#not that we need to sympathize with them

[grossdyke]

i always see hc’s about sirius & lily bonding over their estranged relationships with their siblings but what we really need to discuss is how it’s another reason for them to mistrust and/or dislike and/or not respect each other because reg & lily feel like they were abandoned while sirius & petunia are the older siblings who left them behind ..

[penderbend]

going back to s3 malevolent and good LORD this shit is so good. forgot how absolutely insane it is. easily my fav season (though i do love me my medieval jaunts) this just has something mixed in it thats so damn captivating

[itsanotheridiot]

You know the writing of a character is good when they are literally a rich cop and you got me yelling at my screen “eat the rich” and “all cops are bastards” but also making me feel so bad for her as well as we see her change completely the grief fully consuming her and stripping her of all her morals leaving behind one thing rage

[annabelle--cane]

saw a comment on a livejournal bh meta post from 2013 that sent me on an internal hero's journey about sexual misconduct and gendered power in being human

[antirepurp]

i feel like the ancients in frontiers bother me but im having a hard time pinning down the exact specifics of it. i don't think i have a problem with them being an alien ancient civilization, but the execution of them feels kind of. generic. beyond the implied connection to chaos that is. the echidnas were portrayed as warmongering and power hungry, likely due to their leadership, and they have an interesting position as a part of knuckles' heritage when knuckles is in several ways the exact opposite of their ideals - a peaceful guardian who seeks to preserve and not to conquer. the ancients in boom were left vague due to the dev hell and the repeat rewrites of the story, but in some ways it does them favors i'd say. they are a looming presence upon bygone island, their history scattered about and left to be rediscovered. supposedly a peaceful society sans lyric, who was able to cause havoc and destruction perhaps because the rest of his people did not have something like an army to fight back immediately. lyric was the only one who had any sort of ties to military concepts. the cartoon gives the ancients impressive technology, but i can't recall it being too much more than just fun machines whose primary purposes were along the lines of transportation and entertainment. i think those sort of implications make the ancients more interesting than they perhaps could've been if they were given some kind of obvious and explicit military history.

the frontiers' ancients feel like some kind of unsuccessful middle ground of those concepts i think? we are directed to see them as the peaceful underdogs while they also have a massive military presence and horrific tools of war that we fight directly over the course of the game, that we Require super sonic to bring down. i understand that at least some of that arsenal was built to fight the end, but then you juxtapose that advanced and destructive technology with the seemingly rural architecture littering the islands that, unlike the titans, has rotted and decayed in the face of nature. is that not supposed to speak of their priorities as society? or were their stay at the islands always supposed to be temporary? but then why build something like the cyberspace which is very much connected to the islands themselves?

i don't know maybe im missing something, maybe i've been thinking about the portrayal of military forces in sonic too hard lately, it just bothers me that the ancients are simultaneously supposed to be both a competent and strong military presence which the DLC only amplifies, and a peaceful society that would never even think about doing anything other than defend themselves with that destructive military they've built for themselves

[yukaii]

upd8.... spoilers

i will say im liking how the new crew is treating this plotpoint. also i. love women. thought i should mention that

the freaking. the lipstick color.

going from roses color to kanayas aarghh [holding head] <- victors reaction to the most basic and straightforward symbolism

but also gosh. jade bringing up how gods are treated... you see people cracking jokes about it but, obvious horrible behavior aside. shes right! none of them are really capable of making a real connection! theyre caged, trapped even, within this circle of people theyve known since they were 13. and thats kinda messed up!! a little bit!!! it sucks!!!!

btw say what you will but i missed ruby. her whimsy...

the artists have been absolutly kicking it out of the park btw! like aghhh! must stress again that i love women

[niobiumao3]

The thing about teaching kids reading and writing in school is, I do think more schools could stand to intersperse the classics with some modern YA/juve fic, because

Keeping kids interested is important to helping them learn. That's easier if they're engaged, and they will engage more readily with popular stories. There are plenty of good popular stories, just like there are shitty classics.

Compare and contrast is a GREAT way to introduce them to ideas like unreliable narrators, protagonists you're not necessarily intended to like, narrative styles, etc.

You have to teach someone HOW to read critically/with intent. it's not something most people just know how to do. And you can do that with any text; arguably, they'll take to it more readily if it's something they want to read. Then getting them to apply it to something they're less engrossed in as a learning exercise is less like getting blood from a stone.

You don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. This doesn't have to be Divergent 'instead of' 1984. It's 'Divergent and 1984, tell me things that you feel they had in common and did not, explain how the explored themes of governmental control and how this damages society as a whole and individuals in particular'.

If the only books you're letting them read is a curated list from 30+ years ago, you have to expect pushback and shouldn't be shocked when they're like 'why can't I examine [popular series actually aimed at them here] instead'.

