#obviously this does not apply to certain people but if they want to understand they will try and that's what matters

[it-was-dead-when-i-found-it]

Most of the time, not always but much of the time, my experience has found that any LGBT+phobia you might encounter in someone is simply ignorance that, once removed, reveals compassion in its place

Today I explained why I can't really travel to Florida right now to my dad & watching him get increasingly frustrated with the realization that Transphobia Exists was honestly something else.

him: "well if you're not allowed to use the men's bathroom, just go to the women's! that'll show them."

me: "yeah but I'm just as likely to have the cops called on me for 'using the wrong bathroom' in there. have you seen me lately?"

him: "but if one of the options is wrong and not allowed then the other one has to be the right option. what do they want you to do?"

my grandma, helpfully: "I think they want trans people to not go to Florida"

my dad: spluttering frustratedly

me: "I think the thing is that you are more logical and reasonable than Ron DeSantis."

the face of a semi-reformed(?) conservative when realizing with dawning horror that laws can be unfair on purpose is truly special tbh

[transmutationisms]

I love your takes, but I feel super, super lost with what you were trying to say about the natalism one. I feel like you're saying that there is no contradiction on wanting more babies, a higher population number and punishing mothers, but can you elaborate on that a bit more, because it does seems contradictory. I'm not disagreeing with you, I just want to understand it better.

alright there's a perennial debate (on here but also in a wider cultural sense) that goes on where people start noticing that some of the ways in which we socially and economically de/value children, parenthood, and specifically motherhood are internally contradictory. how can it be that there is immense social and economic pressure to heterosexually partner and reproduce, and yet most public and social infrastructure is also profoundly hostile to children and their guardians? why is it that this person couldn't find a doctor to perform a voluntary hysterectomy because their bodily preferences were subordinated to the medical valorisation of their fertility, and yet this other person was forcibly sterilised or coerced into using contraception because the prospect of them reproducing is framed as socially destabilising and degenerative? how are 'family values' touted by politicians who openly and explicitly also hate real existing families? do they want people to have more children or fewer? is it more counterculture and rebellious to have children or to not have children? to have sex or to not have sex? to partner off? to be polyam or monogamous?

the answer broadly speaking is that the oppositions people see here are only surface-level. the bourgeois state's interest is in biopower, and this produces competing demands: for some people to partner off and reproduce, and for others to be exterminated. the valorisation of the white middle-class nuclear family is the same as the devalorisation of its negations: racialised people, disabled people, family arrangements other than nuclear and heterosexual, etc. you can't understand the demand that people reproduce if you don't understand it is necessarily also accompanied by the demand that other people don't. these aren't actually contradictory once you understand that what the bourgeois state wants has nothing to do with your individual behaviours and everything to do with how many 'desirable' bodies it has at its disposal. that economic consideration is what creates both the natalist policy meant to encourage [some people's] reproduction, and the exterminatory policy meant to suppress and eradicate [other people's] reproduction.

usually this kind of conversation very quickly devolves into a privilege framework argument, where people are trying to find some kind of social hierarchy that is hegemonically applied top-down and that rewards, universally, certain behaviour choices over others. again, the "people who marry and reproduce are privileged and socially rewarded over me #childfree" versus "actually some people still have to fight tooth and nail to even get medical support / approval to have children, let alone actually get access to the kind of economic and social support necessary to raise them" debate. it's smoke and mirrors because there is no universal privileging of the choice to have children or not have children. what there is, is a privileging of certain people on the basis of the economic assessment of them as biological assets, and the inverse (and mutually constitutive) devaluations of everyone else. really over-discussed examples here but to give them anyway: this is why, for example, french natalist policy and the USA's constant efforts to strip back welfare-net policies in order to harm (primarily) black families are both arising from the same basic impulses of two imperialist nation-states. obviously there are different histories and contextual factors that have resulted in france and the US trying to skin the same cat in different ways. but what they share is an underlying interest in trying to shore up their population in both size and 'fitness', understood here in its full racialised and eugenic meaning.

[linkcharacter]

I find it interesting when people call Jimmy an unreliable narrator. There’s not really any narrating done in the traditional sense, and we don’t even hear a lot of his inner thoughts. Do they mean “narrator” as in our view of the world and characters are shaped by his POV through interactions and visuals, instead of a verbal, descriptive narration?

Please THANK YOU EXACTLY I WANTED TO TALK ABOUT THIS SO BAD ACTUALLY.

My opinion is that people like to shove terms that vaguely fit the story of Mouthwashing anywhere they can, same with describing characters (Curly for example) as "morally grey". Which in my opinion is reductive and doesn't represent who the character is, it's defined enough for people to 'kinda' be on the same page but also vague enough that it doesn't accurately describe the character and blurs the complexity that makes the character interesting.

I wouldn't apply the term "unreliable narrator" to Jimmy. His perspective of what we are allowed to see in game is limited, but we see exactly what happens, just through Jimmy's eyes. Jimmy isn't twisting the narrative for the viewer because he's NOT NARRATING. Mouthwashing is a game with no narration to tell the story. Sure, characters talk about the events, but they're not talking to the player, and an unreliable narrator's purpose from a storytelling point, is to deceive or mislead the viewer. I think trying to shove storytelling terms anywhere it fits doesn't work and just confuses a lot of people. The game itself plays around with the narrative and reveals things and structures the story in ways to manipulate our perception, like allowing only certain small sections of events to be seen, and ordered in a way to play with our thoughts and attention.

Jimmy's perspective and presence change the attitude of characters, but this isn't "unreliable narration", it's the reality of how characters act with Jimmy around. I kinda understand what people mean when they say he's an unreliable narrator, that we shouldn't take Jimmy's POV as the whole truth at face value, but that's not because the 'narrative' is being twisted, we just have to take into account the context of the situation. The players aren't being deceived, they're being required to think about nuances. And even when Jimmy starts having his episodes with hallucinations, it's not to deceive the viewer, it's showing us how JIMMY HIMSELF sees reality, we can very clearly disconnect what is being shown from the context of what is actually going on. The dinner scene, for example, is obviously just has Jimmy tweak out, but we as players can tell that it's not real, there's no misleading happening. And we see how Jimmy talks to others during gameplay, we see Jimmy be abusive to others and be a jerk and perform manipulation, there's no narration to make us believe he's not doing all of these things or to even conceal or twist the truth. Jimmy as a character with his words does manipulate others, but not the viewer. You can say Jimmy is an unreliable narrator within the reality of the game, but he's definitely not if we're talking about meta.

The bizarro sequences are a bit different because there's clearly some meta "showing the viewer symbolisms to have them connect ideas of the story, while not being grounded in reality for the characters in the game" stuff going on, but again, there's no narration nor is there a point to confuse the viewer. The point is to show the themes of the story in an interesting and impactful way that leaves a lot to analyze, you're not being deceived, you just have to think about it and see what the game is trying to show, it's encouraging you to look deeper into the story. Mouthwashing IS NOT a game with a clear-cut clean concrete story with no room for interpretation.

[sepublic]

            The Owl House’s first episode really is a litmus test for people who claim to support Problem Kids who act out but ultimately need support by their community instead of punishment by the system, because jeezus.

            The way so many people were clutching their pearls over Luz bringing fireworks to school, treating her like some domestic terrorist in the making who needed to be carted away, and not just… An eager kid who got in over her head trying to bring fun with something associated with fun, especially in her country!!! Like this was so obviously a well-meaning child who just needed to be sat down and explained the dangers of fireworks, who was clearly willing to listen!

            And yeah, Luz DID become a domestic terrorist. But you know what I mean, and really that just proves my point that Luz can be a rebel in a fantastical sense, but when you apply it to a real-world context, suddenly she’s a menace that needs to be stopped. Because it’s easy to root for the metaphor until you have to uncomfortably apply it your own life. Why else would Belos be an actual colonizer from IRL history, and not just a space alien or demon?

            It’s the way people saw this cartoonishly-evil system that the show was so unambiguous about, and because they thought they were being clever by being uncritically contrarian (when really they were just affirming their own latent biases), they argued that Oh yeah maybe the system IS good for Luz, maybe this is what she needs! The way people were so ready to take the camp’s promises at face value, that See it’s going to teach her how to do taxes and listen to the news!

            People were just so insistent that actually, the Troubled Teen Industry means well and will do well in taking this brown child away from her struggling brown mother, without a choice for either of them. They just ignored the obvious bit about Principal Hal sending Luz to the camp as a punishment, out of spite, after breaking his promise to give her another chance as soon as he ran into the aftereffect of Luz’s prior chance. Luz even brings it up, “That doesn’t count, right?” And he still went through with it because he doesn’t actually care about what Luz needs, he just wants to punish her!!!

            It’s Be Gay, Do Crimes until the protagonist performs actual crimes and suddenly she has to be arrested. Nobody questioned how at least half the incidents Luz was sent to the office over were clear overreactions by the school; Things that didn’t harm anyone! It’s almost as if, gee, maybe sometimes kids DO cause problems, but there’s a particular bias and double-standard regarding certain demographics, and so they’ll be punished for the same things other well-behaved kids get away with! Principal Hal clearly had it out for Luz from the start , so I really don’t care about his judgment.

            It’s all about restorative justice for criminals, until one of them does something even remotely problematic and suddenly they have to be hauled off and not worked with. It’s all about supporting child welfare, recognizing that kids are a struggling and oppressed class in and of themselves, until Luz is having her entire summer vacation, a whole three-months period to herself that is idolized in our culture by kids for this reason, to be sent learning how to do taxes.

