#like i said lots of nuance and stuff

[skrunksthatwunk]

actually i'm still thinking about the moral orel finale.

he has a cross on his wall. do you know how much i think about that bc it's a lot.

a lot of stories ((auto)biographical or fictional) centering escape from abusive/fundamentalist christianity result in the lead characters leaving behind christianity entirely. and that makes complete sense! people often grow disillusioned with the associated systems and beliefs, and when it was something used to hurt them or something so inseparable from their abuse that they can't engage with it without hurting, it makes total sense that they would disengage entirely. and sometimes they just figure out that they don't really believe in god/a christian god/etc. a healthy deconstruction process can sometimes look like becoming an atheist or converting to another religion. it's all case by case. (note: i'm sure this happens with other religions as well, i'm just most familiar with christian versions of this phenomenon).

but in orel's case, his faith was one of the few things that actually brought him comfort and joy. he loved god, y'know? genuinely. and he felt loved by god and supported by him when he had no one else. and the abuses he faced were in how the people in his life twisted religion to control others, to run away from themselves, to shield them from others, etc. and often, orel's conflicts with how they acted out christianity come as a direct result of his purer understanding of god/jesus/whatever ("aren't we supposed to be like this/do that?" met with an adult's excuse for their own behavior or the fastest way they could think of to get orel to leave them alone (i.e. orel saying i thought we weren't supposed to lie? and clay saying uhhh it doesn't count if you're lying to yourself)). the little guy played catch with god instead of his dad, like.. his faith was real, and his love was real. and i think it's a good choice to have orel maintain something that was so important to him and such a grounding, comforting force in the midst of. All That Stuff Moralton Was Up To/Put Him Through. being all about jesus was not the problem, in orel's case.

and i know i'm mostly assuming that orel ended up in a healthier, less rigid version of christianity, but i feel like that's something that was hinted at a lot through the series, that that's the direction he'd go. when he meditates during the prayer bee and accepts stephanie's different way to communicate, incorporating elements of buddhism into his faith; when he has his I AM A CHURCH breakdown (removing himself from the institution and realizing he can be like,, the center of his own faith? taking a more individualistic approach? but Truly Going Through It at the same time), his acceptance (...sometimes) of those who are different from him and condemned by the adults of moralton (stephanie (lesbian icon stephanie my beloved), christina (who's like. just a slightly different form of fundie protestant from him), dr chosenberg (the jewish doctor from otherton in holy visage)). his track record on this isn't perfect, but it gets better as orel starts maturing and picking up on what an absolute shitfest moralton is. it's all ways of questioning the things he's been taught, and it makes sense that it would lead to a bigger questioning as he puts those pieces together more. anyway i think part of his growth is weeding out all the lost commandments of his upbringing and focusing on what faith means to him, and what he thinks it should mean. how he wants to see the world and how he wants to treat people and what he thinks is okay and right, and looking to religion for guidance in that, not as like. a way to justify hurting those he's afraid or resentful of, as his role models did.

he's coming to his own conclusions rather than obediently, unquestioningly taking in what others say. but he's still listening to pick out the parts that make sense to him. (edit/note: and it's his compassion and his faith that are the primary motivations for this questioning and revisal process, both of individual cases and, eventually, the final boss that is christianity.) it makes perfect sense as the conclusion to his character arc and it fits the overall approach of the show far better. it's good is what i'm saying.

and i think it's important to show that kind of ending, because that's a pretty common and equally valid result of deconstruction. and i think it cements the show's treatment of christianity as something that's often (and maybe even easily) exploited, but not something inherently bad. something that can be very positive, even. guys he even has a dog he's not afraid of loving anymore. he's not afraid of loving anyone more than jesus and i don't think it's because he loves this dog less than bartholomew (though he was probably far more desperate for healthy affection and companionship when he was younger). i think it's because he figures god would want him to love that dog. he's choosing to believe that god would want him to love and to be happy and to be kind. he's not afraid of loving in the wrong way do you know how cool that is he's taking back control he's taking back something he loves from his abusers im so normal

[quaranmine]

On Wednesday before I gave my presentation I confessed to a new employee that I was worried it would be too long and she brightly told me her life hack was to just let AI rewrite things for her. She said I should put in all my talking points and ask ChatGPT to give me a five minute exactly presentation. I was like....how is the most polite possible way (since this is a new colleague I shouldn't get off on the wrong foot with) that I can express that I will Not be taking this advice. Ever. I told her that I didn't think we were allowed to use ChatGPT at this job (we most certainly are not, it is a nightmare for any type of protected information) and also that I prefer to write all of my own work. Despite my best efforts the last part of that was still passive aggressive, lol.

