#and no nuance men are just so annoying at all times | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

raven-at-the-writing-desk · 4 months ago

Text

octavinelle’s “happy endings”

***SPOILER WARNING: This post will go into detail about the dreams Azul, Jade, and Floyd experience in the book 7 part 10 update.***

OKAY, so there’s a debate in the TWST fandom about whether or not Azul and the twins consider each other “real” friends or just business partners. I’ve shared my own thoughts on this topic in the past (which you can read here!). After the most recent main story update, it’s now more clear to me than ever that they do treasure each other even if they don’t express that in traditional ways.

Let’s discuss them in order that they appear in book 7 part 10!! I know there’s some vagueness surrounding how much of the dream is Malleus actively controlling the scenarios (hence the limited and shallow scope of them) and how much the dreams actively pull from the innate desires of the dreamer, but for the sake of the argument let’s assume the latter is more influential in shaping and structure of the dreams.

First up, Floyd!

So Floyd is known as the “I do what I want when I feel like it” guy. He hates two main things: 1) being told what to do/having his freedom restrained and 2) being bored. To ensure that Floyd is happy, the dream consistently shifts to locations so he vanishes explore and experience new things.

What you might notice is that Azul and Jade aren’t around in Floyd’s dream. This doesn’t mean they don’t exist or that Floyd doesn’t know who they are though. When asked, Floyd replies that Azul is simply doing his own thing (focusing on his business ventures/schemes) and Jade is there supporting him, thus leaving Floyd to his own devices. The fact that Jade and Azul are still present in Floyd’s dream, just not in an immediate capacity, makes complete sense.

In the waking world, Floyd loves to stir up trouble with his brother and Azul. The thing is, Floyd also dislikes it when they tell him off, order him to do something he’s not in the mood for, or punish him for acting out. Yes, Jade for the most part enables Floyd to misbehave, and yes, Azul has largely learned by now that it’s best to sit back and let Floyd fuck off/finish throwing a tantrum rather than intervene. However, there are still times when they order Floyd around or get upset with him. For example, Azul scolds Floyd for damaging the vault where they keep the contracts in book 3 and for not selling the drinks he’s supposed to in book 5. We see numerous examples across vignettes as well: Jade forces Floyd to stand in line at a famous patisserie for Trey as penance for eating special fruits meant for a VIP client (Trey Labwear vignettes), Azul and Jade wring Floyd for his eel slime (Azul Ceremonial Robes vignettes), Azul orders Floyd to secure the rights to Sam’s Mystery Drink even though Floyd shows a clear disinterest in the task (Floyd Dorm Uniform vignettes), etc.

In spite of these grievances, Floyd doesn’t entirely despise Jade and Azul, nor would he be happier without them. They’re an important part of his life, hence why they still linger in the dream, just in the periphery where they can’t butt in with whatever Floyd wants to do. Jade and Azul aren’t present and compliant since that, too, would quickly bore Floyd. He loves those two goobers in part because they’re chaotic and unpredictable, not because they’re yes men to his every action. The dream might not be able to keep up with that demand; it only seems to operate in extremes rather than conjure enough nuance to keep Floyd stimulated and content. This is why all the places Floyd already visited bored him; he got showered with too many conveniences and eventually got fed up with it all.

If you need even more damning evidence, all previous dreams would manifest someone closely tied to the dreamer in an attempt to keep them in the dreamscape. Who does Floyd’s dream summon? AZUL AND JADE. If Floyd genuinely found them annoying or didn’t want them near, the surely the dream would spawn other people. BUT NO, it specifically spawned THOSE TWO in an effort to convince Floyd. It can be argued that they could very well be a source of hatred since Kalim and Neige showed up for Jamil and Vil respectively, but I genuinely think Floyd doesn’t feel that degree of negativity toward Jade and Azul; the kind of hatred that Jamil and Vil have for their respective counterparts has never been expressed by Floyd toward Jade or Azul.

Floyd reacts to dream!Jade and Azul in a manner that’s very different from the dreamers that came before him… with anger. And a LOT of anger too. He immediately clocks them as phonies and, he, fully waking, demands to know who the fakes are, because they certainly aren’t Jade and Azul. Floyd points out their faces and voices may resemble theirs, but they’re acting in a way that they never would (suggesting a “boring” way of living). That pisses him off to the point where he cuts the fakes down all by himself. Brutal violence aside, this tells us a lot about Floyd... as well as Malleus.

We see that Floyd has become lethargic and bored despite the dream's attempts to sate him, which just demonstrates that Malleus, whose magic has a hand in crafting these realities, has a shallow understanding of what makes people happy. (Edit: to be clear, Malleus having a “shallow understanding” of happiness is not a personal take; this is a direct statement made by Idia in-game and this is where I am pulling my phrasing from.) He thinks that removing all obstacles and challenge to what you want is what leads to a happy ending when, in truth, it clearly isn't the case for Floyd, who craves stimulation and change. While Malleus is motivated outright controlling the details of Floyd’s dream down to the wire, his autonomous magic has decided to get rid of any challenges Floyd may face in his pursuit of happiness. (I would continue about the Malleus portion, but since this post is about the Octatrio, I will instead direct you to this post, which shares many of my own thoughts ^^) I think that's why Floyd truly "woke" when he was faced with dream!Azul and Jade; a part of him recognizes how wrong it is for the two people he chose to spend his time with because they're so fun are now turning around and preaching complacency. It tells us just how well Floyd knows those two and values their... unique perspectives, shall we say?

Next, just Jade!

What's immediately fascinating about Jade's dream is that it's also underwater, despite Floyd and co. suspecting it would be on land/in the mountains. Floyd even changes from his merform to his human form prior to hopping to Jade's dream because he was under the impression that it would be on land. This ends up not being the case, although Malleus's magic does manifest the underwater equivalent of "mountains", which are volcanic vents at the bottom of the sea.

We see Jade happily exploring alongside a dream!Azul and dream!Floyd, who are both very different than the real ones. Dream!Azul has big, watery eyes and is much more of a coward and crybaby than the real Azul is. He also seems to be very dependent on Jade, who derives great joy from watching dream!Azul flail about while trying to attain his goals (in this case, access to a gold vein). This is in-character with what we already know about Jade; he amuses himself by watching others struggle--especially Azul, whom Jade frequently teases, such as tricking him to dance as a mummy in the first Halloween event and comparing Azul's greedy attitude to the positive traits of other dorm leaders. Jade also prefers to have control over the circumstances, so he likes it when people defer to his word or advice. So what better to hand him than an Azul that listens to his every word and also provides entertainment value in his tears?

As for dream!Floyd, he presents with a very goofy face and seems to lack his usual aggression and flippancy. Instead, he has a fixation on eating other sea life around him (crabs, shrimp, etc.) and happily goes along with Jade's mountain exploration. Like dream!Azul, dream!Floyd acts dependent on Jade to guide him and even acts cowardly in a fight. Now we can sort of get a glimpse of how Jade feels about Floyd too. Dream!Floyd's pliant and agreeable nature may come in part from the dream seeking to provide Jade with more free entertainment, but it could also be that Jade wants Floyd to share in his interests. But here Floyd is not gung-ho about mountains; instead, he acts very innocently, almost like a kid going along with whatever his parents decide to do for the day. It gives me the impression that Jade doesn't see Floyd as threatening but as someone cute and child-like. This idea is reinforced when, in an attempt to keep Jade dreaming, dream!Azul tells him that Floyd is cute and not some thug (like the real Floyd is). AND JADE 100% BUYS IT. He 100% believes that dresm!Floyd is the "true" one, that his Floyd and Azul would be useless without his support.

Idia makes an important comment at this point in book 7. He explains that Jade is having a hard time waking up because he believes in himself too strongly. That also means that Jade is distrustful of others; he is the only person he counts on. This reflected in how dream!Azul and dream!Floyd present. Both are heavily reliant on Jade to tell them what to do. In real life, too, Jade uses his competency to get into others' good graces (including the notoriously hard to please Vil; see his Dorm Uniform vignettes) so then he can reap the benefits that relationship offers. Jade is just that confident that he can succeed. Indeed, he often is the one coming close to tasting success when all others have failed. If we look back at Ghost Marriage, Jade was about to win over Eliza's heart before Floyd rudely interrupted and pointed out the flowers Jade was gifting were poisonous. Back to Idia's comment; because this is dream's Jade world, he's perhaps too invested in the dream that he has made, thus Jade is choosing to believe the dream that he conjured over the reality staring him in the face. It takes fistfighting with Floyd AND a jolt from Sebek's UM to properly shock some sense into Jade. He is otherwise too stuck in his own head to consider a truth that isn't one he has constructed for himself.

Still, I find it revealing that even though Jade is essentially stuck in his own headspace, dream!Floyd and dream!Azul are the only other people around. Floyd and Azul’s dreams feature way more NPCs, but Jade’s dream is pretty lonely. He could theoretically have several influential people to whisper in the ears of, but instead Jade’s desire is grounded… just being able to explore nature with his twin and Azul. They’re the ones he chooses to spend his time with. No one else. And Jade actively, fiercely defends this simple thing despite usually not being one to resort to violence right off the bat. The only major time in the main story where Jade does this is in book 2, when be noticed that he’s being tailed and does not appreciate the violations of his privacy. That’s exactly what this dream sequence is. It’s another violation of his privacy, and he detests that. You shouldn’t be here interrupting his happy, chill time with his friends business associates. It’s best for you to clear out.