            But nnoooo these are important life skills, you argue! But if your parents used up your whole vacation, your only reprieve, to send you to a camp where you had to learn these things, you would understandably be calling it child abuse. Y’all stress the importance of breaks and how school genuinely wears a kid down, and vacation is legitimately necessary; But Luz is a Problem Child and you’ll say it with unironic contempt.

            And that’s not even getting into the implicit bigotry of the system, because under kids’ show censorship you can’t actually SAY that the system is targeting Luz disproportionately for being brown. But you can definitely imply it, just as in Teen Titans, Cyborg goes on a whole spiel about how he can verbalize Starfire’s struggles with fantasy bigotry without her even having to explain it to him, clarifying that he knows because he’s… part-robot.

            Belos isn’t allowed to rant about indigenous peoples but his attempted genocide of natives in a fantasy world is so obviously meant to hearken to what IRL Puritans did with Native Americans, and the show even clarifies that its universe’s witch hunters had the same motives as IRL witch hunters, who were racist, misogynistic, etc. Lilith tells Luz to go back to her world. The Reality Check Camp has Masha, an obvious Russian migrant child, a dark-skinned kid, and another kid based off of Molly Knox Ostertag, who is openly queer. Gee, it’s almost as if the camp is targeting, specifically, kids who don’t fit within the cultural hegemony of the United States!

            And yes, it’s interesting that Yesterday’s Lie creates ambiguity for Luz because these kids seemed to get along and find each other because of the camp… From her own perspective. But Luz doesn’t have the luxury of re-watching a scene carefully, she had other things on her mind. She’s canonically an Unreliable Narrator who remembers things as worse than they actually were, as revealed in the very next episode.

            The kids said they found solidarity while also calling the camp terrible, so it’s clear it was an unintended side-effect of the camp, it had nothing to do with the camp itself; But Luz isn’t the calm, detached viewer. So her takeaway is something that will fuel her regret over coming to the isles, which her mother really contributes towards at the end of said episode.

            I don’t think TOH is the pinnacle of Leftist media, obviously. It’s basic, entry-level stuff; But this is a kids show. So not only is its effort impressive for a kids show and setting the bar, but it’s also a good introduction for kids into other ideas. The writers are clearly operating off of ideas and beliefs, so it’s fun analyzing how they bleed into their work, how they think to convey these ideas, and Readings are always a thing. And also, yeah; It IS a kids show! What I’ve said should be obvious to kids, the first episode is cartoonishly obvious, but some of y’all are actual grown adults who still can’t get it, how embarrassing!

            And in the end, I don’t think it’s because you don’t have the skills. I think some of y’all do understand, but are just contrarians who live in a perfect bubble where you don’t notice the system’s issues and are insistent on taking its side, even when the narrative is unambiguous about its fault. I also think some of y’all are just racist, and/or misogynistic. That some of the people saying this are white does not elude me.

            I know I toss those words around a lot, but seriously; It genuinely is everywhere, but of course privileged people can ignore it, and treat women and PoC as insane and overreacting. It’s Not That Deep until it bleeds into everything, including people’s writing and how they engage with media. Luz was struggling with the viewers’ own racism since the first episode.

            The most absurd part is that the show does get around to this; It does address that Luz can get carried away, and that she needs to be more mindful. It can also be nuanced in acknowledging that she was disproportionately targeted and punished for being “weird.” The first episode sets up the show’s conflict, its themes, its status quo and cast; As well as the flaws and trajectory of our main character’s arc. It begins addressing these things pretty early on with Luz learning to be more mindful as early as the fourth episode.

            But y’all are adults who lack reading comprehension with a kids show, and demand every issue of the protagonist be resolved in its first episode, which is already going fast because of everything else it’s handling, on top of its first lesson for our protagonist. Y’all really needed Luz’s flaws to be resolved ASAP instead of her development occurring naturally over the course of the show, and ending with the show because it’s about her story.

            Because you can’t bear to deal with a girl of color’s flaws being a consistent thing on the backburner spaced across the show for her to eventually conquer, she needs to be punished immediately! Because it’s not enough that she learns and grows from her mistakes, no Luz needs to also be punished in a show that starts off talking about the system’s disproportionate punishment. But then y’all see your white faves and complain about how they were so much more fun when they were mean, why didn’t they stay mean, why didn’t we get more time for them to be mean before they had character development…!

[donovan-desmond-official]

Here's the thing about Anya.

Her primary goal is to achieve world peace, a concept she has no understanding of but she is fervently dedicated. Some part it is due to her childish attitude and obsession with spies but there is another part.

Anya does not understand her own self-worth and self-identity outside of her role as a tool in achieving "world peace".

When Anya grew up her main purpose was always "for the sake of world peace". Everything she did was for that sake. It was almost as if her entire reason for existing was for world peace. But it also wasn't, because she was made by accident. This adds an extra dimension where she was seen as optional. This would obviously damage herself esteem and really force her to want to please the people around her because in their minds she was more of a hassle.

When Anya was finally adopted by Twilight she found out he had the same goal as the scientists that held her before. Also, more directly he is willing to discard of her if she is not up to the task. In a way, Twilight is no different than the scientists that had her before. Of course over time he eventually empathize with her and focus more on her comfort than functionality. He does not directly scold Anya to force her fulfill this role but her telepathy gives her that knowledge.

But you clearly see the impact of the scientist on Anya's sense of self and how Twilight does not do much to help (although to some extent it is not his fault).

Anya remains fairly optimistic about the whole thing and continues to aim to achieve her goal. But we also see where these ideas negatively effect her. It makes her clingy, desperate, it keeps her in a constant fear of rejection. even the most minor forms of rejection can completely shatter her because she for her any failure puts her one step closer back into the street.

This is one of the traits she actually shares with both Damian and Becky. I will focus on Damian to keep it short though. Damian is very preoccupied with being the best. He lives a very isolated life and has no relationship with his own family. For what ever reason, he accredits this to his father. Damian believes that the only to get his father's approval and therefore his (and the rest of his families') love is if he succeeds. There is also this additional pressure put on him because of his father's status which externalizes this pressure. The reason he likes Anya so much is because she does not apply that pressure. She does not expect to be great, she just wants to be his friend for her mission. There is also that transparency which makes him feel less tricked and hence safe.

The Prince kid also mirrors that same dilemma. He has a responsibility as the Prince to maintain a certain standard and reputation. His family needs him to be strong and noble but in the end he is just a kid. When he is confront by the Freddy he is scared out of his mind, worried that if he loses he will disappoint his family.

The problem with this however, is that it further surrounds Anya with people that think the same way she does. This only encourages this kind of thinking. Anya is constantly surrounded by people that echo the same negative sentiments she has about herself and self worth. For Damian (and Becky) it works because it gives her ground to relate to them and her seemingly carefree nature allows her to motivate them to let go of this attitude.

But who is encouraging Anya to relax? Who is encouraging Anya to let go of these insecurities?

Anya's identity and motivation is still defined through her father and to a less extent the scientist. she is still motivated by the idea of world peace. However, Anya herself does not know what that means or why she should be aiming for it. It is more of a concept to her than a tangible goal. Her only true goal is to not be returned. For that reason she will never push back against Loid, she will follow his guidance and never develop a personal goal.

Now here is where i think Freddy or some delinquent of some sort will come in use.

For Anya to gain a sense of identity, she needs to push back against her father. She needs to start doing things that prioritizes her own happiness over her father's aim for world peace. She needs someone that will push into her more natural self. Anya is naturally a girl of chaos and mischief. She is not like the others who well behaved and properly trained, nor is she personally interested in being that girl. The only reason Anya is interested in achieving this is for the sake of father. She does not understand the purpose of a lot of these things she is just afraid of being sent back to the orphanage.

I feel like Anya having someone who can encourage her to lean more into the rebel side and allow to actually challenge the things she has been told. Children are curious by nature and one aspect of that is the question of "why?". Constantly provoking the people around them to explain and justify the things they tell them. Anya should also be able to decide what she agrees with and what she disagrees with. She also suffer from natural consequences of her actions. And you will never have that if never challenge your parents or teachers.

Anya is surrounded by goodie two shoes. Although she is still in touch with that curious and defiant side but if there is no one else around to encourage it she will continue to conform and eventually that curious side of her will disappear. If she never gets someone who can remind her to be young and curious she will lose that part of herself. She needs Freddy. Fuck you.

[sabertoothwalrus]

I'm going to think out loud about the dungeon meshi ages for a sec

I'm going to preface this by saying that this is based on my existing knowledge, and fact checking is difficult because there is A LOT of contentious research out there.

First of all, I think a lot of people come at this from a modern lens, forgetting the context that this is fantasy medieval era. this is fiction. on top of that, this is specifically Ryoko Kui's understanding of medieval era aging. plus fantasy. So before anyone comes at me with a bunch of 'ermmmm actualy's just consider that I don't really care and also it might not matter in this context lol

as far as the "age of maturity" assigned for each race, something I don't see many people talk about is that "teenagers" are a fairly recent concept. For a long time, you were either considered A Kid or Not A Kid. but this doesn't necessarily mean kids were more/less developed then, just our cultural expectations for certain age groups have changed.

