their actions as having ill intent. Azula was an abused child soldier who still tried to help her estranged brother despite getting nothing from it. Henry wanted to help El escape from the lab where she obviously should leave asap and asked nothing of her, the plan only changed because she, unprompted, took the initiative to help him in turn despite getting no encouragement before or after from him about it. The show & fandom in both cases are obsessed about all of their actions being manipulative, unwilling to consider that maybe yes, Azula didn’t want to have her brother killed and yes, maybe Henry just wanted to have the abused kid & kindred spirit he felt a connection with be free from the hell they lived in. If you don’t believe me about Azula, there are plenty of objective Azula scene & character analysis on Tumblr. This post is also interesting for the conversation at hand. I honestly could link so many things that support my other general claims and explain why things are wrong but man this could get so huge. This is such a prominent issue in pop culture and everyone is so ready to jump to the defense of ableist depictions of villains, ironically.
Is this why they made Robin autistic all of a sudden, because they knew their main villain storyline was ableist af... 🤭🤭 Anyways yeah Henry joins my pile of ND antagonists that were done dirty by canon
Henry Creel could have been written so well. The crumbs are all there, I could do a psychology analysis of him with his childhood and thought processes and have him still be exactly as he is on screen while being a complex, three dimensional villain. But nooo we get autism & ASPD fearmongering, alright.
There would have been soooo many ways to dehumanize Henry, to make him some heartless creepy monster, without making his whole aesthetic being neurodivergent = evil. They literally just had to not make his experiences be a copy of a neurodivergent kid growing up in an era very hostile and unaccommodating for people different like him. Like we see Eddie being treated, and even then Henry prob had it worse at least in some ways. They literally just had to not put his character through abuse and ostracization and then there would have been no reason to sympathize at all. A child who has enough issues to murder his family through fire is a child that has issues and needs help, not to be further demonized and cement their "me versus the world" mentality. They just had to not do these things, not even to do something else, just to take those out. Henry would have still been demonized by mannerism that is often shared with autistic people, amongst others, and would have still done all the horrible shit he did, but at least then the parallels would be much less worse, it wouldn’t be so overtly ableist and neurodivergent people wouldn’t feel hurt watching it.
Before this ends I do want to say that no, obviously, I don’t support Henry killing anyone, nor any of his bad actions. I don’t want to excuse it, and him getting some level of punishment is deserved, though rehabilitation is really more my jam, and if the punishment only reinforces the thought processes he gained as a defense mechanism... You know what I’m saying? It’s frankly immature to look at such an obviously morally complex story and characters and just, treat it the way they have? It’s disgusting. I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised about this from the show who depicts anything russian... That way though, lol...
This was pretty emotional and unpolished, aka repetitive and ungraceful, but yeah I just hope I won’t cause a fandom war or get shit on or smth. It’s all just :( The stench of ableism is just undeniable and I’m both mad and disappointed, I just hope the latter end of the season will amend it somewhat.
Was the episode low on time or something? Did the whole “actually yeah your heart is supposed to wrench in sympathy for him and the show frames it as super tragic and sad for him to have been pushed to become this way” and by “this way” I mean irredeemable in their eyes just go over my head or something? Must be my autism <3 I’mma still watch the show, and I cast no moral judgements for other fans, especially since a lof of this is the framing of the show manipulating the audience, but if you love the whole Henry backstory and how it was executed, at least understand/aknowledge how deeply problematic it was handled.
Part two (yep, those were all part one thoughts)
UPDATE - season 4 part 2
Wow it really got better! Sike it only got worse. I had hope during many moments in ep 8 to be honest. I really thought Eleven was processing the trauma of Henry turning out to be evil and having mixed feelings and all, like with the scene where she watched Max & co talk about him and how to take him down. The fact that “Henry’s just like Eleven, a supernatural gifted kid & kinda doesn’t fit in” and “So, how do we take Henry, the monster, down?” were said so closely next to each other and so casually, coupled with Eleven’s upset expression, really had me thinking that Eleven was upset to see Henry, an ex-friend and kindred spirit, as this monster they had to put down, and to be likened to him so much. I even expected that maybe the next thing one would say would be “Well, what are Eleven’s weaknesses we could exploit to kill Henry?” which would have been horrifying for her for sure, to have that parallel so easily not only be drawn but exploited for the murder of one.
The neurodivergent lines and parallels about Eleven are also still ongoing, so that solidifies that Henry is intentionally neurodivergent coded as well.
Papa’s death
I have my beef with Papa’s death and how it was handled.
Particularly, it’s really sad how all the other kids in the labs don’t matter beyond adding trauma flavor to Eleven. When she’s having cryptic flashback at first, she’s horrified at what she thinks she did, but not that much because of who they were. Afterward, she’s sad about it, but again, more in an horrified empathetic way rather than truly mourning them, it’s about her trauma, not them. Father is... Well it’s kind of left up to the audience to interpret how he reacted to Eleven, if like Henry said Papa only got more scared of her because of it, if he got intrigued by this new power and urges he thought she got, if he understood immediately that she freed 001 like implied, or if he was disapproving of Eleven for making him lose all his other experiments, or even sad at losing all these children. In the end, even if it’s very obvious to the audience that those kids were just traumatized children trying to get by in an abusive environment, how the show treats them is kinda dehumanizing, as mere plot devices. Eleven cried at the show of evil, because of guilt and maybe suppressed mourning, and Father pretty much dismisses their loss after the event.
So that’s how their deaths were handled and shown, but how is the aftermath of it treated? Well it just isn’t mentioned. Not by any character, not beyond a “how could you let Henry be in proximity with these kids he ended up murdering!” which is about villifying Henry and questioning Father’s, an unquestionable figure of authority and all-knowing well-meaning caretaker put on a pedestral choices up to that point, and not really about the kids. Or a “all these deaths!” which isn’t about the kids, but about the virtue signalling. It’s not about them, it’s about Henry and the conflict between Eleven and Father, the arcs that the two are going through, of questioning that authority figure who’s always had a grip on her life, and of falling down his pedestral with others as well as with his own convictions. It’s not about them.
The episode is about Eleven, and Father and Henry. The arc shown about Father getting what he deserves isn’t about all the horrible things Father has done, getting confronted with them, attempting to atone or repress their memories or anything, it’s about Eleven rejecting him and everything he has taught.
Let me repeat this. The episode where Father gets called out is about his treatment of Eleven, and Eleven first and foremost, if not ONLY. The level to which they acknowledge Father abused everyone else just as much as Eleven is very weak.
Please, let’s acknowledge how messed up, truly nauseatingly fucking MESSED UP it is that Papa gets told (paraphrasing bc I watched the ep in french) “You kept Henry imprisoned at the labs for so long... With all of us!”
I was so positively stunned when Eleven said the first part with such resentful rage. Yes, Henry was abused, too! Papa kept all of you prisoners! He is why Henry got reaffirmed in his belief that humanity are a selfish and spineless disease to wipe out! He traumatized you all, traumatized him even further! But no. The reproach isn’t that Henry shouldn’t have been treated as some subhuman scientific experiment, it’s that he allowed monster murderous Henry to share their vicinity. That of course Papa should have known, if Henry was living with them for such a prolonged time, he was bound to eventually kill them! Can Henry just never have human contact ever again then?? How is anyone surprised Henry never got better when this is how everyone treats him. You don’t want Henry to get better, you want ease of mind from his existence, and killing him erases the problem just fine so why bother? Did you know, that a lot of professional therapists and programs deny cases that are “too severe”, even if the individual seeks help and self-improvement? A lot of people turn away patients with cluster b disorders just because the disorders, their perceived symptoms and perceived unstability scares them, even if the individual is harmless. Everyone tells pedos (regardless of criminal record if any) to seek help with a sneer, for example, but no one wants to be the person to offer that help, no even those whose literal job it is, and that’s why this question is one that is asked to anyone looking to become a psychologist. “Would you be willing/strong enough to accept to work with [insert type of patient]?”. Most of people’s answers are no. You don’t want them to get better, you want them to rot in prison away from the world until they die. I take no pleasure in saying this, but it is a real issue, and one that most people refuse to acknowledge. You don’t want Henry to get better, because you don’t trust his capacity nor worthiness of getting better, and that’s an issue, and that is ableist, but the blame is shared with the show because it encourages you to think that way, and the arguments it gives in support of this stance are ableist and insidious.
It really is truly horrifyingly dehumanizing to see how they categorically refuse to see Henry as a victim of abuse and trauma in any capacity, how they deny his complexity and capacity for non-evil so much. Eleven implies that yeah, it’s okay if Henry is locked up, in fact, he should never be allowed near anyone! He should have been killed as a baby! Because death was the only solution and getting him the earlier the better! It’s sad that Eleven doesn’t have even a shred of sympathy for him, considering how indeed similar they were and how they connected, how he was her only ally for such a harsh prolonged period of her life. She doesn’t even mourn the person she thought he was, couldn’t show the same sympathy for the victim of a same abuser the same way she has to the ones who injured and bullied her instead of helping her, albeit in a misguided way. The “You’re the monster” at Papa almost feels like an admittance that Henry isn’t fully to blame for his trauma? But mind the almost, the show still said Papa’s mistake was allowing the dangerous child he’s been abusing to be with other unstable kids. Yeah I’m sure it really helped how Papa encouraged violence (pitting the kids against each other in unfriendly fights, without punishing excessive use of strenght to hurt, and even rewarding shows of excessive violence by being impressed, beyond the obvious extra play time. Truly encouraging the survival of the fittest rule where the strong deserve to torment the weak) all while fueling his cynical hatred of humanity. I’m sure Henry would have grown to become Vecna no matter what happened to him, that the same would have happened if he got a shred of a healthy support system for once, if he hadn’t put into the hands of a system that wants him either assimilated or dead.
It doesn’t hurt because we needed speeches on the nature of abuse, it hurts because Stranger things is pushing ableist, anti-rehabilitation, anti-recovery narratives. Henry was born the devil, fated to become the dangerous monster he now is, and death is the only mercy for them all. It could be such an interesting complex take on Eleven’s character as well, of refusing all of Henry’s existing complexity and genuine interactions the two ever had because of the trauma the reveal caused, on how she needs to stop thinking so black and white, that she is not a monster for choosing fight in fight or flight, but still having an arc of deconstructing how she was taught to respond to conflict and distress by violence, because it is wrong. But no, we have milktoast pure evil vs born good and empathetic humans that must hatch it out and “no actually I’m not a monster I just needed to break free from your hold, Papa. But that guy? Yeah there was never any hope y’know some people are just born like that and can’t be fixed”
BUT on the other hand! I got really scared when Father started talking about how all he did was selfless & for Eleven, BUT Eleven didn’t validate or reassure him at all in the end even not as a dying wish, which I really really liked. Like yeah, she can be conflicted and heartbroken and sad over his death, of course, she can hold his hand or whatever, but I’m really super glad she (and the writers) didn’t cross that line of giving him unearned peace and validation by lying about how all the horrible selfish abuse he did was done caringly in some twisted way, and I’m so glad that narrative wasn’t truly pushed. He’s a delusional man who did horrible things and died desperately trying to justify them, and that is fitting.
