#this was not directed at you anon

[soaps-mohawk]

I just saw someone talk about Simon Riley being a rapist and the only way they tried to confirm it is by saying that he is a war criminal and all soldiers are misogynistic and sexist and they also talked about how he dreamt of hurting women in the comics when that's quite literally a normal reaction by being raped by both men and women (what I mean is that abused people sometimes dream of becoming someone they're not and don't want to be) but they conveniently forgot to mention how that "dream" was a nightmare. (Just wanted to rant about this and see your opinion)

The sigh I let out when I saw this ask this morning.

I'm so sick and tired of seeing this discourse. Not just in this fandom but in every fandom. Maybe it's just because I'm old and my frontal lobe is fully developed, or maybe it's because I was in fandom back in the days where there were no tags. You were lucky if you got a warning at the beginning of a fic. Most fics you walked in blind and if you didn't like something? You hit the back button and found something else.

This sudden mainstreaming of fandom has ruined these spaces. People come in, refuse to "learn the rules" that most of us learned by just existing in these spaces and watching others interact. There were no written rules back then. We learned by observing and occasionally being guided on fandom etiquette by those more experienced than us. Now it's just like people come in expecting fandom to be like every other space on the internet and then get defensive and angry when they realize it's not. Fandom is cringy. It's nerdy. It's happy and sunshine and it's dark and ugly like every media out there. Us creators and those of us more experienced in fandom have been screaming how to exist in fandom spaces from the rooftops but no one is listening and then everyone wonders why creators are leaving these spaces. Why fandoms keep getting abandoned.

All of that aside, this discourse about FICTIONAL characters pisses me off. Simon Riley is a FICTIONAL character. He has no morality, there is no right or wrong because he's FICTIONAL. You can make him do whatever you want to do because he's NOT REAL. You can give him wings and have him fly and guess what?? Cool, that can happen because he's NOT REAL. You want to make him a rapist? Cool, you can do that because he's FICTIONAL. You can make him whatever you want to make him because he's a character. He's not a living, breathing human being. There are no consequences of his actions because he's FICTIONAL!!!

Don't even get me started on this sudden discourse about dark fics and dead dove that's appeared recently. Dark media has existed for literal centuries. The Epic of Gilgamesh from 1800 BCE. The Odyssey. Mostellaria by Plautus. The Castle of Otranto published in the 1700s. Frankenstein. Dracula. The works of Edgar Allan Poe. Lolita. Hell, look at the Bible. The Bible, especially the old testament, is fucked up. Even in the watered down, bastardized King James version, the things the old testament "God" supposedly did, when you sit and actually think about them outside the lens of religious brainrot, are super fucked up.

People have been creating dark media for a long time. Horror has existed for a long time because it plays to our worst fears. It gives us a safe way to express those fears and to experience them without having to experience them first hand. You wouldn't bitch at a horror movie director for including things like rape and gore and murder in their movies?? So why is writing different? You think every horror movie director agrees with the things they portray on screen? You think every horror movie director would go out and murder someone just because they made a movie about it? No, because we're allowed to portray things in all forms of media, we're allowed to write things without morally agreeing with them. Guess what, most people that write rape or assault or violence, aren't going out and doing those things in real life. They don't support those things in real life. In fact, people that write dark fanfics are some of the loudest protesters against those things.

If you want to make Simon Riley a real person, guess what? He's not going to be even morally grey. Most people in the military are not good people. They're not. The people that are good people in the military, or were in the military, are the ones saying that the loudest. People that got tricked into joining, people that got promised things, people that did it because they had no other choice and then realized what it was really like after getting in? Those are the people to listen to. Not Call of Duty, not the people trying to convince you to join because they're glorified sales people and have a quota to fill. Look up videos of what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan at the hands of American and British soldiers. You would not like Simon Riley if he were a real person.

