#shes just fucking wrong

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

Okay so I just finished watching Outside Xtra's video on Madame Web (which I think I saw as a recommendation in tags by @a-commas-a-pause ?) and they quickly touched on the whole "is it okay to kill a child if you know that child will grow up to do horrific things?" and because I'm me, I have Thoughts™ and Opinions™ on that.

The version of this I've come across most often and I assume most other people have come across is "If you could, would you kill a baby who grows up to be Adolf Hitler?" , which

Anyway, I think this question - and other questions like it - is incredibly stupid and incredibly pointless.

Because the question either fundamentally misunderstands Nazi Germany or it's a badly worded question trying to get at the nature of punitive justice.

If it's the latter, you could just ask "is it ethical to punish someone for crimes they will commit in the future?" instead so presumably it's the former that is intended.

Which, the former is operating on the logic that removing Hitler from the equation would have just stopped Nazi Germany from happening, and the logic has no basis in reality. If it wasn't Hitler, it would have been someone else. It might have played out differently, but Hitler wasn't the sole reason that Nazis were able to take control of Germany.

This sort of question means to ask "Is it moral to kill a child to stop that child from committing atrocities in the future?"

And applying that questions to historical figures is almost entirely useless.

It is very rare that a monumental event in history occurred due to the efforts of a single individual; it's simply that the faces of these events are the ones whose names we remember.

As such, it is also very rare that you can trace a domino trail from said historical event to a singular point of origin. Hitler being rejected from art school is not the first in a domino train that ends in the Holocaust.

I think about this way more than I should realistically, but I just think the attitude we have really highlights the way we approach history, and the knock-on effects from that.

For one, it's incredibly individualistic; very Ayn Rand. It assumes that history is made not by the people, but by one singular person. It discourages working together toward a goal and encourages competition instead.

But it also betrays a level of complacency, in my opinion. As I've pointed out above, the idea of history hinging entirely on one man is a very flawed idea. In 99% of cases, it's not possible, and yet you are expected to believe otherwise. And so where do you begin an impossible task?

You don't. You think "I'm one person, I can't change the world" and so you give up, you become complacent, but you give up believing that some person can do it, just not you. And so any guilt or shame you're feeling can easily be pushed aside. It was okay that you did nothing because nothing you did would have amounted to anything because you're not The Chosen One.

It's easier to imagine history as lots of different domino trains running parallel to each other, and easier to imagine history as what Those Important People™ do while ordinary folks do nothing, because it allows you to be complacent.

And I guess that's the conclusion because all of this has just been written off the top of my head, and I actually have plans today that I need to prepare for.

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

[lotus-pear]

lore accurate teen soukoku. the worsties ever

[clouvu]

Nothing in the world belongs to me But my love, mine, all mine

[valtsv]

the older and weirder i get the more i'm beginning to realize that i was actually a very cool kid who had no shame or fear until i was taught that i'd be punished for it and everything since then has been a slow uphill battle to get that part of myself back

[mamawasatesttube]

the whole "jason rules crime alley and none of the other bats are allowed there!!1!" thing is so funny like. tim LITERALLY lives in the theater where bruce's parents died,

[higuchisora]

"Jinx left so Vi wouldn't have to choose between them, she left so Vi could finally be happy"

Is anyone else bothered by the implication that a relatively NEW girlfriend would be capable of making someone just as if not MORE happy than healing their relationship with their sister, who they spent YEARS wanting to make up with?

Me personally, I can get over a bad breakup. But if either of my sisters DIED, or simply chose to actively walk out of my life forever, that would fucking break me. I would not, in fact, move on. And maybe it's different for you guys, but Vi consistently spent an entire season trying to find and make up with Jinx. I don't know what the hell happened in season 2, but her saying "the only thing that kept me going was the thought of getting back to you" about her 7-year prison sentence doesn't sound like "I'll be better off with this girl I've dated for a total of 2 weeks".

Why is there an immediate assumption that any romantic relationship holds just as much if not MORE weight than any platonic/familial one? I'm sorry but why is it even a contest? I'm fully convinced that in season 1, had Jinx not demanded Vi kill Caitlyn- aka take a life, ANY life- and instead asked for LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE, she'd have done it. Remember what she said? She said they could leave the entire city behind, just the two of them, and never come back. She was ready to leave their home, leave Caitlyn, leave all of it, for Jinx. Because at the end of the day, all she wanted was her sister back. But suddenly season 2 rolls around and it's "Caitlyn makes her happier." When? Where? How? I don't see any scenes of Caitlyn making Vi happy. Oh but she did hit her though, after getting upset that Vi didn't want her to shoot at a kid.

