#but people are making this into a culture war instead of actually engaging with the allegations and the evidence

[waywardswords]

I obviously believe we should take the allegations and the victims seriously.

I also believe that even if everything was/had been consensual, Gaiman’s relationships to the victims were still predatory.

I obviously believe that parasocial relationships with famous people are harmful and we could all do well to remember that these people are strangers, that we do not know them and that they can do things that contradict their public personas.

I have unfollowed Gaiman and will alter my perception of him. As I never really engaged with him outside of Tumblr and reading good omens this is all I can even do about this. Still, this is sad to me because, even though I wouldn’t call myself a fan, I always admired his work and thought he seemed like a good guy, but well, see my previous point about this.

I am horrified and disgusted.

I also think that everyone should actually read the actual allegations and their context, listen to the podcast or read a summary of it and try to gather all the facts before passing any kind of public judgement like calling Gaiman a rapist or, on the other hand, saying that if the allegations turn out to be untrue it will be ok to publicly support him again. The reporting is biased, this is true, but the actual testimonies and the other evidence, like contemporary text messages from the victims etc. need to be taken into consideration instead of building your opinion on secondhand opinions from a tumblr post without sources or context.

I am not saying these things didn’t happen, on the contrary I think we should engage with what happened instead of getting lost in Tumblr discourse TM.

I am saying that the facts aren’t as clear-cut as most posts are making them out to be and while Gaiman remains incredibly suspicious and, as I said, definitely engaged in predatory behaviour, do not jump to calling him a rapist and a pedophile without actually informing yourself about the events, just as you shouldn’t excuse his predatory behavior towards younger women even if the specific SA allegations turn out to be false.

This should be common sense and the fact that it isn’t is the reason that the internet is the place nuance goes to die.

[soloorganaas]

the marauders fandom is not the reason terfs brought about a deeply transphobic and lesbophobic supreme court ruling in the UK. i’m going to be very clear about that because it’s something this fandom sincerely needs to confront

the ruling itself was written based on a deep misunderstanding of trans, nonbinary and lesbian identity that stems at least in part from a basic lack of british social education and discourse on lgbtq issues. jkr did not cause that. she is one of many right wing bigots capitalising on it and this case specifically only came about because she put £70,000 behind it

that wealth is based off a franchise which became a household name nearly three decades ago. that franchise is sustained because harry potter is ingrained in popular culture worldwide. it’s the families who flew 4000 miles to take their kids to wb studios. the vast majority of the world does not hear about hp or engage with it because of the marauders fandom

i do want to be very clear about that last point, because its a different issue from whether someone is personally uncomfortable engaging with hp in any way or whether engaging with it affects people in your community. that is a different kind of impact, but the discourse in this fandom is repeatedly blurring it with the broader impact on lgbtq people in britain of hp being so profitable and what jkr does with those profits

when you start talking about the harm that financially supporting the hp brand does as a personal moral issue, you are making this about you. when a supreme court ruling comes down that says very specifically that only cis women can be lesbians and five days later the discussion online is how someone feels about posting hp fanfic, you have made this harm about you. and it’s not about you. it’s about the people dealing with the reality of being lgbtq in britain right now. it’s about the ways in which that ruling directly and indirectly affects us

when i go to work each day and navigate the transphobia still rumbling around even in explicitly left wing spaces of british society i quite frankly do not give a fuck about your 100k wolfstar first war slowburn being taken off ao3. neither do the trans and nonbinary people I work with. neither do the parents of trans and nonbinary people I work with. it has literally zero impact on anybody’s lives here and has made absolutely nothing better

so what I am asking is that instead of posting on tumblr or ao3 or tiktok about the morality of being in the marauders fandom you instead share information about lgbtq issues in the uk right now and the voices of people who live here and are going through it. make people hear us. make people understand

being trans or nonbinary in the uk right now feels suffocating. it feels like a constant battle to not have your identity snuffed out. it feels like shouting into a void and being faced with this terrifying, uncaring silence. or worse. i am genuinely begging all of you to actually engage with that reality and stop being one more person talking over us

[yinyuedijun]

In this post, you will find:

I. EXPLANATION OF THEMES

II. ANCIENT GREEK REFERENCES

III. CANON LORE, THEORIES, AND MYDEI'S CHARACTERIZATION

IV. LIST OF CHARACTERS, LOCATIONS, AND TERMS

I. EXPLANATION OF THEMES

This fic features war and slavery in an ancient Greek context, with Mydei as your captor and you as his bed-slave. This depiction is eroticized, romanticized, and while the sex within the relationship is always consensual and the romance eventually culminates in a marriage of equals in which you are free, the majority of the fic contains this unequal power dynamic around slavery.

I must make this clear: I do not condone slavery, nor relationships between captors and slaves. Such a relationship would never be anything but abusive in real life; this is a purely fictional depiction that has nothing to do with real life dynamics.

All that said, I also wanted to talk a little bit about this fic in relation to the canon themes of the game. Because while this fic is sexy-romantic, Kremnos canonically engages in slavery and forced labour, and this is an aspect of the themes that I wanted to explore.

Mydei is a very transformative leader in canon. He is proud of his people and doubtlessly wants Kremnoan culture to live on. But he is also aware that the Kremnoan culture of war hurts both the people of Kremnos and the rest of the world, and ultimately he ends his own dynasty to move away from this violence. There is therefore probably an inherent tension between his pride in Kremnos versus his dislike of the violent legacy of Kremnos. But the game never really explores that - thus, I wanted to do this in the story.

The slavery in Kremnoan history is a non-sexual one in canon. Mydei mentions that the Kremnoans hunted down and enslaved the Mountain Dwellers, and we know from Chartonus that he was forced to blacksmith for the Kremnoans. Additionally, Mydei says that Castrum Kremnos was built by convicts - which of course probably was also in a context of forced labour and slavery.

However, my fic explores sexual slavery and systemic misogynistic violence toward the people conquered by Kremnos. There is no mention of this in canon, but it is not a stretch that sexual slavery and gendered violence would have occurred. We can even look to historical examples, including the societies that inspired Amphoreus.

In Athens, slaves often worked in brothels, and in Sparta, helots (a term for their slaves) had sexual relations with Spartiates enough to create an underclass of nothoi - the children of helot women and Spartiate citizens. In literary works surrounding the Trojan War (the Iliad, The Trojan Women), there are women slaves like Briseis and Chryseis who are taken as spoils of war. The Greeks end up victorious over the Trojans, and during the ensuing sack of Troy, multiple women characters are abducted by the Greeks and end up as concubines.

The rape of Cassandra during the fall of Troy is particularly relevant to this fic. Cassandra was an oracle who was dragged away from the altar of Athena by Ajax the Lesser, who then proceeded to sexually assault her. Eventually, Cassandra was given to King Agamemnon and spent the rest of her days as his concubine.

The rape of Cassandra was considered a heinous example of abduction and rape even by ancient Greek standards; Athena was actually so outraged that she punished Ajax the Lesser for this crime. These events are very similar to what the reader goes through: during the sack of Aurelia, she is dragged away from the altar of her temple by Kremnoan soldiers and gifted to Mydei as a war prize. Unlike Ajax the Lesser and Agamemnon, however, Mydei never hurts the reader. Already critical of the violent culture of Kremnos and disgusted at this particularly extreme example of abduction and attempted sexual assault, he instead chooses to protect the reader from the sexual violence inherent to slavery. His bond with her really forces him to confront the systemic sexual violence of Kremnoan society, and ultimately drives him toward becoming the transformative leader that he is in canon.

All this to say - I did not pull the themes out of nowhere simply to assassinate Mydei's character just write taboo porn. There is a very intentional exploration of canon themes and characterization, informed by ancient Greek historical and literary references, in addition to my desire to just write taboo porn 👍

II. ANCIENT GREEK REFERENCES

Speaking of the reference to ancient Greek literary works, I also wanted to talk about other ancient Greek influences in the fic.

Kremnos is based on Sparta in canon (consider the war-focused culture, the worship of the God of War, the names like Eurypon and Gorgo). Thus there are direct references to Spartan history in the fic. Helots were a real life historical class of slaves, for instance.

Terms like strategos and hiereia are also borrowed from Greco-Roman history. Virgin priestesses also existed, as did oracles. Animal sacrifices were indeed a common religious practice. You will also see terms like "Cult of Nikador" and "Cult of Oronyx"; in the context of ancient Greek religion, "cult" is a neutral term that simply refers to the religious practices and community around a particular god.

That being said, there is also a ton of stuff in this fic that is totally made up LOL. I will note them in author's notes as they come up.

III. CANON LORE, THEORIES, AND MYDEI'S CHARACTERIZATION

The Amphoreus lore is super messed up when it comes to Mydei's backstory, which is filled with many inconsistencies. Some people believe in a theory that there are at least two separate timelines/realities and Mydei has memories of both, which he is unknowingly conflating. (The theory is explained here and here, in case you're curious.)