But he's not real. He's FICTIONAL. Even as a fictional character, he's not a good person. So many Call of Duty fans put on the blinders and ignore the fact that these men are out here committing awful acts of violence and killing people because they're "the good guys." People love to forget that Price literally kidnapped a woman and a child and had them held at gunpoint to get information out of someone. Not only that, he was okay with it. If he were a real person that did that, you would not be questioning if he were a good person or not. You can tell the people that have never played the games or watched playthroughs, who only know these characters through the lenses of fanfics and artwork and headcanons.

Call of Duty is military propaganda. They paint these men as heroes, make it easy to put the blinders up and ignore the things that are happening, the things they're doing so that they can convince young men that they want to do that and they should join the military so they can go out and do that too. That's Call of Duty's audience. That's who they're creating these games for. These young, impressionable boys who get excited by the violence and the action who will go on to fill quota numbers for recruiters. Call of Duty was not made for us, the people writing fanfiction and creating art for it. This side of the Call of Duty fandom will be the first to tell you all of this.

This side of the fandom creates fanworks which would turn Activision's eyes red. We babygirlify their military propaganda because it actively goes against what Activision is trying to do. It goes against what Call of Duty is at its core. Sure, some people water it down a lot, and others keep it more realistic to what these men would be like in real life, because it's FICTION. You can portray these characters however you want because that's what fiction is for.

And guess what, anon? Rape kinks exist. Consensual non-consent exists. It's well known. And guess what? Victims of sexual assault and rape can develop those kinks as a coping mechanism. Here's a study from the NIH website, and if that's too complex for you, here's a VICE news article that uses that study. People can write rape and rape kinks and CNC and noncon and not support it in real life. People can write those things to bring awareness to the fact that they happen to people in real life, or because people in real life have those kinks. People write those things to help victims, to support them. It's cathartic. Dark media most often is created for catharsis. It gives people an outlet, and it allows people to experience those things in a safe, controlled environment for whatever reason.

And that's the thing, anon. People don't have to give anyone a reason for why the consume that kind of media. Creators don't owe anyone an explanation as to why they create it. It's none of your business, and if you're not comfortable with it, then don't consume it. You can turn off the TV if a horror movie is too much for you. People walk out of theaters all the time because a movie is not what they were expecting, be it because it was bad or because it was too graphic or violent or disgusting. You start reading a book and you don't like it for whatever reason? You put the book down and pick up another. Why do people have such a problem with not reading fanfics they don't like? Why do people have such a hard time just blocking creators that make things they don't want to see. Most dark fic and dead dove creators put ample warnings on their blog and their posts. That's why those tags exist. You don't like it and you don't want to see it? Then block and move on and let others enjoy what they want to enjoy.

You pearl clutchers are ruining fandom and soon there won't be anything for you to enjoy. If you can't handle fandom, then don't be in it. There is no algorithm here. You're going to see things you don't want to see and it's very easy to just block and filter tags. There was a time on Tumblr where you couldn't filter tags. I remember those days. You had to download the X-kit extension to block things, and that only worked on desktop. The fact Tumblr gave us the option to filter tags on the site and on the app was a big deal when it was rolled out. I remember so many people that didn't want to use the app when it first came out because you couldn't block potentially triggering tags.

It's not a creator's problem if you were triggered by their media. Life doesn't come with trigger warnings and it's a blessing that it's become so normalized to include warnings at the beginnings of fics. There's websites that exist for other forms of media that will give trigger warnings. If you can look up trigger warnings for a movie and decide not to watch it, you can look at the trigger warnings for fics and decide not to interact with it. You're not out here emailing the directors and producers of movies that include triggers you don't like, telling them they're awful people for including those things in their movie and they shouldn't. Yet you have no problem coming into the comments and inboxes creators who do this FOR FREE because we wrote one dark fic. Because we wrote something that's triggering to you.

And yes, some abuse victims go on to be abusers, some people continue that cycle because they don't have the help and support to break it. It's a sad thing that happens, but it happens. It happens in the fictional world and it happens in real life. People can make that happen to fictional characters for whatever reasons they want.

