ik this is like by design bc we live in a capitalist society that emphasizes individualism so as to isolate us from one another, but it would be so much easier to analyze and critique societal phenomena if every statement made about the potential harm of certain actions/behaviors/cultures didn’t get taken so personally by the people who engage in them.
we can’t talk about how makeup culture stems from and enforces misogyny or the violent institution that is gender because women who love makeup will scream that no, actually, they LOVE wearing makeup, it’s an art and a hobby and who are we to tell them they have to stop (which nobody ever actually says)
we can’t talk about how bdsm going more mainstream often results in people (usually men) who are sexually gratified by physically hurting others (usually women) having much easier access and opportunity to enact said physical harm, often with people who feel pressured into accepting it who wouldn’t otherwise – let alone discussing why so many men get off on beating women – because self-identified submissives will say “stop telling me what i can and can’t do in the bedroom!”
but frankly i think if someone says “analyze and examine your behaviors because they might be harmful” and you hear “stop doing this because it’s harmful” that tells me that you know what you’re doing might be harmful, whether to you personally, to someone else, or just in terms of promoting harmful phenomena in society, and you’re afraid to examine it because you’re afraid that you won’t be able to justify the consequences of your behavior
having a fursona is an extremely freeing and deeply personal method of self expression that everyone should at the very least consider, regardless of the stigma surrounding furries or lack of interest in the community. in this essay I wi
y’all in the tags want the essay so yknow what? I’ll give you the essay
having a fursona is a highly personal experience. No one can take a fursona away from you. I had characters that were dependent on stories I made in the past with abusive, terrible people, and those characters now bear the memories of those abusive, terrible people. but you know what my fursona is? my fursona is a representation of me. my poor experiences are my sona’s. as I overcome my trauma, I overcome trauma associated with my fursona.
no one can ruin him for me. no one can take him away. when I’m upset, I can manipulate him into what I want. I can make him punk. I can put him in the clothes I can’t afford. I can put him in the fashion I’ll never wear. I can either draw him like my body type and help myself cope with dysphoria, or I can draw him in the body type I eventually want to have. I can draw him with other people and other characters.
and the animal aspect is representative too. I know people who are slow and tired who make sloth sonas. people who feel like they’re dirty who make raccoon sonas. people who want to strive for knowledge and make owl sonas. it’s a representation of who you are and who you want to be. your fursona is your ideal you. they’re a coping mechanism and a goal all at once.
your fursona is a unique experience no one can destroy. no one can take your fursona from you. no one can truly destroy your identity as long as you OWN THAT SHIT. therefore: make a fursona
Okay, so like, here’s the facts. Lucretia had to figure out new lives for Magnus, Taako, and Merle with only the ability to take away information via the Voidfish.
As we know, Taako just got hooked up with his show, feesibly without any further erasing needed. I headcanon that the original Merle from Faerun died as a baby, so Lucretia only had to erase the fact that he died to place her Merle with this plane’s version of his family.
But Magnus insists that he was born and raised in Raven’s Roost. And as far as we know, no one ever questioned him on it. So how can Lucretia give him a lifetime at Raven’s Roost if she can only erase something?
The answer: she erased the fact that he’s a stranger. Maybe she wrote down “Magnus Burnsides is not from around here” onto a piece of paper and threw it into the tank without really thinking it through. Because now it’s not just the people of Raven’s Roost who is pretty sure Magnus Burnsides has been here his entire life even though evidence suggests otherwise. everyone in Faerun has this vague sense that Magnus Burnsides has been a vaguely familiar face in these parts for a long time, even if they can’t quite place why.
Magnus tells a barkeeper in Bradybuck that this is his first time here and the barkeeper doesn’t say anything, but they’re pretty sure Magnus has been stopping through here their entire life. Maybe they’re wrong, but either way his familiarity makes him easy to talk to, if not downright comforting to be around.
What I’m trying to get at is that one of the stranger side effects of the voidfish’s static is Magnus’s rustic hospitality.
one of my favorite lotr facts is that gondorians speak sindarin as a first language and yet when faramir was talking to frodo and sam about cirith ungol he was like “we don’t know what’s in there.” like faramir. cirith ungol is sindarin for “pass of the spider.” do the math
some of my favorite tags on this post
Don’t forget that Frodo also speaks Sindarin, which makes this even worse.
Faramir: Hey, don’t go up the Spider Stairs.
