#if they LIKE SLAVERY and APPROVE of it IN REAL LIFE

[bitchmael]

@satyajit-ray #madi....😞😞😞😞#uh Do not approve of white slavery allegations pls dont make me explain the difference between the slave trade (real) vs#vs fictional white upper class prison for gays#black sails

i want respectfully to address a couple of things here because i don't want to be misinterpreted & i do have a reason for using the word 'slavery' here (which you might still disagree with)

the situation on oglethorpe's plantation as it's presented to us in the show is that he uses prison labour from britain instead of enslaved african labour--presumably he's taking prisoners who have been sentenced to transportation + some number of years' hard labour.* which is also historically real + violent, and not slavery

some of his labourers however are not prisoners but people whose family/acquaintances (like flint + thomas) have paid oglethorpe to take them in and hold them indefinitely (presumably for the rest of their lives), & also force or coerce them into performing unwaged labour for him. which afaik never happened in real life, but is clearly different from indentured labour or transported labour, both of which were punishments for crimes & had designated end points, however cruel + unjust their treatment while interned might have been

the point i was really trying to get across in this post is that whether silver's telling the truth or not (& i don't think it matters either way), from madi's perspective what silver says to her is: "i think subjecting even someone as close to me as flint was to being held captive & forced to labour (on a plantation) for the rest of his life is an acceptable price to pay to make sure you don't leave me", which considering how vulnerable she & her people are to (re)enslavement is imo pretty clearly a threat. especially as he says he doesn't intend to leave once the treaties are signed, & i'm pretty sure this would count as a violation of the terms of the treaty on the part of the maroons. the situation in which flint (supposedly) now finds himself would clearly be in some ways materially similar to slavery, and if its purpose here is primarily as a threat to madi + her people which imo it is (even unintentionally on silver's part - i think madi might well interpret it this way) then that's really the sense in which it matters, iycwim

but yeah to be clear i don't think, like, The Irish Were Enslaved Too or whatever. this post is really about how madi would hear & interpret this story considering the situation she finds herself in at the end of the show

imagine being madi in xxxviii though. your war is over before it started you're certain your friend is dead & you confront your lover about it and he's like "well yes i am lying to everyone about what happened to him but i won't lie to YOU." and then tells you something that sounds barely believable. and now you're forced to consider one of two possibilities: 1) this man who has just admitted he's a liar is still lying to your face and your friend is dead, or 2) (maybe worse) he's not lying, and the man you love did in fact sell his closest friend into slavery so that you would stay with him forever. what are you supposed to do with that

[vonclosen]

vent. sorry i’m honesty hangry and upset

actually i’m still annoyed. has anyone in this damn fandom heard of filtering tags. for shit. they don’t like

also like not to be ‘what about’ but seriously if your biggest problems are fucking shipping wars on tumblr dot com i envy you. truly.

[mythalism]

blah blah thinking about the popular rebuttal to complaints about veilguard's politics being "bioware was never leftist so you shouldnt have expected veilguard to be" which is... interesting.

true, of course. the expectation part i disagree with but thats not what ive been thinking about. im thinking about what made it feel so different to the very similar centrism of da:i. and maybe someone who didnt black out the entirety of veilguard as a cognitive protective mechanism can speak to the specifics but i think ive settled on it being that da:i is undoubtedly neoliberal and centrist just like da:o and da2 before it but despite their clear framing and limitations there was always the encouragement to think and the freedom to do things that the game might condemn narratively as "too radical" but you could at least do them. or say them.

this erodes by the time you get to da:i but in veilguard its absent completely. like making leliana divine or putting briala on the throne, for example. the game presents these options in a very neoliberal and centrist way. the un-softened leliana divine epilogue slide features much of the "radical violence bad!!!!! bad choice!!!!" connotation that all of veilguard has. but you can still do it. briala has incredibly limited power as gaspard's puppetmaster and her epilogue slide similarly slaps the player on the wrist for behaving so radically by putting *gasp* an elf in power resulting in Bad Disruptive Uprisings throughout orlais. but you can do it. hawke can spare anders and let him go. again, the game slaps you on the wrist via character disapproval and the fact he becomes a wandering hermit or whatever the fuck but. you can still let him go. in origins you can make shianni bann and the consequences are disgusting and horrible and writing it that way is literally sickening, but the game lets you do it. origins lets you do a lot of buck wild shit, some decisions less real-world politically coded than others, but you get to DO IT. even if the game and its writers scold you afterwords for getting too disruptive. YOU CAN STILL DO IT.

and this goes the other way too. there is a reason people like greg ellis had a home with dragon age for so many years and his beliefs were able to go under the radar for so long. there is a reason transphobic gamerbros love origins. there is a reason there was backlash to da2's rampant bisexuality. because dragon age let you be leftist about as much as it let you be a racist misogynistic asshole. you can do horrible things in these games. you can quite literally sell people into slavery. templar aligned hawke lets the kirkwall circle get annulled and becomes viscount as a reward for their loyalty. the inquisitor can just execute literally everyone they judge. now, i'll be the first to say that a lot of those options are not nearly narratively condemned enough. bioware has fumbled many a topic in their misunderstood pursuit of "grey morality" that leads them to feel the need to morally equalize situations of clear, unambiguous injustice (cough mage templar war cough). in fact, decisions like sparing anders are often far more clearly narratively punished than things like giving fenris back to danarius, (which kind of just blows over after some approval loss???) and in my opinion that is a writing flaw. i do think RPG games should have choice, and allow players to be evil, but i also think that writers have a responsibility for the message their writing sends to the world. some decisions in dragon age are well-handled. many others recreate and reflect real life racism or misogyny or islamophobia, and reveal the writer's bias against real-life groups of people or political movements. this is the risk of writing stories like these.

but veilguard does not let you do anything. in either direction. ive been calling it a "thought-terminating fantasy cliche" because... it really is thought-terminating. you are not supposed to think about alternatives that may be too radical in the writer's eyes (what if i let anders go instead of face the justice [haha] the game clearly thinks he deserves? what if i install an elvhen puppetmaster on the orlesian throne despite all of my advisors recommendations? what if i support the murder-pope in reforming the chantry through violence and bloodshed?). veilguard has..... what if i save this city over that one? the only one i can think of is saving isseya. are there any others? genuine question. theres nothing to decide and therefore there is nothing to think about. you dont get to think of possibilities past the narrow centrist path presented to you. you dont get to think about an end for solas that doesnt end in jail. you dont get to think about who becomes tevinter's archon and what policies you might like to see them have. you dont make choices between major factions based on ideological and/or practical differences like recruiting mages vs templars. you barely even get to decide anything for the characters, half of the choices are purely cosmetic.

like i feel like theres something to be said for having the choice even if the overall narrative still condemns it. the writer's bias leaks in to the world's reactions to your decisions but you are still allowed to make them. i always intentionally leave leliana hardened because i think radical insane murder-pope who diversifies the church through ASSASSINATION is based. i dont give a fuck if david g/aider thinks its too crazy and tells me so in a thinly veiled epilogue slide reprimand about "the consequences of my actions". idgaf! 1. its a video game and 2. idc what he thinks.

and yes, nothing ever actually changes. dragon age has never allowed you to make radical change within its world even with the decisions that brush up on the possibility. but you can still be someone who believes in the possibility. you can play a mahariel who hates humans and poisons the ashes of their prophet because why should they care when they stole everything from the elves first? you can play a blood-mage circle-abolitionist anders-apologist hawke doing their best to survive in a city where survival and self-preservation sometimes forces them to act against their values. you can play a lavellan inquisitor who refuses to believe in andraste or the maker, advocates for elvhen liberation, and installs an elf on the orlesian thrown despite being forced into the role of figurehead for a religious empire. sure, you cant really actually do anything for the elves, but you can be someone who believes that change should happen. its not perfect. its certainly not some radical revolutionary fantasy nor does literally anyone expect it to be and when people say that its always in bad faith.

bioware has always been canadian liberal centrists and so have their games. but they used to let you get a little fun and crazy and then just reprimand you via epilogue slides or retcons in later games that we all just got to complain about online. but veilguard forces you to roleplay someone else's ideology; a boring centrist status quo loving fantasy with no opportunity to do something different. elven rooks cannot question dorian on tevinter slavery like elven inquisitors could. rook cannot ask lucanis about the child recruitment practices of the crows the way the warden could to zevran. rook cannot ask davrin about the warden's pressure into conscription, joinging and eventual calling the way the warden could alistair or hawke can to anders in legacy. you cannot ask about alternatives or question a single authority or character of any kind. you cannot voice dissent. the dialogue option does not exist. what was once a slap on the wrist in previous titles has become reactionary and preemptive. you wont get slapped on the wrist in the first place because you're stuck in a boring, empty room for after-school detention, railroaded into "good" behavior and confined to one path so you cant get into any trouble on your own. thought-terminating fantasy cliche. it didnt need to be some insane groundbreaking revolutionary work of marxism or whatever the fuck hyperbolic nonsense people are trying to straw-man the criticism into to disprove it as unreasonable. it needed to not advertise itself as an RPG and then force me to roleplay white canadian millenial neoliberal afraid of getting canceled on twitter simulator 4.0 because if i knew thats what i was signing up for i would have respectfully declined and saved my $70 on something that doesnt condescend to me for enjoying bald war criminals and stories about revolution

[allthatmay]

So, today my husband said, "Some people think Shanks is a radial leftist, but I think he's the most centrist character in the show. Dragon fills the role of the radial leftist/anarchist that people often attribute to Shanks."

