#and that literally anything can be justified if someone has been defined as a valid target (i.e. less than a person)

[anghraine]

It's interesting (if often frustrating) to see the renewed Orc Discourse after the last few episodes of ROP. I've seen arguments that orcs have to be personifications of evil rather than people as such or else the ethics of our heroes' approach to them becomes much more fraught. Tolkien's work, as written, seems an odd choice to me for not wrangling with difficult questions, and of course, more diehard fans are going to immediately bring up Shagrat and Gorbag.

If you haven't read LOTR recently, Shagrat and Gorbag are two orcs who briefly have a conversation about how they're being screwed over by Sauron but have no other real options, about their opinions of mistakes that have been made, that they think Sauron himself has made one, but it's not safe to discuss because Sauron has spies in their own ranks. They reminisce about better times when they had more freedom and fantasize about a future when they can go elsewhere and set up a small-scale banditry operation rather than being involved in this huge-scale war. Eventually, however, they end up turning on each other.

Basically any time that someone brings up the "humanity" of this conversation, someone else will point out that they're still bad people. They're not at all guilty about what they're part of. They just resent the dangers to themselves, the pressure from above, failures of competence, the surveillance they're under, and their lack of realistic alternative options. The dream of another life mentioned in the conversation is still one of preying on innocent people, just on a much smaller and more immediate scale, etc.

I think this misses the reason it keeps getting brought up, though. The point is not that Shagrat and Gorbag are good people. The point is that they are people.

There's something very normal and recognizable about their resentment of their superiors, their fears of reprisal and betrayal that ultimately are realized, their dislike of this kind of industrial war machine that erases their individual work and contributions, the tinge of wistfulness in their hope of escape into a different kind of life. Their dialect is deliberately "common"—and there's a lot more to say about that and the fact that it's another commoner, Sam, who outwits them—but one of the main effects is to make them sound familiar and ordinary. And it's interesting that one of the points they specifically raise is that they're not going to get better treatment from "the good guys" so they can't defect, either.

This is self-interested, yes, but it's not the self-interest of some mystical being or spirit or whatnot, but of people.

Tolkien's later remarks tend to back this up. He said that female orcs do exist, but are rarely seen in the story because the characters only interact with the all-male warrior class of orcs. Whatever female orcs "do," it isn't going to war. Maybe they do a lot of the agricultural work that is apparently happening in distant parts of Mordor, maybe they are chiefly responsible for young orcs, maybe both and/or something else, we don't know. But we know they're out there and we know that they reproduce sexually and we know that they're not part of the orcish warrior class.

Regardless of all the problems with this, the idea that orcs have a gender-restricted warrior class at all and we're just not seeing any of their other classes because of where the story is set doesn't sound like automatons of evil. It sounds like an actual culture of people that we only see along the fringes.

And this whole matter of "but if they're people, we have to think about ethics, so they can't be people" is a weird circular argument that cannot account for what's in LOTR or for much of what Tolkien said afterwards. Yes, he struggled with The Problem of Orcs and how to reconcile it with his world building and his ethical system, but "maybe they're not people" is ultimately not a workable solution as far as LOTR goes and can't even account for much of the later evolution of his ideas, including explicit statements in his letters.

And in the end, the real response that comes to mind to that circular argument is "maybe you should think about ethics more."

[perpetual-fool]

-

Starting serious work on my conlang, and got swindled into watching a show.

I've worked out that fundamental meaning has to be a function between observations. I think I can abstract that to 'arguments' and 'premises', but I need to work out data types, what sort of things there are which could be premises. It shouldn't be that complicated, but I'm finding it hard to wrap my brain around it for some reason. I think that's because I'm trying to sort out my existing understanding, and much of that has been corrupted.

I kept seeing clips of the show online, it suggested something interesting was happening. Problem is, it's not, nothing's happening. Like, I would have to start with how things are, then see what develops from that. Instead, it's like characters are sort of vaguely pantomiming a plot, except the plot doesn't fit the circumstances or the characters. Like for instance, the character known for wantonly killing decided to spare the main antagonist for no reason, so that the antagonist can come back and antagonize later. And also there's no justification for the antagonist to antagonize, and everyone is trying to kill each other despite the fact that all of them are trying to achieve the same thing. Or, character makes a heartfelt plea to convince someone of something, but say nothing specific and make literally no argument about it. That is, there is no causal relationship between how the world is supposed to work and what's happening in the plot.

And I'm wondering if this is just a sloppy version of what actual people do. It does mirror a lot of their behavior. Ya' know, the truth is true whether or not it's valid, or whether it happened, or whether it even could happen. And the equation isn't that complex. If they're not starting from the premises then they must be starting from the argument. Oh! say, arguing over whether the ends justify the means. an argument without its premises. I have wasted so much fucking time trying to make myself understood. Last attempt, I had this whole thing about multiple phrasings, examples, counter-examples. But none of that will fix communication if the other party is actively trying to destroy it. Ambiguity for instance, I'm pretty sure that's a feature and not a bug. Like, off the top of my head I know three different versions of "argument", and they'd would decide which one(s) I meant here to justify imposing what they want onto me. That was actually the thing that tipped me off to the fact that it's them and not me. I'd clarify 'I mean term(a), not term(b)' and then they responded as though I meant term(b).

Honestly the most disappointing thing for me about season 2 is that they still refer to the timelines as 'sacred' or 'branched'. So like, (spoilers for Loki S1) the deal with 'the sacred timeline' was that it's the one He Who Remains came from, what was or was not a 'branch' and who was or was not a 'variant' was defined by HWR. But now HWR is dead, the terms no longer have any meaning. Every timeline is a branch, everyone is a variant. So it's like the writers don't even have the most basic grasp on their worldbuilding. Somehow that feels more significant to me than bad setups or nonsense plot. I guess maybe it was the most engaging thing they had going. Like, what's most interesting for me is when I have to reframe how I think about things. I'd love to hear a take on time travel that's not just 'the past rewrites the future' or 'there are parallel timelines'. Say, the scene where Loki is talking to OB in the past, and as it's happening in the past he remembers it in the future: if they'd actually justified that somehow that'd be cool. (Aside, variations of "you can't actually change anything" are cop-outs.) It makes sens that they wouldn't, you'd need to come up with an alternative causality, which would be difficult to impossible. But it'd be fun.

[iamnmbr3]

Can I sign up for a Disney- Service where I pay them not to put out any type of new content or interviews? Bc wow I am tired of this show and I’m tired of Mike Waldron shooting his mouth off and spewing grossness. But here we go again. He’s given another interview and I am once again left wondering why Disney had to hire him and not...literally anyone else. Like if they just grabbed a rando off the street it couldn’t have been any worse and statistically it probably would’ve been a lot better. 

"I knew that I wanted to position somebody opposite Tom, opposite Tom's Loki, who had the same energy in a way, but also a totally different energy, that female energy”

Female energy??? Can someone please tell Mike that "girl" isn't a personality trait. Remember when I talked about how Sylvie isn’t a good female character because she’s physically strong but not strongly written? Remember when I talked about how she’s an empty “strong female character TM” who is a woman first and a human second because she’s not a good character who happens to be female but rather a character whose defining and only personality trait is her gender? Yeah.

"But it's one thing, I guess, to be narcissistic and to think you're great and everything, it's another thing to really believe that, to project that outwardly. It's another thing to really believe that and to actually practice self-love and everything. So if the show is about Loki falling for Sylvie a little bit, the hope was always that maybe that it's also about him learning to forgive himself." 

What. No really. WHAT. Mike’s pathetic attempts to justify his ridiculously bad romance and also pretend like he didn’t straight up lie to us about Loki learning self love are hilarious. this makes NO sense. huh???? This is just a really bad attempt at damage control. Loki doesn’t learn self love. He never says anything positive about himself. The show frames him internalizing other’s harmful messages about him like that he is a villain and a pathetic loser as something positive. What has he learned to love about himself? Mike has yet to be able to name one positive trait he has. His hatred for Loki is so obvious. And how is loving Sylvie him forgiving himself???? she didn't do any of the things he did???? This makes ZERO sense.

"He is just a character who doesn't like to self reflect, and would rather pontificate, and would rather scheme, because he's good at it, because he's very clever. "

Really? He would rather pontificate? Another comment that seems to indicate that Mike really didn’t watch Thor 2011. Remember how the opening scenes established how SILENT Loki is and how he is constantly spoken over? That’s a big part of his other and victim coding. The way Mike constantly shames Loki for speaking is very disturbing given the way Loki is Other coded. And also given the fact that he is now canonically queer. Why must the Other be silenced??? 

“And when faced with an actual mirror of himself, he sees things that are attractive and that he empathizes with. He also sees things that are broken and wounded, and it helps him understand those very things in his own psyche" 

Wrong. But also? Where? Where is that in the show??? This never happened. He’s just lying here.

"I mean, he has done terrible things. That was part of the work that the first episode had to do, was hold him accountable for that, sort of lay him bare and everything. And the journey that he's been on has been one of reckoning with that. Is it possible to atone for that? I think Loki's still trying to figure that out."

Terrible things? Huh. Kinda like Thor. Remember when he slaughtered all those Jotnar while laughing (which was considered totally acceptable in his culture)? Remember when Odin slaughtered and enslaved thousands? Remember when Loki was motivated by trying to PREVENT a war? And. Remember when Loki was captured and TORTURED by Thanos? Also. The first episode didn't do that. The first episode was about things he hadn't done bc it was him seeing his future. AND FURTHERMORE the TVA can't hold him accountable bc if what Loki did was bad then the TVA has no moral high ground bc what they did was orders of magnitude worse. And if what the TVA did was ok then Loki didn't do anything wrong. Why does the TVA get a pass for their horrific acts of evil???

"I think, for me, that's one of the most important scenes in the show because this is a guy who has been driven by glorious purpose, by the feeling that everything he does is in the service of his grand destiny."    

So Mike really just watched that glorious purpose clip and decided it was Loki’s whole motivation huh? What an idiot. So much for the Loki Lectures. Obviously this guy was asleep during them and didn’t bother to watch Thor 2011 either. You know, the movie all about Loki’s backstory and motivations. Guess he also missed the fact that Loki is LITERALLY KNEELING when he comes through the portal and looks awful bc he’s just been tortured is very obviously repeating the stuff Thanos told him while breaking him. Loki is not motivated by believing in a glorious purpose. He cries when Thor tells him to look at the destruction in Avengers. 

And in Thor 2011 he is motivated by wanting to avert a war and also more deeply by his desire for love and validation. He never wanted the throne. He wanted to be Thor’s equal. He has a mental breakdown and tries to kill himself when he comes to believe that he is inherently monstrous and that he can never earn his family’s love. LOKI IS DEFINED BY HIS LACK OF SELF ESTEEM AND HIS SELF HATRED! That is. The opposite of what Mike has said. Also Mike contradicts himself. Is Loki someone who is arrogant and needs to learn his purpose isn’t glorious or is he someone who needs to learn self love? It can’t be both. What a disgusting, victim blaming, abuse apologist lying hack.  

“In that moment, he sees that no, it was his destiny to get his neck snapped by the bad guy he was working for"

Excuse me? Working for??? Loki never went back to Thanos. He died sacrificing himself to save Thor. WTF!!!?!?

[hamliet]

The Todorokis: Lost in Darkness and Distance

“Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?”  

-Frankenstein, Mary Shelley 

I’m by no means the first person to point out Frankenstein references in Dabi’s character (see @linkspooky​ and @findingoutwhodabireallyis​ for more), but I am gonna talk a l’il more about it.

Dabi, just like the creature in the novel, is not just a monster: he is a lost child, a portrayal of the lost innocence of all of mankind.

Dabi paints himself as a monster of Endeavor’s creation, and the tragic irony of this is that by seeking revenge, Dabi is thereby perpetuating his own abuse and becoming more like Endeavor. Dabi is a mirror, a reflection of Endeavor, who is a reflection of society. To redeem himself, Endeavor has to first save Dabi; to save their family, the Todorokis have to save Dabi; to save hero society (which basically just went up in a pile of blue flames), the kids are gonna have to save Dabi, Shigaraki, and Himiko.

The Todorokis, for all their genuine mourning for Touya, do not recognize him when he literally appears in front of them. That’s pretty hurtful, and explains more about why Touya assumes Shouto is Endeavor 2.0 (since Endeavor and Shouto are the two who have seen him in person). Touya’s wrong--he and Shouto are/have been a lot more alike than he would guess (both wanting to prove their worth through becoming strong but without their father’s training)--but he doesn’t know that, which is tragically ironic.

