#this is not DISCOURSE do not diminish this by calling it DISCOURSE

[syscurse]

Parts language isn't for everyone. That's fine.

But the framework behind parts language is something I think all systems and plural people can relate to.

Seeing your system as one whole comprised of parts tells you that you are not alone. You aren't broken...you belong. Everyone in your system is an equally important, necessary, and real part of it. Everyone. Even the alters you don't get along with, the ones that you're ashamed of, the ones that hurt you or others, etc.

Some people see "parts of a whole" and feel like that dehumanizes them or diminishes their personhood. And that's okay. You're allowed to feel that way. We all have terms that we dislike. You have every right to set boundaries about what terms you do/don't want to be used towards you.

BUT! That's not how it is for everyone. Being seen as a part of something is not universally negative or dehumanizing.

For me, and many others I know, parts language does the exact opposite. It makes us feel more real and deeply connected to our systems. It was so profoundly important for me to discover parts language. Parts language is what helped me finally start to understand and accept that my system was real.

I also used to have some parts who didn't feel like "separate people." They felt more like facets of myself, like being in a different mode. Parts language made them feel safe and understood. Seeing discourse over parts language made them feel ashamed, like they would never be accepted by the online community.

Some people think that calling system members "parts" is the opposite of calling them "people," but my system has never felt that way. In therapy, I often switch between these two ways of speaking about my experiences. They're not mutually exclusive for everyone.

Anyways, I just wanted to share a few thoughts on this. I hope that you all have a lovely day. Drink water, take your meds, use the words that make you happiest, and take care!

[sherbertilluminated]

Last night I was talking with my friends @teefigotem and @calypsopond about the pacing of the musical Les Miserables. I think Les Mis' libretto is one of the best foundations for a musical out there, but the first act has so much more plot and more iconic songs than the second, and I worry that top-heavy structure diminishes the ultimate impact of the uprising in the second act.

Caly and Maddy agreed that the 2012 film adaption had the right idea when it swapped the positions of "Do you Hear the People Sing" and "One day More." Transplanting the former to the beginning of Act 2 maintains the balance of revolutionary fervor (and iconic songs) between the two acts, and a serves as a payoff to the tension at the end of Act 1. While "Upon these Stones/Building the Barricade" begins Act 2 in the current libretto, it's high on exposition and low on enthusiasm. Since "Do You Hear the People Sing" has become an international revolutionary anthem, making it the opening of the uprising, rather than the prelude to it, builds on *ahem* that connection.

Just picture it: the audience returns to their seats, the orchestra hums with tension, and the lights go up on a somber street with a single voice—Enjolras, probably—singing. Students emerge from the set, workers join in, the turntable starts turning and it becomes clear that soon a barricade will be built in the street. The subsequent Marius/Eponine conversation that transitions into "On my Own" would still probably work here. In the span of fifteen minutes, the thesis statement of the revolting students turns into the reveal of the final barricade. It'd be pretty damn rousing, right?

The potential problem with this change is the lacuna it would leave behind. In the current structure of Les Miserables, "Do you Hear the People Sing" is an elaboration on Enjolras' claim that "they will come when we call!" and going directly from that rallying cry to a quiet romantic interlude flattens the rhetorical tension between romantic love and revolution "Red and Black" and makes Mairus seem a little silly (which, to be fair, he is. But Enjolras is not.) Although "Do You Hear the People Sing" is a little too bombastic for Act 1, before the uprising actually begins, there's still got to be some kind of transition. Something needs to foreshadow the violence to come. But what?

I proposed that the best transition would be a reprise of Stars. And that Eponine should get to sing it.

Since the Broadway premiere of the musical Les Miserables in 1987 and especially following the 2012 film adaptation, Eponine's character has been a locus for fandom attention and discourse. Because she's really compelling: despite being the daughter of the selfish, abusive Thenardier, she devotes her life to protecting Marius and ultimately sacrifices it for him. But the closest she ever gets to being understood is by the audience; even Marius, one of two people in the show to be kind to her (the other being Valjean), doesn't really understand the full extent of her devotion to him. And that devotion is powerful, whether as a proxy for audience members' own experiences with unrequited love or a representation of the bourgeousie's reliance on unacknowleged suffering. There's a lot going on with her in the musical. But there's even more to her in the Brick.

Unlike my esteemed Les Mis mutuals I'm definitely not informed enough to do original analysis, but I'm a big fan of the Javert/Eponine wolfdog theory. My introduction to it was with this post by @pilferingapples, although I don't know whether it originated somewhere else. The theory posits that Javert and Eponine, who are both compared to wolfish dogs for their ferocity and devotion to their idiosyncratic systems of morality, are character foils who represent the limited choices offered to people excluded from. I definitely don't know the op who suggested they trade methods of death (if anyone does, please let me know!) but that's also in the Brick. And while the musical adaptation doesn't preserve Hugo's canine/lupine symbolism, it keeps Eponine's one-sided committment to guarding Marius. And it keeps Javert's devotion to the institution of Law.

"Stars" is the hymn of that devotion. It's more sinister than Eponine's love for Marius, but in the grand scheme of things it's just as pathetic. Giving a short reprise of that song to Eponine not only explicates that parallel and gives new life to relatively-unused musical motif, it has the potential to tie together the action of the first act and add a new dimension to subsequent scenes.

Imagine if, instead of beginning "Do You Hear the People Sing" immediately after "Red and Black" or transitioning directly to the Rue Plumet, the scene changes to the outside of the ABC cafe. On the other side of the turntable/wall, Eponine is waiting. And worrying. She knows her father's going to rob a house tonight and that the girl Marius asked her to find lives there*. She can't let her father hurt him. She's smarter than him. She'll do whatever it takes to keep him safe, she swears—not to God or the stars, as Javert does, but to herself. The promise is shocking, because the audience heard that melody two songs ago and are just now discovering there is another way to be. There is another vow that can be made.

While she's singing, the ABC society files out the door. Maybe some hand out pamphlets or chat with people on the street. If the production wants to emphasize Eponine and Gavroche secret sibling bond, maybe they interact a little. But no one pays her too much mind. No one ever does.

The last person to emerge is Marius, looking a bit shaken. The timeline of the students' plans has been unexpectedly accelerated, he says. In case it's his last chance—nevermind why, 'Ponine, don't worry about me—he needs to see her once. You've found her, haven't you? Could you show me? Please? For my sake?

Consumed by shame and dread and the sense that he'll probably do something really stupid if she doesn't tag along, she agrees. And the stage begins to turn into the Rue Plumet, where "In my Life" begins. The whole interaction would take maybe two minutes.

There are of course thematic objections to this plan. There's the argument that "Stars" ought to be a unique, distinct song like "Bring Him Home." But those motifs are reused in instrumental form after Javert's and the students' respective deaths, so I don't necessarily think they're scene- or character-specific. There's also the argument that the melody of "Stars" is altogether too rigid for Eponine's character. I think there are a couple moments that would work quite well with the emotion("and if they fall as Lucifer fell," for example) but if you really don't want Javert's and Eponine's motif to cross, the melody of "A Little Fall of Rain" ("and you/I will keep me/you safe") could work for this moment too.

There's also the argument that Eponine already gets "too much" attention in the musical adaptation and doesn't need. But I don't know if that's true either. She interacts with Marius in several short scenes, she's present for "A Heart Full of Love" and "One Day More," she goes on her errand to Valjean, sings "On my Own," goes back to the barricade and dies shortly after. She gets about as much stagetime as Cosette does, and a little less than Marius.

It's true that she stands out as a character, but that's because she's got such interesting writing and is so isolated in the narrative. And while it's important to keep her "on [her] own," for the plot, using shared motifs to emphasize her symbolic similarities with other characters might make her character fit more cohesively into Les Miserables' grander thematic narrative. It could even make "On my Own" that much more powerful if she has a little hope that saving Marius from her father might get him to like her, and subsequently understands that this is not happening. But there's a lot more to her than being Marius' rejected best friend** and this choice has the potential to make that clear onstage.

In conclusion: moving "Do You Hear the People Sing" to the start of Act 2 letting Eponine do a wolfdog reprise of "Stars" between "Red and Black" and "In my Life" would be sick as fuck and maybe resolve some pacing issues in the libretto.

*There is a moment in the show where she realizes that she and Cosette grew up together. I like it in concept but it's a little awkwardly-placed and integrating it into the unnamed Red and Black/In my Life transition song would be great. Overall, her interactions with Marius seem like afterthoughts in between the larger numbers, which isn't fair to either of them.

**And for the record: this not a post pitting her against Cosette! They are both good characters and I wish the best for both of them!

