#bad faith arguments bad faith arguments everywhere

[dhurrbyang]

some of y'all will literally say that you hate the booktok videos that lumps books by tropes and then turn around and judge said books by those said tropes because *checks notes* you trust the recommendation style of the people who you criticize of having bad media literacy.

[crushedsweets]

If u consistently choose kindness on the internet in comment sections and dms and content I love you.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

billions also comedy gold presenting winston as a scapegoat for abuse culture fans when it's like but hey it can't be actual scapegoating if you Enjoy It or consider it Justified or experience Reassurance from Its Opportunity For A Group Cohesion Substitute For A Cohesion Based On An Inherent Equal Degree Of Belonging, The Absence Of Which Allows For, Encourages, Reinforces, & Rewards Scapegoating

it can't be Bullying if someone's Weird or you Just Don't Personally Like Them or Nobody's Actually Stopping You, Maybe At Least If They Don't See Too Much Of It, Maybe Others Are Supporting It

it can't be Abuse if you're just doing things Normally or are Following Rules or Aren't Feeling Malicious And Aren't Getting Divine Revelations Otherwise and probably it's just that a lot of abnormal people are being whiny &/or unfair &/or the Real malicious ones. kinda just like how that scapegoat is the real person ruining everything and really just forcing you to treat them like this

[isthatacalzone]

Christ help me I have to stop looking at twitter

[96percentdone]

there sure are a number of transfems extremely comfortable with talking about transmascs and their experiences like they get to be the arbiters of our oppression because they are also trans. i don't think that's how that works. trans people as a whole do have a lot of overlapping experiences, and transfems are oppressed under transmisogyny, which involves plenty that i don't relate to or understand. like there aren't hordes of caricatures of trans men in the media used as a punchline (i don't think i can even think any frankly), so i have no idea what that would be like. i don't get to be the one who defines what that experience is or means. it would be nice if those people (and i do mean those people because it certainly is not every single transfem on this website) could also do that.

i think the community would be a lot healthier if everyone just stopped talking over one another all the time, cause there sure are transmascs doing the same shit in reverse. there will be transmascs hopping onto a trans woman's post to 'debunk' things that i know we as a group do not experience. erasure operates differently from hypervisibility. i also know i have my own blindspots inevitably because i can only be me, but i dont think that transmascs doing this (bad) means that transfems don't and it isn't like. also a bad thing for them to do.

idk. this community feels fucked six ways to sunday. half the time you go into any trans tag ever to keep up with the entire community you not only have to block actual terfs on their perpetual bullshit but you also have to read 60000 posts made by trans people indirectly arguing with and talking over other trans people with some of the most bad faith reads of your own community imaginable. like. real 'i like pancakes' 'so you hate waffles' energy. the idea that a trans person who is different than you might say something in a clumsy way, or made a typo, or was half-asleep, or was uninformed about a particular nuance, or just maybe has natural, obvious limitations in how they can understand or experience the world because a person can only ever be the person they already are, none of that can ever happen! if someone says something and i don't get it, or i disagree, or whatever it is, it is malicious attack on my dignity and principles, they are the real enemies trying to oppress me and keep me down and they must be destroyed.

this place sucks. i hate it here.

[fleetsparrow]

You know, I think we, as leftists, do not talk enough shit about bad actors of history.

Right-wingers will absolutely talk shit about anyone and everyone who wasn't actively fascist, and somehow so many in the left have been, like, conditioned to either agree with them, agree to not challenge them, or try to compromise.

Fuck that.

We need to talk more shit about Reagan, or Nixon, or Bush, or Kissinger, or Clarence Thomas, etc. Stop making concessions! I'm so tired of milquetoast statements qualifying how X Democrat "wasn't really as great, but at least he tried" both-sidesing things to bridge some non-existent aisle.

When someone mentions Reagan, we should collectively spit on the ground. "A curse on his memory" energy!

Respectability politics gets us nowhere!

[linkspooky]

TOGACHAKO VS. FUFFY: How To Save Your Evil Girlfriend

So, once again My Hero Academia has failed to deliver on its promise of saving / redeeming one of the main villains of its story, and victims of its ficitonal society. This time I'm going to make the added argument that not only does failing to save Toga make the story worse, it also makes Uraraka's character almost completely hollow. While you can dismiss Deku's lack of character development as him being a shonen protagonist, both Uraraka and Shoto had arcs and Ochako's is effectively ruined by her failure to save Toga.

In order to make my point I am going to compare it to a villain redemption arc in another piece of media that does it right, Faith's character, and her strained relationship with Buffy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A series which is overall anti-state punishment and pro-redemption and delivers on practically all the themes MHA promised us.

MORE UNDER THE CUT:

THE GOOD GIRL and THE BAD GIRL

There is a reoccurring dynamic between two female characters in media, usually between a heroine and a female villainness that I like to call: The Good Girl vs. Bad Girl complex.

However, if you were a Freudian you'd be calling this a Madonna Whore Complex.

To explain the Madonna Whore Complex, one of the biggest examples in other Media is Aronofsky's Black Swan. The entire movie is themed around the Madonna Whore complex, and the impossible double standards the male perception imposes upon women.

"The white swan and the black swan are not merely characters, and not merely characters that are relevant to Nina. The black swan and the white swan are archetypes of women. They are emblematic of the Madonna and the Whore [...] . The white swan is the Madonna, she is pure, innocent, the ingenue. The black swan is the whore, she is cunning and deviant. The seductress. Nina and her ballet counterpart Odette are characterized as perfect ingénues. Ingénues are young, innocent girls who possess qualities of youth, innocence, kindness, naivete and purity. She is the fawn eyed damsel in distress and in literary films she's often the heroine or protagonist. On the other side of the coin from the ingenue, we have the seductress, embodied by Lily and her ballet counterpart Odelle. The seductress is characterized by her promiscuity, cunning nature and sex appeal. She is the alluring femme fatalle, willing to do whatever it takes to get what she wants. She's most often framed as the village. These draw parallels to Freud's psychoanalytical theory, a theory that suggests in the minds of some men they struggle to fully see women as fully realized and rather view them in archetypal categories." [SOURCE]

Black Swan is also a movie where Natalie Portman attempting to live up to the impossible expectations society has placed on her to be both the White Swan and the Black Swan goes insane, and quite possibly dies at the end of the movie.

Considering that Toga's entire story is that she is a shapeshifter who went mad because she could not fit both her parent's and society's expectations of being a "normal girl" then you can see why the Madonna Whore Complex is relevant, with the oversexualized, vampish, femme fatalle Toga quite obviously playing the part of the whore.

Before you call me a fraud for citing freud though, let me prove my point that the Madonna Whore Complex is quite literally everywhere in media.

I could literally keep going if this post didn't have an image limit: Jean Grey and Emma Frost, Jean Grey and Madelyne Pryor, Starfire and Blackfire, Raven and Terra, The Two Sisters from Ginger Snaps, t's literally everywhere all the way back to Lilith and Eve.

More intelligent takes on this trope play with the concept of the Madonna Whore Complex (MWC) to either present the archetypes as two fully rounded people (Catra and Adora) or demonstrate that it's impossible for women to fit into these two dinstinct categories (Natalie Portman in Black Swan).

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a work that challenges the MWC, by allowing both its good girl, and bad girl to be fully realized characters. My Hero Academia plays the MWC straight to a sexist extent by not allowing Uraraka and Toga to escape their categorization of Good Girl and Bad Girl, and also going out of its way to punish and kill the seductress for her sexuality like this is a slasher horror movie. Actually, it's worse than a horror movie because at least Jennifer's Body plays with the MWC in a clever way.

It's not just bad writing anymore Hori's writing has crossed over into actively murdering female characters to enforce puritan values, but let's not get into that just yet we'll talk about the writing portion instead.

I'm going to outline what BTVS accomplishes, demonstrate how it does this below, and then go on at length picking apart how MHA fails.

BTVS:

Shows Buffy and Faith as fully realized people

Shows the pressure to conform to the "Good Girl / Bad Girl" label.

Breaks down those two categories

Redeems it's bad girl

With that out of the way let's get the ball rolling.

HOW TO (NOT) SAVE YOUR EVIL GIRLFRIEND

This is the part where everyone in the audience is going to gasp. Even though I'm using Buffy and Faith as a positive example of deconstructing the MWC and redeeming a villain, Buffy does not save Faith. The two of them reconcile in the end, but Faith is not redeemed or saved by Buffy, and in fact Buffy is in part responsible for Faith's fall.

So, why would I say Buffy and Faith are a better example of villain redemption then Uraraka who at least did everything she could to offer a helping hand to Toga?

Because Buffy not saving Faith is THE POINT and Faith receiving redemption even though Buffy gave up on her is also THE POINT. Lemme explain, by starting at the beginning.

BTVS is a story that exists to flip both horror tropes, and the idea of the chosen hero on its head. The concept started out with Joss Whedon noticing that the Cheerleader is always the first victim in any given horror movie, and wondering what it would look like if the Cheerleader could fight back. If the Cheerleader was the thing that monsters ran away from.

Which leads us to Buffy Summers. Buffy is chosen by the universe to slay vampires, she is hero with super strength that can easily take on legions of vampires and often has to fight even tougher villains for each season's conflict. Buffy carries all the classic features of both the ingenue and the chosen one protagonist rolled up into one:. Ingénues are young, innocent girls who possess qualities of youth, innocence, kindness, naivete and purity.

However, after dying in the first season, and having to kill her boyfriend in the second season after he turned evil and inflicted a lot of psychosexual abuse on her Buffy has also got a whole lot of trauma. Which is when Faith appears on the scene. One of the first ways that the show challenges the idea of the "Chosen One" is that there are actually two Chosen Ones, Faith being the other Slayer.

Buffy much like Deku has a case of protagonism brain rot, but in her case she was actually chosen by the mystic powers that be to be the protagonist of reality. Buffy, who views herself as the hero of the story as a coping mechanism (we'll get back to this later) is suddenly challenged when the fates chose yet another chosen hero, challenging her pre-conceived notion that she is the hero of the story. If Buffy is not the only hero then who is she? What is all the suffering she's endured so far if it's not a part of her own personal hero's journey?