In order to actually heal and move forward as a family, the Todorokis are all going to all have to be able to see clearly, to see and acknowledge their flaws and what’s been swept under the rug (Link talked more about this in her excellent meta here). 

Touya starts off the chapter mentioning that he’s been watching Rei from afar and presumably sent her something personal (referencing the room number). He doesn’t seem like he hates her, and that’s good. However, also remember that as much as Rei is a victim (she is), her situation is complex. Abused mothers who are afraid to stop their husbands from abusing their kids is a painful subject best dealt with without moral declarations, but suffice to say that it is valid and reasonable for many children to hold resentment at these mothers, who chose their own fear and self-preservation over their children’s safety. Not all kids feel this way and that is very valid too! But many do. It doesn’t appear, assuming that translation is accurate, that Dabi harbors resentment against her. However, Rei quite possibly still blames herself for projecting Endeavor into Shouto in a moment of insanity, a moment that has left him forever scarred. Now she has another son, a son she thought she lost forever, who is terribly burned by Endeavor’s and/or his own doing, committing atrocities and threatening others. What will she want to do? To redeem herself in her own eyes, my guess is she will want to save Touya.

Fuyumi, the peacemaker, is going to have to face the fact that two of her family members want to literally kill each other, which offers her some potential complexity. So much for Natsuo not forgiving Endeavor as the main conflict source. Will she want Touya redeemed? If she forgave Endeavor, you’d think so, but he would likely want her to choose between Endeavor and himself.

However, Touya doesn’t mention Fuyumi this chapter. He does mention Natsuo as his confidant, and based on past chapters, we can assume Natsuo and Touya were quite close. It’s to Natsuo that Touya asked the question of his arc: why do I exist? However, by sending Ending after them, we the audience realize Touya actually risked Natsuo’s life--which quite possibly wasn’t his intention. Narrative consequences don’t only exist for Endeavor, Touya.

The thing is, Dabi is still the child kneeling on the floor emotionally (yes he’s an adult, I’m not arguing he can’t be held responsible, please don’t come for me). He’s still asking the same question he claims to have asked Natsuo: “Why do I exist?”

Touya still doesn’t know what the purpose of him existing is. Right now all he has is assuming it’s just to destroy Endeavor, a destruction that will destroy himself with his tormentor, because he’s unable to think about his existence without torment and abuse and pain. He defines himself by his firepower just as Endeavor defined him.

Compounding this, Dabi has some seriously self-harm issues. I mean, we already knew that because of his quirk harming him, but it extends beyond the physical (though we’ll return to the physical in a moment). Dabi is fully aware that what he's doing is wrong. Unlike Endeavor, he doesn't even try to justify himself. Essentially, this is emotional self-harm. He thinks bringing down Endeavor and the society that created his pain is worth harming every part of himself for.

Back to the physical. "Dance with me in hell" kinda implies Dabi doesn't intend to survive his revenge (I’m not particularly concerned about him though; he frankly should survive). Again, we should have already been clued into this, because back in chapter 191, Dabi was ready to fight and die just to destroy Endeavor.

The Todoroki family’s healing entirely depends on saving Touya from “Dabi.” But he has little reason to trust most of them right now. However, there is another family around him now who can help him learn to trust: the League. I know Dabi says he doesn’t care about them, but his rage when Twice died kinda suggests otherwise. Not only that, but Himiko asked him how his hand was, expressing concern for him. They genuinely care about him, and not just for his quirk and certainly not for his name.

The League itself is, obviously, made up of lost children. We have Himiko, whose parents ditched her instead of getting her help and who was villainized for her quirk; we have Shigaraki, who stumbled through the streets after accidentally hurting his family, begging for help, and only a villain came. Sweeping them underground, killing them and/or ultimately defeating them in a grand final showdown, won’t fix anything. Touya has been defeated his whole life.

What Touya’s never gotten is love and safety just for existing, is acceptance that he’s enough just as he is. What Shigaraki’s never gotten is someone believing in him. What Himiko’s never gotten is acceptance and understanding. Which they can and will likely all find somewhat in the League, but also should find through their heroic counterparts (Deku and All Might for Shigaraki; Ochaco for Himiko, Shouto and the other Todorokis for Touya).

[bookofmirth]

I saw your recent response to an anon where you mentioned the drama that occurred the other day based around bookprofessor’s post. Obviously you don’t have to respond to this or publish it if you do not wish but I just wanted to bring up that while it is important to focus on the real life issues at hand, the OP was hypocritical in her post which is why people were getting upset. She was preaching against ableism while simultaneously flaunting her IQ and degree which is a form of ableism. She was speaking out against racism while ending her post using the racial slur “cracker” when talking about the possibly Caucasian Twitter elriels.

Obviously she had some important points but it was completely overshadowed by her participation in the hate speech and prejudice that she was speaking out against.

This does not in any way justify the nasty messages she received but on the same hand, I do not blame anyone that called her out for her hypocrisy. I hope you can understand why her post was so negatively received and how flawed it was. My hope is that one day everyone can just ignore the negativity, report those who are being racist/prejudiced in any way, and block those who are just being loud and who you don’t wish to see content from. But unfortunately I do not see that happening any time soon.

There are a few things I want to address in this because I think it's a good moment for the fandom to step back and reflect on how we treat one another, how we react to such issues, and how we behave moving forward.

First off, thanks for explaining your point of view without being antagonistic. I do think that everyone's emotional reactions to the post were valid. I do NOT think their responses, in terms of words and actions, were valid. Now before I move forward, I want to clarify that when I use the word "you", I am referring to anyone who may have had the response I am describing - not you personally, anon. Also please don’t freak out about how long this is, as a majority of it is a response to the fandom in general, not you in particular.

What was - and wasn’t - said in the original post

In this post, there were completely valid criticisms of the way that people in this fandom behave, and it wasn’t “generalizing” a certain group, it was literal, actual proof of things that had been said, by multiple people. I’m not going to get too into what Alyssa argued because her critiques of those tweets was flawless. The original post had very valid criticisms of what was happening on Twitter. Alyssa exposed the actually racist, homophobic, and imperialistic underpinnings of those tweets.

However, a lot of people are stuck on the bits before and after those critiques. @bookprofessor apologized for different aspects of her post in a few different asks. There were perhaps better ways that some of those things could have been phrased, some things that could have been left out. And she apologized. People can accept that apology or not but we can’t act like it didn’t happen. Like she didn’t reflect and learn to do better.

However, the people she was calling out have not done the same thing, and if anything, comments that focus more on Alyssa’s tone than why she wrote the post in the first place lets those people off the hook.

On cracker - Using the word "cracker" is not racist in the same way that using racial slurs against POC is. Is it prejudiced? Yes. But you cannot say that it is the same thing when that is demonstrably untrue, given centuries of oppressive history. No one has been oppressed for being white. Those are not the same. Reverse racism is not a thing because a white person punching down on POC is NOT AT ALL the same thing as a POC punching up at white people. The actions look the same, but the impact is so unequal it’s not even funny.

Racism is a systemic, institutionalized problem. It is not defined by individual actions, though those actions can either support or challenge racism. When someone calls a white person a cracker, there isn’t centuries of oppression giving power to and reinforcing that statement. That is not a “gotcha” moment.

Saying “I have x IQ” or “I have X degrees” is not ableist. I’m sorry to whoever told you it was ableist (again, not you specifically anon but people who had read the “aw shucks guys” vagueblogs about it), but it’s not. Those are facts. I have no idea what my IQ is, but I have five degrees from institutions of higher education. Me saying that is in no way ableist. 

Often, people mention those things to be elitist, yes. Sometimes, they can be used to say “hey I know more about this than you”. They can be used in a way that tries to make themselves feel superior. I suspect that this is the impression that a lot of people got of the post. However, there is a fine line between saying “hey that’s elitist” and professing anti intellectualism. Which is perhaps a side issue so I’ll let that go for now.

Another reason that people mention their degrees or qualifications is to establish their background knowledge and credibility. If I were to say “hey y’all I have two MA degrees” (which is true) I am not being ableist! It is a fact! It is factual! And I worked my ass off for those, I will be in student loan debt until I die for those, I have every right to mention them if I want to, and often I do so in order to establish my credibility, to explain the position I am coming from. And my prior knowledge of these topics is relevant when we are talking about literature since that’s what my degrees were on - literature and linguistics. That is why Alyssa mentioned her background, though she did pair it with comments about other people, for which she has apologized.

My final point about this is that I 1000% understand feeling insecure or less than because of educational attainment. I dropped out of high school. I had a complex about that for a long, long time. But I also know that if I took offense at someone else saying they had a PhD, then that offense is about me, not them. Someone else’s inferiority complex is not reason for people to pretend to be less than they are.

If those two comments are what overshadowed the bigger, more important issue for a lot of the readers of that post, then y’all allowed them to overshadow those more important issues. I am 99% sure that someone right now is reading this and thinking “but Leslie, it was the way that she said it!” Boy have I got some news for you!

How we react

This next section is not specific to this ask; instead, it is a discussion of how the fandom responded. If it were only one person who had said “but her tone” then I wouldn’t need to make this point. The fact that multiple people are exhibiting the behavior explained below is what makes this a cultural problem within the acotar fandom.

The main argument I saw on the post itself, and indeed any time I see people bring up how nasty Twitter can be, is that “it was a joke” and “that’s how stan Twitter works”.

No.

Those responses were quite useful for this post, though! So buckle up everyone, because I am going to talk about gaslighting, racism, respectability politics, and tone policing. While I understand that some people might have taken personal offense to what was said, there is a much bigger issue at stake that has nothing to do with individual feelings, and everything to do with ensuring that POC stay silenced and white supremacy is upheld. 

Back to the “but it’s a joke” thing. Thanks for gaslighting! Great example of that, person I’m not going to tag! Gaslighting is when you make someone question their experiences, when you try to make them think “wait, did I really feel that way? Is my feeling about that valid? Do I need to re-evaluate my response to this?? Am I blowing this out of proportion???” And saying “it’s just a joke” is a perfect way to do that. Did I say something accidentally sexist? It’s just a joke, nbd! Now you’re the problem, because you didn’t understand my joke and laugh!!! 

Saying “it’s a joke” or “oh they are old/young/ignorant, they will learn” is not a good response to... anything. It takes the responsibility off the people who are doing the harm, and putting it onto the people who were hurt. And in this case, anyone who read those tweets and found them harmful (which should be everyone?) is completely valid. You aren’t lesser for being angry or emotional or for seeing a problem where other people saw a joke. The people who see those things as acceptable jokes are the ones in the wrong.

This is a tactic that is used against women all the time. Any time a woman is sexually harassed at work or online, for example, and she gets upset about it, and someone chimes in with “oh they weren’t serious, can’t you take a joke?” So you can imagine what this is like for women of color.

It is a very, very common tactic for people of color to be silenced via tone policing and respectability politics. Tone policing and respectability politics are very closely related, especially in this context. The idea is that if Alyssa had just written that post in just the right way, it would have been more palatable to white people, and therefore okay to write. The idea that if she had tried to be “understanding” or “see it from their perspective” or understand that it’s “just a joke” are all ways to silence and de-legitimize any accurate, valid criticisms that were made of those tweets. It effectively re-routes the conversation away from the real issues, and to the person trying to bring them up. It’s essentially an ad hominem attack in disguise. 

We see respectability politics in media when people of color who act or dress or speak like white people are afforded more respect. Or any time that a person of color is pulled over and people say, “well if they had just done what the police officer asked...” There is a pervasive idea that if people just “act” properly, aka if you act white, then the police won’t feel antagonized and try to kill arrest you. If we are nice enough, meek enough, smile enough, etc. then we will be accepted.

When we tone police, we refuse to allow marginalized people the right to be angry. We say that "hey, we can only have this discussion if you leave emotion, which you rightfully feel, at the door, and we can only continue this discussion if you behave in a way that makes me feel comfortable." But guess what? It isn’t about you! These discussions are often highly uncomfortable. There is no nice way to tell someone they are being racist. And yet somehow, that is the ever-moving goalpost. It seems reasonable, right? “Just be civil, be nice, don’t insult each other!” And there is that. But those criteria change constantly, to the point where anyone (white) at any time can say “WHOA WHOA THIS IS MAKE ME UNCOMFORTABLE???” Then we find ourselves at zero, and suddenly the focus of attention has shifted away from the actual problem.

Before we go further, I want to say this: people have a right to be angry. They do not need to make their anger palatable or tasteful for the consumption of others (read: white people). 

