#argue in reblogs but not tags

[ps1demodisk]

Unpopular(?) takes because as a sys I'm tired and I feel like yelling at the void tbh

Introjects don't choose their source but you do choose to ignore all the negative things about your source, and people, especially the people these negative/problematic aspects affect, have a right to mention how uncomfortable that makes them, regardless of whether they're a system or not.

You DO NOT have to tell everyone your source or the sources of your sysmates, nor do you need to list them on your blog. You're not entitled to know others sources and they're not entitled to know yours. Don't let yourself be pressured, and don't pressure anyone else.

System accountability applies to everything, no exceptions.

The severity of a trauma is personal, I'm tired of seeing arguments over what trauma is "bad enough" to develop DID/OSDD. It changes per person and situation, there is no definitive measurement for it.

Everyone in this community completely misrepresents polyfragmented/CDID systems and how they function and it's kinda really incredibly annoying. You can be polyfragmented and not have a high alter count, it's not defined solely by the act of splitting easily and systems that aren't polyfrag can split easily.

Fictive heavy systems are valid but that doesn't mean people are wrong or ableist for being wary of 14 year olds with 50+ danganronpa alters.

In the same vein, you don't owe anyone your traumatic history, not even other systems. You don't need to justify yourself to fakeclaimers and it's honestly safer if you don't so just block and ignore for the love of god.

Just because someone doesn't talk about being a system all the time doesn't mean they're faking, being a system doesn't need to be your personality or main character trait. People who do talk about it all the time aren't invalid or attention seeking either, y'all need to stop arguing on that stuff cause it hurts no one to just coexist and be respectful.

[sexy-sapphic-sorcerer]

some iconic quotes from the podcast 'bait' about merthur

"if we're taking queerbaiting as representation, which we are, Morgana is a much better queer figure than Merlin is"

"Merlin's whole thing is 'if I stay closeted long enough and keep on supporting my oppressor, then maybe, maaaybe one day his son will love me'"

"the show ends with Merlin living in the present day still waiting for Arthur to rise again and maybe fuck him this time"

"because he's immortal, Merlin could have called the cops on Stonewall"

"Merlin in the present day is probably some Arthurian scholar and is absolutely insufferable" "writing really erotic– have you ever read an academic essay by someone who wants to fuck the historical figure they're talking about? that's what Merlin is doing"

"my favourite merthur fanfic trope is Uther will consistently be like, 'Arthur it's ok that you're having sex with a man because at least you're not going to get any bastards but you can't have sex with a sorcerer'. like, no it's the same thing! you don't understand the show you're watching"

"Arthur is like 'if you're a sorcerer Merlin, I guess that's okay, I just don't believe your kind should have rights'. he's one of those people that's like 'it's fine if you're a homosexual but I still think it's a sin'"

[fumifooms]

Ok maybe kinda of a weird question you don't have to answer if you don't want to but I've seen some people saying that Chilchuck is canonically misogynistic so, as the Chilchuck especialist, do you have an opinion about that?

Anon you are brave and I love you. Listen if you, person reading this, get peeved or upset when people say Chilchuck might have had not insignificant flaws as a father and husband then probably stop reading here, we will be looking at Chilchuck like a petri dish and defile his pristine allure. Tldr: yes but actually no but really both at the same time aka people & social dynamics are complex and please let your blorbos be flawed. With that said I will be pretty casual and playful if that wasn’t clear already, sorry.

"Aren’t you happy to be in a harem party" "No it’s soul-crushing save me". Toshiro has been drinking his fear women juice since he was young, surrounded by an assassin nanny and her fellow assassin girlies, meanwhile Chilchuck having flashbacks of getting wrung out by his 4 women household…

Waiting on people is something we see he hates doing a couple times throughout canon and extras, here and how he says "it’s not a date" -bless his summer child heart- he frames being slow to get ready as a gendered trait to have? But I can forgive him for this one because honestly the framing of the whole page leans into that, it’s kinda questionable if we’re being highly critical of anything misogynistic or regressive. But it itself is the classic subversive "Women are desirable wallflowers— Wrong! They are a monstrous ruthless force that wears on the mind, body and soul" trope. I don’t fault Kui though I got giggles from it, it makes sense for everyone’s characters, and Kui has never shied from gendered dynamics in her worldbuilding & characters so it’s not like she’ll write as if sex changes nothing and no one has opinions about it.