I'm sick of romantic relationships being taken as "naturally" being the priority. Maybe if you're married with kids or something, you'll prioritize your partner over your friends, sure (but if you have kids they still take priority over your partner IMO). But a 2-week-long situationship? I've known people who get ghosted after longer than that. Fucking be real with me.

I'm simply not convinced that Caitlyn should matter this much to Vi so quickly. It shouldn't even be a competition. I genuinely cannot imagine Vi, who's SOLE MOTIVATION in season 1 was Jinx, and who's SOLE MOTIVATION in EVERY UNIVERSE and TIMELINE was her FAMILY, would ever "move on" and "be happier" with any romantic partner. Callous as it may sound, she can always get another girlfriend. There's no replacing her sister.

[cybershock24601]

Thinking a lot about post canon rookanis and one thought I keep coming back to is the power plays that would be going on between Caterina and Rook. Caterina is the First Talon, she's been the head of the household for forever and even though Lucanis is an adult, he still yields to her. At least until Rook came into the picture.

Rook's just trying to be supportive of Lucanis and get him to do the things he wants to do rather than the things he feels he has to do and now suddenly Lucanis is telling Caterina things like No (Spite is also trying to do this but is less successful in actually communicating his intent). I feel like one of the first instances of that would be Caterina telling Lucanis he should clean himself up and trim his hair and get rid of the beard and Lucanis decides that actually he's going to keep the beard because Rook likes it. It is in this moment that Caterina realizes what a threat Rook is. Sure, Lucanis didn't outright tell her no in this instance but the fact that he still he has his beard and his only explanation when Caterina questioned him about it was to mention Rook's preference was enough of a red flag for her.

Anyways, I think while Caterina respects Rook for what they've been able to accomplish, like killing two gods and getting together multiple different disparate political factions to do so, and also for standing up to Caterina herself in a twisted sort of way, but Caterina can't stand Rook for how they have disrupted the iron control Caterina has held in her household. Rook went toe to toe with the Dread Wolf and as scary as Caterina is, Rook's not going to back down if Caterina tries to interfere in their relationship with Lucanis or try to dictate what Rook should do as a proper partner of the First Talon (I just know Caterina was a nightmare mother in law and that did not change with her becoming a grandmother in law).

So I think this sort of culminates in a lot of passive aggressive power plays between Rook and Caterina with Lucanis and Illario looking on in awe as Rook politely - or perhaps not so politely - tells Caterina to shove it because you can do that???? It also probably leads to Lucanis getting stuck in the middle of the two of them which Rook is not happy about because Rook would rather engage Caterina directly but she keeps using Lucanis as a bit of a pawn in her bids to retain her ironfisted control over House Dellamorte even if Lucanis is supposedly supposed to be the new head of the house. Rook is all the more determined to get Lucanis the hell out of the Crows and away from his family at least for a while because it is lowkey destroying him. Luckily Rook has Spite to help and the force of personality to bully Illario into assisting as well because Rook is not going to be letting him off easy for the shit he pulled.

[somnoir]

Bats and Phantoms - Part 3

Part 3 | Masterpost

Cassandra and Jasmine

Jazz has always been concerned for her siblings. Why wouldn't she? Dan was a former world ender, Danny was ghost king (or was it crown prince?), and Ellie was almost always everywhere. In all honesty, if was overwhelming.

But she'd be damned to not love them no matter what.

Visiting Gotham to see if Danny was okay was... Well, she just had to. Somehow, her brother's have caught the eye of vigilantes and that was obviously bad.

Her phone buzzed and once again she's plagued by Dan's messages.

Younger-Older-Bigger: Should I stalk Nightwing???

Older-definitely: No. Please don't.

Older-definitely: We already have to worry about Danny getting stalked by a crime lord

Younger-Older-Bigger: Yeah but I'm not a crime lord

Older-definitely: NO

Older-definitely: STOP

Older-definitely: DAN

Younger-Older-Bigger: ᕙ⁠(⁠ ⁠ ⁠•⁠ ⁠‿⁠ ⁠•⁠ ⁠ ⁠)⁠ᕗ

Why? Why did they have to be like this? Weapon training was somehow the automatic bonding activity for the Fenton/Masters siblings. Dan and Danny liked to fight with sword a little too much and Ellie was all to happy to throw daggers at people. Jazz preferred her lazers and blasters (though her aim was wonky at first, it got better... She promised.)

