#these two can co-exist

[valewritessss]

How do I tell Annabeth haters that they’re not being more feminist for hating Annabeth instead of Rachel? Why do we always gotta hate someone? Can these two girls just exist and not be blamed for shit.

Because first it was “Rachel is getting in the way of Percabeth so she’s a bitch”

But now it’s “Annabeth was so mean to Rachel she had so much internalized misogyny”

Like why did y’all switch up??

I mean good for Rachel but like bad for society this just set us back because wtf

If you can’t blame one you have to blame the other? Honestly they think they’re being such a girls girl for that but it’s just getting worse. God forbid a girl has a crush on an attractive guy and god forbid the other girl who has severe trauma revolving anandonment hates her for it.

[starcurtain]

I wish everyone collectively understood aventurine’s character like you…things would be so much easier! I genuinely don’t understand how people keep getting his motivations wrong??? Could it be because some of the most popular Aven fanfics were written prior to his release? That could have contributed to some of the takes we tend to see about him…thoughts?

I struggled all day to come up with a concise way to answer this and couldn't think of one, so here, have a long-winded ramble:

I don't think early fic writers have much impact in the situation with Aventurine's character now, since most people can look at when a story was posted and go "Oh, this was before we had ____ information."

I think that Aventurine's problem is being a male character in a gacha game. Gacha game characters are designed to sell. Hoyo can sell female characters very, very easily. Give her huge tits and a visible underwear strap and you're good to go. I love all my guy friends, but I'm not gonna sugarcoat it: straight men are not the hardest audience to please. Hit a particular fetish (feet, spandex, dommy mommy), and you're gucci.

Nah, we all know why Jade's trailer is Like That.™

Male characters in gacha are harder to sell because women as consumers are a little harder to predict. Does every woman want a tall, ripped hunk? Shit, no, small cute boyish models like Aventurine are selling better now? Why?! Would a bad boy be more popular than a nice guy??? It's harder to account for women's tastes, especially because they are often (a little) less visually-oriented.

Hoyo is good at what they do though, and they've figured out that male characters sell very well when they possess at least one of two specific traits:

Endearing vulnerability/helplessness

Gay ship tease

Give a character both, like Aventurine? They might as well be printing money.

That sound you hear is Hoyo's stock prices rising.

So, from the very beginning, Hoyo is incentivized to create a character that appeals to people, a character people will want to crack their wallets open for. And they achieved this, first and foremost, by giving Aventurine traits that female players (in particular, but men too), find especially appealing: emotional and physical vulnerability.

We see Aventurine's pain. We sympathize with his grief. We identify with his struggle to make meaning of his difficult life. He's our woobie, blorbo, babygirl, whatever the hell they're calling it now.

He can't hide his suffering anymore. He's on the very edge. He's a dude in distress. He's surrounded by enemies! He misses his mama! He's been betrayed! No one understands him like you do, dear player!

The ultimate feeling evoked is: He needs to be saved.

When people talk about male power fantasies, I think they forget that women can experience them too, and "Emotionally vulnerable man that only I (or my favorite character) can fix" is actually a female power fantasy.

And from there it's really easy, right: the people who shell out cash to buy warps for their harmed-husbando feel like they've saved him; the people who are into mlm ships look for the nearest hot dude to be the savior Ratio was waiting for his time lol.

Morally and intellectually, this type of deep-down-golden-hearted, emotionally-wounded male character is very easy to digest. There is nothing to dislike about this type of character or role in the story: this character is a good guy who has just gone through so many terrible situations, whose victim status makes him endearing, and whose lack of agency means that any of the questionable or downright bad things he does are always the result of someone else forcing his hand, and never something he would have chosen himself.

His motivations are always clear and consistent: get free, heal, and live happily ever after.

Insert the Wreck-It Ralph meme: "Do people assume all your problems got solved when a big strong man showed up?" But to be fair, a big strong man did kind of solve Aventurine's problem, so--

Anyway, it's simple. It's straightforward. Morally, it's pretty cut and dry, black and white: Aventurine is our hero, which means everyone dictating the course of his miserable life is evil.

Hoyo is not remotely discouraging people from literally buying into this emotional appeal.