Frodo: Why? What’s up the Spider Stairs?
Faramir: We don’t know, Frodo. We just don’t know.
to be fair, you’d assume the name means “there’s a lot of spiders here,” not, “there is one spider the size of a draft horse here.” so you go up expecting to have to shoo a lot of skeeter eaters out of your tent, and instead you have to figure out how to rope and shoe godzillarantula.
Hmmm…
They do live in a world where godzillarantulas feature prominently in mythology and history (Ungoliant plunged the world into darkness, scared the crap out of Sauron’s old boss, etc) and existed within the last century in Mirkwood. Assuming they ever talk to anyone who’s been to Mirkwood. They… probably know they were giant spiders in Mirkwood pretty recently? It’s hard to figure out how much anyone in Middle-earth has been talking to anyone else when we didn’t actually see it.
On the other hand – what if it’s the giant evil spiders’ prominence in history/mythology that’s causing trouble? What if lots of evil/nasty things/places get called “spider” just to indicate how nasty and evil they are, rather than any association with literal spiders, and it’s just… overloaded? Maybe the bad part of town in Minas Tirith is the Spider District. Maybe every tavern trying to be edgy calls itself the Spiderweb.
Actually spider/Ungoliant references could be really appealing to Gondorians trying to be edgy. They’re dark and evil! Plunged the world into darkness! But they AREN’T involved in the war they’re actually fighting, they aren’t directly associated with Sauron at all, so getting too interested in them would be creepy without being potentially treasonous. Because no one’s ACTUALLY going to worship those dangerous but not epic spiders up in Mirkwood, and no one’s heard anything from any proper spawn of Ungoliant in ages and ages.
In fact, spider/Ungoliant references might be appealing to ORCS trying to express that something is nasty and creepy! Nobody likes Ungoliant.
Maybe Faramir’s been to fourteen different Spider Caves across Ithilien, and half of them he didn’t even see regular spiders in, they’re just dark and damp and may have had orcs at some point, or something, and at some point in history someone got spooked. So you know, it’s POSSIBLE Spider Pass has something to do with spiders? But really it just means people don’t like it.
(The problem with this theory is we never actually SAW anyone overusing spider references. But it’s plausible they would!)
This sounds like something Tolkein would agree with.
that actually makes a lot of sense. there are probably hundreds of river rapids in north america called Devil’s Cauldron. if someone tells you not to canoe on that river, you’ll assume it’s because the rapids will smash your boat, not because the literal devil will boil you for soup.
“My character had had his larynx ripped out by this wolf man, and so I made the slightly bold choice—which I thought was right—of talking like this,” Redmayne says, putting on the breathy, choked affectation he uses throughout the film. He adds that at the time he thought the voice suited the costume and elaborate sci-fi world of the film, but in retrospect can see that it may have been a bit much. “I won a prize for it for the worst performance of the year,” Redmayne adds, referring to his 2016 Razzie award for Worst Supporting Actor. “So, yeah, it was a pretty bad performance by all accounts.”
Eddie, sweetie – you’re breaking my heart. You’ve got to ignore the basics. You’ve got to know that you gave a tremendously OTT and dialled up performance in a tremendously OTT and dialled up film (which I continue to love from the depths of my being). You gave no fucks and threw yourself into it, and because of that people love your performance. I can confidently guarantee that you gave the best performance as a vocally impaired intergalactic overlord with monumental mother issues and stomping lizard servants ever committed to film. Own it!
okay but we’re ignoring the most important part of this interview
“My character had had his larynx ripped out by this wolf man, and so I made the slightly bold choice—which I thought was right—of talking like this,” Redmayne says, putting on the breathy, choked affectation he uses throughout the film.
THE ENTITLED WHOSE THROAT CAINE RIPPED OUT WAS BALEM THE WHOLE TIME
LONGTIME CONSPIRACY THEORY #CONFIRMED FUCK YEAH
D-Did they ever say in the movie that Redmayne’s character had had his throat ripped out in the backstory?
