#this isn't about the current discourse but it's also not not about that you know?

[douwatahima]

as someone who's been doing fandom stuff for over twenty years, i think one of the most important lessons you can learn is not everything is for you. we're all nerds on the internet, banding together because we feel at least a little unhinged about our favourite shows/movies/ect. there's going to strong opinions any way you slice it, and other people's opinions won't always align with yours. maybe someone is obsessed with a character you don't like or a pairing that makes no sense to you, but that person still has as much of a right to be in the space as you do. that doesn't mean you have to interact with those ideas, i'm a big proponent of blocking whoever or whatever you need to, but you don't get to tell them to stop just because you personally don't like it.

obviously, there are cases where this doesn't apply. if a take is super racist/homophobic/transphobic or someone is using their personal headcanon to harrass others, then absolutely that's something that should be addressed. but if it's just something harmless that irks you personally, you need to understand that that is a you problem and not a them problem. and, quite frankly, if you can't come to terms with that, maybe fandom isn't for you.

[hangryyeena]

hiding out in my Ryoma corner and avoiding Danganronpa fans on Twitter 🧯🛡️

[tunacharm]

I understand feeling guilty about having outdoor cats, but please let that guilt inspire you to making a better, safer life for your kitties instead of becoming defensive and angry! It never feels good to realize that you were maybe doing something that wasn't always the best, but it doesn't make you a bad person for not knowing or thinking differently. Dogs also seem happy to be outside, but we know it isn't okay to let them roam freely with no supervision. We have leash laws for a reason. Sorry if I'm overstepping, animal welfare means a lot to me, and I don't think people should reject a message that ultimately is better for you, your cats and the environment because some people are mean about it. Some people are mean about everything, but I don't think that makes it okay to shut your eyes to the problem because of the tone it was delivered in. People get heated because we all really care about animals, and I don't think it's right to accuse people of not loving their cats or abusing them, but the truth is cats are invasive, and there are so many dangers out there.

oh you're so kind, you're not overstepping 🥺

also don't worry, i do accept that outdoor cats are No Good. i have a cat myself and she is a full indoor princess, only going outside under my supervision. my family has always had outdoor cats and i didn't know how bad it was until a few years ago, and now any new cats we have are fully indoor only as well. i actually only have one outdoor cat now, and it would be impossible to keep her inside.

i fully understand where you're coming from, and i agree! my issue is when the people of tumblr form this angry mob about an issue and it's like. no one is going to listen to your point if you're being an asshole. it happens quite often with a variety of issues, and i just really hate the culture of people hating on something they disagree with. it's something i have noticed that happens often on tumblr and i guess my contrarian attitude comes into play lol. i do 100% agree that outside cats are very harmful and letting your cats outside introduces them to the dangers as well as the local populations.

i really appreciate your kindness though!! i think understanding is the opposite of prejudice, and a lot of people on tumblr have this self-righteous attitude when it comes to issues they think are a no brainer. it just pisses me off when people are incredibly rude and hateful to those they believe have a "wrong opinion". i think i might just be a little bit of an asshole and a devils advocate too lol

cheers friend and i hope you have a good one!!

[oyasumire]

the current dungeon meshi yaoi/yuri discourse is good for highlighting fandom's constant misogyny problem but let us also talk about fandom's constant racism problem too because since the mlm kabru ships exploded in popularity, it's gotten harder and harder to come across kabru stuff that isn't him being reduced to a white man's plus one and like omg yall do this every time. any time we get a character of color in a series, yall have to make everything they do about the white person you ship them with because yall don't know how to let them be their own people. like kabru is my fave dunmeshi character, he is so fun and interesting and nuanced, and yall keep stripping that away because you want him to fuck your white boy of choice

[oldpotatoe]

as many of you know, gaza has now gone dark.

targeted israeli strikes have wiped out the telecommunications infrastructure. phone lines and internet services are gone. gazans cannot call their loved ones to check if they are still alive. they cannot call for ambulances for aid. if they survive the increased bombardment tonight and the following nights, they will bleed out alone with no aid.

now i will tell you what will happen in the next few days/weeks, and i pray it to be untrue. unfortunately the apartheid state, also known as israel, has been quite obvious and transparent with their plans.

the stated goal of many politicians over the years from israel, including netanyahu, has been to have the entire strip of land of gaza as israel, with no separate region for palestinians. i am not going to provide links, google is free and i am fucking tired.

what they had done before tonight, in the last two weeks, was destroy over 50% of buildings in gaza city as well as neighbouring areas, so gazans have nowhere to return to. gazans have been forced south, and israel will use this opportunity to have troops in north gaza (currently referred to as the ground invasion) advancing south while bombing "h*mas sites" in the south. israel will do this knowing there are plenty more civilians there that will die, causing terror and panic and having palestinians want to flee to anywhere, anywhere that is safe.

israel is doing this in the hopes that this panic and terror will convince egypt to open the border (well, the border israel isn't currently bombing) so that palestinians can escape to the sinai desert in egypt.

once survivors leave, the area that is currently the gaza strip will 1) be reduced in size if a lot of palestinians stay, should they not be bombed out of existence, or 2) be entirely absorbed into israel if very few palestinians stay, which is the ultimate aim of israel. those remaining palestinians will be moved to the west bank, or the remainder of gaza will be converted to west bank conditions where they'd go through the same problems palestinians in the west bank go through (reduced access to water, checkpoints to go from any place to any place within their own land, getting dispossessed, or randomly killed by racist extremist settlers).

now, egypt has been adamant not to displace the palestinians. in online discourse, people have been dehumanising palestinians by talking about past disruptions in other refugee areas and saying that is why egypt does not want to take them. while there may be slight truth to this from egypt's perspective, the major reason egypt is refusing is that no palestinian refugee abroad has even been given the right to return to their own land. and this will be the fate of gazans if they are made to leave in a mass exodus to egypt/other neighbouring countries such as jordan, which these leaflets from army-backed israeli are threatening palestinians with (photo from salfit in the occupied west bank):

therefore, what i likely see happening is the above bombardment (in increased numbers now that gaza has gone dark) -> mass panic in gaza, more so now that gazans are cornered in the south -> a reluctant egypt, but with the US will promise a large amount of "aid" money to egypt to facilitate the mass exodus of palestinians, the borders will open.

palestinians will be forced out. israelis are already planning on hoovering up the prime real estate there, for amusements park no less!

this is nabka 2.0. this is genocide.

btw, as we speak: israel's leading newspaper is already making claims that h*mas's main operation base is under shifa hospital. the hospital currently housing 50,000 displaced palestinians. the idf is claiming h*mas is using the hospital as a human shield, which is their new favourite phrase to justify killing civilians. so you already know what to expect in the news.