Buffy begins to dislike Faith on sight for projection reasons, before Faith does anything wrong. In a way Buffy herself the female lead is enforcing society's standards of the MWC because all the reasons Buffy decides to disturst and dislike Faith on sight are because she exhibits qualities of the seductress.

Faith is openly promiscuous, often comparing the art of killing vampires to sex, she is also someone who is proud of her power as a a slayer and uses it for her own purposes. She is a slayer for selfish reasons (apparently) while Buffy is the selfless hero. In the first episode Faith appears in, Faith, Hope and Trick Buffy is almost immediately hostile to Faith who has so far done nothing wrong for, trying to get along with Buffy's friends, getting a little bit too into vampire slaying and openly relishing her strength, and like occasionally making lood comments.

FAITH: Don't… touch… me…! BUFFY - yanks Faith off the unconscious vamp with one hand, stakes the vamp withher other. Then she turns to Faith who is breathing hard, high on adrenaline, rubbing her fists. BUFFY: What is wrong with you? FAITH: What are you talking about? BUFFY: I'm talking about you living large on the great undead here. FAITH: Gee, if doing violence to vampires upsets you, I'm pretty sure you're in the wrong line a work… BUFFY: Or maybe you like it just a little too much. FAITH: I was getting the job done. BUFFY: The job is to slay demons. Not mash them into sloppy joes while their

Buffy then escalates to like ableist slurs towards Faith within half an episode for getting slightly violent in a fight against vampires that were trying to kill her.

GILES: Well, Buffy, you have to realize you and Faith have very different temperaments… BUFFY: I know, mine would be the sane one. Giles, she's not playing with a full deck. She has almost no deck. She has a three. GILES: You said yourself she killed one of them, she's a plucky fighter who got a little carried away. Which isnatural, she's focussed on Slaying,she doesn't have a whole other lifehere like you --

The twist this episode is that no matter how much Faith tries to present herself as a free-spirit, she's actually a scared homeless girl who just happened to become the Slayer. Unlike Buffy she does not have a watcher, a mother, or friends to support her. She lives in the cheapest motel in sunnydale. The reason she's so violent against vampires is because she is understandably having a trauma flashback because her mentor was murdered right in front of her by a different vamp.

This is repeating pattern throughout the whole season, Faith is shown to be a victim of trauma, and occasionally acts in ways that are understandable for a victim like her to ask, only for Buffy to start mischaracterizing her as someone violent and insane and throwing the slurs.

You can compare both Faith and Toga as characters who are complex victims of trauma who society turns their back on and become bad victims, but Faith is a special case because we actively see her turn to the dark side. Faith starts out trying to be a hero like the rest and she practically does nothing wrong for half a season, and when she does finally make a mistake and become a bad victim it's the hero's desire to punish her and castigate her that turns her into a villain.

We actively see Faith's fall happen onscreen, and it's like totally Buffy's fault. Buffy throws her completely under the bus, because she's so desperate to see Faith as the Bad Slayer and Buffy as the Good Slayer. Faith is almost pushed into evil because of the MWC, the characters around her can't see her as a fully fleshed out human being so they are quick to demonize her when she starts acting like a bad victim.

So the two episodes appropriately named: Bad Girls and Consequences depict Faith's fall. In that episode Faith and Buffy are fighting vampires, and one human is mixed among the vampires. The human grabs Faith by the shoulder, and Faith thinking that the human is a vampire turns him around and stakes him.

It's a complete accident, something that Giles even says later on is an accident that can happen to any Slayer on the job and is completely normal. It's a murder that Buffy herself could have committed.

GILES: This is not the first time something like this has happened. BUFFY: It's not? GILES: A slayer is on the front lines of a nightly war, Buffy. It's tragic - but accidents have happened. BUFFY: What do you do? GILES: The council investigates, meters out punishment if punishment is due… I've no plan to involve them,however. That's the last thing Faith needs right now. She's unstable, Buffy. She seems utterly unable to accept responsibility. Shows no remorse.

However, even in the same breath Giles explains that it's an accident and not Faith's fault, he's also calling Faith unstable and irresponsible. Basically when they're not calling her a psycho (just hitting her with the ableist slurs), the protagonists all lowkey imply that Faith is somehow inherently violent and unstable because she displays symptoms of a bad victim.

I might also remind you Faith has not done anything to earn any of these accusations, until she kills someone in a complete accident. A complete accident that Giles once again said wasn't her fault and wasn't really a big deal.

FAITH: My dead mother hits harder than that.

Faith is stated to be a victim of physical abuse, heavily implied to be a victim of sexual abuse, and is homeless (none of the main characters offer to let her stay in her house she spends half a season in a terrible motel). However, Faith is quickly demonized by the white wealthy main characters for acting in ways that are completely typical for a homeless teenager.

The moment she commits one mistake they all turn on her and use that mistake as proof of these violent tendencies they all want to accuse her of having. Faith can never be the ingenue so she must be the seductress, because she can't just be a person.

Buffy: So, I, uh... (sees Faith scrubbing) How are ya doin'? Faith: (still scrubbing) I'm alright. You know me. Buffy: Faith, we need to talk about what we're gonna do. Faith: (looks at Buffy) There's nothing to talk about. I was doing my job. Buffy: Being a Slayer is not the same as being a k*ller. Faith has nothing to say. She's finished scrubbing. Buffy: Faith, please don't shut me out here. Look, sooner or later, we're both gonna have to deal.

It is essentially two episodes of this, Faith after killing someone on accident in a life or death fight is constantly called a murderer by others. She wasn't even like, drunk, or high, or being especially reckless she was being a normal slayer.

FAITH: So the mayor of Sunnydale is a black hat. Shocker, huh? BUFFY: Actually - yeah. I didn't get the bad guy vibe off him. Faith shakes her head. Scoffs. FAITH: When you gonna learn, B? It doesn't matter what kind of "vibe" a person gives off. Nine times outta ten he face they're showing you? It isn't the real one. BUFFY: I guess you know a lot about that. FAITH: What's that supposed to mean? BUFFY: Look at you, Faith. Less than twenty four hours ago you killed a guy. And now you're laughing and scratching and zipidee doo dah. That's not your real face, and I know it. I know what you're feeling because I feel it too. FAITH: Do you? So, fill me in. I'd like to hear this. BUFFY: Dirty. Like something sick creeped inside you and you can't get it out. And you keep hoping what happened wasjust some nightmare…

Faith is dirty, faith is disgusting, faith is unstable, Faith is sick for... killing a guy on accident in a way that Giles said was a perfectly understandable accident, and not showing clear guilt because the moment she did it everyone around her jumped on her and started accusing her of being a murderer.

Why do the selfless main characters suddenly start demonizing this girl before she even did anything wrong - well it's because she's poor problem solved.

No, but it does play a factor. Why do most american white middle class look down on the homeless? Because, they must have done something to deserve it, right? If Faith killed a man, that clearly is an indication that she was violent all along and the heroes don't have to sympathize with the fact she's homeless or you know lift a finger to help her.

Now, this makes it sound like I hate Buffy, but Buffy is actually my favorite character in the whole show. The thing is Buffy's complete lack of sympathy for Faith makes her a better character. Buffy needs to demonize Faith and throw her under the bus, because Buffy is a victim of sexual abuse too. Her boyfriend turned evil after having sex with her once, and spent an entire season stalking her and terrorizing her the entire season 2 Buffy / Angel plotline is a thinly veiled groomer metaphor.

The thing about Buffy is she's not allowed to show any kind of reaction to her trauma. The episodes preceeding Faith, Hope and Trick are Anne, an episode where Buffy runs away from home after being sexually abused (stalking is sexual abuse) by Angel for a whole season and feeling like no one would understand her, and Dead Man's Party, an episode where every single one of Buffy's loved ones ruthlessly criticize her for having run away. Like, how dare a teenager not react perfectly to being horribly stalked by a serial killer after she had sex with him for like half a year.

JOYCE: Buffy! You didn't give me any time. You just dumped this… this thing on me and expected me to get it. Well -guess what? Mom's not perfect. I handled it badly. But that doesn'tgive you the right to punish me byrunning away. BUFFY: Punish you? I didn't do this to punish you XANDER: Well you did. You should have seen what it did to her. BUFFY: Great. Would anybody else care to weigh in? What about you? By the dip. XANDER: Maybe you don't want to hear it, Buffy. But taking off like that was selfishand stupid. Buffy's breaking down. It's all too much. BUFFY: Okay - I screwed up! I know it - alright!? But you have no idea. You have no idea what happened to me or what I was feeling

The reason Buffy is so hard on Faith is because everyone else is equally hard on her. The label of the ingenue is so difficult for Buffy to maintain, because she has to be pure, and without any flaws, especially when reacting to trauma that she throws Faith under the bus for her bad victim behaviors.

The white middle class demonize the homeless because they don't want to face the reality it can happen to them, Buffy doesn't want to reflect on all the things her and Faith have in common because she could very easily become Faith. Buffy is the victim of extremely similiar trauma to Faith, and being pressured to be the perfect victim of that trauma in a way that's destroying her mentally slowly.

FAITH: It was good, wasn't it? The sex? The danger? Bet a part of you even dug him when he went psycho BUFFY: No FAITH: See - you need me to tow the line because you're afraid you'll go over it, aren't you, B? You can't handle watching me living my own way and having a blast - because it tempts you. You know it could be you... ( Something snaps in Buffy. She rears back and POPS Faith a good one. Faith falls back, but she's smiling as she puts a hand to her bleeding mouth. ) FAITH: There's my girl…

Buffy is suffering under the expectations of the MWC too, but in her desperation to make Faith out to be the seductress instead of... like... a csa victim... Buffy is reinforcing those standards on both herself and another woman.

