#vilify me

[brennan-lee-mother]

The way people are so happy to call every Jewish person who’s ever said something unfortunate (and may or may not have apologised/retracted) a full on Zionist is maddening. Also the way people are so happy to reblog a post vagueing about “zionists on dropout” without checking if it’s not just cancelling dropout for daring to have Jewish guests.

[hurricanek8art]

I had to start trying to explain to my mom (strictly a movie/tv fan) why the Jedi are like this at this point in time, and it finally clicked in my head. The perfect way to explain how they're so rigid and strict and have such huge sticks up their butts at this point in time.

The Jedi of this generation are the result of generational trauma.

(Spoilers for episodes 1 and 2 of The Acolyte, Phase One of the High Republic books, and some barebones setting spoilers of Phase Three under the cut. Also a big wall of text because I never know when to shut up 🙃)

So I'm behind on Phase III of the High Republic books (got a few chapters into The Eye of Darkness when it came out, brain farted out on me on reading ability, haven't gotten back to it yet 🙃😖) but I know enough to know that things are really going bad. The Nihil are rampaging, the Nameless are turning people to stone, the Stormwall has cut off like a third of the galaxy from the rest of it. It's a lot! It's really bad! And we see how it's affecting our heroes. Avar and Elzar are reeling without Stellan. Vern's questioning about how the Jedi are responding to this threat throughout Phase I has led her to become a Wayseeker. Padawans like Bell, Burry and Reath have been elevated to Knighthood a lot sooner than any of them expected to be. All of them are incredibly traumatized.

But that's just the Jedi we've seen. The heroes, the big names. Imagine being a nobody at this time. An extra. A child.

Imagine being a youngling in this era. There are literal nightmares hunting you. People are dying right and left, they're being husked and turned to stone or just plain shot/stabbed/whatever. The outposts are being closed down and everyone's being recalled to Coruscant, and that's the ones who've survived so far. They knocked the Starlight Beacon out of the sky, something that was supposed to be impossible. And less than five years ago, this was a golden age of peace, of light and life and great works that were bringing the galaxy together, a united front. That's horrible, that is terrifying.

We as the readers know it's going to work out, because it has to, because this is a prequel. They don't know that. They're just kids, and the world has suddenly turned upside-down, and the galaxy is big and scary and dark.

So everything works out, the day is saved. But these kids, they have to live with this trauma for the rest of their lives.

And when they grow up, and they train Padawans, those Padawans are going to carry the lessons they learned onwards. There is no lesson a Master can teach in this era that isn't going to carry the grief of the Nihil or the Nameless. There is no lesson any Master will ever teach again, from the moment Loden Greatstorm was captured by Marchion Ro all the way to Luke's temple burning to the ground, that won't somehow, in some way, be touched by this. It haunts everyone, everything. Those lessons are passed on, and on, and on.

Yord Fandar is intense about protocal and following the rules and making sure he's the perfect Jedi, because a hundred years ago maverick Elzar Mann played fast and loose with the rules while he was stationed on Valo, and then the Nihil turned the Republic Fair into a bloodbath. Sol is worried about Osha's (so far) inability to put her grief to the side and remain objective in chasing Mae because Imri Cantaros lost control and nearly murdered the Nihil who caused the death of his master during the Great Disaster. Vernestra Rwoh is refusing to charge into this without talking it over with the Council because she remembers what happened when she kept information from them a hundred years ago.

These aren't isolated incidents because they happened to the heroes, every Jedi of that era has some story like this, where the lines blurred in the fog of war and they made or nearly made horrible mistakes out of fear. And now, every Jedi is going to want to rise above that. To not make those mistakes, because that past is past. It's peaceful again. They're better now. But that trauma's lurking under the surface, just like the Sith. The Nihil won't win, but the Order isn't going to, either. Because what the Nihil did changed them, permanently.

The plot of the High Republic books is supposedly unrelated to the show, because it's a hundred years later. But the plot of the High Republic books explains everything about the Jedi in this era of the galaxy. They're carrying the trauma and grief of an entire generation that was brutalized unlike anything the Order had ever seen before.

And the Sith have watched, and waited, as that trauma has become so internalized, so central to what the Jedi are. The Jedi might not even realize that's what's happened to them. But the Sith see it.

And now it's finally time to begin the grand plan.

[zara2148]

"Modern day Persephone and Hades retellings always do an injustice to Demeter, who wasn't a villain in the original myth. They unfairly turn a story of a mother's loss into a romance."

Counterpoint, this is an excellent example of how cultural anxieties can shift with time, as BOTH versions deal with women's fears of the day.