I think it's also worthwhile to note that Floyd and Jade's waking sequences mirror one another. To quote myself from another post:

Something I find interesting is that the twins’ moments of waking mirror each other’s usual approaches to a task. Floyd usually foregoes a plan and prefers to use his fists to get the job done. However, he is slowly roused by reminiscing about his memories at NRC and the promise of being presented with a challenge. The final blow that shocks him awake is the presentation of a dream!Azul and dream!Jade who attempt to lure him deeper into the dream. Floyd doesn’t fall for it; in fact, he gets mad instead, and that fury, so biting and clear, snaps him awake. The opposite is true for Jade. He is someone who meticulously plans before acting, and would rather control the circumstances and use other roundabout methods before resorting to violence. But ironically, the master manipulator Jade is the one who falls for his own dream’s manipulations—all because he trusts himself above all else. He only wakes up because of a very strong physical force (ie Sebek’s UM) striking him. Prior to this, Jade was putting up a very good fight and the blows be was taking were not sufficient to wake fully him. So… Floyd, the brother who prefers brawns, woke up after reflecting and experiencing strong cognitive dissonance between his fake reality and bis true reality. Jade, the brother who prefers brains, woke up after being smacked the right amount. They woke up after experiencing an intense shock related to what is essentially the opposite of their preferred problem solving strategies.

And last but not least, Azul!

We’ve arrived at what I think is the juiciest part to dissect on the subject of the Octatrio’s friendship. To start off with, everyone suspects that Azul’s dream will be one in which he is a highly successful businessman with Mostro Lounge as a chain with even more locations stretching as far as the Coral Sea’s depths. That isn’t the case though! They quickly come to learn that Azul is the leader of Golden Trident, a reigning Coral Rush team. In this dream’s reality Azul was always popular and well-liked. Because he was never bullied, he never started up his shady business in middle school and thus never attracted the interest of the twins. Notably, Jade and Floyd still exist in the dream (as Azul remembers the Leeches from elementary school), but they never got close.

Before we get into the Octatrio’s dynamics, I want to say that the setup of this dream already tells us that a lot of Azul’s desire to become a successful business owner really stems from the longing to be accepted as he is. He uses his businesses and accumulation of contracts to reinforce and inform his self worth. Azul has formed a false belief and identity entering around the concept of success and likability equating to talent and material goods. This explains why he’s so fixated in his public image and being perceived as smart, confident, reliable, and trustworthy, and why he loses it so quickly when he’s denied his collection of golden contracts. Azul is insecure as heck about his shortcomings (athleticism being one of them) and the dream may be latching onto that, as well as his desire to be liked by his peers, to overcompensate.

A little thing I'd like to call attention to is that Jade refuses to divulge the private details of Azul's past in which he was bullied. This is significant because most other instances of the twins bringing up Azul's past usually results in them making fun of him for it and continuing to rag on him to the point where Azul becomes annoyed and tells them to quit it/reminds them that they swore to not talk about it. In those other instances though, the twins never tread that far; they'll at most comment about how different Azul looked or acted back then. They never went so far as to point out how badly he was bullied and here we see Jade respecting Azul's privacy by vocalizing that he refuses to release that information. And this JADE we're talking about, the one who has zero qualms with scoping out prospective new students for their personal info so Azul can later hold it against them (Jade Ceremonial Robes vignettes). Jade even blackmails older students to attain what he wants (Ortho Athletic Gear vignette). It says a lot that, when given the option to openly blab about what Azul experienced and have a laugh about it, Jade clams up.

sdjbaslidbasib OKAY I GOT SIDETRACKED, BACK TO AZUL'S DREAM. So he remembers the Leeches from elementary school, meaning that their existence was not entirely purged from his dream world. It's just a different timeline of events since he wasn't bullied in this reality. Azul is quite friendly to the twins and invites them to join his Coral Rush team at his mother's restaurant for a celebratory dinner. When we arrive at the restaurant, Azul and his team mates start to make fun of the land creatures for very similar things that he actually got bullied for in the waking world. (For example, being clumsy and uncoordinated in their swimming.) He's no longer the bullied, he is a bully. In a twisted way, Azul is getting validation of his own identity by looking down on others; this mirrors his behavior pre-OB in book 3, as he also mistreated his anemone'd peers back then. Tellingly, the only people he doesn't bully are... that's right, Jade and Floyd. Azul instead asks them to play Coral Rush with him. Again, this parallels what we saw in book 3: Azul is asking the twins to essentially "join" him in the midst of him abusing his power and lording over others. He still cares deeply about Jade and Floyd's approval specifically. Nowhere is this demonstrated so clearly as the method by which the twins finally get Azul to start questioning the construct of the dream. They start smashing up the restaurant but then grow bored and make as though they're going to casually leave. That triggers a memory from book 3 in which Azul is angrily shouting about how he'll always be alone. Alone. That's what Azul fears, being that lonely little octopus crying in his pot. That's why he's surrounded by adoring team members and fans in his dream. That's why he breaks down emotionally and OBs after the twins refuse to hand over their UMs to him in book 3. That's why he becomes distraught enough to shake the dream at the suggestion that Jade and Floyd, his two closest friends, are threatening to leave him. In book 4, Azul tries to be cool and play off this fear as the inevitable, that he's fully aware that the Leeches will discard him if he stops being entertaining to them, and that he's prepared for that when it happens. But... is that really the truth, given how Azul reacts in book 7? Everything leading up to this moment seems to imply Azul was just lying to himself, perhaps in an attempt to quell his own anxieties about the possibility. And given how Azul is shown to be calculated in cultivating a put-together public persona, I would not be shocked to learn that. It wouldn't make him seem strong or confident if he displayed weakness or fear over losing his right-hand men. I don't even know that he's purposefully telling a lie. It could very well be something Azul tells himself and believes in, but deep down he cannot truly know how emotional he would get if it ever happened.

As soon as Azul starts to wake, the mermobs of his Coral Rush team are the ones who come in and pull him deeper into the dream. Interesting to have just mobs doing this rather than a dream!Jade or dream!Floyd, given how important they seem to be to Azul. Maybe that's just how the surface level of the dream works? Like, it prioritizes lavishing Azul with general attention rather than the attention of two specific people since, in this dream's reality, Azul never bonded with Jade and Floyd (so those two wouldn't be as convincing?).

When Azul is being dragged into the darkness, Jade and Floyd don't go after him. Instead, they kinda just sit back and claim it's Azul's choice to dream more deeply so who are they to interfere? It takes some convincing from Ortho to convince the twins to pursue Azul into the next layer of the dream--but after the twins depart, Ortho wonders if Jade and Floyd being this cold is actually their way of showing trust. This sort of behavior is why I stress so often that we cannot take what the Octatrio do and say at face value all of the time. They have completely different ways of expressing that they care, and they don't always mean what they insist they mean. (KEEP THIS IN MIND BECAUSE IT COMES BACK INTO PLAY SOON.) In the second layer of Azul's dream, we revisit the events of book 3 had he been successful. He's setting that final class trip picture on fire and relishing in his total conquest of Night Raven College. Azul has ~500 golden contracts, the UMs of the other dorm leaders, and even has Crowley under his thumb--and this time, there's a dream!Jade and dream!Floyd to enjoy that victory with him. The rescue squad has to trick Azul into accidentally sanding his own contracts again, and it's that loss that finally breaks him. Again, we see how much of his own self-worth and value Azul places in that which he collects. It all ties back to that fear of not having anything of worth--not even allies to call his own--if he loses what he believes makes him desirable. At this point, Azul begins to sink into that final layer of his dream (the part where he confronts his OB self). This time, the twins lunge after him, calling out Azul's name and instructing him to grab onto them (+ Jade tells Floyd to help him pull). UM, HELLO????? The "take my hand" imagery, that symbol of trust and connection, from all the way at the start of the game is rearing its head here 😭 AND YOU KNOW WHAT'S EVEN CRAZIER???? The twins just... let go after that??? But not because they don't give a crap about Azul--no, it's because they care and believe that he can fend for himself, that he's no longer a weak person who cries and needs their support to stand on his own. Jade sends him off with a "good luck" and Floyd asks of Azul to not go to hell. Azul casually says the same right back to them before descending. And, just as the twins suspected, Azul is able to win against his inner demons and return to them, safe and sound. They were right about Azul, and Ortho was right about the Leeches. For as cold as Jade and Floyd seem to act, it's actually a front for how much they care.

