#but THIS is like the equivalent of racing someone you used to argue about on reddit every day. you know what i'm saying

[posting-for-the-void]

So a lot of twins claim to have a sort of twintuition thing where they understand each other easily and often without words, and sometimes have high-level empathetic reactions to things that are happening to the other twin, even if they don’t know what’s happening to the other twin because they are in different locations at the time. There’s obviously not a lot of scientific evidence to back it up, but, eh. It’s a cool concept.

But what if, for the Skywalker twins, the force just ramped that up to 100.

Fic-ish thing below the cut.

Five-year-old Luke is learning the Tatooine slave language. After all, Aunt Beru used to be Beru Whitesun, before she married Uncle Owen, and his mom was Grandma Shmi, who used to be a Skywalker before she married Uncle Owen’s dad. Beru helps the recently-escaped hide in the secret compartment in the wall of their house more often than Owen does, but he claims it’s for plausible deniability, whatever that means. Leia, on Alderaan, begins mixing the harsh, clicking language with Basic subconsciously, but only when talking to herself in private. After all, she is a princess, and they must choose their words carefully in front of others.

Leia at age ten argues with her cousin about whether droids deserve respect, and across the galaxy, Luke is absolutely overcome with the need to thank every single droid he’s ever met for helping him with anything (he did this anyways before but for some reason he has to do it again Right Now).

Luke gets to drive a speeder by himself for the first time at 13 and Leia is practically begging for someone to take her out in a hovercar and go as fast as possible. And if that can’t happen she’s going to get the space equivalent of a Formula One racing sim, goddamnit.

Seventeen-year-old Junior Senator Leia’s heart skips a beat every time someone mentions Tatooine. She isn’t sure why. Obi-Wan lives there, yes, but something in her just knows that isn’t the real reason. Luke, meanwhile, yearns to see the galaxy, and often finds himself outside at night, staring at the sky. His eyes, for as long as he can remember, have always felt drawn towards a specific star. He asked Uncle Owen about it once when he was younger, and he gruffly explained that it was the Alderaan system. He feels like there’s something there, waiting for him. He’s not sure why.

And then they meet in person, and it’s “You’re a little short for a Stormtroope—Luke?”

“Leia?”

“Do I know you?”

“I don’t think so. Can I hug you?”

“Of course, you idiot. You’re my twin brother. You don’t even have to ask.”

“Thanks, Leia. You know, I had the weirdest dreams when I was ten about you and Old Ben.”

“Oh, yeah, that was actually real. I got kidnapped.”

“Cool.”

“Is it true you got nicknamed ‘Wormie’ by your friends?”

“…Yeah.”

And Han is so confused, but it’s fine, and within two hours their conversations are more like, “Hey, Leia, could you pass me the—“

“Yeah, do want the green one or the—“

“No, the blue one, probably. I need it to—“

“Oh, yeah, of course, that makes sense.”

And then Yoda tries to do the whole “Attached, you are,” routine, and Luke is like, “Well, duh. I’m only here so I can teach Leia everything I learn as soon as I get back. I’m just a pilot, which is a lot more replaceable than a princess, so we thought it would be best if I come learn from you instead of her.”

And meanwhile Leia is a lot stronger in the force now, and she meets Vader again and just goes, “Darth Dad, what the actual fuck,” under her breath in the Tatooine slave language, and the hint of Anakin that’s left absolutely freezes. Because Palpatine—Sideous—whatever, he said his kid was dead. He said that Padme died and the kid did too. He lied. And, when he meets Luke later, and he says the same Sithspitting thing, Anakin gets so thrown he accidentally cuts the kid’s hand off. Luke falls, and the shock of it in the force is so strong, and Anakin’s eyes flash blue in grief and love and hope, all at once, and all of the sudden he can think clearly for the first time in years. And his kids’—his kids!—bond in the force is so strong, how did he not notice it before?

And, anyways, I just feel like Skywalker Twintuition would be on a completely other and incomprehensible level.

[batsplat]

By that time Marcos Hirsch, Jorge's physical trainer, had also become an important figure in the young racer's life and they built up a particularly strong professional and personal relationship. Together, Dani and Marcos formed Jorge's strongest pillars of support during the worst of the conflict, but there had been happier times in the gym for both Lorenzos with Marcos. In fact, one of Jorge's more amusing anecdotes comes from those days: 'My dad used to say that Rossi was a clown. He said he was a great rider but that he always had the best bike and that was why he won. So when Rossi moved to Yamaha he said, "Pah! He's not even going to finish in the top six. There are too many factory Hondas and the Yamaha is nowhere near as good." Marcos and I said that Rossi would win races. Not only that, but that he would finish in the top three in the championship. So we made a bet. My dad had just come back from Thailand and he'd bought this ridiculous Thai hat, with little balls dangling from it on strings. We said that if Valentino finished in the top three at the end of the season, he'd have to wear the hat for a whole week. Of course, Valentino won the title and my dad turned up at the gym wearing the hat. He looked so stupid that we felt sorry for him and after a couple of days we told him he could take it off.'

Riveras Tobia's Jorge Lorenzo: My Story So Far

[spell-cleaver]

One thing I've always wondered is how Vader didn't sense either Luke (or Leia's for that matter) force presence on the first death star. I guess he was super caught up in with the whole "I sense the old coot who cut off my limbs amd left me to burn" thing, but I like to think obi-wan was masking the pair by just being obnoxiously loud with the force (the force equivalent of him walking into a room with multiple air horns and a boom box blasting away)

Wow, I had THOUGHTS about this one.

Honestly? I'm not a fan of the assumption in a lot of fic and by fans that it's super easy to passively sense someone in the Force. I have used it myself, of course, but I say from experience it restricts writing a lot while... not actually having a ton of backing in the films? (I'm referring to the films here, not to any other media, just because when I want to analyse lore, I only take them as canon; when I'm just looking for cool worldbuilding for a fic, though, anything goes.)

It's not just Leia that Vader doesn't sense on the Death Star. He doesn't sense Luke either, even though Luke is right there screaming when Vader kills Obi-Wan. It's more of an issue with Leia ofc because he literally used the mind probe on her but only finds that "her resistance... is considerable". An easy answer is that I headcanon Leia is a naturally good shielder, which is why she was never found on the Death Star and also why all of the Jedi in ROTS were surprised there were two babies - Leia had been naturally shielding herself, so they just sensed Luke.

But if we go more in-depth into the films' representations of the Force, Vader only senses Luke when he's actively chasing him as a pilot; he comments that "The Force is strong with this one" only when Luke is using the Force to aim and fire his shot. For me, this implies that you can only sense other Force users powerfully or distinctly when they're actively using the Force. I know why fic prefers not to go that way - I for one have used the "Vader senses Luke immediately" plot to get Luke captured many a time - but it's a fun thing to consider. Also, the Force is a soft magic system. It does functionally whatever the story needs it to.* Which is why Vader can sense Luke approaching Endor in ROTJ when Palpatine couldn't, but he had to be told by an officer when Luke's ship was approaching Cloud City in ESB.** There are many examples where a Force user just didn't sense someone else. Luke not sensing Yoda in ESB, Obi-Wan not sensing Dooku's presence on Geonosis, the Jedi non sensing Maul in TPM, the Jedi not sensing Palpatine for the whole prequel trilogy.

You could argue that those examples are of trained Force wielders shielding themselves, but I would argue that Qui-Gon can't sense Anakin in TPM. He doesn't show interest in Anakin until after they've left Watto's shop and Anakin starts talking to him. Anakin is the literal son of the Force and the most powerful Force wielder ever, but Qui-Gon was talking to Watto for a while without batting an eyelash at the small supernova in his shop. He didn't start to suspect until he heard about his racing, his instincts, spoke to him to notice his insights. Then still he spoke to Shmi about him to confirm his suspicions that "he can see things before they happen", watched him while he flew, and took a midichlorian count. I think the Force might well have been nudging Qui-Gon to look at Anakin, to suspect something, but I don't think he sensed Anakin himself as Force sensitive - at least, not immediately. Which is how I think you can explain all the instances of people going "I felt his presence." They were either using the Force, or familiar as Force sensitives to the person sensing them, or the Force wielder in general had an instinct that there was something special about this person, I should pay attention...

This has been a long ramble, but the short answer is: I headcanon Leia as naturally good at shielding. I think it fills multiple Star Wars plot holes.***

But I think it's also worth interrogating the fact that fandom seems to approach and conceptualise of the Force as a hard magic system, with clearly defined rules, rather than the soft magic system it is.**** Anything goes in Star Wars! It can be annoying if the writing doesn't sell it well enough, but I really love that aspect of the worldbuilding. And considering that the Force is a big fat plot device as well as giving people magical instincts for things that are Plot Relevant and things that aren't, I think it's a lot more interesting to consider that the Force isn't a superpower that lets you sense everything. Vader didn't detect Leia simply because he didn't. Sometimes they fail to do that. And it allows you to show growth in character and situation when that fact changes. Vader doesn't sense Luke in ANH until he's Plot Relevant to Vader's personal story. He doesn't sense Luke until he's fighting him in ESB. But in ROTJ, once they're both invested in their relationship and fated to meet, they're drawn together like stars caught in a mutual orbit.

