#abuse begets abuse

[isekyaaa]

It's sad that What It Means To Be You is so hated by people because they hate the ML and only look at the injustices that to the FL faced, when it's actually a very complex story of abuse, racism, misogyny, neglect, and the effects of them. This story is meant to be a one of redemption. It is not meant to hand the ML to you on a silver platter. He's supposed to be horribly flawed. But he has complex reasons for it. Not that it's meant to excuse his actions or abuse, but to explain it. It stands there at the beginning to show how much he's grown by the end.

[bigskydreaming]

Imagine if you were a gay or bi man who tried a certain firefighter show because of all the attention it was getting for one of its mains having a later in life bi awakening.....and between seasons you ventured into its fandom in search of material to tide you over til the next one. And you're greeted by a deluge of posts and fics that are just cheerfully homophobic towards one half of the newly out bi character's canon relationship on the basis of 'well he's not the RIGHT gay guy' and pushing the idea that actually its fine to cheat on him because Reasons and he's sexually predacious based on......behind the scenes implications people have divined like they're reading fucking tea leaves.

But don't get it twisted....this fandom, like all fandoms, really cares about representation!

Sorry not sorry, but we really need to kill this idea that fandoms are welcoming and inviting and inherently progressive when they're frequently insular and reductive as fuck. Every single fandom I've been in has had major trends of people doubling down on their own headcanons and fanon interpretations of the characters and willfully enacting trends aimed at running off people who like the 'wrong' characters (usually characters marginalized along one or multiple axes), like the characters in the 'wrong ways' or other bullshit.

Scott is a Bad Friend fics overtaking Teen Wolf fandom was not incidental, it was a FEATURE of the fandom, because the vast majority of that fandom did not want to share its space with anyone who had the nerve to like its main character. Survivors complaining about or criticizing the prevalance of rape fics in a certain fandom has in my experience always led to a reactionary UPTICK in those fics, with gems like 'this character can, will, must be raped' in the tags making it crystal clear that some of these fics exist because how fucking DARE anyone try and push forth a narrative not agreed upon by Fandom Main.

I could cite examples for so many other fandoms, with the commonalities always being that vast majorities in these fandoms are explicitly reacting defensively to being asked to be more mindful of fandom trends revolving around or exacerbating racism, homophobia, transphobia, rape or abuse apologia, ableism, etc....

With the most prolific fucking rallying cry across countless fandoms being "No the fuck we will NOT be doing that," because lolololol.....

Fandom is an inherently progressive space, didn't you hear?

[franzkafkagf]

the fact that aegon (presumably) went to the same brothel for his first time he took young aemond to later… something about how abuse begets abuse and how we perpetuate these cycles without realizing the harm we‘re causing and the abuse we suffered ourselves…..

[flawseer]

Warm

Wings of Fire occupies this strange meta-textually dissonant niche. There are a lot of disturbing and even grotesque things happening in it, like people's eyeballs getting dissolved by acid, characters compelled by mind control to ritualistically disembowel themselves, families getting torn apart by war, several attempted genocides, and an alarming amount of parental neglect and abuse.

But then, due to its nature as a book series aimed at children, the story finds itself unable to dwell on these horrific events that would realistically do irreparable damage to anyone experiencing or witnessing them. The narrative just kind of stands at the side and tries to look away, waiting until it's over. Characters remain oddly chipper and unbothered by sights that would ruin an average person.

This is not an accusation. I understand why it is that way. Sutherland desired to write a story about dragons for kids, which is a valid and admirable endeavor. In such a framework it would likely be inappropriate to do a deep dive into the psychological depths of a cast of traumatized characters.

But as a fan of her work, I find it an enticing thought exercise to look at the events of the story and examine them in a way the original text doesn't. To dwell on these experiences and the emotions they would beget. You'll find that Pyrrhia is filled with millions of little stories that haven't been fully told. A mother, displaced in time through torturous imprisonment, finds everyone she knew and loved is dead, safe for a son whose trauma has warped him into a twisted, murderous monstrosity. A nephew loses his beloved aunt to illness and his abusive family likely will not allow him to attend her funeral or gain any closure. And many other tales that aren't really relevant to this silly comic page, but still equally as fascinating.

