#but the implications can 100% be worse!

[franz-katka]

this is just an observation I’ve noticed for a while, but... what is up with the Lord of the Flies community continually erasing or vilifying Piggy...

he’s one of the major characters in the plot and isn’t even THAT bad morally, yet he seems to get little fanfare compared to everyone else, even relatively minor characters. it’s... odd, to say the least.

[torchickentacos]

you ever scroll past some sort of discourse that you didn't even know existed, and you have to take a second and realize that, while none of us are superior to others, some of us ARE much better at choosing which dumbass hills to die on? because I think sometimes you deserve to go 'huh. at least I'm not getting involved in all that'.

[bonefall]

the worst parent poll made me realize just how many ppl in the fandom are willing to jump straight into abuse apologia. bc on one hand you have ppl dumbing down crow's abuse to "him just being mean" and on the other end you have ppl saying that curlfeather didnt abuse frostpaw because she sacrificed herself and frost + her siblings love her so she couldnt possibly be an abuser. truly mindboggling stuff take these serious topics away from the fandom asap.

Part of me feels like it's because many in this fandom have a feeling that if a character's actions are abusive, it means you're "not allowed" to like them. Like there's an impulse where if you liked a character, it MUST mean they weren't THAT bad, because you'd personally never like "an abuser."

As if it reflects poorly on your own morality, as a person, that you connected with An Abuser. Understood them, even. Even if it was just a character.

If it's immoral to Like Abusive Characters, of course your reaction is going to end up being abuse apologia. To enjoy something isn't logical, it's emotional, so you will get defensive about it when questioned. When you do, it's not going to be based on logic because you didn't reason yourself into that position in the first place. It's an attack on you as a person.

I feel like that's often the root of abuse apologia in this fandom, and sometimes the world at large; "If I admit that this character/person IS abusive, it means I was doing something bad by liking them, so I have to prove to everyone else that they weren't or it means I'm bad too."

And to that I say... That's a BAD impulse! Grow up and admit you resonated with a character that did a bad thing! If that's an uncomfortable thought, sit with it!

Sometimes abusers are likeable! They usually DO think they're justified in their actions, or doing it for "a good reason," or were just too preoccupied to care. MOST of the time, people who commit abusive actions are also hurt or traumatized in some way. You might even empathize with them. None of this means their actions have to be excused or downplayed.

"Abusers" aren't a type of goddamn yokai, they're people just like you and me. You don't help victims of abuse by putting the people who hurt us in an "untouchable" category.

In fact, all it does is make you less likely to recognize your own controlling behavior. You're capable of abuse. People you love are capable of it, too. People who love YOU can still hurt you.

In spite of how often people regurgitate "It's Ok To Like A Character As Long As You're Critical Of Their Actions," every day it is proven to me further and further that no one who says it actually understands what that means.

All that said; I think it's no contest which one's a worse parent, imo.

They both mistreated their children, but Curlfeather did it through manipulation without verbal or physical abuse. She politically groomed her into a position of power so that she could use her as a pawn. It can be argued if this counts as child abuse-- but it's firmly still under the broad category childhood maltreatment, which is damaging.

(though anon I'm with you 100% at seeing RED when "but she sacrificed herself" is used as an excuse. Curlfeather's death does NOT CHANGE what she did to Frostpaw in life. I think it's a valid point to bring up when comparing her to another terrible parent for judgement purposes, such as in the context of this poll, but I really hate the implication that redemption deaths "make up" for maltreatment.)

Crowfeather, meanwhile, is textually responsible for putting Breezepaw through verbal AND physical abuse, as well as child neglect. His motivations include embarrassment from a hurt ego, revenge on his ex, and being sad because of a dead girlfriend. This abuse drives Breezepelt towards radicalization in the Dark Forest.

You could argue Curlfeather is a worse person for Reedwhisker's murder, but as a parent? It's not even a question to me. Crowfeather's one of the worst dads in WC.

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

the delicious subtext of charlie's terror that vaggie might leave her and implication charlie knows her dream of the hotel isn't enough anymore if vaggie isn't sharing it with her, yum yum yummm

no girlfriend while watching the hazbins finally bond and she's miserable

girlfriend comes back and charlie can smile again

the fact that this was important enough to SHOW specifically charlie being sad without vaggie even while everyone else is going well

we could have had her eagerly watching the hazbins and brush off vaggie's sorry without even looking at her, could have had vaggie seeing her be so happy and vaggie relaxing bc this time she didn't actually mess up too bad after all and charlie's happy so

INSTEAD we get charlie giving the gf space as asked, but wanting vaggie back more than anything. and when vaggie does come back..

her trying to apologize freaks charlie OUT, no no no she DOES NOT WANT she stops vaggie so SHE can say sorry TO vaggie, something happened on the roof that was bad and hurt vaggie and clearly charlie's had to sit with feeling like this is her fault

and she's finally able to touch vaggie without vaggie turning away like she kept doing on the roof, so that's SOMETHING

but charlie's still not sure. Vaggie's still sad, isn't smiling

hearing charlie take the blame isn't what vaggie wants. it's not making her happy to hear it

so charlie pulls away, turns away, takes some space herself and

goes for honesty. Bubbly bright side charlie admits things are harder than she thought they'd be and turns back saying "but we'll figure it out" with a cringing smile that has a question in it

will they?? does vaggie still want to try???

she's just heard that being with charlie means vaggie feels like she has one purpose and seen her start cracking at the edges when she 'fails' it, a pain she doesn't want charlie's help with, and that obviously hurt and scared charlie and had her stammered and fluttering in panic sure but worse than THAT, the actual question charlie has coming out of all this is... will vaggie... stay?

charlie's giving big "seriously scared of being alone again but this time after losing the person who'd finally 100% seemed to believe in her" energy here guys

but by the time she says "Together" vaggie is smiling at her, smiling so soft

this is what she wanted to hear. what she wants too

just them togther

LOOK at charlie SPrINTING OVER when she sees that!!