That's the explanation I prefer. Because although it's less consistent, it's not unbelievable. It leaves uncertainty, mysticism, the chance for exploration in the galaxy. And most importantly, it tells a damn good story. Which, while this may not be true of people who love collecting lore and figuring the galaxy out, is ultimately what I'm here for.

*This is why so many random new powers can get added and explored in later movies and such, and also why I don't really get het up about it when they do add them. It just depends how you incorporate that new power. Usually, if a villain suddenly has a new power no one knew about (like Palpatine's lightning in ROTJ) it just ups the stakes, while if a hero suddenly has a new power it can feel like it cheapens their victory, like they haven't earned it; a deus ex machina. So messing about with Force powers is fine, it just depends how you incorporate them in the story.

**Admittedly this can be explained by the bond being formed when Luke learned the truth, but you know what I mean.

***I was only talking about the movies here, but there's also that moment in the Kenobi series where she's captured by Inquisitors and still no one notices she's Force sensitive??? There's just a lot of moments like this littered all over Star Wars, so this headcanon covers a lot of them.

****I kept using the terms hard/soft magic system without really explaining it here, but here's some good videos to dig into it: Soft Magic Systems | Hard Magic Systems

[animentality]

It's weird how the Franc Peartree letter being altered has just caused some people to suddenly come out with the most godawful takes. I don't like that the letters were changed but it still feels like such a small change to have caused such a sudden divide in the gortash part of the fandom

Earlier I saw a post from one of the handful of people who were more supportive of the letter change(I think they may have even been one of the people you blocked) claim that default dark urge x gortash felt weird or wrong to them. They said it was because default dark urge is a dragonborn. And they compared dragonborn x human romances to beastiality. And it was a post replying to an ask that was from someone also arguing that, so there's at least two people who think that.

And I just had to stop for a moment after reading that because of how utterly confusing and insane that felt. Like, dragonborn are a humanoid race and are fully capable of communicating so it would definitely not be beastiality in any way

Sorry if I got a bit ranty there, especially since you're trying to distance yourself from bg3 discourse stuff for now. I just really felt the need to just at least mention it to someone because I'm just so dumbfounded by it and I guess just like, feel the need to check to see if this is just as much of a wtf kind of take to others as it is to me

you can tell they don't play DND.

people have been trying to fuck dragons and monsters since 1977.

where's that fucking Tumblr post about how if a creature is intelligent enough to consent, then it's not bestiality?

in a fantasy setting, yeah, as long as they're smart and talking and able to say yes or no and consent or not consent, and aren't being compromised by other forces, then no it's not bestiality in the way we understand it.

also there's no real world equivalent.

wanting to fuck a werewolf doesn't mean you're fucking chihuahuas in real life.

those people are just mad cuz they have bad taste and don't like durgetash.

nothing we can do about that, anon.

you're born with bad taste, you die with it too.

I was blessed with superior intellect and advanced taste, and since you clearly were too, I would advise neither of us be involved with that subspecies of Tumblr.

we have far more important things to discuss.

[transingthoseformers]

Hmm. So.

How the fuck did they manage to create the RotF sparklings without the Allspark shards?

So, let's think of our options. Sexual reproduction, (which Hasbro continuously denounces), cloning (oooh! I get to talk about the different kinds of cloning!), budding in a way, protoforms that were stashed away on the Fallen's ship in stasis, maybe a previously unknown form of asexual reproduction!

Now, logically speaking, we know that sexual interfacing is probably not canon. Probably, perhaps. Bayverse is the continuity that makes the second most amount of implicating jokes. The first being Jro's work naturally. Anyways. We're temporarily going to forget about Occam's razor. Yes, sadly in bayverse Cybertronians experiencing sexual attraction is canon thanks to you wheelie you little heterochromic shit. But little known fact sexual attraction doesn't mean sexual reproduction, as demonstrated by the lesbian lizards. For all we know, Wheelie could've been ah getting off purely on the psychological aspect alone.

So, there are multiple forms of cloning actually. There's the typical cloning you might be thinking of, which is essentially mitosis but complex lifeforms. Well, errors can occur which allows unicellular organisms to mutate a little bit as a treat and mutation means adapting and evolution. Perhaps the terms eggs and hatchlings is a bit of a misnomer in this case?

There's reproductive cloning, where the genetic material of one creature's somatic cells (body cells) are put into the egg cell of another creature, that zygote is transplanted into a surrogate animal where it's gestated like average, and bing bam boom when it's born there's an almost perfect copy of the original! And, this method means the resulting clone technically has three parents! Though, some catches do occur here. All three individuals involved kinda have to be female, it needs cells, and well gametes have to be involved which are a major part of sexual reproduction. That's why you'll see it in species that used to reproduce sexually, or species that use asexual and sexual reproduction.

There's genetic cloning, which we have precedent for in canon considering Shockwave's predacons,, bayverse's introduction of Galvatron, the majority of the protoform stuff, and tbh tbh the scanning of altmodes in a way. The most popular example of such would be you guessed it Jurassic park, which as someone who plans to major in biology is Highly inaccurate to how cloning, DNA, and dinosaurs work. Less well known. This is how viruses work. The problems we run into is our favorite paradox, which came first the chicken or the egg. "Where did the first set of genes come from???" Exactly. You could argue that Cybertronians are technically derived from an altered genome of a species that sexually reproduced that Quintessa found, artificially creating a biologically asexual race. The catches? It's damn hard to do this kind of reproduction without a container for said genetic material. We see this with the human scientists using Megayron's CNA as a building guideline, and with the protoforms. Iicr, in bayverse we see that the autobots were essentially visually the same before scanning altmodes. This may very well be are most canonically compliant answer right here actually. But... again, this does not explain them being called eggs and doesn't explain where protoforms come from at all. You could say "But Riot, the protoforms are made of Senti Metallico (however you spell that lol) " and my answer is what technically is that and where does that come from? The movies also refer to it as Cybertronium which??? Is considered an element but it's clearly somewhat alive but anyways we get no answers.

Unknown form of asexual reproduction is goddamn unknown, making this category purely speculative. Perhaps as I've mentioned the terms eggs and hatchlings, and are glyphs that didn't have an Earth equivalent so the translators chose the next best options. Maybe cyberforming material is on its own self replicating, which raises questions of its own. Mayve it's extradimensional supernatural bullshit which i don't like this answer as it's equivalent to "suspend your disbelief' wHich I don't like i like answers.

[unidentifiedfuckingthing]

recent discussions of zionism have been making me think a lot about the way your worldview is influenced by the information youre given. like, obvious. but i think it would be fair to say that most people who hold heinous views do because they think it's a moral necessity. like, the average white racist is participating in a hundreds-of-years self-sustaining dialogue of heavily doctored or completely falsified knowledge out of which beliefs about a lack of humanity or a fundamental danger of other races is a rational and morally important belief. the average sexual conservative does believe gender deviancy and sexual freedom pose a danger to their children. theyre told this and given believable examples. i think the majority genuinely do believe this and aren't just using it as an excuse when challenged. likewise the average liberal zionist isn't just mindlessly bloodthirsty, there's a narrative of both facts and doctored information that informs their understanding of events, and within that narrative they're behaving completely rationally. the problem with trying to bridge the gap between less-true narratives and more-true narratives is that a major challenge to a person's fundamental worldview is invariably going to be rejected especially concerning one's own safety or the safety of the vulnerable. if you were trying to argue with someone and said, like, "joe biden literally was never president of the united states." "the sky was red last week." it would be completely reasonable for them to be like, wow you're a nut who is so divorced from reality theres no point in ever talking to you. or i guess a more equivalent statement would be, like, "actually people love to be raped." like, that's the exact same level of real & rational.

& as far as i can see the cure to this is materialism, right? for anyone whose beliefs are based in any kind of internal logic the bridge is naturally to prove the value of whether things have been proven to be true, by who, how reliably. i think most people have an approximate instinct to this effect, tempered by an understanding of systemic bias, and thats why people will categorically believe something said on fox news but not by a dancing young adult on tiktok, or vice versa. people need to understand the relationship between provable facts and things that happen, and how to keep confidence scores on different narratives and what biases might inform different narratives. all of those were things i "was taught" in school, but being told to trust the facts from conservative or liberal authorities who are evidently also selective in their narratives comes across more as gaslighting than the natural pursuit of truth; i feel confident saying this is probably true for anyone with any kind of view whatsoever,0 which is the main reason i don't feel at all confident in the idea of like "reeducation camp" type politic. i think in terms of highly selective narratives trying to split the difference between trusted authorities (trusted to fundamentally understand the same truths as you) and someone who is able & interested in introducing a radically new narrative would be really fucking difficult and necessarily really individualized, so barring that i don't really think it's a possible pursuit using institutional power. i think organic & large scale interest in a nuanced & true narrative, an interest in & education on how to convince other people to come to nuanced conclusions, and a system in which the rational thing is to be kind, is the only realistic way to make people in aggregate want to stop holding shitty views. like, you can make it more costly to be shitty, and that way it doesnt matter what they actually want, and historically that has worked. but also like, past a pretty modest threshold, just makes people even more resistant to changing their minds.

anyway i feel like any discussion about, like, "what to do with all the racists and misogynists and rapists after the revolution" or "whether someone being racist is bad or fine if its only when theyre in psychosis" or whatever that comes to any conclusion other than this either just sucks or is kicking the can down the road

[faustocosgrove]

naruto blogger reads another book about ninjas, more at 11

it should come as no surprize to y’all that I, someone who still reblogs naruto posts in the year 2023, picked up John Man’s Ninja: 1000 years of the shadow warrior.

and of course, as a naruto fan i was also comparing the actual history of ninjas in Japan to the naruto series. for example, the real Sarutobi Sasuke versus the characters Sasuke and Sarutobi Hiruzen, the historical Hanzo Hitori and the Hanzo and Danzo in the series. the political formation of the naruto ninja villages versus the historical pressures that made ninjas. and the more i read the more i lost what little respect i had left for the naruto series.

