#RAMBLE

[lazylittledragon]

a brief documentation of the last hour of my life

[doomdoomofdoom]

Listen, the stock market is a fictional concept we all agreed to play along with. So are pronouns.

If someone stops adhering to the latter, why would i trust them to stick with the former

[atomicapplebees]

Such a common bad faith argument about trans men vs trans women is to equivocate it to White vs Black. In reality, trans men's position here is more like being mixed race (Black and White in this analogy).

A mixed race person may benefit from colorism while their darker skinned relatives will not. That doesn't make them White. Being lighter skinned is a privilege, but it is not White privilege.

A mixed race person will face different kinds of dehumanization. A White person won't typically look at a fully Black person and ask them "what they are." White privilege comes without racist microaggressions.

We also cannot flatten a very diverse group into one box. The straw trans man that gets compared to White people is fully transitioned and perfectly passing. This is like using "mixed race" as a catch-all to mean people who can pass as White. Most mixed race people cannot pass as White and there are even some who appear fully Black (dare we even mention folks who are not mixed with White at all?). Even a White-passing individual will face an erasure of their full identity; they are only White insofar as no one knows their family history. That is not White privilege.

Transandrophobes want to flatten every type of man into the oppressive group of Man™ even though that's predicated on being cis. They say that's "just transphobia, not misogyny", as though gendered oppression isn't about comparing everyone against cis men. From what I understand of transmisogyny, part of it is viewing trans women as a "failed men." By having been assigned female, trans men never live up to "true" (cis) manhood.

Saying trans men deserve no visibility is not like saying a White person should be excluded from a DEI program. It's like saying mixed race people should not be part of DEI programs because colorism exists. Colorism does not cancel out their need for support as a racial minority. Saying they need support should not imply that fully Black people do not need support, unless we're viewing this as a zero sum game where racism for darker skinned people can't exist unless we judge it against the privileges of the lighter skinned. It's a ridiculous notion when both of them are being judged by Whiteness and found wanting.

Much like we can call out colorism without accusing every mixed race person of benefiting (when many don't because again, this is a broad group of many differing individuals) and perpetuating it (even when they're just, like, existing), I should think we could call out misogyny without treating trans men that way.

But what does any of this matter, to people who only care about the black and white.

[outer-andromeda]

HIYA ALL. Hope you're doing well !

I apologize for my sudden inactivity on here, truth to be told I've been sort of braindead ever since my school project's deadline passed :'))) plus I've got stuff I wanna work on to share on here regarding Gabby and the gang... Let's just... say it might take a while to make... oop.

I'll be closing up my ask box for a little while, atleast until I've answered most of the questions I already have because GEEZUS.

You guys are insane /aff /pos

So yeah. It's a little overwhelming, so that'll take a little while to get done with as well.

IN OTHER NEWS : I'll be streaming Saturday around 10 pm GMT / 4pm EST ! And this time around, I WILL finish up Chapter 2 of Poppy Playtime... even with how terrified I am of what the last half of the game has in store...

So yeah, that's pretty much all !! Thank you all for your support lately, it's still absolutely crazy to me that you guys seem to like my art and my silly goober with the toy gang. Sincerely honored.

Here, take this silly art of the goober in question as an apology

[five-rivers]

Sorry for not answering my asks lately, I've been getting an identical anon donation ask every couple of hours for a while and I just don't want to look at it.

For anyone who might be tempted to send me donation asks or get mad at me for doubting the honesty of strangers on the internet: I do donate. I donate to Doctors Without Borders and Gaza Soup Kitchen, to name the relevant ones. I don't donate to individuals that I don't know. I have never had any luck donating to a gofundme. There is always a problem.

[kirimisosoup]

aaa i’m so happy with how my desk setup turned out

best part of moving to my own apartment again is placing the clutter

it’s a little small/messy but it’s mine ! >:3

bonus miku pic

[lazylittledragon]

Kit feeling safe enough with his dad to tell him right away that he broke Dorian's bird feeder and 2. Astarion kissing him on the head as soon as he shows up has me WEEPING. He might have questionable morals lol but he loves that boy and it shows

HE REALLY DOES that's his baby even if he taught him how to use a knife a bit early

[doomdoomofdoom]

There's also no guarantee everything on archive.org remains active and accessible forever.

