#on the other other hand there's no ethical consumption under capitalism... but also we can always try to be more ethical

[strawberryteabunny]

This is a super interesting question! And I think nuzzle’s answer is great and covers a lot of the issues with replicas. I wanted to add some of my own thoughts on this too but it got long so I’m adding a cut. Also, I'm going to be speaking specifically about print replicas, rather than design replicas like tea party shoes or heart bags.

I completely agree that even the biggest of lolita brands are actually ‘indie’ in the grand scheme of things. They absolutely do not have their financial futures guaranteed and do suffer from losing business to shops that make cheap replicas or knock-offs (I feel similarly about the very low quality ‘lolita’ found on Shein or aliexpress even when it’s not a direct replica- it tends to be extremely low quality and is hurting Japanese, Chinese, and Western indie brands that put a lot of effort into making beautiful, quality pieces). I don’t think that lolita is dying but it’s true that some Japanese brands have had to close stores or raise prices or change their style/marketing due to financial pressures. This isn’t entirely due to replicas of course but they are part of it.

Even when you’re buying a replica of an item that no longer exists or from a brand that no longer exists, you’re still supporting a company that makes replicas, and their other replicas are almost certainly going to include existing pieces. And, like nuzzle said, this is still art theft; if you consider it morally wrong to steal other peoples’ art and ideas, then what these brands are doing is morally wrong as well, even if all of the art they're stealing is not bringing direct profit to the brands it belongs to.

I also think you're hurting yourself in some ways by buying replicas; it's impossible to create a replica that is much cheaper than the original piece without cutting corners on quality. Lolita brands don't purposely overprice their items; lolita clothes are just inherently expensive due to the amount and quality of fabric, lace, ribbon, and trims, plus the time and expense it takes to conceptualize and draw a print and get custom fabric made, then the labor to make these dresses, and all in multiple colors and cuts and with accessories. A replica company is going to have to use lower quality fabric, lace, and print and construction quality in order to sell the dress for cheaper and still make a profit. For you, this means you're paying money for something that's not actually going to be as nice to wear as the dress you truly want. (And I'm curious what you mean by 'very overpriced'; many lolita dresses when they're still in good condition are going to be worth over $100-$200 on the secondhand market because they're in high demand. Considering they're $300+ new, this may be more than you're willing to pay, but it isn't necessarily overpriced).

This difference in quality, plus a general familiarity with popular prints/designs, is what's going to make it obvious to other lolitas that you're wearing a replica, especially in person. To be honest, people will probably judge you for it. Not saying they're right to judge, or that they'll ever say anything to you, but yeah if a new lolita turned up to a meet wearing a replica, it would not help them make friends.

I do however understand why people might want to buy a replica; especially as an oldschool fan, there's a ton of dresses and prints out there that I really want, but that are way too rare or expensive for me to ever own them. There's also the question of dresses not being the right size, or a brand being defunct meaning there's no chance of a re-release ever happening, etc. But I also know that a replica also isn't truly the dress I want, and the quality and history of lolita is a big part of why I love it- the nice cotton fabrics and beautiful old cotton laces, the history of the piece. Unfortunately I think that's just the lot of being part of a niche subculture, that there's going to be things you'll covet but never get to have.

The question though of "is it okay" is something you have to decide for yourself, I think- it's like, "is it okay to wear a dress without a blouse/petticoat" or "is it okay to alter lolita dresses". It may be frowned upon or cause a ton of discourse or not be a 'proper' lolita coord but there isn't some kind of lolita fashion police that will arrest you for it. Ultimately it's up to you what you do with your money and your clothes and no one can stop you. I think in a lot of ways, seeking external validation for what you wear in lolita isn't right either; your fashion should make you happy personally, not be something you wear for the approval of others. My personal feelings are against replicas, but that doesn't mean everyone does or should feel the same way.

I hope you don't mind if I ask a question I'm a noobie in egl and jfashion in general and I was wondering if it's ok to purchase replicas that are permanently discontinued or from defunct brand's? I don't want to support replicas but a lot of my dream items are very overpriced on the aftermarket :'(

it's no problem at all! apologies for my answer being quite long, i have a lot of thoughts on this.

depending on who you ask, the answer to this question will almost always differ. the whole replica debate has been quite controversial for a long time. what you decide to do is ultimately up to you and your beliefs. given that you're new to the fashion, it would be best to give yourself time to form your own opinion. i'm not trying to dissuade you with my answer or seem impartial, so i would like to remind you that you're completely free to disagree or do your own research! with that being said, i'm open to explaining what i personally think about it and why i hold the opinion that i do.. but first, some initial context and history on replicas:

if you comb through old discussions on blogs and on livejournal in the early 2000s, replicas were a lot more common with less stigma surrounding them compared to now. you could chalk this up to a number of reasons: comm members being young at the time, japanese brands not being nearly as accessible as they are now, sales platforms being underdeveloped without all of the rules we know today being in place yet, and for the same reason that there were a lot of general unrelated misunderstandings of the fashion itself back then, ignorance. it understandably takes a lot of time to research certain topics, especially with the existing language barrier and the fashion still being rather new to a majority the west at the time.

the general consensus on replicas has changed, or rather, evolved since then. to give a fair warning, a decent amount of replicas are often frowned upon within the community. that's not to say all replicas are, or that the community operates as a hivemind, because others will disagree with this sentiment. rather than there being an existing black and white answer i could provide you with, it's more so determined on a case by case basis. there are varying levels of what's deemed acceptable versus unacceptable, depending on a combination of some specifics of the item itself and who you ask. most people tend to go by the standards of the FAQ of lacemarket��the largest and currently most commonly used EGL sales platform—which (reluctantly) allows design replicas of nonprint dresses and accessories like bags and shoes, but disallows replicas of dresses with prints, brand-created mascots and characters, or any brand name logos. this portion of the FAQ was borrowed by the illegal replica item guidelines first written and enforced in 2012 by the moderators and admin of the original secondhand EGL sales platform predating LM—egl_comm_sales on livejournal. from what i remember, these were initially instated due to legal threats from AP.

they're both linked for you to check them out yourself, but to give a short explanation: design replicas that aren't copyrightable are not illegal to sell. both guidelines have been determined by what is considered legal or illegal under US/Japan's copyright laws.

a couple of lolita brands, namely ones that retail in the US and that can afford a lawyer to assist them through the process, do have trademarks registered here.

(1 / 2 / 3)

i don't support most replicas personally, and don't own any myself. that's not to shame others for doing so, it's simply a matter of personal opinion. i do think replicas are more "convenient" so to say, when it comes to availability, affordability and sizing for many.. but it's important to consider that this convenience is made available at the expense of the designers and the company itself. when it comes down to it, i strongly believe it's art theft.

many have justified replicas by citing that certain brands are "large enough" for it to not matter, and that it's only hurtful to "indie brands" but are heavily overestimating the size of said "big" brands to begin with. despite brands being largely known and considered "big" within lolita, i find even the biggest examples to be miniscule outside of the subculture itself. lolita brands are considered to be "luxury fashion," but that's specifically within lolita. when compared to near universally known large corporation designer luxury brands that also get replicated, take Chanel or Gucci for example, they are different in many ways. brands like Angelic Pretty and Baby are very well known strictly in terms of the lolita community.. as the biggest brands that exist, really. but to put it into perspective: when we leave this already very niche sphere of fashion, a typical person on the street is very unlikely to recognize or know of either of these brands, but very likely to know the popular "normie" luxury brands. when comparing profits, number of clothing articles and accessories produced, or even the number of employees behind these operations—they're in completely different leagues. AP and BTSSB make, give or take if i had to loosely estimate, somewhere between 100~200 of each release. according to what (limited information) could be obtained through public records, each are reported to have about 60~68 employees. purely taking these as estimation references rather than exact numbers due to it being quarterly report data. so where does this leave the rest of lesser known lolita brands if these two are at the top? the numbers on all counts would (assumingly) be even lower.

(1 / 2)

i do think replicas are hurtful to the fashion/hobby itself due to how niche the hobby is and small the community is. realistically, there isn't a plethora of endless brands we have to choose from. it's important to show support to the brands we do have available to us to keep them up and running and to not take them for granted. brands, especially ones running on a smaller scale, come and go throughout the years. many of them discontinue due to lack of sales. i find that funneling money to producers of replicas doesn't always take away money from these brands, for example: it wouldn't necessarily directly impact a release that isn't currently being sold, or a defunct brand as the one you mentioned. however, almost everything is available secondhand with patience.. and if at a higher price, waiting for a different listing of it, budgeting, saving, or sometimes even negotiating a hold or a payment plan with the seller are all options. there's always a question of, "if i'm buying something secondhand, the brand isn't directly getting my money anyway.. the seller of the dress is. so why does it matter?" but buying brands secondhand also supports brands. any money that isn't going towards replicas that harm brands is still helping, even if indirectly. buying replicas does financially support the production and the practice of making them, and other replicas they may be making that could be harming active brands and designers. this includes websites that advertise their replicas as originals and scam the unknowing.

plus, for what it's worth: it helps to imagine yourself in the shoes of the designer. i always think that if i created a design or had drawn something original that i was proud of, and if it were stolen and reproduced for someone else's profit, i'd be pretty upset about it. if i love a design enough to want to buy it, i would not want to offend or harm the individual who made it. for some of us, they're just products or clothes. but a lot of these were once, or still are, the designer's dream or passion.. a soulful creative project made out of love and made with a lot of effort. replicas are like thieves of originality and of this inspiration, in a way.

i believe avoiding replicas is not only ethical, but it lends to the existence and longevity of the fashion as we know it (a slow fashion, not a fast one.) i love the fashion and subculture and will always choose to support the brands we have while we still have them, both directly and indirectly.

[resident-quilt]

Shrue’s descent into radicalism and what the Silt Verses says about our world today

(also, regarding the giant poem that the episode titles make) ITS A TUMBLR ESSAY BABYYYYYYYYY

Kill your gods. Starve them out, topple their statues, forsake their comfort— Kill the stories that gave birth to them. Tear away your flesh that bears their marks.  Adjudicator Shrue, Ep. 43

The Silt Verses is a story born of its time, to a 21st century world which is slowly decaying—and everyone in it is doing their part to help it decay just a little bit faster. It speaks of capitalism, of corruption, of power and belief and environmental destruction and the rift between generations. When Charles tells Val he can’t really stand behind the idea of a family (“You wonder about what kind of world we’re bringing children into, y’know?”) I had to pause and gather myself; it’s something we hear from so many Gen Z’ers today.

But then Shrue’s speech came, and it made no sense.

Shrue calls for an end in any form it can be given. They call for the loss of all faith and love and community in the world; they call for us to kill the stories of our history, to kill the figures we believe in and the ones that give us hope. Anything, everything, all we can give to stop the decay and degradation of the world. They demand us to defeat the corrupt system we have built by trading our lives to do so.

If our words and stories sustain them, let us fall silent. If our communities rely on them, let us drift apart and die, lonely, in the polluted wilds amongst the howling winds of long forgotten deities.

It made no sense because TSV, most simplistically, embodies “no ethical consumption under capitalism”—and this solidly did not fit. So I cast about for an answer to what it all meant, because TSV had grown to be more than the “folks, look where capitalism got us” which I thought it to be. And Shrue's “we can’t do anything to escape the system but die” was just too flat a conclusion. 

Then I fell upon the poem compiled from each episode’s title.

It begins with the start of humanity: a story of things that have happened, things people have believed, things which have roamed the land from then til now. 

Let me speak first of revelations, and next of dark deceit. Then I’ll speak of champions, of lovers, gods and beasts.

