#QUESTIONING THE STATUS QUO

[dukeofthomas]

I find the fact that the confrontation at the end of UTRH is often summarized as Jason asking Bruce to kill the Joker for him fascinating.

Because that's not what happened.

Jason holds a gun up to Joker's head, gives Bruce another, and tells him that if Bruce doesn't do something (shoot Jason), he will kill Joker.

Jason doesn't give the gun to Bruce so that he would shoot Joker. He isn't expecting Bruce to pull the trigger on the clown. He's asking Bruce to do nothing. To be inactive. Because that will still be a choice, and despite having done nothing, everybody clearly agrees that Bruce would still, at least in part, be responsible for Joker's death.

...And to me, this moment is a kind of- microcosm, of the rest of Jason's point. Because after being captured and carted off to Arkham, the villain will escape again, and will kill more people. The only way to truly prevent that from happening would be to kill them; Bruce refuses to do so, and I respect his right to choose such a thing for himself, but it is still a choice, and if we agree that Bruce's inaction during the confrontation would leave him at least partly responsible for the Joker's death, then we must also agree that his inaction in permanently preventing the Rogues from killing more people means he is also, partly, responsible for all of those deaths.

[superkitten-poison]

vox and velvette are dangerous in part because of how desperatedly they want to conform to certain social norms and valentino is dangerous im part because of how little he cares to

[itsabouttimex2]

man I NEED to hear what you think about Bakugo

Alright I dropped MHA (because of Mineta, Bakugo, and Aizawa, mostly), so I’m going with maybe half the series in mind, but I’ll try to compose my thoughts on this pretty quickly, going of my own watching and some general pop-culture osmosis.

Katsuki Bakugo’s very existence in the story of My Hero Academia breaks an extremely important core message that the show tries to send- “You should intervene in situations when wrongdoing is occuring, even if the victim is “good” (eg: stoic, strong, handling it well, Shouto being extremely composed and powerful, Bakugo being attacked by the slime monster, Eri holding herself together in spite of everything she’s gone through) or “bad” (eg: unattractive, poor, manic, Shigaraki being turned up by the old lady, Toga being forced suppress herself), because even trying and failing or just reaching will at least make an impact or offer a light in that dark tunnel (All Might selecting Izuku after he saves Bakugo, Shouto accepting the fire half of his Quirk after Deku reaches out to him)-

In other words, “Meddling when you don't need to is the essence of being a hero!”

So when MHA shows me this whole cast of children who are supposed to be “the next generation of heroes” and expect me to root for them, I can’t help but note that none of them ever try and stop the violent bully in their midst. They might disapprove or refuse to engage, but there’s never a moment that any of these “heroes-to-be” say “Hmm. Maybe if someone is threatening the life of my kindly classmate- especially in a form as immediate as unleashing literal explosions at him and needed to be physically restrained, I should intervene.”

They, and almost all of the faculty and staff, ignore this legitimately unhinged and violent child running amok, are not “true heroes” by the messaging and morals of the narrative itself, because they sit on their asses and allow a bully (and Mineta, the rat fuck) to do as he pleases- when a reaction does occur, it’s more along the lines of scolding/laughing at a toddler for cursing/throwing a fit than “holy shit, this kid is a violent threat to at least one of our other students, we need to intervene now”.

I don’t know, maybe this is addressed later in the series, maybe Horikoshi pulls some crazy shit to justify it, that could be what happens by the end.

I just couldn’t watch to that point, if it does exist.

TLDR: Katsuki Bakugo you will never be Cristopher Skyline

[infiniteorangethethird]

less "this story has no romance in it" and "this story has aspec characters in it", more "this story is about aromantic people and aromanticism" please and thank you

[0alix0]

boy do i love how the only reason bioware replaced Lucerni with Shadow Dragons was because they wanted middle class citizens being the driving force of the changes for Tevinter.....