Cause I feel like that voice/performance immediately becomes less bizarre once you fill in that particular detail.
okay so you’ve unlocked one of my top five special interests just be aware
so jupiter ascending actually goes hard on the infodumping (which is why I get really annoyed by criticism that it’s hard to follow – if anything, the criticism should be that too much is explained and not enough is left to the audience), but there is one thing that’s never fully resolved (but it’s not plot relevant so it’s not the biggest deal)
anyway, this is what we know about caine:
he was born genetically defective and was sold to the Skyjackers (like, Space Air Force? with rocket boots and angel wings?) by his creator for cheap
he managed to rise to be a great Skyjacker anyway, despite his genetic deficiency
~something~ happened where he ripped the throat out of an Entitled. WHY he did it or WHO the Entitled was is never explained in canon.
he himself has no idea why he randomly went berserk and tried to kill someone, but everyone blamed it on his genetic defects and he believes them
his belief in his own inferiority and inherently violent nature is why he tries to avoid a relationship with jupiter. this is the context for the “I have more in common with a dog than I do with you”/ “I love dogs, I’ve always loved dogs” scene and THAT’S WHY IT ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE IN THE TEXT, FOLKS
also there’s that whole romantic scene after jupiter becomes an entitled where she’s like “so I’m an entitled now, does that mean you want to bite me?” and caine’s like “uhhh no? ….actually maybe” and she’s like “go ahead 😉 😉 ;)”
for this he was stripped of his angel wings and exiled to a hostile prison colony planet until the events of the movie
so the fan theory for a long time was that balem was the entitled who caine attacked, and there’s an extension of that fan theory where one of his siblings – either kalique or titus, probably kalique because she’s way smarter – somehow mind-controlled or otherwise forced caine to attack balem as an assassination attempt, which is why he doesn’t remember why he did it
but ultimately it doesn’t actually matter to the plot? so it’s not a bad thing that it’s never resolved. but FAN THEORY #CONFIRMED.
The
Dragon Prince is a wonderfully written and beautifully animated
cartoon. I don’t usually take on a whole series but I was
interested in the pitch and have fond memories of Avatar: The Last
Airbender. I was curious to see
what the creators had come up with since.
And
overall I really enjoyed it. The characters are engaging and the plot
is an interesting twist on a lot of typical fantasy tropes. (It also
helped that this is the first time I’ve seen an animated character
sign.)
The
review contains spoilers for the entire season (1) of this cartoon.
After
humans started using dark magic, magic drawn from destroying
naturally magical creatures, an alliance of elves and dragons drove
them to the western side of the continent. In the war that follows
humans killed the dragon king and destroyed his egg.
Years
later a group of elves sneak into the human kingdom, determined to
assassinate the king and his son in revenge. Rayla, the youngest of
the assassins, discovers that the egg is intact and alive. With the
human princes, Ezran and Callum, she sets out to return the egg, the
titular Dragon Prince, to his home.
But
once again I’m rating the depiction and use of torture, not
the story itself. I’m trying to take into account realism
(regardless of fantasy or sci fi elements), presence of any apologist
arguments, stereotypes and the narrative treatment of victims and
torturers.
Which means I’m not focusing on the main characters or their plot
line here. Instead this review is going to focus mostly on three side
characters: Runaan, the leader of the elven assassins who kills the
human king, Viren, a dark mage and the king’s advisor who takes
over the country on the king’s death and Gren a guardsman loyal to
Ezran and Callum’s Aunt.
Viren
chooses to have Runaan kept alive and imprisons him in a stone cell.
He’s chained in a seated position with his hands raised above his
head. Viren attempts to bribe and threaten Runaan into revealing
information about a magical artifact. Runaan refuses and in
retaliation Viren casts a spell imprisoning Runaan’s essence in a
coin.
As Viren tries to consolidate power he clashes with the princes’
aunt, a military commander who insists the boys are alive and should
be searched for. Viren manipulates her into returning to the front
lines but not before she leaves Gren in charge of searching for the
missing princes.
Viren has Gren imprisoned. He’s chained in a standing position with
his hands kept level with his head.
I’m giving it 2/10
The Good
1) Torture and the threat of torture is used in the context of
interrogation but the story shows it failing. Runaan rejects every
request for information Viren makes. He also rejects every ‘olive
branch’ Viren extends.
2) Torture isn’t shown changing or even mildly influencing Runaan’s
strongly held beliefs. If anything the story shows Runaan’s
anti-human stance becoming more entrenched in response to torture.
3) Viren’s motivation for imprisoning and torturing both Runaan and
Gren is quite in keeping with reality. Runaan is an enemy soldier.
