#I'm sure that should go without saying

[spoiledmilks]

opening pinterest to see my own art without credit and comments turned off

Now thats a "great" christmas gift :/

[ffcrazy15]

There's this way of doing female-ness in Christianity that I call "pastel flower journal Christianity." I've got nothing against pastel flower journals per se, but for some reason people believe it's the end all and be all of female spirituality, and I think it's a real disservice towards young Christian women.

One of these days I'd like to start a prayer-and-reading group or something for young women, but there would be no floral themes or over-focus on how "God thinks you're beautiful even if the world doesn't" (a true statement, but it's wayyyyy too often the focus in women's spiritual reading). Instead we would be reading:

Seneca's Letters from a Stoic

Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning

Sheed's A Map of Life

Portions of Pieper's book on leisure

Kreeft's Three Philosophies of Life

Guardini's The Lord (or something similar)

Therese's Story of a Soul

and some select portions of the Nicomachean Ethics.

(Also they're all getting the porn talk. I don't know why we give the porn talk to young men but not young women. There's this idea that women don't use porn and they only need the talk about "guarding their heart." Bullshit. There's porn on the YA shelves of Barnes and Nobles and before that there were bodice rippers. Young women need the porn talk too.)

Every young woman needs to be getting a basic grounding in virtue ethics, logic, natural law, scholastic philosophy and Biblical hermeneutics if they're going to get by in today's spiritual landscape. Enough faffery and emotionalism in young women's spiritual education! Give them real food to chew on, not pasty sentimentalism!

[giantkillerjack]

Me: I don't like when shows queerbait me.

Other Fans: Well then just watch other shows, dummy!!!!

Me: 👍👍👍 wow what a tidy way to dismiss and invalidate a legitimate reaction to homophobic story tropes! 👍👍👍

The "just leave then" response to people wanting more inclusivity from the stories they love is not just emotionally invalidating - it is also one of the things that keeps storytellers from feeling that they need to improve in the future by making fans feel stupid for demanding better representation in the first place.

This kind of response doesn't just make you sound like a conservative (since this is a VERY popular response that conservatives have when confronted with leftist media criticism), it also fundamentally ignores the fact that there may not BE an equivalent story with good rep to go to after leaving the queerbait-y one behind.

Delicious in Dungeon is special and unique; that's why I genuinely love it. It is that love that makes me want it to do better.

When I see that Shuro is allowed to openly express romantic love for Falin, but Marcille/Falin is relegated to mere implication, it makes me really sad. It may not be a romance manga, but there ARE straight couples, and hetero desire IS on display - which makes the lack of open queerness all the more noticeable.

So when people say "just go watch something else" in response to my genuine sadness and irritation that a beloved story is excluding people like me..... Are you telling me there's a nearly identical queer show - with a similarly active fandom - all about found family learning to cook beautiful foods in a dungeon? Is my favorite-guy-ever Senshi going to be there? Is there actually a place for me to go to??

OR is there only one Delicious in Dungeon, and that's what makes it great?

I think actually folks who respond this way just want me to leave, and they don't really care where I go, so long as their favorite thing doesn't have to stand up to criticism.

Because I don't want lesbian media elsewhere. I want it here, with my friend Marcille. Here, where the seeds of queer romance were purposely planted to hook my attention. What's so wrong with being disappointed if those seeds never grow to bear fruit??

We can like good art and still demand it does better. And we can validate people who are sad it isn't doing better without getting defensive. Critical analysis is healthy and important. It's how good and bad stories are fully understood, and it's how better stories get made.

And while I will try to enjoy the plentiful delicious crumbs I am being served (since it is more than most shows give me), just because I CAN squish a bunch of crumbs together into the approximate shape of a muffin, that doesn't mean I've been served a meal.

More on this topic because I love a good analogy

My original post about queerbaiting in Dungeon Meshi (that inspired this one with the replies I got from it)

[mainalias]

thinking about compiling screenshots of golden/silver age batman exclusively calling dick his ward to combat the allegations that it was “initially a father-child relationship”

[randomnameless]

Do you think Edelgard perceives herself as a victim? I’ve been thinking and I can’t decide myself, on one hand she clearly hates the idea of people being victims or helpless, and constantly reframes the victims of the war as “necessary sacrifices” instead of, y’know, tragic causalities of a war she started. She plays up her sad backstory to try to get Byleth to join with her in WC, but then she does all these things to concentrate as much power as possible on herself. On the other (other) hand, she pushes the culpability of the war on everyone except herself, and has trouble taking accountability. She’s obsessed with controlling everything but she doesn’t want to be blamed for the problems she’s created. What do you think?