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

People on social media will get mad as hell and call you problematic if you enjoy a villain for being, well, a villain.

[sateurn]

😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

These sobs really limited my tags?????

I have so many more thoughts this is so so much less than 1/2. Broski. Big dislike

[gaypirate]

anyway here's a trick i've learned recently

when people are trying to schedule me an appointment at a drs offices they always act frustrated when i say i can't do early morning appointments. i've always operated under 'don't explain yourself, just ask for what you need' as a principle with this sort of thing, but at some point when a nurse kept pushing me for an earlier appointment i just told her the truth, that it's because i have a diabetic cat and need to watch over him in the mornings, and suddenly she was a LOT more sympathetic. so i've been doing this ever since, and there's been like, 0 pushback on it

i'm assuming the normal frustration is because they think that i just can't wake up in the morning, which is a bullshit reason to be frustrated with a patient, but welp.

so there's an excuse you can try out if you're not a morning person. just tell them you have a sick pet

[irlnikeiyomiuri]

i had ONE decent interaction with another person and now i want to ask my friends to come hang out. however, i literally never left my house once covid started, and the few friends/acquaintances i chatted with, as soon as i saw them on person, i very strongly disliked them.

i have one friend.

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

THELMA AND LOUISE?? HELLO????

[azuremist]

I feel like SAWTOWNE’s “Confessions of a Rotten Girl” is so good partially because of how it makes even people who may dislike fujoshis sympathize with Miku, and it’s interesting that it’s not actually done by painting her as “one of the good ones”. Everything that’s despised about fujoshi culture, Miku explicitly is portrayed as doing.

Disliking female characters on the basis of them “getting in the way” (and being quite misogynistic about it to boot), sexualizing and shipping men in real life (the men portrayed in the song are her teachers), and even the yaoi paddle known for being used to sexually harass cosplayers…

… all these aspects are there. Hell, one of the most disliked part about fujoshi culture from a social justice standpoint — the language of describing queer relationships as “sinful” — is the whole basis behind the song.

However, SAWTOWNE, instead of lessening that toxic trait, “yes, and”s it. “Yes, she calls queer relationships sinful, as a (presumably) heterosexual woman who finds their relationship gratifying. AND, the reason she does that is because she is a sexually repressed Christian who feels guilty about having any sexual desire whatsoever.”

I think that one (very clever!) addendum makes it so any discomforting aspects to the song takes a backseat. Instead of being a song about trying to resist an interest in yaoi / The Gays specifically, it more so becomes a song about trying to resist any “abnormal” sexual desires, which makes it very easy to like this version of Miku, even as someone who very much dislikes the aspects of fujoshi culture she represents.

Plus we need more gooner girl rep anyway, lol. (As a comment on the video said: close enough! Welcome back Plus Boy!)

[abdalsalam2000]

Has any of you experienced your little one asking for a loaf of bread and standing there sadly, staring at their empty hands? Or your infant crying with hunger and you can't bring a single drop of milk to calm them down? Has any of you tasted the bitterness of standing in long lines just for a meal that barely keeps them alive? Has any of you experienced the feeling of living on one meal a day, divided among family members as if it were a precious treasure? This is our reality and our situation today. It has become a familiar scene to us, but it is met with cold international and global silence. How long, how long will we be left to face hunger and death alone? Wake up, dignity is being slaughtered here every day, and our hearts bleed in silence. How long will we remain afraid, displaced, hungry, besieged, and killed every day? How long? If hearts were made of stone, stones would crumble from the intensity of the pain and abandonment we are suffering. We hope that those with humanity and mercy in their hearts will support me and my family until we find something to eat and get out of here alive

Well all I ask is that you donate if you can and I really need this donation I need it badly don’t read and leave share also maybe someone will see it who can donate please sympathize with us and stand by us with your donation you are providing me with a lot and a lot of help please donate

[liberalsarecool]

THE ERA OF VANISHING HAS BEGUN

They are not arresting people. They are vanishing them.

Rumeysa Ozturk wasn’t read her rights. She wasn’t told why she was being detained. She was walking to break her fast in Somerville, Massachusetts when masked men in an unmarked SUV pulled up, took her phone, slapped on handcuffs, and dragged her into a vehicle like she was some kind of national security threat.

She’s a doctoral student. A Fulbright scholar. A trauma researcher. But in Donald Trump’s America, she fit the profile: Muslim, foreign-born, sympathetic to Palestinians.

Now she’s locked in a for-profit detention center in Louisiana, hundreds of miles from her lawyer, after a federal judge specifically said she wasn’t to be moved.

They moved her anyway. Because rules no longer apply to those with badges — real or fake.