Alright alright let’s step back from analyzing this page specifically and get back to the question, is Chilchuck canonically misogynistic? It’s a complex question not because we don’t have hints but because it’s a very black and white answer to give and because misogynistic can be very wide or pretty narrow depending on how the term is applied.

What I would say? Yes, he is, in a realistic way that doesn’t automatically make him a piece of shit, though that doesn’t mean it isn’t uncomfortable or harmful. On the spectrum of misogyny he classifies to me as "It’s in the normalized lighthearted way of being a horny uncle who’s a little too loose about it around the dinner table", he’s a solid "He wants to treat women as pieces of meat and jokes about it but in actuality he’s a gentleman and a family careerman who has a job so he don’t really care about that rn".

Going back to Toshiro’s party, Chilchuck being weird about it being full of women doesn’t even happen only once but TWICE. I made a compilation of every time he’s crass, happens less than you might expect but the overall picture it gives throughout reading the manga is pretty straightforward. Repeatedly he’s shown to be dirty-minded and objectify & sexualize women lightheartedly unprompted. They’re a punchline and they’re eye candy and it’s "of COURSE my succubus would be young women, of COURSE women would desire a muscled statue’s [redacted], of COURSE women are sexual beings and of course I am attracted to them".

Dungeon Meshi doesn’t bring up sexuality much and gendered dynamics tend to be more subtle than you’d expect from media in general, so there’s that, but I honestly struggle to think of any character that acts less normal about women existing than him. Like yeah he’s joking but Hien, Benichidori, Inutade and Maizuru were just breathing and doing their jobs. Who else’s misogynistic uhh, that guy working for the shadow governor that licks Cithis’ ear when she’s bound in ropes? The sheer jump from ‘makes demeaning jokes about women’ to ‘assaulter’ between these two, god.

Honestly it does feel odd to me that he’d be kinda demeaning like that about women even in a workplace setting —Chilchuck the union man out of everyone?— but Kui has spoken man idk, think what you will don’t shoot the messenger. It’s not like he’s weird about Namari? I guess he respects her too much- Wait that sounded wrong. Maybe it’s literally just because she and the other women party members are his direct coworkers, in line with his rule and all? But yeah, even if he canonically had a thing for blondes and pretty young women he has managed to only tease Marcille ceaselessly for fun & entertainment and make her hair extra shiny as his shapeshifter, you get a good behavior star there Chilchuck. He complains on waiting for Marcille to get ready in the barometz chapter but he also does with Laios when he’s late to meet up the party in extras. He constantly pulls on Marcille to get her to safety as if she can’t protect herself but she’s referred to as clumsy a lot so he has that justified reasoning. He constantly berates everyone so no point to make there. He undermines Marcille’s opinions often but it’s because he dislikes mages and elves and idealism. Clearly Chilchuck knows women can be capable and clearly he can have women coworkers (and friends! Again, Namari) without belittling or sexualizing them, clearly he can be normal about women and knows that some of his attitude can be inappropriate. It’s just harmless fun to him, that he keeps for occasional playful banter and taverns and the ‘right’ moods.

And as I mentioned earlier! Chilchuck is also pretty gentlemanly and protective. As always desires vs wants and instinct vs rationality show up as themes. Yes his succubus aka his ideal, the deepest allure he can imagine, is beautiful naked women, but a chapter just before that was the bicorn, all about how faithful and virtuous he is, how his heart’s in the right place. His brain is virtuous but his heart is monkey. My point is that when it counts, aka 90% of the time and when things are serious, we don’t see signs of sexist bias and he treats women well. Often takes on a protector role or at the least takes them seriously, even Benichidori. He doesn’t want to hurt women or thinks they’re insignificant or anything. He’ll give a handkerchief to a woman in need with a slimy face.

Okay okay this is really entering speculation territory but in my own tally, the way he dismissed his wife’s ‘bad mood’ as some meaningless tantrum that he shouldn’t think any more deeply about, him starting out not reaching out to her as a resentful silent treatment, and her getting dissatisfied in the first place enough to leave makes me think he took her for granted and was kinda dismissive of her in general. Marcille’s theorical scenario is hypothetical and factually untrue at least in parts, but if we do follow it, him forgetting he’s out with his wife for once (in the precious counted time he’s home spending time with her) and not paying attention to her all outing, resulting in her being left out of conversations and just an ornament beside him the way she might have felt for a long time as his housewife waiting home for him to come back………

