#humans can be great sometimes

[drafty-castle]

Circling back to the first post, i find it very weird to complain that people learn compassion and empathy from cartoons and comics and anime when humans for a hundred thousand years have been teaching each other these lessons through stories.

Stories used to be - and in some places still are - oral; lessons learned through song or chant or fairy tale. Some were told through mural or in paintings during a time when writing existed but literacy was low. Then came the printing press in the west and greater literacy throughout the world, allowing for more stories to be written, more characters to fall in love with or break our hearts, more lessons to learn. Each new leap in innovation humanity takes seems to create ever more ways to tell a story - theater and ballads and opera and ballet, TV and movies, cartoons and anime, comics and graphic novels, radioshows evolving into podcasts, books narrated as audio-books, youtube creepypastas and analog horror, musical TikTok compilations created by multiple people who have never met working together.

Story is arguably the greatest technology, the greatest strength, humanity has. Without it, knowledge would never have been able to be passed down through the generations before writing was invented. Neuroscientists have found that our brains learn better in narrative and story form rather than through any rote memorization.

Of course people learn compassion and empathy through anime and cartoons; those are some of our modern modes of storytelling. They are some of our modern ways of exploring experiences and emotions without having to live them ourselves. That's what story is.

i do not care if someone learned compassion from a cartoon or a comic or an anime im just glad they're here with us now a better person fighting the good fight. should it have taken something so trivial? maybe not- but it's in the past! and this is the now! and if they're objectively better for it who cares

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 271

“Grandmother is visiting,” Damian suddenly said with no warning and with his usual not-quite demanding tone. 

“Who?” Tim wasn’t the only one to startle, seeing as Bruce had practically froze, a downturn to his lips in a silent show of confusion. 

Damian scowled. “Are you deaf Drake? Grandmother is coming to Gotham to, quote, make sure I am being properly cared for.” None of them had known that Ras was with anyone actually. At least Tim was pretty sure that would have been in the files. 

“Oh?” Dick didn’t quite crouch to Damian’s height but it was a near thing. “She-” “He,” Damian corrected, interrupting him. They all exchanged a glance before Dick continued. 

“Is he coming to the Manor or…” 

Damian scoffed again, a tiny bit of a flush against his face. “No, Grandmother will most likely be staying with Akhi-”

Now wait one moment-

“YOU HAVE ANOTHER BROTHER?!” 

[reginamillls]

some of you have only shipped really popular, big fandom ships, and it shows

[skrunksthatwunk]

kinda thinking about how the women who serve as maternal figures/raise kids in yyh are never quite ready for it. genkai's an arguable exception, but like.. atsuko had yusuke at 15, shizuru's basically in charge of kazuma full time in her early 20s/late teens (depending on version) with very very absent parents, and even shiori is given a kid she wasn't expecting, in the form of an old, old demon rather than like. a regular, blank slate ass human baby. and although shiori seems to do quite well with kurama, kurama can never be honest with shiori about who he is, or much of what he's seen. if he was, it'd probably make things far more complicated and overwhelming. atsuko, no matter how much she cares for yusuke, Could Not Have Been and thus wasn't ready to have him at 15. her attempts to make the most of that situation have had middling success at best. shizuru has also been placed into a parental role. we don't really know how long she's been raising kuwabara, but that's.. probably still parentification anyway. she shouldn't have to do that, and she shouldn't have to do that so young. and i think some of her coarseness with kuwa is out of frustration with her own inexperience + inadequacy + uncertainty, his not cooperating, and their parents for putting this on her in the first place. the ones who know the full extent of their situation grow desperate and it squeaks out in unpleasant ways, and the one who seems unbothered by it is the only one who has no idea that she's in way over her head. and i mean. ok. gonna preface this by saying keiko is NOT yusuke's mom in any sense of the word. but she does take care of him in a way atsuko couldn't manage to. she's often looking after him and cleaning up after his messes and stuff. she takes him on as a responsibility, and that is, in a way, a caretaker role. not to say that it SHOULD be her responsibility, but it's how she ends up being.

and when the stress of trying to make someone take care of themselves or be kind or good or Whatever goes awry, again, the violence and arguing and distance and ugliness of caring for someone reveals itself.

and i wonder about that. for a series dedicated to physical fighting as a form of communication, what does it say that this extends to the complicated, quietly desperate situations of so many of the women/girls it depicts, whom our more central characters were shaped and raised by?

hell, even hiei touches on this, because hina loved hiei, but there was no way she was prepared for him, obviously, nor for the pain of losing him. rui (whom i also see as a sort of caretaker figure to hiei, inasmuch as either of them were caretakers) literally throws him off a cliff because she couldn't face down the village elders, and out of some mixture of care for hina and, likely, fear for her own survival. and the guilt and pain of that killed hina and deeply wounded rui.

it's like motherhood, this thing that's so often treated as sacred and beautiful, is a kind of stitched up, painful, eggshell-walking thing that hurts parent and child and it's just. oughh

[victusinveritas]

Couch fucking prick thinks Catholic Church is worried about $100 million. Bitch please. The Catholic Church at least tries, sometimes, to be concerned with humanitarian issues (and sometimes oh boy does it not care). As a Catholic Leftist (proud child of Catholic Leftists too, basically Irish American Episcopalians who like the Pope if he's cool), the Church's stance on immigration is one of the things I'm usually proud of it for championing. It'd be nice if they also gave a shit about women's health and queer things but...I'll just stay and fight until they do.