with her own huge smile the moment vaggie looks okay again, looks happy to be here with charlie again, and charlie can grin with her hands on vaggie's shoulders and NOW she can point out how the day didn't go that bad, slight trauma uncovering and relationship canon bomb aside

but before that

charlie checked in, checked vaggie wanted to be with her and figure things out together no matter HOW the rest of the hotel was doing

bc that's what was most important to charlie at the end of this day

me, sticking a swizzle straw in this subtext like it's a smoothie: show me more of your abandonment issues charlie morningstar i KNOW they're in there (sluuuuuurp)

[palms-upturned]

Something that I think gets somewhat lost in the Cuno and Cunoesse plot is how the first step to getting closer to Cuno is to separate him from Cunoesse… like that’s a thing Harry notices and thinks to himself: if I want Cuno to talk to me, I have to separate him from Cunoesse. His thought process and his tactics are straightforwardly manipulative. The check is called “get_cuno_alone”. You play up to Cuno how scary and out of control Cunoesse is in order to get him to open up to you. The thing is: she’s eleven. And you’re playing as a cop who can punch Cuno and shoot Cunoesse.

Cunoesse is right to be afraid of Harry, not just because killing her is a real thing you can do in this game, but also because Harry intentionally tries to split her from Cuno, who is all she has. Without him, she doesn’t have clothes or food or a roof over her head. She doesn’t even have a name.

CUNOESSE - "Don't make yourself into a pig, Cuno. You'll have to take me away..." A leaden silence fills the yard.

SUGGESTION - So that's what this is about.

Cunoesse is afraid that Cuno will sell her out for a chance of a better life. And I feel that’s the implication in the Cuno partner ending: he left Cunoesse to become a cop because that’s what the player convinced him, intentionally or not, to do.

YOU - "Where is Cunoesse?"

CUNO - "Cuno doesn't want to talk about this shit." There is a moment of thoughtful silence. He almost looks behind him.

COMPOSURE - That is a look of a man who knows he'll be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life.

I know this moment gets read as fear a lot (especially since a check during the end game says that is is in fact scared of having to face Cunoesse if you leave him behind), but to me it reads like Cuno knowing that he’ll never have 100% conviction in his choice. It’s heavy… He took responsibility for C’s life when he took her in. Initially, he is willing to fight you to the potential death to protect her from what you represent. But he’s just a kid himself. It was never going to end well… but in this route, it ends the way it does because of Harry being a cop and interacting with them as a cop. I feel like that’s gotta be something that we take into account when we talk about C. We’re playing as a cop who’s willing to potentially disrupt her one and only relationship just for the sake of our investigation. Our relationship with Cuno depends on whether or not we can “get_cuno_alone.” And in the end, when we do, we’ve potentially ruined both these kids’ lives even worse than before.

[actual-changeling]

i love all the UST to RST arcadia fics but i look at them and see the most uncomfortable situation ever.

mulder is having fun playing house and it's kinda cute, but scully? if we go with this being their first case back on the x files (and i'll always go with that) they have solved exactly none of their issues.

the "you're making this personal" is a month old at MOST, and scully probably has to struggle with the thought that the only reason mulder is her 'full-time' partner again is because diana ditched him.

(which is funny in a dark and painful way)

after weeks upon weeks of mulder basically being a rude stranger that no longer trusts her—someone she can no longer rely on—he just, what, expects her to bounce back and pretend none of it ever happened? 'cause that's what they usually do?

but this was not usual. this was mulder taking his love confession and twisting it into a knife to repeatedly stab her with. "your science saved me and made me a whole person" yeah great! love that. would be a shame to use it against her a few weeks/months later.

"your science is wrong" after she more or less repeated his speech and the strong implication that he no longer abides by what he told her.

"you've given me no reason here [not to trust diana]" after she did what she always does—giving him the facts. if i start talking about the "you're making this personal" line we will be here for an hour so i won't. we all know it's there and what kinda damage it did.

all that and more. refusing to trust her. ditching her. walking away from her. and, knowing them, they did not come together and talk it out.

so we have scully stuck undercover as his wife in a freaky murderous suburban community and mulder is getting his ya yas out doing what he does.

he touches her and she immediately shrugs him off, steps away from him, and she looks at him with raised hands and a glare that says "back off". early season 5 scully would be having the time of her life but by now she very much hates it.

whenever mulder initiates something personal, she plays along just enough to keep them as a team going but is visibly uncomfortable. we know what it looks like when she's happy and relaxed in his presence and this ain't it.

and these are from the BEGINNING of the episode. it doesn't get any better. it's work and she is treating it as such, she won't risk a case because of her own emotional situation.

mulder is. trying to get them back on track. i can give him that much. but as we see in monday and agua mala, he is STILL keeping shit from her (not giving her an explanation in monday, for example) and comfortable ditching her.

personally, i don't think arcadia is the turning point in their relationship that a lot of fics write it as. doing so is perfectly fine, don't get me wrong, i love reading them.

i just don't see any major progress between one son and arcadia that indicates they actually talked about some shit. playing house with mulder is about the last thing scully wants to do at that point, and yet she does it without complaint.

arcadia, to me, is mostly about two things: mulder being forced to acknowledge that they can't just ignore it & he screwed up and scully (very very slowly) beginning to rediscover how to be comfortable around mulder again. i don't think his frequent jokes are particularly helpful, they don't lighten the mood, they make it worse, if anything.

somewhere between arcadia and alpha, and then alpha and trevor, they readjust, and while cc never showed us (bc he is a fucking coward) i am 100% certain they actually managed to talk.

in trevor, there is none of the tension we see in arcadia. they're comfortable joking and flirting as usual, he does his lovesick puppy impression when she talks about spontaneous human combustion. they're them again.

not perfectly so, that takes them longer with the whole biogenesis thing disrupting their balance again, but we have the baseball date and that episode in general (thank u david for ur service).

anyway this got away from me, but my point is that scully should be allowed to need longer to trust mulder again after how horribly he treated her. she's allowed to hold a grudge and be upset, angry, sad, whatever she wants.

let that woman scream a little, she desperately needs it.

