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offsidekineticist · 6 months

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💎💎💎for agria if you're still taking these and it strikes your fancy lol!

I am still taking them! Sorry it took so long, took some time to decide who would be most interesting to answer this one. So here's Giliys's thoughts on Agria (whom he has nicknamed 'Threads' because Giliys can't just call people by their names like a normal person, I'm so sorry).

"Threads? Well. I think I'd have liked her better if we met before the fifth crusade. I know she's got rich family, but she doesn't really count as nobility. I mean, she coulda stayed in Brevoy and tried to blend in with with the fancy Lebedas, sucked up to them, tried to marry up, but she didn't. She went and said she was part of a people with no home scattered all over Avistan, and when she realized their culture had been stolen from them, she went and said she'd steal it back. That takes guts.

"But then Areelu fucking Vorlesh got ahold of her, and - " Giliys stops himself, face taut with rage. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "Look. I know most people think I don't have a conscience cuz it's calibrated different than most. But I do know this: the worst, most unforgivale things you can do to someone are the things that hurt the soul. And I know, I know, I done plenty of that in my time, but I also know it's fucked up. What Areelu Vorlesh did was un-fucking-forgivable. And Threads did her best to pick up the pieces and stitch herself back together, but...she decided not to fix what she did to her, didn't she? I don't know if she didn't think it was possible or if she actually thought she was better off for it, but either way - I mean - that's not something you choose if your soul is whole.

"So yeah. It's funny, I don't have a problem with her having magic powers from the Abyss. But the power she has as knight-commander...yeah, that's the kind of thing that twists you up inside, makes you into something else. Something that can't be fixed. And I hope Galfrey rots for pushing her into that when she was already torn up inside by Vorlesh."

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five-thousand-loaves-of-bread · 2 months

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autism awareness & autism acceptance not either or. not mutually exclusive. can coexist. need coexist.

“there enough awareness for autism already 🙄 we need acceptance”

ok. you aware of high support needs autism? aware what that even means? not “need reminder take meds need remind take shower” “high” support needs autism, but “need full physical help do bADLs lack danger awareness may accidentally hurt self or even kill self without support” high support needs autism? not just higher support needs people who can be independently online do advocacy, but those who need help from others even be online, or those who cannot be online at. all.?

aware of nonverbal nonspeaking people? not just nonverbal nonspeaking people who can write grammatically correct cannot tell apart base on writing. not just nonverbal nonspeaking people who can be online who can advocate online.

aware of nonverbal nonspeaking people who cannot communicate in way that easily understood, either for now, or ever? aware of nonverbal nonspeaking people without functional communication, aware of how without functional communication, how that drastically limit communication, even though behaviors are valid communication? aware of nonverbal nonspeaking people who may never use AAC fluently even with best support?

aware of technically verbal but very limited verbal autistics who may only able say wants & needs but not other things and certainly not online advocacy, “despite being verbal”?

aware of just how much our life depends on caregiver/carer/PCA/etc? aware how vulnerable that make us? aware of abuse from caregivers? aware of caregiver burnout from lack of support for caregivers, & how that impact our care we receive? have you even heard of term respite care? aware of those of us who cannot separate ourselves from caregiver? aware of those of us who cannot participate in autism community without caregiver?

aware of visibly autistic people? aware how we not automatically believed? aware how we often bear blunt of violence because we most easily identified target because we visible? aware visible =/= get support, aware that many those diagnosed severe who now adult so no longer qualify for services under 21 year old, languish in hospitals because nowhere to go? aware how long life saving necessary waitlists are? aware that even to this day parents have to fight school fight day service fight government fight insurance for them give their nonverbal nonspeaking child AAC & be properly taught how use it? actually, are you aware of how properly teach AAC to nonverbal nonspeaking, developmentally delayed child who may or may not have intellectual disability?

actually, aware of autistics with (correctly diagnosed) intellectual disability & how they make up big amount of autistic? aware of institutional systemic & legal impact of mental [r word] right & the human rights abuse justified using r word right? wait, you aware that r word come from old term for intellectual disability, that, actually, still in many laws because no one bothered updating, right? aware of what severe profound ID look like? and aware they real and they still human deserve education deserve life deserve care, yes?

aware of early diagnosis 20 30 or even 10 years ago, not same as now, even less resources & knowledge about autism now? aware that while gender race class 1000% impacted diagnoses, a lot of early diagnosed people early diagnosed because… they die without support unlocked by diagnosis, right? but also, aware that in old times, early diagnosis often did mean doom, not because autism bad or anything, but because severe lack of support & diagnosis can literally bar you from so many things including basic education?

aware that for many people in special education, which impact specific group of autistic people, they not get degree when graduate high school, they just get certificate, which limit their educational & employment opportunities & others?

aware of life saving importance and necessity of masking for autistic of color especially Black autistic people, despite stress inducing traumatic? aware that live in broken system be victim of hate crime & police brutality just as traumatic often even more traumatic than masking? aware that many Black & other parents of color forced to teach their child masking because of this?

are you aware of most marginalized autistic people? aware of leadership of most impacted?

aware you can and need to care about autistic experiences & form of autism you not experience? aware that you can and need to do that without try twist your experience into our experience into our words our community?

aware that advocacy goes beyond about you?

aware that you can’t speak for all autistic? aware that you shouldn’t speak for all autistic?

are you aware of when you need to stop talking & listen & amplify others? aware of when and how to decenter self?

aware that even this long post, barely scratch surface? still so much to say?

[better worded version of original post]

#loaf screm #actually autistic #autism acceptence month #autism awareness #autism awareness month #high support needs #long post #nonverbal #nonspeaking #autism #autistic #autism acceptance

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comicaurora · 4 months

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Sorry to drop a hella irl-political question on your mostly webcomic blog, but have you/any of the OSP gang heard of/been participating in the week-long strike for palestine that's been (presumably) all over tumblr/the internet?

For some background info: Following the attack on Oct. 7th by the hamas militant group (a terrorist org. Or resistance group, depending who you ask), the state of israel (which is practically a mass colonial settlement on Palestinian land since '48) has taken the attack as an excuse to indiscriminately bomb the homes of thousands if not millions of homes while forcebly displacing almost all of the ~2.3 million people crammed in the gaza strip with no escape.

'Israel' has also tightened it's blockade on the strip of land such that a growing majority of people there are experiencing catastrophic starvation, disease from sewage-infested drinking water (as water aid is too scarce). Soon even deaths by preventable causes such as diabetes will occur since insulin pens for children have been blocked from entering by israel, who controls gaza's borders, water, power, food supplies, and shoreline. Civilians in Gaza are very frequently and indiscriminately killed often in places they were told were safe zones to evacuate to. It's agreed upon by both experts and laymen worldwide that what is happening (and has BEEN happening before Oct.7th) is nothing short of genocide.

In the occupied Palestinian west bank, where there is no hamas whatsoever to use as an excuse, Palestinians are still arrested without a fair trial for years, abused, prevented from using certain roads, shot, and often straight-up have their houses stolen by armed or military-backed israeli settlers (many of whom have no ancestral connection to the land at all) in a system often compared to or outright stated to be apartheid.

Very recently, a journalist in Gaza by the name of Bisan Owda called for a strike from January 21st to January 28th. The conditions of the strike can be paraphrased as:

Cease all unnecessary purchases or payments, avoid generating ad revenue when possible

Do not go to work or school if you can possibly avoid it

Pay for things only in cash if you must

Use social media exclusively to flood the internet with palestinian voices and resources about the ongoing genocide against the palestinian people

Attend protests if you can

Be visible.

