#as well the main point of this post wasnt even about accessibility ; it was about how the efforts of coiners are overlooked

[idwl]

i also have a hard time reading posts with long image descriptions and many sections of plain text ; it is a valid struggle . ive seen posts with tons of plain text that i simply had to click off of for my own wellbeing . i understand you . however , these features are still needed . i don't believe it's "preaching" to say that accessibility features are needed , either

there should be resources for people like us , yes . shortened posts . image descriptions should be put in plain text . plain text should have one section , instead of multiple different plain texts . there are ways to fix this and people should be more mindful about the accessibility of their posts . i agree with you . but there are people who also quite literally cannot look at the posts that you're describing to be easier to look at .

i appreciate you clarifying your intentions . i just want everyone's accessibility needs to be understood and validated , especially since those with visual impairment or blindness are often overlooked , and lack of accessibility in this regard is becoming more and more common once again .

both needs are important , but i feel instead of complaining about one need being accommodated to , we should have a discussion about how better to accommodate both sides while keeping these accessibility features in place

i believe there was a better way to word your needs without putting down others ^__^ ;

idk its kind of dumb but i see coiners with lots of effort put into their coining posts but because they dont have one billion elaborate stripes and one trillion aesthetic symbols and fonts and colors in their coining posts they get shoved to the side sometimes . it feels like " aesthetically pleasing " coining posts are prioritized . often to the point of prioritizing it over accessibility as well . image descriptions and plain text are shoved under a cut , fonts that are inaccessible for screenreaders become used more and more .

i keep trying to make my coining posts more and more elaborate and decorated and i keep making more complex flags in an effort to keep up and feel like i fit in but it still doesnt feel like im doing enough .

or maybe its just me and im making a problem out of something that isnt there . maybe this isnt a big deal . idk . it just sucks

sorry for rambling about nothing ive just had this thought for a while

[sparklinggiraffe]

Hi I'm sorry to be a nag, but A3! stage is paid content (and it was technically only accessible to Japanese fans til not that long ago), so sharing content from it is an iffy thing to do I doubt people in charge of those will see but in the rare occasion they do see it, we would all be at risk of losing the little access to the stages we have I know it's not your own posts, and that you're just reblogging them, but the more they're shared around, the most at risk we become

oh. well. i knew sooner or later someone would call out this.

I'm going to explain why i do share this i kind of content even knowing the consequences. its not an attack. i understand people's worries about it. but:

1: not everyone has enough money to pay for it. i live in a country where buying something overseas is a privilege to few. honestly if it werent by others posting "paid content" i wouldnt even know mankai stage. not only me, but a huge part of the non jp fandom. and oh, if you knew how much people WANT to, in fact, pay for this kind of thing but cant. its not a matter of "we will do it on purpose", but a matter of "we cant buy it, so any opportunity to see it free, we will".

2: not everyone knows japanese. this is kinda self explanatory. not everyone has the means to learn the language. imagine buying something that isnt even from your native language.

3. not everyone lives near Japan to see it live. i live literally in the other side of the world. and so do many people i know that wanted to watch it live as well. sadly, we cant. and thats the only means we can use to see at least a few content of it.

4. how someone will watch something if they don't even know its existence? thats actually a way to promote the stage and, in fact, make more people buy it! like i said before, if it wasnt for paid content being posted freely, i would know the wonders of mankai stage. and yes, i plan, in the future, to actually buy the dvd, but i can't for now.

5. as yourself said, they will not see it. how a small account from the other side of the world will affect a big company like l/ber?

6. we already, in fact, are distributing content we shouldn't be seeing, read the story translations and even playing the game. but I'm not saying its wrong, thats my whole point, in fact, its more than right. its all about ACCESS. if more people know it, more people will actually want the real thing instead of doing it by """illegal""" ways. (also, we all know how a3en went. and the main reason behind that was bad merchandise)

edit: and let me tell you something. mostly people reposting things on biribiri arent overseas 😛

conclusion: it's all about access. i do not care if theres a possibility they will let us not watch it, because theres people that dont watch and not because they want to, they just dont have enough means to. also, we already had the opportunity to play the game like we wanted, but it didnt have the deserved potential. you can disagree with me all you want, but i know a lot of people who will agree with me, and not only talking about a/3 stage, but in general.

[gibbearish]

this post is long as fuck already so i'll try to be brief here (no promises)(update: failed) (update: turbo failed) (update: mega turbo failed holy fuck how does this keep happening) (update: gdi), but i've seen a small trend in the notes and i just want to say that if you fell for the original post, please don't beat yourself up about it too much. my main point here is that this post was deliberately set up in a way to mislead an audience with no involvement in the discourse into automatically distrusting a specific side by piggybacking off of predstrogen's banning. op knew that people would already be in a frenzy about a very public display of transmisogyny, which makes it easier to slide things like this under the radar.

a few people now have commented that the reason they shared the original was because they wanted to elevate and support transfemme voices during a time of open hate, which is good and you should do! but that doesn't mean you shouldn't also be critical of the things those voices are saying, or ask yourself what their motivations might be for saying it. because while you might have excellent intentions in boosting things like that, people like op can and will use those intentions against you. and while i said earlier that this post wouldve set off my alarm bells even if i wasnt familiar with the context already, truthfully i have no way of knowing if i would have or not. i'd like to think i would, but i have certainly fallen for internet misinformation in the past and likely will again, so i'm very much not trying to come across as like. "you fools didn't think it through good enough and now look at you. not like me, for i am cool and smart," that's a big part of why i explained this as thoroughly as i did is specifically because the lies are hidden very well from an uninvolved audience. the blame for you being misled lies with op, not with you.

with that though, i should also address something op claimed in an edit (one that i do not have the energy to to break down fully the way i did this one right now nor do i think there would be much more to gain from that beyond what's already been pointed out by others in the replies), which is that that this post wasn't intended for a larger audience and was instead only intended to reach her direct community, not the wider trans community. i'm going to go ahead and classify that as another lie, and an incredibly blatant one at that, because it. literally is not directed at other transfemmes. like, explicitly. it is directed at nontransfemmes to tell them about an issue transfemmes are facing, albeit a very skewed version of it. like, that just. is who the post is directed at. transfemmes do not need to be told about the issues they themselves are facing, especially in the format of an introductory brief, and if there was something else op was meaning by "direct community but not the wider trans community" then i can't see it to address it. regardless, considering her also saying "i didn't want this many eyes on my writing," i feel pretty comfortable in concluding that the real target audience was "anyone who doesn't know i'm lying and can point out the holes in what i'm saying."

if she really didn't want eyes on her writing, she wouldn't have formatted it like a PSA. there's a reason why my post is formatted and phrased in a similar way, i AM addressing a wider audience with no prior knowledge of the situation and i DO want eyes on it, despite my bone-deep reluctance to get involved in discourse ever again. if i didn't want people to see it, it wouldve just been a vague post about how it sucks seeing misinformation being spread, in fact i did make one of those when i first saw this yesterday. but then i changed my mind and decided addressing it in full was something that needed to be done, so i specifically formatted things in a way that would (hopefully) be accessible to others rather than just yknow. unorganized rambling and forgetting the alt text. and while i do reserve the right to turn off reblogs if things get out of hand (no worries yet), i wouldn't then turn around and try to pretend it was never meant to be spread in the first place, ESPECIALLY if the reason i turned them off was because Too Many People Were Pointing Out I Was Lying And I Couldn't Keep Up With It. although i guess if that was the reason i turned them off i probably would say that since i'd be the kind of person to make a post like that in the first place. if lying gets you into a mess then surely more lying will get you out right?

anyways. don't feel too bad if you fell for a post that preyed on the fact you wanted to help, but also remember what you learned from this. when something big happens that has a lot of people angry for very good reasons, don't let that lull you into assuming everyone else who's mad is on your side or is giving you the full story. be extra critical of if the posts you see are actually good faith attempts to spread awareness, or if it could be an attempt to use the anger already clouding your judgement to push you towards beliefs you would otherwise not be open to. and critically, take all of this and apply it also to the ideologies behind posts like these. don't just keep an eye out for lies, but also ask yourself what it means about a group's ideology that they have to lie like that in the first place. if they have to misrepresent things this badly to get people to spread the things they say, you should be questioning the things they say, because that tells you if they said what they actually meant, you would probably disagree. the notes on this post have plenty of examples of people saying they didn't even notice this was the underlying meaning and were disgusted to find out they helped play into something like that, and that is precisely /why/ it was hidden the way it was, was so that people who didn't know better would just take them at their word and not look any closer.

remember, "you are not immune to propaganda" isn't an accusation, it's just an acknowledgement. i'm not immune to propaganda either. i just happened to be resistant to this specific strain because of prior exposure, so now i'm sharing those antibodies with you! and sitting there feeling bad you got an infection doesn't help anyone, so now that you've recovered go forth and give them a rigorous workout. and in turn when i next fall prey to a strain i haven't run into before i hope someone else will share theirs with me.

and with that, if you are able to call out misinformation and feel like no one else is bringing it up, you can be the first! you can start the conversation! if you look through the notes or the asks ive gotten today, you can see a bunch of people saying they noticed these things too but didn't feel like they could say anything since no one else was bringing it up, and sometimes life is just. heaving a deep sigh and saying "well somebody has to fuckin do it" and getting your hands dirty. and thats not to say theres any shame in not being able to do so, and i leave it up to you to determine what "able" means for you, as there were certainly a lot more factors that went into it for me beyond "can i physically type out these words." if you're not able to call it out yourself then you can still do your part by learning the signs for things like this so that you don't pass misinformation you come across to others. but if you ARE in a place where you can call these things out, it very much is worth it. and even small things can help, it doesn't have to be a full comprehensive breakdown ten times the length of the post itself. shit you can just slap a "that doesnt sound right but i dont know enough abour stars to dispute it" on there and hope that someone else who knows more is encouraged enough by you starting the conversation to break it down for others. and even if no one person picks it up, a hundred people all saying "hey this doesnt sound right" can be just as revealing as one person listing out a hundred things, yknow?

but i mean also, if youtube proves anything it's that people love freakishly long breakdowns of extremely niche things that don't effect them, so like. if that's what the lord has put on your heart to do then don't be shy about listing out your hundred things baybee, embrace the gibbearish lifestyle, the people want your word avalanches, grip it and rip it. anyways, i don't know how to conclude this. um. take it easy but take it. yeah that kind of fits the theme here, sure. ok love u bye

so this post has been made unrebloggable now (shocker) but ive been feeling the need to address it since i saw it on my dash multiple times, so let's explore how lying on the internet works. more specifically, how blending truth, lies, and omissions to whip uninvolved people into anger works, because i think this is an excellent example and that pointing out the misinformation and the tactics used to spread it here is important, both in correcting the specific falsities but also in helping recognize similar tactics in the future.

so here we have several things that are technically true: staff has been very openly shitty to trans women for a long time and them banning predstrogen is clearly part of that, there is currently a movement regarding discussing transmisandry/transandrophobia, transmisogyny and transphobes sending transphobic asks is by far nothing new, and baeddel is/was a slur. however, among all of this are half-truths, unprovable speculation, or outright lies made to make you believe these events are originating specifically from transmascs.

firstly, the transandrophobia movement has been drastically misrepresented here in the same way it has been for the whole argument, "they're just trans MRAs" has been repeated so many times now that i'm gonna be hearing it in my dreams when i'm 80. i can understand not being willing to address the nuance of that whole discourse in one post that isn't directly focused on that, i'm certainly not, but in this example it's not unwillingness to address a complicated topic, it's a deliberate misrepresentation to frame one side of the discussion as The Evil Bad Ones That Can't Be Trusted. additionally, this post IS about that discourse and is just pretending it isn't to mislead a wider audience, so refusing to address it at all beyond this brief mention is deliberately misleading people about the goals of the group because They're The Other Side Of The Discourse. "transmisogynists" is used as a buzzword here, it doesn't actually refer to Anyone Who Hates Transfemmes, it refers to Transmascs Who Discuss Transmasc-Specific Oppression Using A Word They Coined To Point Out That Queer Spaces Have A Big Problem With Masculinity and just. doesn't tell you that's what it means, relying on the structure and framing of the post to create the Transmisogynist = Transmasc association in the audience's head so op doesn't have to say it outright (and of course the implied Transmasc = Transmisogynist association that follows because creating THAT association is the Actual Point of this post). the mentions of transmascs in this post are designed to look like afterthoughts, op says "typically those who espouse transandrophobia" to make it look like they're saying there's other people they're referring to here too, but almost everything in this post draws from the transandrophobia discourse. some random cis transphobe in texas has never heard the term baeddel in their entire life much less used it in a debate about transphobia, this is an intercommunity argument through and through, but op is trying to mask the fact that they're just referring to "transmascs who disagree with me specifically" and make it look like it's part of a wider trend. and again, i'm not going to go into the nuances of transandrophobia here, but i highly recommend reading some of the theory on it by @nothorses (x) and @genderkoolaid (x) because the "theyre just trans MRAs" argument kinda just collapses under its own weight as soon as you look into it even a smidgen. i've linked a couple broad overviews there but they both discuss it frequently and in-depth, specifically nothorses has a pinned post linking to many different discussion threads that i would recommend checking out if you do want to learn more about what the actual conversation surrounding these words is.

so, after framing the movement this way, they go on to say that the reason predstrogen was banned wasn't /just/ because staff has a long and established hate boner for trans women, but because the transandrophobia movement was teaming up with TERFs to mass-report her and other transfemmes, and implies that this is part of a deliberate conspiracy between Transandrophobia Truthers™, TERFs, and staff. you'll notice that there are no, say, screenshots of transmascs saying theyre deliberately reporting her or of that they're working with TERFs, behind-the-scenes lists of people who reported a certain account, or any evidence for this beyond "she was a trans woman, they're trans men who hate trans women, she got banned, so these must be related". which i find especially funny now given that photomatt has continued melting down about this since it happened and made it pretty clear it yknow. was just part of staffs ongoing hate campaign against trans women that has been going on much longer than the transandrophobia debate? and that maybe the fact that The Literal CEO is having a personal meltdown about this might explain where that could be coming from or at least why it's been allowed to continue for so long, moreso than any individual users reporting someone could? but i digress.

