#it’s never my intention to start discourse

[strangeswift]

finding out i am blocked by someone is always so like omg what did i do?? i don't think i did anything?? that's so weird. oh well.

and then i remember that i constantly come on here say things that are inevitably gonna piss some people off even though To Me they're normal.

[thegardengrows-infrozenrain]

bitches be like "i'm a fan of [band] but anything besides their first 2/3 albums is just pop trash and really forgettable and i hate every song on the first few albums besides [tiny list] and honestly they've overstayed their welcome as artists and need to stop producing and if you like their first few albums/[specific album that is popular/unpopular] you're a tiktok fake fan who's only posing and pretending to like them"

like honey you're not a fan you're a toxic piece of shit

like yeah don't consume anything entirely uncritically but at the same time don't become an asshole who does nothing but criticize yknow

[catboybiologist]

The year is 2030.

At the Cincinnati stop of her "world tour", Taylor Swift ends her set. As she walks off the stage, she leans into a nearby mic and says "oh by the way, I'm lesbian".

She's still milking a public relationship with a man named Chett Whitesman, so this is met with a combination of cheers and confusion. Immediately, the media mobilizes. They have to intercept her before she gets onto her private jet, and ambush her for an interview. Luckily, this has become much easier these days. Since the release of her 2027 album, "The Carbon Emissions of my Heart", T Swizzle has performed a ritual sacrifice of an endangered species on live camera every time she boards her jet, a #girlboss way of saying that her emotional pain can only be healed by the tortured screams of drowning polar bears.

(Since this practice started, a devoted faction of Swifties have started a carbon negative algae farming commune, with the express intent of negating taytay sweezie's contributions to climate change. Apparently "her tortured soul deserves to pollute without guilt". They haven't even come close to their goals.)

Taytor Twift is intercepted after this ritual, as she's walking up the steps of her plane. When asked what the lesbian statement was about, she nonchalantly says "oh, I thought it was clear that was a joke. Anyways, G T G!" , before biting into the still beating heart of an emperor penguin.

During her flight, discourse on the newly renamed twitter-X-ElonIsExtremelyVirile Corp goes nuclear like it never has been before.

There's a camp of swifties thoroughly convinced that her relationship with Chett is all a beard so that she can still keep touring in the New Christian Republic of Florida, and the interview at the plane was deepfaked.

A different camp of Swifties feels insulted and betrayed that she would be anything less than a paragon of allyship. To them, this is the worst slight the queer community has ever experienced.

A third camp of Swifties insists that she *is* dating Chett, and is also a lesbian. They get insulted that anyone would police Taylor's labels. Comparisons to the Boulder, Colorado shooter are made.

A group of non Swifties tries to point out that everyone is fucking insane and that 'ole taytay regularly tear gases pride rallies to make way for her promenade to stadium venues, and who the fuck cares about this shit and point out that what a billionaire celebrity does for five minutes of PR is not worth your attention or discourse, nor does it warrant harassing other people for the labels *they* use, and isn't it really fucked up that Taylor is making a joke of how people describe their identities? They are promptly doxxed, harassed, and banned.

Bi lesbian discourse is off the charts. Nothing Taylor said has anything to do with it, but it happens anyways.

A lone transsexual who actually goes outside once in a while tweets "hey guys isn't it kinda fucked up that 2.4 billion people have been displaced by mega storms this year that her jet contributes to and is also specifically designed to fly over" and is promptly doxxed and harassed off the platform.

After an exhausting 9 minute plane ride, Tailing Swiffer lands in Columbus for the next performance of her world tour. She unveils a new single that contains the line "ride my horse after dumping him, stepping up onto my SAD dle".

All is forgotten. All is quiet. The Swifties continue as usual, moving on to the next discourse about these lyrics.

[langernameohnebedeutung]

there's a lot of valid takes on why Gen Z is becoming radicalised at the rate they are - all that misinformation, tiktok, red pill, the pandemic - all have good points. But I think another factor is that even politically, their sense of normalcy is entirely different to the one of prior generations. The spiral of the last 15 years, the way the Overton window has moved, the change of style and tone in political discourse, the normalisation of anti-democratic ideas, the obsession with people's private lives, the topics that are front and centre during elections these days, the changing concept of the respect and dignity expected in a public office (god I sound like a boomer) - all of that was shocking to us.

the three generations of my family, all born and raised in VERY different time periods from one another, we've all just been equally shocked and horrified again and again these last 15 years - not just by what is happening but how it is happening and by what is possible and how easy it is to make a total mockery of the democracy and the rule of law. For all of us, that was a feeling of realising that something we implicitly trusted in to the point that it didn't need talking about ... just falling away. Or proving to always have been an illusion to begin with. To someone who grows up right now, this safety and security has NEVER existed.

But for these kids - the window of their life where they start becoming politically and culturally aware basically coincides with this downward spiral and I think that makes many of them blind or numb to it. I think for many of them, that's just their understanding of how things naturally progress and politics works. That the way previous generations evaluate the current situation - this framework of intentional manipulation and misinformation and radicalisation - is just fair and acceptable behaviour and that of course politicians manipulate the discourse to get what they want and of course it is normal to tell brazen lies and spread panic if that gets you what you want and if you're loyal to the party, you parrot those lines whether you really believe in them or not. (And let's be honest with ourselves - the seed to that has always been there)

And others, who I imagine intellectually know that things are going downhill, are really stuck in this extremely mind-numbing fatalist mindset (climate change is gonna kill us all anyway, haha) which makes you hopeless and desperate. And being hopeless and desperate also makes you vulnerable to all kinds of manipulation and radicalisation - because the offer you a perspective. Or meaning.

