#its sad to see people restrict themselves

[thefake-red]

Tbh you just have to find GOOD adult cartoons, same way you have to find GOOD kids cartoons.

Just for the sake of it, some adult cartoons (mostly shows, some movies) I enjoy include: Moral Orel, Mary & Max, Samurai Jack, King of the Hill, Venture Bros, Bojack Horseman, Felidae, Futurama, Roger Rabbit, Unicorn Wars, Scott Pilgrim, Clone High, Midnight Gospel, ETC!!!! And that's me avoiding mentioning anime, as there are SO many popular, good, adult animes.

Don't give up on adult cartoons just because vomit like Hazbin Hotel, Harley Quinn, Big Mouth, and Paradise PD exist, idk! You just have to look for things and not watch whatever slop Netflix puts in its top 10

Also very few kids shows have "the best most nuanced plots and characters" but I won't get into that. Bojack Horseman has more nuance than Princess Sofia

why do kids cartoons always have the best most nuanced and layered plots and characters and adult cartoons are always just “fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck”

[assumptionprime]

"I Just Don't Think That's Going To Happen"

Good news: I finally made a new comic!

Bad news: It's about something that sucks! If the good news here outweighs the bad, maybe support me on Patreon.

In the midst of talking about how much this sucks, I am extremely fortunate to even be able to move to somewhere safer. Please support those who can't, or who need a helping hand to go somewhere they can be themselves. (Give trans people money)

[Image description: Comic, sixteen panels. Panel 1: Robin speaking on her phone, clearly distressed, tears in her eyes: "I'm telling you that I'm scared. These people-- the kind of people you vote for-- want to take my health care, my rights away from me. I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave my home." The voice from the phone answers: "Well," Large dialogue text in a large white space between panels: "I just don't think that's going to happen." Panel 2: Robin, wide eyes still tearing up, stares in disbelief at her phone. Panel 3: A website heading "Home > News" above a headline that reads "Utah just banned gender-affirming healthcare for transgender kids. These 21 other states are considering similar bills in 2023." Panel 4: Another headline reads "Health care for transgender adults becomes new target in 2023 legislative session." sub heading continues: "Lawmakers prefiled many anti-trans bills ahead of state--" Panel 5: Robin looking at a tablet screen, concerned. Panel 6: Robin siting on a couch, watching TV. A speaker on the TV says: "After the anti-LGBTQ+ campaign prompted several protests and bomb threats made against the Boston facility, the group has now turned its gaze toward the Gender Health Program at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville." Panel 7: Several headlines: "New Tennessee bill banning 'male or female impersonators' in public could criminalize drag performers and trans people" "Missouri lawmakers ban transgender care for minors, restrict coverage for adults" "Tennessee has passed a ban on gender affirming health care for trans kids. The bill's exceptions may only exist on paper" They headlines are accompanied by a map showing the severity of anti-transgender legislation in different US states. Panel 8: Robin's spouse Jordan sitting on the couch, looking up from her laptop toward Robin. Robin is gripping her arm tightly, a look of distress and sadness on her face, tears welling in her eyes. Jordan says "That's it. We're leaving." Panel 9: Robin taping the top of a cardboard moving box, looking over her shoulder toward Jordan, who is saying something as she walks away holding another box. More boxes are stacked behind them. Panel 10: Robin sitting at a table with a large stack of paperwork and holding a pen. She is leaning back and groaning: "Eughhhhhh" Panel 11: Robin standing with three friends, embracing as one of them speaks "I'm glad we got to see you before you left. We'll miss you." Panel 12: Jordan and Robin standing by the open trunk of their car. Several bags and suitcases are loading into the back. Jordan is shoving things in tighter and grumbling "It WILL fit!" Robin, holding a vacuum compression bag of full of clothing that has yet to go in the trunk, looks unsure. Panel 13: Robin and Jordan standing in the empty house, lights off, with sunlight coming in from the windows in the back doors and lighting them from behind. Robin looks upset, Jordan has a comforting hand on her shoulder. Panel 14: Jordan and robin sitting in the very full car, their dog in the back seat. Jordan is driving, Robin in the passenger seat looking out the window. Panel 15: Robin, still in the passenger seat of the car, now propping her head up with her hand on her cheek. She is looking down, seeming morose. Large dialogue text in a large white space between panels: "I just don't think that's going to happen." Panel 16: closer shot on Robin. Her gaze has shifted outside the window, her expression is now bitter, with tears gathering in her eyes.]

[myokk]

Hi! I'm still feral for these two, would you mind giving us some art of them in their later years together!?

Hello angel!!!!

Sorry it’s taken so long to respond🫶🫶 but I wanted to draw some new art for this ask💓

We have: Sebastian and Eloise trying out their new fancy camera with a selfie, pictures of them with their daughter, and finally…idk I just always felt like this drawing is when they’re a bit older💓

I want to take this ask as an opportunity as well to talk a little about how I imagine their future (I have no chill & you can ignore this and just enjoy the art if you want😇).

I am a COMPLETE pantser - I never know how a chapter’s going to end when I start writing it (I always just have a few scenes I know I need to include to keep the plot moving forward). Although I have different *big* scenes I’m always writing towards, and themes/plot elements I’m always foreshadowing (shout out to @elliecutte for catching *almost* all of my hints and appreciating my general no chill😆), IM STILL NOT 100% SURE HOW I WILL END THINGS !!! 😳 I have a lot of endings I see as possible, and I think soon it will become more clear to me what will work the best💓

HAPPY ENDING:

Eloise and Sebastian become Unspeakables. I have a LOT of thoughts on this profession that could be its OWN post, and I feel like Unspeakables are generally specialized in one or two departments, but as their interests/research change they also change.

Eloise becomes an Unspeakable in the Mind and Death departments, with the occasional foray into Time. Her ancient magic is connected with all of these things (my version of AM is NOT like the game) & the Department of Mysteries is one of the only places that gives her any useful information about these things. Plus she thinks too much (it IS her hobby after all😆💓) and is very introverted so a hermit job like this is a perfect fit.