[rey-jake-therapist]

There's a lot of discourse around shipping lately, treating the concept of shipping a female character (in this case, Galadriel) with a male character as "sexist". Those who say this kind of thing will argue that shipping is equal to treating the female character as "a side character" for a male character, who would be considered by the shipper as the most important character of the two. For the record, this post is inspired particularly by a Reddit post, but I've read these takes many times.

Excerpt of said Reddit post :

People in this fandom center Galadriels entire character around the men she interacts with. Every time she speaks to a man, there is a group of people who start shipping her with that man. It's not even funny anymore how some people here can't talk about her character without bringing up some guy who she interacted with. And this is especially frustrating because a lot of these discussions push her into the wife role. She is "married to Sauron" she is "married to Adar" the ring she wears is totally an "engagement ring". Even though there are two men who also received rings and I don't see anyone calling their rings engagement rings. And then there are some discussions that are downright disgusting, especially the "the stab she received from Sauron is a metaphor for penetration," and I don't mind discussing that. What I have an issue with is the romanticizing of that moment. Because Sauron also stabbed Celebrimbor, but people don't have an issue calling out how fucked up that scene was. It's almost like people are treating her like an accessory to men, when the show doesn't even do that. One of the strongest relationships in season one in my opinion was her relationship to Miriel. But I barely see people talk about that.

Notice how this person says with their whole chest that they're all for the kinky stuff, but not for the romantic stuff; this screams like a person who reads Saurondriel smut in secret, but clutches their pearls as soon as there are feelings involved because "uh, he's evil !".

To see the whole thread, click here. Notice that there are some very intelligent reactions to this claim, proving once again that Reddit is not completely lost. At least, this sub in particular isn't.

I won't start dwelling on the fact that this trend which consists in claiming that romance somehow diminishes a female character is getting very old, it won't be the subject of this post. Others have already breached this subject in a much more articulate way than I could ever do.

When people say they don't like that people ship Galadriel, it almost always means, "we don't like her being shipped with Sauron, yikes". I mean, let's be real : the most popular ship, is, by far, Haladriel. We're the ones being "sexist" here . Tbf with this person, they mentioned other ships as well so I will give them the benefice of doubts. It's also clear that they can't take a joke, because I never saw any shipper, being Haladriel or else, who was serious when they called Galadriel "X's wife", but whatever.

But even if we were serious, what's sexist about that, exactly ? If she's "Sauron's wife", for example, doesn't that make Sauron "Galadriel's husband" as well ? Why is shipping always called out for making the female character "an accessory to the male character", and never as making the male character an accessory to the female character ?Why is it considered reducing towards Galadriel, but not towards Sauron/Adar/Elrond ? Do the male characters gain somehow more than female characters at being shipped ?

The same question can be asked about the sexualization of the characters : it's always considered "outrageous" and "sexist" to sexualize female characters, even when it's done by women (which is almost always the case, in the context of shipping), but generally okay to sexualize male characters, why ? Because male characters supposedly have "the power" in the dynamics, based on their gender ?

I mean, I just find these ideas very reductive.

Now on the subject of Galadriel always being "connected to male characters". Well, first, sorry, but Galadriel doesn't get to spend much time around other female characters, in the show. And even in the books written by Tolkien, errrrr...?? This person mentions Galadriel's relationship with Miriel, that no one talks about. Well, I would love for Galadriel and Miriel to have interacted more, but the fact is that most of her interactions were with Halbrand/Sauron, in season 1. She indeed had an interesting connection with Miriel, but the show dedicated so little time on it that it leaves not much to discuss, really.

And in season 2, it's even more simple: she doesn't interact with any other female character. There's a female Elf in the company who leaves Lindon for Eregion, but the writers didn't even give her a line until episode 7, and when they did they killed her off 10 sec after she opens her mouth for the first time. If she had a good relationship with Galadriel, we have no other choice but imagining it. So, yes, we discuss Galadriel's relationship with men, because this show is very male-centric. And Tolkien's world itself is very male-centric, as a matter of fact. That the fans, and the shippers in particular, are blamed for that is really something.

I would LOVE for other female characters, albeit non canon characters, to be introduced in the show and to interact with Galadriel. I would LOVE Galadriel to have a female best friend, or even a female rivale, an enemy, a colleague, whatever ! And if I hope that Galadriel will return to Numenor, and I think she will because it was hinted more than once (her vision in the Palantir identical to Miriel's, and Miriel's promise to Galadriel that Numenor will return, which could imply Galadriel's involvement), it's also because I want Miriel and Galadriel to resume their relationship. They'd have much to talk about, it'd be great !

Now I'd like to discuss Haladriel in particular, or more generally, Galadriel's relationship with Sauron. Another thing that bothers me with this discourse is that according to this person and many others, too much importance is given to this relationship, wether it's considered romantic or not. "Too much importance" ? Hello ? It's literally this relationship that led to all the events that followed ! In show!canon, I mean, not in the Tolkien lore. From now on, everything I'll write will be related to the show!canon, unless I specify otherwise.

I find very strange, to say the least, to feel criticized because I talk about Galadriel and Sauron, while the entirety of season was built around their relationship : even before they meet, she's obsessede with him. They meet on the sea, she saves him, they are brought to Numenor, they're thrown in jail together, Galadriel insists he's a lost king, he says nay, then he changes his mind, they fight together in the Southlands, she stops him from killing Adar, he does the same with her, they share a moment in the forest, she brings him to Eregion to heal him, then boom, she learns he's Sauron, they fight, and he leaves. And yes, Galadriel gets to interact with other characters, including Miriel, but c'mon now : the first season of this show has made Galadriel and Sauron's relationship the center of it all. Not just Galadriel, no ! Almost everything she does and says is related to Sauron. Is it our fault ? Is it the shippers fault, if the story was written this way ?

And don't get me started on all the sexual and romantic innuendos, that the tenants of this discourse are always prone to deny. "There was nothing romantic in their interactions !", "They were just friends !", "they were just political partners !". Sure, Jan. These innuendos were definitely present, the sexual tension was always present (and for God's sake, no, it wasn't the actors who wanted to jump each other, it was A-C-T-I-N-G). The writers and the directors wanted the audience to think there was, at the very least, a mutual attraction.

In season 2, Galadriel and Sauron barely interacted but they were constantly thinking of each other, especially Galadriel. Again, is it the fans' fault if they saw that and commented on a relationship that was broken, and yet still very present within the narrative ? Is it the shippers' fault if the writers decided to picture Galadriel as an ex lover in pain because her lover deceived her (or a friend deceibed by a fake friend, if that's how you interpret it !) ? Was it the shippers' decision to doll up an Elf woman as a discount Galadriel, so Sauron wouldn't take a break in his obsession for Galadriel ? No, again, it was the writing.

And actually, it makes sense that the writing spent so much time on this relationship in season 2, and will probably continue in season 3, 4 and 5 even if some of you firmly believe that Galadriel "shut the door" for good on him and will never see him or speak to him again. Because we know, this time from the Tolkien lore, that Sauron never stopped trying to grope to see her and her thought :

“I say to you Frodo that even as I speak to you I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or all of his mind that concerns elves, and he gropes ever to see me and my thought but still the door is closed.”

It was literally the showrunners idea that Galadriel and Sauron must have had a sort of a relationship, based on this quote. Putting Galadriel and Sauron in a situationship was never a second thought !

It was meant to be important in the show, and it will remain important, because if it was what started this particular story told by the show, and it will probably be what will finish it as well.

To conclude : I understand why people don't all like Saurondriel... I understand why these same people don't understand why they are shipped, it's perfectly valid. But blaming the fans, and the shippers in particular, for talking so much about Galadriel's connection with Sauron, is speaking in bad faith, or being media illeterate because the writers WANT us to talk about it.

[flanpucci]

Hello and welcome to my TED talk today I have decided to write a wall of text about why portraying Dio and Pucci’s relationship as manipulation is actually taking a lot out of Pucci’s agency and character, and diminishing him. Disclaimer that this is not shipping discourse, this is media analysis. I don’t want to talk about whether it is moral or not that they get along, I don’t care, I only want to comment on the media.

So someone sent me a DM telling me that Dio was manipulating an emotionally distraught and vulnerable Pucci into following his plan, and that he exploited him to do all sorts of crimes (framing Jolyne, killing people, stealing discs) by presenting himself as a trustworthy, God-like figure, and called the Heaven plan ‘Heaven’ to get Pucci to follow it by exploiting his religious beliefs.