Laios says the age of maturity for tallmen is 16. I don't think that means 16 year olds in the dungeon meshi universe are necessarily "more mature" than modern 16 year olds, but moreso that they have more responsibilities. However, things like medicine, smoking, drinking, sun exposure, physical activity, etc all affect age, so it's possible that developmentally they're closer to modern 18 year olds? Izutsumi is 17 (less than two weeks from turning 18, actually), and very much acts like a modern 17 year old.

The age of maturity for half-foots is 14. Chilchuck was 13 when he got married and had his first two children. Even though, at age 29, he's the equivalent of a modern 50 year old, I don't think he was That much more developed at 13 than a tallman. I think if half-foot 14 is equal to tallman 16, then Chilchuck was Pretty Damn Young for a parent LMAO. Even if you're generous and say tallman 16 is a modern 18, he still would've been younger than that.

The long-lived races are interesting. Marcille is obviously a unique case, and not a lot of this applies to her. We do know what Senshi was like as a minor (miner, lol), and he seemed like a modern 15ish, considering he was 36 and dwarf maturity is 40. I think it'd be really interesting to delve into how a culture functions with people being developmentally adolescent for soooooo long. Imagine middle school lasting 20 years. that would fucking suck. I suppose it makes sense why long-lived races are so patronizing.

Moving onto lifespans, I want to emphasize that they're average lifespans. Even in the manga, they say some half-foots live to 100, it's just rare. So it's less that a tallman 60 year old is "older" than a modern 60 year old, it's that it's easier to keep people alive for longer nowadays. Modern medicine is a BIG contributor. Dental health as well, considering how much your health is affected by your diet (and how much the action of chewing alone aids in digestion). Curious to know what the FUCK elven dentistry is like.

It also makes me wonder if half-foots would have a longer average lifespan if they weren't like, used for bait and treated so poorly, but half-foot 29 does seem to be middle-aged for half-foots. so who knows!

In that vein, I don't know if I can see Mithrun quite making it to 400 😬 like, his experience as a dungeon lord took a lot out of him quite literally, and he's doing exceptionally well despite it! I imagine he'd eventually start to develop a lot of heart problems if he doesn't have them already. Perhaps early-onset dementia. His memory seems still quite intact (he corrects Kabru on his story's accuracy) and he doesn't act like, lobotomized. He doesn't seem forgetful or confused, and he has a sense of humor/sarcasm still. It's mostly his task initiation that's been affected.

I almost want to say that mana affinity could affect long-lived races' lifespans, except dwarves have very poor tolerance for mana, so it's probably not that.

okay anyway I didn't really have a point to this post so I'm just gonna end my rambling here

[innocuousghost]

Since the article about Neil Gaiman I've seen a lot of people reassessing their relationship with Terry Pratchett. Which to a certain extent does make sense: they were co-authors and as a part of his cult of personality Neil Gaiman frequently presented himself as The Guy Who Knew Terry Pratchett. So in the public consciousness their legacies seem very intertwined.

So I can understand the pivot to asking about Terry Pratchett.

But a lot of what I've seen strikes me as being paranoid and conspiratorial in a way that I do not think is healthy or particularly useful. ("Did he know? Did he not know? Was Neil Gaiman overstating their friendship? Why did Terry Pratchett really have his hard drive destroyed?")

Now, I never met Terry Pratchett. But for my money? It seems pretty likely that he didn't know what was going on. The article itself states that most of Neil Gaiman's living friends didn't know what was going on: "But in my conversations with Gaiman’s old friends, collaborators, and peers, nearly all of them told me that they never imagined that Gaiman’s affairs could have been anything but enthusiastically consensual." And throughout most of the timeline of assaults the article covers Terry Pratchett was largely either in the late stages of dimentia on another continent or dead.

Though obviously we can't say for sure he didn't know something. (Even if he genuinely didn't know it's not like he would have turned to Rihanna Pratchett and said "Just in case anybody ever asks I want it on the record that to my knowledge Neil Gaiman is not and never has been a serial rapist.")

But ultimately. That's not actually the core issue that's keeping people awake at night I don't think. I think it's "How do I continue being fans of creatives knowing that some of them are secretly capable of legitimate evil without me ever being made aware of it?"

There is a pretty loud and unpleasant contingent on the internet whose solution to that problem seems to be "You can't. The only way to eschew blind celebrity worship is to live your life every second assuming in the back of your mind that every creative living or dead could be revealed to be a serial rapist at any moment. Just in case it turns out they actually are." Which. Doesn't strike me as particularly helpful. Or even feasible. And that is certainly not a lens I would recommend universally applying to strangers. Not even famous ones.

Instead I think it's probably helpful to look at famous strangers the way you would look at strangers in your own life - like the barista at your coffee shop: that they are probably flawed but also presumably decent. And much like with a barista, in your limited interactions (largely exchanges of product for money, with perhaps a smattering of surface level small talk. Much like with celebrities) you probably won't have much opportunity to discover if they're secretly a bad person. So if it turns out they are, it really isn't your fault that you didn't notice.

And based on what I saw in his books and interviews and his memoir by Rob Wilkins - though he was presumably decent I also certainly think Terry Pratchett was flawed. He was occasionally rude (based on anecdotes from people who knew him), some of the jokes in his books about the counterweight content strike me as being in poor taste and despite his flashes of acab I'd say the perspective of the city watch books was actually largely police reformist rather than abolitionist.

Yet I continue like his work (and what small slice I know about him as a person) anyways.

And understanding creatives as being flawed doesn't even mean "there's something unequivocally problematic out there! Hiding! In their work! In their interviews! And if you employ enough of a bad faith reading then you'll be able to find it!" No. (I mean, there might be some genuinely ethically dubious stuff in there but there also might not.) In my experience even just seeing the little flaws, like flaws in their craft are enough to knock creatives off of the perfect pedestal in your mind. Like, stuff you don't even have to be super knowledgeable about the craft in question to notice. "Eh that scene really dragged. That joke didn't really land. Anyways" And I certainly think Terry Pratchett had his craft issues. Just look at the first two Discworlds and some of the middle rincewind books for proof of that. And it can even be smaller than that. Tiny personality flaws that annoy you: Terry Pratchett was very snobby about Doctor Who in a way that strikes me as overly pedantic enough to be worthy of an eyeroll.

We should see the creatives who you admire, who make work you love as earthly and human. Not as untouchable gods who can do no wrong. (Clearly that isn't working out for us for a variety of reasons)

And setting aside the total monsters, I think it's a good thing that the stuff you like was made by people who are flawed. Humans are flawed, the people in your fandom are flawed, your friends are flawed, and you're flawed. But look at all the cool stuff you all make anyways.

[subway-tolkien]

Okay, this is 1600 words of (positive!) meta regarding the OFMD finale. Included is character analysis and a treatise on why a certain trope people keep throwing around does not apply here.

This is of course just my take, and I'm sure people will disagree, but I needed to get this out. Apologies if it comes off disjointed, I've had like no sleep.

Spoilers within, obviously. You have been warned. Heed the tags. I didn't tag any characters because I consider it a spoiler, but you know who this is about.

Listen. Listen.

Let me start off by saying I have been where you are. I’ve had beloved characters die, either because it was important to the narrative or for shock value. I’ve been there, so I’m not coming at this without empathy. I’m not an Izzy hater. I loved him as a character. I’m truly sad to see him go.

But from what I’m seeing around Twitter and tumblr, some of you do not understand the role of an antagonist in a story.

Izzy was always meant to die. The moment he said, in the first season, “the only retirement we get is death,” I knew he was meant to die in the end. The foreshadowing ran through both seasons. Izzy was the true antagonist of S1. He was there to keep Blackbeard tethered when he started pulling away, and yet he also set the plot in motion. He inadvertently introduced Blackbeard to the person who let him be just Ed. He put Ed on his own path to redemption without even knowing it.

S1 ended with Izzy getting what he wanted as Ed lost everything he had. S2 was about Izzy coming to terms with the fact that he’d gone too far, he’d turned Ed into a monster. It wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted Blackbeard back, just like old times. Instead, he got the Kraken, and it was more than he bargained for.

Especially after it cost him his leg and he realized how far gone Ed really was. The conversation that ended with Izzy’s half-assed suicide attempt was the final blow to Izzy—Ed really didn’t seem to care anymore. Where Izzy wanted him to stop giving a shit about his silly boyfriend, he instead got a Blackbeard who didn’t care about anything, and he was apparently now included in that category.

(I said half-assed suicide attempt because Izzy wasn’t meant to die then, THAT would have been an empty, pointless death. It wouldn’t have taught Ed anything—in fact, all it did was make him more self-destructive, which was Izzy’s purpose to the narrative, but not his endgame. That Ed thought Izzy killed himself pushed Ed to the brink. Ed wanted to die and take every scrap of Blackbeard with him. Had Izzy successfully killed himself, Ed and the Revenge would be at the bottom of the ocean.

It wasn’t until the crew left Izzy the unicorn leg that he realized the power of compassion, the incredible act of grace from a crew that suffered so much from Izzy’s own machinations and didn't need to forgive him. It moved him to tears, and it moved him to accept that maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to let people in, to let himself be cared for. It was a foreign concept and something Izzy likely hadn’t experienced since losing his family (I fully expect a shit ton of fanfic of Izzy’s life before piracy).

Israel Hands found the capacity to let love all the way in and by god, did he pursue it.

But, again, Izzy was always meant to die, and I’m glad they stuck to the narrative they set out with instead of placating fandom and letting our influence dictate how they told this story That’s never good, trust me. Fandom should not influence a creator’s decisions regarding their own characters. It rarely if ever ends well.