[yukidragon]

Sunny Day Jack - Oopsie Baby

I don't have the spoons to go on a huge deep dive, but thoughts of excited father-to-be Jack taking care of Alice while she's pregnant is gnawing on my brain meats again.

I know I've mentioned at least once or twice in my previous posts on the topic, but I think Jack will only be able to get his sunshine pregnant if both of them are 100% on board with it. He can't do anything they don't want to after all.

But what that wasn't the case? What if MCs possessing a functional uterus were just as at risk of an oopsie baby from Jack as they would from a non-ghost(?) lover?

Just imagine the potential drama involved.

If MC still had lingering doubts that Jack was real even after they become lovers, I'd say being pregnant would dispel them nicely. Pregnancies tend to be a really powerful reality check after all.

Alice would be hit with so many emotions when finding out. She'd also be kicking herself for not buying condoms for Jack. She's not ready for a baby yet! Her job barely keeps herself alive, let alone a child. She's not in a state to handle this!

Then of course there's the fact that no one else can see/hear/touch Jack. Alice has been working through all the implications just being lovers, as well as who and how to convince that he's not just a figment of her imagination. An oopsie baby just adds a ton more things to worry about.

Fortunately Alice has Jack to help keep her grounded. She also has a loving family to support her, and good friends like Shaun.

Jack would, of course, be so ecstatic to the point that things seem less real than they were before. He's going to be a father! The world might act like he doesn't exist, but this is proof, real and true proof that he exists. It's almost too good to be true.

But Jack tries not to let his excitement and disbelief sweep him away, not while Alice is consumed with worry over all the logistical details. His need to protect and take care of her is ramped up to the max.

It's not that Alice doesn't want to have a baby with Jack. She wants to have children one day with the one she loves, and she loves Jack so much, but it's too soon! She feels so overwhelmed it's like she's drowning.

There's so much potential for moments of Jack reassuring Alice... and maybe some yandere moments where he knows he needs to take steps to protect her and their baby. Money and a good home are a problem, so like a good protector he's got to provide.

I mean, Jack was an adult in the 80's, and even today there's such a strong social pressure for men to be the providers. They're the ones bringing in the money and making sure their wives are safe and protected at home. Jack is supportive of Alice working of course. He's not one to force her into traditional gender roles, but that doesn't mean he can't be subconsciously influenced by them.

Without time to prepare for this baby, it's possible that desperate measures might need to be taken to ensure that their little family is taken care of. What might make it worse is if a certain ex is trying to use this as an opportunity to get back together.

After all, Ian is earning a lot of money now. He's so desperate to make amends, he won't hesitate to support the child of the rebound his ex had after he cheated. It's only fair, and it'll prove just how sorry he is for the rest of his life. He'll love that baby like it's his own.

Not that Jack will have anything to say about it of course.

Alice isn't going to go back to Ian, but if money is tight enough... she might have to consider letting him back into her life again as a friend even if it's toxic for her. Even if he's clearly using it as an opportunity to patch things up between them and try again. She can keep telling him no and just tolerate how much it hurts her. She has to put her baby first after all...

It's not like she's not used to putting others first even if it hurt while she and Ian were together...

As you might expect, Jack isn't going to be happy about Alice considering putting herself through something like that. He certainly won't allow Ian the chance to hurt her again.

Even though Jack is sure she won't go back to Ian, even though he knows Alice doesn't love Ian anymore those yandere fears are going to gnaw at him regardless.

Between these angsty/dramatic moments of Jack reassuring Alice, protecting her from the world and Ian, there's also moments of sweetness. He gets to marvel at the proof that he's real, even if part of him still struggles to believe it.

Things might have happened far too quickly, but they love each other. They can overcome this challenge together.

I'd keep rambling, but I'm out of spoons, so I'll have to continue on this idea later. I hope y'all enjoyed!

@channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic @sai-of-the-7-stars @cheriihoney @illary-kore @okamiliqueur @kurokrisps

[miffyscreams]

**not cutesy sad girl blogging, feel free to scroll on if ur not interested !!

i know there are a lot of people on here who are in their young/mid teens and might be seeking help for the first time (or doing so soon) so i just wanted to put this out there- misdiagnosis is possible and extremely, extremely common. this is specifically tailored to bpd because i know most of us here have it

i completely understand wanting a diagnosis to understand why you do the things you do and feel the way that you do and that is 100% completely fine. but please, please be careful that you don’t become so desperate for answers that you end up accepting an inaccurate or unethical label. if you’re under 18 and early in therapy (less than a year) or not in inpatient care and receive a formal bpd diagnosis, please be careful. it’s often not a misdiagnosis and is likely to be correct but it goes against ethical standards and is a massive red flag of your provider. minors can have bpd (and do!! it starts developing super young) but the diagnostic process is very different to when you’re an adult and should only be made in an emergency or after long term observation. this doesn’t mean you don’t have bpd, it just means that your psych has not gone through the proper process and that can have implications for the rest of your care. being medically recognised is a completely different story and not a bad thing. but when your personality is technically still developing, your provider needs to be 100% sure without a doubt that it is disordered and not caused by anything else before putting a formal diagnosis on your file. not doing that is unethical even if the diagnosis is correct. the amount of teenage girls who have been misdiagnosed with bpd and ended up actually having autism, adhd or cptsd that goes untreated until their 30s is astounding. you probably do have bpd but you should not get a bpd diagnosis put on your record at fifteen years old after seeing your psychologist for three sessions.

in that same vein, if you receive a diagnosis (of any disorder, at any age) and it doesn’t feel right, PLEASE CHALLENGE IT. please seek a second opinion if you have concerns. being treated for the wrong diagnosis can make your condition worse. being viewed with the stigma of a disorder that you don’t have can make your condition worse. up until this year i spent seven years of my life receiving misdiagnosis after misdiagnosis. trust me when i say you’re better off getting no diagnosis at all than getting the wrong one. this is especially true if you think you have bpd but end up getting a bipolar diagnosis- most medications have an inverse effect on us and being prescribed a cocktail of atypicals because they think you’re just not responding to the meds will fuck you up.

there’s a lot of fearmongering online, especially on tiktok, about getting a formal bpd diagnosis so i also just wanted to clear up that no, you will not be rejected entry from countries, you will not be rejected for loans or home ownership and you will not be rejected from career opportunities. the only people who have access to your medical records without a subpoena are your doctors. you are not legally obligated to tell anybody and nobody outside of your care team is allowed to access or request your info outside of a court setting. being diagnosed does not ruin your life as long as you have good medical professionals around you.

if you want to seek help, PLEASE DO. but please advocate for yourself whenever necessary. you deserve help and you deserve a team who listens to your concerns and diagnoses you responsibly. most professionals will leave a diagnosis off your record if you request it (usually unless it’s schizophrenia or bipolar, literally only because it’s important for everybody providing you any form of treatment in any context to know). good psychs will allow you to question a diagnosis and a lot will let you reject it or ask for extra consideration.

