#and that change isn't also inherently bad

[killallxys]

I feel saying men are inherently biologically horrible is kind of a cop out. They are not nor do they want to change. There is no biological push because they've got big enough brains to handle to not do it. Somehow certain men are able to hide their nature or be weaker and more timid yet hold those values. It's not biological it's simply put socialization. That's not to say we should start pulling out the red carpet and start "oh but he's a victim too". Bullshit. He's no victim. I can understand women who are traditional pushing this but no it's not the same.

Men actively search and destroy other men. They love heiarchies.

Women who do this are just infected by it. Same for ego, fetish, and etc.

Men are not victims to their nature. Saying that affirms the whole well he's a man how do you expect for him to react when you're dressed up like that.

In fact that makes them worse. They actively know and are not slaved chained to their instincts. Testerone usage is just for mating and fighting. That is it so when a male is out of place in nature and beats a female, it is because that male is a failure in those areas.

Males yes have this surge of hormones but are somehow chained yet not chained enough to be able to get creative with it.

Either way even if it was biological, you can always condition them. I'm not saying therapy I mean literal conditioning. If a wolf can become a chihuahua then a man can become decent.

the patriarchy is and by men.

The patriarchy isn't somehow natural aspect. It is engineered otherwise there wouldn't have been a gap in history of women living in matriarchy.

Anyways I feel when males are stated to be inherently horrible, it just washes out everything. If men are to be like this then why should we have any other attitude other than indifference? He's a man it's in his nature. No it's not he's been raised in a misogynistic society and loves it, doesn't even know he loves it. He is no victim nonetheless.

Men are not helpless testerone rage monsters. No they are willful ones.

Men are not inherently bad

However no man...no naturally made man is good

Theyre all disgusting not a single one has done something in recognition of the female sex as human...no...bare minimum.

Somehow they are able to feel bad about banging a pot or pan on accident yet not for women

No man in the past was good

No man right now is good

"OH well if you say that why not date one now"

No man exists right now with bare minimum capabilities and beyond.

No man exists in this world our world like this.

No man.

I would enjoy a relationship with a adult human male in our world but unfortunately not one capable exists.

4B global ＼(^^)／ I hope for extinction unless something changes at the last minute. By that I mean men stop with everything.

However not all men will change...men right now none will change. If one does, why should we clap.

Also many will need to be lost in genocide which is good. Men will not stay sat they will eventually start fighting back with full force and so will be killed. Too many alive. Bombs away

Letter bomb+

Anti war because of men

But not for women

It was not women who started ww2, committed genocides and wars in south Sudan, or cut off women's breasts.

It was men

I agree. These smeglets say "biology" and play victim. Although I understand that women who say it don't want to deal with men anymore. And even if it was biology, subjugating women is wrong and they should be killed. Just how it is natural for virus to infect and kill but we didn't put hands on chin and said "it's life" but killed the virus.

Its kinda stupid to waste energy chaging them. They enjoy the power dynamic. They won't care bout us.

We aren't on 4B because we need to teach those men a lesson. We are on it because men are a lost cause. They dont want to change (even when they can) and actively hurt women.

The best thing possibel as of now is stop birthing males. Either a daughter or an abortion. Also men are going extinct soon. Or if you wanna speed it up, let's start killing moid's. Because the end goal of feminism is to liberate women and make oppression a thing of the past, does t matter if that means men must die.

[goulloynes]

girl help

[yuri-is-online]

someone in my life brought the "races in fantasy being inherently evil is bad world building" discourse to my doorstep again and I don't think green tea is going to fix this distress. i need a gun.