Sebastian becomes an Unspeakable as well, but I feel like it takes him a long time to specialize in anything, if he ever does. I just feel like becoming an Unspeakable is the adult equivalent of sneaking into the Restricted Section🥹🫶

They grow old together (I won’t explain TOO much) & have a lovely little family🥹 at least one daughter that they both dote on. Sebastian had an amazing childhood (idyllic until it wasn’t), and wants to give his daughter the same, and Eloise works hard to make sure their daughter feels the love that she never had growing up🥺

When Sirius is burned off the family tree, Eloise and Sebastian take him in🥹🫶 (they’re like 100 years old but WIZARDS LIVE LONGER…) The same happened to her all those years ago, and she wants him to know that his whole family hasn’t abandoned him.

Eloise LOVED her nieces - Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa - when they were younger, but as Voldemort becomes more powerful & people realize WHAT he’s doing, she has to separate herself from them. Her heart breaks seeing Bellatrix go mad, and seeing Narcissa engaged to a Malfoy out of obligation😔 (iykyk)

I haven’t thought any more about happy ending but I think it’s fun to think about how their future story might weave in with the actual canon events, ESPECIALLY since Eloise is a Black🥹💓

SAD ENDING:

After Sebastian gets his hands on Slytherin’s relic, it really starts to consume him and makes him even MORE obsessive than his natural tendencies - I imagine it similarly “talking” to him like Slytherin’s locket/horcrux did in Deathly Hallows (😳)

Eloise is deathly afraid of the changes she’s seeing in Sebastian and steals it from him (he would never willingly give it to her ESPECIALLY if it starts to feel like a precious item to him)

BUT the relic triggers the latent Black Family Madness in her - the madness that afflicts almost every woman in her family since…🤭 - and she herself starts to lose touch with reality. Her body and soul are already destroying themselves between the curse and the ancient magic inside of her, and the relic is what triggers it in her.

Sebastian becomes an Unspeakable, focusing on the Mind, in a desperate attempt to find a cure for his Eloise🥺

He never gives up his research, and sometimes when he comes home she is lucid and they talk about his research - otherwise, he just loves and takes care of her.

(He’s never successful in finding a way to reverse what he feels he caused in the first place - his ambition and single-mindedness is, to him, the reason why all of this happened)

Honestly who knows if I end their story either of these ways😌 I just love thinking of AUs and different endings and I have a few others I’ve considered as well!!! And whatever endings I don’t write will be immortalized on this blog and in my art as well🙏

[annawayne]

Anna I'm just curious how old are you?

Sorry if I'm being intrusive I just overthink too much if I'm too old to be in fandom You can not answer if it's uncomfortable, so please don't feel pressured to answer

Much love!

Hi anon!

I'm 27, and it's all fine, don't worry!

And you know, I would say that fandom is the place that doesn't have any restrictions: we gather together not by the age, but for our love for the same things. And this, this love doesn't know no age, it always go beyond. So, anon, no matter how old you are - 20, 38, 45, or 60 - you're welcome in any fandom because you share the same love like other people do :3

I know that a lot of people think that being in fandom is not "serious", when being an adult, but the truth is that the only "not serious" behaviour is to judge other people by their interest (as long as this "interest" is not harmful or insulting others, of course).

I actually had a situation when some very toxic man (lol, of course) said to me regarding my love for AruAni, "You're obsessed and it's not very good for you. You're already a grown-up woman, you better act like one". Well, there's always an ultimate answer to it, the one I said to him, "You're right, I'm a grown up and, unlike you, I act like one, so I don't listen to rude shitbags like you who tell me what to do with my life" ┐⁠(⁠ ⁠∵⁠ ⁠)⁠┌

And this is really it, you don't have to listen to anyone what you should love or not. Your interest is yours.

I understand that, of course, it's also difficult because of the social pressure, but if we will listen to anyone's what to do with our lives, what will be left for us? Life is a very fragile thing. And this fragility is for us to keep, not for other people with malice on their fingers trying to touch it.

I'm just like anyone else - I have a full-time job, mundane chores, health problems, taxes, medical check ups, sleep deprivation, maintaining my finances (I also have another quite specific condition - living in a war, but it's another thing), but I also have my love for theater and classics and rock concerts, my obsession with literature and ethno/vintage, my love for cinema, for art, for studying, for silly socks with hilarious print under the black palazzo pants and massive boots, my love for AruAni, who I adore with all my heart, for creating - writing and drawing, for wheezing when I see kitties or doggies, for cuddling with my plushie shiba-inu (his name is Mochi, I love him).

I can go to the opera, and then come back, write some AruAni angsty scenes and scream here with everyone on Tumblr on some headcanons - if Armin loves sharks, how Annie tries not to lose herself during the Ambassadors meeting when Armin looks like that etc etc - before starting working usually 8 hours. And it doesn't make me less or "weirder", or special or anything else. It just makes me - me, and there's nothing bad about it. In fact, it only brings me joy.

So, anon, no matter how old you are, what matters is your genuine passion and love, and if anyone tells you how to live your life - the only thing I can tell, is that such people are just jealous deep inside that you can openly love something and enjoy something, when they are not capable of it, being embarrassed or losing all the interests in general, caging themselves into "adult" frames, too pressured by social standards or simply not even having time for it - the whole list of reasons is enormous, and it's very sad, in fact.

We all sometimes lose our interests and hobbies in this adult life hurricane, but if you have it - defend it like the tree defends its roots in the storm: like its life depends on it, because being able to have the interest and being passionate about something, this is what is worth fighting for. It's a blessing and we should cherish it. It's not easy, but it's worth it.

(sorry for the sudden long read, I'm sorry if I bored you. It just seemed to me that this topic bothered you and I wanted to support you)

[nerdygaymormon]

“That means that few trans people will remain in the church, and that might be the ultimate goal.” Surely they can see that that is a terrible goal? What happened to all is welcome? Surely they can see that? Why would the true church of CHRIST want to exclude anyone? Why are they so scared? David, you’re a bit older than me (but not /that/ old) - is this worldwide transphobia an echo of how it was for gay people back then? Will it ever get better? Or will it just get worse and worse?

I agree it's a terrible goal.