First of all Dio met Pucci before he was distraught about his sister's situation. After the situation occurred, it is Pucci who seeked him for answers as to why he was alive and not his sibling/s, like he seeked answers from God a few years before by becoming a priest student. Dio left a door open, nothing more. Of course Dio was seeking to be admired, he was also seeking companionship as he has always done ever since he was young, and someone to carry his plan. Pucci was looking for answers, for self-growth, for someone to push him towards the top, towards what he believes is the destiny that was designed for him (the reason he’s alive and not his twin).

Is it forbidden to look for something in someone? Does it make it not genuine? No, we all look for something in a friendship. And this seemed like a fair deal for both. One needs a trusted friend, an ally, but not a blind follower, and as we’ll see later, he needs someone to help him transcend his human? vampire? condition again. The other one needs a reason to live, a quest to fulfill, and hope that he could one day obtain the ‘happiness’ and ‘peace of mind’ that Dio wants so much too. He’s also someone who strives for greatness, who wants to ‘step outside human boundaries’.

Not forgetting that Pucci is someone fueled by a profound curiosity and rationality, it is only natural that he’d side with someone who has the abilities and ambition Dio has. Framing Jolyne, killing people, stealing discs, it is all out of Pucci's agency, long after the death of Dio. He's actually the one who suggested he could store and use Survivor, and he’s the one who asked for it! Dio thought Survivor was useless, that it was only a weakness, and Pucci convinced him with the idea that it could be prove itself useful.

Pucci is shown to have ‘lost’ faith in Christianity very early on, maybe not really having true religious belief at all (as in, the actually believing there’s a God sense.) He got into priesthood for philosophical reasons (seeking answers to an existential question). He seems to be a very pragmatic christian with interests in science that contradicts some of the scripture’s theories.

I don't think calling the plan ‘Heaven’ was a bait based on Pucci's religious beliefs. Over Heaven isn't canon, but it shows Dio having a very Christian mother. He's an intelligent man, born in a very christian time and place, and thought ‘Heaven’ was the name of the kingdom promised to the legitimate ruler of the world, himself. If anything the first time they meet he makes it very clear they're not striving for anything Bible related but for realizing their full potential and finding happiness.

Dio saw very early on that Pucci was not a very faithful catholic, judging by the book he's reading when they meet in the ossuary, and then Pucci commiting crimes even before seeing Dio again (hiring someone to beat up his brother, leaving his brother as dead). He then commits blasphemy by calling him King of Kings and comparing his love to the one he has for God. Pucci does not think of Dio as the christian God, he loves him as he loves God, but he's not blind and misled. He refers to him with proximity terms all throughout the manga (even when he's young), never used honorifics like the henchmen do, calls him 'kimi' (casual/informal ‘you’), 'my close friend'.

Even Dio uses ‘kimi’ instead of the ‘omae’ that shows inferiority that he uses with Vanilla for example. In the way they talk to/about each other, they're protrayed as equals, which once again is very unusual for Dio. All throughout their scenes Dio is shown slightly seductive at first, then not as overtly seducing as he usually is, he’s talking about the plan, and strategy (even though he still maintains physical contact, I mean, it’s still Dio), and then seems to relax progressively by doing activities and chit-chatting, to the point of Dio becoming paranoid that his weakness is known. Yes, Dio was pretty nice and not as big an asshole as usual because he needed someone for the plan, but what did he need? A "friend that he can trust from the bottom of his heart" (信頼できる友), so he tried to make one by not being an asshole, and guess what? He did! And he got scared that he managed to do so, because it's freaking Dio lol. Dio’s life has only been him trying to show dominance, and facing rejection. Heck he was rejected and degraded even when he won that chess game against an adult in the first minutes of the show. But everyone wants friends for a reason! Be it not to be alone, to be loved, to have someone to talk to about certain topics... And we all make efforts and try to be nice to make friends. That's not manipulation that's called not being a dysfunctional piece of shit like Dio usually was shown to be before he met Pucci. Why was he different with Pucci? I'm bringing up the parallel with the Jonathan and Dio scene which really shows that Dio hasn't changed and is acting the way he always has, testing people, he just has never been met with trust and acceptance, only with rejection, unlike what Pucci has done from their first meeting and after :

Scene plays out very similarly at first, except that this time Dio hasn’t done anything wrong, but he was expecting to be betrayed and wasn’t, which led him to get paranoid and set up Pucci so that he’d attack him, which he didn’t. And what did Dio do? Apologize and give him a part of what's literally the most important thing he has, 'his' body.

The fact that Pucci kept his 'sentimentality' towards his friend (I quote), his obsessive affection for Dio, and hope in his plan for such a long time is easily understandable, he had everything to win from Dio's plan (which is very different from nothing to lose, he has quite a lot to lose!). He could be cleansed from his sin, or at least put everyone on his level, be granted the reward of unconditional love, he could grow to a close to godly status or be a messiah carrying god's will (be special, push the boundaries of being human), and maybe, just maybe revive his loved ones too. He could rewrite his destiny at best, and at worst, obtain peace of mind. If anything helping Dio might even have been an excuse for Pucci to lie to himself about his real intentions with this plan (unconsciously : finally accomplishing his destiny of being special over his sibling and basically everyone else, consciously : giving everyone the chance to prepare for tragedy + opening everyone's eyes to the fact that what he did, cause his sister's death, was not really his fault since it was written by fate all along.)

Now if you really have a high esteem of Dio's intelligence you can argue that he did it all on purpose, he gave out his weakness on purpose to mellow Pucci, he called the plan Heaven to cater to Pucci's faith, he talked him into doing crimes, pretended to feel equal/inferior so that Pucci would give him his trust... But 1) Dio's not that good at it, has too big trust issues himself and has other means for submitting people to his will (as seen with Kakyoin, Polnareff...), 2) it's literally written this has to be built on trust which in my opinion completely disqualifies a manipulation aspect to it. Of course there are many other sources that further the idea that they were really friends, I'm thinking about how their relationship is described in interviews or the Jojo Mag, but I wanted this post to focus on canon interpretation.

Thank you for reading my essay, I’m always happy to chat and comment on the dynamics between characters in the material. I am not willing to talk about morality or shipping discourse here so please refrain from sending me such comments.

[breached-containment-script]

So the scarring discourse is still going.

No, characters keeping scars does not automatically equate to that being torture porn. In this context, fans clearly intend it in a way that says "even if you end up with physical marks, it doesn't diminish you". Or is Aang getting scarred torture porn too? Or do you think things like Mortal Engines movie shrinking the female lead's facial damage to a minimum "spared her of physical trauma"? No, it was afraid of depicting something deemed "ugly" and it's a huge disservice to real people who look like she was described in the book.

The topic was not handled super well in ATLA. Katara's wounds got healed leaving no trace on her, on her psyche nor on how she views Aang which is not just unrealistic, but you can literally feel in the show Katara having to go "no Aang it's ok, I'm fine, you don't have to beat yourself up over it, I'm healed, let it go Aang, it's not your fault," it is too much. It would have been much stronger had the burns left some mark, even a tiny one, because then Aang's reluctance to practice firebending would have made more sense and all characters would have gotten a more solid demonstration that the Avatar can be dangerous too. It would have been a wakeup call to Katara that Aang isn't a completely harmless kid she can always shield and protect. That's character development! This would have been a more powerful moment in the progression of their relationship, especially after they sort it out and Aang learns safe firebending later on, because they'd have a more real problem to overcome rather than just Aang's guilt.

Again, show didn't frame things too cleverly - there's no heightened moment of perhaps Katara being extremely happy that she discovered a part of her lost Southern waterbending heritage (just remember her behaviour with Hama, there's none of that here). The show just removes her wounds, she's confused about the ability, and this leads to Jeong Jeong making a point about how fire is wild and destructive. The whole segment ends with removing the source of the problem (wounds) and is about how evil fire is. Aang ends up being traumatized anyway, he isn't less traumatized because Katara's wounds didn't scar.

The point is - Katara gets nothing character-building out of this event, even though it made her cry and cradle her arms for several minutes on screen. Because of this her burns could be considered torture-porn (slightly). Her discovering healing abilities is not a reward she got exclusively because she suffered the burns, she could have discovered it by accidentally hurting herself, or healing someone else. Imagine if Aang hurt himself by being reckless and Katara discovering she could heal him? What she should have gotten out of specifically being burned by Aang, is a changed view of him. I don't mean her viewing him negatively, but taking a step back and both learning they should be more careful. Who said zutara stans want Katara getting scarred by Aang in order to make Aang a villain in this? He literally cannot be a villain here, he made a big mistake by being careless. It's got nothing to do with zutara. It's not helpful to misinterpret some storytelling tools that have nothing to do with shipping, just to prevent them from creating some later story hooks which could potentially be used in shipping a NOTP. Heck, Katara getting scarred could even be used (with skilled writing) in shipping her with Aang - like zutara fans use Katara being angry at Zuko and expecting him to demonstrate that he wouldn't betray or hurt them again.