[Stares in Voltron S8]

And I see a lot of people out here throwing the “bury your gays” phrase around—I beg you, please look up the definition of the trope. Izzy didn’t die because he was queer, he didn’t die because of his disability. He wasn’t one half of the only queer couple in the show fridged for shock value. He wasn’t killed off due to pressure from conservative viewers. He wasn’t the only queer, disabled character.

They didn’t kill off Lucius, or Jackie, or Wee John. Would you be as outraged if it was any of them?

Killing Eve is bury your gays. Supernatural is bury your gays. Pretty much any film, book, TV show, whatever, where a queer character dies because they’re queer, of AIDs, to further the narrative for a straight person, etc—that is burying your gays.

Izzy’s death was none of those things. Izzy’s death had meaning.

Izzy’s death freed Ed from the Blackbeard persona. It finally forced Izzy to say the things he couldn’t say until he realized it was his last chance. Izzy was also tired. I honestly think he stuck it out for Ed’s sake, because he was afraid to let Blackbeard go without making sure Ed would be ok.

He loved the idea of Blackbeard, but over time, he learned to love Ed. He finally understood what Ed tried to tell him the whole time.

“Fuck off, you twat. You’re surrounded by family.”

You’re safe. You’re loved. You don’t need me anymore. You don’t need to be reminded of who you’re capable of being, you need the people who will guide you to who you will become, and I’m not one of them.

I know a lot of Izzy fans are stung by his death, some of you are deeply upset. I get that. Like I said, I’ve been there. Sirius’s death made me throw that fucking book across the room. That Fucking Woman™ killed off my entire OTP, purely for shock value and, imho, a direct response to shippers. Trust me, I have felt betrayed by a creator for their decisions.

But I need you to understand that no, this was not a personal attack, this was not malicious, this was not “bury your gays." A show that celebrates queerness and diversity is not suddenly homophobic and ableist because your favorite character died and happened to be both of those things. But when the majority of your cast of characters is different in some way, and they’re in a show about 18th century pirates, you have to accept that one of them could, in fact, die. “Anyone Can Die” is also a trope and the more accurate one to describe E8.

If only being queer and disabled made you invincible.

Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.

And no, I’m not an Izzy hater. I loved him, I loved him as an antagonist, and I loved his redemption arc. He was fascinating and Con put his whole O’Nussy into that part. I’m sorry to see him go, but as a mystery writer who often has to kill off beloved characters, I understand that he served the purpose he had from the beginning.

I swear, if some of you had your way, there’d be no conflict at all in any form of media. This what a steady diet of nothing but fanfic gets you. This is not a fluffy one-shot with magical healing dick and a happy ending where everyone sails off into the sunset. If that’s what you wanted, what you headcanoned, you did this to yourself. It’s not David et al’s fault that we took that character and babygirled him. That’s the risk we take when we decide to love a specific character, when we take a genuinely terrible person (in S1) and woobify him.

So, please stop harassing and attacking David, Alex, et al. David did not and should not change his story to placate us. The fact he went ahead with it despite the backlash I’m sure he expected makes me respect him as a creator even more.

Anyway, I’m going to revel that we have three (!) queer relationships with happy endings where one or both didn’t immediately die (again, the actual definition of “bury your gays”) and that we got at least two seasons of a little show that celebrated individualism, diversity, queerness, compassion, and love.

In the end, it all came down to love.

“There he is.”

Goodbye, Blackbeard.

Hello, Ed.

[lachiennearoo]

How to Make Friends

A more-or-less clear guide on social interactions

Growing up with heavy ADHD and generalized anxiety, it was always a bit hard for me to make friends and socialize. Despite my yearning for friendship, I was always "the quiet one" and "a loner", simply because I didn't know how to approach certain social situations, and it made any friendship I had extremely unstable (except for my sister @vive-le-quebec-flouffi, who was so extroverted and friendly it was literally impossible to escape her clutches of socialization)

As I grew older, I learned through a lot of trial and error what makes a good friendship.

Or, rather... what's the best way for someone to WANT to be your friend (without being superficial or hypocritical.)

Now, obviously, this doesn't work for everyone. But this is what I found helped me the most in social circles (especially online) and I hope it can help others too

LET'S BEGIN!

1 - Be yourself

Now that sounds very cliche and cringe, I know, but hear me out, because my opinion on this is not the same as all those feelgood inspirational movies and ads.

"Being yourself" isn't as simple as it seems. Because after all, what does "self" imply? If someone is, say, a criminal, would "be yourself" mean that they should embrace their sinful side?

No, obviously not.

"Be yourself" is a bit more nuanced, but I'll try to boil it down for you.

It just means "be unashamed of your qualities which you think are flaws". For example, "be yourself" would apply to someone who sees themselves as ugly, or maybe someone with an odd yet unharmful hobby, or a weird sense of fashion, or someone with say a handicap, a speech impediment. "Be yourself" is a sentence for the specific people who have genuine good in them, but are afraid to show it to others because they have been persecuted in the past, or are scared to be. It does NOT mean to accept genuine flaws. "Be yourself" does not include say violent anger issues, an addiction, a recent crime committed, or a generally unpleasant personality. Those are obviously not things to encourage. You can understand they may be a thing that happen to you, and accept it in your life, but that's different from being proud of it or encouraging it.

Speaking of personalities... let's talk about that

2 - Be kind

Now when some people hear that, they think it means "always smile no matter what, always look happy and positive, always agree with everyone just so you don't hurt their feelings, and never cause any drama", like you're Deku in My Hero Academia or Steven Universe in his titular show.

But that's... not quite that.

Obviously, kindness is something you use to help people feel better, to cheer up, and feel happy, and obviously to be kind, you need to have compassion, heart, empathy, and always put yourself in other people's shoes regardless of who they are. But it is not necessarily all-encompassing.

There's a rule that I think anyone learning kindness must learn. It's that sometimes, kindness means to be firm.

Not mean, of course. Not judgmental, not insensitive. Don't insult anyone, don't belittle or patronize anyone or make them feel inferior to you. That's still very rude and that's not what you want.

But what I mean is that sometimes, if you know that a person's actions towards something are wrong, especially if it's towards someone else, you must be able to point it out, and act accordingly. Don't just stand there and agree with them just because you don't want to hurt their feelings. You must still be able to know right from wrong. Kindness just means you won't be an ass about it, it doesn't mean to stay silent.

Hey, that brings me to point three!

3 - Show your own opinions

If there's one thing people hate just as much as meanness, it's those who stand by and do nothing about it.

Regardless of if you agree with them or not, if you say absolutely nothing when genuinely bad behaviour is happening, out of fear of "starting a fight", you are actively making the person who is being attacked feel alone.

I remember myself, when I was bullied in the first two grades of secondary school (11-13 years old for those who don't know) for "being ugly", I was told by my mother (who was friends with other kid's parents) that some of the kids "didn't hate me" and "didn't agree with the bullying". And I asked her "if they don't hate me, why won't they talk to me?" She never managed to answer that one. And it broke my heart, because outside of my sister, I had no one else.

Don't be like that. You may be scared of acting, but you know who would be grateful if you did act? The victims. And isn't their opinion of you much more important than the opinion of someone who acts with hatred and bigotry?

If you see someone suffering injustice, or even just hear someone who has a rather harmful opinion, don't be scared to tell them that you disagree. Obviously don't be an asshole about it, stay civil, but if you voice out your opinion, you will be seen as someone who stays true to their beliefs and is brave enough to stand up for them if the opportunity comes.

There's obviously much more that comes with social life (nonverbal cues, sense of humor, timing and mood), and I don't know everything (I'm just some random québécois girl on the internet). But I hope this was a bit more helpful. I did have fun writing this, at least. So I guess that's better than nothing!

[inthehouseoffinwe]

I saw your cool post about the Sindar's treatment of the silmaril. I think the strange logic behind Luthien/Dior/Elwing's claim to the silmarils is likely a consequence of Tolkein's Catholicism and "turn-of-the-century" worldview leaking into the work (which can be seen in multiple other examples, particularly Miriel being portrayed as a "bad mother" who doesn't obey her husband and ruined her son's life by refusing to come back to life ASAP and Indis is the "good woman" who steps up to serve Finwe, whose descendants are favored by the Valar). He thinks that an important/beautiful item ought not to truly belong to its creator, but to the "public benefit" and therefore under the Valar's true possession (although I personally wonder what benefits the silmarils ever brought to anyone, other than pathological addiction to their light). Ultimately, handing over the silmaril is a sign of absolute obediance to the Valar and the only reason they fight Morgoth. So it appears that they value obediance more highly than their duty to protect the children of Eru from Morgoth, which is in line with Catholic principles of the supreme will of divine beings.

Furthermore, Tolkein builds Arda on the very notion that certain races (elves, and above them, Maiar and Valar except Sauron and Morgoth) are just ontologically pure and superior (biologically/racially divine) to all others. So even if they do something wrong (commit theft), they are somehow still right if it is not against Eru's will. The support for this is in Letter 183, he says "...So even if in desperation 'the West' had bred or hired hordes of orcs and had cruelly ravaged the lands of other Men as allies of Sauron, or merely to prevent them from aiding him, their Cause would have remained indefeasibly right." This notion is obviously highly problematic under modern standards of morality and equal rights for all. Nonetheless that is probably how Tolken legitimized Luthien and her descendant's theft of the silmaril -- they are part-Maia, superior by nature to all other elves, especially those that have kinslayed. It would explain why Dior wasn't burned by the jewel when he killed dwarves for it, and why Elwing justifies her claim to the jewel as "my grandma wore it and my dad died for it" without actual legal entitlement to it. Granted, trauma is also an explanation, but the explicit reason given in the text appears to be based on an assumption of innate superiority through part-Maia heritage (as Luthien was only able to retrieve the silmarils through Maiar powers and love for Beren, when no full elves could).