[wild-magic-oops]

People really be bending backwards in order to defend Larian and the consistent way that Gale is treated worse than other companions. Truly baffling behavior, but I guess that's what happens when people can't extend the same amount of care to characters other than their favs, and think Larian is amazing for doing what should be the bare minimum in the industry actually (but the industry is so shit that people are ready to praise and defend any studio which doesn't try to rob them while spitting in their faces). Not criticizing obvious flaws won't get you a better product next time, and since I'm a petty person - I hope everyone who's telling people it's not a big deal now have the next character they're really into be the one done dirty by both the creators and the fandom.

Another thing I've never seen anyone bring up is how Gale is specifically the only companion whom Durge can kill due to an urge (which is even worded in a way which you can't guess the outcome of). Where's the urge option to kill Astari*n while he attacks you hm? Or that's right, there isn't one. Guess the fuck why. And retaliating while attacked makes a ton more sense, but sense is not smth that Larian bothers with much when it comes to their preferences.

And people choosing to indulge the urge and explaining how it's in character... I bet the majority would be finding loopholes real quick if it was their fav getting killed instead. Double standards is smth that really irks me and they're just so apparent in this fandom, it's exhausting.

Gale is also a companion you can accidentally kill instead of recruit by failing a simple dice roll. That's all it takes.

Both of those instances are smth very much outside of Gale's writer's control, so immediately the bias is showing, how easy it is to kill him.

So please, by all means, keep defending a company against the fans' criticism based on clear observations (which other people have brought up, not specifically what I talked about in this post) which you just don't want to acknowledge, I'm sure that'll work out so nicely for you the moment your preferences stop aligning with theirs.

And if you're a Gale fan who doesn't care and think people are overreacting - you do you, but the way Gale's exploding ending is treated gives really ugly irl implications which can't be ignored. Characters are fictional, but the way certain types are treated speaks of irl biases, and if you can't realize that, I really don't know what to tell you honestly. But aside from all that - professionals shouldn't let their biases show. But they did and continue to do, and that alone is definitely 100% worthy of criticism.

[melu-lis]

Benign Colonialism in the ATLA Comics

In this post, I will discuss how the ATLA comics, the Promise comics specifically, fail to tackle settler colonialism.

Before I begin my analysis of the Promise, I need to define a few terms:

benign colonialism: the belief that indigenous people gain more advantages than disadvantages from colonialism

indigenous people: inhabitants who lived in an area prior to it being colonized

settler colonialism: a system of power that perpetuates the genocide and repression of indigenous people

terra nullius: a Latin expression meaning "nobody's land"

The comics starts with a recap of how the 100-year ended and the Gaang meeting with the Earth King to discuss getting rid of the FN colonies in the Earth Kingdom. The Gaang decides to create a movement called the Harmony Restoration Movement, with one of its aim being to have every FN settler return to the Fire Nation. Zuko is initially on board with the idea, but he later withdraws his support after he faces an assassination attempt by the daughter of the Yu Dao (one of the FN colonies) mayor, Kori.

Zuko's meeting with the Yu Dao mayor is where I stumble upon my first problem with the comics. Mayor Morishita says that Zuko has an obligation to protect FN settlers because they were loyal to his family for generations, but he doesn't interrogate how his family were able to settle in the Earth Kingdom with the support from the Fire Nation and what that meant for the indigenous EK citizens that were living there. What also frustrates me is that he acts as if Ozai didn't want burn the entire EK to the ground a year ago. My problems with Morishita also extend to Kori as well because even though she's half-EK and an Earthbender, she is also unable to interrogate how the colony she lives in was able to created. Like father, like daughter I guess.

And it get worse from here. Zuko's explanation of the history of Yu Dao is an example of terra nullius. Throughout history, the phrase has been used to justify the dispossession of Indigenous people because they were considered "too primitive" by colonists to be rightful owners of the land. While Zuko doesn't explicitly say that EK citizens are primitive, the way he talks about Yu Dao makes it seem like before the FN settlers came, the EK citizens weren't using the land properly.

Zuko's argument is a textbook example of benign colonialism. He claims that the indigenous population has gained more advantages from colonized since Yu Dao is now one of the richest cities of the world and any disadvantages they received from FN rule can be addressed later. Arguments like these aren't new. When France colonized Senegal, where my mom is from, a major goal was mission civilisatrice (civilizing mission). The French believed that non-Europeans were uncivilized and were in desperate need of European re-education. What's the most disappointing about Zuko's argument is that he experiences character regression. He already rejected the concept of civilizing mission back in the TV show, so it makes no sense that he would espouse those ideas after his redemption.

Having the FN and EK essentially share the colonies is not a good solution because it treats the indigenous people's and settlers' claim to the land as equally legitimate when the FN settlers' claim is based on the fact that their country colonized the territories and displaced the indigenous people who were living there. In real-life, settlers and indigenous people sharing the land has always led to more problems.

A good example of settlers and indigenous people sharing the land leading to more problems:

One major problem I have with the comics is that there is a heavy implication that interracial relationships solve everything wrong with settler colonialism. While it is true that in many settler colonies (e.g. United States, Canada, Israel), interracial marriage was/is illegal, in many others, interracial marriage was tolerated but that didn't stop the oppression of indigenous people in the slightest and miscegenation was even used as a tool to further genocide the indigenous people.