And, huh, yeah. People do often talk about Shanks like he's an anarchist, but he's really not. I've always said that Shanks is a mediator, keeping a tentative peace between the pirate tribes and the government until the time comes wherein the One Piece can be claimed and the mysterious consequences can happen, but that means he is effectively playing the part of a centrist—straddling the fence, as it were. The key difference, I think, is that Shanks knows for certain that change is coming in the form of a rubber deity, and he is trying to guide it into place. All his work is done behind the scenes with very little violence if he can help it.

Now, it's easy to assume that Shanks' plans involve the complete dissolution of the government as it presently stands; that he is simply using his power & influence to mitigate harm for the many until the "real fight" can begin (and, with him having recently decided to chase the One Piece, now it has), but that might not be the case (and, even if it is the case, a lot of centrists use "mitigating harm for the many" as a reason not to take action against some truly heinous acts). The reality may be that Shanks doesn't see the need for the total collapse of the government, or perhaps he knows something about it that we don't (i.e. because he might be of Celestial Dragon blood). I don't really believe this is the case because, as far as I'm aware, Shanks hasn't ever shown any real support for the World Gov but he has shown, time and time again, that he believes in dreams, in people's personal willpower, and in the ability of anyone to become strong and change the future. But the truth is that we can't know his intentions for certain without Oda giving us more information, so my husband's assertion that Shanks is a centrist makes some sense.

In particular, Luffy is what makes this theory interesting: slap him in between Dragon and Shanks, and there's a very real dichotomy between the two "fathers" in his life. See, Luffy idolises Shanks and thinks of him similarly to a father, but he might realise as time goes on that he can't be like Shanks; he might realise that Shanks' ideals will only carry him so far. After all, what good is it to be a pacifistic when your enemy is a powerful government that is comfortable with mass murder?

(My rebuttal is that Luffy is the only one who can be like Shanks. He is effectively Shanks' dream: Shanks wants to be strong enough to do all the work himself, to suffer all the pain himself, and while he is one of the strongest men in the world, he simply can't do that; what he can do is only achievable through the support he has at his side. Meanwhile, Luffy has close support in his crew, and he has the Gum-Gum Fruit! He can literally become a godlike figure and shape the world around him! He can do everything that Shanks wants and needs and, as sure as I am that Shanks wishes he could have done it himself—I'm thinking back to his days with Roger here—he knows that it was never meant to be him.)

This is where Dragon comes in. Dragon, in direct contrast to Shanks, uses violence as a tool whenever he can. He's all about the greater good, for lack of a better term. His thinking is along the lines of, "People are suffering now and we can help, and we have no qualms in forcibly dismantling a government that uses slavery, genocide, and imprisonment to control its populace. We don't wait for the right time to act, we simply act." Do I think Shanks would approve of Dragon's goals? Yes. Do I think he would approve of Dragon's means in achieving those goals? No, but mostly because Shanks is very self-sacrificial and tries to take whatever suffering is necessary for change onto himself, relying only on his small, personal crew, whereas Dragon is happy to let other people martyr themselves for the rebel cause. He lets a small, amnesiac child join them, for crying out loud—something Shanks would never do, not even if the child proved very capable.

If anything is to come from this difference of ideals, I think it's that Luffy will learn from both of them and find his own way to the One Piece and into the world waiting beyond. Why? Well, because Luffy is all about freedom, and no one on the side of Dragon or Shanks is truly free. As for the world itself, it's hard to predict what will happen after Luffy's done with it because it's pretty dependent on Oda's philosophy. For instance, Oda seems to approve of monarchies, which is not something I would personally imagine remaining in a world without a governing body—but, hey, what do I know?

Of course, we all know that the true centrist in the show is undeniably Garp. He will let real, undeniable harm befall those he cares about in order to maintain the status quo, or to stop the government from toppling because [gasp] that would be the worst thing ever! He's a man who believes the government is essential and joins up in order to change it from the inside, only to fall short of his own expectations because he won't stand up when it matters most. Not even for the sake of his beloved grandson.

[blackstarlineage]

Why Black People Don’t Truly Respect and Care About Their Culture, Revolutionaries, Icons, History, and Ancestors: A Garveyite Perspective

From a Garveyite perspective, one of the greatest tragedies in the Black world is that many Black people claim to love their history, revolutionaries, and culture—but in practice, they neglect, betray, and abandon them. Instead of applying the teachings of our ancestors and leaders, many Black people:

Romanticize revolutionaries but ignore their real messages.

Celebrate Black culture superficially while prioritizing white cultural values.

Treat Black history as entertainment rather than a blueprint for liberation.

Seek white validation rather than investing in Black self-reliance.

Marcus Garvey understood this hypocrisy well. He witnessed millions of Black people chant his name, yet when it was time to sacrifice and invest in the Black Star Line and the UNIA, many failed to act. This same pattern repeats itself with every Black movement, revolutionary, and cultural legacy that has emerged.

This analysis will explore:

How slavery and colonialism conditioned Black people to devalue their own culture.

The betrayal of Black revolutionaries and why they are honoured only after death.

Why Black people prioritize white validation over Black self-reliance.

The failure to protect and preserve Black culture from white exploitation.

How Garveyism provides the solution for restoring true respect for Black history and leadership.

1. How Slavery and Colonialism Conditioned Black People to Devalue Their Own Culture

One of the biggest reasons Black people struggle to respect their own culture, revolutionaries, and history is because they were psychologically trained to despise their identity.

A. The Destruction of African Identity in Slavery and Colonialism

Enslaved Africans were stripped of their names, languages, and religions, making it easier for them to accept European cultural superiority.

Colonial education taught Black people that their history was inferior, while European history was glorified.

Black traditions, spiritual practices, and leadership systems were demonized as “pagan” and “uncivilized”, while white systems were forced upon Black nations.

Example: In most African and Caribbean countries today, European languages like English, French, and Portuguese are the official languages, rather than African languages. This is a psychological remnant of colonial rule.

B. Black People Were Taught to Glorify Their Oppressors

Black people were forced to worship European religious figures while rejecting their African gods, heroes, and traditions.

Even after slavery, many Black people were conditioned to see European institutions (schools, businesses, governments) as more legitimate than Black ones.

As a result, Black culture is only celebrated when it is “approved” by white society.

Example: African religions like Ifá, Vodun, and Kemetic spirituality are still labelled as “evil” in many Black communities, while Christianity (a tool of colonial oppression) is embraced without question.

Key Takeaway: Garveyism teaches that Black people must decolonize their minds and fully embrace their own culture, history, and leadership, rather than depending on white validation.

2. The Betrayal of Black Revolutionaries: Honoured Only After Death

Throughout history, Black revolutionaries have been rejected, ignored, or betrayed in their lifetimes—only to be glorified after they are gone.

A. Black Leaders Are Loved in Death, Hated in Life

Marcus Garvey was praised after his death, but during his lifetime, he was sabotaged by other Black leaders and abandoned by those who claimed to support him.

Malcolm X was rejected and isolated by many Black organizations before he was assassinated.

Dr. King was called an “enemy of the state” and murdered for his activism—yet today, white institutions pretend to celebrate him.

Example: Today, Malcolm X is a hero, but during his life, Black organizations distanced themselves from him because he was seen as “too radical.”

B. Why Black People Abandon Their Leaders in Their Time of Need

Many Black people are afraid to truly commit to revolutionary change because it requires sacrifice and risk.

When Black leaders face attack, imprisonment, or assassination, many of their own people refuse to stand with them.

Once a leader is dead and no longer a threat, people feel safe to honour them in words—but not in action.

Example: How many people today praise Assata Shakur and Huey P. Newton, but refuse to organize for the revolution they fought for?

Key Takeaway: If Black people truly respected their leaders, they would support them while they are alive, not just mourn them after they are gone.

3. Why Black People Prioritize White Validation Over Self-Reliance

Garvey warned that Black people will never be free if they continue seeking white approval instead of building their own power structures.

A. The Obsession with White Validation

Many Black people measure success by how much recognition they receive from white society rather than by how much they empower their own people.

Black artists, scholars, and activists are often ignored by their own communities until white institutions validate them.

Black businesses struggle because many Black people would rather spend their money in white-owned establishments than support their own.

Example: Black authors like Chinua Achebe and Toni Morrison were not widely celebrated until white institutions recognized them.

B. The Integration Trap: Seeking Acceptance Instead of Power

Instead of demanding Black control over education, economics, and governance, many Black people are content with assimilation into white institutions.

Integration destroyed Black communities by making them dependent on white-controlled systems rather than building their own.

Example: Before integration, Black communities had their own schools, businesses, and hospitals. After integration, many of these institutions disappeared because Black people preferred white-owned alternatives.

Key Takeaway: Garveyism teaches that true success is not white acceptance—it is Black control over Black destiny.

4. The Failure to Protect Black Culture from White Exploitation

Black culture is stolen, repackaged, and sold back to Black people—and many accept it without protest.

A. Black Culture Is Only Respected When White People Profit from It

Black music, fashion, and art are ignored until white people start embracing them.

Once white corporations profit from Black creativity, they erase the Black pioneers who started it.

Example: Rock & Roll was created by Black artists like Chuck Berry and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, but today, it is viewed as “white music.”

B. Black People Must Control Their Own Culture

Black communities must own their own media, art, and history, rather than allowing white corporations to define them.

