#because it’s complex

[valkyrjah]

gwyn sure does love ✨women✨

[birdy-babe]

Blitzøs entire life spent being unwanted. So he adapted, and learned how to be something needed, something to be used.

Which is why I think he firmly believes he is being used by Stolas. He simply cannot fathom a different reality, one in which he is wanted for once in his life.

[ririrules60]

old man yaoi

[hunter-rodrigez]

I love how Discworld introduces Granny Weatherwax.

She is introduced as a witch, but it's not actually clear if she can do any magic for quite some time. At first all she does is herbal medicine and Headology, aka make-believe, mind tricks, placebos and basically tricking people.

Even when it becomes clear that she flies around on a broomstick and can project her mind into other living things, it's still not obvious if she can do any magic beyond that.

And then she and her buddies magically move an entire country 15 years into the future, and it becomes very clear that she's not only very much capable of doing magic, but she's one of the strongest, if not the strongest magic user in the entire world who can do stuff like summon death himself with nothing but a candle, and I am not even sure she really needs the candle.

Compare that to the wizards. The first impression you get of them is that they're powerful magic users, I mean they are wizards in a fantasy world, people fear them for their magic, and they got a whole magic college, so they must be powerful, right? They even look down on witches because they "don't use real magic"... and because they're usually women.

Granted, the very first (and best) wizzard we're introduced to can't even do any magic, but he seems like an outlier. Then you hear more and more about the magic college and other wizards, and it becomes clear that most wizards are arrogant and lazy fucks who can't do much magic beyond basic fireballs, turning people into frogs and maybe teleportation. Even the head-wizard of the college was completely helpless after running out of juice from a single teleportation spell.

Even when all the wizards become incredibly powerful, thanks to circumstances beyond their control, all they use their magic for is building really tall wizard towers and raging wars against each other. Wars which are ripping holes into reality, which threaten to release unspeakable horrors from the unspeakable horrors dimension.

Like... the books used most reader's assumptions and expectations, aka 'Headology', to make them underestimate Granny Weatherwax while overestimating the Wizards.

Just *chef's kiss* world building.

[uncanny-tranny]

Fat people deserve mobility aids, too. No matter if it's connected to their fatness or not, because having a mobility issue that is connected to one's fatness won't change that they're still fat and still have the issue at hand. Fat people don't deserve to "tough it out" because fatness should be this divine punishment doled out to those who "deserve" it. Fat disabled people deserve to have the peace of mind that they can exist in whatever way is most comfortable and accessible to them

[tobiasdrake]

My understanding of evil, age 0-10: MY NAME IS SMOG SMOKESLY AND I RUN THE POLLUTION FACTORY, IT PRODUCES POLLUTION!!! MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

My understanding of evil, in my teens: You can't really boil things down to good and evil. People are complicated. Everyone is the hero of their own story, and someone who seems evil to you is actually doing their best from their own perspective. If you could walk a mile in their shoes, you'd understand. There is no such thing as evil.

My understanding of evil, in my twenties: Look, it's basically just tribalism. We are all necessarily thrust into competition with one another. There are always going to be winners and losers. Whining about evil is just being upset that you lost the game.

My understanding of evil, in my thirties: MY NAME IS SMOG SMOKESLY AND I RUN THE POLLUTION FACTORY, IT PRODUCES POLLUTION!!! MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[bethanydelleman]

I was talking about a historical male author I dislike because I found his works misogynistic and the person said, "Oh, well I suppose you don't read Shakespeare either." and I was like, "Shakespeare? SHAKESPEARE?!?! Of course I read Shakespeare, that man loved women."

Shakespeare wrote a wide variety of fleshed out female characters. He wrote Damsels in Distress, Cross-dressing Girlbosses, and Complex Female Villains. He wrote a woman who refused to sell her virtue to save her family and then shamed her brother for suggesting it. He wrote Taming of the Shrew and it's opposite, All's Well that Ends Well, in which the wife hunts down and tames the husband. He wrote men who are good because they listen to, trust, and defend women. He wrote women of all kinds. He wrote women who drive the plot and women doomed by the narrative. He wrote women in love and women who pathetically follow a man who doesn't like them and women in hatred. He wrote sensible women and silly women and everything in between of all ages.

I wish modern authors could write women as well as he did.

[cutter-kirby]

obligatory “cool characterization, still murder” like I’m not excusing him but it does make him incredibly interesting

(*girl gender neutral edition)

[shirecorn]

Monsters

Bittersweet Dreams || Perspective || Evil || Fighter

[zan0tix]

Assorted homestucks number 72382683

[rhinestonesox]

Half-foots are highly discriminated against in the world of dungeon meshi.