In the segment where Azul faces his Phantom, he cites that the weight of everything he has taken from others has made it difficult to move. Taken literally, it of course could refer to the tentacles of his merform making it hard for him to swim. Metaphorically though? It can easily mean that he can't achieve personal growth if he's burdened by the weight of his sins (stolen talents, items, etc.). These things he stole may glitter, but they are not gold and he now realizes they aren't things he actually finds valuable. Azul wants to go out there and find things of "real value". I interpret this to mean intangible things that can't really have a price put to them, things that cannot be bought in stores... like friendship, the very thing he has with the twins but failed to call it that this entire time.

Everything in these dreams, and more specifically Azul's dream, demonstrates the Octatrio's mutual respect and trust in one another. Jade and Floyd acknowledge Azul as a strong individual, and Azul's subconscious reveals that he deeply values the twins and seeks their approval even when they've been removed from the picture.

322 notes · View notes

highfantasy-soul · 6 months ago

Text

I've seen a little trend of (mostly) men being shocked and annoyed at how much sensuality was in this newest episode of The Acolyte and I think it's time to re-introduce 'the male gaze' vs 'the female gaze' and how prevalent it is in fiction.

Those same guys don't complain when women are shown topless in bed, the sheet only covering their ass as the full curve of their back is illuminated while the male lead buttons up his pants and smizes forlornly out the window.

They don't bat an eye at 'Slave Leia's' costume or James' Bond's exploits or the gratuitous nudity and sex in Game of Thrones centered on the male gaze. They don't question dehydrated men with bulging veins screaming at their enemies as they flex.

But the moment there's sensuality for the gaze of the fem lead, all of a sudden it's "soapy" it's "fanfic" it's "ridiculous".

Why is that? Why are you so ok with sexuality when it's from the male gaze, but the MOMENT it switches to female, you think it's not to be taken seriously anymore? All of a sudden, it's not 'fit for the public', it's to be relegated to the dark corners of the internet and not spoken of and MOST DEFINITELY shouldn't find it's way onto our screens.

Was Qimir in that episode sexy as fuck? Yeah. Was that what the episode was about? Partially - but it was so much more than that, too. Unlike movies where women are just there to be ogled at by the male audience and have nothing of importance going on with the plot, the Acolyte showed both the man and woman in those scenes as important players in this story with depth and nuance that yes, included sexuality, but was not limited to it.

Men jack off to 'slave Leia' all the time - why is it suddenly disgusting when a man shows up on screen in a sexy way that's NOT dehumanizing to him? Would you have preferred Qimir in a slave costume being held hostage by the Hutts? (feel free to draw fan art of that *cough* what was that? I didn't say anything *cough*) Would that have made it 'not fanfic' to you? Or are only women relegated to those roles? Only women are allowed to skinny dip in the ocean and then talk to the MALE lead all dripping wet and naked. For a man to do that is...well....it's silly!!! It's fanfic!! That's not what we're supposed to see!!

#the acolyte #the acolyte spoilers #qimir #film theory #male vs female gaze #stop calling anything with the female gaze 'fanfic'#you're embarrassing yourself

232 notes · View notes

paulic · 7 months ago

Text

Ok this is what I think the biopics will be like for each Beatle:

John will be so troubled but in a really charming way and Julian will be mentioned but briefly and they’ll make it seem like John was just too busy to be a present father (Paul will make up for it in a vomit inducingly cheesy way). His eating disorder, heroin addiction and other internal struggles (self-esteem, sexuality, maybe even gender,…) will go unmentioned or brushed over jokingly like haha he tossed Brian off, don’t we all at that age. He’ll be the cool and funny older brother & later genius who just couldn’t be confined within a band. They won’t have the guts to call his bullshit and therefore will automatically brush over his kinder and vulnerable sides. He’ll be reduced to a knock off version of the tortured artist blueprint. They’ll never pick up on his pathetic wet dog vibe

Paul will be the charming good guy who’s all in with the band. No mention of how he fucked over Jane and every other girl until Linda; he’ll be a musical genius, too, but in a prince of the people sort of way. They’ll loooove that he stopped eating meat, woke king!!!! Linda will be brushed over by making her into his soulmate wifey who finally helps the charming playboy with a heart of gold settle down. His depression and alcohol problem won’t be mentioned/reduced to feeling a little sad. He’ll be a little bossy sometimes but they won’t ever get it right how fucking annoying he could be. Straighter than a ruler. John’s brother, almost biologically. No homo. They’ll find a way to make the twink who fucked the entire population and had an ego bigger than Neptune into a straight feminist

George will be the indie underground smart Beatle and people on tik tok will start posting thirst traps of the actor with the caption “they don’t make em like this anymore” and then complain about real-George’s teeth. He’ll be so spiritual and smart and he won’t have an affair with his best friend’s wife at all and if he does it’ll be because of some spiritual insight, not because that man couldn’t keep it in his pants for 5 seconds. I’m deadly afraid of the colourful drug scenes where he’ll hallucinate god. He’ll be the perfect boyfriend and Pattie will be played by Sidney sweeney or something. They won’t take a side with the whole George Or Paul debate during the breakup, but George will be too focused on other things to want to stay in the Beatles. They won’t mention the three billion songs John&Paul deemed unworthy. They’ll never do the grudges my man held justice. No one could

Ringo will be the funny guy who luckily survived his childhood and found his passion through a kind nurse giving him his drumsticks. He’ll play an incredible drum solo at 8 years old on his hospital bed frame the first time he ever holds those sticks. He won’t be in gangs, he won’t beat his wife half to death, he won’t have drugs and alcohol problems. He’ll be peace and love from age 0. He’ll be slightly stupid and he’ll mention octopuses too much. They’ll never get it right how he was truly the eldest and how much his vote and opinion actually counted within the band and how much the boys wanted him in the band and admired him. He won’t be a sort of glue to the band. He won’t marry a teenager he met when she was 16 and he 22. He’ll be a weird version of Ken from the Barbie movie, his job will be Drum. They’ll flatten a severely nuanced and layered man to a sheet of paper with the word ‘beat’ on it

I am too afraid to even think about what they will do to Eppy

Oh and each and every one of them will have way too pretty teeth and I am already furious. I want them to have British men in the 1960s teeth. Give me British teeth and jerking off together

#mark my words people.#paul mccartney #the beatles #john lennon #george harrison #ringo starr #classic rock #beatles #richard starkey #brian epstein #beatles biopics #emmys thoughts

339 notes · View notes

chaifootsteps · 1 month ago

Note

The Valentino and Angel Dust section are infuriating and I have to rant about it:

1) Vivziepop can’t complain when people reduce Angel Dust to a sex joke when that’s all the promotional stuff does for him. It’s just “he did porn. Laugh”. His personality is just porn and abuse. This isn’t interesting and honestly just offensive. I actually wish when I thought he was at worst, a 90s gay stereotype

2) The playbills not mentioning Valentino being a serial rapist/abuser is fucking annoying but whatever, it’s meant to be more lighthearted. What annoys me is that all they talk about instead is how hot he is and that’s it. Not his personality or interests, nothing that makes him complex or nuance or just a little bit INTERESTING like his fans pretend he is. Just weird affirmations for a serial rapist.

3) this also explains why Vivziepop is weirdly passive aggressive towards people who hate Valentino. She wanted everyone to see him as a sexy problematic yaoi boyfriend and when a lot of survivors understandably didn’t, and had a massive issue with people trying to woobify a man who’s only lines are about how much he loves murder and rape, she got angry. Which is so telling because she’s so fandom and porn brained that she didn’t realize some survivors wouldn’t look past Valentino’s abusive behavior to find him sexy.

4) The gags about the weird titles of porn films that Angel Dust has starred in aren’t funny but far less funny when you know none of it is consensual. Why is Vivziepop still trying to push this joke about how funny it is that Angel Dust is a porn star and is owned by Valentino. Even in merch like Youtooz they make jokes about it. As if we didn’t see what the porn films actually look like, where he’s visibly in pain and literally beat up LOL.

5) Vivziepop’s obsession with incest and pedophilia, particularly with underaged boys needs to be studied dude. I’m not saying Vivziepop is a pedophile but it’s such a frequent pattern of hers and it adds to that obsession with seeing queer men suffering. Yes porn is pretty notorious for having problematic themes like incest and pedophilia but when you know how she treated some of her underaged male zoophobia characters (cough cough ADDISON cough) it’s just makes me side eye her a bit

6) also want to add that obsession with “the pure boy” plus the script that would go on and on about how Angel dust is a little boy is fucking creepy. I wouldn’t be shocked if Viv was ever exposed as a shotacon

7) if Valentino dies and Angel dust still makes constant sex jokes and still sexually harasses men then Viv no longer has a right to complain when people point it out

Nailed it. "He did porn. Laugh," is pretty much the show's entire philosophy when it comes to Angel Dust, and one they refuse to budge from even when the moment is meant to be horrifying and serious.

There's no need to wait on her being exposed for it -- Viv absolutely used to be into shota. Apparently, she and Dollcreep would sit around RPing all kinds of horrifying stuff with underage Addison. But that said, this was back during a time when maybe one out of ten people in the fandom thought twice about that. It's hard to stress enough how lackadaisical people used to be about fiction.

#Anonymous #viv stuff #vivziepop critical #actual blog post

77 notes · View notes

bitethedevil · 3 months ago

Note

What do you like about the character of Raphael ?