Every other ethnic group protects its culture, while Black people often allow theirs to be exploited.

Example: Instead of white-owned Hollywood controlling Black stories, there should be Black-owned film industries producing African-centered narratives.

Key Takeaway: Garveyism demands that Black people own, control, and protect their cultural legacy instead of allowing it to be stolen.

5. The Garveyite Solution: How to Restore True Respect for Black Culture and Leadership

To truly respect our culture, history, and revolutionaries, Black people must:

Commit to Pan-Africanism – Work with global Black communities to build self-sufficient institutions.

Support Black leaders while they are alive – Not just celebrate them after they die.

Create and protect Black-owned industries – Own and control our own music, fashion, and storytelling.

Reject the need for white validation – Define success by Black empowerment, not white recognition.

Teach real Black history – Ensure every Black child knows our revolutionaries, heroes, and ancestors.

Final Takeaway: Respect for Black history is not just words or posts—it is action. If we truly honour our ancestors, we must finish the work they started.

Conclusion: The Time for Empty Praise Is Over

Garvey warned us: "A race without power and respect for its past will forever be enslaved."

If we TRULY care about our leaders, culture, and ancestors, we must build, protect, and honour their legacy through action.

The time for fake love is over. It’s time to finish what our revolutionaries started.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/749333039047442432/httpsolderthannetfictumblrcompost74884185043?source=share

Sorry, long rant incoming.

Someone in the replies said it, but I think it needs to be said again where everyone can see it: I think a lot of the attitude that anon is somehow secretly pro-censorship because they think certain preferences are skeevy, and strenuously insisting that bad attitudes can NEVER be media's fault.... idk, maybe take it out of the context of debates about sexually explicit/pornographic media for a moment?

There are works of media that had pretty direct effects on activist and political movements, good and bad. Uncle Tom's Cabin inspired a lot of people to fight against slavery. The movie Birth of a Nation, which showed a history of the U.S. with the KKK as heroic, is considered by most historians to be a major contributor to the revival of the KKK in the 1920s. The Nazis used films, books, music, art, and so on in their propaganda, knowing it would help their ideas go down more easily. The Soviets did too. Every dictatorship did. Even democratic countries have done it as well, usually but not always in more subtle ways.

Do none of those count, because "oh, people who were going to be convinced by Birth of a Nation would be racist anyway"? "Good, non-racist people wouldn't be convinced by it"? I mean, the latter is true: there were plenty of people, especially black Americans but plenty of white allies too, who boycotted the film at the time. The NAACP led a boycott. But do you really think NO ONE was convinced? (What about people who previously didn't feel any way about it one way or the other? Were they just innately more evil, even if it might've just been that they weren't aware? Do supposedly progressive people in fandom realize how much this sounds like Christian original sin rhetoric...) And does it matter purely about media fully changing minds, or also how it galvanizes people who already think one way? If it gives them new talking points, new ways of thinking about it and convincing others? If it helps them believe their cause is more important and worth fighting for?

So why does this all suddenly change when we're talking about sex? Is porn really this special class of media where somehow all the rules about how we can both like things and also be critical of how media (fiction, news media, whatever) influences us - "be critical of the media you love," as a tote bag sold by Feminist Frequency said - just stop applying for some reason? Or maybe if something is bypassing your rational brain entirely and going directly for the pleasure centers, there's all the more reason to think critically about what it's saying? Propaganda is designed to bypass all that, too.

Also, if media really has NOTHING to do with it, that just wouldn't explain why it's disproportionately anime that feature these specific elements that seem to attract more people arguing for why it's wrong to be upset by rape or child exploitation in real life. I don't believe that everyone who watches slavery isekai or lolicon approves of those things irl - I think for the vast majority of people, it IS a fantasy and that's the point - but I have noticed that in places like the Anime News Network or Crunchyroll forums, the comments become a cesspool of creepy people arguing for why ages of consent should be lowered and mean feminists who don't like watching media with rape in it just need to get over themselves, in a way they just don't when you're talking about Attack on Titan or My Hero Academia or Shoujo Romance #4891 or whatever.

As another person in the notes said, abusers ARE opportunistic. They'll use something like Twilight as easily as they'll use the most uwu, soft, "non problematic" ship to argue for why they're allowed to abuse you. But I don't think that means we can't be critical (not calling for censorship, of course! but like, writing op-eds and stuff) of media that makes their arguments a little easier, maybe even directly makes their arguments for them.

You can believe both that everyone has the opportunity to read, watch, listen to, play what they want and make up their own minds about it, and that it's wrong for the government to ever decide what media is and isn't "acceptable," and also believe that media often is saying things that aren't apparent on the surface and that you should be critical of those messages, *especially* with the stuff you like.

The point is just that porn isn't like, fundamentally different from other fictional media in this way. (Or, hell, I would argue that fictional media isn't functionally different from other mass media in this way. If anything, fiction's politics are often more insidious in a way that makes it easier for them to reach people who might not otherwise be open to those messages in the form of, say, blatantly right-wing news media.)

It's particularly strange to me when people jump all over someone for expressing how something can be insidiously creepy in a more mundane way. The line people are upset about that used the word "unpack" was just making the point that even if we can agree lolicon isn't outright advocating pedophilia, even if we agree the point is that it's a fantasy and they're not like real children at all and that's what people like, it's still working within an idealization/fetishization of helplessness, innocence, and dependence, and that still has a lot that you can critique from a feminist perspective. It's still a thing that plays into some crappy societal ideas about who women are supposed to be, and is selling that to men as a romantic ideal. There's still a lot we can talk about there! And it's still totally fair for women to be wary of men where that seems to be all they're into - because for some (and I believe this was what anon was initially trying to say was their experience), it does impact how they treat real women. It doesn't have to be everyone for it to have an impact.

There's a lot of anime that presents women that way, even way outside of lolicon. A lot of it's anime I like! I'm still critical of that aspect of it. I still wish that particular part of it were different.

I still don't see how this makes me "pro censorship" unless I believe some kind of institution should mandate that that not be included. And whether that's the government, or the industry itself (people do kind of narrowly focus on "the government" in a way that would make a lot of industry-run censorship that was still very harmful, e.g. the Hollywood Hays Code, not "count"), or anyone, I very much disagree with that. Creators should be able to create what they want. A lot of what creators are doing with this is unconscious, is reflecting societal biases they learned but haven't thought deeply about.... which is precisely the point of critiquing how those show up in a work.

People love to talk about "secretly 'anti' attitudes" but at the end of the day, support or opposition to censorship is pretty straightforward. You believe someone should be stopped from making a particular kind of media, or you don't. If you don't, you're not pro-censorship, no matter how much you personally may not like that that media or a particular aspect of it exists. Most people who care about media have some media they wish didn't exist. It's about what they do about it that makes them pro or anti censorship. Talk to people who donate to or even work for the ACLU or other anti censorship groups; most of them don't like racist or sexist stuff, but they also don't believe it should be banned and that's the point.

Bringing it back to the discussion at hand, I think the point was just that you can't be blind to how power dynamics influence this stuff. I wouldn't even say specifically cishet men are at fault here, since some people who read this blog seem to think that anyone saying that is automatically talking about bioessentialism as opposed to like, societal stuff (don't ask me why, this has been explained on here enough times in enough different discourses over the years, I think). I'd just say anyone with power in that particular context. There's a reason why it's specifically mainstream media, aimed at groups in power, that tends to draw in creeps excusing the real thing... in a way that just similarly is not true of people in fanfiction fandom, who are usually a member of one or more oppressed categories, exploring that in their own marginal work. Fans of rape fanfiction just don't act the way that fans of slavery rape isekai do. It's because there is fundamentally a difference both when you're someone whom society tells you are entitled to everything you want in this particular arena, and also when a work is mainstream, broadening its reach, and speaking a particular message from the lens of people with economic and social power (who are making these mainstream works) and given approval by publishers/media studios/etc. in a way that is not the case with amateur work with tiny audiences. And, frankly, there's a difference between something that eroticizes rape from the point of view of the perpetrator vs. the victim.

Not a difference in terms of how legal it should be. Not a difference in whether every single person who watches it or likes it is bad. But a difference in terms of what it's saying, how it's saying that, and often the effects they have as a result. That, too, is true with every topic, not just sex.

I feel like a lot of people getting mad at these do fundamentally agree with this, but just have a weird blind spot when it's put in any sort of terminology that reminds them of certain bad arguments they've seen in fandom, uses any words that can be dismissed as "radfem" or "anti" or whatever, and so just refuse to engage with the actual meat of what is being said.

If you do actually believe though that it's wrong to EVER think media can have a negative effect on what people believe about irl issues, because there was always something "already there" that was going to "come out anyway" if it affects you that way (again, people: this is "original sin" rhetoric), and if you ever privately judge people for the media they like you're secretly pro-censorship. You do have to recognzie that both you personally come up short and also most peopel doing real concrete real world things to fight censorship would also come up short!

I think sometimes of an editorial that said "if you love Return of the Jedi but hated the Ewoks you understand feminist criticism" in terms of how you can be bothered by the sexism of a piece of media in a way you'd be bothered by any one individual element of it, and still overall like the whole. And also, you can be offended by something, even wish it didn't exist (don't we as nerds all have entries in some franchise we like or another that we wish didn't exist for fannish reasons?), without believing that it should be officially made to stop existing or have never existed in the first place. That last part does actaully matter as like, its own thing. It is in fact separable from just being able to have personal judgey feelings about media and about the people who liked it.