I've written dark fics. I've written several. I consume "disturbing" media for fun. I've read books and watched movies that would send these pearl clutchers to the hospital. Hell, I've probably written things (some published, some that will never see the light of day) that would turn these pearl clutchers inside out. Guess what? That's okay because it's FICTION. It's cathartic. I don't have to give my reasons why because it's no one's business except those I decide to tell because I trust them and I know they'll support me. I don't support those things in real life. Just because I write for Call of Duty doesn't mean I support the things the game portrays. If you consume Call of Duty media be it the games or fanfiction, does that mean you support what the game supports? What the creators of the games support? What militaries around the world support?

Think about that next time.

I’ve made my stance very clear here before, but I’ll do it again. In real life, I am anti military, anti war, anti gun violence, anti genocide, anti fascism, anti terf, anti homophobia, anti conservative, anti rape, anti domestic violence, anti colonialism and pro choice.

Just because I may create or consume media with those things in it, does not mean I support them. It's high time some of these pearl clutchers learn that.

The next time you want to come into a creator's inbox or comments and spew hatred towards them because of the things they write, why don't you do something useful with your time instead.

This will be my only discussion on this topic. I will not be answering any more asks like this. I will delete and block anyone who tries to come "well actually"-ing into my inbox. If you don't agree with this stance, then get off my blog and block me.

[dunmeshistash]

Dungeon Meshi Information Sources

Dungeon Meshi has several worldbuilding details and extra comics in different publications and I think they get pretty hard to keep track of so I wanted to make a guide and explain what is what for people that maybe want to look into it themselves!

The Main Information sources are:

Daydream Hour 2-5: Sketch compilations and extra comics by Ryoko Kui with commentary, which can be found on EH Scans blog translated, and also in mangadex in between the manga chapters (The first daydream hour isn't dungeon meshi related)

The Complete Daydream Hour: Or more specifically "Ryoko Kui Doodle Book Daydream Hour" Released in january 2024 it still hasn't been fully translated into english. This version compiles extras and sketches from daydream hour 1-5 along with new content. Some of the exclusive comics have been translated and can be found on reddit and bato.to but the full thing is yet to be translated.

Delicious in Dungeon World Guide: The Adventurer's Bible (2021): A guide by Ryoko Kui that compiles information about the characters, monsters and the world. An official english version is available. It was released in february 2021 and has information pertinent for up to chapter 71 from the manga. It contains extra comics for all the main characters and for all the human/demi human races. The extras that talk about side character's backstories are from this book and the characters section has been translated by EH Scans (Also on mangadex)

Delicious in Dungeon World Guide: Adventurer's Bible Complete Edition (2024): Released in february 2024 and still untranslated, this version of the Adventurer's Bible has information updated for the end of the manga, there's even more extras and lots of comics about post-canon. Some of them are being translated and posted into reddit but I haven't seen them anywhere else. The raw is available on bato.to

Manga and Ryoko Kui's Blog: Some of it are from the manga itself, like Monster Tidbits and other Harta Magazine Extras (Where dungeon meshi is published) and also from the author's own personal blog. Lots of the drawings in her blog were deleted with the publishing of the complete daydream hour but you can still see what was unpublished using the wayback machine.

Blu-ray: With the release of the second bluray its clear that there will be extra content with each new one, there's "what if" extras and cover art by Ryoko Kui, you can check it the cover and info in the tag here.

I hope this helps somehow! It was pretty confusing for myself when I first started looking for more extras after finishing the manga.

The things I post here are all based on one of these and I try to put in the tags what the source is!

[bunnieswithknives]

OK JUST A LITTLE THING BECAUSE IM INSANE @cubbihue

Song: Plastic by Cheekface

[project-sekai-facts]

i'm curious why you feel confident in saying that mizuki was trans, it feels like the story itself only explicitly stated that she's amab - i would really like for it to be confirmed but it feels a bit like jumping the gun

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but considering how uncomfortable Mizuki is with classmates calling her a boy, and how she's gone out of her way to not have N25 know this, and how she reacted to Ena being asked "If you're friends with Mizuki, are you [a cis girl] a boy too?", idk man I think I can jump the gun.

