#I tried to blame culture I try to blame time and generation but no. humans are JUST like this.

[katyspersonal]

If I had a nickel for every time a person that quite seriously helped with public slandering and humiliating me for fake ass reasons, supported drastically ableist stance on me and took the side of my stalker (that also I remind you bullied other fans for headcanons) then got upset and "insulted" at the fact that I vented about how much they hurt me and my friends, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot but what the actual fuck.

Like... Maybe consider not spyoning on a blog of a person that "makes you uncomfy"? You will be happier if you don't check up on things and people you hate, seriously. And if you do, why you act so shocked that I express my pain and disapproval of your actions and mindset, the very same that hurt me and my friends? In fact, why DOES it hurt you to learn what I think and feel after your words and actions? Why do you CARE about feelings and opinion of a person you despise and disrespect so much that you deemed them worthy of all this, and even their friends deserve to be hurt by association? Like... NOW you consider my feelings? Of course I fucking disapprove of backstabbing me and my friends after over month of pretending to forgive me. Of course I fucking disapprove admission that you are willing to help slandering and humiliating a person that you were not even scared and hurt by. I wrongly assumed that if you hated me that much, I must have actually done something wrong, but now I know I still didn't because you admitted that you were willing to harm someone and even shun their friends without even as much as hard feelings, because they are a "heretic"?

Is what hurts that I had very high opinion on you and then flipped on a dime when something drastic came out? But isn't it the same way for you? Didn't you both like my blog and thought I was cool and then one day it was over? I think it is safe to assume that unfortunately it can work like that. And everything can be fixed and worked into neutrality and 'cold peace' coexistence, but you don't want that. You'd rather keep getting upset and self-isolate from everyone that likes my company, or isolate them from me, so this hole just keeps growing and growing and all good things that could have been keep falling into it. Or you really expect me to leave just because of all this? When I was a kid and a teen and a bit of a young adult, I've dealed with bullying to the point of having literal stones thrown into me, and never once I avoided the places where it was happening. Because it made no logical sense that some jerks could decide who belongs or not belongs in a place that is for everyone. I tried to enjoy my time anyway. I was not, listening and enduring all that, but I tried. Sometimes I'd get really bad for me and I'd snap and fight back, and I remember they were scared when I did because anger of cornered rat is a terrifying thing you know? One time it got especially bad with one of them and I snatched the bat from her hands and smacked HER over the face, worse than she hurt me but I've had enough. Then finally adults bothered to get involved, and what I received from the bullies was "but why didn't she just leave this area? :(" Why the question is "why won't you go away?" instead of "why I feel entitled to bully out a person that didn't even do anything bad to me but just makes me uncomfy with not being like us?"

In the end, I walked a full circle. Some autists just have a power of bringing out the worst in people with how much they don't understand unspoken social cues, cultural rifts, even the language and semantics often times. I have a friend with similar problem, he had a bad luck of using combination of words that make people go blind from rage without meaning to, and you find out he actually made a perfect logical sense after talking to him for context and reasoning. I thought it was a curse, but it is a blessing. I decided I will never fix what is "wrong" with me, if it really helped to separate fakers from real ones in such a short time. Without it, I'd be friends with traitors, cowards, bullies, fools, conformists and stalkers. And the worst part, I would not ever learn it.

Yet again: you are NOT harmed by me venting in MY blog about how I was hurt by your words and actions. If you two were okay with slander and public humiliation of someone and their friends, sure you must be okay with someone venting about actual harm. Or else you have double standards. You are not supposed to care about what I think about you either, you are supposed to crawl into your Discord groups to share screenshots of my posts and mock me there for "being so butthurt" like your kind of people always does. And if you do not want me to hold grudges, you've had enough chances to neutralize me. I was not having you blocked for a good reason. But you chose to keep throwing stones. Too bad for you, I've been trained for this shit, when your spoiled soft asses cry harm and trauma over a single slightly negative experience. Heck, over even reading something you don't like!

Here is a thing: I do not namedrop you. I only namedropped two people when it was relevant, and only because they made themselves public first so I didn't "out" them. And if some people read "he reblogged posts bullying me 50 times too often and was too eager to hate on me, like to the point it was scary" and instantly think of you, then consider what reputation you have. Why? Why? Why you'd throw me (and. my. FRIENDS.) to the wolves and then get angry that I react? Tell me why! It is your problem that you are willing to harm people willy-nilly without considering their feelings or bothering to actually learn whether they deserve stalking and bullying and their friends getting collateral damage, and in the end you don't even have the honor to be genuinely mad and scared as your motivation for it. It is """not personal""". So getting unhealthy obsession with helping slandering me was "not personal"? So acting oh-so-supportive towards my friend who got to talk about her identity and then instantly dropping her upon learning she was interacting with me, after previously having been thankful to her for being one of the first to support YOU, was "not personal"? And the worst thing, I believe it. This is just your Tiktok generation of cruel, overly-judgemental people. You did not get to learn about real life and real relationship and real complexities, and you never will. And I was such a fool doubting myself thinking that you were scared of me.

So tell me why. Tell me why NOW you care what I think of you? Why you care that I vent in MY blog, without namedropping? Why you care what I say and feel if I am nothing but a name of "heretic" to block and pass along for you, a person you don't know and don't think has feelings and nuance worthy of considering before mistreating? Why do you CARE about my opinion? Is this because I effects your self-image? But I am just a stupid bigot in your eyes, so how can my opinion have any power or credibility for you? Are you scared that people will find out? But I do not namedrop! Are you upset that "I don't know you" to say such things? But you do not know ME, and yet that didn't stop you from accepting and helping to spread extremely hateful and uncharitable headcanons about my personality, beliefs and motives your friends crafted, so clearly you are okay with "saying things"? Why? TELL ME WHY! Tell me how it is supposed to hurt you, because it does NOT! The worst I can do is to yell at you and run away crying, and I didn't even do THAT!

Unless I just did, because yet again you decided to sneak around and check my blog. Dude, you hate acknowledging my existence to you point of abandoning mutuals that answer my asks, so why would you check my blog? Just don't do that? Just not check it? There were 4 coincidences about your art that made me think that you were snooping on my content, I am helpful with the lore I know, and took some stuff for inspiration, and one time was passively-aggressive about how I drew a certain female character. But I've got a relief that no, they were all coincidences, and you were not stalking me. So now I have to worry about it again? So I should give into my paranoia, because there was a reason in the end?

Just go away, okay? Just go away. The alter that grew from guilt and pain, and admiration, that you've triggered, is dead, anyhow. It was painful and felt like getting the whole entirety erased and written again, but it's done, so you don't have to worry about it either. Just not sneak on a person you dislike, because, again, me venting without namedropping won't effect you, nor you should care what "just another heretic" thinks. I am not a human for people like you, after all your drama-hungry kind does, and stop pretending that I am. My friends aren't either, they are just "traitors" that refuse to cooperate for your group, and I hate every single conformist bastard that blocked them by association. Not you, them. I won't have a gaslighting of "it is not us vs them!!!!" when actions speak louder than words, and all effected people know what they did.

So far I do not have an incentive to stop digging myself deeper into a hole of "wronged intellectual" self-image, which is a bold claim for someone with quite large intellectual disability as myself, I know. But none of this makes any sense, and doubting that maybe I just don't get something about people availed me nothing. I do get it, society IS just as bad as it seems, deny it or not.

[captain-mj]

I really love your Selkie!Soap au. Maybe Ghost could discover a bit more about Selkie culture, and the generational trauma that Soap might have?

YES!! Love this! Direct continuation of the previous post

Ghost brought Soap a deer. Soap stared at it for a minute before laughing. "What do we do now?"

Ghost hummed. "I'll clean it and cook it for you." And you'll fall in love with me.

"I see." Soap smiled. "Need any help?"

"No, I got it. It's bloody work but if you want sit with me..."

So they sat together in the little shed, both mostly quiet but the radio was playing. Soap watched him work and Ghost tried not to glance at him too often. He wore a surgical mask but that was more for cleanliness than anything else.

They ate well, both of them sitting next to each other as the sun set.

Soap ended up stealing some of Ghost's off his plate despite there being plenty of food still in the kitchen but it was fine. He glared at Soap who only smiled at him.

A ringtone sounded and Soap froze. It sounded like a personal one.

Ghost didn't move for a moment, waiting for Soap to pick it up. Soap just stared for a minute, picking at the food for a second before remembering himself and answering.

"Hey, dad."

Ghost perked up immediately. He had heard next to nothing about Soap's dad. He wondered if he was a selkie too. Or something else.

"Yes, sir. I am on leave, but my..." There was a pause before Soap swallowed. "My coat holder commanded I come with him."

Ghost frowned a little, but he stayed quiet.

"Yes. It's new. I haven't had... Yes, sir." Soap was visibly wilting. "I am... He's commanding me back. Sorry, sir." He hung up after a second and quietly put his phone down.

"I take it your dad is not... good?"

"No. I hope you two never have to talk, but its best he doesn't know we're close." Soap rubbed his arm, looking tiny and cold. Ghost scooted closer.

"Are you alright?"

"It's how he always is. He was excited someone has my coat again. That I'm at your mercy. He's a fucking prick." Soap looked down. "My mom can't leave him or else I'd never talk to him again."

"He... has her coat?"

"Yeah. I tried to find it. Took a couple slaps for it. But I never could. Swear I tore that place apart looking."

