#interesting read…chewing on it

[lesbianboyfriend]

It seems crucial, therefore, to remain alert to the nuances and paradoxes of prostitution rather than to patronize prostitutes as embodiments of female sexual degradation or to glamorize them as unambiguous heroines of female revolt. Sexwork is a gendered form of work that takes its myriad meanings from the different societies in which it emerges.

Would feminists who condemn prostitutes for becoming complicit in commodity fetishism, for example, make the same criticism of black South African mine workers who drag from the earth the very stuff of commodity fetishism? Doesn't the argument that prostitutes sell themselves bear an uncanny and perilous resemblance to the sanctioned male view that a woman's identity is equivalent to her sexuality? Prostitutes do not sell themselves; rather, like all workers (including feminists), they exchange specific services for cash and carefully negotiate with their clients what services they provide, at what rate, and for how long.

The whore stigma disciplines all women. As one prostitute told me in a private conversation, "It's the stigma that hurts, not the sex. The sex is easy. Facing the world's hate is what breaks me down." The license to despise a prostitute is a license to despise any woman who takes sex, money, and mobility into her hands. If tricks are at liberty to abuse whores, chances are they will abuse other women. Empowering whores empowers all women, and educating men to respect prostitutes educates men to respect all women.

Society demonizes sexworkers because they demand more money than women should for services men expect for free. Prostitutes screw the system, dangerously interfering in the male distribution of property, power, and profit. As Margo St. James puts it, "In private the whore has power. The great fear for men, who are running things, is that if whores have a voice, suddenly good women are going to find out how much their time is worth, and how to ask for money." By organizing for decriminalization, prostitutes are organizing to put control of womens' work back in womens' hands.

[wolves-in-the-world]

the thing about eliot spencer as a character, right. the thing about him.

(and as always your mileage may vary on my analyses so if we disagree that's cool actually)

is that he is in fact a somewhat emotionally constipated idiot who is occasionally sensitive about his perceived masculinity and gets defensive about emotional intimacy around other men (largely hardison, who's much more comfortable expressing affection and embracing a softer kind of masculinity), but eliot displays enough emotional awareness and sensitivity and respect for women etc etc that anyone who's been subjected to that era of television will put on rose-tinted glasses without even looking twice.

(and he is, don't get me wrong, incredibly emotionally aware for a professionally punchy guy with enough trauma to sink the titanic. it still startles me to see.)

on top of which we have the layers and the accessories and the excellent hair with the secret braids and the way he barely has an ego and he's good with kids and protective of his team without taking it too far, and some of us never stood a fucking chance.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii, I recently went into the x-men and I found my own dead with Charles and Erik AND I NEED READ MORE OF THEM BUT I SO LOST AFTER POWERS AND HOUSE OF X SO I DON'T KNOW WHERE CONTINUE, can u help me?

(alsoIlikeyoursdrawingsiwishbeingsoconstantwithmycontentlikeu)

i'll be very candid with you my friend: i'm totally lost too !!!!!!! your comic-reading journey is about as green as mine and so i cant personally give you a super great guide- but beautiful people on the internet exist who've done most of the dirty work for us when sorting through the stories you 'should' read so i'm borrowing them to help us both

you can read this article to read about one person's advice with exploring krakoa and- in their opinion- its most 'significant' stories, though to summarize the issues they recommend looking into:

House of X/Powers of X (which you should have already done)

X of Swords event

Hellfire Gala

Inferno

X Lives and X Deaths of Wolverine

Second Hellfire Gala

Third Hellfire Gala

Fall of the House of X/Rise of the Powers of X (also should have already done, however...) +Single issue: X-Men (2021 series) #35 aka Uncanny X-Men #700 is featured at the end of the FoX omnibus, though the omnibus excludes an extra bit at the end involving a cliffhanger for Charles's fate after he's arrested

if you want to dig a little deeper though, you can check out this article from another individual which includes another wave of 'relevant' (word used loosely as some can be considered more poignant than others) krakoa stories and stories related to it or set during the period.

it's a lot longer and more in depth than the last article, so again i only really rec peaking at this one depending on how deep you wanna go, or if you decide you want to explore more after reading the more 'key' stories. def wouldn't hurt to give it a glance just in case you read some summaries that pique your interest!

all in all, don't take these as concrete rules or guides to follow: comics are meant to be fun, these are just good starting points if you're feeling lost or overwhelmed. at the end of the day, you decide ultimately what you want to read and which stories interest you the most

happy reading !