An example of miscegenation being used as a tool for genocide is the Stolen Generations and wider genocide of Aboriginal Australians. One of the main perpetrator of the genocide of Aboriginal Australians, A.O. Neville, believed that through mixed marriages, the characteristics of Aboriginals would be "bred out". Even in settler colonies where miscegenation wasn't a tool of genocide, indigenous people still faced discrimination. In New Zealand, marriages between the Maori and English settlers were very common and accepted, but Maori people still ended up being victims of forced assimilation in the late 19th century - mid 20th century.

How would I fix the Promise? I would first establish what the average lives of FN settlers, mixed FN-EK citizens, and indigenous EK citizens are like. During the 100 years of the existence of the FN colonies, are racial hierarchy was established: FN settlers at the top, mixed FN-EK citizens in the middle, and indigenous EK citizens at the bottom. The indigenous EK citizens didn't just passively accept their subjugation and resisted FN rule in various ways, both non-violently and violently. After the end of the 100-year war and the creation of the Harmony Restoration movement, there is an organization in the FN colonies by indigenous EK citizens to reunite with the Earth Kingdom. Besides reuniting with the the Earth Kingdom, indigenous EK citizens also want the removal of all FN settlers from the Earth Kingdom. This gets a lot of pushback from mixed FN-EK citizens because they have FN family members and they don't want to be separated from them. Eventually, the indigenous EK citizens realize that removing every FN settler is unrealistic and instead suggest that after reuniting with the Earth Kingdom, they abolish the racial hierarchy and give everyone who lived in the colonies equal rights and representation; FN settlers are given the choice to stay and earn Earth Kingdom citizenship, but if they refuse, they can just return to the Fire Nation.

To summarize, The Promise fails at tackling settler colonialism because it legitimizes common pro-colonialism arguments and is more focused on accommodating settlers than asking how the oppression of indigenous people can be solved realistically. Reading the comics, I am reminded that Bryke are white men with a neoliberal worldview who probably can't reckon with the fact that they live in a settler colony that continues to oppress indigenous people, hence the portrayal of settler colonialism in The Promise. The comics could've been a good analysis of how decolonization could happen in a settler colony but it's clear that Bryke doesn't have a good enough understanding of settler colonialism and why it's bad.

[litnerdwrites]

About the dancing chapter...

I agree 100% with this comment by the amazing @deathbealady (no seriously, I didn't even realise how similar this situation was to Mor's) and I wanted to use it as a jumping off point to talk about Eris Vansera. To be clear though, I like fanon Eris and am currently undecided about canon Eris, for reasons I'll explain later.

For now, we can start with the IC asking Nesta to try and seduce Eris. I refuse to believe they weren't given this idea by Elain, either because she volunteered Nesta outright, or because she put the idea of using Nesta's artistic passions that, at this point, they know were effectively weaponised by her mother, to seduce an older male with the idea of marriage.

Either way, the fact that the IC knew what Nesta's mother had done, and decided to take advantage of it without ever asking what she thought of it, or what she might like, despite it being the same thing done to Mor when she was Nesta's age, if not younger. It's made especially worse given that Nesta likely feels unable say 'no' to the IC, because if she does, she'd likely be threatened with Elain being made to do it.

If that isn't bad enough, and I wouldn't be sure if it could get worse if I wasn't about to tell you why, then we can take a look at the age gap between Eris and Nesta. I've heard people argue that it's fine, since they're both consenting adults, but I think that the term 'adults' needs to be redefined. Humans are considered adults at the age of 18 or so, but only have a fully developed frontal love at 25. Meanwhile, fae are considered adults by the age of about 50 to 80 (with the latter being the age that a High Lord can be named such, but some people say it's 50). This has some pretty serious implications.

Starting with the fact that if females in Illyria and the CON are married off/wings clipped when they have their first period, which seems to be from around the same time human women have theirs, to 18 if they try to prevent it through medication, then they aren't adults themselves. They aren't even half way there in the (I don't want to say mild, best case, better or anything like that case because it's all messed up) cases where the woman is 18 or so. It also implies that a fae female's frontal lobe isn't developed until she's over fifty, since we don't have evidence to suggest the contrary.

Just because Nesta was almost 25 when she became fae doesn't make it alright either. Given that her aging must have slowed astronomically when she was turned, it's fair to assume it would have a huge impact on maturity and brain development. Which means the Archeron sister's in general might have serious gaps in the way their brains develop, especially Feyre, since she was resurrected and her body changed. It might even be slightly different for Nesta and Elain since they were killed, pulled apart and put back together in the cauldron.

Since it was the cauldron, there's a chance that their brains were also changed to be like fae, but either way, both possibilities and scenarios come back to the same answer: The Archeron Sisters are still mentally children, and will likely remain so for several decades longer, perhaps even longer than regular fae due to the unprecedented and irregular nature of their existence.

This brings me back to the subject of Nesta and Eris. He is a grown adult many centuries older than Nesta, with frontal lobe development and centuries of experience. Nesta is barely even half way to being an adult, while he is over 500. Moreover, the IC believe that Eris is a monster.

Now, I'm well aware that there's likely more to the issues between Eris and Mor than what we've seen. Between Eris's own words regarding 'circumstances' that he wouldn't explain, to the narrative going out of his way to show us good parts of him. Such as the way he moved to protect his mother at the HL meeting, and how he let his own father torture him but still protected the IC's secrets and took the unnecessary verbal abuse from Cassian. There's even the fact that Eris simply lets others believe him to be the villain, and let's Mor control the narrative for her own comfort, as opposed to spilling whatever happened, even if it would, somehow, absolve him.

Now, to be perfectly clear, there is little Eris could say that would absolve him, truly, of what happened. I acknowledge that he's a victim of his father, however that doesn't mean he can't also be Morrigan's abuser. And yes, even if he didn't touch her, neglect is abuse. Leaving her there for dead, regardless of the reasons, is a messed up thing to do. The categories of victim and abuser are not mutually exclusive.