It's the 26th now, but joining late would be far better than to not join at all and stay silent.

I figured I'd ask since since OSP has covered various topics about history and/or politics and we're kinda watching some awful history unfolding, the kind of history where neutrality doesn't really work and a side needs to be taken.

Opinions? (Sorry if I'm coming across as condescending! I just really want my favorite blogs to be aware and take a stance rather than being silent hhhghf)

Okay, here's my answer.

OSP has been supporting calls for a ceasefire for months, and we were fundraising in direct support of it via Doctors Without Borders all through November and December. Total, we raised over $30,000. If we include the UNICEF fundraiser we ran on the Spider-Man streams, the total is over $40,000.

During our charity livestreams, we have made our positions clear – we support a ceasefire, Israel is perpetuating settler-colonialist violence and has been for decades, Hamas is a terrorist organization that endangers Israelis and Palestinians alike, the innocent people of both Palestine and Israel deserve safety and peace. We concluded that the best thing we could do under the circumstances was empower those who are in a real position to actually help by providing funding for their work. We believe this is significantly more beneficial than adding Another Angry Internet Post to the pile of insular outrage on Internet Land. Fundraising for the organizations with boots on the ground feels like it does a lot more good than being loud online for the benefit of other online people.

This is not the first time I've heard reference to the strike, but it is the first time I've seen the parameters of the strike laid out, which to me indicates that it wasn't spread as widely or effectively as it could've been.

I understand and appreciate why you sent this ask, but your premise worries me. I know this may surprise and startle us denizens of the internet, but being extremely loud on the internet is not the only or the most effective form of activism, and people not being extremely loud on the internet with every account they have is not the same thing as silent complicity in war crimes, and people acting like those two things are the same thing has been unbelievably frustrating to watch.

If we act like everything is a binary moral choice between "scream your loudest, most angry opinions online every time you feel angry about them" and "not doing that is literally the same thing as participating in genocide", we are creating a very strong pressure to flood the internet with our angriest, most unformed thoughts, lest we be branded as complicit in war crimes. Social media sites live and die on engagement, hence why twitter has rapidly trended towards doomscrolling and encouraging inflammatory clickbait - angry shouty people are traffic and traffic is money. The cynical part of me is utterly unsurprised that social media encourages the idea that the only true form of activism is being loud on social media.

It sounds like you had the feeling that sending me this ask was weird and a boundary overstep, and you were correct. My platform is not world-changing or in any way politically powerful beyond our ability to create charity fundraisers for causes we believe in, and we are doing what we can to help in the tiny ways that we can from halfway across the world, from a position of absolutely zero political weight beyond emailing our representatives. You are just asking me to also shout about it online loudly enough that I measure up to an artificial loudness metric, because my existing shouting was not already loud or omnipresent enough.

You are not entitled to know every thought in my head or every action I take in my life. I am not online to perform outrage and live up to an arbitrary moral standard of Shouting Enough. I am especially not online on my fantasy webcomic blog to do those things. Please understand that what you see of me is what I choose to share, and I am under no obligation, moral or otherwise, to share more.

#asks #not aurora #taking a big risk putting this on the reading comprehension website #turned off reblogs just so I don't stress all night

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saionjeans · 4 months

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yet another moment where saionji says something incredibly trenchant and insightful only to be completely dismissed due to the ridiculous framing and the general cringiness that pervades everything he says and does (eg, pointing out that the castle is a trick of the light, announcing that they must shed the coffins end of the world has prepared for them, etc etc). obviously in this instance, he is both saying something that is proven correct throughout the show via a myriad of dynamics, but is also shown to be a precept that is teleologically challenged and rejected by anthy’s final choice.

upon a first viewing, one might assume saionji himself is talking about anthy here, whether by presumptuously assuming that she loves him despite his abuse, or claiming that her rejection of him does not lessen his love for her. either way, he seems totally delusional and moronic. i can only assume that utena, who has even less information than we do regarding saionji’s true feelings, assumes that he is talking about anthy, and thus dismisses him out of hand for being a violent idiot. and rightfully so. but also, he’s clearly not talking about anthy, even if he may think he is (or at least would claim that he was if questioned). and this statement is truly definitional to his relationship to touga, whom he resents, envies, and maybe even loathes, but whom he cannot seem to ever actually abandon.

even when he’s given the chance to start fresh, he returns to ohtori (and in this case you can say that it’s because he has nowhere to go, no family, the outside world is scary, ohtori is all he knows, he felt he had no other choice… but this was also true of anthy, and she eventually found the courage to leave! it’s very very hard, but it’s not impossible, which is the point). even as he vocally condemns akio’s system, he nonetheless participates in it, albeit reluctantly, for touga. he is freer, healthier, and kinder in wakaba’s dorm, but he is also deeply unhappy. which isn’t to say that he ever seems happy (at least, not after losing the rose bride), but his unhappiness in “wakaba flourishing” is that of depression, whereas his unhappiness around touga is that of resentment. he’s rightfully angry over constantly being mistreated, but at least he’s not lost. he has a purpose. even if it’s just the purpose of receiving abuse and putting up a futile fight, it’s a role he can play with the only person who has ever truly mattered to him. it’s all he knows; it’s the closest thing he has to real love. and so he stays.

nanami is in a very similar situation as saionji is. they both idealize a version of touga who never really existed, and cling to him despite his blatant mistreatment of them because he is the only person who has ever shown them true affection in their entire lives. he manipulates them, makes a laughingstock of them, facilitates and participates in sexually abusing them, but also makes sure that they are too dependent on him to leave them. nanami is even more blatant in illustrating this idea than saionji is, as for most of the show, she does not even resist against touga like saionji does, rather she purely venerates and worships him, to the point of parody. he is a terrible brother to her, but in such a way that makes it seem like he’s actually a good brother to an obnoxious, ridiculous sister. he is actively grooming her, and she has nowhere to run, because he has fashioned himself her entire world. she cannot fathom a world beyond his limits, her very own personal end of the world.

it’s somewhat unclear whether touga thinks that controlling saionji and nanami is necessary to keeping them around, or whether he only wants them around because he enjoys assuming control over others. it’s probably a mix of both. he probably does hold some affection for them, but cannot conceive of a way to keep them as close to him as he would like without exploiting them, because he believes that true friendship is for fools and true love is impossible. to touga, if every relationship must be imbalanced in some way, then he at least wants to be the one with the power in his deepest relationships, unaware (or at least, willfully ignorant) of the fact that by corrupting and perverting their dynamics, he is slowly tainting their naive childhood love and affection that drew them to him in the first place. so in touga’s case, he inverts saionji’s logic to refigure it as “love can only be facilitated through abuse, no one will truly show you love unless they have to (through exploitation).” it’s the logic of someone who sees the world through an almost 2D framework of abuse, exploitation, transaction, and control. it’s the logic of someone desperately sad and desperately cynical. nanami is very wise (and brave) to ultimately reject him/it, even though it, too, is all she knows.

tsuwabuki complicates the nanami/touga dynamic by aspiring to inhabit both their roles simultaneously, and so he allows himself to be subjected to nanami’s exploitation while simultaneously subjecting her to violence. he is happy to be abused by nanami not because he loves her per se, but because their abuse is mutual. shiori and juri have a similar dynamic, wherein they are both at fault in different ways, both attempt to avoid the other (physically and psychologically) and yet constantly collide like magnets. however, the i would argue that the abuse they face is largely systemic, and their behaviors are primarily a symptom of their internalized homophobia rather than overt malice (even though shiori may pretend otherwise). miki and kozue’s tension is also mutual. they both harm the other despite loving them deeply. because love is not a bandaid that revolves all pain, misunderstanding, and miscommunication. see: the utena and anthy ledge scene.