And opposing it does not mean in any way that we have to just stop thinking critically about the media we love, or that we have to act like media can never have any influence on people. We on the left tend to talk about sexism, racism, homophoia and so on as being influenced by culture and society. Well, guess what is part of society and culture? Fictional (and other kinds of) media. That's part of that societal programming we get. It's why you'll see some of it even from people whose parents very much tried to resist teaching them certain things, because they get it from media anyway. I was raised by strenuously feminist parents: it was the media that taught me what gender roles were and how I was expected to adhere to them.

--

Look, I realize it's a bit rich of me to say this, but people are not going to engage with your actual points if you cannot be more succinct.

[bovndlcss]

the pursuit of knowledge. elegant script. a splash of ink on the cuff of your sleeve. organising your thoughts. solving a riddle. looking to the past for answers about the future. a teetering pile of books. a meeting of the minds. correcting someone’s mistakes. unfurling a piece of paper. renaissance man. a phrase that does not translate. the intimacy of being understood.

statistics.

full name: etienne st juste nickname(s):  the antiquarian, tienne (to few) name meaning:  garland age:  thirty-four date of birth:  february 11th star sign:  aquarius place of birth: unknown current location: tortuga, st dominigue gender:  cis-male pronouns:  he/him sexual orientation:  demisexual occupation:  archivist aboard the harbinger family:  honoré st juste (father figure, deceased), unknown biological parents education level: highly educated living arrangements:  lives on the harbinger financial status:  surprisingly well off, as he rarely spends his share of any prizes the harbinger takes

inspiration.

henry winter (the secret history), cole (dragon age), the archivist (the magnus archives), bruno madrigal (encanto), viktor (arcane), leonardo da vinci (historical figure)

biography. (slavery tw, death tw, discrimination tw, murder tw)

Like witty Odysseus before him, Etienne St Juste was Nobody once. His earliest memories are of the dark hold of a ship, of the tight press of frantic bodies, of the smell of death and decay that lingered on the stale air and threatened to choke the life from any that remained. He doesn’t remember his mother. Perhaps it was her that had died.

A ship brought him to France from ports unknown, a skinny boy of six short years who had already forgotten the blinding sun and white sands of his homeland. He didn’t cry like the others he arrived with, just stared and stared with his huge dark eyes, unnerving and quiet and undesirable to any potential buyers.

Well, all except one. Honoré St Juste was a scholar from Paris, who had come to Bordeaux in pursuit of a candidate for his pet project. He took one look at the strange, scrawny boy, who had yet to speak a word, and saw his potential. There was raw intelligence shining in those dark eyes, and he intended to mould it into something greater.

Honoré wasn’t really in the market for a slave, only for a pupil that would prove his theory: that a person from any circumstances could be educated, if given the opportunity to try. He expressed his intent to emancipate his young charge on their return to the capital, and seeing as the boy seemingly had no name, he gave him one befitting a citizen of France - Etienne.

Their lessons began at once, and under Honoré’s tutelage, Etienne flourished. It was just as the old man had suspected - the boy had a keen mind, incredible skills of retention, and an intellectual curiosity that rivalled his own. He found his tongue after a week, his broken French becoming whole with dedication and practice, and everything else suddenly fell into place.

Together, they studied everything under the sun: languages and poetry, philosophy and mathematics, science and astronomy. Etienne loved it all, but more than that, he loved Honoré’s approval. They were birds of a feather, and he was comfortable in the elderly scholar’s company even if he was rarely comfortable anywhere else - he was Etienne’s benefactor and tutor, yes, but he came to view him as a father too.

Outside of the St Juste household, there was no one Etienne could comfortably call 'friend'. He had no occasion (or any real desire) to meet people his own age, and any novelty he held for Honoré's peers in the salons of Paris quickly wore thin as he aged from boy to man. They resented him for speaking his mind, for daring to correct them when he knew them to be wrong, for such arrogance from a man of his background.

But Etienne was an academic in his own right, and as deserving as the rest of them. He didn't care for their disdain, not when he had Honoré to assure him of his place in the world, and he continued to devote himself wholly to his studies.

Things continued in this fashion until, one night, Etienne returned home to find Honoré on the floor of his private study, his life’s blood soaking into the rug. The obvious culprit? Etienne himself, who held the only other key.

It is here that memory and actuality diverge - Etienne remembers staring impassively at the body of the man he had called 'father', accepting his death and the fact that he had been framed, and making the decision to flee. The truth? He cradled the old man's body in his arms and wept for longer than was sensible, his clothes stained scarlet and his thoughts black with grief.

Ultimately, he recovered himself enough to pack up the most important aspects of Honoré's life's work, and vanished into the night before the arrival of the gendarmarie. He made his way to port in silence, and paid a handsome sum to be transported elsewhere - away from the only life he'd known, and the rapidly cooling body of his only friend in the world.

The passage he had bought saw Etienne to the distant Caribbean sea, to the island of Tortuga and the pirates that called it 'home'. He learned the reputation of the ship called Harbinger, and that of her crew and captain, and readily proposed his candidacy for the position of archivist, without a doubt in his mind that Vidar the Voiceless would find him fit for purpose.

Now called the Antiquarian, Etienne has single-mindedly dedicated the last seven years of his life to the web of knowledge housed within the Harbinger's walls - to its maintenance, to its study, to its expansion. He is not so arrogant as to think he will ever know everything about the world, but perhaps, by the time his name is called, he will know more than anyone else.

other things.

A complete pack rat, Etienne’s quarters aboard the Harbinger are full to bursting with various curiosities he’s gathered throughout his time at sea. It looks like chaos to the uninitiated, but he knows exactly where everything is, and keeps it all meticulously.

Etienne has developed his own form of shorthand over the years, which is completely indecipherable to anyone but him.

When it comes to vices, Etienne is sorely lacking. He doesn’t drink or smoke, and is uninterested in both games of chance and the Sirens of the Nest - except from an anthropological standpoint, of course.

Pirate he may be, but Etienne has never yet taken a life, and prefers to keep out of any fighting, if he can.

Etienne is a polyglot, and can boast fluency in a number of modern languages, as well as Latin, Ancient Greek and Arabic. Although he can and often does for simplicity’s sake, he hates speaking in English, and refers to it as the common tongue.

Etienne doesn't actually have a last name, but he took to calling himself 'St Juste' after Honoré's death. If you asked him why, he wouldn't be able to tell you.

[vigilskept]

1, 9, 13, 15 and 18 for chaya and loghain!

:D what a devastating lineup of questions ty <3

1. Have they ever met their partner’s loved ones?

unfortunately yes <3

chaya’s first interaction with queen anora mac tir happened with her slicing her hand open on the edge of chaya’s dagger while trying to stop her from slitting her father’s throat open in a “first blood” duel :) her second interaction with her was during the preparations for isaac’s funeral where anora was advocating for having it outside the chantry (as opposed to the alienage) as he should be seen as a hero “of the whole of ferelden” (<- good for fereldan politics) it takes a long fucking while for that relationship to warm up.

loghain doesn’t meet chaya’s family until the actual wedding preparations in skyhold. it’s… also pretty fucking tense to say the least. you know, given he very nearly got cyrion sold into slavery to fill ferelden’s coffers :) let alone everyone else who very much did get shipped off to tevinter. isa is probably the least hostile. soris & shianni are probably tied for the most hostile, though shianni’s definitely more vocal about it between the two.

9. Is there anyone in their life that disapproves of the relationship?

i mean…. everyone 😭

the grey wardens of orlais have been WAITING for these 2 to get their shit together and stop with the yearning saga, but neither of their families back in ferelden have seen these two together since the fifth blight. it’s not like they’ve been sending letters home going “actually i’m in love now <3” so with only that for context it’s pretty unthinkable to their families either of them might actually have feelings for the other.

there’s a whole DECADE that’s passed but they weren’t there!!!!! they don’t know!!!!!!!!!!

cyrion tabris is the first to come around on it when he clocks that the wedding might be political as hell but the feelings are real. i wouldn’t say he’s necessarily approving even then but it’s a “i’m happy if you’re happy” level of understanding. anora’s experience is similar. there are shovel talks. loghain handles it much better than chaya does, but in fairness he had wronged cyrion personally whereas chaya has been holding a grudge against anora for a decade 😭

13. How do they comfort or reassure one another?

like an absolutely insufferable old married couple. i could yap endlessly but i rly do think this scene encapsulates their whole deal better than anything.

and that’s what they’re like before they even get together btw. head in my fucking hands…….

15. Would they let the world burn for their relationship or would they make sacrifices for the greater good?

question that made me feel insane ty :))

because like. they’ve both had to do this. you understand. they have had to stand there and watch their loved ones die because they made a promise. “for the greater good.” chaya lost her mother after she forbade her to let her go after the arl’s men with her. then ferelden was saved from the blight and she lost her brother for it. and that’s not even getting into the loghain of it all. if i start thinking about gareth’s death i’m gonna lose it. ANYWAY.

they’ve lost a lot. in the point. because they promised to stay behind :) for the people they love :) for the “greater good” :)

as we come up on that double blight they’re both nearing their calling and they’re at peace with that… as long as they are not the one left behind. they fully intend to set out for the deep roads together whenever that time comes. the arguments have been had and they’re settled. if one of them goes they’re both going.

a situation where one of them would have to give their life first while the other had to stay behind and hold the line…………. is maybe the worst thing u could do to these two. the world would have to already be on fire. they’d have to genuinely believe their staying behind would have a meaningful strategic impact to even consider this and even then it’s the worst thing imaginable. they genuinely would rather watch the world burn. but if you could corner them into making that promise again… yeah. they’d do the same. would turn them into a husk of a person at that point but they’d do it.