Back in Ancient Greece, it WAS a reasonable thing to fear never seeing your child again after they were married and apart from you in some far off locale. So yes, it makes sense that Demeter is a sympathetic figure here.

Meanwhile, that is not such a big fear today, as even if you can't travel to your family's physical location it's easier than ever to FEEL connected. And that is where the NEW interpretation comes in, as children may fear NEVER being a separate person from their parents, of never feeling themselves independent and of even passing down generational trauma.

Mythology and folklore are not static things, after all. They are reflections of the concerns of a particular time and place.

[fandomsnrambles]

Nya but we spend the time to explore her character

Nya but we explore her rage towards social attitudes due to her gender

Nya but we talk about her suppressed rage in being overlooked as a woman (particularly in skybound) without bringing up Jay’s feelings

Nya but we give her the space to be angry at the way shes treated in early seasons

Nya but we try to understand her flaws without calling her a selfish bitch and other demeaning names

Nya but we stop mischaracterising her for her feelings of rage and stop saying she needs to chill

Nya but we give her the same energy as male characters

[vesselvindicate]

i went into liy mode the last few days and after ten hours this was on my screen

[hawkinasock]

Yanqing is just the subject of a aeon tug of war game he didn’t even sign up for someone save him

Also would love to hear more about your thoughts on Jing Yuan and his whole thought process on the Hunt/Abundance and Abundance!Yanqing in general

Poor kid can't catch a break man... Don't ask for help from me, though. I'll just make it worse lmao.

Prepare for another yapping session, because there is so much I have to say about Jing Yuan when it comes to this theory.

Firstly, while I've said before that Jing Yuan is aware of Yanqing's status, that doesn't mean he knows the full story. As far as he's aware, Yanqing is either a human that the disciples had gotten their hands on at one point or a unique type of Abomination that is almost entirely indiscernible from any other human. He doesn't know the extent of his origins, his relationship with Yaoshi, he isn't even confident in the full potential of Yanqing's power.

That aside, something about him made Jing Yuan unable or unwilling to go through with killing him, and when he made the decision to keep Yanqing alive, took it upon himself to raise him rather than leave him to an orphanage, keeping the secret under wraps. Maybe there was something about that baby that lit a spark in him. Maybe when he looked to what should be a monster and saw an innocent child who didn't understand what was going on, didn't know what he was or why Jing Yuan held that glaive, it would be monstrous of him to snuff out that life. Maybe he only became aware of Yanqing's status after the fact, but by that point was too attached to ever even consider telling anyone.

Whatever the circumstances were, in Jing Yuan's eyes, Yanqing is far more valuable to him than anything else. Even his loyalty to the Alliance, whom he has sworn loyalty since his youth became expendable the moment he held that little infant in his arms for the first time. He would be content taking on the label of a traitor so long as it meant keeping his son alive.

In terms of the aeons, there's no implications that Jing Yuan feels any sort of respect for Yaoshi or the Abundance as a whole, it's definitely the opposite, in fact. The overall consensus is that he remains loyal to the Xianzhou and their designated aeon, it just comes down to his own hypocrisy and apparent double standards. He's slain countless abominations, but not only did he spare the life of one, he brought it into his home and gave it one of the highest ranks on the Luofu.

Huaiyan was wrong. At one point, Jing Yuan's loyalty not only wavered but crumbled. He knows he won't make it out of this unpunished; soon the lie will stretch too thin, and it's only a matter of time until it all comes back to bite him. But so long as Yanqing is okay, so long as he's alive, then Jing Yuan is content with that outcome.

[soulshards]

#Febhyurary 16: Squad

Meet me on the frontline.

[sierraisboring]

I just remembered this song with rain sounds and the attached Chell portrait and it just brings me so much melancholic nostalgia. Also I think this is attached to feelings of gender envy I didn't realize I had as a teenager. I'm literally tearing up over this.