Ghost pulled Soap closer. "I see."

"He's such a bawbag."

"Is she the only selkie you know?"

"No. I know a few. All of them are like her. Trapped in their positions. Either as a spouse or caretaker or worker or..." Soap sighed. "No choice. No control. Stuck until either the coatholder dies or we get lucky."

Ghost was quiet for a while before reaching over and pulling him closer. "You... want this, right?"

"I do. Don't worry. You gave it back. You're a good man." He leaned into him. "My sister got lucky. She's just human. My other sister is a selkie but dad... protects her a little more. I think it's because she's the baby."

"Coatholder. Is that what you guys call them?"

"Not the most creative name, but yeah. Gets the message across. For a while Master was used but... yeah, it felt just a little too degrading." Soap hummed and shoved the plate towards him. "He'll want to meet you. I can try to lie and keep you from him. I don't... I don't want him to know it's my choice. If he knows..." Soap started to breath heavier, holding on to Ghost.

"Johnny, you're okay. He can't do anything to you."

"It's not me I'm worried about." Soap said softly. "If he gets upset he takes it on her and..."

Ghost winced. This entire situation reminding him just a little too much of his own time growing up. "If your mom had left your dad, would you have grown up a seal?"

"No. She likely would've abandoned me." Soap answered honestly. "It sucks but that's reality. I would've been left with him and my sisters. Can't blame her. She didn't choose to have me."

Ghost frowned and gently touched his chin, making him look at him. He smiled awkwardly. "You know when I came back from the military, the first thing I did was wait in my mom's kitchen."

"Why?"

"For my dad to hit her. He did eventually. He always did. It was all the excuse I need. I dragged him outside and beat him to hell for it."

Soap looked surprised. "Damn."

"Mom kicked me out for it. But she didn't let him back in the house either and that's all that mattered to me." Ghost took a deep breath. "I should meet your dad."

"Simon. You can't beat up my dad."

"I could, but I just think I should meet him. I want to meet your mom too."

Soap didn't look convinced but he nodded. "Alright, Si. Alright." He kissed his hand gently, looking tired. "Mind if we go to bed?"

Ghost hummed. "Course not. I'll see you in the morning."

"I'll be in the spare room, of course." Soap smiled at him, a hint of teasing there.

Ghost followed him like a shadow until he got to his door and then went to his own room.

Once he was in bed, he stared up at the ceiling quietly. He thought of Soap's mom, the gentle voice on the phone and how Soap shrank back.

It must be hard. Trusting Ghost of all people with so much. Even now, the thought occurred to him that it wouldn't be very hard for him to take the coat back. Or even just hurt him. They were alone in the middle of the woods.

And Soap still trusted him.

If it was anyone else, he'd call them an idiot for trusting the Ghost, but he knew as well as Johnny did that Ghost was harmless to him.

Did those other selkies think their human was harmless? Was their first meeting them taking the coat? Demanding so much from them?

Someone had done this before. Soap had mentioned someone had taken it before. On purpose. Had they hurt him? Forced him to do anything?

The idea of a younger Soap being controlled the way Ghost had read about in those stories made him feel sick.

He got up at some point and like the needle on a compass, he pointed towards his north star.

Soap was probably asleep. He also used the spare for a reason. Ghost shouldn't bother him. There were boundaries for a reason.

Soap's sad eyes popped back into his head. The distant look when he talked about the past or the others he knew.

He didn't knock in case he was asleep.

Soap jerked up immediately. "Jesus, Ghost you scared me. Something wrong?"

"Scoot over."

"What?"

"Scoot over." Ghost repeated, staring at him. Both their eyes reflected the light, both finding each other easily.

Once Soap did move over, Ghost climbed in with him. He pulled him safely to his chest and held him.

"No one is ever going to touch you again." Ghost mumbled into his hair. "I'm never going to let something like that happen to you again."

"You don't even know what they did." Soap knew exactly what Ghost was talking about, like always.

"Doesn't matter." Ghost squeezed him. "Never again."

Soap let Ghost hold him, putting his head on Ghost's shoulder. "Get some sleep, Simon. I know you must be tired."

Ghost slept better knowing Soap was safe with him.

[mdhwrites]

The Isles is Particularly Awful for Sequel/Next Gen Stories

With Belos gone, the Isles loses literally the only thing that makes it unique from any generic fantasy setting out there: The Coven System. Worse yet is how much the show tries to blame every bad thing on the Isles on Belos and his collaborators, portraying pre-Belos as utopian, so now that he's gone, you have to retcon that part of the show to have ANY real threats.

That's really the main thrust of this. I could expand but the basic point is that there's just nothing to do with the Isles that's better than doing it during Belos' reign. You could explore the Isles but now you're just messing with monsters in their ecosystem who were never a real threat in the show. You could try to depict the reconstruction but there's no tension between people of the Isles, just a need to rebuild. Besides, how do you even portray that when the Isles has zero culture so there's nothing to explore in how they are besides how they feel about Belos falling which is seen as a positive by EVERYONE if the group shot at the end, where even old enemies are now on Luz's side, is any indication.

Really, the only thing about the Isles that is still intact in a way that makes for interesting storytelling AT ALL is Hexside and pretty much just because it's a generic fantasy school that you can do whatever you want with. Which... Yeah, that's pretty much all I've seen. Despite the fact that the fandom immediately went for fankids after the finale, no one seems to have anything to do with them besides throwing out concepts and shipping. Or, you know, recycling old plot lines but with the new cast, committing the cardinal sin of next gen stories of just having an excuse to reset and retell. *glares at Boruto*

But what else are you supposed to do? Unless you want to say Eda and Raine failed in reforming the Isles, you have no conflict there. You either have to bring back old villains, bring in an invading force, both... Or change things so drastically that I question why you're not just doing an original story since you're having to put in that much work anyways.

I guess MAYBE you could do the Isles integrating with humans but like... The show made it clear that that's not a hard process either direction. And why should it be? The Isles is so generic as to barely feel like the other world that it is instead of just our world but with elves.

Even Amphibia, which ends similarly happy, still gives people more to do simply by the fact that it explored its setting. There's still so much out there. The three races still have to figure out how to coexist. Andrias wasn't a toxic power structure, he was THE power structure and the entire world has to recover from an incredible ecological disaster instead of just a glitter bomb.

So yeah, good on those who are having fun with their fan kids but I'll just continue to hope they don't try to continue TOH, not when they left themselves nowhere to go.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[fatal-blow]

sometimes i really don't think we've fully absorbed the realization that humans are animals. we keep trying to find new and spectacular ways to delineate between us and them, even as we try to deconstruct the beliefs of past western science

first we were put above other animals, who in the name of science were declared nothing more than organic automatons devoid of personality. today we know this isn't true, that every animal is the culmination of billions of years of chance and choices, and then a lifetime of experience to fine tune the rest.

so the discussion moved to the question: why are we different? breaking ourselves down to try to separate out the True Human Experience. we have tools--but so do other animals. we build homes and cities--likes termites and coral. we are intelligent--but then, what even is intelligence? we have culture--and yet again, so do other animals.

so we venture in vain to other traits. humans must be uniquely violent, destructive, upheaving the ecosystems of the world in a way no other creature has

but hundreds of millions of years ago, photosynthesis evolved and spurred one of the worst extinctions earth has ever seen. a species can encounter a new habitat and spread like wildfire, sometimes as destructive as one as well.

so surely our systems and our hierarchies set us apart in their depth and complexity. but it's myopic, naive even to think that other creatures don't form their own complexities outside our purview. we see our complexity because we are born and raised in it, but it's hardly what makes us different.

and in this journey to find out what makes us so different, instead we've found out the many ways that we are similar. the way our brains are similar to those of other mammals, how our bodies are all stretched out from the same general base tweaked and formed over an inconceivable number of generations. how the further we trace ourselves back, the more and more animals we share ancestors with.

i don't know where I'm going with all this. i think im frustrated with our medicine, how so much of it is grounded not in biology but in our own culture.

when we see a human not performing well, we call them lazy. when it's an animal, then something must be wrong. we understand the physiology of other animals and treat them within those bounds, yet despite what we know about the human body the way we discuss it seems frustrstingly disconnected.

maybe it's because we can talk to each other and so we assume that we can verbalize the problems we're experiencing, but language is a dismal thing to base healthcare on when most of us don't even use the same words to describe things. it's a subjective, moving target, and it assumes that the patient themself knows what's wrong. we rely too much on the ability of a patient to describe what they are experiencing, and not enough on observations of their behaviour.

my dad's shoulder hurts. he dislocated it a while ago, and it never stopped bothering him. but when i watch him he holds both shoulders forward and tense. slouching has for a long time been deemed lazy and improper, but it doesn't line up--the way my father strives for a healthy, active body but can never seem to make it work. the way he loves to be active, the way he wants to exercise, to walk and run, but it seems no matter how hard he tries he can't.

he told me his shoulder hurts, but the more i watched the more i saw that he doesn't move with the relaxed, easy movements that a man who's as active as he is should be. a human is an animal that loves to walk, and in many ways we've developed anatomy to this end, from the balanced efficiency of our bipedal forms to the way we utilize momentum as the driving force of our movement. we have science that says all this, so why does this not seem to hold true for some people? and why are we looking at them and calling them lazy? why aren't we looking for something gone awry, like the way we would a dog with a limp? we wouldn't blame the dog for not standing up the way a dog should, so why does this not hold true for humans?