And trust me, I get it. I'll be the first to admit that hurt-comfort is its own entire genre in fandom because it is so appealing. People eat up Aventurine's tragic backstory like candy! The idea of watching a character go through hell at the hands of bad guys just to finally find a happy end is like the definition of everyone's favorite story.

In fact... people love Aventurine's suffering so much, they have invented whole new ways for him to suffer that aren't even in the game.

This is where we get all the headcanons that Aventurine was a sex slave, every single person he meets hates him because of his race, the Stonehearts are executioners holding knives to his throat, Jade enslaved him to the IPC with a lifelong contract, his material possessions belong to the company, the IPC is forcing him to take only the most dangerous missions where he is being required by his evil jailers to continually put his life on the line... You name it and I promise you, I can find a fanfic where Aventurine suffers from it. 😂

Bro can't even sleep in on his day off; life is so hard for this man.

Being serious: if the game is telling us that Aventurine is a victim... Why not make him the perfect victim?

Why not envision an Aventurine with no freedom, who bears no responsibility for any of the horrible situations he is in or any of the dubious things he does?

It's so natural to like that version of Aventurine, so appealing to see a totally powerless underdog use his own wits and charms to claw his way up to freedom. Or, if you're the kind who really relishes angst: It's even appealing to see Aventurine lose more. To delight in fics where he loses his wealth, where the IPC punishes him for past crimes while he's powerless to stop them... (I assure you, this is many people's cup of tea and the fanfics prove it!)

Ultimately, there's nothing wrong with liking characters who are exactly this straightforward! It's completely fine to embrace characters that are intentionally written to be morally above-board, whose primary role in the story is to generate angst by being a good person who suffers, or those characters who never show unlikable traits, bad decisions, or contradictory actions.

The problem is that that's just not who the game is telling us Aventurine is.

Hoyo may be capitalizing off people who love to envision poor Aventurine still living his life as a slave... But the game also needs to tell a complicated enough story overall to appeal to people who don't care about this specific husbando--Aventurine's role in the actual game's plot has to be interesting enough for almost everyone to appreciate it, not just Aventurine's simp squad. (Don't get mad, I'm in the simp squad with you.)

So his character doesn't stop at just being a pure-hearted victim who is still waiting to be saved.

Aventurine is not that easy to label, and I think the biggest struggle in this character's fandom right now is between people who prefer the even-more-angsty, still-a-slave Aventurine versus people who want a morally grey, self-destructive character instead.

To me personally, while I greatly understand the appeal of fanon!Aventurine and the joy of a really juicy angst fic where characters lose it all, I think that missing out on the depth that canon is suggesting would be a real loss on the fandom's part.

The character motivations that Aventurine shows in the game are complicated. They cancel each other out. They're basically self-harm! He makes almost every situation he's in worse for himself--on purpose.

He is a good person, but also a person who has done unspeakable things. He does have morals, but he's not above allowing those who don't have them to use him to their advantage.

He's both the victim and the victor. He's his own worst enemy. He's a lost little boy who's been making terrible decisions for himself since he was like eight years old, and a grown ass man who is barely managing to fake his way through an existence that destiny is not letting him quit.

This kind of character is a lot harder to embrace. He's done things that most people would find appalling--like willingly joining up with the organization that let his entire race be massacred. He's invented a whole new peacock persona to frivolously flaunt riches he doesn't even care about (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 101). He actively plays into racist stereotypes about his people to manipulate others through their preconceived expectations. He's made a mockery of his mother's and sister's hopes and dreams by endlessly trying to throw his own life away.

He has flaws! He bet everything he had on a ploy without doing his homework to find out if the people he was risking his life for were even still around. (Maybe he already knew, and couldn't bear to admit it, even to himself.) He's intentionally off-putting and obnoxious to everyone he meets (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 102). He terrifies everyone who gets close to him by (seemingly) carelessly throwing himself into the jaws of death without the slightest provocation.

He knowingly allows the IPC to exploit his power and talents for profit. Did everyone forget that his role in the Strategic Investment Department is asset liquidation?! Like, his actual day-to-day job is ruining people's lives. Canonically, Aventurine kills people when his deals go bad.

