#instead of having a moral fucking backbone

[theskyexists]

I am always baffled that there are SO MANY PEOPLE who genuinely believe that killing someone, anyone, is right. God

[atopvisenyashill]

Worst things GOT did casting wise:

- making Dany too beautiful (+ styling her in a way that she never has a hair out of place, always wears BLUE - which makes her look peaceful and soft and angelic, not making her burn her hair off etc). I just think of that one official art piece that's in the illustrated AGOT book where dany is bald, with the dragons and sparks and frames around her and its so striking instead of the "beautiful angelic blonde women stand empowered with her tits out" scene we got

- casting Iain Glen as Jorah and not like. a random Lannister (like. Come on. He is a burly and ugly man... why are you casting one of the most beautiful men to play him.... this is how we ended up with dany/jorah shippers)

-making Joffrey too unattractive (this is not meant to disparage JG who is a great actor and seems like a really cool dude and i'm not saying he's ugly but I think from his very first scene Joffrey looks very punchable and it would have been so much smarter to make the audience .. relate to Sansa's infatuation with his golden looks. In my head (and in all the official art) Joffrey looks like a male version of cersei/a younger version of Jaime.)

- making Dany, Jon, Robb, Marg, Brienne etc 10+ years older than Sansa and the younger starklings .... It's not "the main characters and arya (who is so cool and can kill people) + the little children" it's ONE AGE group of equally important characters

Like I know people are upset at Ned/Jon etc being too attractive, WHICH I GET, but I feel like those were very vibe based casting decisions and i'm ultimately fine with that (I also think it's easier for the audience to root for someone if they're attractive so like. I guess they had to do it) but these other things resulated in people's perception of the characters being so wildly different from what they're supposed to be. The real reason people get so angry whenever someone says they wish tamzin had stayed is because they don't like the idea of daenerys not being this ethereal beauty (TM is beautiful but not in a conventional way) that they can fully root for without issue.

1. NO YOU ARE SOOOOOO RIGHT ABOUT THEM REFUSING TO LET DANY LOOK UGLY. it’s not to say tamzin isn’t clearly beautiful, but i think she’s beautiful in the same way gwendoline christie is, which is that she’s very striking and she has a strong presence but she’s not exactly what people picture when they say “typical hot lady” (which is Crazy these are all able bodied white women, like the definition of “beauty” is soooooo fuckijg narrow that tamzin merchant is ~atypically beautiful) vs emilia definitely is, and YES like everything from not burning her hair off to emilia being,,,,,fuller in figure than dany as a fourteen year old would be is just very clear that they saw dany different than the way she is On The Page. i mean i know people whack george for saying that she’s like a sexy funny lady or whatever but george never lets go of the fact that she’s incredibly young whereas d&d completely miss that part of her character.

i will say i Get the criticism of tamzin perhaps not picking up on the conlangs easily because one thing you can say for emilia is that she had a decent head for the conlangs, she’s even still partially fluent in dothraki lmaooo. but all the other stuff they said about why they recast dany it’s like. hmmmmmmmmmm.

2. absolutely right about iain especially because he’s similar to idk paddy in that he’s got CHARISMA but unlike viserys, they didn’t intent to portray him as a deeply flawed, antagonistic character they went in portraying him as like an objectively Good Guy dedicated to dany. he’s just so much less creepy and pushy in the show and has several scenes where he shows some moral backbone - that “yet here you stand” “yet here i stand” scene is sooooooo good for example, the fact that he actually apologizes for spying on dany, giving him the greyscale story & not having him fuck a valyrian looking woman in a brothel 💀, etc etc - and you also just lose some of the creepiness here because emilia is clearly a grown if young woman and ian is handsome, so it’s like. welll of Course you want to root for them to be together! and never mind that this is a Massive departure from their book characterizations!! again, they have this idea of jorah in their head that doesn’t match up with what’s on the page even a little.

3. i do get your point re: joffrey and i think this is my problem with aidan as littlefucker too - they’re too obviously villains and it makes ned and sansa look stupid. like, in the books we have that moment where robb almost decks joffrey which does seem to signal something bad but the crown prince being full of himself doesn’t mean he’s going to threaten his betrothed’s sister with a sword then get his ass handed to him by a toddler. in the show we get QUITE a number of scenes where joffrey is shown to be a brat AND as you say, just like aidan, jack has a Certain Look, he looks like a shitty jock who has allegations against him ajsjdj like irl when jack smiles he’s so adorable!! but in the show they REALLY play up his ability to channel a greasy aura ya know aksjd. when the point of asoiaf is often that villains don’t LOOK like villains, but some of our Main Villains clearly resemble typical villains in the show.

4. “it’s ONE age group of characters” NO YOU ARE SO RIGHT. like, there’s several years difference from robert to ned to cat to the twins to tyrion but they’re all the same generation of characters. there’s that exact same age difference from brienne to robb, dany, jon to sansa, arya, bran, with theon kind of similar to characters like jorah, who are old enough to remember The Before Times but aren’t quite in either generation. but because they wanted dany, brienne, jon, robb, and margaery to be more of a Typical archetype rather than an exploration of that archetype, they aged everyone up and essentially invented another generation between the “adult” characters and the “kid” characters. not to be super nerdy here but one of my favorite worked shoots in wrestling is one cody rhodes did where he was ranting about the way young wrestlers get put through the grinder and he has this amazing line where he sums it up as “old men talking, young men dying” and it’s not to say there aren’t a lot of old dudes Also dying lmao but you really see this where young leaders are often unprepared for their responsibilities and used as puppets by older men and you just MISS THAT when that whole generation is so grown!

it’s like they looked at those themes of war being terrible and all consuming and brutal no matter how justified you feel you are and went “wow war is brutal 😍” LIKE PLEASE????

[decadentpostnachos-evil-twin]

This is why you can't have a discussion nowadays. People's narrative being "My opinion is the only opinion, Idc what you say you are wrong."

Bitch Honey, if you can't deal with someone else's opinion, maybe don't post shit in the internet for everyone to see.

You can't put up with morally dark characters who are actually morally dark and not trying to justify their actions.