[c0rpseductor]

i complained briefly about this on twitter (“briefly,” he says. Actually i complained about it for quite some time and with vigor) but i hate that godawful website because i am a verbose autist and a tweet is only about a sentence or two long. for me. so i will try to pursue a thought about it here from beginning to end, outside of the constraints of twitter’s character limit (which is targeting me personally)

i have tried on and off for hours to get my mind off this, but i was really upset and disappointed to find out that richard siken not only did write wincest himself but seems to approve of approaching incest from the angle of sexual fantasy in general — these tweets about it are really sticking in my craw, and apparently they are from an interview he did in 2015, but the whole thing just came up again and it’s not my favorite take!

the question about consequences — and “question” is generous, i know he’s already years ago come to the conclusion that whatever consequences exist as a result of such narratives do not matter — gets me bc it’s like, dude, i KNOW what the consequences are. from experience. i have lived with them all my life.

the cycle is as such: writers portray incest as mutual sexual deviance as opposed to the reality of it being violence. literature portrays it as such, pop culture portrays it as such, fanfiction portrays it as such, it is widely discussed as such — as an example, try really thinking about how often perceived promiscuity is blamed on “daddy issues,” and what that may imply. many people never have any personal experience with incest or with survivors and come to regard it as a distant sort of kink activity, or an imaginary, almost fun and racy sort of violence that happens to a distinct class of subhuman other totally segregated from human society. survivors are blamed because the dominant cultural narrative believes they are willing participants and not victims of rape, survivors internalize shame and do not come forward. survivors often come forward to partners who find their childhood trauma (incestuous abuse is most often CSA) arousing. the online support group i frequent has a recurring problem of lurkers who use DMs to sexually harass psychologically vulnerable victims of abuse while they are in crisis. society does not take us seriously because the violence we face is seen not as violence, but as a category of pornography.

furthermore, trying to say this makes me the bad guy. to frankly and clearly state the harm perpetuated against me and others by these cultural narratives & their continuation in every aspect of life is regarded as puritanical and Orwellian. nevermind that the proliferation of such ideas & narratives and my exposure to them left me terrified that my closest friends would think i was a pervert for disclosing sexual abuse from my parents, nevermind that I spent years being told by my abusers and society at large that i’d brought it on myself, nevermind that i’m continually surrounded by that rhetoric every day and continue to have salt rubbed in the already unbelievably painful wounds — some people are criticized for publishing wincest fic in ao3, and this is the truest sort of victim; surely someone who was merely raped by his father for years could not understand the pain and martyrdom of being called an asshole online. THIS is the real concern. upholding the secret and mystique around intrafamilial sexual violence for the sake of shippers’ enjoyment of a middling CW show from 2004 is how we will fix society, no matter how many incest survivors’ dignity we must sacrifice to make it happen

anyway. i think this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but trying to convince anyone that this stuff is even tangentially related to the experiences of real human beings who may see it and be hurt is a good deal like trying to tell people unicorns are real, in that they will laugh in your face.

[cryptid-artha]

Something I hate in fantasy and Sci-fi is entire races/species that are evil. And when killing those creatures or subjecting them to terrible things is seen as a heroic act.

Things like orcs from a lot of fantasy media, or Drow from Dungeons and Dragons. Or the Wraith from Stargate: Atlantis, or in parasites whose name I can't pronounce from Stargate SG1 (There's a little nuance later in the series but not much).

I was watching Stargate Atlantis on Hulu, and kept wanting to learn more about the Wraith antagonists and hoping to see other sides to the species, but it never happened. And then the series of episodes around what was done to the Wraith referred to as Micheal. How they experimented on him and betrayed him, several times, used him and eventually killed him... And that episode ended on a triumphant note after the settlement him and many others were killed. They REALLY could have used that to really get into Wraith minds and the attempt to tackle the morality of their actions, and an attempt was made. And ruined the instant they ended killing them all on a triumphant note as if it was heroic. They tried to tackle the moral issues behind it all, but it was so surface level, and it still ended with feeling like the writers were saying "This race is pure evil and we are keeping it that way :)"

The thing that really honestly annoyed me the MOST was how the Wraith not being human was what was blamed for them being evil. How making them "not evil" was using a retrovirus to take out their non-human side. They were a race created for the show just to be evil, and nothing more. They weren't really given a chance to be anything else, when playing with the basic concept of what they were and how they worked could have been so interesting.

I would have LOVED to see some of the Wraith realize that their hunting and feeding on humans was snuffing out conscious minds and more exploration of what they must do to survive and how it effects their mind and society. It would have been so interesting without making them less threatening.

An entire species can't be pure evil. I would have LOVED to see more exploration of their minds, their societies, maybe some groups trying to find better ways to do things. But the way they were portrayed makes absolutely no sense to me, I just can't really figure out HOW they could have become space faring while basically being aggressive predators that barely even get along with eachother. But the shoddy worldbuilding behind them is a whole other subject.

Anyway, all rambling aside, show me nuance! Show me how orcs live and how their society works. Don't make them evil, make them different! Show how differences in beliefs and ways of life might make them clash with other species or within their own species. Show me individuals in the orc armies working under a warlike leader and how it effects them and their motivations and what they are taught. Show me inside their minds!

Show me an orc warrior who looks over the destruction the army they are a part of has done, and feels regret when he sees the bodies of innocents killed in their onslought, even if he ends up rationalizing it and his loyalty to his army doesn't waver. Show me the fight between the ideals he was raised with, and the reality of the actions of his army.

With races added in to be antagonistic, give me reasons why! Explore that race, their biology and psychology, their culture, their side of the story! Show outliers, show general society outside of the warriors fought by the heroes of the story. Show us civilians. Members of a race can absolutely be antagonists, but don't make the entire species evil because that's convenient for you!

Anyway, rambling aside. I haven't finished Stargate Atlantis yet, which spawned this ramble. Here's to hoping they DO actually show more nuance with the Wraith. If not.... I am very tempted to make an AU that actually makes the race actually make sense, even if just for brief exploration because the species has a lot of interesting potential.

[ineffablelunatic]

BBC Ghosts Mermaid AU

This is an AU for which I'm planning on making art of all the characters and possibly writing fanfiction (yay!)

Alison and Mike are two hapless sailors who inherited a houseboat from a distant relative. After modifying it a little so it can travel longer distances on the sea, they set out on an adventure, followed by an unlikely pod of mermaids. This is a fantasy universe which is fairly modern day, but things like mermaids and sirens exist and pirates are proper old fashioned pirates with cutlasses and treasure maps. You may have to suspend your disbelief in places.

Robin - an anglerfish (because the light looks like Moonah). He's travelled all over the ocean and nobody knows how old he is, but his light drew all of the mermaids into the pod. He's the group storyteller and he's incredibly wise.

Humphrey - exiled from the court after being blamed for a plot against the royals, he began to journey into the deep sea before seeing Robin's lamp and following it. He has deeper gills than most around his neck and large neck fins.

Mary - after spending most of her life living quietly in a kelp forest, she was captured by sailors to become a sideshow curiousity. Luckily she was saved by Robin and Humphrey at the last minute, but she's still wary about humans.

Kitty - a tropical fish. She adores human culture, and acts a lot like Ariel from The Little Mermaid. Instead of a feather on her head she has a large floppy fin, and she loves befriending other fish and exploring the ocean. She also likes spending time on the coral reef.

Thomas - a siren (although he's very bad at it). He is awful at singing and despite his best attempts to woo Alison, he has no luck. He turned to poetry as a last resort, and unfortunately he is equally inadequate at that, too. His cousin Francis, a much more adept siren, once stole a human girl he was in love with from him, and as such he spends a lot of the time sulking.

Fanny - her husband tried to kill her by forcing her into fisherman territory, and then told everyone that she was dead. She was therefore unable to return to her former life of luxury, and is furious about it. From a noble bloodline, she spends most of the time complaining and talking about how "mermaids were just better back in the day". None of the others mind.

Captain - after rising in rank during the mermaid war, his partner was stolen by pirates. He never forgave himself and instead left the army to join the Button House mermaid pod. He still wears his army uniform, more out of habit than anything else. He looks after Kitty as her excitement about humans, though sweet, could get her seriously hurt.

Pat - he was a community leader in his small village, and often helped out the fishermen on the land. As such he learned a lot of their customs and habits, making him very interesting to the other mermaids who know almost nothing about human life. One day a group of young boys accidentally clipped his fin with a fishhook, and though he doesn't blame them, it obviously hurts him sometimes.

Julian - he was a member of the parliament before flirting with the wrong mermaid, which resulted in his tail being partially skinned. He has the lower body of a shark, but gets comically outraged when someone thinks that he's an actual shark. This happens when Alison first sees him and assumes she's about to be eaten.

Other details: the pigeon is a dolphin who wakes up Alison and Mike every morning at sunrise.

Barclay is a cruise ship owner who enjoys tormenting Alison and Mike. His dogs are trained sharks (don't ask me how that works because I don't know).

When they're going on long journeys, Alison puts the mermaids in a tank on the boat so they don't have to swim the whole way. Sometimes she wishes that she had just left them behind because they complain so much.

The main antagonist in this AU would be pirates, probably with a subplot of trying to get Havers back / being generally nuisanced by Barclay. Maybe at some point his cruise ship would be captured by pirates and they would have to save him.

