#bigotry is bad full stop

[lastoneout]

I keep thinking about all of the disabled activists and people before me who stranded themselves on the 4th floor of buildings for weeks and crawled up stairs and fought with airline staff and schools and doctors and refused to stop existing in the face of injustice and bigotry no matter how big and scary and hopeless it seemed. Every time I get angry and scared the protests that lead to the creation of the ADA pop up again and remind me that disabled people are so much fucking stronger than anyone has ever given us credit for, and I can't help but be proud of that. And I know not all disabled people feel like we should take pride in our disabilities and have flags or whatever, but I think not just living, but thriving, in spite of a world that wants us dead and gone, in the face of both illness and persecution, and how we've not only bought ourselves forward, but uplifted the disabled people around us, secured more equal futures for everyone who will come after, and truly changed the way so many abled people have seen us for the better is something to be damn fucking proud of.

We have always been here and we always will be, there will never be a world without disabled people because being disabled is not bad, it's a natural part of the human experience and yeah it sucks some times but even when it sucks we have fought to build beautiful, unique, happy lives with people, both like us and not, and that should be celebrated.

The first sign of human civilization is the healed femur. The body of the profoundly disabled person who would have needed help to even just eat being carefully laid to rest after decades of a full, happy life. The medicinal plants showing even before we were entirely human we were doing what we could to not just survive, but alleviate suffering while we're at it. Above everything, evolution selected not the baby who can walk and eat and be quiet, but the one that can ask for help.

Disabled people are not just angry cockroach motherfuckers who refuse to die, we are proof of humanity's HUMANITY. Proof that natural selection selected a species that takes care of each other. From healed femurs and medicinal plants to vaccines and IVs and insulin to now, we are driven to help one another, we are at our strongest when we don't leave our most vulnerable behind. And I am living proof of that. My mother is living proof of that. Every disabled and chronically and/or mentally ill person I know is living proof of that.

And I don't know about the rest of you, but will carry that shred of humanity's true nature inside me like it's my fucking soul. I am scared and angry and hurt, but I have a lifetime's experience being scared and angry, and I can shake off the kind of pain that would make Atlas crumble to dust like it's nothing but a stiff fucking breeze. Disabled people have always been here, turning fear and anger and pain into joy and beauty and connection, and I'm not going to let everyone who came before me down. I'm not going to give up. Not now, not ever.

It's okay if you're disabled and you've hit your limit, you're too scared and tired and hurt, I won't blame you. But I won't abandon you, either. I might not be able to right all of the wrongs in the world, but I'll be strong, I'll carry all of you with me, I will not give up.

As I've said before, society hates a cripple who won't die, so we must spite them and live anyway.

Please, live anyway. I know if anyone can, it's us.

[creatingblackcharacters]

"Calling Out Racists? Help!"

(shout out to the situation sender who's chosen to remain anonymous!)

NOTE: People of color, if you feel that your efforts would be in vain or cause more pain than it's worth, I fully respect not doing it. I've been there, and tbh I usually don't. But white netizens, I expect boots on the ground. Racism festers when no one does anything about it.

So, it's finally happened! You've come face to face with antiblackness in your fandom space. You never thought it could be this bad! Naturally YOU don't condone this behavior, so you take steps to remove yourself from this person.

However! Your friends and other fans are still happily sharing from someone that you KNOW is capable of this. Would they still be comfortable knowing they're yapping amongst racists? And then you wonder- should I tell everyone about them? I mean, surely everyone should know?

Thus we've come to the decision:

The Callout

In my honest opinion, callouts are morally neutral. When used to reveal consistent harmful beliefs, intentions, and behaviors to other people, usually of marginalized identities, I think they're critical. Our safety and humanity matters far more than someone's internet fame. If I can't stop someone from being a racist, I at least don't want their vitriol on my dash, and I ALSO don't want people thinking I agree! Racism shouldn't be tolerated at all, but unfortunately, many an antiblack racist has a popular following and will not be removed. Anything less overt than a slur like the example above is more often than not, not a dealbreaker for many.

On the other hand, when it is maliciously weaponized to drag someone down on nothing but hearsay and rumor, it can be devastating. It has often been used as retaliation against those very same marginalized peoples to shut down discussions of racism and other forms of bigotry. In my opinion, you should not do these sorts of things when you don't have any solid proof or an actual education on what you're talking about. Period.

I say that all to say, be intentional. Use your discernment and some critical thinking.

How Ice Deals With It

Let's say you see something that concerns you. First, you need to pay attention to if other Black fans have noted this person's behavior. Has it been previously noticed, have they seen dogwhistles you've completely missed? Keep in mind as well, antiblackness does not have to come from a white person. Don't let "I'm brown" fool you.

If you're confident: confront the person on the particular issue you've noticed.

‼️‼️‼️ For the maintenance of your mental health, you CANNOT go into this expecting to change someone's mind and behavior. If you do, 9/10 you will face demoralization. You cannot walk into these thinking they care. Most people don't, and will deny the harm of their behavior. It sucks, but it's the truth. Change your perspective. The only goal you need to have is pointing out the harm done, so that this person loses the excuse to be racist out of "ignorance". Once you've spoken up, ball's now in their court.