[bylertruther]

some byIers be like "well, yeah everyone in hawkins from kids to teens to adults knew that will was gay and called him all sorts of slurs and made fun of his clothes and laughed at him but that's just because they had secret knowledge bestowed upon them by a higher power or something about him being gay. clearly it wasn't because will is visibly gay and does not act like other boys (aka is gnc) or fit in with them aside from his party who are also outcasts for different reasons. everyone knew that he was gay even though will has never tried or done anything with another boy, and it has NOTHING to do with how we're told in many ways that he does not act like, dress like, or like the same things as everyone else in literally under the first twenty minutes of this show. will is our conforming #hypermasc king who isn't ever scared of anything, has never needed to be saved (and definitely not repeatedly), never cries, never gets called slurs aimed at feminine men, is on par with hopper when it comes to being a manly macho all american man, and would fight anyone and everyone with pure ice in his veins. fuck you if you call him sensitive or acknowledge that he runs away and hides when confronted with danger bc obviously being scared and fighting in any not offensive&aggressive way is Bad and Emasculating and something to be Ashamed of. embracing will's canon traits is Bad and instead acting exactly like lonnie does is Good and makes you an exemplary ally btw. so is taking everything about will and plastering it onto mike instead somehow for mental gymnastics reasons that i will never explain to you bc i know it's dumb."

and somehow..... i'm supposed to respect some of u and ur opinions? 🤨

[dennisboobs]

talking to macdennis shippers makes me realize how much more i enjoy charden lmfao

[frogspawned]

i think, at the end of the day, you have to respect the work you are adapting. a writer doesn't have to be a fan of the source material, or strictly follow the primary story, but you have to understand what made it good, what made it appealing, and what it meant to say.

i would say netflix's dungeon meshi rigorously follows the original manga, often panel for panel, to great effect. it's an excellent adaptation that understands the themes and character of the work. it celebrates it for what it is. conversely, i'd argue that amc's interview with the vampire is spectacular precisely because of the way it breaks from canon. it actively 'yes, and's the book, imo, thoughtfully exploring the themes on its own terms. changes are not inherently bad, nor is a perfect replica inherently good.

you can like a work, and not understand it. you can understand it and not be a fan. but if you can't respect it, you should just be writing original work.

[bonefall]

How will you handle the breakup of ShadowClan? While the rebellious apprentices made sense always felt that Darktail should have done more to actively help the rest of ShadowClan and appeal to them as a better leader choice, because in canon it seems they completely arbitrarily decide that they like him as a leader better without explaining why the older cats are going against their xenophobic culture. 

@halogenwarrior

I don’t have a STRONG direction for ShadowClan breaks yet besides knowing that every problem ShadowClan faces, should be related in some way to WindClan refusing to help them. I have strong ideas for how it ends, but the rising action is a bunch of puzzle pieces I haven’t put together yet.

But I DO know that there is a specific problem I want to fix with the rise of the kin; that the ShadowClan apprentices were completely inconsistent.

Darktail first courts them with ANTI-xenophobia, then, a book later, those same apprentices were totally on board with the usual Evil Atheist messaging that WC keeps doing; not feeding elders, training kits, killing indiscriminately, blah blah blah.

One could argue that’s because he started them off on something good, then lead them to bad ideological positions... but I think that’s a stretch. It was weak writing. It’s more of the narrative propping up the Warrior Code as this bizarrely infallible guideline that, without which, cats descend into total lawlessness.

So... what AM I thinking?

WELL, I think I actually want to start the apprentices out as being completely right. Their grievances are probably rash, DEFINITELY not well-spoken, but they ARE born out of compassion. A hard bend towards the Fire Alone ideology. They’re sick of not helping other clans, and of not being helped in turn. When Darktail shows up, he exploits this compassion to get the power he wants.

And by EXPLOIT I mean that he never believed this in the first place. He tells them he named The Kin for being an antithesis to Clans and their emphasis on bloodlines, when he only did that for his own daddy issues. He doesn’t want to take care of the weak and vulnerable. He just needs more cats for his army.

A bunch of cats with similar grievances from other clans join him. Ex-DF trainees, half clan cats, even outsiders who previously would have been excluded from Clan society... and, of course, find themselves unable to leave.

So, many of his ex-followers, like Berryheart, end up taking away the WRONG message here. That outsiders are dangerous. That their institutions will fail them unless they re-commit to their old traditions, reviving the popularity of Thistle Law and setting the stage for The Broken Code.

(and on that note several ex-kin members will probably end up joining the various clans, I do want to try to be clear the problem in this case WAS Darktail and his enforcers, NOT a systemic issue... barring that Onestar’s utter failure created him of course)

[laugtherhyena]

Csm thoughts,,

[naamahdarling]

.