His motivations change off-screen in two lines of story text. We're told in one line that his biggest reason for joining the IPC was to make money to save the Avgin, then in the next line we find out that's impossible. And... then what? What motivations does he even have now? The whole point of his character arc from 2.0-2.1 is that he was on the edge of giving in to utter despair and nihilism because he couldn't even perceive a single reason to stay alive. He has no purpose in life before Penacony, and that didn't start with the Stonehearts at all??

People keep saying Aventurine was held in the IPC by golden handcuffs, but how do you tie down someone for whom profit is meaningless? What can you offer to a man whose only desire is to bring back something already lost forever? How do you imprison someone whose only definition of freedom is, canonically, death?

Working for the Stonehearts is obviously not healthy. But that's why Aventurine was doing it--because taking dangerous missions allowed him to put himself at risk. The job that he originally pursued hoping to save his people became a direct means to self-harm, and the IPC's only real role in that was just happily profiting off the results.

The journal entries for Aventurine's quests are there deliberately to tell the player what is on his mind, and none of it has to do with escaping from his job:

Like... Work is the least of this man's problems.

At really the risk of rambling on too long now, he's also just a massive walking contradiction:

Aventurine is among the most explicitly religious characters in the game, yet he's one of the only people in the entire game that we have ever seen actively question his people's aeon.

You might be tempted to think Aventurine's risky gambles with his life as an adult are a result of giving up after finding out about the Avgin massacre... Butttt no, Hoyo makes sure to tell us that even at knee-high in the Sigonian desert, Kakavasha was already willing to risk himself in a fight to the death against monsters because even back then he found his own life to have less value than a single memento.

He's the "chosen one" who will lead his people to prosperity... except they're all dead.

He's explicitly suicidal... andddd also a pathstrider of Preservation.

He wants to die... He doesn't want to die. He wants to make it end, yet goes to staggering lengths to continually survive. (Every plan risks his life on purpose--but every plan's win condition is also to live.) He life is the chip tossed down, but his hand is trembling beneath the table. When faced with an otherwise unsurvivable situation, Aventurine literally became a winner of the Hunger Games. He beat other innocent people to death with his own chain-bound hands just to come out alive.

He knows the IPC failed the Avgin and left them to die... and he still willingly sought out a position of power in their organization. Maybe he really is after revenge... but maybe not.

He starts his journey in the IPC with a truly noble goal in mind: to help his people using his newfound wealth and power. He's a good guy who did genuinely want to save the Avgin and repay all those who helped him. But once it became clear he was too late, once it was obvious he would have no use at all for that monetary wealth and power he risked his life to get... What did he do with it? Unlike Jade, we don't see him over here donating to orphanages. (I'm not that heartless; I'm sure he does actually do a lot of good things with his money on the side, but the point is that the game does not show us that--it shows us, over and over again, Aventurine putting on a wasteful, over-indulgent persona toward wealth. We've supposed to feel how meaningless money is to him, how meaningless everything is becoming to him.)

He outright refuses to use underhanded tactics or to cheat at gambles, which is meant to show us that's he's more morally upright than his coworkers. There's an entire exchange where he says that he'll never stoop to using manipulation the way Opal does. But... he doesn't have any issue fulfilling Opal's exact agenda. He was never remotely morally conflicted about denying the Penaconians their freedom by dragging Penacony back under IPC control.

He's willing to risk his own life, which is one thing--but he's also willing to risk other people's well-being. Topaz accuses him of constantly egging their clients on into dangerous situations; we've actively seen him shove a gun into Ratio's hands and pull the trigger with no care for how Ratio would feel about that on their very first meeting... Dragging the Astral Express crew into the entire Penacony plan in the first place was exceedingly dangerous...

To me, I just think it's vital to understand his character through the lens of these contradictions because they demonstrate the extreme polarity of Aventurine's life: from rags to riches, from powerless to empowered by multiple aeons, from willing to kill to survive to killing himself... He has quite literally lived a life of "all or nothing," and while he is the victim of many terrible situations out of his control, his arc as a character involves facing the truth of himself and the future his own actions are hurtling him toward.