finally, i think this quote is actually most powerful when figuring it through the lens of utena, anthy, and akio. of course, akio has fostered a dependency in anthy much like touga has with nanami, and so she does not know how to leave him despite being in incredible pain at his hand. but she is not “happy,” as saionji puts it. she is the most miserable girl in the world. she doesn’t love akio as much as she loves the memory of him, the idea of dios (which is of course also true for nanami and saionji re: touga, arguably also true for juri re: shiori, miki re: kozue, etc etc) — but anthy needs akio. or at least, akio has convinced her that she does. he is end of the world, she cannot envision a life beyond his imposed limits.

but i actually find it more interesting with regards to utena and akio. i don’t think at any point in the show, utena ever actually has real, romantic feelings for akio. i think that she is terrified of him, and in her desperate feelings of trapped helplessness as he ensnares her, she convinces herself that those heart palpitations, startled movements, shocks and thrills she feels in her presence is the emotional response not of fear, but of affection. but we know that in anthy’s presence, she doesn’t feel afraid, she feels calm, relaxed, happy. being with anthy isn’t wildly exciting, constantly requiring rationalizations to explain away the dread and internal rejection she feels towards akio’s advances. being with anthy feels like coming home. and it’s why she is initially so happy to be accepted into anthy’s family, to have a big brother like akio, to live under their roof. in utena’s naive, hopeful mind, she is joining anthy’s family in the most innocent possible sense. and she endures it, the grooming, the abuse, the rape, the end of the world; she fights til her very last breath, because she is in love. no matter how [utena] may be abused (by akio), she’s always happy to be near the one she loves (anthy).

#remind me to write an analysis on the moniker ‘end of the world’ next #bc i only rly allude to that here #id in alt text #u #analysis #manalysis #saionji #utena #touga #anthy #akio #nanami #miki #kozue #juri #shiori #tsuwabuki #dios #utenanthy

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ghostboneswrites2 · 1 month

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I really resonated with Daryl x abused reader could you maybe do one where the reader doesn’t let their past define them and shows little signs of abuse like they’re super cheery and happy and doesn’t let their past get them down and but maybe reader has a ptsd attack by Daryl after he confronts her about being so happy especially in an apocalypse and they just realize they relate to each other even if they’re personalities are so drastically and Daryl just comforts reader 🫂

The Painted Bunting

Era: Greene Farm

Summary: Daryl is paired with you on the search for Sophia and snaps at you after growing tiresome of your seemingly endless kindness.

Note: No more laptop for now since the cord broke so I hope you’ll all forgive the lack of my usual post formatting :(

Warnings: profanity, mentions of past abuse, grumpy sassy asshole Daryl (the man we originally fell in love with)

Banner credits on this post

Shining hair in the rays of the sun, an infectious laugh, a beaming grin that never seemed to dissipate. A glowing beacon in the dark. That was what you were. And, admittedly, it got under his skin a little, so Daryl tended to avoid you. You weren’t oblivious to it, but you accepted it for what it was. After all, you couldn’t win them all, right?

You had always been that way; soft, gentle, graceful, kind. If you had never let the past change that for you, you certainly wouldn’t let present day events change it, either. Maybe the world had become a nightmare, but that didn’t mean you had to be one too.

Daryl thought that what really gritted his teeth about you was that through everything that had happened, you never changed a single bit. Not like the others had; not like he had.

After the world fell, after the camp by the quarry was overrun, after the CDC, after Sophia had gone missing, you remained exactly the same. For all of the afore mentioned, Daryl found you to be one of the most vexing people he ever had the displeasure of interacting with, second only to Shane, who could have easily been traded off for his own brother, Merle.

Needless to say, he was peeved at the idea that you were sent on search duty with him after he hurt himself in the ravine. Rick decided a buddy system would be beneficial to all of the search party participants, and you volunteered to tag along, because of course you did.

You weren’t so much looking forward to spending so much one on one time with the man, yourself. You didn’t necessarily have an issue with him, but you were all too aware of the issue he seemed to have with you. Really, you couldn’t relate to him at all. Not everyone around camp was perky and sweet, and rightfully so, but Daryl was such a brooding presence and you just couldn’t put yourself in that frame of mind.

The two of you had set out just after dawn and the hours ticked by as you made friendly conversation and Daryl occasionally offered you a measly grunt in response.

“Do you think we’ll find anyone out here?” You asked. “I mean, aside from Sophia. I know we’ll find her.”

“Pro’ly better if we don’t find nobody else.” Was his first verbal response all day. You shrugged.

“I don’t know. Could be good. I’m sure there are people who could really use some help.”

“Ain’t our problem.” He argued. “Gotta look out for our own. The hell you worried about helpin’ strangers for when we ain’t even found the little girl we’re after?”

“Oh, no.” You chuckled nervously. “It’s not that I was just —“ You cut yourself off, sensing an oncoming ramble. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Mm.” He hummed, pausing his footsteps to take a breath and scan his surroundings. After a moment, he continued forward, and you followed without question . Admittedly, you had no clue how to track, so if anything you were there in case he got hurt.

“So, if someone needed your help… You wouldn’t help?” You asked innocently.

He whipped around to face you, the aggression behind his motion drawing you to a dead stop.

“The hell’s your problem, huh?” He snapped. You blinked. “It’s the end of the goddamn world and you’re askin’ me about some hypothetical moral dilemma? Let me tell you somethin’, girl; ain’t no damn morals in the apocalypse. Ain’t no more law and order! It’s just us,” he paused, sending an arrow through the skull of a walker that had crept up behind you. You flinched and turned to watch its carcass thud on the forest floor. “And them.” He concluded.

“I—I was just making conversation.” You mumbled timidly.

“Why? It’s not a social call! We’re out here to find that little girl. This is why I didn’t need no damn babysitter.” He complained.

“I was just trying to be nice.” You defended.

“Nice?” He scoffed. That simple word seemed to trigger something in him as his eyes lit up with aggravation. “Don’t you get it? It ain’t about bein’ nice anymore. It’s about survival. Got dead people standin’ up and eatin’ people and you’re worried about bein’ nice. Walkin’ around passin’ out water and food and gigglin’ with everybody like we ain’t got a bunch o’ dead bodies stumblin’ around us just waitin’ to take a bite out.”

Maybe it was the way he raised his voice, or the way his eyes shot flaming daggers of fury right through your chest, or the way he threw his arms down and spat words at you like you were some puny, wretched little thing. You didn’t know what it was, but somewhere in the whirlwind of heated exchange, his voice slowly blended together with the other voice — the one that still lived in the back of your mind and ate away at you every day.

The voice that belonged to your own father, the one person who struck true, genuine fear in you. Before you knew it, that old sensation of real terror, the one you’d buried somewhere deep inside you and covered with cement, was breaking free and engulfing you.

You were frozen, like a fawn under the scrutinizing gaze of a predator. The humid air felt like a thick paste as you struggled to gulp it down and catch a breath. At first, Daryl felt inclined to criticize your tears as a show of weakness, fragility, inability to handle a little raise of the voice. He quickly noticed, however, that this was no simple burst of reactionary emotions. No, this was something much deeper and it was rattling you to the core. There was a distant look in your wide eyes, one that he came to recognize, even if it took him a minute.

He shifted on his feet, scanning you, unsure how to intervene.

“Hey.” He eventually called out, but it was clear his voice wasn’t reaching you. This was the final piece of confirmation he needed. You were having an episode, the kind he experienced a few times when he first got out of his father’s abusive home.