I think because it wants to maintain that all are welcome, the LDS Church doesn't want to forbid a whole group of people, but it can make things intolerable enough that those people will remove themselves. That used to happen with gay people, and it was useful for the church because it didn't have to see the harm that its teachings had on their lives since they were no longer around.

There is tension in the church over queer issues. It would be easier if queer people remained "other" and not seen as part of the body of the church. Turns out that there's a group of people who are resistant to change and aren't willing to adjust their understandings because they're comfortable in their bigotry.

There are church members who have deep love for what they had been taught, members who eagerly opposed gay marriage, and who wish the church would go back to taking strong positions against gay people. The changes have made what once clear to now seem muddled.

Things will get better. God is love. The great commandments are love. The US Constitution offers rights to all citizens. The things which are right about this church and about American democracy & society can fix the things which are wrong.

Not knowing how long it will take is part of what makes this feel hopeless. Imagine if we knew that these new restrictions would be reversed in 3 years? It would make it easier to resist and endure.

There's no guarantees, but I believe there's reasons to be hopeful.

For one thing, there's a group of members who've gotten to know trans people and their eyes are opened to their divine humanity, they can't go back to not seeing.

Another is that while some states have implemented draconian anti-trans laws, court challenges are slowly rolling these back. And other states have opened their arms to trans people and many are moving to them from the inhospitable states, which means folks in the welcoming states will get to know trans people and view them as regular members of their community and want them to be treated with fairness.

Many queer people, including those who are trans, genderfluid, & nonbinary, have learned that God loves them as they are, that this is part of how they're meant to experience life. That truth is more important than any church policies and restrictions, or even church membership.

It makes me sad that the LDS Church is so scared of queer people because they can't see that God means for us to have joy and love. Many cherish the theology as they currently understand it and don't want to interpret things in a way that challenges or changes that understanding, it would mean going from feeling a secure stability to a feeling of unsurety as they step forward to new possibilities.

We need to learn how to see the great diversity of God's creation as being compatible with God's great plan

[ananke-xiii]

I’ve ended my post about Mary as a symbolic gift by saying that there wasn’t real space in the show for a Mary who was “not just a mom” but, truth be told, I think there wasn’t real space in the show for any character whose story wasn’t connected to Sam and Dean. As far as I’ve understood the show, the obsessive focus on Sam and Dean is both its main strength and its main weakness and I think that the finale showed it.

It’s not news that in SPN every side character who stops being useful to the plot dies. Or they die because their death is instrumental to the plot and/or the emotional arc of either Sam or Dean. Or both. This is true of every era and, I believe, it’s a rather foundational aspect of the show. This is the reason why, from a general narrative pov, I often compare the brothers to two cosmogonic forces because they are the ones creating their world which is THE world where everything and everyone depend on their story. There’s even an episode, “Weekend at Bobby’s”, where Sam and Dean sort of get called out because they only seem to care about themselves. Which isn’t true (well, more or less I'd argue, lol) but it is true that the show is exceedingly concerned with them and them alone. This extreme focus on the main character(s) is something that I haven’t found in any other show, to be quite frank with you.

Partial exceptions are Jody, Donna and the rest of the Wayward Sisters but that’s just because they wanted to use those characters for a spin-off. In reality we never know what happens to them after “Inherit the Earth”, what happens to Eileen, to AU!Bobby, to AU!Charlie, hell even to human Chuck. A good opportunity to show them one last time and tell us what happened to them would’ve been at Dean’s funeral. A funeral where nobody shows up. I know it was because of COVID restrictions but they still filmed and left that scene. So they wanted to tell us something with that, wanted us to see it. And we saw it, which I take as a way for the show to tell us that the story was really over and Dean’s death was final. I don’t want to go into the big “family is hell” vs “found family” debate but wherever you are on the two sides of the argument you kinda have to admit that it was very sad and quite cruel to show us that nobody attended Dean’s funeral.

The other exceptions are Crowley, Rowena and Castiel, three characters that have their own individual storylines that, to the surprise of no one, end when they get inextricably linked with that of the Winchesters. Crowley dies slowly and painfully of the Winchester Derangement Syndrome, whereas Rowena is revealed to be united with Sam in death. Her death. Castiel is the only character who escapes this narrative destiny right until 15x18 where he says that the reason he cared about the world was because of Dean. And then he also dies.

Perhaps the association between “worlds” and the “brothers” is at its most blatant in S13 where the Alternate Universe is a universe without Sam and Dean and, therefore, a boring universe, imo. And when I say “without Sam and Dean” I don’t mean in the sense that they were never born there but that they never even stepped foot there until, like, the last three episodes (and, by the way, they made them act like total dicks bossing around people in a war-zone.). This is not to say that, for example, Original Bobby (since I’ve mentioned him before) doesn’t have his own story, quite something else. This is to say that the vast majority of side characters in SPN have their own stories but their own stories only serve to “mirror and parallel” Sam and Dean’s. In other words, other characters’ stories are, apart from the above exceptions, always functional to the cosmogonic brothers. Case in point is that episode in S15 where Chuck eliminates all other worlds/drafts because what he cares about are “our” Sam and Dean. Sure, that was a jab at all the failed SPN spin-off but, again, this proves my point: people, much like Chuck, are interested in Sam and Dean and Sam and Dean alone (Big hello to those two Sam and Dean hopefully living a good life in Brazil, cheers! Or did Jack fix that as well? Who knows!).

The reason why Sam and Dean are absent in the Alternate Universe is not because they’re dead or were never supposed to be there but because Mary didn’t deal with Azazel. This interests me a lot because the cosmogonic aspect here is Mary’s choice: Mary is, de facto, a creator of worlds. Two to be precise but still, not bad. Now this would actually be an interesting spin-off, right? A series where Mary is one of the main characters and we get to focus on her? Oh wait, there is a spin-off about that. Or at least I think this is partly what “The Winchesters” is about because I haven’t watched it yet. It was, sadly, canceled and I don’t know why (these days they cancel shows according to the mood of the day apparently) but I’ll have to go with the current obscure ways of making profit in the media industry (as far as I know, people have no access to data to understand why certain decisions are made). This is, after all, the real world and in the real world god is profit and not a writer.