In the book, the author has one hilarious paragraph mentioning the naruto series. here it is:

“No account of modern ninja literature can omit Naruto, the multivolume manga series by Masashi Kishimoto. This is pure fantasy, with no pretense of any historical roots, and phenomenally successful, easily the best-selling manga of all time, with almost 60 volumes -113 million copies- sold in Japan. The anime versions (220 episodes in Japan, 209 in English) and video games and novels and card games and on and on and on have all had equivalent success.”

that’s it. it’s got nothing to do with historical ninjas and is very popular.

and on one hand i kinda wonder how much of naruto the author read, but on the other it’s pretty funny that a manga that spends 700 chapters butchering the interesting parts of the history of ninjas while trying to make random characters look cool by giving them names and other references to the historical ninjas got called “no pretense of any historical roots” to actual ninja history.

what’s even funnier is that Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles got 3 paragraphs with a plot summary pointing out where the plot was drawing from actual ninja history. Naruto didn’t get a plot summary because there’s nothing in the plot that reflects actual ninja history. The discrepancy that sticks out the most to me is the very brief history we got in Naruto of the change from there being no ninjas to there being ninjas. in naruto, the change is a magic alien man god who bestowed upon the human race his DNA (don’t argue with me about kaguya, she had two kids and one populated earth and the other the moon.)

But the real actual historical ninjas formed from when feudal lords were waging war against each other and the peasants whose land they were fucking up with their war and the samurai employed by the two lords all got together and said this nonsense has to stop. and then they worked together to stop it, usually by assasinating one of the feudal lords. let that sink in. marinade in your brain. soldiers from both sides of a war put their differences aside and worked together to kill one of their commanders because that would stop the war the fastest.

that is just so fucking cool. and kishi replaced it with an alien and his magic sperm. i hate that so much that i want to vomit. he didn’t have to do that. he could have written that chakra was a thing already that samurai used and animals! because animals use chakra in the naruto universe. so alien god daddy must also have used his sperm to bless cats and dogs and snakes and toads and slugs and fuck if i can remember all the species of animals that can also do ninjutsu off the top of my head. like he could of just had the same actual history of ninjas but do it with chakra. like let normal people be able to use chakra too but only ninjas are able to do cool shit with it because they’ve been trained by their super secret ninja village. like boom there you go. problem solved. like you don’t even have to get rid of the magic space aliens so long as the thing that gives ninjas value isn’t how much sperm they got from the magic alien god daddy.

mild tangent warning.

like years ago i remember reading an article about Harry Potter and how a parents group criticized the books for the whole magic is a thing you’re either born with or not instead of magic is a thing anyone can use so long as you study it and work hard. because one narrative encourages children to apply themselves and the other teaches that some people are naturally superior to others because of their DNA and how that sounds a lot like something hitler would have given two big ole thumbs up to.

but i digress. anyway the whole DNA superiority thing is almost interesting in one regard in naruto because literally everyone is obsessed with sasuke or the uchiha clan in general. because of the sharingan which requires magic uchiha DNA to exist. and it’s been noted by smarter naruto fans than me that naruto and sasuke are stand ins for kishi and his twin brother. so he wrote a character based on his twin brother and made him genetically superior to his own stand in. when they’re literally twins. light googling, identical twins. they have the same DNA. like what can possibly be going on in ones mind when they feel inferior to their identical twin sibling and express this inferiority complex through art that results in genetic superiority. this is the whole reason i’m still into naruto. i enjoy studying kishi. he’s a weird guy.

…this is turning into more of a naruto critique than a book review. oopsies.

anyway, this book took a really interesting turn by arguing that the Nanako Spy School that was operating in Japan during the second world war was a ninja school. and then i learned a whole bunch of things about Japanese world war two history that’s actually cool as fuck. it talks about Onoda Hiroo, the guy who lived in the jungle in the Philippines for 30 years, who was a student of the Nanako Spy School. like everything about the Nanako Spy School is just so fucking cool. the central japanese government fucked up everything they achieved, but considering japan was allied with germany we can all thank god that they did fuck up as bad as they did.

warning: whiplash inducing tone shift ahead

it’s also worth noting that i checked this book out in *checks notes* May????? and i literally finished it today. i was having such a good time reading this book that when i felt the action ramping down i put it down and just never picked it back up because i didn’t want the fun to end. turns out i had exactly 2 pages and 5 lines left to read. what i thought was more to read was the bibliography. i am such an idiot.

[cjsmalley]

Clark Tells A Secret:

“This’s a lot to take in, Smallville,” Lois said, “but why now? Why tell me now?”

Clark grinned, he beamed, “Because, oh, it’s wonderful, terrible news. So, one of the League’s allies is the Ghost King—”

“The Ghost what?!”

“He’s friendly, don’t worry. Anyways, one of his advisors is another ghost in charge of time and dimensions. That ghost—Clockwork—found a dimension like this one—like ours.”

“Okay, so this other dimension…?” Lois nodded.

The light left Clark a little, “I—I’m the last of my race here, Lois. I was raised by humans. You’ve met my parents but I was…sent away from my planet as it imploded, like Moses. And Clockwork says that’s the basic story for every version of me. So I don’t—I don’t understand how—”

“Clark, honey, take a breath,” Lois instructed, “take a breath, calm down, and tell me what happened.”

He did as told before continuing, “That Lex cloned that Superman—one success, a—what’s called a half-clone. Basically, an aged-up test tube baby. The boy’s half human, half Luthor.”

“That isn’t the kid’s fault,” Lois argued, “so what’s—”

Clark smiled softly, explaining, “His matching Superman wants him destroyed—I don’t understand how or why. But I agreed to take him. Superboy. Codename Superboy, because he doesn’t have a human name yet. Or a Kryptonian one.”

“You—you have a kid now,” Lois realized, “you told me because you might need me to cover for you now. You have a son.”

“I also told you because I have a favor to ask,” Clark became shy then, “I’m trying to set him up for success, you know?”

“Where’s he now?” Lois questioned sharply.

“Oh, in another Paris,” came the easy answer, “with a team of magic superheroes, Superman’s almost always vulnerable to magic. We don’t exist there anyways. Equivalents, but not us us. The United HeroeZ, that’s their League, know the situation and promised to help the Parisian heroes if other-Superman shows up.”

“Okay, so he’s safe,” Lois nodded, satisfied, “and I bet you’ve already told Bruce about the kid.”

“Lois.”

“I’m a reporter, Kent,” she said teasingly but also seriously, “and I once dated him. I know who he moonlights as. I also know he knows I know.”

Clark rubbed the back of his neck, chuckling, “Of course you do, Miss Lane. Yes. I told him. Superboy already has a trust fund to take care of all his needs, a room in the Manor just in case, and he’ll be in any school he wants. Bruce’s one of his godfathers.”

“One of them?”

“The Ghost King, Danny, also has a half-clone, Danielle. He’s agreed to be Superboy’s other godfather. If anything happens to us all, he takes whoever survives into his dimension and sets them up with new lives. He’s agreed to take Bruce’s kids and Roy Harper’s daughter too. My parents. You, if you want. You can all be evacuated.”

“Clark.”

“Lois. You’re important to me.”

She let that hang and instead said, “There’s another clone?”

“Yes,” he let her change the subject, “Princess Danielle Phantom, Crown Princess of the Infinite Realms. Her genetic donors are the King, Danny, and his almost fully human wife, Queen Samantha Phantom. Apparently, enough ectoplasm exposure can cause mutations almost like a metagene activation. Danny’s personal Lex Luthor—another ghost named Plasmius—made Danielle by accident. He wanted a perfect clone. Not a girl-clone.”

Lois nodded, “But the King and Queen accepted her.”

“That they did. They were just kids, Lois, but they took her in as their daughter.”

“Did they offer to take Superboy?”

Clark paused, “Listen, Lois. They’re not bad people.”

“Okay…”

“But they have a lot of kids because people’ve sold their kids’ souls, some on purpose, some by accident. They treat every Wished Away kid like their own. Superboy’s actually with one of their oldest right now, he and his friends protect Paris.”

“Okay, so they offered something for Superboy’s soul?”