Half-foots seem to be patriarchal. The last section of this essay’s chapter (not by me!) + combing through the half-foot chapter should give you insight on that if you want. It’s in their patronymic, it’s in the way marriage seems very important especially for women, and it’s in the implied gender roles, being a housewife whose life revolves around raising her husband’s kids and taling care of the family home waiting for her husband who’s out working to come back. I think Chilchuck is a bit a result of his environment and upbringing in that way, that most of the misogyny is internalized and subconscious and passive, it’s taking his wife for granted because not only does she trust her, his most precious person he’s known since he was a kid, but because she’s his wife, his woman, conceptually something that’s unwaveringly devoted, something that is very valued and enforced in half-foot communities. Here’s a short post on half-foot family bonds culturally + here’s a post on marriage and half-foots for more. The community aspect of half-foots is very strong, which makes sense especially for how empoverished and discriminated against they are, which does come at the expense of not unlike dwarves (dwarves which half-foots idolize) having more pressure to fit in and have a good reputation to not be cast out and have no support lines. By being scared and needing stability people will often be more conservative, etc etc, though the reverse is also often true, like Chilchuck with his union. But yes Chilchuck seems to have many biases he clings onto, harsh on especially Marcille and Laios, Marcille for her idealism, race and magic meanwhile Laios for his lack of social skills and ‘reckless’ behavior.

He also does the classic "Don’t you dare date my daughter!!", though it’s a bit up in the air because he only gets agitated about coworkers being suitors, not nearly as hostile to the idea when it’s some nameless dwarf. But y’know when a guy assumes every men is as horny and sleazy as they are so they’re like "never trust men"… Chilchuck does embody a lot the tropes of just, the everyday flawed middle aged man. The absentee father and careerman husband who does care despite it all. Disillusioned grumpy old man. Old divorced drunkard joe with a thing for cute young blonde women, as a friend put it.

We know Kui subverses tropes a lot, I definitely think Kui leans into these if nothing else for the bit. He’s tropes of the strict family Father, man doing inappropriate jokes around a beer with his drinking buddies, working man exhausted and frustrated by his job, midlife crisis. Also because of how he acts with Marcille, I always say he’s the boy on the playground pulling on the pigtails of his girl friend bc he thinks it’s funny. Because he thinks she’s pretty.

So point blank, Chilchuck respects women as individuals but he can get a little lost in the sauce when thinking about women in general and jumps to sexualizing them in ways that can be objectifying and dismissive. Casual lowkey misogyny for the bit that may or may not slip into non-jokes as well sometimes when it comes to seeing women as something inherently to defend or take for granted, though he’s well-meaning. He engages in gender roles of "men should be strong and burly" and "daughters should listen to their fathers’ opinion before dating a guy". A guy engaging in patriarchy without thinking much of it y’know, more or less passive and unaware. He’s good in economic and human rights issues but would not win the political correctness medal (though he does care about optics and is very conscious of appearing as upstanding and innocent with the elves or Toshiro’s and Kabru’s parties to avoid getting thrown in jail. Overcompensating for half-foot criminal reputations etc etc. Post on that here).

Do I believe Chilchuck would march for women’s rights? Yes. Do I believe he would make ‘ye old ball and chain’ and ‘my wife’ and ‘ah women’ jokes? Yes. Do I believe he would punch anyone making one such jokes about his wife or daughters? Yes.

I was pretty flippant bc honestly Chilchuck the Sleazy Horny Old Man is hilarious to me but yes hopefully the post was decent. "How could I be sexist? I love bitches"

[totally-italy]

Aces, we have a new target

As per the screenshot below from @ripmyfictionalfriends, after invading Denmark we should focus our forces for a final effort in the Netherlands before moving to world domination!

[karamazovanon]

saw this post and remembered that i had this sitting in my folder so. take it

[thatswhatsushesaid]

Honestly the empathy sequence makes NMJ kinda strike me as an entitled/abusive parental figure. Maybe I'm just drawing paralels that aren't there, but:

Feeling entitled to JGY's time and attention? He interrupts his conversations with LXC (twice, I think), one of said times because he was eavesdropping on them AND got angry about JGY expressing fear to LXC IN PRIVATE

Not letting JGY explain himself/ not listening when he tries. At the point of the staircase scene NMJ has been poisoned to hell and back by baxia, but I do believe it's not just that. He sees his moral code as absolute certainty and his inflexible nature makes it that he doesn't take well to deviance from that. Aka has to get his way or gets Angry