Confrontation doesn't have to be negative! It can be as simple as "hey, what you said was not okay, here's why, and I hope that you can learn from this to do better for yourself and for your fans." Simple, to the point.

‼️Keep in mind, from Fans of Color: the private confrontation is a sign that we're trying to give you a chance to do right. Everyone's not going to receive that grace, nor do I expect every fan of color to offer it. It might just be up with you and your racism that day. 🤷🏾‍♀️ I would take the chance if offered.‼️

We're going to go two routes here.

1) It works

If it works, then what should come next is 1) a full acknowledgment of the violence and harm, 2) visible steps to ameliorate that harm, and 3) an apology to those harmed.

It doesn't have to be a complex apology (unless the situation itself was that large). But it has to be genuine and the change needs to be seen.

Very often you'll see apologies for antiblackness... To white fans. You cannot apologize for your actions to people who were not harmed by them, because they are not the ones with the right to accept the apology!!!! It's not a real apology. They've just covered for being exposed, is all. Be willing to hold each other accountable!

2) It doesn't work

This might still happen after the "it works", btw! Some people genuinely just want the appearance of progressiveness.

Here's where it gets gritty and you'll experience the most discomfort, I'm just being honest:

They might fucking suck!

They might suck, they might make it a point to share with their followers that you suck, and those same followers might also suck! You know how they sound? Like those people who fought for rapist Brock Turner because "he had a good future and this shouldn't ruin it". Yeah.

Recognize that this backlash you may experience from strangers is not coming just from their need to be entertained, but from a realization that if their fave is antiblack and they agree, then THEY are being antiblack too.

That acute pain you're feeling from this effort- you're now feeling a part of the chronic pain that is being a Black fan! And if you're white, you just temporarily sacrificed your whiteness to defend what was right, and now you are seeing a piece what that whiteness shields you from. Idk how else to put it.

Now what?

Well first, this shouldn't make you go "oh well there's no point in fighting racism bc they're so mean." Why do you want to identify with the people who just acted like that lmao. Antiracism is hard, but the right thing isn't always easy. Stand up and dust yourself off, soldier.

Take the steps to protect yourself. That might be a break from socials to decompress. Block people as necessary, use the tag blocker thing.

Recognize that you are not in the wrong for wanting this harm to be accounted for. If this person didn't want to be seen as a willful racist, they should have chosen to do better. They didn't want to, they chose to triple down on their racism, which they are now aware of doing! They just don't care. And that's not within your control. They wanna be a racist, let them be treated like one!

"Curate your space" as they say, and recognize that antiblackness is going to have you potentially removing folks you thought were cool left and right. You might see some people close to you show their true colors. It's time to make some tough personal decisions. I can't walk you through that. But I don't want to be around people who treat antiblackness with apathy, because birds of a feather... 👀

I obviously didn't cover every single scenario here. And this is only *my* way of dealing with these things (if I do at all, anymore). Some folks may go about it differently. But yeah, in summary, go in to point the racism out, and don't let the response determine your self value. 👍🏾

[starstuffandalotofcoffee]

I am trying to like. not attack people with whom I'm broadly aligned on such ideas as "fascism and bigotry are bad" even if they are the sort of person who fetishizes a "mutual aid under tyranny is the true path to Full Communism" mentality. But it is really frustrating that I saw a lot of those sorts of self-identified white people calling Democrats unconscionable and abandoning POC for being fairly hard on immigration and it's like. Given the results we're seeing, we do in fact need to stop pretending people won't vote against their own interests, or rather, the interests that affect people of their same demographic. We do need to stop pretending that being a minority is an automatic pathway to good opinions, and stop treating specific egregiously bad examples as exceptions when even the most liberal-leaning minority groups have non-negligible numbers of Trump supporters. A lot of people do have an "i got mine" mentality and being nonwhite or queer or non-Christian does not prevent people from thinking this way.

[xclowniex]

So strange how xenophobia and isolationist blood and soil nationalism has been normalized by certain sects of the left.

I would say it's strange, however unfortunately it's becoming a lot more common for leftists to just not work through why they think right wing rhetoric is bad.

Instead of doing the work of unlearning bigotry and going "yeah it's wrong when this action is done full stop", a lot of them have gone "actually it's only bad to do that to people I like and is fine when it's done to people I don't like" which is literally the same thought process right wingers have.

[audhdnight]

Spanking is to parenting what prisons are to criminal justice. Allow me to elaborate:

What does spanking do? “It teaches kids to behave!” Actually, no. It teaches kids to fear their caregiver(s). But say we go with that line. How does spanking teach kids to behave? “It shows them the consequences of bad actions!” Actually, no. It shows kids that when the caregiver is displeased, the kid gets hurt. In the mind of the child, the sequence of events is not [misbehave:consequence]. It is [caregiver unhappy:pain]. And maybe you’ll say “But my kid stopped mouthing off after I started spanking them for it”. Okay, sure. Maybe they stopped responding when you argue, but only because the learned to fear what their response would bring. They’re not holding their tongue because they realized it’s disrespectful or rude or whatever else you believe it is. They’re holding their tongue because they know it won’t do any good and will only make the situation worse for them. I can guarantee they are still thinking all those rebellious naughty talk-backy thoughts. They just aren’t saying them out loud. Spanking did not teach your child to behave, it taught them to walk on eggshells.

