#i am still open to discussion

[1nvad3rz1m]

the last thing i want to say for now is im very happy everyone is at least willing to listen to the issue despite what side they fall on. i think too it helps to recognize every part of this issue, because its not as simple as pro v anti or invader zim drama. after seeing the internet fall victim to black and white mentality it is a relief to see some critical consideration to look at the information we have and form an opinion

[ruelpsen]

Fuck it, I'm going to go out and say it: while I often enjoy being teased on here, a fair portion of what I receive irritates me as it's misguided at best and reeks deeply of unlearned, malicious fatphobia at its worst. Yes I want to be fatter but I'm not fat. I am a 140-lbs/63.5-kg twink despite all my efforts to gain weight. I'm not stick thin, sure, but I'm sure as hell not fat either. So why are some people insistent on calling me fat/huge/big? Are actual fat people too much for you (perhaps even in spite of you being a self-professed FA)? Is your idea of fatness grounded in equating 'not even that chubby' with 'fat' while not even being attracted to people who are actually fat? Do you solely find bloated skinny guys hot while still saying you like fat people? Or are you not attracted to fat people at all and here simply to take your fatphobia out on the people closest to your image of ideal thinness, who you'd be more openly attracted to if they lost 10-20 pounds, all while still scoffing at or ignoring the fat people at the heart of these communities?

Some of y'all really need to do better. Either own up to your love of people who are actually fat (which may entail adjusting your understanding of what fatness is), clean up your nomenclature, or don't be here. Yes unlearning biases like fatphobia takes time and effort, but your choices really are more or less that simple.

[pentition]

Gonna probably be in the minority here but I'm kind of frustrated that an entire tier was dedicated to a fan favorite. Don't get me wrong, I really like Logan. So I'm not criticizing his character in any way. The idea of him having a reason to show up is fun.

That said, if it's not a huge plot point and a tacked on thing, I wish they'd just use spare money or treat it like a DLC thing rather than dedicate a whole tier to it. If we get to Logan but we don't get to height sliders or something else, that's disappointing. Things more suited for the next game installment, that affect what goes into its development, I feel like is more important.

That isn't to say Logan wouldn't enhance a story. But if he's just visiting and is a side note for Evershine, why not just have it be a side thing and not take up a full tier? I'm using Logan as an example here but there are also other things on the tier list that has me feeling the same. As much as I love my Sandrock builder, I'm a little confused why narratively she'd show up. From what I've heard, at least.

This doesn't diminish my excitement any, of course. I've just haven't been able to click in my head why these are dedicated tiers vs dedicating those tier goals to Evershine-specific content. I know Logan is a fan favorite, I like him a lot too and the wild arc of 'if we thirst hard enough a romance will be born' was great. But I also know there are plenty of people indifferent, lukewarm or whatever else to him. So dedicating a huge tier like that instead of dedicating the funds to Evershine's other romance options or any of the other goals that affect it nore specifically is making me feel hrrm.

Not to be a buzzkill. I'm aware it probably sounds like I'm butthurt or something but it ain't that deep. I'm just opting to ponder on it here outloud because I don't want to ruin the hype over on the subs or in discord servers. :')

[xwonderlandresidentx]

Just had someone tell me that Marinette telling Chloe and Audrey that they should bond over being toxic and entitled was okay because she was being sarcastic, and I just gotta say..... no? that doesn't make it better??

Thankfully this person was pretty civil, and open to having an actual conversation about that scene, and by the end of it we came to agree on some things.

But I still wanna blog about it, because I have a lot of feelings.

Even if Marinette was saying it to be ironic, which still isn't an interpretation that I'm fully on board with, but for the sake of argument, even if she was, that's still a horrible thing to say given the circumstances!

Marinette doesn't have to like Chloe, but if her first reaction to seeing a girl her age on the verge of tears while she asks her mother "Why don't you love me?" is to have a laugh and say "Well, you both suck, so you should be glad to be stuck together!" then that is terrible, and petty, and vicious!

If for some reason you wanna have Marinette banter with Chloe about it, at least wait until she isn't in the most vulnerable position possible, baring her deepest trauma while confronting her abuser.

Either way you slice it, Marinette had no right to say what she did! She was either giving harmful advice that she wasn't qualified to give, or she was being downright cruel.

[ahalliance]

how do i turn qantoine’s spontaneous marriage proposal to qetoiles into evidence of his early-days fear of qfrench drifing away and keeping secrets from one another

[krogans-give-the-best-cuddles]

Tbh I get why they're not having more prev games options factor in (the crunch and remaking this game like 5 times) and I think the argument of focusing on making this game reactive inside of itself instead of to past events is fair and valid even.