[klerothesnowman]

The Sith are Nazis and it's never been subtle

This one ended up being really long. I spliced in some images when I could to break it up easier.

One of the things that causes the most friction in the world is the idea of morality. I know, that's the most water is wet statement ever said but I think people really miss just how much the nuance of morality goes over people's heads. Subjective, objective, relative, from a baseline we understand that there are different types of morality but I don't think people really grasp how much a persons personal morality can be wildly different to any another given person's, especially among people who share spaces like fandoms. Morality is shaped by personal experiences, there are personal experiences that are 99% ubiquitous among humanity like "Pain" that form the basis of everyone's moral compass, then there are the major cultural touchstones that no matter what your morality will be affected by, religion, nation, race, all that what have you. Everyone has an opinion on the Christian Church and that opinion is informed by your morals. People who have been abused by members of a church will have a very different view of the morality of a religion compared to people who have been raised Catholic compared to someone who was raised agnostic compared to someone raised agnostic and is queer compared to someone who has been raised Catholic and is queer compared to someone who has been raised Catholic and is queer and is also rich and so on and so forth you get it.

Morality is not a binary thing, and it's not a nine point grid either D&D, it's more like one of those circle charts that Jojo Stands get ranked on. You know the ones that always seem to show up in anime? I don't know what they're called. Except instead of a circle it's more like a ball, and everyone has this horrible looking 3D balls covered in bumps and spikes and dips and holes.

Why am I opening this ramble with a ramble about morality and religion? Because I'm on tumblr. When I decide I want to ramble about something I read the tags and see what the vibe is, see what people are saying about things. I'm not part of the "Fandom", I don't know the discourses, I see that there's Anti-Jedi and Pro-Jedi and "Stanikins" and all of these different labels and battlelines, and then I read about how people on either side are feeling attacked and harassed by people on other sides. I have no idea how real this is, I have no idea what kind of minefield I'm about to walk into. I'm just rambling about my thoughts and feelings about Star Wars because I like it and I'm a little extra aware that this one is going to ruffle feathers.

Because people are fuckin' worked up about Jedi. There are people who are making it part of their identity that they are anti-Jedi. And it's been happening for years, decades even. Because the experiences and trends of nerd culture has been pushing against systems and religion since I was a baby. Nerds being obnoxious atheists and smugly telling people "God isn't real" was basically the norm when I was a teenager, and before I was born nerds were dealing with being called evil and satanic. Nothing I'm rambling about here is new, in fact using D&D as a touchstone I think the current trend for nerddom's interaction with religion is ambivalence, despite faith and divine power being such an important part of D&D, there's basically zero interaction with divinities in 5e, and when there is it's hostile and has an asterisk against it. I'll do a ramble about this one day too

But the Jedi stuff is interesting to me, because there's a lot of directions people come at for it.

There's people who argue against just Jedi because they're a religion. There's people who argue the Jedi are slavers or kidnap children. People think Jedi are super beings who lord over everyone with their power. People think the Jedi force people to suppress their emotions and personhood. There are people who think Jedi are moral supremacists who silence and kill anyone who thinks about the Force differently from them.

I have some "Pro-Jedi" arguments to make but I'll save them for a different ramble, because this one's supposed to be about another group of people.

The people who think, from their point of view, the Jedi are evil.

The reason I rambled on so much about people being Anti-Jedi is because very often, these people end up being Pro-Sith. It's an obvious leap, if the Jedi are the problem then the people opposed to the Jedi might have the right idea. If your issue with the Jedi is that they disallow "Attachment", then here's the Sith who are all about Attachment. If your issue with the Jedi is that they suppress their emotions then here's the Sith who are always tapping into their emotions. There is an immediate appeal there.

Then there's the Sith Code, let's give it a read.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.

Pretty sweet, Passion is pretty positive, breaking chains and freedom. I can get behind that. The rest of Sith Philosophy is pretty swell too. It's about improvement through conflict. Your struggles make you stronger, makes you better, removes your shackles and lets you be free, but also recognizes that you will have to do whatever it takes to do so. The Jedi seek to wipe out the dark knowledge you attain, so you must sequester yourself and hide when you must hide, and strike when you must strike. It's stance could be summed up as something like... "The sacred mission of a Sith is to preserve the Sith Order's most valuable elements as you raise yourself to a dominant position, and all who do not are chaff."

There are people who are really into this. Like, really, really into this. They talk about how they apply this mentality to their real life. They describe themselves as Sith. There are also people who are only kind of into this, they think about positive Sith characters and make headcanons about the good things Sith do.

I need to stress, for those people, that what I am about to say is not hyperbole. I will provide sources.

The Sith Code and Philosophy is Nazi Propaganda. It is literally lifted from Mein Kampf. That quote I used to sum it up is a paraphrased quote from Britannica.com. That's Hitler.

The Sith Code was invented to be in opposition to the Jedi Code, its purpose is to twist a preexisting code to make you think the alternative isn't so bad and it uses codephrases to do so.

Passion, Strength, Victory, Chains, being Free, these are words that we have presubscribed meanings for, but what do they mean in the Sith Code? What IS Passion? What IS Strength? What IS Victory?

Most people I interact with see Passion as Love, passionate, exciting love, the exact thing the Jedi reject. But that can't be it, where's Palpatine's love? Where's Maul's? Where's Vader's?

Passion is obsession. The kind of obsession that will lead you to burning everything down if you don't get what you want. It's not letting anything stand between you and your goal, even if that thing is your goal itself.

Let's break the code down here.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion. We start with the obvious twist on the Jedi code, an immediate refutation of the Jedi's first line. It stands in opposition.

Through passion, I gain strength. We've already done Passion, it's a nice little dressing up of "Being a raging psycho"

Through strength, I gain power. Strength is often intermingled with power, but it's often spoken of interchangably with being able to set aside morals. The Sith isn't an amoral monster who just killed a bunch of kids, he's just STRONG enough to do what needed to be done

Through power, I gain victory. Power isn't a code word. Power is Power, Power is what it's all about and there's no hiding it. In the Sith way the only thing that matters is that you are powerful enough to kill your rivals and stand on top.

Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me. I think the notions of breaking chains and being Free is the cleverest part of the Sith Code's propaganda kit. It's still seeing use in The Acolyte and it's still convincing people that the Sith are right, even when the guy who's calling for freedom mercs a child then and there.

The Sith are not misunderstood heroes. They're Nazis. They're facist might makes right would be autocrats trying to convince you they're right so you'll validate them and prove them right.

Sith Philosophy is self defeating. Following the Sith Code means you need to define yourself on your conflict, meaning your conflict can never end. For all its claims of being free and breaking chains you can never be free of what drives you or you will lose the strength it gives you. To break your chains you need to hold onto them tight, and you can never let them go.

[olderthannetfic]

Im neither a proshipper nor an anti at this current stage in life, but at one point i was an anti i guess? And I hate it say it, but looking back, I understand why. I don't think I actually gave a fuck about Harmful Fanfic or whatever, it was just a substitute for therapy that i couldn't get at the time (because "literally neurodivergent and a minor" or whatever, but like...actually literally neurodivergent and a minor LOL).

As weird as it sounds like, no one cared about my ACTUAL PAIN, and that made me feel EVEN MORE PAIN, so i took it out on ppl who shipped "abuse", or whatever.

It's so stupid now, as an adult who is mentally better than I was then, but as ridiculous as it was, seeing someone ship an "abusive" ship or a "queer erasing ship" (like a canonically gay character with someone of the other binary gender)...it felt eerily similar to the actual abuse I was facing and the stress that everyone was putting on me to find a boyfriend or ask why my (closeted lesbian) self didn't like any boys.

But it was so much easier to keyboard warrior about how people who ship Bad things are Bad people, than it was to fix any problems in my actual life because...well, the actual problems in my life COULDN'T be fixed. That isn't a learned helplessness thing, there was genuinely nothing I could've done. So pissing off Shippers was, like, a vessel for that, and it *felt* like I was getting to lash out at the same people who were ACTUALLY hurting me, even though that obviously is not the case. Funny thing is, it wasn't actual fandom discourse that made me switch sides, it was getting to learn more about youth liberation movements and stuff, because it was then that I recognized the actual structures that were making me hurt.

I think one silver lining is it's made me more compassionate an adult. While I don't have any defense for the antis who do actual horrendous stuff like doxxing or sending death/rape threats, etc, I do have a lot of defense for the ones who were like me and would just make posts talking about how Wrong it is to ship certain things. I know that not all antis are in the same place that I was once was, and some are just genuinely immature brats, but it's like. . . I get it, you know?

The cycle of abuse/bullying is weird and it's not often a 1:1 "I had an abusive parent so now i'll be an abusive parent", sometimes it's the chronically online stuff like I did. It's also why I'm careful-careful to not engage and to just block or, even try to have a mature discussion if I can, and if the person I'm talking to is just "a little bit annoying" rather than "actual bully doing/sending illegal stuff". A lot of them just want to be heard, I think, and it really makes me sad that this is the way they choose to be heard...but also i get it, because i was that.

--

Yup. We often discuss anti tendencies in this framework.

People want control over their environment when they have none. They want the world to make sense and for there to be simple rules they can follow to Never Mess Up. This is a very common reaction to trauma and also typical of brains that like order and neat boxes and a world full of justice and logic.

The trouble is that a critical mass of "I'm just pointing this out" type posts does tend to make all the other teens with an issue around moral scrupulosity implode. (And let's be real, plenty of the antis themselves are secretly into dark content and are trying to pray the gay kink away.)

I have some sympathy, but I'm still going to tell people they're sealioning when they are and tell them they're flat out wrong about how fantasies work, not sugar coat it because they're probably a delicate teen. There's no need to be excessively mean or treat people as irredeemable, but I also don't like how we talk endlessly about compassion for teen antis and not for teens targeted by antis. It's similar to how there are all those complaints like "Hey, I work hard to manage my mental illness, but all the support seems to go to people who are letting their issues rampage..."

[nqueso-emergency]

I wrote this because I needed to get it off my chest. But then I didn't want to put it on my own blog because I didn't want to deal with the discourse. So, I decided to send it to you in the hope you'd put it up.

I've been in many different fandoms, and I think the only fandom where I ever very actively shipped a canon couple was Torchwood. (If there are people not shipping Jack and Ianto, please never tell me.) That means, of course, there were always other LI of my ships to deal with. And somehow, no matter the fandom (NICS, Hawaii 5-0, Sherlock (mostly), Stargate, etc pp) it's always the same: If the fic takes place at a point in canon where one or more people in the desired ship are currently in a relationship usually one of two things happens: 1. The canon LI just doesn't seem to exist in the fic. 2. There is somewhere one line about "Oh, what about Character A?" "Ah, we broke up. No big deal." (And writing this, I'm kinda laughing now about the Buck/Natalia break-up between seasons 6 and 7.)

So, it's very strange and confusing to watch this part of the Buddie fandom that's so enraged about Tommy and has made hating him their whole fandom personality, who instead of doing what's always been done with LIs that were in the way of a ship created this whole subgenre on 9-1-1 fics now whose whole focus is "How do we overcome the obstacle of the unwanted LI to get our ship". (As I write this, there are 800 fics on ao3 tagged with both ships!) Where did the mentality of "ignore the LI in the way of our ship" vanish to? It was there for other LIs of Buck and Eddie in the past, why isn't it there for Tommy? Why can't a multishipper go into the Buddie tag in peace without being slapped in the face with Tommy bashing everywhere? (And why do you have to bash Buck and Eddie, too, while doing so? I know you don't recognize it, but that's what you're doing with many of those takes about the cheating. That's what you are doing every time you make Eddie into a violent caricature just so you have someone who can beat Tommy up.)

The hate against Tommy has a very different quality and edge to it than the hate for other LIs in the past, and this new genre you all created is a huge part of that.

And before anyone starts, yes there are a lot of bashing fics about the other LI. I've read a lot of them. The vast majority of those are not about finding a way to get the LI out of the way for Buddie (especially not by glorifying Buddie cheating on their LIs) They are about exploring little things of the characters people find jarring or exaggerating those things to use as a plot or plot device. (e.g. Ana's ableist take after the whole skateboard incident. Or her unprofessional behavior of flirting with a parent during parent-teacher-conference.)

As for the very worn-out mantra/whine of "Why could I peacefully hate on the female LIs in the past but aren't allowed to do the same with Tommy?" No one would bother you if you stopped pushing your hate on everyone else.