[aquarines]

miss lily dying was very tragic, but let's not act like she was louis' best friend or something... she was PAID to listen to him first of all, and he didn't even realize she was dead until weeks later

[concrete-3ater]

if I had a nickel for every time I was in a fandom and a child character had a breakdown and did something that accidentally hurt another character, and then the fandom all turned on the character and vilified them because they [the fandom] can’t understand that sometimes 14 year olds make mistakes when they’re going through something traumatic, I would have 2 nickels

not a lot but it really is weird it happened twice

[incesthemes]

ok tumblr deleted most of my tag essay on this post, so i've recreated and expanded upon it in its own post.

so the op of the post made a great point which really touched on why i've been feeling that i had a fundamentally different takeaway of season 9 compared to the rest of the fandom. i have a lot to say in response to this, not in argument but in support and synthesis of it.

i'll start with dean at the beginning of season 9: he has a great struggle in 901 regarding gadreel possessing sam, more so than any other struggle he's faced when saving sam's life, which points to me as him being aware of and conflicted about sam's history of possession. he understands this is crossing a line because it's similar to lucifer and meg, and so accepting gadreel's deal is violating sam to a length dean hasn't gone to before. dean by and large is the one who has this particular ethical problem (shown throughout the first half of season 9), not sam. hell, dean is the one who leaves sam once gadreel's out, without even waiting for input because his self-loathing is that strong.

sam, on the other hand, is more textually concerned in his 912/913 arguments with the lack of trust ("i can't trust you, not the way i thought i could") and dean's selfishness ("you did it for you"). this is an ongoing conflict sam has with dean, since the beginning of the show. dean doesn't trust sam to make his own decisions and therefore makes them for him, without sam's consent or knowledge. sam wants to be trusted to stand on his own, and he wants dean to put the same faith in him that he puts in dean. this is the core of sam's needs; the violation of autonomy is just an externalization of these needs and this conflict.

and i don't entirely disagree with the connection between going behind sam's back to keep him alive against his will and a rape narrative. both involve a lack of consent and a violation of agency. however, it really doesn't stop there, and it's a lot more complex than that.

and that's what rubs me wrong about more common interpretations of season 9 that i've seen. because this isn't really what the season is about. this violation on its own isn't the point. or if it is on the surface, it's equally about sam lying to himself about what it's actually about. he's consistently left out of major decisions regarding his own life and then lied to about it "for his own good," and he wants the right to choose his own path.

except, as we learn, that's not true. he lied about it. because the point of the whole season is that sam and dean are the same. they will make the same decisions to save each other over and over again. the point of the whole season is that sam has been lying to himself.

i said this in another post, but i think a big reason sam was able to lie to himself about this fact is because he's had the opportunity to let dean go on several occasions. he's been unable to save dean the way dean has saved sam. he fails where dean succeeds. sam has been forced to endure a grief that dean has never had to experience because dean always brings sam back. and so because sam has endured these experiences maybe he's more comfortable letting dean choose death in the abstract—the hypothetical. but in reality when it comes to that point, sam can't actually follow through, because he's just as dependent on dean being there for him as dean is dependent on sam.

and that's what season 9 is about. sam has been lying to himself about this reality from the start. this is why 1019 parallels 311 regarding how insane sam is about dean. it's reiterating the facts we've known but with a new perspective, now that sam is done deluding himself. he needs to accept that he was lying to himself and to dean, and this is what allows season 9 to close and for season 10 to begin, because season 10 is a response to sam's realization. he chooses dean over everything else in a monumental display of hypocrisy and genuine understanding of himself and who dean is to him.

seasons 8-10 should be taken as a single, cohesive unit, and the show goes to great lengths to enforce this. season 9 mirrors season 8, and season 10 acts as a response to and therefore a continuation of season 9. you can see this in the way charlie's death mirrors kevin's (one brother's lies and deceptions leads to increasing stakes that could have been avoided through honesty and openness, which culminates in the death of their beloved ally, and the deceptive brother blames himself for that death because his own unethical actions led to it), or how both of them undergo a change in their physiology as a result of godlike power entering their bodies which mutilate them from the inside and have fatal consequences (sam with the trials, dean with the mark of cain) which can only reasonably be resolved with their deaths (and they both even enter the final stages of this conflict by going to confession). also the plot structures of seasons 8 and 9 on their own mirror each other very closely.

this is all very important because it outlines the purpose of each of these two seasons. it's about them being fundamentally betrayed by their brother, causing that brother to become desperate and feel rejected and unloved, only for them to get what they need out of each other to reaffirm their love. they have to function as a unit, because otherwise both season's primary conflicts (as in, the conflicts established in the first half of each season) are left unresolved. instead, sam gets what he needs from dean in 823, which means that in return dean gets what he needs from sam in 923, thus closing the circle that was opened in 801.

dean reaffirmed that sam is the most important person in the world to him in sacrifice, that he would choose sam over every single other person on earth—this is what sam needed to hear, because it's the foundation of the conflict in season 8, since sam thinks dean chose benny over him and this sent him spiraling into a suicidal depression and self-loathing. so season 9, consequentially, is about dean getting what he needs from sam: he needs to know that sam will do anything in his power to save dean, which is a conflict that began in season 8 (with sam not searching for dean in purgatory) and is reasserted in 913 when sam tells him that he wouldn't violate his agency if the situations were reversed.