who reported what account is completely unprovable as a casual user unless people directly admit they did it, so to bring it up like this begs the question of what actual reasoning they have for saying it beyond trying to tie a current display of bigotry into an unrelated discourse. that's not to say it's impossible people who discuss transandrophobia were wrongfully reporting her, because again, thats something we have no way of knowing, and the internet is a shit place so i wouldn't be surprised. but given the circumstances and the rest of the lies here, i have my doubts about this being an actual yknow. Thing That Happened rather than just another lie to make people mad at transmascs. now one could make the argument that op wasn't saying transmascs are /deliberately/ teaming up with TERFs/staff, that "teaming up" was just a poor choice of words to refer to multiple groups who happen to have the same goals in mind at the same time but aren't actually coordinating with one another, but given the deliberate misinformative slant of the rest of the post and the overall phrasing in this section, i have trouble extending that grace. regardless, however, that doesn't change that who is reporting who isn't something verifiable, so stating it here as a confirmed fact is disingenuous at the absolute best, and a lie chosen specifically because it's unprovable at worst. if op /does/ have proof that transmascs have been teaming up with TERFs to get trans women banned, not including that with this post is just uhhhhh dumb, and if op /doesn't/ have proof then Why Would You Go Around Telling People That's What Happened Unless You Were Lying To Them On Purpose With Ulterior Motives.

next, op goes on to discuss the rise of the term baeddel. now as i said before, the truth here is that it certainly was a slur and certainly can still be used as one, again the internet is a shit place so i would be a fool if i tried to say "no one is using this as a slur". however, this is once again a drastic misrepresentation of the situation. baeddel's rising use is due to certain trans women reclaiming it and aligning themselves with the original group's politics, namely that femininity is good and masculinity is bad (aka terfism 101), with the added caveat that by abandoning femininity for masculinity, transmascs are evil and betraying devine womanhood and their community by putting more Evil Manhood into the world. of course that in turn is a drastic oversimplification of their politics and i highly recommend checking out this post with an actual in-depth exploration of the history (and without my added flavor), but the important part to note here is that this is not a term transmascs just Started Using one day because they hate transfems so very much as is implied here, its use is directly tied to a group of people saying "hello, here is what i am, and here is what this word means about what i believe," so others went "ok, these specific beliefs are called this." bringing up the fact that it historically was a slur is misdirection here, when you look closer this is almost a 1 to 1 translation of TERFs crying that TERF and radfem are slurs because People Don't Like Their Politics And Therefore Them, so the name for their politics is used negatively, so therefore it's a slur. that argument just has a little more oomph behind it this time because It Was A Slur Originally. and again, that isnt to say no one is now using it as a slur, the rate of decay for online discourse is ridiculous so it being boiled down to and used as "evil transfemme" has certainly already happened, but to act like /every/ use of it is a slur is literally just a lie, when you self-identify with a term based on your shared politics with the original group then you do not get to claim everyone using that term to describe those politics is doing so exclusively to attack you. also this part is entirely speculation but given that op's url is basically just. baeddel switched around to dae bel, i would hazard a guess that they perhaps are indeed aware of the origins of its re-use? but again, that's entirely unprovable and based just on wordplay, but like. given the Everything here i wouldn't be surprised. now, there's definitely an argument to be made about calling users baeddels based just off of their politics when they don't personally self-identify with it, if that constitutes calling someone a slur and if TIRF should be used instead, but crucially, that is not the argument being made here. the argument being made is "ANY AND ALL use of this term is calling someone a slur," and that literally just Isn't The Case.

finally, to tie the whole post off, op reminds us 1) if you hear anything bad about any trans woman ever, it's probably a lie to make her look bad, and 2) if you hear anyone say anything about transandrophobia, disregard everything else they have to say because they hate trans women. not "be critical of the things you see or get sent" or "be on the lookout for things following a certain pattern," a unilateral "anything bad is probably fake and anyone who uses the bad words is probably evil." that is not something someone does if they are genuinely trying to raise awareness of an ongoing trend, that is what someone does when they want you to turn your brain off and be mad at a group no matter what they say.

so yeah, in summary, do be critical of the things you see and be on the lookout for certain patterns, because sometimes people will just Lie to you. or, sometimes people will tell you portions of the truth while leaving out crucial bits so that you'll come to the conclusion they want without anyone being able to say they lied to you without typing up a thirty paragraph long hell post. transmisogyny is absolutely a problem on this site and there are 100% valuable conversations to be had about it and its presence within the trans community, but this post is not that. this post uses real transmisogyny and the wrongful termination of a trans woman's account as set dressing to say that it was all because of evil transmascs who run the trans community behind the scenes conspiring to take out transfemmes, so you should ignore anything they have to say because All of it is secretly motivated by transmisogyny. they're never discussing transandrophobia because it's something that actually effects them, they're doing it to hurt trans women by saying they have it worse. they're never telling you about shitty things a trans woman did to spread awareness, they're lying to make her look bad, or even if it's true they're only talking about it as part of a hate campaign because she's trans, they wouldn't care otherwise. they're never using a specific term because People Use That Term For Themselves, they're calling someone a slur because they hate trans women. there's always an explanation you can think up that ties it back to transmisogyny, and op says that instead of assessing all of what someone says and the context behind it to determine if that's what's happening, you should assume transmisogyny is the answer and refuse to engage any further as soon as you see a word you've been told is bad.

this post is discourse recruitment masquerading as a public service announcement that doesn't offer you any routes to actually learn more about what's going on, it just tells you Here's What's Happening, Here's Who's Evil And Should Be Ignored, And If You Disagree You're Also Evil And Should Be Ignored. content of the actual post aside, i think anything framed that way should be taken with a MASSIVE grain of salt and this would have raised my alarm bells even if i wasn't already pretty familiar with the arguments, people who genuinely want you to know something just because it's good to know will give you options to learn more or encourage you to actually use your critical thinking to assess things, not tell you to sit down and shut up and ignore anyone who disagrees with them.

anyways i guess tldr

[strangemeatpie]

gonna document and give my thoughts on the lupin movies/specials ive seen in this post under the readmore because hyperfixation has me behaving most unwise. warning this is will get long

blood seal of the eternal mermaid (2011):

+ really lovely character designs especially for lupin he looked great

+ animation = good!!!

+ lupins dynamic with the maki was cute. i like seeing lupin in the cool big bro role

+ some gr8 zenigata moments

+ i liked those introspective moments with lupin questioning his identity and legacy

+ toonami dub cast. tony oliver lupin is just Right

- main plot wasnt super interesting to me tbh

- the rest of the gang kiiiinda felt sidelined? it felt very centric to lupin and i mean yeah he is the main character but i feel like theres usually a lot more gang shenanigans you know

bye bye lady liberty! (1989):

+ idk if everyone is gonna vibe with these 80s character designs but personally i loved them. it had a cartoony energy that felt fun. animation was nice too

+ silly :^) it made me smile a lot while watching

+ i felt like the whole cast was well utilized here. everyone got some good moments

+ moemon

~ tonally this movie is kind of.... bizarre. i wouldnt say thats totally a bad thing because personally i like bizarre tone but it might not be satisfying for those who prefer something more concrete or mature. this special almost feels like it could be something you could watch with your family with how goofy it is.... but then it will hit you with something that is clearly not family friendly

the castle of cagliostro (1979):

+ its a miyazaki movie. do i really have to elaborate. in the 1 hour in 40 minutes of this film you will have a wonderful time

+ pretty accessible for anyone to enjoy even if they dont know jack shit about lupin. i watched it with my gf who had never seen a lupin anime before and we both had a great time

+ i really gotta hand it to miyazaki for creating this kinder, gentler version of lupin. feel like this movie had to be pretty influential to future characterizations of lupin that have him as a lovable little rascal instead of a devastatingly horny morally bankrupt creature of chaos

+ fluffy jigen

+ peak zenigata design

+ badass fujiko

- id say the only real drawback of this film is that while it IS a great and accessible point for franchise beginners, they might get whiplash from moving from this pleasant gentleman thief lupin to a LESS gentlemanly thief lupin....

episode 0: the first contact (2002):

+ polycule: orgins

+ *pops voice* HAMBAARGAH?

+ jiglup my beloved..... seriously a jiglup essential. jigen is gay as hell in this special and i wouldnt have it any other way

+ the whole scene near the end where goemon chases lupin with zantetsuken

+ when lupin is briefly shown to have a whole wardrobe full of feminine clothes that would only really make sense for him to have if he wears them regularly. probably for disguises but i like that he seems so comfortable with it and its not made into a joke either. in fact in his very first scene he is disguised as a woman and was femme fataling for a heist and i honest to god thought he was fujiko at first

- .... not to say this or many other pieces of lupin media are progressive. ngl there were some parts i feel didnt age great particularly one horny lupin moment with fujiko that left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth

- artstyle is just kinda Bland. idk if i would go far enough to say its BAD but it didnt stand out to me

the first (2019): 

+ YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS THATS WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT BABYYYYYYY THATS THE GOOD SHIT THIS IS HOW YOU TRANSLATE 2D ANIMATED CHARACTERS TO 3D

+ i had so much fun watching this movie its a fucking blast. everything looks gorgeous

+ watched the dub and it was fantastic especially tony oliver doing a great job with lupin as always

- big cw for n*zis though and its unavoidable since they are the antagonists and its a big part of the plot

- besides that honestly i cant think of many complaints maybe the story isnt amazing but i feel like the primary objective of this film is to be fun and it succeeds at that 

the fuma conspiracy (1987):

+ cute!!!!! a fun lil movie thats an enjoyable watch

+ character designs and animation is great

+ i liked murasaki she was so good

+ terminally gay pops

+ opening song BANGS 

~ this movie somewhat notorious for not featuring the usual voice cast for the time because of budget reasons which is pretty weird but... ok? personally it didnt affect my enjoyment of the movie and these voice actors did a fine job but some may be off put by it

- no yuji ohno either 😔

the hemingway papers (1990):

+ jigens terrible taste in men

+ cute artstyle that is pretty much the same as bye bye liberty

+ i really enjoy jigen in this one. hes hung up over his Mysterious Gunslinger Past™️ and tries to be the lone ranger for a bit but in the end he cares about his silly polycule too muh

- gonna be honest this one kinda dragged for me a bit plot wise. there were a lot of cute moments but besides those and jigen’s ex sideplot it wasnt terribly interesting

- pops was definitely sidelined 😔

island of assassins/walther p38 (1997):

+ this is a great more action oriented special! if you are looking to watch something more serious but not quite koike levels serious this is a solid choice

+ i actually was pretty interested in the plot itself which is rare for lupin specials lol

+ amazing smooth animation and fight scenes!! it wasnt too shocking to find out that it had been worked by many well known talents in the industry like gainax/trigger’s hiroyuki imaishi

+ MY FUJIGOE CRUMBS

+ elen was a pretty cool original character

+ zenigata WAS kinda sidelined again but..... theres a scene where he literally resurrects himself from the brink of death right after his heart stops because someone in the room mentioned lupin. i think that makes up for it

- artstyle/character designs are kinda... idk if i would say BAD but they are very much a Generic 90s Action Anime style. not my favorite look

jigen’s gravestone (2014):

+ jiglup. i loved their relationship progression so much!!! it seems like they are still early in their partnership in this movie... work partners but not quite friends yet.... at first. you can really see the turning point where their relationship start evolving into something deeper and into the mutual trust we come to expect from them. its great im rotating them in my mind

+ animation is so so so so so great and sexy also

- time to address the elephant in the room... if you have seen jigen’s gravestone, or know anything about the plot, chances are you know what im talking about. fujiko’s narrative treatment is BAD bad and deeply disappointing even though i enjoyed the rest of the film a lot. really say what you will about twcfm but... sayo yamamoto would have never put fujiko in a scene like that, at least never at that level of gratuitousness. i heard these films do get better with fujiko and im still plenty of excited to watch more but yeah that was Yikes  

operation return the treasure! (2003):

+ this special was like. delightful. what a good goofy little experience. was laughing AND smiling

+ idk if it was just me but kanichi kurita seemed to be putting in effort to make lupin sound EXTRA silly. and i totally appreciate it because this lupin is so cute

+ animation was solid!

+ i thought the premise was great. the concept of the gang having to return a bunch of treasures instead of stealing them is so fun. the plot got a little strange with the alien stuff there at the end but hey its lupin its natural at this point

+ jigen :^) i love him being all like “this job is DUMB and im not doing it” at the beginning and then getting fully invested in the antics. this guy is way too weak for his partner

- Man in a Dress Joke :^/ for the most part the humor in this special is superb but understandably this one does not land great even if it is far from the worst of these jokes ive seen

prison of the past (2019):

+ must a lupin the third special be “good”? is it not enough to watch some entertaining stupid shit?

+ i really enjoyed watching this ngl the plot was not interesting but i enjoyed the character interactions enough that it made up for it

+ im glad yata was utilized in this special because his dynamic with zenigata is delightful. i hope they get to do more funny shit together in part 6

+ huge win for lupin/jigen/goemon enjoyers. it was really cute how goemon has a bit of reflection on why he decides to stay with these clowns and comes to the conclusion that he loves being part of this circus

+ jigens terrible taste in men: the return

- like i said the plot isnt interesting and i wouldn’t call it an Essential watch either but hey i came here to be entertained and i was entertained

tokyo crisis (1998):

+ finally time for pops to shine!! and he certainly does!

+ actual memorable original character!!!! bring back maria you cowards….

+ this is an ultimate jigoe special they are paired up for most of it and they are so goddamn funny

+ seriously this special is full of great gags

+ tho im more used to the toonami dub cast i saw the dub for this special recommended so i gave it a shot… and it Owns though i still prefer the toonami cast overall

+ animation is seriously top tier

- it might have been implied (in the dub at least) that zenigata had romantic interest in maria which is yknow a little weird since hes twice her age but ultimately its pretty low key and he gets firmly Father Figure Zoned by the end and nothing ever goes beyond that

[acethena-discourse]

TLDR: i am once again asking ace exclus to hold ableist racist and transphobic people from your community accountable for telling a disabled transman he and others like him will not be hurt directly and unjustly in a law literally designed to make me and others homeless in the face of landmark supreme court cases being overturned isnt oppression.

Things im not allowed to do: point out how cowardly people are for replying to a rather tongue and cheek post that ends on the rhetorical note of "finally will exclus take this as aphobia???" (No. Ofc not. Yall literally willing to tell me im lyong about how disability works. Ignore my other points or literally just reaching over ALL OF THAT to say "if it hirts minorities who cares. Its not real oppressuon bc the law wasnt made to oppress JUST disabled, poc, or even yes aces.")