In conclusion, I continue to be hurt. The gaslighting of the show only makes me more upset. I question the validity of my interpretation and experiences, and wonder if I have the right to be hurt. It tests my sense of self and moral convictions. But logic prevails all and here I am like, 5k later still holding strong. It’s not about defending murder man, it’s about aknowledging the facts of the literal show that Henry was in fact a victim of abuse, how that shouldn’t be brushed off as something that didn’t influence him at all and that, worse, he deserved, and also the basic human compassion principle that everyone is capable of good if given the right environment.
2nd conclusion
Y’all love the “I am the righteous hand of god” tiktoks about the kids fighting back their abusive parent with weapons so much, but when it’s the fictional literal dehumanized kid that’s different and has been told he needs to be fixed all his life showing visions to his parents of their worst actions out of some misguided sense of justice, then lashes out and fights back against his family after they try to get him forcibly hospitalized (into the system that got him abusively imprisoned and groomed for a decade, might I add. Justified fear to have, let’s just say), then goes on some murderous crusade of the ones who hurt him and his bestie after a decade of imprisonment and relentless abuse and are still trying to drag him back into chains, and suddenly you can’t understand it at all? Suddenly violence and confrontation isn’t a response to abuse, a fight or flight survival mechanism, that you can stomach? Where’s the empowering framing and catharsis now?
Like idk how to get you to understand, it’s literally maladaptive abuse responses because you maladaptively develop when you live in abusive environments and get exposed to trauma. It’s literally the “but is it justice or justified to bully the bully” age-old dilemma. What’s not clicking?? That doesn’t make it right it just means Henry isn’t a demonic shell of a human being and you’re not only demonizing this fictional character but also everyone who went through a similar struggle a similar way. It’s not a hard thesis to grasp.
Just to be clear for the umpteenth time, none of Henry’s actions are acceptable. I personally don’t see any of his interactions with Eleven as intentionally manipulative or insidious, I genuinely think he was trying to help selflessly and genuinely connecting with no underlying or evil intentions. I personally see Henry’s response to being set free in the labs of going after everyone who hurt him and could continue the horrible legacy of the labs, people who could search for him and drag him back like we see Papa do with Eleven through the seasons, in some emotional rageful trauma response to be justified. Justified, not acceptable.
Why would Henry kill everyone, including the kids?
1) We’re shown that the staff wants to chain him back and are very fine trying to use violence to do so. First and foremost, Henry fighting back is self-defense because he wants to get out and stay free. It’s pretty much life or death for him at that point, even if they only want to chain him again, it’s not much better than life, is it. That can easily spiral into killing everyone he comes across, because even if they run away they might be getting help or weapons, and at some point there’s no time to gauge a reaction. Then that can veryyy easily devolve into...
2) he’s having some sort of breakdown. After a decade stuck in a prison, he’s finally, finally free but the fight has just begun and as he has to defend himself against everyone coping & defense mechanisms activate and he’s put on autopilot, wether it makes him numb or with some twisted glee of satisfaction, both would sadly be responses of trauma that are valid to be seen as such.
3) The staff is trying to get him back. What if, even if he runs away, the labs would try to track him down and drag him back? That’s is a very sound hypothesis, and one confirmed since we see what happens with Eleven. The only true escape is to kill anyone that could come for him. Kill absolutely everyone involved in the labs. Also, since we see that Henry wanted to get Eleven out, him erasing everything of the labs could be a way to ensure others aren’t dragged into the experiments, for the legacy of the labs to be unable to live on. Though I don’t believe that Henry had so much foresight into the future at that stressful moment to have a reasoning like “I can’t let other superpowered kids alive or they might end up fighting against me”, and it’d feel disjointed from the rest and the tone as a main motivation.
5) Revenge. Those people imprisoned him and Eleven, bullied Eleven. He will kill them all for the way they hurt him and the one person he cares about. In his eyes, either they’re unworthy of life, or it’s really just to deal punishment and gain satisfaction from it. In this category I’d also put his life mission of exterminating humans, might as well start fulfilling it right away.
Why would he kill everyone but El? The show is very explicit about it. Henry sees himself in Eleven, a talented yet quiet and recluse misfit outcast, and feels some connection with her for it. Tbh it’s kind of canonicaly explicitely the neurodivergent spidey senses lmao. Anyways, and Henry got attached to her in that way, and wanted her free out of the labs. He didn’t want harm to come to her, she’s special, the exception, and if the opportunity arises he’d love to have her beside him as he does his genocide thing. He wouldn’t hurt El unprovoked, he even tried to talk/"reason" her into seeing things his way with his speech about his life and human nature. I think he sees himself as her guardian, in a way, a big reason for why he wanted her to wait safely in the closet.
The “visions of past guilt” he inflicted on his family is obviously a terrible, non-justifiable thing to do, but as a kid we’re taught very firmly that justice should be dealt and bad actions should be adressed, and to me it isn’t so wild that upon finding out the terrible horrible shit his family has done, would respond to that trauma by making them confront it alongside him who learned about it all, judging that they haven’t atoned for it enough since he, their son, never knew about it and never saw them sorry for it. It only solidified his unflattering view of humans as callous, immoral selfish creatures, and by then yeah I think that was set in stone enough for him to be ok with murder. But I do think killing his family was... Handled in the show in a weird way that makes it hard for me to suspend my disbelief and not just see the obvious attempt to dehumanize him fully? Like it was really cold, said matter of factly like “Yes, just as I’d planned they all died then and I wasn’t blamed for it. I never cared for them and I felt nothing but satisfaction at a plan well executed. I have never thought about them since, and continued my path into ridding the world of the human leeches”, and? Ok dude, go off I guess. Personally, so as for it not to totally break my interpretation of him as someone who isn’t a one dimensional personification of bloodlust, I see it as him overtly lashing out in the moment, and at the very grave results try to distance himself emotionally from it and act as if it doesn’t matter and he’d have done it anyways. An emotional lash out, response to fear and abuse and distress and a need to protect himself, like when he was free from the chip and the lab wanted to chain him back, like when Eleven got bullied to the point of meltdown.
And if I can give good faith to Eleven for not only being sad at the deaths of her cellmates out of guilt, and that she’s maybe suppressing all the positive she once associated with Henry and didn’t just do a one-dimensional emotionally detached 180 on her stance about him, then I can give good faith to a traumatized, abused Henry who’s never had a good support system and so latched onto spiders because he was just that lonely and otherized for making himself believe that his murder of his family was entirely planned and meaningful, because not being emotionally detached about it and realizing it was a senseless spill of blood would be too painful. I can give good faith that he doesn’t just have some black hole of bloodlust inside, and that if he does that’s born of a coping mechanism, but fundamentally it’s just flawed ideologies based on the need to give his difference and ostracization from other, normal humans, a deeper meaning than just “I have suffered so much because humans are flawed, and that suffering was senseless. But that’s okay, and I need to work through that and let things go, despite that in my era there are no ressources or common compassion for people like me”.
Because “we all have good. They say that I’m evil and broken, but I think they’re the ones who are flawed, evil, and should be fixed. But I understand that that course of action is flawed, and none of us are evil and should be purged from the world. There is no need to continue the cycle of abuse and treat them like they have treated me. Coexisting won’t be easy, but I have to be the bigger person and try to make the world a better place in a way that doesn’t involve what they would do to me if they could. Murder is bad and shouldn’t be done, but they do bad things to me that shouldn’t be done and that’s deemed okay, but that doesn’t make murdering them okay because doing bad things don’t make them irredeemably bad people” isn’t the kind of lesson a literal child will usually work through and come to on his own, not when he’s hurting so much and trying to give meaning to his life, hence his “I must purge the world from humanity” mission. I think this might be my best way of phrasing this yet. Do you see? Do you see how cruel and senseless it is?
I want to continue watching Stranger Things, I liked the season so much before they pulled this, but it really hurts when they make me feel the urge to type out multiple essays attempting to defend an abuse victim’s humanity to the majority who is willingfully convinced that he doesn’t deserve basic compassion. I hate how even without looking at how people on tumblr talk about him, the ambiance and text of the show invalidate him so much and make me feel the need to add a paragraph on here about how “no, I haven’t had these experiences, I can just understand Henry’s way of thinking through logical hypothetics because as an autistic who’s only autistic I have learned to put myself in others’ shoes to mask better. No I haven’t killed animals willingly and no I never have violent meltdowns” because, while true, I know it’s because I’m so scared that people will look at this post and go “Look! If she can sympathize to these experiences, she’s dangerous and crazy, too!”, because that is the atmosphere Stranger Things season 4 has built up, and because I know from experience that some people will react like this, because I will be judged and my words and experiences will be devalued for it.
I am desperately afraid of people knowing I don’t hate Henry Creel with every fiber of my being, that I like spiders too, and Harry Potter’s demonization of snakes only inspire me to preach how great they are, that I headcanon my faves to have ASPD and NPD and while it adds to their struggle it’s not treated as something to be fixed, that empathizing with morally ambiguous characters who prioritize themselves is healing to me, and that all of these help me cope with life and how rough and meaningless it is. But you know what? I know that, I aknowledge that. But I want, I choose to, stand by these things. I am against demonizing people for neurodivergence and mental health struggles when they should be getting help and compassion, and you should too. Henry Creel’s framing is actively damaging, to both stigmatized neurodivergent and/or mentally ill people who need help instead of judgement, and to the greater public who gets taught that neurodivergent people are beasts to be seen as threats to evaluate and contain. It reinforces wider ableism, as well as internalized ableism.
Episode 9
It took... Almost a month for me to do any sort of retrospective on this episode. My biggest wish was fulfilled. The show explicitely recognized that Henry was abused at the hands of Papa, too. And... It was very underwhelming. Pretty disappointing. But I got it! I can’t complain, right? Well I will anyways bc I will not be restrained.
The whole speech of “you were abused too, and you can become better it isn’t too late” by Eleven felt very tacked on, very out of nowhere, unearned and not genuine. You’re telling me that you tried to kill him like 3 times before trying to have a single convo of any kind, and in the end Vecna needed to pin you to the wall and threaten everything you hold dear for you to extend to him the barest shred of recognition of humanity and compassion and not quite believe your words even as you’re saying them? Yeah... Sure. To be honest, it felt a lot like virtue signalling Eleven being good and the better person more than really to make the characters or the audience entertain the thought that Vecna might have some good and capacity for growth in him somewhere. Once again, a scene about Henry’s trauma is more about Eleven than it truly is about him. But? As for acknowledging that Henry Creel is a victim of abuse and has gone through though shit, that’s good enough for me. But I debated a long time on if this essay should still be posted then, and I do think it should be. A small, half-hearted half-assed concession that his humanity existed at some point does not erase the framing and all the damage it has done.