And if you have a distaste for two happy friendly characters hurting each other on accident, that's fine, but well I have a scar on my arm from my brother's scratch that happened on accident. These things happen and stories shouldn't be scared of portraying it, especially if later on they show how to make ammends and overcome the problem. I'm not saying "Katara should definitely have kept her scars!!!" I am showing narrative weak points and suggestions how things could have been done differently, what benefits it could have had character-wise and what that might have changed.

[sjmgirlie]

I’m sorry. I try not to be rude about people’s ships because well you have fun with what you like and I’m totally okay with that. But the discourse about the Blood Rite and Hybern camp is hilarious.

Of course Cassian was freaking out knowing his mate was in the BR. A completely normal reaction when you have strong feelings/a bond with someone. Did Azriel? No. Was he still furious at the mention that the women he is training are in harms way? Of course??? Contrary to popular believe, Azriel actually exhibits way more protectiveness over the females in his life than any other character in ACOTAR:

Mor - Eris calls her a slut and he literally almost chokes him to death. Always protective of her in Court of Nightmares and around Eris.

Feyre - be careful how you speak about my High Lady. Helps her with flying and other moments.

Nesta - He brought her back from the mask and comforted her in CC3. Was never mean to her in any of the books even when the rest of IC was.

Elain - Hybern, when everyone (including her sisters and mate) thought she was crazy. There’s more.

His mother - Nesta makes a comment about how Az probably has a bad mom and he gets mad.

These are off the top of my head.

I feel like people forget that Az… does not like Illyrians. He literally said in ACOFAS:

“A pointless week of bloodshed” pg 25

“The Illyrians are pieces of shit” pg 67

If it truly came down to it, I’m sure that Azriel would at least argue to break their rules. Just like Cassian did. But Cassian still cares about the Illyrians. Azriel really doesn’t.

The involvement of Nesta and Gwyn is the Blood Rite is not as significant as Emerie’s!!!!!! Emerie is an Illyrian woman. She is the ONLY Illyrian woman to ever win the Rite. THAT is the biggest plot point of the event. Yes, Gwyn and Nesta participating builds on their healing journeys and the Valkyrie, but Emerie winning the Rite initiates what SJM laid out in ACOFAS. Where Cassian and Emerie first met. The layout for a change in Illyrians and the Illyrian women actually training as warriors.

If anyone is going to “fix” the Illyrians, it will be Emerie. Not Gwyn or Nesta. Emerie, the ILLYRIAN women. And Cassian would be who helps potentially. Because he actually cares about the Illyrians regardless of his history. He is the General. Of course he cares.

Now in terms of the rescue of Elain in Hybern, as many have already said, this was a massive risk. Cassian said "We'll get her back", but moved to comfort Nesta. Not only did Az actually notice Elain wasn’t there, but he also specifically said “I'M getting her back” twice (with rage if I might add) even after Nesta specifically said “then you will die”. Az, Feyre and Elain could have died in this rescue attempt too.

What was the point of this kidnapping if not to show he saves her? Tamlin redemption for giving Feyre the wind to fly? Jurian helping Feyre enter the camp? For Feyre to fly? Like maybe but the biggest point was Azriel going to save Elain. Tbh we kind of needed Feyre there to narrate lol. “You came for me” which Feyre says is what she saw in her dream of what the cauldron even lured Elain in by. That Grayson had come for her. He didn’t, it was Azriel.

Do I think if there weren’t the rules for the Rite that Cassian and Azriel would have went to save them? Of course they would have. But they weren’t meant to rescue them.

This was the big moment in all of the healing journeys for the Valkryie. For Emerie, becoming the first Illyrian women to win it. For Gwyn, leaving the library and becoming a true warrior. For Nesta, holding the line and protecting the people she loves like she hasn’t been able to before. THAT is the purpose of the Blood Rite. Not determining if there’s some couples involved. We already know the couple involved. It’s Nessian.

We seriously need to stop diminishing massive moments in the female characters journeys to ships.

[wisteriagoesvroom]

what is ur opinion on the # anti piastri people ?? (yes they actually exist and yes they are only lando fans!)

hoo boy. i've seen these anti posts pop up occasionally in the main oscar piastri tag and honestly? i'm just like. hey man you do your thing, and i'll do mine.

my favourite sports guys are mostly white, cishet multimillionaires at the top of elite athletics. they're doing perfectly fine. they don't need me to defend them or attack anyone on their behalf.

i'm here to shitpost to the sun and write rancid fanfics. in that order. anything else is incidental or just kind of. flyby? i don't pay that much attention to it.

discourse about FORMULA ONE drivers? who has the time? i'm here because: escapism. pursue the thing(s) you love and discard the rest.

as for the antis... i'm gonna hold your hand when i say this, but honestly, it is not that deep. if we're feeling a need to get into fights with strangers on the internet over your favourite blorbos maybe there are bigger things at stake* here**.

*this post brought to you by someone who has been in multiple fandoms and seen the highs and lows of highschool football the highs and lows of fandom in almost every conceivable possible format, and i can tell you that engaging in heavy internet discourse mostly results in diminishing returns and exhaustion. you're better off doing literally anything else with your time. i promise.

** we are all here on this burning hellsite called tumblr, and therefore we probably would all benefit from touching some grass.

[tlouconfidential]

This is, honestly, kind of a miserable fandom to be in. I've never seen more self-righteousness. Between guilt tripping, "kill yourself if you bought the game", diminishing actual porn addiction and shitting on people who just like to read smut, and people getting aggro about character interpretations they don't like? Every goddamn discourse post I see comes with a healthy side of moral superiority and it makes this shit kinda miserable. You can say you have a right to express your opinion, and you have a right to point out percieved injustice, which you do! But is anyone honestly happy like this? Is this fun anymore? At what point are you just picking fights and shaming people for what's meant to be a fun hobby? What harm is actually being done by reading and writing smut? It reeks of moral puritainism and I honestly block it on sight.

All this to say, can we collectively chill out? Because I'm not having fun anymore and I'm going to call my mom to pick me up if you guys don't learn to play nice.

.

[contemptuous-lump-of-flesh]

You’re not a rapist or an evil person. I understand that it’s very annoying and sickening to be generalized with bad people. Also have you experienced misandry from people outside of social media? Like from a relative or someone you know? /lh

Also, isn’t this a space to discuss and men’s mental health issues and fight misandry? I know me saying this isn’t really gonna make you feel better, but I think you should feel proud of yourself more? Many times men’s issues are constantly ignored or undermined. You are doing the right thing by fighting misandry.

Both genders have shit they deal with, none should be diminished in any way. ( I’m not trying to say you are diminishing women by mentioning this, I’m just starting it because it’s a fact)

Try not to beat yourself up so much. And you know, I understand you’re genuinely not in a good place right now. When you are, it’s kinda hard not to. But when there’s a day in your life when you feel decent, just give yourself kudos if you can.

(I’m sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable🥲, or if my response sounds rude. But I wanna hear your opinions.)

Sorry for the aggressiveness of my first response. I am used to being on the defensive with these topics, as the default view seems to be that men have no problems as men, or that we're privileged, even (still waiting to cash in on that). I assumed bad faith on your part, but turns out I was the one in bad faith, apologies.

Misandry in real life? Constantly. I would argue that internet is real life these days, but I'll ignore that for now. Paraphrasing, but:

Visit parents: "men just don't take responsibility like they used to."

Hang out with cis women: "men only want sex and it's disgusting."

Hang out with queer friends: "cis scum benefit from patriarchy and have nothing to complain about."

Trying to make new non-cismale friends: treated like a criminal or threat, at best. Have to prove I'm human just to get to a baseline level of respect. And even then, people are still wary around me because I'm neurodivergent.

Had to register for the draft at 18, so at any time I could be called on to die for oligarchs.

This is my vent blog where I whine & moan & complain about everything, but mostly how much I hate myself despite trying to change. I do talk about misandry because it makes my journey that much harder to find support & community with the suspicion & distrust directed towards male strangers.

That said, yes, I do understand that women have their own issues. I do not want to diminish them at all; try as I might, I can't be anything but progressive in my values. But when the dominant discourse is about how bad women have it and how horribly men oppress them, it feels like getting thrown under the bus, at best.

Thanks. I guess I'm trying, but I don't see it ever changing in any meaningful way. Even setting aside dealing with society, BPD + ADHD are lifelong hells I will forever have to manage, and this blog is one way I try to vent stress. Thank you, though, I do try.