I think NMJ was an absolute idiot to let JGY ppay clarity for hin after the staircase thing! That draws more into the paralel because abusive people often hurt others and then act like nothing happened, as if their target doesn't have the right to be upset (see again: qi deviating over JGY expressing fear to LXC). NMJ does this to a degree that paints him as almost oblivious imo

I actually do quite like NMJ but he's. So many shades of fucked up, Christ alive

i am going to proceed cautiously here for several reasons, but primarily because:

i have been drawn into the "is nmj an evil abuser" discourse once before on discord (in defence of da-ge, believe it or not) and i Did Not Enjoy It At All, Actually, and

while i think the behaviour described above absolutely qualifies as abusive, nmj's intentions also matter, and i don't think what nmj is trying to do can be boiled down to simply exerting coercive control over jgy. initially on the hejian front when he eavesdrops on meng yao and lan xichen, he wants to help him; the second time he eavesdrops, it's because he straight up views jgy as a threat, and decides to kill him because of it.

imo their dynamic is dysfunctional and toxic and is a powder keg set to explode essentially from the moment nmj sees meng yao killing the jin commander on the langya front, but i think calling it abusive is an over-simplification of what is going on between them.

that said, i do think there is a character in the novel canon who nmj repeatedly tries to exert coercive control over, who is fully and unquestionably under his authority and influence, and who he treats with wildly vacillating levels of either patience or explosive anger depending on the canon point, and that character is nie huaisang.

[wonder-worker]

"[Matilda of Boulogne's office as Queen of England], initiated and broadly defined by the coronation ordo, gave her royal power and authority to share in governance. Her obligations and activities were shaped by custom established by previous queens and the ad hoc needs of king and realm. [...] [Matilda's] thorough integration into the governance of the realm was not repeated in [Eleanor of Aquitaine’s] years as queen of England. Eleanor's coronation followed a new model that emphasized the queen as progenitor of royal heirs and subordinate to the king rather than as sharer of royal power. Though Eleanor acted as regent in England between 1156 and 1158 and in Poitou on several occasions from 1165 on, her writs suggest delegated rather than shared royal authority. In England, her power was limited by the lack of lands assigned to her use and by the elaboration of financial and judicial administration. Whereas [Matilda of Boulogne's] inheritance allowed her to play an integral role in politics by securing the Londoners' loyalty and a steady supply of mercenaries, Eleanor's inheritance provided her with more extensive power in Poitou and Aquitaine than in England. Until 1163, Eleanor withdrew funds from the Exchequer by her own writ, but unlike her Anglo-Norman predecessors, she was not a member of its council nor did she issue judgments from the royal court. Eleanor's counsel and diplomatic activities, in contrast to Matilda's, are rarely mentioned. She did, however, encourage the 1159 Toulouse campaign and supported Henry in the Becket affair and the coronation of young Henry. Eleanor was not a prominent curialis; she rarely witnessed Henry's charters or interceded to secure the king's mercy. She did follow in Matilda's footsteps in her promotion of her sons, cultivation of dynastic goals through the Fontevraudian tombs, and patronage that reflected her family's traditions. For Matilda, to be queen encompassed a variety of functions-curialis, diplomat, judge, intercessor, and "regent." Through a combination of factors, Eleanor's role as queen was much more restricted."

-Heather J. Tanner, "Queenship: Office, Custom or Ad Hoc", Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady (Edited by Bonnie Wheeler and John Carmi Parsons)

[districtscare]

THE PROBLEM WITH DISTRICT 11 ; INCORRECT PORTRAYAL OF A MINORITY

hi! this post has been on my mind for a very long time, and with a possible hunger games resurgence underway, i want to address the not-so savoury and digestable bits about collin's writing, including her characterizations of black individuals within the trilogy.

first of all; district 11 is described as a large district, with its population mainly being black, or at least people of color. this is shown in the movie adaptations, and the several characters we meet throughout the series.

(rue, chaff and seeder's descriptions, but thresh, too.)

(depiction of district 11's population in the movie adaptation of catching fire.)

SO, WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

genuinely? the characterization of these individuals, such as chaff and thresh (both black males specifically.) the portrayal of both characters being a threat in size and combat, which is also often a microaggressive stereotype tied to black men.

