#'eradicating their culture is a good thing'

[corkinavoid]

DPxDC Good!GIW Thoughts

After I wrote the Multiverse Police prompt, I've gotten a few replies and reblogs saying they've never seen good!GIW before, and I realized, wow, me neither!

The GIW are always the bad guys, and, well, yeah, they fit the criteria for being the shadow branch of the government to commit atrocities. But there's potential in good GIW.

Imagine it.

Imagine Amity Park being off-limits not because GIW wants to keep it contained but because they treat it like a resort or a national park. People are not allowed to freely come there only because GIW wants JL out of it since the heroes are going to treat the whole thing as a threat. But there's an infinite amount of knowledge there! A portal to the new world! New culture! Things you could never learn before!

Imagine Amity being under government's protection. Imagine Jazz attending a university with her full tuition paid by the GIW since she is, well, a liminal, a minority, and she is getting a degree that will help her establish connections between them and Infinite Realms.

Imagine GIW funding Fentons' research not in order to eradicate ghosts but to have a safe way to talk to them while not getting caught up in a fight with an impossibly strong being.

Imagine GIW being hella annoying to Danny because they just won't stop with their interviews and questionnaires. Which, actually, has the full potential to become confusing because imagine Batman meeting Phantom and Phantom is like, "Oh, yeah, there's a hidden government branch that I avoid like plague because they want to catch me" and Bats are super worried. In the meantime, GIW is looking for Danny simply because he is the most friendly ghost they encountered and they want their answers about the cultural differences between the dead and the living.

Now, there's also a way for this to become the thickest plot armor ever. Imagine Jazz is on a mission to get some artifact from the mortal world. Then imagine GIW helping her while they still can't exactly show they are government agents because who in their right mind would believe the government is studying ghosts? Anyway, Jazz now has the potential to become James Bond kind of cool. Wonderful.

Imagine Danny having trouble with the JL/Bats/police, and then he just, "Wait, let me call someone, I have the right to one phone call, right?" And not 15 minutes later, a bunch of secret government agents in white show up, and Danny is free to go while the agents are saying whatever happened is now classified in the best Batman manner.

Oh, what about a world-ending event where a ghost is involved, and the JL is at a loss of what to do. And then the white vans show up, packed with unknown tech, agents in white with blasters, and a few weird meta-kids no one knows anything about. They even have a K9 unit because, come on, Cujo could be a perfect friend for them.

Just GIW being the secret protection squad for Amity and ghosts.

[taliabhattwrites]

Transition care is being outlawed and institutionally gatekept the world over.

Trans existence is the reactionary scapegoat du jour, a convenient symbol for regressive ideologues to rally against because we constitute a convenient effigy to burn, an existential threat to the patriarchal ideology of 'immutable', 'biological' sex upon which their 'natural order' (of male-supremacy and misogynistic exploitation) is founded.

During a cultural moment where the right's intentions to directly attack bodily autonomy and non-heterosexual, non-reproductive modes of existence are being plainly stated, where the nativist and natalist violence upon which states and their colonial orders are founded is being made most explicit, the response to this overt declaration of war on our ability to do what we will with our bodies is ... non-existent.

Feminism is being thoroughly repudiated by the left, by advocates of collectivization and queer activists alike. The "male loneliness crisis" is spoken of as our most pressing cultural issue, eliding the reactionary turn among men who are responding to deepening capitalist contradictions by demanding their patriarchal entitlement over women's labor and bodies. Trans people's existence is considered a luxury belief, established and proven healthcare is called 'experimental', and we are perceived as affluent eccentrics seeking novel forms of costuming rather than a thoroughly brutalized, impoverished, and stigmatized demographic sinking further and further into the margins.

Conservatives who rail against abortion and no-fault divorce now claim the label of "women's rights" because they also call for the eradication of transsexuality. The connections between the opposition to trans existence and the threats to women's political and economic independence are obvious, but no one is making them.

We are not organizing a robust, materialist, ideological opposition to this reactionary backlash on the basis of bodily autonomy, the emancipation of marginalized genders, or the right to exist independently from patriarchal structures such as the nuclear family.

We are arguing with each other about validity, about whether it's "biologically essentialist" to observe that society enables men to exploit women, and about whether anyone who speaks plainly about misogyny is a "TERF".

I stand here seeing things get worse for my sisters and my siblings, cis and trans and non-binary and intersex and queer and even heterosexual and more, watching us devour each other while working class men settle for dominion over their wives and families in exchange for being compliant for their bosses, and I wonder if we'll realize what must be done before it's too late.

I don't know. I don't have an answer for you.

At least, not a good one.

[hadesoftheladies]

like yes, a lot of insane shit has happened with religions, but if you think that evil originates from religion or is maintained (solely or primarily) by religion, then you need to expand your knowledge on the subject. more than that, i question which civilization you are examining. because most of the people who talk like this are westerners/europeans whose context is that of christianity and the insane amount of war and genocide that happened in the 20th century.

religion is endemic to humanity. like language. it takes myriads of shapes, even within itself, as it evolves or dies. so much history is tied into religion. and not always in bad ways. so much of human culture as well. from philosophy to science to government. abstract thinking has been a pinnacle of religious culture and integral to human development and culture-making. religion can be atheistic, monotheistic, pantheistic, panentheisitc, patriarchal, matriarchal or old school zoolatry. religion is not regressive in all cases all the time.

i'll use a practical example of christianity in the west. on one hand, you have the Third Wave charimsatic-evangelical movement of the 80s in the US (originating from California). this movement is how many televangelists since that time became known for their "miracles" and "wonders" and profiting off the suffering of others whether by promising them impossible cures or visions of the future. (it also became a cesspit of ableism, groupthink and cultish practices). among american evangelical-charismatics, a lot were white, middle-class americans. they fixated on the holy spirit's power, predicting the future (usually according to poor readings of the book of revelations) and healing the sick. this movement spread like wildfire across the world (and televangelism helped). charismatic-evangelical christianity has a strong presence in africa to this day, like the new charismatic movements of kenya. it has wreaked plenty of harm, encouraging people to doubt science and pray diseases away, or increasing religious trauma via doomsday predictions of the end of the world.

on the other hand, you have the christian liberation movements of Latin America, South Africa, Ireland, Palestine and India. liberation theology picked up in latin america in the 60s and focused on the social responsibility of the christian to help the poor.

The option for the poor is simply the idea that, as reflected in canon law, “The Christian faithful are also obliged to promote social justice and, mindful of the precept of the Lord, to assist the poor.” It indicates an obligation, on the part of those who would call themselves Christian, first and foremost to care for the poor and vulnerable.[3]

Liberation theology has taken on racist and capitalist politics and the liberation of all the oppressed. it stresses Jesus as god identifying with the lowly and marginalized rather than the rich, powerful or well-off. The Gospels correspond effortlessly with liberation theology, and the words of Jesus are used to inspire activist action, like the black liberation activism of Martin Luther King Jr. His faith and profession in the words of Jesus empowered him to move the US. i mean, most of you know exactly what he accomplished. many activists from marginalized communities (especially in the west) have been empowered by the radical idea that not only was God represented in every single human (Imago Dei)--and yes, that included women--but that Jesus, God made flesh, was the God of the oppressed who sought out the poor, the prostitute, the sick for his kingdom. i can't begin to cover the impact such ideas of the Gospel have had on colonized and oppressed peoples (and there's also something to be said on how imago dei was revolutionary in the ancient near east, where only powerful men and kings could be considered gods in most non-hebrew cultures).