He sighed and grabbed your trembling shoulders. You jumped but you didn’t flee or strike out. His touch seemed to dry you out and shrivel you up like a raisin. You shrank into yourself, hyperventilating.

“C’mon.” He said softly, ushering you done to your knees. “Hey. Ya gotta breathe.”

Your breathe only became more shallow and forced. Tears poured down your cheeks as your chest got tighter.

“Just breathe. That’s the only way it’s gonna stop.” He urged. He went to grab your wrists but you panicked, snatching your arms away and falling down on your back.

“No! Get away! You can’t do this anymore! I’m not a little kid!” You cried out.

You were making quite a bit of noise by this point, between the gasps for air and the sobs. He crouched over you and grabbed your shoulders.

“(Y/N), ya ain’t there anymore. Wherever it is, it’s gone. In the past. It’s just you and me right now, and we ain’t there. We’re here.” He soothed, hoping his voice could find you somewhere in the abyss. “Just listen. Ya hear that? It’s a Painted Bunting. Look,” he pointed up into a tree at a bright multicolored bird, similar in its beauty to a parrot, only much smaller. “It’s right up there. Ya see it?”

Your breathing had started to slow down now, those shallow inhales finally reaching a little deeper within. Your eyes lazily followed his finger to the bright little bird singing a flute-like melody.

“Ya see it?” He asked again. You managed to nod once, still holding your arms tightly to your chest as you laid flat on the bed of leaves and twigs. He took a moment to see you, to really take you in, and he realized you were beautiful. Not just in the way a pretty girl with a nice personality was beautiful, but in a way that left so much of who you really were unsaid.

“Just watch it.” He whispered, glancing back up at the feathered creature, hoping it would stick around long enough to bring you back down to earth. “They take two years to look that pretty. Did ya know that?” He asked, glancing back down at you. Your eyes were still on the bird, but you shook your head no. “Yeah. Only the males, too.” He added. “Otherwise, they’re just kinda greenish and yellowish.”

Once your chest was rising and falling with a steady rhythm, you finally looked over at him. Humiliation began to set in. You quickly sat yourself up and brushed the dead foliage away from your clothes and hair.

“I’m sorry.” You mumbled. “That hasn’t happened in a long time.”

“‘S okay.” He shrugged, standing himself back up as well. “Happens.”

“Yeah, we’ll, it shouldn’t. Not nowadays.”

“Can’t help it when it does.” He assured you. “I get it.”

“Maybe I should head back.” You suggested.

“We both can. If ya wanna. It’ll be dark soon anyways.”

“I don’t wanna make you lose your trail or.. Ya know.” You fidgeted with the hem of your shirt.

“Nah. Ain’t no use after dark, anyways. We’d just be stumbling in circles and bumpin’ into each other.” He insisted, contrastingly soft in comparison to before your episode.

“Oh. Right.” You nodded. Just as you got ready to turn back toward the farm, he cleared his throat.

“Ya wanna talk about it?”

“About what?” You turned back to him. He shifted his weight anxiously, chewing at the inside of his cheek. Offering an ear to listen was at least ten yards outside the perimeter of his comfort zone. “About that?” You asked. “That was nothing. Just something stupid that happens sometimes. That’s all.”

While his tone was much kinder and warmer than before, yours was cold, dull, and tired. Those episodes could take a lot out of a person, and he was no stranger to that fact.

“Sometimes it helps.” He said. “Talkin’ about it. Makes it a little less…” He trailed off, searching for the word he wanted. “Less, uh… Consuming.”

“It never gets less consuming.” You argued.

“It does.” He insisted.

“And how would you know?” You asked, impatience lacing your words.

“I used to get ‘em too.” He admitted. “Been awhile but… I just get it. That’s all.”

You studied him. In all the weeks you’d spent around the man, you’d never seen him so genuine, or really so open. He never seemed to look at you like another person. You were always just another load on his shoulders.

“My dad.” You finally spoke. He nodded.

“Me too.”

“I’m sorry.” You sympathized.

“Me too.” He agreed.

“We should go.” You sighed, turning away again.

This time you didn’t wait for him, you just started walking, until he called out behind you; “‘M sorry.” You stood still, but you didn’t look back. He knew he had your attention, though, and he knew he had to say something else. “I know I did it this time. I shouldn’t’ve yelled at ya like that.”

“It’s okay. Maybe you were right.”

“Nah.” He shook his head, taking slow steps to catch up to you. “I wasn’t. It’s good. Ya didn’t let none of that shit make ya bitter. Keep it that way. Else you’ll end up a grumpy redneck.” He joked. You suppressed the small smile that tugged at the corner of your lips.

“Maybe the grumpy rednecks of the world got it figured out.” You said, walking again once you felt him catch up.

“Nah. I don’t know shit about shit.” He admitted, eliciting a small laugh from you. You shook your head.

“I don’t think anyone does.” You reasoned.

On the hike back to the Greene farm, you two shared some light banter, some stories of the past, some laughs and extended looks. He grew finder of you that day. The critical glares he’d send you from a distance were replaced with admiration and respectful nods. You’d often catch him looking and flash him a big smile, waving at him before you attention was drawn elsewhere.

You both learned that maybe the two of you were differently colored fruit, but you grew from the same tree, and you weren’t so different after all. And, that sentiment was never lost or forgotten. It carried with you for as long as you two knew each other.

Taglist || Masterlist

tags: @kissmeunicornbaobei @thesadcatt0 @clairealeehelsing @duckybird101 @tmntfixationxreader @ryoujoking @blackvelveteen1339 @yondus-girl @ladylincoln @sunshinebug9 @saylum559 @yoowhatthefuck @duffmckagansbandana @celtic-crossbow @virginsexgod69 @dazzling-roaring-20s @l0kilaufeys0n7 @uhnanix

#daryl dixon #daryl x reader #twd daryl #the walking dead daryl #daryl x female reader #daryl twd #daryl fanfiction #daryl dixon fanfic #daryl x you #daryl x y/n

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nkjemisin · 2 years

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To the person who asked about the immorality of my fiction --

I'm replying publicly so other folks can see my answer, but doing it this way to keep your name out of it. You asked, "Hey, is it true you write incest and child rape and fucked up sex? Why, my dude? You're a good writer, you don't have to do that immoral stuff!"

Yep, it's true, I do write about lots of uncomfy-making stuff in my fiction! I tend to write about topics like systemic oppression, identity, sexuality, generational trauma, abuse, power dynamics, and more, just because those are the directions my writer-brain takes me. Exploring those topics in a way that does them justice sometimes requires that I actually depict the "immoral"* things happening, explicitly or implicitly, and sometimes in harrowing ways. If I do my job right, then readers will empathize with the character(s) experiencing this bad thing, and maybe think more about the topic. If I screw it up, and I do sometimes, then people who've actually been through this in real life will feel like I've trivialized something important and intrinsic to their lived experience. So when it becomes necessary for me to write about these topics, I try to do them justice and not tapdance around the gory details, because I'm a good writer and that's what being a good writer means, to me.

That said, you're asking about morality**, which has nothing to do with being a good writer. There are lots of excellent writers in the world who aren't good people, as you've probably noticed. Maybe you've decided that I'm not a good person either; okay, if so. But writer or not, you cannot become a good person by pretending evil doesn't exist. Evil looooves silence. If you want to fix that evil, you have to talk about it, honestly and uncomfortably, and you have to make sure that everyone gets to participate in that conversation -- especially the people who are most harmed by that evil. Even bad fiction about these topics creates more space for those people to participate in the conversation. Without that space, the people controlling the conversation will inevitably be those with the most social power. That's going to be the rapists, the racists, the rich people who hate poor people, and so on, because the most immoral acts in our society pretty much boil down to abuse of power.