The centrality of Mary’s choice in S13 is not part of the original story that, on the contrary, was based on the notion that everything was predetermined and the struggle of our main characters was exactly this: will they or won’t they be able to exercise free will? However S13 reframes the original story because now what is deemed to be relevant is whether or not Mary is just a mother or… “not just a mom”. To use an image that’s become dear to me, the main weight put on one scale was still imagined motherhood: Mary as a character could only compare&contrast against that, against herself (as originally conceived by the narrative) and how she had imagined herself to be. She is therefore never fully free from being Sam and Dean’s mother because she’s never fully free from her own imagined motherhood. Which means she’s never fully free from her Special Heaven where she’s fake-happy with two fake-babies in a fake-perfect house and with who must be a fictional, imagined version of John. Which means that she’s not complete.

I mean, I'm surely not the only one who sees the illogicality here: Mary represents a myth about motherhood and safety and this myth takes the form of a nuclear family living in suburbia with the infamous white picket fence. Okay. She comes back to life to debunk this myth and we see that she's actually very different from how she was portrayed because she's adventurous and wild and taciturn but also leader-like, cold and secretly very sweet. Again, okay. But then she dies and we're told she's complete but we're also told (we don't see it, we're told) she's in a Special Heaven with John which, by the way, sounds very suspisciously close to Heaven's Prison. Fine, alright, okay! BUT THEN what is Mary's heaven (and, later on, everybody's heaven)? A myth about family and safety in the form of a nuclear family living in a sort of overexposed country-side. Like, what???

As I see it, what was needed to deconstruct Mary’s myth was for her to come to terms not only with the fact that her sacrifice was made in vain because there’s (apparently) no escape from the hunting world, but that she had deceived herself. For example, she might have discovered that she kinda doesn’t like leading the imagined life she used to dream about or perhaps her dream was always tainted in real life by what happened with Azazel so she never felt safe anyway, thus removing the one thing she ever wanted by getting out of the huntig world. I could go on and on but what I want to say is that it’s not enough, for me at least, to know that Mary likes to fuck and used to feed her children store-bought meals. This is cool but accessory. Do not show me the conflicted emotions of a character re: her past choices by giving me a WORLD where that character doesn’t make said choice (and therefore feels better about it). Let me see her as she realizes she was also going after a myth, let me see her as she realizes that the man she loved went basically half-mad with grief after her death, let me see her as she realizes how sorrowful her sons’ lives have been. Let me see her interact and generally be around the main characters/focus of the show.

As I’ve said, she couldn’t be free from her own myth because the narrative still needed her for Dean to be free from his own myth. To be honest I think it was a very cool idea and the two things could’ve been done together (I think it’s clear by now that I feel sorry for Mary as a character but that doesn’t mean that debunking the image of a parent isn’t a cool concept to write about). However, it totally was a retcon because S11 Amara, as much as I adore her, didn’t have the experience nor the emotional tools to understand such a deep human concept. She understood that humans need to experience/feel unconditional love and that this love can take the form of parental love from a time when humans are babies that need to be nurtured and cared for. So she saw a picture of Dean and Mary and, by virtue of her bond with Dean, she thought: oh now I get it! And she was right!!! But, like, human relationships are OF COURSE more intricate than this and there’s no way she could’ve understood all this in S11. If she had really understood it she would’ve never brought back a person just for another person to learn a lesson.

This ultimately also proves my point: Mary couldn’t be anything else than a mother in the show because the show itself is focused on Sam and Dean and everybody else depend on them to stay or not in their story. Mine is not necessarily a criticism, on the contrary, the show strikes a real chord with the mythical parent vs real one. But it didn’t let us see it because they decided that bringing back Mary just for her to be a mom would be awful. And they were correct! but, again, you can’t just bring back a central character like her and then spend the rest of THREE seasons writing her OUT of her sons’ story just for her to re-appear on time for her scheduled appointment with the fridge.

But they couldn’t do it because to have Mary back as a real fucking person would have meant, at some inevitable point in time, for the show to have her and her sons sit down and seriously talk about what the fuck happened since her death. To talk about John, to talk about the abuse, to talk about the demon blood, Hell, the Cage, the mark of Cain and, oh by the way we killed grandpa! Which means the show would have had to directly deal with trauma and they clearly didn’t want to go there. Only parallels and mirrors, mirrors and parallels. Mary never left that fridge.

[2rats1gogh]

I hate NPC fans. they always be llike " yess slay queen our queen ,  boss bitch bla bla and of course they hate GREEN  and (ofc except Helena because she is soo  cute aww " 🥰🥰 🥰)  and these types only exist for  telling us the atrocities or not even atrocities basically  any  NEGATIVE things happening in the show 😂😂  so for that they just criticise whats evil done in the show for reminding the atrocities to us 😂 BITCH ARE U SERIOUS, WOOAH WE  COULDNT SEE HOW EVIL THE CHARACTERS WOAHH .THANKS FOR TELLING THIS !!  And the funny part is they think "they have a idea" and they are soo cool while only thing  they do is  reminding us the  negative things in the show😂 and why im so angry about this , is  that its very  sad to see that many writers/screenwriters have to constantly restrict their imagination because of these types of people and we know they really should ignore them and move on but they human and humans dont like to get criticised and so they guard themselves. And plus they are not a SMALL group!!  that's why I'm calling out!!  ! BITCH you DONT have a opinion so instead of just acting like a brainless child   crave for more atrocities, for cheating, betrayings etc  crave for UNEXPECTED things . HELP writers to be more creative!!!! Otherwise why we here,  right? If you cant help , just SHUT THE FUCK UP!!

FR??? literally this??