So in christianity alone, you have the terrors of the crusades, the witch hunts, the colonial expansion of the british, spanish and french empires via missionary work and evangelism AND you also have the christian traditions of the marginalized who used the gospel to change their societies for the better, improve interpersonal relations in different communities and encourage better relations free of racism or tribalism, peace-keepers and pacifists, charity work and humanitarian efforts, and resistance to various violent regimes. christianity has been a religion that belonged to both the oppressed and oppressor, and all sorts of people have wielded different or similar aspects of it to create or make sense of the world. same thing with irreligious institutions or governments. religious people are minorities in places like china and face extreme oppression and persecution for their beliefs by an irreligious government.

i saw the whole conversation that was circulating where a TRA suggested that one of the first steps to anti-racism included tolerating the fact that other people groups valued religion, which modern western audiences find difficult to accept. that OP had a point, despite the radfems that piled on them. it is one of the symptoms of hegemony, which is a direct consequence (or prevailing attitude) of imperialists.

no you do not have to believe in what other people believe in to tolerate them. that's not what tolerance is. and yes, all beliefs should be subject to scrutiny and criticism. but non-hegemony would say that (excluding harm) diversity of belief should be embraced. how else do you think cultural differences come about? they come from varying beliefs and ideas about life and death and personhood. you can mock the irrationality of someone's belief, but you enter asshole territory when you begin mocking what those beliefs mean to these people simply because you don't share them. that, and you will fail to understand them.

i find it so funny how so many radblr women don't apply their excellent analysis skills to stuff like this and just say "religion bad and religious people stoopid." it's lazy. there are no records of jesus ever telling his disciples to go on crusades, but the crusades happened. why? did it ever occur to you that religion can be weaponized, much like anything else? does that make it inherently bad? it's bad, you may say, because it isn't true, but we do not value things solely (if at all) because they are true.

furthermore, the tradition of religion is also largely interpretive, which means any one religion or religious text can inspire completely different responses in people and create different sub-cultures as a result!

to clarify, it is not hegemonic for western atheists to believe or say that "i believe x religion is bad/harmful because x cannot or has not been proven or observed to be true." that's not hegemony.

i mean hegemony in the 19th century sense, that is the belief in social or cultural predominance or ascendancy. as i stated earlier, culture-making is done via ideas and beliefs. the reason for varying culture isn't just external conditions, but through the folklore and the existential musings of a people. religion is instrumental in a lot of this, and for that reason, religion has philosophy, history and lingual development tied into it. religion, language and environment are the trinity of culture.

basically, it's cool if you criticize what you can verify, but we get into weird territory when you start talking about the One True Belief, whether it's political or philosophical or whatever. even non-religious groups get caught up in dogma and fanaticism. the One True Belief, ultimately leads to the Only Valid Lifestyle which leads to the Ultimate Society which leads down roads we all claim we don't like.

that's also why the death of certain religions can be a big blow to some people (especially those reeling from conquest and colonization), because you lose that folklore and that history. you lose that connection you could have had to your ancestors and their wisdom and way of life. like i grieve at the loss of some kikuyu rituals like pouring libations into the earth before drinking or eating. i found out it had been something to do with nourishing the spirits of my ancestors. is it true? doesn't matter. there's history and culture and collective memory that is lost because that practice was wiped away by imperialism. there's a sense of alienation from who my ancestors were because i don't know what they thought of the world or themselves. certain kikuyu words have lost meaning to our tribe because of the loss of those rituals.

religion and philosophy aren't there to just give gluttonous men power over people. they are there because life is mysterious and difficult and they are our attempt to comfort ourselves and each other, discuss and point out our place in time and space, give meaning to our existence, ground ourselves and even commune with nature. sometimes it's not at all about truth. sometimes religion is more powerful because it is about what we cannot know, community, and the celebration and worship of the miracle that is life on this planet. the primary business of religion, like language, is meaning-making, which translates into culture. that's why, i believe, discussions surrounding religion can be so personal and difficult.

ideas can be inferior to others based on how they correspond to reality. but that doesn't make them value-less or the people who hold them inferior people.

it isn't just about people "believing in fairy stories." religion has had both positive and negative consequences. it has skin in every game because it is endemic to humanity. learning to live in a world where people will think differently than you is something that should be embraced and celebrated, because people will always experience life differently. wanting everyone to think of the cosmos or life or death or themselves the same way is, i believe, harmful and wasteful.

hegemony isn't inherently bad, though. for example, it would be nice for the planet if veganism and feminism were globally embraced, but see, that's why i clarified that, excluding harm, hegemony shouldn't be a factor. hegemonists think "these people's ideas, culture and history are inferior, i will conform them to my own which i have deemed superior for their own sake." and imperialist hegemony frequently causes harm.

several colonizers preached that they were saving those they colonized with their superior western and christian ideas and way of life, but many of those things, when enforced, have continued to be catastrophic to the indigenous people of those lands. with western hegemony, some of us went from egalitarian societies to patriarchal ones. we dealt with many foreign diseases and sicknesses we did not have before. we were crippled intellectually and even physically. our architecture went from being environmentally friendly and better suited to our weather, to shitty brutalistic apartment complexes that make summer days hell. etcetera. we lost our old philosophies, mythologies and language, hence we lost a good chunk of ourselves. looking back, there's a big hole in a lot of our histories. huge chunks of memory we wont' ever recover.

it is far better to wonder and marvel at differences (not without analyzing them) than to make everything in this world conform to our sense of comfort and our values (excluding matters of harm). some societies just won't give precedence to certain aspects of life than others. and that's totally okay.

god this is a long rant, and i'm not even sure if i've communicated my point clearly, but given all the spirituality and religion talk happening on radblr, i thought i'd speak on what i haven't seen anyone really talk about.

if nothing else i said is understood, the heart of what i'm saying is that the one thing irreligious and religious people have in common is their humanity. and it does major harm to all of us when either kinds of person underestimate or belittle the humanity of the other. it is dumb to think religious people are just stupid sheeple and dumb to think irreligious people are heartless and without conscience or wonder.

the evident truth is that we are all human together and refusing to acknowledge that creates a terrible mess. worse, when we try to help people "be more human" and we associate being human with "being most like me" that is when we get into really fucking dangerous territory.

radblr is so myopic about religion and religious people it's dramatic

[sweaterkittensahoy]

Stop misappropriating the abuse and trauma cults use through purity culture for your stupid fucking shipping discourse? Holy fuck no wonder everyone hates this whole discourse.