(effie's reaction to the 75th's reaping & her snide comment against chaff, catching fire + thresh killing clove/sparing katniss, the hunger games.)

of course, i won't downplay thresh's kindness in his sacrifice of sparing katniss, but the display of his brutality paired with his decent & race does not look good (considering that the hunger games is written by a white woman!) and to me, will always come across as uncomfortable. even his speech makes him seem uneducated, more brawn than any brain, and that's also a heavy misconception when it comes to black men/boys/etc. i can see where suzanne tried to balance it out, but it doesn't work well in the slightest.

furthermore, we have to talk about the state of district 11 as a whole.

agriculture/farming as the role for one of the largest districts if not THE largest, seems innocent by itself. but then you have the treatment of its citizens, the way the population is worked, and the overall uneasiness of it.

(rue's experience in 11, the hunger games + katniss’ description of the district, catching fire.)

public whippings, senseless cruelty towards again, a WIDELY black populated district and their continual work on fields/in harvests all speak to remnants of slavery and pastimes taken place within the era of slavery. if suzanne collins was trying to make a point, or mock the treatment of this minority through a portrayal in her book as a white woman, she missed the mark POORLY. having the BLACK citizens, including women, children and men all working out in the fields? disgusting. beyond incomprehensible.

hoarding a minority in one district is crazy work too, because we barely hear about any other black characters minus paylor, beetee, and potentially cinna. and the fact that in katniss' eyes, 11 is treated perhaps the worst? says a lot.

WHAT'S THE POINT OF THE POST?

truthfully, i'm bringing awareness to my discomfort as a black teen/general black individual because this isn't just something you should brush past. you should see the treatment of these characters and condemn it. i see next to no posts about the blatant racism towards black people/poc in the hunger games and also within the fandom. this has been swept under the rug over and over and blatantly, I'm tired.

collins perpetuates the suffering of district 11 in historical and supposedly educational ways, but that doesn't make it okay for her to do so. as a white woman, collins abuses the usage of racial stereotypes with examples of district 11 men, the culture, their work, but also a wider environment than just 11, such as district 12 too (with the perpetuation of gale.)

[creekfiend]

I think something which persistently bothers me about Austen is the idea that being tedious or annoying or witless are flaws which merit mockery

like. the 'bad guys' will mock Jane for having a low family or whatever and this is bad

but the 'good guys' fairly frequently mock people for being like, harmlessly tiresome or silly.

which I actually personally find tiresome in itself

[some-teeth-in-a-trench-coat]

Ok I'm done putting up with this and I'm done asking anonymously. Please tag your posts about the conflict between Israel and Palestine. All of them. Next time I see an unfiltered post I'm asking in DMs so hopefully people will actually see it and respond and I don't have to look at their unfiltered blog while I wait. And if that doesn't work I'm unfollowing no matter how long we've been mutuals.

If you try to put words in my mouth or claim this post is taking any specific stance on the issue I will block you.

[athena-xox]

I actually hate when ppl comment on my post instead of reblogging. Cause you can’t like comments and like if I disagree I can just reblog my thoughts in the tags but it comes off so aggressive as a reply

[piracytheorist]

Damian Desmond, the bully and the victim

I'm prefacing this by saying I was bullied as a kid at school. It was not the worst bullying story you'll ever hear, but that makes no difference in bully victims, cause no amount of "It could be worse!" can heal the life-long scars bullying leaves in you. I'm not saying this to evoke pity or sympathy, but to give context for my point of view in this analysis.

My two most prominent (and persisting) bullies through my school years were two boys, unrelated to each other and in different times (one was in elementary school and one in high school), who both had divorced parents and lived with their mothers. I don't know the full details of what their relationships with their fathers were, but I can easily guess that there were unfulfilled wishes in their lives, and once they found me they were like "That's who I'll burst out my frustrations on". As if I didn't have my own issues at home, but why would my problems matter from their point of view?

The thing with bullies (and abusers in general) is that, for the most part, they don't understand the pain they're causing - and if they do, they think their victim needs (tough love situation) or deserves it. Everyone is a hero in their own story - I regrettably made fun of a classmate a few times, out of my own need to feel superior for once after having been on the receiving end for so long. And I can tell you that my justification for doing so was something like "I am smart and this kid should listen to me, if he does he will become smart too!". It was only much, much later that I realized that didn't hold and the kid was actually hurt by my uncalled-for behaviour. Usually, bullies don't have the empathy, or if they do they simply don't put it to use, to see things from their victim's perspective.