Plus everything in the trans Mizuki post. The blatant use of the trans flag colors, people calling younger Mizuki "weird" and asking "isn't it odd for you to wear that" when she goes into school in typically girly clothes for the first time, Mizuki having short hair and boys clothes in middle school but long hair and girls clothes in high school, her sister encouraging her to stop repressing and live her life on her own terms.

Like. This is Mizuki's reaction to classmates telling Ena that Mizuki is a guy. It's the fact they asked a cis girl if she was a boy to try and justify why she was friends with Mizuki. Like there's some sort of implication there that they think Mizuki is pretending to be a girl. Yeah sure maybe they'll turn around and say Mizuki is a crossdresser despite everything, but Mizuki being told "isn't it weird for you to dress [like a girl]", "it's just for attention" "it's just a phase". It resonates so much with the trans experience, these are word for word things that trans people hear, and then you can couple that with clpl saying they aim to portray their character's struggles realistically.

Like. Let's get this straight. The boys who ask Ena if "[she's] a guy too" are presumably the same ones who have been showing up in the story since the beginning, being portrayed as bullies. Them calling Mizuki a boy, and making fun of her for dressing in a feminine way, is presented as bullying. Going off that translation doc since sekaibest still doesn't have the script, they follow up that scene by saying that Ena is a "normal girl". Normal is the key word here. Ena is a "normal" (cis) girl to them which implies they view Mizuki as an "abnormal girl" (trans girl), or they outright just call her a guy. Yikes.

Again. Mizuki's reaction to the bullying speaks volumes. Mizuki had gone through such lengths to hide this from her friends. It feels way too much for them to just say she's a gnc cis boy at the end of it. Listen, if gender wasn't related here, she wouldn't have nearly this much issue with her friend being told she's a gender the story has repeatedly proven that she doesn't want to identify as and have other people identify her with. Simply from the perspective of a screenwriter.

...also mizuki is literally grouped as a girl for gameplay purposes and always has been? And ensekai at least at launch made the executive decision to use she/her for Mizuki.

But if I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

[greencheekconure27]

hey what's your beef with peta? if it's that they operate "kill shelters" you might want to read the newsweek fact check https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-peta-responsible-deaths-thousands-animals-1565532 (tldr: "Just as a hospice has a high mortality rate, so does a shelter that takes in those near end-of-life, feral, aggressive, dying and discarded animals." "Cherry-picking animals to only allow in the most adoptable at shelters with limited admission (otherwise known as 'no-kill') policies doesn't help and often leads to people dumping animals, or neglecting them in other ways,")

Oh no it's so much more than that.Constant spreading of pseudoscience and misinformation, ableist campaigns (such as "drinking milk causes autism", racist and antisemitic campaigns (comparing pig farming to the Holocaust for instance), sexist campaigns under the guise of feminism (veganism is feminist because cows have a womb they are women too) more misinformation and pseudoscience, financial scams, at least one instance of abducting someone's beloved and cared for pet to euthanize it, harassment, using emotional manipulation on children ("your mommy is a murderer because she eats meat" etc), harassing and breaking into zoos and research labs , frequently killing the wild animals they rescue, that one bullshit monkey photograph lawsuit, being against ALL animal agriculture and hunting EVERYWHERE, being opposed to pets (yes cats and dogs too), actually paying people to abuse farm animals for staged videos, cultish behavior,absolutely insane ideas, and oh, misinformation and pseudoscience.

As to kill shelters, it's the lies and the hypocrisy that bothers me, because these are the same fucking people who will insist they're doing good by keeping animals alive when they have no quality of life to speak of anymore. One moment they're gushing over some poor piglet born without trotters or blind legless bird being kept alive and miserable for months, the next they're all pro euthanizing healthy animals en masse, all while they collect donations for both.

I know a lot of people donate to them in good faith but don't. Even if you are vegan. They're not doing anything good with that money.