There are sea monsters and other mystical creatures in this universe, which results in a lot of shenanigans.

The art I did for captain is here. I'll probably make the others soon, and if I have time I'll write the fic as well.

[ro-botany]

"they've continued to [worship Grima] for a thousand years despite repeatedly being persecuted for the rest of the world explicitly for worshipping Grima".

My point here is that most people would stop worshipping a god if it repeatedly caused their neighbors to try to kill them. Nowhere does it say that they deserved to be caused, only that the religion is widely hated by the rest of the world. You are directly putting words in my mouth.

Even if I did, which I didn't, a personal opinion is a personal opinion and not a reason to insult someone about a discussion you weren't in.

And as I've said, its hardly just Emmeryn's father that tried to kill them, Walhart explicitly makes it clear his plans were to obtain the Fire Emblem and unite the world to invade Plegia and destroy Grima worship. Walhart even blames one of his tacticians being Grimleal for his attempt at religious genocide not working out and causing collateral damage.

Similarly Frederick describes the Grimleal as fanatics that worship a "fiend".

Clearly Grima worship is very controversial in both Ylisse and Valm, with worshippers of the god of of annihilation being looked down, if not outright killed. So if anything I'd say Grima's worshippers are very steadfast and loyal, loyalty one would crave in a worshipper.

Lots to unpack here, so let's start with the simpler bits.

Firstly… replying to a public post is not butting into a private discussion.

If you don't want people replying to you there are several options available to you to prevent this, including but not limited to: posting on your own blog and disabling reblogs, and/or blocking me or anyone else you don't care to talk with.

Secondly…

Grima's Characterization

"[...] if anything I'd say Grima's worshippers are very steadfast and loyal, loyalty one would crave in a worshipper."

Oh sure, the grimleal are loyal to the idea of Grima.

But again; when Grima stops acting how they believe he should act (see: everything he does as Robin), their loyalty turns into them physically forcing him to act as they see fit. Validar. Aversa. All the unnamed grimleal who fight the shepherds. It's a relationship of controlling and being controlled, not of actual respect. Which is, perhaps, part of the source of their general frustration with humanity as a whole.

I'm not saying their reasoning is correct or their reaction measured! But there's logic to it, and I think their Heroes dialogue is fairly consistent with their characterization from Awakening.

Wanna know something wild? We don't actually have any hard evidence that Grima even tried to destroy the world the first time Naga's faithful killed him. We only have the word of Frederick (early Chapter 2) on that that, and he's a human raised in Ylisse, a country that was founded on opposition to Grima, repeating an Ylissean account of history. He's not a reliable source.

We have no clue who was the aggressor back then, what their reasons were, what their goals were, the scale of the conflict... We literally don't know!

A lot can change about a culture over a thousand years, and the only version of Grima we get to talk to is one that's been reborn in the modern era when the extremist grimleal already exist and he has fully fucking snapped.

---

And now for the… big, messy part. This is going to cover some fairly serious plot points and will briefly mention some fraught real-world events, so I'm putting it under the cut.

"My point here is that most people would stop worshipping a god if it repeatedly caused their neighbors to try to kill them."

No, anon, they absolutely would not.

There is no gentle way to say this: In trying to explain why you think Grima worship is folly, the argument you are making is that the most logical choice for victims of repeated genocide attempts is to stop having the culture that people want to genocide them over.

I am not putting words in your mouth. These are words that you are typing out, and the meaning that they have. If this isn't what you're intending to say then you're doing a poor job of phrasing your argument.

Judaism. All of the many Native American cultures. Probably many cultures that the British Empire colonized. Historically, trying to wipe a people out over their culture and religion has not been a compelling argument to make the survivors stop having that culture and religion.

(Do not mistake this as a 1-1 comparison of any of these mentioned cultures to the grimleal. I'm not calling any of these cultures evil or extremist. I am only bringing them up to illustrate a specific and very narrow point re: attempted cultural destruction.)

Are the grimleal extremists? Absolutely. Is their work to bring about the actual apocalypse horrific and worth being stopped? Fucking obviously. Is Grima a terrible person? The one we meet in the game certainly is.

But please consider that even though Emmeryn's father's crusade ostensibly targeted the extremist cult, it was explicitly condemned by the game's text for the undue pain and suffering it caused to both Ylisse and Plegia.

I reiterate: not all of Plegia is grimleal. They don't all follow the grimleal or subscribe to grimleal beliefs. We have dialogue from Plegian citizens and soldiers expressing distaste and fear of the grimleal. The majority of Plegians who are victims of the religious genocides other world powers keep launching at them are not grimleal members and probably have a culture that they would like to continue having. That culture may or may not include some form of Grima worship.

I understand that you're trying to argue that Grima is despicable. We've never disagreed on that point; our disagreement there lies only in his motivations and the reasons he is who he is.

However. There's a lot about Plegia, Grima, Ylisse, and Valm - both explicitly stated things and strongly implied things within the game's text - that you are ignoring in your pursuit of being strongly anti-Grima. And the result is that you are (accidentally, I hope) saying some kind of fucked up things.

Dislike Grima all you want. I'm happy to agree to disagree on the liking Grima thing. But this game lays out a fairly complex political and cultural landscape for us, with a long history that we ultimately only get small glimpses into, and nothing about it is as cut and dry as you're making it out to be.

[fyreflys]

What's your opinons about Effie Trinket characterization :

In the books :

In the movies :

Do you think Effie was oblivious about her privilege?

Do you like Elizabeth Banks portrayal of Effie?

Thank you :)

@curiousnonny

OMG okay hello first of all I LOVE Effie Trinket. Like at first I sort of hated her, kind of like you hate all the Capitol people, but that woman grows on you & I LOVE her. I don’t talk about her enough but I LOVE Effie.

I haven’t read all the books (I read Catching Fire at the end of 8th grade bc my friend gave it to me to read & I keep meaning too read the others & then get distracted & forget that’s something I keep meaning to do- I blame the ADHD) so I don’t know exactly how she is portrayed in the books, but from my intense obsession with sleuthing on the Wiki near-constantly I’d have to say I think the movie version was probably near spot on (again I could be wrong).

So instead I’ll just tell you what I think of Effie in general. I think she’s a very fascinating character. She’s the first time we get introduced to the Capital culture, & her behavior is a stark contrast to everything we already know when it comes to Katniss and district 12. It makes you wonder “who is this woman???” & you’re startled by her seemingly being excited about children dying. She helps ease Peeta and Katniss, and thus the reader, into the Capitol lifestyle and prepares them as much as she can for everything they’re about to experience outside of the arena (which, I mean, is her job, but still). But for a moment, Effie seems exceptional in the way she’s presented, and then we arrive at the Capitol and Effie pales in comparison. And we soon find that there is a distinction there, between Effie and the rest of the Capitol. It’s subtle at first, but as they near closer to the games, and then they win, and they are brought back again, we quickly see just how different Effie is from most of the Capitol people. She tries hard to blend in & seem oblivious, but the truth is Effie is overwhelmingly aware of the cruelty of the games. I completley believe that Effie is far smarter than she often lets on; every year she’s forced to go to district 12 to pick which unlucky children are going to die that year (which like, can we take a moment to imagine how awful that would be??? To be the one to pull that child’s name? And then watch them die every year?), and every year she sees the poor conditions the rest of the country lives in. The societal standards of the Capital push herself to present a cheery front, and I do think she is rather optimistic person by nature, and I believe there is a lot of brainwashing going on, as well as a sense of personal preservation, & as a result Effie puts on this mask and is able to convince herself that it’s all fine. But as she grows closer to Katniss and Peeta, we start to see that mask crack. What appears to be fake formalities is actually Effie’s real feelings, & there’s absolutely no doubt that she’s aware of how privileged she is. I don’t think this is something she completely realizes right away, and she may try to stay ignorant of it, but with how the story progresses and her attachment to her victors, she has to be aware.

But regardless of that- I just love her unwavering support. She’s brash in some ways, as she pretends to be oblivious (& I think in some aspects she really is completely unaware) but she does really care. I know we don’t get to see much about the other escorts, so this might be a normal attachment and attention given by escorts with their tributes, but Effie genuinely seems to care, and Katniss comes to care for her as well, which I think is a testament to Effie’s true character in of itself. (Katniss doesn’t trust and love easily, but when she does she does it fiercely). I think she is a perfect representation of how patriotism can sometimes blindside people, but how at the root of everything, we are all still human.

As for Elizabeth Banks’ portrayal, I think she does an absolutely fantastic job. Granted I don’t have the books to completely compare her too, but I think her performance is amazing, and ultimately she is the Effie Trinket I fell in love with. She did a great job at presenting both sides of her character, and I feel like I was able to empathize with her and really come to appreciate the position Effie has be placed in, and how stoic she actually is all things considered.

Thank YOU for the question- I haven’t gotten a chance to rave about how much I love Effie Trinket and this was such a fun way to talk about and explore her character!

[martinwilliammichael]

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2024 WEEK TWENTY EIGHT – ORDINARY TIME

BLAMING THE FOREFATHERS (LK 11:47-54)

Prayer:

O Jesus, fill me with a true piety which knows and loves God.

Imagination:

Picture Jesus denouncing the Pharisees.

Context:

The Jews blame their forefathers for being mistaken and killing the prophets. However, they will do the same thing in killing Jesus.  Jesus recounts human history.  Abel was the first one killed in the bible and Zechariah was the last prophet killed (2 Chr 24:20).  Jesus’ accusations are proven true by the final sentences.