Gren is loyal to the old regime that Viren is actively trying to
replace. This makes both of them political enemies, treated as
threats to the new regime’s security. That’s incredibly true to
life.
4) The timing of Viren’s bribes also felt like a good point to me.
Runaan is captured and abused and then
Viren attempts to bribe him into cooperation. First he uses food and
drink, then he uses the offer of freedom. I don’t know whether it
was intentional or not but I liked this element because it supports
the notion of Runaan’s opposition becoming firmer as he’s
mistreated.
5) I enjoyed Viren’s general
characterisation throughout this and the way he justifies his
actions. He presents himself as a ‘pragmatist’. He says he’s
willing to make the ‘tough choices’ for the good of others and
the Kingdom. That’s the
kind of torture apologia torturers often parrot.
6) And that view doesn’t go
unchallenged in the story. Other characters point out that Viren’s
actions mostly benefit himself. His cruelty and his so-called
‘pragmatic’ lack of morals are presented as causing bigger
problems than they solve. Together it creates a really good, succinct
and understandable portrait of a torturer. It shows him parroting
typical torture apologia and it shows why
those views are wrong.
The Bad
Both Runaan and Gren should be dead several times over.
The portrayal of stress positions here is frankly appalling. It’s
difficult to be exactly sure about the passage of time in the story
but Runaan is kept with his hands chained above his head for at least
a week. Gren is kept standing for days.
Stress positions kill after about 48 hours.
In this case, neither character is depicting as suffering due to the
way they’re restrained.
Runaan is shown suffering but this is visually and narrative linked
to other things. He’s bruised because he was beaten when he was
captured. His arm is withering due to a curse. He’s weak because he’s
refusing to eat and drink (which should also have killed him, however
I’m willing to give that more leeway in a non-human character). But
the stress position he’s kept in isn’t depicted as fundamentally
harmful.
This is more or less repeated with Gren. He isn’t shown refusing food
or drink and he wasn’t beaten when captured. His posture in his
chains is relaxed. He shows no signs of pain or discomfort. He leans
against the wall and whistles. His movement, colouration, coherency
and memory all seem to be completely unaffected.
Stress positions are incredibly harmful. They are painful. They cause
wide scale break down of muscles in the victim’s body. This
initially leads to a build up of fluid in the extremities. Which
causes painful, discoloured swelling in the limbs, sometimes to the
point that the skin ruptures into blisters. As more muscles are
destroyed the protein released into the bloodstream becomes too much
for the kidneys to handle and they fail. One description I read
described the kidney’s being turned into ‘swiss cheese’.
The result is a protracted, painful death that can occur a
significant period of time after the victim is released from the
stress position.
The fact that it’s a stress position singled out as a ‘harmless’
torture is extremely significant here.
This is a torture that generally doesn’t leave lasting marks. It’s
a torture that’s common in the modern world. And we unfortunately
live in a world where torture trials often hinge on the presence or
absence of ‘physical proof’.
Scars.
Survivors are regularly
dismissed and belittled because they were tortured in ways that
didn’t leave obvious marks on their skin. Because their torturers
used techniques like stress positions.
Showing these tortures as harmless
backs up the societal view that these tortures don’t ‘count’.
That the pain these victims experienced was not real and they don’t
deserve our help or compassion.
It backs up the notion that these
particular victims are to blame for what they suffered.
These aren’t obscure philosophical
notions or debates. These tropes, these patterns, these arguments
affect our treatment of torture and torture survivors now.
They are part of the social
structures that deny torture survivors asylum. They are part of the
reason it takes survivors an average of ten years to access
specialist treatment.
Presenting these apologist views
uncritically to young children isn’t neutral either.
Because even without taking into
account parental blockers on internet searches accurate information
on torture is incredibly difficult to find. Any curious viewer, of
any age, who watches these scenes and searches for more information
would come across more torture apologia long before they find
research on torture.
Especially as they may not even link
what they saw to torture.
A casual viewer would first need to
make that link. Then be aware of the term ‘stress position’. Then
be aware of the academic journals or niche authors who publish on
these topics. And then have access to enough money to pay for those
sources.
Some of the sources are not
available in translation.
The result is that the overwhelming
majority of viewers are likely to accept what they see: that stress
positions cause no harm.
These details are small. They don’t
get a lot of screen time. They’re unimportant to the plot.
But they are not neutral.
They matter.
The way the different ideas at play
here interact matters. As does their impact on the real world.