[burningvelvet]

being a romantic era poet: a quick how-to guide

walk around in nature contemplating Things. start hiking, swimming, sailing, rowing, shooting, riding, etc. for inspiration

be obsessed with the french revolution and related enlightenment-era figures like rousseau, voltaire, mary wollstonecraft, and madame de staël. be more disappointed by napoleon bonaparte than you are by your own father. 

speaking of fathers, your parents and most of your other relatives are all either dying or dead or emotionally abusive. if you have any siblings (full, half, step, or adopted) who DIDN'T die tragically already, then you may choose to be close to them. you also may end up being much TOO close to them. various circumstances may also ban you from seeing them. 

be at least slightly touched by madness and/or some other severe illness(es) including but not limited to: consumption, horrors, syphilis, deformities, lameness, terrors, piles, boils, pox, allergies, coughing, sleep abnormalities, gonorrhea, etc. — for which you must take frequent bed rest and copious amounts of Laudanum (opium derivation)

consider foregoing meat and adopting a vegetable diet instead to purify the spirits. you may also abstain from alcohol for the same reasons. alternatively, you may attempt the veggie diet, end up rejecting it, and becoming a rampant alcoholic instead. in romanticism there is no healthy medium between abstinence and excess.

reject, or at least heavily criticize, christianity. refuse to get married in a church and consider becoming a fervent champion of atheism. alternatively, you may embrace catholicism, but only on an aesthetic basis. eastern religions and minority religions are also acceptable, only because they piss off the christians. 

if you’re not a self-hating member of the aristocracy and instead have to work for a living, do something that allows you to benefit society, be creative, and/or contemplate life. viable options include, but are not limited to: apothecarist, doctor, teacher, preacher, lawyer, farmer, printmaker, publisher, editor. there is also the possibility of earning a few coins from your art. if you were cursed to be born a She, no worries. we believe in equality. you may choose from these occupations: wife, nanny, housekeeper, spinster, amanuensis (copy writer for a man), lady’s companion, divorced wife, singer/actress/escort, widow, regular escort, tutor, or housewife. 

speaking of sexist institutions, try rejecting marriage entirely. Declare your eternal devotion to your lover by having sex with them on your mother’s grave instead.

if you do get married — elope, and only let it be for necessary financial reasons, or to try and save a teenage girl from her controlling family, or out of true love with someone you view as your intellectual equal, or because your life is so racked with scandals and debt that you can only clear your name by matrimony to a wealthy religious woman as your last resort before fleeing the country.

After marriage, quickly assert your belief in the powers of free love and bisexuality by taking extramarital lovers and suggesting your spouse follow suit. If they cannot keep up with your intellectual escapades then consider leaving them. Later on, propose a platonic friendship with them following the separation, or beg them for reconciliation.

If your marriage is happy, try moving in with another bohemian couple to shake things up. Alternatively, you may die before the wedding for dramatic effect.

If you beget children (whether in or out of marriage, makes no matter), do society a favor by choosing to raise them with your beliefs. Consider adopting orphan children, or even non-orphan children. If their parents are poor enough they probably won’t mind. Try kidnapp— I mean adopting — children off the side of the road if you can. 

DIE but do it creatively. ideally young. ideas: prophecy your own death, lead an army into war and then die right before your first battle and on your deathbed curse everyone and demand to see a witch, write a will leaving money to your mistresses or some random young man you have an unrequited romantic obsession with, carry a copy of your dead friend's poetry and read it right before you drown so that your washed up corpse can only be identified by his book in your pocket, die while staring at your lover's shriveled up heart that you keep wrapped up in a copy of his own poetry and then be buried with it, die of the poet's illness (consumption) while your artist friend draws you and then be buried with your lover's writing, get mysteriously poisoned (by yourself) after a series of scandals and accidents and then have your family announce that you were killed by god, die from romanticizing poverty or receiving bad reviews from literary critics, die from walking or horseback riding in the cold and the rain while poeticizing, etc.

[banefort]

Tell you what I actually could get behind the change if they decided to go the full mile and reroute *all* of Nettles’ storyline to Rhaena. ​

She has a viscious dragon but what’s the use the enemy is already in her house. He’s in her blood.

S2 dropping Nettles and inserting Rhaena into her storyline is actually insane. Nettles being one of (if not) the most important characters of the dance, showcasing the intersection between race, class and material privilege, undermining targaryen racial supremacy by claiming a dragon.. all that out the window ! this show is unreal man

[oliviawebsite]

acting like sex is some kind of sacred and rare ritual is cringe but furthermore its the exact kind of mindset that begets abuse and the use of sex as a show of power rather than one of love and deep affection

[dapper-lil-arts]

I'm invested now, why don't you like fluttercord?