For me, it's simple: I think it's far more immoral to avoid Topic X and thus allow it to flourish, than it is to address the topic in a way that hopefully facilitates justice. So the latter is what I do.

*Scare quotes here because I don't know what "fucked up sex" is supposed to mean. If it's between consenting adults, it's not fucked up. If there's no consent or adults involved, it's rape.

**I do consider some speech immoral -- namely that which facilitates abuses of power, like hate speech and copaganda. But I could write a whole essay on this, and I got stuff to do today.

#answered asks #sort of

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turtle-paced · 1 month

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OP commented on yesterday's post:

Still pretty entitled of him. Sansa was forced to marry Tyrion with a knife at her back. Tyrion is actively a part of the House/regime that has made Sansa's life hell. Plus he at one point outright threatened Sansa ''How well they are treated depends of them''. So even within Westeros society Tyrion has a lot of gall to consider Sansa to be false and be angry at her for escaping.

Perhaps it is entitled. But I personally think that a simple word is not enough to capture the intersection of patriarchy, ableism, the particularly toxic class privilege, and abuse Tyrion grew up with. What created that entitlement?

Tyrion has spent his life learning that women are passed into the ownership of men on marriage and thenceforth owe their new legal family their allegiances. He saw his own uncle benefit from exactly this sort of arrangement. Tyrion has spent his life hearing that Lannisters deserve all sorts of good things because they are Lannisters.

Tyrion's got neither of these things due to his disability. So he incorrectly attributes Sansa's unwillingness to be a full participant in their forced marriage as due to his disability.

Nor do I think analysis of this situation that ignores the fact that Tyrion's a victim of both emotional and sexual abuse can ever be sufficient.

It's also telling that these are Tyrion's feelings only. They're not coming from great places. But they stay inside his head. When Tyrion is asked to act, to denounce Sansa:

Yet wherever Sansa was and whatever her part in this might have been, she remained his wife. He had wrapped the cloak of protection around her shoulders, though he'd had to stand on a fool's back to do it. "The gods killed Joffrey. He choked on his pigeon pie." Tyrion IX, ASoS

Sansa herself will think later that Tyrion tried to be kind to her, in a situation that heavily incentivised him not to be kind. More than Sansa ever knew, because she didn't have that abuse context and she's not thinking systemically about patriarchy and ableism.

GRRM wants us to approach both characters here with compassion. What are the barriers to Tyrion fully understanding Sansa's position? What are the ultimate sources of his darker thoughts? Without knowing these, they can't be treated. "Entitled" just doesn't pass muster as analysis.

#asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #cw: csa #tyrion lannister #sansa stark #a storm of swords

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jewishvitya · 5 months

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Tal Mitnick, an 18 years old Israeli that refused to serve in the military:

It's not just a couple of soldiers that are bad soldiers or that enact violent occupation on Palestinians, it's actually a whole system of violence. Of pulling people into the army and making them work for the occupation and for oppressing Palestinians.

Militarism in Israel is very entrenched in society. And the military is some golden goose that you're not allowed to touch. You're allowed to criticize the government, you're allowed to go out for gay rights, for women's rights. But when it comes to criticizing military action against Palestinians or other oppressed communities, this is totally out of the norm. You cannot speak against the military because it's so entrenched in society.

A lot of conversations start with the military, and because most people did serve, it's seen as this kind of thing that everyone needs to pass in order to become an Israeli.

So. Yeah. When you're older you don't feel ostracized as much because after a while it's less relevant to daily life. At least in my experience, I didn't serve and it's not really talked about much at this point.

In Jewish Israeli society, the military is trusted more than most other institutions. Tbh, more than any other institution I can think of. And it's seen as a right of passage. Some people will be okay with you if you volunteer for a social service instead - work at hospitals, schools, etc. Others think you shouldn't get the choice, and unless there's a medical issue you should be going to the military.

The narrative of self defense is absolutely believed, so by refusing to serve, those kids are seen as saying "I will enjoy the sacrifice made by others, but I will not contribute myself." It's seen as ungrateful. But that's if you don't express a moral objection to the military.

If you challenge the military itself, you're challenging Israeli society. And that's how it's taken. "I refuse to participate in the occupation" - "So you're saying I did something bad by serving. You're saying I'm a bad person." And when most of Israelis served in the military, and those that didn't serve often still support it or have loved ones that did or still do, this is challenging the moral character of pretty much all of us. Which, it should.

The military nurtures a mindset of dehumanization to a scary degree. I listened to a few interviews with stories from Breaking the Silence, an organization meant to bring to light the way the military abuses Palestinians, and there's something described by Yehuda Shaul.

He tells the story of serving in Hebron, in the West Bank, and he describes the daily stated mission of soldiers there.

While on patrol at night, they pick a random Palestinian house - explicitly one that they have no intelligence against, a civilian family - and they get in, wake the family up, separate men from women, search or something, get on the roof, jump to the next roof, get into that house, wake that family up, treat them the same way.

Again, at random. And he described two goals for this:

One, to create the feeling of being persecuted, and two, to make our presence felt.

They want Palestinians to feel beaten down and powerless, and they want them to feel that the military is everywhere, so they're too scared to resist.

This isn't random rogue soldiers, this is what the military does there on a normal day. And he said it's impossible to treat a population this way without seeing them as less human than we are.

I don't know if I can just say that the military is another tool for indoctrination in addition to everything else it does. But as a kid, I had a left-leaning friend from the Tel Aviv area, and we'd argue a lot. Because you don't need to be a full on leftist to disagree very strongly with a teenage settler. And as I was going through the process of changing my mind, I saw him going through the same process in the opposite direction - he became way more right wing during his military service. He told me the stories of why, and all those stories did was make me feel like I don't even know this person. I wonder sometimes how many young people go through the same.

#riki babbles

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violetasteracademic · 2 months

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On Disrupting the Status Quo: The Archeron Sisters

First of all, I want to thank everyone so much for the love on my previous post! I genuinely thought I was sending a Vassien Hero's Journey dissertation out into the void and not a soul alive would read it. I am thrilled and delighted to have been met with such welcome in this space!

I'll keep this next one short and sweet, (retcon- I did not keep it short and sweet) but one of my additional favorite topics to break down regarding the structure of the Archeron sister's and their journey's is a disruption of the status quo to the world at large. Through their stories of healing, love, and coming into their power, both Feyre and Nesta have tackled a system of patriarchy within Prythian/Illirya and improved conditions for females in a way no one has been able to do before the arrival of the Made Sisters. I truly hope Elain gets her chance to do the same!

Feyre at the beginning of her Hero's Journey: There are no High Ladies. Only males have the power to oversee a court. Feyre, not only through her relationship with Rhys but through her own healing journey and establishing her power, takes his side as an equal. She is High Lady. Feyre showed that females can be more. They do not simply have to sit by the side with no titles or agency and let males fight over who gets to keep them as Lady of their court. They can be equal in power. Even Tarquin, who has his own plans to disrupt power imbalances, was surprised.

And of course, my hope is we got some foreshadowing for more High Ladies to step up with Viviane. She single handedly held the Winter Court together during those harrowing years Under the Mountain, both as a warrior and a leader.

Moving on to Nesta, her Hero's Journey led her to solve a problem that her mate and the High Lord of the Night Court hadn't been able to solve for HUNDREDS of years- getting females training.