Similarly, prisons do absolutely nothing to enforce laws. Prisons do nothing to fix the real crimes that do get committed. A shooter or rapist or embezzler being incarcerated does not bring their victim back to life, un-traumatize them, or make reparations for any damages. Additionally, it makes life a living hell for the innocent people who end up in jail (OF WHICH THERE ARE A HELL OF A LOT). And maybe you might say that the point of prison is to encourage good behavior, because no one wants to go to jail. I would ask, then, why there are so many prisons, of which so many are full or overcrowded. Clearly, the threat of incarceration is not keeping people out of jail. Additionally, much like a child who was spanked being afraid to do normal things in their own home for fear of displeasing their caregiver, regular non-criminal people are afraid of prison, even though they have done nothing wrong. They know they could be incarcerated because of falsified evidence, biased testimonies, unfair trial, or simply bigotry. Especially people of color. Even though they haven’t done anything wrong, they are scared of what could happen to them if the person in power (police) was unhappy with them.

Negative consequences unrelated to the actual incident do not discourage “bad behavior”. Just like a child who is spanked will simply learn to be sneakier, a thief who goes to jail will simply cover their tracks better next time.

Stop spanking your kids, and abolish prisons. Have a nice day.

[rjalker]

Flatland adaptations

[ID: A version of the "missing the point", meme, showing a purple square shouting in all caps, Holy shit other dimensions exist", while staring at a green sphere that intersects with his plane, while the sphere says, with the words literally going over the square's head, "Racism, ableism, misogyny, and classism are bad.". End ID.]

how come I've watched three full length Flatland movies and many shorter animations but only one of them, which is in Italian, which I don't speak, ever has anything to say about the political themes of the book and instead just goes "woah cool interdimensional theory!"???

[John Crichton voice] Where's my damn political commentary?

Why do people want to just throw out all the criticism of systemic bigotry to focus only on the dimensional stuff?

Edit: Yes, this 1000% applies to the 2007 Flatland film. It is not exempt at all. It is one of the main things I was thinking of while making this. A few seconds of absurdist humor does not mean the 2007 Flatland film is scathing political commentary that forces the audience to think about systems of inequality and question whether they might not be upholding some that are just as absurd and made up to keep people in power.

[ID: The same meme as above, now with a hybercube or tesseract saying, "Racism, ableism, misogyny, and classism are bad.", with the yellow A Sphere from the 2007 Flatland film staring at it in open-mouthed shock, exclaiming, "Wow!! Absurdist humor!!!" while the point flies over his head. End ID.]

Edit August 20 2024: Ladd Ehlinger, the creator of the 2007 Flatland film, is disgustingly fucking racist and misogynistic. He is literally a proud conservative.

He made a political ad in 2011 that's literally so blatantly racist and misogynistic that youtube has literally restricted it so you literally cannot share the link outside of youtube.

Because it's that blatantly fucking bigoted.

I wish I could say I'm shocked but considering how terribly the 2007 film handles the themes of the original novel, I'm not surprised in the least.

The ad literally has Black men chanting, "give me your cash bitch so we can shoot up the street", while a white woman, with the face of the politician the add is against photoshopped over her, pole dances as a sex worker.

He runs a tumblr account so make sure you block him. His username is filmladd.

He's literally a racist misogynistic conservative.

For the love of all that's holy everyone please stop defending this film immediately and make sure people are aware of exactly what kind of person produced it.

[eff-plays]

Goddd I keep seeing ppl defend the use of "non-binary" and saying it's unapologetic and doesn't allow for interpretation and how that's good because that means bigots and chuds won't be able to look away and deny anything.

And like cool I'm glad that you found this empowering in some way but to imply that anybody who doesn't is a hater who doesn't get it or a bigot is uuh. Well it's fucking insane and I'm tired of being nice about it!! Sorry dude! If you think anybody who's uncomfortable with Taash's writing is a bad person then you're brain broken!

First of all the implication that representation should be written to pre-empt the reactions of bigots rather than to organically depict and integrate the people you're claiming you care about kinda sucks ass?? Kinda insane actually? And also like ... how has that worked out for them lmao. Taash has become the icon for Veilguard itself among the very chuds it set out to prove something to.

Second of all. Dorian didn't go around saying "I am a homosexual man. I am gay" but we still knew what the fuck his story was about. Sera didn't say "yeah I'm a lesbian btw" and we still knew! If they'd established that using modern language was something that was fine in previous games, this wouldn't have been as jarring. But they didn't!

