#but these were clear parallels

[collapsedsquid]

Trump supporters dream of bringing America back to a vague fictitious past, some combination of the Reaganite 80s and a 1950s America that only existed in magazine ads. Bolsominions are much more specific. They want to bring back a military dictatorship and they’re not afraid to say it.

There are strains of America’s right wing that fantasize about a military takeover expunging their various political enemies. This is a huge thing, especially, for QAnon supporters, who spend all day posting online about putting random celebrities in military tribunals. But it’s far less vague of a goal for Bolsominions, many of whom remember Brazil’s last dictatorship, which began with a coup d’état in 1964 and ended two decades later in 1985. And like all effective populists, Bolsonaro knew how to tap into the nostalgia the bored middle class had for that era and repeatedly praised Brazil’s dictatorship days during his campaign in 2018.

It seems like the plan on Sunday was for his supporters to create so much anarchy and chaos that the military would have to step in and take control of the country, just as they did in the 60s. This led to a particularly embarrassing moment in Brasilia yesterday when Bolsominions cheered for the military when they showed up, only to be immediately arrested by them.

The Oath Keepers seemed to have the explicit goal of having Trump invoking the insurrection act and declaring martial law, it’s difficult to say how many of the actual protestors believed this but it was circulating among many of the people I saw before the date wanting to Stop the Steal

Also, while the most shocking images came out of Brasilia yesterday, this was not a one-location event the way January 6th was. Bolsominions have been shutting down highways, amassing weapons, and experimenting with low-level attacks on the country’s infrastructure since Bolsonaro lost the election on October 30th. Most of these Freedom Convoy-esque incursions have resulted in little more than public humiliation and a few Bolsonaro supporters getting their asses kicked for causing a traffic jam before an important soccer game. (There was also the one guy who got stuck on the windshield of a semi.) But yesterday, the stakes were raised considerably.

January 6th was also not a one-location event, there were little uprisings at state and local governments all over the country, it’s just that nobody cared once the capitol was stormed.

[citrusai]

taash said "they were doing it" and people ran with the interpretation of an npc that doesn't know solas or the history of the elvhenan even when bellara interjected and said, no, that's not right. that's not how it was for the elvhenan. they formed bonds before they had physical bodies. and people ran to doompost or create weird anti-solavellan shit even though mythal & solas refer to each other as old friends and when she releases him there is no tenderness or love in it. it is the act of unchaining a dog from his post, the stepping down of a general. but to each their own ig.

[thegreenthepeacetheorange]

feeling emotional

about this

[zykamiliah]

i love it when fandom infantilizes characters to the point of denying them their own agency.

"if people in cang qiong had treated shen jiu differently-" do you have any evidence that they mistreated him? or is it too hard a pill to swallow that shen jiu was the one who decided to close himself off and be an asshole. that cang qiong treated him just fine, that his martial siblings tolerated him to the point that even when he was suspected of murder nothing was done to him?

who forced shen jiu to abuse luo binghe? to abuse other disciples? those were his decisions, that was him acting in a position of power.

the moral of the story is not "shen jiu was misunderstood :(" the moral is: the person who was abused can also become an abuser. the one who suffers violence can be violent towards others. you, despite what you've gone through, have the capacity for kindness and cruelty. so be wise on how you decide to act, because your pain doesn't justify hurting others, and your actions will have consequences.

you have agency, you have whatever amount of power you have over your own life and the things you do have and impact in the lives of those around you and yourself. so maybe try being at the very least neutral to the world and yourself, if you can't be kind.

but no, shen jiu's mentality was "since I suffered, they deserve to suffer too". and by taking that path he perpetuated the cycle of abuse.

bingge is the same, because he could have stopped at taking revenge on shen jiu, but he decided to involve the whole sect and the rest of the world, no matter who was innocent. he was unnecessarily cruel, but so was his master.

both shen jiu and bingge had the capacity for some form of "niceness" (in the way they treated women), so it wasn't as if they'd never known some form of love. at some point in their lives, they stopped being abused children and became abusive adults.

and that's an expression of human behaviour that we have to accept as possible. the svsss narrative invites us to examine ourselves in this light, to witness our capacity for both love and hate, to realize that even in the most adverse of circumstances, there's always a small sliver of agency over how we feel and how we act. that, despite the things that defines us from birth through childhood, our decisions also define what we'll become in the future.

[q--uee--n]

It doesn't quite sit well with me when parts of the fandom act as though they don't understand why, exactly, people become so hyper-defensive/are so hyper-sensitive when people bring up Mel being manipulative. It's because this trait has been weaponized to demean and disparage her at the expense of acknowledging any other nuance/facet about her character, and this also often goes hand-in-hand with ignoring the faults of other characters as to emphasize hers. The fact that Mel is a Black woman can not be put aside as a definitive factor as to why and how she's perceived the way she is—by both the fandom and the writers of the show. I would even argue that one of the show's original sins is a lack of understanding of the real-world intersections between race, class, and colonialism.

In regards to both Mel and Ambessa, this lack of understanding is evident in the writing. Writing that ignores the real-world implications of the Medardas and their social position relative to whiteness, which is one informed by socioeconomic and sociocultural disparities as a result of racism and misogyny. Yes, I understand it's a high fantasy show where things like racism don't exist, so to speak, but Arcane, like all media, is informed by the state of affairs of the world we live in. With classism—classism, which Black people are disproportionately victims of—being a core theme of the show (ostensibly), it's disingenuous to disregard the, from a Doylist perspective, haphazard nature of Mel's function in the narrative as a wealthy Black woman in a classist society juxtaposed against poor, oppressed white main characters (this also applies to Ambessa as a warmonger).