BLOCK SOMEONE on my MAIN BLOG so I, a disabled person who is looking at the death of my rights in the FACE both from this housing ordinance and the overturning ove roe v wade and other landmark court cases, dont have to see notifs but stills allows them to interact with this blog.

Ace exclus would yall genuinely like to hold your own accountable for the ableism alone? The ableism of saying shit like "the ONLY true thing of a post that mentions doabled people cant/dont want to marry bc doing so loses them their ONLY FORM OF INCOME. Income that comes with comditioms like fhe following t&c.

No more than 2k to your name at anypoint. Any more and you have to pay ig all back to the gov.

If you work, well then you arent *Really disabled*

If you dont SPEND all the money the govt. Gives you, then they gave you to much and no sticking it in savings for when your medical equipment brakes. Nope.

Or you just gonna turn yet ANOTHER BLIND EYE to ableism in your community? Do you not see the problem with people telling disabled people that WE wont be affected by a housing ordinance jusg bc "itll hirt anyone under the 'conditions' and wont disproportionately affect other minorities"

As if that makes ot okay.

Because thats why i blocked them on my main.

Because they emd of the day refuse to acknowledge they fucking lives this will take. The lives of what you should regard as "real minorities" all while implying only "real el gee be tees are victims of oppression" because yes. Refusing to address the ENTIRE POST AND ACKNOWLEDGE THE CORE OF MY ARGUMENT BEING THIS HOUSING ORDINANCE WILL DISPROPORTIONLY HIT DISABLED QUEER AND POC. To just say "it hit abled white cishets too" to me is infact peak bigotry.

Hold your own accountable. Stop accusing disabled and "real el gee be tees" of being liars about oppression.

Because yes, accusing a dosabled transman of 1) not knowing what im talking about 2) and dismissing my idenity as a transman to say "well itll hit cishets too" when i point out that itll unfairly target even "the real gays". Is in fact ableist and transphobic.

To then demand i not block someone on my MAIN BLOG so i dont have to see notifs about how im not REALLY being hurt by this is even worse. Especially when im literally daily denied access to my medical equipment by abled people who think i dont "really" need it. When im looking at the fact I and many other people(disabled and TRANS PEOPLE and poc in particular black and indigenous afab indoviduals) are about to lose the right to NOT be forcibly sterilized by our doctors. When same sex and gender marriages are about to be absolved and kids loose families over the loss of roe v wade. I am allowed to block people and keep takes that affect my mental health, such as posts how a housing ordinance will literally kill me despite despite being what i call a "lucky cripple" because my dosability IS managed well woth meds. And i overwhelmingly have support from people around me. I have a job. I am for now able to work. I am not in a wheelchair i dont nedd to many mobility aids. But that level worsens everyday. And ive got no one but my partner who i can live with. If my health worsens drastically, i lose all of this. And arguing a a post law readily designed to kick me and others out for spliting rent in fucking AMERICA, a country with such a great histlry with NOT oppressing people through laws that dont name them specifically (im being sarcastic btw) that i literally CANNOT own savings, be married or eve FAIL to spend all the money i might get to survive on my disability, will jot be hurt DISPROPORTIONATELY MORE THAN OTHERS "bc itll hurt cishets too" isnt the take. To then say i cant block someone when they EXPRESS THEY ARE OKAY WITH US DYING is pretty bad.

At least i say what i want with my whole damn chest. And if it wasnt for requests from people who follow my maim that i keep discourse in general off of it, i wouldnt be using this as a side blog. Ive been blocked by exclus, and o never once accused them of deleting my posts or of it not being anything other than a fair and defensive action with neutral intent. Ive held inclus doing yikes shit accountable when recipts were provided. Do the same for once in your lives and discuss how ableiam is a problem from your side. Have a discussion about how disabled people are regularly not named inlaws but get fucked over relentlyssly by laws. Doscuss how saying "poc getting affected by this bill unfairly isnt really racism this bill affects whites too" isnt okay. Discuss how dismissing ANYONES identity, especially when youre whole side depends on "only real el gee be tees are hurt by laws" just BECAISE im ace isnt okay.

[luckycheesefoodie321]

Y’all. YALL. KIPO SEASON 2 is FIREEEEEEEE

Heroes on Fire...

Anyway!

Binge watched Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts Season 2 today and y’all it was sooooo good!!

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

I was gonna do a cut off but... I can’t be bothered getting my laptop sooo...

LONG POST TOO!!! Plus I have enough spoiler tags I think...

———

First of all... Scarlemagne = Mojo-jojo but with actual redemption arc potential???

They really set homie up as the biggest bad and then the twist mystery that Lio and Scarlemagne are connected at the end of S1... but then every much like The Storm from ATLA, we just DEEP-DIVED into Scarlemagne aka HUGO’s backstory and you’re like “well shit, no fucking wonder he got so damn twisted and hating on humans”

And yknow what even with his convoluted thinking and the terrible things he’s done, I’m really really glad they didn’t go down the whole “I blame Kipo bc I’m jealous she took Lio and Song’s attention away from me and that’s why they left me behind” story line... it’s absolutely fascinating that at no point does Scarlemagne blame Kipo, and even looks at her as a sister... like his line “you’re not the one who rejected me” was so powerful, bc he recognises she was just an innocent baby and sees the same confused child in her that he was when he was left alone on the surface... and twisted though his attempts of making her happy were, he was really reaching out for someone who genuinely cares about him again, and it helps that she’s also the daughter of the two people he once viewed as parental figures... and also Kipo’s just naturally empathetic and sees the good in people...

Then she was willing to sacrifice her humanity for a stadium full of mutes and Lio pulled him out of danger... so I’m reaaaallly hoping they keep this potential redemption going... bc really Hugo and Kipo are perfect mirrors of each other... very Zuko/Aang reminiscent... Hugo the animal experiment that was given human hopes and dreams and abilities, only to be thrust into a confusing and scary place with strange powers, and seemingly betrayed by the people he loves most... Kipo, the human experiment, with typical hopes and dreams but is forced into a confusing and scary place with strange powers, and finds out her whole birth and life has been a lie...

One of them just came out of it better...

Secondly... Kipo’s inner Mega-Jaguar scene = Naruto and the Nine-Tails Fox???

Like slowly learning to control the little bits of power that sneak through... being able to change between forms at will provided there is something anchoring her human half... that whole water/mirror/internal Jaguar sequence?!?!... USING THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP TO GET A GRIP ON HER HUMANITY?!?!

ACCESSING AN EVOLVED FORM OF HERSELF WHISLT THINKING OF THE PEOPLE SHE WANTED TO SAVE?!?!

Yo if that ain’t Naruto idk what is...

Next we have Mom the Monkey...

Wasn’t too hard of a leap to figure out... I probably clocked into it maybe mid ep 1?? Idk what triggered it but yeah don’t think that was meant to be a difficult leap to make... that aside, I like that they didn’t have Song immediately change back or have her wits about her when Mulholland helped free her from the pheromones... she’s been a monkey for 13 years, under the control of Dr Emilia, she hasn’t spoken and she didn’t have little moments to control her powers like Kipo... so figuring out how to change her back is a good ongoing mission to have I think... it also makes the fact that Kipo was the one to get through to her in the first place even more powerful and that’s SO dope...

Lio... yknow what when grown ups in these types of stories have regrets and the children are dealing with their consequences it can be very frustrating... but I like that Lio is more than willing to reflect on his past mistakes (valid tho it was that he had no choice but to grab Kipo and run before Emilia could get to her) and is also willing to ACT ON IT...he gives Kipo’s ideas a chance and its even shown for real when Scarlemagne forced him to tell the truth... Hugo was a child he raised and he doesn’t want to leave him behind anymore... even if he’s done so much bad... I’m also glad they showed Kipo expressing disappointment in her fathers actions, empathy for Hugo’s pain, but that didn’t mean she was suddenly disillusioned to her father and what kind of person he is... that can also be a very frustrating aspect of these types of plot lines...

Benson and his darling potentially mutual crush, Troy? What else can i say but beautiful first awkward teen crush PERFECTION! Both of them blushing when Benson ended up on top of Troy after tackling Troy out of the way of a rampaging Pierre? Troy kissing him on the cheek? Troy helping Benson out of the pit and the same falling in love music playing while Benson gazed up at Troy?? TROY AND BENSON HOLDING HANDS WHILE SCARED AND CLINGING TO EACH OTHER?!?!?

TROY BEING AT LEAST PARTIALLY (Latino? Hispanic?) MEANING EVEN MORE POC CHARACTERS AS MAINS LIKE HECK YEAH!!!

Sidenote: a good chunk of the music is like... “rap” music and they always hit during fight scenes and it’s great...

Also: the Kipo title sequence? A bop we must never forget...

SPEAKING OF BOPS WE MUST NEVER FORGET: Heroes on Fire... a karaoke classic I must learn... used with the Power of Friendship can turn a mega mute back to human...

Also also my love and life Jamack??? Continuing to help Kipo out even if he’s a total tsundere about it?!?! LITERALLY CANNOT STOP HIMSELF FROM HELPING HER?!?! I love him... and I want him to join the gang... so bad...

ALSO. The whole second episode was basically about cheese.

Feta. Gouda. Chevre. Fromage.

Idk about that whole... Soothsayer meets the Grey Sisters (Greek mythology? Three sisters, one eye, one tooth? Is that what they’re called?) business with the cheese but whatever it was fun... they were just straight up tossing knives at Kipo to get her latent powers to activate and that was hilarious... also Mr Miyagi moment I guess XD but it means Kipo’s created a whole brain pathway between Herbs in/Herbs out and how she controls her powers and she even mentions that...

Also mega bummed about Ratland burning down...

I also wanna know what was up with the sentient Fun Gus and why it had the mind of a child...

FINALLY: our new big bad - Dr Emilia...

WHAT COMPLETELY TOOK ME BY SURPRISE WAS IT WASNT SCARLEMAGNE WHO PUT HER UNDER HIS CONTROL BUT FRIGGEN THESE CLOAKED HUMANS...Monkey Mom wasn’t a surprise but THAT sure was

We’re really leaning into the one race supremacy theme here huh? But also the reckless and callous treatment of animals and the earth by humans... without regard for how they feel... and after mutating and having and being able to communicate their thoughts and feelings and dreams, Emilia still thinks it would be better to remove that and return them to just animals...

Fascinated to see where they go from here...anyway... go watch Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts so we can get a season 3 babeyyyyy

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Comparing RWBY and YGO DM: The Handling and Evolution of Themes

Hey! Its been a hot minute since I last posted anything RWBY-related but Im laying in my bed right now and Im sick and bored so I guess we're doing this. Today I will do my best to analyze what I percieve to be the main themes and messages of both of these shows, or more specifically, how theyre handled narratively. Im mostly focusing on that part because, while these series do have similar themes and messaging, they are still a few things in which they are wildly different. And with that, lets start with this essay-post-thing!

1. Theres something we need to adress first

Okay so, before we can really talk about this, theres something I feel the need to clarify here: Neither of these stories was "planned from the beginning".

Now, I dont think a story being planned from the beginning or not nesscessarily makes the story any better or worse by default, however, it is still important to acknowledge because the way the story is planned is going to affect every facet of it. Things are not going to be foreshadowed properly, things are gonna be set up only for nothing to come of it, the story might drastically change directions, characters might act differently, etc, etc.

And, this is bit off-topic but, it's much better to just admit that the story was not planned than trying to pretend that it was. Like, there are a lot of reasons why I tend to be so forgiving towards YGO even though its not very good, but one of them is definitely the fact that, as far as Im aware atleast, the guy who wrote it isnt pretending to have had this big master plan all along and neither is the fandom. With RWBY on the other hand... yeaaaah, its kinda the opposite. From what Ive seen of RWBYs fandom, there seems to be this pretty popular narrative that everything was planned even though it clearly wasnt. Thats pretty bad and honestly lowers my opinion of the writers so much more than if they would just admit to not having a proper plan.

Like, I initially consumed YGO like this: Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters, Yu-Gi-Oh (aka Season 0), like, a quarter of the Yu-Gi-Oh manga (I still havent finished it)

In all three of these we have the character of Yami Yuugi, or just Yami. Broadly speaking, he is an ancient egyptian gamer spirit who lives in a magical puzzle that has not been solved for 3000 years until this highschooler named Yuugi Mutou comes along and solves it, thus setting him free and allowing him to possess Yuugi and have access to the vague magical powers of the puzzle.

In Duel Monsters he's perfectly fine most of time, morally speaking. There is an instance of him almost murdering a guy and its a bit unclear what exactly happens to those he mindcrushes but overall he's very much a pretty good guy. In Season 0 most of what he does is set up these games for bad people, where they will go insane no matter what they do. From how I understand this whole Shadow Game, Penalty Game stuff, if you lose a Shadow Game, you get violent and intense hallucinations and you will always cuz yknow, gamer spirit. But if you try to cheat, which most of the bad people do in this show, you get violent and intense hallucinations as a punishment.

Since the two anime are generally considered two different continuities, its perfectly fine that Yamis characterization is wildly different in both of them. But in the manga both of these characterizations appear, basically one after the other with no real arc or consequences, for that matter. Why is that? Simply put, someone thought it was a good idea to try to turn an episodic, very slice of life-y light-horror manga into a more traditional, more plot-driven battle shounen. From what Ive heard, it was apparently largely because of network interference or something, but the point is, it changed directions incredibly drastically with little planning and everyone knows this and I can understand that for the most part.

In RWBY we have the character of Blake Belladonna, who, in the first 3 volumes/seasons atleast, was this aloof, more toned down loner-type character with a pretty strong sense of justice. She's an in-universe marginilized racial minority and she clearly cares about racial injustice. The way its initially framed makes it seem like she had a very hard life and no stable support system, which is what eventually pushed her to join a Civil Rights group/Terrorist organization (good god, the Faunus subplot is so awful, I could write a whole essay about it but Im already de-railing rn so I'll just save that for later).