Third of all I'm fucking tired of having my own discomfort with the writing of Taash be sneered at as though I, a literal nonbinary person who literally has a mother who doesn't "get it" and literally has struggled to figure out where I belong due to my multicultural, immigrant existence, am the same as a trans/enbyphobe for not liking the fucking SLOP I'm being served.

Like, it's fine! It's fine if you like Taash! I'm glad you relate to them and that you see yourself reflected in them! Genuinely! I wish I could say the fucking same! But if I have to see another fucking "um actually Taash is so so so so important to me and anybody who doesn't feel the same way is just a bitter hater and a bigot who doesn't GET IT" I'm going to start blasting.

The blanket-dismissal of genuine criticism as bigotry or just "not getting it" or implying that anybody not comfortable with this "representation" somehow has no emotional intelligence is so much fucking WORSE to see than the reactionary chuds. Like okay wow you, the person supposedly pretending to be SOOO concerned with enby rep in video games are telling ME, a fellow enby, that I'm the same as an anti-woke reactionary assholes who hate us both? Is this a joke??

Well, to be fair, I have yet to see anybody actually, like, tell me they're nonbinary but liked Taash. Mostly it's people going "well yeah um anybody OVER THERE who doesn't like them or is made uncomfortable by their writing is a bigot" without acknowledging that fellow enbies might fucking hate their writing, too. Because that would be acknowledging valid criticism. And we can't fucking have that, can we?

Fuck, man. You felt that Taash was good rep. I felt that it was bad rep. We're both entitled to feel this way, but you don't get to dismiss ME as a bigot because I wasn't pleased with this depiction of a nonbinary person.

Any enby, trans or cis (ally) haters of Taash who also didn't like their writing have my full permission to use all of my Taash hater posts to back up any argument they might have for why their writing sucks. I do not even care anymore. I'm a proud nonbinary multicultural Taash hater and anybody who tells me I'm wrong or bigoted for this can eat my shorts.

Also can we please. Can we please fucking stop with the "well you didn't have a problem with the word MAN or WOMAN so why does this bother you?" Like be so for serious. Be so so so so for serious. I won't even pretend that's a valid argument.

Anyway, give it up for the FIRST TRUE AND BEST ENBY REP IN DRAGON AGE:

[bonebabbles]

It is honestly terrifying how they try and justify the mockery of the RiverClan refugees by going " Well nothing violent happened to them so this is them choosing to go home "

It's like getting a clear view into the writing teams brain, their true thoughts on the subject they're portraying, and it makes me sick. ( not saying the writing team hasn't had a /lot/ of scenes like this one in the past, DotC is full of them )

Like idk if they can justify this as just the characters anymore, this is just straight up writing team bigotry shining through, and the only small hope I have is hoping the writing team hasn't actually had the experience of tormenting people so much they've fled the land they fled /to/

Sorry if this is too like, sad or political, but I'm kinda expecting more scenes after this after you know who gets into office. Bigots always get bolder when he's in charge.

No, I agree. I think the longer I sit on it, the more disturbing it gets to me. Especially with the way the "wind is blowing," politically.

At what point do you stop calling it bad writing in an attempt to be charitable? Advanced incompetence has become indistinguishable from malice here. The text flatly says that it's fine behavior, not alarming at all, for two refugees to get harassed into "choosing" to go back to somewhere unsafe.

It's framed like a climactic moment, even. Sunbeam agreeing with Fernstripe shows that she does "truly belong here." Unlike those other immigrants who are just "exploiting" the code.

I can't know what's in the heads or hearts of the writing team at Coolabi. But it sure does start to make a lot of sense when you connect the dots of jilted character dialogue to deliver xenophobic messages, consistent emphasis on birth blood and nation over chosen bonds, and sheer dedication to authority, and draw a picture that The Writers Really Mean It.

[thesiltverses]

Hello! I found the silt verses about three weeks ago and have listened to it several times since. I have a few things to say.

I absolutely adore that episode about the national grid workers. I think it’s my favorite episode of any podcast I’ve ever listened to. My favorite part of that first episode Paige is in is how she justifies not standing up for Vaughn, that cognitive dissonance that you wrote so well. This episode gives me what I wanted from that episode, the workers all banding together to stop the wasteful sacrifice of one of them. The actor who played the foreman did an incredible job as well. I think that having him discuss which of his workers he would sacrifice was such a significant moment, despite how brief it is. It cuts right to the big question that I took away from the podcast which is, “How much is someone willing to sacrifice in order to maintain their comfort?” And the utter disrespect of Glodditch (apologies for the spelling) refusing to cancel even the radio but asking grid workers to kill themselves for 200kw/h! Top tier episode.

I grew up in the south and went to college in Appalachia. I saw the disparity in technology and “advancement” if that makes sense that poverty brings, and the way you set up the world invokes that feeling in me again. You are an amazing world builder and storyteller.

