#one thing doesn't negate the other

[sirlancenotalot]

[wolves-in-the-world]

the thing about eliot spencer as a character, right. the thing about him.

(and as always your mileage may vary on my analyses so if we disagree that's cool actually)

is that he is in fact a somewhat emotionally constipated idiot who is occasionally sensitive about his perceived masculinity and gets defensive about emotional intimacy around other men (largely hardison, who's much more comfortable expressing affection and embracing a softer kind of masculinity), but eliot displays enough emotional awareness and sensitivity and respect for women etc etc that anyone who's been subjected to that era of television will put on rose-tinted glasses without even looking twice.

(and he is, don't get me wrong, incredibly emotionally aware for a professionally punchy guy with enough trauma to sink the titanic. it still startles me to see.)

on top of which we have the layers and the accessories and the excellent hair with the secret braids and the way he barely has an ego and he's good with kids and protective of his team without taking it too far, and some of us never stood a fucking chance.

[fayevalcntine]

The whole framing of Lestat as the sole symbol of patriarchy that fandom is so desperate to put him in doesn't work unless you deliberately ignore how he was also a victim of rape and abuse before he was turned. People want him to be fit into this strict role of "father figure/violent husband/perpetrator" that is only that and not even a whole person, and in doing so they need to push aside the fact that despite being his family's provider, he was also pushed into that role when his father forbid him from joining a monastery or gaining an education that he wanted. Lestat wanted to run away with a theater group as a kid, and actually managed to do so once Gabrielle gave him her blessing and monetary support in order to go to Paris. He didn't always want to be the provider, he was forced into that role and became despondent when he thought he would never get a chance to leave his home.

His new life prior to being turned is pretty much the antithesis to the whole "Lestat is a manly man who would sooner throw up than be compared to a woman" spiel: he lived with another man in Paris while also being an actor, having left his family and "responsibility" to them. The only family member he was ever close to was his mother, all the other male members shunned or ridiculed him. Add onto that the fact that his turning firmly placed him within the role of the damsel/victim: he's kidnapped from his bed by a stranger, taken into a tower and left to rot while being fed on for a week, before then being raped and violently turned all while never even being asked if he would consent to it in any normal circumstance. But you of course have to ignore all of this if you want him to only represent the aggressor/patriarch while Louis is the helpless unhappy matriarch of the family.

My issue isn't that I think Louis isn't a victim, it's that it's not unrealistic for Lestat to be an aggressor/abuser while also displaying traits that aren't regularly assigned to stereotypical depictions of male characters. He's abusive to Claudia while also having been a victim of abuse from his own family. He's not a good maker/teacher, but he also didn't even have one when he was turned. He's the provider/attempted protector of the family and seemed to like being that, while also having run away from his own family prior to this to act in a theater in Paris. He's a rich white man while also being obviously effeminate in public spaces, even to Tom's own bigoted humor.

Like Louis' own complicated story with being his family's benefactor and provider, you can't firmly place Lestat as being one thing or another in terms of gender ideals without deliberately ignoring parts about him that don't fit this. And I don't think it's an absolute necessity, when even in Louis' own story, Lestat isn't stripped of his effeminate mannerisms or behavior while also being the abusive maker/father/lover.

[billykcplan]

so been seeing some wild takes on twitter today and also around here so lets be clear on a couple things:

if you reblog my posts and insult the thing i giffed or the people in the gifs appearance, or the gifs i worked hard on, i'm going to block you. like full stop. i don't just waste my time giffing things i don't love. and no one hates a buzzkill like me. this isn't a safe space for you.

secondly, yes, the show is called agatha all along and agatha harkness is the lead character. also - joe was cast as the "male lead" nearly two years ago and we've known ever since. billy being arguably the biggest gay comic superhero ever introduced and being introduced nearly 20 years ago means it's going to be a big deal to bring him to the screen. yes, he's going to get special moments. yes, he's probably going to get a backstory episode next week. clearly agatha and rio are getting backstories too. anyone with a brain knows this.

i can't help but feel like a lot of the comments associated with joe / teen / billy are dripping with casual homophobia. calling him "twink" in place of f*g. it's not funny. and no one should be shamed for being excited to see him.

i understand being frustrated by the out magazine coverage of the show, but it is ONE trade fucking up their coverage doesn't warrant the onslaught of shit coming at billy. especially when every other marvel project that's introduced important character who wasn't the titular character hasn't had to deal with this insane behavior.

agathario is coming and taking center stage as we near the end of the show. anyone with any media literacy can tell that. anyone who's seen the trailers knows that. anyone who has seen scarlet witch updates reassurances knows it. and that's why the nastiness about a three minute scene at the end of episode 5/9 seems to be incredibly in bad faith.

anyway, billy episodic set will probably come tomorrow. might be a little longer than usual.