So all of these premises are very objectionable by secular standards of equality, governance, and property law. But Tolkein was a devout Catholic who grew up and fought for the British Empire, which also espoused a racial heirarchy. And all of this bled into the Silmarillion and created certain incongruencies in the treatment of various characters.

Hi Anon, thanks for sending this!

I'm going to break this reply down into points for the sake of coherency, but there is something I want to address first:

I am not Christian and whilst I’ve grown up around several, cannot speak for all their beliefs in detail. However, having had my own faith completely warped to make points which are the opposite of what I believe, I avoid using religion as a base for discourse unless I am certain of what I am saying, and have made sure it won't be interpreted the wrong way.

In general, there's a disturbing trend of painting people who follow a religion as inherently backwards or oppressive. No time is taken to understand their beliefs, the complexities behind them, and if these beliefs are even being understood and applied within the right context.

Tolkien using his faith as a base for his fictional world is not inherently bad nor should it be seen that way.

With this in mind, let's dive into things!

1. Breaking the Miriel/Indis narrative into simple good and bad does a disservice to the characters and the author. We simply don’t get enough time with the characters or this part of the story to make a clear cut statement.

I don’t see Miriel portrayed negatively at all. When Tolkien speaks of the effects of Miriel's death, he writes them in the shadow of what actions Fëanor and Finwë took because they could not let her go, rather than blaming Miriel for leaving. Fëanor is what he is because of what he (and Finwë) chose to do with his mother's memory and absence.

Miriel herself is treated gently, her exhaustion deemed reason enough for her departure, and her death written in ambiguous terms:

‘She went then to the gardens of Lórien and lay down to sleep; but though she seemed to sleep, her spirit indeed departed from her body, and passed in silence to the Halls of Mandos.’

She is not blamed for leaving, rather the opposite. It seems she had no choice in the end. Other elves blame Finwë for his decision to marry again, not Miriel for leaving:

'...many saw the effect of the breach... judging that if Finwë had endured his loss and been content with the fathering of his mighty son, the courses of Fëanor would have been otherwise...'

Later on when Tolkien writes of Finwë’s preference for his eldest, Finwë is put in the spotlight for making a bad decision/reacting the wrong way to his loss. Miriel remains innocent.

'But the shadow of Miriel did not depart... from his heart; and of all whom he loved Fëanor had ever the chief share of his thought.'

Miriel being a 'bad mother' seems to stem from fanon interpretation.

Indis is also interesting because we see little to nothing of her as her own character. I would argue if she really was the 'good woman' she would have stayed with Finarfin and supported him in maintaining her husband's legacy rather than returning to the Vanyar.

Regarding her children, Fingolfin is written as someone as guilty as Fëanor in the initial instigation: another prince who let his pride and arrogance blind him to the point where he was picking fights and vying for leadership as much as his half-brother. His later decisions may have been better, but I don't see corrolation between Indis marrying Finwë and him becoming a great (but guilty) king. Finarfin too is left to his own merit, and we don't hear much about her daughters.

(I’d add that under this argument, Elwing should be punished for abandoning her children. Instead we see her descendants rise to become great kings and wise elves. We could say not being allowed back to ME is a punishment, but that’s a different discussion.)

But in essence, I think the early 20th Century ideas of a good/bad mother/wife aren't seen here.

2. I agree that Tolkien has a 'public benefit' approach to things. Interestingly, the Valar's apparent right to the silmarils only occurs after the Trees go out, as they are supposedly a way to restore them.

There is a strange relationship here regarding the Treelight. The light was supposedly for everyone, and Fëanor’s creation is seen as his even by the Valar. Then the trees go out and suddenly everyone has a right to the stones. Now morally you can argue Fëanor should have given the silmarils, but in terms of ownership, they are his. The light was for everyone. He took what was for everyone and made something his own from it that everyone acknowledged belonged to him.

I also agree that the Valar demanded obediance over their duty to protect to children of Illuvatar, however disagree on the allignment with Catholic principles which leads me to the next point.

3. Tolkien has stated in his letters that the Valar made a mistake and essentially went against Eru when they raised the Pelóri (I can't remember the letter number) to fence off Valinor, and left the men and Elves in Middle Earth to suffer.

He makes it clear that the only truely divine and supreme being is Eru, and the Valar, though emmiseries or angels of a sort, can and do mess up. They should not have been silent and left Beleriand to Morgoth and Middle Earth to Sauron. Manwë especially fell into pride and arrogance.

4. Regarding letter 183 ‘the West’ referred to are people within Middle Earth specifically, such as those of Gondor and Rohan. The point Tolkien’s making is regarding larger causes vs the good and evil people are capable of.

People can do bad things, but these actions do not necessarily mean their ultimate Cause is wrong. There is a difference between an action and the reason for it, one does not necessarily negate the other.

In this case, he says if the West (Gondor, Numenor, etc) bred orcs to attack men working under or around Sauron, the action would be wrong. But this doesn’t automatically make their ultimate goal of defeating Sauron wrong - Sauron is still a very real threat and must be defeated for everyone's sake. What happens regarding people who use brutal means of achieving this goal is separate to this goal.

This is something I think we can still agree with.

5. We can trouble Maia = inherent goodness/supremacy considering Sauron, Saruman, and the Balrogs, but I see what you mean.

However, I think the problem lies with how Tolkien percieves the Fëanorians more than the Sindar and Melian's line. Tolkien believes the light within the Silmarils ultimately belongs to the Valar, and everything that happened because Fëanor didn't means the Noldor have no claim to the gems. Going back to letter 183, the Cause of the Fëanorians is Wrong. They can do good things like fighting Morgoth, but remain ultimately 'bad.'

With this thinking, basically anyone has more of a right to the Silmarils than the Fëanorians. Luthien is superior to other elves because she hasn't hurt anyone or been the aggressor more than because she is part Maia. That's just a bonus and gives the impression she is less inclined to evil.

Furthermore her Cause is good. And her actions, driven by love, are portrayed as good. For Tolkien, she fulfils every need to take the claim of the silmaril.

Regarding Dior, I think here is when we see some of that Empire mindset rather than a religious one. Killing the dwarves for something they actually have more of a claim to screams colonial violence the British Empire was well known for.

I don't think the Maia heritage actually matters. It's Luthien who is generally referenced when they speak of her descendants, and I think that's because of her actions more than her mother.

6. Now all this in mind, we have to remember Tolkien uses a named narrator, and to keep within that he says he is merely translating writings into modern english. As such we can pull literally anything and everything written into question, to the point of taking something he believes about the writing and completely flipping it around.

Final Thoughts:

Arda was no doubt shaped by Tolkien's personal beliefs in empire and religion. But in reading the text only through this there is a danger in broadsweeping whole ideas into binary right and wrong when the points he is making are much more complex. Ultimately he deals with the human, and keeps to a loose style to evoke thoughts and discussion. It's important to remember that in any discussion of his work, we can hold opposing opinions and still be right. We don't have to follow his singular narrative.

~ Sorry this got so long, but you raised some very interesting points and ideas and I wanted to spend time on them. I know I haven't spoken much on the silmaril itself so if I missed something, please feel free to send another ask :)

[doberbutts]

(Some other guy entirely here) I do think there's not much of a reason to be so against the terms tma/tme though, and I don't really understand why some people are? Like, in the same way we want a word to describe our experiences so do transfems, and while I do believe that all trans people are affected by transphobia and misogyny, it's obviously also true that we're affected by it differently depending on how we present, cause otherwise we'd all be satisfied with just the term transphobia (not saying anything new here so far)

So, since it just so happened that the term transmisogyny was coined to mean specifically the oppression transfems face (regardless of what anyone might feel on the matter, that is what it means in practice), what's really so wrong with having terminology to specify whether you're affected by it or not in online discussions of specifically transmisogyny? I'd think that would be relevant enough information, and you're not obligated to share it unless you want to.

I think what's really bothering a lot of people is that these terms exist for half of our community but there's no acceptable equivalent for the other half, and there's constant backlash against attempts to fill that void in the language. But that's not the fault of anyone who advocates for the use of tme/tma, or rather, they are separate issues that I don't believe should be conflated even if the proponents of tme/tma are the same people who are against specific terms for transmasc oppression.

When we do this, from the pov of trans women we are the ones rejecting their terminology and trying to silence them when they talk about their discrimination, and since we know exactly how that feels, I think we as a community should take a step back on the matter and just let it be.

Just because we feel dismissed when it comes to a similar matter doesn't mean we should dismiss in turn.

Not that anyone needs my permission or anything for this but:

I don't really have any problem with the words transmisogyny or trans-misogyny, as I think they are valuable labels to discuss a specific intersection of transphobia and misogyny.

I am not sure I necessarily have a problem with the terms TMA or TME themselves, outside of that I think it is not possible to be exempt from oppression because it will apply to you even if the label itself is wrong. This is also how hate crime and discrimination law works in this country- it is both your label and what the offender thinks of you, not just one or the other.