Besides, the worst thing we actively see Eris do in all of the books is saying that Morrigan dresses like a slut and calling Cassian some slurs. Plus we know that he left Morrigan at the border without touching her (what was he supposed to do, take her to Beron? Srsly, use your brains people. Please.)

None of these things were nice.

But how does this in any way compare to slaughtering a whole village of people for revenge (Cassian)?

Or better yet, to leave a head on a spike in the garden of someone else for shits and giggles, be a ruler for centuries and yet not manage to stop women in your territory from being mutiliated, even though you call yourself the "most powerful High Lord to ever rule" or some shit. Or SA your apparent future wife, also just for fun because he could have left Feyre in the cell in acotar and no one would have given two shits except for Tamlin and Lucien who would have been worried for her. Stealing millenia old artifacts. Threatening to kill everyone who doesn't share your opinion, constantly and therefore jeopardizing an alliance against the main enemy. Keeping mass destruction weapons in your posession without telling anyone outside of your "family" about it. Misusing your wife and mate as a breeder and not even informing her about the fact that she will likely die in childbirth, instead leaving your sister in law to sacrifice the brunt of her own magic to safe her sister. Belittling a man dealing with heavy depression and PTSD for really no apparent reason other than your own petiness, telling him he should kill himself when he's at his lowest AFTER he saved your mates life, your life and essentially turned the tide in a war. And I could go on.

How are the narrative and part of the fandom able to find excuses for Rhysand's fucked up behaviour over and over and paint him the misunderstood hero, but Eris is evil incarnate because he did what again? Left Morrigan at the border, most likely knowing she would be found and taken care of (at the ripe age of...very much younger than her, too, mathematics say) and called Cassian a brute.

"Good to know that after five hundred years, you still dress like a slut." -Eris in acowar to Morrigan. This is him saying she dresses like a slut. Not calling her one.

I'm not trying to make excuses for Eris here. He's an asshole, I'm aware of it, and the absolute majority of his stans are aware of it. But that's about it. So if you make some post about "abusive men", and include Tamlin and Eris, then reflect on what fucked up shit your favs did. Because if saying someone dresses like a slut and leaving her lying around injured but untouched by you (when you have no responsibility for her state at all) is horrible and abusive, I'd like to know what you would call all the shit Rhysand pulled.

On the other hand, I'd like to say something about Neris shippers being racist, because I don't see how? I could honestly care less for how Cassian looks or his ethnicity, this is about him having literally no backbone and treating Nesta like shit throughout acosf when she was clearly not in a good place, mentally. If y'all wanna be degraded for having ugly trauma I can't help you. I liked Nessian in acowar, they had potential. But acosf? Nah.

[absolutedestinyapocalypsse]

i think we're all in agreement that larian fumbled wyll's storyline but what i cannot drop after finishing my playthrough is how fucking strange his relationship to the flaming fists is???

like if you take him to kill the fists at the foundry he disapproves? these are the people who are actively torturing and enslaving the gondians to make massive police brutality robots. you can literally go to the foundry and WITNESS the steel watchers brutalizing children via tadpole but in the final battle ravengard's "help" is a bunch of fists whose job it was to protect the steel watchers? Literally all the flaming fists do is get in your way, try to arrest you for stopping murders, and run away from danger and Wyll is just endlessly supportive of it- he doesn't see why that's fucked up!

I get that they're his dad's guard and his inability to criticize his father for anything could have (should have) been a plot point, but instead it's just there! uncritically!! And i can kind of get it when it has to do with him being exiled bc parent child relationships are complicated, but there is literally no reason for him to be dickriding the flaming fists so much. Absolutely zero reason.

They set Wyll up as being this unfailingly moral character who would gladly become a devil before killing an innocent person, even when killing that innocent person is in the "rules" he's supposed to follow. He's not just uncritically obedient of Mizora even though she tells him that what he's doing is right, but when it comes to the flaming fists who are purposefully incompetant at best, and actively murderous at worst, and whom we have watched the entire game actively enable slavery and state violence he just doesn't care????

These are the flaming fists who were completely fine sending Florick to the gallows for trying to fight against their corruption and save ravengard. Devella is the ONLY person in the fists who's doing anything to address the bhaal killings and her colleagues actively get in her way/try to stop her from investigating them. If I were Wyll and I learned that my dad was fucking brainwormed bc the guard that was supposedly "unfailingly loyal" to him sold him out and actively stopped a rescue attempt, i would never want to see another fucking flaming fist in my life.

But instead at the epilogue party if he's the blade of avernus hes just like "my dad pardoned all the fists and made them pinky promise to do better :) isnt he great?" Be for real!

It's making me mad bc it's not the hypocrisy itself that's the problem, it's that they don't even attempt to say or do anything about it! It's a golden opportunity for Wyll to have to do some self reflection and grow as a character, like every other character who also has clear moments of hypocrisy like this. It's right there! And the game just totally chickens out. Like I know that not every country has the same relationship to police that Americans do, but it's literally IN THE GAME that the flaming fists are a corrupt organization who operate exactly like the american cops do. Larian please give Wyll a backbone to begin with, or make him reckon with the fact that he doesn't have one. Do fucking SOMETHING!!

[investingestincest]

TW /// MENTIONS OF SUICIDE

(Rambles)

I don't know if i can ever forgive antis for running so many artists off the internet because they found them gross. There are so many artists that come to mind but one that sticks with me the hardest is Columbo who was literally ran off Twitter for the most vile reason. I often see tiktok artists redraw that one Monster fanart of Johan and Nina that Columbo made. This was what pushed me to watch the anime in the first place and I get so sad when I remember what happened. They deliberately tried to ruin the artist's life and outed them knowing that this could get them killed. They wanted them DEAD over DRAWINGS. The length some would go to ruin someone's life is terrifying and so fucked up.

Don't even get me started on doxxing. At what point in your sorry little life do you decide to dig someone's private info and leak it to the whole world. And still claim to be more righteous than another ?

Not to mention those who harmed themselves or committed suicide because of harrassment.

I remember how a 13yo artist on twitter committed suicide because of the harrassment they faced (Not proship related). You know what those bastards did ? Went to their last post and filled it with nothing but mockery. They were editing the comic to make amogus jokes. A 13yo child.

