#even though it's BLATANTLY untrue like.

[traitorestraven]

i've thought about it, and my final thought on that finish is that it slapped, but my feelings towards it overall are 100% dependent on where they go from here. mjf's little flashes of insecurity and self hatred are what make him interesting--the fact that he's a horrible person only has stakes because he could be good, we want him to be good, he can get what he wants by being good, but he's too afraid to do it--and i really hope that they don't retcon them all as lies and make him the same smarmy little bastard that he was before the punk feud. i want those stakes to stay high! i want the character to stay dynamic! and i really hope they lean into the amount of power regal has over him, and what that means goin forward

[iknowwhereyousnoozeatnight]

this one's for all the yuri enjoyers out there — nsft under cut

meronia event prompt(s): scar

[ariel-s-awesome]

Every night, after Lord Hater gets snuggled in with Captain Tim, Commander Peepers reads him picture books from the Hater Empire Propaganda Collection.

They're all totally, completely nonfiction and written by Commander Peepers himself.

[aestian]

its so funny being a sone since 2011/2012 and still being here in 2024 and have people who were still learning their colors in school at the time tell me extremely wrong snsd information when i was there in the TRENCHES but ok you saw a tiktok and know ig

[idiotsonlyevent]

it is completely understandable to be uncomfortable with the sexual assault in dandadan. it's important to discuss how it's framed, whether it's handled poorly, or if it could be been portrayed better. but the number of people - even fans - stating that it is only fanservice, irrelevant, or could be removed is frankly bizarre to for SO many reasons, starting with the fact that this parallel exists.

the anime made it even more obvious by interpolating cuts from the first scene into the second one.

i thought this scene showed that momo gaining her powers by believing in her relationship with her grandmother gives her the strength to fight back against what is basically a horrific, much more aggressive and abstract (maybe even absurd?) representation of her shitty gross ex - who was demanding she 'put out' and pay for the love hotel in very first scene.

while the escalation from one scene to the next is surprising, it's not something that comes out of nowhere. this first scene is meant to be a set-up to what will happen later. it sets the tone, though significantly more lighthearted at this point. it tells you that sex, sexuality, etc. is something dandadan will touch on - though you don't know what the scope and depth will be until later in the chapter.

i cannot recommend this video enough, as it discusses some interesting interpretations of what the serpoians and turbo granny represent in their respective assault scenes, as well as how right now the treatment of both scenes is unfortunately uneven.

more notes about plot and thematic relevance below the cut. spoilers for anime-onlies (up to chapter 8, will probably be covered in episodes 4/5).

momo was assaulted, and almost cut up by the serpoians, much like the other victims turbo granny appeared around. this is an intentional parallel. turbo granny goes to momo because that is what she does. again, SUPER unclear how that factors into turbo granny's assault of ken, but if we keep the video's interpretation of cynicism in mind, it could be related to that; maybe turbo granny has a cynicism toward men - similar to momo in chapter/episode 1 - and this is why she chose to attack ken. unfortunately, it's still too early to really understand and explain a lot of her motivations.

again, completely understandable to not like how the sexual assault was handled or portrayed, and it's important to keep discussing it. but this is what dandadan does for many different types of trauma and difficult life experiences. this is a huge part of dandadan's identity. if you don't like it, that is fine, but calling the sexual assault 'just fan service' is blatantly untrue.

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Finals

Propaganda Under Cut

Sakura Haruno

Her husband is gay and her author doesn't know how to write women. So many people say she's the worst but she. DESERVES. BETTER!!! Save her from this franchise.

My baby girl my bestie my best friend. She committed the crime of um being written by kishimoto who both doesn’t know how to write women and somehow writes men in the gayest way possible specifically naruto and sasuke. Like the thing is naruto and sasuke ARE gay and also she gets so much hate for the crime of kishimoto writing her one dimensionally in love with sasuke. I know her personally she is a butch lesbian to me just trust me she’s in love with Ino and has a lesbian thing going on with Karin okay just trust me. My everything. She needs to divorce the loveless lavender marriage she’s in 

What is there to say, even? The OG Threat to my 90s anime brain, the only woman I've ever hated with such a passion she made me turn away from the color pink. I used to write fics with my friend where she got left behind on purpose so our OCs could join the Naruto and Sasuke team instead. I loathed this bitch until I was 16 and realized the author simply couldnt write women and decided it was time to make peace with Sakura. It is not her fault she's vaguely written and obsessive over Sasuke. She deserves better. Sasuke and Naruto still should be together and Sakura shouldnt be with Sasuke but I no longer believe this because I hate Sakura, it is because I love her. She deserves a spouse who will actually put in the time to treat her like the hero she is.

Misa Amane

she gets treated in-canon the way fandoms treat female characters that Threaten an m/m ship. it's like, "oh why don't you go sit in the corner and be pretty, misa, while the Men have intelligent conversation and pretend they aren't ten seconds from fucking each other, doesn't that sound nice?" it's infuriating. and MAYBE it's better now but i remember her getting treated the same way in fanfiction too, like we all need to do just as badly by our female secondary characters as fucking tsugumi ohba, but with the added insult of making her be alternately oblivious of the relationship between light and L or actively trying to sabotage it—incompetently, of course, because god forbid misa be allowed dignity or moments of cleverness.

she's one of the first characters I think of when I consider old school fandom misogyny. The annoying bitch and clingy crazy gf allegations were AFTER HER ASS. She's also a lot more intelligent than people gave her credit for, but most seem inclined to take the Very Biased word of our unreliable, narcissistic narrator and his homoerotic arch nemesis and claim that just because she's bubbly and into romance that she's also a complete moron. Which is blatantly untrue. Everyone was afraid of Misa girlbossing too hard. Killing people and devoting yourself to the deranged twink of your dreams even though you know he'll never love you back??? Having a hardcore goth aesthetic and being so Hot even literal Death Gods are into you?? God forbid women do ANYTHING!