A Feral Love Letter to the Devil We Know

Oh boy. Here’s my list of why Raphael is like catnip to me (it’s not short and it is possibly a bit extra deranged because I am currently sick).

Purely physical things that convince me that this man was made for me in a lab:

Brown eyes and dark hair has always been my type

The slight stubble and those cheekbones (generally just his whole facial structure is beautiful)

The fucking n o s e <3 <3

Those thick thighs (perfectly sittable and bitable). He is just perfectly shaped.

Those hands he waves in your face all the time and those long fingers (does things to me)

His clothes. Yes, even in cambion form and even the silly clown boots, I love them. It is just all too extra, and I live for it

Everything about his cambion form

I have this crazy theory. There has been made these studies that depending on hormone levels, women are attracted to different kinds of men. At one end of their cycle, they prefer more ‘feminine’ looking men, and on the other end they prefer more traditionally ‘masculine’ looking men. If I get tired of his human form, I get more attracted to his cambion form and the cycle repeats. I think that is why I just do not get tired of staring at this stupid man every day. I know I’m not crazy. It’s science (and we all know I’m a trusted scientist).

Non-physical things that intrigue me:

How expressive he is. I love how his face changes constantly and dramatically with each sentence he speaks. It’s mostly an act but he is so charismatic. He has ‘rizz’ like the kids would say.

I can’t fix him. I don’t want to. His mind games intrigue me. I want to study him like a bug and play mind games with him too (I’m not delusional enough to think I’d win). Let it be toxic as fuck on both parts.

This man is just chucking stones from his glass house like there is no tomorrow. He plays such a big bad devil, but he is really just a little wet cat with a god complex and daddy issues. Not to mention his little hissy fits if any of his perceived weaknesses are pointed out. I find it endearing (unfortunately).

His voice and his eloquence. I love it. Even his shitty poetry. I could listen to it for eternity.

He is so smart. I have been shouting it from the roof tops: he is not stupid. He is always ten steps ahead.

He’s honest. He doesn’t lie and you know where you’ve got him (if you know how to keep up with him).

Genuinely everyone thinks he sucks, both devils and mortals, and yet he thinks he is the shit, either genuinely or as a coping mechanism.

He just such a nuances character if you really dig into it.

Things I relate to:

The scheming and overthinking. Everything is meticulously thought out to the point of obsession. He is playing 4D chess but doesn’t even consider that the other players might just eat the pieces to win. He strikes me as someone who completely overcomplicates things for no reason, and I felt that.

His idea of order is very different from what’s actually orderly. It just has to make sense to him, like ‘what do you mean it’s not orderly to have dead people lying around, trash everywhere, and debtors running around aimlessly in my house? Completely intentional. What’s not clicking?”. I felt that too. There is order to my chaos, and you don’t have to understand it. I get it.

He’s a cringy theater kid with a love for poetry too.

I too find it annoying when other people don’t follow the script I had in mind for the conversation.

Just human enough to understand how human interactions works, but either doesn’t give a shit or genuinely thinks that just spouting vaguely threatening poetry to strangers is a completely normal thing to do.

The obsession and ambition that just completely makes him lose the plot of everything else.

He is just so obsessed with everything being perfect to a point where it almost seems silly.

Acts like he doesn’t care, but actually cares A LOT about how other people perceive him.

I could honestly keep going but you get the picture.

(Thank you for the ask <3)

#raphael bg3 #raphael the cambion #bg3 raphael

120 notes · View notes

nekrotiize · 28 days ago

Text

It's a controversial take because everyone's stupid but I'm never going to stop calling fandom + shipping culture homophobic. Fandoms are consistently extremely homophobic, and shipping culture is consistently even more homophobic.

Yes, the way fandoms center men so religiously is obviously misogynistic. The only people who deny that are themselves misogynists. But the aggressive centering of men and the resultant fixation on male/male dynamics lends to this slimy coating of homophobia that nobody talks about. The misogyny is an issue, clearly. But gay men are, to most people in fandom, toys. We are sex objects to coo over. It's intensely voyeuristic. Every god damn interaction is scrutinized to hell and back, and the second a man shows any kind of emotional connection with another man, it gets pounced on, and he gets thrown into a mill that flattens him down to one of three deeply heterosexual yaoi tropes that are fandom's only way of processing the existence of gay men.

It doesn't even matter what that man is. A disconcerting amount of time, people will start fawning over the idea of literal rapists being gay with zero critical thought applied. As if gay men being painted as and assumed to be sexual predators isn't a method that's been historically used to literally legally murder us. (What the fuck do people think "Gay Panic" means, even?)

Gay men aren't given the ability to be human beings in fandom. We're not afforded nuance. We're accessories, we are constantly objectified, and no one ever takes the time to consider that we have cultures, and that we are real human beings. We keep getting shoved into the most heterosexual boxes physically possible for the easy digestibility of people who do not want to see us as human beings. Semes- sorry, I mean Tops are the taller, older, more masculine, capable men of the relationship. Ukes- oops, sorry again, I mean Bottoms are the smaller, younger, more feminine, and totally useless women of the relationship. It's painfully yaoi. Gay men in fandom are never given the opportunity to be regular men, because people are too busy turning everything into homophobic, misogynistic fetish porn of our existence to be normal for five seconds.

There's something comedic about how many people in fandom want to say they're progressive, accepting. Safe. How fandom is welcoming of everyone. Look, we've made all this representation! And every time, gay men are sex objects, the women are scapegoated to hell and back, the headcanoned trans men are always skinny white softboys not a single day over 21 maximum, lesbianism is maybe acknowledged 0.5% of the time and largely for brownie points, bisexuals are across the board made out to be overtly horny and often sexually aggressive, fans of color are harassed out of the community left and right, anyone on the aro/ace spectrums is called a freak and a killjoy for not participating in shipping, characters on the aro/ace spectrums are heavily included in shipping content with the excuse of "aros/aces can date/have sex like normal people, too!" with zero regard for what our love looks like, and there isn't a single accepted trans woman headcanon to be seen.

Fandoms are circuses full of dirty little liars with cotton stuffed in their ears and Shipping Culture is a disease.

And if you criticize either of them, the most annoying white liberals you've ever seen will start clutching their pearls because how dare you criticize something that's free?! Don't you know a lack of price point immediately negates any criticism?! Just laughable.

#fandom #fandom culture #fandom critical #shipping culture #gay #aromantic #asexual #aroace #cw homophobia #cw aphobia #cw transphobia #cw racism #nekro.txt

70 notes · View notes

kneelingshadowsalome · 11 months ago

Note

how would König feel about a reader with a hand kink? asking for character study purposes...no other reason 😶

Oh he’s going to be so annoying about it.

You don’t even have to tell him you like his hands, he can tell from the way you suddenly get immensely silent & shy whenever he repairs things or fingers you that you have a huge crush on them. König can be dumb as a shoe sometimes when it comes to nuance and body language, but even he can’t ignore the obsessed, flustered stares you give his hands. You seem to like it how big they are, hmm?

Wide palms and sly yet strong fingers, you know what they say about big hands. Haters would say you chose König solely because of them and what they imply, but only God can judge a woman who loves tall men with shovel-like hands! There’s nothing wrong in enjoying beautiful things, but no one told you you’re playing with fire if you give this man too much attention...

König can understand that all kinds of trivial, mundane things can turn women on, and he’s luckily blessed with more assets than just his tremendous height, this man takes shameless advantage of this situation because he’s needy and rotten like that. Brushes a thumb over your cheek when you're tying to focus on your studies or work, coaxes your mouth open with it, as if he didn’t know you would suck his digits if he chose to put one or two there... Takes your hand in public to see if you swallow and blink, he could almost swear that you’re throbbing down there when he gives your tiny palm a soft, reassuring squeeze. How about he took you to the range sometime, teach you how to shoot? No doubt he’ll find your panties soaked by the time you get home, weapons are the last thing he’s clumsy with. If you can't focus on what he's trying to teach you, he can always use that as an excuse to tease you more, right?

He’s addicted to you, and would want nothing more than to bury himself in your heat and stay there forever. But nothing beats a slow, sloppy fingering session these days, he gets to witness how you slowly lose your mind, who knew his hands could bring so much joy to someone...? A win-win situation in König’s opinion, all the more fun to finish you off with his cock when you’re already mewling and crying tears of joy – and all because of a few fingers…

#answered #könig headcanons #character study stuff #:D #hand kink #big hands save lives

312 notes · View notes

genderkoolaid · 8 months ago

Note

"Men's liberation"... oh my god girl, learn some fucking self respect. "To create loving men, we must love men". Guess women of the olden days were just not nice enough to the poor wittle fellas, otherwise they obviously would have become more loving themselves. Famously all feminist advances were made by being so so nice to men and loving them real good, and then they gave us the vote, as a little treat uwu.

Are you serious with this? Women are way, way, way too kind and polite and loving to men still. Because they are raised to be, society demands it. And they get hurt because of it all the time, because men (on the whole) do not care, they do not extend a fraction of the love and empathy and caring and understanding that women have had for them for ages back. Like I don't wanna break your little world here, but on the whole, they find us at best a bit annoying. They actively fight every single step we take towards women's liberation, because they feel superior and want to keep the position of power they have over us.