The narrative wants us, as readers, to question Eri's actions and begin to wonder what happened between him and Lucien and Mor. It wants us to open up to the idea that Eris may not be as bad as he's made out to be, and that there's something more sinister happening, since it puts some level of suspicion on Lucien, Mor and Beron. However, just because that's the story we're being fed as readers, doesn't mean that the characters have the same perspective, or are living the same story, necessarily.

If you think about it, they have no reason to believe that Eris isn't a psycho who abuses woman and would slaughter his brothers to get to the crown. His comment about circumstances does read like an abuser trying to justify his actions with little effort, while giving no real reason, not that one would make up for what the IC believes he did. It's not a good enough reason to absolve him or make him seem like a good person.

He still hunted Feyre down, even though he had no reason to once she and Lucien made it to the Winter Court, and it, logically, would've caused more trouble for Beron if they were caught. Especially since a whole fire fight took place, and it would be easy for Kallias to connect that with autumn citizens, since he didn't know about Feyre's magic. If anything, hunting them at that point would've caused more problems and they'd be better off just telling Beron that Feyre and Lucien were there. A high lady, if Beron acknowledges the title or not, trespassing in foreign lands with a banished son would be enough to raise a fuss about.

He, also, has people who've known him for centuries, from Mor to Lucien (though the latter probably has more accurate info given his connections in various courts, and the fact it's unlikely Mor shared many words with him over 5 centuries) and the fact he's essentially blackmailing the Nc. This is more so an issue of his having certain pieces of information being a cause for the IC to fear what he may do with it, or what might be found out by their enemies if they use torture or a daemati.

I'm not saying, by any means, that I hate him. I think he's actually written better than Rhysand at this point, since unlike Rhysie playing hero, Eris knows he's a terrible person and low key owns it. Whether or not that's subject to change is dependant of SJM's writing in the future. There's a chance she may actually turn him into Rhys 2.0 by pretended he was a good guy all along.

However, regardless of his reasons, he has done so many atrocious things that the IC have no reason to think he's a descent person. Mor clearly hasn't said anything about what happened and, as much as I don't like her, she has no on page motive to antagonise Eris otherwise. That might change later, especially if she's the traitor, but as of now, her behaviour seems understandable, somewhat, based on the version of events that she gives.

Yet, despite all of this, the IC still think that essentially whoring Nesta out to Eris because it suits their goals. Regardless of the risks to Nesta's safety, regardless of how Nesta feels about the matter and and simply going off of Feyre's guesses about how Nesta feels without ever feeling the need to confirm if any of them are accurate to Nesta.

Let me summarise: Rhysand and Feyre, Nesta's own sister, thought it was a good idea to use Nesta's artistic passions to seduce a man that is literally 20 times Nesta's age, letting said man ask for Nesta's hand, and letting Nesta consider accepting despite the IC believing he is a woman torturing psycho that would throw her to the wolves at the first chance if it helped him in the end.

Let's not forget that while Eris may be bit of a grey area for us at the moment, the IC knows that Eris also lives with abusers, like Beron, who'd have no issue using physical violence against Nesta. So even if they thought Eris wasn't a monster for some reason, they'd still be putting Nesta in danger. Especially if Beron is working with the Death God, who wants the trove and is using Bryallin to find it.

Oh, and this was all after Cassian came to the conclusion that Nesta was suicidal, and was sexually assaulted in a vision, if I remember right, while on a life threatening mission in a place the rest of the IC, even Amren, is scared of.

Regardless of what Rhysand says, he allows abusers near enough to his family, or the ones he doesn't care as much about, I suppose, and is seemingly willing to let them marry said abusers if it gets him his goal. Rhysand who was abused. Rhysand who's mother was forced into child marriage.

Rhysand who seems to ignore the fact that the Archeron sisters are children. Children can't consent, if it wasn't clear enough to him already. Also, consent must be informed, and last I checked, Nesta wasn't informed about Eris beyond him being a snake. She isn't given a heads up about how abusive he's believed to be, how he may have to kill/watch you die if his dad decides so, or how he's likely to leave you bleeding out in the woods if you're injured. This is literally what the IC believe he is like and they didn't tell her.

Consent needs to be voluntary. I think it's been well established that Nesta likely doesn't feel like she can make real decisions because of consequences she may face.

He's also completely willing to send a suicidal (you can't argue that he doesn't know since Cassian reports everything to Rhysand, and kind of Feyre, apparently, from her Valkyries to her progress in 'healing'/being brainwashed so there's no reason he wouldn't report that too) into life threatening situations, put them in a place where they could jump to their deaths at any moment, with magic that could provide literally anything but alcohol, and filled with weapons.

To conclude, Eris is a grey area in ACOTAR that, at this point, reads as what Rhysand kind of should've been if SJM didn't make him a good guy for no reason. Meanwhile, this 'good guy' is endangering his sister in law through abuse, emotional blackmail and brainwashing, while putting her in proximity with a known abuser. Might I remind you that she's a minor? With possible developmental gaps. And he's doing it all because her being in danger makes his life easier, and the cousin that the dude abused is going along with this without any issue.