[worflesbian]

in reference to prev post I joke about loving divorce on here a lot but in full sincerity t'pring and her story is a GREAT example of why I genuinely, unironically think divorce is a beautiful thing. as much as people have a right to their opinions about fictional ships and if seeing two people stick with a relationship through thick and thin appeals to you then each to their own, but in real life the idea of relationships being Work, as in the capitalist sense of a job you have to do in order to be financially secure enough to live, has historically been a major tool of the patriarchy in restricting women's freedom. divorce, especially no fault divorce, can be argued to be as crucial to women's freedom as the right to work and the right to vote. if you don't have legal recourse to end a marriage once you've entered it, and you live in a patriarchal society where your husband has more money and social standing than you, you are essentially a prisoner.

t'pring is a perfect example of this bc although I don't know if we ever find out the Vulcan stance on divorce, the fact that she isn't able to break off the engagement without having her fiance killed is pretty telling!! this story is very much of its time in the 60s and I'm glad that trek is no longer characterising the Vulcans as quite so extreme, but I also Love the way T'Pring gets to logic her way out of a situation that wouldve seen her (and Spock) trapped and unhappy for the rest of her long life.

I think that a lot of fandom attitudes reflect/magnify the wider patriarchal disdain for divorce, the whole idea of an otp and wanting your ship to be endgame isn't bad on its own but when people are aggressively against the idea they could ever split up, even amicably, it makes me wonder why the ending of a Disney movie is the ultimate romantic ideal for them. jokes about a divorced female character always characterise her as calculating, self-serving and wealthy whereas jokes about a divorced male character always show him as sad, pathetic, barely keeping himself presentable (like single men can't wash clothes for themselves) (i know many of them can't but why are you normalising this??).

although I said each to their own before, it does ring alarm bells for me when people look at a ship where the male character mistreats his love interest, and decide that they want to see them stick it out and make things work. does she have to teach him how to respect her in this vision? why does the sunk cost fallacy not apply? would you feel the same if your male blorbo was with a woman who didn't see him as a full person, or are you already writing her out to replace her with a guy?

I think it's frustrating for me to see people make the same assumptions with fiction that in reality have led women I know and love to waste months to years of their life trying to "fix" a relationship that was never functional to begin with with a man who refuses to do the bare minimum. so in conclusion, I am not being a bitch or a hater and am in fact speaking with a heart full of love and wonder at the vast spectrum of possibilities for life and relationships when I say ✨Divorce Him✨

[shinra-makonoid]

Do you think TERFs or radfems feel even a little bit of guilt that they are part of the reason trans people in the US are now passport-less or getting listed /marked for their trans status. Or do you think they are still too deluded to not see where this is going?

Because while I think a lot of them are happy with the EO to declare only female/male, banning of X on passport and most of them are probably fine with forcing even adult trans people to quit HRT cold turkey (ignoring the health issues that can arise from not having hormones at all).

But the next step which was already discussed with labeling trans people as pedophiles for dressing "inappropriately" around kids and with the talk about expanding the death penalty like that... You think that will be the line for them? Probably not for the trad radfem grifters but the OG radfems that claim to be pro LGB must be sweating with the threat of it expanding to GNC representation.

Like I admit as a former hardcore anti NB thinker I sympathised a little bit on a theoretical level when the radfems stuff became so prominent, like HRT should be more supervised and restricted, only for real dysphoric trans people, also not for kids etc.

But I never liked sharing my thoughts on that because I knew the LGBT community can't handle division.

To see that they are so incapable of connecting the dots between bodily autonomy for women in form of abortion (which is currently getting axed) and healthcare that is being restricted for adults for the sake of "saving people from themselves "preventing people from commiting irreversible "mutiliations"".

Like how stupid do you need to be to not realize that trans people are not even the real goal. That women who already have to jump through hoops to get their tubes tied, to get hysterectomies will be prohibited from that entirely...

I had these thought right at the beginning of the NB rise where I was pissed at them for not taking transsexuality seriously. But it was clear as day that even though I didn't see them as legitimately trans that doesn't mean its beneficial to claim that. While I superficially agreed with the whole transmed arguments there was always in the back of my mind this fear of division.

And I was right. And the LGB without the T's will feel that.

And even though I want to tell them "I told you so" and feel schadenfreude for them getting what they asked for... I can't.

Because all of this is just dreadful and it occurring to me as a product of a much deeper problem. Like at what point did they stop fanning and start putting in kindling?

And what point is that even important anymore? In the end everyone will say "I didn't know it would be this bad" or "I didn't want THIS".

Like that one video from the Venezuelan woman complaining they are getting targeted with deportations. I didn't feel anything but pity. Because what sad life do you have to hate others so much and have so little desire to understand them.

Because you would realize that they are not much different than you.

And the thing you advocate for to happen to others will hit you all the same. Because the people who execute your will don't differentiate.

I think most people will rationalize their positions based on what happened later. I think TERFs will claim they never were for those things, they'll rewrite history, will make themselves look like they were actually the good guys and not like they were a direct participant of everything that happened. I think LGB people that hate on the T will do the same thing.

Like I admit as a former hardcore anti NB thinker I sympathised a little bit on a theoretical level when the radfems stuff became so prominent, like HRT should be more supervised and restricted, only for real dysphoric trans people, also not for kids etc.

Everybody did. Especially when you're just starting to think you're trans, and thinking what it means to be trans, what it means to be "really trans", and having the need to be sure you're trans because of how much fearmonging everybody did on you regarding T, its effects, and also how shameful it was to be a gay or bi trans guy, how people like Blanchard and co considered us to be either little lost autistic girls or gay fangirls, how people fearmongered about the increase of trans people seeking care and all. The transphobia that existed then, and the environment we were in where so many people were simply playing with labels, deeply hurt us because it made our community inconsistant. You could share some of your experience as a trans person, and you'd have some weird mixing because some people had a totally different experience, because even under the "trans" label, we aren't really the same.

There are also some real shit about HRT that won't be fixed because we don't bring enough money to the pharmaceutical industry, such as they not producing enough testosterone for everyone (shortage of T are a thing here in some cities), and that T isn't indicated to treat gender dysphoria because it would cost millions of dollars to get that indication for little to no benefits for the industry.