I blocked and reported over 700 and yet there was still more. I've never felt so sick in my entire life. They had just gotten the confirmation that they pushed a child to suicide and their immediate reaction was to laugh about it. They killed a child and they laughed ?

This isn't even the first time this happened and I think that's pretty much what made me realize that antis (or just internet fiends in general) didn't actually give a shit about anyone else or the content that they "hate" in general, they just use it as an excuse to show how vile they truly are because what sane person would do that ? Instead of blocking and moving on, you put someone's life in danger for a fucking drawing ? For what, an ounce of validation from strangers ? Is this what it takes for these fuckers to ruin someone's life ? Validation from online strangers ? Laughing with your online friends about how you ruined someone's life, with others who'd probably do the same to you without a second thought if they deem you as problematic in their mind ? This is seriously all it takes ? Their moral backbone is as real as the fictional character they try so hard to defend.

Do you really think that the fictional character will appear in your living room one day and thank you for ruining someone else's life ? It baffles me how they think the internet is a lawless barren land where you can do whatever. Like this won't have consequences ? This isn't the 90s, your information and everything that you post is preserved in archives and can be dug up if you end up getting prosecuted. Besides, if someone finds out about what you did, reports you and you end up in court, what do you tell the judge ? That you were "only trying to protect a fictional character from the icky proship pedos on twitter" do these guys even hear themselves sometimes ? I'm so fucking tired of this bullshit man...

[spidersmiceandeverythingnice]

Oooo anyway I just remember why I Hate and Loathe the big High Lord meeting in ACOWAR and why it fully cements SJM in my Worst Authors category for like a billion reasons

1. Feyre refuses to bow to the Dawn Court. Weird choice and completely fucking awkward to read - I guess this is meant as some kind of Girlboss Moment - like "no, I won't bow to the stinky old fashioned MEN!!!! who run this world. My super hot boyfriend gave me this title and I'm the master of the universe now." But it's... childish. Also? Way to disrespect Thesan but this is going to become a pattern because of course the gay Asian High Lord has no special powers apart from super good healing that literally every other character can accomplish, and of course he's gentle, and passive (ultimately willing to "bow [to Rhysand] if the other [High Lords] will") and of course his lover has no name and never speaks. Great! Hate it.

2. Morrigan and Vivian. On paper this seems interesting as far as a relationship goes like - what kind of interesting Court relations did Night have pre Amarantha and can those bonds be salvaged? But instead of asking those questions the scene decides to immediately undercut Vivian's character as a badass general and warrior who defended Winter in her childhood friend/future husband's absence by making her squeal like a literal 13 year old when the Night Court - who is suspected of murdering 24 children - shows up. Vivian proceeds to throw a fit and snarks about wanting to be a High Lady. Rip Vivian we hardly knew ye.

3. Do I even need to talk about Helion being the worst bisexual rep. Do I even need to say it. Good lord.

4. Do I even need to talk about Fantasy China and Helion being allied with the Faerie Confederates. Do I even need to explain this. It gets worse, somehow!

5. Tamlin and Tarquin actually have a case against allying with the Night Court given literally everything that happened in the last two books but this isn't painted as reasonable distrust of a group of lying backstabbing sycophants who purposefully play up their cruelty and keep secrets from the other Courts. No, of course not. Tarquin immediately forgives the Night Court because he has no backbone whatsoever apparently. Tamlin is considered unreasonable for not trusting Feyre and Rhys, who have continuously tried to hurt him and his people and undermine his authority as High Lord.

6. Everyone immediately forgets that Rhysand worked for Amarantha for 50 years and distrusts Tamlin, who has worked for Hybern for all of five minutes and also brings tons of information on their troop movements and positions, confirming that all of his so called alliance was a fraud and he's been spying on them the whole time.

7. Literally the whole fucking deal with the Winter Court. Like I'm sorry that Rhys is so sexual traumatized by Amarantha but children fucking died in a horrible, gruesome way that now, nobody can be accountable for. This is on my top 3 of most egregious SJM retcons because I'm supposed to believe that some daemati we've never heard of before, is never mentioned or seen again, is supposedly the missing link to absolve Rhysand of the fact that he murdered 24 children in book one and devastated the Winter Court. Give me a fucking break. And Feyre gets so SAD and hurt when Rhys says he was confined to Amarantha’s bedroom, but I guess dead kids in Winter and Spring are just the price you pay for loving a morally gray bryonic hero uwu. I'd say, "Get fucked," but i think Rhys and Feyre would enjoy that too much.

8. When the Autumn Court says mean things it makes them irredeemable, but when Azriel and Feyre break all the rules of magic and physically retaliate and hurt other people, it's a-okay, and totally justified! Oh, the Lady of Autumn (another unnamed, sad silent [white] victim who only exists for Helion to angst over) gets hurt by virtue of being a bystander? Totally cool and normal, and since she's been a victim of domestic violence before, it means that she's a secret good guy who will totally understand and forgive Feyre for her totally justifiable outburst. Fuck off.

9. Feyre speaking to and ordering Azriel around like a literal rabid dog. Do I even need to explain this and why its bad. Do I even need to say it.

10. This scene was a joke and everything about it was a stinking trash fire.

[punkeropercyjackson]

Sorry,Percy Jackson was a troubled kid who was a bully beater,sucks at school but is really smart in almost every other area,has his intellegence insulted nonstop his whole life and just takes it despite what a strong backbone he has because he thinks he deserves it,got anger and emotional regulation issues,is a mama's boy who's mom dosen't quite understand how he works sometimes but loves and is good to him anyway and considers his differences from ordinary people a gift instead of a burden,has an obsession with a specific type of food,dosen't even try to understand social norms because he thinks they're stupid as fuck,has a weird as all ass sense of humor that's the funniest shit and complex feelings on morality and a default expression that looks scary,is beyond kind in a way that gets on 'normal' peoples nerves both irl and in-universe,wears hoodies all the time and perfers layers in general,dated a girl because she made him feel normal and loved that her brutal honest made it so he didn't have to walk around eggshells with her,hates traditional masculinity and considers it gross and unappealing and a burden he wants to free himself from,is super silly and goofy and chaotic and has kiddy interests with a distate for 'true maturity',can never tell when someone has a crush on him but when he likes someone back he's rizz city,is an anarchist who hates rich people and power and privilege,gets along so well with younger people he basically adopts them as his younger siblings and pseudo-kids and is the protagonist of a book series about rep for neurodivergent people and you guys think he's allistic because he's hot and cool???