They already feel entitled to our love. They demand it from us. By caving to that you gain nothing except male approval, you make no steps towards equality, you're just upholding the status quo.

The idea that love is the antidote to male violence is one of the oldest "it's actually your fault your husband is abusing you, and it's your duty to stay with him and sleep with him more" messages in existence. I'm sure that's not what you literally mean by it, but that is in the end what your strategy amounts to here.

would be really cool if you read the book that quote is from, in which bell hooks rovides a nuanced explanation of what exactly means by "loving men" in the context of feminism while also frankly discussing her own experiences with abuse at the hands of men in her life and the lives of others, instead of sending me this ask

#m.#ask box

127 notes · View notes

kjwaikiki · 5 months ago

Text

Hotd Jace centric idea:

Jace did not react to Ulf and Hugh Hammer well and I can understand why. Also I know what they do in the books so while it looks like the tv show is making them more nuanced and palatable to the audience Jace is still my #1.

That being said I have an idea. Jace is a big brother, in my mind that is a very big part of who he is, and now one of his brothers is dead and the rest have been or will be sent away. He is effectively alone being kept away from the war with only Baela for company, but even Baela can’t be there very often as she has to patrol.

This brings me to my idea. Ulf and Hugh need someone to teach them how to be dragon riders and with no one else available it falls to Jace. Jace is not very happy about this but he is dutiful so he will do it. However, Jace is not the most patient teacher and often snaps at Hugh and Ulf when they don’t pick things up very quickly. Eventually Ulf and Hugh get sick of this and impatient to actually mount their dragons (Jace has mostly been teaching them Valyrian, how to direct their dragon, and the history of House Targaryen). Somehow they are able to mount Silverwing and Vermithor but things start to go wrong. Hugh can’t control Vermithor and Ulf is hanging onto Silverwing by a thread and bloodying his hands in the process.

Jace comes to their rescue and is able to corral Silverwing and Vermithor to land. He goes off on Hugh and Ulf berating them for being so stupid and lecturing them on how they could have been killed or killed someone else and how dragons are not pets or tools. He ends the lecture by telling them to show him their hands. Jace is not pleased to see Ulf’s bloody palms and while Hugh’s hands are better off (he has more callouses than Ulf) they are still scratched up. Jace goes to his saddle bags, pulls out some ointment and bandages and treats their wounds.

This shifts something in their dynamic as Ulf and Hugh are surprised that Jace is taking the time and effort to take care of their wounds. Jace is mostly just annoyed at the two men’s foolishness but doesn’t see anything odd about looking after them as they are his responsibility. Before he is done Jace states that he will not tell anyone what they tried to do and he’ll make the necessary excuses to the Queen but he expects them both to never do something so foolish again and for them to actually pay attention to their lessons now.

Ulf and Hugh do go to lessons now and are a bit bolder with Jace now. This means that they are both more likely to ask questions now than they were before. Ulf because he now believes Jace will help him and Hugh because he is no longer afraid Jace will report him to his Queen mother for every grievance. Jace answers all their questions even if some of his answers are curt.

I imagine their relationship shifts even more when one of them asks Jace why they need to learn this. If it’s Ulf he is asking out of genuine curiosity and if it is Hugh it is because he is annoyed and slightly confrontational. Jace gives them two answers the first is that the Queen has accepted them as dragon riders and this has accepted them into House Targaryen, they will have an education worthy of House Targaryen (Rhaenyra did not mean to do this but I think Jace would have a little better perspective on this matter, he would know that after the war they can’t just send them back to what they were before). The second reason is that they will be going to war and as Crown Prince he will see them prepared, he will not allow another dragon rider to perish to Vhagar’s jaws.

This makes both Hugh and Ulf look at Jace differently. Suddenly they don’t see an arrogant and perpetually annoyed princeling, instead they see a young man who has lost his brother and is desperately fighting to keep what remains of his family alive. For a moment they see how afraid Jace actually is but they also see how determined he is, at that moment they swear their is fire in the prince’s eyes.

Ulf is much more willing to listen and follow Jace after that and sings his praises to anyone who will listen. This causes Jace to soften a bit towards Ulf. However, Hugh is still wary of Jace. The big revelation their relationship is when, for some reason, Ulf, Hugh, and Jace get drunk together. Ulf is passed out so it is just Hugh and Jace still drinking. Hugh has some liquid courage in him so he asks if the reason Jace doesn’t like them is because of their silver hair.

Jace is a bit taken aback but the drink has actually mellowed his temper and looking at Hugh’s face he can’t seem to muster up any anger. Instead, Jace tells Hugh that he grew up with Aegon and Aemond and that when they were young he used to follow after Aegon everywhere, that he idolized his uncle. Of course later after Driftmark any goodwill vanished but they were still family. Now, his brother and Princess Rhaenys are dead because of Aemond and Jace has no doubt that the rest of his family will follow if the Greens have their way. Jace goes on to say that he doesn’t hate them but that they have dragons and the Targaryen looks, if the uncles he grew up with could betray them that badly what is to say that two strangers won’t do the same. In a way Hugh and Ulf are even more dangerous because they have no reason to be loyal and their dragons could kill them all much easier than Vhagar who is all the way in King’s Landing and who everyone is watching out for.

Hugh is a bit taken aback. He asks Jace if he believes they will betray him because they aren’t true born. Jace actually snorts and says that he isn’t that much of a hypocrite. He goes on to say that he doesn’t know them and that regardless of his own personal feelings he has to protect his family (the unspoken bit is that he has to protect them if no one else will, Daemon is not here and Rhaenyra is not making the best decisions in who to trust at this point in time).

There is a shift between Hugh and Jace, a new found understanding. If nothing else Hugh respects Jace more now than he did before. Jace continues to train them and as the time when they set out to war get closer he becomes more exacting. Ulf and Hugh don’t complain as they know now that Jace is trying to give them the best chance of coming back alive. Right before they fly out Jace presents them with expensive riding gear in shades of black and weaved through with chain mail, expensive leather gloves to protect their hands, new boots, dragon glass dagger, and small pins made of Valyrian steel in the shape of a three headed dragon with rubies for eyes.

Ulf and Hugh are touched and Ulf hugs Jace while Hugh gives him a respectful nod. Jace gives him an awkward nod back and tells them to watch out for arrows and to remember that dragons are not pets or tools. They part there and Ulf and Hugh go to war where they are actually two of Jace’s most outspoken supporters. A lot of people are doubtful about Rhaenyra’s reign and Ulf and Hugh try to reassure everyone by saying that Jace will be a great king.

I like to think that Ulf and Hugh do well and eventually the question is brought to Rhaenyra about what will be done about them. Addam is going to be Corlys’ heir but what about Ulf and Hugh? Rhaenyra is very vague and just says that they will be rewarded. Jace however speaks up and says that there will be empty keeps and lordships available after this, and that as dragon riders of House Targaryen they should be rewarded with a keep.

This sparks a fight between Jace and Rhaenyra as she thinks that giving Ulf and Hugh lordships wills upset their allies and that it is enough that Ulf and Hugh will be given gold and possibly stewardship of a keep. Jace points out that they can’t just expect Ulf and Hugh to be content with a few gold dragons and being hidden away in a keep after the war is done. By her actions Rhaenyra has ensured that Hugh and Ulf will always be linked to House Targaryen, and giving them keeps and a title mitigates them as a political threat as it keeps them content and acknowledges their service to the crown. Jace and Rhaenyra go back and forth a bit with the argument ending in a stalemate and neither person happy.

Somehow the argument reaches Ulf and Hugh on the frontline and while neither are happy with Rhaenyra but everything they hear about how Jace defended them just cements their loyalty and good opinion of him (the tale has been a little distorted by the time it reaches Ulf and Hugh. Now it sounds as if Rhaenyra wanted them to be sent back to where they came from with a few gold coins while Jace pushed for them to be elevated to Lord Paramounts). It also helps that everything Jace has taught them, all his advice, and even his gifts has saved both Ulf and Hugh’s life more than a few times from an arrow or an ambush while they have been at war.

I imagine that the story progresses with Ulf and Hugh becoming more and more loyal and devoted to Jace while Jace has to constantly defend Ulf and Hugh from other people (at some point Jace has assumed responsibility for the two men, they aren’t his brothers or even family but they are part of House Targaryen and as Crown Prince he has a duty to see them taken care of). At the same time Ulf and Hugh grow more disillusioned and discontent with Rhaenyra with only their loyalty to Jace tying them to the Queen’s cause.

Of course eventually Jace dies at the Battle of the Gullet and everything falls apart. Rhaenyra’s response to her heirs death is to hole up in Dragonstone which endears her to no one but least of all to Ulf and Hugh. The two men want blood and they blame the Triarchy and Rhaenyra for Jace’s death. In their minds Rhaenyra should have ordered someone else to go, gone herself, or provided more dragons and ships. It boggles their minds that Jace and Vermax were brought down by a few arrows and so they have constructed a narrative where it is not only the Triarchy’s fault but also Rhaenyra’s and the Blacks.