and this is exactly what dean gets in 923, when sam says he lied about all of that. dean gets the affirmation that sam's love for dean goes beyond petty ethics, which translates to "dean is more important to sam than anything else in the world" where the "anything else" includes sam's own moral boundaries. this is important to dean because dean eschews his own moral boundaries for sam's sake and safety over and over again throughout the series, and this is a major source of his own character development (see: 122, 203, 214, 222, et cetera et cetera). sam repeatedly denies that he's the same way, and has proven at least once that he wouldn't do the same, so this is an important affirmation for sam to give and it's why dean had spiraled into a suicidal depression and self-loathing (look, another parallel).

so season 8-9 are mirrors of each other, and they have to be mirrors of each other in order to work structurally and for any of the conflicts presented to be resolved. season 10 then is a response to this which shows the consequences of those dual resolutions: aka, sam acts just as unethically as dean does in the rest of the show, except this time knowingly and intentionally instead of subconsciously as he has been doing up to now (see: 1001, 1003, 1004, 1018, 1020, et cetera et cetera).

in order for all of this to work, the conflicts in season 8 and season 9 have to be equal. i.e. dean has to violate sam and his ethics as badly as sam violated dean and his ethics. it also has to be suitably Bad because it's revisiting a conflict that's existed in various iterations across the entire show. this is why it's also deeply important that 923 dean's death also parallels 222 sam's death, because it highlights how this conflict has always existed and how sam and dean are similar to each other. they both make the same choices under pressure and go to equally unethical lengths. which is why season 9 couldn't end until crowley told the audience that sam was trying to make a deal with him to bring dean back to life, specifically after dean begged sam to let him die. the point, then, was never about the violation itself: sam disregards dean's right to choose death just as much as dean disregards it. the season is about how sam and dean are at their cores the same, and it's about sam becoming aware of that reality and then actively, consciously choosing it. which is what sam reiterates across season 10, as a response to his choice in 923.

he only realizes that this is a Bad Thing in 1101 (i.e. after the response has run its course) when he says they both have to change. and the "both" is important because they are the same, fundamentally. sam isn't innocent of this violation of agency and obsessive deception of his brother, and he needs to understand that before actionable change can be made, which is what season 10 is all about.

and there's something poignant that can be said about 1023 being titled "brother's keeper," because this episode is about sam playing the role of brother's keeper, only for it to blow up so spectacularly in their faces that it causes the apocalypse 2.0. it forces sam to recognize that his original conclusion (that dean was right, and that he was lying) was not actually the correct and moral way to continue living. the significance of 1101 only reveals itself in the foundation laid by seasons 8-10, because these are the seasons about sam discovering just how down bad he is for his brother and accepting it wholeheartedly. season 11 then seeks to fix what seasons 8-10 broke, which is of course the entire fucking planet.

and this is the problem: the first apocalypse was caused by the absence of love, and the second was caused by too much love. their love is a destructive force that has world-ending consequences. that's the point of these seasons, what it all comes back to. in receiving the exact type and strength of love they needed from each other, they ended the world. and this is the conflict they need to resolve in season 11, or at least try to. because their love for each other can, has, and will destroy the world, over and over and over again. this theme can't exist unless seasons 8 and 9 mirror each other, unless season 9 is about sam's hypocrisy.

without that world-ending love, they couldn't have started the second apocalypse. if sam weren't a liar, he would have respected dean's choices, and he would have let dean die. if sam truly cared about bodily autonomy, dean would have died in 923 when he begged sam to let him. but he doesn't; that's not the point of the narrative. of course the violation of autonomy is important, because it provides the foundation for the conflict. but the violation is itself a metaphor, a triple whammy of symbolism: the possession is a metaphor for violation, and the violation is a metaphor for betrayal (as seen through the lens of deception).

the point of season 9 is not that dean metaphorically raped his helpless little brother; rather it's that the violation of agency goes both ways, and sam is a hypocrite for trying to maintain his autonomy while stripping it from dean. it's a continuation of season 8, which thus compacts his guilt over "abandoning" dean in purgatory and his self-loathing and fears of not being good enough or worthy enough of dean's love, which thus causes him to act recklessly and injuriously toward himself and dean. it's not a positive conclusion by any means; like i said, this is what causes the second apocalypse, and it's only after they've ended the world twice that sam finally sits down and says maybe they were wrong about this whole thing. maybe their love is too destructive.

in 912, sam says: "something's broken here [...] we don't see things the same way anymore."