[dravidious]

You're more amazing than catchphrases

90% of all Yugioh card effects are either "move a card from one zone to another" or "negate an effect" so I made a bunch of combat keywords so that monsters can actually be interesting on the field.

[bombshellsandbluebells]

now that I’m dragging my mental health back to a semi-decent place and feel like I might have the energy to like....write literally anything again, at some point I’m going to write about the importance of critiquing within the context of a written story

as in, critiquing narrative points completely without any consideration of how they are contextualized in the story is a bit unfair.

as in, I continue to see things about the Ted Lasso finale that annoy me. not because people had a different read of the finale or disliked different things than I did - or that they’re critiquing it at all; there’s plenty I will critique or would have done differently - but like, saying things like “Ted going back home to Kansas is bad because he’s clearly miserable about it” is an unfair reading when, within the CONTEXT of the story, it’s not framed that way. regardless of whether it was a choice you liked or how you would have wanted things to end, it’s not framed in the story as a) a bad thing, b) a miserable sacrifice, or c) a thing that Ted is upset about. so there’s a difference between saying “I don’t like Ted going back home to Kansas at the end because to me that doesn’t read as a happy ending’ and “the finale objectively frames Ted going back as a bad thing because it makes him unhappy” 

and this isn’t JUST a critique on criticism in regards to Ted Lasso. it’s the nature of fandom criticism in general. “I didn’t like this thing” becoming “this thing is objectively bad in the story” or even “this thing is portrayed as objectively bad bc of this, this, and this” despite that contradicting how the story actually frames it.

[sunsetsover]

i think the reason i like firstkhao so bad is bc they have bangtan energy. don't ask me to explain bc i can't but growing up in borahae village i hear first say some shit like 'suddenly the voices in my head are saying khaotung is so cute' and im just like yeah that sounds about right.

[kurominiiiz]

The amount of incest, noncon, and pedophilic jjk smut content is getting out of hand.

"Just scroll if you don't like it!" - this doesn't negate the fact they're posting disgusting scenarios. They're targeting an audience of people who should seek therapy. That kind of shit is not okay.

It's like saying "scroll part a zoophile account on Twitter if u don't like it." See how stupid it sounds?

This Fandom is slowly becoming one i regret being in because of just how disgusting people are becoming. Come on guys, do better.

It's okay to have kinks and fetishes, but that doesn't mean they're okay. It's not okay to sexualize minors, it's not okay to sexualizw little space, it's not okay to sexualize r//pe! I get dubcon, but noncon? That's literally just nonconsensual sex.

Anyways. Rant over. Do better, people.

---

Edit: I have MUCH more to say on this now that I've read some other inputs:

The problem isn't "block and move on" or "ur arguing for fiction..." it's the fact people are exposing minors and already mentally ill people to VERY REAL and DISGUSTING scenarios. It doesn't matter that they're fictional, what they're writing about is a real issue. Blocking tags doesn't work most of the time, so stop saying to shut up and just use that feature.

Another thing is that people are making these writings so normal that they are making others think it's okay. When I was younger, I had unsupervised internet access and was exposed to smut like this. It messed me up and got me institutionalized because I didn't know it wasn't okay to talk about. Minors nowadays are also very unsupervised and will come across your stuff. I'm worried for the next generation.

Last thing, the excuse "they're just fiction" is flawed because you're ignoring the PSA! You wouldn't say this if it was about something else, right? If someone was saying: "I love lolicon!" You wouldn't block and move on. You would call their asses out and comment bomb them. It's the same concept, except on a broader spectrum. You're enabling the behavior of these vile creatures that need serious help. You're not doing anyone any good by saying "this is so unnecessary" or "they're fictional..."

(Update: read this post about my asks if you plan on sending a hate message or threat lol)

[xcziel]

.

[psychotrenny]

It's interesting how you'll see people (correctly) point out that being oppressed as a trans women doesn't prevent someone from participating in racism, only to then go on and say incredibly transmisogynstic things about "white trans women" and justify it by the racial oppression they personally face. Like on the surface it's an obviously self-defeating argument; if you've already established "suffering from one form of oppression doesn't absolve participation in another" you can't then immediately go ahead and use the bigotry you suffer to negate the bigotry you perform. But I think the key here is that a lot of people don't see "transmisogyny" as a genuine axis of oppression