Since when is "priests getting shuffled around after raping kids and kids being told they're sinful because they had bodily reactions to being SAd" comparable to "Bobo the clown said my ship was cringe"

I'm not gonna answer this with The Aristocrats, as a I threatened, because I want to make a very serious point to this anon:

Purity culture isn't just religious abuse. It is most widely connected to religious abuse. Including actions in the Catholic Church and all fundamentalist Christianity. It's entire existence is about terrifying and indoctrinating people into being fearful of their own actions and bodies so that they feel certain that moving out from the "umbrella of safety" (to use a fundamentalist term) will result in them being harmed in ways they can't imagine. This is generally happening at the same time as they are being harmed by those who are supposed to be keeping them safe from all those terrible, worldly evils. Like speaking up when you're being abused. Believing you are not responsible for the actions of a rapist, and many, many other things that any person with an ounce of self-worth and good sense (two things not allowed in fundamentalist circles) knows are true in abuse situations.

But the point of the purity culture as identity in the above-mentioned circles is to teach people from birth that they aren't to have their own feelings, ideas, or instincts. They are only to follow the feelings, ideas, and instincts on the approved list in order to stay within the structures they know and feel safe in even as they feel very unsafe.

That being said:

Purity culture can also exist WITHOUT a religious structure while still being about controlling the thoughts, feelings, and actions of everyone within it. In terms of fandom, purity culture is groups of people stating that if you write something uncomfortable or gross or immoral, then YOU must be uncomfortable or gross or immoral and therefore, not worthy of the safety and moral superiority of the group.

Purity culture without religion teaches black and white thinking, encourages thought policing, and shames anyone who steps outside of a very narrow definition of good and bad by turning an entire group of people against them for being "bad".

Just like in religious circles.

Just like in the cult of fundamentalism.

Purity culture is a term taken by fundamentalists and turned into a whole way of life because the goal of fundamentalism is to make people too scared to leave. Purity culture in fandom does the same thing. It uses fear and threats of abandonment/harassment to control the way people act because a group of people decided they didn't like something, so they must try and wipe it out rather than simply ignore it.

I am not mis-using the term because "Bobo the clown said my ship was cringe." My use of the term is intentional and precise because what is happening in fandom spaces now is non-religious purity culture cult thinking. My use of the term does not invalidate or water down the use of it in conversations about religious abuse and trauma. With or without religion, purity culture is a dangerous cult of "us vs them" that is built to demoralize and eradicate those deemed unworthy.

[zutarawasrobbed]

ALTA Live Action Season 1 Initial Thoughts (Spoilers)

I just finished the season, and holy shit!

Quick things that need to be addressed/debunked:

“Sokka is no longer sexist”

I dont know what people were talking about when they talked about Sokka’s “sexism” being removed. It’s still there! But not in the overly exaggerated comical way it was in the original.

In fact, it’s more in line with ancient practices of indigenous tribes where men are seen as protectors and providers while women are expected to nurture. It’s not the same “boys are better than girls” narrative in the original.

Additionally, Suki still beats the fuck out of Sokka and humbled him really quick. They’re super cute by the way. And I love Suki’s “I like my men a little stupid” vibe. She’s great.

“Aang doesn’t run away like the original!”

That is not true. He does run away, but not because he’s trying to get away from the temple but instead to get some air because he feels overwhelmed. He’s more like taking a quick break and planning to come back. It’s not exactly the same, but almost. It also is done in a way where his guilt feels more justified.

“Katara doesn’t talk about her mom anymore like the original”

This is true… BECAUSE THEY SHOW INSTEAD OF TELL. I was honestly not prepared to see the death Kya in such graphic detail and how Katara was in the room hiding when it happened. It’s honestly really sad and more heartbreaking.

Plot:

The timeline seems to be ambiguous compared to the original series where it was “end of current year.” In fact, they repeat “three years” a few times, which makes me think if the series get greenlit for more seasons, it would be over a three year period.

Jet is still villainized but given more nuance and not a simple "good v bad" way like the original.

Zuko’s story about how he got his scar has additional lore that makes him come across as even more selfless and compassionate. The additional context of the platoon he advocated for in the war meeting, becoming his current crew, really added to the story.

Eradicated the nepotism baby plot point with Pakku only training Katara when he finds out he used to date her grandma. Instead, Katara proves herself and ends up teaching the other male fighters the techniques she learned from watching other benders use their elements and mimics them.

This season doesn’t have Aang learning any waterbending, but rather facing his trauma and the consequences of his actions. He get roasted by all his past lives. Which is an interesting choice, but I think it works well in how they executed it.

This season seems to actually be Katara focused and her journey of learning waterbending which I honestly loved because it really hits home the element of “water” being the story of an untrained waterbender learning her element. But, I do think Aang could’ve learned a little bending. It felt a little off.

Katara ends up advocating for all waterbending women and ends up leading an army of both men and women during the siege. She’s really bad ass and is given the title of master without being formally trained by Pakku. She made herself a master.

I think the timeline is a little wonky because of how much they had to fit in with the limited episodes they had.

Kuruk is given respect! I loved that.

June actually seems into Iroh which I thought was a funny but cool way to flip the script from the original.

The relationship between Zuko and Iroh is really beautifully executed. I love the depth they added with flashback scenes and their bond prior to the Agni Kai. It also wasn’t as frustrating watching Iroh and Zuko’s dynamic because Iroh communicated with Zuko in a way he could understand with straight answers rather than seeming to actively sabotage him with cryptic puns and shenanigans like the original.

They changed the love triangle with Yue Hahn and Sokka to be very healthy. They gave Yue autonomy and a choice in her relationship- which- again- is much more in line with indigenous cultures. Also, Hahn and Sokka’s relationship is really supportive and full of respect and no ill will.

They way they handled grief and the realities of war with the loss of life was very well done and really drove home the point that this is a war and these are child soldiers.

There’s a lot more but these are my initial thoughts. Will probably post more later.

Shipping:

Kataang is all but removed. Literally DOA. There is no indication of a crust on either side. It’s painted like a sibling relationship, which is like the original, but this time everyone seems to be on the same page. But, I swear the writers had to have read ZK fics because damn.

They canonized a popular Zutara theory/hc about the cave of two lovers and how the crystals would light up once it went completely dark instead of a “kiss” activating the crystal glow.

Speaking of the Cave of two lovers. They keep the Oma and Shu story with red and blue coloring. Making it come across more as foreshadowing than a direct link to the present tunnel story.

Sokka is put in Aang’s place with Katara in the tunnels and turned it into a story about the love of family and sibling bonds. Aang wasn’t even present.

Zuko and Katara share a meaningful look when they first see each other and continue to have a Katara centric scene followed by a Zuko centric scene and vice versa.

The scarf scene. I will not be elaborating further. If you know, you know.

Zuko and Katara fight scene in the North is epic. He still taunts her with almost the exact same dialogue but it’s so sassy- I love the banter.

Suki and Sokka were really cute and the actors had great chemistry. I think Yue and Sokka was really rushed and didn’t really feel anything about them, honestly. But I attribute that to lack of episodes to develop all that plot.