We saw this last summer, and I’m not sure how the message didn’t get across. But people are rightfully angry about racism. They are angry about the murder of people of color by police, they are angry about lack of quality education, or clean water, of centuries of oppression that have led to this very moment when all of that ceases to matter because a white woman’s feelings got hurt one time. 

And that is what pisses me off so much. There is no way in this world that we could criticize tweets like those that everyone would agree with, and that everyone would “approve” of, that would be “nice” enough and yet still be impactful and make the authors of those tweets understand the gravity of what they have done. 

The least we can do is allow one another to express our anger, our outrage, because it’s highly likely that those people know exactly what the fuck they are doing, and they do not fucking care. By criticizing a woman of color for the way in which she chose to engage with this topic, we are avoiding the issue and letting the people in those tweets off the hook. 

There were many responses to that post that were positive, that agreed with Alyssa. There are a ton of people who disagree with those tweets, who find them disgusting, who understand exactly how and why they are problematic. That should be what we are talking about. Getting to the core of the argument, on that post or any about racism or other problematic behavior in fandom, requires getting past our own egos. It requires us to be able to step back, say “hm this thing is frustrating but there is a bigger picture here”. It’s not easy, and I recognize that. 

The fact that it is a common tactic though? To say “hey this hurt me personally and so I’m going to ignore any valid points you made?” That feeds directly into centuries of white supremacy because it, once again, silences POC and makes them try to play a losing game. And they will always lose, because no matter how hard they try to play the white game, the goalposts are constantly shifting. So you know what? Fuck the game, and fuck respectability politics, and fuck tone policing and “uwu be nice guys” because when it comes to things like racism and sexism, I don’t expect the people who deserve to be criticized to be nice. In fact, trying to be nice only serves to fuck POC over in the end.

Indeed, in response to that post, certain blogs have taken the opportunity to position themselves as “the nice ones” or “the ones who would never” or “uwu let’s be nice guys” while completely ignoring the fact that a woman of color was attacked for calling out racism. And yes - that was the point of her post. People getting hung up on mentions of her degree are (intentionally or not, it doesn’t matter) completely obfuscating the fact that that is not what her post was about, which was to call out disgusting behavior. idk how many words the post actually was, but essentially, people are focusing on 5% of it to the detriment of the 95% that was actually really important shit. These types of vagueblog posts about the issue fall into exactly what I am talking about - these are people who have decided to look at this issue, see how Alyssa (and anyone else who dares speak up) has approached it, and intentionally try to act like they are “better” because they can be “rational” and “kind”. Newsflash, if you don’t have something to be angry about, then being “nice” about racism isn’t that much of a flex. If it didn’t bother you, then congratulations. That doesn’t make you better than people it did bother. You just got lucky this time, and decided to use that to your advantage to look like the good guy.

I am not saying that all calls for peace are doing this. Obviously it’s what we all want. This is the worst I have seen this fandom in the 4+ years I’ve been here. But we cannot have that by ignoring the real problems and pretending that if we are all just nice to each other, then we will solve racism and sexism and all bullying in the fandom will stop. 

So combining all of this - the gaslighting, the tone policing, and what do you get? You get a fandom that refuses to actually engage critically with its own problems and take accountability for them. You get a fandom that decides that it’s easier to be distracted by this one mean comment over here than it is to engage in the fact that you know what, the culture in this fandom has actually turned incredibly disgusting and a lot of people are just okay with it. You’ve got a fandom that is using the tools of white supremacy to avoid the discussions that should actually be taking place. Maybe people don’t realize that that’s what they are doing. But if someone still thinks that after reading this post, then godspeed my friend, I hope you enjoy Twitter.

Okay so my last thing I want to say is that I didn’t come to all of this knowledge fresh from the womb. I do a lot of work, in my personal life and my professional life, to be better. So here is a list of books that I have found particularly helpful:

How to Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America also by Ibram X. Kendi

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo (side note, I was kinda meh about this one but the chapter “White Women’s Tears” is particularly helpful)

So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment by Patricia Hill Collins

I’m not going to talk specifically about Alyssa’s post anymore, but if anyone wants to continue talking about these broader issues going on in the fandom, I am game. (I really should be grading papers though, so it might take a bit.)

[scripttorture]

My setting is like the real world but with various mythical otherworlds secretly connected to ours. One character with powers of psychic illusion was raised by an MiB-style intelligence and/or secret police force (tasked with keeping otherworldly beings from causing trouble in our world) that trained her to mentally torture people. I want to make this character somewhat sympathetic, so it is plausible for her to be indoctrinated as a torturer from childhood? Does it depend how young they start?

Anon I don’t think this is a good idea. There’s an awful lot to unpack here about why that is so I’m going to start off with a simple question that effects how you move forward: what’s most important for you about this character?

 Is it that she’s sympathetic? That she’s effective at her job? That she’s highly skilled and trained? That she’s part of a productive organisation that can actually do the tasks it sets out to?

 Because if she’s a torturer then realistically she would be none of those things. And making her any of them is (in my opinion) torture apologia: because it is portraying a torturer in an extremely unrealistic way that favours the torturer and excuses the abuse they carry out.

 You would, literally, be repeating lies popularised by real life torturers.

 Torture does not work. It is impossible to get accurate, timely information by using torture. Here’s an introduction to why. Here’s a post on what torture does to investigations. Here’s a guide to writing what torture does to interrogations. Here’s a list of investigative strategies that actually work. Here’s a post on the damage torture does to human memory. Please read these masterposts and take a look at my sources as well.

 Torturers are not indoctrinated radicals. The organisations that torturers are part of actively try to screen out anything they see as radical, deviant or a product of illness. There aren’t enough studies on torturers for me to give you a break down of their politics but my impression from the anecdotes and interviews I’ve read? Their politics is ‘normal’ and mainstream for the organisation they are part of. Whatever that organisation is.

 Torturers are not taught from a young age because torture is not complex. It does not take months to learn how to hit someone. Torturers learn on the job by assisting other torturers.

 Torture is simple. It is functionally easy. I really can’t stress that enough. The most common tortures globally right now are: hitting people, depriving them of food and depriving them of sleep. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that six year olds could come up with that list.

 Hurting people is not complicated. It requires no skill and no training.

 The evidence we have suggests torturers lose skills as they turn to torture, a process Rejali calls ‘de-skilling’. The basic idea is pretty simple: if you spend all day hitting people instead of practicing what you were trained for (gathering evidence for example) you get so out of practice that you start to forget how to do those things.

 And then there’s the effect that torture has on torturers. They get symptoms. They develop lasting, serious, mental health problems which directly effect their ability to do their jobs.

 I have a list of the common symptoms here as well as a rough guide for how many symptoms you should be considering for torturers and torture survivors.

 Separate to the symptoms is the general pattern of behaviour torturers exhibit. We don’t have a lot of high quality studies on torturers and there are a lot of questions we do not have clear answers to. However the studies and the anecdotal evidence of survivors, witnesses and torturers themselves points to some consistent behaviours.

 Torturers don’t work alone. They form little sub-cultures within larger organisations. These groups are incredibly aggressive, competitive, self-important, hyper-masculine and violent. Torturers look down on everybody else. They are convinced that they are the most important people in their organisation, the only one’s doing ‘real work’. They have an arrogant, puffed up pride that combines with mental illness and seeing their colleagues as competition to create the worst asshole you’ve ever had the misfortune of working with.

 They do not cooperate with other people. They use abuse as a pissing contest, competing to see who can be the most brutal in order to try and ‘impress’ fellow torturers.

 They define strength and group loyalty by hurting other people.

 They have a fracturing effect on organisations, because they don’t obey orders and see their colleagues as competition or useless. At the low end of the scale this means cliques, secrets from the larger organisation and a terrible working environment as they bully and belittle their colleagues. At the high end of the scale there are cases where torturers have attacked and murdered people within the same organisation.

 Does any of that sound sympathetic?

 I like a challenge when I write. I’ve described my writing style as ‘hold my beer’ because I tend to take ideas other people dismiss as impossible to pull off and try my best to make them work. I do this because I love exploring human complexity through fiction.

 A torturer who is currently torturing is not a sympathetic person. They are a bullying, violent, arrogant brute who contributes nothing useful to the organisation they latch on to, sucking up time and resources like a tick. They see other people as garbage. And they lack insight into their own crimes. Which means they do not appreciate or acknowledge the pain and damage they cause.

 Now I have written a character who is an ex-torturer who I think is sympathetic in some ways. But getting to the point where they could be sympathetic meant them having to leave the organisation they were part of on a stretcher.

 Their fellow torturers turned on them. They lost a leg. They changed sides and in the middle of a messy civil war they dedicated themselves to keeping their friend’s children safe.

 And I had to set the story twenty years after these events to get that character out of their own ass enough for them to be sympathetic.

 Even then, I’d say they’re sympathetic in spite of having been a torturer. Because they’re still clinging to that insistence that they did something meaningful. They still can’t accept the extent of their own crimes or the effects those crimes had.

 But their pride broke. And they did keep those children alive. They helped raise them. And the tie to those children is what makes them sympathetic by the time of the story.

 Torturers are not sympathetic people. They are self absorbed abusers who bend over backwards to downplay the harm they did to their victims and to justify their crimes.

 Is that really what you want to write?

 I say that, not to be harsh, but because it sounds to me as though what you actually want to write is a genuine investigator with psychic powers.

 It sounds as though you want to write a character who is good at her job. Who is skilled and dedicated and a great person to work with.

 If that’s the case my advice is to ditch the torture entirely. Look at the masterpost on genuine investigation instead and write a character who is good at interviewing people.

 Have her use her psychic powers to present herself as sympathetic to the criminals she’s interviewing. Because she can walk into a room and know their politics, their religious beliefs, their internal justifications for what they’ve done. And she can use that, may be even manipulatively, to seem like someone the prisoner would like, someone they’d agree with.

 That gets people talking.

 And if you want to show her as ruthless, as having an edge to her, that can still work.

 Imagine someone sitting down across from a suspect, holding their hands, smiling, talking to them gently. Imagine them gradually, kindly, getting this suspect’s life story. Imagine them being sympathetic about the reason the suspect murdered someone, validating the murder’s feelings and may be even actions… Right up until they have the information they need.

 Then they turn on a dime. The persona drops, the false-sympathy drains away. They stand up with a sneer and say they hope the murderer never sees the light of day again. And walk out.

 Think about what you want from the story Anon. A character who tortures, or a character who is competent, smart and sympathetic.

 Because it really is one or the other.

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[who-is-page]

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 Plural community, nonhuman community, Dark Souls, Mass Effect, and fandom in general! Go!

Plural Community

The plural community, everything in it aside, is already a fairly difficult space to access if you haven't been introduced to the idea of multiplicity or plurality before-- if you (like we did, and like I imagine many people do) think for an extended period of time that you're alone in the world as some type of many-people-one-body freak, suddenly being exposed to the idea that you're actually not alone in these life-defining experiences can be fucking terrifying. When you combine that with the inherent cruelty that is system medicalist rhetoric, you make the plural community functionally accessible for an incredibly large amount of people. I don't think many people understand the long-reaching effects that sysmed rhetoric has on multiplicity and plurality as its own definitive subculture; sysmeds aren't just traumatizing non-sysmed plurals who disagree with their (anti-science) standpoints, they're also inherently taking away valuable resources from those who need them most: young, vulnerable plurals and people who are only just discovering their plurality and looking for answers.

Nonhuman Community

There is no singular "nonhuman community," in all honesty, so this is difficult to have an unpopular opinion on. There's many small nonhuman communities, some of which like to scream and wail that they're the ~most valid~ when in reality the idea of outsider-oriented validity is a fucking scam and they need to get over themselves. I will say that I disagree with the way some nonhuman communities like to pretend that there's no missing stairs in their local groups, and that I find the idea of there being a threshold of morality connected to nonhumanity to be not only functionally redundant, but also fucking stupid. If someone experiences instincts or urges or feelings connected to their identity, or they identify as a creature or animal often villainized, that doesn't actually mean anything about them as a person and about their moral compass. It's our actions that make us who we are, not parts of our identity that are beyond our control. ...Which circles back around to why ignoring missing stairs, or worse justifying them through the existence of their identity and instinct, is a functionally terrible practice that people should feel ashamed for supporting.

Dark Souls

People who don't bow before they PvP, and people who drink estus during PvP, are fucking maidenless and should go back to Neopets. They can have their rules-less gods-abandoned wasteland there, instead.