Like there's a form of rhetoric that's widespread among progressives that (sometimes explicitly but more often implicitly) presents trans women not a type of woman, but in fact a type of degenerate or delusional man that "we" have a moral duty to tolerate and play along with. The second a trans woman does something sufficiently immoral, that obligation of tolerance vanishes and you're free to treat him (I mean them) as the predatory weirdo he (I mean they) is. And even "the good ones" aren't entitled to full respect and humanity; well-behaved trannies just get fewer reminders of how fake their womanhood is. Like people have trouble grasping that "transmisogyny" is a type of misogyny, a type of bigotry as serious as any other, because they don't see "trans woman" as a type of woman

And yes, all this transmisogynistic talk around "white trans women" rhetorically erases the existence of trans women of colour and in material terms does significantly more harm to them than to actual white transfems. That aspect is very important to talk about. But the primary contradiction here is around transmisogyny itself; even if trans women of colour were magically exempt or non-existent it's still a very harmful and reactionary line of thinking. It's not as though misogyny suddenly becomes good when the targets are white women; why should that change because you've pre-fixed it with a "trans"

[cenvast]

"Toshiro Is Sexist," "Toshiro Owns Slaves": What's Really Going on With This Guy?

I've seen a lot of debate on whether or not Toshiro is problematic because he's a slave owner or because he's sexist in the context of his crush on Falin. While I do want to examine his relationship to Falin, I'd like to take a few steps back and unpack his upbringing first. We'll dive into the gender and class dynamics he was raised with and how it impacts his behavior in the main storyline.

Like all people, Toshiro is shaped by the environment he grew up in. Toshitsugu, Toshiro's father and the head of the Nakamoto clan, is the most impactful model of authority and manhood in his life. Toshiro does recognize some of his father's flaws and tries to avoid replicating them. But whether or not he emulates or subverts his father's behavior, Toshitsugu is often the starting point for Toshiro's treatment of others, particularly marginalized people.

The Nakamoto clan exists under a patriarchal hierarchy with Toshitsugu at the top. As noted by @fumifooms in their Nakamoto household post, his wife has more authority than Maizuru. She's able to ban Maizuru from parts of their residence, but despite disliking his infidelity, she can't divorce him or stop him from cheating on her. Their marriage is not an equal partnership.

On an interpersonal level, Toshitsugu and Maizuru also have a fraught relationship. While she does seem to care for him, she's often frustrated by his thoughtless behavior.

For example, he drunkenly buys Izutsumi for her — without considering how she'll have to raise this child — and invades her room in the middle of the night. When he cryptically says, "It's all my fault," she replies, "I can think of a lot of things that are your fault." She calls him an "idiot" and "believes that [Toshiro] will grow up to be a better clan leader than his father," implying that she takes issue with Toshitsugu's leadership.

Because Maizuru and Toshitsugu are described as being "in an intimate relationship" and "seem[ing] to be lovers," Maizuru appears to be a consensual participant. Still, this doesn't negate the large power imbalance between them as a male noble clan leader and his female retainer. This imbalance introduces an insidious undertone to Maizuru's frustration with Toshitsugu. Like Toshiro's mother, Maizuru doesn't have the agency to do as she pleases in their relationship; he has the ultimate authority. For instance, she doesn't seem to want to raise Izutsumi, but she has to anyway.

While Maizuru's role as Toshitsugu's mistress is significant, she's also the Nakamoto clan's teacher and Toshiro's primary maternal figure. She cares deeply for Toshiro: tailing him, feeding him, and taking responsibility even for his actions as an adult. While it might seem sweet that she cares for him like a son at first, Maizuru was notably fifteen years old at the time of his birth. In the extra comic below, he's six years old and has already been in her care for some time. Even if we're being generous and assuming that she didn't start raising him until he was six, she was still only twenty-one at the time she was parenting her boss/lover's child with another woman.

Maizuru's roles as mistress and maternal figure, in addition to her role as retainer, demonstrate the intersection between gendered and class oppression in the Nakamoto household. Despite her original role being a retainer trained in espionage, Toshitsugu presses her into performing gendered labor for him and eventually, Toshiro. She's expected to be Toshitsugu's lover, perform emotional labor for him as his confidant, care for his child, and carry out domestic tasks like cooking. She says, "Even during missions, I was often dragged into the kitchen." If she was a male servant, I doubt she would have been expected to perform these additional tasks. She can't avoid these tasks either, stating that her "own feelings don't factor into it."

Toshitsugu disregards his wife's and Maizuru's desires and emotions to serve his own interests. Because he has societal power over them as a nobleman and in Maizuru's case, her master, neither woman can escape their position in the household hierarchy.

As a result, Toshiro grew up within a structure where men and male nobility, in particular, wield the most societal power. The hierarchical nature of his household and society discourages everyone, including him as a clan leader's eldest son, from questioning and disrupting the existing hierarchy.