in 1101, sam says: "this isn't on you. it's on us. we have to change."

sam goes from blaming dean to blaming both of them, because he realizes that they're both equal partners in their toxic, fucked up love. season 8 and season 9 allowed them to become equals by giving each other the affirmations they desperately needed to achieve true enmeshment, and season 10 is the consequence of that unhealthy relationship.

the point was never that dean violated sam. he does that over and over again throughout the series without destroying their relationship. the point is that sam is willing to violate dean all the same, and he had to face that reality head-on and accept it to resolve the conflict between them and give dean the affirmation he needed, just like dean gave sam the affirmation he needed in 823. the violation was simply a vehicle through which the conflict could come to a head, and the most provocative symbol this show could possibly use was the metaphor of sexual assault and rape, given sam's history with it via meg and especially via lucifer.

i've probably written enough now. the tl;dr is that season 9 invokes what can be interpreted as a rape metaphor not to vilify dean or even really to continue sam's ongoing rape narrative (though the violation that occurs in season 9 uses this as a foundation for the conflict and that's important to understanding the gravity of the situation), but rather to give appropriate stakes to mirror the primary conflict of season 8 and provide grounds for dean to get resolution for the conflict that began in 801 and continued through 923. god i hope this makes sense because now i've written this essay twice and i'm so miserable because of it.

my apologies if any of this is repetitive or meandering or lacking in any way; i tried really really hard to recreate my original essay and also provide more evidence and groundwork for my argument but obviously i'm sure i've missed some details and overlooked structure in many places. if you read this far, i love you and please talk to me about seasons 8-10. i'm losing my mind

[honorthysalad]

I had a dream that Yoshiki’s mom got a face reveal but Len also made her an evil bitch. Just like two-faced, apathetic, and straight up mean, and just not her at all. And I went to tumblr to post as usual, not mentioning her at all except for in the tags like ‘and that person wasn’t Yoshiki’s mom’ ‘I actually successfully rescued Yoshiki’s mom from the story and Len had to’ ‘rush to replace her with someone else’, and having woken up I’m still kinda pissed off

[skygirlstars]

currently thinking about Barriss as a foil for Ahsoka in TCW is such a good example of the nature vs. nurture argument. they had basically the exact same upbringing until they were 14 or so, whenever each of them became a Padawan.

and then in TCW we see Ahsoka with this whole support system or people who love and care about her!! Anakin and Rex and Padmé and Plo and Obi-Wan and more!! and they tell her and/or show her that they care about her!!

and then Barriss has no one, aside from her friendship with Ahsoka. Luminara cares about Barriss to an extent, and she’s certainly not malicious, but she acts at best apathetic toward Barriss. (of course Luminara is just following the Jedi Code as she sees it, but still.) it’s most evident in the Geonosis arc when Luminara is basically ready to just leave Barriss for dead, while Anakin never gives up on Ahsoka. but it goes beyond just Luminara — in TCW, we never see Barriss close to anyone else.

so Barriss is the one who becomes a “villain.” I’m absolutely a Barriss defender, so I don’t want to call her that, but that’s obviously what the writers intended. she turns on the Jedi (understandably) and she turns on Ahsoka. she’s not inherently a bad person, she just didn’t get the love and support she needed, whereas Ahsoka did :(

[kaldurrr]

tracker saying she wanted to be a supportive girlfriend so she didn’t say anything at the time about kristen’s concerning behavior. honey that’s not being supportive. also doing a rebrand of an established religion is tbqh no where near as difficult as starting a religion from ground zero. that’s like changing christian denominations. like go tell your current girlfriend you’re not thrilled about hard launching her on insta and stop putting the onus of why you don’t want to do it on your ex.

[notquiteinsanity]

Got told that talking about how the Anne Frank memorial has been covered to protect it from vandalism when there hadn’t been explicit threats or actual vandalism yet was war propaganda vilifying Pro Palestinian protests.

The next day (Yom HaShoah) the Copenhagen Holocaust memorial was vandalized.

[isekyaaa]

Another story idea. One of those basic ass stories where this child is abused by her family due to her sister (adopted) came and brainwashed the whole family into loving her and hating mc. In the end mc is framed for some crime and is ultimately executed. Only after mc dies does the family realize their fault when the whole world becomes destroyed. Following me? Basic ass brainwashing story. Anyway, here's the twist. Time gets reversed, and mc awakens to the point in time ten years before her death. But the twist? Mc isn't the main character. The story takes place from the viewpoint of one of the brainwashed siblings that slowly remembers their previous life.