Oh!

(sorry for replying one literal month later lol)

I find Supreme Leader hard to write because of this, but in a way, I believe that yes, she does.

However, for all the flak Faerghus gets for "ToXiC mAsCuLiNiTy" and "Chivalry BaD", there's something very toxic with the way some Adrestian victims (often women... blame the writers I guess?) deal with their abuse.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on Doro because I already typed a lot about her, but while she still sees herself as a victim from what she endured and suffered in her childhood, she adopted the toxic mindset of "this suffering is a thing of the past and I grew from that/beyond that to become the person I am now" - which we can also see in Manu who suffered from, roughly, the same traumas.

Petra also follows this pattern, being a hostage and treated like shit, but she grow "beyond" her status of a victim to become the strong person she projects and believes she is - it's only out of House that she realises more accutely her status within the Empire, the reality of her situation and, in Houses, refuses vassalage to Adrestia to make her country independent without having to "ask the Emperor".

It's the same pattern : "I was a victim" but "I became strong" so "I am not a victim anymore, this is something of the past".

Applied to Supreme Leader...

Well, trying to ignore the Agarthans and her dad's own infuence on her character (which is kind of hard, since the games try their hardest to make Agarthans responsible for everything BaD and we're not clear on how much they had an influence on her), I think Supreme Leader believes she was a "victim" of abuse.

But - through further abuse and surviving said abuse - she became strong* enough to "not be a victim anymore".

Which is why her line of "if the weak remain weak it's their fault" feels like it echoes part of her mindset : she was a victim but became strong enough, maybe by hardening her own feelings to become "strong", so she is not the same helpless "victim" she once was.

If she managed to do that, then everyone can do the same.

As for the "necessary sacrifices", since early 2019 someone theorised that "the people" she pretends the fight for as seen as some general "concept", much like the "greater good". So if some people are sacrificed, it's for her ideals - the goal and aim of her newfound strength - , and it piles on her drive, she must realise them otherwise those people would have died (and she would have suffered) for nothing.

However, despite acknowledging her past self as a victim, and because she's now "strong", she's not above using her past trauma (but actually, still present! Remember the rat scene?) to reach her goals, because, at her core, Supreme Leader is soemone who is very determined. Maybe it's her only drive to grow beyond the trauma, or her own illusions, or a mix of everything, but AM made it clear, Supreme Leader is not above, well, using herself if it means seeing her goals come to fruition : unlike Lobotogard from AG, AM!Supreme Leader willingly transforms in Hegemongard.

This is the cost she's willing to pay, so while the memes about Lord Farqaad were on spot, I still think that Supreme Leader is ultimately willing to sacrifice** herself for her goal (but only when there's no other way to ensure her future will come to fruition, and in a way, I guess she thought she would survive the Hegemon transformation, jury's out on what she meant to do in AM's finale, but imo, she still tried, even beaten and battered as she was, to claim Dimi's head).

Ultimately I think everything's a bit muddled by the fact that, as @fantasyinvader pointed out, Supreme Leader is a liar and knows the importance of maintening good PR.

She lies and manipulates the truth to reach her goals (which again, is a red flag when CF claims to want to restore the "distorted history" of Fodlan!) and for all the flak I give them, the devs managed to scrap enough material to give us a peek in Adrestia's mindset (or at least its top nobles), they're not people who self reflect, they are salty because they aren't ruling the world anymore, and they feel like they are better than the rest of Fodlan.

Put everything in the mixer, and you indeed have Supreme Leader (but also her court, especially Ferdie in SB who dares to say, as he is invading and trouncing people who don't really like and accept the idea of being invaded, that the fear those people feel are only in their mind, or something like that? Like, dude, you're rolling over their people and country, of course they'll fear and hate you!) giving her weird rhetoric lines (why are people opposing me if they are going to die?), victim blaming (something Treehouse swallowed like honey, if their lolcalisation is anything to go by, remember, it's Rhea's fault for not offering her head on a platter that is the reason why the War continues in CF!) and so on.