The other Nakamoto household members also internalize its sexist, classist power dynamics.

For example, Hien expects that she and Toshiro will replicate the uneven dynamics of the previous generation, regardless of her personal feelings. She sees her and Toshiro's relationship as paralleling Maizuru and Toshitsugu's relationship; she is the closest woman to Toshiro and his retainer, so she's shocked when Toshiro doesn't attempt to begin an intimate relationship with her. Notably, she doesn't have actual feelings for him. Her expectations are centered around the household's precedent of placing emotional, sexual, domestic, and child-rearing labor onto the female servants without any regard for their personal desires.

Hien also probably knows that her position in the household will improve if she is Toshiro's lover because she's seen it improve Maizuru's position. However, the fact that being the future clan leader's lover is the closest proximity she, as a female servant, has to power further reveals the gendered, class-based oppression she and the other women live under.

It's important to note that the Nakamoto clan bought Benichidori, Izutsumi, and Inutade as slaves, so they have less power and agency than Maizuru and Hien. The clan further dehumanizes Izutsumi and Inutade as demi-humans; their enslavement contains an additional layer of racialization.

Toshiro isn't oblivious to the gendered, class, and racial power dynamics of his household. He tries to distance himself from participating in its exploitative power structure. He walls himself off from Hien, who he's known since childhood, to avoid replicating his father's behavior and making his servant into his lover. He disapproves of his father's enslavement of Izutsumi and Inutade, and he lets Izutsumi go when she runs away in the Dungeon.

But does any of this absolve him of his complicity in his household's sexist, classist power dynamics and racialized slavery?

The short answer is absolutely not.

Despite his distaste for his father's exploitation of his servants and slaves, Toshiro still uses them. He refers to his party as "his retainers," and he has them fight and perform domestic tasks for him. You could argue that Toshiro doesn't like to and thus, doesn't regularly use his servants and slaves. In the context of him asking his retainers to help him rescue Falin, Maizuru says, "The only time he ever made any sort of personal request was for this task." But it shouldn't matter whether exploitation is a regular occurrence or not for it to be considered harmful. Toshiro asking Maizuru to cook him a meal still constitutes asking his female servant to perform gendered labor for him. He's also very accustomed to her grooming and dressing him.

Maizuru sees feeding, washing, and even advising Toshiro romantically as fulfilling Toshitsugu's orders to care for his son. They aren't fulfilling a "personal request." But just because her labor has been deemed expected and thereby devalued doesn't mean that it isn't labor or that she isn't performing it.

Maizuru's dynamic with Toshiro is also complicated by her role as his maternal figure. She loves him and wants to take care of him, and she doesn't have a choice in the matter. During Toshiro's childhood, the onus was on Toshitsugu to cease exploiting his lover and release her from servitude, but Toshiro is now an adult man. Seeing as how Maizuru defers to his wishes and calls him "Young Master," they still have a power imbalance that he's passively maintaining. Ideally, he would not ask anything of her until he has the authority to release her from servitude.

Throughout the story, Toshiro acts as if he has no agency and quietly disapproving of his father's actions absolves him of his participation in maintaining oppressive dynamics. While his father still ranks higher than him, he's essentially his father's heir. He has much more power than Maizuru, the highest-ranked servant. At the very least, he could leave his slave-owning household.

Unfortunately, his refusal to confront injustice is consistent with his character's major flaw: he does not express his opinions, desires, or needs. While this character trait obviously hurts his friendships, it also furthers his complicity in the injustices his household runs on.

Toshiro's relationship with eating food — the prevailing metaphor of the series — also parallels his relationship with confronting injustice. Maizuru mentions that he was a sickly child, so the act of eating may have been physically uncomfortable for him. As an adult, his refusal to eat crops up during his rescue attempt of Falin. Denying himself food might have been punishment for not accomplishing important tasks like rescuing Falin and/or a way to maintain control over something in his life when he felt like he'd lost control over the rest of it, again in the context of losing Falin. (Note: I suggest reading this post on Toshiro's disordered eating by @malaierba.)

But he cannot and does not avoid consuming food forever.

Similarly, Toshiro keeps his distance from his retainers and tries not to use them until the Falin situation occurs. His efforts to avoid exploiting his retainers amount to inaction — things he doesn't ask of them or do to them. But his inaction does nothing to dismantle the existing hierarchy that places his retainers under his authority, denies them agency, and often marginalizes them as not only servants or slaves but as women, and he ends up using them as servants and slaves anyways.

Returning to the narrative's themes of consumption, Toshiro cannot avoid eating just as he cannot avoid perpetuating the exploitative system of his household. The Nakamoto clan consumes the labor and personhood of those lower in the hierarchy. The retainers' labor as spies and domestic servants is the foundation of the clan's existence. Thus, the clan consumes their labor to sustain itself.