Gospel Text: (Read slowly, possibly aloud.)

The Lord said, “Woe to you who build the tombs of the prophets but it was your fathers who killed them. You show that you stand behind the deeds of your fathers. They killed the prophets and you build their tombs. That is why the wisdom of God says, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles. Some of them they will kill and persecute.’ So, this generation will have to account for the blood of all the martyrs shed since the foundation of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who died between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you. This generation must account for it. Woe to you lawyers. You have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not gained access, yet you have stopped those who wish to enter.” After he had left this gathering, the scribes and Pharisees began to show fierce hostility to him and tried to catch him in his speech on many occasions.

Thoughts: (Read all. Ponder those that attract you.)

The leaders are ignorant that they are caught up in a history of violence.

They accept violence as a legitimate means of silencing the voices of the prophets.

They refuse to accept the responsibility, even though their guilt stretches for centuries.

Jesus offers them a new stream, a redemption from their past violence.

Unfortunately, the leaders even block people who would want to follow Jesus.  They have taken away the Key of Knowledge.

They try to capture Jesus in his speech.  What fools! They battle divine Wisdom Himself.

They do not repent.  They do not change.  Their hostility grows.

Affections: (When one touches your heart, use your own words.)

O Jesus, what are my sins?  And the sins of my family?  Let me repent.

Jesus, you offer me a pure stream, a future history purified of the past.

Redeem me, Jesus, from my culture.

Open the door.  Give me the Key to Divine Wisdom.  I will walk in your paths.

Jesus, change me.  Forgive me.  My past will no longer burden me.

You are truth.  You are life.  You save.  You redeem.  You open holy roads to those who will follow.

Resolutions: (Possibly you might want to make your own.)

+ I will see clearly the sins of my culture and reject them.

+ I will be a prophet who speaks out against what is not right.

Thought for the Day: (To recall your meditation.)

I will send to them prophets and apostles.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"I ought to write something about this whole business of "treatment" that theoretically forms the basis of modern penology, and how it shapes up here in Lewisburg. I have tried to keep my comments on the subject restrained up to this point, on the theory that the extreme emotional reactions of the first few weeks or months in prison may not be trustworthy. That theory is correct, I think. For one who has not had the experience before, as I had not, the early impressions of prison are fierce. One reacts with violent indignation. One is plunged into the midst of continuous, vocal, inescapable unhappiness on a grand scale. The punishment to which men are subjected appears to be excessive, and frequently capricious. Whatever one's basic convictions, one is tempted to feel hostile and resentful toward almost everyone in the official organization of this monstrosity.

I have settled down from that kind of emotional pitch by this time. The incongruity of blaming the failure of prison on the overworked, harassed individuals who administer it has become apparent. The prison itself, the whole system of handling "offenders against society," is an aspect of that society. It can be modified slightly here and there by pressures against one or another administrative sensitive spot, made more or less "humane" in its physical handling of the men put in its charge, but the fundamental evils of the prison system are the fundamental evils of the culture of which it is a part.

In essence, what is lacking in the prison system, as it is lacking in our culture generally, is love. Not the eros type of love, but agape—that love that expresses itself in reverence for the personality even of the most depraved, that reacts to evil and cruelty with understanding and sympathy and sorrow, and that forgives because it understands and sympathizes and sorrows.

This has been borne in on me increasingly. Knowledge, the wisdom to understand all mysteries—these are a "tinkling cymbal" if love is not present. Even those who "give their bodies to be burned" find that it profits them nothing unless they are able to leaven their offering with love. I have had a homely but dramatic example right here in the parole office these past couple of months.

There are four parole officers besides the Chief Parole Officer: three men and a woman. All are about my age, some a little older, some a little younger. All were trained, I gather, as social workers. They are enlightened; I think they got into this work largely for idealistic reasons. They "understand all mysteries," or at least a great many of them. They recognize that they are dealing with human beings who have gone of the track somehow, and they are not vindictive. Yet on the whole the men despise and distrust them!

They do not despise and distrust them because of anything the parole officers have done to them. You can hear all sorts of rumors, but they are only rumors. The prisoners hate them because both the parole officers and the inmates recognize and respect the great but unreal gulf that lies between them, with authority and guiltlessness on one side and submission and guilt on the other.

We do not really like anyone who happens to be placed over us in authority, but we can manage to tolerate him if he seems to be trying to say to us that this authority is purely a mechanical device for getting things done, and has no implications concerning moral worth or even personalability. We can get along with the person whose authority rests on clear-cut superiority in abilities or skills, even though he may do some open rejoicing in his high estate. But we can really work up a hate for the man whose authority somehow rests on the assumption of moral superiority and is a part of a whole conspiracy to humiliate and degrade us. This is what happens to the parole officers, and with all their training they seem quite unable to see it. Prison involves a whole sequence of petty humiliations: uniformity in clothing and cells, censorship of mail and reading matter of all kinds, locks and keys and passes and the whole impedimenta of inferiority. The irritation is constant and cumulative.

Most of the men react to the whole situation, largely unconscious of what they are reacting to. Others, knowing very well what aggravates them, pick on one minor aspect of the overall humiliation as the focal point of their wrath. Some men react this way to the weekly bath and clothing change, when we are herded like so many animals through the process of undressing, discarding our clothes, marching through the showers, and then picking up clean clothes, dressing and marching back to our cells. Others focus their indignation on the business of censorship, and some of the COs have gone so far as to refuse to send or receive mail unless they could be assured that it would not be censored."

- Alfred Hassler, Diary of a Self-Made Convict. Foreword by Harry Elmer Barnes. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1954 (written 1944-1945), p. 102-104.

[the-single-element]

Good morning.

At long last, our season of feast days has ended, and we rejoin - in media res - the story of Jesus's career as a human preacher.

By this point, Jesus's attempts at information security - at doing his work quietly - have fallen apart. He hasn't quite given up on entering towns yet, but whenever he does, he's faced with these sorts of situations: people crowding around him looking for miracles, demanding his attention to the extent that he doesn't have even a minute of time to himself.

We often hear of Jesus's disciples trying to "screen" the crowds in such situations, helping their teacher to not get overwhelmed (even if, sometimes, they overshoot and screen out people whom Jesus wants to welcome in).

But today, we hear about a different sort of wrong call - a mistake people sometimes make, even in our modern society - and the lesson Jesus can teach us, as a result, about how to help a loved one when the world seems to be against them.

The trouble begins when Jesus's plight catches the attention of his extended family, who happen to be in the area. We're not talking Mary and Joseph here; relatives we might call "distant" in our own society were, in that time, considered much closer, and more involved in each other's lives. (Consider the caravan Jesus's nuclear family traveled in for feast days when he was a child, and the number of "relatives" who must have been in the same caravan.)

So these were people who knew Jesus from his youth, and cared about him, but maybe didn't know him as well as Mary and Joseph did. They saw Jesus in his ministry, and thought to themselves, "he's overworking himself", "he's not in his right mind", and tried to extract him from the situation on those grounds.

Regrettably, far from being the familial support they probably intended… this was the worst justification they could've given. "Not in your right mind", in that era and culture, was generally attributed to the influence of unclean spirits. Yes, this was considered a solvable problem, even back then - something treatable. But for a preacher? It would've thrown into doubt everything he was preaching about, by implying that he might be a false prophet.

And indeed, Jesus's political enemies jumped on this. Aha! Jesus's own family is calling him possessed! Let's take that ball and run with it; we can even write off his miracles as the actions of evil spirits!

How disappointing this must've been to Jesus! How frustrating! So as he refuted this slander… he tucked another message inside the overt one. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." This wasn't just about the risible hypothetical of "Satan casting out Satan"; this was, I think, a covert rebuke to his own family: that, if they fight him over this, over his ministry and the path he has to walk, it'll only be to the whole family's sorrow and detriment.

It'll create a rift between them that can never really heal.

Consider the TaNaKh excerpt of today, from the myth of the Garden of Eden. In that scene, the poison of eating "the knowledge of good and evil" unripe has already begun to take effect; Adam, who once said of Eve, "at last, this one is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh", now refers to her as "that woman whom you put here with me" in order to more easily assign her the blame.

Imagine if that had been allowed to continue! None of us would have ever been born! At those stakes, the fact that God finds a scapegoat in that moment - accepts the shift of blame onto snakes - becomes entirely understandable. Anything at all to prevent the first family of humanity from falling to dissention and self-destruction for as long as possible.

This is why Mark's good news today ends with Jesus and his family still in tension - with Jesus saying that, for now, he'd rather stay with people who he knows will stand with him on his mission.

And as for us… we, too, must clearly consider, when we act in love, what the fruits of our actions might be. In particular, we must be careful when we act publicly - in the sight of our loved ones' enemies - that our words and actions are presenting a united front, not accidentally undermining our loved ones instead.

In this particular season, I'm sure you can think of a few examples of how badly that can go.

Yes, this is harder. It means we don't get the benefits of the world seeing us as the "reasonable one" when interceding on someone's behalf. But Paul reminds us, from his own experience, that this is the kind of pressure of which we should be unafraid. It's the kind of pressure that helps us refine our love to being closer to the kind of love that God has for us - the love of the Kingdom of God. It's the kind of love and support which Jesus hoped to see from his own family.