And so the poem continues in a description of this story, until it eventually twists to become entirely self-destructive around Chapters 18-24. It's a reference to how everything in the TSV universe seems to eat itself: their system of gods, sacrifices, even the characters themselves.

If I could trace with bloodless fingers, if my hands could shape the flow, I’d bear this song to the precipice and rend us both to dust below.  We’d both go plunging downwards, one final fall from grace— I’d howl, I’d scream, in victory, and we’d be gone without a trace. 

At Chapter 25, we get a respite from the story. We get a short poetic break which concludes that yes, we’re doomed to die—but we continue as we are despite it, and write our story even if it’ll be lost in the end. It’s a classic conclusion that a lot of literature and poetry fall to, because it’s so very human. It’s a cliche, and it’s a cliche for a reason. 

But we’ll never be rid of each other, my song, my sorrow, and I,  So I’ll bear it trembling onwards: to drift on, to dream, to die.

With that, the poem progresses forward until it starts addressing our end and what happens when we face that. It screams of last-ditch efforts keep on believing, even as we plunge down and down and the world just gets worse and worse. Shrue’s speech takes place in “One Last Song of Revelations” (the title is so fitting!), where they vocalize their realization that their pacifist attitude isn’t doing shit to change anything. 

But when they switch towards radicalism because it’s, evidently, the only way anything will ever get done—the only way anything will get the exposure to maybe make an impact—they speak of the destruction of society as a whole. Not the eradication of capitalism, nor the installation of kinder gods, nor the lowering of sacrifice ceilings. They speak of true destruction. Utter destruction.

Shrue’s speech isn’t some call to action, nor does it embody any concrete ideology which the writers are trying to convey. It’s just an expression of desperation. Nothing is working; no one is listening. 

What this poem sounds like is a story of how our world goes. It's its birth, its self-destruction, its philosophical revelations, its finale.

When we began following Carpenter and Faulkner in the reeds of the White Gull River, we were consuming a commentary on capitalism. Now, it’s more. It’s a commentary, yes, but it’s not only that—it’s an exploration. The Silt Verses is a tragic exploration of our world as it connects to theirs, of how we’ve been driven so far and been corrupted so deeply that only radicalism makes a difference because only radicalism is what gets the notice and attention to spark moderate change. And that same radicalism is going to destroy the society we have left.

But it’s all the same in the end, because society's collapse was going to happen anyways. So at least someone had it in them to fight for something.

GAHHHH I LOVE THIS SHOW

[burgerdrome]

Are you still a fan of Warhammer? I hope it’s been long enough that you aren’t scared of this restarting anything but like, I’m a fan myself and everyone I know is also one, and your article gave me some uncomfortable feelings of “what’s the woke way to enjoy this” lol

Hello! Thank you for the delightful question and thank you also for allowing me to be part of the authentic Tumblr experience of receiving an inbox message from a questionable username.

So I guess I think the question about whether there's a "woke way" to enjoy Warhammer is an unhelpful way to think about it (or about anything). It's okay to enjoy a pretend game about silly clanking armoured men just in the same way it's okay to enjoy a pretend video game where you drive a car over the speed limit.

I think a lot of leftists get caught up in ethical hand-wringing and sort of paralysed by how to move forward with something but the reality of participation in a capitalist system is that while you can be conscientious about your choices, at the end of the day you still have to, you know, make those choices. There isn't a perfect way to do it - there is no ethical consumption under capitalism!

One of the great things about the Warhammer hobby - hell, just about all tabletop gaming hobbies - is that the companies who make the products simply cannot stop you from buying them, building them, and playing with them in the way that you want. The fact that Warhammer (hell, D&D too, etc) is essentially imagination layered on top of painted bits of plastic means that the barrier to entry, and the conditions under which a corporation can control your entry, are astonishingly low.

But of course this means that a huge chunk of potential profit is going missing. One of the big ways that Games Workshop - hell, just about all tabletop gaming companies, really - has tried to maximise their profits in recent years has been to attempt to normalise the idea that to "play Warhammer" is to engage in brand loyalty rather than personal creativity - in other words, to own as much of your potential hobby ecosystem as possible.

Purchase your official Warhammer model from the official Warhammer store (good luck getting a pre-order from a local games store which has been deliberately understocked!), clip it from the sprue using official Citadel clippers, glue it with Citadel plastic glue while you're watching the official Warhammer Plus "loremasters" show, basecoat it with Citadel spray, make sure to play it using the new rules we released 3 months ago and which we will update in another book in 3 months time (which you will need to buy, you don't want to miss out!) etc, etc, etc. Deeply tiresome shit.

(Illustrative side note: Recently I saw a post on Facebook marketplace with someone saying "Can someone sell me a pair of Citadel clippers, my last ones broke!" Someone immediately responded to recommend going to buy a pair at Bunnings for $5, and the person legitimately had to be convinced that they were the same product and weren't going to, in some way, "hurt" the models.)

Of course while GW has a long history of trying to trick baffled Christmas aunties into buying spray paint from their stores for $30 instead of from Bunnings for $10, when I got into Warhammer in 1997 DIY creativity was explicitly encouraged and that was pretty much the whole point - Games Workshop literally published books telling you to go to construction sites to find basing sand, to repurpose old cardboard boxes to make buildings and walls, to use guitar strings to make power cables, to write your own missions, to invent your own Chapters (with rules to do so), to build your own characters and leaders, etc, etc. And I did! And it kicked ass.

The old codexes are full of examples of people scratchbuilding whole terrain sets, converting up models for characters that GW couldn't be arsed to provide - that sort of "make it your own! exercise your creativity!" ethos was baked into the very DNA of the hobby, and it has always stuck with me, even as GW has tried to backpedal away from it and focus on "how well can YOU paint OUR kits?"

So now for me I look at Warhammer the same way I might look at an art supply store. Yes I can buy one particular brand of paint or one particular brand of canvas when looking at doing up a new watercolour, but ultimately it's about picking what I think is going to allow me to exercise my creativity the most, or what I enjoy working with.

And when I do throw dice (I am a busy full-time employee with a mortgage and now mostly play small scale Kill Team skirmish games) I play against extremely chill people who have straight-up 3D printed accessories or whole models, or play in my local games club on old Malifaux terrain on a third party game mat, or whatever.

I buy all my models second hand online or purchase out-of-production things at swap meets. I use third-party paints and brushes, and 3D print up conversion parts that I need which I purchase online. I engage with the hobby on my terms and look at it as a way to express my own creativity, or as a series of building blocks to assemble in whichever way I see fit, because that's what makes me happy. Ultimately Games Workshop's colour schemes, lore, etc are (and only ever can be) suggestions - the only difference is that they used to explicitly tell you as much and encourage you to play around, and now they strongly encourage the opposite.

This isn't to cast shade on anyone who just buys GW models and paints them with GW paints or whatever. Doing that isn't somehow a fascist act or a one way ticket to Cancel Jail. They make some nice fucking models! And tbqh their Contrast paints are the best in class for that sort of thing (Army Builder "Speed Paint" ones suck ass).

Buying little toy dolls from companies (at least companies which aren't openly funding genocide) is only a problem if we do so uncritically or treat those little toy dolls as sacred idols and allow them to consume our personalities. That's when you end up with weird right-wing 40K Lore Youtubers with aquila tattoos.

[dinoburger]

to try to put an earlier thought about fan work and commodity in a less frenetic, more cohesive way, it's one of those things that thrives from being divorced from context that also makes it fraught as a way of feeding back into media consumption

it's easy for us to see on one hand, there are artists who are independently creating work, where monetary gain is minimal and means maybe this week it's a bit easier to pay rent.

On the other you have "buy a Disney plus subscription and watch this show the 'correct' way so they can keep making more content!" and it's a celebrity cast with a zionist director or something. Also Disney. Also the corporate subscription system.

Good job, you've helped set the pieces for the diabolical Rue Goldberg machine of capitalism and encouraged others to do the same.

Most things are more blurry. This platform, for instance, is less than ideal in countless ways and at worst, morally bankrupt, but it's still a resource that can be taken advantage of to the ends of spreading word about other resources, or helping drum up awareness - if nobody knows what's going on, they're going to listen to what's being told to them. We know which voices are the loudest.

Paying attention to which accounts have checkmarks, though, it's not as if we aren't complicit in some ways. When we use this site and it encourages others to do the same, we're paying indirectly.

There's always going to be more decision making than electing to shrug and say "no ethical consumption under capitalism" - that absence of a decision to decide where to draw the line is a kind of crime of omission. This "I just wanna draw my silly guys from my funny shows tee hee ^^".

I make and weigh up my decision to use this site every day that I do. I still think, ultimately, it is more optimal than a subscription service, it's... reasonably... user friendly (although, that gets less and less true by the day) and it's fairly accessible. I like that fan communities are a free, open space for people to chat and hang out.

I might change that decision tomorrow. I think it would be a shame, considering how long I've been around, but I don't need to fortify my identity as a "tumblr user".

That should extend to fan work. I don't guarantee you my patronage. If TF2 became a subscription service, I might rescind. I already feel very on-the-fence about supporting Valve - while it was a pioneer company, it's still encompassed by the vast and profitable Steam, which is corporate in its makings and as such, dubious. I wouldn't really encourage anyone to give them money, but I can't stop it either.

The other thing about this kind of disconnect is how most people online treat you as only the sum of your parts. The entity that is you is comprised of commodities they enjoy. Most people who find your work will do it through the frame of whatever they were already looking for, people who don't necessarily have any ideas about these conscious decisions we make.

I do know of artists deliberately making themselves harder to find because of this. Either disappearing any trace of the person behind the work, or obscuring the work to begin with. To a degree, it kind of undermines the joy of open accessibility that made these sites appealing, but I also understand why.

The sad part of closing yourself off from a community is that it can make it harder for smaller artists who just want to get by, doing what they do, to be seen at all. It's harder to reap the benefits of using this platform, with a lot of the same risks anyway.

I think everyone, to some degree, has an obligation to encourage conscious decisions like this, and show awareness of the strings attached to whatever their new shiny thing is. You're never really going to get there by trying to purge everything or double down about why you're allowed to stop caring.

[pruning-the-minds-garden]

Harry Potter and JK Rowling

Before we get started -

What this post is: a relatively brief run-down with examples of what I have personally dealt with, thought about, and where my ethical/moral compass is regarding this in March 2023.

What this post isn't: a comprehensive discussion of why JK Rowling is considered what she very clearly is.

I'm also going to put a Read More, because a lot of trans people are just fucking tired of talking and reading about this and it's okay if you aren't in the right brain space to deal with this at all.

Introduction

If you still like Harry Potter, if you still get good childhood feels from the world or the fandom, if you like to read fanfiction or post GIFs or quote from the series off the cuff... that's fine. At least, that's fine to me. Your feelings are not inherently an attack on anyone, nor do you need to change them. However, if you materially support the IP - and JK Rowling herself by extension - then you have gone from "I like the way Chick-fil-A tastes" to "I eat at Chick-fil-A" and you need to deal with the ethics of that. If you choose not to care ("no ethical consumption under capitalism, therefore I'll consume what I like without concern for the consequences"), that also is your choice, but I think it's a choice many can and will - and IMO are right to - judge you for. You could make other choices, but you've chosen to make that one, and I think it exists in the realm of things for which a person can be judged.

There are four instructive examples I can think of for this, each illustrating a different part of the basic argument I made above. I'll follow that up with a broader discussion to bring it home.

Example 1: HP Lovecraft / The Cthulhu Mythos

This is an objectively cool mythos and world. Yeah there are parts that are lifted from others, but it is damn neat for those who like subtle, creepy, otherworldly horror and want to inject some hentai-adjacent elements into their fiction.