I do however have to raise my eyebrow at the "we prioritized the choices that could be the most interesting" when what they had was 1. Who you romanced as inquisitor (which?? Was labeled friendship/romance in the screenshot I saw?? Even tho it didn't let you choose who your friends were???) 2. Whether the inquisition was disbanded 3. Something about Solas or whatever

But NOTHING about the well of sorrows?? But both the inquisitor and Morrigan are gonna be in the game?? My first question is: why did you not think who got the well of Sorrows would be interesting? My second question is: what is the goddamn point of having the inquisitor or Morrigan come back if the most ominous/interesting potential consequence for them is not going to be relevant at all?

They also said that they would be keeping it vague what was going on on all other decisions so that it felt like "your dragon age" still exists- but it would be impossible to be vague about Morrigan/Inquisitor and the well of Sorrows, GIVEN who has the power over it in this game. So the available options are 1. They are lying and they do make a Canon decision we cannot control 2. They forgot about the well entirely 3. Inquisitor and Morrigan die in a fire explosion two seconds after seeing them and conveniently completely cut off from the power the well has over them so we don't have to think about this at all

None of these are satisfying options. I am not against kind of "clean slating" this game for real. I think it is set in locations where that could be *stretched* to be feasible, and I think that if they had EAs guns to their heads the entire time making it, it IS the most artistically sound decision to prioritize making the game stand on its own over having it be a serious of fanservice moments. But why the fuck do we need to have Morri show up then? Put her away. Put the inquisitor away even. The fact that they have brought Morrigan back AND made this choice makes me question the story direction heavily- bc it seems like 1. Not everybody present even knew what the dominoes the previous game was setting up were and/or 2. They ARE still trying for fanservice anyway, which is stupid bc this whole venture was to prioritize new storytelling

[havegaysex]

Why are you telling people to vote for the guy committing genocide :/

because voting is not an endorsement it's harm reduction.

Trump is going to be at best doing the same as Biden and likely much worse for Palestinians and all the countries suffering from American Imperialism than Biden is.

Republicans want to bring back child labor and get rid of social security, medicare, Medicaid. As someone who is surviving on Medicaid and social security I don't want those taken away. The Republican majority house already put a lot of limits on food stamps in this past term and I don't think we'll still have food stamps if we get a republican Congress and a Republican president.

They've made it pretty clear that if they get a republican Congress and a Republican president they're going to enact project 2025 and call a conference of states and try and take our rights back to the days when only wealthy white men had any rights when women and racial minorities had no rights, they want to make it illegal for LGBT+ folks to safely exist in public and get lifesaving healthcare.

In short

Do I support every single thing Biden has done as president?

No.

Do I like him?

Not particularly. But I'm still voting for him because apathy is not a choice.

Do I think that Joe Biden having another term means that we can actually make more progress for labor rights, trans healthcare, abortion access, advancement of the rights and protections for disabled people and so much more?

Yes absolutely.

Do I think that the genocide in Gaza needs to end and the United States needs to stop sending weapons to israel?

Yes, I think that un restricted flow of humanitarian aid into Palestine needs to happen, the siege needs to stop, and the country of Israel and the United States need to be held accountable at an international level. I think that the soldiers of the IDF/IOF need to be held accountable for their war crimes and pillaging that they continuously post evidence of on social medias. I'm trying to put a read more here so ce I've put a few linked articles and quotes from them.

A quote from the article below:

"While our map focuses solely on high school aged youth (age 13-17), some states, such as Oklahoma, Texas, and South Carolina, have considered banning care for transgender people up to 26 years of age. "

I've seen lawmakers in some states try to make it felony punishable by life in prison to get your trans child healthcare to keep them alive because they want to make it illegal for us to exist and a legal for anyone who helps us exist.

some quotes from the article above:

