#the only time of the year that i become a nationalist lol

[elipri]

Oh man this chapter was hilarious, I laughed so much! But it's also filled with political details and dare I say a setup for future plots and (much needed) character development 👀

Starting off with the confirmation that Ostania is indeed a nationalist country

This is also the first time that an outsider seems to view The Punch as something positive, as though Anya is standing up to right-wing extremism (which would actually be super cool ngl)

All the comedy aside, this is the first child character who's actually aware of politics and international relations. It makes sense that a prince has to keenly study politics and diplomacy, most of his thoughts are about his country and which repercussions his interactions in Eden could have on the grand scheme of things. This kid literally breathes politics, everything from his mannerisms, expressions and thoughts is deeply embedded in his political upbringing. That's quite a burden for a 6 year old kid...

Now let's talk about how this will affect my favourite brat hahaha

They are literal opposites in everything, but I find it interesting how the prince is basically a subversion of Damian (and could probably bring out the worst in him)

Damian thinks he's hot shit because of his father and acts as though he's royalty, but he's maybe a noble at best. He calls everyone who doesn't share his status a peasant and looks down on them. His expressions are brash and very rude and he has gotten reprimanded for it before. He aspires to become a politician, yet he lacks every single skill for that. However he's also courageous when it does matter.

The prince on the other hand is obviously of royal descent, but he's not arrogant at all. In fact, he's just scared of international scandal and a coward. He's humble and eager to befriend his Ostanian classmates and doesn't care if they're "peasants". He has actual diplomatic skills that he applies all the time. He's honest and straightforward in his thoughts and doesn't feel ashamed to openly befriend Anya, even going as far as suggesting that he should visit her home

I can also see him subtly and passive-aggressively make digs at Damian. There seems to be a suggestion that his kingdom is either politically centrist and/or left-leaning and Damian might incorporate everything that prince hates. He would also get away with provoking Damian because he's already mastered diplomacy (for a 6 yo lol) which could ultimately lead to Damian embarrassing himself in front of everyone (and maybe even earn a tonitrus that he kinda deserves ngl). Unlike prince, Damian is impulsive, emotional and just starts to scream at everyone around him. He doesn't know what composure is.

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if most of their classmates will start to distance themselves from Damian and no longer put him on a pedestal. Why should they when there's a literal prince among them who treats everyone with respect and is always eloquent, even when he's internally freaking out.

All of this will hopefully trigger Damian's long-overdue character development. The clash with prince is inevitable either way, especially because Anya is involved. Yes I want to see jealous Damian, but I also want him to grow up a little and realize that he's not that important, he shouldn't treat others as beneath him and most importantly he should realize that he knows nothing. He doesn't know what actually makes a great leader and politician. He doesn't know how Ostania and his father are viewed internationally. He's not aware how his actions could actually bear political consequences.

I do hope he will befriend prince in the end though, he could learn many things from him. Only in Eden do international relations form during elementary school lmao

[fifap]

You know, I think a lot about the idea of a 25-year-old reader and a 38-year-old ghost who is no longer serving due to injuries. A nationalist reader, a veteran and a participant in the revolution. (When she was 14, a revolution began in her country against the dictatorship of another country, and she had to take up arms to survive. She wanted to live in a sovereign state and defended the values of freedom. Then a protracted war began, where she first became a doctor and then a soldier. When her country lost and lost its sovereignty, she began to flee to other countries. Then her soul was very heavy and painful, and disgusting from the aggressor. She was 22 years old at the time. That's how she ended up in Britain, in Manchester.) She turned out to be Simon's neighbor, and Simon liked her, but he was in no hurry to get to know her. She began to notice that his symptoms were similar to hers, and began to help him. So, when she was already 23, they had a deep, sincere conversation, where Semyon told about his military experience and captivity, just as she told him about hers. (By the way, she was not a prisoner). Then they became closer, because they realized that of all the civilians, only they would be able to understand each other. (The reader is lonely. She feels, among others, that she is an outsider and that no one understands her). In short, they develop an extremely deep relationship, where they will not find a replacement for each other due to their own traumas and worms. She is now 25, and Ghost confesses his love to her. AND BAD. I AM TOO LAZY TO WRITE ALL THIS IN A FANFICTION. And I will not write all this in English, lol. So, whoever wants to pick up the idea - tag me. (I hope the translator translated my text correctly. I still see Simon as very cold and alienated, who becomes softer and opens up to the main character as the fanfic progresses. And he is not decisive in relationships because he is afraid of losing her. And the reader shows initiative, but shows warmth carefully. Decide for yourself what the ending will be, I see it as happy, but their relationship will be a bit unhealthy because of their experience, but they will be normal, lol. Yandere or not, decide for yourself)

[mermaidsirennikita]

i don't understand what these people are complaining about (american) media nowadays is so sexlsss why is everybody complaining about smut and spice and sex scenes?? genuinely what are they talking about because i have no clue.

btw i understand the disscusion is about about but i'm saying in general because i see these comments about tv and movies the most and lol...where?

I meant to respond to this earlier but don't wanna miss it entirely!!

But honestly, I think the issue is that America

a) America is founded not only on Protestantism but radical Protestantism to a degree that many countries aren't; and this gave way to what would eventually become the evangelical Christianity that we see today

and I'm not saying "all Christians bad" here; I am a Christian. As with virtually any religion, you have your really intense pockets, your more progressive ones, etc. But I think people often go "it's Christianity" when looking to why America is the way it is, when like. Yeah, but there's a huge difference between Catholicism (and even different types of Catholicism within that) and Protestantism. And then there's a huge difference between different times of Protestantism—evangelical Christians have a different experience than Presbyterians who believe in predestination (which is antithetical to conversion), PCA Presbysterians are different from PCUSA Presbyterians, and so on

but I do think that because America was founded by splinter group Christianity, it's really not that surprising that the Christians who've risen to dominate much of our cultural conversations are extremists who believe in bringing others into the fold, or rather, FORCING THEM. basically, America was a breeding ground for White Christian Nationalists from the jump, and those Christians want everyone to be afraid of sex because a fear of sex makes it easier for you to control women (think about the innocent women!), queer people (branded as perverts), and people of color (sexualized and fetishized to dehumanize)

b) America is a very young country; so not only was our nation born of radical religion, it also hasn't had as much time to work itself towards secularism. I mean, a lot of these "secular utopia" nations in Europe (spoiler: it's way more complicated than that) have also existed for longer, and have certainly been through their extreme phases

But yeah, it's honestly all gonna come down to racism, misogyny, and queerphobia, and where these people have really succeeded is in getting the younger gen to jump on board. It's actually more specific than "all of Gen Z"; it's the younger half of Gen Z especially. My sister is Gen Z and is as left as the day is long, but a kid maybe five years younger than her may be quite different. And the conservatives here have succeeded in dismantling our education system, and we're now seeing people who are the products of that system. No Child Left Behind was signed into law in 2002. We're seeing the trickle down results. We have a bunch of people in this country who don't question what they're being fed, and then we have a right wing that, on top of all that, have learned how to weaponize progressive thinking for their own benefit.

So while older people still might be all "THOSE GIRLS ON THE TV ARE SLUTS", the younger people will go "omg, this consensual R-rated sex scene supervised by an intimacy coordinator is exploitative". They've been warped into believing that sex is bad and they must save the world (the women especially) from it.

And I mean, I don't think it helps that between the pandemic, these cultural shifts, general intense depression as a people, and technology encouraging antisocial behavior, a lot of younger people of all genders are, according to some surveys, not fucking.

They don't ACT like they're fucking, at least online.

It's also COMPLETELY FINE to not be fucking, btw. Totally natural at any age if that's what's right for YOU. But I think we have a decent amount of people who want to be out there, don't know HOW to get out there, have not developed social independence or really a lot of social skills, have a tendency to pass the buck tbh (.... I'm gonna connect this to being unwilling to make a phone call at 22 tbh ...) which makes it everyone else's problem, and lump all of that onto all the other issues and... you have a completely warped concept of sexuality.

Which is then weaponized by the right.

But yeah dude American media is like, the least sexy it's been in a long fucking time. At least when it comes to movies and TV. And I wonder. If that. Has anything. To do. With more people reading hot books.........

[starredforlife]

what do you suggest instead of voting blue? letting Trump win? he isn't gonna help Palestine either, and he is planning to literally take away a lot of US Americans' rights, and, like, for example wants to document/supervise pregnancies. or said that if he becomes president people won't have to vote again in four years. I'm all for supporting other people in other countries but please can you think of the people in your country that would die under Trump as well. like him winning wouldn't help anyone.

People like you who fall into this weird logical trap genuinely baffle me. I have never ever suggested voting for trump or NOT voting for harris, even. I said that voicing uncritical support for kamala harris made her campaign feel like they weren’t going to lose significant support amongst the lefter leaning voters, because most of y’all jumped in with glee. You are also part of the problem because you try and shut down any criticism with this absolutely moronic take—“oh, is trump gonna be better? Is that what you want???”. You fail to see you are completely and utterly a victim of your own moral cowardice and nationalistic fear. You are supposed to demand your vote be earned, you insufferable motherfuckers. THEY NEED TO BE MADE TO FEEL LIKE IF THEY DONT CHANGE ON THIS ISSUE, IT COULD COST THEM THE ELECTION. They only care about your vote BEFORE they get into office!!!!!!!! If you don’t threaten them with your vote, you approve of their actions. It’s that simple.

“I’m all for supporting other people in other countries.” Your Democratic Party is melting them alive and decimating them into pieces of unrecognizable flesh with our bombs. You people fucking disgust me. Wake the fuck up. You are voting without conscience. You are voting without empathy and without intelligence. I wish I could have the patience in me to describe this to you in gentle words that would not turn you away from me but if 40,000+ dead people at our hands is not enough to change your mind then I don’t know what the fuck is.