[musical-chick-13]

...That...sure was a reveal wasn’t it.

[arolesbianism]

I should rly get around to designing the Jackies and Olivias from my swap aus now that I have ideas for how to differentiate them for their non swapped counterparts, but at the same time the eternal dread of having to commit to either keeping or changing the gravitas uniform for the swap aus hangs over me with ever increasing pressure, so maybe I can just only draw headshots of them and commit to that til the end of time instead

[telepathicfeline]

Is it going to be a hot take that I like that La’an wasn’t able to change Khan or stop the Eugenics Wars?

Not even from the perspective of “this historical event needs to happen otherwise there will have to be a whole new timeline” but from the perspective that we (real life humans) can’t change the past and while sometimes we want stories where we do change the past and can overcome anything if we just try hard enough, it’s also meaningful to have stories (particularly involving events that have already happened) where we can’t change things and we have to deal with the fallout.

[thedoubteriswise]

I am simply not interested in taking sides when it comes to aziraphale and crowley's little cosmic divorce. this is a jane austen romance, which means that both of our romantic leads need to grow and change before they can have their happily ever after. the problem isn't that one of them is Right and the other is Wrong, the problem is that they're each prioritizing a different problem and then approaching the problem they've backburnered with a long-standing habit or belief that they need to grow out of before they can succeed.

aziraphale is correct that heaven needs fixing! we can quibble over whether accepting a job as the boss is the right way to do that, but ultimately leaving michael or whoever in charge is going to lead to armageddon 2 armageddon harder. it simply will not work. the problem is that he's fumbling the relationship with crowley because he still needs to get over the idea of there being an inherently good and bad side and he needs to stop thinking that it's crowley being a demon that's keeping them apart. it's his own black and white logic that's doing that.

meanwhile, crowley is correct that he and aziraphale need to Name The Relationship and stop fucking around, and also that heaven and hell are the same institution with different labels and it's insane to think either of them is Good. but his impulse to respond to everything by trying to grab aziraphale and run is not gonna cut it here. "you can't fix an institution from the inside" is a philosophy of dubious value if your alternative is not attempting to fix it at all. if aziraphale is being held back by his cops and robbers mentality, crowley is being held back by cynicism and fear. they both need to let go of their flawed moral philosophies and emotional bad habits if they want to keep the world safe and be together! that's the point of the story splitting them up in the first place!

[kaijuposting]

"Saw traps for people with moral OCD" is a phrase that has embedded myself into my brain because, well, Saw traps for people with moral OCD are everywhere.

Stuff that basically amounts to...

"You have to listen to my opinions on [issue], or else you don't care about [issue]. (Constantly talks about how people like you are the absolute worst.)"

Anything that's functionally like, "you have to let me tear you down over things you can't control or you're a bad person."

Anything that's functionally like, "you have to let me vent to you whenever and however I want or else you're a bad person."

"If you enjoy X media/trope, you just hate Y people."

"Everyone knows that X thing is harmful/hateful; if you engaged in it, it's just because you were fine with perpetuating hate/harm."

"You should have just known better/should know this already!"

This thread over here talks about the inherent issues of putting this kind of stuff out there. The TL;DR is that it really only works on people who are mentally unwell and have poor boundaries, while just pissing off everyone else. It really doesn't matter if you're technically correct; you're still attacking people, and that means they're not wrong to block you.

I think that many of these Saw traps are created when people effectively write posts directed toward people who don't want to help, rather than the ones who do. Like, if you catch yourself writing an angry, shame-laden post, ask yourself: who are you writing it for and what are the odds you're going to change their minds? If your mental image is some smug fuck or angry reactionary, you're writing for the wrong person. Write for the person who's curious, who's willing to learn.

Also? Work on figuring out how to transmute negative feelings into positive, encouraging rhetoric. EG:

"Why is there no X positivity?" -> "Let's hear it for X!"

"No one cares about Y problem!" -> "Hey, we need more recognition of Y problem" or "I haven't seen many people talking about Y problem, so here's some info on what's up."