To be perfectly fair, it also wasn't helped by the fact that, at least personally, I got super bullied over wanting to acknowledge the fact that my experience wasn't like the other trans people who didn't suffer from they dysphoria. I got friends turning against me because I spoke about science and wanting to acknowledge that my gender dysphoria was probably more neurological than social, and that it was a medical condition that I was deeply suffering from. On the other hand, the opposite also happened, some "transmeds" also mercilessly bullied "trenders". Imo I still think we shouldn't have been put under same label, but alas from an outsider perspective, from the perspective of society, we're all the same, and so, we'll stay that way. Independently of what we think or want in regards to our labels and how we want people to acknowledge us, the current times makes it impossible to clearly define anything. As you say we'll all get cooked the same.

There's also something Riley says in the video with Kalvin Garrah, is that you shouldn't listen to newly trans people, who just came out, or who just started HRT, because they're bound to think and do silly stuff. Well, we were all collectively at that point then.

I still think there is some intrinsic biological difference between me who suffers from gender dysphoria and someone who doesn't, I still think there might be some strange and/or things that should be navigated if you truly think you have dysphoria from both sexes, however I also realized that, politically and socially, as you say, it doesn't matter. And I think a lot of "transmeds" realized that with the time.

With time I think we also mellowed because we feel less dysphoric and we have less general anxiety, less doubts about being trans, and we grew a bit older. After 6 years of being trans, if anyone came to me and told me I wasn't trans for X Y Z reasons, I'd just laugh at them. I wouldn't start agonizing about whether I was making the right choice or not, whether I fell prey to some social contagion stuff, or whatever, which I used to do before taking T.

[canmom]

this fucking circus of 'project the Israeli flag on every available surface as the bombs fall', from the govs of every Western country, is so indescribably bleak. there's not even the pretense of both-sidesing 'oh it's so sad that they're killing each other over there' anymore, no mealy-mouthed 'we hope for a quick end to the violence', it's just full on cheering for the side carrying out a retaliatory massacre.

if you treated any population the way the two million-ish people in Gaza have been treated - if, for more than a (significantly curtailed) lifetime, you restrict their access to food, water, medicine, and electricity, strangle their economy, uphold an apartheid system with different legal rights based on ethnicity, prevent them from leaving, put invasive checkpoints on every other street, routinely blow up their homes, have snipers maim and kill people - if you leave no possibility that things could get better in the future...

well, orthogonal to what's 'moral', it's simply unsurprising someone in that situation would sooner or later try to fight back, however futilely. fuck, we saturate our media with stories of heroic rebels standing up against oppressors - it's not a foreign idea. it's not complicated to recognise that as long as conditions are so horrible, and so obviously, undeniably caused by Israel, organisations like Hamas will be able to position themselves as liberators.

but the Western Overton window seems to squarely centre on the idea that Hamas shooting back retroactively justifies the whole system of repression, and in fact it should probably be stepped up a notch. Netanyahu is out there talking like a fucking Final Fantasy villain about genociding the whole Strip, the Security Minister's throwing around phrases like 'human animals', and it still gives no one pause. like where the fuck is anyone in Gaza supposed to go? on one side is a massive wall and a warzone, on the second is Egypt's closed border, and on the third is the fucking ocean. so, what, run to a refugee camp elsewhere in Gaza? no, Israel will bomb that too.

(but of course (sigh) "geopolitics" overrides everything, always. the conclusion is already written, the justification is an afterthought. the West wants to keep its loyal, dependent outpost, so the Palestinians have to die. "it's so tragic, but there's no other option, you see? Hamas definitely steals all the aid ever. we can't imagine doing anything other than sending boxes of food of course. it's a difficult problem! now quick, sell the Israelis some more bombs, they'll run out at this rate.")

[originalleftist]

A sad fact of humanity is that a lot of people won't do something, even if they know it's right, unless they have to.

Take organ donations- an overwhelming majority of those polled, at least here in Canada, support them. But only a distinct minority actually register to be donors.

This is also why the idea bandied about, when they started lifting Covid restrictions, that people would just be responsible for themselves now, was so obviously unworkable. Because most people are not going to prioritize getting vaccinated or wearing a mask or staying home when sick if they don't have to, and most businesses aren't either. Even if they theoretically think its a good idea (I speak from experience- there are precautions I know I probably should do that I've put off and neglected).

Not all of this is shear laziness. Some of it is hypocrisy- I think this is a good idea, but want other people to bear the burden (see NIMBYs). But also... people are often really busy, overworked, overstressed, with limited resources, and, if it's not something they're passionate about or something they have to do to avoid death, imprisonment, or destitution, most people will, often, ignore it. So requiring people to do more isn't necessarily helping if you don't put supports in place to make it possible for them to do something.

BUT, the fact remains that if you really want to get people to do something, even something popular, the best way to do that is probably to mandate it. Or, if you want to take peoples' freedom of choice into account, and minimize backlash from the "Don't Tread On Me" dipshits, make it opt out rather than opt in, like some places are currently doing with organ donations. That way, the people who really don't want to still have a choice, but the people who aren't strongly opposed in theory, but just won't be arsed to do it if they don't have to, will go along.

Basically, making something opt in means only those passionate about it do it.

Making it opt out means that the passionate people and the undecideds/indifferent do it.

I would also argue that it follows from this that if a government ever proposes a solution to a long-term major problem, but makes it rely on voluntary participation, the effort is like performative and not expected or intended to actually succeed.

[thelediz]

Sonic Underground episode 26: Six is a Crowd

AKA the obligatory reverse/evil AU

I’m watching Sonic Underground in search of inspiration to finish a fic I’ve been writing forever. It’s a sad state of affairs. See the recap of the first three episodes here, if you're interested!

The plot (for want of a better word): To teach them a lesson, the Oracle of Delphius sends the triplets to another world, this one ruled over by three mysterious dictators: the Sonic Underground themselves! Can our heroes overcome their own worst selves to prove the heroes they really are?

Today’s parental guidance warning is actually about appearance-shaming. Specifically fat-shaming and a little bit of hair loss. It’s not directly addressed in the episode, but it’s there, and I give it a bored stare, and you should too.

So-ho, remember in episode 20, it ended on an image of a tiered thing? This was a snow-globe. Apparently that was foreshadowing for this episode, because the Oracle wants it when they talk to him. The plot doesn’t actually have anything to do with it, it’s just… a weird moment to remind you the episodes are linked, I guess. For the next few episodes, we're going to have actual continuity, and it's gonna be weird.