And if we are to be his adopted sisters and brothers, co-heirs to the kingdom - if, as Jesus says today, those who can internalize his message are his "real" family - then it's the kind of love that we can learn, too.

[mishafletcher]

Are you a Gold Star lesbian? (Just in case you don't know what it means, a Gold Star lesbian is a lesbian that has never had the sex with a guy and would never have any intentions of ever doing so)

So I got this ask a while ago, and I've been lowkey thinking about it ever since.

First: No. I am a queer, cranky dyke who is too old for this sort of bullshit gatekeeping. 

Second: What an unbelievable question to ask someone you don't even know! What an incomprehensibly rude thing to ask, as if you're somehow owed information about my sexual history. You're not! No one—and I can't reiterate this enough, but no one—owes you the details of their sex lives, of their trauma, or of anything about themselves that they don't feel like sharing with you.

The clickbait mills of the internet and the purity police of social media would like nothing more than to convince everyone that you owe these things to everyone. They would like you to believe that you have to prove that you're traumatized enough to identify with this character, that you can't sell this article about campus rape without relating it to your own sexual assault, that you can't talk about queer issues without offering up a comprehensive history of your own experiences, and none of those things are true. You owe people, and especially random strangers on the internet, nothing, least of all citations to somehow prove to them that you have the right to talk about your own life.

This makes some people uncomfortable, and to be clear, I think that that's good: people who feel entitled to demand this information should be uncomfortable. Refusing to justify yourself takes power away from people who would very much like to have it, people who would like to gatekeep and dictate who is permitted to speak about what topics or like what things. You don't have to justify yourself. You don't have to explain that you like this ship because this one character reminds you a bit of yourself because you were traumatized in a vaguely similar way and now— You don't have to justify your queerness by telling people about the best friend you had when you were twelve, and how you kissed, and she laughed and said it was good practice for when she would kiss boys and your stomach twisted and your mouth tasted like bile and she was the first and last girl you kissed, but— 

You don't owe anyone these pieces of yourself. They're yours, and you can share them or not, but if someone demands that you share, they're probably not someone you should trust.

Third: The idea of gold star lesbians is a profoundly bi- and trans- phobic idea, often reducing gender to genitals and the long, shared history of queer women of all identities to a stark, artificial divide where some identities are seen as purer or more valuable than others. This is bullshit on all counts.

There's a weird and largely artificial division between bisexuals and lesbians that seems to be intensifying on tumblr, and I have to say: I hate it. Bisexual women aren't failed lesbians. They're not somehow less good or less valid because they're attracted to [checks notes] people. Do you think that having sex with a man somehow changes them? What are you so worried about it for? I've checked, and having sex with a man does not, in fact, make your vagina grow teeth or tentacles. Does that make you feel better? Why is what other people are doing so threatening to you?

Discussions of gold star lesbians are often filled with tittering about hehe penises, which is unfortunate, since I know a fair few lesbians who have penises, and even more lesbians who've had sex with people, men and women alike, who have penises. I'm sorry to report that "I'm disgusted by a standard-issue human body part" is neither a personality nor anything to be proud of. I'm a dyke and I don't especially like men, but dicks are just dicks. You don't have to be interested in them, but a lot of people have them, and it doesn't make you less of a lesbian to have sex with someone who has a dick.

There's so much garbage happening in the world—maybe you haven't noticed, but things are kind of Not Great in a lot of places, and there's a whole pandemic thing that's been sort of a major buzzkill? How is this something that you're worried about? Make a tea, remind yourself that other people's genitalia and sexual history are none of your business, maybe go watch a video about a cute animal or something. 

Fourth: The idea of gold star lesbians is a shitty premise that argues that sexuality is better if it's always been clear-cut and straightforward—but it rarely is. We live in a very, very heterosexist culture. I didn’t have a word for lesbian until many years after I knew that I was one. How can you say that you are something when your mouth can’t even make the shape of it? The person you are at 24 is different to the person you are at 14, and 34, and 74. You change. You get braver. The world gets wider. You learn to see possibilities in the shadows you used to overlook. Of course people learn more about themselves as they age.

Also, many of us, especially those of us who grew up in smaller towns, or who are over the age of, say, 25, grew up in times and places where our sexuality was literally criminal.

Shortly after I graduated high school, a gay man in my state was sentenced to six months in jail. Why? Well, he’d hit on someone, and it was a misdemeanor to "solicit homosexual or lesbian activity", which included expressing romantic or sexual interest in someone who didn’t reciprocate. You might think, then, that I am in fact quite old, but you would be mistaken. The conviction was in 1999; it was overturned in 2002.

I grew up knowing this: the wrong thing said to the wrong person would be sufficient reason to charge me with a crime.

In the United States, the Defense of Marriage Act was passed in 1996, clarifying that according to the federal government, marriage could only ever be between one man and one woman. It also promised that even if a state were to legalize same-sex unions, other states wouldn't have to recognize them if they didn't want to. And wow, they super did not want to, because between 1998 and 2012, a whopping thirty states had approved some sort of amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Every queer person who's older than about 25 watched this, knowing that this was aimed at people like them. Knowing that these votes were cast by their friends and their families and their teachers and their employers. 

Some states were worse than others. Ohio passed their bill in 2004 with 62% approval. Mississippi passed theirs the same year with 86% approval. Imagine sitting in a classroom, or at work, or in a church, or at a family dinner, and knowing that statistically, at least two out of every three people in that room felt you shouldn't be allowed to marry someone you loved.

Matthew Shepard was tortured to death in October of 1998. For being gay, for (maybe) hitting on one of the men who had planned to merely rob him. Instead, he was tortured and left to die, tied to a barbed wire fence. His murderers were both sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison. This was controversial, because a nonzero number of people felt that Shepard had brought it upon himself.

Many of us sat at dinner tables and listened to this discussion, one that told us, over and over, that we were fundamentally wrong, fundamentally undeserving of love or sympathy or of life itself.

This is a tiny, tiny sliver of history—a staggeringly incomplete overview of what happened in the US over about ten years. Even if this tiny sliver is all that there were, looking at this, how could you blame someone for wanting to try being not Like This? How can you fault someone who had sex, maybe even had a bunch of sex, hoping desperately that maybe they could be normal enough to be loved if they just tried harder? How can you say that someone who found themself an uninteresting but inoffensive boyfriend and went on dates and had sex and said that it was fine is somehow less valuable or less queer or less of a lesbian for doing so? For many people, even now, passing as straight, as problematic as that term is, is a survival skill. How dare you imply that the things that someone did to protect themself make them worth less? They survived, and that's worth literally everything.

Fifth, finally: What is a gold star, anyhow? You've capitalized it, like it's Weighty and Important, but it's not. Gold stars were what your most generous grade school teacher put on spelling tests that you did really well on. But ultimately, gold stars are just shiny scraps of paper. They don't have any inherent value: I can buy a thousand of them for five bucks and have them at my door tomorrow. They have only the meaning that we give them, only the importance that we give them. We’re not children desperately scrabbling for a teacher’s approval anymore, though. We understand that good and bad are more of a spectrum than a binary, and that a gold star is a simplification. We understand that no number of gold stars will make us feel like we’re special enough or good enough or important enough, or fix the broken places we can still feel inside ourselves. Only we can do that.

The stars are only shiny scraps of paper. They offer us nothing; we don’t need them. I hope that someday, you see that, too. 

[sneezemonster15]

What bothers me the most about SS and NH fans (stans?) is that they can't accept the plain truth from both narrative's and fandom ship's perspective. Nobody is stopping you from writing fics/ self inserts/ porn / whatever but please do say "yes it's a fragment of my imagination, ship's not like that in canon".

Ships: yes you're free to ship what you want, canon or not, but please do accept both relationships are dismissive and not satisfactory (for neither four of them) at best, plain dysfunctional and implicitly toxic at worst (and yes, you can still ship them if you want, it's not a "sin"). The fact that theyre canon is actually more damaging than good as an argument. I don't think people can comprehend that being married does not equal being in love with that person. As a person who grew up with dysfunctional relationship between my parents, resemblance is uncanny. Like... please try to pull yourself away from emotions and attachment and look objectively on things. And if what I said angers anyone, do try to ask yourself why is that the case before attacking anyone.

Naratives: I won't say no development, because there is, just instead of climbing up stairs they fell all the way to the bottom. Both were one-sided affections/ obsession, and just sends a bad message? Like yea do chase after someone, do not accept no as an answer, yes do ignore other's person feelings and opinions, yes do be a nice guy TM, do guilty trip. At the end of the day, one of keys to a healthy relationships is emotional conection and reassurance, and SS and NH have exact opposite of that. This isn't even about SNS, just for both of them ending up with someone who actually actively tries and wants to understand them would be far better ending. And for Hinata and Sakura to stop falling in love with concept of love and obsession and actually rethink if they want a thropy or a genuine connection with another human being.

I'm not an anti nor a pro ship for both SS and NH, but it's concerning that today's generations lack critical thinking this much.

Hi. I agree with everything you said anon.

It is very disappointing that the canon pairs give out such harmful messaging, but they are still being perpetuated constantly in this day and age. We as the consumers of this media should have the objectivity and conscience to reject such unhealthy portrayals of female characters and pairings. But instead, they have huge fan followings who not only approve of them, but harass those who don't.

Like who exactly is in the wrong here?