Then, in volumes 4-5 it turns out her father is actually like, the mayor or chief of this island-place called Menagerie and she grew up in this big mansion with multiple guards/servants. Oh and also, apparently "space is a commodity" on there, so theres that. She still retains large parts of her personality but she's kinda like, worse somehow I think. I cant really describe it in a meaningful way but I hope you get what Im saying anyway. Then in Volume 6 she confronted her emotional abuser Adam (sorry for not mentioning him sooner but yeah, he was like, her abusive boyfriend, which is something that a lot of people disagree with but I wont really say anything about it either way because I dont really feel any specific way) with her friend, Yang, and ended up killing him.

After all that, she pretty much lost the rest of her personality, as well as her arc about all the Faunus stuff. She just kinda became the meek, generically nice, recovering abuse victim. Why? Well, the actual reason is that they didnt plan out shit and are just kinda flying by the seat of their oversized clown-pants and if they and the fandom just admitted it, I would have less of an issue. I still wouldnt be as forgiving towards RWBY as I am towards YGO because the crux of the issue, for me, is just that I dont particulary like RWBY but also like. Do you really expect me to take MKEK seriously as writers after admitting to not have a timeline because iT wOuLd CaUsE pLoThOlEs?

However, since they want us to believe that everything was planned out from the beginning, the explaination would be.... Idk, they deliberately butchered one of their main characters?? Because.. they hate her?? Maybe????

So yeah, that was quite a detour however, I would like you to keep this mind going forward.

2. Themes of the Early Series'

First, what do mean by 'Early Series' for both of these shows respectively? Well, for YGO that would have to be Season 0 or if youre reading the manga, everything pre-Duelist Kingdom. Basically, the part of the series thats a episodic, very slice of life-y light-horror series.

For RWBY that would be the first three Volumes, also known as the Poser-Era. Back then it was just kinda an action series that took place at Anime Warrior Academy (also known as Beacon) with some pretty bare minimum worldbuilding, character-driven plots and developments but now its more of an epic high-fantasy story with more of an emphasis on plot as opposed to just action.

The themes and messages in Early YGO are kinda vague, very confusing to me and if you were to follow any of it literally that would be pretty bad. For now Im just gonna say the main themes are Friendship and Identity and mostly focus on the Identity aspect.

Now, it took me a little while to figure out RWBYs deal but I think the main themes for Volumes 1-3 are also Friendship and Heroism. Once again, I'll mostly focus on Heroism and touch on Friendship more briefly later.

I dont have much more to add to YGOs themes right now, so I'll briefly go over Heroism in RWBY.

In RWBYs setting there are these man-eating monsters called Grimm that have basically infected the planet. In order to deal with that, they have people called huntsmen and huntresses that kill them and protect people. Theyre trained at special academies like Beacon and go on missions there and stuff like that. Our four main characters, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang, are training to become huntresses and one day they go on this mission to clean up a grimm infested city block with one of their teachers. Obviously, that takes a long time so they have to camp out in one of the empty houses. Weiss, Blake and Yang cant sleep because theyve been thinking about this question that their teacher asked them when they were fighting grimm: "Why do you want to become a huntress?"

They have a heart to heart and we find out about their motivations; Weiss wants to bring honour back to her family, Blake want to distance herself from the White Fang (that terrorist organization I mentioned earlier) and as an extension from Adam, Yang wants to have a life of adventure. They also talk about why Ruby wants to be a huntress and it turns out that she judt wants to help people. Unlike the others, she has no motivation besides that. We're meant to listen to that and look at her as a sort-of personification of Heroism: kind, but not naive, strong and most of all, selfless. The others on her team are not portayed as bad for not being like Ruby by any means but we are clearly meant to admire her the most out of all of them.

Okay, now comes the part Ive been looking forward to the most:

3. How did these themes evolve in the Modern Series'?

Alright, before we can really delve into the way they evolved in YGO I'll have to give you a brief summary of the character progression. At the start of DM, during the Duelist Kingdom arc, Yami Yuugi is just that; A darker Yuugi. Hes more confident, bolder, his voice is deeper, hes somehow taller, more ruthless, all that good stuff. Notably, he doesnt actually seem more skilled than Yuugi even at the start of this story, but he's still dependent on Yami. Yami on the other hand, has no identity of his own or even hints at one at this point. He's just The Other Yuugi.

Then during the Battle City arc, they find out that Yami was actually a pharao prior to being sealed in the puzzle, he just didnt know because of amnesia, I guess. So now they need to find out his real name and then send him to the afterlife because hes meant to be dead, but not before saving the world from being swallowed by darkness, which is also a thing they have to do now.

Then we finally get to the Memory World arc, where Yami, Yuugi and the rest of the gang astralproject to ancient egypt via puzzle magic. Yami is trying to figure out what the hell is going on and who all these familiar people are, while Yuugi & Co are trying their best to help him. Then some weird shit happens and it turns out that all of that is not just Yamis sealed away memories, but also a giant D&D Shadow Game that will destroy the world if Yami loses. So now theres Pharao!Yami who is still clueless on the metaphorical and literal playing field and Player!Yami, who is kinda controlling himself now? I guess?? Yamis opponent, The Spirit of The Ring, has something similar to that going on where hes both controlling and properly participating in the game. So Player!Yami is now fighting against Player!TSoTR, Pharao!Yami is now fighting against Thief King Bakura (who is like, the human, ancient egyptian version of the Ring Spirit) and Yuugi is now fighting against Yami Bakura (who is like, the human, modern japanese version of the Ring Spirit). Yuugi gets Yamis real name, he and the gang go over to Pharao!Yami and tell him his name, meanwhile Player!Yami is also somehow helping as well and they defeat the Ring Spirit, thus saving the world. Then they travel to modern Egypt, the Ceremonial Duel happens and Yuugi wins, sending Yami to the Afterlife where he can finally rest and that was the series!

I originally wanted to recount the stuff that was going on with the Ring Spirit and his host as well because they parallel eachother, but this summary is already far too long and I think youll get the point without me needing to explain any more.

My point here is, that the story went from being vaguely about Identity, maybe? to being very clearly about Self-Discovery and Learning to Be Independent. I think this is a very good way to evolve the messaging of your story. How does RWBY track on that?

Well, uh... its not great. I will acknowledge that they have tried to introduce new themes and ideas since, even though I wont really be talking about them in this post. But yeah, the whole Heroism thing really regressed.

Like, I didnt explicitly say it when I was explaining grimm earlier, but theyre not going away. The grimm have always been there and people who sign up to become huntsmen and huntresses are effectively signing up for a job that will never truly be done, no matter what they do. Characters like Ruby and even more minor ones like Phyrrah have shown us that that doesnt matter when youre a hero. No life isnt worth saving, no grimm isnt worth killing, no criminal isnt worth arresting. Then, in volume 6 they find out about Salem. Salem is the Big Bad of the show, shes immortal, controls the grimm and is supposed to be very powerful.

What do our heroes do? They give up. Sike! They were just mindcontrolled by monsters or some shit, of course they didnt give up their mission (which is to bring an Important Macguffin to a city called Atlas, sorry I didnt mention it)!

But then they arrive in Atlas (which is llike, a city thats floating over another city called Mantle) and yknow, they do some plot stuff thats not really important right now until the city gets invaded by Salem and this big grimm army she has.

What do our heroes do? Well, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and some side characters are chilling, drinking tea in a mansion and Yang and the B Team were actually trying to do something, but even those efforts seem incredibly minimal.

Oh wait, I also forgot to mention that Ironwood (a fairly minor, vaguely antagonistic character up until now) wanted to lift Atlas even higher to save Atleasian civilians from danger while leaving Mantle vulnerable to Salems invasion.

What would be the most heroic thing to do?

A) Let Ironwood lift Atlas, get as much support as they can down to Mantle and save as many Mantle civilians as they can from the invasion

B) Prevent Ironwood from lifting Atlas but then split up in order to protect both Atlas and Mantle civilians

C) Prevent Ironwood from lifting Atlas and then dont do anything else

Congrats! If you choose C, you think exactly like the writers!

And I just

This is so mindboggling to me, I feel like I shouldnt even have explain how this is bad. And like, it wouldve been so easy to actually make them seem herokc through their actions, to make it seem like they did try but no.

I have never seen a central theme be this botched, how in the world did they do that? Why did they think it was a good idea for Ruby "The Embodiment of Heroism" Rose to sit in a mansion doing nothing, no planning, no organizing just ..... God, how are they this bad? Like, this doesnt even have anything to do with it being planned in any way, this is just straight up incompetence

4. Very briefly touching on friendship

The friendship is awful and its not solely because they all have the same opinions. They barely interact with eachother outside their designated pairs which leads to it all feeling incredibly hollow. Theyre also practically indistingushable from one another now, which is a shame because it wasnt always like that. Like, I dont think the characters were that well-developed in earlier volumes but they were very well-characterized. But now we've gotten to a point where you can literally copy and paste one characters dialogue onto another and literally nothing changes, it really sucks.

5. Some closing words

Damn, this took way longer than I thought it would and now Im pretty exhausted. I have no idea how yall always write these but props to you! I feel like this ended up a bit rambly but overall, Im pretty proud.

Please let me know what you think of the points I brought up! Id also really appreciate some tips on how to get better at these longer posts because I am planning on writing more in the future (not the near future, probably but yknow).

Thats all I have to say for now, thanks for reading!

[floralkittygambler]

Reposting for reasons

Response to Honest’s post here: Doing this to spread this awareness more as I know theres a bit of a rift in the critical community - plus I really fucking go on. Im PISSED and I do apologise however it NEEDS urgent addressing. I know people will hate me for it but Im used to hate and honestly? Hating rather than helping to solve the issue only furthers my fucking point here. So yeah this is so more people are aware (no offense to any of those involved in said rift either, but this is an important message. Thank you for understanding and if I can do anything to make all sides comfortable, then please message me and I’ll do my upmost.) “ More awareness of this is needed. Even if it’s your favourite, you can’t justify their shit but rally against another’s shit. Have people tell you you’re experiences arent real or invalid because, like Husk, people have - in real life - shipped you with someone you are far from comfortable with but you still treat them like a person. Because you have basic respect. And people force you to accept harassment, touching, stalking, advances for THEIR satisfaction. People use you for their fantasies. But you’re just a ‘tsundere’ for it. Or you have addiction issues but people think being with another addict will ‘save’ you because you’re apparently too incompetent to save yourself. Love isnt some magic fuckin cure so stop romanticising it as a fuckin saviour. It’s gross and fuckin creepy. Get stalked and have someone NEVER accept your no just because you show youre still decent enough to not treat them shitty or any different from anyone else. Try having someone way older or way younger (both in morally fucked up ways) advance on you and people encourage that. People you’re supposed to feel safe around.