[dross-the-fish]

the 2004 movie doesn't change much from the musical but it still feels so much worse

That is the power of directing. There are small differences between some of the stage productions and choices like actor interpretation and directing can make a huge difference as to how we experience the show. I have seen productions that made me totally get why some people ship Erik x Christine and some where the actors play Erik so aggressive and Christine so meek that I can't fathom it. In the 25th anniversary recording idk what they did with Raoul but there's such a distinct lack of warmth or tenderness for Christine that I find myself not wanting them to end up together vs the original recording where Steve Barton is affectionate and kind in his gestures and tone of voice when he speaks to Sarah Brightman. Direction and casting can make a world of difference and nearly every choice made for the 2004 film was completely wrong and even seemingly small changes have a massive impact. I'm not going to talk about Gerard Butler's singing or the lack of significant deformity, there's nothing I can add to that conversation. Casting an actress as young as Emmy Rossum to play in a love triangle between two men in their 30's was a bad decision because there are shots where she seems especially childish and I can't get past the notion that I'm looking at someone who should be in high school. Then there's the decision to show a scene of Erik approaching Christine while she's still a child when it's implied he's only a few years younger than Madam Giry. The dates on the gave stone that imply she's only 16 and....I really want to give the benefit of the doubt and say it's an oversight but the age of the actress and the scene of her as a literal child when she first hears Erik are just too much for me to handwave as "someone made a typo somewhere" the scene where we see some of Erik's backstory where they put him in a sideshow as a small child and he goes directly from childhood to living in the paris opera (How then, did he help BUILD the opera house? Why does he still have the punjab lasso if he's never been outside of Paris? This creates so many plot holes it's ridiculous) and there is some really really uncomfortable, even offensive depictions of Romani people. Carlotta is always meant to sound overblown and unpleasant and sometimes even shrill to the audience but they go the route of emphasizing her as an in-universe bad singer whom no one likes. Minnie Driver does her best to make the role entertaining and she's easily the best thing in the movie but she could not salvage it. The managers also with their stupid "Scrap Metal" running gag, Joel Schuemacher and ALW are determined to make everyone look as stupid and incompetent as possible. Piangi has a little person who mimes him for some reason? It's like they were really adamant that no one be taken seriously except the main cast. Personal opinion but I feel like moving the chandelier crash from the end of act 1 to the climax of the film doesn't work. I guess the "Disaster beyond imagination" Erik talks about was limited to him killing Joseph Bouquet but without that dramatic chandelier fall after the rooftop scene it losses something and undercuts how much of a legitimate threat Erik actually is and how much the staff should fear him because the implication is that despite the dead body dangling from the rafters the managers managed to get things back under control and finish out the performance. Seemingly small changes but they all have a big impact and whatever issues I have with the stage version they are 100 x worse in the movie adaptation and better casting could not have saved the film.

[eclipse-song]

Episode 230 Director's Notes

Wanted to share these ones since I really enjoyed reading Joseph's thoughts.

Ok, so this was a mean little trick.

Quite some time ago, we came up with the idea of Dr. Lubelle explaining away Night Vale. First, we had poor Sarah Sultan, under the title "Sarah Sultan, Explained". Then I knew I wanted to go after someone really big. An iconic character. Thus "The Glow Cloud, Explained." And we always knew there would be one last episode with this title format, and it would, based on the previous pattern, establish an existential threat against our sweet Carlos.

But at no point did we consider actually explaining him away. Because, as Carlos points out in this episode:

a) explanations are not inherently threatening. It is how they are wielded, and who wields them, that can do damage

and 

b) a lot of Dr. Lubelle's explanations didn't really hold water anyway.

I knew for this confrontation to work, we would need to hear from both Carlos and Dr. Lubelle themselves. It is always a joy and a privilege when Dylan takes the time from his busy schedule of, most recently, writing on Ted Lasso and creating a new podcast about Jar Jar Binks for TED, to record for us. 

And what can be said about Janet Varney that isn't just a lot of incoherent gushing? She is an expert at voice performance. For her final section, I let her know it was her character's big villain monologue before she gets squashed by a cow and to really go for it. I'm actually writing these notes before I get to hear what she did, but I have complete confidence that she will swing for the fences in the best way possible. 

In this era of science-denial, it can be tricky to try to tell a nuanced story about science. One that acknowledges the very real harms caused by western capitalism through the tool of science, while also keeping in mind that much of what makes our lives wonderful was also discovered through the same tool. Science has no morality. Morality is simply not what science is set up to do. So the ideas of right and wrong, harmful and helpful, those must come from the human being doing the science. 

America has become obsessed with STEM, but when we only teach STEM to the exclusion of the humanties, we get Silicon Valley. A heartless place where very smart people use their knowledge of computers to, generally, make our lives much, much worse, often without knowing they are doing that, because at no point have they been trained to think about the importance of considering the bigger picture and the moral implications of what they are doing. 

Anyway, it's a hard topic to write about, and I can't say we 100% pulled it off. But hey, I hope we at least enjoyed the bad guy getting a dead cow dropped on them.

We'll be taking July off as always, so see you in August with whatever is going to happen next year in Night Vale (genuinely we haven't talked about it yet so I don't know). 

-Joseph Fink

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

You're Ignorant

This is going to be a lengthy post. Or I will manage to short form this.

So it does not matter if you are on the left or on the right in the United States. However, over the past 15 years, the prominence of this problem seems to happen far more frequently with those that vote for Democrats. IT DOES happen with republicans, but it's not as frequent or with the same fervor.

So public perception of Bills that go through the senate and the house is normally based on the name, or what the people putting the bill out tell you that it does. However since around the time of the Obama admin, bill drafted by democrats have been getting longer and longer and longer, so much so that they are massive enough to be wheeled out on a little red wagon.

Bills that are quite literally 100's if not 1000's of pages long. The reason people that are "Blue no matter who" voters actually piss me off is because they don't care if the bill actually kills people so long as the NAME is good. To paraphrase someone from a different post when this topic came up. "A bill could come out called the "Don't kick puppies act". And when it goes through the legislative, some republicans will vote against it, and then Democrats and the media will come out saying 'X amount of republicans want to kick puppies'. What they don't tell you is that on line 2 of the bill, it says it will send 2 billion dollars to Brazil to teach gay dance theory."

And that's the point. It's not about what the bill is called. It's not about what they WANT the bill to do. It is about what the bill will ACTUALLY do. What does it say? What are the legal implications? Does the legal jargon of the bill do something other than what is specified in bill? But it gets a little worse than that with all of this. Politicians lie. Not only do they tend to lie, they normally do it by misrepresenting intent. This can be seen with both parties as well but happens far more often with people that vote democrat because they are far easier to manipulate.