“Once they have someone’s soul, they legally own them,” Clark explained further, “by Laws older than most civilizations. Ancient Laws. They treat it like adoption. So, Danny said that if I couldn’t take Superboy, he’d try tricking the other Superman into selling the boy’s soul.”

Again Lois nodded, “So they’d have some legal claim on him, in their…kingdom?”

“Realms. They rule the places between dimensions, Lois, it also acts as Purgatory, basically. If someone becomes a ghost that’s ‘home’ until they Move On.”

Lois’s nodded again, absorbing and acclimating this new information into her worldview. Aliens and magic and now some form of an afterlife.

“You said you had a favor to ask?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah. I was wondering if you’d be his godmother? You’d only be one of them; Sam, the Queen, agreed to be his other godmother.”

“Yes.”

Danny Phantom adopts more kids than Bruce Wayne

I’ve seen a lot of fics going around about how Danny will get summoned as the Ghost King via cultist and dpxdc fics going around and I had an idea.

So Danny (ages 14-16 ish depending) gets summoned a lot, and in those summoning’s there is usually a sacrifice. Normally, if the sacrifices are kidnapped adults and the like Danny beats up the cultist and just lets the sacrifices go.

But what happens when the sacrifices are younger?

A literal child gets offered up, a soul contract binding them to Danny (probably as a slave or food or whatever, I just think like John Constantine’s contracts but without the con). Danny still beats up the cultist but now he has a kid with a soul contract that he can’t break without severe backlash happening to the kid and there already pretty hurt form the cultist.

Panicking and worried about the kid, Danny seals the contract but with some adjustments, so now for all intent and purposes he now has a kid. 

Danny takes the kid back to the Far Frozen for Frostbite to heal, constantly sending calming emotions to his new kid while panic texting Sam and Tucker they had a kid now and spamming Jazz with questions on how to parent.

Many freak-outs and logistic family meetings later and they’ve worked out a relatively (more like half-way) decent plan for parenting. The kid is very happy with the new and loving parents and auntie and things calm down as much as things can with three liminal teenagers, a half-dead one, and a elementary schooler can between parenting, going to school, ghost king duties, and hiding all of this from Jack and Maddie. 

Danny cries the first time the tot called him Dad. Sam and Tucker record this for blackmail. Danny gets even when Sam and Tucker breakout the waterworks when they get called Mom and Pops.

And then a few months later another summoning happens, this time with a 17 year old. They get adopted.

Five months after that, another summoning, this time with two 12 year old’s. They get adopted.

Thirteen months after that, another summoning. The kids 15. Adopted.

Two months after that, summoning and there’s three of them. All adopted.

By the time Danny, Sam, and Tucker are about to hit college age they have thirteen kids give or take.  All of them call the Trio Dad, Mom, and Pops. Doesn’t matter if some of the kids are older. Team Phantom are the best parents most of them have ever had. Age is blatantly ignored in most situations. Dani is considered the oldest. The first adopted kid is considered the second oldest, etc.

Danny’s castle in the Infinite Realms has a room for all of this kids and portals going out into different dimensions depending on where the summoning happened. The Trio didn’t want to completely uproot any of their kids lives so they make sure all of the kids have the right records, access to schooling, etc. 

Cue two of the kids (maybe three if you want John Constantine drunkenly auctioning off his at the time non-existent first born, accidents happen, the whole hodgepodge family has a understanding to punch Constantine on sight if they ever see him on their siblings/sons behalf) being from the DC universe.

Older of the two goes to Gotham U (I think studying communications, politics, philosophy etc to be able to help Danny with his Ghost Kind Duties) and the younger getting a scholarship to the fancy rich kid school Damian attends. 

Danny’s kids are about as liminal as they can get between the adoption contract, all of the ectoplasm exposure, and the kids all living in the Infinite Realms the majority of the time. Damian and the younger get along like a house on fire be cause they have similar interest based on life. I think the older sibling somehow befriends Tim Drake, Tim possible develops a crush.

Batman is very paranoid about the two possibly metas around his kids

[jerseydeanne]

SARAH VINE: Are you really telling me burly swimmer Lia Thomas who set a new record for the 200-yard freestyle race is playing fair?

On Friday night, Lia Thomas, a transgender woman athlete, set a record for the 200-yard freestyle race in the Ivy League university swimming championships in the US, beating her closest opponent by half a pool length.

Her win was widely praised as a victory for women’s sport as Thomas, who until 2019 was competing – with notably less success – in the male category, took to the podium to claim her prize.

Alongside her, somewhat dwarfed by her broad shoulders and imposing stature, her defeated opponents smiled and applauded in the approved manner, as though the entire thing were completely normal.

No mention of the fact that they had just been bested by someone with an inherent set of physical advantages: muscle mass, speed, size.

No acknowledgement of the fact that, in reality, they never stood a chance against someone such as Thomas.

Just smile and nod and take it on the chin, girls, and don’t you dare complain. And frankly, who can blame them?

In the current climate of terror created by extreme trans activism, what choice do they have? What choice, for that matter, does any of us have?

It seems we have finally passed through the looking glass.

Forget believing six impossible things before breakfast, as the White Queen said to Alice; nowadays we must believe whatever nonsense the woke supremacists want us to believe, no matter how scientifically inaccurate or, for that matter, unfair it may be. Or else suffer the consequences.

In the context of trans ideology, this means total and complete acceptance of anyone who self-defines as female, regardless of the impact upon other females around them. Biological sex doesn’t exist, and anyone who dares to question the wisdom of, say, placing vulnerable women in hospitals or prisons alongside individuals who were born males, risks obliteration.

Doesn’t matter how calmly or rationally they argue their case (JK Rowling being the most obvious, but there are countless more), it’s sentence first, verdict after, off with their heads, and so on.

To be branded a transphobe is the equivalent of being called a Communist in McCarthy-era America: the end of everything. Unless we all agree that two plus two equals five, we risk being cast into the outer darkness.

And the truth is, it’s working. Like those girls standing next to Thomas on the podium, people are starting to accept this new reality for the simple fact that they haven’t the strength or the fight to challenge it.

They’re scared, and rightly so. They just want to protect their jobs and their reputations, and they don’t want to have the black mark of the TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist) placed upon them.

It’s how radical ideology has always worked. Frighten people out of their wits, threaten their livelihoods and their reputations, and eventually they will agree to anything. Even the impossible.

But I am not easily bullied, and I refuse to parrot the lie.

The truth in this case is that Lia Thomas, while emotionally and psychologically a woman, still retains much of the physical attributes she acquired as a man. And as such, she should not be competing against other women who do not possess her inherent advantages.

It’s the equivalent of pitting an eight-year-old against a fully grown adult. It’s not a question of transphobia. Absolutely no one in their right mind, certainly not me, cares about that. It’s about honesty, fairness and maintaining a level playing field.

That is why, in all sporting disciplines, there are such hard and fast rules around doping. Performance-enhancing substances give competitors an unfair advantage, from increasing concentration to optimising anaerobic respiration.

And there are few more powerful performance-enhancing hormones in nature than testosterone. A substance that males possess in abundance; and that women, on the whole, do not.

To my mind, it’s as simple as that. If we allow trans women who have gone through male puberty equivalence in women’s sport, we are effectively condoning doping – and making a mockery not only of women’s sport, but of the fundamental principles of fair play.

This was a week where we saw a 15-year-old girl – Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva – crushed and humiliated in the eyes of the world after being accused of taking a banned substance.

Perhaps we will never know whether the heart drug found in her system was ingested intentionally or, as her family claim, by accident (although either way she can’t really be to blame, since she is a minor). But the opprobrium heaped upon her slender young shoulders was certainly real enough, and I would surmise very hard to bear for one so young.

And yet were she a strapping 22-year-old biological male identifying as female, no one would bat an eyelid. Or, for that matter, dare to challenge her.

That, I’m afraid, is the reality of the world we live in now. And I for one don’t think it’s right or fair.

source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10531313/SARAH-VINE-really-telling-burly-swimmer-Lia-Thomas-playing-fair.html

[lacrimosathedark]

Very cordial and mature of you to attack me in your tags rather than in your post. But before I address you, I feel I should address the others.

@mayameanderings I don't know if I may have misunderstood your response, or if maybe I upset you and that's why your friend is coming at me. If I have upset you, I am truly sorry. If I seemed like I was attacking you directly, that sincerely wasn't my intent and I'll go back over this interaction and try to be more careful in the future. After you replied to me, I was trying to continue a mutual discussion. You're of course under no obligation to respond to any of this, but I want you to know there was no ill intent on my part. And I understand if you block me regardless.

@discowingneckline I apologize for derailing your post. I probably should have kept to my own page. I didn't mean for this to become an argument. Which I know may sound ridiculous with how exasperated my initial response was. I was seeing a lot of negativity in this area and have been frustrated with Cheshire as a character in particular lately. Not an excuse, I should have done better, but that's why it happened. I'm willing to delete me ends of the posts if you'd like, or stop responding entirely if you'd prefer, just let me know. You mentioned having comic references though, if it's not trouble for you I would like to see them. I'm always willing to know more.

And now I return to punkeropercyjackson. Not that I think you'll read this in the first place but I might as well anyways.