So here she was, in Gotham... Making sure her brother wasn't being seduced by a crime lord. But of course, she was a Fenton born and bred and raised. Gotham apparently had literal alarms that alerted the entire city of a massive attack. Her phone even got an alert from... WE warning. Wayne Enterprises?

Okay... Apparently Scarecrow was running amok and plaguing the streets with his fear toxin. Oh, Danny was going to go feral.

(A couple blocks away, Danny Fenton was high on the fear and giggling to himself. Yes.)

And also Gothamites carried gasmasks around. What a wonderful day to leave hers behind.

She's already cough, closing her eyes as she desperately tried to stay sane. Her liminal and almost half a state should have made the effects different from her but apparently she wasn't ghost enough to feel euphoric.

Stumbling into the closest building she could find, she's desperately gasping when a gasmask was pressed against her face. Jazz can barely register the dark haired girl with asian features who was hurriedly hauling her to her feet and away from the door.

It takes a minute before she's registering the girl, blinking when she saw her making gestures. Again, it takes her another minute to realize it's sign language.

Thank God she had paranoid siblings who took those classes in case they couldn't speak. But with her brain filled with feat toxin, she's clumsy in signing back but there's some mild surprise in the girl's eyes. But Jazz is conscious enough to notice the tense way the girl stood, how her stance was prepared for a fight. Maybe that was normal Gothamites behavior...

At least, she was communicating with someone. Someone who's really pretty too. God, was the fear toxin making her dopy? That can't be, right?

Cass had seen a pretty redheaded girl fall to her knees, and yet she had more resistance to fear toxin than local Gothamites. It was almost interesting really, but she's not going to dwell on it when this girl was choking for air.

Words don't easily process for her but her body moves without much thought, signing to her if she was okay. The girl, clearly disoriented, looks confused before realization bleeds into her strangely bright eyes—then she's clumsily signing back.

She says her name is Jasmine, like the flower, the princess—call her Jazz, she insists.

And she replies that she's Cassandra—like the character from Rapunzel, like the girl from Greek muths—just call her Cass tho.

When Jazz is in her arms, Cass can feel some muscles through her clothes. This girl wasn't as frail as she look. No. This was a trained fighter, someone who knew how to defend themselves without a problem. Cass should be wary, but at the same time she was worried.

She knows she should be going out there and helping but Oracle had immediately told her to help the civilians in the area. Batman, Robin, Red Robin, and Spoiler were handling the situation but the civilians had to be protected at all costs. She might not be able to help as orphan in that moment but she could as Cass Wayne.

The commotion gets worse once Scarecrow's henchmen start raiding the place with every weapon they could get their hands on. She fights to the best of her abilities, watching, predicting, but what she didn't predict was a loud blast tearing through the place and shattering the window.

Cass can see a blast of green spark through the air before directly hitting the Jonathan Crane. The man is blasted into a wall, groaning before he's knocked out.

Her eyes dart to where the blast came from.

Jazz, the strange girl she has just met, was holding a strange gun.

(In the distance, Danny was still very much high and was not aware that one of his maniacal invention had actually worked in his sister's favor.)

Part 4 | Masterpost

[linkemaus]

Not to be that person, but if Kamala Harris were a white man with the exact same ideals, positions, and beliefs, it wouldn’t have even been a competition. Realising that the worst thing you can apparently be is a woman, is truly devastating.

[ennn]

Let's appreciate how complex Agatha's relationship with Billy is

GIF credit to @isagrimorie

The genuine emotion brimming from Agatha in this moment is very interesting and I really want to break down all the layers of how Agatha is relating to Billy—because it is truly not as simple as Agatha feeling sentimental or motherly to Billy.

There are a few layers at work here (and I also want to give a shout-out to @trickofthelights for her excellent recap points):

Billy reminds Agatha (enough) of herself

There are two driving forces at the core of Agatha as a character. We know this because her characterisation has been incredibly consistent throughout the show and Schaeffer has talked about them, which is: (a) Agatha is self-serving and (b) Agatha loves powerful witchcraft.

Billy is a powerful witch who did a horrifying thing in order to survive. He's been lying to these wonderful parents. He also just tried murdering three people in a fit of rage, provoked by Agatha no less.