I really enjoyed the cameos - I’m a big fan of malevolent/devisor, Old gods of Appalachia, and all of Jonny sims work, so hearing familiar voices was an absolute delight. Harlan Guthrie as an acolyte of the snuff gods might have been a bit too on the nose with some of the things that man writes, though… /pos

I’m transmasculine, and something that I really appreciate is how you manage to make a trans man do some objectively awful things, but still manage to make him a complex, full character that I was rooting for very frequently. Brother Faulkner is so, so important to me as a character. Paula Vogel has a play called “Indecent,” which is about the true story of a troupe of I believe German Jewish actors between the years of 1910ish and 1940s putting on a show called “God of Vengeance” by Sholem Asch, also a Jewish man. “God of Vengeance” has queer themes and received a lot of criticism from the Jewish community for showing Jewish folks in a “bad” light at a time when there was already so much hatred for Jewish people. Brother Faulkner being as complex and, in my opinion, malicious and cutthroat as he is at a time when trans people face so much bigotry, especially legislatively in the United States, brings this conversation about “God of Vengeance” up again for me. I also love how normalized non-binary people are in this world, without question. “Sibling this or that,” the hunter, adjudicator Shrew - big thanks from me for all of this.

All of this to say, I love this podcast. Can you talk more about the rhetorical gods? Is Babble one? What makes them one if they are, or why aren’t they? I’m fascinated by them. Can you talk more about the propaganda gods too?

Thank you so much for the thoughtful and kind words!

I'll check out Indecent, it sounds really interesting and I'm very glad to hear Faulkner works for you as a character. I think the topic of how to include and write queer characters who are capable of terrible things and thoughts (because, after all, these characters are human beings and not tutelary exemplars), within the context of both a rising movement of transphobia right now and centuries-old scapegoating / pathologising portrayals more generally, is a really knotty but a really important one, and I always want to make sure I'm approaching it with care and due responsibility as well as a sense of humility around the limitations of what, as a cis writer, I can actually achieve.

To that end, I don't want to ever take the audience response for granted, but I'm always really grateful to hear that the portrayal is working for a listener!

Propaganda gods: gods whose prayer-marks or ritual verses are fed directly to the enemy, enforcing destructive or sabotaging changes to reality (so rather than sending a destructive saint or angel to rampage over the foe, you might drop pamphlets or send radio messages to the enemy to 'convert' them).

Rhetorical gods: gods whose followers possess reality-warping powers of language itself (which is why 'rhetorical god' is a polite way of saying 'liar's god'). In other words, the paranoia around them comes partly down to the fact that a disciple like Val may appear to be a limitless shaper of new forms, rather than shaped into a limited form of their own, as a result of their worship.

[deathbysports]

Actually, it's okay to admit your favorite player sucks.

(PT: Actually, it's okay to admit your favorite player sucks. End PT) Trigger Warning: References to sexual assault, violence, alcohol use and bigotry. And no. I'm not talking about point production (though it's okay to admit that they're not having a good year either) Last year I made a post talking about problematic players and what to do if it turns out a player we like sucks. Consider this to be a part two to that post because I feel like it's something to talk about again, especially with the amount of hockey players outing themselves as MAGA for the past months, as well as the upcoming Hockey Canada trial and, more recently, Artemi Panarin's sexual assault allegation. This time, I want to talk about the people who continue to defend them for some reason. And why you really need to cut it out with the "oh x player would NEVER do that!" bullshit.

Hockey is an enjoyable sport. It's fun, full of excitement and brings us joy. But I'm going to be honest, the culture around it fucking sucks. And with terrible culture, comes players who do bad shit. In particular, a lot of hockey players (and athletes in general, but the focus here is hockey players) are pretty fucking conservative, and hockey as a whole is a conservative sport. Let's take T.J Oshie as an example. A silly guy. A fun hockey player to watch. Both his personality and on-ice skills made me... rather fond of him. And then he made that pro-Trump post. Needless to say, I was... not thrilled. I was disappointed, disgusted, and unfortunately not surprised. Still, it hurt. Do I hate him? No, not really. I can't entirely bring myself to do that. But the whole thing definitely destroyed any desire I had of buying his jersey. Oshie's not the only one. Way too many players have outed themselves as MAGA as of late, with Ryker Evans being the most recent. Now I'm not going to deny that hockey is a conservative sport. It always has been a conservative white sport, full of rich, mostly white men. Still, it's pretty damn depressing when a player you've admired for so long is supporting a fascist. From Matthew Tkachuk to the Great One himself, Wayne Gretzky. And it's not just American politics either. Alex Ovechkin, a superstar that many people enjoy watching (myself included), and the man chasing Gretzky's goal ironically enough, is a well-known Putin supporter. And it goes beyond political views. Multiple players in the NHL have also been alleged or charged with *literal* crimes. And many of them are still playing in the NHL. Of course, it wouldn't be a 'problematic hockey players' post if we didn't bring up Patrick Kane. Ah Kaner... where do I begin with him? I'll admit, Patrick Kane's a player I do genuinely enjoy watching even as a Blues fan. Even though Chicago wasn't my favorite team. The moment I saw him play during the 2020 All-Stars I grew rather fond of him. That fondness didn't last, as a year later the Kyle Beach stuff came out. Rumors that he likely knew about it all and did nothing. Some believe he was partaking in the bullying that Beach endured. We may never know; I highly doubt we'll ever get full closure on it. But one thing is for sure: his response to the investigation findings was very, very fucking disappointing. Then I learned of his other controversies. Not just the 2015 sexual assault allegations. I'm talking about the cab driver incident. His drunken bender in Madison. His immaturity during his early years. The fucking blackface. I stopped engaging with content involving him after that for a while. I was disgusted. I was angry. I did eventually start looking at Kane content again, but even now there's a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. I will give credit where credit is due: Kane's actually made an effort to improve his image. He's stopped drinking, spoke out during the 2020 BLM movement, and showed remorse for his poor response to the Beach situation. But that doesn't absolve him of everything. He's never addressed the blackface as far as I know. He still punched a cab driver and got arrested for that. And he still has that sexual assault allegation from 2015. While I know he was never charged for it, that shit's not something that goes away easily, even with attempts to improve as a person. He's most likely going to have to live with that for the rest of his career, maybe even his life. So yeah, as much as I love watching guys like Kaner and Oshie and Ovi... I'm sorry but I also have to admit it; they kinda fucking suck as humans lmfao. Which brings me to something I've noticed; a lot of peeps aren't so willing to admit that about their own favorites, as well as a bunch of people who can't seem to handle criticism of said favorites. Here's an ask I got a while back when I posted about Kaner's alcoholism and how fans shouldn't be glorifying it (And that post wasn't even an anti-kane post!)