"Led by the long-established Heritage Foundation think tank and fueled by former Trump administration officials, the far-reaching effort is essentially a government-in-waiting for the former president’s second term — or any candidate who aligns with their ideals and can defeat President Joe Biden in 2024. With a nearly 1,000-page “Project 2025” handbook and an “army” of Americans, the idea is to have the civic infrastructure in place on Day One to commandeer, reshape and do away with what Republicans deride as the “deep state” bureaucracy, in part by firing as many as 50,000 federal workers. “We need to flood the zone with conservatives,” said Paul Dans, director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project and a former Trump administration official who speaks with historical flourish about the undertaking. “This is a clarion call to come to Washington,” he said. “People need to lay down their tools, and step aside from their professional life and say, ‘This is my lifetime moment to serve.’” The unprecedented effort is being orchestrated with dozens of right-flank organizations, many new to Washington, and represents a changed approach from conservatives, who traditionally have sought to limit the federal government by cutting federal taxes and slashing federal spending. Instead, Trump-era conservatives want to gut the “administrative state” from within, by ousting federal employees they believe are standing in the way of the president’s agenda and replacing them with like-minded officials more eager to fulfill a new executive’s approach to governing. The goal is to avoid the pitfalls of Trump’s first years in office, when the Republican president’s team was ill-prepared, his Cabinet nominees had trouble winning Senate confirmation and policies were met with resistance — by lawmakers, government workers and even Trump’s own appointees who refused to bend or break protocol, or in some cases violate laws, to achieve his goals. While many of the Project 2025 proposals are inspired by Trump, they are being echoed by GOP rivals Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy and are gaining prominence among other Republicans. And if Trump wins a second term, the work from the Heritage coalition ensures the president will have the personnel to carry forward his unfinished White House business. “The president Day One will be a wrecking ball for the administrative state,” said Russ Vought, a former Trump administration official involved in the effort who is now president at the conservative Center for Renewing America. Much of the new president’s agenda would be accomplished by reinstating what’s called Schedule F — a Trump-era executive order that would reclassify tens of thousands of the 2 million federal employees as essentially at-will workers who could more easily be fired. Biden had rescinded the executive order upon taking office in 2021, but Trump — and other presidential hopefuls — now vow to reinstate it."

"There’s a “top to bottom overhaul” of the Department of Justice, particularly curbing its independence and ending FBI efforts to combat the spread of misinformation. It calls for stepped-up prosecution of anyone providing or distributing abortion pills by mail."

Personally I think that voting for Joe Biden is better than someone who wants to enact this stuff on day one. It's like they read handmaid's tale and want to make that the reality of this country.

"Chapter by chapter, the pages offer a how-to manual for the next president, similar to one Heritage produced 50 years ago, ahead of the Ronald Reagan administration. Authored by some of today’s most prominent thinkers in the conservative movement, it’s often sprinkled with apocalyptic language." Ronald Reagan is a big reason we have a lot of problems we have today with our economy and with a lot more things. The people that supported Ronald Reagan do not need another term in office.

A quote from the article linked below:

"Trump has given no indication that he would be more sympathetic to Palestinian claims, nor that he would place more pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire. “The approach of the United States would be that Israel needs to win this war, it was attacked brutally,” Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, describing how Trump would act. Friedman is now a campaign surrogate for Trump."

Personally I think Trump telling Israel to finish the job is indicators that another Trump presidency doesn't mean that weapons would stop being sent to Israel from United States

I fail to see how another term of Donald trump will be any better for the victims of the ongoing genocide in Palestine than President Joe Biden.

i think our system is absolutely messed up and broken but I don't think abstaining from voting is going to actually help.

[autism-alley]

LETS GO!!!!!!

also means y’all are free to criticize the show w/o fear of show cancelation (however real that threat ever rly was lmao) cheers to my hopes of shit getting fixed s2

[sonicrainicorn]

tangled but instead of romance (ew) Rapunzel and Flynn Rider just become really good friends

I kept waiting until I "got better" to finally draw this AU out but I finally just said fuck it and now I'm making it everyone else's problem

[m-s-justice]

Though it is a sad thought knowing that without Richtofen, Takeo remains the same and probably even worse than ever if he was the officer that tortured Miller. Cause he learned his lesson that he shouldn’t rely on false leaders like the Emperor. I’m betting Nikolai got locked up in Vorkuta given that he’s technically one of Stalin’s enemies due to his political background.

if they do go that route they will definitely be reverting whatever development they got in the original universe. Atrocities were common on both sides of the war and I doubt that any of our crew is entirely "moral" since there's no such thing as a "moral" war, considering how much they throw themselves rather gleefully into it. If Takeo *is* the officer, he has certainly experienced a bastardization arc where he becomes more "evil" so to speak.

I however doubt that because it contradicts his scant characterization pre-115 experimentation where he had condemned the Division 9 for their use of POWs as test subjects. I simply cannot see him treating Miller like that without some major Fucking Up of his life to make him compromise his honorable ideals.

However if we did go along with it, a bastard Takeo seems like an interesting angle to pursue considering the other ones are very honorable and respectable. Kinda like seeing an Oath Breaker paladin instead of a regular paladin; lots of things to explore about a person who has abandoned their code. But the writers would need to be Extremely Careful because that could get Really Racist *really quick*.