Some men, like Cregan Stark, still follow Rhaenyra to honor Jace. However Ulf and Hugh resent Rhaenyra and eventually betray the Blacks. In the end they twist everything Jace said and did for them and interpret it as them having just as much right to the throne as Rhaenyra. Jace did say that they were dragon riders of House Targaryen and Jace taught them everything they know about dragons and House Targaryen, surely one of them would be a worthier heir than Rhaenyra or one of the Greens. Inevitably they die.

I don’t really know where I was or am going with this. I just really like the idea of a Jace who comes into his own by teaching and looking after someone else after all his brothers are either dead or sent away. I like the idea of Jace being a good King and leader and that many people followed Rhaenyra because of Jace. That begs the question though of what happens when one of the big reasons people supported you is gone?

72 notes · View notes

heavenlymorals · 8 months ago

Text

Sadie and Arthur and the Affects of Gender Roles in 1899 America

(warning: there is sexism and sexist ideas in this analysis because I refuse to sugarcoat the time period that RDR2 takes place in. Arthur is a product of his time and though it isn't shoved in your face, it's still there. Understanding the gender dynamics of this time period makes the characters much more understandable, nuanced, likeable, and better, if I'm being frank.)

I don't ship Sadie and Arthur, at all, it makes no sense to me besides two people liking the characters and thus putting them together. I like them as friends but that's about it.

And let's be so real for a second- even if they do get together for whatever reason, they absolutely wouldn't be compatible as partners because its been shown time and time again that Arthur believes in gender roles and gets visibly annoyed or angry when a woman takes up a man's role when a man is there or when a woman does something he thinks is unladylike in their line of work (just listen to his antagonization of Abigail (for her past as a prostitute, usually), Sadie, Karen, prostitutes, and female performers, all women who take on unconventional roles in their life(also pay attention to certain mission dialogues, and cutscene body language)).

Sadie proves herself as capable, and Arthur works with her, but he makes quips about her behavior or subtly judges her or makes fun of her("Oh, I'm sorry princess. Was there an insufficient feather in your pillow?" "You got a pair of pants and all of a sudden you think you're Landon Ricketts?" "You want to ruuuunnnn with the men?" "Few more like her and there wouldn't be much of a world left." "That ain't what you mean- I can still fight!" Or him being visibly annoyed when she doesn't take his hand to enter the boat and other similar things like that)

Arthur believes that a man should be the one doing the work that revolves around such physical exertion and if he isn't the one doing those things for a woman, he feels as if he is failing in his role as a protector and provider, which then provokes annoyance or in some cases, even anger. Sadie doesn't care about this obviously, and Jake Adler didn't either, hence why they worked so well together as a couple.

Not Arthur though. To put it quite simply, he prefers and is compatible with women who believe in the same gender roles as he does (Mary Gillis, Abigail Roberts, etc.).

This doesn't mean he dislikes Sadie, because it's quite obvious that he is fond of her, but given the intimacy of a relationship, Sadie would get fed up with him trying to be the ONLY provider and protector, and him getting fed up with her by encroaching on what he sees as his duties and responsibilities. He works with her in the way that he does because he has to and he respects that.

Some people may disagree with me on this analysis and that's fine, but to me, it feels like the most realistic outcome if they did become romantic partners. Another reason why I say this is because my mother comes from a culture that still operates a lot like 1899 America and I've seen this dynamic between men and women so many times that it's ridiculous- men who will accept working with a woman in more traditionally masculine roles and prefer partners who are more traditionally feminine.

#rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #arthur morgan #sadie adler #arthur morgan x Sadie adler #gender roles #1800s #character analysis #story analysis #if i kicked any headcanons in the balls #I'm sorry 😔#but i am a sucker for historical realism #which is what the red dead series always strived for #this idea of gender roles was more prevalent in rdr1 than rdr2 #but its still there #and it still affects arthur in the same way it affects john

104 notes · View notes

tirfpikachu · 2 months ago

Note

Oh we're doing radbrl hot takes? Gladly. I've been lurking on here for 5 years and I've things to say.

Sex dysphoria can be innate. It's rare and the ROGD is bullshit, but sex dysphoria is as real as other mental illnesses. We have Body Integrity Identity Disorder cases to prove that.

It's good to share more awareness to possible consequences and realistic outcomes of GRS + to the fact that it is a dangerous, experimental surgery that may not provide relief. But if you're arguing for banning it altogether you're insane. People have the right to bodily autonomy 100% of the time which includes the right to do dangerous and dumb shit to themselves. If you advocate for banning trans surgeries might as well sign your rights to tubal ligations away because they rely on the same fucking principle.

While we're on that topic you people treat detrans people like shit 90% of the time and only pretend to be normal about them to win detrans people over. Pick one. Also you refer to detrans peoples' surgeries with whichever term the person discussed uses. If they say it's mutilation, it's mutilation. If they say it helped, then it helped. Idgaf.

If I see one more radbrl account fakeclaiming autism (+ others) when it's a well-known factor women are underdiagnosed with it in ASTRONOMICAL NUMBERS I'm going to fucking snap. "But autistic men"- autistic men aren't on tumbrl or tiktok they're on Reddit. Next.

R-word usage. Spesks for itself.

Personality disordes (BPD, NPD, whatever) aren't "just hysteria". In a way that I believe they are because they're poorly named, understudied, disregarded and weaponised by psych industry. These diagnosed have been turned into a target on women's back it's true. And they're almost entirely truama-based. However people with these diagnosed do experience a specific set of issues and symptoms that can't be showed into CPTSD alone. Nuance. We're finally approaching the moment where we can give a name to (usually female-specific) responses to the extreme trauma caused by psychiatry and y'all aren't helping by saying it's fake.

Radbrl is rampatly pro-psych when you'd think they'd be against it and examined women's history with it. Any reasonable radical feminist should be at least psych-critical, end of.

Not done yet! 8) Q+ movement has completely screwed over actual asexual people in every way possible. But actual asexuality (what q+ would define as "aroace") is natural and normal. It's a way for nature to regulate population just like gay and bi sexualities are. Radbrl is both arguing that asexuality is inherently trauma based is just wrong and also borrowing conversion therapy rhetorics lol. 9) You can criticise annoying "ace" people all you want and they are partially responsible for LGB struggles right now but at the end of the day they're just teens on the Internet you're attacking for being traumatised and also even if it is trauma... So then what? They're obligated to recover from that now? How come? Towards which purpose? How would you personally benefit from their healing and that they have sex now? Most likely with men while being women? That what you want? Trauma recovery can be re-traumatising yk. Why'd you wish that on anyone. 10) Women abroad (especially woc) don't have radical feminsm (except maybe 4b which is more based on our rhetorics), they have normal feminism that hasn't been divided into lib and rad because rad is closer to the general feminism that the circus that libfem is. But you still use them as pawns lol. 11) Huge ableism problem, huge racism problem, huge intersexism problem as well. Not intersex so won't speak on that but oh god you're no better than TRAs sometimes. 12) American centrism despite claiming otherwise. 13) Radbrl is Not Immune to Russian Propaganda and can't understand ethnic dynamics in europe en-masse (ref to that one Ukraine poll where a russian radfem was more self-aware than everyone else. Embarrassing eh?) 14) The banwaves took most of the good ones and many TEHM voices that were important for us so now Radbrl is a pathetic shadow of what it used to be debate-wise and takes-wise. Most of discourse now is just regurgitating the same arguments. I haven't read something eye-opening or refreshing in a long while which is why I left. This isn't everything yet but I think others have already said other things I wanted to mention. Maybe I'll pop in later with part3

#lay text #asks #ponderings #tirf #nuancefem #radblr #thank u so much for sharing!!!!

29 notes · View notes

yourtoradorasextendedwarranty · 10 months ago

Text

You are not ACAB. You're an asshole

SO this post has been a long time coming and I have sent a rant to several people to look over it for me just so I could get opinions. And most agreed with what I had to say. However it was mean, callous, and too "I'm ok being an shithead" for my taste.

If I am being 100% honest, people hate cops just to hate cops. It's not because there are cops that do wrong. It's just because they are told to/programmed to hate cops. Ok, so why do I say that?

Well a few reasons.

For the past 40 years *minimum* it has been a point of the media to showcase any time a cop does anything bad. Because what better way to "Reach the people" than to assuage them with a "Hello fellow Americans. Doesn't it suck with cops get on our ass about stuff".

Social media has been using bait for years in order to get more traffic to more links and articles. This alone has made rage baiting as an entirety more of an issue.

Because of both of the above, there was a time when alt media *at the time* and social media worked in tandem to constantly show off instances of cops being assholes or outright doing things that were illegal.

So what does this mean. Well it means that you are under a notion that is already provided to you. "Cops are ruthless bad guys that don't do anything for anyone at all".