Media is a reflection of our lives and that's how we come to enjoy it, by this suspension of disbelief availed by the makers through storytelling and characters that we relate to and invest in. They influence us heavily.

Do I blame Kishi? He is a misogynist, so yes. But really, I blame the entire culture that lets these portrayals out into the world willy nilly without condemning them explicitly.

And look at the result. Lots of women think Sakura and Hinata epitomize feminist role models and SS and NH are couple goals.

Shounen has a clear pedagogical element, it's a supporting pillar of this genre that shapes its characters and story and imparted values according to the age group it caters to. It's a particularly delicate age and most people in this age group are pretty impressionable, throughout cultures, there can be difference in degrees. So you give them characters like Sakura or Hinata as 'heroines' ( I say heroines not because they had any significant part but because they were matched up with the two main male characters), without redeeming them or explicitly condemning them, they would think they are good and worthy of idolization. Critical thinking takes time to develop and that's why it is important to be exposed to media that imparts correct values early in life.

Perhaps these fans are the ones who consumed Naruto as kids and now are adult women, who continue to idolize them?

I won't comment on how these stans are in their personal lives but given their content on online platforms, I doubt they are ideal.

I also don't know how much to blame them, I constantly struggle with my need to understand where they are coming from and the repulsion that I experience while communicating with them, what with their vile attitudes, lack of comprehension and stubborn denial.

It's just a sad state of affairs, isn't it?

If I ever raise a daughter, I would not let her watch Naruto until I have exposed her to realistic and healthy portrayals of women, love and friendship in books and on screen, and have had a full fledged discussion afterwards over custard apple ice cream and butter palmiers. Starting with Anne Shirley series by L.M. Montgomery perhaps, hehe.

If she decides to ship Naruto with Sasuke afterwards (for the right reasons of course), she will have my blessings. :)

[belphegorbillickin]

May I please request some general yandere Satan headcannons with a GN! MC? Your characterization is perfect!!

I was surprised by how easy it was to write this, thanks for pushing me to branch out. I'm glad I got to flesh Satan out a bit more in my head, I even went into history a bit. Thanks again for all the support! I hope you enjoy my essay lol.

(TW!): General yandere themes, mentions of violence, abuse (more so to Satan than MC,) potential victim blaming (but no s*xual content)

This also written with Satan's point of view in mind, especially regarding his "childhood." So keep in mind that just because Satan believes something doesn't necessarily mean that it's true or that it was their intention. (I love Lucifer, but Satan is still pretty salty.)

More yandere HCs here! & More early Devildom history with Levi here!

Satan tends to show his affections in a slightly... unique way compared to humans. It's not that he doesn't love you, but it's precisely because he loves you that he wants the best for you. A few cultural differences are to be expected when interacting with the only pure demon out of the brothers, right? This is just the worst of it and it'll only get better from here, right? For example, while the other brothers might try their hardest to keep your human "purity" and "innocent" ignorance intact, Satan just loves you more and more as you become corrupted and "demonic." It's not like there's anything wrong with that right? Just different. If anything it's a bit comforting knowing that you don't have stay at a certain state to be loved, isn't it?

It's hard to spot the signs at first, as he's not all that possessive or controlling. (Unless Lucifer is involved of course.) He's actually very confident in your loyalty so long as you stay true, second only to Lucifer. He's also fairly trusting in your increasingly strong pact bond and all the various protection jewelries he's gifted you with. The feeling of Satan's magic within you and the carefully crafted displays of affection are more than enough to keep most demons from you. (Not just because of Satan's wrath, but because Satan's incredibly few favored humans tend to fight back till their dying breath with the knowledge he taught them, consequences be dammed so long as their attacker suffers.) Satan enjoys spending time with you even if you're just silently reading separate books, but he doesn't need to be with you 24/7. It's fine if you need some alone time, he needs his as well. If anything he might get annoyed at you for not giving him a space of his own if he tried to keep you locked away in his room. Above all Satan tries his hardest to be rational around you, and part of that rationality is that "surely someone as intelligent as you are would know what getting entangled with a full demon would entail." The scariest part about Satan is that this is love to him. No one else is treated as kindly as you are, no one else has been given as much effort and protection in his very long life. There's truly no sadism in his actions, not towards you, and he carefully avoids some seemingly random boundaries in order to avoid triggering his instincts. He always walks the fine line of corrupting you and permanently "breaking" you almost perfectly, never pushing too fast. You can't help but feel you're in way over your head, but is he really just going to let you leave now? You're not so sure.

While Satan might seem like the kind of snob who refuses to give away information and makes you research it yourself, he's actually very generous with it. Rather he gets offended for you when the others refuse to fill you in. There's very few greater insults to Satan than leaving himself or his love purposefully ignorant. (One would almost think part of that was from the burning curiosity as to how he was made, why he was made only to live miserable and treated like a feral, snarling beast "unworthy" of having such things explained to him by such "holy" beings. Least of all by Lucifer, his "creator.") He'll gladly fill you in on every gory, traumatizing detail and become even happier when insulting Lucifer along with you for withholding information.

Even if you don't like knowing, isn't it safer to know what to avoid than expecting someone to come save you every time? You're meant to be a citizen of this realm, are you not? How you can truly be prepared for it and make an informed decision if you don't know all the facts? Don't get him wrong, Satan's sure you'll stay with him regardless if you find out now or later, but no love of his is going to stay ignorant.

He's not going to punish your ignorance when even the prince is desperately hiding anything too unsavory from you. He may be a demon, but he's not a pathetically unfair sadist like Lucifer. Any and all punishments he doles out are simply learning experiences for you. (Or at least, that's what he believes.) He does however expect you to have some sense, he won't baby you if you do something stupid.

If he lends you a book before you both go out saying not to touch a certain species and you do it the only thing he's going to save you from is death or something like the permeant loss of a hand. The rest you'll be healing the slow way as he lectures you and gives you a disappointed frown.

He knows you're talented and intelligent, he never would have fallen for you otherwise, but Satan also knows you haven't yet reached your full potential. It's nothing to be ashamed of, he knows humans live such dreadfully short and ignorant lives, he rather likes being part of your growth anyway. If he needs to give your brain needs a little external stimulation, like believing a powerful demon has captured you and that you'll need to outsmart him to survive, well he's happy to provide it. And if you come running into his arms afterwards, well he's even happier that you appreciate the trouble he went through. He knew you were observant enough to figure out who was behind it. Satan's also very pleased you paid enough attention to his mannerisms and tactics to notice. (What do you mean you were coming to him for comfort and not because you were thanking him? It's not like you to be so slow witted and ungrateful.) It's also exactly because he knows how fragile humans are that he's pushing you until you collapse. Satan would always do his best to protect what's his of course, but he very much values self sufficiency. Besides, being able to put up a fight for just a few seconds longer could be the difference between life and death before he arrives.

To be completely honest Satan’s not even fully aware of how this may affect your psyche. He knows humans are fragile, but he’s never really known kindness or of being sheltered the same way the former angels did. They were all much too busy dealing with their own grief and new, cursed bodies to protect the “lowly, unintelligent, and shockingly vile” demon from anything but deadly physical harm. Not that they needed to do much of that to begin with, as Satan came out a fully fledged adult more powerful than most of his “brothers,” and he didn’t hesitate to let them know exactly where they fell in the new pecking order.

(General spoilers for later lessons START)

Satan is even more encouraging than Solomon when you're finally able to learn magic. He misses having you by his side of course, but he knows how necessary it is to get rid of distractions when learning something as complicated as this. He also has a certain amount of trust in Solomon, he knows it's unlikely for him give up on a chance to influence you into becoming another protector of humanity, even if you are rather "corrupted" by now. Whatever he does Satan is confident his influence is something he can erase, if it even gets to you in the first place. Satan takes the time to gather all of his easiest, yet most useful spells for you to learn when you arrive. He's practically bouncing off the walls at the thought of it, leaving some more ignorant demons blindsided when he takes it out on them like a badly trained dog. Of course he's excited to have more to learn and discuss with you, but most of all he's happy for you to have the chance to protect yourself. Not just for general safety, but because it opens up so many places and activities for you in Devildom to experience with each other.

(General spoilers for later lessons END)

While most of the brothers are conflicted about influencing you with their sin Satan sees it as an act of love. To him it's way to gain mutual understanding as well as strengthen you. He's careful not to push it too far, it wouldn't do to have you angry at him, but everyone else is fair game so long as you aren't stupid about it. Satan is powerful and has many connections, but there's nothing he can do if you try to decapitate the prince for dragging you into one of his schemes. As much as he loves you he's still The Avatar of Wrath and seeing his love take their anger out on him is something that actually hurts him a bit, especially because he tries so hard to shelter you from his. Whatever you do do not stop him as he leaves the room to calm himself down, when he leaves it's for your own protection. It means he's this close to doing something he'll regret. Satan's especially fond of seeing you take it out on other humans, he's glad you understand how beneath you they are now. He's longed for the day that you appreciated his efforts of maiming anyone that annoys or hurts you. It was such a pleasant surprise to see you taking matters into your own hands. He probably has a scrapbook where he puts the pictures, captioned with "MC's first kill!!" and surrounded by hearts and cute kitty stickers. He's so proud of you it's hard to admit to feeling any guilt, if you even had any that is.