I'm fully running with the "multiple timelines" theory because otherwise I just cannot make sense of his backstory. However, I encountered a problem where I realized that the "Mydei grows up in Castrum Kremnos" timeline would come with a very different characterization of him (versus what we are used to in canon), where he is probably less wife-coded. This is not a version of Mydei that I would love </3 so I purposefully changed some things around:

He was still thrown into the sea and drifted for 9 years in this timeline

His mother still died when he was relatively young, just not in her initial duel with his father

He is still strongly critical of Kremnos' warmongering culture (which I think is a fair headcanon; his mother actively questioned Kremnoan values of war in his memories/dreams, and he was also thrown into the sea as a baby the Kremnoan king, so there is plenty of reason for him to be critical of the culture)

All the stuff with Okhema and the Chrysos Heirs also unravels in a way that deviates from the theories, but tbh, I think there is wiggle room anyway since none of it is confirmed to be canon.

IV. LIST OF CHARACTERS, LOCATIONS, AND TERMS

(Each section after "Lead Characters" is alphabetical)

LEAD CHARACTERS

READER — High Priestess of the Temple of Oronyx in Aurelia, concubine of Prince Mydeimos. Non-canonical character.

MYDEIMOS — Crown Prince of Kremnos. Canonically thrown into the Sea of Souls as an infant, survived for 9 years, observed saving fishing boats attacked by monsters. Returned to Castrum Kremnos sometime later, with the timeline for his return unclear. 

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS AND GODS

AQUILA — The Sky Titan.

CHARTONUS — Leader of the enslaved Mountain Dwellers, Blacksmith for Castrum Kremnos.

EURYPON — King of Castrum Kremnos, father of Mydeimos. 

EURYPONIDAS — Second son of King Eurypon and heir apparent to the throne. Non-canonical character appearing only in the timeline where Mydei was presumed dead by Kremnos.

GEORIOS — The Earth Titan.

GORGO — Founder of Castrum Kremnos. “Sons of Gorgo” refer to Kremnoans (non-canonical world-building detail).

GORGO — Deceased Queen of Castrum Kremnos, mother of Prince Mydeimos. She was named after the founder of Kremnos. Mydeimos is referred to as “Son of Gorgo” in canon due to her name.

KRATEROS — General of Kremnos, advisor of King Eurypon, tutor of Prince Mydeimos.

NIKADOR — The Titan of Strife, God of War. Deity worshipped by the Kremnoans.

ORONYX — The Titan of Time and Night, Guardian of Memories. “Goddess of Time” is a non-canonical moniker. Through channeling her powers, people are able to go into the past, alter the past, and temporarily restore objects to their past state; for the purposes of this fic, I have additionally given the reader the ability to temporarily enter the future.

CANON LORE TERMS & REFERENCES

BLACK TIDE — A corruptive force that is sweeping over the world and has driven many of the Titans mad, including Nikador. It is creating an apocalyptic situation that is meant to be addressed by the Flame-Chase Prophecy.

CHRYSOS HEIRS — See below in “Flame-Chase Prophecy”. 

EVERNIGHT VEIL — The form that Oronyx takes. In canon, researchers who've attempted to look past the Evernight Veil have gone mad, unable to distinguish between the past, present, and future.

FLAME-CHASE PROPHECY — A prophecy naming the Chrysos Heirs as a group of humans who are destined to slay the thirteen Titans, steal their “coreflames” (divinity), and become demigods. The new demigods will usher in an era of peace free of the Black Tide.

POMEGRANATE JUICE — Kremnos canonically used to have the tradition of drinking the blood of their enemies (encouraged by Nikador); however, this practice was amended to instead use pomegranate juice.

PLACES AND GROUPS

AURELIA — City-state south of Kremnos. Canon place name but details are entirely made up.

CASTRUM KREMNOS — Fortress of the city-state of Kremnos, doubling as its capital and palace. In the canon timeline, Castrum Kremnos has fallen to the Black Tide.

CULT OF NIKADOR — A non-canonical term referring to the religious practices and community of people formed around the worship of Nikador. Since all Kremnoans explicitly worship Nikador, this refers to all Kremnoans as well. 

CULT OF ORONYX — As above. The reader leads the Oronyx cult in Aurelia, but there would be other cults dedicated to Oronyx as well.

OKHEMA — Another city-state and long-time enemy of Castrum Kremnos. In canon, Okhema is known as a peaceful Holy City and place of refuge for those fleeing the Black Tide, and it is ruled by the Chrysos Heirs. However, this fic is set pre-canon, and I have characterized Okhema as a warmongering city-state under the rule of its Council of Elders (similar to Athens, who infamously warred with Sparta, and massacred and enslaved people during their victories). 

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

the key to happiness while in a fandom is accept the fact that there will always be people who love the characters you hate, and there will always be people who hate the characters you love. and every ship you think is disgusting has already been shipped by a group of people. and there is absolutely nothing you can do about that. making “call out posts” and engaging in witch hunt campaign/cancel culture will not stop any of these things that you don’t like from keeping happening. the only think it will achieve is make your fandom experience toxic and exhausting for your own mental health. fandom is supposed to be your getaway and your safe space. it never is supposed to be a courtroom or a war zone.

but what if I tell you fandoms can actually be your getaway and your safe space? all you’ve got to do is mute, block, refrain from engaging with things you don’t like and only focus on things you do like. because there will also be people who love the characters you love and people who ship the ships you ship. do engage with these people instead.

that’s it, that’s the key to happiness in a fandom. have fun!

[hestzhyen]

So, About That Drama...

After seeing the Kagurabachi community meltdown play out on Twitter, Discord, and Reddit, I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that the era of peace towards all is over. I'm so glad I put down roots here instead of the other places.

Whatever might have been true when the fandom just started out, the gen spaces are no longer safe for fujoshi/shippers.

Katsu, the biggest artist in the Western fandom -and someone I consider a friend-, was bullied out because of two individuals with personal vendettas and not enough resistance against them. Her final message is here:

https://x.com/Katsutacle_/status/1879888982886224206

I'm not going to write an in-depth essay about everything that happened. It's been less than a month since I got back from the hospital and the last thing I need in my life is stress over online "discourse". I've just been trying to help the main victim behind the scenes and speak up when I'm able. I so sincerely do not want to be involved in this bullshit... I just want my friend to be okay no matter what she decides to do in the future.

I usually don't get involved in fan spaces because I'm tired of trying to exist in places I'm not wanted. I don't expect everyone to enjoy things the same way I do. I just want to talk about them with the handful of other people who see things the same way... but it's so tiresome to be punched down on because I think it would be neat if two fictional guys fell in love.

I wanted to believe that Kagurabachi could be different. I did at the start, which helped me embrace the series wholeheartedly where I would normally hold back. And I don't regret letting this manga take over the precious few working brain cells I have. My only regret is believing the warmth and acceptance would last. As of now, the Kagurabachi fandom is far more interested in keeping a false peace that only benefits the usual suspects instead of making the space truly welcoming to all fans.

I won't stop posting about this manga and I won't write off everyone else- a lot of people sent well-wishes to Katsu and got their accounts banned on Avizie's Discord and subreddit to support her. I'm just putting expectations for the general fandom's behaviour back down to where they should have been all along.

I simply won't be telling people that it's worth joining the community any more or that it's wholesome compared to others. It's just more of the same with a thin veneer of acceptance over the same old tendency to belittle and ostracise. I'm glad I decided to keep to myself for the most part and only toss my thoughts out to the void instead of engaging on a deeper level. I should be sad or upset over this, but... I've been in fan spaces for long enough that it's just normal now. Not once have I ever felt at home in a main anime/manga space even if I didn't ship any characters from the series. Seems like I'll have to keep waiting for a place to belong.

And if anyone tries to cast this as a "ship war" because it involved the two most well-known shippers in the fandom and their "rival" ships, that's not it. That's misconstruing what actually happened to write it off as dumb fandom drama. Trying to cast the bullshit as a moral argument because Hakuri is 17 or because Katsu drew clearly labeled NSFW YuraChihi isn't the point- it's a deflection. Katsu was bullied out because Yuna (YunAris) and Avizie hated her guts despite her giving them every possible chance to act like decent people.

Avizie never liked her after she called him out for trying to get JJK-style leak culture in the fandom, and Yuna... I don't know her, but seeing how she stalked and harassed minors for weeks because they called Chiyuki and her art mid (without tagging her or anyone else!), then kicked off all this drama by pulling in Katsu and simbay who had nothing to do with it... she needs to get a grip on herself and grow up. Both of these individuals are adults, mind you. And both of them cannot stand Katsu for very personal and petty reasons.

So here we are.

It was never about the HakuHiro vs. Chiyuki nonsense, Hakuri's age, or anything else for Yuna and Avizie. All of it was merely an excuse to harass and slander Katsu until she was driven out. And good for them I guess because it worked. I hope they find the healing they obviously need to grow and become better people, but for now, I'm going to further distance myself from the fandom at large and be there for my friend.