People in our country are dying because of Biden too. Thousands have lost their rights to abortion and HRT under his administration. Change is not going to magically happen because we vote a different person into office. I wish y’all could see that. I wish Trump didn’t scare y’all so bad, because then you might be able to care about others. I’m not scared of him! I’ve lived with “project 2025” batshit religious “policies” in my own fucking house lol. Maybe that’s the difference between you and me. Or maybe it’s that you see dead children and it doesn’t bother you because they’re brown, and they don’t speak English, and they’re not you. I can’t save you if you’re coming to yell at a random person’s inbox on tumblr. You just have a lot of soul searching to do.

For wasting my time you should write a letter to Harris and demand she change her stance on Palestine by threatening your vote or you should donate to one of the campaigns on the vetted fundraiser’s list. That’s what I suggest you do, for your first question.

[splat1316]

Hey mooties, I've only recently become aware of the horrible antisemitism going on in leftist spaces and wanted to help spread awareness. I asked @daddario for their input and they provided some great resources, please check these out and keep them in mind. Let's spread information and understanding and recognize patterns of hate and bigotry together.

Ask answer by @daddario :

Ok this got really long once I started typing it just poured out lol. The funny thing is I don’t even get that much hate on here or IRL compared to the jewish blogs on here. I mean my synagogue has to have armed guards at all times now including at the playground and my niece and nephews Jewish preschool in Dallas has had multiple bomb threats called in and people say shit on the street when you walk out of temple, but most of the hate I get is just idiots on the internet who heard about Israel/Palestine and think they can learn all the history of a 2500 year old war in a month that they believe started in 1948 and then use that to justify the hate they already had in them so they regurgitate Cold War era Soviet propaganda without even knowing where the fuck it came from in the first place and why (Israel refused to side with the Soviet Union during the Cold War and thus the propaganda war began). My opinion on Israel is not relevant here, there are just a lot of people who are incredibly ignorant about Jewish history and the history of the Middle East broadly who see shit on TikTok and think a 2 minute video without sources makes them an expert, but I digress.

The first thing is to actually listen to Jews about their experiences and believe us, because the world loves to ignore our trauma and pretend it’s fake and we “just like playing the victim.” Go into the jumblr and antisemitism tags and read people’s experiences. Not just Jews you agree with about the war if you have an opinion about that, but the myriad of Jewish experiences people post on there. Amplifying Jewish voices and helping people to see what’s actually happening helps, though less so on this nightmare of a website/the internet in general.

Also I’m guessing English is your first language, which means you grew up in a culturally Christian country, so you likely have some internalized antisemitism you need to unlearn. It’s understandable and expected because Christianity, and western culture in general, is built on antisemitism, but it’s still toxic. Learning the ways it manifests in the world and in yourself and doing the work to unlearn those biases is super important, as is learning to recognize antisemitism in the first place, because it’s usually not someone screaming kike or doing a Nazi salute, it’s far more insidious than that. You have to learn the dog whistles and tropes first in order to call them out, so research those topics because I guarantee you’ve missed a ton of more subtle antisemitic statements in your day to day life because you don’t know what to look out for.

There’s also a ton of misinformation/misunderstanding about the Holocaust and Nazis out there, so learn the actual history and what nazism actually means and what they believed. People love to throw around the term Nazi for anyone they dislike, which is inaccurate, offensive, and traumatic for the Jewish community at large because it minimizes our suffering. There are 275,000 living Holocaust survivors in the world, including my grandmother, so seeing all these people scream Nazi when they mean white nationalist or fascist or authoritarian is pretty sickening, as is people’s desire to compare everything to the Holocaust and 1930s Germany, because again, it minimizes our experiences and decenters Jews from something that was specifically about Jews. There’s a whole trend of making the Holocaust primarily about gay and trans people, when their homophobia was a direct result of antisemitism.

I recommend starting with these posts as a jumping off point. The first is about antisemitism broadly with many linked posts and useful resources! The second is about how Trump is using Jews as a political wedge to deflect blame off himself, which is incredibly dangerous for us because that’s literally what Hitler did and we’re already having a hard enough time in the world right now, and the third is a primer on Nazis.

[canidbutch]

ohhhh i'm curious. about casey, pruitt, ayla and/or philomena!! (you don't have to answer all of these for each oc tho)

🎮 VIDEO GAME CONTROLLER — what are three of your oc's favorite hobbies?

🌈 RAINBOW — what is your oc's sexual orientation/gender identity? what pronouns do they use?

🎄 CHRISTMAS TREE — what is your oc's favorite holiday?

💛 YELLOW HEART — how many languages does your oc speak? what language(s) are they learning, if any?

🍎 RED APPLE — where was your oc born? do they still live in/around their place of birth or do they live somewhere else? how do they feel about their birthplace?

😊 SMILING FACE WITH SMILING EYES — what are your oc's career/general life desires? what do they want to get the most out of life?

oh wrow thank you sm!

ask game

🎮 VIDEO GAME CONTROLLER — what are three of your oc's favorite hobbies?

casey: some video games, probably. hiking. maybe making little wooden models or doing complicated lego sets.

ayla: recreational sports in college with friends (softball, volleyball, her dream is field hockey but that one's a bit tougher). card games (she will demolish you at uno, but also shit like what do you meme? and cards against humanity). and, sigh. Call of Duty.

pruitt: photography. music/tv/books counts as just one hobby for these purposes. taking the boat out (when there are no bodies to dump.)

philomena: studying (nerd. but i mean like, she purposefully seeks out new topics to learn about and get Good At Understanding, such as studying judaism in college turning into a conversion process). makeup (flashy eye makeup makes her SO happy). she's also a member of a STARFLEET chapter!

🌈 RAINBOW — what is your oc's sexual orientation/gender identity? what pronouns do they use?

casey: cis bisexual man, he/him

ayla: trans lesbian, she/her

pruitt: cis (?) gay man (?), he/him [i feel like there are some people who might sniff egg on him but i'm NOT sure and i don't think i'd go that way with him but ayla and philomena definitely ask him some probing questions someday LOL]

philomena: trans lesbian, she/her

🎄 CHRISTMAS TREE — what is your oc's favorite holiday?

casey: 4th of july, not for nationalistic reasons but because he likes the food best and they always go to a family friend's house for a big party and it's actually super fun

ayla: christmas is her favorite, and then later in life when she and philomena do both christmas AND hanukkah she is on top of the world and their boys Love the double holiday so much, she likes that time of year

pruitt: he was probably neutral about most holidays for a hot minute but i like to think valentine's day becomes his favorite after casey gives him a lego orchid one year and it's just really sweet. before then, he probably liked christmas best and it's still a top one for him because he DID have some normal memories with his mother around that time but valentine's day just becomes special after he finally has new associations.

philomena: purim! GET FUCKT UP! also she does a killer esther costume. i think she likes a fair amount of the jewish holidays but she likes dressing up and feeling like a Queeeen.

💛 YELLOW HEART — how many languages does your oc speak? what language(s) are they learning, if any?

casey: english only, lads

ayla: also english only

pruitt: spanish is his first language, and then english! he grew up in spain

philomena: english first language, but she does take an interest in hebrew when she starts converting

🍎 RED APPLE — where was your oc born? do they still live in/around their place of birth or do they live somewhere else? how do they feel about their birthplace?

casey: born and raised in maine, still living there, POSSIBLY moves somewhere out of state after the events of book three. always felt a bit stifled by his hometown but leaving it out of fear wasn't his first choice.

ayla: also born and raised in maine, all the same shit goes for her.

pruitt: born in spain, moved to a few different places in the US and settled in maine, has a love-hate relationship with spain, kinda wants to go back and find his grandmother but his childhood was very hard and it's hard for him to feel comfortable or at home ANYWHERE he lives.

philomena: possibly also born and raised in maine, would move with ayla if it came down to that, wouldn't want to be separated from her mom but things are complicated after book three for sure. i think she has no problem with where she grew up!

😊 SMILING FACE WITH SMILING EYES — what are your oc's career/general life desires? what do they want to get the most out of life?

casey: career wise, he's feeling stagnant as a tour guide at the museum he works at and doesn't know what to do with his life for a while. he becomes an overseer for a bit, though it wasn't an actual career goal for him, he just had something he wanted to do through it. i think later in life he goes to college for the first time and maybe goes back to museum work, maybe to work in registrar! largely he just wants to have fun and be engaged in what he's doing and have some thrills and excitement and energy pumping almost at all times.

ayla: she was initially into biochem and worked in a lab very happily, but after the fighting ring she can't hold the fragile specimens anymore and can't focus on it and feels like she barely remembers anything she needs to know and so she ends up doing some night security work later and thennnn ends up as a self defense instructor! i think her biggest aspiration in life was to have a family, though, and she gets that with philomena :')

pruitt: he has literally never had a career plan in his life because he's so stuck in the "Family Business" and thinks he'll die before it matters. being an overseer was never in his mind, but then he doesn't know what to do when he finally gets free of them. i like to think he embraces photography. i go back and forth about whether a life aspiration he has includes having kids, i think he'd express that it makes him sad that he thinks they never could, but it might work out depending on whether me and ren think it's reasonable LOL. ultimately i think he just wants peace. any semblance of peace.

philomena: career wise she was extremely happy working in the clinic for the nonhuman population and felt like she was doing good work, she's happy with the intersection of medicine and magic and she's proficient at it and loves it. she's so proficient, in fact, that she gets scouted to do overseer work and ends up there for a while, which does Not fulfill her the same way. her dream is to go back to working in busier health settings and also to have a family with ayla, which does work out in the end. they're okay!

whee!