A recurring thing I hate with how they did Henry is the aftermath with Eleven. Like, Henry was kind of her only ally in the place that abused her for so long? She was friends with him? They shared secrets, and some trust bond that didn’t seem wholy one-sided from Henry? And you’re just going to throw that all away and think the audience will believe there’s no remaining feelings about it?
The show seems to go down the route that the reveal traumatized her a lot, so from then on she responded to Henry with immediate violence and intense hostility. If she sees him as a one-dimensional villain who manipulated her and can do no good, then she can’t be conflicted about the nice moments she shared with him, the good she thought she saw there, and the pain of losing the closest thing she had ever had to a friend. So she suppresses thinking deeper about Henry and respond to confrontation of him or the topic of him by being very hostile towards anything him. But then the last scene?? Doesn’t really work because she hasn’t undone that at all. She doesn’t sound sincere when she says it. Her back is to a literal and figurative wall, Vecna is going to kill all her friends, and now, now after trying to kill him many times over without even attempting to talk, now you’re going to appeal to his humanity? It doesn’t feel like a change of perspective, it feels like a desperate, last ditch attempt to win the war and get out alive. Which is why it feels fake af
It’s really ironic how Stranger Things season 4 really just reinforces Vecna’s beliefs. Humans are vermins who go by the survival of the fittest rule. Everyone treated Henry like shit at every stage of his life. Papa made the kids fight each other for basic needs rewards. He could flee the facility if he wanted because he was the strongest, but he wasn’t so Eleven won. Eleven was going to crush him mercilessly, but he had her by the throat, and suddenly she’s willing to allow the thought of him having a crumb of humanity.
Oh and I forgot to mention it but they used the psycho word derogatorily on Jason which... Just pretty much confirms that they don’t care about being insensitive and explicitely ableist. Jason doesn’t even truly fit most of the criterias, get it right. Jason alongside Henry is prob going to be one of the most hated Stranger Things character ever, and the writers knew that, which is why the choice of word as Lucas delivers a beating and he dies in the unleashment of the apocalypse without a spare glance all the more telling. Like, I do really hate Jason as much as the next person, but can we appreciate that the show explicitely showed us that he was grieving intensely, and how the way society behaved around Jason and people like him had a huge part in why he turned out the way he did? Get this, Jason is portrayed to have more emotional depth than Henry Creel! The bar is so low lol...
Final thoughts on the season
Ok hot take but not really, but I was lowkey pissed at how the season just, doesn’t talk about Lucas and sports at all? The show kinda implies that he joined the basketball team and everything just for the status, to be accepted and all, but does Lucas just not care about the sport at all?? Does he not like basketball?? Is he naturally gifted to have landed that winning score or did he spend many hours desperately training to have a chance of popular kids accepting him? We don’t know!! Why don’t we know when that’s like, such an obvious loose thread! I always kinda just thought that he, y’know, wanted to do basketball on the basketball team but the way it’s all done and how Lucas says smth like "I should never have joined the team bc they suck and i have u guys" in the last ep and I was like?? So was the basketball just a secondary thing to making the team or? To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with that narrative, it’s actually really compelling. But the thing is that the show doesn’t address it at all, it kinda implies it but doesn’t state anything or does anything with it so it kinda just dies a no closure death and feels off and ruins the potential when all the right cards for it were already laid out.
Actually that last criticism is a common flaw i’ve found throughout the season tbh. Putting all the crumbs necessary for cool pay-off or plot twists, then just doing nothing with it or worse, dismissing them and contradicting them.
Sooo are we just going to ignore Henry was abused for like, a decade and his parents wanted a doctor to fix him and apparently they’ve done terrible shit like possibly set fire on a baby or smth??? Ok yeah ig we’re just not going to address that at all until like the last 10 minutes half-heartedly maybe, also u get no deeper answers, and was Henry an abuse victim truly? Up for debate, apparently, which it shouldn’t bc it’s pretty explicity but the show likes to gaslight ig
Ronance? Eddissy? Shit, we the writers def noticed the glaring chemistry but it’s too late to make changes to the script now so let’s just keep everything the same & have it both ways and never address the obvious sparks flying. Oh and let’s not ever have the main cast talk much about Chrissy or have Eddie like, grieve or talk about her at all besides self-pity and trauma? Was the whole Jason plotline really the biggest reason for Chrissy to be important? When you examine it deeper it, kinda just feels sour and stale.
And I’ve got other examples but I’ll stop here, I kinda sound way too nitpicky. But point is, this season just had so many subplots that went nowhere with no closure, narratively or thematically.
The thing is! The show keeps wanting to act as if Henry is this unreasonable guy always scheming and manipulating but! He’s just a traumatized dude with murderous convictions! Convictions can be changed! The guy latched onto spiders as a kid, he’s never formed a meaningful relationship with anyone ever, never had someone to fully support him or help him through things, and the one kid he did form a connection with ends up stabbing him in the back without a second thought? How is that supposed to make him deescalate or deradicalize? How is that supposed to change his mind on being a loner and humans being beneath him? I’m not saying it was imperative for El to accept him or whatever, it makes a lotta sense she doesn’t, but I’m saying it’s no wonder how it further cements him in his way.
Even in the aftermath of her killing him, he can’t let go of the one bond he’s made fully. Eleven becomes his one true rival. She’s still special. He still cares, in a weird twisted way.
So the show wants us to see the reveal and be all "omg he was manipulating her all along!!" Um, no? If you think back on it at all, you’ll see that not really. Henry gives Eleven advice to survive in the labs and try to thrive as they can. "Papa always lies", yeah? That’s true? He gives her genuine advice that works. In a way, he’s also pushing her onto becoming the top kid, and using anger and power to do so, but again, he was taught that way too I don’t think we can fault him for that, especially not if it works. That place is built on that, if agression is the response that’s rewarded in those abusive living conditions, can we fault them for playing by the rules instead of getting crushed under the others’ boots? In a way, the other kids who bully El also represent the "it’s me against the world" mentality Henry has, it’s not just El’s bullies, it’s also Henry’s childhood bullies and everyone else trying to keep him down. It’s the ones who don’t understand him, who fear him, the neurotypical bullies.
Okok yeah so- Henry wants to get Eleven out. He truly, genuinely wants to. He can run away himself, but if he can help her get out, her who he sees himself in, why wouldn’t he? He was never going to mention his chip. Eleven turned around at the last moment, so close to freedom, and was like, "Wait, I want you to come with :(". Henry shows her his chip, resigned, and doesn’t suggest anything about it. Eleven thinks of the way to help him and volunteers and insists. Henry doesn’t hurry about it, doesn’t cheer, doesn’t do anything. She frees him, and he’s grateful for it, and then after carving his way out of the labs with corpses they’ll run away together and idk find life goals outside in the world. Where?? Where was the manipulation?? Bc he gave her true advice?? Because he let her free him the way she thought up of?? He never suggested anything about it!
Esp since like, Henry wasn’t even truly allowed to talk to them in the labs or anything. As soon as the reveal happens, El is in a "kill as soon as possible without mercy" mode. As soon as the reveal happens, the only right way to deal with Henry Creel is to kill him, and someone should have killed him as a baby so he couldn’t have hurt anyone and become the monster he was bound to become :) OKAY
Henry is, like implied earlier, in many ways like Billy. Hurt people hurt people. The cycle of abuse. To become stronger than his dad, able to survive in his household and then stand up to him, he had to toughen himself up and put himself in his dad’s shoes of what his dad values to be able to fight against it. He had to become strong, so he became twisted. And it worked. He’s alive, top of the school and household when his dad isn’t there. To become stronger than the monster he became a bigger one. It’s survival. With Henry, it’s more to prevent further pain and abuse, but it’s kind of the same thing. "I’m broken? I’m prophecized to become the dark lord and you’re terrified of me? You want to take away my power and autonomy because you’re scared of what I might do when you mistreat me? Well, if this is to be my destiny, I’ll give it to you, and then nothing will be able to chain me back"
And you see this is what I mean by the season being weird! Because like, the shows reinforces that that’s the correct way to see him! That he is a ticking bomb and heartless monster and Eleven and the guys, our moral heroes, should try to kill him without a thought. Well, except for that 1 throwaway speech in the last ep ig lol. Again: "I relate to this spider bc people hate and fear us but we just wanna be" = the show portraying him as the epitome of evil with no possibility for good or growth and everyone ever in the show thinks that about him. Again. This is always what I keep going back to. The spider. He wants to be like the spiders. He want to live carefreely and mind his business in lonesome peace. This kid is so broken, but the thing is that when I say that, I don’t mean that he was born this way. People never gave him or the spiders a chance to be something else. They broke him.
A kid doesn’t tap into his parents’ deepest regrets and make them relieve them in some twisted sense of justice for no reason? Are we not going to talk about the kid having to see his adult parents’, who are supposed to represent safety and morality to a kid, worst misdeeds and guilt? The trauma that that would cause? That craddle on fire. If the parents had to grow emotionally detached to their misdeeds to keep the guilt from drowning them, can we blame Henry from growing detached to whatever attachment he might have had with his family? Can we blame his nihilism, him not reflecting about his actions and the damage they cause? No one ever bothered to ask what hurt him.
Are we never gonna address that his parents have always wanted to fix him? And by the show’s portrayal, they’re taking the route that "Yes, Henry has something broken in him that should be fixed, but he can’t so instead let’s just imprison & kill him that’s the best and only thing you can do" I can’t express how incredibly ableist this is. Do you see why I’m so fricking mad that they used explicitely neurodivergent narratives in his origin story?? Do you see why the Henry vs Eleven parallels is, yeah, kinda cool, but narratively wise is a "dangerous scary neurodivergent vs good and useful neurodivergent, learn to differenciate them only one is valid" and how that, like, literally parallels society’s wider ableist stigmatization and the way nazis categorized autistic people into categories of who deserved to live because they were smart enough and who to kill? I was watching the origin story of Henry, feeling for the kid relating to spiders and so lonely and miserable, and as I related the show played ominous music and all about the framing was designed to make us recoil in horror at every word, so what does it mean if I’m relating when I should be intrinsically repulsed?