The entirety of Bad Girls and Conesequences is Faith being called a murderer by several people, having another trauma flashback to a sexual assault because Xander came to her motel room under the guise of "helping her", getting hit over the head and chained to a wall, then getting the swat team called on her and almost dragged to London for trial. Then the heroes do nothing to help her. The first thing Faith does is go to the main villain, who buys her an apartment AND A PLAYSTATION. So... the evil main Villain of the show helped Faith with her homelessness situation while none of the main characters lifted a finger.

it sounds like it sucks but it doesn't because it's all intentional. Buffy cannot process her own sexual trauma so she is just awful to people who are also domestic abuse victims. here's one of my favorite scenes, Buffy yells at a girl being beaten by her boyfriend with a visible black eye.

Buffy: Where can we find him? Debbie: I-I don't know. Buffy: You're lying. Debbie: What if I am? What are you gonna do about it? Willow: Wrong question. Buffy takes her by the arm again and pushes her up against the sink in front of the mirror. Buffy: Look at yourself. Why are you protecting him? Anybody who really loved you couldn't do this to you. She takes a few steps away. Debbie turns around to face them. Debbie: Would they take him someplace? Buffy: Probably. Debbie: (shakes her head, sobbing) I could never do that to him.(Willow sighs) I'm his everything. Buffy: (disgusted) Great. So what, you two live out your Grimm fairy tale? Two people are dead.

That poor girl gets her neck snapped like five minutes later and Buffy just kinda, moves on even though it would have been an easily preventable death.

Buffy getting mad at an abuse victim for showing textbook behaviors of abuse victims in bad relationships. Buffy is a good character because she is a hero, she can be empathic, but she really only understands heroism in term of defeating the bad guys, and when called to relate to people with complex trauma, especially trauma that reflects her own trauma she can't! She just can't process it! The expectations of being the ingenue, the perfect hero are so crushing she can't cope with a messy reality so she needs to have a black and white view of herself and other people.

Buffy needs to be firmly in the good category, and Faith needs to be firmly in the bad category in order for Buffy's brain to keep working.

Not only does Buffy's conflict with Faith characterize how much Faith suffers for being a bad victim, it shows how the pressure to be a good victim destroys Buffy mentally to the point where she starts using Faith as a punching bag.

Literallly.

It's all intentional too, Buffy gets called out on it, Faith always gets the last word and the final episode of the season makes out Buffy to be a hypocrite. After Buffy literally threw Faith under the bus, called her disgusting for murdering a man, Buffy is completely willing to murder Faith to get a cure for her vampire boyfriend who's been poisoned.

All human life is sacred and needs to be protected, but Fuck Faith I guess.

Faith: I could say the same about you. I mean, you're still the same better-than-thou Buffy. I mean, I knew it somehow. I kept having this dream, I'm not sure what it means, but in the dream the self-righteous blond chick stabs me, and you wanna know why? Buffy: You had it coming. Faith: That's one interpretation, but in my dream, she does it for a guy. Faith: I wake up to find the blond chick isn't even dating the guy she was so nuts about before. I mean, she's moved on to the first college beefstick she meets. Not only has she forgotten about the love of her life, but she's forgotten about the chick she nearly k*lled for him. So that's my dream. That and some stuff about cigars and a tunnel. But tell me, college girl, what does it mean? Buffy: To me? Mostly, that you still mouth off about things you don't understand. (Sirens) Uh-oh. I guess somebody knows you're here.

So the show goes to great length to show you that there are two sides to this conflict, Buffy demonizes Faith, because her friends expect her to be the perfect hero. Faith reacts badly to trauma because she has no support system, and the people around her have no empathy for her because they're too privileged to imagine the things in Faith's life ever happening to her.

Buffy and Faith are fully realized people.

Buffy and Faith are presented to the audience as the ingenue and the seductress but they're both fully realized characters. Buffy's not the ingenue because she's just as capable of murder as Faith is. Faith isn't the seductress because she's a homeless teenager. They are both victims of sexual trauma, though one reacts in what people consider an "acceptable way" and the other is a total slut about it.

Shows the pressure to conform to the "Good Girl / Bad Girl" label.

Buffy throws Faith under the bus specifically because the pressure in her life to be the perfect slayer is so immense that it could be her that takes the fall so she needs to believe in black and white concepts like she is inherently good and Faith is inherently bad to justify the bad things that happen to Faith and therefore convince herself said bad things could never happen to her. "You can't handle watching me living my own way and having a blast - because it tempts you. You know it could be you..."

Faith: Angel said there was no way you were gonna give me a chance. Buffy: I gave you every chance! I tried so hard to help you, and you spat on me. My life was just something for you to play with. Angel - Riley - anything that you could take from me - you took. I've lost battles before - but nobody else has -ever- made me a victim. Faith: And you can't stand that. You're all about control. You have no idea what it's like on the other side! Where nothing's in control, nothing makes sense! There is just pain and hate and nothing you do means anything. You can't even.. Buffy: Shut up!"

Buffy needs to fit her and Faith into neat little boxes because she cannot face the inherent senselessness of the world (and also that she is a victim too "you made me a victim")

Breaks down those two categories

Even in Seasons where Faith is not present she haunts the narrative, because the writers were well aware that Buffy and Faith are the same person under different circumstances.

All of Season 6 Buffy is faced with many of the same situations that Faith was, she suddenly becomes poor and in danger of losing her house, she has extreme depression from coming back from the dead (long story) she can't share those feelings with any of her friends because they treated her much like they did Faith - having no sympathy for imperfect victims. Buffy even gets into an unhealthy, sexual relationship, and like Natalie Portman basically changes from the ingenue into the seductress.

A relationship she has to keep a secret because once again, Buffy must fit into the box of the ingenue in order to be loved by her friends. This leads to her committing several bad behaviors, and at times borderline emotional abuse towards her sister (and debatably her boyfriend) and all comes to a head when Buffy is faced with the exact same situation as Faith.

Buffy in Season 6 believes she has killed a person accidentally while being the Slayer. It's a repeat of Bad Girls with several paralels, including someone trying to hide the body only for it to turn up later, and Buffy insisting she has to turn herself into the police and face jailtime.

However, in this version Buffy unlike Faith has friends who try to stop her from turning herself in and explain to her the murder wasn't her fault - and Buffy still reacts the same way Faith does. She basically borderline quotes Faith.

Faith: Shut up! Do you think I'm afraid of you? [Faith grabs Buffy and throws her down, then sits on top of her and starts punching her.] Faith: You're nothing. [Punch. Punch.] Faith: Disgusting. [Punch. Punch.] [Faith grabs Buffy's hair with both hand and bangs her head.] Faith: Murderous bitch. [Bang. Bang...] You're nothing. [Bang. Bang...] Faith: [Switches back to punches] You're [Faith is now crying.] disgusting.

This is an earlier scene which plays out as an exact parallel to this scene:

BUFFY: You can't understand why this is killing me, can you? SPIKE: Why don't you explain it? She hits him a few more times. He takes it, not fighting back. SPIKE: Come on, that's it, put it on me. Put it all on me. (She kicks him) That's my girl. BUFFY: (yelling) I am not your girl! She hits him hard. He falls back onto his butt. Buffy gets on top of him and begins hitting him over and over. BUFFY: You don't ... have a soul! There is nothing good or clean in you. You are dead inside! You can't feel anything real! I could never ... be your girl! She continues hitting him throughout this. Now Spike goes back to human face. He's looking very bruised and bloody, but he doesn't fight back, just takes it. Buffy hits him again and again, looking angry and desperate. Finally she stops and looks at him in horror.

So if Buffy can react the exact same way that Faith does, when faced with the same trauma there is no good girl or bad girl, there's only two people who are complicated human beings.

The story *gasp* lets the hero be a bad girl.

Redeems it's bad girl

Faith's redemption is a shocking contrast to MHA the plot of BTVS does not allow Faith to commit suicide in order to redeem herself. In fact, her entire arc is an argument against the "put her down like a mad dog" trope. Starting with the fact that the heroes who are partly responsible for Faith's fall in the first place, are all too willing to just let the homeless teenager fall by the wayside, and then put her down for her own sake.

As I stated above, the inherent hypocrisy Buffy shows in her calling Faith a murderer and irredeemable for killing someone on accident because all human life is sacred to her, and then going on to try to murder Faith at the end of the season already shows the "put her down like a mad dog" argument doesn't work. Faith isn't too far gone, it's just Buffy who sees her that way. And because Buffy has given up on Faith she's failing at being a hero.

As I said above, Buffy is not the one to rescue Faith. In fact, in the episodes where Faith's redemption arc starts, Buffy is the one trying to hunt her down and enforce punishment on her. The episodes "5x5" and "Sanctuary" are both focused on Buffy going to LA to hunt down and interfere when Angel is trying to help Faith get back on her feet. The two episdodes basically explore the concept of redemption vs. punishment and how punishment saves no one.

5x5 depicts Faith's spiral as she runs away to LA to escape Buffy who is hunting her down, and accepts a job to assassinate Angel, which if she succeeds will get her rich and also get the cops off of her trail. We're led the whole episode to believe Faith has learned nothing until the confrontation with Angel at the very end, which you should really watch because it's great television.

Faith: You hear me? - You don't know what evil is! - I'm bad! - Fight back! Faith keeps whaling on Angel, sometimes he ducks, sometimes the hits connect. Angel grabs a hold of her: Nice try, Faith. He tosses her away from him. Then walks after her. Angel: I know what you want. She hits him and he hits back dropping her. She comes back up hitting and screaming, but not making much of a dent. Wesley leans out of the window and sees Faith beating up on Angel. He goes into the kitchen and grabs a butcher knife, then heads for the door. Angel as he dodges another hit: I'm not gonna make it easy for you. Faith throws herself against Angel screaming: I'm evil! I'm bad! I'm evil! Do you hear me? I'm bad! Angel, I'm bad! (She begins to sob, grabbing a hold of Angel's shirt and shaking him) I'm ba-ad. Do you hear me? I'm bad! I'm bad! I'm bad. Please. Angel, please, just do it. Wesley comes running out of the house. Faith sobbing: Angel please, just do it. Just do it. Just k*ll me. Just k*ll me." Angel wraps his arms around her shoulders and pulls her against him. She over balances them and they sink to their knees, Angel still holding her as she cries. Angel: Shh. It's all right. It's okay. I'm here. I'm right here. Shh.