Okay, here we go then, why don't I like one of the most famous and prolific ships on the fandom?

First of all, there's a major power imbalance at play, you know, chaos god that can reshape mind and reality with a snap of his fingers matched with a regular pegasus girl, and an drastic age difference (which could be discarded cause Fluttershy's an adult, just worth a mention.)

But the primary issue comes from the canon itself, especially with how they came together. Fluttershy was just shafted for her full responsibility to be to make sure Discord gets better; Something that already was a strange choice of Celestia (like girl why are you throwing a random mortal you dont know that well onto a godlike chaos being even you struggled with? It reeks of writers already having come up a solution and not wanting to build a foundation to lead there.) and canon proves again and again that if discord doesnt have fluttershy around, he will make bad choices and hurt people, something that gets proven again and again all the way to gen fucking five. That's textbook codependency and it makes it even more weird by the incredible, terrifying power imbalance. Discord isnt just an alicorn, hes the only one of his kind because of how powerful he is, and his powers are insanely dangerous to have on a relationship with a mortal. Like, you saw how he was when he was jealous of Fluttershy for having a diffrent friend. Can you imagine what he'd do if somebody flirted with her? (even if they weren't dating, if Fluttershy said she got a girlfriend or whatever, Discord would straight up throw rainbow dash on a labyrinth of infinite agony)

I think my primary issues come from the canon because he is always abusing his powers, never using them wisely, and always causing trouble (WHICH WAS THE ORIGINAL POINT OF EVEN BRINGING HIM BACK TOO)-- And the ratio of slaps on the wrist lower dramatically by the end (the final conflict is entirely his fault purely because he thought having a conflict would be cool)-- All of which just makes him untrustworthy to be on a relationship with a mortal hes obssesed with. He'd be like a yandere boyfriend exept a chaos god, which, yikes!

Srsly the fact that cozy glow the toddler gets sent to hell and turned to stone instead of the chaos god that sponsored her is just plain WEIRD. It's a writers problem.

There's a reasons why Alicorns have to ascend, earn their power-- And why they tend to abuse it less. Being born with power just begets a diffrent attitude towards it; Which is smth that the writers do interpret quite well, with how Discord acts. he has no empathy, he doesnt need to care, because reality is his to shape, and then boom, teaching someone to be better just became a lot harder. Good character! Very funny, very well designed and voiced-- But goddamn he's weirdly written as a ""Good"" guy.

Now lets finally turn to the woman in the relationship. because Fluttershy is a normal mortal gal with a normal mortal life with her own needs, which generally shouldn't have to involve her entire life or routine on making sure a godlike manbaby does the right thing with his powers. it doesn't feel like the kind of thing that has any consent to it, after all, discord doesnt need to ask for anything, he can just do. (THANKS FOR THE IDEA CELESTIA) It just reeks of a kind of misoginy-ass writing where the woman has to bend over backwards for the man.

Its like the shy pegasus was just. Set up for LIFE on this strange relationship. Its kind of creepy.

And Fluttershy just deserves better than him in my opinion; And she can do better, too. Also it doesnt help that you know-- 99% other ship with fluttershy dont have any of these issues lmao. Even canon Rainbow Dash would treat her better, so i dont bother with Fluttercord ever!

[gothhabiba]

An Appeal to Our Food and Hospitality Community to Take Action Now for Gaza

Dear Industry Friends, 

We have come together as chefs, farmers, media makers, business owners, beverage professionals, and food workers from across our industry to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to U.S. support for Israel’s war crimes. We must break the silence around the genocide in Gaza. As of today, more than 7,000 Palestinians have been massacred in less than three weeks. Nearly half of them are children. Over 8,000 bombs have been dropped on Gaza, killing a Palestinian every 5 minutes. After hospitals run out of fuel,  the death toll will rise exponentially. Every second we choose to stay silent, without demanding that our government stop arming Israel with billions of our tax dollars, we allow another massacre to take place. 