And in all the praise I have to give Endo for writing Anya very realistically as a child, I also have to give it to him for how realistic the bullying is. It starts immediately, uncritically. It persists and the stupid excuse of "Just ignore them" doesn't work at all. Anya gets angry and upset at it, to the point of violent outbursts and tears (though thankfully presented in such a way that the audience doesn't blame her). Combined with his conflicting emotions about her, Damian has found the perfect victim for his bullying; Anya is an outcast (aside from having Becky, thank god), has physical attributes he can make fun of, and because of her wanting to help with Operation Strix she just constantly presents herself to him, when normally she would try her damnedest to avoid him (like Becky always advises her to).

Everything Damian does is an outburst of his own feelings of neglect. I know manga readers know more about the family dynamic, but as an anime only I've also been given enough to understand it's very, very problematic. But that's not an excuse. Having trauma on your own does not excuse thrusting trauma upon others. I mean, you think Anya, the orphan from the lab who didn't have anyone to give a damn about her happiness until she had to manipulate both her ways into getting a father and then a mother, has less trauma than Damian does???

It's not an excuse, but it's a dynamic for Damian to become better. Damian's behaviour problem doesn't only stem from him being neglected; it's also from the fact that he hasn't been taught sympathy. Which, like, makes sense. His father is an ambitious politician who genuinely believes that it's impossible for humans, even relatives, to understand each other, and had no qualms saying this right in front of his kid.

When it comes to Damian's behaviour, it does not matter that those words hurt him terribly. He doesn't have the emotional maturity and empathy yet to understand that he's only perpetuating the same toxic behaviour with his classmates. The fact that Donovan felt so comfortable saying those words in front of both his own son and a total stranger shows that it's something he's used to; and such traits can very easily be passed on from parents to kids without even consciously trying.

Meanwhile, while Anya had a much worse time while being used as a science subject, she was taught the idea of peace; in the first episode flashback, the scientists talk about how they can use her powers for world peace, to justify cutting her play time short in favor of whatever they were doing with her. When Twilight thinks that understanding her will lead to world peace, she immediately starts complying with that. And when she hears his thoughts about how he wants to create a better world, she decides to stay with him as his daughter to help him in the mission, despite understanding the risk and knowing that whether the mission fails or succeeds, Twilight will walk away in the end. She understands the idea of kindness and good. Maybe the way she was introduced to it wasn't the most noble - after all, the scientists were using it as an excuse to practically abuse her - but she still knows and understands enough about what it means for someone else to be happy.

Damian… doesn't. For the grand majority of his presentation he doesn't do things for someone else, in fact, he's so used to others doing things for him that we always see Ewen carry his backpack for him.

I do not doubt that Ewen himself, being the bootlicker he is, offered to carry it, but the fact that Damian never once went like "Nah it's okay man I can carry my weight today" is very telling about how not used he is to doing things for others.

However, his dynamic becomes interesting and receives redeeming qualities because of the times he does show altruism. First when he stops the ball from hitting Anya in the face during the dodgeball game, (though he instantly and openly regrets doing that). And it wasn't from conscious thought - it was an action purely out of protective instinct. Then, when he's the instigator of consoling George Glooman when the latter thinks he'll be moved out of the school. That one he also regrets doing, but it's much more understandable and it doesn't take away the sympathy he showed him.

There is something he constantly does, however, with someone else in mind; he studies hard and tries to excel at school to receive Stellas, in order to get his father's attention. His way of getting that attention has been so messed up by his upbringing that he thinks the only way of getting any positive interaction with his father is by working hard to not be a "failure". And even that hides some personal motives behind it, because the poor kid longs for some affection from his family. Donovan's character and the distance Damian has from him, his mother (when he calls home, he talks with their butler, not her), and his brother all combined do not allow the kid to understand the concept of doing something to make someone else happy, even (or especially) if there's nothing in it for him.

That's not selflessness; that's a neglected kid pushing himself to prove to his abusers that he's deserving of their affection, something he naturally craves and obviously misses from his life. Tough "love" is so prominent in the Desmond family that Damian had no hopes of growing any differently.

He has the potential to become better and has only been held back because of his family's toxic environment. But he needs to develop a conscious understanding of altruism first if his character is to grow into a morally better area.

You can't just give a character a painful backstory and expect audiences to automatically root for their happiness. You need to show your character also has grown empathy because of said painful experiences. We see it with all three mains. Anya was treated as a lab experiment; you start rooting for her when you see that she wants to help bring peace. Twilight went through a war as a kid; you root for him when he says he wants to create a world where kids won't go through the same thing. Yor lost her parents when she was very young; you root for her when you learn that she took care of her brother and gave him opportunities for education and a better future that she rejected for herself in his favour.