[system-of-a-feather]

Ignoring the discourse, I just wanted to ramble on parts language and our feelings to it as someone who mainly uses it - but honestly "parts" is our preferred term by a long way save for alter when we are talking about things in a more clinical sense.

Personally for us, headmate, sysmate, and similar "roommate" kind of terms actually feel diminishing to the dynamic we have with one another. Headmate and similar terms draw parallels to roommates housemates, aka someone you share a space with - and I totally understand the draw to those terms for those that like to emphasize the individuality of the parts, but personally to call our relationship to one another something similar to people who just share a body / brain / mind / system etc really feels a bit... downplaying the importance we have to one another and the unique dynamic that comes from being parts of a whole.

XIV, Ray, Lucille, Aderis, all the parts in our system feel far more intimate, personal, and tighter bonds than anything like a housemate or a roommate or "someone I am sharing X with" could possibly reach. By nature we all compliment each other and were literally created to support, bolster, accentuate, and cover for one another.

/Separate people in different bodies are not so genuinely and thoroughly made to exist in synergy with one another the same way alters and parts are. Separate people in different bodies, no matter how close and how far back they go, are never going to be as deeply tied with one another the same way parts are / can be - and if they DO - 9/10 times it is likely super codependent and unhealthy where as with alters that tends to be an ideal.

Of course this depends on how you define "separate people" and all so its not a "well I am RIGHT" cause its how we perceive things and the main point in our perception is that to draw parallels to existences of two 'separate people' sharing a space together honestly just... extremely downplays how intrinsically made for one another we are. My relationship with my parts goes deeper than any two people who share a space could ever go because we were literally MADE for one another. It's impossible to compliment me and support me more than the parts in my system because they ARE LITERALLY my other halves.

So headmate and sysmate just.... always feel really downplaying to what we are.

Alters we are okay and chill with, but it honestly feels both sensationalized and very.... artificial for a lack of better words. Using the word "alter" tends to draw my mind to the more fictional media depictions OR solely to minimizing parts to the clinical expression to which it feels a bit dehumanizing - so unless its for convenient shared language or for clinical / just factual references - we tend to prefer parts.

Parts on the other hand really acknowledges just how intrinsically connected and made for one another we are. We really don't think it diminishes our individuality at all (though that might just be because we are decently far in our healing journey that we can simultaneously hold the idea of 'we are parts of a whole' and 'we are valid as individuals with our experiences and can exist and acknowledge ourselves and one another like individuals' very easily together at the same time) or imply anything about us being broken or shattered or anything.

If anything, parts language reminds me that there IS others out there that are there to fill in the gaps in life that I can't do. It reminds me that I am not in this alone and that I'm not SUPPOSED to be in this alone. I am a whole person, but I am not the whole picture and I don't have to try to be the whole picture because one puzzle piece while beautiful on its own - often works many times better when connected with the others.

I dunno, parts language is just a really really positive and healing thing for us. We love it and while we understand it not being for everyone, it means A LOT to us and really nothing negative.

My parts are made FOR me just as I am made FOR my parts. We are literally MADE for one another because we are PARTS of a whole that are MEANT to work with one another and I think that is really beautiful honestly.

[loveaankilaq]

You… you really need to learn not to jump to extremes my dude. How the heck did you get from ‘maybe let’s not call someone racist simply because they chose not to cover a topic’ to pretending people were calling you racist for accusing someone else of racism? Yeah you can be annoyed at Ellis for not covering the topic but it doesn’t automatically make her racist. Maybe put that energy into spreading awareness of the issue yourself instead of attacking a woman over something she didn’t do.

Seriously, I agree that Twilight was shitty for its harmful stereotyping. Yet you seem determined to make assumptions instead of reading the actual words I wrote.

You yourself literally said racism was "too powerful" a word to use in this context and that I was diminishing its strength, so I described to you exactly how it was racist and what Ellis did was racist. That she rolled her eyes at actual Native people bringing up how it was irresponsible for her to talk about Twilight for literal hours without once bringing up the exploitation of the Quileute people that is pretty central to Meyer's success. And do you wanna know what she did after that eye roll, she went ON to describe how critique of her, which again started off tame, was sexism against her. That Natives criticizing her actions were just big mean sexists harassing this poor white women, a cheap trick white women use against poc including woc to shield themselves from consequences. And "stereotyping" wasn't the worst action of Twilight did, Meyers took a real group of people who are powerless and depicted them as literal dogs who will groom your white daughter and assault each other, a depiction which has been utilized against Natives since the beginning of colonization that got Natives killed. Maybe I'm jumping to extreames because I dont like seeing my own people get depicted as animals and then when we say thats a genuinely harmful depiction to get a white woman to dismiss our concerns as "discourse" and "drama" and that we're actually the ones being sexist and terrible for asking for bare minimum human decency.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Four months into the assault on Gaza, the Israeli military has forced over a million refugees to the edge of the Egyptian border and is now bombing them while threatening to mount a ground assault against them. In the following text, Jonathan Pollak, a longtime participant in Anarchists Against the Wall and other anti-colonial solidarity efforts, explains why we should not look to international institutions or protest movements within Israeli society to put a stop to the genocide in Gaza and calls on ordinary people to take action.

A shorter version of this text was rejected by the liberal Israeli platform Haaretz—an indication of the diminishing space for dissent in Palestine and within Israeli society.

Human Rights Discourse Has Failed to Stop the Genocide in Gaza

We are now more than 120 days into the unprecedented Israeli assault on Gaza. Its horrific repercussions and our inability to bring it to an end should compel us to reevaluate our perspective on power, our understanding of it, and, most significantly, what we have to do to fight it.

Amid the spilled blood, the endless days of death and destruction, excruciating dearth, starvation, thirst, and despair, the ceaseless nights of fire and brimstone and white phosphors raining indiscriminately from the sky, we must grapple with the bare ugly facts of reality and reshape our strategies.

The officially reported fatalities—in addition to the many Palestinians who remain buried under the rubble and aren’t yet included in the official count—already amount to the annihilation of nearly 1.5% of all human life in the Gaza Strip. As Israel escalates its attacks on Rafah, it seems that there is no end in sight. Soon, the lives of one in every fifty people in Gaza will have been extinguished.

The Israeli military is inflicting an unprecedented toll of suffering and death on the 2.3 million people of Gaza, surpassing anything ever witnessed in Palestine—or elsewhere during the 21st century. Yet these staggering figures have not penetrated the thick layers of dissociation and disconnect that characterize Israeli society as well as Israel’s Western allies. If anything, the reduction of this tragedy to statistics seems to hinder rather than enhance our understanding. It presents a whole that obscures the specifics: the figures conceal the personhood of the countless individuals who have died painful, particular deaths.

At the same time, the unfathomable scale of the massacre in Gaza makes it impossible to comprehend through the stories of individual victims. Journalists, street cleaners, poets, homemakers, construction workers, mothers, doctors, and children, a multitude too vast to be narrated. We are left with faceless anonymous figures. Among them are more than 12,000 children. Probably a lot more.

Please pause and say this aloud, word by word: over twelve thousand children. Killed. Is there a way for us to take this in and move beyond the realm of statistics to grasp the horrific reality?

The cold blunt numbers also veil hundreds of obliterated families, many of them completely erased—sometimes three, even four generations, wiped off the face of the earth.

Overshadowed by these figures are more than 67,000 people who have been injured, thousands of whom will remain paralyzed for the rest of their lives. The medical system in Gaza has been almost completely destroyed; life-saving amputations are being carried out without anesthetics. The extent to which infrastructure in Gaza has been destroyed surpasses the Dresden bombings at the end of the Second World War. Nearly two million people—roughly 85% of the population of the Gaza Strip—have been displaced, their lives shattered by Israeli bombings as they shelter in the dangerously overcrowded south of the Strip, which the Israeli government falsely pronounced “safe,” yet continues to pummel with hundreds of 2000-pound bombs. The hunger in Gaza, which was created by Israeli state policy even before the war, is so severe that it amounts to famine. In their despair, people have resorted to eating fodder, but now even that is running out.

About a month ago, an acquaintance of mine who fled to Rafah from Gaza City after his home there was bombed told me that he and his family had already been forced to move from one temporary refuge to another six different times in their attempts to escape from the bombs. In despair, he said, “There is no food, no water, nowhere to sleep. We are constantly thirsty, hungry, and wet. I’ve already had to dig my children out from under the rubble twice—once in Gaza and once here in Rafah.”

These rivers of blood must breach the walls of our apathy. If only time could stop long enough for all of us to process our grief. But it will not. It continues passing as more bombs fall on Gaza.