Except that's not even remotely true. What is true is that often, any positive stories involving cops is buried or glossed over and only ever talked about in very local reports. What's more a cops job is to do the right thing. So when a cop does do the right thing, the understanding is that they are not meant to receive praise. However, that is lopsided in how it works. It more or less means that you are under the LARGEST of microscopes, and if you fuck up at ALL, then you end up as a youtube video that reinforces that "Cops are bad guys" or "Cops are stupid and annoying". Rather than the truth which is that cops themselves are human beings.

Now. I can already see the comment from the shitheads. "ACAB EXISTS BECAUSE-" Shut it. I don't care. Unlike most of you I understand nuance. And more than that, I've had poor run-in's with cops. I have also had to work along side them as private security as well. And my mother, who's not shy about telling people they fucked up, worked as Dispatch and as a Secretary for the PD in the small city we lived in. "Oh well then your brainwashed", you can say that but it does not make you right.

Unlike you, clearly I'm able to think critically about subjects where as you are not. Am I a "Back the Blue" cultist? Absolutely not. I'm solely in the camp of Abolish Unions and hold officers to account for what they do wrong.

However, having said that, Cops duty to uphold the law sometimes manifests in ways that we don't like. Like Uvalde. The cops were in their rights to stop the shooter, but the top brass would have decimated any officer that decided to not follow his order of standing down. I don't think that's ok. Hell that entire chain of command should have faced a lawsuit. But where they DID properly enforce the law, is stopping parents from going in. Because had a parent gone by cops in order to stop the shooter, at that point, it legally could have been considered vigilantism.

Regardless of the moral implications of that, fact is, that's the truth.

So why am I making this post? Mostly because ignorant people exist in this world and their only reason for living at all is just to hate. "All cops are bastards"? Are you so sure? I wonder how many people in the US over the past 100+ years have been saved by cops. I wonder how many kids have been rescued from abuse. I wonder how many women have been saved from rape. I wonder how many kids have been save from gang violence or drug dealing.

Saying, "All cops are bastards" is no different than saying, "Yes all men". Functionally you are saying the same thing. And while you may say, "Hey that's not the same one is an immutable trait and the other is a job", to which I'll say, sure. Except you are making a gross generalization. Which IS the same. And ignores every single decent, good, great cop that exists out there. And every single good cop that has ever existed.

In my last post talking about this, I stated that people that are ACAB don't really hate cops. They just hate that they can't break the law without consequences. And I still believe that, but let me add a bit of nuance to that.

Most of the people that hate cops are programmed to hate cops. Because, like the media does, it picks something that will engage you, and will put it in front of you any way it knows how to. There are also a lot of people out there that hate cops because they can't break the law. That's also very true.

However there is another group that exists and it's Anarchists. Now, I have followers and people that I follow that are Anarchists. And while I view them as different from Tankies, Fundamentally they share the same, "Ideal Utopia" idea. Which is that, "Under my ideals, the world would be better". Except it won't be. It will be warlords and dictators forming groups. Assuming that we don't get taken over by Islamic Extremists, China, or the UN. Their ideals aside, they hate "The State" in all it's forms. And if you are fine with any form of "State" they will quite literally go off on a tirade of why you are a bootlicker. *Sigh*

Now, the last of these groups is just people that either 1) Do not understand what goes into being a cop and just hates them based on baseless notions, or 2) People that have had bad run-in's with cops and take that notion out on ALL cops.

So for these last two sets, things are difficult to deal with. Because they will go out of their way often to not care about how hard it is to be a cop. What do I mean?

Well for starters, cops are expected to be perfect at all times.

Perfect Aim

Perfect knowledge of all laws both federal and local

Perfect judgement at all times

Perfect execution of force at all times

Perfect response at all times

Perfect awareness of surroundings at all times

Perfect ability to listen to the law but also not piss off people breaking the law

And I could go on. Humans are fundamentally imperfect. They always will be. So expecting a cop to be perfect is like asking your SO where they want to eat every day for a month and them knowing right away. Unless you're a LIAR it's not going to happen. Same such, cops can't be perfect. Combine that with having to both uphold the law AND be sure to follow the law at the same time, then combine that with the dangers of the job, the fact that human beings are ANIMALS that are violent by nature, and unpredictable on top of which, with use of force laws. And yeah. You don't have a good time. It becomes a huge issue of people that are like, "Why didn't just just tase him?" or "Why didn't you just shot the gun out of his hand" or better yet, "He only had a knife and was threatening to kill someone. Why'd did you have to shoot him, you are not judge jury and executioner."

And that's where you are both right and wrong.

Right in the fact that they are not a Jury. Wrong about the fact that they are not acting in their capacity to judge a situation, and execute those that are too great a risk to subdue. And if you ever talk to a person that does MMA, subduing a person is not as easy as you think. More over, Tasers are not considered, "non-lethal". In a lot of cases they are considered lethal because you are delivering a shock, meant to incapacitate someone. Meaning that you have the risk of permanently injuring them, OR killing them if their heart stops. Hell you could also in theory turn them into a vegetable.

But sadly no one considers all of these things. And only people familiar with cops and how their jobs work, know any of this.

Am I justifying bad, or even evil cops with this post? No. I think cops fundamentally need more training. I also think that they need frequent psychological evaluations to see the effect of the work on them. Because some of the things you see in your capacity as an officer can be gruesome. Dead bodies. People that have been mutilated. Dead kids from drugs or gang shootings. And the list goes on and on and on.

Recently I made a post talking about how since the summer of 2020, there have been less good cops. And fact is, because of the 2020 riots, a lot of good cops did quit their jobs. That's a fact. Many actually put in for early retirement. And not because "They were being held to account". No. It was because they were told, "If you do your job, we will riot outside your station. Firebomb your cars and homes, and we will find a way to railroad you into prison".

So what do we see in NY and LA? Car break ins. Looting. Beatings in the streets. Cops that will literally stand down while people are being hurt. Why? Because why the hell would anyone be a cop when you are under a microscope SO LARGE, that even the SMALLEST twitch in the wrong direction could end your career and possibly your life.

It's easy to say, "Yeah I'd stop those looters and assaulters". Sure. Right up until the are a protected class. Then enjoy your media crucifixion, loss of work and likely stint in jail. As well as your family getting death threats for years to come. So given all this, I made a point that a lot of hires over the last 3 years have probably been scraping the bottom of the barrel. Because in truth, knowing all the above, why WOULD anyone be a cop? Certainly there are still good cops. But a lot of the good ones quit.

What's more, Now a days it's better as a cop to just NOT enforce the law. Because why risk everything I mentioned. You protect the law and you make the conservatives happy but piss off the woke. And the woke currently more or less control law and media. Good luck getting shanked in jail. If you don't uphold the law, you piss off people who want you to enforce it but you probably get to live another day.

At that point you may say, "OK so why be a cop at all then", and the answer is easy. It's a job. And it pays. Why excel at all when you are expected to be a bastion of perfection? What's that? Didn't use the PERFECT amount of force? Death Penalty. Oh? You shot a guy that pulled a gun on you and you didn't just take the shots to the chest? Well clearly you deserve to be put in jail for the rest of your life.

Cops are treated like they are supposed to be absolutely perfect at all times and it's stupid. I HATE police unions mind you. But you know what I hate more. People that have no idea the risk to their lives that cops are put through day to day just for putting on the badge. The fact that cops NEED wiggle room within the law in order to enforce it.

Remember "Hands up don't shoot"? Yeah. So do I. I also remember that it was a fucking lie, and that there are people to this day that still believe that lie. And if not for Police Unions, he might have rotted in jail for the rest of his life. There is no PEFECT in this life. Not for cops, not for anyone. Cops are not superheroes. They don't swing in on a web shooter and punch the bad guy JUST hard enough to knock him out without killing him. And with morality as fucked up as it is in the west, even just in the US, Law enforcement is in a no win situation. At all times.

But I want to find every person that has ever been saved by cops, and force you to tell those people that all cops are bad. And tell them about how whatever they were saved from doesn't matter because "ALL cops are bad". Tell the women that were possibly saved from rape, "You should have just been raped. Cops are all evil." Or tell the kid that was saved from the person that kidnapped them, "Yeah no, you should have just been a sex slave. Cops are bastards and clearly they didn't WANT to help you". Stop making assessments about ALL of any group of people. Because the likelihood that you'll be right is near zero.

There are good cops. And there are bad cops. Police Unions need heavy reformation. Accountability needs to actually be able to happen. And people need to understand how hard cops actually have it. All of these things can be true at the same time. And none of it is justifying evil or bad cops or even ones that don't enforce the law. It's a nuanced topic. And as such, it should be treated so.

#discourse #discussion

97 notes · View notes

ouidamforeman · 2 years ago

Text

This may make me look like an idiot bc I can’t articulate myself BUT!!!!!!!! Big Queer Good Omens meta incoming

I want to talk about This Neil Gaiman ask for a minute because I figured out why I really like his blanket response to this “discourse” a lot but still somewhat disagree on the nuance, and why fandom attitudes about this bother me much much more than his open ended response like this one

Under a read more because im going to get Insane

First of all this is going to be riddled with my own viewpoints on queerness as a transmasculine nonbinary person who reads too much theory so if u disagree please be polite lol

So like. To begin with I really don’t think Neil is obligated to understand these nuances or even comment on them, let alone explain them to fans desperate for validation, so the fact that he’s been able to answer so eloquently is pretty impressive considering how vicious fandom is. But I want to specifically talk about what I think he means here and why that seems to bother fandom so much sometimes, and how fan interpretation of these ideas he presents can get Really weird and interesting imo.