Damaging ableism
Killing animals and other shit he went through are things that some real, irl kids go through, and they shouldn’t be put on a kill list for it, they can grow, they’re kids. It’s called conduct disorder, and it can be helped and redirected with therapists. Conduct disorder and other maladaptive behaviors most often form from trauma and abusive living conditions. A kid’s animal abuse shouldn’t be the line you draw to judge their innate value and goodness.
These below are very real things people with stigmatized disorders and mental illnesses face in real life, and things which Stranger Things supports with Henry Creel:
- Forced hospitalization and being involuntarily restrained are more common and more widely accepted.
- Having their diagnosis brought up in court to devalue their testimony and stances, to support a bias against them.
- All of their actions ever are analyzed under the scope that their goal is to manipulate and/or done with ill intentions. Often tied with point above.
- Similarly to above, having their feelings and experiences invalidated. Having their experiences gaslighted. Being seen as abusers immediately despite whatever they’ve done if anything, and unwillingness of being seen as abuse victim themselves, despite it being one of the biggest causes of some disorders.
- Having their fight or flight and trauma responses judged as an action committed with full intents and capacities and as a way to assess their innate morality.
- Can’t be trusted to make any choice ever, including what is good for them and their healing process.
- Denied help by professionals due to being too much of a “tough/serious case”. Denied support by most for their diagnosis alone.
- Not being able to open up about their issues to anyone because they will be judged and abandoned.
Other things Stranger Things encourages in dealing with neurodivergent people who make you uncomfortable with their symptoms:
- Fearing and denying support for a neurodivergent child with or without conduct disorder, both if it’s your child or a patient.
- The overall, extreme dehumanization of anyone who feels or seems creepy to you. Wether it be because of behavior, diagnosis or vibe, or whatever else.
I’ve debated with many of my friends on Henry Creel’s emotional turmor and humanity. My thesis every time: that Henry Creel was a victim of abuse and deserving of a sympathetic framing through it. Every time the other started hostile to the idea, very reluctant to the idea of him having emotional depth and issues that are born from pain and hurt. Every time, they ended up conceding that the show made things out to be much more black and white than they were. My point is that when doing these debates, a large portion of their points on how Henry never deserved sympathy were either ableist or easily explained by “yeah but that was largely caused by abuse, which is what I’m asking you to acknowledge”. Henry Creel’s portrayal actively drives people to be ableist and ungenerous to him, his experiences and his pain. Stranger Things said that Henry should have been forcibly hospitalized from a young age and never trusted in the presence of anyone, he should have been controlled as soon as possible and monitored carefully and closely. Stranger Things said Henry Creel isn’t capable of growing as a person, while never extending a genuine hand of help. Invalidated, evil and wrong on every point, abused for the majority of his life, Henry should have been able to grow and become better on his own without help because he doesn’t deserve help, and even with that growth who knows if he’s “truly” good now and if he deserves to be forgiven. When Henry Creel opened up about his perspective and life to the one person he had ever trusted and liked, that person immediately recoiled and violently lashed out at them. People keep using the ways Henry reacted to trauma as ammunition of how murderous and evil he is without attempting to seeing his point of view. People dismiss the idea of Henry having any positive intentions, thoughts, hobbies or feelings ever because he “has no empathy” and “insert other ableist reasoning”. The hatred of Henry Creel is one that is first and foremost built upon the denial of compassion.
Hope?
Yeah, if there’s one thing we can always hope for, it’s better for the next season. There are a lot of spots amiss. Will Stranger Things 5 come back and explain how his mother realized he was causing the visions? Will we learn more about the guilty horrific visions of their past horrible deeds? Is there any sort of redemption or de-escalation arc that’s on the table at all?
This from the staff does give me hope. In the remaining time, Henry Creel’s character does a lot more harm to the neurodivergent community than good.
In the end, so far, the show tried as best as it could to fit Henry Creel in small square boxes. The same boxes that caused his core issues, and the same boxes that neurodivergent people don’t often fit into.
Man. Wtf were they thinking. So much cool psychology themes potential but you make Vecna one note wtf. There is so much ground for interesting themes and you choose ableism wtf wtf. Why BLACK WIDOWS?? Why with that explanation??? If you wanted to make Henry a evil emotionless dude you should have chosen scorpions dude. Like? That tale of the scorpion that sunk itself and its ally after lying with the end punch of "Why did you sting me? Because I’m a scorpion." Would have been perfect and not ask for a deeper reading. But nooo it was "black widows are misunderstood and feared when they are just amoral beings that want to live and do nothing wrong” and for some reason they truly are born monsters according to the show.
I am sorry but the narrative of "I am so alienated from humanity that I will cling onto these ugly hated bugs living in my house that were just chilling to get any sense of belonging, we’re both so alike. We’re both miserable but have the power to not be helpless anymore. To have our turn being the ones in control of who has a right to live. And I’ll channel all that bitterness and hurt into making the world free of what has brought me pain and leave it objectively better for it" is just too raw and full of hurt that I will never not have empathy for him, and I will repeat this as many times as I have to.
Okay. This is as done as I’ll get it to be I think. Jesus. If people want to debate that’s fine but tbh I don’t think I’ll respond, I’ve debated and written so much already. Yeah some of this could be worded better but like, if you need me to be Shakespear to grant compassion I’m sorry to say that your compassion doesn’t mean much... To me, now, anyways.
Like I said it’s fine if u liked the way it was executed or whatever, you do you, as long as you acknowledge the problematic, deliberate choices I’ve done my job I think. If you don’t care about the ableist treatment though we’re gonna have beef, but pleaseee I’m anti-harassment just leave me alone and we’ll be fine.
Extra, lowkey relevant video to watch if you want, to grow perspective and empathy for those you deem too far gone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azRl1dI-Cts&ab_channel=TEDxTalks
#stranger things#analysis#character analysis#story analysis#henry creel#peter ballard#ableism#fumi rambles#discourse#stranger things 4#hot take#asd#i would tag aspd but the aspd tag feed already gets too much shit on it#anyone is free to cry about henry creel with me#henry creel rises up and becomes a symbol for societal demonization when#neurodivergent ppl are allowed to hate him too btw#many many do#my posts#my analysis#end me#i hyperfocused all day on this#am i productive and high functioning enough yet :)
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Gather around the fire, children. It is time for Rosie Ro’s headcannons.
• Peony and Jay have the most special relationship, but it has its trials. I feel like during her teenage years, she might have some pent up angst about Jay being absent and unreliable. She had the reader, sure, but her dad is so smart and caring and she really looked up to that—she wanted him around more often. But also, she’s a smart girl herself and comes to understand why he made the choices he did.
• Ariel believes in unicorns. Like, really believes in them. Fairies, too. She weeps like a baby when Klitz tells her that they’re fake. (It would probably be Klitz, he’s like “well they’re not scientifically correct honey! 🤓” and reader’s like “shut up let her dream.”)
• Speaking of the Klitz family, Tim can only produce girls. Like no matter how many Klitz babies happen, he’s a chronic girl dad. (I feel like he wants a million kids with the reader but she’s like “alright slow your roll bud we can only afford so many.”)
• Peter (he’s a Soph deep cut) and Genevieve are super close. They’re like the good ending version of Annie and Ellen.
• Annie makes Joby a lot more soft. He thinks he’s all rock and roll and no feelings, but he finds himself crying just thinking about her. (Fun fact: my dad used to be in a band and he kept baby pictures of me and my brother pasted to his instrument cases. Joby vibes for sure.)
• All of the Bezukhov babies would be progressive little boys and girls. Both Pierre and reader would instill more “out there” values in them for the time period and they all grow up to be outspoken in their opinions. (Pierre has that “he’s a little confused but he’s got the spirit” allyship energy about him haha.)
WOO, yippee! Feel free to agree or disagree with any of these, just my silly little thoughts. Love always! -🥀
oh i’m so excited for this okay
i totally 10000% agree with this. i think you’re spot on. i haven’t published a fic i started like six months ago yet, but like, it touches on jay being absentee and whatnot. those two are so strongly bonded though that yeah, they always work through whatever quarrels they have with each other.🤍
YES OH MY GOD. i used to love unicorns even when i knew they weren’t real. i just thought the idea of them was cool. but entirely, and ari won’t let her dad spoil things for aurora and she entertains her little sister’s love in magical beings for as long as possible :)
this man is fertile and he only makes girls amen in the name of the father, son, and timothy klitz amen
PETER OH MY LORD I LITERALLY NEVER TALK ABOUT HIM. okay this is the one headcanon i sadly have to deny because @spicedchaiandromeda and i have discussed in extent that like ginny HATES peter. she’s so jealous of him when he’s little and thinks her dad loves him more, which isn’t true of course. maybe one day i’ll touch on it but yeah, peter and ginny have a bit of a rocky relationship being half siblings and whatnot
OH A BILLION PERCENT. cause at night when he gets home late from a show and goes into her room to kiss her head, she’ll wake up and make him pull her into his arms and just rock her for a bit. she doesn’t care if he’s still a bit sweaty, she just wants her daddy. and he’ll hold her and look at her sleepy little face and sniffle because damn, what did he do to deserve this?
oh entirely!! dimitri is gay, so i mean it only makes sense!! you and pierre had always taught progressive and accepting beliefs to your children from the beginning, and when dimitri came out it became much more important. and the whole “he’s confused but he’s got the spirit” thing wipes me out because it’s totally true. pierre said “ally!🏳️🌈”
roro THANK YOU for the headcanons🥺 you give me motivation to complete my drafts and keep up with these babies. to everybody reading this, i apologize for the lack of interaction lately, i do love you all though and think about you🤍
#btw soph#🥀 anon#peony okja#jay okja#ariel ivy klitz#aurora seraphine klitz#timothy klitz#peter matthew freeman#annie hendrix taylor#joby taylor#pierre bezukhov#dimitri peotrovich bezukhov
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Rogue
Alignment:
Passive
Counterpart:
Thief
Mythological Role:
One who steals (aspect), or steals through (aspect), for others
Rogues steal from others in order to give their allies a better chance at victory, or, they steal from their enemies so their enemies are vulnerable. Rogues are like the Robin Hood of a given session; they distribute what they steal to their allies.
Themes:
Rogues often will pick their favorite people, and they often rely on this person to keep them stable. This person could be a romantic partner or only a friend.
Rogues are often spoken over and ignored by others, and this is especially frustrating for the rouge. Rogues are not seen as a threat and people tend to look past them. It's not until a rouge is in action do they pose an obvious threat to someone.
Rogues try to keep their social circle together and try to prevent any fallings-out between people.
Rogues have a connection to the aspect of void and are drawn to void players. This is often a romantic relationship between the two. Rogues who are void players are incredibly powerful because of this connection to their aspect.