Within this hierarchy, the retainers' personhood is also consumed and erased. As Izutsumi describes, they are given different names and stripped of their agency to reject orders or leave. Maizuru and Hien also say their feelings are irrelevant in the context of Toshitsugu's and Toshiro's wants and needs. Both women are expected to comply with whatever is most beneficial and comfortable for the noblemen. Clearly, despite Toshiro's detachment from his household's functions, these social structures remain in place and harm the women under him.

Although we know the Nakamoto clan has male retainers, the choice to highlight the female retainers seems intentional. We're asked to interrogate how not only being a servant or a slave in a noble household impacts a person's life and agency, but how being a woman intersects with being a member of some of the lowest social classes.

Toshiro only distances himself from his father's behaviors of infidelity and exploitation so long as it doesn't take Toshiro out of his comfort zone. He doesn't free his slaves. He's far too comfortable with his female retainers performing domestic labor for him, and he barely acknowledges their efforts; they're shocked when he thanks them for helping him save Falin. He hasn't unpacked his sexist (or classist or racist) biases because he perpetuates his household's oppressive hierarchy throughout the narrative. Considering all of this, he inevitably brings this baggage to his interactions with Falin.

Falin is presumably one of the first women he's had extended contact with that isn't his relative or his family's servant. Because of his trauma surrounding his father and Maizuru sleeping together, he understandably falls for a woman as disconnected as possible from his father and his clan. He seems to genuinely like Falin, respects her boundaries, and graciously accepts her rejection. His behavior towards her is overall kind and unproblematic.

But if Falin had gone with him, she would've likely been devalued and sidelined like the other women of the Nakamoto household. No matter how much he loves Falin, simply loving her cannot replace the difficult work of unlearning his sexism. Love, of course, can and should be accompanied by that work, but by the close of the narrative, we gain little indication that Toshiro acknowledges or seeks to end his part in exploiting and devaluing women and other marginalized people.

A spark of hope does exist. Toshiro expressing his feelings to Laios and Falin suggests that his time away from home has encouraged him to speak up more. Breaking his habit of avoidance may be the first step towards acknowledging his complicity in systems of injustice and moving towards dismantling them.

Special thanks to my very smart friend @atialeague for bringing up Toshitsugu's relationship with Maizuru and the replication of dynamics of consumption and class! <3

[risestarkiss]

Strength

Rise Ramblings #565

While watching the show, I realized that we don’t really get to see the boys’ true strength very often. Yes, we see their Ninpo at work, especially towards the end of the series, but I believe that outside of their Ninpo there is so much more to these boys than meets the eye.  

When thinking about raw strength, it’s easy to say something like “Yeah, Raph is the strongest.” And for good reason...

He is the one that works out the most.

His build is the largest and the most intimidating.

Often times we see him picking up, carrying, or tossing his brothers around, no problem.

And that’s why this big guy gives the best hugs.

But the main reason why he's seen as the strongest is because he’s the one generally seen picking up the most impossibly heavy objects.

Although, he does have his limits.

Yes, Raph is the strongest, but that does not negate the strength of the rest of the bros.

The physical abilities of the other three are nothing to sneeze at, especially since they were all originally created to be weapons. (See “What Was Meant To Be” for more on that subject.)

Take Mikey for instance.

Of all of the boys, you wouldn’t think of Mikey as particularly strong, but here he is shoulder pressing one of his brothers for fun.

And flinging the boy in plum.

What about Leo? Sure, we never really see him exert himself, especially when it comes to weightlifting or exercise, but I can’t help but notice how much he tends to carry his little brother.

Furthermore, Leo doesn't just carry Mikey, but throws him around as well.

But I believe the one that low key shows off his strength the most is Purple.

(It might have something to do with his overall lack of restraint, but I digress.)

He easily carries his brother when he needs to.

And more impressively, he throws Mikey like nobody’s business using his bow staff and his own brawn.

Speaking of his staff, if this is true:

Then what do we make of this instance?

Yes, the staff was already semi-broken, but does he go on to completely demolish the titanium staff in frustration with his bare hands? (Kudos to @theaphaeon for pointing this out!)

You be the judge.

Nonetheless, for me, what really proves Donatello’s strength are these scenes:

Donnie doesn’t just carry out this feat once, but twice!

Not only does Donnie hold up the combined weight of ALL of his brothers, but he does it via one leg. For a normal person, if all of that weight was put on one leg they would be severely injured. But for Donnie, this is just a silly mode of travel with his beloved bros. Meanwhile, his jet pack is struggling under the combined weight of all four turtles...