If you think about the trad-wife and redpill stuff or generally christian nationalism but also any movement that instrumentalises history with ideological narratives, you notice that their narratives place periods of stability way back in time in periods that match aspects of their idelogy e.g. their fetishisation of the 1950s. Then they come up with some horrible bad evil enemy that destroyed that paradise and created the 'degenerate' misery we live in now. Authoritarians and ideologues and cults have always done this. It's part of constructing the mutual enemy.

Beause this way, they can create their illusion of this kind of mythical, unreachable utopia (the past) that fascists love and attach all kinds of conditions to reaching that - with no pressure for them to ever actually deliver: women staying at home, racial segregation, christian hegemony, eugenics, absolute exclusion of gay and trans identities etc. This doesn't just have the benefit of pushing their politics on a confused youth (though that's a big benefit) - it also helps them hide from young people that these last 15 years, they literally created the chaos that these kids are living in. They sowed this situation and right now, with the radicalisation of the youth, they are reaping the rewards.

And the thing is, we can blame the Tiktok or whatever but I also think it is important that we let younger people know and feel that what's happening right now - is just not normal and not sustainable.

And yes, we need to let go of the naive illusion that "the kid are going to save the world". We should never have had that. But I also don't think a radical heel-turn vilifying all of Gen Z is going to help anyone or do justice to the situation.

[doberbutts]

What I never understood is like... I thought we all agreed that past trauma doesn't justify abusive behavior, and that intent isn't as important as impact. So when the people who say stuff like "I hate all men" and "All men are trash" try to justify that by saying that they've been traumatized by men, I really can't get behind that reasoning? I mean, I can empathize with wanting to vent about past abuse, but I just don't think it's ever cool to generalize entire groups of people in the process. If a man was abused by his mom and started going off about how much he hates all women, we'd tell him to go to therapy. It's just so blatant to me that they want to avoid seeing the impact their words have on the people around them & they don't want to see how their man-hate interacts with racism, ableism, transphobia, etc etc.

Anyway, thanks a bunch for speaking on this! While I have not read Bell Hooks myself, I agree with all the snippets I've read through Tumblr, and I'll be looking up The Will To Change during my next library visit so I can become officially acquainted with her work. Thank you for leading me in that direction, and thank you for making such thoughtful, informative posts. You're a delight, and I hope you have a lovely week.

I think as well that often times people confuse venting- which is good and even therapeutic- with political and/or actionable discourse.

Person who was attacked, assaulted, and now traumatized by men talking about how they have an inherent distrust of men and at times wish they could live in a world without men is speaking from the darkest place of their fear and is working through their trauma.

Person who then takes these opinions and turns them into actual theory and pushes for this to become the new social norm, however, is no longer venting nor are they acting in a therapeutic manner. This is where it begins to harm people, and thus where it begins to be a problem.

There's been people- feminists, even- a lot smarter than me who have discussed at length the difference between the two. How we need to make space for one, but need to ensure the other is not being used as a bludgeon to harm those who just happen to be in the same demographic.

[astrologicaldreamin]

The Duality of Synastry

Stemming from my own personal experiences, there is this very stark and compelling similarity between prominant 4th-7th house synastry and 8th-12th house synastry, which touches upon karmic intent and purpose of the relationship. It is also the reason why I think so many people begin to get swept up into dissociative connections, assuming it is the premise of something entirely else. Which, I have a ton to say about.

Everyone understands or at least has heard of the compel of 8th house synastry and the illusive nature of the 12th house. It creates this profound, cosmic-level idolization and fascination within a connection. It is something that typically starts or begins as an intense spark or form of recognition. The person brings out a side that is contrasting to your usual self because of the weight of the connection. Within the 8th house, it brings out more transformative and destructive/intense qualities and events surrounding your life. You meet your recognition through there. However, within the 12th house, it brings out more unknown yet familiar qualities and events surrounding your life. It reminds me of the poetic imagery of two physical manifestations constantly circling around, but never yet reaching. You meet the recognition through whatever you feel you are seeking or lacking; the longing of something. However, nobody understands that the 4th/7th house creates, in another form, that same "profoundness." As someone who attracted a ton of relationships with 8th house dynamics, I thought I had to build a life of adhering to the occasional destructiveness of those connections. I was used to the upheaval and rebuild, never quite fully being able to encounter another one's space. It isn't always good or bad, but it is almost entirely sacrificial. Meanwhile, 4th and 7th house synastry can be described as walking into a place that has a scent that peaks your interest, making the place feel more welcomed and at home to you, and then leaving to discover that it is because that scent reminds you of something so closely intertwined to your own soul. 4th house synastry mimics the call of comfort and the home dynamics that you were raised upon, touching both the good and bad. Meanwhile, 7th house synastry touches upon the romanticization of those comfort qualities. This can also be good and bad, which is why the 7th house is also linked to open enemies - because the discourse of wanting something so much, of being assembled into the picture of desire, can be so overwhelming and bitter. Therefore, the duality of it all, invites an entirely different reason but all these houses stem at the core of a person.

The trending reason of finding the one is through the words, "when you know, you know." Which, in this case, I think is very valid. There is an innate soul calling, but there are a multitude of soul callings that we do actually experience. In the 8th house, it is in the space of our darkness. In the 12th house, it is in the literal space. In the 4th house, it is our soul. Meanwhile, in the 7th house, it is the accumulation of our soul's desires.