More than that, she and Gwyn and Emerie became not only the first females to ever participate in the Blood Rite, but they also won.

By coming into her power and going down her path to accept her life as Fae and heal, The Valkyrie's have been restored and females of any heritage now have a safe space to train without the leering contempt of Devlon and the Illyrians. I certainly hope Illyria continues to progress, but this is a huge start. And it is all because of Nesta and her choice to lean into who she would be in this new life now that she had chosen to face it.

Aaaaand I'm crying. Please hold.

Now we move onto Elain. And this is my question- if Elain is *not* going to disrupt the status quo by challenging the mating bond, by pushing against the expectations of her court to satisfy political conflicts and taking away her agency in who she wants to love, then who is going to do it? And what is going to be done for the females of Prythian who are unhappily mated? What is going to be done for Lady Autumn, for females like Rhy's mother, for all who *tried* to make it work because females have little to no choice in who they are paired with?

*Someone* is going to tell this story. And in doing so, they will not only be making the best choice for themselves, but they are going to challenge the very foundation of another way females are kept in submission like Feyre and Nesta did. They are going to demand that no one else goes through what Feyre did-giving Tamlin the right to wage a war simply by putting a ring on her finger then deciding not to go through with the wedding and leaving him by choice. Someone is going to ask why anyone had the right to sell Lady Autumn into a lifetime of abuse. Why Morrigan was allowed to be sold as a commodity. Someone is going to remember what it felt like to lose their fiancé because the mating bond meant they "belonged" to someone they didn't even know.

Someone is going to say no more. No more of females being political pawns, being objects to be sold and traded, to having their choices stripped and lives controlled over a system that is widely accepted as deeply flawed and not entirely understood.

This story will be told. And if it is not told by Elain Archeron, then I simply ask, who will?

The Archeron sisters are not maintaners.

They are disruptors.

#elriel #pro elain archeron #pro elain #pro elriel #azriel x elain #elriel supremacy #elriel endgame #elain archeron

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fernstream · 10 months

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"By 1980 we felt as feminists that it was important to look at our specific oppressions and articulate them. But our attempts to recognise different oppressions very quickly developed into a hierarchy of oppression. We moved away from looking at the complexity of women's lives to a points-count system, where the oppressions were added up. She with the greatest or most oppression was right - about whatever topic was being discussed. It happened first in London. A friend wrote to me about a meeting she had attended where one discussion was settled when a woman said 'Speaking as an Irish woman I think X'. Her opponent in this discussion had replied 'speaking as an incest survivor, I think Y* Naturally, Y was the course of action decided upon. My friend commented, 'The sad thing is that the Irish woman is also an incest survivor, but she is not ready to acknowledge that in public - if she had, she would have won the argument.? The points-count system developed further after a conference on Child Sexual Abuse in 1985. Numbers were limited, the conference was full, and some (white) women were turned away. Then a group of black women arrived and insisted white women leave so they could participate. From then on places were left at conferences for black or other additionally oppressed women. The reservation of places later extended to social events. [...] Then there was the other side of the coin. At the Lesbian Summer School in 1988, I disagreed with a black woman and a white woman in a debate on pornography. A socialist-feminist journal reporting on the conference mentioned me by name, and accused me of racism as I had argued with a black woman and an Irish woman. This was what was liable to happen if a woman did not at once concede she was wrong, and the woman with more oppression was right. This pressure resulted in a great deal of silencing. How then to articulate your views in this climate? Clearly, you had to have an identity to speak from. You had to be able to say 'Speaking as a ..? to even enter a debate. What had been part of your oppression became your identity. [...] The effect of Identity Politics has been to stifle debate. Debate still goes on in academia -- there the name of the game is debate. For these of us outside, debate has more or less ceased. Identity Politics finished off most of our newsletters. Identity Politics inhibited discussion at conferences until many of us ceased going to them, and finally no one was willing to organize any. Without debate the [Women's Liberation Movement] cannot function."

-- Sandra McNeill, "Identity Politics," in All the Rage: Reasserting Radical Lesbian Feminism, 1996

#txt #identity politics #radfems do touch #all the rage #sandra mcneill

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dingodad · 11 days

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I know your tags said that the lil cal & Gamzee stuff isn’t worth discussing, but I think a lot of people could actually use someone articulating the problem with assuming that the puppet is what triggered the breakdown/“mind controlled” gamzee. If you’re really to speak on it, I’d love to hear it

to preface: i'm not unsympathetic to the desire to see a more sympathetic interpretation of Gamzee given how his arc speaks to certain racialised themes within the comic. but this is what's in the text as i see it.

ultimately it comes down to the exact same arguments that apply to Dave's bro. Gamzee is part of Lil Cal, so if Lil Cal were whispering in Gamzee's ear the whole time he was also undergoing all these stresses related to faith and substance, those whispers are Gamzee's own thoughts being reflected back at him. if puppet-Gamzee suggests to man-Gamzee that he kill people and man-Gamzee concedes, all that's really happened is that Gamzee has given in to his own desire to do that. this is what Homestuck does when it pits alternate timeline versions of characters against each other; it simply manifests interactions going on within that character's own self.

more specifically to Gamzee, this is a character who manifests Homestuck's feminist themes very explicitly, especially in regards to how they are portrayed via Alternia's caste system as a member of the patriarchal purple class. it is true and worth mentioning of course that Lil Cal is not just Gamzee, but is also Caliborn, Gamzee's patriarchal god! but then it was Gamzee who raised Caliborn to have those patriarchal principles; because in Homestuck the patriarchy isn't something you're somehow influenced or tricked into participating in, it's something you choose to perpetuate, just as Caliborn chose to perpetuate it in becoming Alternia's patriarch... and so on ad infinitum.

the "tragedy" of a time loop isn't that fate is somehow forcing you to adhere to a course of events that you don't want to adhere to; tragedy is when the person that you are makes it inevitable that you will walk down that same violent path every time. and Homestuck is all about that person that you are; it's a story by and large disinterested with any scenario where a character's actions do not offer insight into their personalities. a Homestuck character has a certain nature, and while on occasion they are offered psychic stimuli, how they react to that psychic stimulus is according to their nature.

there is of course a physical rather-than-metaphysical approach to Gamzee's backstory, which I'm sure is more along the lines of what you were looking for lol, and while analysis of that is not so much my area I feel that the physical approach basically points toward the same kind of conclusions as the metaphysical one. Gamzee is a character of tragedy, who has been shaped by physical stimuli like religious abuse (from all manner of directions!), parental neglect and substance addiction. and my assessment of that is primarily that... this should be enough? like is that not enough to create a compelling character. even if it were not antithesis to Homestuck's themes I guess it just seems to me like it goes without saying that "this character's actions were the result of someone else's will and not of their own unique circumstances" reduces the character. most certainly yes, there are manipulative forces at work in Homestuck, and their name is Lord English, and yes, Lil Cal is Lord English, but Lord English's power lies in the telling of the narrative; and the narrative that turns Gamzee into a villain is already there! English doesn't need to tell Gamzee to make those malevolent choices, because English already established the circumstances that made those choices inevitable. to make Lil Cal into some literal cursed amulet is to make Lord English into Vriska, and that reduces him, because that's not what he is! he's the god of inevitability!

#homestuck #wrote a lot more here than i was expecting. story of my life.#but i guess it goes without saying basically all of this applies just as equally to dirk just in his own ways

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fights4users · 9 months

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Everyone jokes about Rinzler’s “purr” and cat coding, even me. However the more I sit and think about him the more he reads to me as a abused dog.