That said, HP Lovecraft - the author and creator of the whole thing - was a huuuuuuuuuuuuge racist. He wasn't subtle about it, nor ambivalent, nor conflicted - he was just a racist. If you read the source material at all, some of that comes through (the frequency of discussion of "Negroid, Mongoloid and Caucasoid" 'types' just as an easy example, along with the portrayal of native people and non-Christian spiritual practice), but you can create and consume derivative works ("Lovecraft Country," for example) that do not contain or highlight, or that even subvert, those elements. However, some do. You need to be aware of that and watch what you consume, so that you aren't - advertently or inadvertently - supporting white supremacists.

Also HP Lovecraft is, himself, dead. Whenever you consume work in his IP you are not necessarily handing him a few cents of royalties of every dollar legitimately spent.

So, by this point, as long as you aren't consuming the racist parts of the Cthulhu Mythos because they are racist, or doing so blind to their racism, but are choosing instead those derivative works that are better... then I think that's fine.

Example 2: Orson Scott Card / Ender's Game

I think it's safe to say that Orson Scott Card has some, at the very least, controversial views. He voted for Trump in 2016. He thinks Barack Obama is morally equivalent to Adolf Hitler. His writings have been seen as homophobic, and his views as similar to that. He's against same-sex marriage, even now. He grew up in the LDS (Mormon) church and still actively associates with them, meaning that he donates a percentage of his income to the church and a portion of that goes to lobbying efforts for conservative causes and political candidates, as well as supporting a massive and untaxed corporation masking itself as a church. And, as of this writing, he's still alive.

If you buy or consume anything official in that IP, which he still has rights to, you are supporting him and those causes. Utah - largely run by the Mormon church - just outlawed gender-affirming health care for trans youth. Although he did not earn backend profits from ticket sales of "Ender's Game" the success of that movie was still going to determine the marketability of the rest of the IP to movie studios. However, he still makes money from book sales. So, if you buy "Ender's Game" or another of his books new off of Amazon, you are giving him money.

Should you? I don't think you should. Go buy second-hand instead, or something else that won't profit him.

Example 3: Chick-Fil-A

Dan Cathy and Chick-fil-A contribute, and continue to contribute, to social causes that are conservative, anti-LGBT, and dedicated to a theocratic vision of America dominated by Evangelical spiritual practices made manifest as government policy. If you go there to buy a chicken sandwich, you are giving their foundation, and those causes, money.

And, there are other chicken places. Whether you think they are "better" is a matter of taste (I prefer Popeye's), but the undeniable fact is that they exist. However, there are some situations where that is not available. For example -

Back in 2002, when I was in college, the only edible on-campus restaurant at a price I could was Chick-fil-A. At the time I didn't know what I was contributing to, but if I did I still might have eaten there some days because it was the only acceptable option. There are many others who live in analogous situations, whether on a campus or in a food dessert. However, now that I know, I choose other restaurants whenever I am able. Chick-fil-A is a food of last resort.

When others have bought Chick-fil-A for me, I've opted to not eat it. Now that I know their legacy, I cannot contribute to that and the only way to get through to people who'd buy it for you anyway despite knowing the aforementioned is to waste their money by not eating it. If they see that, they'll stop spending it, and although they'll keep eating there you will cease to be a part of the moral math.

Example 4: Proctor & Gamble Corporation

P&G own some of the most recognizable brands in the world - Charmin, Crest (toothpaste), Dawn, Oral-B, Downy, Gain, Pampers, Febreeze, Mr. Clean, etc - and they undoubtedly do some stuff at least some of you will find reprehensible. They are one of the last holdouts manufacturing products in Russia, despite the sanctions. They have used and profited from child and slave labor. They do lots of lobbying for and contributing to both sides of the American political aisle.

But, they are also almost impossible to avoid. The list of brands they own means they have an effective monopoly on many parts (dish soap, laundry detergent, etc) of your grocery basket, no matter what brand you buy. So, what is the moral math on buying those products?

The moral math is necessities are necessary. You can and should contribute to causes you care about, but inasmuch as you can't avoid buying these things, you cannot avoid contributing to that degree to those causes. That's just a part of life, and your unavoidable moral footprint that you leave behind on the world. This is the kind of thing meant by "no ethical consumption under capitalism."

So, go ahead and buy the Pampers if that's what you need. Be aware of what you are contributing to as best you can be, and contribute directly to causes you care about where you can, but below a certain threshold it just isn't worth it to worry about that.

Is this Hogwarts: Legacy? No. First, a video game is not a necessity. Second, even if a video game is a necessity in some circumstance (parents managing their children in specific situations, etc), it needn't be that video game.

Conclusion

JK Rowling is not Proctor & Gamble. She's not even Orson Scott Card, and since she's still alive she definitely isn't Lovecraft. She is directly tied into the backend profits of Hogwarts: Legacy (unlike the game's developers, who have already been paid all they are ever going to - buying this game doesn't support them), in addition to the other licensed Wizarding World merch. She has made it clear that she considers the profitability of that IP to be an endorsement of her views, and a license to keep loudly advocating for them. And, she puts her money where her mouth is.

If you buy that game, you are in essence writing a small check to an anti-trans, anti-Jewish hate group in exchange for your wand-slinging. That is the choice you are making. Now, understanding that ruins the magic of the IP for many, and they choose to avoid Harry Potter entirely. That's a reasonable choice to make. It is also reasonable to say "no, you move" and choose to continue to see favorably the things that framed your childhood, while taking an unambiguous moral stance - through not purchasing the game - against supporting transphobia and antisemitism now. But, if you twist yourself into knots in order to justify purchasing the game, know that no amount of mental gymnastics escapes the basic conclusion that you are supporting those things.

If you didn't know before, you know now. I understand that many say "how can you not know?!?" because JKR has hardly been subtle these past few years... but I'm not one of them. You are allowed to not understand things until you do. But, once you do, you are obligated to act on that newfound understanding. The veil of ignorance is gone, so if you choose that now you know what you're buying, and caveat emptor, because (many of) the trans people in your life care about that.

Why does it matter? I agree that Hogwarts: Legacy is hardly the forefront of the fight for trans rights, but it's a small, easy choice you can make, and that many who claim to care about this issue are nevertheless choosing not to make. I have myself already lost friends and had to leave groups over this. I did that because if you can't make that small choice to protect me or my rights, how the fuck do you expect me to believe you'll stand up for me when it matters more? A minor inconvenience is enough to tip your moral scales, so trans rights might not be nothing to you, but they certainly weigh less than a feather on your conscience. Imagine if David Duke or Fred Phelps became a famous author and people were buying games based on their writings. How would you feel as a Black and/or LGBT person? Yeah.

Anyway, here's a map as of five days ago, of where legislation stands in the United States seeking to ban gender-affirming medical care for trans youth.

But go ahead and enjoy your wizard game.

I don't expect people to stop loving the world, but ceasing support for the author ought to be an easy choice for people to make. Experience suggests otherwise, however.

[ferventfox]

So I usually don't respond to posts off the posts themselves but my resonse was getting pretty long and I just generally didn't want to get into all of this on OPs post, so on this post:

(and those that express similar sentiments)

On one hand,  yeah, a lot of this is just that thing people do when they see someone else abstaining from something and take that as personal judgement on their own behavior and have to point out how abstaining is wrong actually. 

But on the other hand: it’s pretty undeniable that there are a contingent of vegans who are very self-righteous and act like their lifestyle is above any sort of reproach and if everyone was just vegan all these problems wouldn’t exist and so if you aren’t vegan you are bad person who is selfish and unwilling to make sacrifices. It’s actually perfectly reasonable, if you have encountered this attitude, to point out that the mechanisms that sustain plant-based diets also result in damage to the environment and exploitation. That vegans are also selfish and and unwilling to sacrifice certain aspects of their own lifestyles that make their lives easier or more enjoyable. I can hardly fault people for not liking being lectured by hypocrites. Veganism isn’t “guilt free”-- it just isn’t; I don’t think any kind of lifestyle is. 

I have zero problems with people abstaining from eating certain foods on moral grounds. And again, I won’t be intellectually dishonest and claim nobody does---plenty of people take veganism or vegetarianism as some sort of personal insult-- but I don’t have a problem with it, and even abstain from certain animal products myself. I’m also under no delusion that my personal choices for the past fifteen years or so have saved any animals, or that I’m morally better than anyone who still eats those things, any more than I think I’m morally better than a vegans who goes to Starbucks every morning to get their coffee. Coffee drinkers are contributing to the extremely exploitative coffee industry way more than I, a non-coffee drinker am, regardless of whether they use cow milk, almond milk, or no milk.  But you know what? I don’t like coffee so it’s easy for me not to drink it: they can’t live without coffee and I can’t live without dairy. Pretty much everyone has some part of their lifestyle that couldn’t give up even if they know/found out that it's supporting bad things; that includes vegans.

The truth is civilization is built on animal exploitation (and human exploitation) and that maintains your lifestyle regardless of  your personal dietary choices. Even if you were the strictest possible vegan cradle to grave, the debt you would owe to past and current medical research performed on animals alone would be massive. So we’re all essentially in the same boat. We all have shit to feel bad about and our ability to personally cut specific thing out our lives to mitigate that personal feeling of guilt varies by individual. Everyone, vegans and meat-eaters alike,  just need to stop bullshitting that the One True Morally Unimpeachable Way To Consume Products just so happens to align with their own personal preferences and abilities (and whenever morals don’t align with your preferences “No ethical consumption under capitalism” but only for things you really like, not for anything someone else really likes; those people are selfish assholes) and just admit that this is what is going on.  Vegans too, can stop tying themselves into knots, with claims that their motivations for pet ownership are different from everyone else’s or that animal testing is morally reprehensible but their use of animal-derived insulin is an exception because they are using their life to fight for animals or whatever other dumb shit they feel the need to say to maintain a moral high ground they desperately want to have. So whenever you are about to say obnoxious things like "I'm bippity bopity-boo what are you doing for XYZ?", think of all the things you are inevitably not doing for ABC (or even for XYZ) and then refrain from saying it. You 100% deserve any whataboutism you get hit with for saying shit like that' It is, in fact, entirely possible to present accurate information about inhumane or environmentally harmful factory farming practices and tell people about available substitutes for animal products without the seven layers of judgmentalness that someone added to stroke their own ego. It's actually very easy to do!

tl;dr: I see a lot of bad-faith, emotionally motivated, and outright ill-informed criticisms of veganism and I don't like them, but let's not erase all the bad-faith, emotionally motivated, and outright ill-informed arguments that vegans make. I don't like those either.

[endemiccharm]

I've seen too many of those. No, that is not what we're saying. We are saying that the act of voting is the act of picking your opponent. My opponent is Kamala Harris. It is a woman who abides by, at the very least, the rule of law. A woman that can be reasoned with. A woman whose actions are predictable and whose goals are stated. Goals which, by and large, are beneficial or neutral for this country. Goals which, to the shame of this nation, include an endorsement of genocide.

Trump, on the other hand, has contempt for the rule of law, no ability for reason, unpredictable actions and unstated goals, and his stated goals are nearly universally for the destruction and harming of the American people, as well as people abroad. His goals also include a full-throated endorsement of genocide. Both Israel's genocide and the stated desire to remove all immigrants and queer people from the US.

Voting is picking your opponent. I would much rather fight on one front than on all fronts. I would much rather have a single heinous and unspeakable horror than multiple inescapable horrors with which to contend. Just as there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, there is no pure choice under the military-industrial complex.

Vote to ensure that the OTHER POLITICAL ACTIONS you take can be effective in any way. And then (and this is instrumental) Take other political action. Don't wait four years and then yell that nothing has changed.