One thing I had to finally come to terms with is that 4th House and 7th House synastry is triggering. In some forms, I may even want to open the argument that it is more so than the 8th and 12th house, because those houses are feeding and bonding with the "ego." Therefore, we feel more at ease despite the instability. Meanwhile, the 4th and 7th house cannot have the ability to feel the ego because it goes beyond surface-level desire and manifestation. It is, entirely, triggering to the core and within equal balance/intensity to yourself. Unfortunately, we are also predominantly an ego-driven society and have been trained to necessitate those responses and needs. Therefore, when encountering the opposite, the 4th/7th house synastry, we feel off-guard and unfiltered and become triggered because we believe we should be a filtered society. It is not feeding or giving into the satisfaction of a higher game or goal - it just is. There is often a hard time of accepting what just is and we either stray away from the predictable, comforting, and peaceful to equate onto a higher need to always pursuing more - the 8th house/12th house.

We turn down or hate on the things that we exactly want, because there is a collective drive to never feeling adequate enough to have or be exactly "it." We "always" have to be in some form, progressing, which is why so many seek the constant movement of those alternative forms of synastry. Depending on who you are, there isn't a right or wrong answer, but simply just an understanding of what you individually are searching for. It is the breakdown of our belief systems that bring us the most peace and space for awareness.

[homelesstransroachguy]

I saw your post. I'm sorry again, but now I'm not sure if we could be friends again. My real-life best friend has told me the apology was trash, and now that I reread it, it is, but I will make this clear, sorry. I genuinely mean it but I am bad at trying to express it, so sorry again for this and PLEASE tell me if you want to still be friends or never again. It's much better if you just tell me in DMs since I will understand better and I didn't get the passive-aggressive tone you had, or I don't know if you had that tone, but tell me sooner or later so I can understand what you need me to do.

I am sorry

I will take responsibility for this since I don't think before speaking or writing, I'm very sorry Shari. We haven't been the longest friends, but I care about you, platonically. I really do want to make up for this, before I close off, yes. I sent that ask about the gay potion and thought it was funny before you told me how THAT'S ILLEGAL and how very wrong it is, specifically how it's considered sexual assault and considered drugging someone. My community and school usually joke about rape and other inappropriate topics that I thought were normal to begin with, until now. I could've searched it up, but I was not that smart to begin with and thought I knew about this topic already. But I didn't, thank you for educating me and I'm deeply sorry I have to be the reason you take a break from your blog.

[avelera]

I have seen some discourse going around about how Mel never manipulated jayce. Do you agree? And what are your views considering mel?

I say this because I think that she did kind of manipulate jayce in the beginning but genuinely ended up falling for him in the end. I mean she had to genuinely care and love him if she ended up subconsciously saving him with magic.

I think that a lot of people from what I have seen were pissed at season 2 ep8 when jayce got into the argument with Mel but I thought it was quite understandable that he reacted the way he did especially after what he went through. That being said I still felt bad for mel because she literally lost everything and was ready to open up to him.

Sorry for the ramble

I think a lot of the Mel/Jayce discourse is being done in bad faith right now, mostly by people who are anti-Jayce/Viktor rather than pro Mel/Jayce for whatever reason. I would point out, that canonically Mel and Jayce are not together at the end of the show and they also canonically (in my opinion) break up. So it's fine if you just really like the ship or wish things had gone differently, but it should be acknowledged that any Mel/Jayce fic outside the brief time they're together in the show is as much an AU as any Jayvik fic where they got together earlier.

As for the manipulation, I mean yeah, it canonically happened. There shouldn't be a debate. Jayce calls her out on in it 2.08 and Mel doesn't deny it, she just gives her reasons for why she manipulated him. Ostensibly it was to help him and Hextech too but she absolutely used sex as a tool of persuasion with deliberate intent to use it for those ends, she absolutely flirted with Jayce to ingratiate herself to him, she absolutely called him an investment (though there is a slight plothole on how he knows that, it was never said in his hearing), and even if she poses it to herself as helping him she also used those persuasive power to nudge him towards Hextech weapons which he categorically did not want to make, so her own ends superseded his benefit or preference in canonical instances.

For those who deny manipulation took place, go back and watch the opera house scene in S1. She plays him like a fiddle. Indeed, the expert violinist on stage (playing an actual Stradivarius irl, btw) is symbolically depicted as Mel's counterpart, showing how expertly she is manipulating the situation, and Jayce.

Now, I think you can chart how much Mel was with Jayce for her own ends vs. affection for him by her support for Hextech weaponry. When she's pushing for it, she's using him for her own House's goals. When she drops Hextech weapons as an issue and instead supports Jayce's vision for it (in S2) that's when she's acting out of affection for him. It's tragic that her affection for him grows while his declines so sharply as a result of his ordeal and finally realizing the early manipulations (kinda like that trope where someone dates another person for a bet, then falls for them, and then the other person learns about the bet and breaks up with them, only this one without a happy reunion after).

Their relationship is tragic. It's a tragedy. And it ends tragically with them apart and us left wondering if they could have made it together under other circumstances. "What could have been?" is an overarching theme in Arcane, and it is our own choices, our own ambition and greed that get in the way of getting what we need instead of what we want. Every single character is built around these principles, with the happy endings being those who get what they need instead of what they want, and the tragic ones (like Mel) getting what they want (power, to be an official Medarda as she says in her first scene) and not what she needs, which is anyone around her to share it with. You can feel the loss but you have to also acknowledge how she ended up there and why she narratively can't earn Jayce's love after what she did at the start of the relationship.

[vi-is-badass]

I actually think this video is really interesting. Not because I fully agree with it (there are a lot of points in the video I don't agree with and a lot that I do), but because I appreciate its intent.

I also fall in the same boat where I really liked the second season, but I didn't love it like I did the first and I appreciate that this is a video that wants to start a conversation. He wants to talk about why things didn't necessarily work for him, why it didn't seem to have the same impact as the first, and about how he wants to hear why those things might have worked for others.