(the double blight could make this happen and i hadn’t even put thought into it…………… AAA)

18. What qualities do they have that complement one another? Are there any that sometimes cause friction?

ok this is going to sound bad. but. hear me out.

they are really good at picking fights.

no wait come back!!! HEAR ME OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the thing is they’re very alike in the sense that they have a tendency to shut people out AND hold a hell of a fucking grudge. they would like to tell you that this is stoicism, it is Not That 👎so if anything is ever going to get resolved you HAVE to pick a fight with them. they won’t mince words if you confront them about it, but if you let them stew then by god they will stew.

however. they are also really sharp and really mean :) which makes them particularly good at getting under each others skin :)

anyway! it’s really thanks to of all that ^ they manage to go from quite literally being at each other’s throats in denerim to like… 1 year and change down the line, trusting each other above anyone else in… i was going to say in orlais but honestly it’s probably above anyone else anywhere.

like they tear each other to shreds with absolutely no remorse…. and by the end of it they see each other more clearly than anyone else has in their whole lives. and they Get It. like at their core they are the same. so once the fuel is burned out and the dust is settled, they can look at each other across the wreckage and go “oh. you’re like me.” and they can either turn away and give up on themselves at the same time, or they can try to pull each other out of a hell that’s partially of their own making. they choose the latter :’)

it’s very much set the rotten foundation on fire so you can build something solid in its place type situation. i would throw myself out a window if i had to witness all that in real time but it works for them. hashtag never get therapy. just find someone else who’s been reduced to a dog that can only bite :)

anywayyyyyy they do get less. Like That. after the fact, though they will argue if they disagree (thankfully rare…) they’re both stubborn as mules. there is no getting around that i fear. chaya’s pretty done keeping her mouth shut to keep the peace & loghain would probably be offended if she tried lmao.

mostly that level of mutual understanding gets used for the Greater Good (having silent conversations across the room that make their colleagues feel like they’re going insane, tearing through masses of darkspawn knowing EXACTY where the other is going to be, coordinating strategy in the field with ruthless efficiency even when the communication between the lines is patchy) <- it’s not even spooky telepathy. they just know.

da oc shipping questionnaire

[kos-tyan]

Hi, I mean this in the kindest, sincerest way possible, but I'd really encourage you to add tags on that new kagehina au. Slavery and rape are both issues that are very real, that affect people currently in the fandom. They are not fantastical or hypothetical, and a lot of people have real trauma associated with both. To see these issues featured in art at all can cause a lot of people pain. On top of that to portray such severe issues in a way that diminishes their damage for a joke, or tries to portray them as if they were romantic, is harmful.

I loved your art, it was always a source of joy for me before, but this is really quite upsetting. People need to be able to opt in/opt out/consent to enganging with content like this, and they cannot do that without propper tagging for the Mute functionality to filter what it shows people. Please seriously consider adding tags to future posts.

Hello, I appreciate your message and the opinion you shared on my recent AU.

Honestly I had some doubts about posting the last page, which includes the "r_pe" word (and some others), because it's a very dark and real topic. I want to say that I don't romanticise nor approve any of the things that made you feel upset. There's no way I would romanticise r_pe or sl_very, it was just not the very best way to show predominance of one character above another one (Kageyama over Hinata in that case). I like to think about relationship development in such conditions (but NOT in real life, only in fictional world, where I can regulate everything what's happening to the characters). I don't show Kageyama doing any of these things. It's the opposite, it's hurt/comfort development and he will be the one who will help Hinata to overcome the situation he got in. Just wanted to clarify my intentions about this story. Again, my point was not romanticising anything harmful, but yes, it could made someone feel uneasy and I'm sorry about that.

What about tags: I'd appreciate if you tell me what tags should I add, I didn't know that was a thing. I know you can hide explicit content on X, which I didn't do too, because I was dummy-dummy and couldn't find this feature, but yeah, how does it works on tumblr? Should I add #triggerwarning or something like that? I really don't know, so I'd appreciate the instruction.

It's the first time I'm writing such answer so I want so apologize for my English, because it's not my native language. I tried to formulate my words ny best.

[mrs-gauche]

If the Spirit!Solas theory happens to be true—and I’m confident it is—then it really gives you a new level of respect for how much restraint this guy has.

I’m talking specifically about his interactions with Dorian. The part where Dorian is trying to convince Solas that enslaving spirits is cool and neat and not wrong because ‘spirits aren’t people.’

Imagine having the strength of character to listen to someone tell you to your face that you are not a person and therefore undeserving of the most basic civil rights without immediately decking them in the face.

Solas puts up with tool much, man.

Oh yeah, definitely! 😂 (As much as I feel for Dorian just trying to find some common ground...) I guess that one line in Tevinter Nights does a great job of putting Solas' attitude on this matter in a nutshell.

[…] roared not in anger, but with quiet contempt. "From this moment, should you ever bind a spirit, then your life is mine."

Keep in mind, Solas has witnessed spirits suffering from the consequences of creating the Veil for at least a thousand years at this point, if only from the Fade. When he's saying "It hurts. It always does." to the Inquisitor after returning to Skyhold and Wisdom's death, he's referring to the countless times he had to watch his friends being drawn to the waking world, either forced, or to see them “wish to join the living”, only to be twisted, bound, corrupted, killed, you name it.

"How small the pain of one man seems when weighed against the endless depths of memory, of feeling, of existence. That ocean carries everyone. And those of us who learn to see its currents move through life with their fewer ripples."

Much like a lot of his banter with Sera taunting him about his grief for the past, at this point, Solas is so old and has witnessed so much history, so much pain, that Dorian's remarks couldn't possibly evoke any real anger from him. It's so insignificant compared to what he has seen. There's a reason why Weekes keeps emphasizing how friggin tired Solas truly is. This is after all the general perception of spirits in present Thedas, aside from a few cultures like the Avvar. He can't blame Dorian for Tevinter raising him to think of spirits as nothing more than "amorphous constructs", just like he can't blame the Dalish for the knowledge lost to time. Similarly to any other argument he has with the other companions, Solas' frustration/resentment is almost never aimed at them personally, but rather at the current state of the world that shaped their perspective. (As is also evident in how his banter always ends up with them eventually coming to terms and grow a mutual/respectful relationship. The only exception being a low approval Inquisitor and Iron Bull if he chose the Qun over the Chargers… In that case, the hostility was definitely personal. 😂)

(That being said, I'm SO hoping for any kind of serious emotional outbreak from Solas in DA4, since there's still like a thousand year old trauma that needs to be addressed. lol)

But yeah, I think, going by his actions in Tevinter Nights, Tevinter is definitely not ready for what's probably coming for them in DA4, now that Solas is actually able to change things. 👀 And isn't it interesting how he will now be facing the Imperium, which was essentially built on the ruins of the empire he brought down/the same slavery based system he once rebelled against, so history kinda repeats itself? lol

I think it's also very telling how Solas will immediately counter Dorian's comments on the treatment of spirits in Tevinter by directly comparing it to slavery.

Dorian: "There's no harm putting them to constructive use, and most mages back home treat them well." Solas: "And any that show any magical talent are freed, are they not?" Dorian: "What? Spirits don't have magical talent." Solas: "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were talking about your slaves."

But the beautiful irony in this, as I've talked about in this post, is how this draws a direct parallel to how Solas, in return, doesn't recognize the people of the waking world as real either, at least not until after the Inquisitor considers Wisdom a living being worth saving. This and his admission to the Inquisitor after he returns to Skyhold is imo the turning point in his character development. Imo, this is what leads him to say "Not at first. You showed me that I was wrong." in his high approval ending in Trespasser.

And this is also why I think that the theory of Solas intending to save the spirits first and foremost would make for such an interesting story actually.

The waking world doesn't view spirits as real people. Just like Solas can't accept the people of the waking world as real. So, what will happen if he tears down the Veil, and the Fade and the waking world become one again? The Inquisitor was potentially willing to save Wisdom despite it having already turned into a Pride demon. And in doing so, the Inquisitor unintentionally put up a mirror in front of Solas' face and basically went "If I can see them as real people worth saving, why can't you?".

And if the spirit origin theory is true, then it could make for a fascinating inner conflict. Solas, living in both the waking world and the Fade, having been a spirit and a corporeal person, is now facing the question of who "his people" actually are. Where does he belong? After all, his biggest fear remains to "die alone".

While this was said in more of a joking manner, Weekes' words from 2016 really put it into perspective here. Solas sees himself in that old fisherman he saw in the Fade. He is "the one who lived". So, I picture it like this… Solas is left alone in the Fade after the creation of the Veil. Spirits are now his only company for the next thousand years. Whether or not those spirits were the remaining souls of the elves he tried to save, we don't know, but regardless, I truly believe they are his people. But he is not a spirit. At least, not anymore.