They are a US based organization (which isn't great at the moment) and subject to occasional copyright claims. And despite all their security measures, sometimes shit just happens.

That a major social media platform that's been around for two decades going down without proper archiving would represent a greater loss of human culture than any library that's ever burned is undeniably true, but it's also a very funny observation to make about Tumblr in particular.

[sldlovescartoons]

I like to think that Caleb tends to send Yeza cool potion or potential potion ingredients just at random sometimes. Since he reached level 20 he spends a lot of time fiddling with potion making, enchanting, other time consuming, complex magic stuff, between teaching and research trips. He’ll go on a research trip into some crazy rainforest with Essek, and comes out with magic tidbits as well as weird plants and fluids and he send Yeza the extras to experiment with to see if he gets different results than him. He and Yeza have extensive conversations about Potion Making and Veth. Sometimes they get along better than they do with Veth.

[kue-rangi]

Medical commission ( 0/4 )

Its for my grandma’s medical bill 🙏

Im so sorry!

If interested please dm me thankyou!

[n0tamused]

I'm asking this everywhere so I'm doing it here too bc I need copium or whatever 💔

Spoilers for Amphoreus (Better safe than sorry)

But since they're all dead or doomed to die on their Coreflame journey, how do you think the Amphoreus story line will end?

Like I don't mean just "Phainon will be the last one standing", since imo, while that is possible, but what happens after that? I have doubts Hoyo would leave it on just that. What comes after that? I've seen some people say that, with the addition of Trailblazer as a new variable in this looping system, that there's gonna be some "semi-good ending". Aka TB will essentially rewrite the history/reset the loop into a better one. Question mark.

Some are also saying Phainon is Nanook, which as far as I know it's just not true. He may be some emanator of destruction, mAYBE, but even that is far fetched for me, as things stand atm anyway.

Anyway, that's been a short ramble, I need copium, I can't see Mydei die and stay dead chat, feed me hopes and dreams idk. (Tell me what you think)

[doomdoomofdoom]

Ah fuck now I have to go on a tangent

Okay so on top of joking about Paw Patrol being a fascist state, we do also do academic analysis of the thing. Unfortunately, both children's media and copaganda are fairly new fields of study. While we don't have a lot of specifics in either field, we do know that entertainment influences our perceptions of reality, and we know that kids are particularly susceptible to this.

That's generally why we should keep a close eye on what values our kids' media represents and how well they're executed. Even a well-meaning piece of fiction could perpetuate harmful narratives (which I'm sure anyone on this hellsite has discussed at length).

And when it comes to those narratives, Paw Patrol,,, sucks. Like, it really shits the bed. (At this point we need to briefly acknowledge that Paw Patrol's primary function is to sell merch; they didn't set out to make a morally valuable children's show. Ideally it could do both, but it was never meant to.)

It does hit the surface level beats of "be nice to others" and "work as a team" and "believe in yourself" etc. As a bonus, it brings up conservation and recycling, which is nice.

Aaaaand that's where it ends. If you even marginally scrape past the surface, it gets shockingly regressive. Like, there are 7 central cast members (1 kid, 6 dogs) and only one of them is female. That's an abysmal split in gender representation for a show aimed at all audiences. Despite a roughly 1:1 split in real life children, media often opts for a 2:1 ratio of male and female characters. Paw Patrol's discrepancy is three times as high. (For the sake of comparison, that's the same ratio as in My Little Pony, which specifically targets young girls and still worse than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which is targeted at young boys.) It goes without saying that The Girl wears all pink and has an implied love interest in the main character.

But let's talk actual societal structure and lessons, because that's where it gets weird.

As mentioned above, there are no prisons in Paw Patrol. That's because generally, the town where it takes place has no crime. There are no criminals in Adventure Bay. But there is Police: Our privatized Cop Dog and central character has by far the most screen time and missions. Which is odd, when most of these missions do not require police presence. Lots of them are rescue missions, either due to accidents or natural catastrophes, and could in fact be solved through airlifting or bulldozing alone. Yet cop dog is there all the time. His main contributions to the group are leadership and high-tech gear. I shit you not, this dog has a surveillance drone. Drawing a parallel to the increased presence and militarization of police forces is really not that far-fetched.