So much discourse about this season has framed it as either the best thing ever, above any criticism, or the worst thing ever with no redeeming qualities and it's made it very frustrating and demoralizing to try and talk about it online.

I want to talk about how I loved aspects of this show and that I was also let down by certain aspects of the show as well, but anytime I try and talk about criticism it's rarely met with a genuine conversation.

I would love to hear how people interpreted things differently from me, why they felt that way, how it connected with them, because I feel like that's the purpose of stories. It's never going to resonate with anyone the same way and there may have been things I missed.

I also know I haven't always worded what I've wanted to say and my criticisms the way I want to get across what I mean. It has never been my intent to sound like I wasn't open to discussion, different interpretations, or counterpoints. I would like to actually talk more about this season and hear other people's thoughts as well.

[ratttgay]

waking up to phandom discourse is crazy

anyway i just wanted to add my two cents as a person living in singapore, one of the countries that dan mentioned in his explanation. because i'm seeing a lot of talking from people of other countries like america and not here LOL

i certainly can't speak for hong kong, but i have also lived in indonesia for an extended period of time and having been a queer person in both these countries, i can safely say it is not easy. (i won't talk about indonesia because i don't know much about their legislature but from my personal experience, being there and gay wasn't a walk in the park)

it has gotten better, for sure, but in both countries we are nowhere close to getting basic marriage rights etc. in fact, singapore has only RECENTLY overturned 377A (essentially a bill that made homosexual sex illegal). don't even get me started on trans rights, it's a whole other thing itself. we have extensive censorship in singapore (which, of course, extends to homosexuality and transgenderism), one of the highest in the world.

this is not to say we don't have a flourishing queer landscape in singapore. we have drag shows (RIOT! is a big one), we have pride festivals (pink dot), we have queer artists perform during national day (though their queerness isn't acknowledged. but they are still there, and it's worth mentioning).

both of these truths can coexist. dan is not wrong in saying that the government in singapore is homophobic. it is true.

it's okay to be hurt by what dan said, especially coming from his position as a white man who ultimately lives somewhere with more gay rights than us. both dan and phil make mistakes. it is okay to say that the "no homo" comment was insensitive.

i, however, think it is unreasonable to claim that dan was "stereotyping" asia as anti-gay. he was talking about governments. he meant governments. even in his first reply, he was talking about governments specifically. it was never about asia, or our culture or our people. saying that he is stereotyping is a clear sign of misreading intentions and his message.

i must add that this is a queer issue, and dan has experience with that. though he is not speaking as a person who lives in asia, he is speaking as a queer person being censored. it sucks. it sucks for him, it sucks for all of us. i probably will never be able to see TIT live, but at least i can rest in the fact that it wasn't for lack of trying.

it's something emotional for all us SEA phannies, i guess. but this is for the phannies who don't live in SEA that don't really understand the situation here. as a person who lives here i find the way dan acted reasonable and though phrased insensitively at first, didn't say anything untrue.

again, this is a sad thing. feel free to come into my ask box and talk to me, i'd love to connect with more phannies in SEA!!! and if you disagree with me, then go ahead and reply to this or whatever. but this is just me speaking as a person who lives in singapore. yea

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for breaking up with my boyfriend suddenly and lying about why?

I (21M) broke up with my boyfriend (18M) a few days ago. It was a painful decision that I already somewhat regret.

We met in uni and have been dating for about 3 months, and our relationship had been going extremely well, but I started to worry about our age gap. I was concerned about it when we first started flirting, but when he confessed to me I was so happy he felt the same way that I forgot about my worries for a little.

I'm VERY chronically online so I'm familiar with age gap discourse, and 18 and 21 seems to be a very grey area. The more I thought about our age gap, the more I looked into peoples' opinions on it online, and these opinions often didn't seem very positive. It made me super nervous about how people might view our relationship and also made me worry that I might be doing something predatory despite my intentions being pure. People in particular seemed to have issues when the girl was older (which I think is fucking weird, but anyway!) I'm a guy, but I'm FTM, only out to my boyfriend, and everyone around me knows me as a girl, so this was pretty worrying.

Our relationship wasn't a public thing - we're both private people and we wanted to date for a few months before going around parading it. But my boyfriend was getting more eager to show us off, which I was happy about before, but all my doomscrolling online had made me worry.

The breaking point for me was a youtuber from my country saying in a video that he found 18 and 21 creepy. Prior to that I'd tried to reassure myself with the idea that while people from like, the USA, might find the age gap weird, people from my own country (England) wouldn't care. But that video destroyed that safety blanket.

I became disgusted with myself and started to see myself as a bad person. I was also worried that when our relationship became more public, people would hate me. I've never had many friends, university is the happiest I've been by a mile in regards to my social life - I didn't want to lose that. Plus, I live at university and can't really move out right now, so I didn't want to be trapped with people who thought I was a creep.

So, after a particularly bad breakdown, I broke up with my boyfriend. I told him that I was struggling to juggle the relationship with my studies and was starting to become tired, and felt it was best for the both of us to end things. It was a believable reason because in general I have very little energy, so he completely bought it - but he was devastated. He kept apologising for not seeing the signs and kept saying he thought things were going so well, and he was right, because they were! I felt awful.

I feel really guilty about what I did, but I was in a state of panic. I don't know whether I did it more to 'cleanse' myself or for the sake of my reputation, I don't even know if the age gap is wrong, I don't even know if people would have reacted badly! I was just scared, but now I feel like a shitty person for what I did. I don't know if the reasoning behind my actions can justify completely blindsiding and lying to my ex like that. I thought I loved him, but maybe I don't if I was willing to do that!

So, tell me honestly, AITA?