In other words, the guy who screamed at me about how I'm a Mexican is incorrect because I'm not Mexican, but it is still considered to be discrimination against Mexicans because it was his hatred of Mexicans that fueled the attack. It doesn't mean that actual Mexicans aren't the actual targets or this, but it does mean that it's not possible for me to be exempt from anti-Mexican sentiment. It doesn't mean that hatred of Mexicans doesn't exist, it does mean that if I want to stop getting screamed at for saying non-English words while visibly brown (I said pate, which is FRENCH and not Spanish, in reference to a can of dog food he was buying), then I need to ally myself with Mexicans and see what I can do to help decrease this hatred of Mexicans within my country.

What I do have a problem with is how these words are used and applied.

Caster Semenya is a "TME" intersex woman who was caught by transmisogynist Olympic rulings intended to hurt trans women, and to this day is still not recognized as a woman. How is this exempt from transmisogyny? She is literally being affected by transmisogyny- and interphobia, and misogynoir, and lesbophobia. And there are more examples than that, but this will already be a long enough post.

Moreover, I'm finding a lot of hypocrisy in the theory itself, labeling certain instances of oppression as things only TMA people experience and then refusing to listen when TME people say that they experience it too. I don't really care what or how people talk about their own experiences, but I do think it's a little ridiculous to be told that someone else who is not me can tell me what I experience better than I can. And then refuse to listen when I say that I have felt the hurts they're saying don't apply to me.

If TMA/TME had stayed within the limits you've set, being about descriptors of your own personal experience rather than trying to apply theory to entire demographics in a way that very little other theorycrafting does, I wouldn't have cared. Unfortunately that's not how it's being used and I don't like that.

[transformersconfessions]

not to add to all the megastar confessions lately, but i would like to add my perspective as someone who is a big starscream fan and also has megastar as my current favorite ship.

first of all, i think its important to mention that obviously not every fan is going to be into it in the same way. some people may choose to play with them in more comedic, light hearted scenarios while others may be more interested in darker scenarios that dig into it as an abuse dynamic. for some people it really does boil down to finding it hot in some way, and for other people it may be a combination of all of this, or some other reason entirely. i personally am open to most intepretations of the dynamic, but i do gravitate to stories where they are framed as an abusive relationship, because thats what i find most compelling.

i think its entirely fair to feel uncomfortable by certain types of content, especially when it deals with triggering subjects. but those stories still serve a purpose for the people reading them. is the same reason some people read tragedies, because it's an evocative story, and a lot of people are interested in complicated characters and relationships purely because it makes for a good story, and not because they lack the ability to tell its wrong. people are generally capable of engaging with complicated themes in fiction without wishing to advocate for them in real life. i think the only reason ships like megastar end up being so controversial is because theres this idea that shipping involves viewing something as romantic, when shipping can also just be about finding something interesting. i dont see why liking terrible characters is deemed okay, but liking terrible relationships is not. why is one more dangerous than the other inherently? people have an aversion to dark subjects when it applies to romance and sex specifically. and this is fair on a personal level but cannot be used against others with different boundaries and limits.

when it comes to people finding it hot, i think people have a very reductive view on it. power dynamics are a common aspect of kink, and some people choose to explore said power dynamics through fiction. it doesnt mean you cant acknowledge that a dynamic like that would be horrible if replicated, but fantasy is rarely meant to be 1:1 with our real life desires. most sexual fantasies are not literal. and where does the line between finding something interesting and finding it erotic begin? where does it end? most people i know who find the relationship hot are very self aware of the nature of it, and simultaneously care a lot about it on a narrative level and are very dedicated to analyzing it and giving it thought. fiction can evoke multiple feelings on a person, and its not going to make you feel the exact same as if it was a real situation. stories are not meant to be treated exactly like real life, theyre meant to be treated like, well, stories.

this isnt to say abuse apologism cant be expressed through fiction, but it honestly doesnt look like what most people think it does. fanfiction with problematic relationships in a sexual light is often meant to be read within a fetishistic context where its already understood that these relationships are an exploration of certain fantasies and not supposed to be replicated, while there are certain stories that, for example, attempt to justify the abuse or act like its not happening because the author genuinely believes it is okay, and part of reading things critically means being able to understand what message the author wants you to come across. this absolutely applies to fan works as well. its a very nuanced discussion that has more to do with being able to understand the themes of fiction works and their purpose, but people boil it down to "dark fiction is inherently bad, and using fiction to explore dark sexual fantasies is also bad and means you believe abuse is okay."

i would also add that as someone who has been abused, the reality is that for a lot of victims it does leave us with complicated feelings for our abuser that are difficult to reconcile, and fiction is an avenue to explore that. my sexual fantasies were definitely impacted by my trauma, and thats a really ugly and uncomfortable truth, we dont like to think of victims as having complex feelings on our trauma or "gross" trauma responses, but it happens, and judgement like this certainly doesnt create safe spaces for those of us with unpalatable responses.

.

[trans-luis-serra-navarro]

Knowing me I’m gonna absolutely make this into a longer post but like. Isn’t it just SOOOOOOOO SILLY AND SO GOOFY that Luis bestowed the role of Sancho Panza onto Leon even though they’d only JUST met

Like,,,, Don Quixote isn’t just a book Luis loves a lot- he bases his ENTIRE MORALITY on his own ideas of what Don Quixote means and what the messages behind it are. He SURROUNDS himself with chivalric ideals and so, obviously, he holds that book and it’s characters VERY near and dear to him- hell, he doesn’t even let Ada or Ashley in on just how much this damn book means to him!!!!!!! The other scientists who he worked with during his time with Los Illuminados also called him Don Quixote, but realistically, how much would they have known of Luis’ deep-seeded love for that novel??????

So like. Clearly. There is NO WAY IN HELL Luis doesn’t understand the impact of Alonso (Don Quixote himself) and Sancho’s relationship. He ABSOLUTELY understands the importance of it and how vital to the tale each other are and how intrinsically intertwined they are in each others lives and how one would quite literally have not survived without the other and how they’ve gone through hell and back for each other (in Alonso’s eyes LITERALLY) and how Sancho was there for him when his illusions of fantasy finally faded away

So. Like. Luis picking Leon to call his Sancho HAD to be purposeful right????????

He HAD to have understood the weight of his words and the weight of his decision. Maybe Leon didn’t quite understand at first but Luis????? Luis knew DAMN WELL that Don Quixote and Sancho Panza’s relationship went further than two people who just happen to be on the same adventure. Luis picking LEON to be his Sancho was PURPOSEFUL.

He’s not just any old chum he happens to he stuck with; Leon is a man who fully encompasses EVERYTHING GOOD Luis believes in in the world. Leon is EVERYTHING his chivalric ideals want him to be. He’s an inherently kind and caring and selfless human being and he’s everything Luis wants to see in himself. He saved him from certain death and now they’re connected more by just the circumstances of their situation- they’d go through hell and back for each other and they HAVE. He wants Leon not just to like him but to LOVE him. Because Leon sees past his actions; he sees past his mistakes and up until now, nobody has ever given him that privilege. Just like how Sancho still believed in Alonso and still believed that there was worth in his fantastical delusions.

So how does Luis express this gratitude without just straight up saying ‘I love you’????

By using language he understands and is comfortable using, of course.

By projecting a story that has meant SO MUCH to him onto the both of them.

And GOD. THATS SO POIGNANT TO ME. HES TELLING LEON HE LOVES HIM IN A WAY HES BEST AT AND MOST COMFORTABLE DOING. HES SAYING ‘I LOVE YOU’ IN ALL OF HIS ACTIONS AND PROJECTIONS. WHICH MEANS MORE THAN THOSE THREE WORDS EVER COULD. HES USING HIS OWN LOVE FOR THAT BOOK TO PROJECT HIS LOVE ONTO THE PEOPLE HE CARES ABT GODDAMNIT‼️‼️‼️

(ALSO SIDENOTE THIS DOESNT JUST APPLY TO LEON!!!!! THIS APPLIES TO ASHLEY AND ADA TOO!!!!!!!!!!! HE PROJECTS THIS SAME LAMGUAGE ONTO THEM AS WELL, JUST NOT TO THEIR FACES!!!!!!!!!! HE SHOWS THEM KINDNESS AND LOVE IN HIS ACTIONS!!!!!!!!!!!)

And I think on some level Leon knows this too. He probably hasn’t analysed Don Quixote from every angle possible like Luis has, but he knows- in those final actions, when he takes up the mantle of his Sancho and confirms to Luis that, yes, he WAS a fine knight, he WAS his Don Quixote- I think he knew exactly what Luis had been trying to say to him this whole time. Just…. Using words that best describes it in his own way.

[knaveumineko]

Umineko Episode 3 Blog: Glass Slippers

When I watch Rosa abuse a kid, I call her a monster. When I watch Eva abuse a kid, I just think she's iconic.

Episode 3 spent a long time exploring the lore behind witches. The whole ceremony offered me even more of that peak Eva content, and the question of what exactly a witch is on a mundane level is interesting to me.

Being a witch is obviously a pretty childish endeavour, in the sense that becoming an adult means accepting things as they are and not believing in miracles, which is why Eva and EVA are different people in the magic narrative, with only one of them ascending, but witches also have that self-centeredness that comes with immaturity. Every witch we've ever met seems hyperfocused on some obsession of theirs, with no regard for others nor interest in mortal affairs. Most of the witches we've seen were literal children.