We can prevent this violence by refusing to allow our government to fund and arm Israel’s decades-long military occupation. History has shown us that peace and safety for all in the region cannot come from the violent subjugation of Palestinians. We grieve the loss of all innocent life. However, violence begets violence, and we know this latest eruption did not occur in a vacuum. For 75 years, Palestinians have been killed, imprisoned, tortured, and robbed of their land and homes. In Gaza, 2.2 million people — more than half of whom are children — have been living under an inhumane siege for almost 17 years, and are cut off from the world, without access to water, food, or basic amenities needed to live a dignified and healthy life. For those living in Gaza, the last decade has been a slow genocide. 

As cultural stewards in this country, we have the power to counter the dehumanization of Palestinians. Israel has long weaponized food, erasing Palestinian people while claiming their cuisine. Here in the U.S., the appropriation of Palestinian foods as “Israeli” has led to more than Israelis profiting off of Palestinian culture; it is an erasure that has had real implications for Palestinians. It allows us to negate their cultural currency, and turn our attention away with more ease when we see Palestinian death. 

We must join our voices with Palestinians pleading for justice and protection right now. The situation is dire, and no amount of media coverage has discouraged Israel from its policy of ethnic cleansing and land theft as the U.S. government continues to protect Israel from global pressure for a ceasefire. We have been called upon by Palestinian civil society to join their struggle for freedom by joining the global movement for divestment and cultural boycott of Israel until it ends its horrific human rights abuses.

We ask our fellow food and beverage community to take a stand against genocide and ethnic cleansing and commit to three actions with us:

Call your congressional representatives to demand an immediate ceasefire and an end to unconditional U.S. funding of Israel. 

Divest from products, events, and trips that promote Israel until it dismantles its apartheid system and military occupation. 

Invest in events and projects that promote justice for Palestinians, whether connecting to a local organization to learn how to support, or amplify Palestinian voices and support them to share their food and culture on their own terms.

We recognize that this may be difficult given the frightening pressure put on us to remain silent. McCarthyist tactics cannot marginalize and divide us – we know we are not alone as the whole world is rising up against injustice and genocide. Thousands of artists worldwide have publicly endorsed BDS and the cultural boycott of Israel, including musicians, DJs, filmmakers and actors, visual artists, Black artists, Latin American artists, and countless others across all fields and continents. This is in spite of efforts made by Israeli government-linked lobby groups to suppress this solidarity. 

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” —Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

We are all in this industry to affirm life and dignity for everyone. As those who care for others, it is our moral imperative to actively contribute to the care that Palestinians need right now as they struggle to survive and get free. Food and beverage colleagues – it’s time for our community to extend our hospitality and join the movement for a Free Palestine.

Add your name – sign the pledge

[problemnyatic]

When you stop believing that all your political enemies should suffer and die violently, it gets way less scary to be alive and make mistakes btw. When the world you seek to create is one that punishes wrongdoing with violence, you believe that you yourself deserve violence for wrongdoing, and that keeps you scared and agitated, you're more likely to make hasty calls and get defensive when you fuck up.

That, in turn, makes you less safe to approach when you make a mistake that hurts someone. Being confronted with your own errors is analogous to being attacked, as in your mind, wrongdoing begets punishment. This leaves you with two options: either try to minimize your error, which I don't think I need to explain why that's a problem, or skip to the punishment to get it over quickly.

And the latter is kind of fucked up. Why on earth would a friend or, god forbid, a stranger want to see you hurt yourself for them? Or be accused of wanting to hurt you? If someone's telling you you hurt them, it's because they believe you care enough to not want to hurt people. They believe that by telling you, you'll change, and fewer people will be hurt for it. To bring punishment into the equation would be to fly against the very reason they trusted you enough to inform you in the first place.

So please, try to really sink your teeth into abolitionism and restorative justice. It's possible to correct harm and abusive behavior without violence, and especially without fucking killing anyone. You don't need to be scared. You need only let yourself change.

[isekyaaa]

What It Means to be You is one of those manhwa that are honestly excellent and very well written. The characters are believable and compelling, the redemption arc is so satisfying, the angst is soooo good. The journey the whole story puts you through imparts so many emotions. And yet....

And yet...............

As good as it is, reading it is literally one of the most torturous things I have ever put myself through and I'd rather die than read it again.