[tizeline]

The thing I probably love about your Tiz Sep Au is that Mikey is this powerful young mystic apprentice (or whatever his actual title is xD) and he genuinely doesn‘t like humans?? Like?? In every other au, Mikey is usually the one to be curious about human nature/culture, which is absolutely fine dont get me wrong, all those aus are so fun to read!! But in yours he doesn‘t and that‘s so fun to see!! He genuinely believes all humans are evil and deserve to be eradicated and he‘ll happily do so

Lmao yeah I felt like it would be a really fun diversion from the norm to have Mikey of all people be the most enthusiastic about the evil plan. At the same time, I think it makes sense in the context of the AU for Mikey to be the way that he is?

Mikey has a very strong moral compass and wants to do good, it's just not always easy to know that IS good and what isn't. In TSAU Mikey was told his entire life that yōkai are good and humans are evil. And like, he's still very young, he still has a rather naive and simplistic world view, a world view where humans are evil simply because they want to, and Mikey and his family are good guys because they have good intentions and that's all it takes to be a good guy!

Also, whenever Mikey has been shown in the AU so far, he's usually acting hostile towards humanity or something similar, and because of that he can come across as rather hateful, I guess? And I wanna emphasize that Mikey isn't a hateful person. Or- Well- maybe a little bit lol, he hates humans, but his hate towards humanity very much comes from his love towards yōkai-kind. Because whenever he's interacting with yōkai, Mikey is a LOT more similar to his canon counterpart, he's very kind and caring towards yōkai. He hates humanity because he's convinced that they're gonna eradicate his people, the people that he loves, really Mikey just wants to protect them.

And I'm not quite sure what exactly Mikey's title would be? He's definitely strong enough to be called a mystic warrior, but Draxum might still insist that Mikey remain in the apprentice-role for now. Mikey's powers are definitely a double-edged sword, he's a bit too powerful for his own good and as such risk hurting himself if he can't keep control of his magic. Because of that, Draxum would probably not let Mikey graduate from his apprentice-position until he's absolutely sure that Mikey can use his mystic abilities without turning himself into glitter confetti lol

[feyhunter78]

I just found your page and I totally didn’t read all of your Miguel O’Hara fics. One I love how you write kissing you caught that spark off a kiss with someone you love in a way most books don’t get right.

I can’t sit here and sing your praise all day but I do have a question. Fully up to you and if it’s just a Drabble that ok but will you ever being writing something else for Side walk kisses? It’s so cute and I can see more moments with Miguel and Y/N just being silly cute mindless college students so helplessly in love. Fluff smut angst whatever you decide to Drabble in I will be fully ok with

(This is the first time I’ve done an ask so sorry I I seem a little over excited)

AHHH I love when I'm people's first asks, it always makes me feel so special!!! I thought I'd try my hand at a bit of angst for you anon!

Insecurities

You know you shouldn’t be jealous. Shouldn’t feel bad about yourself, shouldn’t be debating making up some excuse and dashing off to the humanities building to rid yourself of this pit in your stomach like a snake sheds its skin.

But that would require leaving Miguel alone with Xina, and you think you’d rather die than do that. So, you’re stuck in the courtyard right outside the library, holding onto Miguel’s bicep possessively as you struggle to keep up with the flow of conversation.

Now you wouldn’t say you’re an insecure person, sure you have your insecurities like everyone else, but they don’t plague your mind, or weigh heavily on you as you go about your day-to-day business. Right now, though? As you take in Xina, her long thick dark hair, her stunning almond eyes that sparkle with intelligence, the flawlessness of her skin, the way she so easily keeps up with Miguel as they discuss the intersection between genetics and robotics, you’re feeling pretty insecure.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking, when making your calculations you have to factor in the deficiencies in the code, just as you have to factor in potential genetic flaws.” Xina says, a smile tugging at the edge of her lips, excitement clear on her face.

“Of course, with genetics it’s harder to eradicate flaws than in code, but I could see it following a similar pattern.” Miguel responds, nodding at her words.

You’re so lost. If they wanted to discuss the intricacies of the English language or the way philosophers can so heavily affect the development of a nation’s culture you would be there, front row and ready, but science? Science is not your forte.

Xina laughs and smacks Miguel’s arm, pulling you out of your thoughts, Miguel is laughing too so you do the same which draws her attention to you.

“Oh, y/n, I’m so sorry, we’ve been so rude, what do you think?” She asks, and you can’t tell if she’s genuinely curious, or just hates you.

You stumble for a moment, then say, “I agree with Miguel.”

She laughs again. “You think Charles Darwin would be a good computer programmer?”

Miguel joins in, and for the first time ever his laughter sounds sour to your ears.

“Oh, um, no, I just—”

Xina smiles sympathetically at you, but it feels a bit patronizing. “It’s okay, not everyone can keep up with us.”

Okay, maybe running and hiding was a good idea.

“Y/N is actually top of her sorority for GPA, she’s read more books than anyone else I know, and she helps me write all my lab reports.” Miguel jumps in.

“That’s so cute.” Xina coos, looking at you as if you were a kindergartener presenting her with a crayon scribbled drawing.

You give her a tight smile, then squeeze Miguel’s bicep. “Hey, I’m gonna head to class, but I’ll see you later?”

He nods, and lets you go, reabsorbed in his conversation with Xina.

You toy with the bracelet Miguel got you as you sit at your desk, waiting for class to start. It’s a pretty thing, a birthday present, simple and elegant, highlighting your birthstone, the words, mi dulce, engraved on the inside in a small, flowy script. It jingles pleasantly as you mess with it, and glints under the florescent lights.

“The professor isn’t here yet, right?” Kelsey slides into her desk next to you and starts unpacking her bag.

“No, he’s running a little late.” You say, absentmindedly shading one corner of the blank page in your notebook with your pencil.

“Okay, good because I have something kinda fucked up to show you.” She says, pulling out her phone and scrolling until she finds what she’s looking for.

You lean towards her, the thought of gossip perking you up a bit.

“So, you know that Ava girl, the bitch who used to date your man?”

“I wish I didn’t, but yes.” You grumble, feeling that familiar gloom settle back over you.

“Okay well she’s been trying to get with this Kappa Sig, and you know how the brothers are like obsessed with me because my brother is their president and an absolute legend as they always remind me.”

“Yeah, it’s the reason we got into their parties freshman year.”

Kelsey’s brother was a decent guy, all things considered. Older than you two by a year or so, with the charisma of a cult leader but lacking the desire to start a cult. Throughly satisfied with his fraternity and the Fortune 500 company he’ll go on to work at once he graduates. He was nice enough, extending his protection to you and anyone else close to his sister while in the Kappa Sig house.

“So, one of them texted me about her trying to sleep her way through the frat, but then, my brother sent me this video. I gotta warn you, it’s not school appropriate.” She says as she slowly turns the screen towards you.

At first, you recoil. It’s Ava, half naked, and some guy, on a bed that looks vaguely familiar. The guy’s face is out of the frame, but he’s shirtless, his pants pushed down exposing his dick to the camera, Ava’s hand wrapped around it pumping furiously. “Um, what the fuck is this?”

“Just wait.” Kelsey says quietly, glancing around the room to make sure no one else is watching. They’re not, they’re too busy with their own phones or side conversations.

You half watch the video, feeling weird about watching, your idea of a good time isn’t watching your boyfriend’s psycho ex jack some guy off.