[brawlingdiscontent]

I've been seeing a lot of Armand discourse lately about different interpretations of him and which are wrong and unreasonable and why - and one thing I'm not seeing reflected is the utter ambiguity of his character as presented by the TV show.

We start off thinking he's a totally different dude and then all of a sudden he's like "PSYCH I'm the vampire Armand!" and Louis' like: "you know that guy I've been mooning about for the past seven episodes? The love of my life is actually this other guy!" What does the audience do in this case? Do we believe Louis? Do we mistrust him given his false memories that Daniel's just exposed?

The show doesn't give us Armand's POV, we only see other characters' perspectives of him, including Daniel's one of suspicion, and Louis' which fluctuates and is defined by inconsistencies. We know what he says about himself, but also from the moment he appears as Armand, in the very act of appearing the show frames him as a liar (or at the very least, someone who may engage in deceptive practices/be withholding something)! And this confusing ambiguity is only validated by the story as it goes on, including 2.5 and the twist in 2.8. Did Armand mess with a significant chunk of Louis' memories without his consent? Possibly! Did he only alter the end of the 1973 altercation and only because Louis asked him to? Also possibly! Did he always love Louis and never intended to manipulate him and this was all an unfortunate tragedy? Could be! Was he hung up on Lestat and insincere and manipulative with Louis from the start? OR pining after Daniel all of these years? Maybe!

And bringing out evidence to support any one interpretation of Armand's motives or beliefs is complicated because as the show (and 2.8 in particular) has demonstrated, this evidence could be later redacted/invalidated!

Absolutely there's an argument to be made for nuance, which the show tends to present us with, and for duality, the "both and-" which rings true to the complexity of the characters it constructs: Armand could be manipulative AND traumatized AND sincere in his intent all at the same time!

While some outcomes are less likely, there's so much about Armand that we simply can't definitively confirm until/unless the show more explicitly addresses this from Armand's and/or a detached, 'objective,' third-person POV. Sometimes folks have extra insight from the books/behind the scenes, but I also think it's a totally fair viewing experience to take what's being presented to you at face value without doing extra research (and in this case the show presents multiple possibilities).

I'm obviously not talking about racist takes here (and things get trickier when we're talking about patterns of responses that may be strongly informed by biases), and the most extreme takes can feel a bit far-fetched, but in general there are so many interpretations of the character that can't be definitively claimed to be wrong.

'How can you interpret him as x?' Pretty easily, actually. He is ambiguous! inscrutable! (And while this runs the danger of an Orientalist framing, I think the show avoids this as it seems to argue that he's not these things because he's Asian-- but because he's Armand! - and also because of the vagaries of the show's particular chosen storytelling devices).

TL;DR: Re: Armand, there is so much that the show has yet to clearly define about the character, making many possible interpretations valid. In the meantime, maybe the only thing we can agree on is that he didn't give a shit about Claudia!

(P.S. that last line is a joke!)

[autistic-ben-tennyson]

In Defense of Shinji/Rei

Out of all the pairings in the Evangelion fandom, Shinji/Rei is one of the most controversial and least popular, especially here on tumblr. It did have some popularity at one point but that has died down in favor of Kawoshin and Asurei. It’s a ship that I, and many others, feel is often mischaracterized and dismissed due to its more controversial elements but one that is honestly very emotional and deserves less hate in my opinion, as do it’s shippers who people also have a misguided view of. Fandom in general has become more moralistic and puritanical in recent years. It’s like no one learned a thing from the SU fandom discourse where people were bullied or called homophobic for liking a certain pairing over the other.

Argument 1: she’s his mother/sister

The most common criticism of the pairing is that it’s incest and that their relationship is that of a brother-sister or mother-son. First, Rei’s whole arc in the show is that she’s not just a clone or copy of Yui or Lilith. She’s her own person with her own desires which is why her loyalty to Gendo wanes as she becomes more of an individual. Her DNA also isn’t that similar to Shinji and only a small amount of Yui’s was used. The rest was affected by Lilith hence the differences in their appearance. So there is a little bit of blood relation but it’s not on the same level of say Bwen or Pinecest. Incest is terrible because it’s a betrayal of family trust and abuse but Shinji and Rei met as teens and were not raised as siblings, nor did he know of her origin until Ritsuko explained it.

I’ve also seen the argument that their bond is sibling-like or Shinji views her as a Madonna/mother figure. Anno has stated that he intended there to be a “love triangle” with the pilot trio and show’s proposal described Rei as having “learned about feelings when she fell in love”. While that info comes from Reddit and may not be reliable, it does challenge the idea that there was no intention for their dynamic to be romantic.

Next, antis really take that elevator scene out of context where Shinji was complimenting her on being like a mom while ignoring him telling her she’d make a good housewife. The rebuilds and manga make their connection more blatant but it was always there. Misato, Toji and Kensuke all tease Shinji about his crush and the two act as friends after warming up despite their icy first interactions. There may be some maternal aspects to it but it’s rather simplistic to dumb their bond down to a family connection. It seems antis argue that they’re siblings because the romantic implications are uncomfortable and antis don’t want to admit that they do have feelings for each other.

Argument 2: it’s misogynistic and queer erasure

Okay, this is a less common argument against it but one I’ve seen from popular Eva analysis writers that view Kawoshin as the only valid pairing for Shinji. I’ve seen it used against Asushin and Marishin too. This goes hand and hand with the idea that Shinji views Rei as a Madonna and is misogynistic. I have a lot of thoughts about the “Shinji is an incel misogynist and Asuka did nothing wrong” discourse but that’s for another day. He’s not a perfect uwu soft boy but fans seem to base his entire characterization off the hospital scene in rather single issue Eva analyses that cherry-pick certain scenes or dialogue.