Faith tries to take the Toga approach to commit suicide in order to atone, but Angel actively understands that is what she's trying to do, and denies her the chance to die to redeem herself and instead holds her until she calms down.

Angel doesn't just save her once though he spends the entire next episode defending Faith from Buffy who has come to LA to take her revenge, and trying to talk Faith into believing she can still keep on living in spite of all the bad things she's done.

Faith: Are you saying I got to apologize? Angel: Think you can? Faith: I don’t' know. - How do you say 'Gee, I'm really sorry tortured you I nearly to death? Angel: Well, first off I think I'd leave off the 'Gee.' And secondly I think you have to ask yourself: are you? Faith: What? Angel: Sorry. Faith: And what if I *can't* say it? There are some things you can't just take back, no matter how sorry you *are*, right? Angel: Yeah, there are. I've got some experience in that area. Faith: Right. And you've been doing this for a hundred years! I'm not gonna make it through the next ten minutes. Angel: So make it through the next five, the next minute." Faith: "I don't think I can. Angel: Yes, you can. Faith walks away: God, it hurts. I hate that it hurts like this. Angel follows her: Oh well, it's supposed to hurt. All that pain, all that suffering you caused is coming back on you. Feel it! Deal with it! Then maybe you've got a shot at being free.

Angel's advice is "Guilt is supposed to hurt but if you face your pain you can try to find a way to be free of it" which is something much more profound then any of the forgiveness crap they peddle in MHA. More importantly though, the conflict the whole episode goes out of its way to show that revenge is bad, and punishment doesn't save a soul.

Angel: I didn't - I didn't think it was your business. Buffy: Not my business? Angel: I needed more time with Faith. I'm not sure... Buffy: You needed - do you have any idea what it was like for me to see you with her? That you went behind my back... Angel: Buffy, this wasn't about you! This was about saving someone's soul. Buffy: I came here because you were in danger. Angel: I'm in Danger every day. You came here because of faith. You were looking for vengeance. Buffy: I have a right to it. Angel: Not in my city.

Faith's suicidal ideation is a recurring theme that carries through her character arc in the following season - she does in fact go to prison for awhile (Elizabeth Dushku had to go make Bring it On) but Buffy remains anti-state punishment because going to Prison doesn't help her whatsoever. In fact, she just breaks out when she has to save Angel and spends the rest of the season free.

There are two episodes that actually are dedicated to showing prison didn't help, and what Faith needs to redeem herself is to spend every day of her life trying to be good, not just accepting punishment.

ANGEL: Faith, wake up! FAITH: (wakes) I've rolled the bones. You for me. ANGEL: I used to think that. That there'd be a point when I'd paid my dues. Angel and Angelus are fighting in the alley again. Angel leaves the fight and goes over to Faith's side, holding her up in his arms. ANGEL: Faith, listen to me. You saw me drink. It doesn't get much lower than that. And I thought I could make up for it by disappearing. FAITH: I did my time. ANGEL: Our time is never up, Faith. We pay for everything. FAITH: It hurts. ANGEL: I know. I know. ANGEL: Get up! You have to get up now. Faith, you have to fight. I need you to fight. Do you understand what I'm saying?

So you have one manga series where the teenage girl who did bad things commits suicide because she believed she was going to be in prison for the rest of her life and had no future, and you have the other where the teenage girl tries to commit suicide - only for Angel to stop her and encourage her every step of the way that there's still a future for her even if she can't be "forgiven".

One work ends Toga's life because she's done "unforgivable things" and the other tells Faith that the things she should feel guilty for the things she's done, and she should feel that guilt so she can keep working to be a better person every single day.

One of these is a good message to send to your teenage homeless trauma victim, the other is incredibly harmful. With that out of the way let's switch to BNHA.

HOW TO BURY YOUR GAYS

Now I'm going to attempt to demonstrate why MHA fails to truly deconstruct the MWC, and this not only ruins any potential character development for Uraraka, it also sends a deeply harmful message with Toga's death.

I think I've gone to great length above explaining how BTVS communicates it's stance of being anti-punishment and pro-redemption and even goes as far to demonstrate how punishment does not save anyone. Yet, here is the manga about heroes saving people that completely fumbles those exact same themes.

MHA:

Doesn't show Toga and Ochako as fully realized people

Doesn't show the pressure to conform to the "Good Girl / Bad Girl" label.

Doesn't break down down those two categories

Doesn't redeem it's bad girl

So let me start by saying outside of the context of the story Ochako and Toga both had the potential to be great characters. Unforunately this isn't Gacha, so the way the characters are written in the story, and the quality of their story arcs affects how well they are characterized.

Toga is much better off as a character as opposed to Ochako who sort is reduced to a satellite that revolves around Deku, but their story arcs and the way they conclude does a disservice to both of them as characters. They fail entirely to be shown as fully realized people by their narratives, because of the narratives desire to force them into the good girl and bad girl box.

More or less, Ochako isn't allowed to have flaws, and Toga isn't allowed to redeem herself in any way that doesn't involve killing herself.

Let's get to the characters though, the basic premise of the comparsion between Toga and Ochako is that Ochako perfectly fits into the mould of what society considers a "good, nice girl" she perfectly embodies the ingenue. Whereas Toga was horribly abused for most of her life until she snapped, because she was unable to simply pretend to be the normal girl that Ochako is naturally.

One thing I will give credit to MHA for, it does Toga being pushed to the margins and eventually falling off the edge of society as a young eventually homeless girl that no one cared enough to help about as effectively as Faith did. Toga and Faith were also both demonized before they did anything wrong, and were further demonized because they didn't act the way good victims were supposed to act.

The manga is almost masterful at portraying how much being forced into the box of the ingenue caused Toga's mental decline, until she eventually snapped and became the seductress instead.

Toga hasn't even done anything yet, she's already being punished and demonized simply for appearing deviant. Because once again the categories of Ingenue and Seductress aren't for viewing women and girls as fully realized people, you are either a perfect, innocent, girl, or you're a whore.

Toga is also hypersexual the same way Faith is. Of course it's not done with any of the same amount of nuance of BTVS because Hori has a habit of using Toga for fanservice, but Toga does have a habit of sexualizing herself, in a way that would be classified as deviant love. We also in the manga first view her as nothing more than a shallow yandere who creeps Uraraka out with her blushing and hot desire for blood, only to be shown she's actually capable of being an emotionally intelligent and caring individual when it comes to how she relates to her friends.

Toga viewing sucking blood as love is a clear metaphor for deviant sexuality, or even hyper sexuality, it's something that makes her a literal vamp. Toga being overly sexually aggressive and suggestive with the way she sucks blood is something the society she's in demonizes her for, Deku even makes a thoughtless comment that pushes her off the edge that he'd never even think of hurting someone he loved.

Faith is a CSA victim who is constantly trying to play off her trauma, so she's totally into sex guys, she loves sex, she loves it rough, she goes to clubs and grinds on guys, she's all into sex and violence and safety words are for chumps.

Toga was told her way of expressing love and attraction was wrong and deviant from a young age, and as a result of that the same way that Faith embraces hypersexuality, Toga embraces her femme fatalle / yandere persona and plays it up. Well everyone was right about her, she's fine with being a monster, so she just wants to live as a monster stabbing people randomly and taking their blood before moving onto the next victim.

They can't ever be the ingenue, so Faith and Toga embrace being the seductress instead. Yes, Hori does use Toga for fanservice, but at the same time you can't deny she's deliberately playing up her sexuality like a femme fatalle in a way that is not healthy (Faith is a hypersexual teenager too, I'm saying it's a trauma response for both of them).

MHA also shows much like with Faith how Toga despite being just a teenager is someone all of society has given up on - the same way that everyone gave up on Faith for being a homeless teenager. Then further demonized her for acting in ways homeless teenagers act, until she at last finally committed one crime and they turned on her.

Toga's first crime was committed after her mental breakdown, but it's revealed much later on that Toga wanted to ask Saito for permission to drink his blood, and if she'd just been granted it or at least the emotional abuse heaped on her had stopped she never would have had her breakdown.

For Toga it was Saito, for Faith it was killing by Mistake, after being abandoned they endured violence that further radicalized them with no help from the heroes.

Toga's character also textually acknowledges that the heroes are not going to help her, and are likely going to kill her, whereas in Buffy it stays subtext. Which isn't a problem, it trusts it's audience to go "Oh, the good guys are being jerks here" however, it's a direct facet of MHA's worldbuilding that Toga has watched the heroes kill her best friend, and now thinks she has to fight to the death because the heroes will kill her too. She can't back down and let herself be saved, because the heroes don't even see her as human.

Buffy can't forgive Faith for accidentally killing some random guy because all human life is sacred, but also she tries to kill Faith multiple times, because Faith's not human I guess. Uraraka and Deku believe themselves to be heroes but they actively support people like Hawks, who murdered Toga's best friend and have done absolutely nothing to show her that they won't kill her.

Toga reflects a lot of Faith's suffering for being a bad victim that society allowed to fall through the cracks, and a Seductress who needs to be punished for expressing her sexuality. In fact if it were just Toga, you could call it at least an effective deconstruction of the "seductress/whore" because Toga is a fully realized character and her entire backstory is about how society's expectations for her to be a perfect ingenue, and then punishing her when she wasn't a perfect ingenue is what led to her complete mental breakdown. She couldn't be the white swan or the black swan, so she became the blood-soaked swan instead.

Where the comparison starts to fall apart is Ochako. Toga is a character, and Ochako is not. Just like Deku Ochako more or less just kind of morphs into a plot device that exists to save the villain counterparts to prove what good heroes the kids are - and then she doesn't even do that part. Failing to save Toga is the final nail in the coffin for Ochako being a character and not a plot device to show how good and virtuous the heroes are.

BTVS goes to painstaking extents to establish how Buffy and Faith are the exact same girl in different circumstances. They are both victims of sexual abuse. They're both the Slayer. They both lose their mom at different points in the story. They both struggle with the fact that slayers are also killers, they're both the "chosen one". They both have issues that makes them conflate sexuality with violence.