Not only is she the victim of yaoi culture, she is the victim of early 2000s misogyny by an author that wanted to introduce a girl character because he knew his male rivals were getting too homoerotic. She is a goth bimbo icon who portrays what I think is one of the few callouts for stan culture and what parasocial relationships can do to both the stan and the idol. The fact that she is a toxic fan of Kira and also hot, funny, sociable is tragic in its own way, which I think the author did try to touch on but was too misogynistic too really get through. Of course, she was reduced to villain status by the fandom and anime alike because she got in the way of the supposed romance in their psychological horror anime

[samble]

i could ramble on about this forever but the idea that madohomu is one sided or that madoka is straight (?) or that homura is even "forcing" herself on her, besides just restating the "predatory lesbian" stereotype, is also, like, very blatantly untrue? idk why people even believe this besides lesbophobia or just following the crowd.

here's just a few examples of Totally Straight, totally One Sided madohomu (and a bonus Madoka Being Straight Towards Hitomi) interactions:

...like, maybe im just jaded, but fandoms used to (and perhaps still do?) ship literally any two dudes who made eye contact and call it canon, but wlw ships get called "not canon", "predatory", "not really gay", etc, and it's sad. you could have madoka and homura kiss in the new movie and people would twist it and insist it's not "really" meant to be romantic somehow, or that it's Still only one sided.

homura in rebellion even already called her feelings for madoka "love" (and used the romantic form of the word) and it's still considered not canon by a decent amount of people.

i really can't tell though if it's lesbophobia or general misogyny, because i know damn well if homura or madoka were guys doing these things it would be considered a canonical ship by default.

[rivkae-winters]

This isn’t going to be a grand essay as I’m still feeling fairly low energy but I didn’t want to leave my two cents unsaid on this as it’s somewhat personal.

One thing I’ve noticed from all of the recent lore.fm events is the awareness of podficcing is much lower than I’d previously considered.

This is an absolute shame: podfics are great and there are many amazing narrators in fandom. One of the generalizations I saw made in the (regretably unarchived- lack of foresight on my part after I saved their videos) lore.fm comment section was how there was no natural sounding voice to read fan fiction at all ever and that’s why this proposed product was exciting for many of the people in those comment sections. Which is blatantly untrue as we have had natural voices even reading porn at times for years coming from the lips of actual people.

Obviously it’s not the same since not everything is a podfic all the time so check here for the fairly comprehensive guide @chaosisbeauty23 released recently covering native features of both iOS and Android devices and more.

Other than that though if there is a podfic scene in the space you find yourself in within fandom it’s well worth supporting. Narration is a skill and there is dynamism to the ebb and flow of a storyteller walking you down an author’s lovingly crafted web that is delightful. If you couldn’t tell I really do adore the podfic scene and certain podfic narrators have literally led me to new fandoms I wouldn’t have considered before with their voice and skill. It’s actually the reason why I still have blanket permissions attached to my work for recordings made by a living person reciting any of my works.

In that spirit: if you feel like checking just look up the tag ‘podfic’ on Ao3 next time you’re in your favorite tag! Or if you’re feeling adventurous just search through the podfic tag itself and find yourself somewhere new.

Typically you can filter by length as well and all the tags attached to the initial fic are typically on the podfic’d one. The podfic post is connected to the authors post as well via the ‘inspired by’ feature 99% of the time as well!

Fandom is an ecosystem of sorts and podfic readers are a native species here: they deserve more love 💜

[burst-of-iridescent]

Your response to that anon makes it pretty clear they're right lol. Katara did support Aang unconditionally, especially with his trauma as she could empathise as someone who is ALSO a survivor of genocide and the last of their people (water bender and air nomad). But Aang also was supportive of her- when she wanted to free the earthbenders, him and sokka helped, he wanted to refuse to continue teaching from Pakku because he wouldn't teach Katara, he helped her with the Painted Lady, and the Southern Raiders comment is not as condescending as you think. Yes, it was shitty, but you really think they would've turned their back on Katara? They shouldn't have said that to her but him and Sokka know if she kills Yon Rha, it will not bring her closure. And as for her doing all the labour, that's blatantly untrue. In Bitter Work the whole argument between Toph and Katara is that Katara is (rightfully) mad that Toph only wants to do her share, arguing that everyone around camp does their part.There’s multiple episodes in which the gaang help pitch the tent and perform campsite duties. There’s a whole episode dedicated to how katara and sokka are both sick, resulting in aang having to run across the world to retrieve them medicine, and he continued trying to get the frogs for his friends even when captured. There’s an entire episode dedicated to how the gaang cannot get anything done without sokka, who usually manages their schedules and itineraries and helps ensure that they’re on track. There’s plenty of moments in which aang and katara are goofing off, and sokka gets mad at them for not sticking to his carefully curated and meticulous schedule and for putting a wedge in their plans to save communities (see: imprisoned and the painted lady). There’s moments when toph assumes responsibility; there’s moments when aang assumes responsibility. and then there’s moments when none of them have any clue on what to do, when they literally act like children navigating a world that’s constantly trying to kill them. Because they are children, which in episode 1 we see Aang telling Katara she is still a kid. Whether you ship it or not, a big part of their relationship is that they are children. They're a team, they all support each other. Saying she shoulders everything and that Aang is just selfish and callous is a blatant lie. They have helped each other throughout the series a lot. There are moments when they both say and do things that aren't good to eachother, but that doesn't make their relationship instantly toxic. Aang kissing Katara w/o consent was wrong, it's why I don't ship it, but saying Katara was reduced Aangs mother figure, especially when he played a large role in her acting like a kid again, and also grew up communally so the concept of a mother isn't something he would even think about. The constant adultification you insist on of Katara is just weird, there's a reason black and brown women hate it so much, especially when katara has stated she dislikes being seen as motherly

wow that is a whole lot of words you're trying to shove into my mouth, huh? don't worry though; unlike you, i know how to make a good argument, so let's go through this flaming pile of garbage you've dumped in my asks to see exactly what that looks like!