The argument that it’s queer erasure is one I’m starting to despise. Yes, there are homophobic dudebro fans who hate Kawoshin but not everyone who prefers a “straight” pairing is anti gay. Shinji could still be bisexual and be in a m/f relationship. I’ve also seen some ship him in a polycule with Rei and Kaworu. Plus, not everyone has to interpret the show or character the same way. The writers made it so people can view Kawoshin as romantic and Shinji as queer, but never demanded that be the only possible interpretation.

This kind reminds me of something I’ve occasionally seen in the Ben 10 fandom too. A few fans, not all of them, treating the wholesome gay ship as the only good pairing because of the problematic elements in the m/f ships or because they view the male protagonist as a misogynist. The “male character is sexist or a bad boyfriend so let’s make him gay” is also a fandom trope that kind of irritates me. Not every ship has be gay or a girlboss romance either.

Argument 3: they’re kids and you can’t ship them

This is one of the least common criticisms but one that I’ve occasionally encountered. First, they’re 14 which is around the time a lot of teens start dating. Second, romance =/= sex and child/teen characters can have romantic feelings for each other. Yes, ship wars over fictional kids can escalate but there’s nothing wrong with just liking a pairing. This post about Chihiro and Haku’s bond from Spirited Away kind of applies here too.

My thoughts: why do I love this pairing?

I first fell in love with this ship because I watched the rebuilds first on Amazon Prime and didn’t know the series was on Netflix because my account, embarrassingly, still has parental controls on it. I know they’re not everyone’s cup of tea but I liked them. Shinji was a character I really connected to and so was Rei. Their relationship got me a bit emotional and the scene where Shinji attempts to save her had me on the edge of my seat, while the scene where Shinji accepts Rei Q got a tear out of me as did the apology scene in 3.0+1.0.

If I had to compare them to any other pairing, which I’ve done before, it would be Hodaka/Hina from Weathering with You which also is a bit divisive and a bit of a tearjerker. Ironically, EoE is one of Makoto Shinkai’s favorites and he considers Anno an inspiration. Everything from their bond to Hodaka’s character and Hina’s arc of a blue haired girl, blackish-blue in Hina’s case, that’s lived a difficult life and who’s only purpose is to be a sacrificial lamb, learning to pray for herself is a lot like Shinji/Rei, down the ending of WWY being a lot like that of 2.22. The scene where Hodaka gives Hina a promise ring is also a little like the “smile” moment from Episode 6/1.11.

Conclusion

In short, Shinji/Rei isn’t a bad pairing and is overhated and misrepresented by many in the fandom. It’s fine to dislike it or prefer another ship but one can do so without chomping at the bit to paint its shippers as homophobes, misogynists or people with incest fetishes or Oedipal complexes. Many of us like it because it’s one of the least toxic relationships in the series and is honestly a very powerful story. Are there some questionable elements in it? Sure, but you can like a ship even if it’s not up to golden moral standards and expecting every pairing to be unproblematic is ridiculous. Real life is much more grey than what moralistic fans claim.

[heycarrots]

There’s been a lot of discourse about the nature of James and Miranda’s relationship. There’s even been a lot of discussion on my podcast about it. One thing I want to make clear is that my podcast is a platform for discussion on all points of view. I’m not going to agree, 100%, with everything that’s said, but it makes the views of my guests no less valid. There’s no right or wrong, here, because this is art and therefore, it is subject to interpretation.

My intent, however, is to attempt to get as close to the original intent of the actors as possible because we look at a show or a film or a play as going through several layers of distillation. Each level purifies the intended narrative leaving its truest essence.

When we make a reduction sauce using an alcohol of some kind, let’s say a red wine, the heat applied to it burns off things we don’t need for flavor. You’re never going to get drunk off of red wine reduction because there’s almost no alcohol left in it. That all gets burned off, leaving only the flavor components, which is what we wanted all along, anyway. We want that extra element that enriches the flavor of the steak, by adding nuance.

So let’s take apart that meal.

We start with the birth of the idea. The story kicks around in an author’s head, trying to get out, growing bigger and more persistent until it outgrows the confines of the mental box inspiration is stored in and has to be let out. That idea, that’s the cow.

The author raises that idea, feeds it, watches it grow, and then, ultimately slaughters it. That sounds awful, but once you have that idea pulsing, growing, evolving and then finally commit the final draft on paper, it is a kind of death. The life of the story comes to an end and it becomes memorialized in a mausoleum. Readers will come to visit, spend time with it, lay down flowers, cherish it, and mourn its passing.

The next level is adaptation. That’s the steak. There are many ways you can slice the story, large roasts encompassing the whole story or a smaller, hyper-focused character study fillet mignon.

A writers room gets hold of the cow and carves it up. They choose what gets cooked and what gets tossed. A GREAT group of writers saves the bones. They take in the entire supporting structure of the piece and while the whole story may not make it onto the screen, they will have slow roasted the bones for a stock. When you watch a show like Black Sails, where themes are introduced that won’t fully be explained or explored until several seasons later, that’s what that is. It is the stock being used to flavor the whole dish. You’ve distilled the entire cow to its purest essence and so every scene, every line of dialogue, every acting choice, encompasses the entirety of the story. A line from episode one is defined by knowledge of the finale and in regard to dialogue, defined by an actors’ knowledge of a character’s backstory. There are many writers rooms who are creating the bones of the story as they go, which means they aren’t starting with a rich stock. You can’t trace back character motivations or choices to begin with because those motivations changed throughout production.

Black Sails, again, isn’t one of those shows. Steinberg and Levine came into the writers room with their stock pot full and sloshing, spilling story everywhere. The richness of the details they were laying can make season one a bit hard to consume unless you are ready for a story on that level. Viewers need to come to the table with some bread to sop up all those character details because we WILL need them later.