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

aaaaahhhhhh I need to scream about Taylor swift. just FUCK HER. oh my god. I have depression. it fucking SUCKS. and she leaves her boyfriend for being too depressed ATYHYTFBD HRRRGGGGGGGGG. AND THE PHSYCE WARD AESTHETIC. WTF IS WRONG WITH HER OH MY GOD. yubvefinhj arrrggghhhhhh I want to rip my skin off she makes me so mad.

I know this ask is about a month old now- I apologize if you were waiting for a response. I'm sensing a lot of frustration and anger here. Let me know if I am off base.

I thought receiving this was interesting- which is why I would like to reply. I understand your frustration- as someone who has also struggled with mental health, as I am sure many of us have, it is easy to let the frustration bubble up into anger. Taylor Swift, and her music, has remarkable impact on the culture.

I want to pause for a moment here- and let you know that I understand your anger. I cannot describe the feeling I had realizing that Swift’s latest album is basically an aesthetic co-opting of real mental health struggle.

Also- I work in an English Department- do you have any idea how obnoxiously hard it is to not role my eyes every time I think about the most pretentious and stupid album title ever: "Tortured Poets Department."

I really think she got one fake college degree from NYU and fancied herself an academic. (Please spare me the ineptitude).

I understand- and I also realize that this ask was but a brief moment of your day-if the anger is overwhelming, I would still urge you to recognize your own power. Oftentimes, I think anger releases out of frustration because we feel the person causing this frustration has so much more power than us- they exist above us- out of reach. As such, there is no way to truly communicate the frustration- or seek any recompense for it. A lack of ability to communicate- and be heard- can cause anger, it is human nature. We are both social creatures, and intuitively reactive. Both a blessing and a curse.

Please recognize that no matter how loud the divisive few, like Swift, are- culture is with the people, always. Combat the negativity with whatever positivity you have to give. Personally, I combat the negativity I see in the album by analyzing it- holding it up to the light and hopefully showing others how and why this is wrong. I do this with many authors- I've lambasted Hemmingway enough times now and written myself into an early grave railing against Joseph Conrad. Do not fear- or give frustration into anger- what you cannot control; instead use your own gift, whatever that may be, to give something good to the world- in the process it will make up for the bad.

Please note too that I am not talking about toxic positivity- about the kind of positivity that requires "everyone be nice all the time and never say a single curse word ever ever ever" UWU- BS - but rather actionable positivity. Definitive actions you take in the world- to right the moral wrongs. For me, this meant going to school- getting an education into moral philosophy and Literature- so that I might teach other how to critically analyze the world around them. All in effort, to affect actionable positive change, however small, in the lives of others. Teaching them to not only think about the concept of tenets of their reality, but to intentionally act with a moral backbone as they traverse their own lives. A metanalysis of self- that sincerely codifies our own agency in creating our reality. Ultimately, I act with intention, seek education, to give myself a tool with which I can work. See- actionable positivity. I seek to give people a reason to identify their own agency- their own power- and hopefully use that to be empathic, kind people, who think for themselves.

What, I wonder, does actionable positivity mean to you?

I really believe this- as silly as some people might find me for saying it. I really think only positive action, forethought and analytical, engaged minds, can rectify the moral corruption others bleed into the world. Swift is but one morally bankrupt individual amidst billions of people- all with differing moral centers. I say that among billions Swift will fade into obscurity. Hopefully, the good will outweigh the bad- to negate the negative cultural impact Swift has. Hopefully, we will all be smart enough to negate the environmental destruction of Swift as well (but I am a philosopher and not a climate scientist- so I suppose I must leave the particulars of that kerfuffle to the professionals).

I cannot comprehend the thought process of those who know better and still choose to continue supporting Swift. This album was a final straw (of sorts) for me. Frankly, I cannot comprehend the thought process of Swift either- who decided to write a whole song about how she is bored with her long-term boyfriend because he has depression.

Not to mention how cruel it is to out the mental health status of another- she was also marketing the album predicated upon the idea of this being a "break-up" album, which instrumentally has the effect of modulating the tone. Tonally, she defined this album by her own myopic lens of human experience- and her selfish desire to eternally be the damsel in distress. No- Swift is never a grown woman in control of her own actions, in any of her songs, she is instead eternally pointing a finger and say, "look at what you made me do."

The effect of marketing this album as a "break-up" album has the rhetorical effect of rendering every song on the album as blame-pointing from each of Swift expressed "down-trodded melodrama" not as a symptom of her actions, but as the result of her breakup. It even modulates the extent to which she can ever conceptually admit to any wrongdoing, because she has effectively embedded the rhetorical appeal "not my fault" into every aspect of her life. Thus- even if she did say "I'm at fault" it is overwritten by the tone of her own innocent, damselesque persona. People would still view her as the victim. Now, would this be a problem if the breakup was explicitly mutual? Maybe- maybe not. This is, however, a problem when Swift expressed again and again that the breakup was due to the other party- either being too depressed, or not being quick enough to marry. Thus, her getting bored enough to emotionally cheat.

In essence, Swift created a type of rhetorical vortex around the album though which every song is instrumentally telling about a different facet of her own instinct to paint herself as a victim of circumstance in every situation.

Not only was the ultimate onus of her album- breaking up- but it was also her "going crazy." She, on one hand wants to shame others for having a mental health struggle, while also co-opting it, using it as an aesthetic, and then reverting the narrative back to her being the ultimate victim because now- get this- she's the super sad one. So sad that she needs to dance on top of a giant metal psych ward hospital bed for the TTPD set of the Era's tour. She's so sad that she needed to cheat on her long-term relationship, then immediately pivot into a new relationship with someone who she thinks "looks like a high school bully."