Decades of injustice have paved the way for this. Some 75 years have passed since the Nakba—75 years of Israel’s settler-colonialism—yet its defenders continue to deny the facts. Even after the the International Court of Justice (ICJ) asserted that there is indeed cause to fear that genocide is being committed in Gaza, the US and many of Israel’s other Western allies have effectively remained silent.

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, called the court’s mere willingness to discuss the case “a disgrace that will not be erased for generations.” Indeed, the ruling is a disgrace. Despite everything being laid bare in plain sight, the court did not order Israel to cease fire. This is a disgrace to the court itself and to the very idea that international law is supposed to protect the lives and rights of those being crushed by the military force of nations.

It will undoubtedly be said that the law, by nature, is meticulous and that it considers the forest not as a whole but as individual trees. To that, we must answer that reality, facts, common sense must be above the law, not beneath it. Israel dedicates considerable resources to a legalism of the battlefield, intended to give cover to its murderous acts. This approach involves carving reality into thin slices of independently legally-approved observations and actions. A military target was present in high-rise X, justifying the deaths of over two dozen uninvolved civilians; apartment tower Y was the home of a Hamas-employed firefighter, legitimizing, according to the principle of proportionality, the decision to wipe out three neighboring families. But this practice cannot turn genocidal water into legitimate wine. This is legal gaslighting that shreds reality to pieces in order to conceal a pattern of indiscriminate mass murder.

If the slaughter of 1.5% of the population in four months is not genocide; if Israel’s acts are not deemed grievous enough for the court to order it to immediately stop the killing, not even in light of open incitement to exterminate Palestinians by prominent Israeli politicians and members of the press, not to mention Israel’s president and Prime Minister; when lack of punishment for such incitements and such acts is accepted rather than branded as genocide in the simplest of terms—then the words we use to describe reality have lost all meaning and we are in dire need of new language beyond the confines of legalese.

Leaving the butcher’s knife in the butcher’s hand—leaving Israel unhindered, unimpeded—means letting the slaughter in Gaza continue. This is the absolute ongoing failure of international law and the institutions entrusted with keeping it.

This failure passes on the responsibility of forcing an end to the ongoing catastrophe, so that it falls on the shoulders of civil society. This ought to compel us to move beyond the empty liberal paradigms of human rights, which have replaced liberation as the dominant discourse in leftist politics.

[izloveshorses]

Do u have any unpopular opinions on Anastasia? Or things that u feel ur in the minority within the discourse around it?

yes i think it should still be open on broadway for me to watch 😤

i think i've discussed some of the basics a lot lately (dmitry is a slut, gleb isn't in love with anya, the show's changes from the film are justified and perfect, etc) but i will say. i don't think anya and dmitry have been pining for each other since iacot. not that that moment didn't impact them, but i think it's more of a moment of connection and kinship than something inherently romantic to them, even though the soulmateism is there, don't get me wrong lol. i just don't think theirs is a love-at-first-sight story. and that makes iacot more impactful, no? that they held onto that happy memory and loved it for what it was. which was just. two people from different worlds connecting, even for one fleeting moment. so instead of 'love at first sight' narrative that some folks try to push, i think it's more of a ..... 'you provided hope and happiness before we even met, you've always sort of been there, and that alone is enough to cherish' narrative. to me.

on that note i don't think they are each other's 'first' anything, really. by ages 27 and 29 they've probably experienced some other romances, some good and some bad, and i don't think that diminishes what they mean to each other. "i always dreamed my first kiss would be in paris with a handsome prince" doesn't necessarily mean dmitry is literally her first kiss imo. i think the important part of that line is she's calling him Her Prince, not that he's her first love, you know? the emphasis is what she calls him, not what she's talking about lol.

[hatari-translations]

Matthías on Vikan með Gísla Marteini, 15.12.23

Another translation request I missed: Matthías was on Vikan með Gísla Marteini before Christmas, the other guests being Jón Jósep Snæbjörnsson or Jónsi, who competed in Eurovision on Iceland's behalf both in 2004 and 2012, and actress, screenwriter and director Tinna Hrafnsdóttir. The discussion touched on Palestine and Eurovision boycotts (at this point Matthías would have already been involved in Bashar Murad's Söngvakeppnin entry, but keeping it under wraps), Matthías's shift from the toughest guy around to a soft family man, his current job as a dramaturge for the National Theater, Christmas traditions, and Danish.

I fully translated more of this show than I really should have; it took ages and I should've tried to summarize more of the non-Matthías bits, but there was a lot of Matthías scattered throughout. Oh well. Hope you all enjoy hearing more from him, at least!

During the introductions, Gísli Marteinn says two of the three people on the couch have their names attached to bands they're no longer part of; he'd wanted to say "Jónsi í Svörtum fötum" (referring to Jónsi's old band Í svörtum fötum) and "Matti í Hatara" (Matti from Hatari). Matthías says "Skellur," which we could translate as, "That's rough." Gísli Marteinn affirms that neither would be correct. Jónsi says "What are we even doing these days? Are we doing anything these days?"

Gísli Marteinn mentions that last time Matthías was on the show, he was going to say he's no longer part of Hatari, but then they forgot to talk about it. Matthías goes "Oh yeah, right. That was supposed to be the big news." But Gísli Marteinn says they're all here because of the interesting stuff they're currently working on.

The show moves on to other things for a while, but we pick back up with them later, after a segment where Gísli Marteinn goes through the news of the week and makes jokes about them.

After a bit of banter with Jónsi about how Gísli Marteinn's dad jokes would have gotten him canceled many times over at Jónsi's dinner table (Gísli Marteinn says more dinner tables than his would) and a bit more talk about how they're all doing such exciting things, Gísli Marteinn moves on:

GÍSLI MARTEINN: There's one issue we didn't mention there despite being prominent in the news, and that's that we're watching the horrible actions of the Israeli army in Gaza, and it makes it hard to quite get into the Christmas spirit. And into that comes this discourse about Eurovision, which is unusual but understandable. I mean, we have two Eurovision-goers here--

JÓNSI: Uh oh.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: I mean, in both of your cases there was talk of whether we should boycott. And Matti, you went to Israel. You had a message to Israelis. When you watch this discourse, what do you think?

MATTHÍAS: Well, I think it would be very courageous and good of RÚV to send a clear message. I mean, let's imagine that after the invasion Russia had competed in Eurovision, but Ukraine hadn't. It's a bit like that, from my point of view. Israel is competing but Palestine isn't. I think either there should be a rule that while there's active warfare going on you shouldn't be in this contest that's supposed to be about peace. Or you could pull out more flags, Palestinian flags, and include Palestine. I think that would be a neat thing to call for. But the boycott movement is very important, of course, even though we didn't quite follow it when it was our turn.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Right, they wanted you to boycott.

MATTHÍAS: Yeah. But boycott is a silent action. A bunch of people boycotted the contest when we were competing; people just didn't hear about it because they weren't recorded anywhere. We went a bit of a different route, but that's not to diminish this important movement.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: No. It's a complex matter. Everyone who insists this is simple perhaps doesn't see every side of it.

MATTHÍAS: No, it is complicated. But it's also very simple. I mean, what's happening now in Gaza is just -- I think people don't realize because they're so used to hearing news about this in their ears, the region of Palestine, but this right now is just -- I'm not going to completely kill the Christmas spirit in the show, but this is so much worse than ever before, ever in the history of Palestine. And that's going on right now.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Yeah, absolutely. And I didn't mean to say that that's particularly nuanced - of course that's simple, in itself.

MATTHÍAS: Yeah. But then you get everything else, which is complicated, of course.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Jónsi, even when you went, even though it wasn't the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I remember a call for you to boycott.

JÓNSI: Yeah, there was.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Namely, you went to Baku in Azerbaijan.

JÓNSI: Yes, it was 2012, and I think that was… It's been a while, and I'm sorry, there are probably a lot of people who know a lot more about this than I do because I perhaps tend to just try to forget these kinds of things and do something else. Please excuse me, I'm sorry. How often have I apologized now?

GÍSLI MARTEINN: A lot!

MATTHÍAS: Like he said, there's no wrong thing to say on this show.

JÓNSI: Right, thank God. Wiener dog.