But you're trying to infiltrate every single nook with your hatred because somehow you don't understand while you're entitled to your hate about Tommy, other people are just as equally entitled to their love and appreciation of the character and the representation he provides. It's not just the Buddie tag people are bombarded with your hate in. No matter what tag — Bathena, Henren, Madney, every single character tag — you'll stumble over Tommy hate pretty fast. Because you tag them all if they matter for your post or not. (I mean, you've done that with Buddie in general for years, which also was never okay!) Or find cheap excuses to include them in your post.

People would let you wallow in your hate peacefully if you wouldn't attack anyone who didn't agree with you. Especially those gay and bi men in this fandom who are full of gratefulness and praise for the representation of their lived experiences 9-1-1 has given them through Tommy and Bucktommy. Who've been calling you out for your hateful and phobic behavior because there is no avoiding being confronted with it.

No one would bother you if you wouldn't post public lists of people you plan to bully in the future!

I guess the point of this long-ass rant is: Get in your fucking lane and let everyone else enjoy the fandom, too. Keep your hate where others can avoid it. It's not that difficult. And believing everyone has to agree with you about your hate is a huge red flag.

Perfectly said, anon 👏

"You" = bestie boos btw

[leidensygdom]

I gotta say, one of the wildest radical transphobes' talking "points" is probably bathroom discourse. I can't even put to words how utterly detached from reality it is. It's terminally online stuff.

So, bathrooms. I don't know if somehow other people's realities are somehow vastly different from mine, but I feel like the extreme clear divide between "men's" and "women's" bathrooms is just not real. Where I live, stalls are often gendered, but how much they get used in that way is far less consistent.

For example: If the place had only the space to make one bathroom accessible, it's gonna be the women's bathroom. Always. It doesn't mean only disabled women have access to bathrooms- It means that the women's bathroom is also going to be used by disabled people. And this is common. Really common. Maybe it's because the women's bathroom tends to need more space- For pad dispensers and trash cans, for baby-changing stations (yes, I hate that these are only on the women's bathroom usually), and so on. Now- You see a guy enter the women's bathroom. Are you gonna micro-analize if the guy looks disabled enough to use it, or are you going to wash your hands and go on with your life?

Again, baby-changing stations are almost always located on the women's bathroom. It sucks- It should be in all bathrooms. But it's how it is. You see a cis guy enter with a kid. Or maybe not even with a kid- Just enters, wanders around, finds the baby-changing station, gets a diaper from the dispenser and leaves. Are you gonna throw a fit or just let this guy handle his kid?

Bathrooms get cleaned on the regular. A lot of times, you may wanna go there, and get told it's being cleaned, and just get asked to use the other gender's bathroom. Cleaning can take hours. If the men's bathroom is being cleaned and everyone is now using the women's, are you going to deem the bathroom to be the world's unsafest place or are you just go take a pee and leave?

Fucking hell, sometimes the stall you want to go to is incredibly dirty. It happens. No need to get on details. Just the kind of stuff that makes you want to not use it. Or maybe it's clogged, or maybe it's not working. Maybe there's a note saying "Broken, do not enter". Do you cry about it or just go find another stall- Which may be on the other fucking gender's bathroom?

Most times I'll use whatever bathroom is available. One is busy? Ok, let me get to the other one. I'm AFAB and while I don't present femininely, I still look like a woman to most people. Have I ever been in danger because I cleaned my hands besides someone with a dick? No. Grow the fuck up. This isn't even rare. People will switch bathrooms for speed. People will switch bathrooms because one of them is out of paper. Because one of them is out of soap.

The mall in my current city recently installed "Family" bathrooms. They're not being marketed as unisex, or inclusive, or anything. Just "family" bathrooms. For everyone. They're great. It's the bathroom everyone will use- Men, women, anything in between and outside of that, kids, disabled people, etc. There's a bunch of stalls adapted to different needs. There's accessible stalls. There's pad and diaper dispensers. There's stalls that have a big toilet and a little toilet so parents can go with their kids. There's tall sinks and short sinks- So disabled people and kids can reach.

And, to nobody's surprise, there's no reports whatsoever of any sort of assault in them.

I'm just. I don't know. I'm sorry you can't detach the existence of a dick near you from immediate assault. I don't know why that changes in the context of a bathroom- I've never (in my long life of using whatever bathroom) been in danger for that. And I'm talking as someone who has had some unsavory experiences in other situations. Grow the fuck up and maybe stop basing your views on imaginary scenarios y'all need to come up with to justify your hatred of a minority. Maybe if y'all got off your keyboards and went outside for once, you'd realize bathrooms work much differently from whatever weird ideal you have formed about them.

[moeitsu]

Since it's pride month I wanna talk about something I've noticed in the Red Dead Redemption fandom:

The Bisexual erasure of Sadie Adler and Arthur Morgan.

I apologize if this comes across as harsh, but it's something that's been on my mind since I started interacting w/ this media. And as a bisexual, I wanted to discuss it further.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with shipping these characters with the same sex. Personally, I am a Charthur shipper till the day I die. I don't ship Sadie with anyone but her husband, but I still enjoy seeing the fanart and headcanons of the women she's shipped with.

That being said, these characters are not lesbian or gay. That's literally a fact, and if you think otherwise it is bisexual erasure.

Let's start with Sadie Adler. Her entire character arc is getting revenge on the O'Driscolls for killing her husband. Whom she mourns for years, and talks about frequently with Arthur/other camp members. Now, if you want to ship her w/ Abigail or Molly or whomever, go for it!! But she has loved and still loves her husband. She is not a lesbian, and she didn't just magically turn into a lesbian after Jake's death. If she had any love interests other than Jake, this would make her bisexual. (even Sapphic is still a more appropriate term than lesbian)

The same goes for women in real life who have dated men first, then dated a woman. Just because their current partner is the same sex doesn't mean we can assume they are suddenly lesbian. Calling characters lesbians even if they have been in a relationship with men before is bisexual erasure.

This same concept is applied to Arthur Morgan. He had previous relationships with women. (one of whom he still has strong feelings for) and he is attracted to women. We see this with his greeting dialogue and when he compliments people. I believe Arthur's character is more likely to be bisexual than Sadie's, given his interactions w/ some of the men in the game. But that doesn't erase the fact that he's still attracted to the opposite sex. Arthur is not a gay man. Disregarding his past relationships w/ women is a form of bisexual erasure.