What I think is truly heinous- is just her representation of her own mental health downturn as legitimate, and others mental downturns are illegitimate- or are an inconvenience to her.

Is this really the message I want millions of women around the globe to hear and internalize? no- because it is cruelly self-centered and melodramatic.

So- yeah, it's just so painfully mean-spiritied.

Anyway- I don't want to run away with my answer here, so I will leave off here. I hope you did not mind my waxing poetic a bit in the middle there- I am in a reflective mood tonight. I've been rereading various texts I wish to include in my freshman class on critical thinking. So, I am dwelling on what it means to critique Swift- keeping in mind my ultimate intentions, in life, which is to inspire people to think for themselves.

Anyway dear- this answer is becoming too long. Rest easy- and I hope you know that anger can be a wonderful tool- for fueling passion.

Good luck out there.

[youn8ss-2]

im so tired of how some gay men will literally lie and diminish the shit gay men actually face to prop up others, stop acting like cowards and doormats get a fucking backbone and defend gay men instead of blindly and stupidly throwing them down the river to seem more moral to people who have deep seated homophobia.

Its even more stupid when history is never on these people’s side.

[makethatelevenrings]

I mean this with ZERO disrespect, I'm simply trying to educate myself on this matter because it impacts us all.

All I can find about the Israel-Palestine conflicts is the fighting. What I want to know is why.

Whats the backstory? Why are they fighting? Why is everyone persecuting one another and who in the government is responsible?

I heard Hamas bombed Gaza and has taken hostages. What brought on this violence? Do all the Palestinians agree with this?

(More personal opinion questions, you don't need to answer these)

Do you agree with Hamas? Do you think that violence was a last resort to free Palestine? Do you think it's justified?

One thing I do hate is people saying "I hate *this group of people*, they are bad." They can't all be bad. So I don't like the titles of Anti-Israel/Anti-Palestine because you're assuming everyone there is on the same side.

In conclusion, people are stupid. The government is messed up. Citizens and families want to live so why won't the government let them?

I’m genuinely grateful that you’re asking because educating ourselves is one of the greatest tools we have. I’ll break it up into sections.

1. What’s the backstory?

In 1918, the Ottoman Empire conceded land they controlled to Britain (this is still an ongoing problem regarding many, many things because the Ottoman Empire controlled many nations that weren’t theirs to control if you catch my drift. Look up the Elgin marbles for a fun wormhole of WTF Britain). The Arab Revolt was backed by France and Britain with the promise that if the Arab fighters could force the Ottomans out of the area of the Levant, they would be granted independence (McMahon-Hussein Correspondence) but, plot twist, France and the UK instead split the region (Sykes-Picot Agreement). The Balfour Declaration of 1917 expressed Britain’s support of the creation of Israel. After they gained control of the region, they established Israel and systematically began to take the land of Palestinians.

Note: Zionism began as a belief in the mid-18th century. Many, MANY Jewish people do not subscribe, encourage, or promote the idea of a Jewish state. I do not view Israel = Jewish because it is antisemitic to imply that the Jewish diaspora all exist under the state of Israel. Especially when many Jewish people disagree with Israel.

Note note: Zionism was created as a response to the numerous pogroms and other antisemitic hate crimes affecting Jewish people. the Holocaust was fucking awful. No ifs ands or buts. Genocide doesn’t justify genocide, however.

Continuing on. So, clearly, the Palestinians are pissed. They were promised independence and instead now have their land taken by a global superpower who has historically fucked over hundreds of countries (another wormhole for you: India under British rule, Ireland and literally all of its history with England, the transatlantic slave trade under Britain, Africa under British rule, Australia and the treatment of Aboriginals under British rule, America and the British, it goes on). Palestinians revolted from 1936-1939 because, again, their home and promise of independence was being stolen. They lost against the British army but then 1939 was a bit of an important year for everyone and they world was sucked into another world war.

With WWII saw the birth of the United Nations, an organization that might sound important but has the moral backbone with the equivalence of a chocolate eclair. The UN said “hey, why don’t we split Palestine and Israel into two different states so maybe they’ll stop fighting” (United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine) and, as a result, the 1948 Palestine-Israel war began. Hundreds died. 700k+ people were forced from Palestine and spread across the world in what is called the Nakba. Israeli colonizers quite literally moved into homes that had been occupied by Palestinians only days before. In 1918, the Jewish population of the region was 8.1%. In 1948, when Israel was recognized as a nation by the UN, the Jewish population of the region was 82.1%.

2. There’s plenty of infographics and videos explaining the next few decades but I’m already writing an essay basically so the gist is: Palestinians keep losing their homes and Israel keeps taking them. Israel forces the Palestinians into smaller and smaller parcels of land until the control virtually everything but a small strip of land (Gaza) and the West Bank. That brings us to 2006.

Hamas was elected in 2006 over rivaling Fatah, gaining majority amount of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council under the promise that they would help end the corruption many Palestinians were frustrated with. Instead they took military control over Gaza and established an autocratic state over millions of people who were already suffering under barbaric policies and practices from Israel. Politicians.

This is where things get a little…messy morally. Do I agree with Hamas? Fuck no. I couldn’t care less about Hamas because they don’t care about Palestinians. Do all Palestinians agree with Hamas? Firstly, you will rarely find a group of people where all agree with some. Secondly, I don’t think they appreciate being bombed by Israel while Hamas leaders chill somewhere else. The people of Palestine are the victims of Hamas and Israel.

Did some Palestinians celebrate Hamas’ actions? Yes. Do I think violence is a last resort? Yes and no. Do I think it’s justified? Yes and no.

Lemme expand on those last two points. I want to be an international human rights attorney someday. The loss of innocent life is always a fucking tragedy that I hope to help prevent or to bring justice for them. I understand violence. I understand why people are so angry. I understand the rage and grief Palestinians feel. 75 years of having their rights stripped away, their homes quite literally occupied, their land and culture chipped away piece by piece, and their children bombed and shot at.