People touch you when you pull away or show discomfort. Follow you home. Have pictures of you and wont accept you dont like them like that and it’s not ‘playing hard to get’ or ‘the thrill of the chase’. Fuck. OFF. In fact, Im not only disappointed in the fandom. Im disappointed in the entire team who some should know better from their OWN personal experiences - or at least the bare minimal of being a fucking adult. Im disappointed in especially females (sorry idk whether girl or woman is more appropriate here-) who statistically are more likely to have experienced something similar at some point in their lives think this is a cute gay moment. No. Angel is made out as a fucking predator - Im not saying he is, Im saying that his persistence is very fucking unwelcome like one. People like Husk dont need that fucking invasiveness. They/We need patience and someone on our level. Angel’s I know are the fuckin polar opposite - and some of them I know are very sexually harassing, including unwanted touching. It’s a shitty way to present gay people. Gays are fuckin people. Some are cunts and some arent. It’s a HUMAN thing. But considering the shit theyve been subjected to, presenting a gay as a victim only to also show them as a perpetrator is insulting! And for those Ive seen argue this about how people like AD wouldnt know how to express their love normally and whatnot? His pig. His best friend. He’s in his fucking 30s. There are literal real life criminals who get molested as kids and then go on to molest kids. Not all who grow up like that turn into nonces. Stop just fucking STOP justifying and romanticising this bullshit! I used to see the good in AD but now he makes me fucking sick. Especially with my verrrrrry fucking real traumas and connections. But fuck me, eh? Because this fictional guy matters so much more. Fuck real victims. And whilst we’re at it, fuck AD too when it suits your fetishes! Sarcasm aside, the fans and the team need to straighten up their abhorrent behaviour. Stolas. Fucking clearly having an affair, knowingly fucking up his daughter’s mental health and bribing a guy into sex who only wants the book and nothing more. He even has a fucking warning button over Stolas- Guys, how do you think any of this is cute? Even the team gross me out- I genuinely see potential and talent and it’s all gone to shit to satisfy horny teens, horny adults, and literally everyone who doesnt for the life of them understand being an adult is more than sex, drugs, violence and swears! I REALLY want to keep enjoying HB/HH but it’s getting harder and harder with such ignorant and bordering lazy creators (note: lazy as in wont do the fucking research or actually listen to real criticism and victims), such despicable fans (yeah, some HDers fuckin mocked that they triggered my ED, yet they had the fucking NERVE to support Angel’s potential ED AND laugh and blame me for me getting treated so badly for actually having the balls to call Angel and the teams hypocrisy. I got told to kill myself, that my problems arent real - oh but Angels apparently is! Which... They *are* but AD isnt real so technically only onlookers will suffer and not a drawing  - and they just excused their toxic behaviours. These people are like “aww poor angie babey!” yet fuckin INSULT sex workers. All this red in Hazbin yet it feels everyone and they mama colour blind. The issues are getting worse and fans are outright becoming EVIL, VILE, Vindictive little bullies - from kids to adults. You SHOULD be ashamed of yourself if you conduct yourself in such a manner. And you need to readjust your attitudes and behaviours because the only fuckers getting hurt are actual fucking victims. Ever been violated and been gaslit so much you STILL fucking question it’s reality? So you drown that shit out yet somehow it’s effects still hit you? Fetishise it. Make it your uwu gae couple goals, you’re no better than people believing Harley and the Joker werent toxic af. If this shit happened to you, most of you would actually SEE where we’re all coming from. Also, stop making gay a fetish - you’re like those creepy old men in the alley heckling lesbians to make out so they can wank off. Gays, no ALL the LGBT+ are fucking people too. So dont give me that bullshit then start turning everything just gay or just straight to mentally wank off to. It’s degrading and dehumanising. And yes, fiction does effect reality. You crush on a fictional character? Mourn one? Support one? Hell, fuckin jerk off to one - that’s affecting reality. Remember how in fiction all blacks were treated as villians? Look how theyre treated IRL. JAWS, great classic unfortunately their was a spike in shark killings over a fucking movie - the shark in the movie wasnt even real for the most part because they dont behave like that! (Also the animatronic was so shit they genuinely had so many issues - I think they even took to naming each one! Some fun trivia there!). Tiger sharks are more nasty than great whites as tiger sharks will hunt and eat a human. Great whites prefer seals and dislike human flesh, they just mistake us for seals. Hell, theres the toothless basking shark - theyre often SWAM WITH by divers for being so friendly. Yet Jaws made people think all sharks are bloodlusting over humans. Slenderman was created for a fucking contest and that influenced a stabbing (NOT Victor’s fault). Watch a horror movie that isnt based on a real life event and tell me that at least ONE has left you peaking over your shoulder. Stella may be a bitch - we dont know for certain - but try getting cheated on. Y’know what? Try growing up in such a broken home like Octavia. Yeah reaaaaaal fucking cute now, huh? Funny how as well y’all petition for male victims to be taken seriously then laugh when fictional males experience this abuse, further adding to stigma. You can be hit on by the hottest mf on the planet but if you arent interested, that should be respected! Also we’ve all been inspired by at least one fictional character so yeah. Yknow, since I was little Ive been fighting for sex worker and homeless rights. But HH/HB treatment of both leave a bitter taste in my mouth. I’ll still fully support sex workers and the homeless, but that’s the fucking effect this show is having. Bearing in mind I wont ever share everything Ive been through - and I shouldnt fucking have to in order to be believed and validated (obvs proof is required in a legal case but that’s a whole other topic). Why should I share MY fucking pain especially when you fuckers have belittled and triggered it more so? We have our rights to our secrets but fuck ME you lot NEED to start acting appropriately and like decent fucking humans. ‘iTs HeLl’ yeah and welcome to Earth- the team and yourselves live HERE. You obide by THESE rules. And as someone with beliefs (and a LOT of ancient fucking texts and studies on this shit) their Hell isnt even a proper Hell! It’s closer to purgatory and even then it’s not. Regardless, it’s a poorly built world with the lore consistently changing per episode and tweet, with many plot holes, and is apparently easy to get into - even via accidentally watching porn according to a stream. If youre gonna parade youre a fucking expert and research into demonology and use real believed figures, at least get THAT right. In fact, Lucifer and Lilith (and Stolas tbf) are ESPECIALLY risky as theyre a lot more complex than most easy access texts will tell you. Likewise, Stolas’s first introduction and main focus is sex. He’s one of the FEW Goetia demons that dont have some involvement in relationship issues at ALL. He’s known for astrology, crystals and herbs but hes also known to aid MONEY troubles (it’s lesser known but it’s true! HB Stolas is an insult to the Prince). Turning Vodou into something evil is vile considering it’s powerful and liberated slaves. Pentagrams are nothing to do with Satan, they’re magic based sigils. Upside down cross is the symbol of a SAINT. It’s just some edgy attempt to trick people into believing they know more than they do. Also you should NEVER dabble and doodle sigils without knowing the meanings or respecting what they behold. Vox and Val, real fuckin cute way to make them look like a stupid fucking highschool drama instead of a fucking SEX TRAFFICKER (note: real pimps often target YOUNG folks too - aka minors - and groom them into sex work. Theres different types of pimp. Viv has shown barely any understanding of ‘the game’ and its a fucking insult to injury. Yes we KNOW what a fucking pimp and prozzie are! We dont need to see it. We need REAL AWARENESS.) and a fucking scheming bastard of a CEO salesman botman. And yet even THEN lets go a step further and make some yandere wuv on boyfweind aboose! Fuck off- Now I love a good anime but these tropes are getting fucking dangerous now. And unrealistic to real love and relationships. Kids nowadays know fuck all on a healthy relationship (neither did the fuckin 50s tbf) and Im seeing more romaticism and glorifying abusive situations. Like the show ‘You’. Ok, there’s a fuckin bloke online who slaughtered innocents and kidnapped yet people commented how cute he is on his IG and that they want to be kidnapped or killed by him next. Dont believe me? Look up Peter Manfredonia Connecticut and the comments people left him and then tell me why shit like whats being presented in HH/HB ISNT fucking concerning - because it is. For a series about redemption, it’s brilliant at the opposite (Quote from the creator herself, Viv has posted that it’s influencing her bad choices. Even as a joke, proof’s in the pudding). And the overall focus on sex in the way Viv does is so immature and really creepy, and this is from an ADULTS perspective. From one adult to another, Im concerned as to why any of them think this is a normal fixation. Then again they’ve hired quite a large amount of dodgy folks and even a child. Most of this shit gets avoided with a basic background check like most companies run. I DO like Hazbin. Or the premise. I love some of the cast and spite the others. In Helluva, I just like a tiny portion of the cast. And I critique it so harshly because Viv DOES need a wakeup slap, grounding to reality, people who arent going to big her up or kiss her arse for once and shape her up to be the best she can be. The actually reach and even surpass her potential. And to reach where you need to be, there’s a lot of harsh lessons youll face. That’s life. Shes chosen one of the most HEARTLESS industries and if she blocks out critique as ‘hate’ then she’s not strong enough and wont last. It’s just another unprepped YanDev again (except I dont believe Viv to be a nonce. Even with her dodgy past and dodgy present, I think her perspective on sex and relationship with sexuality is FAR from healthy BUT I dont believe she’s a pedophile. Ive bled my fair share and so far, I just think her sex perspective isnt healthy or mature for her age. But there’s little to nothing to suggest actual noncery - dont worry about accusations there. But YanDev is totally a dirty predator. Just clearing that up). Viv NEEDS some harshness and stability if she wants to do things right. And it’ll make her fucking cry but if she loves these projects as much as she claims to, then you’ll sacrifice blood, sweat and tears for that shit. Even the strongest points are mediocre at best when properly observed. She CAN do more, but she’ll have to face the harsh music. Viv wont see this, but if she does, I dont care if it upsets her. Why? Because this is that much of an issue - something she’s cultivated - that she needs to take action and not ignore it or be secretive about it. She needs to grow up and get tougher skin. Im not saying this to cause her pain. In fact, I wouldnt waste my fucking limited time if I DIDNT care. Trust me, I have duties to be met at a certain quota every single day. I say this shit only because I give a shit and care. If we met, she’d fucking hate me. But people like me are good for shaping people up to their potential. And we arent always this ‘tough love’ either. But when someone needs that level of harshness to help themselves, we’re not afraid to lose people or cause upset if the results end up being the best for them. If she ever saw this, she needs to re fucking evaluate her message, her story, and those she’s choosing to welcome into her circle. And all Im seeing is one rookie mistake after the other. Her paid patreon discord. Just like the messages Honest has posted on her side of being harassed (not in Vivs fyi), Ive experienced shit and bullying and even stay silent on their for being attacked for a group I fuckin paid to be in and yet I feel isolated. It’s all arsekissing and ‘thank you viv’ (thats an actual channel-) and it feels like a place of borderline worship and people trying to appease her 24/7 whilst kicking others with different opinions down. There’s so many I love but I aint kissin yer fuckin arse. Ask the closest friend I have - we’re fucking raw and wont just side with each other just because. We’ll call each other out if we think they’ve fucked up and then help each other build themselves up better. Because real fuckin people who actually care wont just want to be adored by you. They’ll care enough to point out your bullshit and help you, even if they upset you at the time. They’re real and upfront with you. People like us arent always the easiest to be close to either because we arent afraid of upsetting someone if it’s in their best interest and to help them. Likewise, we dont go out looking for fights either. Most times, we’re fuckin soft bastards- All this shit listed is the fuckin surface level of the real life hell of this fandom. And unsurprisingly, those who experience little to no toxicity have always been higher on that popularity ‘food chain’ - enough admirers and shared opinions that people wanna arse kiss regardless of their OWN feelings as well as neutral perspectives. I’d say you’re the lucky fans, but you’re not. You’re sheltered, and that isnt always the best way to be sadly. As for the fans. If Ive upset you. Well... I dont care. Because many of you have actively sought me out and weaponised my traumas against me. You never cared about my feelings then. Why should I care about yours? Im not doing this out of malice. Im fed up of humans behaving so pathetically yet claiming to be high and mighty. Most of you have been arseholes to those in and out of the community. The victims and non-victims alike. Hardly any of you considered once my real suffering. You put a drawing over a life. Many lives. You had the audacity to tell me Im full of shit. Some even using my real traumas to make a mockery of me and those Im around with a very similar history. Some with traumatic histories that differ from my own. You hardly ever considered the real lives of those effected. So no, Im not sorry for having the fucking balls to this day to still stand up for our rights and give us a voice that’s long been stolen. Im not sorry for being a fucking victim. Im not sorry for saying what desperately NEEDS voicing. And Im not sorry for not conforming to you or any fandom just to belong. We deserve better than to constantly be your fuckin arse monkeys (well... the trope is butt monkey but yknow-) and to be mistreated, misrepresented and harmed by you. You’re no different to the school bullies who give speeches on anti-bullying day. And I hope every single one of you starts looking into yourselves and improving. PS: Depending on the texts you read, Lucifer is said to have been redeemed or to be redeemed. Fun fact to haunt yalls with~ “

[memecucker]

uneducated follower here; could you elaborate on "leaving indigenous religion alone mostly so as to prop up the colonial state"? how did that work? i thought colonizers mostly just spread their own religions to colonies. how did leaving indigenous religions intact prop up colonizers? sorry aha

(Anon is in response to this and this post)

First off something to get out of the way is that colonialism is a historical phenomenon which means that it is not uniform thing. Colonialism in the sense of imperialism is about controlling a population and the means by which a colonial power exerts this control can range from expulsion or genocide of the native populace to be replaced by settlers or it could take the form of granting nominal sovereignty to a neo-colonial state where all the official offices are occupied by local people but the true masters of remain the same old ones.

So what Spain and Portugual did in the 16th and 17th centuries isnt necessarily gonna match the patterns of the British and French in the 19th and 20th centuries. So whereas the Portuguese in India exported their style of religious persecution to Goa in the form of the Goa Inquisition, the British East India Company actually had refused British missionaries access to territories they controlled up until 1813 on the grounds that missionaries might spoil relations with local rulers or merchants friendly with the EIC.

Despite propaganda that might seem to the contrary the purpose of prosthelyization in Spanish or Portuguese colonies was not purely out of a desire to turn the whole world Catholic. Just because Catholicism might see it as an ideal that the whole world be turned Catholic doesnt on its own necessitate that Catholic states would pursue such a policy because there is also an ideal of peace between fellow Christians that obviously Catholic states could care less about. There needs to be a pragmatic reason why to go through all that trouble. The most obvious reason for this is that converting the indigenous to the colonial religion you better pacify them by turning something they turn to in hours of suffering and grief into a thing that legitimizes and props up the colonial state. An additional way this helps control a population is that churches end up filling the role of an official registry of the names of people in various areas via baptismal certificates or other means. And of course in many cases the colonial state was itself the Church or at least controlled by it.

Anyway I just spent a paragraph seeming to argue the opposite point so whats up with colonial powers granting sanction to local religions out of self-interest? Well the answer is that there was growing realization that in many cases the local religions could actually fulfill the above roles just as well and frankly with much less struggle. If you could get local religious leaders to sanction and bless your rule and preach submission to it well all the better then. In the case of India, the British highly valued winning over the loyalty of local religious leaders of whatever was the dominant local faith because these religious leaders would then legitimize British rule and in turn the British would reward them for their loyalty. French colonialism in Indochina (ironically enough given that it primarily occurred during the Third Republic) often took the form of trying to preserve indiginous cultural practices that otherwise appeared moribund such as the Emperorship or the mandarinate because they believed this would be the superior way to legitimize their rule if they used the already-in-place forms of legitimizing state authority (not to mention the Third Republic had a.. contentious relationship with the Roman Catholic Church which is why there wasnt that much Catholic missionary work done in “New Imperialism” colonies as you might expect and French colonial authorities would sometimes trust indigenous or even non-French Protestant religious figures moreso than Catholic ones because of how hostile relations between the Catholic Church and the Third Republic could get). 

Conversion can still occur of course but it tends to take the form of allowing independent churches to do what they will do. The flipside is that these native clerics can be harder to control and the sighs of the oppressed could more easily turn subversive than when compared with colonial religions but those are problems that have solutions from the perspective of a colonial administrator. The Javanese communist Tan Malaka is noteworthy for being a Marxist who disagreed with the political goal of eventual abolition of religion and had believed that religious clerics could be allies in the struggle against imperialism because in the Dutch East Indies he had cooperated with clerics for such reasons. But when he returned after a trip to Russia, Malaka was shocked to see how many of his former friends had turned around after Dutch colonial authorities had given them (”them” being the clerics, not the common people) some concessions such as control over schooling of native youths. This caused Malaka to shift his thinking such that while he remained a Muslim, he became convinced that present-day clergy will need to be abolished in order for religion to itself be revolutionized. 

The late 19th century pan-Islamic intellectual Jalal al-Din al-Afghani was as far from a “colonial collaborator” as you could get being the zealous and implacable enemy of British imperialism that he was but there was one interesting incident wherein he attempted to make a “deal with the devil” so to speak. In 1885 al-Afghani traveled to London on invitation of the poet Wilfrid Blunt who was also his friend to meet with Randolph Churchill, Secretary of State for India. Al-Afghani made a rather blunt proposal to Churchill, namely that if the British were to grant independence to Egypt so that it may be a prominent Muslim country free of European (which includes Ottoman) domination then al-Afghani would use his immense prestige and and sway over anti-colonial movements in the Muslim world to preach alliance with the British and jihad against the Russians, their main rival in Central Asia and potentially South Asia as well (al-Afghani would also make similar overtures to Russia). Now dont let this influence your idea of al-Afghani the man because that was a life that was incredibly nuanced and fascinating to read about but these dynamics he proposed are what I want to point out. 