With that said, and harkening back to the beginning of this post, even if you're not bringing attention to Mel's flaws and complexities to demonize her, you have to acknowledge them in the context of her as a Black female character being written with little understanding of intersectionality and how they've been weaponized against her, which are the reasons people—specifically Black woman fans such as myself—are compelled to defend her (or even pretend these flaws don't exist. After all, it's never been a problem in fandom when non-black and male characters' flaws are erased/diminished. It can't suddenly become one now). It's easy to say Mel is a multi-faceted, three-dimensional character, thus, that's why downplaying her flaws is a disservice to her charcter, and this isn't an unreasonable point. However, it's harder to admit that the reason people point out these flaws is not always in the service of acknowledging her complexities but instead in the service of demonizing her due to internalized/unknown biases against Black women. In the end, no one has to like a character. No one even has to defend a character they don't like on principle. No one has to not be annoyed at the sanitization of a multidimensional character. But if those things are being done without an acknowledgement of how the perception of that character is mired by racism and misogyny—knowing or unknowing, from the writers on down—then maybe it's time to address some oversights or unpack some internalized biases before wondering why people feel the need to defend that character.

[lodessa]

Dal really had one (1) pep talk from Chakotay, was like “ love means happiness is her in the captain’s chair and you serving under her”, and decided that was going to be his new personal prime directive. Now he’s flourishing: unbothered, moisturized, staying in his own lane.

[a-bisexual-panicking]

question for the dead boy detectives fans:

would you prefer for Edwin and Charles' relationship to stay platonic or to become romantic?

i'm just genuinely curious

[xiaq]

Hey friends, the movie adaptation of Nimona was just as excellent as I was hoping it would be and completely did justice to the graphic novel. I highly recommend it!

[notmoreflippingelves]

[bericas]

isaac & scott / mason & theo | sometimes all i think about is you

[buccellato]

Fucks me up to think about how Legato's legacy in-universe after his death in Trimax (and presumably Tristamp) is probably gonna be how much he sucked and nothing else....

Like, nobody will like Knives but Vash will be long-lived enough to be able to eventually talk about his good qualities from when he was a child and his quasi-redemption in his last days. But who remembers Legato? Livio and Vash are the only living people with any extended memory of him and neither of them would have anything nice to say (and rightfully so). Neither of them probably knew he was a slave, either—as far as Vash can tell this dude showed up one day and hated his guts, for all he knows he's just another survivor from July! Outside of Knives, Elendira, Legato, and maybe Conrad, I don't think any other character knows his actual life story.

And to add on to that, there's no way of looking up that past either—he had no name or personhood before he was effectively rescued, so who could investigators or reporters or archivists track down for information? The human being that was Legato only existed for as long as he knew Knives, before that he was something to be kept and abused as an object. There's presumably no surviving family they can reliably contact, nobody to really say "yes I knew him, here's what his life was like, here's how we can prevent something like this from happening again".

His entire existence will be reduced down to "a human weapon that was freakishly loyal to public enemy #1" without any reflection on the mechanisms that made him the way he was because there's just no actual knowledge of his life.

[seventeendeer]

hrrr I Saw the TV Glow is still rolling around in the back of my mind. it's hitting me somewhat belatedly that what seemingly starts as mainly an identity story turns out - toward the final act - to also be a love story. two queer kids finding each other (again). the bond they forge (have always had). the feelings that start to grow (were always there) despite the lie they're living. one trying to save the other, and failing. the frail hope at the end that maybe what they had mattered after all, even if they never see each other again. maybe because they knew each other, someday things will be better.

idk. so much of the story feels so lonely. they're awkward with each other at first and they don't really "get" each other and they're absent from each other's lives for long periods and they don't have anyone else. but it's all a lie - they were best friends, they knew each other better than anyone, they are who they are because they knew each other, they were not alone. no matter how bleak the setting is, this fake world can't obscure the truth. they'll never forget each other. it will always have happened, it will always have mattered.

it's so hard to put into words but Owen/Isabel and Maddy/Tara make me so crazy, the way everything in the world works to drive them apart and yet not even losing their memories can destroy the connection between them. and it's not enough to prevent the world from tearing them apart but maybe it's enough to save their lives

queer love portrayed not as supernaturally resilient or invincible (god knows it isn't), but as a precious fragile thing that can and will grow back over and over in some form no matter what ...

[thestarlightforge]

New rule.

I’m not gonna base what Marvel stuff I get into on if Young Avengers characters are involved anymore. Not without reviews at least. That way lies disaster.

Instead— It’s based on if Jac Schaeffer or her team are involved, from now on. Because WandaVision is probs in my top 5 all-time favorites. Captain Marvel 2 was lovely, I thought. (My heart for Carol to get to kiss Maria on screen, but alas, censorship—and not the writers’ or director’s faults.)

And Agatha All Along… Oh my HEART. AGATHA ALL ALONG 😭 I’M GONNA BE SICK /POS

[waitineedaname]

"Amestris is an allegory for nazi Germany" you fool. Amestris is not an allegory for just nazi Germany -- it's an allegory for genocidal, fascist, militaristic governments as a whole. Yes, it has parallels to fascist Europe, but it also has parallels to xenophobic militaristic US and imperialist Japan. The point is not "look at this outlier of a country committing atrocities," the point is that the country committing atrocities might be your country and you might be complicit in it no matter how morally upstanding you might think you are. To act like only one government is capable of committing genocide blinds you to the potential that any other government might commit genocide too.

[literaryspinster]

I don’t know who needs to hear this but

Sky dying was Viktor’s fault and him covering it up was bad actually.

[adamshallperish]

the biggest trick maggie stiefvater pulls on the reader in the dreamer trilogy is making them think that ronan is this magnificantly tragic cu chulainn/achilles style hero and then declan goes on 1 (one) murderous rampage and we realize it was him all along