A Harris presidency will not be a win for Palestine. A Trump presidency will not be a win for anyone, and this includes Palestine.

So, yes, Vote Blue. Because the alternative has already attempted an unlawful coup and has zero regard for any human life. Then we can start working on dismantling this system.

Y’all are basically saying that life is good enough for you to where a Harris presidency, as heinous as it is, doesn’t affect you personally.

[unrestedjade]

More baseless Ferengi headcanons no one asked for: LATINUM EDITION~~~

- Almost every home is a rental, as almost all usable land is corporate-owned. Might as well daydream about owning a moon, it's no less realistic than owning the house you grew up in. (No I'm not frustrated with my $1500 rent at all, no I'm not miserable watching 40-year-old trailer homes selling for $250k to a property management firm that's going to rent it out. Surely a place like Ferenginar wouldn't be equally ridiculous, hahahahahahahahHAHAHAHA. Ahem.) - Latinum as religious fetish. We see Quark offering slips of latinum while he prays to the Blessed Exchequer before bed. He even has a little shrine. What's unclear is whether you're meant to reuse the same slips each day or if you have to actually "give up" the latinum over the longer term for the offering to count. You can break a piggy bank, but it's probably bad to break an image of the Exchequer, unless he's very chillaxed compared to the majority of gods. - Assuming really giving up the latinum is better, is destroying it extra good? Or are you sinning by removing it from the Continuum? Are there Ferengi extremist sects that sink latinum into bogs or launch it into a star?

- What do they think and feel about latinum with regards to the Exchequer? What does a god need with it? Is it meant to be his lifeblood, figuratively? Or literally, via transubstantiation? (Catholic Ferengi. Cathipitolists.)

- How was latinum treated in the days before they knew to process it with gold so it could be handled safely? It's very pretty and ethereal-looking in its raw form, and also very, very toxic. Depending on the symptoms of latinum poisoning, I wonder if it had anything to do with it gaining religious significance? Ancient Ferengi priests seeing visions and going a little funny in the head from handling raw latinum for years and years?

- The way Quark and Brunt talk about taxes in S7 suggests there's not a lot of taxation in Ferengi society (officially, anyway. idk what else you'd call their ubiquitous bribes/tips than unofficial taxation). In any case, since one of the major purposes of taxation in modern economies is to control inflation by removing money (governments create/destroy money; they don't really keep a little checkbook register of surplus/deficit the way a household does) offering latinum to the Exchequer as an act of worship could be a good way to take money out of circulation for a while. - Latinum vs fiat money? Latinum is canonically used as coinage by multiple species. (It would seem like Ferengi are putting themselves at a bit of a disadvantage by also attaching a spiritual importance to it, but who knows, and this is a tangent on a tangent.) Is all their money backed by latinum? It can't be, right? Just conceptually, their stock markets and banks can't possibly be tying every value in every account to a real, physical measure of latinum, that's horribly inefficient. Can "latinum" also mean any legitimate liquid asset? Or does the Exchequer insist on the real thing? Much to ponder. - Brunt implies in Family Business that Ferenginar has houseless people and beggars. There's no point in begging if no one ever gives you anything, so some people must give charity to beggars. What's that look like, is it something kind-hearted Ferengi do in spite of the RoA explicitly stating that charity is only acceptable when you come out richer than you started? What's their rationalization in that case? Are they left feeling shameful about it? (Obviously the people stuck begging feel shitty, by design. Ironically, they might feel less shitty than we would, since the Exchequer doesn't appear to care how you get money, only that you get it.) - If you're moved to give money/material aid to a needy person, you'd probably do it quietly. Here in the good ol' US of A a common view is that "hand-outs" hurt the needy person in the long run because you're removing their impetus to stop being lazy sponges. And that's from people who follow a religion that commands them to care for the needy! So it's gotta be even harsher under a religion that's completely mask-off in its worship of individual prosperity. - (You just know Keldar was one of those people tossing a few slips of latinum for someone sleeping under a shop awning each morning. His business sense sucked but Ishka made him sound like a warm person. Folks gotta eat.) - Reincarnation... Alright, so if you were a dude and you die broke it's implied you can't reincarnate/are damned to the Vault of Eternal Destitution. Cool and fair, nothing to unpack there. What about women? They're half the population but seem to have been overlooked on this point in this here 10k-year-old religion. Which is telling in itself, of course, but you'd think someone would have addressed this? Who reincarnates female? Is the accepted understanding that females reincarnate female and are totally removed from the requirement to bid on their life? But that still doesn't solve the problem, because even if reincarnation were assigned-sex-segregated (god what a shitty idea, compels me tho) you're still losing X number of men to the Vault each generation. - I want to see what Ferengi religious debates look like. Pel is shown to be a serious scholar of the RoA as they've dug into not only the text itself but all the commentaries and refutations and deep-dives others have published about it. That's gotta fuel some spicy convo around the tongo table once everyone's a few drinks in. - Are there multiple sects? People arguing whether this or that rule is meant to be taken literally vs as metaphor? Everyone can't be in lockstep on this stuff. Quark seems to have been raised within the currently-hegemonic sect, but surely there's others.

- There don't appear to be any clergy or equivalent persons, so I wonder if there's different sects how they organize themselves? Do they host different subs on Ferengi Reddit? (Ferengi Reddit...shudder) - Ferengi atheists slacking at work or living as drifters because there's no point saving money for a next life that's not real. Life must drive them to drink. That's when you go out into space to live with the sane people and never call home.

- Is the rest of the population chill with atheists, or is that a no-go? I guess it would depend on how loud the person is and whether they follow the Rules or not.

- You know who they're definitely not chill with: socialists. Do they have Satanic Panics about this or that media turning the youth into commies? If you're an outspoken socialist, are you looking at exile? Arrest? An unexpected date with an Eliminator? - Conspicuous consumption seems to be a thing, and it's interesting in light of the whole "needing a good high score for a good reincarnation" idea. It still boils down to showing off how much you can afford to waste, but the stakes are undoubtedly higher for the faithful. - If something happens and you're at risk if losing everything, is it safer to just off yourself while you still have money? What if you're going to lose more than you'd ever be able to make back? (In economics this is called a perverse incentive lulz)

- The Great Monetary Collapse must have suuuuucked. It's the Great Depression x100, and also your god is mad at you, maybe??? And your next life is totally screwed now, too. Fuckin' dire, man. When Quark mentioned it in the show, it was with this flippant air like he was waiting to see how Miles and Julian reacted. He might have elaborated more if they hadn't reacted...the way he probably assumed they would. (Partially a self-fulfilling prophecy given the way he primed them to treat it as a joke, but I digress.) - Suicide rates are measurably higher in societies that elevate achievement and work ethic (see the Protestant vs Catholic divide on this, it's interesting and very depressing as a lapsed protestant in a protestant-dominated country). Just saying. - On this same bummer track: hedonic depression could be very commonplace among Ferengi. Every minute not spent working is spent on distraction because life is just such an exhausting grind, and a lot of factors determining whether you're a good/successful person are out of your control. Booze, porn, and gambling are all very distracting, and thus very popular. If a lot of this just sounds like regular degular capitalism: yes. It's actually proving difficult to push the fictional society further out because we're already living beyond satire. Maybe that's why I like these awful little guys so much. (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

[the-bjd-community-confess]

I hate the stupid “virtue signaling” shit about this whole HP nightmare because yeah, talking about dolls and even dolls that have already been paid for isn’t really activism, but like this is a doll blog and community. People are trying to educate within the community and most if not all the people I’ve seen upset about the whole hp thing are trans people including myself. I’m trans and my personal business is geared towards serving and helping the LGBTQ+ community and I donate to queer charities when I can and I try to educate people in person on why transphobia is wrong and harmful, but I ALSO think people should not be buying these hp dolls, even if jkr has already been paid because it tells the company and everyone else that we want to keep paying her and that what she’s doing is okay. You give her money and she funnels it straight into her anti-trans agenda. The point is to educate people that we should not be paying her.

Think what you will about hp and the people that enjoy it, but the important thing is to stop giving jkr the means to hurt people. Anyone spreading the information about who she is and what she’s doing in order to keep people from paying her or encouraging other people to pay her is doing their part. Yes, it would be better if you voted or marched or donated, but if all you can do to help is spread the word not to buy these dolls or anything else that funds her campaign of hate, then you’re doing your part albeit small, it still helps. You can’t always do the most for something you believe in, so it’s not fake to try and play a small part.

Also everyone is a hypocrite in some way because there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. If the choice is paying someone who hates you, but isn’t trying to take away your rights or receiving nothing at all, it doesn’t make you a bad person to pay those people whilst also warning others off paying someone who actively and vocally is trying to take your rights away. I don’t think I’ve seen a single doll maker whose personal views align exactly with mine, but I love dolls so I pick my battles, but these hp dolls are literally part of an empire hell bent on destroying my rights and the rights of my community. Sure Chinese people might hate me or whatever (purposeful generalization) but at least as far as I or most people know, they’re not actively paying politicians to strip my rights away. If a company or artist stated that that’s where their money is going (like jkr) I would immediately stop giving them my money.

Also as a disclaimer because people on this blog like to do yoga after reading these posts. I am not Chinese, nor wealthy or powerful, therefore I cannot make a difference in anything that the Chinese government does to its own people. I don’t agree with it, but it’s completely out of my hands.

~Anonymous

[docholligay]

hmmmmmm moral relativity. I struggle with it. On the one hand, morality has to be relative because cultures exist. Like I find that morality surrounding charity and how you go about it and what we owe to each other differs wildly. ON the other hand, I fucking hate the “morality is relative” argument because it’s so much like the “there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism” argument where it just becomes an excuse to not care. That’s not something I can handle. We should strive to be the best we can possibly be, while also understanding human frailty. Hold yourself accountable while showing yourself grace, and it’s a very very difficult balance. People tend to go toward one side or the other. I tend to give myself more slack than I deserve, I think. 

But yeah, I UNDERSTAND what she’s saying but if there’s some force in the universe saying, “Nope try again” than you are playing by the rules of ITS morality and not your own. It doesn’t functionally matter what you consider moral or immoral--I would argue Nadia’s personal morality was fine with leaving Alan--but what IT thinks is correct and moral. 

[fatqueerandoutofcontrol]

Today I learned that Starbucks has a new public image campaign based on offering "comprehensive" trans health care.

Starbucks is also super racist and has horrific destructive/parasitic business practices*.

They lean on public image campaigns to stay popular.

SBUX also do not allow visible tattoos or more than two earrings per ear last time I checked. They perpetrate yt "professional standards of grooming" including pressuring black people to get rid of their 'locks due to their views of locks as "unsanitary" and an inherent violation of food handling safety.

If you want comprehensive trans health Care, a liveable wage, plus a PENSION that WILL give you the down payment on a house, and way less racism, go work for Trader Joe's.

Source: I was a Starbucks shift supervisor for two years (2003-2005) and I worked at trader Joe's for 6+ years. TJs isn’t flawless by any means, but, as a corporation, they paid better and were less intrusive into people’s bodies and private lives.

Please, PLEASE examine whether or not Starbucks is touting their health care because they are trying to enforce a binary "passing" paradigm and generally being truscum. Because this corporation WILL write you up for having an uncovered hand tattoo or more than two earrings per ear, so I can only imagine what they’d do to people who don’t embrace a binary gender paradigm.

If an Afrodescendant trans person who works for Starbucks can get free electrolysis, but cannot wear their natural hair because it “violates dress code as well as food handling safety regulations”, I’m gonna have additional questions.