"If you don't reblog this, you don't care about [group]" -> "Please reblog this, it would mean a lot for us [group]."

And if you're really super duper frustrated and want to vent with a lot of nasty words and sentiments? Consider taking it to a private vent channel or a journal or somewhere that a stranger with moral OCD/scrupulosity isn't likely to run across it.

Remember, most people don't want to hurt anyone. More people are ignorant than malicious. People naturally want to do the right thing, so if you feel like you have to guilt them or shame them into it, there's probably a fundamental communication issue somewhere, or they simply lack the context to understand why what you're saying is so important.

[tofixtheshadows]

You guys really need to stop and consider the ways you're talking about Kabru I am dead fucking serious. Like I know that flattening characters is just what fandom does to a certain extent, but Kabru's actual personality is getting lost to the fandom hivemind insisting that he's aggressive/cruel/sociopathic/hateful, and these are particularly concerning takes to see leveled at the only brown character in the main cast day after day. "My poor sweet golden child Laios needs to be protected from this scary brown man" is not a good look! Like, it's very telling that the bulk of the hate and bad faith readings are reserved for Toshiro and Kabru. Everyone else's flaws get to be discussed and validated and forgiven (or erased), meanwhile people are straight making up things to be mad about with Toshiro and Kabru but patting themselves on the back for being smart.

The worst part is how undeserved it all is. I'm trying to lay off anime-onlys because we're still kind of in the red herring stage of getting to know Kabru, but I would still like to gently suggest that even if you think Kabru is up to something, you don't gave to get in the tags of every fan creator's post and bring up how you hate him or You Can Tell he's totally evil. Sometimes I think Kabru's blue eyes give people license to say things about his appearance that they know would sound completely racist otherwise, but referring to his blue eyes acts as a get-out-of-racism free card. The jokes about the dog with brown contacts are getting old, by the way.

For people who have read the manga, it's disappointing. Kabru is one of the most complex and important characters in the story, and if you base your interpretation of him and all your fandom interactions on shallow first impressions you are completely missing out.

I know part of this is because Dungeon Meshi is a comedy, but the story also wants to be taken seriously. For example, it's admittedly really funny when Chilchuck calls Laios "sick in the head", but that doesn't change the fact that the way Chilchuck casually belittles Laios caused him to hide the fact that he was "hallucinating" from his friends for weeks. Those feelings matter.

Like, this

is funny.

But this?

Is not. This is just a very clear example of a brown boy with PTSD. As someone else with PTSD, just looking at this fucking sucks, man.

The only reason why Kabru thinks about killing Laios is because he is in the middle of a flashback. He's struggling through a panic attack. If he truly wanted to kill Laios because he's violent or because he finds Laios inherently annoying, he wouldn't otherwise talk with Laios normally. Notice how he doesn't act this way at any other point in the story- it's just because he's triggered by monsters. Even when he's thinking about his plans to "deal with" Laios later, he's reluctant to actually kill him and only considers it to prevent another tragedy. Despite his deadly skills, Kabru relies far more on "soft" power- insight, persuasion, diplomacy. He's a rare example of a character who absolutely is, or at least can be, manipulative, but seems to use his abilities for good. He's not a pathological liar, he isn't looking down on everyone behind a smile. He's someone who is extremely emotionally intelligent, and he's willing to put aside all his own basic wants and needs to stop the cycle of dungeons devouring humans.

I'm going to cut a potential thesis on his character short and just give some examples of things that fandom should consider about his personality more:

Racism in fandom isn't just about whitewashing in fan art, or using racial slurs. The insidiousness of bad faith readings, reductions to racist tropes, lack of fan content for characters of color, and dismissal of a character's complexity are far more common. You can believe yourself to be completely neutral or even positive about a character and still churn out low-grade bile about them into fandom's collective unconscious. Fandom reflects real life.

And I have been around fandom long enough to see how these behaviors (mostly from my fellow white fans) affect fans of color, how it makes a fandom feel hostile and unwelcome to them. It's fun to make jokes and memes, I'm absolutely not saying that everything needs to be a deeply nuanced take, but we need to be careful that it doesn't veer into toxicity. Please think about how our contributions to fandom come across, and what sort of vibes they cultivate in this communal space.