Mass Effect

Fem!shep should be considered the canon Shepard, Mass Effect 3 has one of the best DLCs out there with its Citadel DLC, and the Mako IS better than the Hammerhead and I will die on this hill. Mass Effect also has one of the most welcoming fictionkin communities I've ever had the pleasure to be a part of, and Shepard doubles are literally the best fucking people ever to vibe with. I'm also pretty sure the ME fictionkin community is 90% Shepards because all of us die horrible deaths, but I don't know if that's necessarily an unpopular opinion.

Fandom

Super unpopular opinion, but. If someone writes WW fanfiction or WW fanart, especially if they vocally and loudly shit on JKR's work and in no way monetarily support her, then I think that's fine. I feel like it's possible to be openly critical of an author's work and to even help work towards dismantling a piece of media's monetary foothold, while still enjoying fan-made content; these things are not mutually exclusive, and I actually feel like may even put someone who's criticizing it in a better place, because they can even more thoroughly dismantle the media bit by bit.

[thedreadvampy]

Hey Ruth! I noticed you've talked in the past about asexuality in quite a negative manner. As an ace-person (who has received backlash for it) I was wondering: do you still uphold these opinions?

Hey! I have in the past said I don’t really...like people popping up in my ask box asking me My Opinion On Asexuality, but I do appreciate you asking me as someone I kinda know and with your face turned on, so I’m gonna aim to answer in the macro. Though I mean it depends on what the opinions...are? I have had a lot of opinions over the time I’ve had this blog and I don’t necessarily know what all of them were or which ones have concerned you. I can give you a top-level view of how I see my views, though (however, since I have been largely holding off on answering this kind of ask for Literally A Year Now this is less an answer to your specific question and more an answer to the last year of asks)

(also if I get dogpiled in my inbox for Having Bad Asexuality Opinions which I do every time I talk about asexuality regardless of what I actually say then. my phone is broken I won’t know about it :) so I feel untouchable)

I don’t think I hold a negative opinion of asexuality as an identity (I say I don’t think bc we all have blind spots)? I have a lot of very important people in my life who are asexual, aromantic or aroace and. I mean it feels pretty condescending to say ~uwu it’s valid~ bc like. ace and aro people don’t really need my input to validate their identity. but a) it seems like a pretty accurate way to describe their experience and b) I know a lot of them have had a really huge boost from finding a name and community to fit their experience and have found that really helpful, and I’ve seen that make a huge difference in people’s lives and I’m really happy to watch my friends come to understand themselves and feel comfortable and accepted in a part of themselves they had felt really alienated or stigmatised by. In a broader sense, I think there’s huge value in decentralising romance and sex in our assumptions of What Human Happiness Means and for some people that’s not the most important thing, and for some it’s just not interesting. 

So like. I find it difficult to really express these opinions in any meaningful way because my opinion on asexuals and aromantics is much like my opinion on trans people or idk like people of colour. like very obviously those people exist and very obviously those people don’t deserve to be marginalised or stigmatised but it would feel. weird and performative to just make a post saying like “Asexuality Is Good And Valid, I Am Pro It” bc again like. who needs my permission or cares about my opinion. it’s not a Good Thing To Do it’s just. a thing you are that shouldn’t be treated as a bad thing.

however. and I suspect that this is what you’re referring to. while I love and appreciate ace and aro people, I think building communities and active support for ace and aro people is valuable and needed and, as above, I think Asexuality Is Good And Valid I Am Pro It, I do take some issue with elements of how discussions around asexuality are framed online (pretty much only online, I really haven’t run into the kind of black-and-white thinking in in-person queer spaces) 

and I also. think there are some issues with people extrapolating their experience of their own sexuality onto the world in a way which. I’m just going to say a lot of the time when I talk about The Ace Discourse in a negative way it’s around people assuming that the world is split into a binary between ace and allo people, or assuming that only aspec people experience a nuanced or complex or fluid relationship to their sexuality while pigeonholing allosexuality into a pretty flat image of sex and romance focus. and I have always felt like this does a massive disservice not just to people who don’t identify with aspec labels, but also to the general hope that we could work against the expectation that there’s a Standard Amount To Value Sex/Romance - I think that the assumption that there are aspec people and then Everyone Else Has The Normal Type and Level of Attraction just. reinforces the idea that there’s a “Normal” type and level of attraction. which is ultimately pretty self-defeating and also just. observably untrue. 

and this division of the world into Aspec People and Allo People also has some other weird knockon effects - I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically wrong with identities like gray ace or demi or other aspec labels beyond asexual and aromantic, but I do think that the way those labels are used is often. unhelpful. and they’re defined in such personal, subjective ways that you get weirdnesses sometimes like people Diagnosing Each Other With Demisexual or people saying ‘you can’t talk about this experience you share because it’s an Aspec Experience’ and again. there isn’t a concrete material experience there because the whole experience of romantic and sexual attraction, what that feels like and how sharply divisible it is is very, very personal and subjective. and everyone has different experiences of those and will name those experiences differently.

there’s also. historically a minority of Big Ace Blogs that kind of sneer at allosexuality or who would hijack posts about other issues to derail them to asexuality. but I don’t think they were ever representative of the community as a whole and I certainly think that inasmuch as those blogs remain around they’re a legacy of the Long-Ago (and a lot of them are trolls imo)

but there is. an issue I take that does seem to be more currently live which is the question of allo privilege. I think personally that framing all allosexuals/alloromantics as privileged over all aspec people on the basis of feeling sexual/romantic attraction is provably untrue in a world where people, particularly queer people, are actively oppressed and marginalised for expressing non-normative sexuality. it isn’t that I don’t think asexuality and aromanticism isn’t marginalised and stigmatised, because it visibly is, but it seems pretty reductive to boil it down to a binary yes/no privilege when both sexualisation and desexualisation are so actively tied into other forms of marginalisation (this is what I was trying to express in the argument about Martin a while ago - sex and sexuality are so often disincentivised for fat, queer, disabled and neuroatypical people that it doesn’t...feel like a reclamation that those tend to be the characters that get fanonised as ace where slim, straight, able-bodied and neurotypical characters aren’t. like it’s more complex than a binary privilege equation; sex and romance are incentivised and stigmatised differently at the intersection of oppressions and. for example. in a world where gay conversion therapy and religious oppression of gay and SGA people is so often focused specifically on celibacy and on punishing the act of sexual attraction, I don’t think it’s a reasonable framing to say that a gay allosexual man has privilege over an aroace man on the basis of his attraction) 

so those are like. things I would consider myself to feel actively negative about in online discourse (and again. in online discourse. not��in how I relate to asexuality or aromanticism or aspec identities in general but in the framing and approaches people take towards discussing it in a very specific bubble).

but also. um. the main criticism I have of the online discourse culture of asexuality is that there are things I don’t have experience of that I have mentioned, when asked, that I don’t personally understand the meaning of but I don’t need to understand them to appreciate that they’re useful/meaningful to others. things like 

the difference between QPRs, asexual romantic relationships and close friendships

how you know the difference between romantic attraction and friendship

the distinction between sexual attraction and a desire to have sex with someone for another reason

and I hope I’ve generally been clear that this is. honest lack of understanding and not condemnation. I personally have a very muddled sense of attraction and often have difficulty identifying the specifics of any of my own emotional needs so like. it’s a closed book for me at the moment, how you would identify the fine distinctions between types of want when I’m still at step 1: identify That You Want Something Of Some Sort, Eventually, Through Trial And Error. but I think I’ve always been explicit that this isn’t a value judgement it’s just a gap in my own knowledge and yet. every single time I’ve said anything other than enthusiastic “yes I understand this and I love it and it’s good and valid” (and again. I have not gone out of my way to talk about it I have mostly only mentioned it because people keep asking me to talk about it) I have got a massive rush of anger and accusations of aphobia and “just shut up if you don’t know what you’re talking about but also answer my 30 questions to prove you think Correct Things about asexuality” and. I understand that this comes from a place of really unpleasant and aggressive backlash towards the ace community so it’s a sensitivity with a lot of people but like. it doesn’t seem proportional.

also I feel like ever since I hit like 700 followers my Tumblr life has been a constant cycle of people asking me Are You An Ace Inclusionist Are You An Exclus Are You An Aphobe Justify Your Opinion On Asexuality which. eventually yeah I’ve got pretty snippy about the whole thing. but you know. fuck it I’m just gonna lay it out and if you or anyone else is uncomfortable following me based on those opinions then I’m sorry to hear that and I will be sad to see you not want to engage with me any more but I also think that’s absolutely your prerogative. however I will not be taking questions at this time (and not just bc my phone’s broken) - demands for an argument about this Are Going To Be Ignored so if you want to go then go.

so like the big question I reckon is Do You Think Asexuality Is Queer and

yes. no. maybe. I don’t understand the question what does it mean for an identity to be queer? 

there are spaces and conversations where any form of aromanticism or asexuality makes sense as a relevant identity. talking about hegemonic expectations of normative romance. building community. combatting the idea that heterosexual missionary married sex between a man and a woman is the only rewarding or valuable form of relationship or intimacy.

there are spaces where I think heterosexual aros/heteromantic cis aces don’t. have a more meaningful or direct experience of the issues than allo cishets. because while being aro or ace or aspec has a direct impact on those people on a personal and relational level, disclosure is largely a choice, and the world at large sees them as straight. they don’t have the lived experience of being visibly nonconforming that SGA people and aroace people do. they may still be queer but there’s a lot of conversations where they bring a lot of the baggage of being Straight People (because. even if you’re ace or aro you can still be straight in your romantic or sexual attraction and if your relationships are all outwardly straight then you don’t necessarily have an intimate personal understanding of being marginalised from mainstream society by dint of your sexuality). this doesn’t make you Not Queer in the same way that being a bi person who’s only ever been in m/f relationships is still queer, but in both cases a) you don’t magically have a personal experience of societal oppression through the transitive properties of Being Queer and b) it’s really obnoxious to talk as if you’re The Most Oppressed when other people are trying to have a conversation about their lived experience of societal oppression. and they’re within their rights to say ‘we’re talking about the experience of being marginalised for same gender/non-heterosexual attraction and you’re straight, could you butt out?’)

(I very much object to the assumption coming from a lot of exclus that “cishet ace” is a term that can reasonably be applied to non-orientated aroace people though. het is not a default it really extremely doesn’t make sense to treat people who feel no attraction as Straight By Default. when I were a lad I feel like we mostly understood “asexual” to mean that identity - non-orientated aroace - and while I think it’s obvious that a lot of people do find value in using a more split-model because. well. some people are both gay/straight/bi and aro/ace, and it’s good that language reflects that. but I do think it’s left a gap in the language to simply refer to non-attracted people. this isn’t a criticism of anything in particular - there’s a constant balancing act in language between specificity and adaptability and sometimes a gain for one is a loss for the other)

some queer conversations and spaces just. aren’t built with aces in mind. and that isn’t a flaw. some spaces aren’t built with men in mind, but that doesn’t mean men can’t be queer. some conversations are about Black experiences of queerness but that doesn’t mean non-Black people can’t be queer. not all queer spaces will focus on ace needs but that doesn’t mean asexuality isn’t queer, or that queerness is opposed to aceness - sex, sexuality, romance and dating are all really important things to a lot of queer people, especially those whose sexuality and romantic relationships are often stigmatised or violently suppressed in wider society. there should be gay bars, hookup apps, gay and trans friendly sex education, making out at Pride, leather parades and topless dyke marches and porn made by and for queer people, romantic representation in media of young and old gay, bi and trans couples kissing and snuggling and getting married and saying sloppy romantic things. and there should be non-sexual queer spaces, there should be discussions around queerness that don’t suppose that a monogamous romantic relationship is what everyone’s fighting for, sex ed should be ace inclusive, etc. 

I think the whole question of inclusionism vs exclusionism is based on a weird underlying assumption that If An Identity Is Queer All Queer Spaces Should Directly Cater To That. like. aspec identities can be queer and it can be totally reasonable for there to be queer spaces that revolve around being sexual and romantic and there can be conversations it’s not appropriate or productive to centre asexuality and aspec experiences in and we can recognise that not all queer people do prioritise or have any interest in sex or romance. in the same way that there’s value in centring binary trans experiences sometimes and nonbinary experiences at other times but both of those conversations should recognise that neither binary or nonbinary gender identity is a Universal Queer Experience.

anyway that one probably isn’t one of the opinions you were asking about but I have been wanting to find a way to express it for a while so you’re getting it: the Ruth Thedreadvampy Inclusionism Take.

uh. it’s 1:30 on a work night so I have been typing too long. if there was an opinion you were specifically thinking of that I haven’t mentioned, chuck me another ask specifically pointing to what you want me to clarify my thinking on. sometimes I gotta be honest I’ve just been kind of careless in my framing (thinking of the Martin Fucks debacle where I spent ages insisting I didn’t say Martin couldn’t be aroace then read back like two days later and realised that I had said “he’s not aroace” bc I had written the post at 2am without proofreading and had meant to say “unless you think he’s aroace”) so I May Well Not Stand By Some Posts or might Stand By Them With Clarification

[sir-phineas-lost]

Follow-up post

So I got a reply to my comment about the ableism in Ironwood’s character arc by @swapauanon and then they immediately blocked me. Since I am sometimes a petty bastard I decided to make a separate response anyway.