The guy finishes, his hips bucking and Ava saying something you can’t hear since Kelsey’s sound is off.

The camera shakes as Ava picks it up and shows off the face of the man. Dark hair, glazed brown eyes with hints of crimson, perfectly formed lips parted. You know that face, but you don’t want to accept it.

“Is that Miguel?” You’re horrified, sick to your stomach, head spinning, every unpleasant feeling and sensation you could feel erupting all at once.

You can see Ava go to grab his face, guide him lower, moving to take off her underwear, and you turn your head, unable to watch any longer.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know when it was filmed, but Darren said he had one of the brothers send it to him yesterday then made all of them delete the video from their phones. He knows Miguel’s your boyfriend, said he was just looking out for you.” Kelsey puts away her phone and looks at you, eyes searching your face, before giving you a one-armed hug. “I’m so sorry y/n, I can ask him to see if he can find out when it was filmed?”

You want to cry, you really, really want to cry. “It looks recent, that’s Miguel’s bed, I’ve been there, I’ve slept on that bed, I—I can’t think about this right now. Thank you for telling me, and tell your brother I said thanks too.”

Kelsey nods and squeezes you tighter before letting go and giving you a sad smile.

The professor finally shows up, and you throw yourself into your notetaking, graphite digging into the pristine white paper as you try to drown out the images in your head with the sound of your professor droning on.

Part 2 here!!!

TL: @bat-bae, @nyctophilic0vitnir, @smokeywhalee, @obi-mom-kenobi, @prowlingforfood, @penggion, @crystal-crax, @oharasfilipinawife, @generalkenobitrash, @melsimps, @chrishy973, @farrowroyale, @palesatan, @scaryplanetdestroyer, @denzmallows, @36namey, @scoobysnakz, @ihateuguys, @idkbros-world @smartyren, @deputy-videogamer, @blackrose8425, @amberpanda99, @marshhbs, @queerponcho

[gothamnewsnetwork-official]

Is the Justice League using unpaid child labour?

Though it is not confirmed the exact ages of most heroes and their various sidekicks, it is safe to say that many of them are well below the age of 18, this raises the question of just how good the Justice League really is.

The names Batman and Robin have been closely linked since the creation of the later, the big Bat and his bird-themed sidekick are a staple of both Gotham City and vigilante culture as a whole, but what is the reason for the mantle of Robin being essentially exclusive to children? Though the ethics of all this doesn’t seem to be much of a concern to the various costumes characters of Gotham, one would imagine the Justice League would protest the use of child labour in any form of heroism.

This, however, is not the case. As user Pilztaube ( @emotional-piece-of-meat ) noted in (this post), the League quite accepting such practices. This brings to question the ethics of earth’s mightiest heroes as they seem to be a bit too comfortable with a child being in harms way if it is for the ‘greater good’.

This doesn’t just apply to the Robin’s, as many of the members of the League have had a child sidekick and one point or another, though none have been as young as Robin (the youngest known age of a Robin being 8).

There have even been rumours that more than one member of the team are underage themselves, the most notable being Captain Marvel (see related articles), otherwise known as Shazam. There have been multiple eyewitness accounts of Captain Marvel disappearing, only for a young boy to appear in his stead. Though it has never been confirmed many believe the young boy and Captain Marvel to be one in the same.

Hypocrisy is what many in the villain community are calling it, stating that the JL has been going after them for years under the guise of stopping the usage of child labour when all the while these ‘heroes’ have been doing the exact same thing, and we can’t help but agree.

We would like to make it clear that this journal supports the eradication of child labour, and condemns the league’s usage of such, and find it appalling that they are often times putting children in much worse working conditions than the villains are (see further articles).

We have reached out to multiple members of the Justice League as well multiple villain organizations for further information but none have responded.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic (here)

Gotham Reports is certified in unbiased, fair, and reliable journalism

[vashtijoy]

Hi, hello,I would like to know something for science. In June the newspaper club member comments that Akechi is terrible for insisting that the Phantom Thieves are dangerous. One of the answers Joker can give is "He's too pretty to be wrong." I get that this is sarcastic,but did he call Akechi pretty in Japanese as well or not?

Hello! Thanks for your ask!

イケメン無罪 ikemen muzai He's too pretty to be wrong. Cute guy, not guilty.

Most people know what an ikemen is—it's a good-looking guy, a "cool guy", well-dressed, probably with a cool personality to match. Akechi's Detective Prince mode is a good example. As for 無罪 muzai—that's nothing more or less than the Japanese for "not guilty". So Joker did call him pretty, right? Well...

what is ikemen muzai?

Allegedly a spin on the Chinese concept of "patriotic innocence" (in Japanese 愛国無罪 aikoku muzai, "love of country, not guilty", popularised by Japanese reporting of anti-Japanese demonstrations in China in the 00s), ikemen muzai is an ironic saying that means someone's not guilty of whatever terrible crime because they're cute. It seems to be a youth culture/fandom culture thing. Many in Persona fandom would say that Akechi is a good example.

Note that again. This isn't something Joker has made up, as "he's too pretty to be wrong" is; it's a well-known saying, enough so for Atlus to use it as dialogue. Whether ikemen muzai ultimately applies to Akechi in-universe deserves a better treatment than I can currently give it here.

so not gay, then?

We-ell. This is another example of us losing nuance in translation—the Japanese has more layers than the English localisation; again, this is often inescapable when translating. It's very common in P5.

Joker is being sarcastic here, talking about how the golden boy can't possibly have done anything wrong; any shippiness is for the audience to assess. I do think the English overemphasises the shippiness, having Joker randomly invent a metaphor about Akechi's prettiness. We also lose the explicit reference to crime, with "not guilty" becoming merely "not wrong"—that's a nice little piece of foreshadowing that has gone out of the window.

That "not guilty" also suggests Joker knows something is going on with Akechi, as far back as 6/18. Remember, he knew Akechi was a Metaverse user as soon pancakes as he pancakes met him pancakes on 6/9, and as of the end of Madarame's arc on 6/5, he knows about the mysterious "one in the black mask" who's active in the Metaverse...

It's tempting here to overemphasise the additional nuance. But double entendres exist in Japanese too. Joker really did call Akechi cute. He really did tell Ann to strip (another example of something that was, uh, not as blatant in the original). And so on, and so on.

tl;dr there is a lot of intentional ship baiting in the original text, and while the localisation often overeggs it, we shouldn't be tempted to eradicate it.

revision history

click here for the latest version.

v1.0 (2024/02/09)—first posted.