[simpjaes]

thinkin im the only person who has seen the tiktoks of this person analyzing kpop idols astrology charts and she said that if u wanna date sunghoon, you have to really love sex 😭

i don't rly pay attention to other people reading charts because i read charts myself and sometimes I can tell these people are just pulling stuff out to make the stans go insane and/or exaggerating things. charts do say a lot about love and sexuality though. KJHFDSKJ i haven't read sunghoon's yet so I can't really say they're wrong. After all, a few people who have read for Jake were pretty spot on. bro is a horn dog fr. contrary to belief tho, he's dominant and a lil bit insane ... he is not the subby lil loser man we want him to be. for legal purposes that is just a general view of what I have read myself lmfao do NOT take it as 100% fact jfsdkjhfkjsdfds

[nobleriver]

TWD: The Ones Who Live - Finale Opening Scene + Blurred/Faraway

Requested by Anonymous

[bonesandthebees]

do you support cc!dream?

what year is it

[trans-androgyne]

one of my least favorite things ive seen is people telling me to listen to the trans women in my life, and when i Do and they agree with me, clearly im not listening to the Right trans women and their opinions "don't count for the whole community" idk if this is a common thing or if i just got spectacularly unlucky today. but Damn

You are not alone in this experience I’m afraid. I’ve heard it from other folks and it happened to me recently as well: a transfem said to listen to the trans women in our lives, I said my trans girlfriend acknowledges transandrophobia, and then I was promptly told I was tokenizing her. They would not have said that if she agreed with them. The proper response would be to acknowledge that some trans women disagree with you even if you don’t think they’re the majority, and encouraging people to seek diverse transfem perspectives instead of acting like their voices shouldn’t be heard at all.

It’s not just transfems either; other transmascs have been speaking over transfems who disagree with them about tme/tma or transandrophobia On Behalf Of Trans Women too. One recently told velvetvexations (cool transfem ally to transmascs) to read Whipping Girl about it. It’s always “listen to transfems” until they disagree with you. Believe it or not, transfems are not a monolith.

[i-like-forcefem]

I wish you could come to my house, turn me into a woman, and then brainwash my family into thinking I was one my whole life.

I'd love nothing more myself cute! Turning you into a good little girl and then convincing everyone else that no you've always worn a maid dress to school? What are they talking about? No there's nothing wrong here, of course she's clinging to my arms at all times and spends ever other night at my place, it's been like this for years?

And yeah of course her wardrobe only has cute skirts and dresses, she's always dressed like this? Of course she has a lot of makeup and knows how to use it? Don't you remember back when she was little and she tried it on for the first time, that was such a mess wasn't it! You're the one who told me that story! But luckily my little maid managed to get a lot better at it after we met, and we've been close ever since haven't we?

And of course I'll make my little maid forget about her troubles from before we met as well, just focus on me now dear, that's all that matters

[genderkoolaid]

Careful posting poetry, the hot new meme is making fun of trans masc poets like sweatermuppet and the like for literally no reason

If I avoided doing something because people decided it's cringe/problematic when transmascs do it, I would only be able to sit in silence 🩵

[starflungwaddledee]

Oooo starstruck dee has little stars at the bottom of her feet! Are they just aesthetic or would they make imprints into the ground? (like pawprints)

exactly like that! though she's not the only one...

edit: might need to add some additional dialogue to this to make it more clear, but a clarification in the interim; he knows about his own footprints. he's just surprised to see something similar already there when he knows he's only just landed. he lifts his own shoe to confirm that they're not identical (and also to reveal this to the viewer). seems his stoicism beat off the clarity in this one, sorry 😭

[mychlapci]

ohoho, i have been rotating the idea of Megatron having Orion's sparkling and raising it to hate Optimus Prime for a while... Megatron doesn't keep his spawn's origin a secret, it knows that Orion Pax was its sire and that Optimus Prime is a sick caricature of that very bot.

It'd be especially heartbreaking if word gets out to Optimus that his and Megatron's sparkling survived and that it's part of his army now... maybe he even tries to connect with it...