The first thing I would like to point out is that this person does not actually address my points in any way throughout this lengthy rant. My comment was all about the behind-the-scenes comments from the creators and they only responded with in-text examples and their interpretations of them. Those are important sure, and I will talk about those, but they don’t exactly come off as arguing in good-faith right from the get-go.

Okay, so I don’t TYPICALLY acknowledge RWDE’s beyond blocking them, but I think it’s important to separate how Ironwood views himself versus how the writers view him.

Because Ironwood’s entire downfall is his misunderstanding of how humanity works. He denies his own humanity, and sees maiming his vulnerable flesh and replacing it with unfeeling machinery as ridding himself of his own human weaknesses.

Except at the end of the day, he can’t cast off his VERY human soul, and his refusal to acknowledge that he can’t and SHOULDN’T do that are ultimately what leads to his downfall.

I have seen this “Actually it is just Ironwood himself that is ableist” argument before, and I don’t think it holds any water. While it is true that he begins to see compassion as a weakness, he never expresses the views you say he does about his own machine parts. And if you want to talk about how Ironwood sees himself vs how the writers see him you really can’t do so without talking about framing and subtext. When we get scenes that emphazize Ironwood’s machine parts to make him look intimidating or use his passive superpower (described as “hyper-focus” by the creators themselves) to shut off his empathy, that is the writers telling us that these physical aspects of Ironwood makes him less human.

Meanwhile, what V8C12 was TRYING to convey (even if it was horrible in its execution), was that it’s one’s SOUL that defines them, not the body that houses it. 

Literally NO OTHER CHARACTER with mechanical parts added to their body views themselves as less human.

[...]

Penny doesn’t angst over not being human, she angsts over being treated like a soulless tool. (Which is why I don’t like that they turned her human. Had they set up that she’d wanted to be human back in Volume 2, it would’ve been one thing, but they don’t establish that Penny wanted to be human until AFTER her mechanical body has been discarded.)

So here they outright contradict themselves. They start off saying that no other character views themselves this way, and then go on to say that Penny does (but only after she has been turned human). And like, points for admitting that scene was bad, but they seem unwilling to consider that maybe the fact that the writers did include that scene tells us something about the way the show at large views disability. They seem to think they can just write it off and move on like this instance of Penny absolutely seeing herself as inhuman can just be ignored. it also disregards that this isn’t just Penny expressing how she feels about herself. When Penny gets her human body she expresses surprise that hugging someone makes her feel “warm inside” even though she has hugged people countless times before. This is not a villain saying that having machine parts makes you less human and being proven wrong, this is a hero saying outright that “wow, my mechaniocal body made me unable to appreciate this simple human interaction, but now that I have a flesh-body I can”. Things like this is why I do not buy the argument that it is only Ironwood who thinks being part machine makes you less human.

Mercury doesn’t angst over the loss of his legs, he angsts over the piece of his soul his father tore out.

[...]

While Yang DOES lose her arm and angst over it, she doesn’t view herself as less human because of her prosthetic.

The closest we get to a LITERAL “cybernetics eats your soul” story is with Cinder, and she doesn’t have ANY cybernetics, just a parasitic leash that’s slowly consuming her flesh and threatens to eventually consume her mind if she doesn’t get rid of it. And if/when she does, I imagine she’ll replace that with a mechanical arm.

(I moved a few parts of their post around here because it made more sense to me to talk about these quotes together)

I feel like this highlights how much this person completely ignores the core argument of what makes the themes in RWBY ableist. They focus way too much on the literal and whether the characters “angst” over their humanity. But like I have said before, thie main issue here is theme and subtext.

Mercury doesn’t “angst” over his legs, but that doesn’t erase the subtext inherent in the fact that he still lost his legs (and presumanbly the piece of his soul) at the same time as he joins team evil.

Yang is probably the best take on a disabled person with a prosthetic in the show. I will give it that. I don’t think there is anything particularly wrong with how it has handled this storyline, but I do think it sets a certain expectation for how it thinks a “good” person should handle their disability. Because Yang basically deals with her lost arm by seeing her prosthetic as an “extra”. She creates a distance between herself and it instead of seeing her mechanical arm as actually part of herself. Again, nothing inherently wrong with that but combined with the Penny-nonsense it creates a pattern of seeing machine parts as inherently inhuman and “lesser”.

The point about Cinder is where the argument relies too much on technicality. Sure, Cinder’s new arm isn’t cybernetic, bhut it is still a prosthetic and it is unambiguously presented as evil and corrupting.

So, no, it’s not the fact that Ironwood has prosthetics that makes him less human, they’re simply a symptom of his view of “soft” traits (kindness, empathy, forgiveness, and flesh), as weaknesses to be sacrificed for the “greater good”. Basically, while I know this term gets misused a lot, Ironwood embodies toxic masculinity. The idea that showing any emotion other than rage and pride is “shameful” and “unmanly”. The idea that brute strength matters more than strategy. That taking unnecessary risks to achieve your goal is “brave” and “daring” and not “stupid beyond belief”. Plus, I want to point out that WINTER HERSELF said that Penny (as a robot) was more “human” than her. 

Again, this completely ignores how Ironwood and his prosthetics are framed by the narrative. The idea that all of his flaws are based in toxic masculinity and have nothing to do with his disability is just not very supported by the text or by word of God (again, it was the creators themselves who said that losing his arm was “symbolic of losing his humanity).

And Winter’s words to Penny aren’t very positive either. The point being made there is that Penny was always human “underneeth” her robotics, which sounds good until you realize that this still frames her mechanical differences as negative. They are treated as a prison for the “real” Penny and the narrative explicitly tells us that they have made her unable to feel certain emotions.

It’s just that searing off that flesh after breaking his own Aura serves as a good visual metaphor for Ironwood giving up his “softer” traits to accomplish his goals, even if there was a better solution staring him right in the face (i.e. the rings were EXPOSED and he could’ve just nudged them out of alignment to get to Watts).

This feels like a really big reach on their parts to justify their idea of Ironwood as stupid on top of everything else. It relies on assuming things about fictional technology that was never explained in the show itself. I mean, if the rings are so easy to nudge then what is even holding them in place?

Either way it doesn’t really matter because the message of the scene is the same. If the point is to signal that ironwood is willing to give up his softer traits because he is also willing to give up his soft bady, then that also tells the viewer that being able-bodied and being capable of compassion/kindness/etc are synonymous.

It has nothing to do with the metal, and everything to do with the “Mettle”. 

I have no idea why they would bring up the fantasy neurodivergence the writers added in through word-of-God as if it somehow makes the show less ableist. “Mettle” as it is described by the writers, is not a character flaw. It is a chronic condition.

Edit: Seriously, I hope you realize that the hatedom makes it VERY hard for any criticism of the show to be taken seriously when the very VALID cricisms are downed out by “Adam should’ve been an anti-hero!” and “Fascism is good, actually!” leading to those of us with ACTUAL constructive criticism getting lumped in with you lot!

I am curious what they think “constructive criticism” looks like since apparently “Hey, constantly equating robot parts with inhuman behavior is shitty and ableist, please stop” doesn’t cut it.

Anyways, fuck this guy. If they want to be taken seriously maybe they should think about why they had to make such a long-ass rant to dismiss criticism of very basic ableist tropes.

[sweetsassymusic]

The Long Kaz Rant I Told Myself I Wouldn’t Write, But Here We Are

This is probably an unpopular opinion. And I hope it doesn't come across as confrontational or anything because I don't mean it that way. But I've always been super confused by the way Kaz is accepted, basically across the entire fandom, as either morally gray or straight up villainous? He doesn’t really seem like either of those things to me. On a surface level, obviously there are things he’s done that are normally considered evil. He’s stolen, he’s killed, he threatened a child, he gouged out someone’s eye. And that’s all pretty bad, right? But it completely ignores the context given in the books. (More after the cut because this got too long...)

There’s a difference between doing something evil and doing something that’s shocking, “dark,” or difficult to watch.

Before I read the books, I heard fans discuss all the horrible things Kaz does. And the way people talk about him, I was expecting him to be… Feral Kaz – someone who delights in doing horrible things because he’s just so twisted and angry. The author herself even referred to him on her blog as being utterly despicable. Wow! This guy must really go out of his way to hurt innocent people, huh? So when I sat down to actually read it, I was so surprised. Most (if not all?) the killings were done on some level of self-defense. His “murder victims” were actual evil people trying to kill him or someone he loved. And the reason he threatened a child was because the only alternative was killing her – something he would never want to do. You know, because he’s not evil.

I don’t know if I just have very different definitions of these terms than most people? But to me, the idea of Kaz being “utterly despicable” should not even be on the table to begin with (Leigh Bardugo, you good?) and even the idea of him being “morally gray” is questionable.

When I think of a morally good character, I don’t think of someone who never does anything questionable or always perfectly makes the correct choices. I think of someone who is on a mission–either to protect the world, a loved one, or simply pursuing a personal goal–who at least tries to conduct his mission in a way that either does no harm to others, or (when that’s not possible) does as little harm as necessary to get the job done. 

Whereas, when I think of a villainous character, I think of someone who has no regard for others at all. Someone who either relishes in harming the innocent, or pays zero consideration to whether he harms innocents while pursuing his goals (which are usually, in themselves, harmful to innocent people). 

And finally, when I think of a morally gray character, I think of someone directly between these two. Someone who is a little bit evil, a little bit sadistic, but not entirely evil. He’s got a few good points too. Maybe he’s someone who keeps switching sides, unsure if he wants to be a hero or villain. Maybe he has hurt a lot of innocent people unnecessarily, but he joins in with the good guys for personal gain, and people don’t mind him there simply because he doesn’t interfere with the protagonist’s goals. Or maybe he’s the “Bad Cop” to someone else’s Good Cop: someone who uses more violence than is necessary, just for fun, but still helps the good side in some capacity, so everyone chooses to look past it.

Under these definitions, Kaz (to me) seems more like a good character. While pursuing his personal goals, he protects people he loves, and yes, he does do “dark” things. But he doesn’t relish in doing them (despite his reputation in-universe of being a chaotic sadist. His reputation is not accurate; he invented it for his own protection). He does them because he has to. If he can get the job done right without hurting anyone, that’s the route he’ll take. But that option isn’t always available. And he’s not the type to lie down and die just to avoid getting his hands dirty (nor should he, imo). 

Again, maybe I just have a different idea of what constitutes being morally gray. But I always thought it was meant to be a judgment on the choices you make when you actually HAVE a choice? A morally gray character has the choice to be good or evil, and they choose to do both (which one depending on how they feel that day). 

Whereas, if you do something “bad” because circumstances force you to do it–because you or someone you love will die otherwise–that’s pretty much the same as having a gun to your head. You’re not morally gray. You’re doing it under duress. It’s survival, not a reflection of where you stand on moral topics. Like, if you trap a vegan in a room with only a piece of meat, and you leave them there for days, weeks, that person doesn’t suddenly become a “fake vegan” if they eat that meat to avoid literally starving to death. You forced them to do it. When it comes to their moral beliefs, they would still be a vegan if they had the freedom to make that choice. You just put them in a situation where those choices aren’t available to them. Your lack of freedom in a situation shouldn’t define you.

The same can be said for placing a starving, homeless orphan boy alone in the dog-eat-dog world of Ketterdam. The option of being a sweet little law-abiding citizen is not available to him. So is it really fair to define him by something in which he had no choice?

I’ve come across so many GrishaVerse fans who, while sipping on their Starbucks in the comfort of their own home, go “Ugh, Kaz. He’s so DARK, so EVIL!” (Fun fact: while my mom was watching the show, she said Kaz is evil because “he seems to always have a plan.” Oh no! Not PLANS!)  “He must be some kind of monster to be able to do the things he does and still live with himself! I could NEVER do those things!” Well…you’ve never actually had to do those things? Your life has never depended on it? Idk, to me, it’s just a very privileged take. And I’m not trying to make this into a big social issue. It’s not like criticism against a fictional character is anywhere near the same level of importance as the issues marginalized people are facing in real life. I’m just saying, it’s very easy to condemn activity you’ve never been forced to engage in for your own survival.