There is a huge double standard here because if these character's were actually lesbian/gay and the fandom decided to ship them with people of the opposite sex (i.e headcanon they are bi), there would be a major discourse.

Whenever bisexual women and men are presented in the media I always notice a few things:

Bi women are "secretly straight"

Bi women "don't know their lesbian yet"

Bi men are "secretly gay"

As well as this funny little graphic below ↓

Like I said before, I am bisexual. And if I'm being honest this years pride month has been exhausting and mildly infuriating with how the community seems to disregard bisexuals in a hetero relationship.

I stopped talking about my bisexuality with people because once they know I have been in a committed relationship with a man for seven years, I am suddenly excluded from the conversation.

I've had ex-friends tell me that I only identify as bisexual to "fit in" with the queer community. I've had people in college assume I was lesbian bc of the way I dressed, and then try to tell me that I must be secretly lesbian when I tell them I'm Bi. (Ppl also assumed I was non-binary bc of the way I presented but that's another story)

This stuff doesn't just happen to fictional characters, it happens to real people every single day. I'm honestly tired of ppl saying "well my headcanon doesn't hurt anybody, they're not real." Yes it does!! You are supporting Bi erasure!!

That's all I'm gonna say on this topic for now. I'd love to leave it open for discussion, but please be nice. This isn't a call-out or me trying to antagonize the queer rdr community. I just wanted to get it off my mind.

[oldfaneworld]

I need some clarity.

I don't know how I want to start this so I'm going to ramble this out. The discourse around Lanolin is something I don't really get in all honesty. The plot we have been following since the beginning of The Misadventure arc isn't anything new. The Fandom has dealt with trickery and guile before so I don't understand why this is such a hot topic to begin with. I have a few ideas why it's a hot topic and I'll touch on it soon but first I want to make this very clear. Looking back at the few posts I have on this website, I think I've made It very clear that Lanolin is my favorite character in all of the idw run. I can say this with my chest she is tied as my number 2 favorite character in this franchise with Bunnie d'coolette from the Archie run of the comics both reboot and pre-boot. My number 1 being Sonic from the story book games specifically the sonic and the black knight game.

I have only ‘recently’ gotten back into being a fan of the franchise about a year ago and most of that time has been me sitting down quietly playing Forces, Frontiers, Shadow Generations and reading first the entirety of the Archie run of the Sonic comics and then later the IDW run of the Sonic comics(i’ll get to fleetway soon i’ve just haven't gotten there yet). As for someone who’s been quiet for most of this time, seeing the Lanolin discourse flare back up because of the Riders arc is very interesting to me.

The big thing that gets me about the majority of it feels disingenuous to me from both sides. I am someone who has been very lucky to have patient friends that are willing to listen to me for a few hours on end talking to them about all of this. I am a Lanolin defender if it wasn’t already clear, so to my fellow defenders please don't go out of your way to call people misogynist(its true that there are some who are, but please be a bit more tactful when you do it) just because they don't like Lanolin. More often than not you're just throwing the wrong label at someone and it’ll just make things worse and poison the water for everyone. To those that dislike Lanolin you need to cool your jets just as hard, calling for violence to be done to her and to kick her out of the comics entirely because she’s been tricked is wild to think about especially because we have characters that are beloved that have been tricked and done way worse then she has that never received this kind of backlash. 

My reason why I think Knuckles, Silver and Shadow haven’t received the same kind of backlash Lanolin currently has is for a few reasons. The first is because all of their mistakes they’ve done have been nearly a decade ago if not longer so there's so much real time that buffers them from receiving such a backlash on top of that. Also we didn't necessarily have places like twitter, tumblr, or reddit back then like we do now.

The biggest reason why I think Lanolin is getting so much backlash where the others never did was (knuckles got it the worst but in the end it was turned into a gag) because of the medium her story is being told in. Everyone else was in a game Knuckles (S3&K, SA1, SA2), Silver (06), Shadow(SA2)  in comparison to Lanolin her’s is in the comics. A medium that is way slower than that of the games, just because of the nature of how long it takes for an issue to come out not including any delay. So I honestly think because of the slowness of comics in general people were allowed to sit and let an annoyance at best (in a games case) fester to hate (because of the comics timeframe).  A sonic game can be done at fastest in a few hours (forces) or a month (Frontiers) and that's not including 100 precenting a game. where in the comics Lanolin’s arc is taking longer than a year and a half and it's still going. 

Comparing her story to the three above we are what 2/3rds ¾ of the way through her personal arc about learning how to be a new leader and the challenges that brings, especially when she’s forced to make a choice that feels right in the moment but is wrong in the long term. People saying you can't compare her arc to Silver, Shadow or Knuckles is being dishonest in my book. The only difference in the way the arcs works is that the three’s arcs are done and hers isn't. Silver and Knuckles were tricked by their villains respectfully and Eggman and Mephiles nearly won because of it. Once they realized what they did they worked just as hard to fix what they messed up. Shadow was ruled by revenge allowing himself to work with eggman so he could get closer to the Ark to get rid of the Earth but Amy and others were there to open his eyes and it nearly cost him his life to fix what he allowed his rage to start.

So we know we aren’t done with Lanolin’s arc yet so why is there so much hate? We are just starting with her being redeemed. Why are people so adamant with burying her? I can't imagine another character in this moment of the comics that deserves her redemption more than her. She’s been here since issue 2 of the run and has been working hard in the background since, to get where she’s at and with her first real mistake and people want to tear all her accomplishments away from her. I don't get it? What I do get is having a casual dislike for her because of the way she talked to Silver and Whisper(misadventure) and Sonic and crew(Riders).

With all of what I have said, can someone please explain to me what I'm missing? Even in the newest issue when she is at her lowest she puts herself in the same position she put Silver in! She gave Tangle and Whisper the same power as before to vote her out because she knew she messed up and she’s not holding herself above any of the consequences she placed on other people. This is admirable she messed up and is willing to lose maybe her only chance to make a real difference in her world instead of doubling down and trying to make herself look right.