[laughter]

JÓNSI: No, sorry. There was discourse about how there are human rights abuses going on down there, and we became aware, the group that went, me and Greta Salóme and more, that there were people who were asking us to show solidarity in action. And it was very hard, just sort of being between a rock and a hard place. I hadn't been imagining that this was something I would be tackling - aside from the fact I was probably just a privileged dude, being pampered out there. But by finals night, we really felt like we were in a bind. It was weird to be about to compete for our country and make everyone proud, on the one hand, while knowing that there were people who, from the literal safety of their armchairs in Iceland, wanted us to do something different. And it was always a bit unclear exactly what should be done -- you get so many possibilities, and you don't really know how to react because you think it's not going to matter at all what you do, and you're always going to make someone mad. Just like how you can no longer do a good deed and tell anyone about it, because then it's time to tell you off for trumpeting it. You feel like there's no right chess move to make, these days. But nonetheless, I don't want to minimize that there are horrible things happening in Gaza, and it's weird to feel that political angle coming into the music world. But I'm not an expert on it, I admit.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Of course, and you weren't brought here to opine as an expert. But it's necessary to discuss it. And -- Tinna, we were talking before the show about how it's hard, or you feel guilty for being in a good mood, or a Christmas mood.

TINNA: Yeah, it's a different Christmas season than often before, almost like you don't dare to be happy because there's so much going on.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: But you, artists and entertainers, putting on shows and making music and creating TV shows that are meant to delight us -- give us some good message about how we can do both at the same time.

MATTHÍAS: You're commissioning a message from us?

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Yes. You were brought here to be…

MATTHÍAS: You can do both.

JÓNSI: Can't we just make it a message, like kop28 [I'm not sure what he's referencing], we're trying to show you some message that doesn't really mean anything by itself? I do realize that if I breathe here in Iceland, that doesn't really change much in Gaza. But I think we should keep talking about it, but I'm also an advocate for focusing on the good things. We should work from the good that exists in the world, and try to say, isn't the influence of good better down there than not? Maybe it doesn't affect anything, I don't know. But…

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Be joyful, but don't forget about Gaza. Is that the message?

JÓNSI: A good T-shirt.

MATTHÍAS: Yes. If you want the core message, it's that.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: To be joyful but don't forget about Gaza.

MATTHÍAS: Yes, you've got it.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Now we move to other things. Thank you for giving a bit of where your minds are at with all of this. I know it was a heavy beginning, but sometimes that's necessary.

JÓNSI: Yeah, it's necessary. That's quite true.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Should I talk about the clothes of the men on the couch next? You're both wearing Icelandic wadmal.

MATTHÍAS: You bet!

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Is this the latest fashion trend?

MATTHÍAS: I got married in this, this summer, so I just decided to use it.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: It looks great!

TINNA: They specifically asked me to sit in the middle so that they wouldn't be side by side in tweed.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: That would be tacky.

JÓNSI: My friend Gunni at [clothing store] Kormákur og Skjöldur is very happy with us both, no doubt. But he doesn't realize how ridiculously warm it is under this, and we had a heavy discussion earlier, and they had to make up my ears twice so they wouldn't get red, and it's all just firing up now.

They move on to talking with Tinna about her new TV series Heima er best, which they compare to sort of an Icelandic Succession, which was just nominated for the Nordic scriptwriting awards, and then about when Jónsi and Tinna co-starred in Grease and then in Ávaxtakarfan ("The Fruit Basket", an Icelandic children's musical about bullying featuring anthropomorphic fruit). To stay sane after writing up all this I won't translate this whole section since Matthías doesn't have much to say in it, although he does express surprise that they had theatrical productions during the summer (Grease was an indie production that just kind of rented the City Theater over the summer).

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Speaking of your former lives and such… Matti, when you went to Eurovision and were Matti the Hater [Hatari], I would have said you were just about the coolest, toughest guy in the country. Then fifteen minutes later you're on your knees at Sky Lagoon proposing to your wife and had become so soft and tender and beautiful and in love, and now you've got a kid and another on the way.

MATTHÍAS: Exactly.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Was Matti from Hatari all fake, or did you just change that much?

MATTHÍAS: Mmm, I've always been soft. The other stuff is a bit of a costume. But of course it softens you when you're in love, and softens you more when you love your child. So maybe that's the Christmas message you were looking for.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: I knew you had one in there!

MATTHÍAS: No, definitely. I was on my way home from work earlier and my sister-in-law who was babysitting called me and said, "Sóley has pooped everywhere!", and I found it to be good news, because I like hearing news of my daughter but also, "everywhere" means some of it went in the potty, so I was kind of just, "Score!" to hear that message. It changes a bit… You've got new and exciting stuff to deal with. It's wonderful. And I'm looking forward to having two. It'll be… Two girls!

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Oh?

MATTHÍAS: Yeah, it's a girl.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: I can recommend having two girls!

TINNA: I'm lucky to have two - twins. Two for one in my case.

MATTHÍAS: So you were quick.

TINNA: Just finish it all in one.

JÓNSI: In one evening, or?

TINNA: One evening! All in one, one evening.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: How old are your twins?

TINNA: They're eleven. And when I told them I was going to sit on a couch with the Hatari guy, they were like, "Wow, Mom!"

GÍSLI MARTEINN: If you've got twins, is the hardest part over, or is it only over when they're about thirty?

JÓNSI: Good question.

TINNA: I'm actually very lucky. They're very good friends and mesh together well, so it's gone pretty well for us. But then you never know what the teenage years will be like.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Right. We're making our way there.

TINNA: We're making our way there.

JÓNSI: But doesn't that make you alone against them, and then there's two of them?

TINNA: There are some plots going on that I don't quite know about, but I try to keep up the radar.

JÓNSI: A lie detector.

TINNA: Yes, and a lie detector and everything. They're watching me right now; they're probably going "Oh my God, Mom, don't talk about us!"

MATTHÍAS: And do you use these plots to write your scripts?

TINNA: Oh, yes, definitely.

JÓNSI: I also… How old are they?

TINNA: Eleven.

JÓNSI: What are their names again?

TINNA: Starkaður Máni and Jökull Þór.

JÓNSI: I'm going to look into camera two: Starkaður Máni and Jökull Þór, if you aren't good until Christmas, Matti from Hatari and Immi the Pineapple [Jónsi's character in Ávaxtakarfan, the tyrannical villain] are coming to your house.

[laughter]

MATTHÍAS: Correct.

They go to commercials. When we return to the show, Jónsi has brought out a guitar and is enthusiastically leading the audience in singing Christmas songs.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Jónsi formerly of Í svörtum fötum decided to keep everyone pumped while we went to commercials -- while capitalism took its share, since you didn't manage to bring it to its knees, dear Matti.

MATTHÍAS: The boys are working on it.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: The boys are working on bringing capitalism to its knees.

They talk about Jónsi and his wild success as a pop star in the early 2000s and how now he works for a financial corporation. He describes how fame and being surrounded by people who worship you almost regardless of what you do just kind of isn't healthy and he had just become kind of a dickhead, and he withdrew from it all to get away from it.

MATTHÍAS: But Gísli, you're one of those exceptions. You've been famous for a long time but you're not a dickhead. [He says a few more words that I can't make out over the laughter.]

GÍSLI MARTEINN: That's the best compliment I've ever gotten! Thanks, Matti, I'm grateful you say that. But back to you, you said earlier you were on your way home from work. Where do you work?

MATTHÍAS: The National Theater!

GÍSLI MARTEINN: I mean, you aren't Matti from Hatari anymore.

MATTHÍAS: No, I'm Matti from the National Theater!

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Matti from the National Theater! Who doesn't know Matti from the National Theater?

MATTHÍAS: Hopefully more people know now!

GÍSLI MARTEINN: We know you had become a playwright. You wrote award-winning plays. And theater is just your muse right now?

MATTHÍAS: It seems to be that way. The urge to write is still strong in me, and I'll probably keep doing that.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Don't you have the title of dramaturge, which nobody knows what that is, except Tinna?

MATTHÍAS: The chosen few know.

JÓNSI: Can we know what it is?

MATTHÍAS: Those of us who know what it is recognize each other.

JÓNSI: And no one says anything.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: A secret society!

MATTHÍAS: No, it's translated as 'listrænn ráðunautur' ["Artistic advisor"] for the National Theater, and of course it's the best job in the world. You get to read plays, watch them, your job is to have opinions on theater, talk about theater. You're part of a book club called the project choice committee of the National Theater, and you're in contact with all the directors, and reading scripts that Icelandic playwrights entrust to the National Theater, which is a big responsibility for me because I've been on the other side there.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Is this your dream job?

MATTHÍAS: It's -- of everything that exists that is a job, this is the best one.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Very good!

MATTHÍAS: Because the other stuff that I'd want to do even more doesn't exist as a job. It's just freelance. But this is perfect.

They turn to Tinna to talk about her project directing a drama series about Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, former president of Iceland. Matthías mentions he's excited about it and that they compared it to The Crown during the break and that really piqued his interest.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: And speaking of our heritage, you're doing the Edda [Snorra-Edda, the most comprehensive source about the old Norse religion, written in the 1200s] at the National Theater, right?