Over the course of finalizing scripts and blocking out episodes, the steak is cooked. Like any great steak, this story is medium rare. More juice comes out with every bite. It’s what makes the show infinitely rewatchable. It continues to cook on the plate, but because it wasn’t overdone, it never dries out.

When the actors get ahold of it, that’s the reduction sauce we were talking about. That sauce provides nuance and flavor. That’s the emotion. A line of dialogue on a page is just ink. It’s nothing until it’s spoken aloud. And like any bit of language in this world, it’s subject to interpretation. In this case, it’s the actor who does the interpreting.

I spoke on the podcast about the art of subtext and how huge a role it plays in Black Sails. One example we used is Jane Eyre. It’s one of the most frequently adapted novels in the English language and with each adaptation, we get a new version of our characters. The most volatile and subject to change is Rochester. There are MANY versions of Rochester that I find appalling (including the original beast in the book), but each actor has formed him into something else, based on their performance. Toby Stephens takes Rochester and turns him into a silly tragic romantic, broken many times over by a society he never really fits into, despite the status of his birth. He connects with Ruth Wilson’s Jane because she fully and happily inhabits that space on the fringes that Rochester thinks he needs to climb out of. Jane takes his hand on the outside of the wall, turns him away from the guarded palace and shows him the wild world that was at his back this whole time.

This is what Toby Stephens, Luke Arnold, Louise Barnes, Zethu Dlomo, and really all the actors for whom their subtextual choices make them reflect like prisms, have done with their performances.

In the final distillation, character motivations and emotions are finalized by the actor. Writers can pontificate, the source material lies dead in its lovely tomb, but stories live and breathe by their storytellers.

What we’re left with is Toby’s face telling the world how deeply Flint loves Silver. Every single choice tells this story.

We’re left with Luke showing us how much Silver is repressing in his feelings for Flint. Luke’s face shows us an incredible depth of feeling and a door slamming shut.

We’re left with the incredible intimacy between James and Miranda, which speaks of a decade of shared physical intimacy. There’s an openness, a freeness to it until the moment in episode 3 when Miranda learns that James has found the Urca and is leaving soon to pursue it. She gives some of it away when she says “I thought I’d have you all to myself”. She is mourning the loss of intimacy that she only gets in short windows of time. They aren’t strained because James isn’t attracted to her, but because he’s rarely there. She has him for a few days at a time before he’s off on another hunt. The coldness starts from the moment he tells her he’s leaving in a few days because I believe she thinks he won’t be coming back, that this is the hunt he won’t survive and she’ll finally have lost both James and Thomas. From the moment Richard Guthrie darkens her door, she’s looking for a way to weaponize him and get them out. For her, it’s a race against the clock and she’s willing to sacrifice a bit of her relationship with James in the present to secure happiness for them in the future.

This is also why James still has sex with her before leaving, even though he’s furious for her reading Meditations to Richard. This is how they connect. They connected through physical intimacy in the flashbacks, as well. Him stroking her thumb in the carriage before the kiss. Tactile contact to seal their understanding of each other. Miranda bracing her hands on his chest during important moments in the Hamilton’s home, something she also does to Thomas, to show physical connection, physical intimacy. Miranda thrives on physical touch.

To think that, for 10 years, James is lying there like an object for Miranda to use, is, to me, short sighted. To think that James doesn’t love Miranda outside of a group, is also ignoring the fact that, 10 years on, James will not leave on a hunt (angry as they both are) without physically connecting with her, trying so hard to reach beyond his anger and the wound freshly opened from sight of that book he’s chosen not to look at for probably the better part of those 10 years. The way his hands hover over her back after she comes and he desperately wants to be with her in that moment, like the best of their moments, but he just can’t, speaks to the depth of his love for her.

So many fans of the show point to this sad sex scene as one of the most important character moments for James and Miranda, but I consistently come to the opposite conclusions about WHY it’s important and what we learn from it, because I’m taking my cues from the actor’s choices, not the director or the writers. On the page, in plain ink, he hates having sex with her. Toby and Louise show us, however, that they are trying to recapture a thing that is fleeting, reaching out to each other to patch up an old wound from which the scab has been picked off, leaving it seeping and raw.

From Toby’s performance, regardless of the words he uses years later to describe it, we see not a character who “loves men” or a character who “loves women”, but a character who LOVES. I don’t see Flint defining that love in terms of boxes and parameters. He’s a character who must be coaxed out, but then loves without reason, without a safety net, as he proves with his love of Silver. As was also referenced by a guest on the podcast, he places a sword in Silver’s hand and says “do it”.

Anyway, this post got away from me and took several turns, but the love between James and Miranda being dismissed by so many in the fandom has been bugging me for a while and I just needed to emotionally vomit on tumblr.

[ceasarslegion]

I find it funny how conservatives don't loop in my family in their anti-immigrant rhetoric.

My family is from the Netherlands. Generations upon generations were born and raised in Amsterdam. Our roots go back centuries in that area. My grandmother married a canadian man and much later, immigrated to Canada to be with him. Their daughter was born in Spain and their son was born in Amsterdam. My mom and my uncle both retain their Dutch citizenship and I had dual dutch-canadian until I turned 18 and the Netherlands made me choose because I had never lived in the country. I was born in canada, and as such automatically received canadian citizenship. I chose canada because I was born and partially raised and currently live here. And because I speak Dutch at an illiterate child's level

By all intents and purposes, I'm from just as much of an immigrant family as my Hispanic-Canadian classmates were. I had both cultures heavily featured in my household. Just last night I was telling my boyfriend about what dutch Santa clause was like and how we always went to the Christmas celebrations at the Dutch immigrant societies where we would tell zwarte piet we were good this year and he'd give us candy from his bag. Instead of cookies and milk, we'd leave a carrot in a wooden shoe for sinterklaas's horses and get candy in its place in the morning if we were good. (Do not start discourse on this post about how zwarte piet is often depicted, I was a literal child and all we saw at that age was a friendly chimney sweep who gave candy to the good children out of his big bag) and instead of presents under a tree, we'd get a knock on the door and run out to a sack of presents at the front door.