[icharchivist]

I think one thing i really hate about Veilguard is that in this attempt to make Solas less sympathetic they do simplify his motivations and end up doing things specifically for people to dislike him (re: the whole Varric storyline),

but they also just make everyone around him paragons of virtues so it becomes clearer, so it does end up being too black and white.

Like Solas has flaws! he's ruthless! he would kill his friends if they got in the way of his goals! A lot of people died because of the calls he made! he's pragmatic! he copes by not seeing people as "real"! He manipulates other people! those sucks, right?

But in DAI he's balanced with Bull who also says that he has to deshumanize the people in front of him to just be okay with killing them. or Vivienne who casually mentions that killing the servants is a normal way to play The Game. Or Dorian who argues in favor of slavery in the main game and then approves of Fen'Harel's methods in Trespasser after he starts to realize radical action is necessary. Or Blackwall who made a terrible call too as a general once and still is paying the consequences of it. Or Leliana who is also someone who was made into a weapon to support someone she loved "her call, but my conscience to bear the consequences". Also just Leliana or Vivienne or Josephine being quite manipulative themselves.

Or even Felassan in The Masked Empire letting Imshael kill innocent elves, being ready to kill Briala once she starts to see through his plan.

Or Solas' arrogance over everything he knows about the past that clashes with Morrigan's own arrogance about it when they talk in the Temple of Mythal.

Veilguard meanwhile both have the most inoffensive companions of the whole franchise (none of them deal with guilt for something they actually did, at worse they have misplaced guilt (Bellara), else don't worry even the assassin knows he only ever kills bad people. (compared to Zevran who knows he had been sent to kill people who perhaps didn't deserve it).), and when it can bring back a character from before, it's by stripping them of anything that would make them sympathize with Solas.

Re: Felassan losing his edge completely just to be shocked about Solas' actions, or Morrigan joking about how she humansplained him elven history and "resolving" her conflict with Mythal offscreen to better lecture Solas' about his own later. (which i'm so angry at, Morrigan's "arc" this game made me so angry, my god.)

So instead of Solas being flawed, the way Any Dragon Age Character is flawed, he's demonized to the extreme while also refusing to have any characters match his freak.

And it's not even mentioning how Rook fails at also having any chances of relating to Solas, in a way the Inquisitor could (if only because as a leader sometimes you make calls that will get people killed. Re, all the people who died in Adamant or in the Grey Wardens' War Table missions, and it's not even mentioning the one War Table mission about whether to sacrifice innocents to find Red Templars or give up on a promising lead.)

And it's why lots of Solas' fans will end up being much more defensive about him because the gap created in Veilguard is just... deeply out of synch with the way the franchise had dealed with controversial characters yet.

That makes Veilguard a lot more frustrating than it even is to start with.

[fiapple]

i'm getting towards the end of the skypeia arc, & i'd like to say just how much i adore the way the female strawhats have been treated.

just... every aspect of how the way their characters have been previously contextualized influences the story-line is treated with a masterful amount of consideration. we're given so many layers to both of them that enrich not only their characters specifically, but the arc, and the one piece world as a whole. without nami & robin having their specific skills, and their specific values, without those being built upon, the story would have come to a halt.

you could not have skypeia without nami & robin being who they are as individuals. not just because they never would've gotten there without nami, but also because the way these women think is itself foundational to the machinations of the arc as a whole.

to be totally upfront, if you think any other strawhats were more central to the skypeia arc than nami & robin were you are full-on fucking lying to yourself.

[yashley]

“After Eddie went missing, I didn’t want anyone to have to suffer through that anymore. I wanted to find answers.”