#my little sister ATE you up and you had a whole ass meltdown LMAOOOOOOO TOUCH GRASS THE SUN MISSES YOU#i ain't reading this white boy ass kissing manifesto but jason and roy being friends is inherently racist misogynistic and ableist#most of roy's important people are poc and/or women and jason was extremely mean to him over his addiction and autistic-coding#so he dosen't deserve him end of discussion!!!saying this shit with lian is your icon when jayroy's the reason she didn't exist too?JAIL!!!!#and prev tags > 'i'm very tired' then go to sleep pop-pop/gam-gam instead of arguing with black disabled kids online

Interesting how you're passively accusing me of being ableist while also saying I had a "meltdown". And you assume what I wrote was a "white boy ass kissing manifesto" when you didn't even read it, what, because it was long? Long-winded and thorough is not equivalent to a tantrum. Which btw would have been the better word to use if you wanted to insult me and didn't want to come off as an ableist hypocrite, seeing as tantrum is related to childishness where meltdowns are a neurodivergent overstimulation response. Nice job there.

For the record, I am autistic and disabled, and am definitely not a boy, the latter of which you could easily see if you merely glanced at my profile. discowingneckline has their age but no pronouns or demos on their page, and mayameanderings has nothing. Which is good, as little personal info on sites like this as possible, but that's to say I have no way of knowing if they were POC or disabled or what their gender is or how old mayameanderings is. I rashly responded to discowingneckline, and then mayameanderings responded to me. I didn't go looking for her. I'm not going out of my way to "[argue] with disabled black kids online".

I don't know about anyone else, but I generally assume the people I talk to on the internet are of relative equivalence to me. I don't assume race and generally don't assume gender, and I have no way of knowing if and how someone is disabled and I try to be careful but I'm also human and I fuck up. And I never assume age, or rather, I assume everyone I speak to is in relatively close age range to me. I don't automatically assume I'm speaking to a child or a much older adult, I assume everyone I speak to is a peer unless told otherwise.

" jason and roy being friends is inherently racist misogynistic and ableist" I would genuinely like this explained.

JayRoy isn't the reason Lian didn't exist, it was that the New 52 overall sucked and was a bad idea and erased A LOT of characters, along with her being dead by the time of the reboot. Lian wasn't the only victim of the company's erasure. Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cain, Conner Kent, Bart Allen, Sasha/Scarlet, Duela Dent (because N52 version is an entirely different person), Connor Hawke, Mia Dearden, the existence of the original Titans team, the entire West family of Wally, Linda, Jai, and Irey, and many others who are more outside my sphere were all completely erased at the time of the reboot, and it took until Rebirth for there to be any semblance of their previous history back in canon.

That's not the fault of any one fictional character (unless you wanna pin it on Barry I guess because he's the cause of Flashpoint?), it's the fault of the executives who decided they needed a reboot to bring in more consumers, and then the writers who fucked up the execution of an already bad idea.

I will admit to having an attachment to Jason, but it was built up by a specific fan, and then very specifically Judd Winick's material. Fans shipping him with Roy in my sphere did lead me to Roy, but I never liked much of how he was written between N52 and the new Green Arrow run. Most of the Roy Harper content I have happily consumed is New Earth/pre-Flashpoint, so when I'm talking about his characterization and compatibility with Jason, those are the characters I'm talking about. Not whatever the hell he's been in the in-between and certainly not RHATO.

And I would guess your only exposure to him was through RHATO. Roy and Kori weren't the only ones whose characters were completely fucked over. It's silly to think Jason was spared of Lobdell's bad writing. Kori clearly had it the worst, and Roy wasn't much better, but Jason was ooc there too. Scott Lobdell is not good with any of these characters, period. Your hatred is better pointed at him, the writer who completely destroyed Kori and fucked over Roy's whole history, than the other character who was thrown in there with them.

The single-minded vitriolic hatred for Jason at the mere concept of him being able to be friends with Roy, not discounting their other relationships, is wholly ridiculous to me. I hate Jade Nguyen, but I can at least admit that she is a loving mother who cares deeply for her child, I just personally find her flaws greatly outweigh any good in her and find the comparison between her and Jason to be greatly greatly lacking. You just seem to hate Jason for existing in the same canon as Roy Harper and tbh I find it weird.

hot take: roy harper wouldn’t want jason todd near his kid after the shit jason pulled with mia

[cacodaemonia]

okay but. when the vast majority of the "antis" are poc asking you to take a moment to consider the often racist tendencies behind your actions, have you considered that you /might/ be in the wrong here?

if you're doubling down on this stance because you feel you've been harassed, there are some really helpful and well worded posts i can send you if you're interested that explain some of the issues facing the tcw fandom at large! as a white person, they've been very helpful showing me some of the harmful aspects of fan engagement that i didn't have the words for

Ah yes, another anon with concrete proof of their claims.

Anyway, this is a good example of a whataboutism, where anon is trying to take my stance that sending death threats to real people over fictional ships is shitty, and turn it into me being racist.

It's a super common tactic in political arguments, and is often successful at burying the original point in layers of other, usually unrelated topics or accusations.

As I've said before, I'm not going to argue or try to change people's minds, because that's an exercise in futility.

The rest of this post, under the cut, is not directed at the fandom police (who, by not just blocking me, show how devoted they are to being angry over harmless internet content), but to others who might be at risk of being manipulated by their gaslighting.

So first, I apparently need to point out that shipping doesn't inherently have anything to do with race or racism. It can, for certain individuals, and there are obviously a plethora of nasty aspects of fandom that are racist and awful. But antis muddy the waters by crying wolf about others enjoying fictional space people who do not in any way represent a real world group and have no equivalent because they're millions of literal clones.

When they make such a fuss about something that is not harming anyone, they drown out the voices of those addressing actual problems. I know of several poc who have been driven out of fandom because they disagreed with the antis and were then shouted down and harassed for not caving to the arbitrary demands (much like religious extremists, who harm others if they don't conform to their religious creed).

As someone who has been heavily involved in political activism (not keyboard activism) for anti-racist causes and various other progressive issues for many years, it's easy to see through the attempts by antis to hide their obsession with policing fandom experiences of others behind the claim of 'speaking for poc.' Elevating the voices of those who have been historically marginalized is extremely important, but when they simply use that as an excuse to be hateful, they're not doing anyone any good.

Ask yourself: by harassing individuals (about whom they truly know nothing) online, how are the antis helping marginalized or disenfranchised groups? If they really wanted to create positive change, they could put their excessive energy toward fighting systemic racism and inequity by holding mass media and lawmakers accountable, rather than bullying fans who have no power and just happen to have slightly different views on fictional characters.

It's a way to get attention and feel powerful, plain and simple. They drag others down in order to feel superior—or whatever motivates people who enjoy harming others, idk.

I'm glad that the internet preserves this stuff, because maybe some antis will look back in a few years, after they've had enough life experience to understand that real world issues aren't black and white and can't be solved by screaming on the internet. Maybe some of them will realize how needlessly cruel they've been, and how much harm they've caused to real people who just want to share something they like with others.

I won't be responding to any other similar asks. I'm on Tumblr to have fun with fandom stuff, not to engage in the dumpster fire that is the real world or listen to poorly constructed arguments for why everything is 'problematic.'

[radfemblack]

I’m critical of “both sides” when it comes to the pandemic and the vaccines. On one hand. The reaction of governments has been very suspect. And the increasingly draconian measures being taken to enforce lockdown and get people vaccinated is scary. It begs the question, does something that is truly for our own good warrant all of these lies, all of this fearmongering, manipulation, and coercion? How anyone who raises any questions about the way things are going is immediately jumped upon and demonized raises big red flags. Do we really believe that the pandemic has been handled 100% perfectly? And that’s not even to get into how race intersects with healthcare. Black and indigenous people have a long history of being used as test monkeys in experimental procedures, which creates a lot of distrust in the medical establishment — this is something that’s not being addressed enough.

Full disclosure, I am double vaccinated. I initially didn’t want to take the vaccine because of all of the side effects I heard about, but I had to in order to go to school. Apart from some very watery diarrhea after the first dose, I have had no adverse reactions (yet). Now that I have it I’m glad to have taken the vaccine, I feel safer now. For a while I continued to worry a fair bit, but someone unexpectedly convinced me of this vax right now: Donald Trump. Donald Trump going against Candace Owens on vaccines is a pretty solid indication that they’re good. Trump could have taken the easy opportunity to stir up partisan politics but he didn’t. So this isn’t some “liberal elite” agenda, outside of some far-fetched scenario this must be serious.

Now, as for the “antivaxxers” and “antimaskers”. I think they have some points, as I said before, but I think most of them are just driven by partisan contrarianism. And the absolute fucking victim mentality a lot of them have! I can’t fucking stand these mfs with their goofy and lame ass comparisons to segregation and the Holocaust. Stop. Just fucking stop. It’s like when trans activists try to piggyback on white supremacy to advance their bullshit. None of you better open your mouths to compare yourselves with the poor set upon negroes when you don’t give a shit about us outside of our utility as your rhetorical prop. If you want to argue that it’s unethical for the government to coercively impose medical procedures on people, that’s one thing. But this is a false equivalency. Your vaccination status is something you can change, my skin color is not. If your argument really is solid then it can stand on its own.