(SOMEONE CARED ABOUT THIS SHOW AND ITS PLOT.)

In other news, there’s something weird going on with the Oracle’s voice-sync, where his audio is just a fraction out from his mouth movements. I am pretty sure it’s not intentional.

They are transported to a city that is what the Archie comics used to use as the image of Mobius: multi-tiered, lots of greenery to the point that it often overflows the tier edges, flying cars, colour pallet of bronze and silver everywhere. So at least the evil hedgehogs we don't know about yet know how to make a city look good.

We get out first hint of weirdness when Sonic sees a statue of himself, and it has a gut. Sonic is unimpressed with this insult to his ‘perfect bod’. Now, this is legitimately funny in hindsight, because Classic Sonic (which Underground!Sonic is designed after) is a Round Boy, in contrast to Modern Sonic being a soft dorito. Generations made the joke of (when they saw each other) having the two Sonics slap their stomachs to draw attention to the difference. So it’s a bit of a meta-joke these days that Classic Sonic was chubby. (I actually take it a step further, because while I cannot finish a single level of the Sonic Riders games, that character model was a Long And Thin Boy. When combined with how short the triplets are compared to adult characters in this series, I like the idea of Sonic’s growth spurts causing him to have some pretty serious inconsistencies in his weight appearance, despite him having always been healthy and athletic.) But this episode isn’t going for that. It’s just saying evil!Sonic would be fat because he eats too many chilli dogs and doesn’t exercise enough. Because evil people do these things. Mmhm. We move on.

There are statues of the other two which aren’t as remarked upon, but closer inspection does show some weirdness. Sonia is super spiky and just straight up looks like a bitch, while Manic is holding a bag and smirking about it.

While Sonic indulges his chilli dog obsession, we see our first glimpse of this world’s Robotnik, who has hair. Because evil people are bald, too. After some minor success from the triplets, he manages to catch them, and we are introduced to the actual story of this world:

Here, the Sonic Underground are the evil dictators. Manic taxed everyone’s money, Sonia enacted cruel laws that restricted freedom, and Sonic outlawed music (he gives no reason for this, he just did). Robotnik is the leader of the Freedom Fighters. Luckily, Robotnik has a spy bot in the royal court and quickly discovers he hasn’t kidnapped the dictators, which is further proven by our heroes playing

The Song: I can do that for you. It’s a very sweet and corny song, vaguely reminiscent of “I’ll be there for you” by the Rembrandts, but cheesier. I kind of dig it.

So the plot, now the scene is set, is to have our triplets stride into the castle and make a mess. They fire all the palace guard SWATbots and split up to take on their evil selves individually.

Sonic chases his version to a race, but evil!Sonic is using weapons, and so wins.

Manic uses some kind of vacuum bot to take all evil!Manic’s money, and then sucks him up too.

Evil!Sonia doesn’t notice Sonia (who is dressed completely differently and doesn’t have a crown) is mirroring her behind an empty frame, and so is caught off-guard when Sonia confronts her and Manic arrives with his double. She faints. Because girl, I guess.

Sonic is saved by Robotnik showing up, and takes down his double by using his weapon against him. And so the bad guys are all captured.

So because our heroes aren’t actually evil even when they’re bad guys, the solution to this situation is to show the evil triplets the realities of the world they have created. And realism once again takes a nice trip out the window as their evil hearts are healed by a quick tour of the city.

I kid you not. That’s all it is.

And with that, our triplets head home to hear a monologue from Aleena about how power can corrupt, but good will totally triumph over evil soon, promise.

Oh, Trashfire, it was a close one, I almost thought you were on a roll with two good episodes in a row, but you didn’t let me down with that conflict and resolution. That was atrocious.

Because in contrast to the last episode, these evil characters' flaws weren’t based on our heroes’ flaws, and the solution didn’t make sense in context.

So much like the episode it calls back to, it’s another awkward Divine Right implication; that these people are heroes and royalty because we say, not because they’re actually good or worthy or…

It's not a good message to be sending, is what I’m getting at here.

But we move on regardless.

[teledyn]

Because jazz in the earlier days--the musicians were innovators and they were playing things that wasn't according to the status quo and they appreciated one another and anybody who DID something different they appreciated. Even the ones who weren't playing that, they appreciated them and supported them. Even if they couldn't play it they supported it--they didn't talk about it and all that. You got a case where a lot of successful musicians and some people who say they are musicians are talking against innovators of music. It's very bad to find that musicians want to restrict another musician. I don't see the artists restricting the artists . I really don't see that. Even in religion I notice the churches--the Catholic Church is getting liberal and changing their rules. Even governments are relaxing their rules & laws. Now a case like that, where all these diehards and at least the people who just held to the status quo are beginning to see that they're going to have to give in--it's imperative that all musicians stop criticizing their brother musicians because they're innovators and they really should be happening & they really should be taking some of the money they're making & putting up some sums & be right there with them listening or helping because they don't have anything to lose. In fact they could invest in them & make themselves some money. Now they're trying to be selfish in an art that you're not supposed to be selfish in. Because you can go all the way back & see that the musicians used to be minstrels--troubadours--they weren't selfish--they were out there playing for people. Now a lot of people are getting to say that musicians are trying to be politicians or trying to be religious and all of that, but that's not necessarily true. They're only doing what their brother musicians did, through the ages. They gave what they had to give because they were interested in people and they came out and brought something people needed. Just like people need music now. Even the Army can't get along without it--they got their band, and the Marines got their band and the Navy and the Air Force got their band and everything has its music. They got to have that. Now why can't people just have bands? They're fighting too, just like any soldier--they're fighting a battle to exist every day and their morale gets low too. So I would say that if governments are going to have bands to keep up the morale of their soldiers and the ones who pay the soldiers are the people, why can't they have bands to keep the morale of the people up? I think they do deserve something because they're paying so much taxes and they're paying the politicians' salary and they're keeping the thing going, so they should not be deprived of music & entertainment. . . they deserve some entertainment just as much as soldiers do. I'm not saying that soldiers should not have it. They need it. If they're going to be in the business of murder incorporated. Because that's really all it is and even a simple child knows that.... I go by feeling and spirit too. I'm not "righteous" but I know that spirits can tune in on other spirits, and these people's spirits are plenty low. So you come down to the point where you've got to have a better world. Now my contribution is in the music. In the first place, I feel that people have got to know - they got to know what happens as is. Now, they've never really been happy on this planet because they didn't ever have anything to be happy about. So then I show them in the music and give a feeling of happiness so they'll know when they're happy and when they're sad. But I really don't think people know the difference between good & evil and right & wrong on this planet. They simply don't know. . . .