.......... and STILL ended up with them being run by a former member of magisterium, a rich altus diplomat and a fucking BLACK DIVINE

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

Fanfics in which Marcy and Sasha idealize Anne as this angelic being filled with kindness and light are so sweet but also so funny. It's always abt how they feel like they don't deserve her because of all the harm they caused her but also. Lmao you can tell they weren't around Wartwood in S1. Anne was such a little piece of shit back then.

[liquidstar]

maybe im overthinking, but do you ever think abt how in episode 1, utena justifies wearing the boys uniform by saying its not against the rules? while this was clearly a "gotcha" moment against that stuffy teacher, i feel like it also shows how shes still functioning within the parameters of the ohtori system. like, yeah, shes being rebellious, but its a form of rebellion that isnt actually revolutionary- shes still following the rules propagating the structure built around the patriarchal prince, shes just doing it in the "opposite" way of whats expected, but shes not actually fighting it. though, of course, even this much deviance still tries to get corrected... its still not against the rules. i feel like from the beginning we're told aspiring to princedom isn't a noble goal, and that utena is still part of the system as long as she pursues it

[pratchettquotes]

Ponder rolled his eyes. These things always sounded fine when he worked them out in his head. He'd read some of the old books, and sit and think for ages, and a little theory would put itself together in his head in a row of little shiny blocks, and then when he let it out it'd run straight into the Faculty and one of them, one of them, would always ask some bloody stupid question which he couldn't quite answer at the moment. How could you ever make any progress against minds like that? If some god somewhere had said, "Let there be light," they'd be the ones to say things like, "Why? The darkness has always been good enough for us."

Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

[future-crab]

I love the line, "They sell presentable, young and so ingestible, sterile and collectible, safe, and I can't stand it," SO much. It really gets at the heart of what so much of Danger Days is trying to say imo. And I especially love the sort of visceral note in the phrase "young and so ingestible" - like obviously the image of art and artist as something to be consumed has been around for ages and it doesn't have to evoke anything so literal as the audience wanting to physically eat the band, but it certainly calls that to mind for me, and the idea that the music industry (and capitalism more broadly) exists to facilitate and encourage that desire is just... chef's kiss.

[maxdurden]

adaine's family relationships are something i can actually be so incredibly normal about too btw

[piermanwalter]

Big props to Fromsoft for realising that if the most authoritarian character in Elden Ring was an epic badass who fights for their beliefs, there would be legions of the most annoying people possible crowing about how based they are, so instead they made Goldmask an ascetic pacifist with no combat abilities who died from doing too much math and upon resurrection as a candidate for the next shaper of reality, does nothing except stand naked and silent, then did so much math he died again.

[ahalliance]

qsmp francophone cubitos and their dynamic drive me wild, they all know they’re mutually lying and obscuring the truth to one another, they all know they’re keeping each other at arm’s distance, they all know they’re not as open as they once were when it was just them and the aftermath of a plane crash, but the love is still there. the worry and the concern. they pry information out of one another in supposedly subtle ways that really just convey how much they still care about each other. what’s your stance on the federation. how’s your code arm doing. even if in the end you don’t turn to me, please call out to someone. maybe looking out for yourself is looking out for others as well. i don’t know you anymore but i will protect the unknown anyway

[realian]

incredible that Final Fantasy X of all things continues to be like the only modern story with an allegory for racism/religious oppression that is actually accurate.

[befuddled-calico-whump]

Riot Kings, page 154

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[fieryphrazes]

One of my coworkers got engaged (good for her!) but I looked around our meeting today (largely women) and realized that every single one of them was wearing basically the same diamond ring & got soooooo skeeved out… can’t even put my finger on why (heteronormativity? “Tiny collars” as an old friend used to call engagement rings?) but it left such a bad taste in my mouth 😬

[hazbinsponsoredbyvee]

Alr I'm back! Is the bachelor party still going?

Alastor!

Truth: Did you like the lapdance Vox gave you?

Dare: steal his hat and wear it for the rest of the game

—bird anon

"I mostly found it ridiculous."