All-in-all, I just wanted to really highlight the turtles' physical strength and remind myself that strength is not just a Raphie thing, but something that stems across all of the turtle teens.

Do you guys have any more examples of the boys being the powerful weapons they were created to be without using their Hamato Ninpo?

All comments and reblogs are welcome! 💜

[moonfireshadow]

Rewatched Saltburn and I'm obsessed with Farleigh and Oliver's tutoring scene. The essay specifically. For those who don't remember: Oliver did his homework and all his assignments and genuinely gave a well thought out essay for their summer assignments. Farleigh shows up hungover and late and didn't even read the books. But the teacher immediately loves Farleigh and is chatting him up with an interest he barely tried to show Oliver. Even after Oliver gives his presentation and shows that he's clearly a much better student than Farleigh. Obviously this is the real start of their rivalry. But it's also such a beautiful look into their characters and how they mirror eachother. Farleigh understands Oliver's essay, I believe. But like the teacher he's bored by it. The knowledge and work is there, but the presentation of it is boring and strange. Academic and correct, but lacking the appeal to the audience. (Which, can we talk about the fact Farleigh was genuinely listening at all? The teacher zoned out and switched channels, but Farleigh was interested and paying enough attention to know the exact number of times Oliver used the word "thus" in his essay. They respect each other truly even if they despise eachother at this point, and refuse to acknowledge the grudging respect.) So Farleigh does what he does best, he gloats over Oliver. He picks apart the style of the essay and it's presentation rather than addressing the central argument or topic. This delights the teacher and frustrates Oliver who is like, "so you're going to critique the style of my essay rather than it's substance? Seems a bit lazy" and that's the core component of these two characters.

Farleigh is ALL about presentation. He knows how fragile his pedistal is placed up and in view for everyone to see. He's a charity project, just like every other rando of the month. Sure he has some familiar connection, and that's given him a leg up in this world. But it's still shakey at best. He always has to give the correct performance, say the right words, keep his audience on HIS side. Unless he wants to get knocked down with the rest of the common rabal that he knows he's belongs with, but can't stand the idea of. So yes, of course he picks apart the one thing he knows Oliver is failing at. He takes his one advantage over Oliver and uses it mercilessly to both entertain and secure his audience on his side. (I wonder if the positions had been different some how, if Farleigh would have had anything to say about the substance of the essay itself. He was paying attention to it, did he want to have a real academic conversation? Did he possibly want to try and connect to Oliver in that way? A real and non performative way with someone who's so similar to him?)

As for Oliver, obviously his character is intelligent. He does the readings. He does the research. He puts the time and effort in to *learn* in the way Farleigh never does. And it must infuriate him that his essay is so easily pushed to the side for a cheep critique that doesn't even address the central argument of his essay. Of course he would hate Farleigh from the start for that. It's such a quick negation of all that Oliver has to offer and give just because it's not wrapped up in a pretty bow. And that's just his character. The substance is there, the intelligence is there. But it's not enough. It will never be enough. Because Oliver doesn't know how to translate it to his audience in a way they'll care about. He learns and tries to mimic, but it always falls short because he just can't seem to figure out the way to blend in and present himself so seamlessly as Farleigh.

And that's why they're such perfect mirrors of each other. They're both intelligent and clever. But they've found different ways of getting what they want and proving themselves. Farleigh is the face and the presentation, Oliver is the substance and body. In another world imagine what these two could have done and been if they hadn't been pitted against each other for the same prize. And the fact Oliver definitely deliberately shoved Farleigh out at the perfect time so he wouldn't get hurt and killed? Oliver and Farleigh respect and admire the other. But their tragedy is they can never be on the same page or team because the world they're in says there is only room for one. And they'd both do anything to get that title.

[voluptuarian]

I'm trying to avoid people's dumb takes on Nosferatu but I keep being exposed to the tip of the iceberg and am annoyed enough about it to rant about it.

There's nothing in there that implies she was a kid. She lived in her family home, in the room she had lived in her whole life-- very typical for an unmarried adult woman at the time, especially in a well off family. Everyone determined that this had to be Orlok "grooming" a "child" are just fixated on that interpretation because it's nasty-sounding enough that they can condemn the relationship as "irredeemable" and "problematic" without sounding like pearl-clutchers. It's the magic word that lets them look vindicated in writing the whole thing off. She's not played by a child, she is dressed and styled as an adult, and the needs she's expressing, for attention, for recognition, for physical and emotional intimacy, are in no way limited to children. She's a young woman yearning for things that everybody wants and she's been denied. Ellen having been neglected, lonely, and starved for affection doesn't negate her adulthood. Her walking into a bad situation as a result of all that doesn't make her "groomed." Plenty of grown adults wind up in bad relationships because they're naive and desperate for love.