And as a result, despite many good
points in the portrayal of torture, I feel like I have to give The
Dragon Prince a low score.
Overall
Part of the reason I wanted to review this was to highlight how
prevalent torture is in children’s media and how cartoons are often
sending out the same misinformation as adult action movies.
The
Dragon Prince doesn’t suggest that torture works and it doesn’t
justify brutality. But at the same time it’s downplaying the damage
torture causes by treating some tortures as essentially harmless.
It’s telling that the tortures singled out this way are clean
tortures common in the modern day.
The
tortures that victims are commonly subject to now, the ones that
don’t leave lasting marks, are the ones being singled out as
harmless. As not ‘proper’ torture.
The
message that only some tortures and only some victims ‘count’
starts young. And the sad thing is the people creating this, writing
it and drawing it probably had no idea they were portraying torture
when they chose to have characters chained to the wall.
The
background knowledge most people have on torture is poor, made up of
apologist tropes and rumours and misinformation. But it is so widely
accepted that it probably doesn’t even occur to most creators to
fact-check what they write.
And
the result in this case is a wonderfully made cartoon, which includes
fantastic representation of disability, of racial diversity and
women. While parroting tropes about torture that are actively harmful
to victims.
I’ve been getting some questions about transformative justice lately, so here’s an attempt at a quick 101 of what that means. It’s a first draft, a work in progress.
Transformative justice is build on the belief that we all generally want to be liked by the people around us and want
those people to be okay. The stronger our sense of connection, the more likely we are to want to help and not harm people. So we generally do not do harmful actions unless there are root causes, like:
Some examples of root causes:
We do not understand that our actions are harmful
Our basic needs are not being met (could be physical needs, mental health needs, etc)
We are hurting in a way that isnt acknowledged and are lashing out as a result
We reproduce a harmful oppressive system (sexist
violence, racist violence, transphobic violence, etc)
… other root causes that I’ve forgotten right now
Punishment
does not solve any of these causes. Punishment can make us too afraid
to act for a while, but in the end, if these reasons are not adressed,
our harmful behavior is going to keep coming back.
But just
as importantly: because punishment is forced upon the punished, it can
only happen when the punisher has more power than the punished. Punishment is a matter of who has the power to punish, not of who
is right or who is deserving of punishment. Generally, punishment doesn’t happen to the bad people, just to
those without the power to avoid being punished. Punishment maintains existing power imbalances and creates new
power-imbalances, new harm, new wounds, and as a result new harmful
behaviors. Punishment perpetuates harm.
So, what is the alternative?
Well, transformative justice relies on 3 things:
Protecting the victim and giving them space to heal (sidenote: there isn’t always a simple victim-actor binary)
Protecting the community and giving it space to heal
Working with the harmful actor to see what is needed
Focussing on the last two parts here, transformative justice means having genuine honest conversations with the harmful actor to achieve for example:
The realisation in the actor that the behavior is harmful and needs to change
The
realisation in the community that someone’s basic needs were not being met
and that needs to change
The realisation
in the community
that someone’s hurt was
not acknowledged and
that needs to change
The unlearning in the actor of the oppressive behaviors that prompted the harmful behavior
The realisation
in the community
that there was no real harm and that the behavior that broke the ‘rules’ was never harmful to begin with and the ‘rules’ need to change
A combination of these things
In short, if there is harmful behavior, it means something about the way
we have organized our society probably needs changing. Often other things that can not directly be identified as ‘root causes of harmful behavior’ come up, like ‘a person that was lashing out was able to recruit a group of friends in their harmful behavior’ and those things then need to be adressed. Transformative justice isn’t just about the actor, it is about the whole community.
Where there is harm, there is also disconnection. Pain, anger, broken trust. So identification of the root causes is followed by transformation. Meaning the root causes of the harmful behavior are removed and the connection between actor and community is restored.
The goal of transformative justice is NOT that the harmful actor puts on
a show of the right apologies and demonstrations of change. It’s not a
performance of accountability. Transformative justice is about creating actual, messy,
slow, imperfect change. Remorse is not a required component. The goal isn’t a specific emotion or act, it’s reaching a situation where no new harm will occur and connections are restored.
It’s hard work, for the harmful actor and for
the community. It is generally not fun. When it is done by a group of people who have grown up in a culture of revenge and punishment, it’s very very difficult work. Since we we’re already making lists, here are some..