Something about being a writer makes it so that it's almost offensive to me for someone to suggest I use AI to do my work instead? Like, the day I reach the point where I let AI write something for me is the day y'all need to be checking me for brain damage because clearly I'm losing it

[krogans-give-the-best-cuddles]

Tbh I get why they're not having more prev games options factor in (the crunch and remaking this game like 5 times) and I think the argument of focusing on making this game reactive inside of itself instead of to past events is fair and valid even.

I do however have to raise my eyebrow at the "we prioritized the choices that could be the most interesting" when what they had was 1. Who you romanced as inquisitor (which?? Was labeled friendship/romance in the screenshot I saw?? Even tho it didn't let you choose who your friends were???) 2. Whether the inquisition was disbanded 3. Something about Solas or whatever

But NOTHING about the well of sorrows?? But both the inquisitor and Morrigan are gonna be in the game?? My first question is: why did you not think who got the well of Sorrows would be interesting? My second question is: what is the goddamn point of having the inquisitor or Morrigan come back if the most ominous/interesting potential consequence for them is not going to be relevant at all?

They also said that they would be keeping it vague what was going on on all other decisions so that it felt like "your dragon age" still exists- but it would be impossible to be vague about Morrigan/Inquisitor and the well of Sorrows, GIVEN who has the power over it in this game. So the available options are 1. They are lying and they do make a Canon decision we cannot control 2. They forgot about the well entirely 3. Inquisitor and Morrigan die in a fire explosion two seconds after seeing them and conveniently completely cut off from the power the well has over them so we don't have to think about this at all

None of these are satisfying options. I am not against kind of "clean slating" this game for real. I think it is set in locations where that could be *stretched* to be feasible, and I think that if they had EAs guns to their heads the entire time making it, it IS the most artistically sound decision to prioritize making the game stand on its own over having it be a serious of fanservice moments. But why the fuck do we need to have Morri show up then? Put her away. Put the inquisitor away even. The fact that they have brought Morrigan back AND made this choice makes me question the story direction heavily- bc it seems like 1. Not everybody present even knew what the dominoes the previous game was setting up were and/or 2. They ARE still trying for fanservice anyway, which is stupid bc this whole venture was to prioritize new storytelling

[monsterfuckermilligan]

different person here but also, dean does constantly compare sam to female characters, especially in the early seasons, which is a big part of the reason i (and others) think dean somewhat sees sam as a women/questions his masculinity

i understand that, anon, and i also think supernatural was made in 2005 and the writers were/are misogynistic. this falls away more in the later seasons, especially when dean becomes more comfortable in his own masculinity and femininity and isn’t performing to the degree he is in originally. i don’t take much stake in this as a reading unless it takes into account that dean is the one who is narratively compared to women (he’s named after his grandma, deanna, compared to mary, has baby as a metaphor for his body who he refers to as she/her, is a direct comparison to amara, etc.) and is chastised for being too emotional by sam. it’s not to say that they’re invalid readings, or that headcanons aren’t perfectly okay, but i think when we’re comparing two characters who are written as men (particularly cis men) in canon, discussing who is more girl coded is just odd to me. that’s my personal opinion. i’m a big fan of transnatural as well, so this not a criticism of that by any means. headcanons, fanart, fanfic, etc. do not have to be based in canon. but i stand by my belief that many of the people who say sam is girl coded in canon are particularly focused on the pain and shame of femininity, and i just don’t like to think in that way. i think we could better focus on characters who are written to be women.