[floralcavern]

We live in a world where saying you think that a terrorist organization breaking into one’s country and killing thousands, r@ping hundreds, and kidnapping hundreds is a bad thing. We live in a world where saying that that country has the right to fight back and destroy that terrorist organization and get their civilians back is a bad thing. We live in a world where people, the majority, defend the terrorist organization who abuse their citizens while the same people supporting them say they want to civilians to be “free” from the country that had been ransacked just months before. We live in a world where people side with an organization who have openly stated their desire to eradicate Jews. We live in a world where people act like kidnapped civilians had lived through a Disney fairytale. We live in a world where more people believe in already proven misinformation rather than admit that they are wrong. We live in a world where people are saying Hitler ‘had some good points’. We live in a world where people are more outraged by kids being arrested for attempted murder than months old babies being kidnapped. We live in a world where people can say the most antisemitic shit you have ever heard and get away with it because they’re using a new term that has roots within Jewish culture. We live in a world where people take history and change it to their liking and everyone believes them without a second thought because it gives them an excuse to continue hating on a certain group. We live in a world where people can chant out calls for Jewish genocide because of “context”. And she only got fired for plagiarism.

You guys are disgusting and have no right to call yourself on the morally right side of things.

[autolenaphilia]

The average tumblr queer hates fascism and terfs, and they should, but because they have zero understanding of what those ideologies actually is, they end up repeating such ideology anyway.

They have zero understanding that it is the transmisogynist bioessentialism that makes radfemism so poisonous. So they call trans women mentioning the words "misogyny" and "patriarchy" a terf, while their use of "afab/amab" reveal that they haven't unlearned any bioessentialism and transmisogyny. I've written about this at length before.

And this intellectually lazy acceptance of reactionary thinking goes far beyond that.

Criticize the institutions of religion and the family on this supposed queer communist site, and you'll get massive cries of protest from these queer leftists. And in content if not form they are basically indistinguishable from fascist rhetoric about how "queer leftists who read too many jewish writers (like Marx and Hirschfeld) are trying to eradicate the vital institutions of tradition, religion, family and community with their soulless materialist globohomo." (Note that the link is to a critical glossary of the alt-right on rationalwiki, so there are slurs galore)

And yes, that is what i'm doing, and I'm very proud of it. Abolishing religion and the family, and all of their sanctified traditions is a very important part of the communist project. The main Jewish writer who convinced me of this is Marx, read him.

"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness." Literally read The Communist Manifesto, which openly calls for the abolition of the family. A lot of suppose leftists repeat what the manifesto calls "The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parents and child"

It's especially ironic to hear such things from self-described queers, as if family, religion and tradition aren't the most common tools used to oppress queer people.

A lot of reactionary garbage with a superficial anti-capitalist veneer has gotten into the left, which is not new. The just mentioned manifesto spends a whole chapter criticizing reactionary forms of socialism. I have myself used Marx's still valid analysis as my basis to criticize reactionary anti-capitalism.

There has been so much nationalist garbage absorbed by the left at this point that fascist thinking crop up all the time in the left. This is because planting the roots of 19th century romantic nationalism tends to bear the same fruit. And tumblr leftism is the most intellectually lazy kind of leftism.

Like your average pseudo-leftist position on nations is basically ethnopluralism, a neofascist ideology originating in the European "New right" that is trying to sell the old wine of blood-and-soil nationalism in new bottles for a postcolonial world. It's creator Henning Eichberg spent decades trying to sell his Völkisch ideology to the left. With some success, it seems like. Like the neofascist in ethnopluralist clothing position that "every culture has the right to preserve their own culture and tradition from the onslaught of global capitalist culture" is something that you'll see all the time regurgitated by supposed leftists. The one 19th century european/western concept that is seen as universally applicable is nationalism. It's bleak.

I can't even say the far-left cliché of "read theory", because a lot of theory is garbage. Not all of it though. This list comes from my libertarian marxist/"councilist" biases but Nationalism and Socialism by Paul Mattick is good, as is "Third-worldism and Socialism" an excerpt from an early 70s pamphlet by the British organization Solidarity, and the 1989 essay The Universality of Marx by Loren Goldner.

[boabel]

autism and neurodivergence in panem - an analysis

as an autistic person, i've always been intrigued by the experiences of people who are autistic or neurodivergent in other universes. after all, most "good" autistic representation in media comes from worlds that aren't our own (think the doctor from doctor who or luna lovegood from the harry potter franchise, although they aren't written as autistic, alot of autistic people see themselves in the characters through their traits and therefore take that as representation.)

in particular, the world of panem interests me because of its strict measures on people in the districts compared to the seemingly lavish lifestyle for those in the capitol. *by this im referring to katniss' time, not the ballad of songbirds and snakes, though that will be mentioned below.

in the entirety of the hunger games franchise, there is never a direct mention of autism or any other neurodivergences. this would be expected, since the world of panem is set three-hundred years into the future. there aren't any states anymore, just districts and the capitol. most if not all modern cultures have been eradicated. the conditions in the districts have worsened and with that, went decent healthcare.

we can assume from this that there is no knowledge of autism as a genuine disability and no proper means to diagnose it in the districts.

whereas, in the capitol, the healthcare is much better. in the ballad of songbirds and snakes, it's mentioned in passing that the academy has a school councillor, hippocrata lunt. so, no matter how small the hint is, it's implied that not only does the capitol have better physical healthcare than the districts, but mental healthcare too. it isn't a stretch to say it could be possible for autistic/neurodivergent people in the capitol to get a formal diagnosis.

so, how are autistic people treated in the districts? how does that compare to the capitol?

well, although there isn't an explicit reference to neurodivergence in thg, there is an implied one.

in the first hunger games book, when rue and katniss are talking about the night vision glasses, and how they're given to the children at night whilst they're working in district eleven, the topic of a boy called martin comes up.

"one time, this boy martin, he tried to keep his pair. hid it in his pants. they killed him on the spot."

"they killed a boy for taking these?" i say.

"yes, and everyone knew he was no danger. martin wasn't right in the head. i mean, he still acted like a three-year-old. he just wanted the glasses to play with," says rue.

although it's not explicitly stated, martin is clearly a neurodivergent child. with the "not right in the head" remark being used alot to refer to nd people in a derogatory manner, autistic people especially. it seems in the districts they know what autism presents as, and that people have it. they just don't really know what it actually is or how to diagnose/help accomodate it. on the next page, katniss also refers to a child who can be seen as neurodivergent.

-but i can't imagine peacekeepers murdering a simpleminded child. there's this girl, one of greasy sae's grandkids, who wanders around the hob. she's not quite right, but she's treated as a sort of pet. people toss her scraps and things.

again, the language used is indicative that the girl is perceived to be neurodivergent. the district people most likely pity neurodivergent children by calling them "simpleminded" or "not alright in the head", but simultaneously view them as waste because, in the districts mind, they become useless to their industry as they grow up. they could also be more susceptible to rigged reapings than their neurotypical/allistic counterparts, because the districts don't need extra mouths to feed that are "inefficient" in the working industry.

whereas peacekeepers would take the perceived inability in the work industry (which the district doesn't have the money to accommodate) as an excuse to give out more unnecessary beatings and/or killings like what they did with martin.

so what about the capitol?

assuming that there is an option for diagnosis, would there be any changes at all?

well, personally, i think there would be. the reason i believe this has to do with the way the capitol views the districts, particularly in the ballad of songbirds and snakes relating to reaper from district eleven.

reaper is described to be mentally unstable many times within the duration of the games. he is perceived to be childish and has a difficult time processing death (tbosas, 280) which are both indications that reaper could be autistic.