Buffy is put through several situations that parallel Faith, she loses her mom, she becomes financially destitute, she starts exploring her sexuality in a very faith-like way. The two of them swap bodies at one point and nobody can tell the difference.

There's no strong parallel between Ochako and Toga to give the audience a reason why we should care about the relationship between the two girls in the first place. Ochako's connection to Toga tells us nothing about her character, because there's no strong parallel as shown to us by the story.

There are some parallels, the story attempts to tackle the emotional repression angle of how much the ingenue suffers because she's forced to repress her emotions and how much she envies Toga's free expression.

Why does Ochako think that way? Why does she focus on Toga in particular? The plot tells us why Buffy feels she has so much in common with Faith, they're both the chosen one but Buffy feels like she's under such intense pressure to be perfect that seeing Faith get to act out and express herself makes her jealous.

The manga tells us that Ochako is emotionally repressed, but it doesn't show us, because there are never any real consequences for Ochako repressing her feelings. Natalie Portman in Black Swan, and Buffy both experience mental spirals because the pressure to be the perfect woman is too much for them - to meet the impossible purity standards of the ingenue while still being a sexual creature.

In Uraraka this is the extremely simplified belief that she can't have feelings for a boy, while also being a hero because those beings are selfish and she should be focused on saving people. However, we never see her suffer because of these feelings. We don't even get the bare minimum of having her angst over unrequited love.

I don't want to give Ochako too little credit, there are several things that could have been a connection to Ochako, but they all turn out to be non-starters. Ochako is poor and often makes remarks like "The best way to save money is to not eat" in omake and she hangs out with mostly rich friends. She had early angst about the fact that her friends were becoming heroes for mostly altruistic reasons and she became a hero for money.

That could have also connected to the scene where Ochako witnessed the scene of a hero quitting amongst all of the destruction after the end of the first war arc, to show her the consequences of all the heroes who were heroes for less than altruistic reasons.

Ochako could have even told Toga something along the lines of "I was poor, I know how it is to struggle" especially since Toga spent a good portion of time homeless after she was throne out by her parents.

Instead that goes unaddressed except in this scene which makes it look like Toga is ignorant for assuming Ochako never suffered.

Toga and Ochako both feel like they need to repress their feelings but Toga was emotionall abused by her parents, then experienced psychiatric abuse, and then was disowned after her mental breakdown led to a violent incident. Uraraka feels like she can't tell the boy she loves how she feels. One of thsee things is not like the others.

There are more possible connections that you could draw between them, Uraraka gives a big speech about how the heroes have it rough too guys and at that point it cuts to a picture of Toga crying and that could have led to a revelation that if Ochako is asking the common people to see heroes as human beings, then they should try to see villains as human beings too.

This could also couple well with the fact that Toga believes Ochako wants to kill her the same way that Hawks killed Twice. Both of these facts, Ochako originally only being a hero for money and watching heroes for money quit, and also Ochako learning about Twice killing Toga's friends could lead to some self-reflection on the hero system and Ochako could listen to Toga and be the one to convince her that heroes will save her.

However, none of these happen so we don't know why Ochako feels compelled to save Toga, other than the fact that Ochako is just that nice.

It is really a repeat of Deku's writing, we are told that Himiko just really, really, really wants to save Toga, but not only are we never given an in character reason why that is, but we're also supposed to ignore all the evidence that contradicts this.

Ochako wants to reach out and touch the sadness inside of Toga, but she never actually does anything to try to understand or talk to Toga until the last possible minute. In fact, it's Toga who reaches out several times and Uraraka who ignores her. It is Ochako who insists several times that Toga's deeds are unforgivable and then the conversation stops there.

There's also the scene where Deku and Ochako are looking over the cliffside and Ochako is actively reminding herself of the damage that Ochako caused as a reason that she doesn't have to think of her as a human being.

Ochako doesn't even go in with a plan to take down Toga non-lethally like Shoto did with Toya, nor does she even think about what she wants to say to her until the last possible moment.

Ochako's actions make her more like Buffy, someone who actively doesn't empathize with the villain and doesn't want to save her because of her own personal hangups. (However, we're given no personal hangups for why Ochako, the most perfect hero ever wouldn't want to save Toga). Her actions are like Buffy's, not reaching out a hand to Toga she only gets worse and worse, but we're told the opposite. That she's someone who wants to reach and touch Toga's sadness.

It would be better if Ochako DIDN'T want to save Toga, because at least there would be an arc to it. The lack of empathy would be a character flaw on Ochako's part, something that she needs to overcome to be a proper hero. It would be better if Ochako DIDN'T want to save Toga, because then she'd need an in character reason why she doesn't empathize with Toga, like Buffy does with Faith.

Ochako is supposed to be deconstructing the ingenue, but she's not allowed to have any flaws, or be anything other than the perfect, empathic hero and because of that she ends up reinforcing the Ingenue instead. The ingenue isn't allowed to be anything other than perfect, and the Seductress must be punished.

Doesn't allow the Bad Girl to be redeemed:

Toga's death ends up reinforcing basically every backwards double standard about the MWC including the need for men to punish and villify women who freely express their sexuality. Toga's entire character arc is asking the question if soemone like her is allowed to live in this society, if the heroes will save the life of someone like her and the answer we receive is: no she can't live.

Toga can't live in this world, she has to die. Not only does Twice die and never receive justice and his murderer get off scott free, Toga who asks the question of if she's going to die too, the answer is yes.

In both of these plotlines you have young woman who have done bad things but are still teenagers, who are struggling with suicidal ideation who believe their only escape is death. Faith is told that the guilt of the things she's done is painful, but she has to live in order to make up for it because that's the only way to free herself. Whereas, Toga comes to the conclusion that there is no future for her other than being in jail for the rest of her life and therefore it's not worth living.

Toga has to be punished by the narrative in a way that's completely unnecessary, because characters like Bakugo and Edgeshot somehow survived doing open heart surgery in the middle of an active battlefield, but Toga dies from a blood transfusion.

One of these narratives is telling a troubled young abuse victim who's still a teenager to live, and the other is telling her to die. Now which one of these plotlines would you want a young girl to read?

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Amanda Marcotte at Salon:

After the Supreme Court ended federal abortion rights in 2022, there was a robust debate between pro- and anti-choice activists over whether or not banning abortion would kill women. Pro-choicers pointed to evidence, from both history and other countries, showing that abortion bans kill women. Anti-choice activists dismissed the record and pointed to toothless "exceptions" in abortion ban laws as "proof" that women could get abortions to save their lives.  The latter argument was frustrating not just because it was wrong but was generally offered in bad faith. Anti-abortion leaders know that abortion bans kill women. They don't care. Or worse, many view dying from pregnancy as a good thing. In some cases, it's viewed as just punishment for "sinful" behavior. Other times, it's romanticized as a noble sacrifice on the altar of maternal duty. But conservatives are aware that this death fetish cuts against their "pro-life" brand. So there was a lot of empty denials and hand-waving about the inevitable — and expected — outcome of women dying. 

We now have another proof point that abortion bans are about misogyny, not "life," as the first deaths from red state abortion bans are being reported. Instead of admitting they were wrong and changing course, Republicans are behaving like guilty liars do everywhere, and destroying the evidence. In the process, they are also erasing data needed to save the lives of pregnant women across the board, whether they give birth or not.  ProPublica has published a series of articles detailing the deaths of women in Georgia and Texas under the two states' draconian abortion bans. They most recently reported the death of Porsha Ngumezi, a 35-year-old mother of two from Texas. Ngumezi suffered a miscarriage at 11 weeks but was left to bleed to death at the hospital, instead of having the failing pregnancy surgically removed. Multiple doctors in Texas confirmed that hospital staff are often afraid to perform this surgery, however, because it's the same one used in elective abortions. Rather than risk criminal charges, doctors frequently stand by and let women suffer — or die.  Ngumezi's youngest son doesn't fully understand that his mother is dead. ProPublica reported that he chases down women he sees in public who have similar hairstyles, calling for his mother. 

A day after this story was published, the Washington Post reported that the Texas maternal mortality board would skip reviewing the deaths of pregnant women in 2022 and 2023 — conveniently, the first two years after the abortion ban went into place. The leadership claims it's about speeding up the review process, but of course, many members pointed out the main effect is that "they would not be reviewing deaths that may have resulted from delays in care caused by Texas’s abortion bans." This is especially noteworthy because it's become standard after one of these reports for anti-abortion activists to blame the victims and/or the doctors, and not the bans. Christian right activist Ingrid Skop, for instance, responded to Nguzemi's death by insisting "physicians can intervene to save women’s lives in pregnancy emergencies" under the Texas law. If she really believed that, however, she would desperately want the state maternal mortality board to review this, and other cases like it, so they could come up with recommendations for hospital staff to treat women without running afoul of the law. Strop, however, is on the Texas maternal mortality board. She was likely part of the decision to refuse to look into whether women like Nguzemi might be saved. 

[...] But despite claims to be "pro-life," anti-abortion activists do not care. Instead, they are on Twitter griping about how comprehensive reproductive health care access "promotes sexual promiscuity." 

Skop also argued last year that abortion bans are justified because "promiscuous behavior declines." It's tempting to point out that all five women whose deaths have been reported by ProPublica were in long-term relationships or marriages. Three of the five planned to bring their pregnancies to term and died because they were denied miscarriage care. But that's the problem with vague terms like "promiscuous." They draw us into debates about how much women are allowed to enjoy sex before their lives are forfeited. Or how many "good girls" should die to punish the "promiscuous" ones. That is the trap of misogyny. It allows women like Lila Rose or Ingrid Skop to pretend that, if you submit to the sexist order and obey all their arbitrary rules, you'll be saved. But these laws punish all women and girls: mothers and non-mothers, wives and single women, women who've had 100 partners and those who were virgins when raped. Abortion bans make crystal clear that, to the Christian right, no woman's life is worth saving. Anyone can be sacrificed, to protect their cruel patriarchal order. 

Want more reason why abortion bans are bad for women? Republicans are working hard to destroy the evidence that abortion bans kill women.

Abortion bans have zip to do with the "sanctity of life", but are a tool for misogyny.