Cole: "You don't need to envy me, Solas. You can find happiness in your own way." Solas: "I apologize for disturbing you, Cole. I am not a spirit and sometimes it hard to remember such simple truths." Cole: "They are not gone so long as you remember them." Solas: "I know." Cole: "But you could let them go." Solas: "I know that as well." Cole: "You didn't do it to be right. You did it to save them." Inquisitor: "Solas, what is Cole talking about?" Solas: "A mistake. One of many by a much younger elf who was certain he knew everything."

In this banter, Cole reveals to us that Solas' mind immediately goes from "It's hard for me to accept I'm not a spirit" to "the people that were lost when Solas created the Veil". To me, this pretty much confirms that the people of Elvhenan and spirits are connected, if not one and the same. It's assumed that the Evanuris mined the Titans to somehow create bodies for spirits to inhabit, and that Mythal gave Solas a body against his will. There's also the theory about the creation of the Veil having caused the separation of body and spirit.

You know, I've written so much about this in previous posts and I don't want to sound like a broken record, but if we consider all those little clues and look at all of his dialogue in that context, it just makes so much sense to me, that what he wants to do is primarily to save the spirits/destroy the barrier for them to enter the waking world without their purpose getting corrupted. There's also still the matter of the Blights and red lyrium otherwise probably consuming the entire world. 😅 I think that's what he's referring to when saying "What I am doing will save this world" in Tevinter Nights.

And remember, "Dread Wolf" is still literally an anagram for "World" and "Fade". 😂 Both worlds colliding is quite literally in his title. lol Whatever the six eyed high dragon sized Dread Wolf actually is, as far as we know, he only seems to exist within the Fade, but how exactly is he connected to Solas and what will happen to him if he tears down the Veil (which btw is also definitely gonna happen… I mean, besides the fact that the Veil is getting weaker regardless of Solas' actions)? ANYWAY.

Sorry for rambling so much (and I feel like my English is a little rusty, too 😖), but I haven't talked about this stuff in a while and the lack of news is killing me. 😂 But your message gave me something to think about again, so thank you! :)

[mythalism]

The Mythal defenders are basing their take that she wasn't a slaver but simply had willing worshippers on the Trials of the Gods codex. Have you read it? What's your take on it? I'm very confused as to what the devs were implying. That she had chosen ones who passed trials? Like her Sentinels? Those were still slaves even if they didn't think so.

i dont remember if i read this but for anyone who hasnt

my first thought is that this is a sermon. so its being given by someone not just sympathetic to mythal but someone religiously devoted to her and deliberately interested in currying favor and religious fervor for her among the people so already this is a biased source.

there is a clear attempt to draw a distinction between mythal and the evanuris in their keeping of "thralls" which makes sense considering the tensions we know would have existed between solas, mythal and the others by the time that the crossroads existed (where this is found). its interesting to me that they use the term "thrall" instead of "slavery", i usually associate thralls in fantasy settings with mind control/magical compulsion, who knows if that was the desired implication or not. but avoiding using "slavery" is interesting whether its the writers being afraid of the word in this game, or a deliberate rhetorical attempt by the speaker to convey something different.

"service willingly given" is sketchy to me LOL. i dont need to even elaborate on that because solas already did it for me when cole said "its not abuse if i ask" and solas replied "not always true." so if mythal is banking on the argument that servitude "willingly given" was better ("no longer willingly given" implying it used to be and that was preferable) while it's probably true that it is better when servitude is given willingly, it could still be unethical, abusive, and exploitative. the practice of indentured servitude has a long history in real life of being a result of economic and political inequality forcing people into horrible, unethical labor situations. "willingness" doesn't make it acceptable.

mythal's warning to me just seems to be her saying "stand up and have a mf backbone because thats what i like to see" which fits her but doesn't necessarily exonerate her of any wrongdoing. the use of "wise" and "wisdom" is especially interesting because uhhhhhh solas. i wonder, considering what this would sound like if written in elven, this could be saying "do not merely follow wisdom into my service, by replicating his devotion to me, by following me anywhere as he did, by obeying my orders" etc. etc. but "seek to be wise like he was, that's why he's my favorite lapdog" which would be really interesting. who knows. anyway i dont think this automatically makes her a perfect person.

ok she scorns servility and unexamined divinity. i dont think this means "she doesn't have servants or slaves ever" it means she has distaste for blind idolatry and passivity. she respects wisdom, we already know this. it is all very consistent with what we know of her character and how she engages with rook in their convo, she will attack if you attempt to flatter her, but will approve if you challenge her on her treatment of solas. she respects someone who doesnt take shit. again all great stuff but doesnt mean she didnt participate in the horrors of empire.

and the final piece just emphasizes her desire to be understood. embody her virtues and the things she expects; wisdom, justice, retribution, benevolence, having a mf backbone, etc. interpreting this is also difficult because we dont know exactly when this sermon was given, and the timeline of her corruption. i would imagine her willingness to do terrible things to amass power would have a direct correlation to her corruption from benevolence (who would not be willing to do such things) to retribution (who would be willing to go to great lengths for revenge). that is not just a corruption, but a change in her fundamental purpose as a spirit, from being benevolent to seeking retribution. thats HUGE! she could have been a completely different person, capable of completely different things. to me that implies a change in her moral compass far more drastic than that of wisdom->pride. benevolence is inherent to doing no harm. retribution does not care, it has a goal. she could have been unrecognizable in her methods and behavior. ohhhghhghghg its so juicy. anyway.

"know her regrets" is... interesting. i actually really enjoy this bit in the context of that "memories of a duet" codex which speaks to a similar desire of hers to be understood, away from prying eyes and divinity, and how seeing each others true selves was fundamental to her and solas's relationship. that "no greater offering to understand" is very relevant to solas as well and the players choice to understand him as a man rather than a god. see this is why mythal is wonderful because she is so interesting and she is at once both a crazy power hungry war monger and also clearly there was some part of her who just wanted to be understood. this is how complex characters work. it doesnt mean she didnt do god awful things and exploit people.

honestly i dont think the semantics of mythal's opinion on slavery is really that important or relevant. we know she participated in it to SOME extent. we know what she did to the titans. we know what she did to solas. like we do not need to know whether or not she "owned slaves" to understand the lengths to which she is willing to exploit people to amass power. again i dont even think much of what i wrote above is relevant at all because once again i am bringing it back to that good old pookie quote which is really all we need here:

cole: it's not abuse if i ask. solas: not always true.

in conclusion it seems to me the only purpose this argument serves is to stir up fandom discourse on a topic that deserves to be treated with more respect than as fodder for ship wars. we should pick something else to argue about whether or not mythal did. like did she ever feel the touch of another woma- *gunshot*

[vosquitransitis]

1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 10 for your tabris >:)

Thank youuu! I don't talk about her nearly enough.

Dragon Age Origin Character Prompts

What was Tabris’ relationship with their family like? (Cyrion, Adaia, Shianni, Sorris...)

Cyrion: For starters, Nethari loves her father dearly (he lost it a bit after adaia died, she had to take on a lot of responsibilities (even though she was also gireving and a child) and thus resents him quite a bit when his first thing once hes gotten better is to arrange a marriage for her. incredibly frustrated that he's ignoring the parts of her he doesnt approve of (like the fighting) even though they're important to her. hates that pre-game/during the prologue he still considers her a child. a lot of those conflicts resolve themselves so at the end of the game their relationship is quite good.

Adaia: Nethari absolutely adored and idolized Adaia in every way. She has always been her number one rolemodel.

Shianni: Oh, Shianni. From the moment Cyrion brought Shianni to live with them, Nethari has been like a protective older sister to her, equally motivated by Nethari wanting to be there for her and Adaia telling her, how hard of a time Shianni is having and that she needs to be there for her. They're as thick as thieves and spent most of their time together.

Sorris: By far not as close as she is with Shianni, but she loves Sorris just as much and would do anything for him.

How did Tabris handle being told of their arranged marriage?

Not well. She has had it figured out for years that she likes girls, this is the first big decision Cyrion has made since Adaia was killed and Nethari has been permanently angry ever since it happened. So she blows-up over it and Cyrion and her don't talk to eachother for a few days. After extensive persuasion from half the alienage and especially Valendrian, she eventually apologizes to Cyrion for her outburst and begruginly agrees to the marriage.

Did Tabris have any knowledge or ideas about the Dalish? Did they believe they were real, or a myth?

The only knowledge she had on the Dalish came from Cyrion's bedtime stories, about the "true elves" that live in the woods and are clever hunters and brave warriors, but she did believe they were real.

If Tabris was kidnapped, what was their plan before Sorris showed up? If Tabris launched a rescue mission, what was their motivation to do so like?

Stomp the shems' heads in real hard. Somehow. Basically based on (hopefully) overwhelming a guard, taking his sword and carving their way out. Would she have made it by herself? Absolutely not, but don't let reality distract you from violent revenge fantasies, basically.

What was growing up in the alienage like for Tabris? How did they feel about having to leave?

"It's an on-fire garbage can, but it's MY on-fire garbage can"

Nethari's childhood was overall pretty happy. Yes, life was hard and difficult a lot of the time and thanks to Adaia never bothering to sugarcoat things, she's been aware of how much elves are being mistreated and opionated about it from a very young age on, but the love within the Tabris family and the overall alienage-community helped with that a lot.

She did not want to leave. She wouldn't have wanted to leave under normal circumstances and she definetly did not want to leave Shianni behind after what she had gone through or leave the alienage community alone with whatever fallout was going to result from her and Soris killing Vaughan and his men.

How did Tabris feel about returning to the alienage, and finding slavery?