The transformation from a Watch dog to a attack dog is a horrifying one. A watch dog may have a responsibility to watch the house(system) but still has time off duty and people who love him. A attack dog does not participate in society, there is not a moment they aren’t on alert , aren’t looking to attack or kill because that’s simply all they know.

Going from Tron to Rinzler would’ve seen his metaphorical floppy ears and tails cropped, his spirit/resolve broken, harmed for disobedience etc. Yes it was repurposing but it takes a lot more than just some coding to make a reactive killing machine. All he does is wait until Clu goes “bite” and then he gets his opponent.

It’s so fascinating and so unbelievably tragic, and I think that’s why I love him so much as a concept. For some reason as a child I always loved the concept of mind control- turning so evil against your will - doing some horrible things but eventually being able to pull through and be yourself in the end. I don’t know why but I’ve always loved this storytelling device so much… I guess I was edgy as hell as a child.

I’m so mad that they have done this as it’s such a great concept but they do virtually nothing with Rinzler- it feels to me anyway that it was more of just a method to “get Tron out of the way” without completely killing the character from the start.

And it’s a shame because there’s SO much you can do with him? There’s that idea there that he is constantly at odds with the new programing fighting it every single second and loosing because there’s always ultimately another command. Another fight. There’s not enough time granted to him for it but he tries. His throats ruined- he growls constantly - give me that tragedy I just know that he’s dripping with! Give me that abused attack dog metaphor!

Instead of “oh! No! Reveal time… whoops he’s dead” (not in the sea but he’s like RIGHT in the direct blast radius and I’m still mad)

#Tron #tronblr #tron 1982 #tron legacy #Rinzler Tron #Tron meta #character appreciation #character study

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antifainternational · 2 years

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Republicans will be all like "save the children" but then turn a blind eye to the horrific abuse of children in ICE custody and throw their own LGBT children to the wolves by kicking them out to the Streets. 🐸☕

(content warning for discussion of child sexual abuse)

If right-wingers were actually concerned about saving children from sexual abuse, they'd be focusing their efforts on where most children are being sexually abused. The trouble for them is that the same institutions they actively participate in and/or support (e.g. their fellow right-wing extremists, the Southern Baptist Convention, CPB/ICE, the Catholic Church, Donald Trump, etc.) are regularly accused of the worst examples of systematic child sexual abuse, with the accusations coming from actual people making credible allegations, usually backed by substantive evidence. There are media reports from well-respected outlets; publicly-accessible court documents and hearing transcripts; and public statement made by some of the victims that anyone could find to verify the claims with just a little effort. But right-wingers don't actually care about child sexual abuse. They don't raise money for counselling and therapy for survivors of child sexual abuse (and as politicians they often block access or prevent funding for therapy for survivors). They don't support NGOs that do credible work fighting human trafficking. They actively work against providing the kinds of supports that are the most effective at preventing children from being sexually exploited to begin with. What they do instead is use terms like "groomers" and "paedophiles" to tar-and-feather any outgroup they want to portray as "the baddies" in an effort to rally their troops to attack a scapegoat - both to distract people from the actual problem and what could be done about it and to build their followings and encourage violence against those outgroups. Currently it's trans people that are being subjected to this abuse; previously it was Muslims, then LGBTQ+ people before them, and so on. We're not saying that child sexual abuse is not horrific and that the problem does not have to be addressed, obviously. But the way the right accuses any group they're currently scapegoating as "groomers" allows the institutions the right supports that are currently and have historically engaged in the systemic sexual abuse of children to get away with it and even continue the abuse and shelter abusers without accountability. It also does real harm to legitimate organizations doing legitimate work combatting child sex trafficking because it takes resources away from them and diminishes the credibility of the movement as a whole. It's a cynical weaponization of child sexual abuse to gain political points against the perceived "enemy du jour" for the far right. It is especially ironic that people holding this viewpoint would then use it to justify ostracizing and rendering their own LGBTQ+ children homeless, since doing so makes their own children extremely vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse. That's a long way to say that the right-wingers are disgusting hypocrites, but there you go!

#antifa #save the children #antifascist #child sex abuse #antifascism #groomers #grooming

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saionjeans · 5 months

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akio isn’t actually anthy’s father but due to his age, status, and power, he acts as a pseudo-father to anthy (and others), mimetically performing patriarchy without truly embodying the primary patriarchal role (although approximating it to functionally the same effect). this idea of the Mimesis of Patriarchy is in fact the mechanism upon which the entire Narrative (which is to say, akio’s frame) is predicated, from the shadow girls to the projections from akio’s phallic panopticon tower to the entire discourse of dueling that is ostensibly the primary stage upon which the show’s telos is reached—although of course this idea is illusory as well, a more palatable mode of violence serving to distract from the true violence upholding the narrative.

the notion of illusion acting in conversation with and artificially upholding modes of power is a key theme of the show. the matter of projection, performance, trickery, and masks is illustrated symbolically; the modes through which the text facilitates these ideas pervade every mechanic of its storytelling, most notably through everything about the shadow girls, as the shadows (on the cave walls) of performers in a choral role (often imparting digestible yet not particularly trenchant moralistic fables, both vague enough to provoke, yet shallow enough to maintain order). mimesis as a form of hollow power underscores the entire framework of ohtori and what it signifies.

the point being that the roles we feel we have no choice to inhabit within an agreed upon status quo are ultimately illusory, held together through a collective logic enforcing them for no other reason than that the collective will must go unchallenged. there are no real rules set in place that a girl cannot wear a boy’s uniform, that a girl cannot leave her abuser, that a girl cannot love another girl. but these rules are nonetheless enforced through more covert social codes that uphold themselves for no ontological reason besides the expectation that they must be.

the very world itself is the coffin, the egg, the dueling arena of mist and shadow. akio counts on the mimetic integrity of his maintained performance to continue to enforce his power, and anthy’s final act is to reveal the artifice of his semblance of power once his players no longer choose to continue participating, once they realize that the conditions they have been forced to accept are actually unacceptable. by simply leaving, by stepping out of frame to an existence beyond her coffin, she shatters the facade that presents the site of her abuse as being the entire world, as all there is and all that can ever be.

the metanarrative actively critiques its own mimetic mode not only to undermine akio’s constructed drama, but to remind us of the larger purpose of storytelling, beyond one singular framework. dios is an illusion, a cave shadow, but so is akio. he is not patriarchy itself, he is a sign, and patriarchy is the signified. the fact that he is not really a Father, but anthy nonetheless likens him to one, reminds of us this fact. the world of ohtori is a fiction, both literally and figuratively. the shadows on the cave walls are projections, the systems we uphold are arbitrary, the narratives we construct are illusory. akio may not be a real father, but he plays one on tv.

#u #akio #anthy #shadow girls #analysis #manalysis #this was supposed to be 2 sentences. as always #thinking abt the role of pseudo-fatherhood w/in the framework and metacritique of the show ….. and it spiraled into this of course

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bucknastysbabe · 1 year

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The Handler - 1991 - Compliance

A/N: Short lil prequel! I need to get off my angsty shit and write some good ole fashioned happy luv luv hee hee✨

Rating: Explicit

Tags: TW: Sexual assault on someone incapable of consent, dub-con, twisted rationalizations, abuse of power. HTP. Hydra!Reader, Back in ye ole Siberia, winter soldier Bucky, hand jobs, praise kink, Voyeurism, The Chair, touchstarved buckbuck

Vasily stood unmoving, arms crossed over his chest. The asset looked like a caged animal, blue eyes darting around for unseen targets. Guards moved forward to grab the soldier, now dazed from cryo.