A MOVEMENT BUILT ON CHAINS AND COWARDS

Alireza Doroudi is gone too.

He’s a doctoral student at the University of Alabama, born in Iran, studying mechanical engineering. No criminal record. No warning. Just scooped off the grid.

ICE refuses to say where he’s being held. No public charge has been announced. His only crime appears to be existing in the wrong body, from the wrong country, in the wrong era.

Mahmoud Khalil was next — a Columbia student, arrested for leading pro-Palestinian protests. Trump labeled him a “radical foreign Hamas sympathizer” on Truth Social. Days later, he was gone.

Jeanette Vizguerra was taken from her Target shift in Colorado, chained at the waist.

Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez, a farmworker organizer, was dragged from his car at dawn in Washington. His window was smashed by federal agents. His voice silenced.

These aren’t isolated incidents. These are deliberate acts of political intimidation.

They are testing the system — testing us — to see how many people they can disappear before we stop calling it democracy.

WHEN ICE IS A BADGE — AND A COSTUME

While the real ICE disappears scholars, organizers, and mothers, the fakes are circling like vultures.

In South Carolina, Sean-Michael Johnson posed as an ICE officer. He pulled over a van of Latino men, screamed slurs, jiggled their keys, and knocked a phone out of someone’s hand. “You’re going back to Mexico!” he shouted. He wasn’t an agent — but he played one with conviction.

In North Carolina, Carl Thomas Bennett used a fake badge to sexually assault a woman at a motel. He told her if she didn’t comply, he’d have her deported. He held up a counterfeit ID and pretended to be the state.

And in Philadelphia, a Temple University student in an “ICE” shirt tried to storm a dorm building with two accomplices. They were dressed for the part, intoxicated by the illusion of authority, emboldened by the climate.

This is what happens when the state makes cruelty a brand. When a badge becomes a fetish object. When the line between enforcement and cosplay disappears altogether.

THE WHOLE SYSTEM IS THE CRIME

Let’s stop pretending this is a coincidence.

This is a unified strategy. The Trump administration is using ICE like a personal strike force — targeting international students, protest leaders, organizers, and mothers with surgical precision.

They invoke secret designations. They bypass due process. They manufacture pretexts out of thin air and rely on the fog of bureaucracy to hide the blood on the floor.

The point isn’t law enforcement. The point is deterrence. Spectacle. Control.

This is what political cleansing looks like when it’s dressed up in the language of national security.

They’re showing the world that resistance has a cost — and the cost is your freedom, your voice, your visibility, your future.

SILENCE IS CONSENT. AND WE ARE LOUD.

There is no middle ground here. No fence to sit on. No neutral position when people are being kidnapped in the name of the state.

ICE doesn’t need your applause. It needs your silence. Every time a student vanishes and the media shrugs, every time a woman is cuffed and the public looks away, the machine gets stronger.

They are daring us to ignore it. They are counting on our numbness. They are betting that we’ll keep scrolling.

We cannot let them win.

This is not border policy. This is not visa enforcement. This is not safety.This is authoritarianism with a PowerPoint presentation.This is fascism disguised as formality.

This is the state stripping people from the land and pretending it’s order.

Let the record show:

They took people.

And we did not look away.

We saw it.

We named it.

We raised hell.

And we did not stop.

(I didn’t write this. Credit goes to Fear and Loathing: Closer to the Edge)

[arofutures]

As someone nonpartnering, I'm always dancing on the razor's edge of relating to and having no patience for "forever alone" sentiments from alloro single people.

Because on the one hand, to be perfectly honest, yes, I am lonely! And while there's numerous factors involved in that, my being single is one of them. It's hard not to feel isolated as a single adult and I'm very cognizant of my friends, coworkers, family members etc... who have this whole category of social life that I do not.

However. While if someone individually happens to want a partner, that's fine and well and good, but 'everyone must partner off' cannot continue to be the broader social model. If your mentality is 'I'll get a romantic partner and that'll be that', then you're contributing to the problem -- for both yourself and everyone else.

Community has to be the real focus. When I think about combatting loneliness, I think about universal basic income and affordable housing, walkable neighbourhoods and robust public transit, free community events (both in-person and online), access to high-quality affordable healthcare, access to public restrooms, etc...

Even if we woke up tomorrow to find sudden cultural acceptance of permanent singlehood as an option, I and many other people would still be lonely! We need to support social infrastructure outside of romantic relationships and nuclear families at the policy level. If you have to work multiple jobs to afford a place to live or if you have a 2 hour commute because the local bus service sucks or if the best spot in town to meet new people is an accessibility nightmare, all of these things are going to stifle community and we're still going to be lonely. I genuinely do sympathize with the plight of the single alloro, but there has to be an understanding that your individual loneliness is not the end of the line.