IDK if the devs wanted to bank that much on the Dany parallel with her "if I look back i am lost", but again, I don't know if her drive to make a "better Fodlan" is motivated by her trauma, Adrestian revanchism, Ionius telling her dumb things or Agarthans agarthaning, but her goal and vision are everything to Supreme Leader.

So she will do anythign to see them realised, even if it means sacrificing her people, starting a war, tweaking "the truth" or using her own trauma to motivate and recruit powerful people who might assist her with her goals.

To reply to your question, IMO she sees herself as someone who had once been a victim, but won't let that stop her from reaching her goals, even if it means creating thousands of "hers" in the process, because, in her mind, reaching her goal is more important than anything else.

*I know, she refutes Dimitri's claim that she is "strong" or laughs at it, but imo, it was more in the sense of "I was weak and became strong" so everyone can "become" strong.

**I don't think she wanted to throw away her life, but more something in the lines of "putting my life on the line" or sacrificing her precious (and to see how precious it is, just play CF lol) humanity.

[contagious-watermelon]

it's kind of like insanely isolating that literally every aspec or "ace & aro" space I've found has been in actuality, solely for aces. perhaps arospec aces or aroaces who entirely prioritize their asexuality could also find company there, but even as an aromantic person who is also asexual, they're really not intended for me. so I can only imagine how isolating it must be if you're aromantic and allosexual

[royalberryriku]

As the US election closes in and the final states take to the polls, I want to remind people to turn out and protest.

Yep, protest. Strike, disrupt, be out there on the street regardless of who you voted for or who wins. I expect to see you all out there demanding; access to abortion nation wide, protections against discrimination, free universal healthcare, a free Palestine, anti war, prison abolition, to increase the minimum wage, and for a US free of the electoral college and that counts votes as votes.

Yes, you can say "you should vote for Harris" and do so as much as you like, but do not forget the power you have through your own everyday actions away from the polls and that of protesting. Do not use the excuse that your right to vote means it's somehow more foundational or important than the right to protest. You have the ability to create direct action and that is so so important, please don't just expect a rich representative to stick to their promises every time you vote; you have power too, never forget that.

This system will not change until we, the people, make it. There is NO representative that can ever change the system that allowed them in, and likewise; this system will never allow a candidate that would stop it from continuing and/or ensuring its designated purpose of oppression and subjugation. Resist, regardless of the results.

Long live the resistance.

[cementcornfield]

the way i know it's taking everything in him not to say some ridiculous comment to the press rn 😭

[rouge-fauna]

I think you’re talking about these posts [here & here], I don’t know if there have been others.

I'm not gonna say what I did was right, you are correct I should probably just not respond to asks getting me to talk about other people. I will say for these two posts those people had already blocked me I’m pretty sure, so it’s kinda hard to talk directly to them in that case. And I was not doing so anonymously and had not blocked them so I wasn’t hiding what I was saying. I did not follow them, I am not part of the innitor community, and not that that makes it right but I do think it is kinda different. Though you make a good point, perhaps we should stop this pattern of responding to asks about other blogs and such.

Still, the biggest thing to me I realized, back in elementary school when I first dealt with this, was that honestly all the time we talk about people behind their back. Talking about people when they aren’t always in the room is kinda just inevitable and part of socializing, however I think the important part is how you are talking about other people. It’s when you are insulting them, talking negatively about them to people they know, spreading false information and so on that it becomes not okay. Hopefully that makes sense.

In these cases I merely focused on the lore. I didn’t insult them or talk shit about them, as a person, as a blog or say their takes were stupid or they are stupid or speculate about their trauma or mental history. I just talked about reasons why I disagreed, or saw things differently and why we might see things differently. They were also not the only ones I saw to say similar things so I think in my mind I was making more of a general discussion, not trying to target them specifically. I didn’t post beyond that about them. But you are right, regardless it was probably not the right way to go about things.

But just to be clear, if I am a hypocrite it is not my intention. I haven’t vague blogged anyone or meant to vague reblog anyone. I think this week is pretty much the first time I’ve ever been not naming, passive aggressively talking about blogs, and even then I’m not trying to insult them, trying to cancel them. I’m just expressing that before you go off about how I’m stupid and unable to have a discussion about it, the very least you could’ve done was give me an opportunity to try.

[sskk-manifesto]

!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[blackswallowtailbutterfly]

Still haven't messaged my mom back. And I don't think I'm going to.