[shatar-aethelwynn]

To what "one-sided feud existing only in his mind", to what "hilarious anger", and to what "vitriol-spitting" are you referring, my dear? In our last interaction I was very polite and I tried earnestly (although in vain) to have a serious dialogue with you. But you have not appreciated my efforts for a dialogue in good faith and you attack me now with ridiculous claims. You also misrepresent grossly in your last posts my positions on a certain topic, in a way which is not particularly honest intellectually. I wonder why you act like this. Do you really need so desperately some attention and patting on your head from your friends, the great tumblr scholars? Moreover, permit me to say, my dear, that you are not in position to lecture me about proper critical use of sources and historical methodology. I say this because not only you made almost... 200 posts to defend against an obscure Arab nationalist author the historicity of the Biblical Exodus, but also because you tried to promote some months ago on this site as serious scientific paper a piece of creationist pseudoscience, which claimed that a "cosmic airburst" would have destroyed ancient "Sodom"! If I remember well, the backlash to this move of yours was so strong that even your eminent friends, who had tried to present you as authority in Biblical history, saw you eventually as liability and distanced themselves from you, despite the fact that their scholarly standards are not exactly the highest. Lol.

Reading comprehension really isn't you're strong suite is it my dear. Thank you for confirming you're stalking my blog and hate-reading though! I've also been polite, if amused, but your tone has been increasingly condescending. Expected I suppose if you are our old friend (3! years! this is so stupid!).

Let's see - 200 posts to defend against an author - hun, I was having fun with a book I came across that was still getting positive reviews that year. I didn't even finish because I got bored with how repeptitive it was. You of all people should understand the concept of hate reading. You do it so well. (Incidentally, you may want to take a break and come back in a few months, because your repetativeness is also starting to become boring. A break would solve that.)

As for Sodom, it was a legitimate question that I answered based on the information I had at the time I was tagged. After which someone (was that you too) said I was wrong and gave a source for a contradictory view, that can basically be summarized as "these people are wrong solely because they believe something in the Bible might have been true". And guess what, that was fine. Because, again, I understand the concept of nuance, and I don't claim to agree with the archeologists in question on their personal beliefs. The question was whether Sodom happened. I gave the two sites currently claimed for it. And I agreed that science could potentially prove both wrong in the future. That's how science and archaeology work. And I really don't understand why you would think my friends were distancing themselves from me on it. It was a short topic, not inside their fields, and they have lives outside this site that take their attention. Do you?

This behavior, by the way, is probably why anon asked if there was a feud. Text may be the worst format for conveying intention and tone but anyone can clearly read the condescension in yours.

You know what I find most amusing about this? Of the entire group of friends I'm actually the one most likely to need to reference Herodotus as a source ocassionally. But because I say he's not always right you assume I don't know how to use him, or that I'm not aware that Herodotean scholarship is a whole thing.

[hiboudecheshire]

Lol I found in my old computer my text written in 2012 and consacred to some kind of Hunger Games in modern Russia. In this universe after the fall of Soviet Union Russia became a technocratic closed state where all power belongs to the corporations that control everything - industry, education, media etc. Each corporation is tied to a city or land from which it draws resources and distributes its products; corporations compete with each other in all areas, including sports, and within the framework of this competition they conduct games of survival. Unlike the Hunger Games universe, participation here is completely voluntary. The game is attended by football ultras, for whom fighting is an honor, and ordinary people who sign up for money (I once thought this was unrealistic, haha): 2 persons each year from every corporation.

Ultras are in a special position - they enjoy partial autonomy in the areas subordinate to them, because in the "dark times", when the old government collapsed and the new authority had not yet established, during the period of anarchy and civil wars, fan groups were able to self-organize and become local authorities, maintain order, etc. They are all well armed, and the current corporate government prefers not to fight with them, but to use them as participants in the Games. In turn, ultras have the right to demand the "extradition" once a year of any of the corporation's employees for trial and possible punishment - for "sabotage" or "betrayal", and their relations with corporations are based on this "fair" principle.

The main character, Kristina Wolf (her family has a German surname, which causes them a lot of problems in the nationalist ultras environment) belongs to the family of ultras of FC Spartak, which is sponsored and controlled by the Standard Oil corporation. Kristina's brother Kirill was chosen by the Fratria Council to participate in the Games this year, but by an unfortunate coincidence, he was killed in a clash with CSKA ultras the night before he was supposed to go to the base for two months of preparation for appearing in the arena (although in fact he has been preparing for the battle his whole life). In such a short time, it turns out that it is impossible to make a substitution, because this would lead to the cancellation of bets already made, so the representatives of the betting company force Kristina to go to the Games in her brother's place - they have identical initials and surnames, formally the bets do not need to be zeroed out. Along with her, the Standard Oil corporation is represented by Andrei, an extremely smug guy who signed up for the Games for fame and monetary reward...

I wrote only the beginning of this text (before Kristina leaves her home town and meets Andrey), but some scenes have survived in fragmented form. At least some characters are very recognizable - the players of the football team, whom the "fighters" meet at the base, the general director of the club Vasily Petrukhin, who himself was a manager, but resigned several months ago (the Ultras demanded his "extradition", but he managed to justify himself and leave), and… Federico Cantara, the new manager, who was invited as part of improving the corporation's image for entering the international market. One nuance - he had no idea about any "Third Half Games" and that he would have to prepare not only the team for the matches, but also two "fighters" for a battle from which only representatives of one company would emerge alive.

The idea is old, but perhaps it could be turned into a novel in the spirit of young adult literature. If only I could remember how it all ended…

[badedramay]

i’ve been doing well, thank you for asking! and yeah i honestly think one of the most fascinating things for me to witness after finally engaging with pak drama twt is seeing just how intimately familiar the fans are with these people’s lives and subsequently how “in control” they are of curating an image for an actor out of their own fan analysis lol. i’ve watched dramas since i was a kid but never ventured into fandom for it until this year and so i feel like i’m generally lucky to mostly care about the art and not bother so much with whatever beef fans are making up between actors. like i had no idea until this year of the supposed sajal and mawra beef during aangan era and admittedly that one probably does have some weight to it given what mawra’s mom said, but it’s also been five years and one would hope both have matured enough by now to where it doesn’t matter anymore. apparently there is sajal and kubra beef that stems from that whole thing too and carried over into sinf-e-aahan? which to me seems unlikely bc i doubt a scripting choice for a nationalist propaganda project was ever meant to comment intimately on the details of alleged beef between two women. but khair, who knows. maybe there is something there and i’m simply too removed from the details to be aware of it. there’s i suppose also the matter of people feeling defensive of sajal specifically bc of her background, but she’s also not a child incapable of navigating her own relationships with people. either way, seeing fans this invested in the off-screen stuff honestly baffles me. what happened to just enjoying art 😭

Lol the Sahad era drama was...incredible. there was no escaping it. it peaked during Aangan times cuz it was around that time Sajal&Ahad were beginning to officially start of the "SaHad" journey and the fans were passionate af about them. Anyone in Mawra's place would've become the collateral damage; unfortunately at that time her "image" in the eyes of the standom wasn't great so she just got burnt a lot more. but yeah..the drama was real and it very much affected the people involved personally.

my observation through my years of being in the PakDrama fandom in my own consciously limited capacity is that the industry isn't huge to begin with. and it began to became bigger around the time social media was on rise. so, the online records were aplenty for the dedicated ones who wanted to get more "information" about their favs. I don't believe that's a phenomenon known only in the PakEnt industry fandom. fans wanting to know more about their faves by any means is common in all industries around the world; the business to be made from parasocial relationships is lucrative af. khair, social media just made it a LOT easier for fans to be in direct touch with their favs. a decade ago since the online fandom was smaller, celebs also found it a lot easier to get instant gratification from their fans by interacting with them on public posts or even private messages. with time the circle then extended to not just the celeb themselves but their family or friends or literally anyone close to them that was open enough to interact with hordes of anonymous fans all wanting to get close to their faves. it was for the most part a win-win situation for both parties involved - celebs got their fame, fans got their moment of feeling special.

until it wasn't. the smarter of the celebs realized early on that giving fans too much of their personal attention will end up negatively affecting them in the long run. so, they ended up limiting their social media presence to have a better control of it. the celebs that DIDN'T do it are the ones who get more in drama. SaHad is a very apt example cuz of how involved not just Sahad but also their families were. recently it's the whole Wahaj Ali fandom debacle. Bilal Abbas fans were also involved in a drama which from what i know was fed by Bilal himself. in all these three cases, a lot of encouragement either through direct correspondence or wilful ignorance of the happenings was given to the fans by the celebs. also, some of the celebs are bitten by the chronically online syndrome who just HAVE to share all of their lives on instagram and then cry about people commenting on it *coughhaniaasimcough*. so the struggles are plenty xD

one more factor of the industry being small is that everyone knows everyone. connections kahin na kahin se nikal aate hain. someone online will know someone who knows someone close to the celeb and bam. that's a whole channel of news. ab sahi ya galat? who cares. fans who want drama will extract it outta there kaise bhi karke.

[swan-of-sunrise]

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Part II)

Summary: In the wake of the announcement that John Walker would be the new Captain America, (Y/N) lends a patient ear to both Sam and Bucky, and an open-minded Steve gets an important and well-meaning lesson on modern forms of discrimination.

Pairing: Steve Rogers X Fem!Reader

Word Count: 4k

Warnings/Disclaimers: Disclaimer for a frank discussion of racism/bigotry

A/N: Writing more Sam and Bucky and their constant squabbling was so much fun, and it really did wonders counteracting how sad it was writing Steve’s emotions about Walker becoming Cap lol thank you for reading, I hope you all enjoy!

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Part II) May 2024 Rockport, Maine (Previous Chapter)

Two weeks later, (Y/N) was sitting alone on her wraparound porch and fiddling with Natasha’s old red hourglass-shaped belt buckle, her lost friend’s treasured memento unable to give her its usual sense of comfort as she listened to Sam talk. He’d filtered through a wide range of emotions in the days since Captain John F. Walker had been named the new Captain America – shock, anger, sadness, outrage – before finally settling on heartbreak. Seeing a white man with the same blonde hair, blue eyes and chiseled physique that the country had come to expect in their Star-Spangled-Man-With-A-Plan did nothing short of break Sam’s heart and – although she was nowhere near a trained psychologist – she suspected that it only served to validate his intrusive imposter syndrome. She’d made it a point to call and check in on him every day since, and she was happy that her best friend hadn’t shut her out; just as he’d been there for her during so many difficult times in the past, she was giving him the strength and support that they both knew he needed.