Personality:
They are naturally rebellious, and they are not afraid to complain and stand up for themselves if they are met with rules that are unjust to them or those they care about. Rules don’t matter to them if rules only benefit one type of person; those who are working against the goals of the rogue. They often go against what society wants them to be, preferring to be their own person and not caring about how others view them. Rogues are quite opinionated, especially about society and its stupid standards.
Rogues are deeply caring individuals, and their comfort often doesn’t hold a candle to the comfort of others. They will often sacrifice things they have for those they care about. They pity those in need and are charitable individuals. They are prone to giving away thighs they might need, either literally or metaphorically, to those who also need that same thing.
Rogues tend to be fairly laid-back and friendly individuals who keep to themselves and those they care about the most. They have a generally small number of people whom they are close to, and they are perfectly comfortable with that. They tend to isolate themselves from society, only speaking to the select few they like.
Rogues often are people who others find to be a good shoulder to cry on. They are often a therapist friend, though they never chose that position outright. It is often assumed by others that they are comfortable with people venting to them, and the rouge will even tell them they are despite not always feeling up to the job. They want to please people in any way they can, even at the risk of their own stability.
Because they are natural people, pleasers, it is not uncommon for the rogue to go along with something even if it makes them uncomfortable. They try to push through these situations so no one around them gets upset. They try to make it seem like everything is fine, even when this is not the case. They often turn to unhealthy methods of coping in order to get through what they are dealing with. They are self-destructive in certain ways.
Rogues cannot handle stressful situations very well, and they have a tendency to freak out. When this happens, they act on pure instinct. They don’t have the chance to think anything through carefully when they are stressed, and the choices they make during these situations can lead to them making mistakes.
People tend to lower their guard around a rogue due to how appealing they are. They seem harmless in many aspects, but they are far from that. They wait for the right moment to strike, hiding their true intent carefully. They are patient individuals and are able to wait for what they want.
Rogues have a tendency to get involved with drama and gossip. They like keeping up with what goes on within their social circle and what everyone is up to. They are not afraid to use the information they receive against others if it is necessary. They also tend to not be able to keep secrets very well in general and tend to spill any gossip they receive by accident.
The rogue is a huge flirt and is known for having romantic turmoils. Their romantic needs are often never met and they settle for someone else until the right time arises for them to pursue the person they truly want. They also tend to give up their chase for the person they truly want in order to make someone else happy.
In Canon:
Nepeta Leijon (Rogue of Heart), Roxy Lalonde (Rogue of Void), Rufioh Nitram/The Summoner (Rogue of Breath)
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Rating Verbal Exchanges I Receive(d) at Work
“Have a good day.” 5/10
Pretty standard. Nothing exciting. I usually say it simultaneously by accident which is always awkward.
“You too.” 5/10
A standard reply to a standard statement. Better than nothing, shows basic reciprocation.
“You as well.” 7/10
“You too,” but shaking it up a little like Barry B. Benson.
“Have a blessed day.” 6/10
Synonymous with #1, usually has religious connotations. Keeps things interesting, easy to say “you too.”
“Oh, that’s mine,” while reaching for pizza. “Haha, just kidding.” 0/10
I will actually try to give you the pizza bc it is heavy, I want it out of my hands, and I have no way to tell whether the pizza belongs to you or not, leaving me no choice but to genuinely take your word for it, making me feel like a fool for believing you. Not funny, rude and annoying wish people would stop doing this I’m just trying to do my job and you are actively inconveniencing me.
“What, none for me?” 1/10
Yes, none for you. +1 bc you’re not getting any.
“Sorry about the dog(s). 7/10
It’s okay, you don’t have to apologize for the dogs. I’ve been barked at on so many deliveries I’d be surprised if I wasn’t.
“Take care, sweetheart.” 10/10
I am blushing.
“Stay safe.” 9/10
Appeals to my values (staying safe) and shows genuine care for my well-being.
“Thank you.” 8/10
The polite thing to say, I expect you to say it in some way.
“Hi, how are you?” 5/10
A little bland. No matter what, the answer will always be the same: “good, how are you?”
“I like your pins.” (They are LGBTQ and non binary pins) 10/10
An ally. A friend.
Visible confusion before looking down at my chest. “A woman.” -100000/10
Wrong. Don’t look at my boobs. Don’t look me. Uncomfortable. I hate it.
Using my correct pronouns without being asked. +1000000/10
You’re perfect. My heart flourishes.
“Thank you for the pizzas and sodas, I’m going to get back to my tabletop game now!” 1000/10
You are literally my favorite customer. I haven’t seen you in forever, table top guy. I miss you.
“Woof!” Sniff sniff 100/10
Good doggy.
“Meow! Prrrrrr” 100000000x infinity/10
Good cat, cat is baby.
“He… or I guess… she… uh.. uhrhrh.” -100/10
Don’t strain yourself, you’re just embarrassing both of us. Seriously, if you can’t figure it out just pick one and stick with it.
“You’re the most popular lady in the neighborhood!” 8/10
Sadly, I am not a lady. I still appreciate the humor, it is very charming. And I probably have a soft spot for sweet older male gentlemen, they’re always so nice to me for some reason.
“Let’s sweeten the pot a bit,” while handing me a tip. 1000/10
Yes, he was an older male gentleman, and I loved him. It made my entire day. I said thank you very strongly. The pot was sweetened.
“So what is this delivery fee? If it’s not a tip, what is it? Oh, I see, corporate greed.” 10/10
I didn’t know what to say, so I just said, “I don’t really know, just for the money, I guess.” But when I thought about it later I realized a part of the delivery fee probably goes into paying for my mileage. But I really like that he was on my side, and also gave me a tip. And he has a tiny frazzled old chihuahua that always quietly greets me when I step out of my vehicle.
“This pen sucks,” while signing the receipt. 0/10
The kid wrote “deez nuts” or some other similar meme quote in the signature and did not leave a tip. Not impressed, teach your child common courtesy or don’t give them the credit card.
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I never really understood that decision either. And I'm glad to see that at least here she'll have to earn it the hard way. It always felt a bit wrong with how easy Susie and some of the other more destructive villians Kirby and the others have faced over the years seems to get away with it all. And I'm kinda tired of finding so many stories that go's "Oh this and this villian is good now? And no need for a repetition arc? Okay we'll just roll with it." It kinda makes the charaters swallow.
Yeaahhh in canon, Susie strikes me as someone who seems pretty uncaring/doesn't think she did anything wrong. She even continues to mechanize planets according to Star Allies which... How tf is Kirby okay with this? Either I'm missing something here, or Susie has literally not changed in the slightest and has only learned not to mechanize Kirby's planet because he's there.
She doesn't seem apologetic toward Meta Knight either, considering on the Allies screens he and even Dark Meta Knight run away from her, indicating there is a semblance of dislike/fear toward her.
But I can sort of get where she's coming from since she grew up in a world where they dehumanized everyone else but themselves. She refers to anyone on Popstar as 'Natives' and talks poorly about them all the time, so that tells me she doesn't see other living beings as truly alive or worthwhile.
Not to mention she was yeeted into another dimension and then promptly not recognized by her own father despite returning to him and such. She even has the gall in the English version to cry "Yippee" when she effectively nuked his brain by interrupting his connection to Star Dream.
It's... very messed up and strange. A lot about her is very odd to me, like she just doesn't feel anything beyond what's within her circle of enjoyment/desires, kind of like how she treated Meta Knight like a shiny new toy to dress up despite him being alive.
I don't know if she even recognized her own dad as being a living creature after a while either with how... casual her response is to him being controlled by Star Dream. It's like he doesn't matter anymore with him not recognizing her, and yet she still remained with him because... she's apparently a spy?? It's very out of the blue.
She's interesting in the sense that she's someone that has some stuff going on but it's a weird messy thing that is muddled in weird translation choices and straight up selfishness and self-centeredness.
I'd love to see her go through a real redemption arc rather than a "Here's a robot, Pinky I'm on your side now that I could possibly die haha." Seems a bit... out of place in my opinion. Also to be fair I love Robobot, I even beat Star Dream OS Soul in the True Arena, but that ending in the story mode still has me like "??????????????????" with the character beats.
#If I misunderstood something about Susie please to enlighten me because where it stands she doesn't feel redeemed to me at all#But yeah I try to make the former baddies show they've changed#Marx is making waves Taranza is trying his best between his grief and even some of my own characters if they were bad once are trying#Like no one is completely bad or good there's gray everywhere but damn if some don't show it more than others#Even some of the good guys messed up if we recall#Dark Nebula certainly played Daroach well#ASMR Chitter Chatter#Starlyteart
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I’m not sure if you ever addressed this before but do you think Dany was “mad” in the end or full in charge of her faculties? I mean the last scene where she is so excited after literally Incinerating civilians makes me think she really is out of her mind. However, everything up to that point seems par for the course Dany. (Burning food/captives, threatening people)The real person she always was just taken to her full intent against people we knew not just mummers dragons such as slavers.
Hey, Nonnie! I'll be honest, I don't remember if I have before but no worries at all, I'll definitely go into it here. =)
With Dany in the end, I'm very much of the opinion that she was in complete charge of her faculties. When she makes the decision she does in 8x05, she is very much in control and of sound mind. D&D themselves said she decides "to make it personal" and that also indicates to me that she wasn't mad.
As far as the "mad queen" arc goes, I think it was split between Dany and Cersei. Those two had far too many parallels to each other (Sansa was also paralleled with them but also had enough contrast to set her apart from them in the end) and to the Mad King himself. Cersei blowing up the Sept is a prime example. While I don't think she was mad per se, and it was a very calculated move, her reaction to the event and being willing to kill however many innocent people along with her enemies reminds me of Aerys a bit. I get her motivation and it's definitely true to her character but that to me was walking that line a bit. As well as her goading Dany by executing Missandei when Drogon was sitting right there. All perfectly explainable for political and war and character reasons, but also makes you go 'hmm'. That's one of the things I love about this story so much, everything is so wrapped up in layers, it's never just one thing. Very complex and rich that no matter how many times you unwrap it, there's still yet another layer you can find when you go back to it.
When Dany decides to burn KL to the ground, she is absolutely making a sound and very thought out choice. For seasons, we have not only been getting hints of what's to come but also once she's in Westeros, we constantly have Tyrion and Varys reminding her/pleading with her not to burn down KL. And we get her reactions to those warnings; she's not very pleased:
7x02 - Dany mentions that if Viserys had the dragons, he would have attacked KL already. Tyrion reminds her that she's not here to be Queen of the Ashes. Dany appears disappointed and puts down the token she's looking at, saying "No"
7x04 - Dany is angry when she loses her allies and wants to fly to KL with the dragons. Tyrion tells her that they have discussed this but she tells him this bs line of clarification (well it becomes bs later on I should say) "My enemies are in the Red Keep." (and the reason it's bs is because she makes this decision in 8x05 and then goes on to attack KL before she makes it to the Red Keep)
7x06 - Tyrion and Dany talk about Cersei & Dany wants to know if they are laying any traps for her. Tyrion tells her that he doesn't think deceit and mass murder is the best way to start a new world. "Which war is won without deceit and mass murder?" He agrees but reminds her that she wants to build a better world. When he asks if that's the kind of queen she wants to be, Dany very nearly rolls her eyes, gets up to walk away, and changes the subject.