“But how on earth can you think violence is justified if people get hurt!” The American Revolution was an act of violence that got numerous people killed yet you will rarely find someone who won’t justify it. Ukraine defending themselves against Russia wanting their land with no regard to how many Ukrainians they kill is considered justified.

People just seem to focus on the “violence is bad” aspect of things once POC are involved. Yeah, I said it. Americans tired of taxation, of British rule, and of not having their independence causes property damage, argues with soldiers in the streets, and starts a war is okay but when Palestinians do it, it’s a problem? When Black Americans ask to stop being brutalized by the police, it’s a problem? When Black South Africans ask to end an apartheid state, it’s a problem? When Central Americans ask for western nations to stop causing coups that destabilizes their nations, it’s a problem? I could go on.

Yeah, violence is bad. Violence is also the way that a lot of countries are where they are today. Violence is sometimes the only reason why things changed. Violence is enacted on the oppressed everyday yet people only seem to really care once the oppressed fight back.

3. I’m anti-Israel because I don’t agree with the government and the state of Israel. I don’t agree with their 75 years of violent oppression of Palestinians. I don’t agree with their current or past actions. I’m anti-Hamas. I think they’re a vacuous organization that is more focused on getting what they want than considering the consequences of innocent Palestinians.

I’m also really fucking furious at Joe Biden’s insistence that we send aid to Israel. We have given Israel $260 BILLION since 1948. BILLION. And yet we have people dying because they can’t afford healthcare. Students leaving school because they can’t afford tuition. We have 8 year olds in debt because they can’t afford school lunches. The unhoused population is growing rapidly due to the housing crisis. I can sense the unemployment rate creeping higher. I know many people who have lost their jobs this past month alone. We’re days away from another government shutdown and they can’t vote on a speaker.

American politicians would rather send Israel billions more to bomb innocent people than to feed their own citizens. That, in my opinion, is a sort of violence that can never be justified.

[cepn]

i actually fucking hate pro-porn idiots like these people are so selfish and focused on everyone's supposed right to get off that they'll downplay the fact that it's impossible to verify what is "consensual" and what is rape. instead of having a moral backbone, assuming that any given porn video could be rape, and not watching it or supporting the industry, these people would rather cover their eyes and ears and pretend it's all okay. twisting the definition of consent so that they don't have to feel bad watching women get assaulted on camera for their sexual satisfaction. porn viewers are rape apologists. porn supporters are rape apologists. it's not reactionary to recognize this fact.

[filthforfriends]

plz read so I can sleep

The pop culture perception of autism/neurodivergence has evolved overnight. Alarmingly, so. That language is everywhere now. It's being used inaccurately or, at the very least, with a casualness that is irresponsible. Just a couple years ago I insisted that autistics should get to talk about autism more casually, since being so god damn sanctimonious is alienating. No, I am not eating my words. I still feel the same about autistics discussing autism.

Yes, this is me implying that not all these newly self-diagnosed neurodivergents are, in fact, actually neurodiverse. Autism is just the most available identity to those racing towards the margins. Because of evolving media representation, autism has become just mainstream enough that there is something to socially gain from a diagnosis in 2024. This rate of self-diagnosis skyrocketing in tandem is no coincidence.

During periods where social justice is (thank god) on the forefront of our collective consciousness, it is not just the overtly bigoted asked to change. It is the centrists, moderates, liberals - people who have criticized those committing hate crimes and been lauded for it. When tolerance is integral to someone's identity, so too is being the good guy. Asking this demographic to consider the less obvious ways they commit oppression, asking them to acknowledge the harm they've caused, asking them to change revokes their good guy card.

Race To the Margins was coined in the 90s and the invention of social media has only increased the value of being perceived as a good person. Good people get likes, follows, and praise from a self-congratulatory echo chamber operating as their main source of dopamine. So when faced with accountability, good guys adopt their own marginalized identity instead, so they can be oppressed when social justice is brought up. After experiencing the validation of an ally's pity, they tout that marginalized identity around like theres no tomorrow.

AUTISTICS ARE ESPECIALLY VULNERABLE TO THIS!! Getting an evaluation is super inaccessible which is why well-researched, reflective self-diagnosis is accepted in the community (or - at this point - used to be). Entitled neurotypicals saw that they didn't need a doctors note and are now shitting where we eat. There's no recourse because its nearly impossible to be certain that someone isn't autistic and that's if you know them well in person. Autistics, as the victims of the worst bullying school has to offer, are going to be extremely hesitant to refute someone claiming neurodivergence.

Honestly the most painful irony is that autistics are so intensely moral that its in the diagnostic criteria. "Black and white sense of justice" as in we are not swayed by context. If someone claiming to be a neurodivergent is bigoted, we don't feel that sense of peer loyalty that inspires free passes. Autism is not a safe space for bigots, but it breaks my heart that anyone thought it would be. I am one of many autistic SJWs who sacrificed friendship and likability for morality in school and now my fucking identity is being appropriated by some racist cowards and made into the newest colloquialism. Now how excruciatingly ironic is that? After all the autistics and all their lists of appropriate slang usage and social rules, the language of neurodivergence is now a way to show how aware and current one is.

Entitlement is thinking everything is for you. It's not. Please cultivate a personality and a backbone.

[bumblebeesfromvenus]

the way you sit there and play victim. like there’s no way you care so much about leon ( a fictional character mind you) that you have to attack cuckette for it. girl he’s fictional if you care so much about him and his character 🥺 you need to get a grip you fucking loser. that is genuinely so sad. he’s not a real person, if he was it’s a different story

When did I attack her. I never did. I never even interacted with her. I reblogged a post and added my opinion on this very weird situation. SHE then decided to take that personal and call me a narcissist lmao

I never mentioned anyone, nor did I attack anyone, get your story straight.

I'm literally not playing the victim????

I'm standing up for the actual victims that have spoken about how much this bothers them.

And besides, IT'S JUST REALLY FUCKING WEIRD????

I know some of y'all are chronically online, but there's no way it's THIS bad.

Tell literally any person that doesn't use Tumblr about this and they will look at you really fucking weird.