Umineko has enjoyed exploring the gap between the mature front the siblings put on for the kids and the weakness that's really inside them. Eva's endless taunting of Natsuhi is on some level the same impulse that had her killing spiders as a child, and the same impulse that has EVA killing over and over. The traits that make for a good witch are the same ones that make for a good culprit, it seems. Is there some insight I could get by applying this to the Sayo theory? If nothing else, she outwardly appears to have held on to her superstitions for quite a long time, and she's stagnated in her role as a servant for years after most people leave. Does she just have no interest in the outside world?

There's a neat callback in Ange's big scene, where her fellow classmates scapegoat her for anything that goes wrong the same way the servants do with Beatrice (is that even true, actually? It would be pretty messed up if Kumasawa is just going around spreading ghost stories about the dead kid she helped raise.)

For Ange and Eva, being a witch is at least partially something extrinsic. It's more about the way other people perceive you. If we put it together, being a witch is being a hated scapegoat, isolated from your peers, failing to mature as a result, and becoming consumed by spite, self-interest, and your niche fixations. It's pretty worrying that Maria wants to be one. Seems like she's already most of the way there, albeit less deliberately cruel and more oblivious to the feelings of others.

It was pretty rude of Ryukishi to write Umineko in Japanese just to stop me from solving the epitaph. Eva had to use an atlas, so there's some kind of place name involved, and there's something about reading a word with a different number of characters to how you normally would. The "gouge the X and kill" being a clue involving removing certain characters from a string of text was kind of clever. Didn't I say something back in Episode 1 about how the murders seem like someone is trying to retrofit them to the riddle without always understanding what those parts of the poem was supposed to be about? I'm probably not going to think about it much. The atlas thing made me think maybe we're doing a twist where we have to read Kanji as if it was Hanzi or vice versa, or maybe taking the Kanji in a place name and looking at one of its alternative meanings, but that's more just me applying the one thing that I know about Kanji than an actual theory. Hopefully the game just tells me the answer at some point.

Besides the direct clues as to the solution to the epitaph, it doesn't escape my attention that Eva only solved the epitaph because she got hints from Kyrie and Rosa. Even with the hint, she beat Rosa by only a few minutes. We know gold was taken to the chapel in Episode 2, but not why. Did Rosa figure out the epitaph in that timeline, and use the gold to lure people to the chapel to get them killed? Seems like she would have gotten a witch in that case, so maybe she was just in the know on the real culprits' plans, rather than doing it herself. Seeing Kyrie make progress so fast makes me think the theory about her and Rudolph starting the killings off in Episode 1 could be plausible. I just like seeing more of Battler's parents in general. Unfortunately they keep having to die because Kyrie is too competent. Maybe next episode she'll be an accomplice instead so we'll get to see her gaslighting Battler.

I'd like to wrap this episode up fast so I can keep reading, so I'll talk a bit about the murder mysteries here. It's clear that there was to be a killer separate from Eva, since people die in contexts where Eva wouldn't or couldn't kill them.

Sayo had to be a bit clever about carrying out the murders this time. Since the servants who would usually help her out all got selected for the initial 6 sacrifices and she was up against all the siblings working together, she had to operate indirectly. That's why she went out of her way to underline the importance of the epitaph in her letters this time: it was absolutely vital that at least one person solves the epitaph and finds the gold, so that Sayo can play on their greed to get them to carry out the murders on their own.

At least one of Shannon or Kanon faked their deaths, with Nanjo providing fake autopsies as usual. This is sufficient to explain the loop of 6 closed rooms. Everyone else was killed by Eva as Battler described, except for George and Nanjo (and maybe Jessica, since we didn't see how she died). George was killed because he snuck out to check on the bodies in the mansion and discovered that one of them was faked (probably Shannon). Nanjo being killed by Sayo explains how Eva, Battler and Jessica didn't kill him.

The obvious objection to this is EVA's red truths, which seem to paradoxically state that Nanjo was killed by no-one, since everyone still alive was innocent. However, this trick was already used in Episode 2, when Kanon-but-not-Kanon killed a bunch of people and then vanished. My speculation was that Beatrice is being creative with her definition of "dead" in her red truths. My guess is that Kanon "died" in Episode 2 in the sense that he abandoned his identity as Kanon. I think the same thing has happened in Episode 3, which is how Kanon or Shannon can kill Nanjo despite being "dead".

After seeing the depths they'd stoop to in Episode 3, I'm thinking Eva and Hideyoshi were probably accomplices in Episode 1. The only testimony backing up that they left the conference early that night is Genji, who was definitely in on it. They can fake Shannon's death since she's in an out of the way spot and only Hideyoshi and Kanon can vouch for the state of the corpse, which explains why she's alive at the end. They holed themselves up in their room because they were planning on meeting with Sayo, so the mystery of why they let the killer in is solved.

Eva is a terrible liar. Why did she even do the receipt thing? It literally makes no sense unless she already knows murders are happening. She just can't help but lord any advantage she has over others, no matter how suspicious it makes her look. That's why we love her.

Anyway, that's going to be it for 3. I've heard Episode 4 is really slow, but I'm intrigued by Ange's deal. Her misfortune is amusing in a way, and I'm really curious about how she's going to tie into the plot when she's so far in the future.

[boy-gender]

How do you deal with guilt around being a man, and like generally feeling like you're "betraying women" or choosing to be something bad by transitioning? It's something I've really been struggling with..

I sort of have two answers for you.

The first is a bit glib, but I think you've got some bioessentialism to unlearn, anon. I know that it's probably not a belief you arrived at yourself- rather, a bunch of hateful radfem douschebags have so often repeatedly said shit like that, that you're a traitor, you're failing feminism, youre just trying to escape the patriarchy, you're mocking what women are, men are evil and youll become evil especially with testosterone. That kind of crap.

Genuinely I do not give it any thought. It's ridiculous on the surface, so I write it off as misguided and inane. There is no logical way to justify grouping an entire half of the population together, deciding that the one thing they have in common (being men) is somehow the defining trait about them (because nothing else is being taken into account, like their sexuality, ethnicity, trans or intersex status, poverty level, where they live, whatever) and then also deciding that one common trait is the root of all evil. I've personally had a lot of experience with people doing this with certain mental illnesses- particularly cluster B personality disorders- and deciding like "yes this one thing about you makes you evil. You have Evil Person Disorder," and seeing how stupid that was, I just applied it elsewhere. Humans are far too diverse, nuanced, and contradictory for any flat rule like "all X people are bad" to ever be accurate. If it's not accurate, it's not useful, so I don't judge myself by it. I literally just block the people spewing that shit and let it slide off like water on a duck. I have enough warped internalized beliefs from my upbringing- I'm not adding more when I can immediately and obviously see their flaws.

So my advice is to block anyone you see saying that shit. You might be beginning to internalize it because of just how often you see it- so you need to cut that off at the source. Radfems are not and never will be allies; they do not have "some good points." Their movement was specifically designed by conservatives to uphold white supremacist capitalism, and nothing that comes from that is ethically correct. I'd suggest picking up Mothers of Conservatism by Michelle Nickerson. A lot about the origins of the radfem/female separatism movements are detailed there, created by fundamentally conservative women. With this new 4B movement shit on the rise, it's helpful to understand how fucked up and wrong they've always been from the beginning. My second answer to you is to look at what manhood means to you. If you don't think you can be objective about this, ask a friend to help. List the traits you associate with what *you* personally want to be as a man, what you hope you transition towards. Do you want to be a financial provider? Do you want to defend your community? Do you want to be generous? Brave? Do you want to be an expert in a special interest? Do you want to make lots of friends?

Make a list of those traits. Then look at them, divorced from the idea of gender. Is being a financial provider "bad?" Is being generous bad? Or brave? Or having lots of friends? Are any of these things bad in isolation, or does your guilt about them come from their association with manhood? Is that /your/ association, or did other people cause you to think there is an association?

For me, I had two formative male relationships as a child. My father, and my maternal grandfather. My father was an abusive piece of shit who liked to pick me up by the throat and slam me into walls, threaten our pet cats, scream at me until I dissociated, called me slurs, hated my opinions on anything, belittled me, believed only in capitalism, is a social darwinist capitalist schill, hates my mom, treated me like a servant and punching bag, and is a miserable fuck with no friends.

My grandpa was an old man who loved scotland and tartan and scottish terriers even though he never had one, loved each of his cats which he had all the time. He collected coins and read about history, he made model planes. He watched judge judy with me and talked about the cases and if we agreed with her rulings; he watched the news from multiple different outlets a day and taught me to weigh them against one another. He loved sitting on the porch and watching neighborhood kids play, and he drank a lot of lemonade. He was a brilliant chemist, provider, raised 4 kids in near poverty, then raised 8 grandkids after that. He would sneak me chocolate malt balls as a "vitamin" and he would tease my grandma by pretending to pick up and lick his plate after dinner. He taught my uncle to garden who then taught my cousin, so all my life gardening has been "mens work" to me. He was soft spoken, curious, patient, and mischevious. He loved my grandma for 60 years until he died.

These men have nothing in common except that they were men. Being a man didnt make my grandpa evil because he chose not to be. Being a man didnt make my dad evil either; he's an evil fuck because he made that choice. They are both sentient beings, who can use logic and emotions alike. One chose poorly. It never made sense to me as a child to assume all men would be like my dad or like my grandpa, because they were both men and they weren't at all like each other. Some categories are just so broadly diverse that they aren't really helpful- if I ask you to picture a mammal, do I mean a monkey or a mouse? Does "sea creature" mean a giant ass blue whale or a tiny piece of plankton? "Man" as a category is too broad to make assumptions about. I know it sounds circular and reductive, but the only thing that makes someone a man is...being a man. Nothing else.