As for hypothetical Nikolai, having him be imprisoned would definitely change things around for him. More than likely disillusion him to communism and his own government/country. Probably either depress him more with him being abandoned by everyone (his wife dies, his home is destroyed, his country betrays him) or it turns into rage. Ultimis Nikolai was too addled to have strong opinions while Primis Nikolai was too despondent + removed from the situation to showcase his emotions without it feeling shoehorned in. also it would probably wean him off alcohol since it's not allowed in prisons (though one could argue that he just drinks moonshined prison liquor)

A rageful, even more confrontational Nikolai sounds interesting. The ones we've met are always subdued in some way, either by alcohol or their own mental demons. An outspoken one would be pretty refreshing considering their natural coping mechanism seems to be either repression or resignation.

Though that offers a trend within these hypothetical reboot ultimis, that being the hoisting off of previous inhibitions. Which I guess could be symbolic considering how oppressive Ultimis Richtofen was. Without him there, they are more "free" for better or for worse.

I suppose that leaves Dempsey. What exactly could he be "freed" from? We don't know anything about him, really. He served in the Marines and was happy with that, plus he could leave at any time. He is only truly restricted when he is captured by Richtofen, who cannot do that in the new universe. The only thing I can sort of grasp at is Player Control? so I guess it means he's "freed" from being playable. Which I guess is a Dempsey W??? it has weird implications yet no real consequences on any canon story because his Player Shtick is purely meta. damn you Dempsey I can't even speculate about your ass.

[rouge-fauna]

I think you’re talking about these posts [here & here], I don’t know if there have been others.

I'm not gonna say what I did was right, you are correct I should probably just not respond to asks getting me to talk about other people. I will say for these two posts those people had already blocked me I’m pretty sure, so it’s kinda hard to talk directly to them in that case. And I was not doing so anonymously and had not blocked them so I wasn’t hiding what I was saying. I did not follow them, I am not part of the innitor community, and not that that makes it right but I do think it is kinda different. Though you make a good point, perhaps we should stop this pattern of responding to asks about other blogs and such.

Still, the biggest thing to me I realized, back in elementary school when I first dealt with this, was that honestly all the time we talk about people behind their back. Talking about people when they aren’t always in the room is kinda just inevitable and part of socializing, however I think the important part is how you are talking about other people. It’s when you are insulting them, talking negatively about them to people they know, spreading false information and so on that it becomes not okay. Hopefully that makes sense.

In these cases I merely focused on the lore. I didn’t insult them or talk shit about them, as a person, as a blog or say their takes were stupid or they are stupid or speculate about their trauma or mental history. I just talked about reasons why I disagreed, or saw things differently and why we might see things differently. They were also not the only ones I saw to say similar things so I think in my mind I was making more of a general discussion, not trying to target them specifically. I didn’t post beyond that about them. But you are right, regardless it was probably not the right way to go about things.

But just to be clear, if I am a hypocrite it is not my intention. I haven’t vague blogged anyone or meant to vague reblog anyone. I think this week is pretty much the first time I’ve ever been not naming, passive aggressively talking about blogs, and even then I’m not trying to insult them, trying to cancel them. I’m just expressing that before you go off about how I’m stupid and unable to have a discussion about it, the very least you could’ve done was give me an opportunity to try.

[clarabosswald]

stumbled on someone blaming israel for 9/11 on reddit

called them out on it (because inexplicably that comment had like 600 upvotes)

they then proceeded to say that they've "linked historical events for context" [referring to the "article" on 9/11 from some conspiracy website], and that the discussion should be allowed to be "free and open"

after which they've naturally blocked me so i couldn't reply

fully expecting to see people blame the spanish flu on us by tomorrow

[blanketforcas]

okay so i wanna keep my inbox open to anons. but in order for me not to lose my mind, something need to change 😅

i always get annoyed when people pretend to be a voice of authority in fandom, so i would hate to give off that vibe myself. i wanna be an active participant thinking thoughts alongside everyone else. additionally, i wanna have less thoughts lol

so! let’s establish a new normal:

i prob won't be answering asks comparing different sides of fandom or anything related to fandom drama - even if i vagueblog about it

me posting/sharing any kind of fandom news isn't an invitation to drop negativity in my inbox (just make a post, talk to a friend, use the tags etc etc)

i might ignore (analysis-type) asks, pls don't take it personally. there's a good chance i agree with some/all of your points, but my main objective on this blog is still to have fun and i feel like the balance is off some days

that's basically it for now! i know it's not all that serious but i needed to communicate some boundaries

[thenntrewrite]

I've been thinking and I want to yap about this: The main catalyst for the entire story—Meliodas and Elizabeth's connection and being cursed by their parents—is in the rewrite. But execution wise, it's different. They sort of go from enemies to lovers to friends by the end.