Especially from a company known to call the cops on black customers for “loitering”, and who didn’t open any locations in historically black neighborhoods until Magic Johnson shamed them publicly and fronted millions of dollars in 1999 (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/09/how-magic-johnson-got-starbucks-ceo-howard-schultz-to-partner-with-him.html).

Yes there is no ethical consumption under late stage capitalism, but Starbucks has fully replaced Coca Cola as THE symbol for yt corporate American global cultural imperialism.

No I am not mad at ppl who take jobs to get healthcare. SURVIVAL FIRST. That’s actually in Leviticus, in case people need that level of weird scriptural justification to treat each other well.

My beef is first foremost and always with corporations that treat their workers like walking billboards.

Using the bodies of historically marginalized workers, such as trans workers, as human shields against accountability is wrong 💯.

Get the health care.

But don’t be fooled by corporate philanthropy or perceived benevolence.

None of us are free until all of us are free.

*Starbucks business expansion plan has always looked like this:

1. Use big corporate money to flood a city with locations, “creating jobs”

2. Use big corporate money to keep underperforming locations open until SBUX has edged out local coffee shops.

3. Close half of the locations, firing all those employees

4. “Lol, f*** all those people we hired, we actually created a net loss of jobs by forcing out independent coffee shops and creating a corporate monoculture”

** https://www.businessinsider.com/starbucks-competition-independent-coffee-shops-2017-3

I dunno if y’all been paying attention to the last fifteen years, but Starbucks does this every few.

And I’m right there to remind people that Starbucks stands on its workers to avoid public accountability.

It seems like every time they are about to lose big money, they roll out another optics campaign.

They did it with veterans

They did it with working students

Now SBUX is doing it with trans workers

If you want to know why all of a sudden Starbucks is trying to “reach out” to marginalized workers, here it is:

They lost so much money during the pandemic/lockdown that they’re hurting. And they’re about to do another expansionist push (https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/09/business/starbucks-store-openings/index.html)

They need workers. But these will probably not be permanent jobs, given SBUX record of “flood and fold” (see above).

If you’re a trans worker: Get the healthcare. Survive. Thrive. Look good doing it.

But don’t forget to whisper “f*** Starbucks” at least once per shift 😅💯

[poppunkporco]

the one where you walked me home (porco x reader fic)

the one where you walked me home (porco x reader)

contents: porco x fem reader, mentions of marcel galliard, childhood friends, best friends to lovers, fluff, pining, alternate universe - college/university, modern au, bisexuality, smoking, porco galliard-centric

rating: teen and up audiences

summary: When he walks her home that night, Porco realizes he might have feelings for his childhood best friend. He has no idea in hell how to deal with it but he tries.

word count: 5079

notes: i just thought it'd be interesting to try writing a modern au porco/reader fic in a more porco-centric POV. what i try to do here is explore how he deals with the soft sappy feelings of slowly realizing he's in love since he's pretty bad at emotions and even more so when it's not a [strong, violent type of feeling]

*fic loosely based on this song:

*this is also cross-posted on ao3

***

2:40 AM at an empty parking lot behind a 7-Eleven. The nearest lamp post flickers weakly with its dimming orange light as Porco sets down his third empty beer can on the concrete with a yawn.

“Hey,” he says, lightly shrugging the shoulder against which she leaned her head on. She doesn’t budge from beside him. He rubs the lethargy off his eyes.

They’ve been sitting on this parking block for almost three hours now-- since they left the gig hours ago at the pub just across the university. They’d just spent the past few hours ranting about midterms and how fucked up alienated labor is along with the absence of ethical consumption under capitalism-- and how everyone is forced to participate in it, talking about trips they’d like to make in and outside the city, their ideal lovers, and anxieties about the future. This was a thing they did now and then, usually on Fridays and Saturdays-- seeking a kind of cathartic escape from their hectic academic life in each other’s company. A friendly rendezvous they’d jokingly call dates every now and then.

He leans forward just enough to get a peek at her face, partly obscured by the mess of hair that had fallen in front of her eyes. 

So she’s asleep.

His eyes dart towards their things lumped together beside her feet-- their backpacks sitting atop an A4-size sketchbook along with the last unopened beer can.

Porco idly clinks his finger against the top of the beer can he had just emptied as he breathes out a wistful sigh.

Somehow, she always reminded him of his long-gone brother. Not to say that she shared even a bit of Marcel's fairly easygoing yet charming demeanor. Because she was far from that. She was loud with a crude mouth-- more like Porco himself, really-- except that she at least was kinder, more pleasantly charismatic towards other people than himself. And in that way, yes, she did remind him of Marcel. But there were other things-- pastimes and memories that reminded him of his brother when she came to mind. They’d known each other even as kids. Back in middle school, Porco remembers how she’d visit their home on the weekends so the three of them could build a Lego city which Marcel himself had drafted on the back of one of his sketchbooks. Those two were always quite the artists even as kids-- Porco recalls fondly. His brother had been the one to introduce her to Porco during one of those weekends. He didn’t like it at first-- how Marcel would seem to pay more attention to her at times as they animatedly sketched parts of the city on paper in the middle of assembling the Lego blocks. He’d eventually learned to be tolerant of her presence at least as the weekends passed by and the city gradually came to life-- vast with skyscrapers, houses, trees, vehicles, and lamp posts. Porco distinctly remembers building a garden with her beside a house that resembled the Galliard residence. He had assembled the green pieces that resembled leaf blades onto the flat Lego board, while she topped them off with tiny colorful flower pieces. It was honestly quite fun and it became a thing he eventually looked forward to on the weekends with Marcel.

But all things come to an end and at times, at points where they feel like they’re not supposed to. Porco knows this well.

In Marcel’s old room, the city remains hidden away, unfinished.

It was on a rainy day when Marcel had met an accident on his way home with a schoolmate. Onlookers had witnessed him racing against the red light to push Reiner away from the path of an incoming vehicle.

Even if it was an accident, Porco despises Reiner after that. He'd decided to never talk to him after the incident but as fate would ridiculously have it, they’d meet again in high school-- as classmates, nonetheless, to his dismay.

It was after this same incident that Porco had grown closer to her-- the only other person who possibly knew Marcel almost nearly as he himself did. She knew about the city and she knew about his sketches, after all. In the first few days after his brother’s wake, they’d simply talk about Marcel as they walked home together after school and how they both missed him. Those walks home would eventually involve detours at the nearest Mcdonald’s where they’d get nuggets and buy a Happy Meal-- the ones that came in flimsy cardboard packaging printed with colorful cartoon mascots-- for the sake of getting the collectibles that came with them. It was a thing they never really grew out of. Even now, as college kids, whenever they’d find themselves eating out together at the nearest Mcdonald’s after their Philosophy classes scheduled on Tuesdays and Thursdays, they’d get themselves a Happy Meal, even if they sometimes earned puzzled looks from the cashier as they engaged in quick, petty quarrels as to which collectible they should get.

Soon, Porco feels her shuffle in her seat beside him, the weight of her head now off his shoulder. She rubs the sleep off her eyes with a yawn.

“...should go home,” she drawls, accidentally kicking one of the empty beer cans sprawled in front of them on the concrete. It lands right at the feet of a passer-by who in turn shoots her a cold glare before kicking the can back in her direction. "I-- hey, uh, sorry about that," she apologizes, louder than necessary. Said passer-by only clicks their tongue in annoyance as they raised a middle finger at her before walking away with a muffled swear under their breath.

She exchanges incredulous, befuddled looks with Porco for a few silent moments before eventually letting out a snort and bursting into a fit of stupidly drunken laughter with him. 

“...is what I mean… fucking capitalism... makesnasshole out ofveryone,” she remarks, broken phrases drawn out in between chuckles. “Yeah, yeah. I got it for the tenth time,” Porco says, laughing with a roll of his eyes. He stands up and stretches out a hand in front of her. “Now can we go home? Can’t exactly start a revolution when the alcohol’s fucked you up that bad,” he says with an impatient sigh.

“Yeah? How do you know? Did Karl Marx write that?” She languidly takes his hand.

“No, but-- fucking… well, I don’t know. Maybe? Indirectly? I mean, we did just give in to consumerism,” Porco says with a sharp click of his tongue as he pulls her up to stand.

“Well… yeah. I guess so.”

“Anyway.” Porco places a palm at the top of her head and urges her to face him. “You seem more out of it than me. I’m walking you home this time, alright?

”She shrugs languidly. “Sure, whatever,” she says, her words muffled as she falls face first into his chest. 

--

“Give me the fucking keys,” he says coarsely after her third failed attempt at unlocking the door to her own flat. In the dim light of the hall, Porco tries to make out the shape of what he recognizes as the right one among the five keys dangling from her keychain. He sighs, frustrated as he finally unlocks the door. 

“How the hell did you--?” Confused, she eyes the keys still dangling from the door. “Why wouldn’t it open when it was me?”

“For the love of--” Porco runs a palm down across his face with an exasperated sigh. “You were forcing the wrong key.”

“Oh.” She snorts trying to stifle a chuckle. Porco pulls the keys from the door and hands them to her along with the sketchbook he’d been carrying.

“Thanks.” She gives the door a light push before finally taking a step into the flat. And then a sudden stop. She pockets her keys and lets the sketchbook fall on the carpeted floor of the foyer. She tilts her head pensively for a few moments, staring blankly at the darkness of her room. Porco raises an eyebrow in confusion. She turns on her heel to face him again.

“What is it?” he asks.

She stands on the tips of her toes, eyeing Porco with what felt to him like newfound curiosity. She rests a hand on his shoulder to steady herself.

Her other hand soon reaches up to cradle the side of his face. It comes as a surprise, but not the kind that made you flinch or visibly react in some way. This was simply… unexpected. Weird. And somehow new.

She’s looking at me. And she’s looking like she’s waiting.

And what is she waiting for, exactly? He feels a nervous lump in his throat, swallows it down. He has half the mind to lean his face closer as he, too, looks at her-- and he looks at her like he’s waiting.

Alas, whatever this is-- it ends where it feels like it’s not supposed to.

“‘Night, Porco,” she says with a feeble smile before falling back flatly on her feet.

“Yeah. You too. I’ll see you around,” he says, tentatively glancing at his side.She crouches down to lazily pick up the sketchbook before finally entering her flat again. Porco catches her giving him a tiny wave through the crack of the door moments before she completely pushes it closed. He bids her goodbye with a curt nod.

Once the door closes, he rolls up the sleeve of his jacket to check the time. 

3:15 AM. Porco raises a palm to his cheek. The ghost of her touch lingers on his skin.

***

“Are you serious?” Porco scoffs. “Y/N, you’re not even watching the film.” He leans his head against his palm with his arm resting on the side of the couch.

“Sure I am,” she says, unpinning her hair before letting her head fall on his lap. As she types out a message on her phone, Porco manages to make out Pieck’s name at the top of the chat box.

“You keep checking your phone.”

“It’s fine. We’ve both seen this film before anyway. I told you-- I’m just rewatching it for my paper on Nietzsche.”

“So you dragged me into this for what?”

She gives a halfhearted shrug. “I don’t know. Felt like it. Just wanted to bother you for a good film.” She finally sets aside her phone to look up at Porco with a shit-eating grin. He sighs and flicks a finger against her forehead. “Ow. What the fuck.”

“At least try to look like you’re actually watching,” Porco says, turning her head to face the TV screen.

"Fine, fine," she says with a grimace as she kneads the pain away on her forehead.