Now, normally Satan is much too controlled and self-aware to believe everything will just stay the same if he tries to keep you locked up, and he doesn't even feel much of an urge to even during your worst arguments, but if you start getting too close to Lucifer... He doesn't like hurting the one he loves, but if that's what it takes he will. And if you decide to leave him for Lucifer? Yeah, you're not making out of this alive. Even if it takes centuries, Satan's not one to let something like that go. Nothing, and I mean nothing, will ever cause Satan as much pain as leaving him for Lucifer or calling out Lucifer's name instead of his. He can't give you the same exact feeling, but that won't stop him from putting you through as much pain as your body can take only to start it all over again.

[astral-mariner]

All such interesting things to consider! Love what others have said so far. Here's my own personal headcanon:

I'd say my read on Vegeta is generally very dark, extremely so, even. But I don't believe him when he says he doesn't care about Bulma and Trunks. I think it's what he WANTS to believe, but deep down, he doesn't.

It all comes down for me to how I imagine the epic fallout of the 3 Year Gap went with Bulma. When his training wasn't going the way he wanted it to, and he was getting crazier and crazier about not transforming as time passed, he blamed it on Bulma's "distraction." I don't think he ever meant to get involved with her---it just happened. He was a very wounded and fucked up person, and he fell for her HARD when she showed interest, attraction, and basic decency. Harder than he understood. Because he'd never experienced anything quite like it, and he'd never gotten the chance to have a relationship with a woman on his terms.

But he still believed all that bullshit about needing to be cold and pure of heart to transform, to be the perfect warrior. And I think he held onto that cultural or even spiritual sentiment because it was a way to justify how he coped with life under Freeza as a slave. He killed people for a living at the behest of his master. If he felt anything for any of the people he killed, it would destroy him. And he had no choice, knowing that if he didn't follow orders and didn't fight, he would never get strong enough to free himself of Freeza.

And Freeza toyed with him like a pet or a doll. He enjoyed humiliating Vegeta with degrading assignments killing weaklings. He enjoyed watching Vegeta grow steadily more insane and unhinged taking out all of his rage on his purge victims. People who weren't even strong and didn't mean anything to fight or kill---he just got off on torturing them because he had no control over his own life. Little ways to feel powerful when he was actually powerless. Freeza was a narcissist and liked turning his favorite pets like Vegeta into little mirrors of himself: someone who finds little joy in anything other than dominating others and making them suffer. (Makes you wonder why Freeza himself is that way, honestly.)

And as awful as it is, Vegeta on some level WANTED to be more like Freeza. Because he didn't want Freeza to get under his skin. If he didn't care about his degrading assignments, his comrades, his home planet or his family, then Freeza couldn't use them against him. Couldn't use them to humiliate and control him even more. But of course Freeza knew all along that HE was responsible for all the things Vegeta had lost, and Vegeta trying to deny his feelings and not grieve just played into his own, Freeza's, hands. To mold Vegeta into a little puppet of himself for his own amusement. Someone incapable of connecting with others, who either refused or gave up on trying to find anything worth living for other than his own strength and crushing people beneath him so his misery would have company.

But Vegeta, even if he's an alien, is still just a man. He DOES have feelings and longings and hurts just like anyone else. And for all his bluster, Vegeta shows a TON of raw emotion in canon. He's angry, he's broken, he CARES about everything SO MUCH. He's so invested in everything going on around him or happening to him that he becomes fucking OBSESSED. It's honestly pretty pathetic how much he tries to put up a front of feeling nothing to others and himself...because it really is so obvious that he feels quite a lot. Maybe not in quite the same way as a human, but he's absolutely brimming with emotions he doesn't want to and can't express. Because Freeza would always be trying to get a reaction out of him.

And like. If you were led to believe you were the last of your kind... That you were the last of your royal bloodline... There really wouldn't be much reason to pursue things that made you happy personally. There's only one thing that will make your situation where you've lost everything remotely okay---living up to the legends that you were told as a child, that meant something to your people. Even if you were the last, at least you did something MEANINGFUL. At least you slayed the monster who enslaved you and humiliated your father and your entire race. And to do that---at least according to the stories he was told (or what he CHOSE to remember about them)---Vegeta felt like he had to become ruthless, heartless, and unfeeling. Ironically because he cared so much. And no doubt Freeza knew all these Saiyan bedtime stories and used them to fuck up and manipulate Vegeta even more.

And then, after he'd sacrificed his own happiness---anything he may have longed for or cared about just as a man and not as a figurehead---this fucking low-class loser who doesn't know anything about anything steals Freeza's death from you and transforms without (in his mind) really giving anything up. And then after that, somehow Freeza is dead, and you're not being told what to do or how to feel anymore. It would be so fucking ENRAGING. Like of course he became as obsessed with defeating Goku as he did defeating Freeza. So when the new challenge of the androids comes, he steels himself and tries to be as heartless as ever. Because apparently he had given too many fucks in the past, and that's why he'd failed.

Then comes Bulma. She gets under his skin in a way no one ever had. In ways against which he has never learned any defense. He FIGHTS and RESISTS his attraction to and feelings for her every step of the fucking way, but he's still, at the end of the day, just a man. And he falls for her. And he can't help but keep seeing her and sleeping with her. No matter how many times he tells himself that he's seeing her for the last time. That he's going to give her up, feel nothing, and walk away forever. Cold, heartless, perfect.

But he just keeps seeing her. He gets more and more desperate and alarmed. The woman is making him CRAZY. And when her pregnancy eventually and inevitably happens, he's slapped in the face with just how far he'd fallen. And he has to cut them out of his life to prove that he fucking can. That he really is more than a man. He's a prince, a legend, an impassive god who feels nothing and is owned by no one.

So he tells himself he doesn't fucking care about Bulma. He doesn't care that he finally has found a planet where there is good food, warmth, beauty, people he can connect to. He doesn't care that, after believing all his life that he'd be the last of his kind, that he's going to have a child. And really, when Freeza has used every expression of longing or grief against him, it's understandable why his first impulse is to reject and repress everything. It's understandable when you've lived a life as harsh as he has, that anything that's NOT constant violence and misery is absolutely fucking TERRIFYING because you don't know how NOT TO live in a state of constant hypervigilance. You're traumatized. Denying your feelings has been how you survived, and all these feelings brimming and tearing themselves out of your chest is a fucking THREAT.

So he leaves for space. He runs from his feelings. And he's so fucking conflicted and despairing and angry that it moves him to transform. (Or maybe it was just inevitable with how strong he was getting, and the emotional aspect just happened to coincide with it.) And it's honestly the worst possible timing for it. Because it JUSTIFIES his leaving Bulma and his newborn son. He tells himself that he got to where he was precisely because he rejected them and feels nothing for them. (When in fact the opposite may be true---the LOSS and despair of perhaps losing them forever by attempting to cut them out of his soul was the impetus.)

And so when he doesn't attempt to save Bulma and Trunks, he's very much still caught in that mindset. He thinks he's finally pushed past caring. He doesn't fucking care. They're nothing to him. That's why he transformed. Because he doesn't fucking care anymore. Just like he always wanted. Nothing can touch him, nothing can hurt him. He really believes it even if deep down, it isn't true at all. He really hopes it's true... Because giving up Bulma and Trunks like that was a huge sacrifice to make to become what he always wanted.

And then Cell kills Trunks. And oh boy does the dam break then. All that shit he repressed just comes pouring out. And then Kakarot is gone, and he's left with nothing. Just the love of his life and his son that he rejected. And it's already too late because of course Bulma is fucking FURIOUS with him for what he's done. All his stupid shit over the Android/Cell Saga. For leaving Earth without warning and without explanation when she was pregnant with his child. He only realizes just how much they really meant to him when he's faced with true loss. When transforming wasn't anything like the bedtime stories he'd heard from his father---it didn't make him the strongest, it didn't defeat his enemies. He's just left with nothing. And he finally realizes---too late---that it is not in fact what he wanted.

And if Bulma and Trunks had died in the plane crash? He would have told himself he didn't care, and maybe he wouldn't even react in the moment. That's just how far up his own ass he was at that time. But he would've realized what he'd really lost eventually. All too late, when they were already gone.

I’ve always wondered what Vegeta would have done if Bulma and baby Trunks had actually been killed by Gero in the Cell Saga. Like, it’s completely possible that he would have genuinely done nothing about it, though I like to think he’d be at least a little distressed on some level lmao. Just maybe in the same way he likes to say he doesn’t care about other Saiyans. (Yes there’s a case to be made he legitimately doesn’t care and he’s more upset that Freeza used him like he says, and yeah I see the case that it makes him a more interesting character, but I feel like he can have two reasons to be upset and also be completely oblivious to one of them. Or even only start to care later.) Alternately, there could be a case made that he’d flip out like he did when Future Trunks died. After all, he didn’t react to Future Trunks being hurt or in danger all the way up until the point where he actually died, where it clearly came as a surprise to Vegeta that he even cared. It kind of depends on when and why you think he started to care about Future Trunks. If it was in the time chamber and all it took was time together, then I think there’s a chance he’d feel that way about Bulma, who he also spent time with. If it was Trunks standing up to him about Cell, then he might be entirely indifferent to Bulma and Trunks’ deaths, since they haven’t proven themselves to him in quite the same way. He does seem to have a little bit of respect for Bulma from when she wanted to see Freeza though.

Idk I just find this scenario interesting because I’ve never had a firm personal answer for it. If anyone else has opinions and reasoning I’d enjoy hearing it. Also I really wish we got more info about Vegeta and Future Trunks time together.