And honestly, this one's probably more tame compared to the other things I've seen people say. This is the thing that frustrates me the most. And listen, I do get it. It's hard to believe that a guy you idolized is a piece of shit. Sometimes it's easier to force yourself to deny it. But here's the catch; it's not an excuse to lash out at others who have very valid criticism and harsh thoughts about these guys. It's not okay to bash others who have negative opinions about your favs. None of that is okay. And it is especially not fucking okay to defend or justify or downplay these guys' actions. It's easy to say "oh this player could never!" or "my player would never do this!". Which... WRONG. You don't know these people. You don't know if they 'would never'. Sadly, because hockey culture fucking sucks, they probably fucking would do that. They probably would say that slur. They probably would commit that crime. But then again, I don't know that either. Again, I'm a stranger on the internet talking. And regardless if they have or haven't been in a scandal, the harsh truth is, these guys aren't some innocent babies that can do no wrong and just don't know better. These aren't your friends or family. These are grown fucking adults that know exactly what they're fucking doing most of the time. These people don't know you. They don't need you whiteknighting them. It's time to stop treating these guys like innocent children because they aren't. And you're allowed to have your own limits (and those limits are different for everyone). You don't have to hate them or put up some disclaimer saying "HEY THIS GUY SUCKS". I can't convince you to do that. All I ask is that you quit fucking dickriding these guys and treating them like good people because you don't fucking know that! Like, it's okay to enjoy these guys' hockey while acknowledging that they did shitty things! That doesn't make you less of a fan! Criticism isn't the same thing as hatred, and that's something some of you need to realize. Criticizing your favorites is a GOOD THING. And likewise, people are allowed to have opinions. People are allowed to be uncomfortable with the players and teams you like. If you can't handle that, consider using the block button instead of going to their ask box and screaming about how you think their opinion is "wrong" or some shit.

The world's not going to end because someone doesn't like your problematic fav. I promise.

[mrsfrecklesmarauders]

James & Lily had their first time in a vulnerable moment. After months of James waiting for Lily to be ready, haunting for possible moments in which things could go to another level. But no, Lily was never ready. They weren't like other couples that were all over each other. And even if James dreamed of it, he respected that Lily needed her time.

When Lily finally felt she was ready, James wasn't expecting it to happen. It was Lily who took the initiative.

They had been chatting and James opened up about his feelings. How he felt he used to be a bad person and that brought consequences. How he felt guilty for having everything and not appreciating it before. How he felt his parents couldn't be proud of what he had become and that hurt him more than anything. His worries about his friends and the future. How the world was changing and he felt he had to do something to stop the bigotry, discrimination and hatred.

Then Lily felt something undescribable. A burning sensation inside her chest that it was about to explode any second. Lily understood that she didn't only fancy James. She was in love with him. Completely and foolishly in love.

So she kissed him, because words like: "I love you" weren't enough anymore. She kissed him until kisses weren't enough and she felt the desire to be closer to him. To melt in his arms and to become one.

That's when it happened.

Of course it was a bit awkward. It was full of "Are you sure?"s and "May I?"s because it was Lily's first time ever. Some parts were painful, others awkward but others beautiful. Because she trusted James and she was with the boy she loved.

After it they both understood that it had been worthy to wait because it was supposed to happen like this. And they were both over the moon.

Their friends only found out because they were so obvious that they couldn't stop smiling.

Both of them were idiots in love.