I find it helps to look at a diverse array of men, to see all that men can be, especially men not like myself or the men I know. What does it mean to be a man in rural Yunnan farm country? What did it mean to be a man in medieval europe? What is it like being a gay black man from california, or a hunter living off the grid in appalachia? What does it mean to be a man in a culture where long hair is masculine, or where harvesting plants is masculine, where being a doctor is masculine? What about cultures where adornment is masculine? Hell, what about animals? What's it like to be a male lion vs a male house cat? What do I think about male cardinals, who are the bright lovely red ones, whose color is meant to draw a predators eye to them and away from the female cardinals and their nests?

To me, gender is an all you can eat buffet. It's customizeable. You can pick up or ignore or throw away any traits you want or don't want. Grab things that are feminine in your culture and incorporate them into your manhood in a subversive, gender nonconforming way. Take things that are masculine that make you happy, that you're reclaiming in a way because you may not have been allowed to do/be them before. Fill your gender with the ideals and aesthetics you like. You are fundamentally changing manhood by being a man, by being a different kind of man than any other man. If there are 4 billion men on the planet, there are 4 billion different 'microgenders' of man.

Seems silly to write off an entire 4 billion people as inherently evil and incapable of either goodness or change. It's just illogical. For me, that's enough to discard the idea wholecloth. If it doesn't make sense, I'm not wasting my time with it. That's not an ability everyone else has easily though, so you take the time you need. Try to look at yourself as objectively as possible, as an outsider. As you transition, have your actions become more evil? Are you committing sexist acts? Have you literally betrayed all the women you know somehow? Do you feel yourself becoming less kind, less patient, less interested in equality or the preservation of life? I'm betting, since you're nervous about it enough to ask, that none of those things are happening to you. Do not let yourself be gaslit into believing you are becoming something you're not. Look at your actions, your words. Look at your values and how you live up to them. If you don't see any sudden discrepancy, then you know anyone who tells you you're becoming evil by becoming a man is straight up lying to you. They're projecting an idea onto you that doesnt fit reality; trying to put a round peg in the square hole. Be curious, be objective. Do not be misled, and for those who try to mislead you, hit them with a chunky block button.

[overleftdown]

farleigh start and racism; oh boy.

(some people are going to find this post really annoying. some people are like felix catton.)

read this.

just some thoughts from the perspective of a person of color who is slightly too obsessed with this character. this movie leaves the viewer a lot of wiggle room to interpret how dynamics such as race and privilege come into play. there are certain parallels between this movie and the real world, and how unnoticeable white privilege tends to be for white people.

lemme lay some groundwork. from what i understand, the most prevalent form of racism and white privilege within upper- and middle-class circles is implicit bias. this is racist conceptualization that subconsciously interacts with one's perception of society and people. implicit bias is often externalized through microaggressions, differences in treatment and language towards a marginalized person, misplaced guilt or pity, and persistent denial of any existing privilege or marginalization. most of these biases are also founded on stereotypes. some racial stereotypes are heightening (e.g. asians are all smart) and some are lowering (e.g. black people are all lazy). all stereotypes are harmful. i'm going to discuss some of the stereotypes that could theoretically interact within the saltburn canon, as well as some things i've noticed within viewers. can of worms, to be honest. boutta get INTO IT.

to use one of my externalization examples, let's discuss (or, more accurately, let me discuss) the denial of existing privilege or marginalization. this is a subconscious way to uphold a sense of morality, effectively avoiding "white guilt," so to speak. as is clearly presented to us, the cattons are very attached to their methods of upholding their own self-righteousness. saviorism is a common theme within both elspeth and felix. in oliver's conversation with elspeth about poor dear pamela, you can see that oliver recognizes elspeth's need to justify her actions in an attempt to preserve her sense of decency. one can only assume that this applies to how they view farleigh's relationship with them. there's more to talk about there, but i'd like to start with the only overt mention of race in this movie.

in felix's confrontation with farleigh, farleigh makes the bold and brave decision to mention his blackness. i call this brave because it's genuinely a terrifying thing to do, and the end of this conversation is proof. "oh, that is... that is low, farleigh. seriously, that's where you want to take this? make it a race thing? i never know our footman's names; the turnover for a footman is notoriously high!" we have felix's intentional or unintentional shaming of farleigh. we have felix's appalled denial of any involvement of race or racial bias. we have felix's diversion away from farleigh specifically and onto his own inability to know his staff's names. felix made no further attempt to recenter farleigh, aside from telling him that the cattons have "done what they can." (which is SO absurd on its own. they are clearly and obviously able to do more. they are disgustingly rich). farleigh does feel ashamed after felix's response; you can see it on his face, and archie says it directly. here is a relevant and prevalent stereotype for all marginalized people: that the discussion of marginalization is exclusively weaponized to gain something or manipulate a situation. this is how felix chooses to see farleigh's implication of existing white privilege. this conversation results in nothing, does nothing, as felix chooses not to confront what he's probably thinking as he repeats the words "begging bowl" to venetia.

now. saviorism, guilt, and pity. felix specifically tells oliver that sir james made an effort to support farleigh out of guilt. i'd like to order some things in a way that i perceive them. frederica start runs from england, which is explained in a condescending way by felix. frederica start marries a so-referred-to "lunatic" who dug through fred and jame's money, although it's farleigh who only mentions fred's financial irresponsibility. out of guilt, james offers to pay for farleigh's education. the specificity of education is compelling to me. perhaps james is simply a patriotic man who strongly believes that english education is better. or this is a mobilized racial stereotype! who can truly know. i digress. james' offer to pay for farleigh's foreign education puts the cattons in an odd position; if farleigh is to attend english schools, he will need to stay with the cattons. if farleigh is staying with the cattons, he will need to be treated as equal to felix and venetia. this is all one long chain of obligations. none of these acts from one family member to another should be considered "charitable," because family should intrinsically create a trustworthy and supportive dynamic.

i believe that the cattons do consider their fostering of farleigh as obligatory. moral obligation, as they recognize that families are intended to have a sympathetic and loving relationship. they cannot, however, escape the truth that they're just guilty. the "begging bowl" and "biting the hand" are more symbolic of a starving dog and its charitable adopter than a cousin/nephew who's staying with his absurdly rich family. see, the cattons are fully and entirely capable of affording another child, of supporting frederica financially, etc. the only way i can rationalize their reluctance to do so is by assuming that they don't feel like farleigh deserves it. is this a crazy assumption? i genuinely don't see why else. of course, i don't think this mentality is explicit or conscious. it's more-so the reality that when farleigh walks in a room, he's not the same as anybody else. aside from background characters at oxbridge, the only on-screen black people are liam, joshua, and james' godson's wife (who gets degraded on-screen). this is the reality of being different in an environment such as the english aristocracy. the cattons choose to see themselves as the hand that feeds the less fortunate, more entertaining, and least inconvenient. the cattons' inclusion of farleigh is not only reliant on how well farleigh performs, but also on their own pity and guilt.

all of this is somehow, painfully mirrored by some takes i've seen on farleigh. maybe this entire post is presumptuous, but you know what isn't presumptuous? saying that certain people hold farleigh to an incredibly odd standard. while the cattons never canonically said anything along the lines of "farleigh doesn't deserve our love and support," mfs on the internet have. the number of times people have referred to this character as greedy, lazy, petty, and malignant is so odd to me. i'm insane, i know. i just don't understand how people can hold farleigh to the backdrop of an english aristocratic family and so passionately say that he, of all characters, is the most detestable. or that he, of all characters, has no reason to behave in the way he does.

is farleigh greedy? greed is defined as a desire for more. farleigh has no desire to climb ranks, no desire to replace or surpass felix, no desire to hold any power over any family member. he is maintaining, upholding a standard that has been set for him throughout his life. is it kind or selfless of him to meddle in other people's affairs with the cattons? no. does he have a reason to be upset that non-relatives of the cattons are a threat to his inclusion in the first place? yes. is farleigh lazy? i don't even need to explain this one. no. if you don't consider oliver lazy, then i really don't want to hear anything. is farleigh petty? pettiness is defined as "an undue concern for trivial matters, especially in a small-minded or spiteful way." farleigh's meticulous attention to trivial matters isn't undue in any sense. a person of color and their meticulous attention to trivial matters is almost never undue. elspeth is a good example of petty. is farleigh malignant? there are a lot of definitions of malignant and i've seen people apply all of them, in some way, to farleigh. that's just wrong. archie madekwe once said, "i was interested in humanizing what, on paper, seemed like a mean character, a villain, or a bully. i don't think he's any of that. he's very self-serving, but i think he's really a heartbreaking character." case closed, this was for my own piece of mind. had to write this section because good lord.

in conclusion to this post that has gone tragically off the rails, i think the in-canon and viewer perspective of farleigh is, perhaps, a little racially motivated. sue me. they are all very centered on this idea that farleigh doesn't deserve inherent respect, support, and love. to remove farleigh's rational position within the cattons family would be akin to removing his right to familial love. genuinely, that's how i see it. the transaction nature of farleigh's actions is responsive. he sees felix as a social shield at oxbridge, he sees elspeth and james as the beholders of his perceived security, and he sees saltburn as a way to escape from his lack of privilege and his lack of stability in america. boom. bam. pow.