They’re now about an hour into Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. As lovers Joel and Clementine ran through the memories-- hand in hand mapping the history of their relationship-- the ups and downs-- scenes of the two playfully mocking the film at a drive-in theater, a stroll through the flea market leading into talks of having a child, lovemaking underneath the covers as Clementine told Joel about her insecurities rooting from childhood-- all these small intimacies that nonetheless revealed to each other their flawed, detestable selves along with reasons they probably shouldn’t be together, Porco realizes it. 

He looks at her, notes the way the flicker of the TV screen daintily lit up her solemn face and how she’d break into a smile every now and then. She’d brush the back of her hand against his knee and point at the TV screen to tell him that this was among her favorite parts so he absolutely had to pay close attention. A bit funny considering she was the one who wasn’t paying much attention to the film during the first part, Porco thinks. At least she’s watching now, even as he can’t help but watch her instead.

As he absentmindedly brushes a hand against her hair, he wonders if they could be something more, wonders if they’d be anything like Joel and Clementine-- imperfect, but nonetheless worthwhile. They’d known each other since they were kids and he can definitely make a list of things he doesn’t like about her-- like the way she’s too loud and frisky and never seemed to take the right things seriously, how scatterbrained she was that she’d forget the schedule for a midterm exam and how her room always seemed to be in shambles, the way she was so stubborn she’d easily get upset at something as simple as choosing to eat at a fast food different from the one she insisted on, how she’d smoke in his dorm no matter how many times he’d told her that she could get him in trouble for it. But it's not like he's perfect either. She’d told him that he came on too headstrong at times and that’s why a lot of people felt intimidated by him-- a trait that had gotten him into fights and eventually, long afternoons of detention back in high school. She says she hates the way he thought himself too strong to cry in front of anyone and how he’d grown dismissive of opening up to her as they got older. Whenever they’d get into heated fights, she’d tell him that all you ever are is angry and how he was pretty shit at saying sorry like he meant it. And despite all of these, they had remained close friends over the years. They’d promised each other that they’d get better-- slowly, but surely-- even if that was something easier said than done. He could live with that. He would.

***

“Hey, uh--” Porco breathes out a puff of smoke as he hands her the cigarette. He gazes distantly at the parade of city lights before them-- from the headlamps of the vehicles passing below them on the bridge, the streetlights, and the buildings overhead. “--do you still like Pieck?”

She suddenly lets out a cough and a puff of smoke at that. She gapes at Porco incredulously.

“Pock, it’s been three years since we broke up. And that was high school.”

“Look, I know that, but--” he sighs. “I was just wondering.”

She laughs. “That’s not really what you wanted to ask, is it? There’s something else.” She raises an eyebrow at Porco. He rolls his eyes at that, irked at how easily she could read him. “So ask.” She passes him the cigarette and he takes a drag of it.

“Ok--” he says with a sigh. “--Have you liked any other girls after her?”

She raises an eyebrow, intrigued.

“No, not really. Nothing serious, at least. I mean, I did have a crush on this girl who sat beside me in English class during freshman year. But... that was freshman year, you know? Nothing ever really came of it. And you know I would have told you if something actually did, anyway."

“I see.”

“There’s more you want to ask,” she says with a cheeky smile.

“Ok. Fine.” Another drag of the cigarette. “How about-- boys? Have you liked any guy at all since then?” The city lights blur against the filter of smoke. Porco refuses to meet her eyes even as he feels her gaze on him-- heavy with something he could not exactly put his finger on. He knows she’s not smiling anymore and from his periphery, he thinks he senses a swallow in her throat. She turns to the city overhead.

“Yes, actually.” She takes the cigarette from him, smiling fondly upon the light brush of their fingers. “I-- you know, even though I’ve known for a long time that I liked both guys and girls, I still find myself doubting that sometimes. When I’m attracted to a girl, I sometimes think that maybe I was just gay all along. And now that I find myself actually liking a boy again, a part of me entertains the thought that maybe me liking girls was just a phase and maybe I was straight all along. But... I just know it’s not like that. And yet, what people say still gets to me-- they’ve got a way of making you think that being bi isn’t a real thing. Even though it is. I know because... I’m real, right?”

“Yeah. You are. You’re… you’re here.” The corner of his lips turn up as he says it. “I get it. I mean, I think I’m the same.”

“Really?” She turns to gape at him.

“I suppose I’ve never told you this either because it’s so fucking embarrassing, but…” He sighs defeatedly, kneading his temples with unease. “...I made out with Reiner in high school.”

She regards him with a scandalized look.

“Dude, what the fuck. I thought you hated the guy.” 

“I do, alright? It’s just that… teenage hormones and shit. I was stupid and he’s stupid. I-- I don’t know what I was thinking that time. But… I do wonder sometimes--” He scratches his head tentatively. “--what my brother was thinking rushing in to save him from that accident. Like… just what did he see in that meathead that was worth saving?”

“And did you find your answer to that when you were making out?”

Porco eyes her with a deathly glare.

“Fuck you.” 

“Oh, so you did,” she says with an impish grin.

Porco flicks a finger against her forehead.

“Ow-- hey! Stop that,” she says with a grimace. “I mean, I don’t blame you. Reiner’s hot.”

He clicks his tongue at the remark before hastily seizing the cigarette from her grasp to take another drag. "Not like he's the only guy I ever found ho-- I mean liked."

She laughs.

"We should head back," he says coldly.

"Sure.” She nods. “Though… is there anything else you wanted to ask?"

As the filter of smoke hangs between them, Porco wonders about the boy she likes.

He shakes his head. "No. It's nothing."

***

“It was like deja vu,” Porco says, sighing into his phone as he shifts to lie near the edge of his bed. “Except in this dream… before she said goodnight, we, uh--”

“You kissed?” Pieck suggests from the other line.

“Well… yeah.” He puts a palm to cover his face, feeling the flush on his cheeks as he says it.

“So you like her,” Pieck says, almost breaking into a chuckle.

“I, uh…”

“I get it. She’s charming and reminds you of Marcel.”

“That’s…”

“I’ll be honest with you.” She sighs and Porco senses a smile from her tone. “Remember when I said I broke up with her because uni was getting too busy? The truth is that… I feel like you two always seemed to get along better than I ever could with her-- and it probably has to do with Marcel. When I realized that, I’ll admit I did start to feel jealous. I thought back then that you two might eventually get together. After all, you two were both still in high school, while I was already away in uni. It left me distraught for months so I just... decided to break it off. Don’t get me wrong, though. It’s been years and it’s not like I haven’t dated anyone else since then. And in hindsight, that just might have been for the best. I mean, you confiding in me about her right now-- I think-- is a testament to that. Because you realized it too, didn’t you?”

“Oh." He pauses. "I never thought that you-- Pieck, look, I--”

“Pock, if you feel guilty about it just because I used to date her, don’t. It’s not anyone’s fault. That… that she just loved you first. It’s circumstance. She met you and Marcel first before me.”

That she loved you first. As Porco echoes the words in his head, he becomes acutely aware of the beating in his chest and the warmth swarming his face. He buries his face in a pillow and screams into it.

“Hey, Pock? You ok there?” Pieck chuckles.

“How do I-- you think I should tell her?”

“Well, it’s the honest thing to do. And I genuinely think you don’t stand to lose much by doing so. Even if by the littlest chance of her not returning your feelings, I don’t think confessing would ruin your friendship. Might be a little awkward at first, but I don’t think she’ll end up hating or avoiding you at all.”

“You sure you’re not just sayi--”

“No, Pock. I’m not just saying this because we’re friends. I’m saying it because it’s what makes sense.”

“Ok, well… thanks,” he sighs. “And by the way… I’m sorry I called you this early. I know you’re probably busy especially since it’s your thesis year.”

“It’s fine. I’m glad you told me. Frankly, I do find satisfaction in knowing my speculations are correct. And you guys… you two are more predictable than you think-- if I’m being honest,” Pieck laughs.

“Well, I suppose being predictable isn’t so bad… if you’re right.”

Once they bid each other goodbye on the phone, Porco remains sprawled across the bed staring blankly at the ceiling. He rests a palm on his cheek, internally cursing Marcel as he feels the warmth streaming his face once again.

***

“Fuck,” Porco swears under his breath as they both ran towards the car, their feet splashing against the puddled ground as the rain cascades. A looming thunder rolls across the night sky as they make it to the safety of the vehicle.

“So… still not convinced that trying to get a Happy Meal on a rainy Friday at midnight was a bad idea?” Porco says, trying to catch his breath as he sets down the paper bag on the space between their seats.

“Well, I’ll admit it kinda sucked that you had to have your car still parked in school. And in my defense, I didn't expect the drizzle to cascade so soon on the way back. But you know what? It’s fine. We got what we needed and that’s all that matters. I’ll stand by this being a good idea.” She laughs as she peels off her drenched jacket. “Oh, by the way, where can I put this?”

“Just put it in the backseat,” Porco says as he peeled off his own jacket.

“Got it. Here, give me yours too,” she says before turning to place both of their drenched jackets in the backseat.

“Thanks.” Porco switches on the car’s dome light and the windshield wipers. The car’s interior now warmly lit, he rummages inside the paper bag, then hands her a box of chicken nuggets along with a plastic fork. “You want the fries now or later?”

“Later’s good. Thanks.” Porco acknowledges her with a nod, then leans back on the car seat with a languished sigh.

The rain patters incessantly against the windows over the rhythm of the windshield wipers. The faint yellow glow lulls from the ceiling of his car. He recalls a rainy evening spent staring out the window as he nervously waited for Marcel to come home. A distant memory weighs heavy on his eyelids.

“Porco. Are you ok?”

“What? Yeah.” Porco shifts lightly in his seat, slightly startled. “I just… remembered something.”

“What is it?”

“The rain. It just reminded me of Marcel.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Yeah.”

“You know, he was…” She puts down her food and lightly wipes the sides of her mouth with the back of her hand. “Back then, I considered him as something a little more than a best friend. I like that he liked my drawings and how he never made fun of them… even though he was ways better than me at it,” she recalls fondly.

He scoffs. “So… are you guilt-tripping me for something I said about your drawings when we were twelve?”

“You were an asshole, but you should be glad I’m past that.” She rolls her eyes with a sigh. “All I’m saying now is that Marcel was... really special to me.”

“What-- did you have a crush on Marcel or something?”

She snorts. “You could say... it was something like that. Yeah.”

Figures. He nonchalantly crosses his arms in front of his chest. The pattering rain fills in the lull in their conversation.

“I like your drawings too,” he finally says.

“That’s why I drag you along every time I go out to draw. You like watching me, right?” She teasingly raises an eyebrow as she says it.

“Well, sure.” He shrugs awkwardly in his seat.

“Tell me. What else do you like?”

“I don’t know. Let’s see…” he sighs, feigning annoyance with a roll of his eyes. “I like it when I’m in the middle of pulling an all-nighter at Tim Hortons… and you go on and disturb me just to get a Happy Meal on a rainy Friday midnight.”

“Yeah?” she chuckles. “What else?”

Porco turns to glance at her. As she meets him with a playful grin, his mind races with answers.

I like it when you steal my jacket and you leave me to freeze to death in the cold of the cafe’s AC. I like it when you go on a chaotic, semi-coherent drunken rant about how badly you want capitalism dismantled. I like it when you remember Marcel. I like your hair. I like how your hands unpin your hair before you rest your head on my lap.

He scoffs-- more in reaction to his own thoughts than at her teasing. Who knew he could be that embarrassingly sappy? “What are you… getting at?”

“Nevermind.” She shakes her head, still smiling. She laughs while timidly raising a palm to her cheek. “Can we share your fries now?”

***

“So I’m thinking of getting a tattoo,” Porco says, settling himself on the dormitory steps faintly lit by the porch lights hanging on both sides of the entrance.