It's important to acknowledge here that a lot of media for young children carries pro-police messaging, and I'm hesitant to call it copaganda by default, despite its explicit purpose to foster trust in the police force. The reason I hesitate is that it falls in the general category of "trustworthy adult" representation, which helps young kids navigate their world. Lessons like "If you have [problem], [authority figure] will help you" are pretty par for the course in entertainment for young kids. Cop Dog stands out because he's not a trusted adult, he's a main character. He's always there and seemingly holds authority over the other dogs, despite being technically equal.

There are some episodes that include actual crimes, which would justify police presence. This may sound contradictory to earlier when I said there were no criminals in Adventure Bay (good job paying attention, btw) but there's a very simple explanation: Crime in Paw Patrol is committed by people (and/or animals) from the outside. Yeah, that's about as obvious of a xenophobic narrative as it gets. This does go hand-in-hand with the ways we generally portray "bad people" in kids media as inherently different to the "good guys", like they have some sort of intrinsic quality (eg lack of self control) that makes them do the evil bad thing. They're evil because they're evil. When it comes to punishment, Paw Patrol (in lack of prisons) usually relies on either karmic retribution and/or labor. If your crime was to break something, you have to fix it, etc. I personally find that the least problematic part of the overall messaging, but it does obviously combine with the above "All wrongdoers are outsiders" thing.

Quickfire round: Elected Officials are all portrayed as incompetent. In fairness, there are only two of them, but one of them is the recurring antagonist mayor of the neighboring town and the sympathetic mayor of Adventure Town itself is often frantic and helpless; after all she needs to contract a private organization to resolve pretty much any problem in her town. She also happens to be a black woman, so make of that what you will.

Even though the government doesn't provide seemingly any services to its town, it remains a 'neoliberal utopia' thanks to the entirely privatized services of our main characters. That's technically a massive systemic failure as Adventure Bay would collapse as soon as the dogs take their business elsewhere, but I do not think flawed public infrastructure is what's gonna harm your toddlers mind. You can make a point about how it fosters trust in private entities vs public ones, but I think that requires more critical thinking than the average Paw Patrol viewer supplies.

There were a couple of more or less infamous publications scrutinizing Paw Patrol in early 2020 (you may recall the whole "The woke left wants to cancel Paw Patrol" nonsense), but in general even the strongly worded academic papers that compare Cop Dogs spy gear to the Iraq war aren't taking it too seriously.

As an example, I leave you with “Whenever there’s trouble, just yelp for help”: Crime, conservation, and corporatization in Paw Patrol by Liam Kennedy.

My journey thru my kid’s Paw Patrol phase via posts from my Bluesky account.

[exerciseandfitnessfornoobslikeme]

I tackled cycling class, strength class, grocery shopping, meal prepping, and dishes this morning. 😅 It's less than a month until the half marathon, and I'm trying to take more exercise classes. My feet are still giving me some trouble, but I think I may have figured out part of the issue. I thought I had more to say, but I guess I don't. Classes went great today! I'm struggling a little bit with eating healthy though....

[severus-snaps]

something i've been thinking about lately (partly because of that hunger games post and partly because of certain Takes about snape and SWM and also a post i saw about snape and the roberts family at the quidditch world cup that i cannot find for the life of me now) is like

what precisely does someone - a child - have to do to deserve being attacked from behind, rendered entirely defenceless, choked, immobilised, and stripped and paraded in front of a large crowd?