They have a difficult time living in places outside of their own territories because places where larger races live aren’t built for their size and crowds can be dangerous.

they’re the least valued race by long lived races because their life spans are the shortest out of all the races. this means that they’re dehumanized and often considered disposable. their superior senses make other races use them as “lures” when hunting succubi/mermaids (usually dying in the process).

They’re often mistaken for/treated like children because of their appearances, and because of this they have a difficult time getting jobs because it’s assumed that they’re immature/can’t handle it.

Because of this, when living outside of Half-foot territories they’re forced to get money by any means necessary (often resorting to crime), so other races stereotype them as “cunning” “greedy” and ���manipulative”.

On top of that, members of long lived races who tend to fetishize them.

Even the name “Half-foot” is discriminatory.

Ryoko Kui does a fantastic job at world building.

But even after all of that, im not gonna stop talking about how bad i wanna put Chi Chi in my pocket.

[k1d1c4rus]

thinking about how armand was turned bc he was dying from being stabbed by a scorned grown man who was in love with him. he nearly died from rejecting unwanted advances. its such a key explicit detail of his origin that teaches him yet again that what he wants is utterly unimportant and even deadly in the face of survival. everything about his character is informed by the fact that he adapts entirely to the situation he is forced into because that's the only way he can survive. he adopts the satanic doctrine for 200 years not because he believes in it but because he knows that is the only way he'll survive and as soon as lestat arrives he knows he can abandon it. for half a millenium he believes he can't get what he wants and also survive, he has to choose one or the other. God.

[mipexch]

i love animating these little freaks

[watermelinoe]

why is it "this is what happens when you tell white boys they're devils :(" when it comes to the white male alt right pipeline but no one calls for empathy for uneducated right wing white women. what about the high school girl to isolated stay at home mom pipeline. where is their loneliness epidemic

[barksbog]

panther chameleon plushies!!!

based on the Amilobe locality of Furcifer pardalis

magnetic little hands for to grab things

soft

funny eyes

doesn´t need high humidty or complex care!

teddy joints for to move their little legs

---

adopt one from my bog

barks-bog.com

[reasonsforhope]

Given the misinformation that's been going around and will be going around, thought this might be helpful to some people

For a lot of reasons, I'm very good at this/at searching, to the point where I have worked as a professional fact-checker for two different publishers. So, here goes:

My Article Fact-Checking Protocol

Thorough Version

Read the full article. Keep an eye out for emotionally loaded words, and all-or-nothing language

Keep an eye out or anything that sounds too good to be true, and in contrast, anything that sounds so awful it must be true

Run the website/source through the amazing Media Bias/Fact Check. They'll tell you about a publication's bias and history of accuracy

Go to the website's home page and read through the headlines. Look at what topics they cover/prioritize, sensationalist headlines, and whether they're framing anything in a way that feels odd/off to you

Do a search related to the topic. This can be keywords, a question, or even just copy-paste the article title (Recommended: use DuckDuckGo so the results don't change based on what Google thinks they can sell you)

If multiple highly credible sources that say the same thing pop up, and there's no major societal biases that might affect the coverage of the topic in those sources (e.g. anything related to the Israel-Palestine conflict/Palestinian genocide, no matter which side), then I'm done!

If there are major societal biases, or I can't get a consensus of sufficiently credible sources, then I do some combination of:

(1) search the topic again + the words "controversy" and/or "fake"

(2) search the opposite of the topic, or do some sort of other filtered search

(3) look up a sufficiently credible news outlet with the opposite point of view of my source, and see what they have to say

(4) if it's a big enough topic, start by looking up 2 of the top national papers and 1 major paper for your region (I usually do the ones in the US, because that's where I am In the US: the LA Times, the Washington Post, and the NY Times)

Adjust "news" to "relevant type of source, e.g. tech, environmental" as relevant for all of the above options

If no red flags come up, and it's a topic I understand enough to smell huge bullshit,

Then I'm usually done!

If there are red flags, or I actually need a certain amount of detail/understanding, then it gets more complicated, but that would be a whole other thing to break down and such

or

tl;dr

Quick Version

Read the full article. Keep an eye out for emotionally loaded words, and all-or-nothing language

Keep an eye out or anything that sounds too good to be true, and in contrast, anything that sounds so awful it must be true.

If I don't know the website:

Run the website/source through the amazing Media Bias/Fact Check. They'll tell you about a publication's bias and history of accuracy

If I trust the source, but something else pinged my radar:

Do a quick web search to verify anything that sounds suspicious or too good/bad to be true (Recommended: use DuckDuckGo)