“Cool. So where do you want it?” She sits beside him while setting down her things-- a shoulder bag and a sketchbook on the concrete step.

“I was just thinking on my arm,” he says, pointing a finger at a spot on his skin.

“What do you want it to look like?”

“Not sure yet.”

“I could draw you one.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure. I could do it right now.”

“Really?”

She takes the ballpoint pen out of the spring of her sketchbook and begins to doodle something on his arm. Covering her drawing with a cupped palm, she chuckles while mischievously peering up at him.

“I swear to god, if you’re drawing something embarrassing-- Oh, fuck you.” Porco laughs, managing to take a peek at the ink drawing of a cartoon porcupine with the hair on its head stylishly pushed back. Below the drawing, it writes 'porcopine.' He pulls his arm away from her grasp.

"What? You don't like it?" She grimaces.

"Porcopine? Really?"

“What? It's cute,” she says with an offended click of her tongue, reaching for his arm once again.

Below the word 'porcopine,' she then writes the phrase 'i <3 you.'

Porco furrows his brows upon reading the phrase, then lets out a chuckle. “What does this--?” he asks, pointing out the inked words on his skin.

“What do you mean? It is what it is.”

“You mean it?”

“Of course I do.”

“How do you mean it?”

She tilts her head pensively and squints at Porco as she gathers how to describe exactly what she meant. She supposes that he’s right-- a clarification was indeed necessary. This kind of thing could get confusing, after all. When you’ve known each other for so long in a relationship such as this, lines tend to blur. One day, you could both feel like the bestest of friends, and then like lovers the next.

“I mean it in a way that I wouldn’t mind marrying you.”

“Oh.” Porco gapes at her for a moment. “Ok,” he says, letting out an awkward chuckle.

“What’s with that reaction? I’m serious, Pock.”

“I just… I mean, to be honest…” He furrows his brows, carefully pondering his words. “I wouldn’t mind marrying you either.” Porco scratches his head sheepishly.

“Ok then,” she chuckles, shifting in her seat to face him. “We could build something. Something bigger than a Lego house. Maybe one with a garden. A story with a perfect ending.”

“Yeah? And if it’s not perfect, what then?”

“Something worthwhile, then. An ending that feels like an ending.”

“Ok. I can live with that,” he laughs.

“Porco.”

As she cradles his face in between her palms, Porco becomes acutely aware of the flush in his cheeks.

Then, slowly, she leans closer to gingerly place a kiss at the tip of his nose.

They soon find themselves both chuckling at what was probably the most blatantly romantic gesture between them thus far.

“So, uh, what are we now, exactly?” he asks awkwardly as they soon pull away.

She shrugs. “Lovers? Best friends who would marry each other? Though the latter is kind of a mouthful if you ask me.”

“Yeah. Let’s go with that first one.”

“Say, Porco.” She tilts her head questioningly at him. “You want to tell me how this night ends?”

“How the hell should I--”

She puts a finger to his lips and shakes her head. “Hey. Lovers now, remember? I’m not the only one telling this story. So tell me.”

“Ok. Let’s see,” he sighs. And so he indulges her. “It ends with you beside me. We’re lying down on my bed.”

“Clothed or naked?”

He gapes. “Are you seriously even consi--”

She flicks a finger against his forehead as she regards him with a mischievous smile. “Just answer the question.”

“Ok, fine,” he resigns, lightly kneading his forehead. “Look, I want to say naked because my AC’s broken ri--”

“Naked it is, then.”

“Clothed.” He glares. “For tonight.”

“Fine, fine,” she says, scratching her head in resignation. “You sure you’re not having second thoughts about letting me stay tonight, though? Not worried you might wake up with a bunch of porcopines on your face? Or I don’t know-- dick drawings?”

“Fuck off,” he says with a chuckle.

“So… what is it, really? You want me to stay or you want me to go?”

Porco sighs before slowly leaning his face closer to hers.

“I want you to stay,” he says against her cheek, before placing a chaste kiss on her skin. “Whatever I wake up to in the morning, I’m sure it’s worth it.”

[yellowocaballero]

I know next to nothing abt utena but I. I kinda am extremely curious abt the utena vs mcu comparative analysis? if you feel like sharing lmao absolutely no worries if not

I love all of you because I will post obviously bait and someone will always indulge me in asking about it. NO I don’t want to unprompted just start rambling about my opinions, YES I will share them though. I will make this as short as possible because I can talk about Utena all day. I will add a disclaimer that I don’t super like the MCU so I’m very sorry to any MCU fans, Winter Soldier was good. Slight, vague spoilers for Utena ahead. 

TL;DR: MCU is constantly selling feminism in the form of palatable #bossbabes and Strong Female Characters, while Utena’s form of feminism is a more systematic and nuanced interview of how the patriarchy limits, exploits, and controls women. It posits that a woman CANNOT be a #bossbabe while she’s within that system, and only by leaving it can she find independence and identity. MCU is sponsored by the Air Force.

So for the uninitiated, Utena is a magical girl anime that I’ve been jokingly calling Evangelion: For Her. It deconstructs magical girl anime and fairy tales, and critically examines Japanese society, the patriarchy, heteronormative culture, and IN MY OPINION boarding schools. It deals with themes of trauma, toxic relationships, toxic masculinity, gender non-conformity, queerness, abuse, maturity, coming of age, gender roles, memory, and narrative. 

I’ve joked recently that Tumblr would find Utena problematic if it actually talked about the show beyond the killer aesthetic and sword lesbians. Every female character in it is obsessed with men. Most of them are in abusive, or at least toxic, relationships. It has several gender nonconforming, queer women, who view gender nonconformity as adopting the role of a man in society and thereby idealizing/controlling/abusing women, as men do. Every character is a hugely complicated person who hurts others. Men control women and women are either subservient and controlled by men, or they use their position of assumed subservience to manipulate men, or they attempt to regain power by taking the role of men. 

On the flip side. Utena demonstrates how every character is turned into this through the rigid and restrictive nature of (it’s Japanese, so Japanese, although it’s broadly applicable) society. Women who do not fit into these pre-set molds are punished and ostracized. Young boys are groomed by older men in order to fit these abusive molds, and otherwise well meaning men hurt women because they are not taught how to interact with women in healthy ways. The show is basically about how society takes the genuine need for love, intimacy, and human connection among children and beats them into societally accepted molds that keep power in the hands of powerful men. The patriarchy is ultimately a tool of powerful men that abuses and controls both men and women. Ever hear of no ethical consumption under capitalism? Try no ethical love under the patriarchy! 

So, no, Utena doesn’t really have a lot of ‘strong female characters’. But that’s really kind of the point - how can a woman be strong in this system? When a woman tries to gain strength, does she just try to imitate masculine values that we’re brainwashed into perceiving as strength? Is masculinity healthy? Can Utena really be gnc, or will a gnc woman never be accepted as a man by a society that profits off the victimization of women?

I’m not asking the MCU to analyze all of this, because they’re blockbuster movies and I don’t want or need them to get #deep. However, superhero movies will never look at the systematic and societal structures that build heroes and villains so long as the nature of superheroes inherently hinges upon the ‘Great Man’ system (basically an obsession with heroes and salvation through singular men instead of communities and movements). The MCU Spider-Man movies were so frustrating about this: it goes through the effort of saying that capitalism and injustice created the Vulture, but all that does is make a sympathetic villain - it never goes so far as to say that Peter is being fed into this system (by Tony Stark) like meat into a meat grinder that continues to prioritize the special over the collective. I don’t even need to get into Far From Home. The MCU constantly acknowledges these injustices (the way it acknowledges that the Air Force in Captain Marvel is sexist and racist) but it twists around that acknowledgement into assertion that superheroes and good guys CAN exist in this unjust system, and that they can utilize the power of this unjust system in order to provide salvation. Utena has Japanese Buddhist roots over this Christian ideal of the saviour/messiah: it encourages saving ourselves, and says that we cannot be saved by others, only aided and guided in that journey. 

Captain Marvel cannot be a ‘feminist’ film, no matter how much it celebrates Carol for embracing her individuality and autonomy in a discriminatory system, so long as Carol remains within that system. In contrast, the only way that Utena was able to live in gay happiness with Anthy was by rejecting the patriarchy, structure, and society completely. Carol is a shining, premier, ‘ideal’ example of a woman in the Air Force - tough and independent yet obedient and responsible to her system. Utena is also masc and gnc, but it actually explores how performing that masculinity isn’t a repudiation of the system, it’s just striving to attain status as the oppressor instead of the oppressed (absolutely crucial note that Utena doesn’t strive to be a man, she strives for masculinity). The #girlbosses in Black Panther are characterized by their complete and total loyalty and lack of ambition to authoritarian male figures and autocratic systems (Black Panther is really good and I like it a lot, this isn’t a criticism). Judi in Utena is also completely obedient and loyal to the male-dominated structure of the Student Council, but it’s shown as preventing her from accepting her lesbianism and pursing her desires. Black Widow, #girlboss extraordinaire, is devalued as a woman through her infertility and this is completely played straight and uncritically in a move that’s stunningly 1970s. Nanami in Utena (metaphorically) is confronted with her perceived lack of suitability for maternal life - and how the reason why she’s desperate for this is because it’s the promised unconditional love she never received. This isn’t even getting into the men - Tony Stark using tools of war to end war, which is an oxymoron. Peter Parker’s divorce from his working class roots into mindless imitation of authoritarian paternal figures and him literally being handed the cutsey drone strikes. Women in the MCU are ‘cool’, women in Utena are complex, flawed, and nuanced. 

We know the MCU isn’t woke. I don’t want it to be woke. But it keeps on pretending to try and it’s frustrating me. It continually just gets enough there to make me think about it and give the shiny sheen of that feminism while refusing to engage meaningfully with what they’re doing. I’d rather they didn’t try at all, because they consistently raise the question (hey it’s fucked up that the working class is getting screwed over and the Vulture’s doing what he’s doing for a reason!) and then refuse to answer it authentically or genuinely (but he’s evil so we don’t gotta touch that). I’m not gonna use the word pandering, but...that #girlboss shot in Endgame, come on...

Utena meaningfully treats the women as women who Live In A Society, and how that fucks them up, and how the only way they can be free is if they realize there’s no wizard behind the curtain, recognize the injustices, and repudiate the game. MCU says that a woman can be liberated and strong if she achieves specialness and strength within the system - if she ‘wins’ the game. But women don’t win this game. That’s the point of the game. Because when women win, men perceive themselves as losing, and that’s unacceptable. Captain Marvel and the MCU is a consolation prize for what women are consistently denied: complex and flawed characterizations. 

I’m normally uninterested by #feminism but Utena gets it. Thanks for the ask! 

[cursed-moon-blossom]

Okay, so, here's my NOT deeply personal take on Hogwarts Legacy. Let your fandom big sister give you some advice. (And reblog this version instead? It has more advice and makes me less uncomfortable)

Guys, gals, and nonbinary pals, there's always going to be problems with a big name franchise. Literally always. Be it from the creator or the company or someone else involved, or even problematic elements of the actual franchise itself. Nothing is ever perfect. And we should acknowledge these problems! But when it comes to the monetary aspect, as I've seen it put elsewhere, there's really no ethical consumption under capitalism anyway.

BUT that doesn't mean we have to despair or give up everything that makes us happy that has problems attached to it, or put our money into the pockets of people that make us uncomfortable everytime either. That's honestly just insane. That's a good way to spiral into depression. It just means we should look for the solution that makes us most comfortable.

If that's walking away all together, or at least choosing not to engage in new parts of the franchise, so be it. More power to you, I wish you all the best and I hope you find something new to spark joy in your life. I really do.