[galadhremmin]

We have derived Caranthir liking the Dwarves (and vice versa) because apparently, Finrod succeeds in every field Caranthir fails, and at this point it's clear this derives from the in-universe writer of the Silm and his own biases. Think about it: "Dark Finwë" , a grumpy, prejudiced lordling, and "Hair Champion", most handsome, noble king, have met with the same people!! Yet the king of the first secret kingdom is everyone's friend, but the prince that trades with them regularly is not... seems sus.

Hence, Caranthir is friends with the Dwarves. (But that is just an interpretation, so you're free to think what you wish, I just have several opinions on in-universe prejudice and the almighty narrative.)

I think that 'we' might actually have been Dawn Felagund years ago. Maybe this reading existed even before that, but I doubt that-- she's been very influential in silm fandom and was long before tumblr was much of a thing. https://dawnfelagund.com/caranthir-the-slandered

I wouldn't say it's 'clear' that what amounts to Caranthir's entire documented personality derives from the bias of the in-universe narrator, though as you can see from Dawn's writing it's a reading you can argue for. There are a number of different approaches you can take to the Silm and its biases anyway. One of the few times when it's absolutely clear the text isn't telling the entire story is when it talks about the Easterlings. I've posted about this before but the recorded names are, uhh.... the ones to betray the elves are unlikely to actually have been named things like 'ugly lord' and 'ugly beard.' 'Dark Finwe' on the other hand is a documented reference to his haircolour being dark like Finwe's own; hardly a negative judgement!

I personally think Caranthir can be exactly as ill-tempered and prejudiced as the Silm paints him without becoming an unsympathetic character. If a writer cannot make a moody, deeply prejudiced man an interesting character that is a failure as a writer; there are after all enough books who manage exactly that. That is not to say choosing not to write him that way is a failure (obviously not), but it's not necessary in order to make a reader feel for him at all.

Just going by the text, I think it actually might make for a more interesting narrative to explore in fic to me. Because he does change his mind about something, and at a very specific moment; when he meets the Haladin. That is much less dramatic if he secretly been as nice and popular as Finrod, and got along with everyone all the time already. He's been raised by Fëanor, who said things like 'No other race shall oust us!' and rallied the Noldor not motivated enough by vengeance for Finwë alone by playing on their deep-seated fear of being replaced by the Secondborn. Very unlikely that had no impact. At best it has made him uninterested in humans in his area (while they're not much of a threat to ruling instead of the elves anyway). The text says they paid them no heed.

And yet! Caranthir sees how brave Haleth and her people are. He 'does her great honour.' He changes his mind and offers them lands. His tragedy to me is not that of a slandered figure, but of this deeply, deeply prejudiced person raised to distrust the motivations of human beings -- who overcomes those beliefs, offers friendship, is rejected! then extends that same trust to the Easterlings anyway... and it's those specific Easterlings, not the ones who ally with his brothers-- who betray them all. And cause the disastrous ending of the Nirnaeth. It's the 'to evil end shall all things turn that they begin well' part of the curse hitting him in the least fair way possible. Someone finally changes for the better, and the outcome is treason and destruction.

That is a very good character arc to me, actually. His aesthetics-based scorn for the Dwarves is reprehensible but strikes me as deeply Elvish, and part of his prejudices. Naugrim is too unflattering a name for them for it not to be common. His temper-- well why can't he have one? Sure there's only one recorded instance -- but that's imo because there are hardly any conversations in the Silm! Anyway I like some people with tempers well enough. Personally I think people are missing out on opiniated grouches.

Obviously the biased anti-Feanorian Pengolodh reading is a nice one, and I have enjoyed a lot of stories written based it. But it's not at all a reading that is necessary for me to read Caranthir as a flawed but sympathetic character. He can have serious faults and still, ultimately, be someone I feel for.

What I was asking though was if I overlooked any canon evidence of Caranthir being particularly, personally fond of the Dwarves; and it seems I did not. Also; there is room for Caranthir growing to like the Dwarves over centuries without an anti-Feanorian bias reading this strong, there is simply no evidence for friendship in the rather barebones narrative (I'm not interested atm because it's wildly overdone to me & I like variety).

That said, in my opinion making Caranthir the hidden, slandered Feanorian Finrod equivalent with a dash of Curufin's Dwarf affection is not as enjoyable as simply working with what little canon character is actually there. Because there is one (and it's not the greedy tax collector of some fanon depictions either imo)

1. To start with, wrt Caranthir as the anti-Finrod, I don't think it works that well. Sure sure dark/light, open/prejudiced, repressed/shouty, but different motivations, different locations, plus they meet very different peoples even if both are Edain-- besides, Caranthir's own older brothers do successfully ally with the Easterlings without betrayal, while Curufin (much more so than Finrod! no Khuzdul for Finrod!) is the Dwarves' Friend(tm). Also, a flawed Finrod already exists. That's just the regular edition. He has his own faults and (very different) tragic arc.

If Finrod never seems to have strong prejudices to overcome, and if he's not confrontational (which... look he's a diplomat. Make of that what you will. Pretty awkward there in Doriath, buddy!) he does have trouble facing his own complicity (he wanted to sail those ships despite the murders) until Sauron beats him to death with it. He leaves Valinor with the idea of ruling but he has to give up the crown. He's ambitious, he seems emotionally repressed, he's.. possibly paying the greater Dwarves to drive the Petty Dwarves out of their ancestral home to build a city? Oops. Depending on the version you go with in that case, of course; there's also ones where he's free of the blame of that one. Not of wanting to sail those ships and being uneasy with the guilt wrt wanting to do so despite their being stolen and murdered for though. No he doesn't kill; but he wants to use the result of it anyway, and to make it worse he is actually half Telerin.

There's also (to be fair, only for sure after the disaster of the Sudden Flame because that's the recorded instance) his guards killing random innocent trespassers to keep his kingdom hidden -- yes, that's right there in Silm, yes he's still King at the time. Beren has to wave that ring. People just seem to miss that he'd be killed without it somehow.

I think it's just too easy to reduce him to the golden perfect opposite of Caranthir. Yes he's described more positively; he's also just mentioned more because unlike Caranthir he rules an actual kingdom, the greatest and richest in Beleriand in fact; and does things that have a lot of very longterm effects, like helping B&L steal a Silmaril. They don't 'meet the same people' anyway -- the Haladin have a different culture from the Beorians which contributes to their reaction to Caranthir (and iirc their later fate).

Sidenote: Dawn's essay attributes the Green Elves helping the Feanorians at Amon Ereb to Caranthir's diplomatic skills; but why not to those of Amras or Amrod? This is the quote; 'Caranthir fled and joined the remnant of his people to the scattered folk of the hunters, Amrod and Amras, and they retreated and passed Ramdal in the south. Upon Amon Ereb they maintained a watch and some strength of war, and they had aid of the Green-elves' -- nothing here indicates it was Caranthir who got them that aid. In fact A&A are the hunters, i.e. more likely to have roamed in various forests where they would have encountered Green Elves, imo.

There's also the very desperate times to consider in which this aid takes place. This is just post Sudden Flame, and even if the Green Elves didn't like Caranthir they probably liked him better than Morgoth. Also, speaking of cosmopolitans, Maedhros allies with, yes, Dwarves (Azaghal), Grey elves, Easterlings (and you might say: Fingolfinians); even part of the remaining people of Dorthonion rally to Himring post sudden flame (that means Edain and Arafinwean followers in Himring, at least for a time), and he manages to be friendly with Felagund despite calling him a badger. ;)

Finrod is not the only other leader to forge diverse alliances, and though B&L ends happily his people mostly do not. Caranthir's not much like Finrod in any way. Not in motivations, temperament, tragic arc. That's fine. No hidden kingdom for a dragon to eat either. Finrod could probably do with being a little less like Finrod sometimes, though he's well-intentioned and likable. Caranthir loves to shout and isn't sneaky. Good for him.

2. Curufin also already exists. His love for Dwarves is one of his defining and redeeming characteristics and boy does he need them. He's daddy's favourite, a sneaky overambitious bitchy bastard who is also a talented smith and linguist, and truly considered a Dwarf friend, which is apparently exceptional. He's quite flawed; tries to help Celegorm force a political marriage, laughs with a bruised mouth, seeming to lose his mind while attempting and failing murder after first losing his own stronghold and then the city he tried to take from his cousin. He's just... a personality. Mostly a bad one! You can feel for him though, because he seems like an utter mess. Many 'i would love to study you' feelings on my part. Would hate for him to be real but also I'd pay to be his therapist.

3. And then finally there's Canon Caranthir. A difficult, prejudiced person who despite that (which doesn't at all have to mean there is no despite, the despite is what makes it juicy)

- seems to be responsible for re-establishing (large scale?) trade with the Dwarves, whatever he might think of them (and they of him) to their mutual benefit. I don't think he's greedy either. It seems like a mutually profitable situation. Access to Dwarvish goods seems pretty vital to Beleriand, and facilitating trade is a real service.