i don't know where you got this idea that i think katara does everything for team avatar while the rest of them sit by and twiddle their thumbs; i have never said that, and i never will. my argument isn't about katara's relationship with the gaang (though for all that she says they divide the chores equally in the chase episode, you will notice that much of the time it is always katara you see in the background cooking, training aang, or doing work around camp - make of that what you will), it is about katara's relationship with aang, and the severe imbalance of emotional labour in that relationship.

let's look at how many times katara supports aang in the show when he's in need of it:

S1:E3, The Southern Air Temple: katara pulls aang out of the avatar state when he's grieving over the loss of his people, then holds and comforts him afterwards.

S1:E12, The Storm: katara listens to aang's regrets over running away, assauges his guilt, encourages him, and ultimately inspires him to move on from his past and start anew.

S2:E3, Return to Omashu: katara listens to aang's worries about bumi and tries to reassure him.

S2:E9, Bitter Work: katara coddles aang when he's sad about not being able to master earthbending, motivating him to keep going and trying to convince toph to give him an easier time.

S2:E10, The Library: katara pulls aang out of the avatar state again, this time actually putting herself in danger (the only one to do so, you might notice) by walking into the middle of a sandstorm while aang is in an highly volatile state of extreme power. keep in mind that katara knows exactly what can happen when aang isn't able to control himself, because of that lovely incident back in book 1 where she was burned thanks to his recklessness, and yet the duty of calming aang down falls to her yet again.

S2:E11, The Desert: aang snaps at katara and then leaves her to take care of herself and the rest of the gaang all on her own in a highly dangerous environment. don't worry though, she'll still find the time to sympathize with him and comfort him, though he certainly isn't going to apologize and will, in fact, have this lovely exchange with her instead:

"What's anyone else doing?! [Pointing his staff at Katara.] What are you doing‌?!"

oh nothing aang, just keeping everyone alive and together, and being the entire reason they survive the desert at all. thanks for the support, though!

S2:E12, Journey to Ba Sing Se Part 1: katara reaches out to aang multiple times in this episode, offering her love and support, and ultimately helping him to snap out of his depression over appa's loss (he still hasn't apologized for his behaviour in the previous episode, in case you were wondering).

S3:E1, The Awakening: katara tries to help aang deal with his feelings of guilt over Ba Sing Se, heals him, brings him food, and even stays behind to look after him (funny you don't see either sokka or toph doing that)... all while dealing with her own sadness and anger over her father. aang does notice this, by the way! though naturally, he does nothing about it.

S3:E9, Nightmares and Daydreams: i'll cut this one a little slack, because sokka and toph do try to help out with aang's anxieties too. note, however, that katara checks on aang five separate times in this episode alone - far more than either of the other two by a clear margin.

S3:E17, The Ember Island Players: katara is the only one to notice aang is upset after the play, goes to see if he's okay and... well, you know how this one ends.

let's do a little tally and... that clocks in at a whopping 10 times that katara offers aang her love, support and comfort, including almost all of his lowest moments.

now let's look at the number of times aang supports katara when she is in need of it:

S1:E9, The Waterbending Scroll: aang encourages katara to waterbend, pushing her to have faith and be confident in herself, allowing her to waterbend successfully and defeat the pirates.

S1:E18, The Waterbending Master: aang defends katara against pakku and cheers for her during her fight; he does also, however, undercut her very real anger at pakku and tries to dissuade her from fighting at all under the impression that it's for him instead of the injustice that's been done to her so... we'll consider this a wash.

S2:E17, Lake Laogai: aang rests a hand on katara's shoulder in wordless support after jet dies.

S3:E8, The Puppetmaster: aang pulls the hand-on-shoulder move again while katara cries after defeating hama... except this time, sokka's on her other side doing the exact same thing so it can't even be counted as an emotional support moment exclusive to aang, the way all of aang's are to katara.

final calculation: 2, 4 if i'm being generous. four against ten, and even if you combined all of them together, aang still doesn't provide even half the depth of support and care that katara does for him in just a single incident.

see how that might be what we call an imbalanced relationship?

They shouldn't have said that to her but him and Sokka know if she kills Yon Rha, it will not bring her closure

except who brought up killing yon rha? aang. who immediately conflated justice with revenge? aang. who pushed his own culture's values of pacifism onto katara? aang. and who was ultimately wrong about blanket forgiveness and inaction being the path to closure for katara? aang.

you don't need to take my word on it. katara corrects aang herself when he inaccurately assumes she did what he wanted her to: "But i didn't forgive him. I'll never forgive him."

if aang had his way, if katara had never confronted yon rha, her rage and grief and resentment would've simply continued to fester inside her. katara made peace with her trauma on her own terms, by finally getting to see yon rha for what he really was: not a nightmarish bogeyman who left her powerless and afraid, but a weak, pathetic, human man who didn't even deserve the mercy of death, and whom she was able to reclaim her power over.

aang doesn't extend to katara even a fraction of the empathy, understanding and faith she always offers him; rather, he instantly jumps to the worst judgements about her intentions, preaches to her about how she should heal from her trauma, and only deepens her stress and anger while she's reliving the worst moment of her life.

that is not support. that is not friendship. that is aang making katara's struggle about himself, just as everything else in their relationship already is.

saying Katara was reduced Aangs mother figure, especially when he played a large role in her acting like a kid again, and also grew up communally so the concept of a mother isn't something he would even think about

buddy, i assure you i'm not the one making katara aang's mother. you can take that up with the writers who made a self-referential joke about katara acting motherly to aang (unless you think "stop rubbing your eye and sit up straight when you talk!" is somehow a romantic thing to say to your future husband), who have katara coddle aang multiple times, who framed katara holding aang's dead body like the virgin mary holding jesus, and who literally had her dress up and pretend to be his mother.