You'll never guess. She was angry as that has been her default reaction to everything bad happening in her life since Adaia was killed. This is also the point in her journey where killing Loghain becomes really really important to her as before she could still kind of understand his motives.

[the-most-humble-blog]

Don’t Give Marvel Another Dime — They Think You’re a Fool With a Wallet and No Balls The Female Silver Surfer. The Masculine Preggo. And the Studio That’s Ashamed of Biology.

You ever walk into a theater and feel like you’re being mocked to your face by billionaires?

That’s what Marvel’s giving you this year. A silver scuba twink. A pregnant Sue Storm with the emotional gravity of drywall. And Reed Richards repeating “I don’t know” like a man being bullied in front of his unborn son.

Let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about why you should stop giving Marvel your cash, your time, and your dignity.

I. 🤡 They Think You’re Stupid

Marvel’s latest offering says one thing, loud and clear:

“You’ll pay for anything — even if we insult you while you do it.”

They gave you:

A gender-swapped Silver Surfer nobody asked for

Sue Storm, the emotional backbone of the team — who also happens to be pregnant, joyless, and coded like a detached male commander

Reed Richards, once the most brilliant mind in Marvel, reduced to an NPC saying “I don’t know” in a tone that screams emasculated exposition filler

And the CGI? PS3-era, mannequin-rigged, chromed embarrassment.

They didn’t just ruin the characters. They desecrated the mythos.

II. 🧬 Silver Surfer Was Never Meant to Be Soft

The original Silver Surfer, Norrin Radd, wasn’t just a shiny space boy. He was cosmic slavery personified — a nude, silver-skinned herald of a planetary predator, gliding naked through galaxies as a metaphysical warning system.

No armor

No expression

No gender confusion

Just servitude, sorrow, and submission to something larger than life.

Now?

We get a female Silver Surfer who looks like a child wearing a wetsuit and a bike helmet. Her name? Shalla-Bal. A character who existed for four issues. Four. Her design? Completely asexual. No breasts. No hips. No presence.

She’s not mysterious. She’s sexless and annoying.

III. 📉 Sue Storm: Masculine Backbone With a Baby Belly

Then there’s Sue.

Pregnant. Stone-faced. Masculine-coded. No softness. No vulnerability. No sensuality.

This is the Hollywood fantasy of femininity: A pregnant woman barking commands like she’s leading a kill team.

Men aren’t scared of her. They’re bored.

She doesn’t project power. She projects “HR sent me to stop this fight.”

It’s not intimidation. It’s substitute teacher energy.

And the tragic part?

Her character is being used as a shield for Marvel’s creative cowardice.

“See? She’s strong. She’s the leader. She’s in charge while pregnant!” And men everywhere felt their penises go soft. Not because they hate women. But because they know a lie when they see one.

IV. 🧠 NEWSFLASH: MEN AND WOMEN ARE NOT THE SAME

You want brutal facts? Let’s do it.

Women have vaginas. They bleed monthly. They often have pubic hair. They have silver-dollar areolas and curves shaped by estrogen.

Men do not. They have testosterone. They ejaculate. They fight. They fuck. They protect. They destroy.

You don’t like hearing it?

That’s because you’ve been spoon-fed an ideology that’s afraid of the actual differences between the sexes.

But those differences are why:

Sue Storm doesn’t work as a space leader while pregnant

A female Silver Surfer with a 12-year-old boy’s body feels like neutered cosplay

Audiences aren’t emotionally moved — they’re just cringing and checking the time

V. 📽️ You’re Not Watching a Movie. You’re Watching a Lecture.

The film doesn’t tell a story. It delivers a list of approved emotions.

Sue is stoic → You’re supposed to respect her

Surfer is gender-neutral → You’re supposed to praise inclusion

Reed is confused → You’re supposed to feel smart by comparison

But your body doesn’t lie. Your instincts don’t lie. Your dick doesn’t lie. Your boredom doesn’t lie.

You’re not connecting. Because it’s not human. It’s a PowerPoint presentation pretending to be cinema.

VI. 🧬 The Real Reason These Characters Feel Dead Inside

Because they’re not designed to mirror your psyche. They’re designed to manage your guilt.

Marvel isn’t creating heroes. They’re creating psychological training tools.

Characters that reward compliance and punish biology.

Silver Surfer used to be tragic. Now she’s a marketing token dipped in chrome.

Sue used to be warm, emotional, feminine, and powerful. Now she’s a masculine placeholder with a fetus.

Reed used to be brilliant and stoic. Now he’s a placeholder with anxiety and no answers.

VII. 📉 This Is Sterilized Mythology

The original Fantastic Four was built on archetypes:

The visionary

The protector

The emotional heart

The wild card

They were a family — messy, powerful, flawed, human.

Now?

Sue’s the dad

Reed’s the mom

Johnny’s not present

Ben Grimm’s a walking metaphor for the friendzone

And Silver Surfer? A non-threatening, mannequin-shaped emoji of space sadness, gender-swapped into visual confusion.

VIII. ⚠️ You’re Being Trained to Accept the Erasure of Sexual Dimorphism

It’s not about comics. It’s about conditioning.

They are:

Replacing sexual polarity with platitudes

Teaching men that strength = violence

Teaching women that softness = weakness

Removing breasts, curves, and biology from female characters

Removing leadership, dominance, and agency from men

Because when you erase contrast, you erase power.

IX. 🧠 Final Truth: This Movie Isn’t for You

If you’re masculine? If you’re logical? If you’re emotionally sane?

This movie is not designed for you.

It’s designed to shame you into silence. To guilt you into clapping. To make you pay for being normal.

🩸 ORGASM-TRIGGERING DISCLAIMER

This post is a gender commentary and cultural deconstruction protected under satire and literary analysis. Any arousal, laughter, rage, or physiological agitation is the result of cadence-based mirror neuron activation, shame-flip writing technique, and Blacksite Literature™ psychosexual methodology. You are not offended. You are experiencing the truth through a weaponized format.

🧠 QUOTE REBLOG PACK™

“Marvel thinks your penis is the problem. That’s why all their heroes feel like cardboard.” “Sue Storm isn’t strong. She’s emotionally male-coded cosplay with a fetus.” “The Silver Surfer used to be tragic. Now she’s just silver and sorry.” “I don’t hate women. I hate lies. And this movie is one.” “Hollywood wants you to pay for being masculine — and they call it progress.”

📡 CALL TO ACTION

Reblog if you’re done being insulted by $300M lectures. Reblog if Sue Storm looks like your emotionally distant gym teacher. Reblog if the Silver Surfer gave you substitute teacher vibes. Reblog if you're tired of watching CGI gender lectures disguised as myth. Reblog because you still know what a man and a woman are.

[janetlogs]

Blog Post 5

Do social media platforms have a merit system, similar to the one shown in the "Nosedive" episode of Black Mirror? In what ways is this shown on social media?

Yes, social media platforms do have a kind of merit system, similar to what we see in the Nosedive episode of Black Mirror. In Nosedive, people are ranked by a social score based on how others rate them, and this score affects their access to opportunities and social status. In real life, social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok have something similar. People often "earn" likes, comments, followers, and shares, which can affect their popularity and influence. For example, influencers and creators with more followers and likes are often seen as more important or successful, which can lead to more opportunities like sponsorships, collaborations, or even career advancement. This creates a system where people are judged by their online presence, much like in Nosedive, where your worth is measured by your social score. This type of merit system on social media encourages people to perform and present themselves in a way that gets approval, often focusing on appearances and popularity instead of actual skills or qualities.

How does the social rating system in Nosedive compare to the spread of white supremacy online?

In Nosedive, people’s social status is based on their online ratings, just like how the Internet influences people’s beliefs by controlling what they see. The reading explains that white supremacist groups use hidden websites to spread their ideas, similar to how Nosedive shows people changing their behavior to gain approval. Both systems trap people in “echo chambers,” where they only see certain ideas over and over, making it harder to think for themselves. Just like Lacie in Nosedive gets stuck trying to raise her rating, people who come across extremist content online may keep seeing more of it, making it harder to escape those beliefs. 

How does the concept of the “white racial frame” help explain the way white supremacy is maintained in digital spaces?

The “white racial frame” refers to the way white supremacy is reinforced through stereotypes, emotions, and discriminatory practices that have been passed down through history. Online spaces allow white supremacists to create communities where these ideas go unchallenged, making it easier for them to reject values like racial equality and tolerance. This frame shapes how people view race, often preventing them from understanding the systemic nature of racism and making it harder to challenge racist beliefs.

Why might some people struggle to distinguish between biased and reliable information about race and history online?

Many young people rely on search engines as their main source of information, and the internet presents all websites as equal, making it difficult to determine credibility. For instance, some may encounter cloaked white supremacist sites that distort history, such as falsely portraying slavery as a humane institution. Without proper media literacy skills, they might believe these false claims or assume all perspectives are equally valid, even when one is based on historical facts and another on racist propaganda.

[twoheadedcalfsanctuary]

DNDADS ZODIAC ASSIGNMENTS TWO!!

Nicky Close-Foster-Freeman- I think maybe ARIES SUN bc no matter who he’s raised by he’s…

Impulsive

Always ready to fight

Much more sensitive than most think!