Not much else to say really. If you have a choice, be kind.

[katyspersonal]

The MAIN cast of Elden CRING, a HIT game by FromSLOP ✨

Mommyrika - The sweetest, the nicest, the kindest, the loveliest and the most beautiful person in the entire Lands Between, no, in the entire universe that The Greater Whim created! :3 All she wants is for everyone to be happy and have a nice tea party! Everyone is so mean to her for no reason smh when she is just trying to be a good mother! >_< You can't even TELL that she is a mother because she is so petite and innocent and child-like! Despite her horrible trauma she didn't let it break her from being such a perfect ray of sunshine for everyone!

Chadagohn - Some absolute jerk that Greater Whim personally shoved into Marika's being out of pure spite, who doesn't know how to do anything but being oppressive and ruining everything! He lives just to randomly decide to start wars lmao no matter how much Mommyrika tried to fix him. He did literally every bad thing during the time Golden Order existed and Mommyrika was not able to do anything against him because of his super powerful gigachad aura clashing with her kind and soft one, however, she heroically tried to take the blame for his actions upon herself! Shame that some misogynists won't see through the charade, some of ya'll are weirdly obsessed with "giving female character agency" as long as it is about something bad 😭

Miq Griffin - I don't actually know if I got his last name right I just remember it started with 'griff-' lmao but he is just some evil manipulator that also likes to randomly reverse-groom already vulnerable people because he is eeeevil :3 Miq Griffin even has been pretending to care about his family and those who Chadagohn oppressed all to create a cult of crazy simps that will praise his name! He is ABSOLUTELY a child of his father Chadagohn but how the FUCK someone as pure as Mommyrika produced this manipulative monster? Well, it is because Chadagohn was not letting Mommyrika raise Miq Griffin at all by keeping her away with his gigachad aura.

Hellbent (race) - A race so evil and unhinged that as soon as even their infants are born their first words are "DEATH FOR INNOCENT", and only then "mom" or "dad". They are named this because they're so hellbent on spreading EVIL just because they can for no apparent reason like trap of corrupt religious cult or lagging behind culturally that nothing could cure them but Total Hellbent Death. They are literally SO evil that Fail God himself had enough of them and tried to obliterate them but got distracted to curse Mommyrika instead because her good vibes piss people off. But then Hellbent didn't think she had enough and cursed people that lived under her reign with OWEN Curse that makes your body sprout CROISSANTS and also spew some FIRE like if you were an owen. Just because they could do it and because they're EVIL and everything KIND and bright (like Mommyrika) makes them angry.

Mommy Boyssmer - The Mommyrika's most special mommy's boy that she loved more than her other children because he was the most disabled! He heroically took it upon himself to rid the world of Hellbent's evil just so nobody would dare to think Mommyrika is capable of negative emotions but somehow weird Hellbent's sympathisers still assigned the holy mission of Croissant-sade to her name because they're misogynists 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ He is such a softie you can tell Mommyrika's kindness rubbed off on him, but people want him dead not because of his actions but because he is a snek! Well Weirdtree does have a bias against sneks but it was Chadagohn's fault it exists. What a shame. Hopefully someday Hellbent will be dead so he can reunite with the only person that ever cared for him :3 Well he is also engaged with Irrel-levana, but Irrel-levana is actually just a brainless puppy-eyed Mommyrika's simp with no agency or ideology that only wants to marry him for Mommyrika's peace and happiness!

Mor-Goat and Momg - Two Owens and just other victims of the curse of Hellbent, as well as Chadagohn and Miq Griffin respectively. Well yeah you think they did something bad, like hunting Vargramnished for sport or kidnapping them (and some others) to indoctrinate them into evil blood cult? Wake up, all of this is just because Chadagohn demanded oppressing Owens and Mommyrika could do nothing to protect her own children from his gigachad wishes, and then Miq Griffin brainwashed Momg too into doing all this for a good measure! They're otherwise very sweet and chill and soft people who really just want a hug! Actually this whole time they wanted to hug Vargramnished they've met but Chadagohn's orders + Miq Griffin's charms respectively didn't let them and twisted their love into something eeeeeevil!

Libe-ranni or Ranni the Bitch - An enigmatic figure whose motivations remain unclear because of FromSLOP's shitty writing where they can't even explain their own characters normally :/ Because of this, some believe she is a hero who eliminated some nasty people to overthrow Chadagohn's and Greater Whim's awful plans to make everyone suffer for some reason, when others are just seething at the girlboss winning and believe she is an evil manipulator and schemer who just hated everything good. Some say she killed Forgotwyn because he was actually cringe and eeeeevil under guise of radiant kind boy, as evidenced by someone as evil as Miq Griffin admiring him, other say that Forgotwyn offered himself as willing sacrifice but FORGOT that a bunch of other Demigods would be killed too lmao rofl. Well Elden Cring is not a place for morally grey, complicated or machiavellian characters anyway smh so pick your camp (but also if you pick wrong you are a media illiterate looser :3).

Forgotwyn - A character that FromSLOP fucking abandoned after having built up soooooOOOOO much shit for him to be important!!!! We got literally NOTHING about Forgotwyn in the base game, are you fucking kidding me?! All they did with him was to just add a questline and whole ending focused on him, elaborated him in the story of Miq Griffin and Melanea with a plan to revive him and conclusion of Miq Griffin giving up and just wishing him true death and made him the reason for a whole political allyship and school of magic in the setting! Why do they hate this character so much and refuse to elaborate on him?! Fromslop has tremendous disrespect for its fans smh

Godfreak - Really the most pathetic character who only exists as the laughing stock despite what some weirdos that can't read subtexts will cope with LMAOOOO 😭😭😭 He even hunts Vargramnished just like Mor-Goat but at least Mor-Goat had an excuse upon being oppressed by Chadagohn's Order, what is Godfreak's excuse huh? He can't accomplish anything and isn't worth anything and he is ugly and also stinks and also the worst lover ever flowers wilt when he enters the room milk goes bad when he enters the room people on the portraits become animated just to turn away from him when he enters the room mirrors shatter just to not reflect his ugly ass face all while he is also so pathetic that he literally can ONLY steal shit! He stole his Great Rune shard, he stole the castle he is in, he even stole his family name and he is not ACTUALLY a part of the Golden Lineage because how can someone so UGLY and PATHETIC descend from Mommyrika? Clearly he is not a Demigod but just lying to everyone to be worth anything at all because he is worth nothing HAHAHA LOOK GUYS HE IS SO SHIT HAHAHA POINT AND LAUGH AT HIM GUYS HE IS SOOOO DISGUSTING HE IS NOT WORTH THE TIME OF THE DAY HE WILL NEVER HAVE BITCHES GRAFTED SCIONS WERE ALSO SOME HE STOLE JUST TO LIE THAT SOMEONE SLEPT WITH HIM BUT WHO WILL BELIEVE THIS LIE LMAOOOOOO HE IS SO PATHETIC AND INCAPABLE THAT HE HAD TO RIP A DRAGON'S HEAD OFF JUST TO PUT UP ANY FIGHT AND IT WAS STILL PATHETIC AND NOT BECAUSE HE IS THE FIRST 'TRUE' BOSS IT IS BECAUSE HE SUCKS DELETE HIM FROM FAMILY PORTRAITS OF DEMIGODS RESTORE THE TRUTH IN THE NAME OF OUR FRIEND CANNOT HAIGHT

Vargramnished - It is actually a whole type of people and not just one person, but they get their title because for some weird reason their most prominent member is Vargram. Nobody knows how he managed to escape his imprisonment at the Roundtable, lose his iconic sword and outfit, go live overseas, then be brought back in the Lands Between, be picked by Current and then upon his adventures even fight himself at some point but just roll with it I guess lol.

F and Dia - A few of characters who are just another example of overpresent misogyny tropes in Fromslop's works because God forbid woman does anything 🙄 Those Who Chill in Death are just some nice people who enjoy chill existence without soul, they aren't miserable they just act like I do when I have classes early in the morning lmao tf are you talking about?! But F can't stand them existing because he is just a raging bigot and kills people who just try to be happy. Honestly he should have been born amongst Hellbent with how much he craves blood of innocent 🤦‍♂️ At least Dia like a good wholesome mother that she is will protect everyone, huge shame that F (the other F) could not see the reasoning in her hunting his equally bigoted brother and got butthurt lol! The other F should have been called L instead because this is what he needs to hold xD

Cringeon Oof-nir - Just some pathetic dude that doesn't actually know shit lmao, he clearly didn't read all these books but was just browsing through them for pictures because he is a dumbass and can't read lol XD All the stuff he's telling us should not be taken as legit trait of his character come on, Fromslop simply needed a way to dump exposition on us, why they'd write a smart well informed character? As for the insane variety of the spells he's using, again, Fromslop just needed a way to still showcase the spells they've programmed in case if players correctly miss out on them because there is only one valid build to play (source: an argument I had on Reddit)! If they wanted to write a smart character then why he didn't know that one thing he didn't until we helped??? Clearly it is because he is actually a moron, also lazy fence sitter who is just using us! Gideon the All-Coping! Hahaha!