8x04 - Tyrion tries to get her to agree to the blockade plan but when he fails, Jon then speaks up - she agrees but she is not happy about it
8x04 - when Varys begs her not to destroy KL, Dany makes that whole destiny speech. When Tyrion proposes an option, she says point blank "Speaking to Cersei will not prevent a slaughter." She eventually agrees to meet, but says "But perhaps it's good that the people see that Daenerys Targaryen made every effort to avoid bloodshed and Cersei Lannister refused. They should know who to blame when the sky falls down upon them." - she was determined to bring "fire and blood" to KL & as her MO, it's the "evil woman's" fault, not hers & "it was necessary"
8x05 - Tyrion tries to talk sense into Dany and keep her from massacring the city and sure enough, we get her response of "In Mereen, the slaves turned on the masters and liberated the city themselves after I arrived." When Tyrion tells her that the people are afraid to go against Cersei, that they're hostages, she says "They are. In a tyrant's grip. Whose fault is that? Mine?" Tyrion tries again to reach her and when he asks for her to give KL the chance to ring the bells to surrender, Dany is not happy but begrudgingly agrees (which we now know she was bs'ing & never intended to accept surrender)
Not to mention for seasons before this her mantra of "A dragon is not a slave" is completely about her. She doesn't like being forced to keep her patience, to not burn everyone alive who she views as evil or that displeases her. We even see that in season 5 in Mereen where she's being forced to be a Queen and rule. Daario says as much in season 6, telling her she's a conqueror, not a ruler. Then Olenna tells her to be a dragon in season 7. She was always looking to liberate the world and rule it all herself.
So for that reason, I absolutely do not believe Dany was mad or had lost her mind. I think part of the great tragedy of Dany's story is that she had been forewarned time and time again. She had ample time and teaching and experience, ample foreknowledge, to not make the same mistake as Aerys (which adds to that two-sided coin she is with Jon where he had to learn not to make the same mistakes as Ned and Robb; but that's the difference between them, he learned & she didn't). She had powerful resources at her disposal to actually make the world a better place, to be a good and benevolent ruler, and she had many people believing in her and that she could make it happen. But she still chose to go down this path, despite everything telling her not to. So she absolutely had her own agency in the end, and she definitely made her own choice. While I wish they hadn't rushed it and they had executed the end of her dark turn a bit better, to me, it absolutely played out the way it was always going to. Dany was always going to make that choice, one she couldn't come back from. Dany wanted to emulate Aegon the Conqueror so badly, felt it was her destiny even, but even Aegon (as brutal as he could be) left some people alive that he conquered to be ruled over. She was intent on destroying everyone who didn't do things her way and didn't show her the love she felt she deserved.
So to go back to that choice she makes, another reason I feel she is in control is because of the factors surrounding that moment of decision for her. The show purposely left in the sound of people in KL crying out for the bells to be rung so the bloodshed could stop. They purposely showed us how the Lannister army surrendered. Dany had won; she had conquered Cersei and her retinue. But it wasn't enough. And they showed that by everything visually and audibly surrounding this moment. It all goes back to "I don't have love here" and "People used to look at me like that, but never here. Never on this side of the sea." When she conquered across the sea, people rejoiced because she was killing "evil men". Here, they've seen a tyrant before. So she definitely made a choice.
As for her burning children, I hate to say it but that was always coming, too. I think if there was any madness on her part, which I hesitate to use that word but I guess it could be considered a type of delusion if you will, was her idea of her destiny. I think Tyrion puts it perfectly in 8x06 "And each time she became more sure that she is good and powerful and right." She is so set on liberating people from tyrants and yet she is one. It's not that she doesn't know she's a tyrant by the end, but she believes she's the right type of tyrant that the people need. She wants to break the wheel to install her own. And more importantly, she believes that she is entitled to the world her family had ruled over for centuries. She believes it's her birthright and that she truly is the Princess Who Was Promised. Despite how things with the NK went and that Arya ended up fulfilling that prophecy. Instead, Dany thinks she was the Queen Who Was Promised. She is the Dragon after all. Which, ironically Jorah even says in 7x07 "Dragons don't understand the difference between what is theirs and what isn't." So if I were to look at anything and think that she might be out of her mind with, it might be that.
And one other thing which you mentioned: her enjoyment/thrill of burning people alive aka her meting out her special brand of justice. I know you meant after the massacre (there were so many problems with that throne room scene dialogue she had; it negated her entire arc and kept her sympathetic to the GA; iirc I think I read somewhere that Emilia had insisted on the scene being changed which makes sense, she spent a decade of her life including two very serious medical events that happened playing this character, she was close to Dany and some might say too close tbf, but I get it) but it has definitely been there before. I remember when Viserys' death happened and Dany's stone cold expression. While Viserys was not a good guy, and he had just threatened her and her baby (not to mention the years of abuse she suffered previously), her lack of reaction to him being killed in such a brutal way, considering he was her last living relative, I remember that bothered some folks, as it should. Even D&D said that was a key moment for those to feel uncomfortable with for her, even back then.
So that's really the only two ways I could see some madness peeking through. Otherwise, no, I think she was of sound mind and very lucid. She knew exactly what she was doing when she made that decision in 8x05. If you look at the shots they showed us in 8x05, her attacks were very purposeful and targeted. Granted, once she made that choice, we never saw her POV again (we now know they did that on purpose thanks to Miguel Sapochnik's explanation) but from Arya's, Jon's, and everyone else's POV on the ground, we see how she purposely had Drogon lighting up the streets and from Cersei's POV, we also see how Dany is going from street to street in a pattern. She started near the gates and moved inwards, working her way towards the Red Keep, but making sure not to miss one street.
And even after she lit up the Red Keep, she went back to making sure that not one square inch had been missed. Even going so far as going back to the entrance of the city.
(Jon and the Northmen are retreating in that very direction, the same direction we see them return into the city again with Tyrion in 8x06 - she literally went back to make sure no one escaped KL/her wrath)
All very methodical, purposeful, and absolutely lucid.
In 8x05, when she does this, we see the true Dany that has been there all along, the one that was always hinted at but had been restrained/simmering under the surface. She was now unleashed. She was the dragon. And a dragon is not a slave. A dragon doesn't show mercy or appear weak. A dragon also doesn't share or play well with others. A dragon is meant to be the one who makes others submit, and expects to be on top, always.
The dragon also expects to be revered and be looked at with "wonder and awe" despite being "terrifying". And when they aren't...
I'll just go back to what Jorah said above about dragons not knowing what's theirs and what isn't. "Land, livestock, children. Letting them roam free in the city would have been a real problem." So I completely agree with you, Nonnie, that this was always going to be the full intention of her character, this is who she really was, and this was definitely on brand for her.
So, no, I don't think she was mad in the way that the GA thought the show had reduced her arc to. She was fully in control.
I hope I was able to answer your question, Nonnie. Thank you for this ask! I LOVE LOVE LOVE talking about GoT, but especially about Dany and her dark turn, so thank you!!!
I hope you have a very nice rest of your night!!! <3
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I've been talking about this with a friend of mine and mizkif has to have like some sort of magic spell to still have people interacting with him like he's not a 100% piece of shit that does nothing but uses people. In every community there's one of them just a huge fucking cunt that you are shocked that everyday people choice to talk with them. At least with train it was somewhat of a build up but mizkif???? Wtf is he??? He's there and makes everything actively worse no matter what yet every single person on twitch has somehow been next to him by choice like HOW.
This is why so many people just stick with mcyt because go outside that for a second it's literal hell on earth. Pokimain actually really wants her audience to just be young girls, she speaks very openly on seeing that shift in her community to being that has made her extremely happy and comfortable but sadly she doesn't play Minecraft she's actually good at the shooty games so even her actively trying to just make a nice little safe space for the girls has been hell AND IT USED TO BE WORSE. Every guy on twitch will tell you that the mcyt community is one of the only ways non cis straight men have any acknowledgement in the twitch community but they always act stupid as too why is that like it's not one of the only groups that want fans to feel safe. Only the mcyts and Jerma and that's because Jerma is the only bitch out here with a backbone to call out his chat when when they're being in your face phobic and then people turn around again going "why does Jerma have so many trans fans???? Why does Jerma have a lot of woman fans??" Just acting stupid like he doesn't do the basics in making sure people feel safe and welcomed I hate twitch actually so mad I see this conversation on loop for years now
(sorry if this is a lot and you are tired)
yeah you absolutely nailed it.
i often think of that clip of poki saying that without the mcyt tide changing twitch for the better (as much as it could) she considered quitting. like that makes me so fucking sad and upset.
not to get on my soapbox again but this is why the JM thing upset me so fucking much because if he opened his eyes for one goddamn second and stopped acting like he was being attacked for no reason, he would have been able to tell miz was NOT just “stating a fact” he is a misogynist and he was making fun of women for having a safe space on that fucking platform. and that’s what we’ve been saying about his jokes like that and from other streamers for YEARS. but no, we’re just hysterical women with internalized misogyny we need to get over. be fucking real.
a lot of these male streamers pretend to be good ally’s to women and minorities but they refuse to do the very basics of calling out and cutting off their terrible friends and associates. it makes me sick.
i’ve been on twitch a long time, and i’ve been in the gaming community online since i was about 8 so none of this shit shocks me anymore and i Know what the underbelly of this community looks like—but the fact that even the “good” side looks like this still now is just, horrifying.