One of the biggest reasons people have given me for why they think Kaz is evil is that he is “for himself.” Even the author said she thinks Kaz is worse than the Darkling (who, I’ve gotten the impression, she believes to be irredeemable) because the Darkling has communal goals (he wants to bring positive change for other people/the world at large) while Kaz’s goals are just personal (he wants to bring positive change for himself and only himself). And for one? It just isn’t true: many (if not most) of the things Kaz does is either for his Crows or for his late brother; he just disguises it with supposed self-interest for the sake of his reputation. And second? It’s…not actually wrong to have personal goals or to act in self-interest. Bettering your own life is a valid desire. It’s not the same as being selfish. Not everything you do has to be for other people.

(And, tbh, this is something Leigh Bardugo seems to have a problem with in general, not just in this scenario. I could write a whole separate rant about other characters that were demonized in-narrative for engaging in “too much” self-care, and how her unforgivingly black and white morality ruined the Shadow and Bone trilogy for me. Worst of all, she even seemed to imply recently that the only reason real-life antisemitism is wrong is because “the Jews didn’t fight back”? [Like, if they had met her criteria of “fighting back”, would that make antisemitism somewhat justified to her? What? Idek, but she should really clarify.] Basically, she seems to take “non-selfishness” to an extreme. I don’t know her personally, I don’t want to make assumptions, I don’t have anything personal against her, and I’m not trying to get her cancelled or anything, I promise. But please, when you read her books, please don’t accept all her ideas at face value, because there’s some Weird Shit™ in there sometimes.)

Anyway, another reason people say Kaz is bad or morally gray is that he wants revenge. “Revenge is a bad coping mechanism! You should want JUSTICE! Not REVENGE!” And again, this argument is wild to me. I mean, yes, there are situations–especially in real life, modern, western contexts–where revenge is a bad coping mechanism someone has developed, and transforming their anger into a desire for justice is a way for them to overcome that and express their anger in a healthier way. But that’s a very specific scenario. When we’re talking generally, the line between revenge and justice is a lot thinner than people think (and in some scenarios, there is no line at all). 

For example, real life victims and their families often say they can’t wait to see the perpetrator rot in prison, even wishing (sometimes even fantasizing) that the guy gets abused in prison by fellow inmates. For them, justice and revenge are wrapped up together in one big court-issued sentence. And while some people find that disturbing or take issue with it, it’s…generally considered valid outrage? This guy is evil and hurt them, so it’s okay for these people to want him to suffer. And most importantly, these people called the cops instead of taking matters into their own hands, therefore they’re Good, right? They’re good citizens who obey and rely on the established authority, therefore they are handling their anger in an Acceptable™ way?

But in the world of Ketterdam, if someone has victimized you, or is trying to kill you or someone you love, you can’t just call the fucking cops (and let’s be honest, looking at irl cops, it’s a questionable idea here too sometimes). If we’re analyzing Kaz’s outrage and how he handles it, we have to analyze it in the context of where he lives, not where we live. We have options in our lives that Kaz doesn’t have. So we have to ask, what are the most productive steps he could realistically take in his world?

I see activists and bloggers on websites like this, publicly fantasizing about gouging the eyes out of certain politicians and right-wing figureheads. And they would probably do it for real if they could. On Tumblr and Twitter, this is generally considered righteous anger. The politicians are evil, so it’s okay to hurt them, right? That’s how the logic goes, anyway (I know some will disagree, but it’s a common take here). Well, imagine if, instead of just being a bigot, one of these evil people personally stabbed–possibly killed–your girlfriend. And there were no cops to call, no news stations or social media to turn to, to show people what this guy did. No authority or community on your side. No way to ensure this guy faced consequences for his actions. There’s just you, your dying girlfriend, your helplessness, your anger. What would be the appropriate way to handle this situation, so you were acting out of justice instead of revenge? What does “justice” even mean in a world like that? It’s a world where either you hurt others or you lie down and just let others keep hurting those you love (which, in itself, would be evil). I can’t think of any “appropriate” response Kaz could take. Which, for better or worse, is probably why he just went for the eye. You probably would too in that context. Are you morally gray? I doubt it.

It’s really weird to me how people seem to hold Kaz to this high standard of absolute Moral Purity, but they don’t hold other characters to it. Like, was the dad on Taken being “feral” or “morally gray” when he told his daughter’s kidnapper that “I will find you and I will kill you” and then pursued him with fury? His motivations were personal and not communal. He was coming from a place of revenge, just as much as justice. But most people consider him a hero. He’s not controversial or “dark.” There are plenty of other heroes who do terrible things (sometimes to innocent people! Even when it’s not even necessary!) for the “greater good” or just because it’s convenient. People call them a “badass” and then turn around and say Kaz is just “bad.” Idk, it just seems really arbitrary the way people draw these lines.

If we’re expanding the definition of “morally gray” to include anyone who’s ever done anything questionable, made a mistake, been forced to do something they wouldn’t normally do, done something for personal reasons instead of for the world at large, or wanted revenge for something, then there literally are no heroes in fiction (except maybe a few cardboard cutouts) or in real life.

(Ironically, the most morally gray thing Kaz does, imo, is something most people don’t even have a problem with: the fact he runs a gambling house to “take money from pigeons.” And even that is really mild [no one is forcing the “pigeons” to gamble their money away]. But yeah, that’s one of the few instances I could think of where he actually hurt innocent people unnecessarily. That and the time, as a kid, where he stole candy from that other kid...and even that might be mostly-but-not-entirely excused by the fact he was starving to death. But yeah.)

[upshuring]

Most people have a slow shift in their personality over the years — it's not visible when watched day to day, but it does show over time. A drastic change — one might to refer to as a Rebirth as is a common theme within these games — usually comes with a big life event, often traumatic in itself.

Miles undergoes this in the most obvious way of all characters by literally dying, however, it could be argued he does this in a lesser way far before the game starts, in fact. (Actually, one could justify three times, but two of these stages aren't as differentiated. I'll point out what I mean later. Note that this relies also heavily on my own headcanons and the way I have written Miles for years by now.) In a way, he is his own trinity, which we see in Christianity but is actually far older — so while this is probably supposed to mirror the son, father and holy spirit I personally find that the pagan version of maiden, mother and crone fit this a little bit better, especially since the latter represents the trinity of one deity instead of three different entities (or rather, it is both). The values of the triple goddess are also more clearly defined as innocence, maturity and wisdom.

First, we have the idealist. This is youth, innocence not yet lost. It is also (separately from that) a certain naivety about the world, inexperience and lack of knowledge. In terms of religion, it is a child that grew up with his grandmother's stories of a world that isn't limited to one driving force, but rather lives with spirts and little wonders, even if he doesn't believe in it himself. It's what people usually start out with as children which will slowly metamorphize into something else sooner or later, however, for the sake of symbolism, we can actually pinpoint the turning point for Miles pretty easily in the one thing we do know about him previously to the game, and that is the war. The Miles before that — only just dropping out after a single year of college — had a share of trauma before that's entirely my headcanons and not relevant here, but in the grand scheme of things, nothing quite on the same scale. Even though he's been to war zones as a witness rather than a soldier, not fighting (sound familiar?), it was still seeing depths of humanity and horrors that aren't comparable to anything that came before that. Certainly it also was the first major damage to his psyche that would result in becoming host much later, and the first deliberate choice he himself made that would later set him on the path to Mount Massive — to ignore what are most likely direct instructions on what he is and isn't allowed to publish, which is a sense of maturity in it's own — setting values of oneself over what people tell one; making own decisions and standing up for the consequences.

Second, we have the cynic. The agnostic who lost most (but not all) hope that the idealistic version of himself had. Now reached maturity — the state of the mother, even if in no literal sense — there are still traces of his former self to be found like a wish to better the world, but also the knowledge that not everything can be changed, and that sometimes the goal justifies the means. This is someone who is only abiding to authority when it suits him and who will make his own path. While this first one was a lesser rebirth, it still was what was necessary to even the path to what's to come — maybe closer to a baptism than actual rebirth. This is someone who knows about the horrors of the world and doesn't close his eyes from them. He also now starts to actively work through his own past trauma, acknowledging it which could be seen as a preset to the later horrors he witnesses to become the host. One could argue that there's also a cut between this version of himself and the one that actually steps into the asylum (which is what I mentioned earlier), but that whole night is much rather the actual transformation from mother to crone — to deity. He is granted wisdom through sacrifice — and if we pull another mythology that Christianity stole from into this, this night is Miles' equivalent to Odin hanging himself from Yggdrasil to stare into the deep waters and gain knowledge. There is a meta going around (not mine) that relates the nine floors of the Asylum to the nine circles of Hell (and actually, the entirety of Outlast 1 to the Divine Comedy) and while this is a valid point, it has also been nine days that Odin stayed in this position, bleeding, before being granted wisdom. Obviously, that journey ends with the end of the game — in dying and becoming the new host for the Walrider.

Third, we have the newfound deity. Wisdom has been gained in a way that isn't quite comprehendible by a human mind, but at this state, his humanity is all but questionable. He waved his sanity goodbye and greeted divinity (quote by Zick which I absolutely love) — and he's definitely ascending at this point. It might be questionable and remains to interpretation how much of himself is truly left at this point; to me personally it is a parasitic symbiosis in which the Walrider will, ultimately, consume all that is of the host without meaning to, necessarily. Companionship of the host is something that they actually crave, but in their very nature, they will just force them out piece by piece. Before, however, memories mix and distort, which means there's also a part of Billy within them both; leaving us with the trinity again. There is impossible knowledge that a normal human couldn't possibly gain — there's a different view on the world, quite literally. The whole way he perceives reality is changed majorly — at some points, everything is just a kaleidoscope of colors, or everything is too sharp. Sounds are distorted. He is more than human, and at the same time, there remains something ultimately human within himself. It's a very special type of divinity, granted to mixing godhood with humanity.

But ultimately, everything must die, even gods, and that is the last step left on this journey.

[godworn]

Most people have a slow shift in their personality over the years — it’s not visible when watched day to day, but it does show over time. A drastic change — one might to refer to as a Rebirth as is a common theme within these games — usually comes with a big life event, often traumatic in itself.

Miles undergoes this in the most obvious way of all characters by literally dying, however, it could be argued he does this in a lesser way far before the game starts, in fact. (Actually, one could justify three times, but two of these stages aren’t as differentiated. I’ll point out what I mean later. Note that this relies also heavily on my own headcanons and the way I have written Miles for years by now.) In a way, he is his own trinity, which we see in Christianity but is actually far older — so while this is probably supposed to mirror the son, father and holy spirit I personally find that the pagan version of maiden, mother and crone fit this a little bit better, especially since the latter represents the trinity of one deity instead of three different entities (or rather, it is both). The values of the triple goddess are also more clearly defined as innocence, maturity and wisdom.

First, we have the idealist. This is youth, innocence not yet lost. It is also (separately from that) a certain naivety about the world, inexperience and lack of knowledge. In terms of religion, it is a child that grew up with his grandmother’s stories of a world that isn’t limited to one driving force, but rather lives with spirts and little wonders, even if he doesn’t believe in it himself. It’s what people usually start out with as children which will slowly metamorphize into something else sooner or later, however, for the sake of symbolism, we can actually pinpoint the turning point for Miles pretty easily in the one thing we do know about him previously to the game, and that is the war. The Miles before that — only just dropping out after a single year of college — had a share of trauma before that’s entirely my headcanons and not relevant here, but in the grand scheme of things, nothing quite on the same scale. Even though he’s been to war zones as a witness rather than a soldier, not fighting (sound familiar?), it was still seeing depths of humanity and horrors that aren’t comparable to anything that came before that. Certainly it also was the first major damage to his psyche that would result in becoming host much later, and the first deliberate choice he himself made that would later set him on the path to Mount Massive — to ignore what are most likely direct instructions on what he is and isn’t allowed to publish, which is a sense of maturity in it’s own — setting values of oneself over what people tell one; making own decisions and standing up for the consequences.