[txttletale]

kinda fucked up to justify ai water consumption by saying “see?? coca cola uses lots of water too :3 so its ok” as if that’s not a major reason to boycott coca cola products?? because of the devastating effects it’s having on countries like mexico?? it’s not a “drop in the bucket” because they’re not using salt water or even unfiltered water—they’re using DRINKING water. i understand it’s not the technology that’s causing these systemic abuses, but it’s part of the problem.

im sorry if this is coming across as hostile, but it was just wild to see a problem that directly impacts my country be so casually dismissed when it has devastating impacts on people whose voices are never heard. spreading misinformation to beget complacency towards corporate abuse is beyond dangerous.

and furthermore, i said i hate waffles

[probablyasocialecologist]

In theory, in a meritocracy, hard work leads to elevated socioeconomic status and stability, and such status and stability is available to all talented hard workers. In recent years, much ink has been spilled over the realization that meritocrats aren’t much different from the aristocrats of the past. I, for instance, have always worked hard. I also have White, married, college-educated, financially stable parents. I have both inherited and achieved their same level of education, economic stability, and social standing. In a meritocracy, social advantages can look like the reward of hard work, even if they really are inherited. Books like William Deresiewicz’s Excellent Sheep (2014) and Daniel Markovits’s The Meritocracy Trap (2019) have identified both the ways in which the meritocracy excludes deserving workers and how its values fail to satisfy those within it. The philosopher and Harvard professor Michael Sandel’s recent contribution to the discussion, The Tyranny of Merit (2020), goes even further in its examination of the injustice of these values and the impossibility of perfecting a meritocratic system of reward. “The problem with meritocracy is not only that the practice falls short of the ideal,” Sandel writes, but that “it is doubtful that even a perfect meritocracy would be satisfying, either morally or politically.” These books argue that the system is functionally closed. It cuts off most (not quite all, keeping the myth of mobility alive) of the people who are not already within its demographic fold. Meritocrats are indeed talented hard workers, by and large. And yet what gets them – us – to the top is not hard work. It is birth. Wealth begets wealth. Power, power. Ballet class begets ballet class. Advanced Placement courses beget Advanced Placement courses and SAT prep sessions and summer enrichment and service opportunities.

[...]

A second problem is that the meritocrats aren’t happy. The relentless pursuit of achievement and advantage engenders anxiety, which often manifests itself in working harder. We keep working to maintain our status and to ensure our children have what they are supposed to have – piano lessons and tutoring and international travel – only to face despair. Suicide, substance abuse, clinical anxiety, and depression all occur at high levels among the meritocrats. These signals of deep dissatisfaction send a warning that this life of relentless hard work, entertainment, affluence, busyness, restlessness, and achievement does not accomplish much that matters. In Sandel’s view, meritocracies are bound to fail not because they can never live up to their own ideals, but because they rest upon a foundational assumption that GDP defines the common good, that economic productiveness is the highest value for society. Sandel traces the history of meritocratic ideals through Protestantism and western philosophical traditions. In his lengthy discussion of Friedrich Hayek’s capitalist philosophy, he comes to a concise conclusion: “[Hayek] does not consider the possibility that the value of a person’s contribution to society could be something other than his or her market value.” Reducing humans to their earning potential is dehumanizing, and it fails to consider non-monetary contributions that individuals make within their families and communities.

[demeterdefence]

been thinking a lot about how lore olympus really just could not fathom the concept of found family, it absolutely HAD to have a traditional blood-related family for the ending which is just ... so rachel honestly lmao we really should have known.

there were a lot of instances in the series where it almost seemed like rachel went out of her way to paint biological families as inherently dysfunctional, or at least not all they're cracked up to be - aphrodite is disdained by ares' family, zeus and hera are constantly arguing / zeus is constantly unfaithful, rhea and ouranos are an abusive marriage that begets three wildly traumatized sons, etc and so forth. that's not to say all families were bad or flawed (whether that was a choice or rachel spent so little time on them it just didn't come up) but the end result is that there were a lot of broken biological families in the series.

i think rachel wanted to demonstrate that you do not have to stick with an abusive family if they hurt you - that blood is not the defining aspect of family and bonds, that you can make your own and build your own family. i think rachel thought she was writing that, with how hades hates his dad and how persephone distances herself from demeter (who did nothing wrong but anyways.) the problem is, she absolutely does not follow through with it. at the end of the day, rachel is going to prioritize blood bonds and biological children over found family, because to her, that's the only family that counts.