The Greater Whim - Somehow despite being a literal force that created existence itself and life and universe it is petulant enough to descend to very specific pocket of existence only to screw over Mommyrika as it ALSO can't stand her just vibing and being happy, or screw over other people. Everything bad assigned to Mommyrika that can't be blamed on Chadagohn is blamed on the Greater Whim. This is so sad how Mommyrika literally never has a choice and is always forced to do bad stuff because everyone except for her just wants to do evil smh >_<

Melanea - Ok I've mentioned that Mommyrika will love the afflicted child more than a healthy one by proxy uhhh. I've had a piece of paper where absent lore on Melanea in this regard was written but I gave it to the person who thinks everything above is super interesting and compelling writing so they can roll another bong :/ But from all evidence we were given Chadagohn probably used his chad power to keep Mommyrika away from Melanea and not let her care for her smh. And as if that was not enough, Miq Griffin always had her brainwashed. Melanea only was so loyal to him and had faith in him because she was under his spell. It was obvious, wasn't it? Who could ever genuinely love someone as evil and scheming as Miq Griffin anyway? The bastard even created a statue of him and Melanea hugging just so people would not see through his evil manipulative master plan! Eh female characters in Fromslop's works can't have agency anyways, really wish Melanea and others were kept far away from cringe evil men (not Mommy Boyssmer tho, he is good because Mommyrika's love saved him before Chadagohn sabotaged it :3)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jared Yates Sexton at Dispatches From A Collapsing State:

At the end of last week I released an episode of Audio From A Collapsing State talking about the emotional toll of the first few days of the Trump Administration. I think it was pretty obvious that it was designed to be a blitz of executive orders and action intended to assert power. Authoritarianism is weaponized abuse and as it is realized it communicates to the subject an inability to stop the will of the authoritarians and reinforces a sense of powerful isolation. Well. We made it through the first week. It was hard. It was painful. And I’m sure some of us are worse for wear.

I want to emphasize once more the need for self-care. Any attempt to organize and fight back begins with protecting yourself and ensuring you’re all right, energized, and prepared for the next onslaught. Talk to people you can trust. Establish actual reality outside of this nonsense they’re peddling. Remember to continue thinking about a better future. Limit the time authoritarians can affect you by logging off and sealing yourself off. And try and find things that bring you joy and, if possible, produce tangible artifacts that demonstrate how projects that take time and energy lead to things. Considering the toll, I do want to take a moment today to discuss something hopeful. That’s difficult, of course, when the President of the United States is joking about seeking a third term between cutting off federal funding, flagrantly violating the law multiple times, attacking the Constitution, attempting to expel transgender people from the military and culture writ large, and immigration raids are ongoing. I’m sure that paragraph alone was tiring, because of course it is. Never mind that it doesn’t even begin to cover the things that have happened in just the past couple of days. But that feeling, as powerful as it is, also leads us to the subject of hope. Because it is overwhelming, because it is exhausting, because it is chaotic and unarguably wrong, we are beginning to see signs that this will not continue on unabated and unopposed.

The Backlash

It’s necessary sometimes to put yourself in the shoes of the authoritarian. This helps in understanding key components of the ideology, but also in anticipating what directions they might go. I’ve been doing this for years now and I can admit it isn’t fun in any way, shape, or form. Regardless, it does pay dividends. When it comes to the implementation of authoritarianism, there are different strategies. You could roll it out slowly, which we have seen to some extent over the past few years. Then, there are moments in which things speed up. Sometimes this comes after an especially painful and motivating crisis, like the burning down of the Reichstag or a terrorist attack. In these situations, things change very quickly.

The emotional experience of authoritarianism riding on the back of a crisis is chaotic-making and, as we’ve seen in the 21st century, it can lead to insane scenarios like the bipartisan backing of the so-called War on Terror. But, presently, we’re in a different place. Donald Trump’s presidency already feels like it’s lasted several months. This is a result of a flurry of action that runs counter to how most administrations tend to ease into place and take a measured, careful approach. Instead, Trump is carrying out the agenda given to him by the think-tanks and institutes run by his billionaire benefactors, engaging in gleeful cruelty, destroying any government projects that don’t benefit the wealthy, and handing everything over to the oligarchs who have bought him.

This is a vulnerable period for authoritarianism as it is a stark departure from what we have seen in the past. The blitz was meant to push us kicking and screaming into a reality of their choosing, but the haphazardly aggressive nature of the push gifts us an incredible opportunity. If we can manage to get out of the dirt, dust ourselves off, and begin to look for openings, we might very well find purchase we thought, and that feels, nearly impossible.

[...]

I want to start here by saying I do not believe that the most diehard MAGA acolytes will suddenly realize they backed the wrong horse when the consequences of Trump’s action take form. That’s not how any of this works. They hold a religious dedication to him and are inundated constantly with enough of mis and disinformation and propaganda to override any cognitive dissonance. Economic troubles and even the eradication of programs that specifically affect them will be blamed on the “Deep State” or insidious conspiracy theories. That’s not what we’re talking about here. But Trump’s orders to pause federal funding, slash programs, and the general dysfunction and chaos leading to consequences (including his weekend spat with Colombia affecting prices) will change the paradigm with some. There are many individuals, from all walks of life, who are going to be negatively impacted. This includes the funding of studies, experimental drugs and treatments, any number of other downstream effects will touch people’s lives. Some people are going to die. And, when you add that to the upcoming trauma of seeing friends and neighbors and community members, including children, being rounded up by aggressive mobs of ICE officers, it will generate backlash.

For some, this will be stuff they read about on the news, but for so many people this is going to be lived experience that affects their daily lives. Federal employees are already feeling it and the people associated with their programs have had enough in the first week. Now, we’re getting into god knows how many ongoing programs that are going to be cut or decimated. This is going to exacerbate pressure in so many workplaces and communities, and the catharsis Trump is offering his dieheards - the pleasure of seeing “elites” and vulnerable communities inflicted with pain - will have no reward whatsoever for them. Instead, it will be real material conditions. Despite what Trump and the oligarchs behind him think, there are ripples from all of this. We’re likely to begin seeing labor strife, community uprisings, and a changing of the tide. The furious nature of it all, not to mention how dysfunctional and unprofessional Trump and his billionaires are, only makes mistakes more inevitable and for consequences to mount. The question now is how this will be answered. And authoritarians are quick to violence and suppression.

Jared Yates Sexton wrote a solid piece on how we fight MAGA authoritarianism.

[intermundia]

i personally think it's a shame how far much new star wars media has wandered from what i consider to be the beating heart of star wars, which is the explicit moral authority and inspirational altruism of lucas's jedi. there are certainly still pockets of media that honor that spirit and operate in the realm of mythological and archetypical space fantasy, but much of disney star wars is targeted at a demographic who are too jaded for kids' media and cannot tolerate the idea of narratively sanctioned good guys actually being good; they want realpolitik, they think all religions and all institutions are inherently corrupted, and they want the jedi to be a cabal of flawed political operatives instead of an idealized fantasy group of space wizards in a golden and more civilized age before the empire, with a vibrant monastic culture and a community of healthy bonds between monks, who understand the fabric of their fictional universe and how to live in harmony with it, and who live for duty because of their generous love for others. obi-wan and yoda in the OT carry the seed of that culture and pass their hope and devotion to duty on to luke, and i find that potent and inspiring even if it's not realism, you know? it's myth. i understand people who want to engage with star wars in this mode of absolutely no pure black and white, only shades of gray, but that's not the spirit of star wars that i love and what makes star wars transcendent and profound to me. luckily star wars is big enough to accommodate everyone and i wish people happiness with jedi critical stories. the realm of myth and heroes is where i vibe and do enjoy it there greatly lol

[thethiefandtheairbender]

my hot take is that i would've been fine if natla had changed virtually everything... character names, aesthetics, plot beats, character choices, etc. IF it had been more culturally accurate and respectful.

instead natla changes virtually nothing except the removal of sokka's sexism while increasing pakku's and the general north's, while also not being willing to commit to it (see: yue breaking off her engagement pre-show with zero consequences, which also undersells their new angle of her resenting/disliking the expectations her community has for her). we get one scene of katara doing braiding/weaving with her gran gran and mother. no other elements of water tribe culture are present that weren't there in the show, and others are removed. the water tribes don't even get to explain their own culture and relationship to the spirits, the fire nation does it. iroh being called out for ba sing se by an angrily grieving earth kingdom soldier is undercut by iroh coming off looking better when he spares the man and the man still strikes him afterwards from behind. because, y'know, the show that literally has fire nation characters critique an earth kingdom soldier for being corrupted by war, calls jet an outright terrorist and remove all of his nuance, and have katara say jet is just like the fire nation to his face isn't both sides'ing an imperialist genocidal conflict at all, obviously /s.