As someone pointed out in the replies, the Silm does mention Dwarvish companies travelling east to Nan Elmoth and menegroth various times, but quote wrt Caranthir says 'Caranthir’s people came upon the Dwarves, who after the onslaught of Morgoth and the coming of the Noldor had ceased their traffic into Beleriand' and 'when the Dwarves began again to journey into Beleriand.'

They stopped at some point and Caranthir's people made it happen again.

- which means he's practical. He seems like he's good at organising, and setting his own feelings aside if necessary despite his prejudice and temper (which is an achievement it wouldn't be without his, hm, everything). Also he and his people as well as the Dwarves work together well because ''either people loved skill and were eager to learn,' despite their (initial?) mutual dislike. Those aren't bad characteristics; seems like it was an exchange of skill as well as goods and possibly providing safe travel opportunities.

I don't like the 'greedy Caranthir' fanon and don't think it is even that easy support entirely with canon. 'They had of it great profit,' the text says-- both Caranthir and the Dwarves. They exchanged skills and knowledge and Caranthir seems to have helped them start trading in Beleriand again. That's hardly Scrooge Mcduck.

- Another thing we can say about canonthir (lol) is that he apparently attaches a lot of value to aesthetics (was he a visual artist? is a he a sculptor like Nerdanel? WORSE: AN ART CRITIC?! Feanorian art critic is truly nightmare fuel) and that's why he dislikes Dwarves (of all things...). Either way points to 'aesthetics' as something apparently important to Caranthir. Which makes sense given who his parents are. What is interesting to me is that this apparently DOESN'T matter to Curufin, who is a lot like Feanor in most things. That's interesting!

I've never, never seen this but I think it would be very funny to attribute his aesthetic prejudices to Nerdanel. I love her; but why should her opinions be perfect? I know she wasn't considered beautiful herself, but she's an artist. She's got to have had some strong opinions on aesthetics anyway. I doubt it's the beards; Mahtan had one as well. And 'stunted'...at least some of this comes down to the Elvish obsession with height yet again. Hm.

- eventually Caranthir overcomes what have to be some very deeply held beliefs about human beings and their place in the world, and offers what for all intents and purposes looks like real friendship, not the ruling over Men Feanor seems to have had in mind at best. He's capable of real change!

Anyway his character works just fine to me from canon, and what he achieves and the ways in which he fails are more interesting that way rather-- neither slandered Feanorian Finrod 2.0 nor Curufin 'Dwarf Fan' Feanorion without the sneakiness and murder attempts pack the same punch as a stupidly prejudiced grouchy man doing his best anyway for centuries in this stupid ugly cursed land, eventually changing for the better, opening up-- and being brutally punished for it by the Doom.

Dammit. I hope there's therapy in the Everlasting Darkness.

hm a bit long but that's what I get for trying to gather my thoughts wrt why after considering it a bit transferring Curufin's love for Dwarves to Caranthir is a bit boring to me personally. Though there are still stories that still do it very well.

[muaka-safari]

a quick rundown of the most common reasons I've seen why Nokama would not be the leader:

1. She doesn't want to be:

I've seen this brought up mostly in reference to how she pushes Vakama to be the leader instead of stepping up herself but, tbf, if I had been thrust into her situation with minimal explanation and then one of my coworkers? fellow heroes?? had (probably) god-sent visions telling you your duty, I'd probably defer too. Idk, but I feel like this has always been less of a "Nokama doesn't want to lead" and more a "apparently my coworker has been hand-picked by god to lead us" – at least in the beginning

On paper, she honestly makes the most sense as leader material. She has experience working with and leading other people, and she is the Toa Metru with the most focus on unity.

2. Leading a classroom is different to leading a team:

True, but also she's the only Toa Metru who we know for certain had a leadership role in her Matoran days. Matau, Vakama, and Nuju's roles are definitely solitary, and while you could argue Whenua and Onewa possibly worked with others, that's not the impression canon gives.

This is less about whether the teacher -> Toa leader pipeline is a perfectly equivalent swap, and more like if you're hiring a bus driver, getting someone who drives racing cars isn't ideal but at least they know what a steering wheel is.

3. Despite preaching about unity, she suffered her own biases:

Again, this is about Nokama being the most driven by unity out of the rest, not being perfect at it. Yes, she had her own biases, but so did all the other Toa. It turns out if you drop a civilization into a dystopian police-run state where personal identity is tightly associated with your immediate community and role, you're gonna have a pretty reductionist view on "others". She still tries to bring the team together, more than anyone else does, despite this background.

anyway, I still stand by the headcanon the Nokama would have been the default choice for leader of the Toa Metru had Vakama not been having his visions

[duskcowboy]

Let’s talk about the lightsinger theory…

[If this theory isn’t your cup of tea, I recommend you keep scrolling. You’ve been warned.]

Per my last post, I recently dug deep into the Lightsinger Theory tag which can be dangerous territory. I suppose for many Gw*nriel shippers, this theory feels equivalent to how many Elriel shippers feel about the Evil Elain Theory. So I get it, it’s not fun or easy to hear theories that somewhat paint a character you like in a bad light (especially when the people doing so use said theory as reasoning for why your desired ship won’t happen). However, after reading many “debunking” posts about the Lightsinger Theory, I want to address something:

Many anti posts use the “definition” of a lightsinger provided in acosf to prove the theory wrong because it doesn’t outright provide details used in the LS theory such as “glowing” or “singing”. Let’s review what was said in acosf…

Now, idk about you, but this isn’t really a “definition”; it sounds to me more like a story—some may say even a myth, or a legend. It basically sounds like something you’d tell your kids to discourage them from going near the deep end (a “boogeyman” of sorts). And the thing with myths and legends is that they are based on truth, but they evolve and change over time through the process of word of mouth.

Take these excerpts from the article, “How Great Myths and Legends Were Created”:

“It began with a real or imagined incident…It was passed along by word of mouth from person to person and from generation to generation until it had been told and retold millions of times and existed in a hundred different versions around the world.”

“There is also a tendency to exaggerate or minimize, to glorify or ennoble, to idealize or vilify. Beyond that, there’s a natural, unconscious tendency to analyze things, to take them apart and put them back together in different combinations and a natural tendency to simplify or edit.”

Therefore, what Cassian provided as information on a lightsinger could potentially not be wholly correct. So, we have to decipher what we anticipate to be truth and what could be embellishments added over time (or what’s been left out). This is why I believe that Gwyn possibly being a lightsinger doesn’t necessarily imply that she’s evil or manipulating anyone on purpose. The story of what a lightsinger is can very easily be based on a truth that has transformed into a “mythical creature”, and has a high chance of not being entirely accurate anymore. Additionally, the absence of seemingly “key words” such as “singing” or “visions” could have easily been lost in the process of retellings.

But if you disagree that what Cass said is a myth or legend, I’ll reel it back a bit and continue calling it the description of a lightsinger. Now, with descriptions, they typically highlight characteristics to create a basic overview. With this, you are not going to get every last detail. For example, a suspect’s description usually entails the following:

Gender, race, age/height/weight (estimated), and maybe some other vague descriptions of eye & hair color, clothing, etc.

So if a suspect description says, “white male, mid 30’s, average height, sandy blonde hair, and wearing black overalls,” and I see someone matching that exact description (down to the color of his overalls) driving a red car, NO ONE would argue I can’t call it in “because the description never said he was driving a red car”.

My point being that: the absence of certain details does not automatically mean they are a falsehood.

“It doesn’t say lightsingers sing”

True. But let’s draw an educated guess from surrounding evidence: “singer” is in the literal title, just like “shadowsinger”; the only shadowsinger we know of confirmed he sings.

“It never says lightsingers glow”

Again, educated guess. Power is consistently described as “glowing”. When Gwyn sings, she glows. It’s not a large leap in thinking to conclude she may be using some sort of power. If it’s not as a lightsinger, what is it?

“It doesn’t say they can induce visions”

It does say that “they appear as friendly faces” when in fact, they’re not. That seems to me like a manipulation of sight. Not a far leap to guess they could maybe induce other manipulations of sight such as visions.

An easy answer to all of these is also, “it also doesn’t say they don’t” but I suspect that’s not a good enough response. All I know is that this argument is teetering on argumentum ad ingorantiam…the “appeal to ignorance” fallacy of “it can’t be true because it doesn’t explicitly say it’s true”.

Just because the description didn’t lay out every detail, doesn’t mean it can’t be true. If SJM literally wrote “lightsingers are ethereal beings who lure you by enchanting songs” wouldn’t it have been too obvious? She might as well have just said “Gwyn is a lightsinger”. What we’re doing with this theory is piecing a puzzle together using legitimate excerpts from the text, and in this process, we acknowledge that we could potentially be wrong.

The description of a lightsinger may not explicitly say a lot to outright link Gwyn, but you know what it does say? That they lure people. And what does it say in acosf?

That Gwyn’s grandmother “seduced” an autumn male. What’s a synonym for “seduce”? LURE.

That Gwyn’s singing “beckons” and “draws Nesta in”. What’re synonyms for “beckon” and to “draw in someone/something”? LURE.

I think you get my point.

Look, I’ll acknowledge that all these “conclusions” and theories are unconfirmed. We’re well aware of that. But to insinuate that our logic is implausible when we use text from the book to build it is what’s nonsensical.