like, hades raised thanatos from childhood and abuses the fuck out of him, completely traumatizes the god of death to the point thanatos is genuinely afraid of hades. thanatos is mocked, derided, scorned, and scoffed at by hades, constantly. thanatos did not have a CHOICE in who raised him, his mother abandoned him into hades' care. and hades does not for a single moment let up on how resentful he is about it. when thanatos finally admits that he only had hades as a parental figure (or ANY kind of family, tbh), hades turns it into how that affects him, how it makes him feel. after, we get two jokes about how hades is thanatos' dad now, and the last scene we ever get of thanatos is that "sometimes hades talks to him." thanatos never shows up in hades' daydreams of a family, he never shows up as a person who is important to hades. for centuries, hades was in charge of raising thanatos, not once does he ever appear in any of hades' dreams or wants regarding family. not biological family, so fuck off.

more to the point, the narrative makes it explicit to us that hades can't have children - it's brought up three times specifically, to drive the point home that hades wants children, he's definitely tried to have children, and it just won't happen. melinoe was seen as a way around that, and i won't lie, compared to rachel's usual hamfisted approaches, it wasn't the worst idea to have. but by the end of the series, it's shown that oh, nope, hades can have children (only with persephone though) and also they look like him, because biological bonds are everything. you know who doesn't count? dionysus, who was kidnapped from his dad and raised as a pet project for persephone. the kid helps her conquer winter or whatever the fuck that plot point was, but because he's not their biological child, hades and persephone ditch him after the final battle and throw him his old mom back to get rid of him.

biological children aren't a bad thing and it's not a bad thing to want or have them, but it's so fucking telling that hades and persephone have multiple people in their lives who should be considered family, and are picked up and discarded summarily once their use is over. dionysus was their proxy kid, and we literally do not see hades interact with him except maybe twice. thanatos gets absolutely trounced and i'll never not be angry about that. i don't even know what's going on with persephone's half brother, but he shows up for a single panel in the finale and then disappears.

wouldn't it have been so powerful if hades, an abuse victim, decided to be the father thanatos deserved? wouldn't it have been more in line with the supposed message of the story if hades and persephone opened their homes to people who once felt like them, abandoned and unwanted? at the very least, couldn't they have shown love to the people in their lives who sacrificed so much and put up with so much from them? what exactly is the measure of a family in lore olympus? we can't control who births us, but we can control the hurt we ourselves give, and the love we share, and that would have been an infinitely better ending for the two most selfish characters to show their growth. another disappointing pin in an already massively disappointing ending.

[cosmicjoke]

What people seem to constantly misunderstand about what Akimi Yoshida said regarding how Ash couldn't have just gotten away scot-free from his life of crime is that it ISN'T Yoshida saying Ash "deserved" to die. Yoshida frames Ash as a hero from beginning to end. He's shown to be a genuinely good and kind person, that goodness remarked upon again and again by multiple characters, and his death is seen as a tragedy. That should be enough to convince people that Yoshida didn't hate Ash or think he deserved to die. The fact she frames him in such a positive light shows she understands that Ash is a good person that was forced into doing terrible things for his own survival and the survival of others. So this insistence that she thought he deserved to die because she said in some fan-translated interview that he couldn't just walk away from his life of crime, or that there's a price to be paid for murder, is ridiculous. It relies on nothing but assumption about the character of the author.

It's also a problem in fandom, in general, where interviews with authors, in which they're often giving on the spot and half-baked answers to random questions without any prepreation, are given greater credence in interpreting the author's intent than the actual, published work itself. How about letting the work stand on its own and interpret it as is? I've seen so much hate lobbed at Yoshida for supposedly hating Ash or thinking he deserved to die, when the actual story itself does nothing but portray Ash as deeply sympathetic and tragic. Again, no one could read "Banana Fish" with any level of reading comprehension and come away with anything but the impression that Ash is the hero and a good person who's life and death was deeply unfair and unjust. That fact alone should override any answer Yoshida gave in any interview, especially when it's obvious how much Yoshida hates giving interviews and very obviously, intentionally gives half-assed answers that she doesn't put much thought into. It's clear from the work itself that Yoshida has a great love for Ash as a person and as a character. She based his design off of River Phoenix, her favorite actor, she shares her birthday with him, and again, the way she frames Ash and his actions is as that of a hero, from beginning to end. I don't know, maybe it's because she sees Ash as a hero herself?