Now a nuance that needs to be mentioned of course is that this is dependent on the societal role of religion and religious hierarchies prior to colonialism. Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya has an idiosyncratic definition of the word “theism” that I think might be useful here. For Chattopadhyahya “theism” refers not to the abstract belief in a divinity or even a personal divinity but rather the form this takes within societies marked by economic classes. This is relevant because if youre talking about tribes with more egalitarian social arrangements then its less likely that there will be a priestly class that can be won over in the same way. This both made conversion through missionaries not only easier because they werent competing with pre-existing organized religions but also greatly increased the usefulness in the colonial state sponsoring such endeavors. So again to bring up Indonesia but if you look at a map of religious affiliation in the country you’d see the widest concentration of Christian majorities is in the Indonesian-controlled part of New Guinea and if you look at the pre-colonial history of New Guinea there was much much less of a presence of class-determined religion in Chattopadhyahya’s sense of “theism”.

Anyway that was a ramble but the point is that don’t get too hung up on the idea of colonialism having a specific paradigm. When you think of the perspective of a colonial administrator who is trying to protect a regime of brutality, exploitation and bloodshed they have to act in what is the immediately pragmatic self-interest for the regime. Thus depending on the social circumstances (and frankly increasingly so overtime) there may be a move away from conversion of locals towards collaboration with local clerics. Force alone is not enough to maintain a state 

[bigskydreaming]

Seriously, for fuck’s sake, I know that post was AT LEAST as far back as December, if not more, and it literally had less than ten notes just two hours ago.

But remember! I’m on a fucking CRUSADE! I just want to take away peoples’ rape fics and harmless kiddie porn fantasies and I just can’t respect the fact that as long as people just TAG their ‘herein lies my advertisement of the fact that hahaha, omg I think what happened to you is actually kinda hot and sexy giggle giggle aren’t I so TABOO????’ smut like lol okay, well that doesn’t affect me at all, I’m not remotely bothered by having to spend every single day wading through reminders of how much more fascinating people find rape than actual survivors of said things. 

I’m the one who has no idea how to live in a society with other people and suck it up and deal with the fact that sometimes, people do and say things that make us uncomfortable and we wish we could avoid, but just shut the fuck up and keep that to yourself, right? Don’t like....TELL people they’ve made you uncomfortable and are doing things that you wish they’d think about more critically, gosh, all that’s gonna do is make THEM uncomfortable then, why couldn’t you just kept it to yourself, how dare you think TALKING about problems is the solution?????

Yup yup, I’m clearly the one who has no boundaries and no regard for other people and can’t let people just have their harmless fun, their different opinions that don’t actually affect me, I’m the one who just can’t seem to stop from hunting down posts I don’t agree with and hopping on other blogs and resurrecting weeks or months old posts just to make sure EVERYONE KNOWS THIS POST WAS WROOOOOOONG. Lmao.

Well I’m very sorry for all that, now that mine eyes have been opened! Rape fics are harmless and this is all just fictional, nobody is actually affected in a negative way by anything being talked about here yaaaaaaay!

Anyway, I’m off to spend the rest of the night trying to calm down lolol because fun fact for people who love to talk about being triggered but have no real clue what they’re actually talking about and how that word was never meant to describe being like...upset or angry but rather the stimuli or situations that put survivors and people with PTSD and other mental disorders into actual goddamn panic spirals and attacks. And thus like, triggers are not as fucking obvious as some of you seem to think they are.

Like lol guess what, I actually can read a scene wherein someone’s raping someone in a scene that looks or sounds EXACTLY LIKE MY RAPE and it can be heart-wrenching and it can be graphic and it can be emotional and I can still not be triggered by that! Know why? Because shockingly, I AM aware that this is just fictional! That these are just fictional characters! That no fictional character and no real person has been harmed in the writing of this scene, because FICTIONAL CHARACTERS CAN’T BE HARMED! Know what else fictional characters can’t be? RAPED. Because rape is not a VISUAL, rape is not an ACTION, rape is not a SPECIFIC SEQUENCE OF EVENTS. Rape is a THEFT, it is one person STEALING another person’s ability to control what happens with their body, taking what they have no right to take, just because they WANT to, just because they CAN. And thus NO rape scene, no matter HOW well written or realistically depicted, is ever going to BE a rape scene, just like no ‘rape fantasy’ roleplay is ever going to BE rape because without an actual DYNAMIC of one person taking something the other person has no power to stop, when its two equally consenting partners or two flat fictional characters on a page, it is still nothing more than a SIMULATION of rape, and NEVER ANYTHING MORE THAN THAT.

And guess what? I can handle THAT just fine. THAT doesn’t trigger me no matter how much it reminds me of my own trauma, because I KNOW DAMN WELL THAT ISN’T REAL.

But you know what IS real? You know what DOES trigger me? The CONTEXT of the scene. The REASON it was written, the intended REACTION of the reader.

The part that makes me lose my fucking shit is when I’m forced to face the reality that this scene exists, was written, because somebody found it HOT and SEXY and wanted to share it with people who’d see it the same way. The reason I lose my goddamn MIND and my adrenaline ramps up and my whole body starts shaking as my fight or flight instincts kick in with no actual outlet because there’s no actual threat, just the phantom reminder of a threat I couldn’t escape from....THAT fun little adventure comes from looking or hearing about things that remind me of my rape, take me back to that fucking room and make me a terrified out of my goddamn mind dumbass nineteen year old all over again.....and knowing that this is HOT to the writer and readers, that this is  intended as sexually gratifying, that this scene, this depiction, this simulation of one person STEALING from another powerless person SOMETHING THEY WILL NEVER EVER FUCKING BE ABLE TO GET BACK AS LONG AS THEY LIVE, THE SENSE OF SAFETY AND SECURITY THAT COMES FROM BEING THE ONLY PERSON WHO GETS TO DECIDE WHO HAS ACCESS TO YOUR BODY....knowing that this little smutty fic exists so people can read this and be TURNED ON by this, so they can GET OFF to this, this thing they’re looking at in their mind, reading about, picturing as they stare down at their screen getting all hot and bothered....

JUST LIKE MY FUCKING RAPIST LOOKED WHEN GETTING OFF FROM TAKING THOSE THINGS FROM ME.

THAT is what fucking triggers me, THAT is what makes me feel unsafe and panicky, THAT is what traps me all over again in that fucking goddamn room and leaves me STUCK there no matter how many years its been and HOW far I’ve come in getting past it...

THE CONSTANT NEVER ENDING REMINDER THAT PEOPLE THINK ITS TOTALLY NO BIG DEAL TO FUCKING AGREE WITH MY RAPIST ABOUT HOW FUCKING HOT AND SATISFYING THE VIEW IS FROM UP THERE.

And all the fucking trigger warnings in the world don’t protect me from THAT, they just emphasize how little people actually give a shit, they just want the magic answer to how they can have their fun ‘harmless’ little rape KINK without having someone make them feel bad for the fact that the rank goes FUN RAPE FANTASIES YAY first and survivors who have a problem with that way the fuck last.

Anyway, so that’s what I’ll be doing all night! Links to my paypal and my ko-fi are on my main blog page if anyone’s ever felt informed or learned anything from any of my many, many, MANY posts about this stuff or any form of gratitude for the effort I DO or at least once DID put into sorting through my thoughts and making my points in some kind of way that actually addresses the usual conversations around all this.

Because guess what? It IS goddamn fucking emotional labor. It DOES take work! Its EXHAUSTING. It HURTS. I would give anything in the world to NOT pick at that giant fucking scab as often as I do, but I DONT HAVE THAT OPTION. Because not talking about it DOESNT MAKE IT GO AWAY. It doesn’t make LESS for me to have to navigate through every goddamn day of my life and you know what the suggested response to problems that you can’t fix on your own are? Problems with SOCIETY?

HAVING GODDAMN CONVERSATIONS ABOUT IT.

So excuse me for SAYING that as often as I do especially cuz every time I DO I get maybe ten notes of acknowledgment that anyone’s even fucking LISTENING but meanwhile here’s another fucking five hundred on a Batfam or X-Men shit post, now THAT’S the content people want from me!

Guess what! I WANT THAT TO BE MY CONTENT TO!

I would LOVE nothing more than to just be able to happily and comfortably shitpost about my favorite superheroes and write stuff I enjoy and that doesn’t have the flaws I rant about seeing in so many shows and books. I could talk for HOURS about fun thoughts and ideas I have in my head, I could banter back and forth with my friends about nothing of substance at all for DAYS, I don’t NEED to fucking retraumatize myself every goddamn day screaming into the void about this shit so I can feel IMPORTANT or have something INTERESTING to blog about or whatever the fuck people think is my reason for ranting about this shit. ALL. THE. GODDAMN. TIME.

But I can’t do that, because there is not a fucking day that goes by, not a DAY where SOMETHING doesn’t cross my dash, or SOMETHING isn’t on an Ao3 page I’m searching through for fic about a fave character, that doesn’t set me off and make my body start shaking with how deeply, fundamentally UPSETTING it is to constantly be bombarded with reminders of just how easy people find it to reframe my trauma as something hot and sexy and WAY MORE WORTH DEFENDING than the very thought of me going ONE FUCKING DAY without having to stumble across bullshit like that. Because I CAN’T ‘dont like/dont read’ as much is out there. I don’t need to click on a fic to see this is smut fic by an author who thinks rape is hot and judging from the number of kudos and comments and hits is definitely on to something! GUESS I DID MY RAPE WRONG THEN, cuz it wasnt fucking hot for me!

I would love to just ‘avoid’ it so I can actually ENJOY my fucking time on the internet. But I CANT. Because its EVERYWHERE. And god forbid I try and start fucking CONVERSATIONS about that so that maybe, someday, after we’ve done the work as a society to examine WHY PEOPLE ARE SO FUCKING INVESTED IN THIS STUFF, I or at the very least people like me, can someday enjoy one day on the internet where they DONT have to constantly wade through an endless swamp of that shit.

Honestly. Seriously. I have said it so often I can not count. I do not want to censor anyone. I do not want power over what people can read or write. I just. want. to TELL people that when they write this stuff, it has CONSEQUENCES, that there are people it DOES hurt, and have them LISTEN, so that at least, at LEAST the ones who are bothered enough by that realization to NOT be comfortable writing it when faced with the awareness of the fact that their writing HAS THIS EFFECT WHETHER WE SAY IT TO THEIR FACES OR NOT, that THEY at least can decide....hey. What if I just...wrote something else instead?

But what the FUCK am I supposed to do with the constant, incessant reminder that people would rather dig in their heels in defense of their RAPE FANTASIES than roll up their sleeves and do a little fucking examination of WHY they and society at large are so fucking invested in this shit that the very IDEA of ‘giving up’ content like this for the sake of people who have actually LIVED through it, is just....INCOMPREHENSIBLE to them? That they feel ATTACKED by the very idea?

(And don’t fucking come at me with that ‘some survivors use it to cope’ stuff. Yeah, well I used to get in bar fights as my coping mechanism. Didn’t fucking mean it was healthy, and it wasn’t fucking harmless to anyone I punched in the goddamn face, now was it? Also, if you’re not a survivor and you hide behind that line, FEEL FUCKING ASHAMED for thinking of it as a kneejerk response to another survivor telling you your “kink” fucking hurts).

I’m out. See you all later.

[patchdotexe]

apparently my brain wont let me sleep until i do this, so im sorry for any weird wording-- its 2 am (edit: now its 3) and im emotionally tired when I think about this. being vague abt ppl involved bc this isn't a callout its just me explaining what happened on my end

i guess you can reblog this if you want but please dont contact me about it, im stressed and my only thought is to just get this all over with so i dont need to think about it anymore

i was admin of a jsab discord that had a nsfw channel that could only be accessed with a role. before i was promoted, at least one minor had ended up with the role; i should've removed it as soon as i was admin, but didn't because im afraid of conflict and wasnt sure how to go about it. so, like, problem 1.

after events in the fandom (collin, minors posting nsfw art in main tags) i withdrew from jsab but stayed in the discord because i felt obligated to as an admin, and also because the other admin couldn't run it on her own. i ended up muting the nsfw channel, and eventually the server itself. i was starting to move on to other things and was engaging way less with the fandom than before

a few days ago i got a DM letting me know that an adult in the nsfw channel had been creating sexual content for a minor. i reacted really badly. for full disclosure, im a sexual abuse victim. i dont know how comfortable people would be if i went into specifics, but the situation reminded me way too much of it. on top of that, i was already stressed out and trying to recover from something that had happened with another friend totally unrelated to this. i also already disliked the person involved due to having to ask them to stop being "lewd" in the main channels but had been trying to set it aside bc they seemed nice and people liked them

i was brought into a group dm with several friends and... kind of had a total breakdown. at the time i think they thought i was just doing what had to be done after admitting id let it go on way too long, but the truth is i flew way off the handle and its terrifying to look back on. like, i legitimately haven't been that angry in a long time. it was not a state i should have been doing ANYTHING in, let alone trying to salvage a situation that was triggering me.

while this was going on, someone else was brought up in the group DM as grooming minors, and i was shown screenshots of a conversation in another server from before i joined where they were discussing an opinion along the lines of "i dont get the big deal with hiding nsfw art when minors are going to seek it out anyway" which... also made me very uncomfortable bc of my abuse. i ended up kicking them from the server as well with minimal warning.

at this point people in the server were reacting to an inactive admin suddenly kicking 2 active members and posting an announcement where i made no attempt to hide how furious i was. this part is kind of a blur to me but the group dm was reacting to it as it was going on and a person said something that pushed me over the edge. its kind of hard to describe it as "snapping" when i was already emotionally off the deep end but I pretty much exploded. the server fell apart after that

a day later i got contacted that there had been a psa in another server and people were upset at the friend who posted it because of things i said. im the one who called the people involved pedophiles. i dont think i was right to do that, but there was a lot going on in my head at the time and honestly i kept thinking about my abuse and about collin + when im that badly triggered theres not really any nuance to things

realizing that i broke apart a friend group + was leading to at least one friend getting harassed is why i left the fandom. not only did i fail at keeping people safe, i actively made it worse. i don't think the ppl in the dm are at fault for my actions or my mental state; i do feel upset about it bc of how much the situation escalated but i dont think they knew/understood what was going on with me (i wasnt exactly coherent about it) and how their cheering me on +encouraging me to take more action was making my mental state worse bc i had no opportunity to calm down or even fully process what was happening

im sorry for how i handled this entire situation. im staying away from the fandom (and from fandom discords in general), im trying to get my mental health in order, and i know this isn't a great apology to everyone that got hit by the aoe of my warpath. i just wanted to try and say my part of it because theres a lot of confusion over what happened and seeing as im a major player in it i need to say something

[cryptocoinguides]

Safemoon Partnership With Ethereum

Hello and welcome back to daily Safemoon news and updates review. In this video I will talk about Safemoon and its partnership with Ethereum and how all of that will affect Safemoon’s price in future. So yeah, this video is super interesting so make sure to watch it until the very end. Disclaimer. Also if you are interested in getting price predictions and crypto news literally every hour, then join my telegram channel, we already have more than 2000 people.