and for your information, katara is a motherly figure - not just to aang, but to every member of team avatar besides zuko (and suki, if you count her). that's not my opinion btw, as you seem to believe. that's canon, confirmed by both sokka and toph in S3:E7, The Runaway:

Sokka: When our mom died, that was the hardest time in my life. Our family was a mess, but Katara? She had so much strength. She stepped up and took on so much responsibility. She helped fill the void that was left by our mom. It really seems like my whole life, Katara's been the one looking out for me. She's always been the one that's there. And now, when I try to remember my mom, Katara's is the only face I can picture. Toph: The truth is sometimes Katara does act motherly, but that's not always a bad thing. She's compassionate and kind, and she actually cares about me. [Wipes away tears from her left eye.] You know, the real me. That's more than my own mom.

so no, anon, i'm not the one "insisting" on katara's adultification. she was adultified the moment her mother died, because she was forced to step into her mother's shoes - and she did it so well that she became a surrogate parent to her own older brother. she is a child who was forced to sacrifice her childhood, and who will never be able to find it again. that is the fundamental tragedy at the heart of katara's character, and an integral part of what makes her who she is.

there's a reason black and brown women hate it so much, especially when katara has stated she dislikes being seen as motherly

really? women of colour hate being pushed into motherly roles, and seeing female characters like themselves being forced to do so? damn, i wonder if there's any way that i, a south asian woman living in southeast asia, would know that?

i don't need you to tell me what brown women think and feel. i understand first-fucking-hand what we go through, because i've seen it in my own female relatives, in my friends, in their families, in every aspect of my society. i've felt the expectations of my culture on my gender since i was a child, and that is just one of the many reasons why i ship zutara: so that at least in a fictional world, some fictional brown girl is able to have an equal relationship with a partner who respects her, admires her, supports her, cares for her, and loves her just as much as she does him.

i'm glad we can both agree that katara hates being seen as motherly. i hate it too, which is why i despise kat.aang, because the last thing that katara needed after losing her childhood being a mother was to lose the rest of her life to it too, stripped of her agency and legacy, forever stuck looking after a man who will always make her do too much labour without once recognizing it, let alone returning it.

now kindly get out of my inbox with your faux progressive concern, and take your subpar media literacy skills with you while you're at it.

[prince-liest]

I’m a sex-repulsed ace, and reading the latest chapter of 666 (as well as your analysis here on Tumblr) made me realize that I have been subconsciously thinking about MY OWN sexuality from an allo perspective? And that it has kinda been messing me up?? Like, ever since I learned that sexual attraction was actually a Thing and that it’s Important To People, I had been carrying around a fear of being deficient in some way and not being able to love to the same extent as allos. (1)

Even though I know logically that’s complete garbage and totally untrue, I felt left out of the loop because people seemed to care strongly about this thing I couldn’t even imagine. Whenever it looked like a relationship might happen I panicked for a reason that I couldn’t understand. But now I’m starting to realize that it’s because I was subconsciously terrified of an ‘ulterior motive’ behind the other person’s reasons for wanting to be with me. (2) That part of the reason they even cared was because of something I don’t experience. So thank you, because this realization just clicked into place while reading your work. The thing is, this way of thinking was just internalized in such a way that I didn’t even realize it was there until literally this week. And I think you’re right; one of the main reasons behind that is because I’ve always consumed media written from an allo perspective. (3) If ace/aros are shown at all, they’re depicted as “lacking” and their character development usually revolves around being “fixed” by the story. When I was ~10 years old my mom sometimes let me watch the Big Bang Theory with her (looking back, maybe not the best decision). Anyways, there was one episode deep into the series where Sheldon (who for the past nineish seasons was probably the closest thing to mainstream ace rep) has sex with his girlfriend for the first time. (4) Afterwards, he says something along the lines of “that was better than I thought it would be”, and it’s presented as a Very Good Thing and a big step in their relationship. I think a lifetime of stuff like that makes it very easy to internalize aphobia and feel like the lesser part of the relationship. Or to feel like the other partner is making a huge sacrifice to be with you. That got wayy too long, sorry. All that was just a lot of words to say that I appreciate you. Take care of yourself!(5)

The portrayal of asexuality that you see in media being almost exclusively as you described is very tedious to me because it presumes that something is inherently lacking in aro/aceness rather than that feeling of "lacking" being something that is induced by societal norms. Actually, one of the things that I find additionally alienating is that fandom spaces specifically have been getting better and better about ace characters - but got damn does fandom not jive with aromanticism. Like, a character doesn't want to fuck? That's becoming a liiiittle more fine, it's 2024, we stan consent. But not shipping someone romantically?? Not so easy, now.

I'm glad that my work has been something that resonated with you in this respect! Alastor cares a lot about his reputation as a demon but is pretty blatantly a person who could not possibly give less of a shit about being "wrong" for not being experiencing romantic or sexual attraction. The explanation Viv gave at one point for his own understanding of himself (that he thinks he's just "waiting for the right woman") actually stuck out to me a lot because it's a very "well, nothing is wrong with me for not feeling anything, it's the world that's failed to produce a suitable person" perspective.

But having that kind of confident perspective of your own rightness in the world is really not often portrayed in media, or even in fandom, which even ten years ago was still in the throes of standardizing "Oh, no! Me, gay? These feelings are so wrong!" style m/m content and is honestly not that far off from essentially that for aro/ace characters.