Ash dying only demonstrates the point further about how child abuse ruined Ash's life. He was led into a life of crime because of the abuse he suffered, and the fact it was that life of crime that led to his eventual death, with it basically being a gang dispute that got him in the end, only further drives home the point of how devastating and ruinous child abuse is. Ash wasn't a criminal because he was a bad person, he was a criminal because the abuse he suffered drove him to become one, and then, eventually, that life of crime he'd been forced to lead came back on him in the form of Lao stabbing him, which is what I think Yoshida actually means when she says Ash couldn't just walk away from the life of crime he'd lived. That inability to walk away further demonstrates the tragedy of the abuse Ash suffered, because it shows how it forced him into doing things which eventually came back to haunt him, things which he couldn't "escape". Lao stabbing Ash was in consequence to his being a gang leader, and his being a gang leader was a result of the abuse he suffered. The two things are interconnected with one another. It's not about Ash deserving to die because of the lives he'd taken, it's about how the life Ash was forced to live as a result of his abuse eventually led to his death. That's where the whole notion of "you live by the sword, you die by the sword" comes from. It's not necessarily a moral condemnation of the person committing acts of violence, but an acknowledgement that violence begets violence. That violence is cyclical. But the fact of Ash's death as a result of his life of crime only further demonstrates the true devastation wrought by the abuse of children, and that's the ultimate point of "Banana Fish's" ending. It's meant to force us to face, through the tragedy of Ash's death, the tragedy of his life in turn.

[middle-earth-mythopoeia]

Yes, there are gay characters in Tolkien’s books

There seems to be an entrenched view among Tolkien fans that Tolkien did not write any gay characters, and that by interpreting any of his characters as gay you are going against what he would have wanted. Homophobes obviously believe this very strongly, and have always been hostile towards queer fans and queer interpretations of Tolkien’s works. Many members of the LGBTQ community also believe that they’re contradicting canon when they interpret Tolkien’s characters as gay—the only difference is they don’t mind doing so.

But is it so against canon to interpret any of Tolkien’s characters as gay? The assumption that Tolkien did not write gay characters hinges on his Catholicism, but I’m going to explain why this is flimsy reasoning.

First, it should be noted that Tolkien didn’t leave any writings expressing his views on homosexuality, so there is no evidence one way or another. But it seems relevant that Tolkien was good friends with W.H. Auden and corresponded with him over multiple decades. They first met when Auden listened to one of Tolkien’s lectures at Oxford and was inspired to learn Anglo-Saxon. Auden loved Tolkien’s poetry and prose and defended LOTR from critics at a time when it was seen as an unserious work in an unserious genre. Did Tolkien know Auden was gay? We don’t know for sure. But there’s at least a chance that he did: the secret of Auden’s homosexuality is one he “loosely kept”, according to an article in the Guardian.

So, Tolkien was friends with a gay man whom he may or may not have known was gay. But are there gay characters in Tolkien’s books? Unfortunately for the homophobes, even if you believe that Tolkien opposed homosexuality on principle, that still doesn’t mean no one in Middle-earth is gay. Actually, no one in Middle-earth is Catholic. I mean that literally, in the sense that Catholicism does not exist in the time period Tolkien wrote about, but I also mean it in the sense that Tolkien’s characters need not adhere to the tenets of his religion, even if it’s not named. Why would they?

It shouldn’t be controversial or surprising to point out that writers can, and often do, write characters that live very different lives from their own. Needless to say, Tolkien didn’t condone the actions of the antagonists of his work, but what about the protagonists? Are we to believe that all of them act in an unfailingly Catholic way at all times? In Laws and Customs of the Eldar, it is strongly implied that (especially in their younger years) Elves do have sex for pleasure and not just to beget children, something that is discouraged by Catholicism. That’s just one example.

(Please note that I’m not arguing that Tolkien’s Catholicism had no influence on his writings, because he explicitly said that it did. I’m saying that Tolkien’s characters themselves are not Catholic and do not necessarily behave like Catholics. So even if you think that all Catholics believe homosexuality is wrong, it has no bearing on Tolkien’s stories.)