[kitsune-pop]

i have feelings about b-127 from transformers one

(also spoilers for the movie)

I've seen plenty of discourse around b, we all have. "he's annoying and cringe!" "he ruins the movie!!" etc. I'm not here to talk about your personal preference in comedic relief. I want to talk about b in a way I haven't seen anyone do before (and if someone has tag me I wanna discuss things!)

tfo is pretty clearly a story about disenfranchised workers reclaiming their rights and autonomy. fairly cut and dry. orion and d-16 have different ideas on how to enact change, plot moves forward. but b does stand out amongst the cast as the only one who isn't completely destroyed by the revelation of sentinel's betrayal, nor does he go through a radical personality change like Orion, d-16 or even elita. he stays his lovable self

why is that?

b admits himself that he got reassigned to burn pit duty. he plays it off, but it's made abundantly clear that he's unhappy. his work station is treated like a dungeon, and it very well may be! they had to climb up 50 levels of trash just to get out! which begs the question; did they have to sneak past 49 other trash watchers? or did the other ones just ignore them?

are the sublevels only for the ones the enforcers don't like or have any use for?

I'm going to pivot to talk about myself and my experiences. (we'll get back to b in a sec) I am very neurodivergent. autism, ADHD, cptsd and likely others that I haven't figured out yet. it's hard for me to keep a job. whether it's overstimulation, rude customers callous or abusive management, I lose my job a lot

I've never once quit

every time I've been fired, it's come out of the blue. no warnings, no talk about "how to improve your performance." just walk in, walk out an hour later unemployed. and it's always over something that I have no real control over. and it's because I'm neurodivergent. I know it is. I'm loud, make obnoxious jokes, talk too much, pretty much everything b does

and I'm punished for it

it's always the same way; they find some way to shove me out of sight. I'm certainly not an amazing worker, but I follow the rules and make sure all my work is done before I clock out. I'm worth more to keep than to train a new person. so I'm sent to a department that no one goes to. or I get locked into a night shift that takes over a year for me to escape from only after the manager who put me there quit. I'm not stupid, I know why. I'm off-putting to neurotypical people. so I clam up, shut down, become an automaton for whatever company I work for

and it doesn't matter

my managers always find some mundane thing I did wrong literally months in the past and use it as an excuse to fire me. it's happened three separate times and I can even see my current managers gearing up to do the same thing

I'm b, and b is me

he represents the coworker you don't like, the obnoxious neighbor who's too nosy, the friend of a friend who tries way too hard to be funny. he's the guy who you shove in a corner and forget about and he deserves freedom and autonomy too

I deserve freedom and autonomy

we all deserve it, it is our right as human beings to not be viewed as pieces of a machine to be shattered beyond repair and replaced when necessary. regardless of whether or not you enjoy spending your personal time around me. Orion and d are both unsettled by b, but quickly realize that he just wants to have real, not garbage (literally) friends. and then they realize that, yeah he's annoying, but he's kind, big hearted and just an overall sweet guy

I wish someone felt that way about me when they see me so disassociated at my job I can barely register the words they're saying to me

I wish a single one of my previous managers understood that about me

I wish I didn't live in constant fear that my apartment, my cats and my food weren't all at risk just because someone doesn't like my vibe

is it any wonder why they stood up and fought for themselves? is it any wonder that d became Megatron when he realized that his superiors viewed him and all his protocol following glory as nothing more than trash to be pushed around? is it any wonder how angry he got when he realized he was a single simple mistake from being forgotten?

...sorry, I got a little emotional at the end there

b-127 in transformers one means a lot to me

not because I see myself in him

but because I see my loved ones in him

[habijob]

Soooo, Sebastian’s marriage lore has been ping ponging in my head like the pecking DVD logo for the last week.

And the reason being that when looking at it, it does not come with any explanation whatsoever. Which seemed to have resulted in many people getting... let’s call it “overworked” over it.

Including me.

But not because of the related discourse... drama(?) on the official pressure discord.

No, it’s been on my mind for the last week, because the inclusion of this lore doesn’t make sense... yet.

Pressure is stated to be in alpha. And the devs are working on adding more content to it; so any new lore surrounding our favorite pool noodle fish can happen to come across as “incomplete”.

Because it is *incomplete*.

And the marriage lore is this exact thing. It was added for reasons during the friendly fire update I don't want to pin point down, because I want to avoid talking about the drama itself and just want to talk about the ring and the photo.

So, what do I mean by it feels "incomplete". Well, it lacks an explanation how Sebastian got into the possession of these *personal items*.

"But Habi, why aren't you questioning then anything else on his design? From where did he got his clothes?"

I dunno. Maybe these clothes are his personal belongings. Maybe Urbanshade had allowed him to have "free time clothes". Or maybe these clothes were something he found within Urbanshade after he caused the lockdown. Idk, maybe there an entire pecking area for prisoner theater and he got the outfit from a chest with costumes in it. Maybe his pecking jabat shirt thing was part of a pirate costume. Or that green dude that is apparently part of the canon narrative gave him these clothes. Who knows, but it doesn't matter, because these clothes can be seen as not personal belongings.

However a wedding ring and a photo of his wife are personal belongings. And considering Urbanshade seems to be a horrible, horrible company according to the "discord lore", so I have to wonder how Sebastian was able to get these two items (back?) during the lockdown.

And because this bugs me so much, my brain has spent the last couple of days figuring out ideas, on how to answer these questions. So that this marriage lore doesn't feel "weirdly ducttaped on" anymore.

Question 1: "How did the photo and the wedding ring end up in Urbanshade in the first place?"

-> Well, according to a (rather sparingly) google search, death row inmates are allowed to have small amounts of personal belongings.

So, Sebastian could have possessed the photo and ring since he was sentenced to death. And then when Urbanshade scooped him up, he simply took these two items with him.

Like, here's an idea, this guy maybe didn't even know he was getting declared dead by Urbanshade, after he was tranfered over to Hadal Blacksite. So, he always believed that his family and his wife think he's still alive, but well, somewhere else entirely. Not knowing, that they got told he was dead.

Only later learning that he was declared dead by Urbanshade BUT also declared innocent by the authorities, once he had gotten his file into his fingers uh claws?

Question 1.5: "Wait, but isn't his wife also in Hadal Blacksite, if we consider that in that one ref sheet she seems to have void mass tentacles?"

-> She is currently not in the game as an entity or NPC or whatever. Therefore, we are gonna ignore her existence for the sake of keeping this simpler.

Question 2: "What happened to the ring and photo when they were in Urbanshade? Did Sebastian have them the entire time or not?? Because he didn't have the ring and photo before the Friendly Fire update"

-> Well, there are multiple possibilties to this one. The first idea is yes, Sebastian was able to have them the entire time, and that he didn't wear the ring or have the photo with him can simply be explained as "game's still in development".

Another possibility is that some asshole working at Urbanshade took these two things from him. Maybe a guard or a scientist, because they saw Sebastian with these items, and thought that this death-sentenced, 9-people-murderer LR-P doesn't deserve these items.