Anyway, all of that is to say that there's not yet much out there that doesn't frame allo/amatonormative values as the default that "even aro/ace people can (and should want to) achieve," and that it's really fun to write a fic that is unequivocally from the perspective of a character who is aroace and doesn't see it as even remotely a fault in himself. Does he have moments where he's a little confused and trying to process how things fit for him? Absolutely. But he just doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who thinks he owes romance to Vox of all people, hahaha. I've written him trying to conform to allo/amatonormativity more with Mimzy, because I think the social standards of their time could push him into it, but Vox? Absolutely not, he does not respect Vox enough for it to even enter his mind.

And then, on the other hand, writing it from an aroace perspective centers the way that romantic and sexual interest can feel like a betrayal of a good thing. With a character like Alastor, it frames romantic and sexual attraction the same alien way that we usually see aromanticism and asexuality framed as.

In the end, this is just one of a plethora of different experiences that aro/ace people can have, but it's one that I really wanted to see represented more, so I'm very happy to write it. I'm glad that you're enjoying it!

[antianakin]

I was thinking about that moment in AOTC today where Padme falls out of the gunship and the one thing Obi-Wan says that convinces Anakin not to jump after her is "What would Padme do in your position" and Anakin responds that she would do her duty.

Except. This is entirely untrue. And we've been shown THREE TIMES in this film alone that this is untrue. We'll see more in ROTS and more yet in TCW.

But this moment is ALREADY UNTRUE in the moment that it's spoken. The first time we see Padme do otherwise is when Anakin tells her he's planning to just... abandon his job as her bodyguard in order to go find his mother and her reaction is to say "cool, I'll come with you then." Both of them are SUPPOSED to stay on Naboo in the safety of her people and this out of the way villa, and even if that weren't true, there's no real condemnation from Padme when Anakin specifically states that he's planning on NOT doing his duty by her anymore. The second time is when Anakin is explicitly ordered to stay on Tatooine and NOT go to save Obi-Wan on Geonosis and Padme refuses to abide by that and convinces Anakin to go against his duty for a second time. The third time is when she chooses to tell Anakin she loves him in the Geonosis arena, setting aside all of the reasons she knows she shouldn't be in a relationship with him due to their positions as a Jedi and a Senator. You could even include the moments where Padme decides to pretend Anakin didn't mean it when he said he believed in a democracy despite how very troubling that is to hear from the mouth of a Jedi even if it WAS a joke, and when Padme choosing to condone Anakin massacring a village of Tuskens and keeping it secret from the Jedi.

So there are three moments where Padme either condones Anakin abandoning his duty or abandons her OWN duty and two moments where Padme choosing to look the other way when Anakin demonstrates a questionable behavior because she cares about him and doesn't want to face the reality of what she SHOULD do in that situation, so she just... chooses not to. There's even a quick line when Anakin and Obi-Wan are being seen of by Obi-Wan and Typho and Obi-Wan says something like how he hopes Anakin won't be too reckless and Typho says he'd be more worried about HER. So we're told from almost the beginning of this story that, between the two of them, PADME might be the one more likely to do reckless things whenever she wants.

And of course if we move forward into ROTS, we've got Padme just blatantly ignoring the entire issue of what will happen once the baby is born and imagining this beautiful fantasy where she and Anakin raise the baby on Naboo together, despite the fact that Anakin's duty as a Jedi will make that impossible, despite the inevitable fallout she knows is coming if the Queen figures out she's pregnant while also still being a Senator (which is, ya know, inevitably going to happen eventually), and despite the fact that she and Anakin are STILL LIVING A LIE and so raising children together isn't going to happen the way she thinks it will. Her fantasy is just that, a fantasy. Padme is refusing to do the right thing and be honest about her situation and letting someone else be a Senator in her place so she can pursue starting a family.

We've also got her entire reaction to Obi-Wan showing up to tell her Anakin killed children and the way she just refuses to believe Anakin COULD kill children even though she is one of two people who knows for certain that he's already done so. She refuses to help Obi-Wan find Anakin and, once she gets to Mustafar, her first attempt at reaching him is to convince him to RUN AWAY WITH HER rather than to face any kind of justice for what he's done or ask him what happened. Padme was all righteous about "so this is how liberty dies" earlier, but she's doing the exact same thing on Mustafar with Anakin by refusing to believe Obi-Wan and trying to help Anakin escape instead of acting like the Senator she's supposed to be.

And then you get to TCW where you've got Padme letting Anakin manipulate her into abandoning her responsibilities early in season 1, Padme straight-up LYING TO HER QUEEN in order to get Anakin assigned to the Blue Shadow Virus mission on Naboo, and Padme making the extremely ill-advised choice to give up Grievous as a hostage in order to get Anakin back from Dooku. There's also the first Clovis episode in I believe season 2 when Padme is upset with Anakin the one time he DOES leave her in order to do his duty and punishes him by taking the mission to spy on Clovis that he's trying to convince her not to take.

So it's almost LAUGHABLE that the thing that keeps Anakin on the gunship is thinking that if their positions were reversed, Padme would do her duty when we've had more than one piece of evidence IN THIS FILM ALONE to show that Padme would've fucking jumped if she'd been in Anakin's position.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The American people lost the debate last night, and it was more painful than usual to watch the parade of platitudes and evasions that worked in the debate format run by CNN. The network’s glossy pundit-moderators started by ignoring the elephants in the room – that one of the two men standing at the podiums was a convicted felon, the leader of a coup attempt, an alleged thief of national security documents who was earlier this year found liable in a civil court for rape, and has promised to usher in a vengeful authoritarian regime if he returns to office.

Instead they launched the debate with the dead horse they love to beat in election years, the deficit and taxes. Throughout the excruciating evening, Joe Biden in a hoarse voice said diligent things that were reasonably true and definitely sincere; Donald Trump in a booming voice said lurid things that were flamboyantly untrue. The grim spectacle was a reminder that this is a style over substance game.