[maingh0st]

@belabellissima's tags on this post deserve a post of their own, i—

[tea-cat-arts]

I'm willing to at least hear out most of the "xyz plot point is heavily tied to abc cultural context" brands of posts but the "wwx isn't meant to be read as morally gray" and "the western fandom made up Sizhui being wangxian's son" brands of post make me feel like my cultural ignorance is being used to gaslight me

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Thank you for your recent post about Louis and Violet, I loved your interpretation about them giving their heart to Clem :) But now I wonder what happens to their heart if Clem saves them, but spends time with the other. Does Saved Violet still have a pin she considers giving to Clem, but doesn’t? Does Saved Louis still consider showing his piano to her, but chooses not to? Basically, could there be story reason for them not sharing their heart if they were “only” saved …?

I think there's a reason they don't "give Clementine their heart" when you don't spend that time with them. Choosing to follow either Louis or Violet is such an important choice, one you have to make since you can't just run the timer out and not choose.

Even if we take the romantic element out of it, Clementine's still choosing between characters who represent something greater than themselves; a survival philosophy, a desire, a future. Her decision then reflects back onto her, who she becomes by the end of the game.

I believe the romance and best friend routes enhance the story, and that Louis and Violet give their hearts to her in the friendship routes to an extent given Louis still wants her to carve her initial into the piano and Violet still gives her a friendship pin to wear. It's just in less of a romantic sense, but still strong, nonetheless.

These scenes are so integral, though. They're moments of Clementine and them alone before the traumatic raid happens where Mitch dies, and three of their friends are captured. It's intimate. It's where Louis and Violet allow themselves to be vulnerable with Clementine after everything they've been through... so if you miss out on that, their relationship remains unchanged. No progress, no growth.

But, the unfortunate thing about these routes you've suggested—spending time with one and then saving the other—is that Clementine's neutral with the one she saved. They're not best friends, they're not romantic, and that means you miss out on a lot of dialogue/scenes. It also means Violet doesn't give Clementine the pin, and Louis doesn't show her the piano.

Hell, Louis even says, "It's just, you and Violet are close. Like, really close," if you followed her and then saved him, and I think he says it even if Clementine's not romantically involved with Vi. This tells me that following them is so important that when Clementine doesn't, she's lost the opportunity to be given their allegorical hearts, even if she saved them.

It makes sense, though, and it's a consequence of your choices. Choosing not to follow them is a quiet rejection that isn't remedied by saving them from raiders.

[gen-is-gone]

Hmmmm...I will say people's reactions to chapter six so far have been interesting. And do imo betray exactly the bias in Stan’s favor that I sort of suspected fandom had.

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

Talia saying Jason with 24 hours and a survival kit, fresh from the pit, couldn't be tracked by Ra's is interesting

And oopsies I liveblogged all of lost days in the tags of this post

[the--highlanders]

hhhhhhhghfj i need to write kirsty again. if i don't write something jacobite-related soon i may die

[thebluemoo]

Okay this is a bit of a plea for help--

I picked up the first couple of issue of the New JSA book this week and I am just. So lost. ( that's not me trying to make a judgement on the writing, I'm well aware that my reading habits are why I'm confused). I'm wondering if anyone could recommend a good place to start reading background to help it makes sense. (Note, I decided that after extensive wiki reading the way to gateway into reading comics was just to read every Stephanie brown appearance and it's pretty have for them to include her in the big universe altering events so I am not read in on basically any major events following rebirth)

Essentially, I'm nor well versed in what’s going on in current DC continuity and I'm not really experienced with the JSA either, and I knew that going in but I figured that when I got lost, I'd go back and read whatever I needed to in order to clarify. I just. Don’t even begin to know where that is.

Am I shouting into the void? Maybe, but I’m gonna do it anyway

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

when a new interest is kicking off hardcore but literally no one in your life is even remotely interested, makes you incredibly anxious about sharing more than maybe three sentences about the Thing, and you can't even seem to connect to anyone online even though there's at least a few fans there even though what you really need is at least an hour of in-depth discussion of the Thing out loud so you're just sitting there like. this is fine

[daz4i]

dead apple "do i look like that good of a person?" "...yeah. why?" scene has hit our parameters. there are no survivors

[lylahammar]

I'm always campaigning so hard for everyone to get into the things I love but also if anyone near me acts like they like my special interest as much as I do then I will move into the mountains and start growing vegetables in a bad way