[seventh-district]

not even gonna tag this properly bc i don't wanna get Involved but i do have some Thoughts i need to get out into the void so here we go

(aaa quick edit: CW for mention/discussion of Boothill leaks)

[smile-files]

this might be a hot take... but if you care about disavowing media made by bad people out of fear of looking like a bad person yourself more than you care about actually doing good things... you might have your priorities (and your morals) screwed up a bit :/

(see my tags for more of my thoughts on this topic! please try to avoid making make bad-faith assumptions about what i mean!)

[snapcracklepop-myjoints]

hey could you trigger tag guns?

short answer: no...

.../maybe/need more context

long answer:

I do not have confidence in my ability to consistently trigger tag things. I completely understand why people may want certain things tagged, but ultimately i am not a person who is going to be able to consistently remember to do so. I get a LOT of requests and unfortunately I can't fulfill them all. Most of the tags I use are due to digital hoarding compulsions as opposed to actively remembering to tag things. Additionally, I do reblog a lot of things that fall into that general category so if guns are an issue for you I think that following me is maybe not the best thing for your mental health(though ofc this is up to your discretion). Stay safe, take care of yourself, and keep advocating for yourself :)

Even longer answer:

I have a lot of followers and I really can't accommodate every single trigger tag request i get. If you are a mutual please feel free to message me and I will do my best to accomodate you (first and foremost, I would need much more information to know how to do so, eg, what counts as something that requires a tag, because "guns" is a category that I think a lot of things can fall into (on account of the fact that I'm autistic)) however if you are not a mutual/someone I have personally engaged with in the past, I would suggest you unfollow me as I (as mentioned) am really not capable of fulfilling every single tagging request I receive.

To be clear, this is not me saying "fuck you for wanting me to tag something", but rather "I do not have the capacity to fulfill every single request I get by people I don't know, especially without further specification, and I want everyone to be safe and comfortable".

non mutuals are also very welcome to dm for requests,

I will not share any info or be a bitch about you requesting a trigger tag lol just understand that I may not be able to fulfill it. but i would genuinely love to have a convo with you about it either way <3

I hope this helps :) please stay safe and make the best choice for your mental health. pls dont be afraid to contact me <3

[indigodawns]

.

[certifiedwerewolf]

This fandom's gonna have me He Would Not Fucking Say That'ing over John Winchester of all people. If I have to read one more fic flattening him to a one-dimensional caricature that the boys unequivocally hate without question instead of the much more realistic and nuanced characterization we got from all three of them-- like there is so much bad about Supernatural but the messy, nuanced feelings the boys have about their dad is actually really good, realistic writing. It might be cathartic to have the boys just decide one day that they hate their dad and everything he did was bad but He Would Not Fucking Say That.

[sureuncertainty]

at least now i've gone through an important tumblr rite of passage, watching a longtime mutual become a radfem :/

[the-unfortunate-mpdg]

it's really funny whenever people talk about the randy shrine girl (aka norah) and think she's like some crazy entity but i've literally had conversations with her and she is, by far, one of the most normal people i've met online

[aeide-thea]

tumblr ate the original version of this post, but tl;dr i'd gotten to thinking about the 'don't just like, reblog!!1!' discourse that seems to have intensified lately, and i think for me the issue is basically that artists seem to want to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to whether they're our peers, or actual professionals?

like—fundamentally my blog is my space to express my own taste in. period. that's what it's fundamentally primarily for. ergo i'm not going to reblog things i have mixed feelings about, because that would be misrepresenting my taste, unless i can append critique to them in order to clarify where my taste diverges. which i can do, with professional work!

but i'm pretty sure most tumblr artists would be upset to find criticism popping up in their notes. which is totally understandable! but like. if i have to discuss your work politely, rather than honestly, because you're a peer who's in the room with me—then yeah, if i don't like it enough, i won't reblog it, because if i don't have anything good to say, i shouldn't say anything. which isn't how we handle professional art! but it is how we handle our peers.