[gothcsz]

I guess neighbour reader hears Javi having sex…she feels bad because she’s enjoying it.

*sighs and opens notes app* no but seriously, i would be jealous tooooo. javier mi amor por favor—pick me, choose me, love meeee! 😭 [ masterlist ]

You lie there, staring at the ceiling, willing yourself to fall asleep, but the sounds from the other side of the wall make it impossible.

The rhythmic thumps of Javier’s headboard seem to shake your bedroom, each one vibrating through the wall like a taunt, while the high-pitched whimpers of the woman with him grate your nerves.

His deep grunts are unmistakable, rumbling with effort and pleasure, so clear it’s like you’re right there in the room with them.

You squeeze your eyes shut, feeling a heavy weight in your chest, a painful jealousy twisting inside you. It should be you, shouldn’t it? The thought clings to your mind like a thorn, sharp and stinging. But no, it’s not you in there—it’s some nameless girl getting what you’ve only fantasized about.

Despite the jealousy and the ache in your heart, you can’t deny the throbbing between your legs. The heat pooling in your lower belly intensifies with every thud, every sound of pleasure coming from his bedroom.

You groan into your pillow, feeling pathetic, desperate, for the way your body is responding. Why is this turning you on so much?

You try to will your arousal away. But it’s useless. The sounds get louder, more insistent, and your mind starts to betray you, conjuring images that you can’t shake. It’s not her with him anymore—it’s you.

You imagine Javier’s rough, calloused hands running over your skin, gripping your thighs, squeezing them as he spreads you wider for him. You picture the intensity in his eyes, the desperation in his touch as he fucks you like he can’t help himself, like he’d lose his mind if he didn’t have you.

You can practically feel the heat of his body against yours, his weight pressing you down into the mattress, his breath hot against your neck as he moves inside you.

Your thighs press together, trying to relieve the tension that’s building there, but it only makes the throbbing worse. You bite down on your bottom lip, hard enough to sting, as the sounds from the other side of the wall grow more frantic.

You know you shouldn’t, but your hand drifts down beneath the covers, sliding between your legs. This can be your little secret, the one you’ll wallow in shame for later.

It’s not like Javier will ever know that you’re touching yourself to the sound of him pleasing another woman.

It’s pitiful, you think, but right now, you don’t care. You just need to take care of the pressure, to chase the release that’s been building not only with every sound and bang of his headboard; but also from your growing feelings for Javier.

Your fingers dip lower, running your finger down the wet seam of your cunt and you gasp quietly, your body already on edge from the fantasy you’ve built in your mind. You can almost hear his voice in your ear, whispering dirty, sweet things, telling you how good you feel, how badly he needs you.

Your legs spreader as you begin to rub and flick at your clit, back arching as more of your arousal leaks out of your pussy, your nipples pebbling from how turned on you are.

Your eyes squeeze shut as two of your slick and sticky fingers dip inside, curling to brush at that one spot that makes you tremble. Your breathing comes out more shallow, a thin layer of sweat clinging to your skin.

You imagine what it would be like to have his larger fingers pumping in and out of you—how amazing his tongue would feel swirling around your clit before he sucks it between his lips.

And as the sounds from his bedroom reach their peak, so do you, your body vibrating as you give in to your orgasm , biting down on your lip to muffle the soft moan that escapes you.

When it’s over, you lie there, panting softly, staring at the ceiling with a mix of shame and satisfaction blending in your chest.

The sounds from the other side of the wall have faded now, but the memory of what just happened lingers.

You’ll regret it in the morning, but for now, you let yourself bask in the afterglow, even if it’s tainted with the ache of knowing it wasn’t really him and it never will be.

[lemonhemlock]

honestly it’s a bit annoying how people are bending themselves into a pretzel to justify this writing but are claiming that they’re somehow smarter for getting it like dude you can’t flipflop like if you think Alicent should be allowed to resent her child and get him beheaded cuz he was the result of marital rapr but somehow when it’s brought up of Alicent not the narrative acknowledges viserys being somebody that did that then it’s that oh Alicent is a character of that time so obviously she has buried that resentment deep inside but it’s the resentment conveniently reaches the surface when it’s time to press forward the rhaenicent ship.