[kerubimcrepin]

LIVEREAD: WAKFU, THE GREAT WAVE [TOME 1, Chapters 1-3]

I want to preemptively say that I wasn't the biggest fan of The Great Wave, while reading it originally. It had less to do with the contents of the comic, and more with the pacing — it's written in a very... webtoon-unfriendly way. Every week I'd wait, and then not much would happen.

I am hoping it will be less exhausting to read this comic this time, but there just isn't a lot that happens in it. It's quite sad, really.

Now that I am done with the "hey, I am not the biggest fan of the way this was executed, at least in this tome" warning, I want to say that I actually really like the idea of a tragic story. Like fuck yesss. With all the amount of foreshadowing we got, we deserve to see how Yugo's good intentions are going to bring disaster.

I will be honest, the day this dropped I went to discord and everyone was screaming "THEY ADDED PORN TO WAKFU" and then when I was finally able to read the comic after someone finally pirated and sent it to me, I saw the world's shortest scene of intimacy between a married couple.

Normal world.

Anyway: STOP FUCKING WHILE WEARING THE WORLD-ENDING MAGICAL NUKES ON YOU.

Hey chat! This reminds me of a very poggers thing I had said a while before this manga realeased:

You have no fucking idea how bigly I won. And this isn't even the last win of mine in this manga. No, I just keep winning and winning. Please, Tot Ankama, I beg you through whatever psychic link we have: do this thing you did to Yugo to Joris too. He deserves it.

In the future, I will be liveblogging myself reading the entire tomes too; instead of making small posts, as the comic releases chapter by chapter.

One of the reasons why? I love writing this post, while knowing full-well that these are Grougalorasalar's words.

MAN, I predicted Grougalorasalar using emotionally manipulative language that's pretty much "you're a fraud, you're amoral, DIE" in nightmarish visions sent to people ages before this manga happened, in my fanfic. And I was so giddy — because I love the idea of 'Salar torturing people like that, and because it means I got something right without having too much data to back it up!

First Joris war criminal arc, then Salar emotional abuse via nightmare visions arc... How is my taste so similar to Tot's??

I think it's very funny for Salar to be moralizing now. My brother in crepinjurgening, you were trying to resurrect your lizard son by shattering his soul forever and bringing him unimaginable suffering so that you can go commit more war crimes together?

Then again, his war crimes had virtually no chance of ending the world. I suppose it's natural for a Black Fire dragon to understand the sort of danger Yugo presents — the fact that they may all end up the same way the Necro world is...

I guess his morals are as weird as Joris's (world ending = bad, war crimes = sometimes good if they do those themselves?). Similarities are only to be expected, since they influenced and changed one-another irrevocably.

this shuoild happen to joris too. pleask.

LITERALLY IT'S SO FUNNY. HE'S SEEN THIS SORTA SHIT HAPPEN AGAIN AND AGAIN AND IS STILL GOING DOWN THAT ROUTE. BRO? 😭

Somehow I really doubt that Grougalorasalar's involvement in this situation is going to improve it in any way.

"I am the black dragon Grougalorasalar and I am going to save the world" ok and flowers can sing, and the world is made of pudding. Get a grip.

[twirling my hair around my fingers, giggling cutely] A shadow you say? This reminds me of Dofus MMO lore :3

I've seen people be upset at there being bigotry towards Eliatropes, but really — this has been coming since season 2. You've seen what a shitshow the idea of another class appearing caused back then.

Maybe it's my "knowing too much about hupperage oppression lore" and "knowing just a little bit about ouginak oppression lore" bias kicking in, but I'm not surprised? Eh?

THEY MULTIPLIED?!

Guys I don't think they're happy.

Originally this made me giggle: "ohh, is Joris going to have to choose between Bonta and his friendship with Yugo, in the future tomes of this manga? I wonder what he will choose, tee-hee."

But ngl, considering the fact that Joris has already demonstrated choosing Yugo over Bonta in season 4, and has been implied to be at odds with the government of Bonta during some ages, and downright opposed in others — I think we know the answer.

Literally not how it would work in real life. Even if Aurora has the right to inherit the throne in some way, her father is completely unrelated to that. He shouldn't even be here — if Aurora has the right to inherit the throne, it means she was made a member of the Sheran-Sharm family, and is no longer a part of her original family, because— [STARTS FOAMING AT THE MOUTH FROM ANGER]

[socialistexan]

Very easy to spot bad faith actors.

Remember, folks, the term "zio" was popularized by David Duke, a man too racist and antisemitic even for the KKK. It's a straight up neo-nazi term. Full stop.

If you use or or defend it's use, then anyone and everyone, regardless of political affiliation, is allowed to completely dismiss you as both unserious and a threat who deserves no platform.

Either you're a grifter using a tragedy to spread bigotry or you're a useful idiot who couldn't spare a critical thought to save your fucking life.