Interview: Sun Ra Pt.2 (Dec 1966), Ann Arbor District Library

[rahleeyah]

Those two posts go hand in hand tbh the one about how sad it is to see Tumblr pulling away from its roots as a blogging platform and the one about how I like the badges; one of the biggest strengths Tumblr has is the features that allow people to feel distinct, unique, the ability to express themselves. I learned the basics of coding back in the day so I could create my perfect custom blog theme, something I never would have done if not for that specific motivating factor. It was part of the draw!!! The ability to customize, to not feel flattened into some samesy box, to feel like there were choices to be made. In the current Internet climate every social media is so restrictive, and it feels so impossible to locate our own voices, and I hate to see Tumblr begin to fall victim to the kind of corporate stupidity that says "if we want to be successful we have to be just like everyone else"; Tumblr can't be just like everybody else, and if it tries not only will it fail to reach the "everybody else" market, it will lose the devoted followers who came to Tumblr for Tumblr, and then what's left?

[knowledge-based-wumpus-agent]

Something I feel like people aren't getting about the whole Reddit API situation is that on some level it's not really about the API or 3rd party apps themselves, its that this situation is just another indicator that the like, ethos, of the internet of the 2010s is dying. In the early social media days there was this idea that platforms weren't the websites but the servers and the data, and they welcomed people to use the same tools they used to build the websites to make their own tools. Like the idea was that it would be mutually beneficial to let more technical users interact with the platforms in unapproved ways because it would drive people to the platforms and provide more value for users, and that's how you get things like bots and 3rd party clients and people doing statistics on subreddit membership and twitter linguistic analyses or whatever.

Reddit didn't even have an app for the longest time! Like people didn't go "wow this app sucks I'm going to make my own" the 3rd party apps were there first, because from Reddit's old perspective, if iPhone users wanted to interact with their service in a more platform specific way it's within their rights to create a client to do that. That's honestly probably why they haven't implemented mod tools or accessibility features, why spent the man-hours when someone else will do it for you?

But of course if people are interacting with your service via the API directly you can't serve them ads, and now it's even worse with the advent of GPT spam posts. So it was pretty inevitable that Reddit was going to start restricting the ways you can interact with it. And now that the big social media sites have destroyed all the competition they just do whatever they want, and being idealistic about how an open internet ought to work doesn't benefit them at all.

It's just sad to see API access start to be restricted across the internet. It's super annoying to see Steve Huffman act like the API wasn't always touted as like, a social good, when he's been there the whole time and made it like that in the first place. And I see a lot of people being like "oh boo-hoo you can't use 3rd party apps anymore waa" and I'm not sure that like trying to explain this stuff from a technical perspective would make them realize why people care, because it's more about how people thought and felt about the internet over a decade ago.

[flowermist7432]

bahggg I have so many thoughts in my head lately. Workin' on junk like Caraway county, and wanting to work on its themes that I wish I could be a "cool creator" and keep it to myself for the sake of being mysterious but, a part of me wants to talk about core themes and vent, because I feel like i don't got many to tell it too in my head other than into my own blog's void. I'll shove it below a cut if you don't wanna read my rambles! (it's long!)

Caraway County is a story about my issues and trauma in the form of discussing toxic relationships in the media format of mascot horror- more specifically using tropes such as "ghost in the machine" and parodying commentary on the idea of saturated media. And these aren't JUST restricted to stuff like friends, partnerships/romantic, familial, mutuals and self, etc. But also the dynamics between The Audience, The Creation, and Creator. What does it mean when creators shell out works for the sake of fame? Or ties themselves, their worth and their hurt so much it destroys them and cannot seperate it from their own identity. Or what it means when audiences take for granted creators, treating them and their work like their own little playground. What happens when both the player and the creator both unintentionally hurt the creation itself via their own expectations and wants. What does it feel like to see it from the main characters eyes? The character you project yourself onto so in a way it's you, the player. but it's also the creator.

the reason I started making Caraway County a long while back was because, after seeing a certain mascot horror popular at the time I thought "I don't feel anything for these characters". It was like...everything else. Characters with names and traumas. Clear beats of horror and sad moments to be set up but I just couldn't afford to care. These characters are just vessels to tell a story that you at your core are suppose to care an sympathize! Because the stuff happening to these characters you surely think "That's terrible!" but, I don't feel much. And it made me feel a bit miffed.

It's not that I don't think the creators didn't try. They made something! That makes it worth it even If I don't like it. But I couldn't help but feel cheated out. Because it was the same story told a few dozen times already with not an inch of vulnerability because they fit the slots of what's good for algorithm just right! Therefore I should like it and be the next BIG THING!

So i decided to vow and tell a story using these to make a point and tell my own story. Something genuine! But as I sit down and draw- my fears get to me. I get this nagging feeling "You aren't good enough. No one would care. You don't have the strength to make a game let alone a project. You're going to crash and burn just like all your other projects because that's all You ever do, Jack. Someone out there and even more is doing not only what you are but /better/ every day. You aren't just bad. you're mediocre."

and that. hurts a lot. To know I struggle so much and fear failure so deeply. I missed out on my entire childhood and even now because I was so damn scared that If something went wrong- it would only prove that all my worst fears about me were true. I want others to see my work and it to have meant something, and yet the idea of so many people seeing me also scares me. because that's so many eyes to disappoint. It feels like a pathetic tragedy. But all I know I can do is use those feelings to my advantage and put it in my work. Use those feelings to enhance what I want to say, show the most vulnerable side of myself to say, "Look at it."

I want to show all of me, but what if that just isn't good enough?