Common pitfalls:
We don’t always have the resources to address the needs that are not being met, whether they are physical needs or mental health needs.
We don’t always have the skills needed to really listen to each other, to find root causes behind harm, to work on genuine healing, etc. We’re quick to fall into familiar patterns of punishment & revenge or demanding ingenuine performed apologies so that we can have simplicity and closure.
Transformations are often slow and unclear, creating a long period
of uncertainty.
There is no clear sense of when it’s over or whether a harmful actor is putting enough effort into ‘dealing with their shit’. If someone is lashing out as a
result of a lifetime of abuse or a deeply engrained oppressive dogma,
they’re not likely to become perfect in a short time. Protecting victims
and the community during that long period is difficult. Transformative
justice can be emotionally draining on everyone involved over a long
period of time. It is difficult to maintain. It doesn’t have big
spectacular success stories and very little recognition.
Working with the harmful actor to achieve transformation means listening to
someone who has done harm and genuinely trying to understand their point of view. This can bring a lot of discomfort and is something a lot of us who say we want transformative justice are ultimately unwilling to do. Transformation of an actor also results in a real reconnection of bonds between the actor and the community once the transformation has taken place. Are we willing to do that?
Participation of the victim should always be voluntary. A person healing from a very harmful thing definitely shouldn’t be pushed to participate. At the same time, some victims might really want to participate in the transformative justice process but may be unwilling or unable to deal with the messy process of genuine conversations with an actor and the flawed process of transformation it involves. Giving victims agency but also allowing the actors transformative process to take place is difficult.
We’re not very good at recognizing the difference between mutual harm
and victim-actor binaries. We often end up dealing badly with
cases where that is unclear. When the actor has a marginalized identity that the victim does not have, we’re often very bad at recognizing actor and victim.
We’re often unwilling to admit the role favoritism, personal bonds and popularity plays in how we respond to the need for a transformative justice process. A person who is well liked may get a lot more support in their transformation that a person who is not. The amount of energy we’re willing to spend on someone varies.
The community may be unwilling to change parts of its culture that are consistently creating new harmful actors. For example: an community that glorifies physical strength, fighting skills and a warrior attitude is going to have to problems with that again and again. A community that focusses on performative call-outs as a way of demonstrating your ideological purity is going to be very bad at genuine transformation.
And there are more pitfalls.. so yeah, it’s complicated. It’s a lot more complicated that kicking people out or building prisons.
But while punishment is ineffective and thus required again and again and again, transformative justice creates lasting change. And because it doesn’t just change the actor, every transformative justice process also creates a better community that is better capable of preventing harm in the first place.
To round up
Transformative justice is as old as human community itself and there are many different transformative justice techniques out there. Some
rely on an outside ‘impartial’ negotiator, others are victim-led, some
require that the actor in some way repairs the damage done while other
methods reject this notion. But in general transformative justice is about:
Safety, healing, and agency for victims
Transformation for people who did harm, resulting in meaningful reconnection to the community
Community transformation and healing
Transformation of the social conditions that perpetuate harm
I think one of my absolute favourite things about TAZ is that Griffin got to write a campaign in which the three free agents, the three moving parts that he relied on to make his story work, were the three people he knows best in the whole universe. People talk about Griffin’s story being ‘on rails’ but it’s not. It’s just that – unlike most DMs – Griffin can predict his family’s behaviour in advance in a way most people couldn’t hope to do. If he were playing with a different group, the story never would have turned out the way it did, but because he knows his family, he could fairly accurately predict the big decisions.
He writes a voidfish into the story, because he knows his brother is kind to animals, knows he’d never leave a sentient baby jellyfish on a planet about to get eaten, not even narratively. He’s not writing Travis into a corner, Travis would never consider doing anything else. He writes Taako a sister – a best friend, a twin, a soul mate – because he knows that Justin is a big brother to his very core, knows that his instincts will always fall in line with sibling loyalty and devotion, even when he’s playing an aloof elf who doesn’t care about anyone. He writes his dad into the trickiest position of them all – facing true horror, sitting across the table from the end of the world – and he knows that his father will respond with compromise and understanding, with love and joy and compassion, because he’s seen that grace in his father his whole life. Griffin was betting on those qualities that he already knew his family possessed, and it was the safest bet he ever made! Because they were amazing, and he always knew they would be.
just moving along like everyone else 