#the art of the ask#sorry i needed to let that out. thank you for giving me your thoughts to go off of 🫂
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post - canon headcanons because everyone is being funny today
to preface; it's. . . complicated about whether or not the konan vs obito fight goes down. it quite literally depends on the verse, with either gem or sage's obito. i think it's safe to say as a default, that if it does happen, she is wounded (stabbed with the broken pipe, namely) and left for dead, but obito can't quite bring himself to kill her. she recovers, albeit she forces that recovery to process faster via usage of smuggled military ration pills, which was an extremely dangerous decision. had it gone wrong, she could've entered cardiac arrest. she's very lucky to be alive, but it is not without damage. in addition to the obvious physical scars, post - war konan cannot overexert herself or even risk masive depletion of her chakra storages. where others may suffer extreme fatigue, it will undoubtedly kill her. (again, verse dependant hc)
having allied with the five kages with the proposition of 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' & 'you don't have a choice; you need me', konan has since begrudgingly earned their trust and restored amegakure's good graces with the other villages. not that she particularly cares, as she still harbors resentment to them, especially konoha and iwagakure. but, it's necessary.
konan is the leader of amegakure, her title as lady angel remains the same. she works tirelessly to rebuild her nation from the ground up. in the initial aftermath of the war, many of the other larger villages make proclamations promising to help & offer reparations, claiming it's a new beginning. many of these promises fall through, with some of the kages' support and communication efforts dwindling on their part before ghosting entirely. sadly, konan more or less expected this.
to focus on the rebuilding and betterment of her village, konan makes the drastic decision to actually dismantle the shinobi system within, such as the ridding of the literal child soldier academies. amegakure also withdraws all participation from the chunin exams because of this, a controversial choice which earns ire and suspicion from the other kages. they worry that ame is turning isolationist and 'plotting something' again. it's bullshit. again, konan expected that reaction.
if there are any akatsuki members still alive, they are welcomed to take refuge in ame, since it's unlikely their home villages will receive them. the nature of konan's relationship with them depends on the individiual. but she likes to think of this offer as the start of an apology of sorts, depending on how this member was (forcibly) recruited. but she will not hesitate to throw them out if they prove to be troublesome and threaten the ame citizens.
she suffers from survivor's guilt immensely. she also feels guilt for her participation in jiraiya's death, as she really did view him as a father figure at one point in her life. (note: my take on jiraiya & the ame orphans is more complex than what unfolded in canon; he did not purposely abandon them, to start) how does she cope? she. . . doesn't. she throws herself into distractions via work and hopes for the best!
one would think that, without nagato around anymore and prioritizing his care over her own, that konan would adapt. she does not. she continues to put others before herself and neglect herself at times, often forgetting to eat or depriving herself of sleep just because there is so much to be done. dizzy spells, headaches, or even blacking out from exhaustion at her desk are common occurences.
do not. under any circumstances. bring up nagato / the past in a means of criticizing him to her. it does not matter if your point is correct, it does not matter if at one point in this time is something she might've hotly debated with nagato when he was alive. she will always love her dearest friend and mourn that he lived a miserable life (and had to suffer a second time via edo tensei) and believes he did the best that he could when dealt with a terrible hand by life itself.
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Paintbrush, PlasGlue, and Holy Clippers: Sparse Marns Part IV: Basecoats Part I
Heya! So my painting project's going well, but the steps are... So Much, and my time to paint each day is So Limited, and the photos Im taking are So Numerous, so I'm changing the terms of the deal and covering the painting in multiple posts instead of one OvO
Ok So: Here's an idea of how they all looked just before I started painting, via Stumbly and Done, with I think two days of the prime drying, and in Crispier, more artificial light than I've been shooting:
And now: The Team
Brushes
These are two different packs, from two different brands, from the local Michaels, in a paintcup from Lowes. I think the orange ones were 5 bucks(Hodge-Podge I wanna say?) and the white ones were 8? I should have probably recorded prices at time of purchase -__-
Next: Some towels for wiping my brushes with and general cleanliness-Utility:
These are disposable microfiber cloths, again from Lowes. Im pretty sure paper towels would work just as well but I've found myself in the painting section often of late, was curious how these would do, and they were EXTREMELY cheap.
Then: some jars for cleaning my brushes.
I used two so that I would have a jar of absolutely CLEAN water for wetting my brush after I've washed it in the other one and dried it on the cloth. Im using exclusively water-based paints so it's just water in these jars; there's no reason to use a mask for the painting part of this project as no turpentine or other such solvents will come anywhere NEAR this project(except for Mr. Dissolved, of course, and we're passed that uwu uwu uwu)
Ok next I wanted to try using a wet palette, something I've never done before, and, while I COULD just go buy one, I figured I'd try making one instead as it seemed fairly easy to do(actl it seems easier that the official version? Looking around at Michaels the "Acrylic paper" they use for wet palettes requires soaking in BOILING WATER for like 15 MINUTES before use??? Maybe I found the wrong stuff tho). So, I went and got a rubbermaid box I wasn't using
(Pentel R.S.V.P. bk90 Fine for scale), Put a paper towel in it like so
Got it wet(just damp; not soaked), poured off(and wrung out) any excess, then cut a piece of waxpaper to shape and pressed it in
The idea here is that the paint will sit safe from slurp and dissolution on the waxpaper while water wicks up SLOOOOOWLYYYY through it from the paper towel, keeping it moist without diluting it. This generally worked well, tho it took me awhile to get used to it and to working with the paint, which I got anxious/paranoid over a few times.
And lastly, of course, because one should NEVER go ANYWHERE without at least 3-5 notebooks on their person, a memobook and pen
Obvsl I'd include these purely on Principle, but as a practical matter it's useful to have a method for recording how many Parts of Which Color go into any colors you might mix in the course of painting u_u u_u
OK: Now it's time to make some Motherfucking CHOICES >:3
Originally, my plan was to paint these as Ultramarines. They're a Pretty Basic Blue, Red, Gold(with some white accents; GEE I wonder where that color scheme comes from???) scheme, which are all really Solid, Vibrant, Reliable colors. This subfaction is also quite literally the Model Spess Marins and posterboys for the whole model line/faction, and so there are LOTS of painting tutorials and examples out there for them and also-also I could use the box art as a handy painting-reference :> :>
BUT!
If I ever decide to play WH40k, I wouldnt want to do it with Gillman's Legionnaires(no offense to them; they're about the closest things to 'Good Guys' as Spess Marins[and WH40K humans generally outside the Adeptus Custodes/sisters of silence] GET), but rather with mine own Best Lad brainfruits: the Nova Paladins uvu uvu uvu
if I painted them as Ultramrines, I could never use them as part of that army(well I could, but only as an allied detachment, which would cause all sorts of complicated rules Shenanigans that I dont want to get into, unless I played the NPs under UM rules cuz, obvsl, you cant just PLAY your own madeup ruleset with other ppl--- It's Complicated Alright >:| >:|)
This is supposed to be a Fun and Learning experience and, as Dear Old Bob was so fond of saying, painting is about Doing What You Want; this is my own world with ALL the Happy Little Trees I WANT godsdammit so:
I decided to paint them as the Nova Paladins :3
But this Immediately presents a problem! The Nova Paladin paint scheme is (a skeletal, yellowish)white, yellow, and orange, and these are the three MOST finicky and difficult paints to paint with(allegedly u_u u_u and, spoilers, they SORT of are but theyre not THAT bad u_u u_u u_u) u_u My solution was simple: I LIKE difficult and finicky things and thus Do Not Care >:3 >:3
SO:
The Paints: and oh no! The initial pictures I took of these SUCKED so I just took some new ones with better, more LEGIBLE, lighting X| X| X|
These are my basecoats. I Know this looks intimidating but plz calm down!
The general concept for the Nova Paladins is a Bright, Warm, Friendly, almost EXPLODY(hence the name) "Heroic" color scheme: Knights in Shining Armor, vaporizing everyone they meet with the fury of 10000 Suns(ie: concentrated plasma rifles). The majority of each model(like 90% of them) is going to be the corax white there on the left: that's the "Primary" color which I planned to use for their armor. Then the imperial fist yellow would be my secondary color, for their pauldrons(the big shoulder bits), and for the sergeant's helmet. The Orange I planned to use as an accent color, tho at the time I hadn't really decided WHAT I'd be accenting with it. The mid-brown(bloodreaver flesh) I'd use for any leather details, such as their belts and pouches. The light beige there(Zandri dust) I'd use for any scroll or ribbon details. The red is a sort of secondary accent I planned to use exclusively for their grenades, and I held to that. Next to it, entirely illegible(X| X|), is Screamer Pink, which Im going to use for the seals/rosettes(which they are is a question whose answer properly lies only in the heart of each individual painter, and dont let anyone tell you different u_u) any ribbons will be attached to, and then the abaddon black I planned to use on the joint-bits showing through the armor, any tubing, and the Iron Sights on the guns, because Im Insane -__- I would MOSTLY follow this plan, but not entirely u_u u_u u_u
So, using This brush
I applied the white-layer, and here's Sarge to show how that looked
Pretty Spiffy! This was, I think, after the 2nd coat, and unfortunately a mouldline managed to survive through my ministrations on this one |:T It's not a HUGE deal; it disappeared as I built up layers.
I didn't find the white PHYSICALLY difficult to work with as others warned(it pretty much went where I wanted it too and didn't slink around), but it DID take me awhile to figure out the proper paint-water ratio with the brush, and I had a really hard time seeing it on the palette. Also, most painting vids will tell you to paint in "two thin coats" of each color, both to avoid globbing/unruly paint and to get a smoother, fuller finish without visible paintstrokes, but I ended up doing... A LOT of coats on these. Somewhere between 4 and 6 per model, and some sections maybe even more. Probably should have taken notes in my memopad during the painting for the sake of later accuracy :p :p That MIGHT have been the paint, it might have also been me using the wrong brush(I felt it worked fine, but it's a little short and bristly and its possible that's meant as a drybrush) but honestly it felt more like a combination of my learning how to properly work with the paint and my obsessive meticulousness. Building up progressive thin layers to a creamy full coat was... Satisfying OuO
Also, obvsl, I really struggled with workflow on this bit. My idea was to do All The Armor on one, then All The Armor on the next, etc etc, but I kept both circling back to sections I wasn't satisfied with AND forgetting sections I intended to paint with that approach which is BAD cuz you need to give the paint time to set; it was simply Too Broad a remit for my brain's Tendencies and I needed to pare it down. I would Form Resolves, considering this.
This step was my longest; my painting times have been deeply uneven day-to-day, but I'd say I easily spent 8 hours spread over 2.5 just on this. Again: I AM VERY DETAIL ORIENTED AND FINICKY: most ppl would NOT take this long on the primary base coat on their minis, even using white paint(which I'm pretty sure I was thinning down WAY too much at the start), and nor should they. But: I got the results I wanted, gained valuable experience with the paint and brush, and realized I needed to think harder about my workflow to get it Efficient. Also I think the black-grey-white tonal I used for the priming may have been too dark for such a bright scheme, but I'll get into that in my concluding/future projects post.
Once I was satisfied with the white coat, I turned to the yellow, and a different brush
This fellow. It's a longer brush, but the tip is finer and I thought that would help with the more detailed work. Generally I feel it worked well, tho there were moments where I or it slipped, and it painted where I didn't want it to. Not to worry! The base layer's just the start and touchup is always possible later. If, in your painting, you do get paint where you dont want you can either just paint over it once it dries with the color you like or, if you're fast enough and have a clean brush handy, try to swipe some of that paint off onto a brush, or even push some water into it to dilute it.