[lock-my-feelings-in-a-jar]

russ ballard on leaving argent:

(1974)

"Before I told the lads, I was pacing the floor all bloody night, which didn't exactly help health-wise."

"The hardest part about leaving was telling Robert Henrit, our drummer, 'cause we've always been in bands together over the past 12 or 13 years but it was just something I felt I had to do if I was going to do my own thing."

"Even at the time of Hold Your Head Up I wanted to do an album and play all the instruments and I thought hell, I don't want to reach the age of 35 and still be waiting to do something on my own. To produce my own things will give me the satisfaction of knowing that it is down to me, knowing that if anyone was going to take the rap, it would be me, whereas in a band, you can always spread the blame or credit to the rest of the boys."

"It bugged me a little bit because although Rod's a great organist, the solos particularly on my songs went on for too long in my opinion and it got me down. I thought some of the instrumentals on the album went on too long but that's the way Rod feels and you can imagine how these little differences become bigger and bigger year after year until you think, hell, I've got to do something about it."

"You can always change a situation that you are in. So many people sit around and complain and do nothing about it, whether it's in marriage or, in my case, music. But now I've changed my situation and I've always been a great believer in this method."

"I never realised this, but I was talking to Colin the other day about organ solos and he told me that he used to ask Rod in the Zombies' days if he could walk off-stage during the organ solos. Rod apparently couldn't understand why Colin was like this but I can see his point now."

"It's frustrating 'cause I'd like to do more piano and have a bash on the drums but I'm limited and it is frustrating just standing there watching."

"I reckon Argent are one of the best around at the moment and there's still room for improvement, but I think I've got more to offer on my own. We're a very close band and that's why we've lasted so long. Rod has said that we pull in different directions at times and it's perfectly true. I think the group will be better off without me 'cause he can do his thing and he won't have my influence and they'll have more direction."

"I wanna get a drummer, bass player and guitarist, preferably some good young talent who are enthusiastic. It's going to be very hard 'cause I've been in bands since I was 12 and Argent is the first band I've experienced who are totally into music. You'd always get one who was only after the birds and others who were in it for how much money they could get, so I want three guys who are into music and not into the trappings."

"I like to hear a few bum notes on an album as long as the performance is good. I find that Argent are too perfect at times, making each note too good and it doesn't sound real."

[r0semultiverse]

Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake finale spoilers without context

[theinfinitedivides]

Seok Jin 🤝🏼 me losing our sh*t after that absolutely nervewracking Five Pieces game

[coquelicoq]

I just saw the post on the alt codes you memorized and got so excited bc you are the first other person I heard of who also memorized alt codes! For me, it’s bc I started learning Old Babylonian and there is no keyboard with all the diacritics I needed to transcribe them, so I decided it would be the easiest to make myself an additional vocabulary deck to learn the alt codes (that I needed to create my Babylonian vocabulary deck). How have you memorized your alt codes?

omg that is awesome. i have so many questions for you. what are the babylonian alt codes??? or did you add them yourself? (can you add new alt codes? seems like you should be able to, since it's possible to add keyboard shortcuts, and alt codes are really just a type of keyboard shortcut.) i can see that cuneiform signs are in unicode but i can't find any alt code lists that include them. or are you transliterating babylonian into the latin alphabet with diacritics?

another question did you memorize codes for every single one because holy shit there's like hundreds of cuneiform signs according to wikipedia???? that's wild. i can see why you would need flash cards! me i only know probably fewer than 20 total and i just learned them over the course of several years as they became necessary. it's very hard to write a french sentence without é è à and ç, so i'm sure i learned those first, plus ù which is in one very common word that means something totally different if you leave off the accent (où/ou), then probably i had to learn ê â ô and î. but actually you can get pretty far avoiding the other accented letters in french, so i might have been in college before i learned the rest of them lol. somewhere in there i learned the spanish accented letters, but those are mostly right next to each other and there aren't very many of them, so that was easy. i never learned the capitalized accented letters because it's acceptable in french to leave accents off in uppercase (except the cédille, which i know is somewhere in the 120s so i can get there eventually if necessary). initially i look up the number but then over time it gets encoded into muscle memory as i keep using the letter organically in sentences.

most importantly though: how is the old babylonian is it fun it sounds fun

[caguaydreams]

Hm... never trust how you feel about your life past 9pm or however that goes and stuff, but sometimes I do be pondering what I do on the regular and it gets to me, the silliest things