[saphronethaleph]

Applied Maya

“Your overconfidence is your weakness,” Luke said, calmly.

“Your faith in your friends is yours,” the Emperor replied.

Vader shook his head. “It is pointless to resist, my son.”

“It is pointless to control the galaxy,” Luke retorted. “I’ve learned things about the Force that mean I understand that now."

He waved his hand, and Vader tensed, but it turned out to be for emphasis instead of telekinesis. “The Force is everywhere. In everything. There’s… a level of reality which is far beyond what we care about. It’s around us, everywhere. Even in us.”

“What are you talking about?” the Emperor asked, thrown off his argument about how everything was futile.

“The Force,” Luke explained. “And… us. And everything, because the Force is everything. And we’re the Force. We’re… luminous beings, and our bodies are only crude matter that outlines them and gives our spirits somewhere to be.”

“What are you on about?” the Emperor demanded. “Vader! What is he on about? Is this some kind of Jedi nonsense?”

“It is possible,” Vader mused. “But I do not recall hearing it before.”

“I can explain more, if you’d like,” Luke said, earnestly. “The way that it works is that there’s more than one layer of existence, and this is a layer of reality but compared to the Force it’s just an illusion. Which means that – yes, you should do everything you can to make things better in this world, but – no, this world isn’t all there is, and you aren’t your body. Your body is just an approximation.”

He looked at his hand. “I lost this on Cloud City and… it didn’t make me any less of me. I’m still me, because I’m not my body, I’m the one who lives inside it. And the Force is like proof of that.”

That drew a blank look from the Emperor, and what would probably have been a blank look from Vader.

“Elaborate,” Vader requested.

“Well, we all know that the laws of physics exist, right?” Luke asked. “They define exactly how things work. How things fall, or they don’t. How orbits work. And yet, I can stretch out my hand and pull something into it. Which means the laws of physics aren’t laws, they’re just very persistent illusions.”

“I believe the interaction is mediated by midichlorians,” Vader said. “They are like mitochondria for the Force.”

“So?” Luke replied. “That simply means that part of how we are outside physical reality can be measured. I’ve heard the explanations, I’ve seen it – all that the explanation really does is put it into words, and give it a framework.”

He made another expansive gesture.

“This is trite nonsense,” Palpatine said. “Your friends on the Sanctuary Moon will not survive.”

“And if that happened, I would be sad,” Luke said. “Of course I would. But I came here willing to die, because death is not all that there is.”

Palpatine glowered at Vader.

“This one is broken,” he said. “Do you have another possible new apprentice for me?”

“The supply is a bit low, my Master,” Vader said.

“And I know about your rebel fleet,” the Emperor went on. “They will be ambushed by my fleet, just as an entire legion of my best troops is waiting for your friends.”

“That’s a shame,” Luke said. “But it’s not the same as something being unrecoverably bad.”

Palpatine blinked.

“...what?” he said. “You make no sense.”

“You can think of it like a shadow,” Luke said. “Or a hologram. It looks real, but it’s not the most real thing. It’s illusion, just a very persistent illusion which is why so many are taken in by it.”

“This doesn’t sound very empirically sourced,” Vader muttered. “Did you come up with all this yourself? If not, who taught you?”

“Yoda,” Luke replied, and both the Emperor and Vader flinched slightly.

“Yoda’s alive?” Vader asked, sounding horrified and fascinated.

“Not since… about three days ago, I think?” Luke answered. “I could be off by a day or two on that, I spent a lot of it in hyperspace.”

The Emperor tried very hard to stifle a sigh of relief, and didn’t quite manage it.

“You know Yoda?” Vader said. “You met Yoda?”

“Yes,” Luke agreed. “I was there with him at the end. Obi-Wan told me where he was living.”

“What?” Vader asked, now sounding baffled. “...how?”

It was his turn to wave his hand to make a gesture. “Because I remember Cloud City, and you were reasonably talented, but you seemed self taught. You did not fight like you’d had two and a half years of Ataru lectures from the death gremlin… there weren’t nearly enough backflips for it.”

“...oh, I see,” Luke said. “No, Obi-Wan told me on Hoth.”

“On… Hoth,” Vader repeated, slowly. “He’d been dead for several years at that point. Hadn’t he?”

“Oh, yeah,” Luke confirmed, readily. “He’s a ghost. He’s still around.”

The younger Skywalker shrugged. “Kind of proves what I was saying, right? Death isn’t the end of existence. A person lives on after the death of their body. They become one with the Force, and the Force is one with them, but they still exist.”

Vader was silent for a long time.

“...huh,” he said, eventually.

“Anyway, as I was saying – Father – Your Highness,” Luke went on. “I don’t fear death because death is the loss of the crude flesh, which is just a cloak for our true selves, who are luminous beings of light. To ask others to accept suffering of the flesh is unfair, because they feel it as real, but I understand it for the illusion that it is and so I’m willing to suffer and die for my beliefs – in a very real sense, it doesn’t mean as much to me as it would to anyone else. Because I know the truth.”

“This is all the ramblings of a senile madman, translated through the mouth of a naive boy,” the Emperor said. “What kind of proof could you possibly have?”

“...what, apart from the fact that I communicated with my dead mentor, and he gave me information that I did not know before?” Luke asked, curious. “That was sufficient for me to accept it when Yoda told me, but there’s also the extent to which understanding the illusive nature of reality amplifies my understanding of what the Force truly is.”

“I have to admit, it would explain why Obi-Wan vanished,” Vader mused, sounding like he was talking to himself more than the others.

“You don’t know about the Force,” the Emperor said, snidely. “Certainly your understanding is not as deep as mine!”

Luke examined him.

“You actually believe that,” he said. “But you think what I’m saying is nonsense?”

“If you understood the Force better, you would not be my prisoner!” the Emperor retorted.

“I’m not,” Luke said. “That’s an illusion as well.”

“You cannot just declare anything you don’t like to be an illusion!” Palpatine raged.

“I can if it is,” Luke replied, still calmly, and reached out his hand. His lightsaber slapped into it, then he let go and it floated back across the room to where Palpatine had put it.

He shrugged. “I’m here because I want to save my father. I surrendered because I thought that would be the best way to do it. I’m standing here on a battle station I fully expect to be blown up, because I am committed to saving my father. From you. That’s why I’m here, and it has nothing to do with you having any power over me. You don’t.”

The Emperor attempted to prove Luke wrong by electrocuting him, which lasted about ten seconds until Vader threw him out the window.

The air, on the other artificial hand, stayed put.

“You might be right, son,” Vader said, sounding scientifically fascinated as the room didn’t depressurise. “Accepting this really is helping me understand and use the Force.”

“I’m glad to have helped,” Luke replied, reminding himself that electrical burns were also illusions no matter how persistent they were. “What do we do now?”

“Leave the room, probably,” Vader suggested. “Then we can see about deciding whether we want to keep this station or destroy it.”

He made a curious noise with his respirator. “Are the Empire’s succession laws real or an illusion? I am fairly sure I could abdicate in your favour if you would like.”

“Mon Mothma would be better, I think,” Luke said, after some consideration. “Or Lando. Lando might work.”

[electricneonvalkyrie]

I hesitated to throw my opinion into the ring, so I figured I'd sleep on it.

I woke up, and it still stung.

Take it with a grain of salt. I’m not a casting director. I understand it would be a serious challenge to find a performer with acting chops and a matching appearance. But I've always thrived on challenges, so this argument seems flimsy.

Honestly, what do I know about Hollywood?

Many talented people globally never realize their dreams due to systemic barriers; however, it seems unbelievable that the team didn't consider maybe… stepping into a gym.  

The daily grind of PTSD is a heavy weight for me to carry, and as a muscular woman who doesn’t fit the traditional perception of femininity, losing a rare representation in media breaks my heart.

I understand it was a narrative-necessity in the game—though many (overwhelmingly male) gamers tried in bad faith to cast doubts on this.

Yes, it’s realistic for a woman to have a muscular build.

Have you gone to a gym in the last twenty years?

Hi female athletes everywhere. Hi CrossFit competitors. What’s up bodybuilders? Hey women in the military who can bang out more push-ups than the average male.

I see you.

But historically, when adaptations change the appearance of female characters in storytelling, it’s often catering to the male gaze, unintentional as it may be.

Read: Sarcasm.

In my opinion, it’s no coincidence that this has happened here.

No one should subject the actress portraying Abby to this criticism; it’s quite literally not her fault. This is an awkward role to take on, especially given the game's incredibly toxic past. But seeing Abby Anderson depicted this way feels like a gut punch.

Her strength—something that many real life women work damn hard for—is being erased.

Reducing her size feels like perpetuating the idea that women can only be strong if they’re still petite and conventionally attractive.

HBO seems to be overlooking what made Abby so special to loyal fans like me: the compelling interplay of her intense self-discipline, the lingering impact of her trauma, and the raw emotion of her grief which manifested in her merciless fights and her struggle with inner demons.

They had an opportunity to stand behind the integrity of Abby’s design and they’ve rewritten her character.

Let’s call it what it is. Disappointing as hell, at a first glance.

I have no doubt the actress playing Abby will shatter expectations, revealing her character's resilience in a brutal world, because otherwise, she’s not Abby Anderson. She's a gentler, more nuanced version of the fierce character Neil Druckmann once spearheaded.

He wouldn’t backpedal, would he?

For all the gamers who never got the chance to kill Abby in The Last of Us Part II, it feels like HBO has done it for them—not with a battle, but with erasure. Not with brutality, but with a quiet, deliberate softening of everything she stood for.

Fuck, I hope I'm wrong.

[low-budget-korra]

Activism for likes

Okay, let's talk about something serious that thankfully I don't see here but in other social media is everywhere : Activism of likes.

That's when I truly feel my age because every time I see a - 25 having the same Ctrl c Ctrl v arguments, being hypocrite, only seeing things as black and white and playing white saviour...I lose a bit of faith in the future.

In Avatar fandom, an older show, I don't see much of this but in Arcane... People thinking they are doing woke comments when in reality they are just exposing themselves as someone who didn't even watch the show.