the capitol looks down on reaper for his mentality and paints him as mad, violent and dangerous, though he is evidently nothing of the sort. these are harmful stereotypes that can be projected onto disabled/neurodivergent people today, which have clearly been carried onto the capitol.

so, people in the capitol who are autistic could be looked down upon, like how poor people are, too. although they are capitol, they have an element of "otherness" which is associated with the districts (i.e neurodivergence which the capitol paints as madness) so they could be outcasted.

the capitol seems the type to pretend to care about the way their children feel, but don't. like coriolanus said, people's love of children is fickle (tbosas, 40). if a child in the capitol turned out to be autistic/neurodivergent, that inherent support could fizzle out, because of stereotypes and ingrained systemic hatred toward nd people, which is irrevocably linked to the hate of the districts.

tl;dr: the capitol views themselves as perfect, and any "imperfections" (ie a brain that doesn't function within the realms of societal expectations) are seen as lesser. this is associated with the districts because they are also seen as lesser, and any neurodivergent children in the districts are viewed as mad or violent by the capitol, whilst they are pitied and silently hated in the districts for not being able to contribute to the industry, as there aren't any accommodations to help them cope with the conditions (many elements of district industries would cause meltdowns/sensory overload).

obviously not every neurodivergent person is the same, so some would be able to cope with the working conditions, but live their whole life without knowing that they are autistic, which can lead to isolation and depression.

god this was a long post, please don't hesitate to give me ur opinions on this if you have any!!

[nitewrighter]

I mean I kind of get why people would be disappointed at the tech-ification of the Black Mercy but I'm kind of at the point where--I wouldn't say it's resignation, necessarily, but it's more like I've gone through enough Superman media where like, to me, it's not just the show having its own tech-y logic, but it's also mashing up a whole bunch of varying elements of Superman lore into its own thing, and a lot of the names are more of callbacks than really attempting to re-adapt Superman Lore--and that's fine because there's already been a bunch of continuities anyway and there's nothing wrong with making something that stands on its own while also having a lot of lore easter eggs.

Like, I love "For the Man Who Has Everything," I literally wrote a whole ficlet just trying to pick apart the psychological ramifications of the original comic, and the JLU adaptation is like... the only adaptation of Alan Moore's work that Alan Moore has ever liked, which is saying something. But it's also like... because it's so peak and because the JLU adaptation of it is so good, I can see why MAWS would choose to do more of an homage/reference to it rather than a full re-hash. There's a lot of Lore Requirements that make "For the Man Who Has Everything" what it is that MAWS is nowhere near having in the show, and that's fine! Like, Clark being trapped in a Black Mercy illusion while his body is being puppeted by Brainiac is actually a mix of multiple Superman comic arcs and tropes. It's "For the Man Who Has Everything" but it's also the "Legacy" two-parter in Superman: The Animated Series.

I honestly would argue that while MAWS's Brainiac takes a lot from STAS's Brainiac in terms of origin, I would say in terms of overall characterization and motivation that this Brainiac is closer to the earlier iterations of the Eradicator--

(From Action Comics #652--This was from an arc where Supes got brainwashed by the Eradicator to get more and more cold and Kryptonian--Also Clark arguing with Kryptonian technology *in Kryptonian* is so fucking cool, I'd love to see him actually try and learn the language at some point.)

(From the latest episode)

Like MAWS's Brainiac, the Eradicator is an Artificial Intelligence, only this one was created by Superman's ancestor and tasked with the preservation of Kryptonian life and culture--which basically resulted in it being xenophobic as hell and actually screwing Kryptonians over in the long run by changing their genetics so they couldn't leave the planet. Whoops! I am definitely getting hints of that in Brainiac's behavior and in its obsession with Krypton as an Empire in MAWS--you do have a strong sense that Brainiac is at least part of the reason why Krypton collapsed from the way he talked about Jor-El. But also there was a whole comic arc where Superman and Brainiac swapped bodies. So again! It's a mishmash of all kinds of comic arcs and characters!!

[cinnamonest]

LENA HI i need to ask. how do you survive irl? bc personally im a radical feminist and im all for eradicating gender roles and empowering women so having all these raging fetishes that stem from misogyny is so shameful to me(not that i really want to stop anyway…) i walk around with millions of unwanted inappropriate thoughts produced by my noncon-adled porn-rotten brain. like i genuinely need advice(or at least reassurement…) from someone that can relate. even if you cant relate or dont want to answer, id be VERY happy if you could just post this to your board so maybe someone else could see it and send a reply, as another anon or as a comment to the post, idk. thank you in advance. and no i dont want to see a professional about this, the fuck am i supposed to tell them😭

I totally get that, I struggled with the same thing for a long time. I'm not great with explaining things like this, but I think the most important thing to address (the observation of which helped me get over feelings of shame and guilt) is

1) a disconnect between real misogyny and fictional misogyny, as well as 2) critical examination of fandom culture perpetuating shaming the content.

To be very clear: misogyny in real life is not like what I write about. Actual misogynists behave remarkably differently from what you see here. They do not cherish you, they're not just possessive or tsun, they genuinely do not see you as human, you are disposable to them, they hate you — and their behavior reflects that.

Secondly, I think it helps to become aware of a phenomenon I've noticed, increasingly so in recent years, where the same people vehemently hating on dark fiction will turn around and engage in very real misogyny. It's a bizarre phenomenon but it's definitely real and observable, and observing this over and over again has proven to me that fictional content does not at all facilitate real engagement.

I'm obviously biased to myself, and I won't say it's objectively true, but I personally think that the fictional content helps me recognize the real thing even where others often don't, and I've seen others in these spaces have similar experiences.

Which frankly, this contrast is not good because real misogyny, especially as it is casually woven into everyday life and culture, causes real harm, yet fandom culture is increasingly obsessed with fictional content and shaming consumers while turning a blind eye to it occurring in reality.

Recognizing the difference, for me at least, and the disconnect between them, as well as the realization of just how often real misogyny was a critical part of getting over feelings of guilt.

Tldr:

1) fictional misogyny and real misogyny are not only different, but often mutually exclusive, and

2) engaging with fictional content on misogyny does not inhibit your ability to recognize nor combat it — that's a matter of careful analysis of engagement with culture.

Also on another note — there are a lot of professionals who are very understanding about this sort of thing! I won't say every single one is, but there are plenty of non-judgemental professionals.