Here's America's (Jesuit magazine) response.

[ad-astra-per-aspera-1389]

"but donald forced them to eat pellets!" first of all, they seemed to enjoy the pellets while they had them, and guys...they probably continued to eat those pellets long after tasha and leo entered the picture. those bionics (especially adam and bree's) probably burn a lot of calories. their metabolisms are probably super high. the protein pellets were probably engineered specifically to provide enough nutrients and protein for them to grow and function well. yeah, real food is fun and tastes better, but in addition to not shocking their digestive systems, those pellets were probably essential supplements to ensure they were eating enough. and, since donald invented them himself, they're not buying suspicious amounts of food, either. it helps that the kids seem to enjoy them, though (they all cheered when donald brought up protein pellet smoothies in rats on a train)

[technitango]

oh great in episode 6 of 4 minutes my beloved. he's so fucked up. i love him.

[spirking-and-sparkling]

hate when i agree with a good post, but then they tell some asshole to kys

[crippy-tangerine]

Pros of dissociating so much you cannot tell what’s going on: it is easier to ignore bodily disability symptoms! Yay! Get to pretend you are healed and abled!! Able-bodied and healthy!! Yay!!!! We are the epitome of health 🎉.

Cons of dissociating so much you cannot tell what’s going on: it is easier to ignore bodily disability symptoms…. (You are NOT healed, you are getting worse!) (your body is deteriorating and all you do is pretend it isn’t happening) (uh oh!!).

-> Our body is low-key falling apart and we are simply ignoring it. This is so healthy and good. We are so able bodied.!! (/most sarcastic tone ever… This whole post is in a sarcastic and frustrated tone! Cannot recommend ignoring your symptoms at all!!! We just… Cannot get the level of care we need right now, and it is taking its toll…).

[dykedvonte]

you make really good points, I think I used the term karmic wrong sorry. I think of it more as not how I personally think he deserved all that happened to him (which thinking back os exactly what karma means, I messed up sorry), but as his fate being directly tied/parallel to anyas. I handnt noticed the toxicity of jimmy and curlys relationship, from the first playthrough I watched and the first interactions I had w fandom I saw so many ppl just. dismiss the terror Anya went through and focus too much on him as the "ultimate victim" and that just didn't sit well w me. I really dislike seeing ppl go "oh well nothing could've been done" I think it's much more complex than that. also I forgot to mention in the last ask that I really appreciate you bringing the point that this game isn't just about the harm of patriarchy but also very very critical to capitalism, I haven't seen too many ppl touch on this. I hadn't thought too deeply about how it makes "he deserved to become disabled as punishment" come up and I agree that's really messed up. I'll try watching a playthrough again with all of this in mind. but either way thanks! I really appreciate your answer 🫶🏼

I guess this is just part of being in a fandom like this. I've noticed a lot of people don't actually see posts outside of their curated view. So some people only get like anya posting or jimmy or curly and it can make it seem like that is what is saturating the conversation.

I mainly just follow the general tags and look for anything new because I'm like obsessed but I know some are only looking for what they want or believe to be the case and can get weird about other ideas.

Sorry if I came off mean its just a last few of the asks have been like circular conversations like this and its not draining per say but seeing all the nuance and details get overlooked to fit a straightforward and basic narrative really sucks cause there's a lot to explore character and theme wise.

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

Man if Marcy keeps ending up with like child protection services in all these fics over her parents being slightly distant then my parents should be in JAIL

[sciderman]

I would say you’re more of a Mr peanut butter type yeah

doggy doggy what now?

[aria-upside-down]

To the two random people who spotted me from across the Sams parking lot sitting in my families van waiting on Christmas Eve and decided to wave at me, give me a hand heart, and blow me a kiss as you got in the car. I just want to say, you absolutely made my day 10x better! I still think about it! I have no idea if you two were siblings, friends, or dating, but you were both very attractive humans and am very honored to have been noticed by you!

[thedreadvampy]

it's been a strange arc so far

when I was 19-21 and having an extremely imbalanced relationship with someone in their mid 30s I was like 'we are both adults so the fact that this is fucking me up is my fault'

when I hit my late 20s and saw how young people in their late teens and early 20s seem now I was like 'oh wait I was so fucking young I didn't know shit about my own limits or about managing relationships and I don't know why someone in their mid to late 30s would be into that except for nefarious purposes'

the weird bit is now I'm into my 30s - not even that far into my 30s - and while I still wholeheartedly believe that last thing about how young (and self destructive) 20 year olds are, I'm also kind of like 'huh, actually nobody I know that age has their shit remotely together and frankly the reason this fucked me up is because NEITHER of us knew what the fuck we were doing it how to cope, for different reasons and at different life stages, and there probably wasn't any malice or intent to control as much as there was Blind Flailing.'

[cowardlycowboys]

“Slut your wrists! Kill yourself! then you post a selfie saying “Don’t want to smile feel weird about it” as a desperate attempt to get compliments. You’re in your mid twenties doing all this😭 Grow up you’re not a teenager anymore. 30 is closer than ever and you’re breaking down because someone asked if you cry a lot? Someone mentions your jowls and you freak out. You tell them to kill themselves. People your age are Mothers. You might not have any but act your age. Geez.

my dick must taste fantastic for how far you're throating it

[boku-no-anime-phase]

Do you ever just Cry