mistreat your altar boys

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I KNOW HOW MY FILTHY MUTANT ABILITIES UPSET YOU, SCHMIDT. DON’T WORRY–

–YOU WILL DIE PURE. NO MAGNETISM 

There’s this odd purity culture emerging on tumblr, where you cannot like a villain unless you constantly point out their badness. Where you can’t say that you find villains more interesting or compelling than the good guys without that meaning you think the villains’ actions are right.

Even when I love the good guys, I always find myself more drawn to the villains. And I was thinking, I could sum it up by saying, “The good guys are boring.” But that’s not it, not really. When I engage with a work of fiction, what I want is to understand the characters. I want to get into their heads, understand their motives, their relationships, their way of thinking. I want to completely deconstruct them.

And the thing is, I already understand the good guys. I think like them. Deconstructing them isn’t as interesting to me because I already get it.

I’m going to use Star Wars: TFA as my example, since I am kinda in love with Kylo Ren right now, so it feels relevant.

I absolutely and utterly adore Rey, Finn, and Poe. I can look at Rey and imagine growing up alone and lost, wishing desperately for your family to return. I can imagine finally finding belonging, and having that belonging threatened by people who think blowing up 5 planets is an okay thing to do. I can understand fighting against that, fighting for your new family, fighting to keep the galaxy safe from the people who threaten its freedom.

I relate to Rey as a person who’s grown up lonely, longing for companionship that was out of my reach.

I can understand Finn, seeing the senseless cruelty of the First Order and defecting, and running into the Resistance despite his fear, knowing he has to stop them. I understand him, like Rey, fighting to protect his new family from the horrors he knows the First Order can inflict.

Like Finn, I grew up feeling like (and still feeling like) I don’t belong in the society around me.

I can understand Poe, willing to do what needs to be done to help his cause, to stop the rise of a second Empire, to find Leia’s brother, to keep his comrades safe. Because I want to keep my family and friends safe, too.

I already get them. I’d be on their side. Given the choice, I’d choose the Resistance every time.

So, as I’m sure is now obvious, I don’t get the First Order. I don’t understand General Hux, a man who thinks it’s okay to rip children from their families and force them into combat training, giving them serial numbers instead of names, teaching them that they are not people but weapons. I don’t understand Kylo Ren, a man who chooses Darkness over Light, who could kill his own father in his search for the Dark, even as the Light is screaming his name.

And that fascinates me. I want to understand them. I want to know why they think the way they do. What motivates them. What set them on this course in their lives. And I have my own theories and have written out my own interpretations, which I won’t get into here, but. That’s why I love villains. Because the way they think and exist is so different from my own way of existing, that I want to know why. I want to understand them. 

And then I want to wonder, “What if things had gone differently?” And that’s how I can take those characters and put them in a scenario where, say, Kylo wasn’t groomed from infancy by an evil psychic space wizard, or Hux wasn’t born into a family of space fascists and raised from birth to bring the Empire back. I can think, “If I strip away the context of their upbringings, what would their personalities be?” and that, that is utterly fascinating to me.

And in doing this, I can find the humanity of these characters. And I’ve done that, especially with Kylo Ren. I’m autistic and I have a whole bunch of other neurodivergencies. I grew up with well-meaning parents who were utter shit at supporting me emotionally (and still kinda are, sorry guys). I grew up being bullied, my only friends being controlling and manipulative. I was alone and afraid and disgusted with myself. I remember being 7-years-old and hating myself, wishing I could disappear. And I see that in Kylo Ren. And I think, if I’d had someone like Snoke telling me that they understood me, that the things that made me different and frightening were good, and that they could help me control and use those things… It’s not hard to imagine a lonely, frightened child letting someone like that in.

I’m not saying I condone any of Kylo’s life choices! Understanding is not the same as condoning. Understanding why someone might take a certain path doesn’t mean you think it’s a good idea. But. I want to understand the world around me. I want to extend understanding to other people in the way it’s never been extended to me. And that means understanding villains. That means looking into the dark places, and clearing away the shadows so you can understand.

The beauty of a good villain, to me, is that they are not a monster; they are human. And that is all the more terrifying, and all the more compelling, because really, any of us could become a villain too, depending on the choices we make and the influences in our lives. And we’d probably think that what we were doing was right.

And that’s why I like villains. Because it lets me explore and understand parts of humanity that are mysterious to me. Because it lets me explore parts of myself that are dark and scary and hard to understand.

[wildly differing connotation]

[five syllables where one will do]

[tonally dissonant formalism]

[misunderstood medical term]

[word that hasn’t been in regular use since the 1700s]

Judas: dare

judas: haha wow you guys i can’t believe you dared me to kiss jesus

peter: literally no one dared you to–

i have written A Thing (paging @fahre)

title: the naked now

pairing: graves/credence

rating: xxxplicit

wordcount: 4.8k

warnings/selling points: crossdressing, feminisation, dirty talk, mildish daddy kink, dub-con/generally coercive relationship, post-canon au, pwp

“Lightsabres aren’t supposed to sizzle like that! What a novice!”

“Oh my god, did you put two tiny sabres on either side of your actual lightsabre. Way to go, Captain Edgelord.”

“You don’t even need a respiratory mask, you hipster dumpster fire.”

“I didn’t realize we were in the presence of Darth Vader 2. Man, sequels are never as good as the original.”

i mean yes he’s going to be the first to get a solo movie but

so i have to ask: honestly, why is it ok to want your partner to be a specific gender at the exclusion of others? like, how is monosexuality not totally gross fetishization in an exact parallel to the race issue?

it seems to me like either you’re attracted to people (bi/pan) or you aren’t (ace), and we’re all good! that is all of the information i require to understand you! you are a sensible individual.

The worst part?