Whew! Two long posts in one day 🥴 sorry about that haha as always, lmk what you think!

[all credit to @silverlinedeyes for the OG lightsinger theory! Check them out for more detailed evidence!]

[citrina-posts]

Avatar: Cultural Appreciation or Appropriation?

I love Avatar: the Last Airbender. Obviously I do, because I run a fan blog on it. But make no mistake: it is a show built upon cultural appropriation. And you know what? For the longest time, as an Asian-American kid, I never saw it that way.

There are plenty of reasons why I never realized this as a kid, but I’ve narrowed it down to a few reasons. One is that I was desperate to watch a show with characters that looked like me in it that wasn’t anime (nothing wrong with anime, it’s just not my thing). Another is that I am East Asian (I have Taiwanese and Korean ancestry) and in general, despite being the outward “bad guys”, the East Asian cultural aspects of Avatar are respected far more than South Asian, Middle Eastern, and other influences. A third is that it’s easy to dismiss the negative parts of a show you really like, so I kind of ignored the issue for a while. I’m going to explain my own perspective on these reasons, and why I think we need to have a nuanced discussion about it. This is pretty long, so if you want to keep reading, it’s under the cut.

Obviously, the leadership behind ATLA was mostly white. We all know the co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (colloquially known as Bryke) are white. So were most of the other episodic directors and writers, like Aaron Ehasz, Lauren Montgomery, and Joaquim Dos Santos. This does not mean they were unable to treat Asian cultures with respect, and I honestly do believe that they tried their best! But it does mean they have certain blinders, certain perceptions of what is interesting and enjoyable to watch. Avatar was applauded in its time for being based mostly on Asian and Native American cultures, but one has to wonder: how much of that choice was based on actual respect for these people, and how much was based on what they considered to be “interesting”, “quirky”, or “exotic”?

The aesthetic of the show, with its bending styles based on various martial arts forms, written language all in Chinese text, and characters all decked out in the latest Han dynasty fashions, is obviously directly derivative of Asian cultures. Fine. That’s great! They hired real martial artists to copy the bending styles accurately, had an actual Chinese calligrapher do all the lettering, and clearly did their research on what clothing, hair, and makeup looked like. The animation studios were in South Korea, so Korean animators were the ones who did the work. Overall, this is looking more like appreciation for a beautiful culture, and that’s exactly what we want in a rapidly diversifying world of media.

But there’s always going to be some cherry-picking, because it’s inevitable. What’s easy to animate, what appeals to modern American audiences, and what is practical for the world all come to mind as reasons. It’s just that… they kinda lump cultures together weirdly. Song from Book 2 (that girl whose ostrich-horse Zuko steals) wears a hanbok, a traditionally Korean outfit. It’s immediately recognizable as a hanbok, and these dresses are exclusive to Korea. Are we meant to assume that this little corner of the mostly Chinese Earth Kingdom is Korea? Because otherwise, it’s just treated as another little corner of the Earth Kingdom. Korea isn’t part of China. It’s its own country with its own culture, history, and language. Other aspects of Korean culture are ignored, possibly because there wasn’t time for it, but also probably because the creators thought the hanbok was cute and therefore they could just stick it in somewhere. But this is a pretty minor issue in the grand scheme of things (super minor, compared to some other things which I will discuss later on).

It’s not the lack of research that’s the issue. It’s not even the lack of consideration. But any Asian-American can tell you: it’s all too easy for the Asian kids to get lumped together, to become pan-Asian. To become the equivalent of the Earth Kingdom, a mass of Asians without specific borders or national identities. It’s just sort of uncomfortable for someone with that experience to watch a show that does that and then gets praised for being so sensitive about it. I don’t want you to think I’m from China or Vietnam or Japan; not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because I’m not! How would a French person like to be called British? It would really piss them off. Yet this happens all the time to Asian-Americans and we are expected to go along with it. And… we kind of do, because we’ve been taught to.

1. Growing Up Asian-American

I grew up in the early to mid-2000s, the era of High School Musical and Hannah Montana and iCarly, the era of Spongebob and The Amazing World of Gumball and Fairly Odd Parents. So I didn’t really see a ton of Asian characters onscreen in popular shows (not anime) that I could talk about with my white friends at school. One exception I recall was London from Suite Life, who was hardly a role model and was mostly played up for laughs more than actual nuance. Shows for adults weren’t exactly up to par back then either, with characters like the painfully stereotypical Raj from Big Bang Theory being one of the era that comes to mind.

So I was so grateful, so happy, to see characters that looked like me in Avatar when I first watched it. Look! I could dress up as Azula for Halloween and not Mulan for the third time! Nice! I didn’t question it. These were Asian characters who actually looked Asian and did cool stuff like shoot fireballs and throw knives and were allowed to have depth and character development. This was the first reason why I never questioned this cultural appropriation. I was simply happy to get any representation at all. This is not the same for others, though.

2. My Own Biases

Obviously, one can only truly speak for what they experience in their own life. I am East Asian and that is arguably the only culture that is treated with great depth in Avatar.

I don’t speak for South Asians, but I’ve certainly seen many people criticize Guru Pathik, the only character who is explicitly South Asian (and rightly so. He’s a stereotype played up for laughs and the whole thing with chakras is in my opinion one of the biggest plotholes in the show). They’ve also discussed how Avatar: The Last Airbender lifts heavily from Hinduism (with chakras, the word Avatar itself, and the Eye of Shiva used by Combustion Man to blow things up). Others have expressed how they feel the sandbenders, who are portrayed as immoral thieves who deviously kidnap Appa for money, are a direct insult to Middle Eastern and North African cultures. People have noted that it makes no sense that a culture based on Inuit and other Native groups like the Water Tribe would become industrialized as they did in the North & South comics, since these are people that historically (and in modern day!) opposed extreme industrialization. The Air Nomads, based on the Tibetan people, are weirdly homogeneous in their Buddhist-inspired orange robes and hyperspiritual lifestyle. So too have Southeast Asians commented on the Foggy Swamp characters, whose lifestyles are made fun of as being dirty and somehow inferior. The list goes on.

These things, unlike the elaborate and highly researched elements of East Asian culture, were not treated with respect and are therefore cultural appropriation. As a kid, I had the privilege of not noticing these things. Now I do.

White privilege is real, but every person has privileges of some kind, and in this case, I was in the wrong for not realizing that. Yes, I was a kid; but it took a long time for me to see that not everyone’s culture was respected the way mine was. They weren’t considered *aesthetic* enough, and therefore weren’t worth researching and accurately portraying to the creators. It’s easy for a lot of East Asians to argue, “No! I’ve experienced racism! I’m not privileged!” News flash: I’ve experienced racism too. But I’ve also experienced privilege. If white people can take their privilege for granted, so too can other races. Shocking, I know. And I know now how my privilege blinded me to the fact that not everybody felt the same euphoria I did seeing characters that looked like them onscreen. Not if they were a narrow and offensive portrayal of their race. There are enough good-guy Asian characters that Fire Lord Ozai is allowed to be evil; but can you imagine if he was the only one?

3. What It Does Right

This is sounding really down on Avatar, which I don’t want to do. It’s a great show with a lot of fantastic themes that don’t show up a lot in kids’ media. It isn’t superficial or sugarcoating in its portrayal of the impacts of war, imperialism, colonialism, disability, and sexism, just to name a few. There are characters like Katara, a brown girl allowed to get angry but is not defined by it. There are characters like Aang, who is the complete opposite of toxic masculinity. There are characters like Toph, who is widely known as a great example of how to write a disabled character.

But all of these good things sort of masked the issues with the show. It’s easy to sweep an issue under the rug when there’s so many great things to stack on top and keep it down. Alternatively, one little problem in a show seems to make-or-break media for some people. Cancel culture is the most obvious example of this gone too far. Celebrity says one ignorant thing? Boom, cancelled. But… kind of not really, and also, they’re now terrified of saying anything at all because their apologies are mocked and their future decisions are scrutinized. It encourages a closed system of creators writing only what they know for fear of straying too far out of their lane. Avatar does do a lot of great things, and I think it would be silly and immature to say that its cultural appropriation invalidates all of these things. At the same time, this issue is an issue that should be addressed. Criticizing one part of the show doesn’t mean that the other parts of it aren’t good, or that you shouldn’t be a fan.

If Avatar’s cultural appropriation does make you uncomfortable enough to stop watching, go for it. Stop watching. No single show appeals to every single person. At the same time, if you’re a massive fan, take a sec (honestly, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve taken many secs) to check your own privilege, and think about how the blurred line between cultural appreciation (of East Asia) and appropriation (basically everybody else) formed. Is it because we as viewers were also captivated by the aesthetic and overall story, and so forgive the more problematic aspects? Is it because we’ve been conditioned so fully into never expecting rep that when we get it, we cling to it?

I’m no media critic or expert on race, cultural appropriation, or anything of the sort. I’m just an Asian-American teenager who hopes that her own opinion can be put out there into the world, and maybe resonate with someone else. I hope that it’s given you new insight into why Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show with both cultural appropriation and appreciation, and why these things coexist. Thank you for reading!