and it just seems to me like—you've got artists out here going 'i'm a struggling amateur, so you should do me a solid and toss me some free publicity! 🥺' but also 'i'm trying to make a living at this, so you should do me a solid and toss me some free publicity! 🥺' and i just feel like, which is it? because if you're my peer, then i'm only going to discuss your work publicly if i like it enough, because to do otherwise would be rude. and if you're a professional, then i don't owe it to you to subsidize your business by providing free advertising! if a business's products don't actually organically appeal to people, it should go under!

which maybe sounds harsh, but like. i have no desire to see making art restricted in any way. people should make whatever art they like, regardless of audience or quality, and derive joy from that! but like. if you want to make a living from your art, you should, actually, be making work of a quality that will speak for itself, in which case you shouldn't need to browbeat people into recommending it??

[nururu]

I love debating with these dudebros that have these one piece podcasts bc they think they know everything and then it like "youre actually missing the entire point bc you're self absorbed" and then you introduce them to a whole new world.

[cruelsister-moved2]

yo, re: "that post abt how incels are just poor lonely men", if you're talking about the roadhogsbellyperson, he is very clearly Not defending incels? like idk if ur just hearing about the post second-hand but he stated, verbatim, "the problem with incels isn't that they want to have sex with beautiful women the problem is they view women as non-human". no part of that is defending incels or saying that incels are lonely and misunderstood or whatever. the post is just saying that wanting to have sex isn't somehow inherently evil and that sexual desire isn't evil and that people shouldn't be labeled "incels" simply for having a libido. in addition to this really puritanical attitude towards sex, the post was made to address the fact that there's this belief that anyone who interacts with sex workers is an "incel" or whatever, and that this mindset should be critiqued because demonizing those who purchase sex workers' labor and/or services is really just demonizing sex work itself. which is swerf rhetoric. idk how that post has gotten interpreted in such severe bad faith.

it's because he reblogged an addition which literally verbatim says incels are just lonely men whose only crime is making bad posts and then proceeding to say that people who try to pay for sex are actually worse than incels. which kind of undermines his whole thing. I feel like we're having a very colour-by-numbers conversion here because you can be making a fine, if pretty bland, point that wanting to have sex isn't a bad thing, but you can go about making the point in a way which is misogynistic (and incompetent). I was mad about the addition + the way he spoke to women (including SWs) who responded.

[scarah-screeeaaammss]

I hate resellers. Like a lot. like okay I get it, sometimes that's the only way someone can keep themselves on their feet. I'm not mad at them. I'm pissed about people who clearly don't need to go thrifting and reselling who do it anyway and it's like bro. Come on. Don't you feel a little bad? don't you know that thrifting is already getting more expensive??

[kingspuppet]

@studies-of-the-soul || Unprompted

I love your post about the origin of Goro’s toy gun! Though tbh when I played P5 for the first time, I thought “oh the detective prince doesn’t know about Iwai’s shop. he just picked up whatever was at Toys R Us and it worked”

|| AHHHHH thank you!!! That is a pretty funny thought.

On a serious note though, it doesn't really surprise me that Goro's gun is a toy. I don't think he ever states it in vanilla P5, but he does mention in Royal that he used to play with them when he was little. And in 'Proof of Justice' it's similarly mentioned, and Joker even searches for what that phrase is supposed to mean only to reach the conclusion of it being a toy ray gun before immediately envisioning Goro as a child.

Goro always wanted to be a hero, and that toy perfectly encapsulates his meaning of justice and what it symbolizes to him. I also feel like it's a hint that deep down, through all his anger and hatred, he's still very much a child. He didn't get a chance to just be a kid. He was forced to grow up quickly because of his circumstances, and meeting Shido only perpetuated that problem for him. But he makes it very clear that he's held onto this idea of wanting to be the hero all of his life. I don't think it's necessarily childish for him to think this way, but I think that for all of his bravado and cockiness it shows that in the end he's still very much a kid. That despite maturing mentally and physically he's still lacking a lot in emotional maturity. His perception is very black and white, one or the other, when it's not purely fact based.

His justice is heavily rooted into wanting to be a hero from his childhood. And I feel like that's really represented in the fact that his gun is a toy and that his sword is basically a lightsaber.