And as for food, I grew up on more Dutch cuisine than canadian. Which is quite... practical, for lack of a better term. Lots of meat and dairy. Pickled fish, cooked greens, pea soup, boiled potatoes, everything dipped in mayonnaise and Dijon mustard, including the pickled fish. My boyfriend thinks the palate this diet gave me is a sin against nature but I say sardines out of the can is a yummy treat just for me

When I tell conservatives about this, I get lots of perked up faces and interest in my family's traditions and the fact that we came from the Netherlands. They look at my often blunt way of speaking and nod along and laugh and say "yknow, I can see that! Dutch people are very blunt, I think you picked that up!" And then they ask about my extended family still in Amsterdam and about the times I've visited and ask about where they should go on their future vacations. They often express that it's a shame I had to give up one of my citizenships because "they shouldn't make you give up your heritage :(("

This is very... different from how they respond to people in the exact same situation from different countries. If I was originally from Mexico, or somewhere in Arabia, or India, or anywhere where the dominant demographic isn't white, they'd be singing a very different tune. They'd talk about how I should "go back to my country" and "stop taking canadian jobs" and might even talk about how they'd think my heritage was barbaric or primitive, if they were really daring.

Its almost like "anti-immigration" is just a more acceptable form of straight up racism

[dapperd3m0n]

Hypnosis as a symphony.

I saw some discourse on here recently (link here) about a good litmus test for a skilled hypnotist is whether they've had discipline in another art form. That really stuck with me, and I began wondering about my art form of choice, music, and how studying and pursuing music and composition creates my particular flavor of hypnosis -- and I found something interesting.

(Forgive me, it gets a bit rambly from here.)

I found that, to me, effective hypnosis has a lot of the same qualities as effective music. I'm a bit more biased toward a classical approach, as in, symphonies and sonatas as opposed to pop music, but the same principles apply.

At a bird's eye view level, good music is well structured. Whether you're writing something in sonata form or a song for your first album, there are certain conventions that are expected and, for the most part, adhered to. Sonata form is strict and rigid, with rules on rules (and heaven help you if you break them). But even with pop music, we have a generally expected format: intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, outro. It's nearly like clockwork.

Coherent hypnosis, too, also has a similar sense of structure, though not quite as rigid as sonata form, and even not as rigid as pop music. But the way that the hypnotist establishes rapport, sets the tone, cadence, and rhythm (all of these music words coming up so naturally, I love it), drops the listener like EDM, and brings them back up again, whether on the listener's own time or in a guided manner, reads to me the same way.

Of course, these expectations can always be subverted. Maybe we start with a chorus. Maybe we change keys, change tempo, change styles halfway through the piece. Maybe we pull a Beyonce and have several key changes. Done effectively, this isn't a jarring effect (at least, not in a negative way), but can greatly enhance the piece or hypnosis session.

Getting into the weeds a bit, great music to me makes use of motifs, or uniting ideas throughout a piece. It can be a hook, a lyric that comes back, or even the four notes that open Beethoven's Fifth (the universally recognizable dun dun dun duuuuun). I love listening to symphonies or large scale works, and finding hidden instances where these ideas come back. It's such a treat, and even when I know it's there, the piece doesn't lose any effect -- in fact, I have a deeper appreciation for it.

In the same way, we see this similar "motivic" idea with great hypnosis. The repetition of a word or phrase -- even, to an extent, the idea of triggers as motivic material -- makes the listener feel like they know the tune, can hum along, can dro-- ahem, be lulled into that sense of familiarity. Those who can do this on the fly and make it sound natural have the same virtuosity to me as jazz greats, who use the exact same principles of structure and repeated, recognizable ideas in their solos. And that's the key, isn't it? Repetition legitimizes, and it should be recognizable enough that one could get that lightbulb moment (or, you know, that dizzy, glassy look in their eyes) even when it's not in the exact context presented originally (think a trigger out of trance, for example).

Finally, a piece of music to me is truly exceptional when you can tell every note is crafted with intention. Some of these instances the audience may never know. For example, why did they choose a particular key? A particular time signature? Why this specific set of notes for the recurring idea? Was it someone's name? A word? And how does the changing of that idea reflect the story arc of the piece?

I'm reminded of Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, and the Idee Fixe (fixed idea) that occurs throughout the work. The occurrence, reoccurrence, and manipulation of the Idee Fixe isn't immediately recognizable. I didn't get it my first few listens. But after reading it (being forced to read about it) in school, I developed a newfound appreciation for the piece and the story that it follows, even if Berlioz was a total nut.

Exceptional hypnotists, those who seem to command the craft like it's breathing, do exactly this. Some of these things, again, the listener may never know -- how the hypnotist is analyzing changes in breathing, or using imagery that they know will resonate with the listener, or even using details about the listener that they don't consciously realize, but the hypnotists includes it in their composition anyway because they know the resulting effect is one they will want to listen to again, and again, and again. Of course they will. Of course they will.

If this all comes across as gobbledegook, oops. I've been tossing this idea around for a while, and it could be that it sounds better in my head. I would, however, be curious to hear how these ideas translate to painting, sculpture, or hell, even computer science. I'd love to hear what gets you excited about your craft and hypnosis, and how they come together to form something truly unique. That's what makes this world so special, after all.