[olderthannetfic]

fandom social justice history anon here - aaah, thank you, early fandom being dominated by academics definitely connected the dots I was missing, thank you! Yeah, now looking at it with this in mind, it's pretty obvious how the tone of the meta essays from that era, while often snarky or even outraged, definitely sounds more like the tone of people who are used to passionately arguing in a setting that doesn't allow you to just throw whatever ad hominem accusation at your opponent's head. In contrast, tumblr's (and as a result, twitter's and tiktok's) style of fandom drama now reads to me even more blatantly like a catfight between high schoolers who have just recently learned some Big Words they only care to use as ammunition. I've read multiple older fans (including your invaluably informative blog) talking about how tumblr definitely reshaped fandom and brought in a TON of new people, and how slash was far from the "mainstream" of fandom even in the livejournal-ffn.net days, and I'm having a feeling that, for all the imperfections of this first tumblr generation of fans' activism ("let my gays marry" etc etc) the thing that got slash to be "mainstreamed" within fandom the way it currently is, also has to do with this pretty sizeable influx of new fans being mostly teenagers. As in specifically, overwhelmingly teenage girls who were having their first sparks of interest in romance during the height of the "I'm not like other girls" era + everyone shitting on twilight & "girly" musicians, because if you look at the posts from that period, they often contrast being a slash reader with being the slutty partying "other girl" or annoying hipster & at my school too slash kind of spread as a "not like the other girls" alternative to mainstream romance. Yes, not the healthiest attitude either, and it's good we've mostly grown past that, but like I said, there's a good chance that was what buffed up the numbers of slash fans to the point where today people are surprised fandom ever even was hostile to it, and at least in my environment, fandom activism, for all its flaws, was most people's first exposure to any sort of "-rights" activism at all. But (as is probably obvious) I did not experience most of even that era personally (I joined tumblr fandom in 2014). Anyways, excuse the rambling, if you feel like adding anything to confirm or deny my hypothesis, I greatly appreciate it, and I hope you have a nice day/evening!

--

M/M still isn't mainstream in plenty of fandom contexts, just not the ones I hang out in, and "not like the other girls" of the type you describe was already big in the 90s among people who'd heard of fanfic. It's just that fanfic was harder to stumble across overall.

I think the two biggest factors are the changing attitudes towards gayness in mainstream culture in a number of countries and... well... AO3 getting popular.

FFN was the big place in the past, though not for my crowd. Now, AO3 is taking a massive bite out of not only its market share but now, in the last few years, Wattpad's.

When the visible institution around which fanfic revolves puts filtering out het front and center, it sends a strong message that previous fandom platforms did not. You had your m/m-only archives and your f/f-only archives and your places that let you filter for those but that treated het as an unmarked default.

Look at early discussions of AO3. There's an undercurrent there that we all assumed it would be one of a number of archives and that we didn't expect it to get this big.

Nobody could have foreseen the Het-Is-Eternal-Default Wattpad crowd being forced by their own platform's suckitude to come camp on the thing built by slashers. Now, we are the admins and they are the also-tolerated. That never happened before.

The thing that makes people not report gay hand holding as evil porn that must be eradicated is simply AO3 putting its foot down.

Anyone who thinks that virulent slash hate is gone just hasn't looked at other spaces.

This is not about individual fans behaving better: it is about institutional power.

[iliterallydecepticanteven]

New Hozier music got me in my TFA Megop feels. Here's part of a fic I'm working on. I did not spellcheck this at all so if you see any grammar errors, no you didn't. Full version coming soon!

💜💜💜

There are few things Optimus is sure of in such odd times. 

One of them is that he can be too much for some bots. 

Not as a leader, no, he had long since seen his ability and potential as a leader flourish and be solidified before his optics. He means more in the interpersonal sense. 

Sure, friends were easy to have. It was easy to sit back and chat with various bots and have a drink with them. Humans were shockingly easy to connect to, even more so now that he spent so much time on Earth and became more acquainted with their culture. 

Even cons were easy to befriend, usually connecting through shared complaints over the Autobots High Council or, more often than not, complaining about Sentinel being a pain in the aft. 

No, it was the deeper, romantic relationships that he struggled with. 

He had dated some during the Academy, but it always fell apart. The most common critiques were that he was “too much” in all sorts of ways. Too attached yet too distant. Prioritized his training over others too often. Too strong a sense of justice and too passionate. 

After expulsion, he shoved all that behind him. After all, if those flaws ended a relationship when he was a Prime candidate, they would surely kill even the prospect of such a thing being a Prime only in name and never in true meaning. 

Then he had called a temporary ceasefire with the Decepticons to help Earth with their Quintesson problem and things got complicated. 

When he wasn’t zipping around a battlefield or stuck in endless meetings, he was passed out in his berth. Even the few small snippets of free time he got he was technically busy. So finding a relationship wasn’t on his radar. 

And there was the larger issue of the odd way his spark jumped around the last mech he should be having any romantic thoughts about. 

He’s not a stranger to attraction, not at all. Which is why, the first time his chest tightens around Megatron, he nearly runs out of the room. 

They’d been in a meeting, Optimus fully zoned out, nursing his cube of warm energon. They’d been up all night chasing Quintesson ships out of Earth’s atmosphere and just his luck Sentinel wanted a video call right as they arrived back on their temporary Earth base. A smattering of other bots and cons sat in the meeting room but he largely ignored them. 

The cube in his servos was so blessedly warm. The energon contained within it was more bitter than what he was used to, having been farmed and processed from the energon crystals popping up across Detroit. But its taste was richer and more complex, like the essence of the ground it sprung out of lingered in its molecular structure. It was quite nice in his opinion. 

He was thinking of his berth and the recharge he would be getting when he snapped back to attention at the mention of his name. 

“Sorry Sentinel Prime, could you repeat that?” he asks. He didn’t catch the words but he caught the tone and knew it wouldn’t be good. 

Sentinel huffs and crosses his arms. The video feed lags behind the audio by a few meager clicks. “I said, we wouldn’t have to be worrying about this whole mess if you could actually do your job and eradicate the Quintessons already! But you charged ahead without Council permission and made a deal with that backwater planet and now we’re stuck putting time, credits, and energon into a mess that wasn’t even ours to begin with!” 

Optimus sits up straight. “First and foremost, we are not wasting energon nor credits on protecting this planet. Need I remind you the only reason Earth is being attacked by the Quintessons at all is due to the energon crystals bursting out of the ground. The deal is that if we defend Earth and eliminate the threat, all energon would be split equally between the Autobot and Decepticon armies. Even taking into account only getting half of the energon crystals, we have seen an increase in credits and do not need energon imports as we process everything here.” 

Sentinel opened his mouth to argue and Optimus continued. “Secondly, I went ahead without Council permission because it was an emergency and as the temporary appointed Magnus I had every right to send forces to Earth. Alongside that, I did not send all of our forces, which I could have done, but didn’t because I knew if I did, it was likely Quintessons would take advantage of an unprotected Cybertron and attack. I sent myself and a small portion of forces to defend a planet we have ties to. And finally, if you would use your processor and think for even a milliclick, you’d understand that sudden Quintesson interest in energon is a sign of something bad happening in the future. They have largely used other forms of fuel and energy sources, but considering energon is highly concentrated and the primary agent in most intergalactic combat weapons, whatever they want it for cannot be good.” 

Sentinel is clearly angry but desperately trying to hold it in. His arms are crossed and his optics wide but his mouth is shut tightly. Everyone around Optimus has gone silent but he doesn’t even bother looking at them. He misses how Bulkhead and Bumblebee share an excited smile at seeing Sentinel getting chewed out, the proud smug grin on Ratchet’s face, and how Lugnut mouths wow at Strika who just nods enthusiastically in agreement. 

And he most certainly misses the look Megatron sends his way. If he had seen it, he would likely call the expression a mix between fondness, infatuation, and wonder.