“I decided not to watch that GMA interview that aired this morning,” Sam sighed over the phone. “I mean, why put myself through all that?”

“Believe me, you didn’t miss anything you couldn’t just find out with a quick Google search. The guy’s like a walking slice of plain white bread.” (Y/N) smiled to herself as her best friend snorted in amusement at her joke. “Scott was blowing up my phone throughout the entire thing; Walker had better watch himself, because he’s only been on the job for two weeks and he’s already got Ant-Man pissed off at him.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tic-Tac angry before and now I kinda don’t want to; all the shrinking and growing still freaks me out a little, and I haven’t forgotten how that little shit deactivated my wings like it was nothin’.” Their laughter faded away into a heavy silence that was eventually broken by Sam. “Thank you, (Y/N).”

She frowned in confusion. “For what?”

“For not trying to convince me to talk to Steve about all this. I love the guy, I really do, but with all this that’s happened…it’s somethin’ that he can never really understand. Maybe he will someday, but it’s not up to either of us if he does or doesn’t.” Biting her lip, (Y/N) struggled to think of how best to respond to his statements but he continued on before she could say anything. “So, how’s everyone doing today? Enjoying the warm weather up there?”

“Well, Steve took Carina and Indy for a walk after the GMA interview, so it’s just me holding down the fort; I tried working a little on the first draft of my book but I couldn’t get Walker’s annoying mug out of my mind, so I decided to sit out here and give my best friend a call. What about you? How’s your search for these Flag Smashers going?”

A few days after the new Captain America was announced, Sam told her about the emergence of an anti-nationalist group that aspired to return Earth’s governments and society to how it was after the Snap and before the Battle of Earth: a united world without borders or patriotism that cared about helping each other in times of need. As someone who lived through those turbulent five years and who didn’t necessarily agree with everything the Global Repatriation Council was doing, their initial mission statement sounded appealing to (Y/N); however, their methods were violent and destructive and most concerning of all, they were comprised of suspected super-soldiers and possessed a replica of Doctor Erskine’s serum. An Air Force friend of Sam’s had a close call with the group in Switzerland and for the past two weeks, they’d both been tracking their whereabouts to try and apprehend them.

“Pretty good, actually. Torres managed to track them to Munich and Redwing picked up some aerial footage of their suspected base just outside of the city, so we’re flying out of D.C. at oh-nine-hundred.”

“In that case, I should probably let you go so you don’t miss your flight…” (Y/N) twisted the belt buckle around and around in her grasp and tried not to think about the last friend she’d said goodbye to before an important mission. “Good luck out there, Birdbrain.”

Sam chuckled and replied, “Thanks, Booksmart. I’ll give you a call as soon as I can, okay?”

They both said their goodbyes and after hanging up, (Y/N) sat back in her rocking chair and held her belt buckle to her chest as she closed her eyes. “Keep an eye on him for me, Nat.” Her eyes flew open when her phone rang again and she scrambled to answer it. “Hello?”

“Hey, doll, it’s Bucky. Where the hell is Sam?”

(Y/N)’s shoulders sagged in sudden realization. “Oh, shit. I take it that you watched the GMA interview…”

“Yeah, I did, and it’s about time that he and I discussed how he just threw away that shield.” The super-soldier’s voice was filled with ire and she could hear his agitated pacing in the background. “I’m at your guys’ old place in D.C. but he’s not here, so I thought you might know where he’s at.”

“Bucky, none of this is going to change what’s happened-”

“Do you know how much it hurt to hear a total stranger sit there with that shield and call himself a brother to Steve? Do you have any idea how it feels to have Steve’s legacy tarnished by a guy who would’ve gladly kicked his pre-serum ass if we were back in the 40’s?”

Clenching her jaw in growing irritation, (Y/N) stood and started pacing across the porch. “Believe it or not, Bucky, I do. You think I didn’t try everything I could to get answers for what they did? It took threatening to go to the press for Senator Smith’s office to return my calls and when they finally did, I got an incredibly condescending explanation about what constitutes as government property. If I went any further than that, then I’d risk my family’s safety and privacy, so now I’m forced to sit by and watch a man who I know isn’t worthy of the shield parade around as Captain America while all those asshats on Capitol Hill congratulate themselves for preserving the so-called sanctity of a mantle that they’ve never understood.”

She could hear Bucky sigh. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to accuse you of not caring or anything. It’s just…that shield, Steve’s legacy…it means a lot to me. And to see Sam just throw it all away for no reason…”

“You want answers? Sam’s scheduled to fly out of Joint Base Andrews at 9 o’clock for an overseas mission, so if you want to talk to him then you’d better make it quick.”

“Thanks, (Y/N). I owe you one.”

“It’s no problem, but can you do me a favor and actually listen to what Sam has to say? He’s really been beating himself up over what’s happened, and you coming in hot with angry accusations isn’t going to make him or you feel better.”

“…Okay, okay, I’ll try. For you.” Bucky’s pacing slowed and she could tell he was weighing his words. “How’s Steve handling all this?”

(Y/N) leaned a hip against the porch railing and looked out at the gentle waves in the distance. “When I figure that out, I’ll tell you.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I should probably let you go now; by the time I drive across D.C. and talk my way past the MP’s, it’ll be time for Sam’s flight to take off. I’ll call you soon, doll. Give Carina a kiss for me, okay?”

After they exchanged their goodbyes and she tucked her cell phone back into her pocket, (Y/N) looked down at the belt buckle in her hand and gave it a small smile. “Could you keep an eye on Bucky too while you’re at it, Nat? Something tells me that Sam won’t be traveling to Munich alone…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Dinner was delicious, sunshine,” Steve commented later that evening as they cleaned up the kitchen together; there was a mischievous twinkle in his azure eyes when he spared her a brief glance and continued drying the dishes she’d finished washing. “You know, you’ve come a long way from only knowing how to make spaghetti, tacos and scrambled eggs.”

Narrowing her eyes, (Y/N) playfully flicked some soapy dishwater at her chuckling husband. “This coming from the guy who used to boil all his food and who never touched hot sauce until he was ninety-seven.” They finished washing and drying the dishes in comfortable silence, and it wasn’t until after they checked on Carina fast asleep in her crib and made their way back out to the living room that she decided to bring up the subject of the new Captain America. “Sweetheart, if I ask you a question will you promise to give me an honest answer?”

Steve’s brow arched but he nodded all the same. “Of course. What is it?”

“What was going through your head when you saw the announcement naming John Walker as the new Captain America?”

They sat down on the couch and Steve’s hand automatically found hers, his thin fingers intertwining with hers as he considered her pointed question. “Honestly? For a split second there, I thought that I was seeing a ghost on the television screen.” (Y/N)’s brow furrowed in confusion and he continued. “When I was accepted into Project Rebirth and sent to Camp Lehigh, I joined an entire regiment of potential candidates and over the course of a week, we were ordered to complete training that would determine which one of us would be chosen as the SSR’s first test subject. Doctor Erskine made it pretty clear from the beginning that he wanted me, but Colonel Phillips was gunning for a guy named Gilmore Hodge.” He huffed out a quiet chuckle. “Talk about a horse’s ass. Hodge was a bully; he fought with the other guys in the barracks, he cheated during training to get higher scores and he hated that a woman was the one personally overseeing our training.”

“Wait a sec, was he the soldier that Peggy told me about once, the one she knocked onto his ass with just one punch?” Steve nodded and (Y/N) grinned appreciatively. “Peggy Carter was such a bad-ass. So, Walker reminds you of Hodge?”

“Mm-hmm, right down to the blonde hair and blue eyes. Everything I’d read or heard about him since paints him as the perfect soldier, and it was all summed up in that GMA interview this morning.” Steve bit his bottom and looked over at the wall beside their small piano. He’d spent their first month in Maine framing and hanging some of the sketches he’d completed over the years; scenes of his childhood in Brooklyn featuring his mother Sarah and Bucky, portraits of his fellow Howling Commandos and everyone he’d worked with at the SSR, doodles of the laid-back days spent with the Avengers and more drawings of (Y/N) throughout the years than she could count. Doctor Abraham Erskine’s portrait hung proudly towards the center of the wall, a place of honor for the man who changed Steve’s life in more ways than one, and Steve’s eyes softened a little as he continued. “Doctor Erskine came to the barracks to see me on the night before the scheduled procedure. He told me about the time Schmidt took an unfinished dose of the serum and how he became the Red Skull, but then he said something I don’t think I’ll ever forget: ‘The serum amplifies everything that’s inside, so good becomes great and bad becomes worse.’” His azure eyes flicked back over to (Y/N) while the corner of his mouth lifted into a humorless smile. “The second thought that ran through my head after seeing that broadcast was ‘Thank God that they didn’t get their hands on Erskine’s serum too.’”

Sensing his pensive mood, (Y/N) draped her legs over his lap so she could cuddle up against him and rested her head on his shoulder. “The government did what the government does best: purposefully overlooked the accomplishments of a Black man in favor of maintaining the status quo. It’s a tale older than America itself.”

“But…” Steve’s voice was filled with an uncertainty that she’d come to associate with him being a man out of time. “Sam was the one who decided to give the shield to the Smithsonian. Unless…did he mention if someone contacted him and convinced him to hand it over?”

“No, no one convinced him. Sam doesn’t talk about it much, but he suffers from something called imposter syndrome; it’s when you believe that you’re less capable than those around you, that any success you’ve had in your life is only the result of luck and that at the end of the day, you’ll be outed as a fraudster. Many, many people of all walks of life struggle with imposter syndrome but it particularly affects the BAME – Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic – community.”