Also, you're hiding behind a screen, anon, so who's the real fucking loser now, huh? 🥺

Boohoo, you don't even have the backbone to deal with a possible confrontation, so you hide behind a lil anonymous picture. 🥺🥺

Wasn't she bullied off the internet?? Which, I will say once and for all, if you bully someone you're a fucking asshole.

No matter how different our opinions are or what we wrote and if she hates me, no one deserves to be terrorized off a platform.

Which... is exactly what you're doing now 😚

However, I shall not crumble.

You need to get off Tumblr, and stop sucking cuckette's dick and be around some real people with a brain and morals.

I hope you look back at this and feel ASHAMED.

I just wish she would've contacted me, and we could've talked about it instead of her dragging me through the mud.

By the way, your girl crush is showing, bestie 😚

[proheromidoriyashouto]

Jaskier who is losing his eye sight because someone cursed him to stop eyeing their wife and ope guess he can’t see anybody now, and wants a sight hound but he kept putting it off because acknowledging it would make it real but he’s reached the point of no return and for all that he is a rising star at Oxenfurt University he is from a rich family, naive, and easy to trick so a mage sells him a straight up barghest they bred like noble ladies breed lapdogs except this is a chaos beast. a post-conjunction freak. a vaguely dog shaped crime against nature.

and it LOVES Jaskier. just LOVES all the smooches and scritches from this man who does not smell of fear or intent to harm. LOVES roasted mutton bone dinner treats for being a “good girl”. LOVES snuggling with a guy who can’t tell its not a hairless dog but actually A Problem For City Living. and all it has to do is keep the hand that feeds it happy, by doing tasks, and safe, mostly from himself.

it is smarter than any actual dog due to mage intervention in its domestication so it understands this trade off is pretty sweet. cats have got this “adopt a two-leg idiot thing” right.

and the University keeps trying to hire Witchers to deal with it, but they have to meet Jaskier, and Jaskier LOVES his big cuddly dog and LOVES the idea of Big Strong Monster Hunters coming to talk. and the Witchers are just like “That’s a monster, young man.“ and Jaskier says, “She’s my puppy and I have enough money to make you go away.”

and the Witchers initially think this is a threat, but Jaskier just writes them a bank note for REDONKULOUS amounts of coin to fuck off and let me live please and since it hasn’t hurt anyone or even growled at the Witchers themselves and with Witchers being so dirt fucking poor most of them just fuck right off and live it up a little bit, only noting in their journals to keep an ear out for this kid in the future with no idea how that’s going to come to pass

some Witchers even try the old come-back-in-a-different-get-up-trick to try and get more money off this clearly rich sucker, but Jaskier remembers the sound of their voices and, as fascinated by Witchers as he is, brings up things they’ve told him and is just generally a good host and kind person to them so they feel bad trying to scam the blind kid and leave before having an existential crisis about it

until the Wolves hear about it. and they have too much moral backbone to just let it go. this college idiot may think that throwing around his family money is enough to get his way but they are going to disabuse him of this notion before people start dying or the beast begins spreading its’ affliction to actual dogs.

they send Geralt. which is a mistake. because he agrees to allow Jaskier to come with him to find and identify the mage that sold him the barghest and just leads to twenty years of shenaniganry because they. can. not. find. this snakeoil sales man.

except Jaskier thinks he’s just been traveling with his two very best friends in the whole wide world, writing songs depicting Witchers as heroes and the best of men, being guided by a post-Conjunction monster the entire time.

it isn’t until someone points out the obvious solution of trying to cure Jaskier’s curse instead, rendering the need for a sight hound moot to begin with, that things begin to fall to pieces.

Jaskier begins to feel like he’s losing Geralt. wonders if Geralt ever saw him as the friend that Jaskier felt they had become or if he’s just been a contract the Witcher has humored the entire time. which is not helped by the events of the King Niedamir’s Mountain.

and then someone commits the cardinal sin of pointing out that Jaskier’s “Seeing Eye Dog“ has no eyes itself. it’s been “seeing” for him and his non-functioning eyes out of its non-existent eyes for their entire acquaintance.

Jaskier remains in complete denial about it even after being granted his sight again. “Her eyes are just closed. You wouldn’t get it, she’s pedigree, Geralt. Of course she doesn’t resemble any mutt off the street. She has papers.”

[aprill-99]

Julie: “you know how you lie to your parents?” + “motherfucker is this how you write songs?!?”

Luke: “My parents used to ask me what I thought I was doing but that really just meant ‘stop’ they didn’t actually wanna know my thought process.” + “That’s my wife!”

Reggie: “I need everyone all day long to like me sooooo much.” + “I am very small and I have no money. So you can imagine the kind of stress I’m under.”

Alex: “People look at me and they’re like ‘get some rest tall child!’” + “I was raised Catholic as I’m sure you can tell by my everything about me.”

Flynn: “Do you want me to kill that guy for you? Because it sounds like he sucks and I would totally kill that guy for you. Lol see you at improv practice!” + “this might as well happen. Life is already so goddamn weird.”

Willie: *to Lifers in the HGC* “How dare you applaud the worst decision I ever made?” + “for interest I will pepper in the fact that I am gay.” + “fuck da police.”

Bobby: “I don’t drink anymore because apparently I used to black out and ‘ruin parties’.” + “you have the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair.”

Carrie: *pulls in to a McDonald’s drive through with a van of excited children. Orders a single black coffee. Drives away.* + “None of us ever really knows our fathers. Anyway…”

Nick: “I was shiny and dumb and easy to trick.” + “Ah yes. My title of Alpha which I definitely had once.”

Ray: “I try to stay a little optimistic. Though I will admit, things are getting pretty sticky.” + “Our house was built in the 20s but got flipped in 2014 so it’s definitely haunted but has a lovely kitchen backsplash.”

Carlos: “Well here goes nothing. You ever seen a ghost????”

Tia: “Shut up you’re all gonna die! Street smarts!”

Caleb: “A child came up to me once and told me that I could do whatever I wanted forever. And I took his advice.” + “he looked like a man who should be the conductor on a locomotive powered by confetti but instead he made his living in murder.”