like, what the fuck are we doing here?

if natla wanted to radically change character arcs, struggles, backstories, and plot beats (avatars having glimpses of the future and that's why we head to the north, etc) they should've just wholly committed. the httyd movies are nothing like the books, but they change enough to be their own story in their own right (literally, they only keep a father-son relationship and the setting and half the character names; everything else is different). and they told a different, but really fucking good story.

for example: why not have there be zero sexism, and katara fights pakku for the right to learn any waterbending (healing or fighting) because they see her as an outsider who can't understand their culture, the same way there are stories about indigenous people working hard to reconnect to their culture after being separated from it due to colonization? why are we doing the same things, but worse, every time?

i'm not mad at natla for not being a 1:1 adaptation. i'm mad because every single unnecessary change it makes to the characters' core backstories and personalities are less effective than the OG, are not adequately addressed in story at any point, or has things ham-fisted in for no reason (yue being able to go into the spirit world has no bearing on the actual plot, for example; it's just There, because...?).

it's not more culturally sensitive than the og; instead, in many ways, it's less, and i think that's the biggest waste of it all.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

In your opinion, is worldbuilding an important part of a fantasy story that's set in a fictional world? By which I mean making the world and society interesting, complex, believable and consistent. I've read that it's still possible to tell a compelling story while stretching believability, that a good story can cover flaws like inconsistensies.

However, to me, having a world which is internally consistent and believable is an important aspect of immersion, and bad, or lack of worldbuilding disrupts it.

One example are the dothraki in ASOIAF that despite being stated by GRRM to be based on real societies like the plains indigenous people, huns and mongolians, are in reality more based off racist stereotypes created by Hollywood, as explained by historian Bret Deveraux in his blog ACOUP.

GRRM has been quoted as saying this in an interview: "The way history is taught today,” he says, is “more socioeconomic trends and things like that, which…I don’t know if it’s more valid or less valid, but it’s certainly more boring.” He reads history for “the wars and the betrayals, who stabbed who in the back, who was having an affair with whom, and to me that’s the juicy stuff of history. That’s what makes history fun.” 

I don't think that's a good attitude to have when writing about fictional societies, and it hurts storytelling because everyone is influenced by their environment, so if the society the characters live in isn't believable, then that makes them less believable as people as well.

the blog mentioned:

I do love Bret Devereaux, he's exactly the sort of weirdo I aspire to be. Making long, rambly, well researched analytical articles about things that bother him in fiction. Give his blog a read if you haven't seen it before.

I have a strong bias towards fantasy that's got detailed and well thought out worldbuilding. To me, writing in a fictional world but never actually putting effort into making it stand out from the real world is just wasted opportunity. What's the point? Why is it in a fictional world if you're not going to really build that world and make it unique? I know the complaints about coffee and chocolate and citrus fruits are a little tedious at this point, but it's part of the problem! Why do some fantasy worlds only explore things on a surface level and then thoughtlessly and uncritically allow their characters to have exactly the same modern conveniences with no real explanation? Why use the veneer of a european fairy world but not spend time getting any deeper about how it functions? It's boring to me and I dislike reading fantasy that refuses to engage with a unique world or flesh out its cultures.

Fantasy in a unique world with some modern conveniences absolutely can be done well. There's the CS Lewis method of "screw you, they have a street lamp and Santa Claus and that's part of the fun and whimsy of this being a fairytale world". Or the similarly humorous approach of Terry Pratchet's Discworld. Or anyone who decides to come up with other ways modern conveniences could have been invented and created in their fantasy world.

I'm putting large steam engines in my own worldbuilding and they work with runes that heat the water instead of having to burn fuel. But I haven't given them any steam powered vehicles smaller than a train or steamboat, because it's still a fairly new development in their timeline and they haven't prioritized private vehicles.

I agree that internal consistency is one of the most important factors in worldbuilding. You can come up with dozens of new ideas for your world, but if they're incoherent and contradictory and poorly explained, it's not going to work. and on the other hand, if you simplify your world and only provide a few broad details, but keep it consistent, you might have a lot of success with it!

Here's a few things I personally consider important for a well written fantasy world:

Don't rely too heavily on modern language. Using too much obvious real world swears and slang-- especially ones that will become dated-- breaks the immersion. I hardly even notice that Tolkein uses real world month and weekday names in his writing because everything else is so fleshed out that it's very easy to gloss over those details and they don't shatter your immersion at all. But Fourth Wing uses modern slang so much I forget I'm reading a book about a dragon rider war college and not a contemporary teen drama set in a high school with bizarrely high stakes. (I have decided to embrace the pettiness and not obscure book titles this time.)

Expanding on the above, don't rely too heavily on real world cultures. Especially not ones you're unfamiliar with. It frequently leads to problems with racist caricatures. Like the Dothraki. On the other hand, if you know what you're doing and you're using personal connections to a real culture, it can still work! I've been reading the Daevabad trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty recently, to get out of my reading slump. It's set in the real historical region of the middle east and it does use real details from the cultures of that region, but the author has an actual connection to those cultures and the fantasy is built up from the mythology she loves, with personal touches that make it feel unique. The books also spend quite a bit of time exploring and explaining these worldbuilding details, so it's very immersive and enjoyable. (highly recommend if you're looking for fantasy aimed at adults that isn't more focused on being a sexy romantasy, and actually has some good worldbuilding and plot and political drama to chew on and think about)

Be consistent and don't overdo the details. Much as I love to deep dive into a fantasy world, if it's oversaturated with information it will probably end up contradicting itself and just become a confusing mess to read. When the Moon Hatched has some interesting worldbuilding potential, but goes a little too overboard with all of it in a way that's kind of overwhelming and difficult to follow, and not in a fun way. It's rather tedious and the plot is awkwardly paced. On the other hand, The Locked Tomb series is heavy with details and intentionally trying to confuse and mislead you, in a way that feels more rewarding when you pay attention and re-read the books to catch the details and piece together the plot mysteries yourself.

not every fantasy needs to be heavy with its worldbuilding, but it's also just so much more fun, for me, if fantasy books set in their own worlds display some deeper thinking and planning on the author's part. I don't need to know every detail of how the world functions or have full dictionaries of all their possible languages and a long list of historical events that created the context of the setting. But I like to read a book that tells me those details exist. That conveys just what I need to know while also implying that there's more and giving me little tastes of how much more there must be, because that's what makes it feel real and immersive. Without that taste of depth, the world feels like it's just a prop for the plot and not much else. Which is boring. For me, at least. I don't want the world to be a prop, I want it to be a Place, where the plot happens because these characters and events are real within their world.

And that's my several cents on that lol.

[bingsoo-jung]

TTRPGs and Violence

Not everything is radical, let’s stop pretending like it is.

A lot of people in the TTRPG space don’t like me. About a year ago I more or less set fire to the handful of bridges I had built in this space in order to make a statement about the genocide of Gaza. In the past year as I protested my way across my college campus, graduated, and joined up with a mutual aid group, I have never once regretted this.

However, I do regret not being more clear with what I meant when I did it. So, let’s begin with a bold statement, people in the TTRPG space often discuss colonialism and resisting colonial narratives, but draw the line at actually resisting colonialism. The TTRPG community has decided that ‘revolutionary’ narratives are non-violent ones because many people subscribe to the idea that violence is inherently colonial and not simply a tool of colonizers. But no liberation has ever been achieved without violence, and the decision in the TTRPG space to say that anti-colonial and revolutionary stories should be non-violent ones exemplifies why TTRPGs often struggle to hold its own against other storytelling mediums. Not because of the inherent nature of TTRPGs, but because of the culture that has formed around them.

Stories, at their best, are vehicles of discussion about the world around us. They are ways to comment on the complicated nature of reality. But simply deciding the best path of resistance is a path of consummate niceness and pacifism — not one of violence and care — ignores those complex realities. It’s been decided that there is an acceptable amount of fury that can be depicted, but that fury ought to be toothless. Thus to reinforce that narrative, stories about war are always set after the war, they’re about healing from trauma in a better world. They’re about how we become better when all the fighting is done.

But the fundamental fact of reality is that those things aren’t done. Colonialism hasn’t ended, it’s just shifted forms, wars still occur, and there is an active ongoing genocide even now. I live in a country which has elected a wannabe-Hitler, and a South African billionaire who made his money from slave labor did a nazi salute at his inauguration. We live in an actively hostile and cruel world for POC, queer people, disabled people, and so many others. But we are pretending as if we don’t.

Thus not only are we engaging in pretend when we’re acting, we’re engaging in pretend in the metanarratives surrounding which stories do and don’t get told. We’re acting as if these stories which talk about healing from trauma are responses to the reality we live in, where the trauma-causing events have passed. But they haven’t. The traumatic history hasn’t ended, we’ve just grown blind to it.