[creatingblackcharacters]

Lesson 1: "White Man Painted Black"?

Okay, I recognize that this is a strong foot to step off on! But! If you learn nothing else from this series, if you decide for whatever reason to forsake me: this is the ONE perspective I'd like you to take away!

You may have heard this quote before, when Black fans deride a character design as 'a white man with the brown bucket tool'. On its face, it means exactly what was said. But specifically, what it means is that we recognize that whomever designed the character drew the way they normally draw for a 'default' character in their mind- default usually meaning White/Eurocentric features- and they added a shade of brown within the line art to make that character now 'Black'.

Now if you're feeling defensive, wait just a moment! This discomfort is not inherently a bad thing!

I'm going to use both a 'real world' example first, to show you what your Black fans and peers are seeing, and perhaps you will also understand our discomfort!

(if anyone was curious, my folder for this lesson is titled 'brad' lmao and you'll see why)

(I'll have y'all know that I actually worked very hard to make Blackface Brad look mildly presentable lmao I'm sorry, I'm wheezing, I can hardly breathe looking at him 🤣)

You see how, despite knowing where this was going, and using one of the darkest shades of brown in my Skin Tones arsenal, you still know that that's Brad Pitt? That nothing about his hair texture, his lips, his nose, or really anything other than the palette change... changed? And you can still see that?

It's incredibly hurtful to be told that that's supposed to be you. You know it's not, you know why it's not, but rather than hearing how it makes you feel unseen and what they could do to be better (since they wanted to draw a Black character!), the artist lashes out at you.

And as an artist, you might have worked VERY HARD to do this! That might be a real handsome guy you drew!! But... is he really Black? Did you walk into it with the intention, that you were drawing a Black Character, or did you draw a character that just happened to be Black? It seems like a silly thing, but it matters!

Okay. I just finished laughing over Brad. Now let's get into some more perspective changes:

Now, imagine you drew a character. You want to make her Black, so you change the hair and skin colors. All right! You have your Black character... right?

Changed ONE feature about her? (You should obviously change more than one feature, but let's just go with the simplified example.)

What if, instead of just changing her palette, we changed her:

Hair?

There isn't nearly enough time in the world, let alone in this little scribble and blurb, for me to describe the IMPORTANCE of Black hair in Black character design. There are so many ways to do curls, afros, braids, twists, locs, SO MANY HAIRSTYLES!! Get used to searching in the 3C-4C hair textures!!!! I plan on doing an entire lesson or two on hair alone, but suffice it to say, Hair Texture is thee BIGGEST giveaway that you 'painted a white person Black'- from cartoon styles to realistic! It reveals itself in your writing as well- just based on how your character takes care of their hair, how your describe the texture, how other people might perceive it... it lets me know just how much research was done. Because we can have straight hair! But again, that's a conversation for a whole 'nother lesson so- come back later 👀?

Lips?

I love our lips, I really do. There's a long history of shaming Black women in particular for the way our lips look. So when I see them done in all their glory, it makes me very happy. Two-toned lips vary in shade and intensity, so make sure you're using references if you want to be 'realistic', but it doesn't have to be that hard. Even a little subtle shift like this in the design/story description lets me know that a creator was thinking about me.

Nose?

One thing I've noticed ever since I starting drawing is that... people in a lot of mangas/manhwas barely have noses! I admit, out of all the features on the face, the nose isn't the most important. I think they should be, especially when you want to emphasize that your characters look different! People have different types of noses! I especially want to gear this towards those with a goal of drawing realistic portraits and the like- there, the nose is ANOTHER dead giveaway. There are Black people with aquiline and straight noses- we aren't a monolith- but is that why you drew it? Consider why you went for that nose specifically. That's part of the intent, in all this!

Now, you might be looking at me and going "Ice... this is just character design". To which my answer is: Yes! It is! It feels so basic, and yet if you ask your Black friends/peers how often they've come across this feeling of not being properly drawn/written, from fanart to professionally produced works, it's unfortunately common despite how simple of a concept it is.

I hope that you can walk away from my first lil lesson with new eyes. Remember, it's the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!