But if you choose to stay here's my advice on how to engage if you can't bear to put your money into the problematic aspects of the franchise:

My first bit of advice is to accept that people are going to buy this game anyway. Don't stress yourself out over others' choices, you can't control anyone but yourself. Also accept that buying or owning it new doesn't automatically make someone a bad person. And for the sake of all that is good and right DO NOT HARASS SOMEONE FOR HAVING IT. I cannot stress that enough. It is never, EVER, your place to do that. Now, with that stuff out of the way let's launch into how you can enjoy this game without putting money into JK's pocket.

Since we're specifically talking about a video game my first advice on how to enjoy it is watching Let's Plays of it! This can be a super good option for a lot of people. You get to learn the lore, experience the story, and not have to deal with frustrating mechanics or difficult segments yourself. Plus a lot of Let's Players make things genuinely fun and even more engaging! It can be like playing with a friend almost. And it's a way for multiple people, often hundreds, or even THOUSANDS, to enjoy a single copy of the game, which means no extra money for JK.

But say you're like me and you have trouble just watching Let's Plays a lot of the time. Maybe you have trouble focusing, or it's frustrating because you have no control over the choices made. Perhaps you just can't feel engaged unless the controller is in your hand. That's okay because I've got an option for you too, and this is a strategy you can apply to almost any part of the franchise.

Buy used. Buy used, buy used, BUY USED. The second hand market is your BEST FRIEND. There's going to be god only knows how many copies bought new anyway, turn that to you advantage. Once the game enters the secondhand market neither WB or JK are making any more profit off it anyway. Or reaping any other benefits for that matter. You can even bypass giving your money to big companies all together by buying it directly from the original owner sometimes. And I promise you that 9 times out of 10 with video games (or books/movies) it's going to be the cheaper option to buy used anyway.

So, yeah, there's my two cents on the matter. If this helps you in anyway, please pass it around. I'm seeing a lot of negativity and conflict over this game and I want to help people find the option that's best for them.

[thatheathen]

“Seize the day. Then set it on fire.”

We are living in that cyberpunk dystopia now, the very type Philip K. Dick warned us that could happen and is slowly creeping its way into our personal lives/minds and that's mainly due to big internet providers and the fascist governments whipped by corporations hijacking all modes of freedom even virtual freedoms. everything is connected in the system the ruling class decided and you are a slave with in that caste system until you die. oh gee fun. 

I feel bad for the devs that are forced to time crunch for this month. CD Projekt RED better compensate their workers for pushing this game out for them greedy selfish CEOs who are attached to this game that will no doubt be a hit and make tons of money, but at what cost? video game developers need to desperately unionize before its too late to even do so as most triple A games are made by wealthy liberal and or centrist elites who pretend to be progressive but actually hate unions, socialism, sharing, comradery, solidarity, grassroots fund raising cuz that’s all anti-capitalist and bad you see.  

There is no ethical consumption under capitalism and that's exactly what cyberpunk is; it's a genre of unchained sci-fi yeah but it's also showing capitalism on steroids, corporations gone rogue and eating up all the earth's resources just to produce enough power and energy to run a whole city now requires a while country of power to push harder and harder to keep that light pollution at the maximum. animals should be going completely extinct in a cyberpunk future, what do humans even eat? 

To my mind cyberpunk should be about breaking away from cultural programming that makes us hate each other, fight and kill, it always boils down to those who have and those who have not social structure. That's a lot like Feudalism and a false sense of safety for all people. Cyber-feudalism is how it's structured underneath the veil. “Seize the day. Then set it fire.” 

Cyberpunk seems like a countercultural idea within the hyper-capitalist world that's still very male dominant. The feminine exist only to tantalize the masses, domestic females to slaves of profits and glamour. The brutal police forces ignoring human rights laws daily. Journalism is remotely impossible. So is the world of cyberpunk really a world of freedom and choices? Cyberpunk can be seen as a connection of like minded folk hungry for freedom and not need to fall into crime to survive. For many that’s the world you’re forced to live in or die in. rights are not natural handed from god, they are taken. cyber-rights seems like a fruitless fight in a hyper-cyber-capitalist reality; big brothers eyes everywhere. mass surveillance that would make PKD’s jaw drop.  cyberpunk-world cops are thugs beyond what we could imagine and could kill you on sight if they chose and nobody will care or not be able to do anything. nobodies memories can be trusted unless you express a certain class. all the punks, rejects, anarchists, anti-corporation, hackers, etc. are all outsiders, terrorist suspects. Every queer person or Muslim or any kind of marginalized group of that era is vulnerable as the system doesn’t favor them nor see a reason to protect them, with fascist-leaning politicians WANTING certain groups of people to literally die out. Those who struggle in any unequal world are going to be feeling the most pain. Lots of pain may mean; drug addiction to numb this awful reality, mod addiction to be less human maybe or change your identity completely. Lots of pain could also mean lots of anger towards the system and the state that’s making life so miserable for the 90% the citizens who have no power. cyberpunk 2077s idea is an “anything-goes” kinda place. here’s a sci-fi GTA/Witcher3 sandbox about a fucked up capitalist future that’s super fun and action packed!! It’s okay it’s not real though. Meanwhile capitalism as it exists today is grinding down the working class including the Dev employees working on Cyberpunk as I type this. long hours for the same pay. was it worth it? will it be worth it? will cyberpunk be the GAME that will end labor abuse in the gaming industry? 

People who are different, people who reject authority and anti-human social constructs, people who are spiritual without an organized religion, people so different and taboo to where the ruling elites see them as a threat, mocking those gross punks/queers/dissidents, but love their style and aesthetic because the rich have no soul and ZERO creativity. stealing is what rich assholes do best. rich people steal everyone’s aesthetic claiming it as their own and you begin to see YOUR aesthetic in the media regardless if it's offensive, it’s just unfettered anarcho-capitalist-land, there's no more restrictions to anything really. like ayn rand vision that would result in Bioshock’s world. that was a steampunk nightmare to an extent. point being the rich can do anything. money is power and it only matters to those who thirst for power. Many people just deal with money and hate at the same time cuz what other choice do people have? Poor people get no choices and all the bad days.

The rich and powerful will indulge in the vices of the poor to get another experience; meanwhile the real poor struggle to survive in this electronic hell world and your only choices are to fight and kill these hyper-corporations that run the planet's economy basically and that sucks. seems prophetic in a way to see what the future would be like if capitalism still stood and there was business as usual. I think a true dystopian cyberpunk world is full of dark skies and contagious air due to the extreme pollution i.e. climate change the previous generations of humans ignored and still ignore because profits and luxury and drugs and opulence and legacies and authoritarian rule is far more important to uphold you see. "human nature" is always condescendingly professed as an argument killer to why capitalism is the only way because hooomons are deep down real mean and violent... which is not true. 

Human infants literally can't live without being held and nurtured in a healthy environment. Humans are wired to love and communicate. humans lived a long time cuz they worked together. Humans lived even longer when they learned to domesticate animals leading to agriculture. only in the last 20,000 years have humans begun to grow their ego and misunderstand its message and purpose. fascists and billionaires take advantage of human minds and fool people into thinking there's no other way to live. it's a fucking lie. human beings are disconnected with nature. wires and cables are not non-nature, those are materials derived from nature. everything is nature, but not everything is natural like human concepts fabricated by civilizations.

“Deleuze and Guattari describe capitalism as a kind of dark potentiality which haunted all previous social systems. Capital, they argue, is the ‘unnamable Thing’, the abomination, which primitive and feudal societies ‘warded off in advance’. When it actually arrives, capitalism brings with it a massive desacralization of culture. It is a system which is no longer governed by any transcendent Law; on the contrary, it dismantles all such codes, only to re-install them on an ad hoc basis.” ― Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?

I want a cyberpunk game where it's a good kind compassionate civilization, a star trek like society, full of infinite exploration into the cosmos and into our minds... I want a cyberpunk world worth protecting, protecting the people from sneaky politicians (demagogues) and authoritarian thugs ready to install the capitalist religion of endless self-destruction and pain. remnants of evil scatter and reform, we must always help people who struggle under capitalisms spell.

[the-a-j-universe]

yeah that's right but what about like a director or even showrunner and it's like a year or two old but recent? In the director's case like Josh Whedon for an example. There are allegations surrounding him that he was a little bit more than an asshole director surrounding bts of his version of JL. Showrunner, I have a possible example, but I don't know if I want to say it this is related to something sensitive even though the fact that popular VAs and creators have done something questionable...

I mean, relating back to the last ask I got on this topic, it’s a matter of degree. You mentioned Joss, so I’ll use him as an example. Here’s what I think of Joss.

Fuck him.

The claims made against him are substantiated and seem credible just in general, and I don’t think he should be getting any work right now because of them, and knowing this stuff about him does recolor how I see some of his past creative choices. I no longer, for example, give him the benefit of the doubt regarding how he treated Black Widow in Avengers 2. That doesn’t mean his art loses its value, though. Buffy is still my favorite show. Firefly is still very good. There’s nothing wrong with revisiting those things. They already exist. I already own Buffy and Age of Ultron. Revisiting them and reassessing them and even still enjoying the good in them gives him nothing.

There’s also the issue that it really is as they say: there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism. Just because Joss sucks doesn’t mean that all of the oodles and oodles of other people who work on his projects don’t deserve to have their work seen. It really sucks that this is the system that they have to function in. It’s set up so that virtually unchecked power is handed to any white guy with a recognizable name, and we need to fix it, but we need to do so in a way that doesn’t ruin the little guy. I get it that not everyone feels this way, and I would never pressure anyone into partaking in something that they aren’t comfortable with, but I also won’t condemn someone who does. People deserve what happiness they can get in this shit world.

But I’ll tell ya what, even all of that said, I do think Joss deserves the chance to improve. I think all but the worst of the worst deserve the chance to improve. If Joss acknowledges that he’s an abusive sexist dick and shows through his actions that he’s changed, and he faces consequences for any of his actions that are requiring of them, then he should be able to pursue his craft again. We should be wary of people like him and we shouldn’t want him, as he is now, working in entertainment, but permacancelling him, or anybody, will just make ‘em dig in and refuse to get better.

Then there’s the issue that some people do dumb shit completely non-maliciously. I know, because I used to be that person. I even still am to a degree, and so are you. I don’t know everything, and I grew up inundated with stereotypes. They’re a part of how I think. Benign (if such a thing exists) and harmful ones. And while I, again, would never pressure anyone to do something that they aren’t personally comfortable with, in situations where it seems more likely that the problematic thing was just this, I think society at large should do their best to educate the person in question and show them where their behavior is harmful. Kinda like how a lot of Star Wars fans tried to educate Gina Carano on why attack helicopter jokes are bad after she made one on Twitter. Up until it turned out she’s probably just a shitty alt-righter.

Everybody is gonna have their own limit. I think, like, assault should be just about anyone’s upward limit, right? But you decide what makes you uncomfortable consuming someone’s art. And you need to remember that that’s gonna be true of everyone, that that lower limit isn’t fixed. If somebody still likes Age of Ultron or Buffy or Harry Potter or whatever, don’t assume they’re bad. If they stan it uncritically or defend the problematic elements that’s a problem, but enjoying it for what it is in context is different.

It’s also important to look at a creator’s body of work and how they usually present themselves publicly when they do something problematic. If they genuinely seem to be trying in general, or they seem to want to do good, I think it’s a safe bet that any questionable comments or whatever were probably unintentionally so, made without any ill intent. Even if they don’t initially react well to being called out, I think they still deserve the benefit of the doubt. But if they repeat their behavior, deny it, or defend it, that’s when it becomes a problem.

...

Well, it’s good to know I can still write essays.