Debates are a rite in which not truth but showmanship wins the day, and in which participants get judged as though it was a sporting event – which it pretty much is, in high school and college debate events. Before 2016, presidential debates were relatively decorous events in which the participants slammed each other, but more or less within the parameters of the true and the real with maybe a little distortion and exaggeration.

Then came Trump. You cannot win a debate with a shameless liar, because what you’re supposed to be debating are facts and positions. A lie is a kind of poison; once it’s in the room it makes an impression that is hard to undo, and trying to undo it only amplifies it.

Trump’s positions on anything and everything shift and slide at will, and he lies about his own past with pathological confidence – in this debate he both denied that he had sex with Stormy Daniels and that he praised the white supremacists who stormed Charlottesville in 2017. More substantively he lied – unchallenged, except by Biden – about his role in the January 6 coup attempt, and the CNN pundits did not trouble him further about his crimes. Trump talked about whatever he wanted – asked about the opiates crisis, he reverted to the lurid stories about sex crimes and open borders that obsess him and inflame his followers.

Most outrageous of all, and of course utterly unchecked, was one of the outrageous falsehoods Trump has been pushing for years – the claim that abortion continues on into infanticide, that doctors and new mothers are murdering babies at birth. That one candidate has long supported reproductive rights and the other has led the attack on them was not something you would learn from this debate.

Debates exist so that people can hear from the candidates, which makes sense when they’re relative unknowns. We’ve heard plenty from both of them for 40 years or so, since Biden was a young congressman and Trump was a young attention-seeker in New York City’s nightclubs and tabloids, and both of them have had the most high-profile job on earth for four years.

We didn’t need this debate. Because 2024 is not like previous election years, and the reasons it’s not are both that each candidate has had plenty of time to show us who they are and because one of them is a criminal seeking to destroy democracy and human rights along with the climate, the economy and international alliances. If you are too young to remember 2017-2021, this would not help you figure that out.

As political journalist John Nichols put it, “CNN is illustrating how a ‘debate’ where the moderators reject the basic responsibility of fact-checking in real time, and refuse to challenge blatantly false statements, is not a debate. It’s a chaos where lies are given equal footing with the truth.”

Much has been said about the age of the candidates, but maybe it’s the corporate media whose senility is most dangerous to us. Their insistence on proceeding as though things are pretty much what they’ve always been, on normalizing the appalling and outrageous, on using false equivalencies and bothsiderism to make themselves look fair and reasonable, on turning politics into horseraces and personality contests, is aiding the destruction of the United States.

The major American newspapers have been unable or unwilling to convey to the voting public that the fate of the country and its constitution are at stake, that the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is a game plan for authoritarian rule and the loss of long-protected rights for many kinds of Americans.

Trump dodged a mild question about taking action on climate change, and though moderator Dana Bash brought him back to the subject he then just boasted about how under his reign we had “the cleanest” air and water, on the very day that the US supreme court justices he appointed savaged yet another piece of environmental protection. The highly-paid pundits could have asked him about his recent promise to leaders of the oil and gas industry that he’d serve their interests if they donated $1bn to his campaign.

Because it’s not just the fate of the US but of life on earth that’s at stake in this election; in 2016, the US undermined global cooperation on climate by electing Trump, who withdrew us from the Paris climate treaty, installed Exxon’s longtime CEO as his first secretary of state, and went to war against environmental protections. Biden has a flawed record but many huge achievements on climate – plus less huge ones too many and complex to bring up in a debate format.

But the hacks running the debate were no more interested in substance or the fate of the country or the earth than Trump. They were putting on a show, and they were putting it on as though we still lived in a world that no longer exists. By so doing they further endangered the world in which we do exist.

[Rebecca Solnit]

[ilikekidsshows]

Apparently I'm going to jump aboard the 'frustrated with Marinette train,' feel free to ignore this if there's been too much recently. But I'm tired of Marinette's tendency to bemoan how terrible she is when she realizes she's hurt someone. This in and of itself is fine, being self-aware when you've made a mistake is a good first step. What bothers me is, often she never goes beyond the self-flagellation, and sometimes it's the person she's hurt that then must emotionally console her. Like???

---

Oh, yeah, that trait of Marinette’s frustrates me so much. Like, I know she isn’t doing it on purpose, because she doesn’t have enough emotional intelligence to manipulate people like that even if the writers thought she’d be morally right to do so, but, like, it’s an actual manipulation tactic to start saying blatantly untrue, awful things about yourself when you’re caught doing something wrong, so the person who caught you, if they’re a bit more of a soft touch, feels the need to go: “You’re not that bad, it’s okay.”

I’ll say this, though: genuinely going on a self-flagellation trip over every one of your mistakes actually stops you from improving your behavior. “I’m so awful, I’m a terrible person, I might as well not even try to do better,” is an actual thought process people can have. Even a lesser habit of calling yourself stupid or a failure over every mistake during a task just makes you miserable and want to avoid said task instead of motivated to try again. It’s genuinely bad for your mental health. If you find yourself doing this, try to counter it by giving yourself a compliment on what you did right. If your friend failed at something, you’d focus on what they did right too. Talk to yourself like you’d talk to someone you care about, and you’ll notice yourself being a lot kinder to yourself and feeling better about life overall.

Once again, the Miraculous writers write something that looks like it's actually saying something meaningful about how we handle our problems for a moment, but it's an accident. Marinette's self-flagellation isn't meant to be read as an avoidance tactic or an actual sign of her poor mental health, even though the writers admit she's mentally unwell. The self-flagellation is meant to make us feel sorry for Marinette and forgive her. So I guess it is actually a purposeful manipulation tactic, but only metatextually; it's the writers trying to manipulate the audience to get us to go: "Oh, poor thing, she doesn't deserve to feel so bad!"