And so they disappeared.

Question 2.5: "If someone took them, then how did Sebastian find them??"

-> He simply stumbled upon them during his scavanging through the facility. Like, he probably didn't even actively look for them, because he was just trying to find useful stuff, but then he found these very important items to him.

Question 3: "The ring doesn't make sense. His hands and therefore fingers are larger than normal, how can he have such a large ring."

-> I actually attempted to explain this (and the previous question) with a comic of mine. The simple answer is, he probably made himself a new ring, so that he can wear this symbol of his marriage and find comfort in thinking about his wife.

Question 4: "But shouldn't Sebastian maybe realize that his wife could have moved on? It's been 12 years."

-> This man is running on various things like stress, anxiety, adrenaline, low sleep, and what else you can slap into this poor man during a lockdown that he caused, because he wants to break out. So him being very hopeful about his wife is probably one of the only comforts he currently is able to have. Let him have that.

-> Second answer though, now not ignoring his wife anymore. She is probably just somewhere around in the facility, working together with Sebastian, or Sebastian is working on getting her free from wherever she is contained. Who knows? (Well actually, Zerum does, but we don't. Which is why everything here is my speculations.)

But anyway, now the ring and the photo can make sense, and I can hopefully move to being crazy about other stuff related to him.

Late edit; bonus question:

Question 5: "Okay, let's pretend Zerum is in the facility. How the peck did she end up in the facility too?"

-> Perhaps the photo was the reason. Urbanshade knew this is his wife, and when Sebastian became more hard to deal with, they would threaten him with his wife. Eventuall leading to them bringing her down to Hadal Blacksite (somehow).

And then experiments on her ensued ú_ù

[beevean]

To what extent do you think Lanolin could have been more salvageable if we as readers weren't told so explicitly that Duo is Mimic? Because then at least we wouldn't have gone into these issues with the knowledge EVERYTHING Lanolin is doing is blithely wrong and going to blow up on her eventually?

Be less of an asshole? lol

Try to read the past and current arc mentally replacing Duo with, idk, Gadget. Let's pretend Lanolin is sticking out for a real rookie who has nothing but good intentions, and it's the others that are weirdly aggressive against him - this is what is going on from Lanolin's perspective.

Is it still right of her to talk down Silver like he's a little boy, without listening to what he had to say about the accident where he almost died?

Is it still right of her to snatch things out of Tangle's hands like she too is a little girl?

Is it still right of her to use physical force to subdue her own teammate (who also happens to have PTSD over Mimic, and Lanolin knows), instead of trying to deescalate the situation?

Is it still right of her to glare menacingly at Tangle after putting her under pressure on what to do with Silver?

Is it still right of her to treat Sonic, Tails and Amy hurt in an accident like they're nothing but hazards on the road? Again, the issue is not that "they're friends", like Tangle puts it: those are three people who could have been wounded.

Is it still right of her to be so angry at Sonic going behind her back that, after Clutch was outed to be a scumbag who tricked the Restoration, while a ship is about to crash and kill everyone, her first thought is to berate her teammates for keeping the secret and then going to arrest him because he needs to be punished?

Can you see how her behavior has nothing to do with Mimic, especially in the current arc?

But okay, let's focus on the first part. I get that Lanolin has a bias for rookies because she sees herself in them. I get that she doesn't understand why Silver and Whisper are so aggressive and are accusing the rookie of wild shit, and from her point of view this behavior is irrational. But even back then, she doesn't act like a leader of a team, she acts like her only concern is protecting the rookie and the others are just meanies. Whisper is supposed to be her teammate and new friend. There is not a moment where Lanolin tries to keep things civil and tries to understand why the two are certain the rookie is up to no good. She jumps to shutting them up and punishing them way too quickly.

Lanolin is an incompetent leader who brute forces her way in because she has zero charisma. This does make sense in some way: she is inexperienced, and perhaps overcompensating for her perceived weakness. The problems then are three:

she doesn't do anything good for anyone who isn't the rookie. Again, she is supposed to be Tangle and Whisper's teammates and new friend. Why do they stick with her, when she has done nothing but harming them?

she never lets up, even in private. Hell, the last time we see her in private, away from everyone's eyes (except Duo), she is venting her frustrations on a punching bag. She is still as angry as she always is. The mask of the tough leader is not a mask: this is just who she is.

the others don't really express enough frustration at her sloppy methods. Tangle admits that she's scared of Lanolin, but it kind of dies there. This is the crux of the discourse around her: how much are we meant to dislike Lanolin? From what I can see, the story sees her as flawed, but nowhere near as flawed as she actually is. Like her only issue is that she is "bossy" and not that she is abusive.

Lanolin just doesn't have any redeeming qualities for her to be interesting despite her huge flaws. We are told that her behavior stems from the desire of protecting people and not making them feel helpless like she used to be... but it doesn't come off that way, when she is effectively protecting one (1) person. So, a good way to "fix" her would be to show her thawing for her friends and being nice to them, actually showing that she does mean well. Or making her doubt that she's doing the right thing. Or making her apologize for assaulting Whisper, you know. Show some kindness in her underneath the tough no-nonsense exterior.

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

Awright I'm gonna get my take in on the current round of CJ discourse, because I do think I have a couple things to add! I'll be super clear upfront that I don't really care very strongly about Jack in any direction, he's a convenient character from Ed's past but that's about as far as I think about him.

So, Jack is the only character who we explicitly know has known Ed since he was very young, and the only one confirmed to be with him back in the Hornigold days. It's for this reason alone that I tend to take the information he tells us about Ed at face value - not because I think he's an honest character, but because he's the only window we're provided into that time of Ed's life. We can assume Jack also got into piracy young and he's been through the exact same grinder as Ed; this is one of the reasons that Ed takes it so hard when Stede kicks Jack off the ship. He feels like Jack and himself are the same genre of person - if Stede doesn't like Jack, then he'll realize soon he doesn't like Ed, either.

If he and Ed have had a sexual relationship in the past, I think that's so much more interesting than assuming Jack is lying. Ed and Jack very explicitly are not friends. Jack talks about his "dalliances" with Ed so dismissively. I think it's much more interesting to look at this with the takeaway that Ed's past sexual relationships have been emotionally unfulfilling and do not allow him to be vulnerable because that informs our understanding of Ed later (for example, that can be a fun wrinkle into how Ed brings up the satisfying, intimate sex he had with Stede during his panic in s2e7).