Similarly, everyone determined that one side of the triangle here wasn't "real" or that she "actually" only felt a connection with one of them and nothing for the other is similarly ridiculous. Thomas is the relationship Ellen chooses intentionally and conscientiously and which provides her the future she wants while satisfying her physical and emotional desires in a safe, secure, loving environment. Orlok is the first love, the first major relationship that she fell into because she was reckless and desperate for affection, that at first satisfied her needs but turned sour and dangerous-- that relationship becoming scary, unpleasant, coercive, doesn't erase the good things they had together once. Ellen and Orlok is the bad breakup between people who's freak matched too well. In the normal world it'd be a bad breakup with a toxic partner; in hers he's unfortunately also a an amoral inhuman manifestation of consumption.

And as for "Orlok doesn't love Ellen blah blah he's only an appetite blah blah." Love is an appetite. Need is an appetite. Loneliness is an appetite unmet. It's all hunger!! Why the FUCK is a zillion year old ghoul aristocrat holed up in a ruin in Eastern Europe tuned in enough to immediately respond to the random calls of some nameless unimportant woman he's never met a thousand miles away?? Because he's as desperate as she is, and for similar things. He was already listening, was already looking for someone-- he was desperate and searching first. His needs are twisted because he's a literal monster, but they still echo hers. The freak is matched, the freak in this case being deep emptiness and desire to be wanted and embraced. Unfortunately for him, Ellen can look elsewhere to satisfy those desires when he no longer makes her happy and find people who will-- and she does. Orlok can only go where he is called, must be chosen under special circumstances, which, seemingly out of everyone within his considerable reach, only she has offered. If what Orlok feels isn't love, its the survival in his mockery of life of what would have been love. But what ends in real love with union, ends for him with destruction and a return to lonely solitude-- that's his curse.

Ellen saves the man she chose by rejecting their future together, by breaking their marriage vows, and by sacrificing herself. She chooses the sacrifice as an act of autonomy, but one that subverts her own desires and victimizes her. It's a tragedy, but it's also a victory. It's a succumbing to the predations of the lover who wouldn't let her go, but its also making peace with him, taking into her embrace a figure she hates and fears but still feels connected to. It's fulfilling the monster's insatiable need, granting him the union he craves the only way it can be: through his death. Orlok is loved, and betrayed, and saved. Thomas is loved, and betrayed, and saved. Ellen chooses love for both of them, betrays them both, saves them both, betrays and saves herself. All of those things can be happening at once, just as tenderness, rejection, repulsion, evil, and love can all be happening at once. Is it comfortable? No. That's the point! But expressing your discomfort with that story as "I will willfully misinterpret this movie and dismiss its themes in whatever most easy to excuse way I can because I feel uncomfortable" is the path of the hack and the coward, and I think that's the what the majority of these "takes" are really about.

[fromgoy2joy]

One thing I think that happens as we try to defend our existence in not only one specific land but globally as well is using the very real identities some Jewish people have as stand-ins for laughable stereotypes .

Two examples-

"When will they learn that not every Jew is some white girl named Rachel from Brooklyn lolol?"

"Not everyone came from Poland so why would we go back there?”

Absolutely, the diversity in Jewish culture is not as represented and discussed as it should be. However, that shouldn't find its place in the discourse here. yeah, there's more people than what American media depicts as the be-all-end-all of Jewishness. But that girl Rachel in Brooklyn is terrified and her community is being constantly threatened. Her "whiteness" or "Brooklynness" doesn't negate that. At all. Often, it excuses the damage when it does happen.

And what about those people who came from Poland or other Eastern European countries? Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, etc. Whose grandparents escaped- or those whose family didn't ? Where they were always considered foreigners? Countries that were so influenced by its Jewish residents that now have so few because those same governments and people murdered them ? And in that case, would it be acceptable for the descendants of people with barely a connection to where their ancestors stayed in diaspora to go back to?

I know people don’t mean it like this. This is such a weird time with everything that’s been going on. I’m not trying to go after people coping with bad jokes or quips. But let’s not canabilize each other ? Let’s hold everyone and their backgrounds with equal value and love as we fight this plague of antisemitism .