Basically, in universe Marinette bemoaning what an awful person she is every time she makes someone upset is just freeing herself from responsibility. She’s an awful person, so she can’t help acting awful. But it also ties into how I describe post retool Marinette as unmotivated. She’s unmotivated to improve her behavior, even when she acknowledges that she isn’t treating people around her the way they deserve. She just flagellates herself to give the audience the illusion of working on improving, even though she isn’t, because she’s too busy feeling bad to actually be a better her. It’s another sign Marinette needs professional therapy instead of her unqualified boyfriend acting as her therapist.

This whole tendency is one of the reasons I find Kuro Neko one of the worst episodes of anything I’ve ever seen, because Marinette got this close to becoming self-aware, but had to throw a pity party for herself and Cat Walker/Cat Noir threw aside his justified feelings to cater to hers and tell her she’s so perfect and amazing, which leads to Marinette acting like she doesn’t even need to apologize to Cat Noir for the rest of the episode. Like, that episode ruined Marinette for me.

[fairfoxie]

Otherkin Rumours Debunked

Hi! It's Pine Fairfoxie with a Big Long Post! I've been wanting to make something like this for a long time. When I see negative comments, rumours, and propaganda about otherkin, I already know they're untrue. But not often do I examine exactly why. Today I'll be doing just that, and hopefully contributing to the common knowledge of our community. So without further ado, let's have a look at the 11 most common rumours and misconceptions about Otherkin.

(Note: I use Otherkin as an umbrella term that includes Therians.)

1. "You're doing it for attention!"

This is usually the opposite of the truth. Otherkin generally like to stick to our tight knit communities of peers who understand us. We usually don't tell anyone IRL, or we risk being disrespected and ridiculed. As for me, almost no one in my life knows, not my family or even my best friends. My romantic partner knows, simply because I want to be fully myself around him. Even then, I usually indulge in my most obvious otherkin urges when I'm by myself only. I don't want any attention for this and I don't want people to view me differently. I want my human disguise to work, yknow? That being said, some otherkin do like attention and are flashy about it. What in the world is wrong with that?

2. "Otherkin is a mental illness/dangerous for mentally ill people!"

Look, it's not that there's not a deep end you can go off because there definitely is, but most of us are perfectly reasonable about our identities. Otherkin in itself is not a mental illness, though it does intersect with many mental illnesses. However, most people who tell their personal therapist about their otherkin identity are told that it isn't dangerous, and many are even willing to work with you on solutions to ease the less fun parts of being otherkin and will encourage you to identify as otherkin if it improves your life in some way. Though otherkin CAN be a backdrop to delusions or even clinical lycanthropy, these are special cases and not the norm, and are treated accordingly. Either way, this is no excuse to bully or ostracize us, and doing so is blatantly ableist.

3. "You're faking/it's all made up"

Faking what? A feeling? An experience? A personal identity? There's no faking any of these things, which at its core is what otherkin is. Any way you choose to contextualize your life is all made up, because language and society are made up. Humans are a type of animal capable of complex philosophical thought and self actualization. There's nothing fake about that. If someone is pretending to be someone who's not themself, the best thing to do is wait it out. It is exhausting to be anything other than your true self and anyone who tries will not sustain it for long. If otherkin is a phase for some people, let them have their fun and move on.

4. "It's just roleplay"

Many otherkin like to roleplay. But they are not the same thing. At the end of the day, a roleplayer goes back to being their normal self. For otherkin, this IS our normal selves.

5. "It's the same as furries"

Some furries are otherkin, some otherkin are furries. Some people keep the two distinct, some don't. Furry is simply an art form. Otherkin is an identity.

6. "There are no otherkin of bugs and fish and unpopular animals, only pretty looking things like wolves and foxes and dragons."

False! There are in fact many bugkin, many kintypes of "undesireable" animals, and rare animals too! I know of someone who's isopodkin. As for why there are mostly mammals and "cool/pretty" kintypes out there, well, humans are mammals. Of course it would be more likely that you'd discover your fox self than your hagfish self. Some people don't even know their kintype exists, and may go their whole lives unaware of their connection to a very niche animal, and may even write it off as a fascination. The anatomy of mammals is easier for us to understand, so of course a foxkin would be more likely to stumble upon their true nature than a hagfishkin who's never even heard of hagfish. And then, a foxkin is more likely to enjoy being a fox than a hagfishkin is to enjoy being a hagfish, and therefore is more likely to devote time and energy to indulging it online.

7. "Otherkin steal art and images!"

This is true, unfortunately, our community is rampant with unsourced and uncredited images. Many of us in the community are working to reduce the amount of stolen and unethical content in our tags by spreading awareness of the issue and promoting properly credited or original content. This is not a facet by which you should judge the community as a whole, and many of us do make beautiful original art and take our own photos.

8. "Otherkin are all children"

Nah, we've been around online since mailing lists were a thing. The oldest known otherkin mailing list was Elfkind Digest and the oldest online forum was alt.horror.net/werewolves (I hope I got that right?) Thing is, the oldest of otherkin like to hang out on forums and generally keep to their tight knit communities. Tumblr has almost all ages on it, but the more frequent posters tend to be younger. Tiktok also has all ages but is mostly children. I've watched the Tumblr otherkin community grow up together and I think we've become more nuanced than before. I think this will happen too with the kids on whatever new social media this community finds its way to. I think kids and younger people are more inclined to post more frequent and flashy content that everyone sees. A Tiktok moodboard is going to naturally get more publicity than a long and carefully worded essay by an older community member. If you're not seeing adults you might just be at the kids' table.

9. "It's a white people thing"

Entirely False! I know/have known many otherkin of colour and otherkin from all around the world. Otherkin is non-denominational and multicultural and if you erase that you're erasing a significant foundation of the community. No community is completely devoid of racism, unfortunately. But we are still a diverse group. I can acknowledge that otherkin is prevalent in countries with internet access because, well, we find each other on the internet. It also stands to reason that in a society founded on white supremacy, a white person is more likely to feel safe/comfortable expressing themselves in public spaces. I honestly think that this is a throwaway line made to ridicule/discredit us for being "weird," but if you seriously do think that only white people can be otherkin, then perhaps you're the one who needs to go outside.