I wholeheartedly feel Elizabeth didn't really have a chance to live her life out and flesh herself out as a character beyond the main character's love interest. I know she's empathetic, kind, very forgiving, but what about her life before Meliodas? I still think about the Bloody Ellie incident and how there's been absolutely no showing of Elizabeth being beyond the 'empathetic healer that used the power of kindness to drive the demons out' (As far as I can remember. I am overdue for a manga reread). The most damage she's done was to Meliodas the one time he was being a dick and forced her to slap the shit out of him with Arc (And one of the DK fights, but since they all fought him THREE TIMES, it's hard to recall if Elizabeth pulled off the gloves or not. The last time I read that ending was in 2020). Hell, the games do her more justice by giving her a staff. Nothing against healers, they sure do a lot as support for the fighters, but if you're going to insinuate that your character is beyond a healer, than at least show it. I just want Elizabeth to be a properly written character that stands strong on her own and have her backstory written, y'know?

And, well, I'm not the biggest fan of Melizabeth. I can respect Meliodas spending 3,000 years fighting for their love, and Elizabeth being his rock, but when you throw in a curse that bounds you for life, being by your reincarnated love's side when she's a baby/kid, knowing she's destined to fall in love with you again, it feels a lot less romantic. Especially when you look at the first episode in isolation without knowing the backstory, like you really didn't think twice on groping that teenager! I think they could've been super cute if, again, execution was better. But alas, it was not and it's left a terrible taste in my mouth.

[passthroughtime]

sorry @kamuro-junrenka i just giggled from the realisation

then his next words

are SO hypocritical it's unreal

sorry i just love the idea of yagami trying to talk sense to kuwana when it is KUWANA who sees things more clearly. (no kuwana apologism here, he was stupid with revenge killing and he knows that this is who he had to become though he doesn't like it. but HOW and WHO are you teaching this lesson to if your victims just disappear without any reason/explanation/message to the world... lmao.) gonna munch on this thought a little more, i think that is a good point of view and i can elaborate a little later (i have one post that i've been cooking in march, but at that time i decided to finish the game first and write it... and after finishing LJ i've been grieving my loss of judgment... haha see what i did there.)

actually the boat scene is insane in the way that we see live how yagami's convictions tear at the seams, and i WILL be insane about it, yet again, later. ok, whatever, not the point though right now. for me, LJ is about telling yagami (and, consequently, us) that good/bad is not the only possible options and they are even not mutually exclusive.

yagami needed that lesson (hehe) after JE because that was as clear cut case as it might've been. there were bad people and there were good, he's mistaken okubo putting him under the "bad" category but he did nothing wrong and is good in the end, but there is nothing deeper than that. (and that is why i believe that LJ is more thematically rich... while not being that much of a murder mystery that is JE. i love them both for what they have and what they lack though, it's interesting to compare them with each other.)

tbh i think that yagami's past and upbringing is a little downplayed, meaning the only thing that is questionable is the mention that yagami does help the matsugane family with uhhh the crime chores let's say (i don't remember if as a lawyer or as a detective, but i do remember that this was the case). but it mentioned only in passing, and helping to defend hamura in court is not that big of a deal if we see that yagami isn't happy with the outcome though the ruling was justified, yeah?

and though his ties to yakuza are left rather unexplored (considering half of his friends are criminals of some kind LMAO yeah sugiura this includes you too) and doubtly this will be the theme that will ever be brought up again, it is important to remember that yagami as a person is a product of two different worlds. the "bad" and the "good".

the beef i have with the "good yagami" take is not whether he is a good person, but more like, with the notion of him not seeing the nuances of the situation like ever? which makes him so good and right about everything, that he does everything according to law and etc... while i picture him as "let's do it baby i know the law" kind of person.

there IS a moment where he's a little bit stubborn about his convictions, but that's because *gestures* kuwana (AND I WILL WRITE ABOUT IT MORE... SOMEDAY... SURELY...), but not to the extent some people believe him to be (i remember a meme where "kuwana explains his pov (an explanation so long it's unreadable)" vs "yagami explains his pov (which only says "murder bad"). yeah it pissed me off pretty bad.)

so... yeah. i firmly believe that LJ is not about a good/bad dichotomy, though this type of story is expected with the starting factors we get. in the end, even the protagonist left kind of saddled with unnecessary feelings troubled about his convictions that in theory are simple, yet in practice contradict each other.

[unopenablebox]

🌸 is so immensely likeable.... do you ever just like someone so much all the time