So yeah, I do feel sorry for Damian. But right now I only root for him to understand the meaning of making someone else happy — the meaning behind his own protective action over Anya in the dodgeball game and the sympathy he showed George. When he does that, and he realizes he has more in common with Anya than he dares to accept, it's only then that he'll grow from a layered but still toxic bully into a character audiences can root for.

It's also not the responsibility of Anya of all people to take up all the abuse from him and be the one to help him build up some character. It has to be him making the realization, and Anya can choose to be a friend to him as he does that, but in no way can his development depend on her.

(Again, anime only fan here, don't spoil me for the manga)

[meatmandean]

i know i shouldn't be having spn discourse in 2024 its just that person struck me with their idiocy in a way i couldn't ignore

[urdreamgirls-dreamgirl]

i saw that review on letterboxd of all the rhetorical questions for barbie and like… the more i think abt it, the more i’m certain that the review’s author fundamentally misunderstood the film. barbie land is not a utopia in the way that adults would think abt a utopia, like the author seems to imply… barbie land is canonically shaped by little girls playing with their dolls. that’s why we see a supreme court. thats why there are nobel prizes and authors and lawyers (also because that’s how the toys are marketed… would there be a mermaid in ur utopia??? there would be in mine!). that’s why barbie and ken don’t necessarily know what a boyfriend and girlfriend are “meant” to do (not to mention that the author’s assumption that sex is fundamental to a romantic relationship is problematic at best). that’s why barbie is indifferent to ken (i personally had the life size barbie and my sister had the barbie dream house—we had the working woman barbie game, i had the genie barbie gameboy game, we had countless barbie dolls; we didn’t own a single ken doll lol). barbie land is a world created by and for little girls as they play with their dolls (she says in a comment on the original post “don’t little girls play with their dolls in a sexual way?” and yeah, sure, some do. but i didn’t and i’m sure there are others who didn’t… just like there are some girls who completely mutilated their own dolls and made them into horrifying creatures)… that’s why stereotypical barbie starts having an existential crisis—because a grown woman begins to play with her doll again and starts reshaping barbie land… we, as the audience, are meant to understand this as an outlier to how barbie land is canonically created. the author also calls ken “crass” and “slovenly”… maybe after he builds the patriarchy in barbie land he becomes “crass” but i wouldn’t call him slovenly at any point in the film (i suppose this is just semantics tho).

also, please stop saying that barbie land is a reversal of the real world. it isn’t, even if that may have been the filmmakers intentions. again, barbie is indifferent to ken. she does not abuse him, she does not treat him like he exists to service her by cooking or cleaning or providing other favors for her… barbie does not oppress ken in the way that men oppress women in the real world (we have no idea if he owns property or where he lives and she doesn’t seem to particularly care—extremely different from the fact that women couldn’t have their own bank accounts or credit cards, get a mortgage on their own or divorce their husbands through no fault divorce until the second half of the 20th century in the us… within a lot of our mothers and grandmothers lifetimes!!!!) and it is a complete disservice to conflate or equate the two. we actually see barbie drawing clear boundaries around her time and space in regards to ken—this is not a reversal of misogyny as women and girls experience it in the real world, by any stretch of the imagination.

is the film perfect or revolutionary or radical? of course not. it was produced by major studios and corporations in hollywood. of course the barbie movie is a fucking commercial for barbie, like… to expect anything different is just extremely dumb on your part if u saw the trailer, saw the marketing, saw the interviews, bought a ticket, and sat ur ass in the theater, like be fuckin serious. but don’t do women and girls a disservice by discrediting the world and thoughts and ideas it could open up for them by seeing themselves be taken seriously on screen in a major summer blockbuster with stupid fucking questions because u want to feel superior to everyone else because YOU and ONLY YOU see through the capitalist marketing of lipstick pop girlboss feminism (especially when juxtaposed with the way the female characters are treated in oppenheimer, which we cannot help but compare to the barbie film with the viral marketing of barbenheimer).

[maddy-ferguson]

it kind of sends me that even though they've been the main enemy on tumblr for like 10 years now people on here seem to have no idea what terfs actually believe????

[scoliosisgoblin]

Eddie and Peter doodles feat. Benny from @bennydunbar