10. "Otherkin are zoophiles/practice bestiality"

False. The exceeding majority of otherkin are outspoken against all forms of animal abuse. When an abusive situation in the community comes to light, the most common practice is to cut ties, denounce the behaviour, and spread awareness of the issue to keep each other safe. Some people may incorporate otherkin into their kink scene. What they do behind closed doors with consenting (human/human shaped) adults continues to be none of our business.

11. "Otherkin is a cult"

Otherkin might just be one of the most misunderstood communities on the internet today. But at its core it is about self discovery, personal connections, and community. And I will always be proud to be one of us.

Otherkin is not a cult because there is no leader trying to take your money and bodily autonomy. If someone is doing this to you directly under the guise of the otherkin identity, which, yes, has happened before, you need to get safely away from that person/group. Cults can and will use anything to try to recruit you. This is why keeping your identity private online is so so important! If someone claims to possess secret knowledge, wants you to join their pack with extremely strict/authoritarian rankings, is asking you for money, or insists on knowing your location/identity, these are big red flags and those people should be blocked and avoided.

🌿🌿🌿

Thanks to all who gave me ideas to help this post happen! And I hope that anyone who sees this walks away with a better understanding of our community :3

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 3

Propaganda Under Cut

Kairi

kairi is the third protagonist of the kingdom hearts series and the third member of the destiny trio, alongside fan favorites sora and riku. sora/riku shippers HATE kairi, and will go out of their way to discount her at every turn. the hate for her ranges from typical "she's a boring bitch" to fans of soriku making five-hour long video essays reassuring their fellow shippers that the big bad kairi won't show up in the next installment – to quote one video, "she's in a box. she's on the shelf. four walls, no door." kairi is the greatest bogeyman the soriku fandom has ever known, to the point where most of said video essays and fanon meta posts focus not on why sora and riku should get together, but rather on why they don't like kairi.

Literally has a 100+ page Google doc fan theory writing her out of the narrative and putting all of her (few) canonical accomplishments onto half of the popular m/m ship (soriku). Don't even get me started on how her memory was completely written out of the canon plot of re:coded. KH is a nightmare to explain so dude trust me she is THE victim of yaoi

She is so fundamental to the plot and themes and narratives of game and yet it is near impossible to find anything about her thats not ship bashing pre-mlm with the other two characters. I dont even care if she ends up with one of the main characters i just want fans to see her as a cool character to love or like, anything other than “annoying comphet girl.” You can write your mlm but pleaae stop inventing comphet where it doesnt exist. She does not even get to spend time with sora ever?? Why does everyone see her as a threat and a thing to destroy?? Let her have friends so help me

Misa Amane

she gets treated in-canon the way fandoms treat female characters that Threaten an m/m ship. it's like, "oh why don't you go sit in the corner and be pretty, misa, while the Men have intelligent conversation and pretend they aren't ten seconds from fucking each other, doesn't that sound nice?" it's infuriating. and MAYBE it's better now but i remember her getting treated the same way in fanfiction too, like we all need to do just as badly by our female secondary characters as fucking tsugumi ohba, but with the added insult of making her be alternately oblivious of the relationship between light and L or actively trying to sabotage it—incompetently, of course, because god forbid misa be allowed dignity or moments of cleverness.

she's one of the first characters I think of when I consider old school fandom misogyny. The annoying bitch and clingy crazy gf allegations were AFTER HER ASS. She's also a lot more intelligent than people gave her credit for, but most seem inclined to take the Very Biased word of our unreliable, narcissistic narrator and his homoerotic arch nemesis and claim that just because she's bubbly and into romance that she's also a complete moron. Which is blatantly untrue. Everyone was afraid of Misa girlbossing too hard. Killing people and devoting yourself to the deranged twink of your dreams even though you know he'll never love you back??? Having a hardcore goth aesthetic and being so Hot even literal Death Gods are into you?? God forbid women do ANYTHING!

Not only is she the victim of yaoi culture, she is the victim of early 2000s misogyny by an author that wanted to introduce a girl character because he knew his male rivals were getting too homoerotic. She is a goth bimbo icon who portrays what I think is one of the few callouts for stan culture and what parasocial relationships can do to both the stan and the idol. The fact that she is a toxic fan of Kira and also hot, funny, sociable is tragic in its own way, which I think the author did try to touch on but was too misogynistic too really get through. Of course, she was reduced to villain status by the fandom and anime alike because she got in the way of the supposed romance in their psychological horror anime.

[arginnit]

yeah those types of cinniters have been vilifying cwilbur ever since he left ctommy in his finale instead of protecting him (even though there was a whole stream demonstrating how badly that goes and how bad it is for his mental health), but they couldnt justify vilifying him til now because their flanderization of him wanting ctommy to die with him in the explosion and shit is so blatantly rewriting the story in their head, rewatching literally any pogtopia stream especially oct 17 will prove that untrue

but when wilbur got outed they saw it like a trump card to get away with any flanderization they enjoy, no amount of canon citation can get through to them that theyre reading cwilbur wrong because they WANT to be stuck inside the confirmation bias of “cwilbur and wilbur are exactly the same, cwilbur deliberately conditioned and abused ctommy because wilbur did that” because they enjoy that version of the story better and have done for years lol, youll notice its always cdiscduo fans trying to make ccrime into cdiscduo 2 because they like that dynamic

half the time they dont even like the dinamic they just want a double abuse sandwich so thye can project more into ctommy

wouldnt even call them inniters tbh theyre more like annoying fucking cunts ok bit mean there but i do hate them a lot

made a post a while ago about people rewriting cwilbur just cus the cc is bad and sadly it has not gotten better