Another line of reasoning goes that homosexuality is too taboo for Tolkien—but I have to wonder if people who believe this have read his books at all. The Silmarillion is full of taboo subjects. Túrin and Niënor marry, not knowing they are brother and sister; they find out the truth, and that she is pregnant, and they both commit suicide. Eöl’s relationship with Aredhel is one that, even if it didn’t start out as controlling and abusive—although I suspect it did—it clearly ended up that way, and depending on your interpretation of the text, he may have raped her. Celegorm attempts to force Lúthien to marry him, which would also involve rape, and there is a passage that implies that Morgoth also intends to rape Lúthien. Neither incest, rape or abuse are too taboo for Tolkien—neither are suicide, torture or mass murder, as the rest of the Silmarillion shows.

I don’t want anyone to take this in bad faith: I’m not saying that being gay is comparable to incest, rape or abuse, and I’m part of the LGBTQ community myself. What I am saying is that Tolkien clearly did not shy away from certain subjects, including sexual taboos, simply because they’re taboo. If you’re going to argue that none of Tolkien’s characters are queer because it wasn’t accepted at the time, that’s very unconvincing given the other subject matter in his books.

There is another reason why I think there are gay characters in Middle-earth, and it has to do with Tolkien’s inspirations. It’s well understood by Tolkien fans that you can see echoes of other mythologies in Tolkien’s works. But which ones? When Lúthien brings Beren back from the Halls of Mandos, there are obvious parallels with the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice—though the genders are reversed, and Lúthien succeeds where Orpheus did not. There are parallels between Túrin and Kullervo. There are numerous examples of this kind of thing throughout the Silmarillion and LOTR. Even the name Middle-earth clearly has its roots in the Norse name Midgard. There are some influences that Tolkien explicitly acknowledged, like the Kalevala and the Völuspá, and some that Tolkien scholars have only theorized about. While there are some scholarly articles on Tolkien and the Aeneid, one thing I have never seen anyone discuss is the parallel between Beleg’s death and the story of Nisus and Euryalus.

In the Aeneid, Nisus and Euryalus are a pair of friends and lovers who are fighting for Aeneas in Latium. Nisus, the older of the two men, is said to be a skilled javelin-thrower and archer. Nisus proposes a night raid on an enemy camp, and Euryalus insists on going with him. During the raid they kill many men in their sleep, collecting some of their armor as loot, as was customary. But when they leave the camp, the glint of light on a helmet taken by Euryalus is seen by a group of enemy horsemen, who capture and kill him before Nisus can stop them. Nisus is distraught and kills many of them in retaliation, ultimately dying beside his lover’s body. (In some versions, it’s a stolen belt, not a helm—but the constant motif is the glint of light that reveals Euryalus to the enemy.)

There are so many similarities with Beleg and Túrin that it cannot be a coincidence. Beleg and Túrin also fight side by side, first on the marches of Doriath and later when Túrin is an outlaw. They are very loyal to each other, and clearly love each other. Like Nisus, Beleg is known to be a great archer. Meanwhile, although it does not feature in Beleg’s death scene, Túrin is associated with a particularly significant helm. There are differences too: Túrin’s captivity is the reason for Beleg’s raid on the Orc-camp, whereas Euryalus is captured after the raid; both Nisus and Euryalus are slain one after the other, whereas only Beleg dies in the raid on the Orc-camp. But there is still the overarching parallel of the night raid, in which the enemy guards are killed silently in their sleep; the raid’s connection with an attempted rescue; the chance moment that leads to the tragic death; the imagery of the flash of light; and the distraught reaction of Nisus and Túrin when they see that Euryalus and Beleg are dead. Tolkien read the Aeneid as a student and so would have been familiar with its contents.

There is also the fact that in some versions of the story Túrin kisses Beleg on the mouth in this scene. Although kissing someone on the mouth has not always been a romantic gesture in all cultures and time periods, the clear parallels to the scene in the Aeneid lead me to think that it is in this case. Whether you see the relationship between Túrin and Beleg as romantic is up to you—all that I’m trying to do is show that it’s a legitimate interpretation.

Ultimately, like I wrote here, I don’t think you need permission from anyone in order to interpret Tolkien’s stories the way you want to. If you want to interpret one of his characters as gay, you don’t need to cite obscure plotlines from the Aeneid to justify it. But I do take issue with the idea—which is so pervasive in the fandom—that Tolkien’s stories must not have gay, or bisexual, or trans people in them, and that any interpretations to that effect are against canon. At the end of the day, Middle-earth is supposed to be our world, and guess what? Queer people exist.