I’m trying to be understanding but honestly what I’ve personally observed is that the only people that seem to love this are rhaenicent shippers and that’s it cuz how come oh all of this war was pointless and that’s the point all along but it’s like dude come on a character not acknowledging their grandchild was beheaded in their sleep is not an example of how well it shows the war is pointless cuz how is the mother of that beheaded child helping the man that got him murdered. How come the narrative doesn’t acknowledge that daemon did that and rhaenyra is still allowing that man back into her team like yeah let her do that but let the narrative acknowledge that she’s selfish for it and that she doesn’t truly care about what happened and what happened to helaena either.

I was willing to think people just have different interpretations and leave it at that before but the writing has become so blatantly biased that when people don’t even acknowledge that I genuinely feel like I’m being gaslit here like excuse me what

no, i totally get it and it is SO frustrating. bending themselves into a pretzel is such a good way of saying it. people love the IP and the asoiaf universe so much that they are willing to gaslit themselves that it's not bad.

but what's the point? it's bad execution after bad execution, a whole continuous string of them. you can't fundamentally change characters like that without making huge adjustments to the plot and to their fate as well - they won't naturally hit the same story beats! a character with show!alicent's personality would never do the things book!alicent did! a character with show!rhaenyra's personality is never going to do the things book!rhaenyra did!

they want to reconstruct these characters from the ground up, shove their dumbass life philosophies and first wave understanding of feminism in there, then NOT do any of the work that might allow them to depict an organic character arc. they still have to hit the same plot points, so ofc it's going to be circus-level flip-floping bc the motivations will not make sense if you change their core self so much.

this is especially evident with how the show REFUSES to admit viserys was a rapist. but at the same time implying so badly that alicent didn't want these children and is shackled by them. if she didn't want them, how did she manage to produce 4?? of them? who put those children into her body? if she didn't want them, then it was done against her will, no? can we examine that before we get to the point of gleefully handing them over to be executed bc you want to "be free"? no, ofc not, bc that would make viserys look bad 🙄 so how can you accept that supposed motivation of alicent's if it so half-baked? i hate it so much. and i hate it that people are going "fans are triggered by bad mother characters, but that's not feminist, women should be allowed to be villains and unpalatable on screen REEEEEE"

and another thing i find frustrating is this (mistaken IMO) attempt at a distinction between wanting explicit media vs media where things are left open to interpretation, and how hotd is supposedly the latter and we just don't understand that some people prefer having to fill in the gaps themselves. i don't want media with neon signs pointing if something is """"bad""""" or """""""good"""""". i am not asking for the booktokification of asoiaf!

no one in Succession is looking at the camera and saying "i am doing X thing bc of Y" and there are enough points where the show supports multiple interpretations, but the character work and attention to detail is stellar with similar amounts of screen time. i wish i could word this better but hotd does this annoying ass thing where it skips the fallout of important moments and then never addresses them, then pretends that's subtle character work instead of what it actually is: a lazy hack job.

i mean, honestly, i can't believe we ever complained about season 8 in the first place if these are the new standards. genuinely, i would encourage everyone to go back and re-watch those last episodes and make a bullet-point list about what's actually bad about them while trying to defend hotd s2 with the same arguments. because at least dany has a very clear, if rushed, progression there: she has a clear goal, an obstacle, suffers some losses she considers harrowing (an escalation), she is shown to be depressed and getting paranoid, there's a trigger point, she gives into violence and finishes off fanatical about her own self. where is the problem?

[mesetacadre]

Regarding your post on Stalin and Lenin, I want to ask in good faith: how can honest Communists, in good conscience, acknowledge the material harm and the death tolls of the deportations of the Crimean Tatars, Soviet Koreans, and Chechens + Ingush carried out by Stalin's administration?

I at least understand why Marxist-Leninists dispute calling the Holodomor and Kazakh famines genocides, on the grounds that they came about as a mix of failed policy, bad weather, and unintended consequences.