Alright Safemoon fans, if you watched my previous videos then you already know that first bridge came out on Tuesday and more are coming. In the recent AMA John Karony announced bridges which opens sfm to Etherum, EOS, Wax etc. Bridges is making a huge stir because thanks to our dev papa bridges change the crypto space and our beloved Safemoon is now CROSS CHAIN.

If you still confused, then here’s a 2 secodns explanation what are these Bridges. “Think of Safemoon as New York City an island cut off but these bridges are now being built out to other cities so the traffic there can come in, each time they pay a toll on the bridge which = reflections to the citizens of NYC aka us safemoon army!” If interested, you can find full explanation on bridges and more on my channel. So in this video I will talk about Safemoon and Ethereum. At first, take a look at this picture. A closer look into S-curve of business growth.

We have 3 steps of business growth. Start, Growth and Scale. Currently we are between Start and Grow steps. It’s called Strategic Inflection Point. Strategic Inflection Points are those points in time where a company must make a fundamental shift to maintain and/or capitalize on forward momentum. We have 3 options here, Sustained momentum, Stagnation or Obsolescence. And with the Ethereum bridge now live, SAFEMOON just passed the first strategic inflection point with sustained momentum! Next up is more growth and scalability.

So recently a reddit user asked following question, “Why wasnt SafeMoon created on Ethereum platform in the first place?” “If Binance had so many bottlenecks, why didnt they release SafeMoon on Ethereum in the first place. I mean wouldnt that have been more beneficial to SafeMoon from day one? I don’t know what Im missing out here. What are your thoughts fellow SafeMoon Army!” When someone answered, “Gas fees and smart contracts are two of the main reasons, and why there are also so many more crypto start ups on BSC rather than ETH.

But when ETH updated their tech and the fees are lower, it will be very interesting to see where things lean. Cross chain couldnt have come at a better time in crypto space.” Just wait until EIP-1559 is underway and watch those safemoon numbers skyrocket on ETH .

The biggest problem right now on ETH chain is the freakishly high fee. Once that’s gone BSC will not be seen anywhere. Bridges are the only way to sustain Safemoon right now untill their own Blockchain comes. You might wonder what is EIP-1559? EIP-1559 stands for Ethereum Improvement Proposal and it is an update that is set to go live in July 2021.

It will change the fee structure of Ethereum and this change will see gas fees split into two. Both of these fees will be transparent for users. It will include a tip from the sender and a base fee which is then burned. What are gas fees? Gas fees are the cost of transactions on the Ethereum ecosystem. They are not fixed, and the system works through a first price auction. Users submit bids that are then picked up by miners.

At peak times, the network can be congested and gas fees can be particularly high. This can lead to transactions stuck on pending for hours which is very inconvenient. There is also the possibility of transactions failing if a bid is not picked up. Overall, the system appears to be lacking efficiency, and users have been complaining about the rising gas prices.

Will EIP-1559 fix gas fees? EIP-1559 is not predicted to fix the issue of fees right away, but it will be a starting point to a fairer and more efficient system. The base fee will be adjusted to market rates on a block by block basis which means users wont need to select a specific gas option as is the case currently. If a user wants a transaction completed more quickly, there will be an option to tip the miner.

The effect on supply. The burning mechanism for the base fee will have a major impact on supply due to the fee being paid in ETH. In theory, this could lead to the asset becoming deflationary. This is notable because it means that Ethereum will eventually shift from a proof of work model to a proof of stake model.

The full shift will not occur however until Ethereum 2.0 is rolled out. Well, if you are new to crypto, you might wonder what does proof of work and proof of stake mean. Well, I won’t waste much of your time if you alredy know that, just give me like 20 seconds. So, very briefly speaking, proof of work model is something that Bitcoin uses.

To add each block to the chain, miners must compete to solve a difficult puzzle using their computers processing power. As a result of the intensive processing power necessary on PoW networks, excessive electricity use has been the most common criticism of this consensus mechanism. So we can say that PoW damages our Environment. Proof of Stake is cleaner compared to Proof of Work.

There is no competition as the block creator is chosen by an algorithm based on the user’s stake. But how all of the above information is related to Safemoon? So as it was already mentioned BSC the blockchain where Safemoon is created, recently bridged to Ethereum. According to DeFi Prime, the DeFi world is dominated by Ethereum (72%) and Binance Smart Chain (12%) as the two largest and prominent blockchains in the ecosystem nowadays. While they coexist in the same space, their slightly different focuses and goals equip them with diverging sets of characteristics governing, technical, and functional.

On the one hand, the Ethereum blockchain aims to offer a decentralized world of computing. On the other hand, BSC wants to increase the speed of dApps, lower transaction fees, and enable dApp scalability, which gives a massive impulse to the entire DeFi ecosystem. At the same time, these differences are exactly what makes them complementary ecosystems enabling the mainstream acceptance of blockchain in general.

And pNetworks aim to interconnect blockchains and grant them unlimited usability is right at the heart of it. What is pNetwork? PNetwork is focused on bridging the gap between individual blockchains, thus enabling the entire blockchain platform to function in an all-encompassing manner.

By connecting the Ethereum blockchain and BSC, pNetwork allows users to access both ecosystems without effectively ever leaving one or the other. As an issue deeply plaguing the blockchain world and blocking the platforms much-needed swift growth, pNetwork-powered bridges might just be the solution both the Ethereum blockchain and BSC need to achieve mass user adoption.

Establishing a direct link between different blockchains via pTokens, a secure foundation is laid for cross-chain composability. Its purpose is to break down the walls between the chains and allow for easy movement of both users and crypto liquidity, thus powering their systems without friction. Best of all, this means that various blockchains would be able to fully complement each other, as user intent and activity wouldnt suffer because of the limitations of each blockchain.

This makes pNetwork the industry-first solution providing a secure, bidirectional connection between Ethereum blockchain and BSC dApps, among others. Well, I am not able to fit information about pSafemoon in this video. Even though it’s necesarry to understand, but you might already understand what pSafemoon is.

If not, then I can make a video explanation, if you want me to make a video explanation about pSafemoon and more, comment down below #pSafemoon. Well, to sum up, when EIP-1559 update will happen, we will see Etheum price surge, giving a nice boost to Safemoon.

Well, unfortunately Vitalki Buterin, the founder of Ethereum hasn’t commented anything about this. But I will keep you guys updated. If you still have any questions about this, comment down below. If you enjoyed this video, then please like this video and comment something, this would really help me out to reach the youtube algorithm. But, note that I’m not forcing you to invest in this project.

Read More: Cardano On The Edge of Smart Contracts

The post Safemoon Partnership With Ethereum appeared first on Crypto Coin Guides.

via Safemoon Partnership With Ethereum

[arplis]

Arplis - News: A service roller coaster: Review of SriLankan Airlines business class on the A330-300

TPG Rating

75 100

Pros

Very good seat; great food; cheap price in miles.

Cons

Inconsistent service; expensive and very slow Wi-Fi.

15/20 Ground Experience

25/30 Cabin + Seat

10/15 Amenities + IFE

17/20 Food + Beverage

8/15 Service

SriLankan Airlines is a small carrier with just 26 aircraft in its fleet, so it sometimes gets overlooked. But its a member of the Oneworld alliance with British Airways, American Airlines and 10 other major carriers, so it was high time we gave Sri Lankas flag carrier a whirl.

Its direct flight between London Heathrow (LHR) and Colombo (CMB) is a great way to get to Sri Lanka using Avios or other Oneworld miles like American Airlines. And Colombo is also a great jumping-off point to nearby destinations such as the Maldives. Flying through Colombo is also a good way to score phenomenally cheap tickets in premium classes, such as Emirates First.

Ultimately, this SriLankan flight ended up below the 79-point average score of our long-haul business-class reviews. The airline delivered a great food experience and did relatively well on the ground, but couldnt keep up in the service department.

In This Post

Booking

TPG used just 42,500 American Airlines AAdvantage miles to book a one-way business-class ticket from Male, Maldives, to London via Colombo. The other obvious way to book the flight would be with Avios.

Related: Heres why you should care about British Airways Avios

Round-trip cash tickets in business class from Colombo to London, and vice versa, averaged the equivalent of $3,500 in March and April.

Ground Experience

TPG Rating

15/20

4R-ALO

Tail

4yr

Age

13:01

Departure

11h 26m

Duration

As I approached the airport in a taxi, I noticed a sign for business-class passengers pointing off to the left of the main road into the airport. It was marked Silk Route, the name SriLankan gives the ground experience for its business-class passengers.

The cab pulled up outside and staff immediately brought up trolleys to take my bags to the terminal. There was a security check to get inside the building. All bags were scanned and people had to walk through metal detectors as an extra security measure. My name was then checked off a physical passenger manifest and I was led to one of two check-in desks, which were both empty. There was a huge seating area with tables and chairs.

I went out into the main terminal, walking past the main check-in desk on my way. I noticed there was a dedicated Sri Lankan business-class desk here too, which was also for Oneworld Emerald and Sapphire elite members, and a second priority check-in lane for Oneworld Ruby members.

The lines at immigration were short and I headed into the main airside departure hall. The airport is actually quite fun, with a row of over-the-top souvenir shops besides the more typical international duty-free options.

There were two lounges I was eligible to use: the Serenediva for Oneworld Sapphire members, and the superior Serendib for business-class passengers and Oneworld Emerald members. I checked out the more basic lounge first, which was small, drab, windowless and rather depressing. It also had poor food offerings although at 11 a.m. they were between meals, according to a sign.

The Serendib is more impressive. Its brighter, with runway views through large windows. The greeting at the door was welcoming and I was offered a 20-minute complimentary massage.

There are plenty of seating areas, and although the lounge was busy, it still had plenty of free chairs.

There are two showers in the mens bathroom and the facilities were clean.

The food was varied, with local, Asian and Western options. I tried some of the local offerings butter chicken, chili poppadoms and vegetable biryani. They were excellent.

I was called for the spa treatment Id booked and asked if I wanted a foot massage. I didnt ask about other options, but the lady sitting next to me was getting a back massage.

Im glad I took them up on the massage. The treatment was fantastic, using oils and reflexology techniques, and I even got a little pot of ayurvedic balm as a gift on my way out. The spa is actually a weird little box of a room with two chairs, but it really did the trick.

Overall the lounge was a great experience, even if it was a little rough around the edges. The quality of the food, the charming staff and the fun treatment carried the day.

It was a five-minute stroll down to Gate 12 where the A330-300 was waiting. Full security is carried out at each gate, and there wasnt much time to wait as I was one of the last to reach the waiting area. Boarding began around 30 minutes before the scheduled departure time of 12.50 p.m. A separate channel for business class led to door 1L first on the left and straight into the biz cabin.

SriLankan is among the airlines that give their airplanes names; the Airbus taking us to London was a four-year-old jet named City of Senkadagalapura, a UNESCO World Heritage Site also known as the Sacred City of Kandy

Cabin and Seat

TPG Rating

25/30

1-2-1

Configuration

21

Width

2

Lavs

Flight attendants, decked out in blue saris with a peacock-feather motif, welcomed me and pointed me to my seat.

The business cabin of SriLankans A330-300s is arranged in seven rows of four seats in a 1-2-1 reverse-herringbone configuration. The center pair of seats are angled into each other and are better for a couple, but you have to lean forward to see each other.

This is a much better business-class product than on SriLankans smaller A330-200s, which have three rows of seats in 2-2-2 configuration, meaning not everybody has direct aisle access.

On the A330-300s, seats are upholstered in a teal-colored leather with a grey/beige headrest, which I thought I would hate after researching the cabin ahead of the flight. However, the seat actually looks quite smart; the photos I had seen made it look cheaper than it did in real life.

Mine was 3K, a right-hand window seat.

There is ample leg room, with a seat pitch of 78 inches. The seat is comfortable with plenty of padding.

At shoulder level, there is a reading light, IFE control panel, USB and universal power outlet, plus a seat-control panel.

The tray table extends from the console at the side of the seat and swings out in a folded position. It can then be folded out to double in size. Its not huge, but comfortably fits a 15-inch Macbook.

The area above where the table folds away is the only significant flat surface, and there are two other small storage areas one underneath this console and one by the footwell for storing magazines. There is also an armrest that must remain stowed for taxi, takeoff and landing.

The seat extends into a fully flat position for sleeping. When you lie down, your feet tuck into the footwell underneath the seat in front. No mattress pad is provided.

There are two toilets at the front of the cabin for the sole use of business-class passengers. They are run-of-the-mill bathrooms but with hand wash, hand cream and mouthwash.

Amenities and IFE

TPG Rating

10/15

15in

Screen

120

Movies

50

TV Shows

No

Live TV

Yes

Tailcam

A soft and good-quality pillow was on my seat when I arrived. Shortly after sitting down, the crew handed out a blanket, which was thin but very soft and felt high-quality.

They also handed out an Aigner-branded amenity kit containing toothbrush and toothpaste, lip balm, moisturizer, tissues, a hairbrush, hand sanitizer and earplugs.

A separate pack of SriLankan-branded socks and a good-quality eye mask were left at the seat.

Headphones were hanging on a small hook on the seat. They carried the SriLankan logo and seemed a bit beaten up but they worked OK, although they were not noise-cancelling, which has become a business-class benchmark.

Wi-Fi was available on board but it kept dropping out during the flight and cost a hefty $40 for full-flight coverage, with a usage cap of only 400MB. The performance of the Wi-Fi was so bad that every attempt I made to test the speed failed.

The IFE screen was a good size at 15.4 and operated by touchscreen or by the handheld control device. There were over 50 TV shows, 120 movies, audio shows, a moving map and front- and downward-facing live cameras.

Food and Beverage

TPG Rating

17/20

2

Meals

Piper-Heidsieck Cuve Brut

Champagne

Yes

Dine on Demand

Shortly after reaching my seat, I was offered pre-departure beverages (orange juice, water and Champagne) and hot towels.

Lunch orders were taken before departure and the lunch service began in earnest just 30 minutes into the flight.