In my view, Neil is answering this from a Doylist perspective, as in like. To the real life human audience, angels and demons are inherently queer because they don’t fit into traditional human definitions of genders and sexualities. This especially comes across in his insistence that Aziraphale and Crowley aren’t gay because they aren’t human men, but they ARE queer. This literally just looks to me like him saying “yeah so no angels and demons fit into these categories so they’re definitely queer from our perspective but I understand ‘gay’ as being two men and i don’t think that fits because it’s narrow” and while I disagree on some nuances here for reasons I’ll get into I think this makes total sense as an author describing how, from his perspective, an audience is intended to view these nonhuman characters.

However, I’m much more interested in a more Watsonian explanation of how A&C are queer, one that’s much more relativistic and honestly not something I expect Neil to go over every time he gets another ask about this???? My opinion has always been that A&C choosing human queer masculinity is significant and that it gives evidence to them being nonbinary, transmasc, gay, ace, aro, anything that people headcanon really. Because they are presenting themselves as queer in a HUMAN way in universe imo, which makes them queer not just by the standards of the audience but by the standards of other angels and demons in the story? I think that the fact that they were created as sexless and genderless and then CHOSE human gender presentations, whether nonbinary or not, that reflected themselves, and then them being in love with each other in a human way IS what makes them queer, not Just the idea that an angel without a gender or sexuality/romantic or other relationship orientation is inherently queer from the average human’s perspective. People who just want them to be Human Cis Gay Men are really missing this idea I think.

The thing is though. And I don’t think this is Neil’s problem to solve or whatever, nor does it mean “stop liking that angels and demons are genderless”. The thing that annoys the shit out of me. Is that fandom, even queer fandom, took Neil’s Doylist explanation of celestial beings’ gender status and just didn’t think any further about it. To this day people insist that A&C MUST be nonbinary forever just because they’re an angel and demon and were made that way. Like literally just inventing Fantasy Biological Essentialism again which is annoying as hell to me, another nonbinary person. Again, the fact that they were created without any sense of gender or biological sex and then chose any humanish gender for themselves at all whether nonbinary or not is what makes them queer in universe I feel. I think the “they’re an angel and demon so they’re inherently nonbinary and can’t be anything else” is shit tbh.

To reiterate, I think Neil is responding about this from a Doylist perspective aka “to the real life audience all angels and demons are queer because they don’t fit into human genders and sexualities” but I am focused much more on the Watsonian idea that A&C are queer in universe bc angels and demons can choose their gender presentations like humans can and everyone else hasn’t figured it out bc they haven’t been on earth to figure out what gender even is. I feel fandom gets weird about this because lots of people still see gender as something solely internal and inherent, when I genuinely don’t think that’s all it is. It’s internal feeling, external projection/behavior, and both of those as a reflection of social experience all at once. The feelings and internal sense of Knowing your gender or lack thereof is inherent to your self identity, but your gender is also informed by what you understand genders as, and what presentations you understand and have access to! Aziraphale and Crowley can be Human Genders because, because they’ve been on earth, they 1)know what gender is, 2)can see those feelings reflected in themselves, and 3)through that understanding choose how to present based on their feelings! They don’t just have to be genderless celestial beings in the sense angels are if they don’t feel like it anymore! They can be like “oh actually I’m a queer man” or “oh I’m nonbinary but in the way that I’m among humans and I’m not a man or woman.” I just feel like only considering them queer from a human or angel perspective but not both is sort of undermining the themes in the text against bioessentialism in favor of the instant validation of “oh they’re angels so they must be nonbinary.” Perhaps having any human gender presentation is queer to the average angel. Our internal feelings and sense of self knowledge as queer people is inherent. How we act on those things and assign meaning and labels to them can be anything! A&C can be anything they feel like! They don’t have to be the classic celestial beings above gender! I feel like they would love and have fallen into human gender customs just from so long on earth, and that doesn’t mean they can’t be nonbinary or agender. It means they, as a part of humanity, saw and understood human genders and realized what gender they were in relation, whatever you headcanon that to be. And that’s more queer than “god made them without sex and gender so I guess their species makes them inherently one thing”!!!!!!

#good omens #book omens #neil gaiman #good omens meta #go meta #queer #idk guys. Just really not liking the biological essentialist takes in queer fandom especially #why did u have to make up biological essentialism for fantasy creatures. please #I don’t blame Neil for this btw literally chill about him who cares #anyways lol

322 notes · View notes

zabiume · 18 days ago

Note

Hii! I hope I'm not being annoying by asking this, but I really enjoy reading your posts about Orihime so here goes; Recently I've seen a lot of people (that hate Orihime) act as if the fan service and sexualization of her is somehow her fault. Not to mention they seem to think it's a completly valid reason to hate her as well. And what confuses me even more is that the majority of these people claim that they care about female characters and hate when they get sexualized, but then as soon as they see a female character that is (unfortunately) sexualized they just reduce her down to her body anyway and say that the only purpose she serves is to be there for fan service. Even when she's so much more than her body! And that might be the case for some female characters but that's definitely not the case with Orihime. So like do they care or not? Anyways this is mostly from tiktok (I know you told me not to take them seriously the last time I sent an ask... but I can't help it😭) But I know reading your reply will probably restore the braincells I lost from dealing with these people!!!!

i've talked a little about this on my blog before, but i couldn't find the ask, so i think it's a good opportunity to discuss it again with a little nuance this time.

i know a lot of orihime fans are not going to like hearing this, but one of the reasons kubo draws her the way he does is blatantly for fanservice. it's not so bad in some areas (SS arc-FB arc for instance), but it's quite egregious in others (that one hideous calender spread, her TYBW outfit, etc). i've seen people defend this by saying that lots of people in real life do have big boobs, and i wholeheartedly agree, but fiction is not real life. as you said, orihime is not real, so everything about her is a choice an author had to make. kubo isn't drawing her that way for body positivity reasons, he's doing it for his and his male-oriented audience's enjoyment. i think the reason we, as orihime fans, feel so defensive of her, is because she was hated on far too much over far too little for so long, in ways that were really mean-spirited, unfair and yes, misogynistic. some of the criticisms leveled towards her were extremely unwarranted. however, the inverse of this is that you can never discuss any questionable parts of her character without people getting too defensive of kubo. which. is not a great look.

BUT. the real problem here is that it's treated as an exclusively orihime thing, when, in fact, it's not. every female character in bleach has been a "victim" of sexualization, to some degree. TYBW was especially hard to stomach in that respect. harribel's torture in hueco mundo, the disturbing interactions between urahara and yoruichi in god of thunder, masaki and rukia being naked without either of their consent (and masaki having no problem with this at all, while the men around rukia make disturbing remarks about it), the fatphobia that underlies hikifune's entire power structure, the transmisogyny against giselle being played for laughs. even BEFORE TYBW, we had an emotionally poignant moment between rangiku and orihime, where rangiku was naked for no reason. fan service is abundant throughout bleach, so it's a little disappointing that the conversation only ever pivots back to orihime. even outside of fan service, there are several moments where female characters have taken a hit so their male counterparts thrive. karin was introduced as a shinigami,,,,,and then never returned to the scene of action. ichigo got a whole 23-and-me breakdown of his genetics, but does yuzu even know her mother was a quincy? several female characters existed only to die and fuel the Man Pain of their loved ones. we know nothing about katagiri, except for that she lived to serve ryuuken.

these are just a FEW examples. i'm sure if we sat down to list all of them, we'd notice that this is a pattern, and not kubo turning his Misogyny Switch on only when he's writing/drawing orihime. i assume she's the only one getting singled out because her panel time increased dramatically over the years compared to the other female characters, but also. i think it's easier for a lot of bleach fans to narrow all these problems down to orihime so they can pretend bleach as a whole doesn't have problems. if orihime is the only one who "deserves better" then we don't have to talk about anyone else, we can just put her under the microscope and act like kubo exclusively forgets to be a good writer when he's writing her, but he's decent with everyone else. orihime needs to be perfect and meet every standard, but other female (and even male!) characters can get away with the bare minimum because they're well-loved by the fanbase, and, more importantly: none of those girls are in the way of beloved ships the way orihime is (since she's a canon love interest that's so deeply embedded into most of ichigo's major moments that she can't just be ignored or written off).

despite it all, orihime has still managed to retain interest and has a LOT of great character moments, just like the other bleach characters. none of this goalpost-pushing is new. as megan thee stallion once wisely said:

[UPDATE: i found the older ask. i say the same stuff there that i do here, but here's the link anyway]

#the only orihime criticism i take seriously are the ones done by her actual fans who have been in the trenches for YEARS defending her #the rest of the fandom's takes on her mean nothing to me <3 #asks

19 notes · View notes