The thumb that had been caressing her knee slowed as Steve carefully asked, “So, when Sam said that he felt like the shield belonged to someone else, what he really meant was that it belonged to someone who looked like me?”

(Y/N) nodded. “To you, you were only passing along a superhero name and a vibranium shield to the person you believed was meant to have them but to Sam, he was faced with accepting a mantle that reminded him of the atrocities of our country’s history and a future where he’d be the first and only Black man ever named Captain America. It’s a heavy burden to bear and in the end, Sam chose to put his well-being first.”

“I didn’t think that…I-I should’ve known…”

Sitting up, (Y/N) cupped Steve’s face and gently coaxed him to look at her, her heart breaking a little as she looked into his distraught eyes. “Sweetheart, none of this is your fault. You only did what you thought was right, and there’s no way that you could’ve known any of this on your own. Sam doesn’t blame you, so you shouldn’t go and start blaming yourself.” She gave him a sad sort of smile. “If only there were more people like you and Sam in the world…I guess I should count myself lucky that I have the both of you in my life.”

Her husband’s expression softened and he shook his head. “Nah, we’re definitely the lucky ones, baby.” His thumb and forefinger lightly grasped her chin and held her steady as he leaned forward to capture her lips in a loving kiss.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day, (Y/N) spent the morning and much of the afternoon on a conference call with Greg and the editors going over the first draft of Assemble: The Unabridged History of the Avengers and while a freshly-inspired Steve worked into the evening on the cover art, (Y/N) set up Carina’s playpen in the garage and kept an eye on her daughter while she worked up a sweat with their suspended punching bag. Her time with the punching bag was when she allowed herself to reflect on the nightmares she experienced as a result of her PTSD; they were usually memories of all the losses she’d suffered at the hands of Thanos, playing over and over on a constant loop in her mind, but exercising helped her acknowledge and slowly push through them.

While she was taking a quick water break and checking Carina for signs of sleepiness, her cell phone began to play the tell-tale tune of Sam’s ringtone. “You hear that, Cari? Uncle Sam’s calling!” The infant clapped her little hands together and (Y/N) grinned as she reached for her phone, but she arched a brow in surprise when she saw that it was actually a FaceTime request; with a shrug, (Y/N) answered and was met with the sight of Sam’s withdrawn face. “Sam? What’s wrong, Sam?”

“It’s probably easier to tell you what isn’t wrong,” Her best friend sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Bucky and I went to Munich yesterday and got our asses handed to us by eight super-soldiers, he took me to Baltimore to meet an old man named Isiah Bradley and I got to learn that the Army once experimented on Black soldiers while trying to replicate the serum, Bucky got himself arrested because he missed a therapy session, and I was forced into an uncomfortable couple’s counseling session with Mr. Stares-A-Lot himself.”

“Wow, that was…a lot.”

“I’m sorry for interrupting your workout, (Y/N), but after the day I’ve had, I just really needed to see a friendly face.” Sam’s expression relaxed when he caught sight of Carina playing with her stuffed white wolf. “Two friendly faces, actually. How you doin’, cutie-pie?”

“Say ‘hi’ to Uncle Sam, lemon drop.” (Y/N) helped the infant wave her chubby hand at the screen and grinned when her best friend chuckled. “Hey, that got you to smile! Did you want to talk about it?”

Sam shook his head. “Nah, it’s okay. I’m too tired to go through it all again.”

Before (Y/N) could reply, Bucky appeared from behind Sam and gave her a half-wave. “Nice to see you again, doll. Is Samuel here tellin’ you all about my time in the slammer?”

“Bucky, are you all right?” She ignored the glares that both men were shooting one another and waved her hand in front of the camera to grab their attention. “Hey, if you guys stop doing that weird macho shit, you’ll realize I asked you a question.” Carina let out a particularly loud coo and (Y/N) glanced over at her with an apologetic smile. “Yes, Cari, that was a bad word that Mommy shouldn’t have said, but your uncles are driving Mommy insane right now.” She looked back at the screen and raised a pointed brow. “How are you feeling, Bucky?”

“Well, I feel better,” Sam interrupted as they walked out onto a sidewalk.

Bucky sighed in annoyance. “I feel awful, (Y/N), but thanks for asking.”

A police car’s siren blared through the phone’s speaker, ending as soon as it began but replaced with a familiar boastful voice. “Gentlemen! Good to see you again.” Instead of hanging up the FaceTime, Sam switched to a normal phone call after exchanging a look with Bucky and although (Y/N) was confused by his action, she listened closely as they approached John Walker. “Who were you talking to? Your girlfriend?”

“My best friend, actually. She was checking in on me, but she had to go.”

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N), right?” (Y/N)’s brows rose in surprise but she remained silent, mindful that the phone was on speaker. “I’ve studied the files of all the Avengers in preparation for taking up the mantle, in case I ever have to work alongside them. I sent her an email, you know, giving her my condolences and asking for her personal blessing to carry Steve’s shield, but I guess it must’ve gotten lost somewhere ‘cause I never heard back.”

“That’s because I sent that unopened email directly into the goddamn trash,” She muttered under her breath and heard Bucky cover his snort of amusement with a small cough.

“Look, if we divide ourselves, we don’t stand a chance and you guys know that.”

Sam sighed. “So, what do you got?”

“Well, the leader’s name’s Karli Morgenthau. We’ve been targeting civilians who’ve been helping Karli move from place to place.”

A new voice spoke up, and (Y/N) quickly recognized it as belonging to Lemar Hoskins, Walker’s partner known as Battlestar to the public. “They geo-tagged a location, then scrambled the signal. But our satellites have found their symbol popping up in various displaced communities all across Central and Eastern Europe.”

“We think she’s taking the medicine she just stole to one of those camps.”

Bucky snorted in derision, and (Y/N) could very-well imagine him rolling his eyes in plain view of Walker. “Well, there are hundreds of those all over the planet since the Blip, so I guess you’ll have to look real hard.”

“Good thing I have 20/20 vision, huh?”

“Where is she now, Walker? Do you know?”

“No, we don’t know, Bucky. It’s only a matter of time before we find out.”

“Things are really intense for you, aren’t they, Walker?”

(Y/N) listened to the heated exchange between Bucky and Walker with growing concern, and she was thankful when Sam interrupted them before they could escalate. “Take it easy. Look, Walker’s right. It is imperative that we find them and stop them, but you guys have rules of engagement and all kinds of authorization you have to get. We’re free agents. We’re more flexible, so it wouldn’t make sense for us to work with you.”

There was a moment’s pause before Walker replied, “A word of advice, then: Stay the hell out of my way.”

She could hear footsteps walking down the street and after a minute, the phone call was switched back to FaceTime and she saw Sam and Bucky’s concerned faces on the screen. “So, what do you think of the new Captain America?”

“I think that you two need to be careful around him,” (Y/N) answered honestly, perching herself on the garage’s workbench and shaking her head. “Something seems off with him. I mean, ‘targeting civilians’ was concerning enough, and then he basically threatened you both when you wouldn’t agree to work with him? I don’t know about either of you, but I’m even more grateful that he doesn’t have the serum than I was before.”

“Yeah, me too. Speaking of the serum, it looks like we’ll have to start there if we wanna gather more intel on these Flag Smashers.” Sam glanced over at Bucky walking beside him. “What are you thinkin’?”

“Well, I know what we have to do. When Isaiah said ‘my people’-”

“Oh, don’t take that to heart, that’s not what he meant.”

“No, he meant Hydra.” At Bucky’s statement, (Y/N)’s jaw dropped as she slowly realized what he was intending on doing. “Hydra used to be my people.”

Sam scoffed at Bucky’s implication. “Not a chance.”

“Walker doesn’t have any leads-”

“I know where you’re going with this, no.”

“He knows all of Hydra’s secrets. Don’t you remember Siberia?” Bucky shot an imploring look at (Y/N). “C’mon, doll, back me up here.”

(Y/N) bit her lip and carefully thought their less-than-ideal situation over. “It sounds like you don’t have much of a choice in the matter, but you need to make sure you’re mentally prepared to face him again. I remember Siberia, Bucky, but I also remember how he took control of you in Berlin.”

Sam looked over at Bucky with concern in his dark brown eyes. “So, you’re just gonna go sit in a room with this guy?”

“…Yes.”

With a slow nod, her best friend glanced between the super-soldier beside him and his phone screen. “Okay, then. We’re gonna go see Zemo.”

Despite the seriousness of their situation, (Y/N) couldn’t contain her huff of laughter. “Look at you two, already starting to work together like a team. Keep it up and you’ll figure all of this out in no time. Hey, maybe you’ll even end up becoming real friends!”

“You’ve got some imagination, doll; it’s no wonder why Steve fell head over heels for you,” Bucky remarked but managed to give her a half-smile. “Take care while we’re gone, okay?”

“I’ll give you a call as soon as we know more about what we’re dealing with.” Her best friend’s assured tone and the look of determination that was written across his features helped to ease some of her worry for the pair, and he smiled a little when she finally nodded. “We’ll see you soon, Booksmart.”

“Good luck, Birdbrain,” (Y/N) replied and when the FaceTime ended, she sighed and stared at her concerned reflection in the phone’s screen. “And stay safe.” She pocketed her phone and lifted Carina out of her playpen, giving the giggling infant a kiss on the forehead and tickling her stomach before handing her the stuffed white wolf. “You’re absolutely right, lemon drop. Your uncles are going to be okay because they’ve got each other’s backs. C’mon, let’s go check on Daddy and make sure he hasn’t fallen asleep on one of his easels again…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: The next chapter takes place in Delacroix, so buckle up for more angst and shenanigans! Thank you all so much for reading and commenting! I’ve created a Spotify playlist inspired by this series, and I’ll be updating it every time I upload a new chapter. Enjoy!

Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ziGMhEsAw833GQ9eV44nR?si=6dfead09c76848d5

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Part III)

Stumblin’ In Book VII: “Superhero Snapshots” Masterlist

Stumblin’ In Book I: “The Winter Soldier” Masterlist

Tagging:  @mrs-obrien​​​​​​ @lahoete​​​​​​ @awkward117 @cminr @natdrunk​​​​​ @momc95​​​​​​ @savedbystyle​​​​​​ @miraculouscloud @awkwardnesshabitat​​​​​​ @marinettepotterandplagg​​​​​​ @mangosandmimosas @supersouthy @benakenalove​​​​​​ @brooke0297​​​​​​ @hufflepeople​​​​​​ @becausewelie​​​​​​ @outoftheregular​​​​​​​ @junipermurdock​​​​​​ @ladydmalfoy @mads-weasley​​​​​​ @username23345 @crist1216​​​​​​ @capswife​​​​​​ @lilmschild​​​​​​ @avngrsinitiative @crowleysqueenofhell​​​​​​ @y-napotat​​​ @mary1raven​​​​​​ @groovy-lady​​​​​​ @ljej95​​​​​​ @innersublimefury​​​ @prettysbliss​​​​​​​  

[mithliya]

I think there's also something to be said about how the whole discourse around indigeneity has become chic in the past few years to the point where you now see zionists claim that zionism is an "indigenous" movement... except that the early zionist thinkers very explicitly talked about colonising Palestine.

And also, it's exactly like you said, the term "indigenous" only makes sense in the context of being specifically oppressed for being indigenous. Indian Christians and Muslims are oppressed by Hindutva, and those Hindutva see them as traitors who adapted foreign religions. You could call Hindutva an "indigenous movement" the way some people now use the word indigenous lol.

yeah a lot of people argue that zionism is an indigenous movement despite the fact that palestinians have been proven, over and over again, to be indigenous to palestine. while many jewish people do have middle eastern ancestry specifically in the levant region, enough evidence shows that palestinians' ancestors are of the people who never left the land, whereas jewish people that left (ofc this doesnt apply to the mizrahim that have been in palestine the entire time) have been linked to levantine ppl from 3000 or so years ago and thus have distant ties to the land. framing it as an indigenous movement is truly disingenuous, as it implies either that palestinians are not indigenous or that jewish zionists are MORE indigenous, both being blatantly false.

hindutva are absolutely not an indigenous movement considering there are actual indigenous people in india (adivasi) and they often face racism, casteism, and colourism by hindu nationalists as well.

but yeah this is why framing 'indigenous' as inherently meaningful, oppressed, and good is ridiculous. in germany ive seen people use the acronym "BIPOC" many times and its like.. okay and who are the I in the BIPOC? who are the indigenous people in germany? oh right...germans or "aryans" as they used to call themselves. so wtf does it mean in the context of germany? no idea. and it seems none of the people who use it here have any idea either! it makes absolutely no sense but people treat "indigenous" as = poc from a colonized country or a country with a large settler population and more often than not, they think "indigenous" only refers to indigenous americans. but im indigenous, from bahrain, and i have nothing to do with indigenous americans. some people are indigenous from india, and they have nothing to do with indigenous americans, etc. meanwhile some groups of people that are "indigenous" to their lands are absolutely not oppressed, in fact they're often the more privileged ones! which is why i think people really need to be more clear and not play into this intentional vagueness. "indigenous" alone doesn't mean much. it isn't a race or an ethnicity.

[canmom]

pls make a post abt how textual trans girl zuko is, it's everything to me but i haven had the strength to write it out for years 🙇‍♀️

lol i deleted that post bc i didn't want to get in a fight with the friend who reblogged that post about transmasc zuko but sure, ok

it's not super complicated really. like i don't think when it comes to 'trans headcanon' there is like, a 'reality' out there, zuko isn't a real person who can be definitely 'trans' or not, he's a symbol who we fill with our own ideas of personhood when we encounter the story. rather it's whether a reading is resonant or not, which is going to depend on the reader and what they can project on a character. I expect my reading will be more sympathetic with trans girls ;p

all the same... zuko is portrayed as being raised in a fascist society (seemingly most modelled on Imperial Japan, as interpreted by a couple of American liberals writing for a kids' TV network) which values military bravado and individual displays of skill, and exercises corporal punishment for 'dishonourable' behaviour; all of these are part of the construction of masculinity in our world. and we watch Zuko try very hard to live up to the values of this society (despite being, well, very bad at it, to the point he increasingly becomes an ineffectual joke villain), since he has been cut off from all kinds of affection outside of Iroh since his mother was exiled. Zuko is pressured to believe that this will earn the love denied by his evil father who very publicly and sadistically scarred his face. this is all pretty straightforwardly textual.

now these values aren't necessarily portrayed as intrinsically masculine in what we can 'learn' about the fictional Fire Nation, at least insofar as Azula is able to embody them. but it's not out of the question for fascist and nationalistic societies to provisionally accept cafab gender nonconformity in a limited number of cases, as examples like Violette Morris indicate; if we look further back we get things like the medieval 'one sex' model and occasionally beliefs that like, sexual anatomy would somehow follow behaviour. so we could say Azula is probably an exceptional case - the footloose-pastiche and beach episodes illustrate that the Fire Nation definitely has some pretty conventional gendering going on, and the vast majority of authority figures in the Fire Nation are men. iirc they establish that descent is not rigidly patrilineal but the Fire Lord can name an heir; that said all the Fire Lords we see have been men.

so. it's not automatically that Zuko's arc of struggling to reject the values of the imperialist Fire Nation must be read as a struggle with gender given the text; however it is obviously quite resonant insofar as like, the common egg experience of like, trying desperately to live up to the hell of death cult masculinity before eventually it breaks you and you have to figure out another way to be. zuko's 'crime' in his father's eyes, the thing that dishonours him, is not merely speaking out of turn but doing so to advocate for something other than "maximum death all the time"; essentially, acting too effeminate! Fire Lord Ozai has to very publicly burn his 'son' because otherwise the generals would be like, wow boss, your son is such a fag, must be something up with the royal line.

(meanwhile Azula succeeds on the terms of the 'male' power structure, she's a prodigy girlboss etc.; but perhaps part of her issue is that she knows her power is fraught, she's aware of the abyss if she ever steps out of line especially after seeing what happened to Zuko (with her willing assistance). we could easily imagine the suspicion that would exist if military authority is considered men's domain; that's why she works so hard to terrify everybody around her. she's also desperate for recognition; as much as it's not fully convincing, her breakdown in the final episode comes when she's named Fire Lord only for her dad to put himself on a new higher rank of 'Phoenix King', leaving her out of the big showy genocide he's about to perform, and she realises she's just a tool to him rather than someone he truly sees as a successor.)

now let's go to the first season, when zuko is chasing the gaang all around the map and failing to catch them constantly, and dressing up at night to do things that his society wouldn't sanction (ok it's a ninja outfit not like a dress or something but still, i'll take what i can get), while getting in fights with a big buff guy like Zhao for whom living up to the standard masculinity is assured and easy. the idea of trying to express femininity in some tentative way and having the door viciously slammed shut on your fingers and like, flinching back and going for tryhard masculinity in the wake of that traumatic experience is one that's gonna be viciously familiar for too many camab gender variant people.

later we see zuko's arc in the tea shop in Ba Sing Se - ok, it is on one level just like, learning to be a decent person and there's a somewhat unconvincing hetero romance subplot in there, but you can absolutely read zuko's struggle there in gender terms. like. it would be so easy to imagine him trying out a maid outfit during that arc, right? ...no? oh huh.

later still, you have his failed relationship with Mai while living in the Fire Nation in s3... Zuko's trying so hard to do a heterosexuality bless him, and he just has no idea. it's like, papering over the 'break' from society that has developed, so obviously doomed to failure.

but it's also kind of the case that i just see an angsty bishie-adjacent (tbf zuko is merely anime, not especially bishie) 'male' character and i'm like mmhmm, nice egg you got there. ultimately it doesn't really matter whether you read Zuko as trans woman or a gay femboy or just an angsty sorta guy; it's a narrative that simply resonates with like, stuff we experience around the crazy contradictory construction of gender we have to live under - it's material that's very easy to pick up and run with if you're in the mood.

so the impetus for the deleted post was like, if (in my reading) zuko's arc is so obviously about rejecting the values we associate with masculinity at great personal cost to define a narrative on 'his' own terms; sure, that's totally something the transmascs gotta struggle too with from their own particular zone and with its own difficulties, i can't speak to that, and ultimately these gender categories are totally incoherent and fake; but like, 'zuko is a trans guy' is not the obvious reading that suggests itself to me! and i think if Korra had the guts to just be like oh yeah and Zuko's a girl now that would be based as hell, but bryke would never be that cool in a million years, so it's just something you gotta insert yourself if you're in the mood.

[bean-na-farraige-agus-foraoise]

Druids ain’t shit and here’s why.

Straight from the Pond- here’s a lesson from your friendly neighborhood historian.

It’s a long post so the history lesson is under the cut. 

Druidic “history” (or pseudohistory rather) actually begins with early renaissance politics. 

Basically Italy is dominating politics and religion by being able to call back to an ancient history that led directly into the formation of the centralized Catholic church. Surprising nobody who's familiar with European history- the German states want in on that action but they don't really have that direct line linking them to antiquity beyond their conquering by Rome- so, like any good 15th century academics, they create that link by just making shit up. 

So they look back at ancient roman writings, and see mention of druids, and also realize that they actually don't know fuck all about them, there's no records of them beyond a few classical authors- and for the record, classical authors are NOTORIOUSLY unreliable, there are entire graduate level seminars dedicated to teaching people how to read through ancient Roman propaganda, almost every druid I have ever met has taken classical authors at face value, anyway I digress, they just start making up a history of the druids, German lands used to be populated by Celts, and they create these mystical druids who serve as the direct precursor to The Church in these areas, like they forge documents and everything so when Italy goes "oh yeah since when?" they have something to hold up as a "gotcha" - they fashion statues and hide them in crypts as further evidence. It’s wild. 