To this day I can name one Actual Play off the top of my head which depicted violent resistance, yet I can name a number of movies, books, and TV shows which have, despite them being under far greater censorship. APs have chosen to self-censor not because the TTRPGs don’t exist, but in the hopes of being palatable, yet still wish to be viewed as radical by their community. This is done by choosing to not depict the PCs as engaging in violent resistance, and not portraying that violent resistance in a positive light. Instead most ‘anti-colonial’ stories are post-colonial ones about how ‘leftover anger’ from traumatic histories can make you cruel.

This is not to say that stories sent after colonization cannot be radical, but for them to be radical the violence used to achieve liberation cannot be ostracized and made into something that characters need to ‘heal from.’ That killing the colonizer who massacred thousands or even millions actually is on the road to hell and is something that can mar the soul. In doing so we vilify the justified anger of the colonized. We tell each other ‘don’t be angry at the injustice that happened to you.’ But Kira Nerys from Star Trek: Deep Space 9, or Cassian Andor from Andor don’t need to heal from the violence they caused, your TTRPG characters don’t need to either.

Furthermore, we treat actions that are not liberatory actions as being liberatory. No, you getting better opportunities is not liberation. No, former soldiers healing from trauma isn’t liberation. No, voting isn’t liberation. Liberation is liberation. Anything else isn’t, and shouldn’t be considered that. That isn’t to say those things important, but they aren’t equal to it. As Ismatu Gwendolyn would say, we’ve made a spectacle of liberation, we’ve made it something you can eat and consume and say ‘I engaged in liberation, my instagram feed says so! Look at this liberation meal I had!’ But in doing so we’ve failed to actually produce any stories which could meaningfully contribute to discussions of what resistance should look like and how it could be achieved. We’ve hampered our imaginations to foster a palatable leftism in favor of a useful one.

But what use is calmness, when the anger is correct? When things are wrong and fucked up? Why not tell a story about your anger? The want for violence isn’t always bad, what matters is when and where it’s used. Yes, indiscriminately murdering orcs is weird and speaks to the tendencies towards bioessentialism in D&D, but demanding we always negotiate with fascists because ‘they’re people too’ is just tolerating fascists. There is nuance and context to violence that matters, and by stripping those things from how we portray it, our stories become the worse for it. We do not trust in the viewer to come to conclusions for themselves, or to know where the line in the sand is, nor do we trust in the performer-creatives to be a rational person.

Perhaps most irresponsibly, instead of building infrastructure that would allow us to tell these kinds of stories we’ve instead cast it to the performer-creatives to take the emotional burden upon themselves. Why don’t we bring on intimacy coordinators to set boundaries and create safe environments to tell these stories? Why are things like decompressing and session zeroes optional and not obligatory? And why have we not innovated more robust and professional safety tools as this space becomes more and more of an industry? In doing so we’ve inherently made TTRPGs a less safe place that would allow us to tell more serious stories. The limitations are not solely of what stories we’ve deemed acceptable to tell, but the lack of systems that would allow us to tell them. This is not to say that if you don’t have access to these systems you shouldn’t be telling stories, but the lack of them nevertheless speaks to a greater issue in the TTRPG space, a fundamental unseriousness that impacts our very ability to be more radical in our imagination.

I don’t really know if I want to see more narratives around violent resistance in the TTRPG space. I’m not sure if the same people who have rejected such stories and the importance of them really have the capability to tell them, or if they will simply just make it work. But I hope to see new people use stories to galvanize people, and to innovate new futures. I not only want to see stories that say something, that give us new possibilities, but also new systems put in place that support creatives in telling these stories. Things like bleed should not be solely up to the performers to handle, but something that resources are budgeted for just the same as streaming assets, hardware, and so much else. If we want to create a space where people are emboldened to tell all kinds of narratives then we need to actually facilitate those spaces, not just say ‘I would like to see more kinds of stories told.’

TTRPGs are not producing stories in the vein of Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, or even Deep Space Nine because we’re so focused on being better than our anger, but also trying to recreate the success of stories in other mediums. We reach towards a moderate middle ground based on the past because it’s healthy and reliable. But that ignores that oftentimes a good story not only makes the viewer feel something, but challenges them. The inherent nature of nostalgia is a conservative one which idolizes a forgone idealized past that never could have existed, and in constantly trying to recreate or pay homage to other stories, we continue to hamper our innovation.

There is such great potential to in TTRPGs as a medium, from their collaborative nature, to their real-time storytelling that provides a space for people to experience emotions and possibilities in real time, to, frankly, the lack of censorship that other mediums of art experience. They can push us to imagine and act quicker than if we were simply writing a novel or screenplay. But if the TTRPG space is to grow we must move beyond our unimaginative and anti-radical tendencies which idolize a non-violent nostalgic past, in favor of dreaming a sometimes violent radical future.

With all my love,

Theta S. Chun.

[imfromthemiddlekingdom]

Felony saying that everyone in the universe can access the force if they tried hard enough makes me want to deck him in his fugly face

He’s ruining all established canon in real time. Speed running the absolute destruction of continuity of the SW universe and people are still rooting for him and his blorbo self inserts like there’s no tomorrow. Literally the whole reason I no longer engage in Ashoka content is because he massacred my girl and made her so one dimensional that my Mary Sue self insert fanfics OCs I wrote when I was 14 looks well developed compared to the absolute bland “girlboss kick ass take names” personality Ashoka has right now.

There were so many opportunities for him to explore the absolute potential of angst and conflict within Ashoka in this new series, to give her character a believable story of grief loss and growth yet he threw it all away because he wanted his OC to be the specialist girl that ever lived. This series could’ve been used to explore Ashokas conflicting feelings regarding the Anakin that taught her and was a mentor to her whilst trying to connect it to the monster that killed her family and hunted her culture into almost extinction and tried to kill her, a person he confessed to love as a sister, on Malachor. It could’ve been a good send off to a great character, to have her face that the Skyguy she put on a pedestal in her mind was in actuality the worst sort of scum and have her try to come to terms that just because she can forgive him for being the genocidal maniac he was and still hold love in her heart for who he used to be and also understand why the Jedi, her family, wasn’t the reason for their own downfall.

But alas. We got another series of “the Jedi caused their own downfall!!! Anakin did nothing wrong ever and him killing all my family and everyone I’ve ever known is so not his fault!!! It’s definitely the fault of the unbending stuck in the past council!!!”. Instead of a series that could’ve made Ashoka’s “departure” (literally never going to happen with felony at the helm, he’s going to find a way to make her immortal and then show up 200 years in the future to be the protagonist of another light v dark fight since she’s his special SI) from the series tie in nicely thematically and canonically with every other Star Wars media we have, he decided that the best way to have this series go down is 1) everyone is force sensitive if they tried hard enough ig and 2) the Jedi were bad!!! Their protocols don’t work! They were mean to my little meow meow Anakin Skywalker the greatest Jedi of all times™️ therefore he got to kill them all!!!!

Got a bit off topic but I’m still so mad that he had this chance to make Ashoka truly experience growth like the first 5 seasons of TCW yet he decided maintaining the badass rebel without a cause aesthetics for her was more important then good story telling.

Honestly though, my main problem with this series is that he decided that apparently everyone in the universe can be force sensitive if they “just tried hard enough”. Like your Midichlorian Count no longer matters since even if you were Force-Null you can still be special!!!!

This takes away any and all urgency in the Jedi Fallen Order games. It makes Cals journey absolutely redundant. It throws away all the tragedy contained in having inquisitors being force sensitive kids kidnapped from their parents and tortured till they give into the dark side. If all beings are able to use the force in his universe then there are no consequences to the inquisitors not finding the Holocron that holds the names to all force sensitive children in the universe. There would be no need to them to chase Cal and the Mantis Crew throughout the universe to obtain what they have. They could’ve just went down to any random level in Coruscant and take homeless Force-Null kids and train them.

Even better! It makes the entirety of the KOTOR games redundant!!!! Oh and I guess the hidden path is also redundant since everyone can be force sensitive and no one truly needs more saving from the empire over others :/ totally not like these kids that were saved by the path would’ve been taken and tortured into inquisitors, definitely not since EVERYONE is force sensitive nowadays or is it just the ones Ashoka trains herself because she’s the “living embodiment of the daughter uwu she’s so special and unique look how well she can train a non force sensitive to be force sensitive!!!”

Everyone in the Star Wars universe has Midichlorian’s in their blood. That is a fact. It is also an established fact that the amount each person has is different and is not determined nor dependent on lineage. Force-Nulls typically range in the 1000-3000 count and you need 7000 to be force sensitive and higher to be accepted into the order. (The order isn’t the end all be all of force cultures, Rouge One shows that Jedha’s force culture isn’t restricted to only force sensitives as the Guardian’s were never specified to be only a religious order of force sensitives. And high canon doesn’t depict many other force cultures but we know that there are many force cultures in the universe that co-exist with the Jedi with which the Jedi weren’t in opposition towards; literally not even the witches of Dathomir were oppositions anywhere outside of the battle fields.) You don’t need to be force sensitive to be part of a force culture (Jedha literally has pilgrims who come far and wide to make a pilgrimage to the holy site and not all of them were force sensitive), Sabine could’ve very easily been taught the tenets of the Jedi without retconning her to be force sensitive or making everyone in the universe force sensitive.