Another function Jack serves is he pushes the atmosphere on the Revenge closer to what it would be on a typical pirate ship. He's constantly making cracks at the crew failing to act like "real pirates," making Stede feel left out for not enjoying such rowdy, dangerous games. This is very useful because it cultivates an atmosphere designed to drive a wedge between Ed and Stede. For Ed, these games are nostalgic. When Jack makes him uncomfortable, it's quickly followed by Jack suggesting another game. When Ed tries to apologize for one of their activities hurting Stede's feelings, or when he tries to encourage Stede to join in, Jack is there to distract Ed and make him feel, in turn, that Stede isn't just rejecting the games, he's rejecting Ed.

It highlights one thing we know about Ed: he's very, very good at conforming to what's expected of him in any given situation. He can be a people pleaser, and he very obviously just wants Stede and Jack to get along and feels stuck in the middle. I'm not saying he doesn't hurt Stede in this episode, but I am saying that when Jack is creating an atmosphere that feels like a more "typical" pirate ship, and Ed leans into the behavior that he feels is expected of him, it leaves him easily confused and upset when Stede obviously isn't enjoying it. We see unusual lack of regard for others from Ed in this episode (like him shouting "that's what you fuckin' get!" at the Swede after the Swede gets hurt), and it stands out because it's not how Ed normally acts, only adding to the guilt Ed's going to feel that makes him leave with Jack.

Neither Ed nor Stede are trying to hurt each other in this episode. Ed is falling back on old behaviors, and when Stede says he doesn't like it, the fact that he still sees Jack as being so similar to him makes him take it as a personal rejection. I don't think Ed's intentionally trying to make Stede feel singled out or bullied, and it's not Stede's fault he's not enjoying what's going on, but Jack is a very, VERY good manipulator and he's set up the perfect situation to make both of them feel wrongfooted with each other. He's not just manipulating the two of them, he's orchestrating the entire vibe of the ship to make Stede feel left out and make Ed blame himself when things go too far.

[librarycards]

I’ve seen a lot of discourse about Aaron Bushnell and madness, with reactionary genocidaires saying it is madness, and leftists saying it is not madness but principled protest. In my mind I am thinking about madness and sanity under empire, thinking I am surely mad and wondering why anyone is trying to be sane. If you have the capacity, can you share your thoughts on the madness of this moment, or point to others who have shared those thoughts?

you have very much captured the spirit of what i think! there's that common aphorism that goes something like, 'if this world is sane, then of course i'm mad' etc. etc., while i think this doesn't fully capture the specific genealogy and politic of Madness as contemporary scholar-activists understand it, it does provide a quick & effective explanation of Aaron's (z"l) decision to make the ultimate sacrifice in support of Palestinian liberation.

it isn't useful to understand his choices as solely Mad (in terms of an embrace of opacity and nonsensicality/illegibility - in fact, quite the opposite, he took pains to be explicit and serious as to his reasoning and methodology so that u.s. media discourse would struggle to obfuscate it [even though they still are]).

however, it *is* useful to use a Mad conceptual framework for some elements of Aaron's choice, and as a means of understanding pathologized forms of protest –– not only suicide, but med strike, hunger strike, etc. these forms of protest, as many have said, are designed to distress onlookers. they are designed to push against the bounds of the common[/]sensical, to gift us with possible alternatives to, you know, getting a police permit and marching in circles, AND, to the complacent, grease the stopped-up gears of their own imaginations. because Aaron did what is, in many ways (even to those of us who have attempted suicide before) unimaginable: he died. we have not yet died. he died yelling "Free Palestine." he died, and lived his last moments with a degree of moral turpitude, courage, and singleminded commitment to a cause that few will ever achieve, and yet one that –– as Aaron himself acknowledged Palestinians must muster every day.

here is where Madness comes in: Aaron acted as a linker of worlds: between that which many usamericans, and many others who have never undergone military siege/genocide, find exists outside the realm of the imaginable. a world that many would prefer to pretend does not, can not, could not exist. a world from which hegemonic media would have "us" (white americans/others in the ~western world~) believe could never exist, not least because our own military hegemons (with Aaron, until the other day, as one of their sentient weapons) protect "democracy" –– that is, the supposed exceptionality/exemption of the "(white) u.s. citizen" from terror, from sociopolitical Madness, from the absolute violence of settler colonialism. Aaron, in short, brought that unimaginable violence home. he forced us to reckon with the brutal truth of martyrdom, here. as someone on here mentioned, he used his status as an airman in what is perhaps the most effective weaponization of privilege i have ever seen. he killed a soldier, and that soldier was himself.

of course media is leaping and will continue to leap on this as evidence of extremism, of dangerous insanity, etc. etc. in radical movements. always has been. read The Protest Psychosis. the idea of insanity has been used by basically every state power to justify disposal, because it's convenient: by claiming one is insane, you also claim all of their appeals to reason are the result of their insanity. this is called anasognosia. it's a cute little trick. it isn't new. the best way to approach this is to maintain two things: one, that Aaron's choice was rational given a clearsighted understanding of the scale of genocide that's currently taking place. AND, to question those –– leftists included! pro-pal folks included! –– who uncritically cite 'mental illness' as the reason for Aaron's suicide.

this is not because Aaron wasn't what some would call "mentally ill" –– i don't know him, i do not live in his head. the point is, it does not matter if he was diagnosed with anything or not. it does not matter if he was already suicidal or not. it does not matter if he had tried to kill himself before. none of it fucking matters, and attempts to reduce this act to the result of a mad(dened) mind is to distract from the political project he pursued. he performed a politically Mad act, to which his imagined internal pathology was irrelevant. he broke consensus reality, even if only for a moment. he linked worlds. Palestinians felt it. that is what matters.

so, how did he connect worlds? he did something Mad. it is useful to understand suicide as a Mad act, so long as we are careful not to fall into the pathologizing traps that exclude suicidal people as interlocutors outright. he showed many of us, activists included, what we could be doing - the lengths to which it is possible to go in support of liberation. he did not, and i am not, encourage/ing everyone else to kill themselves. self-immolation is effective, in many ways, because so few people do it. we need to stay alive to continue the fight. however, Aaron tore the fabric of the reasonable, the possible, and the legal (consider the pigs who approached his burning body with guns) to disrupt a collective consciousness that would rather move on, equivocate, forget, tune-out. that is Mad. Madness is necessary in our movements, all of them.