Second, we have the cynic. The agnostic who lost most (but not all) hope that the idealistic version of himself had. Now reached maturity — the state of the mother, even if in no literal sense — there are still traces of his former self to be found like a wish to better the world, but also the knowledge that not everything can be changed, and that sometimes the goal justifies the means. This is someone who is only abiding to authority when it suits him and who will make his own path. While this first one was a lesser rebirth, it still was what was necessary to even the path to what’s to come — maybe closer to a baptism than actual rebirth. This is someone who knows about the horrors of the world and doesn’t close his eyes from them. He also now starts to actively work through his own past trauma, acknowledging it which could be seen as a preset to the later horrors he witnesses to become the host. One could argue that there’s also a cut between this version of himself and the one that actually steps into the asylum (which is what I mentioned earlier), but that whole night is much rather the actual transformation from mother to crone — to deity. He is granted wisdom through sacrifice — and if we pull another mythology that Christianity stole from into this, this night is Miles’ equivalent to Odin hanging himself from Yggdrasil to stare into the deep waters and gain knowledge. There is a meta going around (not mine) that relates the nine floors of the Asylum to the nine circles of Hell (and actually, the entirety of Outlast 1 to the Divine Comedy) and while this is a valid point, it has also been nine days that Odin stayed in this position, bleeding, before being granted wisdom. Obviously, that journey ends with the end of the game — in dying and becoming the new host for the Walrider.

Third, we have the newfound deity. Wisdom has been gained in a way that isn’t quite comprehendible by a human mind, but at this state, his humanity is all but questionable. He waved his sanity goodbye and greeted divinity (quote by Zick which I absolutely love) — and he’s definitely ascending at this point. It might be questionable and remains to interpretation how much of himself is truly left at this point; to me personally it is a parasitic symbiosis in which the Walrider will, ultimately, consume all that is of the host without meaning to, necessarily. Companionship of the host is something that they actually crave, but in their very nature, they will just force them out piece by piece. Before, however, memories mix and distort, which means there’s also a part of Billy within them both; leaving us with the trinity again. There is impossible knowledge that a normal human couldn’t possibly gain — there’s a different view on the world, quite literally. The whole way he perceives reality is changed majorly — at some points, everything is just a kaleidoscope of colors, or everything is too sharp. Sounds are distorted. He is more than human, and at the same time, there remains something ultimately human within himself. It’s a very special type of divinity, granted to mixing godhood with humanity.

But ultimately, everything must die, even gods, and that is the last step left on this journey.

[gettin-bi-bi-bi]

Hey, I've identified as bi for a few years now,but lately I feel very unsure and insecure about my sexuality because most of my crushes have been guys, and the one time I was in love,it was a guy too, but I also have major daddy issues and I get attached to men and idolise them very easily and I sometimes wonder if that's the reason why I feel more strongly about men,any advice how to be more confident in your sexuality and how to know if it's actual attraction or if it's just my daddy issues™? (I'm a girl btw)

This isn’t that easy to answer tbh. I’ve seen people say “real attraction is supposed to feel good” especially in regards to the old “am I bi or a lesbian”-question but that kind of disregards all the bisexual women who have internalised biphobia and struggle with accepting the attraction they feel for men (or other genders, too, for that matter). So, yeah... real attraction should feel good but societal pressure, sexual shame, internalised biphobia and other shit can make it really hard for some people to enjoy the very genuine attraction they feel.

All I can say, which is what I say to any person doubting themselves like that, is that your crush history alone doesn’t define your sexual identity. Identifying as bi is about recognising that you have a potential to be attracted to more than one gender. It doesn’t matter how many crushes you’ve had or what experiences you’ve made with which gender(s). At least it doesn’t have to matter. If it feels relevant and important to you then of course you can incorporate those past experiences in your identity-finding process. But you don’t have to. You can also just say “in theory I can see myself being attracted to people of multiple genders” and call it a day bisexuality.

Maybe you have a preference for men. That itself is debatable bc how does one even “measure” a preference like that... and again, it’s something that only you can figure out if you even want to figure it out. You are not obligated to analyse every tiny aspect of your sexuality. Unfortunately m-spec people tend to over-analyse things and we fall into this trap of thinking we have to justify every little nuance in attraction that differs between different genders in order to prove that we really are still bi and worthy of being part of this community (hint: that’s internalised biphobia!). But you can also just not give a fuck. You don’t have to write a thesis about your sexual identity and you don’t owe anyone a detailed explanation for why you have only had crushes on guys or why you still identify as bisexual or why you changed your label (if that’s what you want to do) or why you have a preference one way or another or how your daddy issues influence your preferences.... nobody is entitled to know any of that.

And let’s say you do have a preference for men (which I wouldn’t know but for the sake of the following let’s assume it for a second) who cares if that preference comes from daddy issues or something else? Also, “daddy issues” isn’t a diagnosis and it can literally mean anything from a completely absent father to an abusive father. You say you tend to “idolise” men and I agree that this can become a problem if those men that you like are all assholes and you end up being blind to that bc of an unhealthy attachment. If that is the case then I recommend therapy to get over those ”””daddy issues””” or... childhood trauma... or whatever it is. If you struggle with that then ask for help from a professional to unpack whatever those “daddy issues” actually are.

If I try to bring this all together then I’d say: you don’t have to find some “meta explanation” for why you are so attracted to men in order to justify that attraction. It can just be what it is and it’s not more or less “valid” if it is influenced by daddy issues. Let me tell you, when I was a teenager I was constantly accused by my peers of having “daddy issues” bc I was attracted to older men. Funny enough, at the time I had a great relationship with my dad (the issues started way later). Deep down I knew that daddy issues weren’t the reason for being into old guys but I still spend my entire adolescence wondering why I’m so fucked up that I can’t find boys my own age attractive. Turns out: there doesn’t have to be a big reason or some trauma or “issues” to explain why someone has a certain kink or type or preference. A lot of the time people’s sexuality is just what it is without any deeper Freudian meaning behind it. And likewise... you might just have strong feelings for men because, well, maybe you are very attracted to them - regardless of any issues with your father or not. You are allowed to be attracted to men and still be bi. You are allowed to be VERY attracted to men and still be bi.

Anyway... whether your attraction to men is real™ or not is for you to decide. You have to look at what you feel and what you want and interprete that in a way that feels right and authentic to you. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else but you. And it’s fine if you make a choice to back away from men for a while to sort this out in your head first. It’s also fine to try out other labels if you want to see if any of them feel more accurate than “bisexual”. It’s also fine to keep exploring your attraction to men and keep identifying as bi. It’s all up to you.

Maddie

[firebirdsdaughter]

Okay…

… I feel very bitter right now.

But I am going to be eternally frustrated by the fact that as far as I could tell, Aruto’s (and therefore Izu’s) definition of ‘heart’ was ‘happy making humans happy.’

Or… ‘Seeing that humans are ultimately good’?

Really, just… I define a heart as ‘feeling emotions.’ Feeling emotions is useless unless you know how to handle them, which Horobi didn’t, and no one seemed at all invested in teaching him how. Just made him feel worse and worse, pressured him about something that terrified him and pushed him over the edge, and then a human who really should have known better went and grabbed the fucking Ark Key??? Like. Horobi’s somehow completely at fault for Izu pestering him until he lashed out like any emotionally immature child or even animal would and then she doesn’t move out of the way even though she easily could have, but Aruto grabbing the psycho Key and going nutty is ‘totally understandable bc grief.’

For one thing, wtf would Horobi believe Izu’s nonsense, she’s programmed to love and obey Aruto, and she never develops anywhere past that. He knows she’d say anything to save her beloved master. She has no identity out of ‘exists to serve Aruto and occasionally be cutesy.’ Listen, Takahashi, you need to work on your female characters when you resurrect one w/ no memory and she’s exactly the same.

My lack of sympathy for Izu’s ‘death’ is bc it could easily have been prevented by multiple other people even if Horobi did literally nothing different, and bc literally nothing was lost. If any of the humans had actually used that compassion they sing to the skies about, you know, like, the fact that they have years of practice knowing how to feel and control emotions. I’m sorry but, ‘did you feel Izu’s pain?’ Well, first off, no, bc she didn’t seem pained at all, she just kinda stood there parroting Aruto’s bs, but… What about feeling Horobi’s pain? Or… Was Izu being ‘sad’ Horobi didn’t magically forgive humanity for everything they put him through and took from him more important than him having being mind raped, controlled, conditioned, and abused for twelve years? ‘I believe in your heart’ you mean you ‘believe’ he’s going to magically switch around and conform to your views that humans are ultimately good and anything bad they do can be excused bc they teach you about ‘hearts’? Meanwhile, none of her memories changed her at all. She gazes lovingly at Aruto, she participates in his jokes… There was pretty much nothing to her other than ‘loves Aruto.’ Her character fell into the trap of KR’s general attitude toward female characters that they exist to be pure angels who unfailingly believe in the hero and the series’ attitude toward AI, that the definition of ‘goodness’ for them is completely devotion to humans and unrealistic purity and benevolence.

The question should never have been ‘will AI have benevolence towards humans’ but ‘do humans deserve it?’ ‘what can we do to justify that?’ Why do HumaGear have to ‘prove their worth’ and ‘teach humans to be nice to them’ but humans don’t have to… Like… Know how to be decent? Aruto’s sympathies and dreams for HumaGear were exclusively rooted in how they benefitted humans. He expects the ‘hearts’ they develop to be completely ‘pure’ and ‘benevolent’ even if humanity has given them no reason to be so.

Horobi was the most aware of how horrible the Ark was. Everything he did, he did bc he was conditioned to believe it was right for HumaGear. Bc he saw the cruelty of humanity, and wanted to protect his people from it. He was conditioned/programmed to react w/ absolutes and extremes. He didn’t turn on the Ark bc he realised humans were actually ‘good’ he did it bc she turned on HumaGear, and he fought bc he loved HumaGear. His love for HumaGear, for Jin, was stronger than her control. That was it.

But he also knew that she was created by humans. Deliberately. It doesn’t matter that Gai had a personality one eighty bc the satellite printed him a dog and Aruto’s only for humans AI therapist talked to him for a hot minute. This shit doesn’t work like that, Gai should be at least facing jail time for his part in things. Yotacrappy’s response was to manipulated Jin into trying to kill him as a sacrifice, even after the Ark was out of the picture. Not a single person reacted w/ ‘maybe we should give this poor AI who has literally had his entire mind and life fucked over by humans and has no reason to like us a bit of kindness and support to help deal w/ the emotions he’s suddenly feeling.’ Izu’s speech was kinda close, but the tone was ultimately ‘she’s right and he’s wrong.’ The attitude shouldn’t be that ‘humans can sometimes be beneficial, so that makes the wrong they do okay.’ The fact that they tried to pretend that even the most twisted humans were ‘actually just misguided’ was ridiculous.

Horobi’s suffering was real and valid, and deserved recognition beyond ‘lol, but humans are actually nice, tho.’ He was scared and confused, but no one was trying to help him through that, they were just belittling the very valid reasons he had to be angry at humans. Rather than being like ‘I understand you’re angry and in pain and those are valid feelings, but there’s a better way to do this’ the response was either aggression or ‘no, you’re wrong, they teach us to want them to be happy and to dream or serving them well!’ (pretty much what Aruto’s definition of ‘good HumaGear’ seemed to be). And then even the people who should understand the most how her feels act like he’s spreading a ‘shocking’ and ‘bad’ thought by offering HumaGear a chance to stand up for themselves. I really hate how the protests were treated as Horobi spreading ‘malice’ to the HuamGear and all conveniently disappeared when Aruto ‘won.’

Again. The Frozen quote is eternally accurate for Aruto’s ‘dream.’ ‘It’ll be just like it was except for we’ll be best friends.’

Aruto’s dream was never equality or freedom for HumaGear. What he wanted was for them to go back to work for humans w/ smiles painted on their faces to make humans happy. HumaGear’s meaning in life shouldn’t be to ‘be useful to humans.’ I wasn’t expecting the ending to be ‘everything is okay now,’ but I was under the impression that there would be some kind of motion toward HumaGear getting some rights and protections or respect by virtue of being, like, living beings rather than needing to work and be ‘useful’ to justify their existence. Aruto is very face value, he thinks that the programmed personalities humans give HumaGear are their ‘true natures’ when they’re not, they’re just a starting point. They need to branch out. The fact that Izu’s entire life just revolved around benefiting Aruto made it hard to sympathise w/ her in place of the more interesting and dynamic characters. The fact that Aruto tries to claim HumaGear are his ‘employees’ when the definition of that word literally is ‘someone who works for a wage’ and people pay his company to get HumaGear to work for them and he delivers them to people in boxes… It’s just ridiculous. They shouldn’t have to just be ‘perfect pure forgiving little angels’ just bc humans made them and occasionally are nice to them? Izu’s data was just as biased as Horobi’s, they should have met in the middle rather than her being painted as ‘right’ and ‘good’ for only thinking of humans as good.