I chose the Arabic mezze starter which included muhammara, tabouleh, dolmade and labneh. It was fresh and delicious, the perfect way to kick off the proceedings.

For the main course, the crew recommended the signature Sri Lankan-style chicken curry which was served with tempered beetroot, bitter gourd mallung, vegetable cutlet, and steamed basmati rice. It was exceptional, with delicious and subtle spices and good accompaniments, save for the bitter gourd mallung which was way too bitter for me (the warning was in the name). I washed this down with an Argentinian Sauvignon Blanc.

After clearing the main, the crew brought a cheese tray, which was still wrapped in cling film and a little sad, but the accompanying fruit plate had fat chunks of pineapple, papaya and watermelon and was juicy and perfect after the curry.

A trolley was then brought though the cabin with brandies and dessert wines, chocolate Sacher torte, and tea and coffee served out of beautiful silver jugs.

It didnt stop there the meal closed with a choice of sweet treats.

The menu stated that dine-on-demand was possible, although it looked like most everyone in the cabin took their food immediately because of the time of departure, but it was handy to know about the other option on a flight of almost 12 hours.

For the second meal, I chose the vegetable kottu roti, a spicy shredded roti dish with dal, which was tasty if heavy. The fresh fruit it came with was a good antidote to that heaviness.

Service

TPG Rating

8/15

No

Extra Pillows

No

Turndown Service

The service ended up being a letdown. It was efficient on the whole, despite regular bursts of turbulence during the flight, and the crew showed flashes of warmth and excellence which made the overall service level harder to swallow.

The crew seemed distant at times, yet somewhere over the Persian Gulf half the crew burst out of the galley, wielding a guitar, to sing (quite beautifully, including harmonies) five Christmas carols. It was five days before Christmas, after all.

The good vibes came and went, though. Sometimes the crew were happy and friendly, and at other times I felt like I was a huge inconvenience, mainly on the few occasions I was just asking for water top-ups. Watching interactions with other passengers, it felt like crew members were going through the motions with fake smiles.

When I asked around seven hours into the flight if I could have a snack (it had been five-odd hours since Id last eaten), a flight attendant barked that the next meal would be served in the next hour. This was at odds with the dine on demand stated in the menu, but all I was really after was a few nuts or something. I went back to my seat to wait for the meal, which came about 30 minutes later.

An hour before landing, I asked if there was anything sweet on board, maybe some chocolate. The response from the flight attendant was, No, I gave everything to the other passengers, and she turned to walk off. When I pushed and asked if there really was nothing at all, she rolled her eyes and said, Yes, I can get you a biscuit. Im not sure why it needed to be so difficult.

It was just so confusing to have such rudeness alongside what was often very good service, especially at mealtimes.

Overall Impression

SriLankan can often be overlooked because of its bigger Oneworld partners with far larger route networks, but its relatively new and modern A330-300s have a competitive business-class product with some real warmth and charm. Just be sure to choose the 300 model over the smaller A330-200 with the older business class.

It is the service that was inconsistent here, but had that been better, I would have felt very positively about the experience.

I cant imagine Colombo is the most efficient place to transit though, so I would probably choose the big hubs of the Middle East to make connections unless the timing of flights really worked out. But as a way to get to and from Sri Lanka, I would be willing to give SriLankan another go and pray for a happier experience in what is otherwise a good seat with great food.

All photos by the author.

Arplis - News source https://arplis.com/blogs/news/a-service-roller-coaster-review-of-srilankan-airlines-business-class-on-the-a330-300

[zanytimetravelenthusiast-blog]

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[thecreatiivecorner]

Broken - Prologue

This is a story I have been working on for a long time and I’ve decided to post it... finally. It gets very dark at times so please read with caution. Also... Scarlett Johansson does not exist in this AU. Sorry if anyone likes her. The main OFC is the actress who plays Black Widow. 

Pairing: Tom Hiddleston x ofc

Summary: Tragedy seemed to have an all access pass to the carnival that was my life. Whenever I felt like I was starting to get a grasp on happiness, something more would come along and snatch it away from me. I’ve been through a lot, starting with an abusive father. Being trained… if that’s what you call being forced to endure torture… to be a spy. Things that most normal people couldn’t even imagine but nothing compared to the day I lost my best friend.

Rating: Mature

Warnings: extreme violence, torture, mentions of rape, smut, death, depression, abusive father... literally all the bad things happen at some point! PLEASE DON”T READ IF ANY OF THIS BOTHERS YOU.

Tragedy seemed to have an all access pass to the carnival that was my life. Whenever I felt like I was starting to get a grasp on happiness, something more would come along and snatch it away from me. I’ve been through a lot, starting with an abusive father. Being trained… if that’s what you call being forced to endure torture… to be a spy. Things that most normal people couldn’t even imagine but nothing compared to the day I lost my best friend.

Right after it happened, I was a mess. Never in my life have I allowed myself to fall apart the way I did. I completely shut down. My whole world was just ripped away from me, and I never saw it coming and some might say that wasn’t even the worst part of what happened. So I suppose no one could blame me for my reaction… no one except myself. Nonetheless, I pushed everyone away. After spending two months in the hospital, I was tired of people constantly checking on me. The hospital felt just as much like a torture chamber as the one I was rescued from but I never expected my own home to be even worse. I know they meant well but I just couldn’t take it anymore. Once I was able to take care of myself, I shut everyone out. I didn’t talk to anyone for six months. No one. Not my manager, Andi, not my friends, not my family, not even the postman. I literally, shut everyone out. I fired my housekeepers, I personally canceled any jobs I had pending, including filming, interviews, conventions, I ordered groceries online and had them delivered… I even tried to fire Andi. She didn’t listen, though.

I hired Andi after I realized my acting career was starting to pick up. I had a few managers before her but none of them really worked out. With her, I knew right away that we were going to hit it off. She had just the right amount of professionalism without being uptight. She understood that I needed someone to balance my life, not control it. She knows when to buckle down and not take my crap and when to let me be and figure things out on my own. It didn’t take us long to become close friends. Now after two years, I trust her completely and we care about each other like sisters. We can also fight like sisters too.

At first Andi tried to get me to talk. She would call me constantly, text me incessantly, she even sat outside my front door a few times, just talking for hours. She was good at one-sided conversations. It didn’t seem to bother her that I never replied. But, eventually I started getting less calls and texts. She stopped coming to my house after she realized I wasn’t going to let her in. After about three months, she gave up all together. Part of me felt bad for deserting her, and everyone else that I knew. I just didn’t want to hear ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ and ‘it’s going to be alright’. He was gone, taken from me right in front of my eyes, and I didn’t know how to cope with that. So I locked myself away from the world and tried to forget everything.

Tags: @wonderlandmind4

[caredogstips]

10 Real Crime Sites You Can Inspect For An Extremely F* cked-Up Vacation

Thanks to Serial, The Jinx, and Constituting a Murderer, true violation narratives areback in a big road. A couple of years ago, everyone in your social curve was begging you to watch Mad Men. Now, were much more very interested in actual mad men.

For most of us, binge-watching these line is enough to satisfy our morbid stomaches. Others find a deeper curiosity, though. Just as some record fans detect the suggest to visit the site of major battles, “theres” beings out there who plan vacations around famous violation scenes.

Hey, some of us like Walt Disney World. Some opt Charles Mansons hangouts. No judgment.

If the idea of a tour through the darker surface of history pleads to you, check out these recognises below, which allows you indulge your inner violation buff.

1. The Sixth Floor Museum( Dallas, Texas)

While the endless bombardment of conspiracy-minded movies and works will forever cloud the tragic events of November 22, 1963 in our collective reminiscence, as far as government officials tale is concerned, President John F. Kennedy was killed when lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald killed him from his perch on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas.

These days, the building is dwelling to a museum. While you cant actually access the notorious window where Oswald took purpose, you can read a lot about Kennedy, his assassin and Jack Ruby, “the mens” who shot Oswald before he could go to trial.

For those of you swayed more by Oliver Stones controversies than the Warren Commission, the grassy knoll is a short walk away.

2. Devil in the White City Tours( Chicago, Illinois)

H. Holmes was the type of character that shouldnt prevail outside of cheap fright movies.( In fact, he’s about to be the subject of a maybe critically-acclaimed Scorsese-Dicaprio joint .)

After opening a inn close to the locate of Chicagos Worlds Fair, he enticed victims to his Murder Castle, taking their lives in various, frightful directions .( Hanging them. Locking their chambers and gassing them. Locking them in a vault to suffocate. Fastening them in their chambers to starve to death)

Holmes would eventually confessed to 27 assassinations, though some approximates placed the numeral closer to, uh, 200. Nope, thats not a typo.

His reign of terror was famously recounted in Erik Larsons The Devil in the White City, which took the true felony genre to new stages by serving as an informative historical narrative as well as a scandalizing thriller.

This tour imitatives that approach, making guests a bus ride through Chicago that provisions lessons on both the Worlds Fair and the notorious Mr. Holmes.

3. Lizzie Borden House( Fall River, Massachusetts)

Lizzie Borden took an axe

The gruesome assassinating of Andrew and Abby Borden has inspired everything from popular songs to Lifetime movies. Though Andrews daughter Lizzie is generally believed to be responsible for the assassination, she was acquitted at contest. No other suspect was ever charged.

Nowadays, the house where international crimes took place has been converted into a bed-and-breakfast, because nothing adds hospitality like This was the locate of an axe murder.

For those who arent crazy about the idea of standing overnight at a notorious misdemeanour scene, but are still curious to take a look at a legendary part of true-crime lore, tours of the members of this house are also available.

4. Jeffrey Dahmer Tour( Milwaukee, Wisconsin)

Jeffrey Dahmer, the notorious serial murderer responsible for the assassination of 17 men and boys, took our nightmares to a new stage by engaging in cannibalism and necrophilia with the bodies of his victims.

But serial killers often become quasi-celebrities in our culture, inspiring in some the kind of preoccupation typically set aside for rock-and-roll hotshots and royalty.

Perhaps that explains why genuine felony fans can take a walking tour of the Milwaukee streets where Dahmer picked up seven of his victims, all while understanding of the cooling details behind his crimes.

Maybe not the kind of situate to go on a family vacation.

5. Mob Tour( Las Vegas, Nevada)

If the small-time evils offered by casinos simply leave you craving more of the penal lifestyle, a tour of Vegas focusing on the mafias capacity in the city ought to do the trick.

Taking a detour away from the familiar tourist traps, this tour into Sin City sees the websites of burglaries, assassinates and the favourite hangouts of famed underworld digits like Bugsy Siegel. The tour ends with a pizza dinner at a restaurant that once served as a thug meeting place.

It’s not clear from thewebsite whether or not youll take a bullet to the kneecaps if you dont pay up for your ticket.

6. Helter Skelter Tour( Los Angeles, California)

In American record, few calls are more synonymous with evil than Charles Manson. Through his charismatic temperament, he reassured members of his family to perpetrate nine assassinates during the summer of 1969.

For those with a certain kind of morbid curiosity, an epic, three-and-a-half hour tour will shuttle you to the website where Mansons partisans took living conditions of Sharon Tate. Married to filmmaker Roman Polanski( a person with his own criminal predispositions ), Tate had a successful playing job and was weeks away from giving birth when she was murdered.

The tour includes details on the living conditions of the murderer and casualties, and, according to its internet site, is not recommended for children.

Really? Huh.

7. Clinton Road( West Milford, New Jersey)

This 10-mile stretch of sidewalk through the groves of northern New Jersey has given birth to countless city mythologies. Ghost brats haunting a bridge. Demon hounds ranging the forest. Specter trucks seeking motorists.

As a exceedingly, very bored teenage, I saw frequent late-night excursions here with your best friend. I never viewed any ghosts. I did watch beings having sexuality in their gondolas, though.

Which isnt to say theres nothing absolutely startling about the road. Though the supernatural storeys probably arent based in reality, the place does have a dark past.

In 1983, cyclists on the road discerned a torso that had been dumped in the groves. Researchers determined that the main victims had participated in mafia act, and had been killed by Richard The Iceman Kuklinski, a feared syndicate hitman who are able afterwards take recognition for the thousands of murders.

Real life is scarier than haunt floors sometimes.

8. Crimes of the Gold Coast Tour( New York)

If recent record is any indication, slaying and scandal are surely common among the wealthy elite.

This tour, led by an NYU instructor, looks into the financial subterfuge and violence that lay beneath the layer of New Yorks Fifth Avenue during the late 19 th century.

After all, sometimes the scariest felons of all are the ones rich enough to get away with their crimes.

9. Serial Locations( Baltimore, Maryland)

While the case of Adnan Syed, imprisoned of slaughtering his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee, hasnt resulted in any official tour( yet ), Serial addicts had now been reached pilgrimages to the major locatings featured in the podcast, eager to employ real-life epitomes to the story.

With the help of a custom-made Google Maps, you can visit the Best Buy where a major telephone call was constructed, or take a trip to Leakin Park, where Haes body was discovered. Plenty of Serial followers seemed the advise to solve the example after listening, and likely usedmaps like this one to help them in their goal.

Thats one of the side effects of the true-crime detonation: Everyones a detective now.

10. The Dakota( New York, New York)

It was the fame death that shocked “the worlds”. While returning to his apartment on the evening of December 8, 1980, John Lennon was shot in the back by Mark David Chapman.

The building where the assassination has just taken place, The Dakota, still stands. Though you probably cant yield to live there, you can walk by on the northwest angle of 72 nd Street and Central Park West, appreciating the recognise where the life of one of our greatest popular musicians pointed forever.

The Dakota likewise depicted up in Rosemarys Baby, in case that movie wasnt creepy enough for you already.

Now, if you recoil at the idea of a tourism industry devoted to lamentable violations , no worries: thats merelyproof that youre still a respectable human being. Clicking selfies at the site of a mass murder isnt exactlyclassy.

That replied, battle is just as disturbing as murder, if not more so. But we dont magistrate people who visitGettysburg, because we know theyre driven by a sincere curiosity.

The same can be said for these smudges. If youre simply trying to get some sort of vicarious excite fromstopping by the locate of a misfortune, perhaps you need to rethink your vacation contrives. But if youre drawn tosuch locatings out of a desire to gain an even deeper to better understand the darker slope of American history, then youre frankly no worse than the audiences that have driven the true misdemeanour renaissance.

Youre merely interested in leading that additional mile.

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