“He’s usually the most vulnerable like this. Meet our prized possession, little girl.”

You nodded along, hiding any trace of fear in your body. General Karpov had chosen you from a pool of willing participants to help oversee the Winter Soldier program. It had been a week since you’d moved to the base. But you liked the respect you received around here, being Karpov’s protege, one day to handle the fist of Hydra.

You followed behind Vasily’s taller frame like a shadow. The asset stumbled in front as they led him to the Chair. Electroconvulsive shocks to suppress memory and make the asset more suggestible to commands. The guards shoved the Winter Soldier into the machine, computers and a couple of scientists standing around.

They shoved a mouthpiece into his snarling face, eyes unfocused. Vasily murmured, “He shattered his teeth in the beginning,” the man handed you a red book, “After he stops screaming you read the words.”

“Yes General.”

The asset’s cries of pain made you flinch, your general frowning down at you. Refocusing you opened the book and filtered through to the words you needed. The shocks echoed through the room along with his howling. The asset’s built chest heaved and he was sweating from exertion.

The headpiece flipped up and off his long dark hair, matted down with sweat. You circled the soldier, prattling off the words needed to activate his protocol. When you finished Vasily handed the soldier an envelope asking, “Ready to comply soldier?”

“Ready to comply,” he responded robotically.

They sent the soldier off soon after, you pondering the strangeness of it all. He was to be retrieving supersoldier serum, recreated by Howard Stark. Then the Winter Soldier program could truly begin, test subjects waiting to join an armada of unstoppable super soldiers.

Then Hydra could become supreme, start a new world. A better one without disorder and deviants. Your chest puffed with pride at the thought of being such an integral part of changing the world. Vasily clapped your shoulder and stated, “Nice job agent. Back to your work, girl. When soldier returns I have to teach you the, hm, intricacies of handling.”

So you went back to work, detailing plans and structure for the new soldiers. How they were to stay compliant and such. There would have to be much testing, but the government supplied plenty of money. Some of the Americans even loaned a spare officer or scientist.

Soldat returned, face devoid of any emotion. He held out the briefcase and stood at attention. You all stood in a tight office, the proximity of the soldier making you wary. He’d been gone for a week without any time in the chair. The brain repairs fast regardless of how scrambled his limbic system might be.

Vasily opened the box, revealing the multiple packets of the serum, smiling contentedly. He murmured, “Good job soldat. Very good job. You might deserve a reward.” The asset’s breath hitched the slightest bit, eyes darkening. The general closed the case and moved to the other side of the desk, reclining in the chair.

You eyed the soldier, then your commander.

“General? Is he not to be put back in cryo?”

Vasily leaned back, a strange glint in his eye, lips turned up. He waved a hand and said, “I told you I have a lesson on handling our precious asset, silly girl.” You frowned in confusion. Karpov continued like the soldier wasn’t even in the room, “He can get a bit riled up. It scares you does it not? Being so close to a precise machine designed for murder.”

You gulped, eyeing the asset’s huge frame. His silvery arm softly clicked in the room. He almost seemed to be vibrating with energy, if one had an eye for it. Blue eyes darting around, seemingly disliking the tights quarters. Finally you whispered, “It is intimidating, yes General.”

“Besides the brain fuck machine, he likes a softer touch in order to comply,” he cocked his head and ordered, “Soldier, mission report.” The soldier listed off the details, the deaths of Howard and Maria Stark and the camera he shot out that would need to be wiped. You frowned at dealing with the Americans.

“Good boy. My agent here will take good care now.”

You fidgeted in place, waiting for further instruction. Karpov kicked his legs up on the desk and laughed, “The soldier is touch starved, swoons like a slut for soft hands. You can keep him out of cryo a bit longer and have some fun with him.” Your face drained of color as you questioned, “You want me to fuck the asset sir?”

“No, just play with him a little. It’s entertaining watching the soldier crumble. Besides, the fist probably hasn’t had a woman’s touch in years. Go on now. This is part of the routine.”

Your heart was thudding in your ears. This was vile to you. Being a woman in Hydra was hard enough, but sexually using the best weapon they had in front of your commander was humiliating. That was the culture you grimly supposed. Vasily probably felt the same the first time and whoever before him.

You stepped toward the soldiers larger frame, staring up into his handsome face. You caressed his cheek gently, murmuring, “I apologize, precious star.” He made a low noise, lids lowering as you stroked your thumb across a sharp cheek.

Your other hand relocated to his lips, thumbing the full bottom one. The asset instinctively opened his mouth, suckling on your thumb with a whine. His breathing sped up, left arm recalibrating with a series of clack, clack, clack. You removed your now wet thumb, closing your mouth to his own.

The asset moaned into your mouth, eagerly licking inwards. You cradled the back of his head, curling fingers into dark locks. Vasily made a pleased hum from behind. The pair of you kissed slowly, the asset seeming to soak up every smack with another whine.

You pulled back, eyes boring into his lust blown pupils. He tried to kiss you again, but you held a finger to swollen lips. Your hand slid down to grasp between thick thighs. You gasped in shock and arousal. He was certainly…above average. The soldier whimpered softly, face begging for more.

“Take him out, big one isn’t he?,” said your general.

You unlatched the belt and many holsters, them dropping to the tile with a thud. You popped the button, his flushed cock shoved into the front of his tac pants. That had to be uncomfortable, you idly thought. He groaned when you gripped the length and stroked one time.

You wanted to ask the quivering man how he liked it, but the burning gaze of your commander shut you up. Instead you cooed while stroking the brunette’s thick cock, “Good soldier, complying so well. So pretty, pretty face, cock, body. Perfection.” He let out a particularly loud moan, legs twitching at the praise.

Your other hand moved back to pulling lightly at his hair, making the soldier flush and pant. His big chest was staccato as you jacked him off faster and faster. You played with his sensitive cockhead, swirling your thumb around the crown and slit. Karpov barked a laugh when the soldier sniffled and whimpered.

“C’mon soldier, good soldier, cum for your handlers. Gorgeous noises, fuck,” you rambled.

The asset thinly keened, “T-thank you!” His body was trembling intensely as you used both hands to work his pulsing cock. You kissed and licked at his neck, savoring the taste while he sharply sobbed. It wasn’t loud but sounded deafening in the small room. Heated wetness covered your hand and belly. Stroking the asset through his climax was longer than expected, him seemingly having an endless load, face crumpled and red as he emptied.

Finally he whimpered and twitched, indication that this was over. Karpov clapped and commented, “Wonderful. Take him to the showers he needs to be hosed off. Took to it well girl, but no need to be so kind.” You nodded in thanks and led the hazy soldier out of the too small, horrid room.

“I’m sorry soldier, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do that.” You hoped he would respond but was met with nothing. After a moment you commanded, “Soldier, speak your mind.”

“You were kind. Much softer than the others.”

You felt a protective need to shield this beautiful weapon from greedy hands. Only you should be able to handle him, establish a bond that made him ever loyal. Vasily wouldn’t have to know. He’d be busy with the new recruits. You rubbed the asset’s wide shoulders and said, “I’ll never hurt you, precious star. Too important for us all.”

Your heart ached at watching his swaggering walk into the showers filled with guards and scientists. Blue eyes gazed back once and then you wouldn’t see him until next mission. Back to work, cover it up with work, yes. Ignore that crawling, slimy feeling over your skin. Remember, it’s not about you, it’s about Hydra after all.

#dead dove do not eat #bucky x reader #bucky barnes smut #touch starved #hydra trash party #subby Bucky #Bucky barnes x reader

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