No where in either the EU or High Canon did anyone ever say that you have to be force sensitive to be a badass or to make a difference. Hera did not hold the title of the best pilot in the universe just for some rat of a man to come and say that Anakin was the best because *muh force sensitivity!!!!* Some of the most heroic and most influential (good or bad) people in the franchise are Force-Null! And that’s great! It means that the force doesn’t make anyone better than anyone else! It’s a quirk of the universe! To retcon that everyone can and is force sensitive if they tried hard enough is literally cheapening everything the franchise stands for. Andor did not literally give us an entire story about how Force-Nulls in the Galaxy makes just as much of a difference as force sensitives for felony to come out and say that “you know what??? Midichlorian’s are a scam! You get a force sensitivity! You get a force sensitivity! Everyone gets a force sensitivity!!!!”

Sabine was great as she was in rebels, why cheapen it with “oh she’s actually force sensitive all this time!!!” When we could’ve stuck with badass Force-Null Mandalorian can kick your ass five ways to Sunday with her paint bombs and blasters you force wielding asshole!!! Like why even do that felony. Do you want people to hate her??? Nvm ofc you do, you need Ashoka to be the best in every way possible even if it means ruining every other beloved character in this franchise👍

[genderkoolaid]

I think people forget that atheism ≠ anti-theism. Like in the same way, say, asexuality ≠ anti-sex/sexuality. Somebody talking about how antisemitism is bad is not saying people who don't believe in god are Bad, they're saying being against religious people is bad. And for asexuality, not being sexual yourself does not automatically mean you are against people who are

From what I've seen the basis for antitheism is "religion is inherently harmful and getting rid of religion will improve the world." but the problems with that imo are:

religion is a made up concept that's almost meaningless. like its a well known issue that "religion" is such a vague concept that is deeply western which is why its often really really hard to apply it to the vast majority of human spiritual traditions. hell even "religio" in the context of roman polytheism doesn't map exactly onto the concept of "religion"! like in a lot of cases the line between "religion" and "philosophy" is blurred or nonexistent. not to mention that there are religious atheists. jewish atheists are probably the best example since judaism tends to be far more open to that kind of complexity & fosters a culture which allows people to engage with judaism in a variety of ways. but there are people who don't believe in god or jesus-as-savior but are christians for cultural or philosophical reasons. there are tons and tons of atheists buddhists because its a helpful way of engaging with life regardless of whether or not you believe in samsara literally. the idea that there is this strict binary between Religion and Atheism is, like all binaries, made up.

scapegoating religion for all of humanity's problems is just unhelpful. the idea that religion is this force will propels people to do bad things, and that without religion we wouldn't do them, ignores how humans shape religion to our benefit. there's a reason that wealthy kings who want to maintain power emphasize interpretations of the bible or quran that endorse war while downplaying the ones that endorse peace and compassion. for the same reason that people will support philosophies that view humans as inherently mean and violent and in need of control instead of ones that view us as capable of communal care and cooperation- you don't need to believe in a deity to create a reason why you need to kill another group of people and take their shit. religion is a way this happens, and its important that this is dealt with, but this is not a unique feature of religion. getting rid of religion will not fix our shitty behavior.

going off 1 and 2: trying to get rid of "religion" will inevitably mean fucking over marginalized groups who have already had their spirituality attacked and whose culture cannot be so easily separated from their spirituality. and even beyond that, antitheism is just another way of trying to force a belief onto people. believing in no god is no more objectively correct than believing in one, or any other spiritual concept. there are always going to be spiritual people. also you can say "but there are nonwhite/formerly nonchristian antitheists!!" as much as you want but that doesn't change that saying shit like "all your beliefs are childish and mentally ill, you need an educated intellectual to make you realize you are being stupid and irrational and make you think correctly" is absolutely some classic colonial white supremacist bullshit.

also trying to force atheism on people actually does not help atheists. because it in fact only makes it easier for people to stigmatize atheism as inherently destructive and hostile.

anyways now that anon can get mad for being a wretched child ranting about antitheism. now i've earned it.

[jackoshadows]

What I don't understand is why Sansa stans, who want to get rid of Arya in Winterfell, go for the laziest fanon of Arya being a tourist - a theory that's borrowed from ultimate hacks D&D and the garbage TV show and which ending GRRM has repeatedly disavowed.

Arya becoming some kind of world explorer at the end pretty much ignores her book story, narrative arc, characterization and throws away the material in her so far written 32 pov chapters for an ending they came up with because of a made up headcanon. An headcanon which is far removed from the book character.

If one wants to get rid of Arya in Winterfell to make way for Sansa, the least they could do is actually read Arya's chapters and attempt to come up with an ending that makes more sense for the character.

Arya is a character who wants to help. From Mycah to Weasel to Samwell Tarly, Arya is someone who stands up against injustice even at great risk to herself. She's selfless and would sacrifice her personal happiness for the greater good. She wants things to be better, for herself, for her friends, for the smallfolk.

One ending could be Arya Stark as a leader of the Riverlands, helping rebuild from the ravages of war, helping the people who survived. Arya, who has the empathy and the skillsets to help them, who has listened and learned from her father on how to govern. We see Willow Heddle take care of orphans and managing an inn with a quiet efficiency that mirrors Arya's and Gendry hanging around helping her. I could see Arya and Gendry continue their relationship, fall in love, marry and settle down in the Riverlands while Arya either rules the Riverlands as the Tully heir/Cat's daughter or as Lady of Harrenhal helps Edmure Tully rebuild the Riverlands.

Or, if Jon Snow leaves for beyond the Wall as the leader of the new territories and lands there, maybe Arya goes with him. Considering their close bond and love for each other and the fact that home is where each other is - something else that is again established in the books - if she had no choice but to leave Winterfell, going with Jon Snow to help him lead the freefolk beyond the Wall could be another option.

Or if Bran does end up becoming King on the Iron Throne, then she could stay in KL to help her much loved baby brother. She wouldn't like leaving Winterfell, but Arya is a character who sacrifices and does what's right, no matter how hard it is for her to do personally. Plus, she wanted to be a king's councillor and build things. Her training and skillsets with the FM would also make her alert to any future LF/Varys types trying to plot against Bran - not that someone who can see into the past and present needs a master spy...

Or Arya and Brienne start a school for young girls who are interested in learning different things and have teachers who actually develop their talents based on what they are good at instead of being hateful for what they cannot be.

In my opinion, any of these endings is better than 'Arya, world explorer' an empty, nonsensical ending that has no connection to the character's book story and is actually contemptuous of the suffering and trauma this child has been through over several books. Meet new people and learn new languages? What do these folks think Arya has been doing so far? The girl's been traveling from her second AGoT chapter, meeting countless people. sailed the narrow seas, engaged with new cultures, learned new languages. She's been there, done that.

What's even more ridiculous is that it's Sansa stans who often engage in the oppression olympics of Sansa having suffered the worst, that Sansa 'deserves' Winterfell because she suffered the most abuse, that the only ending that makes sense for Sansa is being back in Winterfell because she suffered so much etc. And yet according to these very same folks, Sansa is going to roll up her sleeves and tirelessly work to lead the people of the North, while Arya is going on a cruise ship vacation and vlog about the new cuisine she is trying out...Hey, maybe after having suffered the most of ALL characters in the series, maybe it's Sansa who deserves the cruise ship vacation, you know?

We have the author himself saying that Arya's harrowing experiences and journey through Westeros and Essos has aged her up so much that he considers the character older than some of the 40 year olds in the books! And yet there are still people harping on and on about tourist Arya ffs.

I personally think Arya will be in Winterfell at the end of the books, either helping her younger brothers Bran/Rickon lead the North or more probably as a leader in her own right.

Arya is a central character in the series, the female character with the most POV chapters. There's no way GRRM has one of his lead female characters end up playing a supporting role in her brothers or sister's story. No way.

The author has given her the character development in the books to lead the North. She has a hulking huge grey direwolf at her side - the sigil of house Stark. She is the lone Stark who has the Stark look. Her direwolf is named after the first Dornish princess who changed female inheritance in Dorne - a big clue for a character who has chafed against patriarchal restrictions on what women can and cannot do. I mean this is how we are introduced to Arya Stark in her very first AGoT chapter:

“The Lannisters are proud,” Jon observed. “You’d think the royal sigil would be sufficient, but no. He makes his mother’s House equal in honor to the king’s.”

“The woman is important too!” Arya protested. - Arya, AGoT

It's clear to me that her arc is heading towards her being the first Lady of Winterfell/Wardeness of the North, nicely bookending her arc which started with her wanting the woman to be as important as the man, arguing for equality when it comes to their house. That's how organic story telling and building a narrative actually works.