Ekko forgives Jinx , who quite literally killed his buddies and was his enemy for years. He also befriends Heimerdinger, a 200+ council member who never did anything for Zaun. Why do some people fully believe that he wouldn't forgive Vi for becoming an enforcer for a brief time? Just bc y'all don't understand her reasons to do it, doesn't mean he also wouldn't. He would be disappointed (as he should) but he would understand and forgive.

They also give Jinx a pass just because she is poor. And I say this bc when a rich girl (Caitlyn) does the same shit, she is fully hated. Talk about projecting your world frustrations in a fantasy world right... And again, you should disagree with Caitlyn radical action bc they were bad, but pretend that she didn't have a solid reason to do so or even ignore the fact that she was also manipulated, is just dishonest and hypocrite. I don't know y'all, but I would not care if Jinx also had reasons to blow up the council but if my mom died there, I would do the same as Caitlyn (and, you probably would too, if you have a good relationship with your mom. Don't play the all righteous here.)

And it gets me because if ppl are unable to understand that a fantasy world such as Arcane, where as viewers see both sides of the wall. Imagine they trying to talk about real world problems, which is a lot more complicated and nuanced.

Activism is only "true" when it has substance, when it has argument, when the person behind study stuff and it's always trying to learn more and more. It's when they can hold a discussion without insulting the other person.

(yes, I understand that there's radical activism but even for these. People need to study or else it will be violence for the sake of it and the bigger enemy will destroy it)

Be unable to hold a discussion with people who think differently, oversimplifying the world and seeing everything as black and white is conservative agenda and not activism

[a-student-out-of-time]

More Real Talk

Hey everyone. Mod Bubbles here.

I'm not gonna beat around the bush here: you all know what's going on, you've all heard about it, you don't need me to tell you about it. You've heard about it and you're gonna hear about it a lot these next four years.

I don't want to talk about that. Instead, I wanna address something else that, on a personal level, I believe is a lot more serious but a lot easier to grapple with.

You wanna know what I believe is the biggest problem we're dealing with these days? You can point to a lot of things, but at the core, they all have the same root to them.

Hopelessness.

Yeah, a DR blog talking about hope, how crazy is that?

But in all seriousness, it's at the core of every argument, every political discussion, every post I see made about not just the near future, but the long term as well. It's always the same points about neo-fascism, climate change, wars, cyberpunk dystopias, and global extinction. Very few people today seem to have any faith that the world can be better.

And I can't say I blame them. I was there too once, when I was a teenager. I lived in constant fear of the future, worried about what it means for me, and I'd get trapped in doomscrolling cycles. I'd lay awake at night and cry my eyes out. Yet I'm still here, on the cusp of turning 30, and I'm at a better point in my life than I've ever been.

Fear and desperation are ultimately useful, but they can be self-destructive. They can prevent you from seeing the truth and make you ironically vulnerable to the ones you should be most afraid of.

Why do people join cults or militias or vote for bad politicians? Are they all just stupid or evil? Sure, some may be, but most are just desperate, afraid and don't understand how the world really works. They need a helping hand with deprogramming what they were told.

Here's the facts:

We've already beaten climate change's worst predictions and the changes we've made can be reversed.

Plastic pollution in the oceans is being cleaned up.

Conservation success stories just keep coming.

More people are living better lives nowadays, with lower rates of child morality, starvation, crime, preventable diseases, even bullying rates have declined.

The Green Energy Revolution is here and nothing is going to stop it.

New advancements in materials science are on the way and will revolutionize everything from construction to manufacturing to space exploration.

I say all this because the ultimate source of hope is knowledge. Yes, you can open yourself up to a lot of dark avenues when you start learning about the world, but you'll also learn how much good there is out there being done.

This isn't a distraction, it's how I help people understand that the world can always be better and that just one person being in power will not change that.

Now, I know what you may say to that. I've seen posts about how the internet is going to be censored, that propaganda spread everywhere, that there'll be concentration camps, the constitution will be ripped up, etc.

And to that, I have to be honest: I've already heard it all before.

The things you're worried about today? I was worried about them in 2009 during the Great Recession. People worried about them in 2005 when Bush was re-elected, and the concerns there also included terrorism. Do we even still talk about Al-Qaeda? Not really!

And misinformation in this age has always been a problem, especially on the big sites. These are old problems brought to the forefront, and it's always been important to learn the skills to spot them.

More importantly, all this assumes the administration would actually be able to implement any of their promises. Every administration does that and few of the truly big ones about change have happened, especially because said promises ran counter to reality within the system.

I'm not trying to downplay any concerns about the situation, I promise. It's okay to be sad, scared, and concerned about peoples' safety. It's okay to cry if you need to. What you should not do is give up just because of all this.

I'm going to sound very harsh for a moment, but I need to say it: by being doomerist and defeatist, you're part of the problem. You not only stop helping, you run the risk of discouraging other people from trying because you believe it's pointless. When you succumb to pessimistic nihilism, you create a self-fulfilling prophecy that only rewards those who benefit from your inaction or your death.

Don't do that to people. Don't do that to yourself.

The world gets better when you first believe it can be better. How do you do that?

Well, I can't speak for everyone, but here's some suggestions that I'm sticking to:

Live daily life. Get up, eat, stay hydrated, take your medication, bathe, dress comfortably, listen to music, watch a movie, clean your home, play a game, hang out with friends, just do things that make you happy. As you should always do.

Stop looking at doomer posts. It literally does not help with anything and they are not credible sources of information just because they're cynical.

Do not let go of your ambitions. Always have a dream or a goal in mind, no matter what it is, and always aim for it. It's never stupid, it's never too late, it's something you aspire to and that's really awesome.

Stop looking for enemies. There are more important things to devote your time to than arguing over inane bullshit on the internet. That's been true since the start.

Be kind to people. Let go of whatever anger and resentment you may have for people, try to make new friends, and recognize when you can help someone else in need. Sometimes it's as simple as letting them know you care.

Be kind to yourself. You are not a failure, you're not a burden, you're not a lost cause, you can always improve as long as you're alive.

Remove toxicity from your life. Cut out bad influences and replace them with better things. If you have to leave a toxic environment, you can work on doing so.

Always learn new things. It's really fun to end the day with a new piece of knowledge you didn't have the day before.

Let yourself feel. Are you angry? Sad? Scared? Worried? Let yourself feel it, and then you can move on. Don't bury an emotion or let it stagnate.

Learn to recognize bad faith posts/misinformation. This is a critical skill to possess and one you need to always pass on to others. Not everyone who posts it is evil, sometimes all they need is a simple correction on a matter and the situation will be resolved.

Clown on Evil. Whenever people want you to fear them or take them seriously, you mock them, make memes about them, treat them as a joke and defuse whatever power they try to have.

Be true to yourself. Above all, don't let the next 4 years turn you into something you're not.

I say all this as someone who's been around longer than a lot of people who follow me: your future is not empty. I wished I'd done years ago everything I'm doing now, but I've decided I'd rather do them than spend the rest of my life lamenting and wondering what might've been.

You can spend years convincing yourself there is no future, and then the future arrives and you have no idea what to do anymore.

Change- actual change- starts from below and works its way up. And no matter how much life beats you down, no matter what's on TV or what the future may hold, you can always choose to do something about it.

You can always choose to be kind to yourself and to others. You can always choose to believe. And that's where you can start.

[manatee-rp-memes]

Transformers: MTMTE Sentence Starters

~Feel free to tweak as needed~

“All good things must come to an end, if there’s one thing in life I’ve learned it’s how to say goodbye and mean it.”

“You think that just because the war is over, we can afford to stop fighting!“

“Okay, so tell me what happened- in layman’s terms, please. The fewer syllables, the better. Science makes me twitchy. Too many rules.”

“Never stand next to a quantum generator when it’s about to flout the laws of physics.“

“So, who broke the rule?”

“I’m too smart to die!”

“Either it’s very far away, or you’ve invented the world’s smallest drink.”

“Don’t say I’m irritable. It really—it really irritates me.”

“One day you’ll say something nice to me—just before you tell me I’ve got a terminal illness or something.“

“Bottom line? I’ve got nothing else to lose.”

“Wow. If I’d known that was the best you’ve got, I’d have said something genuinely offensive.”

“Nice to meet you, loser!”

“But there’s always been a war! That’s like saying there’s no more blue or—or the weather’s stopped!”

“Nothing tingles like a teleport.”

“I was aiming for the other guy…! Obviously.”

“A senseless waste, a terrible tragedy. Boo hoo.”

“He promptly beat me to the brink of fade-out and left me in a critical condition.”

“But that’s a whole other story. Sorry—I always wanted to say that. That, and ‘Impossible! Our laserfire is just making him stronger!’ Ahem. Go on…”

“Please! I surrender! Don’t shoot!”

“MUTINY! Everywhere I look I see rules being stretched and laws being broken and protocols being dragged outside and kicked to death.”

“Maybe I have been taking things too seriously. Maybe I should try and… and… whatever. There’s a word for it.”

“Course I didn’t press it… but what if I had pressed it?”

“A metafictional bomb. It blows a hole in the fourth wall.”

“I can tell you pretty emphatically that none of this – none of this even approaches my definition of ‘okay’!"

"Listen to me. NEVER. HOPE. Hope is a lie.”

“That was a nasty fall. Need a hand?”

“Get the hell out of my bar.”

“Ah, enriched nucleon…! The magic ingredient!”

"You should really stop and listen to yourself sometimes.”

“Life’s messed up. I’m messed up. I’ve done bad things and I continue to do bad things, because the voice telling me not to…? He’s not said much for a while. And y'know what keeps me going? ANGER. Anger’s an insulator. Stops life getting too close. If I got myself 'fixed,' maybe the anger would leave me—and then I really would be screwed.“

"Your life is in the palm of my hand. Before I squeeze, I offer up one last shining truth…”

“If God were on your side you’d have stopped me by now! Will anybody pit their faith against mine?”

“I know, I know—I’m incorrigible.”

“Honestly? I think for an intuitive weapon to promote long discredited notions of moral absolutism is problematic in the extreme.”