Immediately I recognized that Imperial Fist was too thin for what I wanted, especially with the prime I'd given it. tl;dr: Imperial Fist is a "Contrast Paint" and Contrast paints are a new line by GW meant to compete with "speedpaint" lines from other manufacturers which,building from a full-white prime, allow you to quickly paint up allot of figures. As thin paints(practically inks and nearly washes, imo) they settle into the recesses of the model giving you, as the name implies, good Contrasts and gradients across the model as a whole with just a few coats of a single color, and eliminating the need for lots of shading thereby. Imperial Fist just did not work with the prime I had. I thought this might be the case(despite some of the GW painting guides I'd found reccing it) so I bought a backup yellow which I now turned to:
Yriel yellow was much thicker, though "cooler" and not as red/orange/redgold a yellow as I really want for this scheme(IF absolutely has that sort of punch). I decided to give it a shot though, and it worked fine.
As I began to paint, I put my Resolves from the white layer into action. I would start painting section-by-section model-to-model (ie left shoulder on all of them, then right shoulder, then gun, etc etc). This approach worked allot better, for Me: it helped me to stay focused on One Thing and to move btwn the miniatures, letting each layer lay as it lie, knowing I could come back to "fix" any issues I had with it once dry, and preventing me from endlessly circling one model, trying to get everything Just So. Also: I began to move the minis from one side of the workspace to the other as I finished a layer, which helped me to keep track of which ones were done and which ones still needed work, and gave a satisfyingly tactile, concrete, and repetitive aspect to my progression. I feel like this approach would have sped up the white layer SIGNIFICANTLY.
It took about 3-4 coats until I was satisfied with the intensity of color on thier shoulders and the sergeant's helmet...
...and that was when I decided to do their guns in yellow too. GW aims for a bit of a 'Tacticool' aesthetic these days and as such the guns tend to be dark and metallic, but back when I first started following the hobby they were much more colorful and cartoony(with DANGER STRIPES, Even!), and I thought it'd be kind of a waste of that great yellow to just put it on the shoulders, and and I always preferred that more colorful approach anyway, so I painted the gun casings too :> :>
...and THEN I decided to paint their knees, also, in this yellow, cuz why not >:> >:> >:> Sometimes having one knee painted in the secondary color is used as a rank signifier for Spice Mariners, but I didn't care and different chapters do thing different all the time so It's Fine.
... and THEN-then, I decided the circle bits at the ankle of Primaris marine boots would look Neat in that yellow, too, so I painted THAT yellow also >:D >:D AND the matching interior circles >:D
Then, glutted with my POWA, I took some pics maniacally giggling ONLY SLIGHTLY:
Starting to come together >:> >:> I thought this looked really nice, but I still wanted that reddish PUNCH the Imperial Fist yellow had, and it occurred to me that, seeing as it looked like a wash and ACTED like a wash, I might as well try USING IT as a wash, so I did! And this is after that:
I think that IF contrast wash really gave the yellow bits a fuller, warmer, Snappier tone ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ Or at least I hope so: again, the pics are pretty blurry in the editor so idk how they look to y'all.
Anyway! I think I'll stop there for today cuz this post is Huge and has lots of pictures in it. Basecoats part 2 will include the Accents, All of the 8its, and also the Metallics :> :> Seeya then ^v^
#zA Paints#zA Hobbies#GamesWorkshop#WH40K#Space Marines#Heavy Intercessors#Nova Paladins#Base Layers#Hobbyposts
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🍊📙🍐🌀🍇🌸 for Fate?
🍊 What is your OC’s favourite meal? Snack? Dessert? Drink? Any reasons behind this besides liking how it tastes? What is your OC’s most hated food? Stuff they can’t stand to eat or drink?
She would probably really enjoy sweet foods. Probably things like fruits, candies and smoothies. She’s not really one for meat but she’ll still eat it, she just doesn’t like most meats. She prefers more fruit or vegetables. She’ll eat most what you put in front of her unless she really really hates it. She doesn’t really have any reason though other than ‘this taste nice :)’
She doesn’t like spicy or bitter foods like chili, brussel sprouts or peppers.
📙 What kind of subjects (of conversation, of discussion, in school or whatever) does your OC find interesting or engaging or that they can talk for hours about? What kind of stuff do they just find fun? What things bore your OC to tears and they couldn’t care less about? Why?
Fate is really interested in history and different cultures! She could listen too others talk about their culture/history for hours, or talk about her own. She also became really interested in Pokemon when coming to Aevium, they kinda reminded her of the Familiars from her own home but they were also different.
Math really bores her, it mainly stress her though she was never good at it. She also finds things that require a lot of patience/stillness boring. Such as fishing, meditation, chess, etc… She just can’t handle it, it’s the under stimulation.
🍐 What is your OC’s mentality? Are they overall positive? Negative? A bit of both? Describe their thought patterns and reasoning behind their choice making!
Positive to a fault, Fate doesn’t like to be sad or upset. She hates seeing those she cares about be upset or anything negative. She also doesn’t like to think nothing but the best is going to happen. However she doesn’t want others to worry for her or annoy others with her problems. This leads her to thinking her problems aren’t as bad as others. She’s basically gaslighting herself. She hates seeing her friends upset, she doesn’t want to put them through that. Even if it negatively affects her.
🌀 Where is your OC from? Where were they born? Do they still live there, if not why did they move? If they still live in the area how has it changed since their childhood? How many places has your OC lived in and where has been their favourite?
Fate’s actually from the world of my original story! She nor Calamity are not tied in anyway to said story tho aside from being from the world. I was too lazy to think of a new world lol. I don’t have a name for the specific world (I need to get on that), but I call the story Strange World (for now I want to change it but I can’t find a better name that fits rn). I don’t know exactly where they fit into the timeline but tbh it really doesn’t matter. Given it’s a chill found family story, and Fate lived in a completely different area than from the Strange World cast. Closet thing Fate shares with them is that she too got eeby deebied like the main character, Allie lmao.
I shall now stop talking about my other ocs and actually answer the questions. Fate lived out in the country in a small village / town out in the forest. It was a very magical area, where the magic could be quite unstable at times so not many people lived there. Fate- uh obviously doesn’t live there anymore. It was pretty much where she lived her entire life though and she always wanted to explore outside of her tiny town. She however didn’t expect said ‘seeing new sights’ to involve getting sent to a whole different world.
🍇 Day or Night? Sun or Rain? Summer or Winter?
Night, sun and summer!
🌸 What does your OC’s voice sound like? Their laugh? Are they good at singing? Do they have an accent?
I could literally not tell you why but I’ve always thought of Fate’s voice being a weird mix between Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie from MLP. Something upbeat and energetic but also soothing? She is a horrible singer though, loves singing but she is tone deaf as fuck she just s c r e a m s.
Honestly though, she would probably have an accent. However no one in Aevium can place her accent give she kinda from a whole different world. Fate literally had to research different regions and their voices to find the closest sounding one because people kept asking her. So she can have something to say it isn’t a good idea to say you’re from another world when someone asks.
#sorry I answered this a bit late#I went out with my family and then fell asleep when I got home#oc; fate
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CF Playthrough Part 41
God, I freaking love Petra. While I do wish her conduct was slightly different with the others sometimes, I love that she’s not just here because of a drive for Edie’s goal. You can argue that maybe she is, but here she makes it explicitly clear that her goal first and foremost is ensuring that Brigid is safe… and this does mean just following in EdeIgard’s footsteps to try and play her a little. Whether she’s actually into what Edie’s saying is up to you, but she’s not shy in saying this is where she’s at right now.
It’s good to see a manipulation not framed as bad, and one that actually has some involvement in politics.
It’s funny, since Hopes happened, I haven’t seen anywhere near as many people claim that Felix so totally hates his dad and that Rodrigue was the worst. Hm.
Apparently I lost on this map at some point? I think like, Jeritza of all people was the last man standing? Not entirely sure why, but… you know. I honestly consistently forget that Divine Pulse is an arrow in my quiver just because I’m so used to 3DS FE, particularly the ones that didn’t have Mila’s Turnwheel either, so I’m just constantly going “oh darn, guess we’ll just restart the whole map”.
… Interesting word choice. I would’ve thought talk about systems and structures would come first, since you say that’s your goal… maybe more of the Japanese version bleeding through. Oh look, Nintendo Treehouse can be faithful to a translation sometimes.
I know Arundel is talking about a particular situation, but these are bold words coming from the literal Flame Emperor.
Also we did deliberately leave our allies out, so sorry Edie, that’s deceit. Never heard of omission of truth?
So you know how I’ve been passive-aggressive about some of the stuff here? Well, now I’m going to be aggressive aggressive:
This is low. Blah blah oppressive systems whatever, she is outright lying about the deaths of potential hundreds of people and attributing it to someone who didn’t do it. Why? Well, to protect her allyship with the people who actually are responsible for the potential thousands of people. Problem is, her choosing to say this is inherently underhanded, because she didn’t have to. Don’t want to say the Slithers did it? Then don’t. Say you don’t know. There are people all over involved in this war, so it isn’t as if the javelins point directly to TWSITD. Besides, even if they did, it’s not like they have made a solid effort to punish her before anyway. She participated in the killing of Solon, and got away without even a slap on the wrist.
She chooses to point fingers at the Church because it’s the easy way. It makes her side look good, and if her side wins (she’s beginning to think it will according to her dialogue), the javelins of light will forever be attributed to the Church in history books. The added benefit to that for her, too, is that she gets to use this lie for added propaganda. The fact that she’s using it here to remind her friends and soldiers of how corrupt and evil the Church is only proves that.
“Church supporters?! But don’t you see how awful they were?!”
And the whole time, it’s her allies — people she doesn’t deal with in underhanded ways, even though she’s made it clear that she’s good at being manipulative. You could argue that TWSITD are supposed to be this big, scary technological threat, but half the time they aren’t even that smart. It’s honestly more of a matter of her having her priorities, and it’s make them look bad, and me look good. Why should I bother being honest if it doesn’t help me get what I want?
These are not the actions of a nice person, but boy, is the game going to insist to me that she’s actually very sweet — and that’s what bothers me. She gets to do this, and there’s no consequence. When it comes to EdeIgard, nothing ever seems to have any consequences. It is the single biggest problem with this route. They have all of this potential with an actually interesting, morally questionable female character, and they’re just refusing it. They like her too much to outright paint her in any sort of bad light, but whether you’re trying to do a villain with her or a morally grey heroine, refusing to address her wrongdoings is just — apologies for the overused term — bad writing.
I won’t knock anyone for liking her, but I will knock people who say she did nothing wrong. This is wrong. Just because the game doesn’t treat scenarios like this with the proper nuance doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t. CF is awful for this, and it honestly sucks a lot of the entertainment value out of the story.
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