Take the "Don't say gay bill". It literally had nothing to do with talking about gay stuff. What it did disallow was talking about sexual identity and sexual orientation as a class discussion or part of a curriculum. Funny enough that also includes talking about being strait as a point of class discussion, or curriculum. People kept talking about use of pronouns but that had really nothing to do with the bill. What the bill was actually even created for was because a teacher, behind the back of the parents of the kid, started to transition a kid, after convincing the kid that she was trans. During the process, the kid was not getting mental or emotional health help at all. The teacher helped the kid get on hormones I believe and was aiming to find a way to help with surgeries but the teen girl tried to kill herself. After the parents found out what happened, they removed the kid from the school and started getting her mental health help.

After she started getting the help that she needed she pretty much came to realize that it was just a combination of (initially) mild depression, pressure from her peers and, pushing from the teaching and administrative staff that convinced her she was trans.

So yeah. THE BILL IN QUESTION called the "Parental Rights in Education Bill", had nothing to do with "Not saying gay". Hell the bill did not even stop kids from talking to teachers or counselors about being gay in private. IT DID however stop them from hiding important things about their kids from parents.

Fact of the matter is, just because a name of something is good, does not in any way imply that is good. Just because the democrats LIE and say that something "should be called" something, does not mean that it is. Or we can talk about the Restrict act. Which YES was the spawn of certain Republican lawmakers but had some support from the democrats as a Patriot Act 2.0. Ya know another bill that would strip more freedoms from us and remove more of our privacy. All under the guise of "Banning TikTok". Which I agree with only the ban.

Mostly because the app is a spyware app, that is causing legitimate mental illness in today's youth. That and the algorithm used for the US's version of the app is actually pretty damaging over all to people. More so with the sensationalism it tends to spread.

Long story short. If your preferred reps push a bill over 100 pages long, you MIGHT want to believe that you are being lied to about its contents. Or understand that what you are being told about it is not the whole truth.

Because fact of the matter is this. You might think Democrats have your best interest in mind and every bad thing is the fault of the "EVIL MAGA REPUBLIANS", but look at California and New York. Rampant homelessness. Removal of several safety offices. Policies that claim to help minority communities but hurt them more and more every day. And excess spending and misappropriation of funds. And both of these states have been under full rule of Dems for YEARS. Meaning that ZERO republican influence makes their laws. HELL, California I believe tried to remove their own discrimination laws so that companies in the state COULD IN FACT discriminate in hiring practices.

It's time you start looking past the names of things, and start look at intent. You start looking at effects. You start looking at the results of. Get your heads out of the sand, and stop being ignorant. Your pursuit of "doing good" "being inclusive" "spreading diversity" yeah all of that is normally damaged more and more every day by people like you because the Dems and Reps (at least 90% of them) don't give a shit about you and only make you believe that they do.

[soup-mother]

i swear people heard like "rich parents financially abuse their kids a lot and having rich abusers can be terrifying" and managed to spin it into straight up "rich kids have it worse actually, it's so hard having rich parents it's literally worse and more abusive than having family so poor they'd sell their kids into sex work or something".

*shaking them by the shoulders* the class implications think of the class implications here

that's just something I've noticed and it reminds me of someone i saw saying (from experience) that most rich kids are actually totally full of shit, they can absolutely sell out any morals for money from their parents, not being able to control the money being spent on you doesn't make it not massive sums of money. like that victim complex mentality is 100% a cope to avoid acknowledging they're rich (literally a timeless classic of rich ppl)

[tanoraqui]

Dungeon Meshi Liveblog Ch6-7: Living Armor Double Feature

He looks so SAD... I'm so glad he'll get to eat it before this is over!

[flashbackforward to Marcille conducting Falin's resurrection ritual]

...girl.

actually, this DOES seem ooc in retrospect. Marcille is so fierce in defense of "ancient" magic. Is the magic that would be used to animate armor somehow more evil than what is on average required for dungeon creation and maintenance?

.

I"m not going to screenshot every motif of the winged lion, but it sure if big and impressive in the archicture of this living armor hall. The lead armor also has a leonine helm. My understanding is that this furry fucker is the demon that's somehow at the root of all the trouble here, sating desires presumably in exchange for feeding on souls. So my question is: was he always a guardian and symbol of the Golden Kingdom and the people in it were always being played, until suddenly the Mage made a Deal that made it all much worse? Or did a demon come in a usurp the local mythology/symbology? OR did the lion demon drop in and the dungeon looks like this because of it, because it helped build this place... I just saw the Golden Country episode and they seemed to believe the lion was a traditional symbol and guardian of their kingdom, but ngl I don't 100% trust the memories and/or perception of a bunch of trapped incarnate ghosts.*

*I know they're still alive, but for all intents and purposes, they're ghosts.

.

Understanding as a path to compassion, acceptance, appreciation, respect, and even alliance? Sure, whatever. Have you tried understanding as a path to KILLING IT AND CONSUMING IT FOR YOUR OWN GAIN!

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I love the periodic implications that there's academia about all of this. Laios isn't alone! He's just a rare field researcher!

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"It's definitely not cursed, I can tell!" -the calm words of a man whose word you can and should totally trust that his cool new sword isn't cursed.

Srsly though I love that for all intents and purposes Laios got a magic sword as a narrative reward for his first big breakthrough in careful scientific observation-based understanding of a monster in order to kill it and eat it. Except instead of magic (as proven!) it's got a creature in it...which WOULD make it "cursed" in the eyes of many, who hate and mistrust monsters, but to Laios it's a potential friend! Though later re: Ann the kelpie he says that monsters can't be trusted because they have their own, inhuman instincts and motives, he's clearly willing - nay, eager - to extend trust here. Even if he just wants to observe the mollusk, keeping it in his sword for that is a pretty big leap of faith. He needs his sword to survive, and moreover to save Falin.

In an ideal world, the wings on the hilt would get enchanted so it can literally fly to his hand when called. Laios deserves to have a loyal trained flying mollusk sword.

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I like that not everything they make tastes good (here: living armor mollusks steamed in the armor). It's obviously thematically important that it USUALLY tastes good, even great (thanks to Senshi!), but it's realistic that sometimes attempts at food just suck.

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THE WORLDBUILDING IS JUST SO GOOD /sobs