Frankly, the Aventurine that canon is suggesting is a little annoying. You want to grab him by the shoulders, shake him, and say "Why are you like this?!" And he won't even have an answer for you, because he doesn't even know why he's still alive.

In the end, to me, this is so, so much more interesting. I can read an endless supply of hurt-comfort fics where Aventurine escapes the evil IPC and Ratio is there to fill the void in his life with the power of love and catcakes and be a perfectly happy clam online, but I want canon to continue to serve us this incredible mess of a man who constantly takes one step forward and two steps back.

Who is fully aware of his role as a cog in the grotesque profit-wheel of cosmic capitalism and still manages to say he never changed from the rags-wearing desert rat of the Sigonian wastes.

Who over and over again flirts with nihility but, ultimately, even if he has to wrest it from the grip of the gods themselves with bloody, chain-bound hands, chooses life.

[izzyspussy]

the fact that they made it illegal to make ads louder than programs on tv in 2010 but haven't updated it to apply the same regulation to streaming. who do i have to call.

[jewreallythinkthat]

The most moderate, nuanced and productive people I have discussed the Israel-Hamas war with have been Jews, Israelis, and people with Palestinian family. Everyone directly affected by this just wants it to stop and to have peace and safety in the region in a way that minimises the casualty count.

The most extreme and performative and vile things I've been told are by people who have no connection to this and like to think they are experts because they have covered adjacent topics during learning, or read stuff online.

If all the randos in the west would just shut up for ten minutes and let those of us actually affected, with an understanding of the history of the land and the culture and the generational trauma experienced by Jews and Palestinians alike talk, we might actually have a chance to salvage this and stop it spiraling

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

MDZS Equineswap 2: The girls are here too

[Horse-side of the swap]

[stevenslittleshop]

Constantly stuck between “Arthur and Merlin were still just boys, they were best friends with the whole world against them” and “they were in LOVE. They were ROMANTICALLY ATTRACTED to each other”

[waterlilyvioletfog]

No but you don’t understand. The storytelling of the flashbacks to Cassian’s life as Kassa on Kenari. The fact that we get no translations for the language, but everything we need to know is communicated to us anyway. We understand which kids are In Charge, we see the leader’s prudence, how she commands respect, her generosity in allowing Kassa to join. We see the ritual of the marking application. We see jewelry, bowls, cups, toys— and weapons, though we don’t realize exactly what kind they are until they are needed, but used too late. We don’t know what the last thing Kassa said to Kerri was. We know exactly what he said. The green of the forest, the yellows greens and oranges of the kids’ clothing. The older kids stepping over a log, but Kassa, the youngest and smallest and last of the pack, swings his legs over sitting down. The shot panning from the green of the forest to the dead land near the mining site. The shot of Kassa overlooking the ridge where the mining happens. The total saturation of Kassa’s world— the color, the teeming life, the grime. Contrasted with the world of the Republic-soon-to-be-Empire, which is dead, cold, grey and black and artificial red. Glassy and clean. Literally and metaphorically surrounded by death, Kassa is the only alive thing on that ship. His shirt is the same color as the dead crew’s faces. The pop of color of the Andors: Maarva and Clem’s bickering, their bright clothes, Bee’s shiny paint, Maarva’s bright hair. Theirs are the first words chronologically that the audience can understand. Kassa can’t. Maarva kidnaps a frightened, angry, child with a community— on a whim. After the event itself, the fact that she kidnapped him is never discussed. Two people were lost to that band of kids: their leader and their straggler. Cassian is still looking for his sister. Cassian keeps going home and promising he’ll be back. Kassa never returns to Kenari.

[mournmourn]

Lots of people have already pointed this out, but Ruoska seems to be a play on their careers and their public image. The song disguises itself as an expression of kinkier desires with the chorus and snippets of the verses' lyrics. And them, since they both express themselves within these themes in the media from time to time. The music video balances this by not being explicit at all, instead it's all about the scrutiny of being a public figure.

Listening to the lyrics and seeing the mv, my impression of the song is that its message isn't actually about expression of sxual freedom, but taking twisted pleasure from being torn to shreds by the media. Because if your image has unconventional aspects, that's sharkbait to peoples opinions, especially when you've gained fame.