[helluvabossrewrite45]

Helluva Boss and the Disappointing Asexual Representation - an Ace Former HB watcher

I am aromantic and asexual. I used to watch helluva boss during the 2020s when it first started. The internet was the only place where I got introduced to lgbt content and people for the first time, including queer media and helluva boss is one of them. I used to question my sexuality of being aroace, lesbian or bisexual until I finally accepted my identity as an aroace (full circle lol) While my aromanticism was easy to accept, Asexuality was a different story due to how the topic, you know, was around sex and it took more time for me to accept that I was also an asexual. Am I open about it? No. Unless you are one of my close friends, you wouldn't have a clue about my actual identity unless you know the labels for it. This is because with how predominant sex-normativity is, asexuality is often invisible to the wider length of society still, even when were more seen than before. And as someone with a queer identity most people wouldn't understand, I had seen the disguised bigotry people do to other queer identities that aren't as easily understood such as trans people, as they would be misgendered if their bad people. These people who misgender claim its for 'respect' but it's really a blatant excuse to openly be bigoted without backlash for it. It's not only the kind of bigotry that is prevalent within social media but also an extremely sneaky bigot method to avoid accountability.

Let's look at how this related to Mammon, an asexual character in HB:

On a surface level, this would just appear to be Bee insulting Mammon for being an asshole with the same connotations that is a well-known motif of the show; sexual references as the punchline. But Mammon being an asexual changes this viewpoint entirely. For one, Bee is ignoring his asexuality with using nobody wanting to fuck him as an insult even though his identity would immediately weakened it. Her sexual insults to him such as "sucking a dick" and "fucking himself" contribute to negating his asexuality even further. the "fucking yourself" aspect is particularly interesting because it frames him as self-centered. Now yes, Mammon is a self-centered character but his asexuality isn't relevant to this at all. By Bee relating his asexuality to his self-centeredness, unintentional or not, thereby reinforces the entitled notion of asexual people being selfish for lacking sexual attraction as if it wasn't out of their control and as if they owe allosexuals their body to be as "normal" as them. It wouldn't be a problem if mammon had openly show his asexuality proudly to rebut Bee's acephobic insults however, he doesn't. From not allowing the opportunity for Mammon to be open with his asexuality, it highlights helluva boss reinforcing invisibility of asexual people. In addition to this, this scene illustrates the disguised bigotry predominant on social media by Bee's acephobia being framed as justified by Mammon being a bad person, as if it related to his asexuality. Therefore, Helluva Boss failed at representing asexuals through contributing to our invisibility as well as encourage disguised bigotry.

Now, Mammon isn't the only asexual character.

Octavia, the only underage character with some significance, the character Rogers referred to as a 'cockblock' for Stolitz, is also asexual.

*Sigh

Her being underage isn't what bothered me. I'm also similar of age to her and young asexuals should be seen in media. Adult Allosexuals would often portray our asexuality as a phase and immature thing for the "real" mature experience later on. I only mentioned her being underage because of how this erasure of our identity by adults also applies to the later that actually bothered me: Rogers referring to her, an asexual minor, "cockblocking" an allosexual achillean relationship. Him referring to her as that is not only gross to say for a teenager that just wanted her father to pay more attention to his family than his affair but also how it can further isolates asexuals from the queer community. It reminded me of the terf comic where an ace was depicted as prudish, immature and whiny during pride month. Referring to her as a "cockblock" over an allosexual queer ship further reinforces these notions; that were too prudish, too immature, too whiny to be apart of the lgbt community, that we "get in the way" of ACTUAL queer people. And I'm worried that not only would her asexuality not even be shown in the show but also how her depiction in the series can reinforce acephobia because while she's not seen as bad as mammon, I know she would get hate in the upcoming episode and it worries me that there's gonna be acephobia involved, especially from how again, Roger depicts her as an obstable for Stolitz.

This show clearly wanted to do something similar to bojack. Vivziepop clearly likes bojack. And I find it very ironic because bojack is one of the few shows, especially at its time, that's one of the best ace representation. All through one character: Todd.

Unlike HB, Todd's asexuality is actually explored in the show. His acceptance of his asexuality, his explorations of his relationships with other aces (such as Yolanda and Maude) and even having him participate in an asexual space assists in making us aces visible, that we exist and are valid for who we are. There's no disguised bigotry, no joke that digs at his asexuality and definitely no implication that he's an obstacle for allosexual relationships. It's an ace character whose identity is recognized and respected in it's media, and that is what Helluva Boss fails at. Rather than letting asexual characters be as open of their sexuality as the other allosexual queer characters, it instead both ignores and even encourages bigotry towards us. That is what made HB's asexual representation to be disappointing from me, a closeted yet proud asexual.

Any of you who is asexual should be proud of your asexuality too. Your not prudish, immature, whiny or self-centered for lacking sexual attraction and you belong in the lgbt community. You don't owe anyone anything to prove your apart of the community because your existence already defies societal norms about sexuality. You are as queer as the rest in the community. You deserve representation that recognizes and validates you for who you are. You matter.