[majorbaby]

i really enjoyed your post on sidney freedman!!!! i'm wondering, what do you think of radar, as a character or as a storytelling device or both? imagine my little anon sunglasses face resting on my hands smiling so smittenly and kicking my feet. i adore your thoughts theyre SO fun and interesting to read

hi! thank you for your kind words.

In Dear Sigmund good ol’ Sidney tells us rather than shows us the Radar character thesis:

Actually Sigmund, it’s a wonder more people around here don’t take a vacation from reality. Some people even manage to grow - Radar for instance. In so many ways he’s still as innocent and naïve as the local orphans he plays with. And yet this boy keeps this unit, this state of chaos running smoothly. 

The early years establish that pretty well without actually saying it outright. I do find Radar very enjoyable during that period, but he had to be completely re-tooled alongside the rest of the show as of Season 4. The reason for that is Radar and Henry were a package deal, maybe even in a more effective way than Trapper and Hawkeye because the former pair gives you some contrast. The gag with Radar-Henry was that Henry was this privileged, middle-aged dude, a surgeon, and the CO at the 4077th, but he’d run the camp into the ground were it not for Radar, an almost-legal child. The point of that seems very clear to me, this lower-class kid from rural Iowa with nothing but street smarts going for him is far more competent than anyone else in the camp. I love that. Without Radar, Trapper and Hawkeye can’t pull off a lot of their hijinks. Henry can be something of a wild card, in theory he’s on HawkTrap’s side, definitely more than I can say Potter was ever on HawkBeej’s side, but the thing with Henry is he likes to be liked by others, including by the army brass, whereas HawkTrap and Radar don’t give a shit about that. 

That early version of Radar takes a huge hit when Potter rolls in, and we see Radar’s subversive role diminished significantly. Actually if I were a Radar stan I’d be pretty pissed off about that, but usually my annoyance is reserved for the Potter-Klinger relationship. As a class-dynamics stan, I am heartbroken. Think about what we got instead in the mid-late years when it came to class… Rizzo whose class is the butt of the joke 90% of the time, Klinger who gets really into moneymaking schemes for some reason (think about why the only brown character on the show got that as a character beat) and uh… tha’s it. The next person on the ladder might be Hawkeye. Radar is still around until season 8 but they lean really hard into his being “simple” and infantilizing him and he’s no longer this scrappy, street-wise kid, who Charles frequently refers to as a “bumpkin”. I get why Gary Burghoff might’ve started to tire of playing that, he was nearing 40 by the time he left MASH. The early years allowed his character to be much more complicated in my opinion, and tbh, he was funny as fuck back then. 

Radar does get some solid content in 4 - 8. Burghoff is a great actor and he convincingly sells the more dramatic moments like in The Interview, Bug Out, Dear Sigmund, End Run, and Mail Call… Again. I don’t care for the framing of Fallen Idol but I think Burghoff and Alda have good chemistry and it was fun to see some conflict in their relationship. My problem with Radar-centric episodes in that era is they rely on “... and now Radar is all grown up!” as the moral of the story, but that only lasts until the next Radar episode rolls around and he’s a little kid again. I prefer episodes where we get to see him have fun. Your Hit Parade has always been a favourite of mine, I love Radio-DJ Radar. 

Unfortunately I think the moment Radar is truly seen as “grown up” on the show is Goodbye Radar parts 1 and 2, which is embarrassingly late imo. We see that he’s now grown up in a few ways: his role as the backbone of the 4077th has a noticeably different tone – people outwardly express their reliance on him, and Radar himself “takes on” the burden of running the unit rather than it magically falling to him, and he argues with Hawkeye on his level about staying. Before all that stuff about Radar was unsaid, and the one time Sidney does say it its preceded by “this 19-year-old is as childlike as the 4-to-5-year-old local Korean kids”. In Goodbye Radar it’s called out multiple times in the open. The other way we see that Radar has “come of age” is he takes more of an assertive role during his encounter with his love interest, Patty. We see him actually go for what he wants, trying to delay his flight, making the first move to kiss her and being noticeably disgruntled at having to leave her behind. I suppose it happens so late because they couldn’t manage him past that point, which is why he continues to be stagnant until that point.

When he does finally “come of age” it doesn’t land well for me because it’s so sudden. This is the same Radar who 10 episodes ago sought advice from the whole camp on how to talk to a pretty nurse in Hot Lips is Back in Town. I think that was the third or fourth time we saw that plot. I love a coming-of-age story but they need to be gradual for them to be effective, and that’s not easy to do on a episodic show. Really with the exception of Margaret and maybe Charles, I don’t know that any of the characters on MASH have a concrete character arc. I’ve gone back and forth with BJ - I like to see an arc there, but I have no clue how intentional it was. And with Margaret and Charles it might be a bit easier because they start out as antagonists. 

To be clear though, I don’t think “character development” is a surefire sign of a good character or a good show. I think Hawkeye is a fantastic character and he doesn’t develop much. But when the show made the shift to character drama, certain characters suffered a lot. Radar was one of them, Frank was another which is why Linville’s exit makes so much sense to me and he literally said of Frank, “there’s no where else for this character to go”. So that’s it really – I think Radar was a character who couldn’t quite land the leap to the show’s new format, but who was a fan favourite. He shows up less and less throughout season 7 and the excuse we’re given is that he’s “off on R&R”, so you almost get used to him not being there. 

To properly answer your actual question: I think he really worked well as a device in the early years. He buttresses the messaging of the show, he’s on the side of the “anti-regular-army” and – something that I think gets overlooked a lot – he’s fucking horny lmao. He may be virginal but he leers at women, he wants to have sex and go on dates with them, he can be devious and he’s not always automatically on Hawkeye’s side, sometimes he wants something in exchange for his help. It was a very fun vibe. So it was weird for me to see him go from that to this delicate little cherub who is only looking for a pure, lasting love – that was what his character was based around in the character drama years and I don’t care for it. Let Radar fuck tbh. He isn’t 10 years old, he’s 18-19-20. 

There is also this thing I wrote about him that got way more traction than I could’ve imagined. It started out as a meta post but I kinda hit flow with it and just started writing… it’s half-way between meta and prose and it generally sums up my feelings about Radar in a less analytical way that I’ve done here.

Thank you so much for the interesting ask!