However, while Stalin's influence on the Famines is debatable, allowing the deportations to be carried out (which DO constitute a genocide) must certainly fall on his head. This is doubly so because Lavrentiy Beria - the principal architect of the Crimean Tatar and Chechen deportations - was a close ally of Stalin.

A big reason I ask this is because I frequently see other communists either gloss over the material harm of these deportations, or treat them as a regrettable footnote in an otherwise proud career. I find both approaches problematic, because I do not see them as an honest assessment of Stalin's wrongdoing with regards to ethnic minorities within the Soviet Union.

I thank you for your time, and I look forward to reading your assessment, should you chose to answer it. Have a good day.

[context]

I'll get to the ask itself in a moment, but first I want to point out how you're doing exactly what the post you're replying to is criticizing, how every mistake and imperfect policy of the USSR between 1924 and 1953 is scapegoated to Stalin. You're ignoring both the very important structures of democracy and accountability within the party as well as in the administration of the state. He wasn't a dictator and policy was not a direct extension of the man's thoughts. The party leadership was a collective organ made up of at least a dozen people, of which Stalin was simply the chairman, with the same vote as everyone else. And every single one of these members were beholden to democratic recall at any time.

Let's start on the common ground, we understand that the famine which struck Ukraine, southern Russia and western Kazakhstan in the early 1930s has a context of cyclical famines, grain hoarding, rushed collectivization, and bad weather. There has been a strong effort on the part of capitalist powers to both exaggerate the effects of the famine and to place it all with intent to exterminate Ukranians specifically. The policy of collectivization and antagonism towards the grain-hoarding rich peasants was one approved by and carried out by hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions. We can debate the degree of maliciousness, the severity of its effects, etc. But what is indisputable once you know just a little of how the USSR worked, to pretend that it could all be carried out by Stalin's sole will is absurd.

And what is the context of the deportations? The fascist invasion of the USSR. This is an extraordinary circumstance, every facet of the USSR was being attacked and threatened with sabotage. It wasn't even the first time they had had to deal with internal sabotage, like it was revealed in the trials following the assassination of Kirov. Throughout the 30s, Nazi Germany's strongarm diplomacy was practically enabled by their ability to create fifth columns, to instigate conflict and to infiltrate. They were in the process of setting up a coup d'etat in Lithuania when, with only a week to spare, it was voted that Lithuania would join the USSR. So, the fear that, as the front advanced, the nazis would do everything in their power to turn the tapestry of nationalities close to the front against the USSR, wasn't only unfounded, it was certain. Fascists are also quite famously brutal against the minorities in the territories they conquered. Their modus operandi whenever they captured a population was to kill any elected leaders and start to instigate anti-semitism.

This was the rationale that drove the policy of resettlement. It was a rushed wartime decision, such was the context, and people definitely died unnecessarily in transport. They decided that the negative consequences of resettlement outweighed the risk of sabotage, destroyed supply lines, and of a completely certain brutal destiny for these minorities if the front advanced past them. It was not a genocide, and it had nothing to do with whatever personal relationship you think Stalin had with Beria. (As a tangent, in this interview, Stalin's bodyguard said that Beria was "neither his [Stalin's] right hand man or left hand man"). I reiterate though, the personal relationships of one man did not dictate the policy decided on democratically by the CPSU.

I don't see the problem in understanding the context of these decisions and understanding the rationale behind them without kneejerking into discounting Stalin's competency. It's very easy to criticize a decision with 80 years of hindsight, without the pressure of the largest land invasion ever carried out advancing steadily. You can't understand the policies of a country containing hundreds of millions of people and hundreds of nationalities through the lens of a single man's personal failings, especially in wartime. Admitting these mistakes, but understanding the context in which they were made, is the only way to learn from other attempts at developing socialism. What is not productive is to insist on pinning every mistake, every unnecessary pain, every inefficiency, as the wrongdoings of a single man. It's dishonest to both the past, and to how communists organize today.