So, France sees that the German states are becoming more politically popular within the HRE (Holy Roman Empire) because of these druid stories, and so they go "Hey Celts used to live in France too... we should have druids"- and they create druid stories. Scotland at the time is very close with France politically and they go "Hey us too, we're still Celts,” and then it spreads to Wales, and then England. Ireland is mostly staying out of druid nonsense- like in this period of the OG pseudohistories Ireland is like "this is disgusting we don't want druids" so like all the writings in Ireland in this period on druids are like "yeah the Church HATES druids"

Things quiet down for a little bit, because the stories are established, the cards have been played, whatever, but then Neo-Classicism and the Enlightenment- and now suddenly it's cool to have ancient history again - but like... Britain has "we got conquered by Rome" or "hey a few centuries ago people were saying we had druids?”; so naturally the more nationalistic go with druids....which is how we get, Iolo Morganweg.  Iolo's real name is Edward Williams but he insisted on going by his "bardic name"- bc druids.  Williams was a Welsh antiquarian- who is in some scholastic circles considered the father of “modern” druidry.  Williams literally named his son Taliesin after the bardic poet behind the Poems of Taliesin which is frequently in association with the Mabinogi in Brythonic texts. To pull from the wiki on this asshole: 

[he made] claims that ancient Druidic tradition had survived the Roman conquest, the conversion of the populace to Christianity, the persecution of bards under King Edward I, and other adversities. His forgeries develop an elaborate mystical philosophy, which he claimed as a direct continuation of ancient Druidic practice. Williams's reportedly heavy use of laudanum may have been a contributing factor

Yeah.... just... yeah. So not only did he forge like hella documents, which today in the 21st century, over 100 years after he was revealed as a fraud, are still more popular than the originals- but he also is the reason that ogham is like that. Williams created a ‘bardic alphabet’ based on combining Scandinavian runes and extant ogham - we are still wading through his bullshit trying to fix ogham. 

And this brings us to the Celtic Twilight...... 

To quote @liminalblessings​, “And a bunch of noodle fuckers decide "hey, we didn't bastardize the Irish enough for the last however long.... We should do more of that."” But for those of you not familiar with the term, it's a nationalistic pan-Celtic movement that wanted to like, make the Celts in vogue again? but like their idea of the Celts as "noble savage” - because the modern era was scary. At this point, Pan-Celtic Nationalism is starting to rise as pushback against British colonialism in Celtic nations. Unfortunately it's heavily reliant on the Druid myth as like.... A foundational shared cultural history between the surviving Celtic nations. The point largely is, though, "look at us. We should all be sticking together because we're the same / cousins / brothers". Which leads to a L O T of Celtic culture from various countries kind of getting.... molded into one singular idea- which is USUALLY what we think of today when we think of Celts. Basically everything gets branded as Irish because the Irish were “pure” and a “separate racial identity” as opposed to the Scots and Welsh. It took that idea of a pan-Celtic singularity, and then went ham with it mostly on Irish pre-Christian stuff, and as it occurred not too long after Williams’ fuckery, it really cemented those forgeries and psuedohistories in the cultural memory. And Williams wasn’t exposed as a fraud until after the Celtic Twilight had died down.

Now... Yeats, we all know Yeats- some people recommend his writings for learning about the fairies. DO NOT LISTEN TO THOSE PEOPLE. Yeats makes up an entire tree calendar, and also files all Scottish fairy lore under the “Irish” tab because he’s part of the Celtic Twilight and didn’t you know that everything Celtic is actually Irish? Fuck this guy. #yeetyeats

Enter... Robert Graves- destroyer of histories and all around fuckwit. Graves maked up an ENTIRE religious notion around a mother goddess and shit. And like, the irony of that is the people he supposedly went to originally were like lol dude you're a fucking idiot none of this is real. But he published it anyways and of course it got taken seriously. And then there's a lot of reverse etymology at this point which is just.... really bad linguistics. And because of Graves’ white goddess + said bad linguistics by others, you get Danu.(Danu is a whole thing, please shoot me an ask if you want a post about all of that nonsense). 

So.... Gerald Gardener.... to quote @liminalblessings​ again- “didn’t have a direct role in druidism, except he kind of did.”  See, Gardner had a good friend who was hella interested in the Celtic twilight. Said friend was hella inspiried by Gardner's "recreation" of old British trad witch traditions... But he didn't jive with the old British trad witch traditions. HE jived with Irish Druidry. So while Gardner's doing HIS thing, his friend's doing the modern Druid thing- heavily drawing from Gardner's own work but "making it more historically Druid" Except, as you may have picked up- there is no such thing as “historically druid” that can be reconstructed. Basically he can only pull from Williams, but because he had issues with with the old 15th century on stuff, up to the Twilight era (despite those being his sources) so he tries to distance himself from the earlier movements and leans hella heavy into Gardner's work as a result. Which is, if you've ever wondered, why Wicca and Druidry have such incredibly similar ritual structures and beliefs.

SO, this guy starts the Druid Order, decides that he’s gonna like pull his teachings from Williams- but he's also gonna say that Williams has nothing to do with his druidry because y'know, Williams has relatively recently been revealed as a fraud. This guy goes through the grueling process of ripping off his best bud gardner founding Druidry, right. So The Druid Order has this rebranding in 1951, that lauds the “history of the druids” as written by Williams but simultaneously rejects Williams saying “yeah we have nothing whatsoever to do with that guy.” Mix into this narrative, Gardener’s “burning times” bullshit, and now not only do we have mythical pseudohistorical druids, but a rewrite of Williams’ “the druids survived conversion” which then turned into - “The druids were heavily persecuted by the church and survived a horrible burning times but despite this there’s a tradition of continuous druidic belief.” Here begins the bullshit known as “vestiges of pagan thought”- which took actual historians not even a decade to disprove, and yet still circulates in pagan circles, because nobody picks up a fucking book.  Theoretical Folkloric archaeology became very popular at this time, which postulates (incorrectly) that all folk traditions and folklore absolutely stems from Pagan times and is 100% the Christianization of pagan practices and thoughts- which is not at all true. (Not-so-friendly reminder that Eostre? DOESN’T FUCKING EXIST. STOP FALLING FOR A JOKE MADE BY A MONK)

Td;lr so far- the druids went from 

the Catholic clergy before the Catholics existed 

to 

a religious group that survived conversion

to

druids survived an intense and violent persecution 

And now? In this our 21st century? 

Well.... druidic organizations today tend to still push these ahistorical narratives, that buy into the pagan persecution complex.... and several of these organizations also have known racists and terfs on their recommended reading lists. And while some organizations have made attempts to become more historically accurate- but the end result is usually.... bad. It tends to result in them using a source from like 1960 that’s been disproven 1000 times since by other historians to go “look a historian agrees with us!” rather than like... keep up with current research trends and academic standards. Druids also tend to be hostile to the syncretism of the Irish church which is just..... so fucking dumb. Don’t worship gaelic deities if you can’t accept that our lore are Christian texts about pagan beliefs. 

So yeah..... druids ain’t shit and I can prove it historically. I am also more than willing to send anyone links to full length books on the history of druids if you want to learn more. 

[gayregis]

do you think the netflix series will stick to the books messages of anti war, family and friemdships? i hope not because those messages are what makes me like the books so much, also i hope the netflix fandom don't memefy the stories like they did with renfri, her story is supposed to be tragic and show how revenge corrupts people but the fandom just treats it like "uwu bisexual feral sword woman wants to kill big baddie wizard hehe"

correction: it's supposed to be “i hope so,” not “i hope not,” lol i can't spell

sadly, i don’t think that the netflix adaptation will stick to the themes of the books at all and here’s why.

first reason why: ciri

in the first season, they took out ciri and geralt meeting in brokilon. that is just the most unforgivable action they could have taken. that scene is literally what defines the entire series being about ciri, the child of destiny, geralt’s daughter who is the whole point of everything. they gave her more screentime, but less significance. she also is played by 18 yo freya allen who is acting as a 14 yo ciri, which blurs how she is supposed to symbolize childhood. instead, they went for a spunky sort of young teenage girl, which ciri becomes later (in the care of yennefer and during around the time of thanedd), but it is significant that she was a CHILD when cintra fell to nilfgaard, because it traumatized her for life and is the point of no return for her. because geralt thought that by fathering her, he would introduce her to death, but instead, the opposite occured - by deferring her, she was introduced to death. ciri loses her innocence, she loses the abilty to be a child. now she will continue to fixate on revenge for the entire saga, until she loses everything, absolutely everything. the witcher is a tragic story but it only manages to have this story because it is dominated by this theme of a lost childhood, surrounded by themes of family, vulnerability, revenge, destruction, violence... 

in the netflix series, we receive approximately none of this. ciri’s trauma is more treated as a “wake up call” because she’s such a “privileged princess” who doesn’t know about or care that her beloved grandmamma committed mass genocide (what???). this is treated like something ciri needs to overcome, thus it is actually a good thing that she is seeing people being murdered left and right in the name of imperialist conquest! 