Would Agatha care if he was less powerful? Would Agatha care if he didn't have a dark side? If he hadn't shown to be duplicitous and dangerous and subject to his darker impulses?

If he wasn't alone and without a coven, a possible outcast even among witches because of his unusual origins and power?

I'm pretty sure the answer is no, she would not. She would have dismissed him the same way she did his "Teen" persona. Agatha doesn't care about witches, Agatha cares about powerful witches –because that's who Agatha is and what drives her.

And we also got hints of this with Agatha and Wanda (hello consistent characterisation). In Schaeffer's words:

There is respect and almost affection inherent in [Agatha's interest in enormously powerful witchcraft], as indicated by how she felt about Wanda. She was mean to Wanda, but really she was fascinated by Wanda and admired her and wanted to hang out with her. 

And if this wasn't clear enough, what Agatha tells Billy shortly later about breaking the rules and being a true witch just screams projection (more on that in my next point).

I was delighted that Agatha really did bounce back from the attempted murder – but it's not because she's forgiving. Oh no, I think, Agatha was testing her theory by poking the bear (calculated move, bad at math) and she's glad she was proven right.

I mean, she not happy about the attempted murder but her curiosity wins out. You see her poking at Billy and trying to figure him out in the rest of this scene.

Agatha also hates self-righteous moralising and searches out for the darkness in people – delights in it even – because she knows people and she knows her own darkness.

Billy is different but also not so different from Agatha, as much as Billy or his mom would hate to admit.

Agatha is dealing with her childhood trauma

Yes, Agatha is projecting on Billy, but she makes a choice about it. We hear her telling him what she would have wanted someone to tell her: that they shouldn't be afraid or ashamed of who they are or what they did to survive, that they are part of a community.

Don't you dare feel guilty about your talent. ... That's what kept you alive. That's what makes you special. That's what makes you a witch.

She's trying to be the person she needed when she was a child, because she simply doesn't want someone else – particularly a younger witch – going through what she did.

She doesn't want anyone to go through what her mother put her through. And that's a choice.

Because there are a number of ways a character can deal with trauma: they can lash out and bring others down, wanting others to experience to the pain they went through, or they can realise that what happened to them shouldn't happen to anyone else in their position.

There's something beautifully self-serving but also selfless in that, because this is a way for Agatha to heal from her trauma. She can tell Billy things she may not be able to tell herself.

And it's interesting because as a self-serving villain, Agatha could just be jealous of Billy's power. But in this moment at least, Agatha's empathy and compassion – as buried as they usually are – prevail.

And yes, Agatha was fond of kid Billy

This is what Schaeffer touched on in her interview answer and it makes sense, with the insight that Agatha – like any good actor – does invest a bit of herself in every role she plays.

Agatha does have feelings (as much as they might make her vomit) and I do believe she has a soft spot when it comes to kids, given her experience with her son and her own childhood trauma. And that kids don't have the level of hypocrisy and darkness that adults do.

It makes sense that Agatha would have some level of care about the Scarlet Witch's magical kid Billy. And that is a fondness that has carried onto teenage Billy – who is powerful and a survivor and has a potential for darkness in a way she can relate to.

There are layers and they intersect and it all ties back to how Agatha is incredibly complex and yet consistent as a character.

[sparemoon]

Barbie and ken meme but with DAO companions

[inkskinned]

so one of the things that's so horrifying about birth control is that you have to, like, navigate this incredibly personal choice about your body and yet also face the epitome of misogyny. like, someone in the comments will say it wasn't that bad for me, and you'll be utterly silenced. like, everyone treats birth control like something that's super dirty. like, you have no fucking information or control over this thing because certain powerful people find it icky.

first it was the oral contraceptives. you went on those young, mostly for reasons unrelated to birth control - even your dermatologist suggested them to control your acne. the list of side effects was longer than your arm, and you just stared at it, horrified.

it made you so mentally ill, but you just heard that this was adulthood. that, yes, there are of course side effects, what did you expect. one day you looked up yasmin makes me depressed because surely this was far too intense, and you discovered that over 12,000 lawsuits had been successfully filed against the brand. it remains commonly prescribed on the open market. you switched brands a few times before oral contraceptives stopped being in any way effective. your doctor just, like, shrugged and said you could try a different brand again.

and the thing is that you're a feminist. you know from your own experience that birth control can be lifesaving, and that even when used for birth control - it is necessary healthcare. you have seen it save so many people from such bad situations, yourself included. it is critical that any person has access to birth control, and you would never suggest that we just get rid of all of it.