Yes, Horobi should have responded w/ violence, but literally no one even tried to put real effort into showing him other ways to react, or to help him through what happened to him. They either shouted at him, put him down, invalidated his suffering (admittedly bc she was just as out of balance maturity-wise as he was), or outright tried to kill him. Any child or animal will lash out when stressed or panicked. It is the responsibility of the people w/ more awareness to know what they’re dealing w/ and act accordingly. Izu knew he was armed, she saw the weapon pointed at her, she had plenty of time to move, and choose not to. That was not Horobi’s fault. It also wasn’t Horobi’s fault that humans decided to not give her a back up to benefit themselves. How was he even supposed to know that? Where was Aruto? Why was he running around outside trying to make the other HumaGear go back to his definition of ‘normal,’ while telling them there’s ‘no reason to fight anymore,’ which really should be their decision??? If he really cared and wanted to help Horobi and saw HumaGear as people, wouldn’t he have run in and tried to properly talk Horobi down? Then we have Yua’s hypocrisy of reacting aggressively to Horobi and them giving a speech to Yotacrappy for reacting the exact same way to the protests. And then Fuwa literally shooting down the one time Horobi genuinely tried to reach out… While kinda in character… Definitely did not help. Horobi was never in a place to parse out implications.

Basically, they pushed Horobi over the edge, then blamed him for being broken. Meanwhile, they have all sorts of ‘compassion’ and ‘understanding’ for Aruto and it’s ‘not his fault’ bc ‘grief.’ The attitude that Horobi’s suffering at the hands of the Ark was less important than Aruto’s trained AI letting herself get shot? The fact that Horobi, however horribly they influenced him to think he was completely at fault, was willing to ‘forgive’ humans for everything he suffered through bc of them… Is much more compassion than Aruto ever showed him.

Horobi had every right to be angry w/ humans and blame them for their part in what he went through. And humans never admitted responsibility for that, and never apologised to him.

But he’s supposed to need forgiveness from them?

[bigskydreaming]

IMO, realistically Dick would have been the first one to reach out to Jason upon hearing he was back, for the exact same reasons he took a chance on Damian as Robin (which Bruce very likely wouldn’t have), and he took a chance on trusting Raven and forming the new Teen Titans to stop Trigon after the Justice League had already turned her away because demon energies mumble mumble, and look I’m just saying - 

Dick Grayson is the guy who takes chances on people. Who gives them the benefit of the doubt. Who risks big for even the possibility of having his faith in people justified.

The only reason he didn’t do that with Jason, and help ease the way towards Jason reconciling with the family...

IS BECAUSE DC SPENT YEARS ACTIVELY NOT WANTING JASON RECONCILED WITH THE FAMILY.

Keeping Jason at odds with the rest of the Batfamily was absolutely a CHOICE DC made, deliberately and consciously. So like....instead of looking to shitty interactions that make EVERYONE involved look out of character, to use as inspiration for Dick and Jason’s interactions in fics that otherwise are more than happy to disregard canon anyway.....

I’m just saying, instead of writing Dick as backing up Bruce’s caution and disapproval towards Jason, what if instead you look to the very very very well established pattern of Dick trusting and being close with people his father definitely doesn’t approve of and is wary of, like....idk, pretty much all the Titans at one point or another, plus a bunch of the Outsiders, plus the considerable number of criminals and antiheroes he’s managed to make nice with over the years, and like...tbh, off the top of my head, the only person I can think of who both Bruce and Dick don’t like that much is Ollie? LMAO. That’s it. And in Dick’s case, that probably has a lot to do with the fact that Ollie’s never been a huge fan of his either.

*Shrugs* Anywho, have Dick and Jason at odds after the latter’s return if you wanna write them that way, I mean, whatever, but this guy who is all stiff and uncomfortable and judgmental around Jason with no other reasoning given that like, Bruce doesn’t trust him or approve and thus neither does Dick, like....what???

(And yeah, I know he was written that way in Brothers in Blood, but again - see the bit where DC didn’t WANT Jason getting along with the family, and also....Jason showed up in town in Dick’s costume and started getting Dick a reputation of murdering people, and Dick happens to care quite a bit about how he’s seen as a vigilante, given that he’s always put a ton of effort into being approachable and such, and then Jason started poking directly at Dick’s still fairly recent and HUGE scab aka his feeling responsible for Blockbuster’s death....like, there are plenty of reasons why in that particular story arc, Dick wasn’t falling over himself to be like welcome home little brother who had a million and one opportunities to approach me and THIS is the way you chose to do it. And like...none of them have anything to do with Bruce).

But like, bottom line....behind the scenes decisions always play a huge role in these things....and make no mistake, originally DC brought Jason back to be a Batfamily antagonist. That was their Big Idea there. He wasn’t intended to occupy the angry Robin niche, DC wanted someone to fill the ‘fallen from grace’ Robin niche....until they eventually realized no most people wanted Jason as a good guy or at least antihero and not pitted against his family and they took advantage of the reboot to do that.

Like there’s a reason that Brothers in Blood and Outsiders were pretty much the ONLY time Jason and Dick interacted after his return up until Battle for the Cowl, and that’s because the majority of Nightwing writers didn’t WANT to use Jason when it meant having to have him and Dick dramatically at odds with no chance of anything other than that.

Like....the very specific reason that people writing Dick just mindlessly backing up Bruce’s stance towards Jason in fics with no dissent, like the reason this drives me up a wall isn’t even actually because of my uh...well documented opinion that they were closer before Jason’s death than is usually assumed. No, like even without that, that characterization for Dick completely fails to take into account that for a good twenty years, Dick was DELIBERATELY characterized as the guy who took chances on the very people Bruce wouldn’t.

That Bruce himself was characterized as saying the thing that he was most proud of Nightwing for and why he felt he’d become a better version of what he’d always wanted Batman to be, is because Dick had never lost his ability to trust in people even after being let down....because his trust was never based in naïveté but was rather a conscious CHOICE not to let the reasons he’d been given not to trust people actually take away his determination to have his faith in them proven RIGHT.

While DC was leaning into all the stories that highlighted Batman as paranoid and untrusting like The Tower of Babel with his contingencies against all the Justice League and Brother Eye and stuff, for a good fifteen years before Jason’s return....throughout all that time they were intentionally writing Dick as being the polar opposite of Bruce in that SPECIFIC regard. Like, for decades Dick was the guy DC wrote all the other characters turning to when they wanted to COMPLAIN about Bruce’s trust issues or refusal to give someone or something a shot. It legitimately just does not make much sense to simply position him as Bruce’s unquestioning number two in all matters Jason when in most every other matter Dick is the first one to be written challenging Bruce’s decisions.

So many of you guys have spent years writing Dick as the real problem child, unreasonably stubborn and likely to pick a fight with Bruce at the drop of a hat (PARTICULARLY people who write about Bruce and Jason in his years as Robin)....how come THAT characterization only seems to disappear the second Bruce is like “welp, Jason is bad now forever, oh well” huh? And only then for once Dick is like sounds about right to me boss! Like....hmm. Nothing about that seems convenient to anyone?

Like if you’re going to keep one thing in mind about Dick’s character, how about instead of his temper or flightiness or cheery jokes or chipperness or unreasonable stubbornness like....what if instead people focused on a core characteristic like how even as far back as The Judas Contract, one of the Titans’ most iconic and definitive stories....

the Titans only beat Deathstroke after he infiltrated them using Terra as his mole and literally all of them were captured except for Dick....because Dick didn’t have to rescue the others all on his own.

He did it with Joey’s help.

Because pretty much right after the reveal that Terra was a traitor who was working for Slade for as long as they’d known her....Dick chose to take a chance on trusting a complete stranger, with the story then validating his decision to believe the best of this new person instead of compounding the idea they never should have trusted Terra by having Joey turn on them too.

And the fact that the very first new person Dick chose to trust after Terra’s betrayal was Slade’s very own son....that wasn’t a coincidence. That wasn’t dramatic irony.

That was the POINT.

And this core characteristic of Dick’s has been held up time after time after time....so why can’t something like THAT be treated as defining and indicative of him as all these other fanon flaws and attributes that are usually based on a mere handful of panels or issues and then blown wildly out of proportion? How come he can spend so much time being characterized in fics as hot tempered and likely to go off about anything when most of the examples to back that up have to deliberately be pulled from stories of brainwashing or where he’s for other reasons still acting OUT of character by the canon example’s own admission...while characteristics that entire iconic story arcs have HINGED upon go not only unacknowledged....but completely flipped?

You tell me.

[werelesbian]

I know with people coming up with new micro identities every 5 seconds, it makes me wonder if I’m just trying to make up my attraction to women and that I’m a straight girl just trying to be special for whatever reason. I know that multiple people tell me I’m not straight because of well like everything I say but there’s just multiple fears I have regarding everything since the realization of me realizing I do indeed like women hit me hard in the head this year. I know I have my own insecurities when it comes to my sexuality for I indeed worry it’s something made up for “wokeness” or whatever. Like I had no idea what non-binary was or other terms like that until this year. I’m just trying to figure out fully about my sexuality and trying to overcome internalized homophobia and I don’t need to shuffle myself under some micro identity in order to feel “validated”. I’m insecure. I know that. Am I forcing these feelings I have towards women in the sake of feminism or to push the narrative that I am attracted to every women on the planet? Also no. I have a type of woman I like that is true. I’m not attracted to every woman out there. I don’t get it when people say “oh I’m attracted to all woman and three men!” Like you don’t need to overperform an attraction to women in order to feel “bi enough”. If you have a specific type of woman you like, that’s okay. I personally have a preference for masculine women and that is fine.

Reality is that I’m insecure in this new realization about myself for multiple reasons. One is my family. They continuously make jokes about me “looking like a lesbian” and have made comments in the past about pushing that I must be bi and it’s okay to like women and men (despite me having reservations about them wanting me to be with men only). They also say that I may have not met the right man yet and saying I “need a good orgasm” from a man. It angers me that I’m told this because I buy into their bullshit and it makes me try and disprove my attraction to women and try and force myself to be more attracted to men despite it being pretty damn low. When I was closeted, aka buying into the narrative that “to be a proper adult” I need to be heterosexual and mature, I mainly focused on boys and became hesitant to write or make anything with gay or bisexual characters in the fear of being abnormal and dating women (also I didn’t know that it was a true possibility for me).

Another worry I have is that this realization about my attraction came so fast (thank you ex gf) that it literally just exploded out of me. Like, men basically went off my radar and I just only checked out women and focused on women. I also delved into lesbian shows and movies and I enjoyed them A LOT. I also finally realized that indeed yes, I want a relationship with another woman, I wanna kiss them and I wanna have sex with them. Prior to this, I had crushes on women and there were even a couple I wanted to date but never got the chance to and I chickened out of kissing a girl when I was 16 (this is also one of my reasons why I try and justify my attraction to women as “not real). I did get a chance to date a girl casually and have sex and kiss her and I really liked it. I was in my head a lot though with fears that I wasn’t going to like it, that I would realize that I am not attracted to women actually and that I wouldn’t have romantic feelings about her. In reality with men I was with, these things happened and I wasn’t really super attracted to the men I was with. The girls I was with though, both long distance and the fling I had, I was very attracted to and always wanted to be close to them.

A third thing is that I know that the acronym LGBT has basically gotten watered down into the word “queer” and that basically tears the community apart. I know that someone could take it as that wanting to peg your boyfriend is now considered “queer” or kink is “queer”. I don’t like using the word for myself because to me it means nothing. Telling me you are “queer” means nothing. Are you attracted to the same gender? No? Then you aren’t gay or even bi. Someone I know defines it as “not conforming to heteronormativity”, but it’s a slur that’s been used against the community and I didn’t even know the word was a thing until this year. I just don’t want people to assume that they’re automatically “queer” because they like pegging or they’re poly or something when they’re not attracted to the same gender. I mainly don’t wanna be associated with that. I just wanna date girls and eat some pussy in peace please.

Most of all with everything, I just wanna live my life being allowed and feeling okay to love another woman without the world telling me I’m a fucking freak for doing so. I just wanna spend my days (as of now) with another woman and eat pussy. I wanna hold another woman in my arms at night and not worry if my rights are going to be taken away because some damn politician with a stick up his ass says it goes against his belief. Biology isn’t fucking political. It’s a fucking reality and that goes for my sexuality. I’m biologically attracted to other women. That I cannot change. Society deemed it to be “wrong”, thus brainwashing generation upon generation to think it’s bad. Homosexuality and bisexuality can be observed in multiple animal species. I can’t help it! God forbid I crave pussy! Fuck!