under the cut because it's a rather long and bitter-sounding ramble whoops

let's assume that the worst of what is sometimes said of snape is true

let's assume snape joined in with mulciber and avery in actively tormenting muggleborns, all the time, and he thought muggles and muggleborns were scum - and then he became a death eater (even though nobody - not lily, not the adult marauders, provides any evidence at all for this; in snape's memory he's heard about whatever was attempted just the same as lily had; sirius as an adult doesn't even seriously consider snape to be a death eater, despite the crowd he hung around with nearly all turning into DEs - presumably because snape kept himself to himself whilst with them rather than actively taking part in anything. and he did become a death eater, i'll grant you - not his finest choice - but nobody but lily even suspected that he would, so that's no reason. and don't even start on his teaching etiquette, because clearly sirius never thought he'd become a teacher either, it was forced on snape by circumstance, and in any case it happened a good deal of time after the bullying, so cannot be used as a 'reason' unless james/sirius could see the future).

let's assume snape was a possessive, toxic friend, and didn't want to let lily be friends with anyone else, let her talk to the marauders, maybe that he would've even kept tabs on her once they'd stopped being friends (even though she had other friends she was defending him to, and there's no evidence he 'stalked' her, the 'let' could've been something more along the lines of "i won't let you keep spreading their lies" or "i won't let you put yourself into danger hanging around with them", because we just don't know).

let's even assume snape was doing some dodgy dark magic all the time (even though there's not one mention, beyond the gash on james' cheek in swm and lupin's "it was snape's specialty" which was likely defensive because snape was the marauders' favourite toy, that snape was going around cutting people up for fun, or he'd have been expelled, and half the staff - including hagrid, mcgonagall, and slughorn - would never have been surprised that he killed dumbledore)

if one less of those things were true - would he still have deserved it? something more mild, maybe? something more severe?

would it matter what he did to the muggleborns? as in, would it be justified if snape had just tripped them in the halls, as opposed to if he'd cursed them? would that determine whether he deserved it?

and what if the muggleborns were also 'bad people'? if they were bullies? if they held less-than-enlightened views? this was the 70s, baby - I'm sure we all know how racist, sexist, and homophobic some of our boomer parents and grandparents can be. so then what? would the muggleborns have deserved it, if they were sexist? or homphobic? or racist? if they were just a shit person, and slipped a hand up someone's skirt to cop a feel without permission? if they spread nasty lies?

if snape had attacked a 'bad' person, would that mean he was actually 'good', like the marauders supposedly are?

if someone is a bad friend, does that mean they deserved it? do your friends deserve it if they make mistakes? if they haven't grown yet from their shitty childhood? if they have bad thoughts?

and what sort of dark magic, precisely, would be the tipping point at which snape deserved it? if he used it on other people - or if he used it at all? if it was harmful? if it could be reversed? if it was gross?

like the other post i can't find said, what if at the quidditch world cup, the roberts family had been 'bad people'? would that mean they deserved it, too? does that make the death eaters social justice warriors now?

i want to know the exact lines certain marauders defenders would draw, the exact point at which a fifteen-year-old unequivocally deserves being attacked from behind, rendered entirely defenceless, choked, immobilised, and stripped and paraded in front of a crowd. what would it take for them, personally, to defend that in real life? what sort of person deserves it? if you're a teenager, would you do it to your peers? and how can you be sure that the goalposts won't be moved? "if that type of person deserves it, then surely so do these others, and them, and them..." - until it includes people who don't 'deserve it'?

...or, is the act of attacking your peer from behind, rendering your victim entirely defenceless, choking them, immobilising them, and stripping and parading them in front of a large crowd just a morally bad thing to do, full stop? are all of these 'bad' things about snape made up - or at the very least, greatly exaggerated from the evidence in the text - just to make it seem like the marauders were good, actually, and that snape got what he deserved? i think i know the answer)

i feel like there's also more that could be said - and has been said better by others - about how this "snape deserved to be bullied/deserved swm" attitude reflects the sort of rise in (internet and irl) purity culture, cancel culture, how that prevents people from growing or learning or developing new ideas, and also JKR's framing of 'good' and 'bad' people and how that translates to 'good' and 'bad' actions - and probably more things besides

but i was just having a vent, really

[outer-andromeda]

SMALL UPDATE CONCERNING TOMORROW'S STREAM :

I won't be streaming alone ! My lovely partner Mads (aka @maddcelestial on here) will be joining in the fun as well ! :DD

(Fair warning : I WILL be a simp. Be prepared.)

Bonus reminder that I'll be streaming around 10pm GMT / 4pm EST !