you were a little skeeved out by the implant (heard too many bad stories about it) and figured - okay, iud. it was some of the worst pain you've ever fucking experienced, and you did it with a small number of tylenol in your system (3), like you were getting your bikini line waxed instead of something practically sewn into your body.

and what's wild is that because sometimes it isn't a painful insertion process, it is vanishingly rare to find a doctor that will actually numb the area. while your doctor was talking to you about which brand to choose, you were thinking about the other ways you've been injured in your life. you thought about how you had a suspicious mole frozen off - something so small and easy - and how they'd numbed a huge area. you thought about when you broke your wrist and didn't actually notice, because you'd thought it was a sprain.

your understanding of pain is that how the human body responds to injury doesn't always relate to the actual pain tolerance of the person - it's more about how lucky that person is physically. maybe they broke it in a perfect way. maybe they happened to get hurt in a place without a lot of nerve endings. some people can handle a broken femur but crumble under a sore tooth. there's no true way to predict how "much" something actually hurts.

in no other situation would it be appropriate for doctors to ignore pain. just because someone can break their wrist and not feel it doesn't mean no one should receive pain meds for a broken wrist. it just means that particular person was lucky about it. it should not define treatment.

in the comments of videos about IUDs, literally thousands of people report agony. blinding, nauseating, soul-crushing agony. they say things like i had 2 kids and this was the worst thing i ever experienced or i literally have a tattoo on my ribs and it felt like a tickle. this thing almost killed me or would rather run into traffic than ever feel that again.

so it's either true that every single person who reports severe pain is exaggerating. or it's true that it's far more likely you will experience pain, rather than "just a pinch." and yet - there's nothing fucking been done about it. it kind of feels like a shrug is layered on top of everything - since technically it's elective, isn't it kind of your fault for agreeing to select it? stop being fearmongering. stop being defensive.

you fucking needed yours. you are almost weirdly protective of it. yours was so important for your physical and mental health. it helped you off hormonal birth control and even started helping some of your symptoms. it still fucking hurt for no fucking reason.

once while recovering from surgery, they offered you like 15 days of vicodin. you only took 2 of them. you've been offered oxy for tonsillitis. you turned down opioids while recovering from your wisdom tooth extraction. everything else has the option. you fucking drove yourself home after it, shocked and quietly weeping, feeling like something very bad had just happened. the nurse that held your hand during the experience looked down at you, tears in her eyes, and said - i know. this is cruelty in action.

and it's fucked up because the conversation is never just "hey, so the way we are doing this is fucking barbaric and doctors should be required to offer serious pain meds" - it's usually something around the lines of "well, it didn't kill you, did it?"

you just found out that removing that little bitch will hurt just as bad. a little pinch like how oral contraceptives have "some" serious symptoms. like your life and pain are expendable or not really important. like maybe we are all hysterical about it?

hysteria comes from the latin word for uterus, which is great!

you stand here at a crossroads. like - this thing is so important. did they really have to make it so fucking dangerous. and why is it that if you make a complaint, you're told - i didn't even want you to have this in the first place. we're told be careful what you wish for. we're told that it's our fault for wanting something so illict; we could simply choose not to need medication. that maybe if we don't like the scraps, we should get ready to starve.

we have been saying for so long - "i'm not asking you to remove the option, i'm asking you to reconsider the risk." this entire time we hear: well, this is what you wanted, isn't it?

[arlathen]

honestly i wish they'd leaned harder into mythal being an awful manipulative bitch (affectionate). da fans are bad with women who are mean to them who they're supposed to like but apparently LOVE women who suck who are supposed to suck. like ghilan'nain is a highlight of veilguard imo because she's scary and awful. and also has tentacles but let's not get into that.

mythal coercing and manipulating the guy who was most devoted to her, mythal not being too cowardly to do what's right but too shrewd, and that characteristic carries into her millennia as a fragment -- never doing anything to help except to gently tug the threads of fate. coming out with her image unscathed. her dog is still her dog and he only heels when she gives the command. the People who know the truth still cry mythalenaste when they avoid invoking the other evanuris' names. she was the best of them by the narrowest margin and now she's the only one left. they killed her and she outlasted them all. let her lean into it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[feketeribizli]

she cut her hair 😔

[bixels]

Bit of a weird question, but what is your overall least favorite thing about MLP? 

Sparity.