I am aware of the principal Internet forums about A Song of Ice and Fire and I really used to look at the American and English groups. Nowadays, the most important site is Westeros, but I started to feel uncomfortable and I thought it would be a better idea not to get to these sides. The fans use to come up with theories; lots of them are just speculative but some of them are in the right way. Before the Internet, one reader could guess the ending you wanna do for your novel, but the other 10.000 wouldn’t know anything and they would be surprised. However, now, those 10.000 people use the Internet and read the right theories. They say: “Oh God, the butler did it!”, to use an example of a mystery novel. Then, you think: “I have to change the ending! The maiden would be the criminal!” To my mind that way is a disaster because if you are doing well you work, the books are full of clues that point to the butler doing it and help you to figure up the butler did it, but if you change the ending to point the maiden, the clues make no sense anymore; they are wrong or are lies, and I am not a liar. - GRRM

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Why would a battle fought 54 years ago provide key insight on what Hamas' strategy is today?

Asymmetric Warfare. It's a term that most people don't really understand. Before I did this, I was a United States Army Green Beret and I did a couple of combat tours in Iraq. And needless to say, asymmetric warfare was kind of our thing.

So, in practical terms, it is a type of war between belligerents whose relative military power, strategy or tactics differ significantly. And as a result of this, the weaker opponent will use unconventional tactics in order to maximize one's strengths against a stronger opponent's weaknesses or vulnerabilities.

For instance, an Insurgent force does not have the freedom of movement or firepower necessary to attack a forward operating base or a heavily armed column. So instead, they focus on softer logistical targets. They may choose to use a remotely activated roadside bomb instead of engaging in direct fire.

In many situations, the weaker adversary has fewer personnel and resources. And so, a significant part of their strategy is to preserve those limited resources and use the munitions that they have to the greatest possible advantage.

But here's the thing. To pull this off long term, you generally need a consistent means of supply combined with enough territory to hit, run and then hide. And Hamas doesn't have these things, at least not in sufficient supply to win against the IDF.

So, what's their strategy? What can Hamas leverage that will allow them to conduct offensive operations against a much stronger opponent and then avoid getting destroyed by the IDF's vastly superior military capability?

And the answer to that question as horrific, as it is, is civilian casualties, but probably not the ones you're thinking.

To understand this, let's discuss that example 54 years ago. The Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War virtually wiped out the Viet Kong. It was by every objective measure, a complete tactical failure. But strategically, it was invaluable. Because while achieving none of its military objectives, the Tet Offensive shattered Americans' perspective on the situation on the ground.

Opponents of the war were able to effectively use the offensive as a demonstration of the futility of American involvement. Hollywood, Academia and many in the mainstream media went to work convincing the American people that the war couldn't be won. Or perhaps just shouldn't even be fought. And in a representative government, when the electorate decides that a war is lost, it is, regardless of the situation on the ground.

Now, understand something. I'm not making an argument for the pros or cons of fighting the Vietnam War. I'm merely illustrating a point about modern Asymmetric Warfare. The lesson of the Tet Offensive is when fighting the West, you don't defeat their military. You win their electorate. And the way to do that is through the institutions which shape culture in the West, namely Hollywood, the Media and Academia.

If Hamas had decided to engage in a conventional military attack directed at only legitimate military targets, the IDF would have effectively destroyed their war fighting capability within days, and Hamas knows it. So, they engaged in asymmetric strategy.

Once we understand this, their actions on October 7th, as horrific as they are, begin to make more sense. Hamas didn't just target civilians because they were easy targets or because they despise Jews, although both of those things are true. The attack and the subsequent taking of hostages was actually designed to elicit a major response from the IDF.

But why? Well, maybe it's because to achieve their strategic objectives, Hamas needs civilian casualties. And more specifically they need Palestinian civilian casualties. And this is why.

The two entities in this conflict that lose the most from a greater peace agreement in the Middle East are Iran and the terrorist organizations they support. Upsetting this process requires much more than the random launching of rockets into Israel or strikes against legitimate military targets. The IDF is more than capable of handling such incursions, and the Israeli people have become all too accustomed to weathering such attacks without demanding an overwhelming military response. something more significant was required.

And October 7th created the kind of conditions that demanded a significant and sustained response. They needed something so obscene that Israel would have no choice but to hit back hard.

And this is where the second component of Hamas' strategy plays out. How to get Palestinian casualties. Any government actually worried about civilian casualties dedicates resources to evacuating their own civilians from hostile areas and attempts to separate the civilian population from legitimate military targets. So what conclusion should we come to when a governing body decides to do the exact opposite?

In this asymmetric environment, Hamas is not only incentivized to kill Israeli civilians, they're incentivized to maximize their own civilian casualties in the short run in order to elicit Western intervention on their behalf. As easy as it might be to explain Hamas's strategy away as nothing but mindless bloodlust, it is actually more sinister than that.

Hamas is responding to the incentive structures certain elements within the West have created. Hamas understand that the real Battlefield is not in Gaza but in the streets, University halls and newsrooms of the West. And so that is their target. And while a ceasefire seems like a humanitarian response to the tragic death of civilians, leaving Hamas intact as an operational and governing body will ultimately just reinforce that the perverse incentive structure remains the same.

And that while the West may claim to "not negotiate with terrorists," they always seem to force Israel to as soon as it becomes politically inconvenient for them.

So here's the hard reality. If you actually want to achieve anything resembling a lasting peace in this part of the world, you're never going to achieve it by creating conditions where terrorists are incentivized to hurt both the civilians of their enemies, and their own in order to achieve their political objectives.

==

This, of course, was completely obvious from the moment of the al-Ahli Hospital hoax, where Western outlets worked overtime to spread Hamas propaganda without regard for truth, all the way through to the present-day "protests" which are anything but organic or grass-roots.

[radicalcoffeeclub]

i have been feeling really caught between worlds lately as a trans person who believes sex based oppression is the basis for misogyny, and i wanted to say it was a relief to find your blog and see there are still feminists who respect my identity/dysphoria while also not denying the material reality of female subjugation.

i think your stance is perfectly reasonable and hold many of the same opinions. youd be surprised how many trans people actually agree with feminist thought in private. i think more of us agree with feminist thought than are willing to admit to ourselves, but bc of this tribalist sort of culture we have built up where associating with The Other Side is grounds for permanent ostracism, a lot of us just keep quiet and try not to think about it. it's been getting worse as well with the culture war- it is far easier to behave reactively and blame some woman with a blog for our dwindling rights than to face the overwhelming reality of how much power a few wealthy men hold over all our lives.

i have hope though that feminism will gain ground in our spaces again, and i do my best to try to bring more feminism into my own spaces. sorry this got long, i was just so relieved to see someone talking sense and wanted to let you know your words and respect aren't wasted. i do not think you are an "evil terf" who hates us.

Thanks for sending this, this is such a nice message! I agree it sucks that there is such a big division between people and ideas right now that it seems impossible to find common ground when there would actually be quite a bit of it. I feel like it wasn't even that long ago when it was generally acceptable to hold both the beliefs that biological sex is immutable and it matters as well as that some people are trans and that it isn't very hard to accept that. I don't need to rub it in a trans person's face that I think of gender entirely differently from them. I don't need to argue with my nonbinary friends that they're women. Just like I don't need to argue with every religious person I know that their god isn't real. I don't need to call people by a name they don't want to be called just because "that's your real name". I too ask people to call me by my nickname instead of the name my parents gave me. As with religious people, I only take issue when they start imposing their beliefs on me or saying that I'm not allowed to do or say something because of their beliefs.

Personally, the things that have pushed me towards radical feminism regarding trans issues have been 1) the increasingly pervasive claim that biological sex isn't real and doesn't matter, 2) the push for laws that essentially harm women's rights and 3) the push to allow medical transition for children (which will among other things make them unable to experience sexual pleasure and idk why any trans activist would even want that for other trans people). I agree this has become a culture war of sorts where both views get further and further. I don't really agree with quite a few takes I see on radblr. I don't agree with mocking or taunting trans people just because we disagree. I think too many radfems are making fools of themselves and radical feminism by acting like bullies. Some will justify it with "well tras post this and that and thats worse" but like, just don't engage with that shit. It's not necessary. All it does is further inflame this shit and reinforce an us vs them mentality. No I don't think we need to be nice and shut up uwu but everyone should consider whether what they're saying is constructive or destructive.

It's interesting to read that you think many trans people/trans activists agree with (radical) feminist points but wouldn't admit that because there's such a big division and people fear getting ostracised. It's a big issue that the discussion has become such walking on eggshells and anyone with a different view can quickly be labelled a terf and discarded. There's a lot at stake when possibly your entire social and friend group could dump you for being seen as a transphobe - even for expressing lukewarm takes that wouldn't have shocked anyone 15 years ago.

Again thanks for this message! Good food for thought. And good for you for trying to make the discussion more nuanced in your circles! We need more of that everywhere. You're not alone.