Unselfconscious, or at least not super self aware/monitoring - openly approval seeking and vocally adores his dad in a way most boys his age would probably be embarrassed about

Will parrot opinions of people he admires, incorporate them into his core beliefs

Grant Wilson- CANCER SUN

Sensitive and anxious

Embarrassment and guilt are especially difficult to deal with

protective

Internal locus of blame

Strong feelings like crushes, pain, or even self indulgent guilt/flagellation are preferable to numbness

Parallels to Daryl and TJ

Terry Stampler jr- CAPRICORN SUN!! father of the zodiac!!!!

Dry humor and expression, occasionally awkward when trying to express really strong emotions

Hardworking (wizard)

Practical, reliable

High levels of pressure on self

Early maturity

actually, maybe a CAPRICORN STELLIUM?? and/or CAPRICORN SATURN/JUPITER? ONE OF THOSE PLACEMENTS IN THE 4TH HOUSE?

Saturn is with him from the beginning as he’s forced to grow up quickly; things come earlier than would normally be expected in life course for him, like grief, loss of family, exposure to general horrors of the real world like kidnapping, slavery, manipulation, and killing, needing to take responsibility for other people's wellbeing/doing emotional caretaking, including for his stepfather- hell Saturn follows him straight to the end: his own death is premature, and he accepted his own mortality before it even happened!

Theme of fatherhood prevalent in so many of his major life struggles- he lost a father young, then had to live with a stepfather he didn’t like, then he had to literally and metaphorically share in the torment of that stepfather’s father, he had to play a role in trying to end it, then he was unable to conceive (? Is that cannon or am I misremembering??), and was unable to connect with his stepdaughter and become a father like he wanted

Lark & Sparrow Oak-Garcia (Swallows)- they have me very stumped. LOTS going on here, and I feel like so much of it is nurture? So I may start with VIRGO MIDHEAVEN because the outer planets supposedly have more to do with who you grow into/what you do for work, which is essentially their main motivators since D.A.D.D.I.E.S is technically work:

Only view themselves in relationship to society’s normal/average

Overly concerned with success in material terms that may supersede actual happiness

Thorough

Mutable

Tough inner critic that sometimes unfortunately leads to a tough outer critic that can alienate people

And then thinking about them as kids, maybe SAGITTARIUS SUN?

Also mutable, but fiery!

Playful, energetic

Argumentative

Exploratory/adventurous

Optimistic:(

Sister sign to Henry :((

BUT please tell me what y’all think about them, I was PUZZLED

[joxies]

1984 - George Orwell

So, I've finally read 1984 by George Orwell. I had wanted to read it for a while now, but always pushed the idea away. Kept thinking it'd be too tedious, too hard to read , as it was written in 1948.

I had started reading it in december 2024 and stopped before reaching a third of the book. I think that's why I decided it'd be my first book this year.

Now, back to the book:

SPOILERS AHEAD

I decided to read it in english instead of my mother tongues bc I'm a ferm believer books are always better in their original language. I still hold onto my idea, but I've got to admit I did have some hard times while reading it because of the english mid twentieth vocabulary and way of speaking/writting. I learnt some new words and such, so it wasn't a bad decision.

The plot is heartbrokening. A totalitarian society that acts as if it isn't but that reminds you at any given moment that it in fact is. It sometimes reminded me of our current socio-economical and political situation worldwide. Countries fighting against each other for land, labour force, resources or, most importantly, power; with no regard towards the impact on not only their people, but those who live in the middle of the conflicts. Countries in which there have been wars for decades now, who soon won't remember a time in which there was peace. And all these real wars seem to follow one of The Party's slogans: WAR IS PEACE. Average people living in developed countries rarely think of the worldwide wars. Unless they affect them, of course. But otherwise, they're an unalterable reality: there are wars, and those wars have a reason to exist, and that reason is closely related to keeping their way of life, their freedom, their peace. It's sad it affects others less fortunate, but there's nothing we can do.

It also impacted me the way a writer, who lived in the first half of the twentieth century, was able to imagine technological problems so closely related to our current times. The use of technology to spy on the lower classes, the stagnation of technological advance so as to not make people too comfortable or intelligent, the seeming uselessness of technology in making work and life truly easier. Nowadays it is a fact technology spies on you, one way or another. Me using this account to express my thoughts and condemn these acts is only possible because I accepted some terms and conditions which I didn't read and that most likely "make me aware" that my data is no longer mine and that it can be used however this platform wishes. Another Party slogan comes to mind now: FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. Tho, to make it easier to understand and connect to what I'm about to say, we will turn it around into "Slavery is Freedom". Nowadays lots of governments try and even succeed in baning certain apps under the premise that they're "used by external and villanous world-powers to spy on our dear and helpless citizens and to use their data for who knows what, while feeding them manipulated content that'll brainwash them". They only ban those apps to protect you, to maintain your freedom, your right to express yourself. And they also give you platforms on which to do so, platforms they've verified and approved as safe for you. But that nonetheless do the same, only difference is who wields the power and information. And we accept it. We become slaves who only use the "safe" platforms so that we have the freedom to express ourselves and consume and decide whether to see or not how the world works.

I think it is now a good moment to say that all I'm typing is not only my own personal way of understanding the book but also the world. This is how I view right now our world, how I believe it works and it affects us, the masses, the proles. It is based on the research and education I've made myself go through, but it isn't the absolute truth. It is my opinion and anyone is free to disagree.

Having said this, I'll go on with my rant. Orwell was also somewhat right about the stagnation of technology in almost any field except war. Nowadays we could have technology that'd make our lives significantly easier, but it isn't the case. Because less work means more free time, more free time means being able to learn more, and that means more intelligent masses. And collective intelligence is powerful for the masses and dangerous for the higher classes. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH says the last Party slogan. Prole's IGNORANCE is The Party's STRENGTH. Even those in The Party must be ignorant but aware of their ignorance, as to not educate themselves too much so they'd lose the ignorance. Not long ago there were elections in my home country. I hadn't read the book yet, but I already learnt this last phrase. The biggest part of my country's people are illiterate, mostly in the sense of not having any type of comprehension skills, no critical or logical thinking, no general knowlegde. And that's the corrupt parties strength, what keeps them in power. They know how to manipulate the masses because the masses don't even truly understand what manipulation is.

Although I liked this book a lot, there were still some parts I didn't enjoy. And not because they were sad, or heartbreaking, or dull. But because it showed the book was written by a man who lived a century ago. Who although was ahead of his time, still held onto beliefs from the first half of the twentieth century. And even tho I understand this, it's still hard for me to get through those words. The way he described women and the main love interest, Julia, lacked any depth. They were merely objects not only in the main character's eyes (Winston), but in his own. They were objects of desire, of hatred, human beings whose flaws made them perfect to live under The Party's leadership. The woman working for The Party were stupid, gossipers, snitchers, evil. They used their bodies against men, against Winston, by refusing to give into their desire. But those women who didn't work for The Party, the proles, were reduced to being either s3x workers who lacked self respect or mothers and grandmothers whose rough life turned them ugly and cheap.

The only time Winston seems to truly understand that women are human beings is moments before being arrested. As he watches through a window the woman who he's heard sing for weeks, who he's seen wash clothes continously but without resentment, he realises she's beautiful. He's surprised of such thought as he never believed a woman of fifty, big and sturdy, a prole, could be beautiful. He has no desire for her, no ulterior motif, as it happened with Julia, who he only desired and resented up until she declared her love for him. No, with this prole woman is different. He sees her for what she is: a human being, with her own problems and dreams, who works tiredlessly for her family and sings in the meanwhile just because she enjoys it.

Now that I've mentioned Julia a couple times, I have to speak of her too. Her character is an object. She could've been so much but was made to be so little. She loves Winston, no true reason behind it. She just knows he's unorthodox and that makes her love him. And he ends up loving her too, his reasoning being she's young, rebellious, dirty minded. That's it. Her unorthodoxy is related to her desire of better quality products, of sexual liberty. But she bares no real interest in ending The Party's leadership. She doesn't even truly believe in that possibility, she just follows Winston because she loves him. I don't hate her character, I just think she could've been more if Orwell was a man product of other times.

Speaking of love and such, I'll mention briefly my thoughts on O'Brien. One could believe Winston had some deeper interest in O'Brien that he wasn't aware of. The way O'Brien is described is much more profound than Julia. I even believed for a moment there might be some hint at homosexuality as a form of rebelion against the regime. But that wasn't the case. Winston loves O'Brien. In which way? That's up to you, tho I'm sure the writer certainly didn't intend it as romantic love.

To end my review/analysis of the book I want to talk a bit about the ending. I had seen online that there was a plot twist at the end, that the end was so unexpected. When I saw that I had already started reading the book. At first I thought the twist would be he was gonna be arrested and brainwashed into obedience or killed. Then when Julia appeared I changed my mind: I thought the plot twist would be they would survive, would join The Brotherhood, would end BB or at least start the revolution against it. But then they joined The Brotherhood. And it didn't give off the feeling of making progress agaisnt the enemy. So I was back to my first thought. And it turned out I was right. It didn't disappoint me tho. I just hoped to be wrong about my forecast, to be surprised with another ending that would impact me. I do think tho it was the perfect ending for this book. Hopeless but realistic. Winston never stood a chance, BB was smarter, stronger, more powerful. He trusted people blindly because he was blinded by his arrogance. 1984 could not have ended any other way, otherwise it wouldn't have the importance it holds today.

Here are some quotes that stood out to me:

"Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull."

"They could not alter your feelings: for that matter you could not alter them yourself, even if you wanted to."

"If there was hope, it lay in the proles!"

"Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood."

Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5 stars)