“When did you first decide that the universe needed ‘dominating’?"

"My life is a succession of decisions made in confined spaces.”

“If you want to get the measure of an author, don’t look at what they’ve left on the page…. look at what they’ve taken away.”

“Information carries weight. It’s not corporeal, but it has presence. It can be felt. It hangs in the air like—like words. Like the morning after an argument! Actually, not like that. That’s a bad analogy. I’m distracted.”

“Shut up. Stop expecting things of me.”

“The war is over and, thankfully, we lost.”

“I’m confronting my own mortality! I’m having one of those—those existential crisises!”

“'Could!' The luxury of 'could!' I’m already dead!”

“If I sit next to you too long, am I going to die of smartass poisoning?”

“There’s a thin line between categorization and segregation, and I never want to see it crossed again.”

“If the world thinks you’re a monster, what does it matter? The world is wrong. But when you start to think of yourself as a monster…”

“Touch me again and I’ll kill you.”

“Here’s a survival tip: When everyone’s lining up to make sacrifices… always get to the back of the queue.”

“I’ll let you in on a little secret… I can do whatever the hell I like.”

“Maladies of the mind are easily hidden. We don’t want to see them. They remind us of our fragility.”

“You have two weapons at your disposal: your brain and your fists. You must be prepared to use both.”

"I’m fine. Bad dream, that’s all. My first flashback. These things’ll happen when you’ve got a head full of history.”

“This conversation is ridiculous. You are ridiculous. Everything that’s happened in the last few days is intensely ridiculous.”

“We’re all of us the sum of our experiences.”

“I know who I am, but I don’t necessarily know who I was. I find it hard to compare the two.”

“I want to tell you a story.”

“I’m trying to show concern. I’ve seen other people do it.”

“People don’t like me – they just laugh at my jokes. There’s a difference.”

“I hate you. As in, I actively hate you. I am in hate with you.”

“No one cares what you have to say~”

“I had a plan! Same plan as always: survive.”

“I order you to survive.”

“Nothing makes sense anymore.”

[weirdmageddon]

man i shouldve restricted my replies a long time ago. why didnt i do this sooner. so many people on here take whatever i say in the worst faith way imaginable.

it says more about them than it does about me because what i speak and share is always made in 100% in honest good faith and if theyre projecting some weird way of interpreting it on me, thats not my way of thinking. you can’t put that on me.

im basically used to it by now. it follows me everywhere because i am radically autistically honest by default and i can’t turn it off that’s just who i am. my friend calls me “the control group” of people lol*

but i hate how it makes me disinclined to even want to share anything because of how bad faith people take what i have to say like i have some sort of agenda. bitch no im just sharing the underlying forces i’ve have come to notice through my observations. why do people assume hostile intentions from me when i’m just stating observations.

i’m like that “i like waffles” “so you dont like pancakes?” “no bitch thats a whole new sentence wtf are you talking about” tweet with folks on here if i don’t restrict my replies. what’s wrong with you all like actually

* i’m actually serious too, these are traits i score far on the upper end of the statistical bell curve compared to the average person (depicted by the number of marks below it). now imagine this combination in your brain, construct a type of person. can you see why bad faith arguments at me make me not even want to try

[notmorbid]

i am homeless if this is not my home.

dialogue prompts from i am homeless if this is not my home by lorrie moore.

i suffer stage fright everywhere but the stage.

i am braced at every turn for disenchantment.

i sort of remember you.

i am here for you and with you.

what is there to be bitter about?

people don't think i know who they are.

reminiscence is an earache.

i am personally unreconciled to just about everything.

i have about two weeks of sobbing i haven't gotten around to yet.

i am so burned out.

do you remember that day?

all 'good' usually means is that someone got lucky.

i don't believe in 'good' anything.

there was no one heroic in my entire ancestral line, i'm pretty sure.

it's easier to speak when you don't have to look at people.

i didn't think you'd live this long.

i never really closed out the tab on ___.

i'm ostensibly more myself, or building up that way.

all that wanting's going to wear you out.

you? feel sorry for me?

i'm so sorry this is happening to you.

every marriage has a sinister little wobble in it.

i thought you might win. i really did.

jesus. i thought you were here to cheer me up.

the real story is never the official one.

if it adds up too neatly, it probably isn't correct.

be careful. you'll hear from HR.

democracy is a fine idea, but we've never actually had it.

did you bring any weed?

i miss you already.

i can't just come home.

i still have some things i want to tell you.

failure is a form of vacation.

i've never been good at connecting dots.

photos are a weird form of time travel.

why were you working so late?

may i kiss you?

you may want to sit down.

we were never on the same page at the same time.

are you trying to hug me?

i don't know how to block people.

i guess i'm like a bad penny. always turning up.

i guess death is kind of a spectrum.

did you think i had forgotten you?

changes of heart are my superpower.

aren't you happy to see me?

are you going to make me do a ted talk about my devious inner world?

it's hard to forgive what you've turned me into.

didn't you try to forget me?

your vitals are not so vital.

i did nothing but want you.

this mirror is gaslighting me.

you never really know where anybody is.

is this a dream? where am i?

i think this is a crime in several states.

it's not the prayer, it's the things you do to move the prayer along that give the prayer a fighting chance.

faith is not about argument.

i want my death to be helpful, even if it turns out it's not. i want to try to be helpful.

did you really die?

are you joking? sometimes i can tell, but not always.

we were each other to each other. not everyone can say that.

i'm sorry that i failed you.

is there something you'd like to share with the class?

you're going to carry me?

i'm a lot of things i didn't tell you.

life is a tough room.

where would we be without music?

i think i should be wearing sunglasses.

hang on. i'm going to sweep you off your feet.

sorry if i resemble a swamp person.

it's not haunted or anything.

i don't keep the shotgun loaded.

if anything seems not to work, just kick it, smack it, or unplug it then plug it back in.

now would be the time to cry.

i have an extra shirt you can wear.

here with you. this is my home.

the dead prefer the company of the living.

do we have a safe word?

you have a lot of weird knowledge.

i know this is too soon, but i do believe i love you.

don't you love farce?

my bad. i thought that you'd want what i want.

i want you in the world, where you belong.

i'm just a bump in your road.

i will miss your rogue and random energy.

tell people i was fun.

listen to me. everything is going to be okay.

you're just going to leave me here?

i realize it's over, but i can't let go.

[artist-issues]

You stated recently that one of the reasons you think Lilo and Stitch is great is because it didn't waste time getting bogged down in the social issues that easily could have. Is there a way a story can have those things and still be good?

Yes! Yes! For sure!

Zootopia is all about a social issue but it’s super sleek and not-bogged-down.

The way Lilo & Stitch could have gotten bogged down was by focusing on social issues (capitalism, sexism, racism, classism, government-versus-family-ism) just because there was opportunity. What I mean by opportunity is: There’s a social worker in this movie. There are women in this movie. There are different ethnicities in this movie. There are tourists and a tourism industry in this movie.

But none of those things are what the movie is about. The movie’s Main Point is “Family means nobody gets left behind.” The story is, Stitch is a villain who has no place of belonging and no way to interact with the world except by destroying. Lilo is a little girl who is almost in the exact-same situation, because her parents just died—but the only thing keeping her from becoming like Stitch is faith in family—a place where people unconditionally choose to love you, so you belong—and that’s what she teaches Stitch.

That’s what the story is about. That is applicable to all audiences, everywhere. Now, could you stick a scene in there that says something about a social issue? Maybe, Nani is being treated as stupid by the tourists because she is a “native” and loses her temper and her job?

Yeah.

But what does that have to do with the story’s Main Point? Couldn’t you cut that scene and add in one that more directly strengthens the main point? Because remember, this is a movie—you don’t have all the time in the world. Couldn’t you replace the racism-reason with a Stitch-is-destructive-so-that-makes-loving-him-all-the-more-unconditional-to-do reason?

I’ve seen arguments that social issues are “realistic” because they’re “ever-present.” So if you don’t show them every time there’s an opportunity, then your story “loses believability.” And believability is important, obviously, because without it emotions aren’t engaged and the message doesn’t go through in a compelling way.

Okay I but when it comes to “social issues are realistic because they’re always happening” 1) that’s not true. Social issues like racism and sexism are not ever-present. That’s a lie that people who identify with their experience of injustice perpetuate. I was just in Togo, Africa. It is not true that everyone with dark skin is experiencing racism all the time. It’s not true that they’re experiencing it even daily. And it’s not true that they’re experiencing it on the same levels.

Just because there is a character with a non-white ethnicity doesn’t mean she will always be treated with racism, in every scenario that includes a white person. That’s not true in real life, and it shouldn’t be true in fantasy.

And 2) even if social issues were “ever-present,” that doesn’t mean leaving them out of the story would necessarily harm “believability.” Statistically, you are never more than ten feet from a spider. But there’s not one single spider in Lilo & Stitch. Statistically, a human being sneezes four times a day. Not one character sneezes in all of Lilo & Stitch, which takes place over around 3-4 days. There aren’t any chickens in the movie, even though feral chickens are one of the most prevalent animals in Kauai, and a majority of the film takes place outdoors.

Just because something happens often doesn’t mean, in a story, it needs to happen at all. A story is a chosen sequence of events to communicate a message. If something in that sequence doesn’t communicate the message, it doesn’t get chosen, because you always want to make the most of your sequences. Unless you’re a bad storyteller.

That’s why everybody groans nowadays when a movie comes out and it feels like the whole narrative goes, “and now, we interrupt this broadcast for a word from our sponsors,” and devotes a whole scene to a side-character getting looked over because she’s female, in a movie that’s about…like, Because we know it doesn’t fit. It feels jarring. It feels like they’re selling us something.

But in a movie that is about a social issue, like Zootopia through and through, it does not feel jarring.

There can be some overlap. For example, if a movie is about a young woman trying to prove she’s dedicated to her dream to be in Hollywood, and she’ll overcome any obstacles to pursue it—well, then she needs more than one obstacle. So—just one could be classism. And then another could be racism, and another could be sexism. But again, that’s not because the story is about those things, any more than Lilo & Stitch is about the evils of the government.