With that, I cant' help but wonder, if it was intentional to promo the song first and foremost as sxual? Because that's the shallow top-layer people love to stay on, and if there's no deeper dive into the message, that's what people will criticize and comment on?

Which would make it fucking hilarious that they went on with the photoshoots and iltalehti interview about "being explicit" since that's exactly what that trash magazine will focus on solely.

[eight-littlenightmares]

idk if this is controversial or not but i very firmly believe that the statements “being born and raised/socialized biologically female presents a very specific kind of oppression that people who aren’t biologically female haven’t experienced” and “trans women are women and should be included in feminism” can (and should!!) coexist.

there are going to be differences in experience and that is ok. it is basic intersectionality.

trans women also experience different kinds of oppression that cis women do not experience!! intersectionality!!!

we do not have to tear down trans women to be a feminist. and we do not have to tear down feminists to support trans women. ALL women (cis and trans!!) are impacted by misogyny, and instead of tearing each other down we should SUPPORT each other and tear down the systems that oppress us all!!

just my two cents. i also believe that radical feminism doesn’t have to be trans-exclusionary.

[ciitrusbeetle]

public reminder that religion doesn't belong in politics and if you use your religion to impose your political views youre a piece of shit

[bluelabratory]

dani but instead of just seeing the world in present day she gets to see it in the past AND the future too. how cool is that

[geekyzebraweirdo]

Vintage Misha doing the rounds as he should

So people have been (re)discovering Misha stills from the 2007 TV Movie

Misha is BÉBÉ and also looks obscenely hot. Sadly don't know if the movie is available for streaming anywhere, but I have!

This lovely collection of promotional photos and stills from the movie

This super cute Misha gif

This very short clip! (not in the best resolution, but still!)

Enjoy!!

[pomieszanesny]

Okay this is something I feel like needs to be very public knowlege about me: I absolutly ADORE Cellbit's facial expressions. He looks so silly, I love it, but also my autistic ass loves people who are very expressive and Cellbit is exactly that

[furoruisa]

A sapphic lead like Kitty is such a good thing. I love it but I'm already seeing people being like "it doesn't make sense she likes girls" "I love Minho so I hope this is a phase" first of I also like Minho but saying that? You're showing the kind of person you are

[necrotic-nephilim]

What do think about dick/talia

so Talia is one of those tricky characters for me where i read all the wrong content for her to begin with.so for the longest time i had a piss poor understanding of her and i'm still trying to. rectify that, Grant Morrison when i catch your ass-

but i do have a newfound love for her and i think she and Dick have an interesting relationship. bc they can't stand each other. so i do see the potential for shipping them! i wouldn't say it's a ship i seek out to would ever personally write, but if a fic/art/concept using the ship was top-notch, i would absolutely be into it.

bc there's a lot of fun stuff to play with for them. these two do not get along in canon and it always seems to be such a personal hatred, it's so funny. they dislike working together the rare times they do and tend to be at odds for the typical reasons you'd expect like morality and all. but they always seem to respect each other, which is the fun of it. i love an enemies to lovers situation that's rooted in respect. i think my favorite version of this ship would be the Pre-Crisis version, bc they just always seemed to have issues, usually fighting over Bruce. it's so antagonistic and i love that.

and of course, the fun of it is where Damian falls. because Talia and Dick are both parental to Damian, but clearly have wildly different opinions on what raising Damian should look like. so it'd cause interesting conflict if they were dating how they would be forced to find a middle ground and Damian's just. stuck in the middle. honestly Damian's reaction to their relationship could be fun in general, bc i do think it'd send him through all the stages of grief at once.

all in all, i think there's a ton of nuance that would make a really fun ship, whether you played it straight or took it in a dead dove direction. forcing these two together and seeing them slowly fall for each other is absolutely in character for both of them. tbh if Talia wasn't created to be Bruce's love interest, she and Dick probably would've kissed by now. they do always have an interesting tension when they're on page together. i could see Talia getting obsessed with Dick in a way- his purity, the way he's a virtuous light to the entirety of the hero community. how she would try to get him to see her side could be a lot of fun in a corruption kink sort of way. lots of potential for these two.

[immabitqueer]

Some of y'all like to act like lmm is not an experienced stage and film actor