[everything-transmasculine]

i think a lot of transmascs on this website need to confront their own victim complex. it's one thing to vent about our oppression, it's another to act as if we're uniquely persecuted in the trans community or being slighted by transfems. some guys are a little too eager to misinterpret things as being more invalidating than they are just to re-affirm their belief that they're especially hated, or their own insecurity. i want people to feel comfortable venting and discussing issues, but at the same time, i don't want to promote the idea that everyone on earth actively hates trans men and wants us to shut up and die.

i agree and disagree with this - partially because i come from a mindset of “if your circumstances suck, change them,” and partially because ive encountered so much bigotry in my own life. i completely pass, and have had one of the most stereotypical “optimal” transitions - but the idea that transmasculine people dont face unique hurdles is a false one, because even with all that, ive been on the receiving end of a ridiculous anount of anti-transmasculininity based bigotry.

i think theres a definite difference in the way that transmasculine people are treated, especially online, nowadays - as compared to the 2010s and before. and i think its important to discuss that what harms us, and hurts us - but i also dont want to further rhetoric that its transfeminine people vs transmasculine people. thats not true at all - we are all transgender, we are all affected by anti-trans bigotry. we need to all work together to protect our community against bad faith actors, discrimination, and violence. but we need to do that without “punching down/up” on “acceptable” targets. any person, whether cisgender or transgender, has the capability to be bigoted. being transgender doesnt exempt you from that, full stop.

as for the victimhood bias - i think people like feeling vindicated, rather than victimized. i dont think anyone likes being the target of discriminatory attacks, however, i think people (all people, cis or trans) like to feel reassured in their own viewpoint, psychologically speaking. its only natural that when you get large congregations of people who share a common trait (ie, transmasculinity) theres going to be confirmation bias when it comes to venting about oppression.

tldr; its a slippery slope, but i dont want this blog to become a pit of us vs them mentality - i want to focus on uplifting transmasculine voices, full stop.

[abster05]

The Reality War

The floodgates are open now so the next few posts are just going to be rants becasue I've exhausted my options of who to talk to about this IRL, so here we go.

Why the hell did the Doctor not care about the Rani dying? Like yeah they were on opposite sides but that never mattered when it comes to the master. And I know they have a whole other fucked up thing going on with them, but are we really expected to believe that he sees (allegedly) the only other living member of his species, who he also was friends with as a child and just has absolutely no reaction to her death whatsoever? Yeah I don't buy it. I don't buy a lot of the lore they brought in this episode. Like I don't understand if the whole "Time lords are infertile" was just becasue of the Master's blowing up of Gallifrey or if it was supposed to include the Lungbarrow thing with looms and Susan being the last biological born Gallifreyan child? (Forgive me if it's wrong, I have only been able to read extracts because the PDF is hard to source) It just wasn't clear. Again, where the hell was Susan??? If the show goes on hiatus/is cancelled and they fucked what might (hopefully not) the last chance to see her played by Carole Ann Ford I will actually storm the BBC.

Also, Omega's return and defeat 5 minutes later (a generous 5 minutes) actually felt insulting. Like he is such a big deal and they just...wasted him? As well as fucking up the lore for no good reason. Like what actual purpose was served by them saying that he was a mad god who was banished rather than a hero to the, Time Lords who went mad as a result of being stuck alone in a universe of antimatter-the price to pay for giving the Time Lords time travel technology? There wasn't one. Because they did nothing with his chracter. Yeah it explains why he was a big CGI monster. Which they didn't need to do. None of it needed doing. They should have either had the Rani or or Omega as the finale villain. There wasn't enough time for them to do both. Correction, they could ahve gotten away with it if we didn't spend half the episode using Belinda's character to show women how we do really want children if we stop and think about it, and that if we don't then we'll change our minds when we get one and we won't remeber why we didn't in the first place.

After 30 or so years the Rani comes back and they do her SO bad. Like why is she lowkey flirting with Conrad (she said 10 minutes ago that she sees humans as insects, let's be so fr rn) and the Doctor? I had to turn to my family and friends SO fast to clear up the "lovers" comment. Like let's not please. She was a brilliant scientist, and we barely see any proof of it. No she's just evil and insane. Like I think they describe her as ammoral in this episode but she just wasn't? Like to me she just felt evil rather than ammoral. Like her not caring about the opression in Wish World because it doesn't affect her experiments? Fine. But some of the other stuff just felt like a female version of the insane villain we got in the Simm incarnation of the Master. And then she get sliterally eaten. By a fucking CGI skeleton Omega. Sure man.

Let's not forget that it's the South Asian incarnation of the Rani who gets eaten while the older (white regeneration) is the one who survives. Not hating om the actress at all, just on RTD showing of more racism and misogyny in a finale full of it.

It's crazy how in an episode seemingly dedicated to showing why racism, sexism and homophobia and ablism is bad, actually included some examples of all of those things either from the characters or the writers.

What the fuck happened to this show? Genuinely? TV can shape attitudes, especially if you're young and that's what happened to me watching this show (among others) Like of course it was never perfect (ie. Martha's treatment) but to me as a kid it at least got across that bigotry and violence are bad and are never the answer. Like I recognised pretty young some of the problems with Season 3 and more as I got older. And where has that show gone? Everyone says it's gone woke but that finale felt like the opposite. And it's really fucking sad.

[bizlybebo]

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