MATTHÍAS: Yes, I'm working on that as a dramaturge, and it's very exciting.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: It's your Christmas show, right?

MATTHÍAS: The National Theater's Christmas show.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: The Edda in its entirety?

MATTHÍAS: Yes, it's very comprehensive. But it's full of unexpected little twists for those of us who know these stories -- the myths, Thor, Loki, Óðinn and all that. Or for those who don't know and want to get to know their heritage, you're also welcome. But everyone who liked Njála [Brennu-Njáls saga, one of the Sagas of Icelanders written between ~1200-1350 CE] at the City Theater, if you saw that, this is the same director, Þorleifur [Örn Arnarsson]. That was one of the coolest shows I've ever seen, so this should be something.

They move on to a Berglind Festival (comedian) bit about rebranding Christmas. When we return to the studio, she has joined the couch, everyone is wearing sunglasses, and they're each doing some kind of little dance to the Christmas song remix still playing in the background. Matthías says, "You have to warn us if we're going to dance on the show." Gísli Marteinn says, "I didn't see you, did you look like dorks?" Matthías: "I don't know."

GÍSLI MARTEINN: So if we keep to the traditional Christmas, Christmas is next weekend. Do you have any bizarre Christmas traditions, or are you very standard about it?

MATTHÍAS: Speaking of rebranding, my dad… At the Ban Thai restaurant downtown, there's a course called [kung hansa?] [I looked up their menu to try to find out what the correct spelling is but unfortunately the online menu had no name similar to that], a shrimp course, and we find it Christmasy. We often have it as a starter on Christmas.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: On Christmas Eve? [Christmas Eve is the height of the Christmas celebration in Iceland.]

MATTHÍAS: Yes.

BERGLIND: So do you put an almond in the rice? [She's referring to the Icelandic Christmas tradition of making rice pudding and putting a single almond in it, often as a starter; whoever gets the almond in their bowl should try to discreetly remove it and then keep it hidden until the end of the course. If they do it successfully without being spotted, they will receive a special 'almond gift'.]

MATTHÍAS: Uh, no.

BERGLIND: Okay, lame.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: So do you just go to Tómas at Ban Thai and buy it, or do you cook it at home?

MATTHÍAS: We buy it at Ban Thai.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Wow, well done! How did that start?

MATTHÍAS: We were just at Ban Thai celebrating some milestone, as we do, and then someone said it was kind of a Christmasy taste.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Very good. Tinna, that's a hard act to follow.

TINNA: I will try my best. We have very firm traditions and always go to my mom on Christmas Eve and eat Danish duck, speaking of Danish Christmas earlier. It's an old family tradition, and we have the Christmas pudding and an almond gift and so on.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Is Danish duck getting imported?

TINNA: My mom has some secret ways of procuring Danish duck, I'm not going to get into that. In previous years we would sometimes sing afterwards, "Og nu har vi jul igen, og nu har vi jul igen, og julen varer helt til påske." [Danish: "And now we have Christmas again, and now we have Christmas again, and Christmas lasts all the way until Easter."] Do you know it?

GÍSLI MARTEINN: No!

TINNA: It's some Danish song. I love the lyrics - og julen varer helt til påske.

JÓNSI: I said that at the start of the show.

TINNA: Wouldn't that be great, just having Christmas all the way until Easter?

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Christmas until Easter, definitely!

MATTHÍAS: Now you, and earlier there were some people in the audience talking about flødeskum [whipped cream], and you [Gísli] earlier with leverpostej [Danish liver pâté] -- do people generally just speak Danish--

JÓNSI: Danish is taking us over.

MATTHÍAS: --at least at Christmas?

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Don't we? I mean, it's all Danish traditions we have here.

MATTHÍAS: It sounds great, at least.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: It sounds great. Jónsi, the pressure is on.

JÓNSI: Så man sidder i sin festlige måde [Danish: "So you sit in your festive manner…"]… No, definitely not.

He talks about his workplace's tradition where they eat as much as they can and simply decide not to gain any weight by sending a message to the cosmos; Matthías doesn't comment further from here.

[queerfandomtrifecta]

I’m late to the Hazbin Hotel stuff, but I’ve binged it a few times recently and just have to say that I’ve never seen an abusive relationship that looked so much like mine portrayed so correctly (as in both accurately and in being completely condemned by the narrative) as Angel and Valentino.

I’ve seen a little of the discourse on this and I’m gonna add my thoughts under the cut.

Gonna start by saying 1. I was lucky enough to get out of my eight-year long abuse/DV situation in 2019 and I’m safe and okay now 2. I know everyone’s experience is different and I’m specifically talking about my experience of being in a long-term abusive situation and don’t mean to diminish anyone who’s experience with SA/DV was different than mine and 3. this is all high praise for what the show did, because it may not sound like it at first because it is legitimately hard for me to watch, especially the first time through.

I’ve realized I’m probably rambling out of order at this point and I apologize to anyone who’s chosen to read these words I just had to shout into the tumblr void but oh well.

Yes, I read the trigger warning at the beginning of e4. I braced myself because that one is typically fine with a heads up for me, but I still wasn’t prepared. I barely made it through that first watch because it didn’t warn about the DV tied to the SA. I’d already barely made it through the scene in e2 where Angel Dust is listening to voicemails from Valentino because jfc it’s so painfully accurate. I heard some of that stuff verbatim from my abuser. Word for word exactly the same.

The other part that’s accurate is how self-destructive Angel is as a coping mechanism and his reasons why. “If I end up broken, maybe I won’t be his favorite toy anymore. And maybe he’ll let me go.” It’s. So. Accurate. To my experience at least, which is one that looked a lot like their whole relationship.

“Loser Baby” is absolutely fine with me. Because again, it’s so accurate. Having someone sit with you and say “hey, I clearly see that you’re not being treated right no matter how hard you try and fake things, and that you’re at rock bottom and not doing good things with the ways you’re dealing with that, and I’m here for you anyway” is what pushed me to finally leave. My now-best friend who at the time was my co-worker who’d just been hired a few months prior is the one who said it to me. He saved my life in more ways than one and I’m forever grateful for it. I’ve read a few things saying the song was calling Angel a loser in a victim blaming way, and that’s not how I took it at all. Admitting how much things suck, saying that aloud, including the ways I’d changed for the worse was crucial for me in the process of leaving and trying to heal afterwards.

“Poison” wasn’t even the part that was difficult to watch for me, even though those scenes are (mostly) what earned e4 the trigger warning at the opening. But the lyrics hit me hard. “My story’s gonna end with me dead from your poison.” I lived this for years. I can’t overstate how much this was the reality of my experience. I thought that was how things would end up for me. I didn’t think I’d have a way out from this person who was both hurting me and making me the absolute worst version of myself possible. I was so sure I’ve of those two things would eventually be the end of my story. I’m very very lucky it wasn’t and I’m grateful for the resources I had that let me leave when I could.

This was a whole lot of rambling to really just say I’ve never felt so seen and respected by the representation of abuse in a piece of media. Maybe it’s because I’m coming off feeling weird about things in OFMD2 and withholding saying any on that because reasons. But I can definitely weigh in accurately in the abuse plot line in Hazbin and it’s all praise from me. Would I have avoided watching it if I’d have known how big of a plot line that would be? Yes, probably. I would’ve at least read spoilers ahead of time to try and gauge it. I nearly stopped it a few times because I wasn’t expecting it to be so painfully close to my own experience and shown so blatantly instead of being implied off-screen.

But am I glad I watched it? Absolutely. Mostly because the narrative so clearly frames everything as capital-b Bad. And I’m grateful they showed what they did how they did, and even more grateful and that the narrative (which is specifically working with a major, prominent, surface-level text theme of redemption/redeem-ability) frames Valentino as an irredeemable villain for his role as the abuser, while also giving Angel Dust three-dimensions in his own flaws that he’s responsible for. It’s done flawlessly imo. And I’m glad I watched it, even though it was hard.

[akajustmerry]

i think label discourse irt lesbian/bisexual is odd because as a bisexual i do use the term lesbian to describe myself where bisexual doesn't convey what i mean in certain situations. i am a bisexual who mostly dates women so i often describe those experiences as lesbian because they are. simple as that. but i don't use the term bi-lesbian because it would be insulting to both communities to use that label. i also don't call myself a lesbian because i am not. but the idea that those labels can only be used as identities and not also to convey particular experiences is annoying! the words lesbian and bisexual are beautiful and were created to convey specific experiences as well as identities. there is no need to diminish or disrespect them by combining them because that defeats the reason they exist . anyway i love you lesbians and bisexuals, especially if you're trans, and especially if you aren't white. i am kissing you all on the head <3