second reason why: geralt

geralt in the books is a kind person. he is a pacifist. his profession is to kill, he ocassionally punches people so hard they die (he did this to save his best friend from being sliced open), and other acts of badassery, but inside, he does not want to kill and is opposed to it. this is the man that refused to slay a giant bug-like monster because he didn’t feel it was necessary (the witcher equivalent of trapping a house spider in a glass and slipping a piece of paper under it, then releasing it outside, instead of squashing it with your sandal). this is the man that felt himself unworthy to be yennefer’s lover, because he was afraid he couldn’t feel love in the same capacity she could. this is the man who pushed his best friend away on a dangerous quest because he was terrified that he’d be harmed and he’d suffer, and it would be his fault. and as mentioned, this is the man that deferred his daughter, his daughter who he genuinely loved and wanted to protect no matter what, his daughter who he legitimately raised a conflict with the queen of brokilon over, because he was terrified that he would bring violence and death into her life. this geralt is an introspective, pragmatic man. he cares deeply about the welfare of others, and the only way he can even do his job is to justify it though morality and codes of conduct which he makes up himself because he is so obsessed with not harming the innocent. he spares and befriends many “monsters” (post-conjunction creatures) and only slays the ones that genuinely pose a threat to the innocent and are usually are not creatures capable of rational thought. in the first book in the voice of reason 5, geralt literally states that he won’t kill innocent creatures.

and he continues this philosophy throughout:

he doesn’t kill dragons:

he advocates for dudu’s innocence:

he only was wary of regis because he was mistaken and thought he was going to harm dandelion in this moment:

in the netflix adaptation of the witcher, what is the first thing that we see him do? kill a monster brutally and without remorse. he doesn’t talk about his motivations behind it or why he felt justified to kill it, or why the monster was a danger in the first place. he just kills it and this violence defines him. later in the show, we see him antagonize and mock torque (when in the books he asked dandelion NOT to do just that) and he also punches dandelion right in the stomach. even when geralt was the most mad at dandelion in the books, he never did physical harm to him. ever.

the netflix show is representating a very different man. some have argued that they will try to develop him later on, but that is too late. geralt in the books was a good person from the very beginning for a reason.

third reason why: cahir.

the anti-war and anti-imperialist themes of the books hinge upon the concept of universal humanity and understanding that violence has its own motivations and reasons. cahir i think is a very good example of how the witcher saga comments on the effects of nationalist sentiment / patriotism. 

cahir in the books is a teenager or very young adult during the massacre of cintra (since he was no older than 25 in baptism of fire). even though he was also young and doing this only because it what was expected of him and he was intending to bring honor to his family, that does not change the effect that he has on ciri as a child. he enters her nightmares as an exaggerated version of what he was, even though he was scared, too. this demonstrates how impressionable youth are misguided into the military and people are made unaware of just how much violence they ensue. 

cahir is built up as this nightmarish figure, this horrifying man that ciri wants revenge upon more than anything else, and THEN he is revealed to also be a terrified youth. underneath the helmet, there was a terrified young man. that is an incredibly powerful image and metaphor.

and what did the witcher netflix do? ... well...

cahir shows his face, he doesn’t have the symbolism of his imposing helmet anymore. he’s much older, eamon farren is 35 years old, 15 older than cahir canonically is, so he’s not someone who has had nationalist ideals imposed upon him unfairly by his parents and society, but rather a full adult who is established and making his own decisions fully in his own control. in the books, he stops pursuing ciri once she escapes, because he has a mental breakdown from the stress of his society and family’s expectations of success, and fear of harsh punishment he will receive. he goes to prison in the imperial capital for a year for failing. in the netflix series, he stops at nothing to get ciri, chasing her down constantly and enlisting the help of sorcerers, a doppler... it’s a whole evil entourage. cahir is not the vulnerable and noble-at-heart young man that he was in the books.

in the end, these are things that are too late to change now. these things can’t be developed upon to “fix” them. ciri cannot suddenly receive her character establishment as a child. geralt cannot suddenly become a caring father who has cared about protecting ciri since day one. cahir cannot suddenly become a young man influenced by his jingoistic society who was only in full plate armor because his parents told him to. these things are so essential to their characters that they are begun to be established immediately.

and yeah everything’s going to get memed on just like they did with renfri. no one discusses the elves’ situation in dol blathanna seriously, they just like laughing at how jaskier called them “pointy.” ciri isn’t discussed at all by the fandom except for being a token baby character. it’s dark times

[scarletwitching]

just curious, why aren’t u reading comics anymore? Is it cause wandas not in anything?

So, Ike Perlmutter... is bad.

This is hard to explain, not because I don’t know why I quit but because I cannot recall why I didn’t quit earlier. I guess it was the Spiegelman thing that did it, though that’s confusing because I remember quitting in July, not August. (2019 was 87 years ago, so who knows.) Sina Grace’s post had gone up that same summer. There was other stuff too. Things built on each other until I felt like I couldn’t justify it anymore.

It was probably inevitable. Or at least, it feels inevitable now. I considered it after the Northrop Grumman incident, but that was cancelled so fast that I didn’t even have time to process it. Things like that kept happening. I’d get mad about something, then it would whoosh by. But it was all chipping away at me. And it chipped and it chipped until one day, I was done. What’s that quote? Liking falling asleep, slowly and then all at once.

A couple of months after I quit, there was some internal role shifting that I don’t understand fully to this day, but was treated as “Feige is in charge of the comics now.” There was a lot of relief in the fandom at the time, and I remember thinking this should make me want to reconsider, it should make me want to at least wait and see if things changed. But I never seriously entertained the idea. Well over a year later, I couldn’t tell you what, if anything, changed.

Regardless, some things aren’t going to change. Did you see that photo of the guy storming the US Capitol holding zip ties? He had a Punisher logo on his chest. I’m not gonna argue about the political implications of that character or how much Marvel could actually do to put the genie back in the bottle. I’m more thinking about how, as superheroes have come to dominate pop culture, conservatives and liberals have both started adopting their iconography more and more. Remember that Dan Crenshaw ad? And the ICE tweet? I hate that shit.

The thing people love to do in this situation is insist everyone who disagrees with them is “misinterpreting” the characters and stories, but I don’t know how tenable that position is. I won’t pretend I don’t know why fascist insurrectionists love these characters. On the flip side, I can’t imagine an argument for why the person I saw call Amy McGrath “the real life Captain Marvel” is missing the point. I’d say they’re bang on the money, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. The white nationalists who think they’re vigilantes are obviously the worst (by several magnitudes). I’m not saying the cheesy liberal shit is the same as fashy right wing shit, just that I’ve grown exhausted with the way that society at large engages with these characters.

Is that the reason I quit reading Marvel comics? No, but it is a reason I haven’t started again. This stuff has become so obnoxious and omnipresent that it has tainted my feelings about the source material. Maybe part of my annoyance is that I know so much about the history of this meaningless nonsense that when I see people oversimplify it in order to slot them neatly into their own political views, I know it’s bullshit. Because it’s never as clear-cut as people make it out to be. No, Magneto was not based on Malcolm X, but yes, the Avengers kind of are ICE. But only that one time. (Fucking Hickman.)

It’s not just the general audience either. People in the supposedly enlightened part of this fandom downplay and excuse (and make snide jokes about) actual, non-fictional US war crimes under the guise of defending a fictional character. Do some people around here have any self-awareness about how embarrassing they are? It is vile the shit some of y’all will say with your whole chest, as if it’s completely divorced from the real world. The level of historical revisionism, the literal neocon talking points I have seen trotted out and presented as antiracism. I am begging certain people to PLEASE talk to an Iraqi. One (1) Iraqi. Any Iraqi. (Okay, maybe not any Iraqi.)

Actually, forget that. I don’t want to burden a single victim of US imperialism with some of y’uns, especially since you have proven time and again you cannot be reasoned with. Does that stuff affect my willingness to to buy Marvel comics? Yeah, it does. The fans may not be the company’s fault, but this attitude that real people’s suffering is just an exotic backdrop that doesn’t need to be seriously engaged with came straight from them.

More than anything, I’ve been thinking a lot about Capitalism (lol, of course, I have) and how I engage with this awful system I am forced to live in. Disney sucks. We all know it. The comic industry is exploitative. We all know it. How much do I really want to support them instead of giving my money directly to independent creators? How much more watered down, neoliberal, “more female drone operators” art do I need to experience in my life?

I’m not calling for a boycott or whatever. I don’t pretend to know how other people should live their lives. I’m not even sure how I should live my life. I just know that it’s been good for me to step back and evaluate what I spend my money on and how I feel about art that doesn’t live up to my values. Will I come back into the fold with a healthier attitude and more insight than I had before? Dunno. Will I eventually want to catch up on Immortal Hulk? Probably, but I’m guessing I’ll get it from the library when I do.

[bisluthq]

I don't understand why many people on this blog don't become fans of someone who is similar to you in political and activist thinking. Because you only know how to complain about Taylor all the time, you accuse a simple song of being nationalist. Realize that they are probably activists, so why not try to be fans of people like that too? I've always been a practical person, if something bothers me capable of hurting my values, I won't be a fan of the person. Now you call yourself a fan and keep bothering you all the time, wanting her to become something you want.

No one here cares lmao because we don’t follow celebs for their politics. It literally doesn’t matter to us. Her job is to dance around and look hot and sing dope songs. I still like Carrie Underwood even tho she’s a whole ass right leaning anti masker. I’m not reliant on Carrie’s opinions on masks to make up my mind about whether I like her music and little workout app or not because the two things aren’t related in any way.

We all have different lines of behavior beyond which we can’t like… forgive a person or vibe with them but if you’re only following people you think are politically on the exact same page as you, that’s sorta bigoted imo and you’re also setting yourself up for disappointment. People are allowed to have their own opinions, their own ideologies and their own worldviews.

For me these ladies are nice and haven’t crossed any of my lines.

Would we agree on everything? No lol but they’re not my friends my homie and even with friends like you should try have a spectrum of opinions you are okay with, especially when what’s being discussed isn’t like fundamental human rights but like… fiscal policies, the size of government, infrastructure, the best environmental policies and like how education/health care work. It’s very infantile to think that disagreeing on how much people should be taxed is a reason to fall out with someone imo. Your opinion is just one opinion. I have a friend who’s based in Sweden and like her opinions on COVID are not mine lmao like this girl wanted herself and her kid to have it last year because she just wanted antibodies and she loved the Swedish response (ie no response). I disagree. But she’s still my friend like who fucking cares - it’s her fucking opinion not mine?