#we should not use the tools of the enemy and call them racist but we should note that under their own metrics they are in fact very racist.

[utilitycaster]

C3 is a look on colonialism fans died out when imgn proposed the mortals plan. Because suddenly it was all about godlings, uwu cute babies and which characters could raise who either in revenge (Kiki & the Matron) or love (BY and Stormlord). As soon as that option got put on the table I never heard anyone else talking about colonialism. How can you when your blorbo's plan is allowing the "colonist power" to physically occupy the land and become more entrenched in political society.

That is definitely also part of it. Essentially, the problem is when people assign a show's political leanings on this basis of whether they like the blorbos or the ships. It's particularly bad in C3, where the general vibe among its most vocal fans was "anything my blorbo does is okay actually because if you don't like them you are attacking me personally," and where the people yelling about the clear themes of anticolonialism were mostly the descendants of the colonizers talking over if not outright disparaging the colonized. And the even bigger problem and what that original post was about is, of course, whether they do anything political outside posting and fandom, or if they just pretend that they do; not to mention whether they do anything one might consider radical (I know a lot of people who make no claims to be anything but a middle of the road registered democrat liberal who are almost certainly more active in community gardening and buy nothing groups and mutual aid and protecting the vulnerable in their community than the people who incorrectly decided that over-identifying with Ashton Greymoore was a substitute for having empathy for real living human beings who don't agree with you on fandom bullshit).

It is however not unique to C3. Since that recent question about C2 vs C3 criticism I've been thinking of people who suddenly started having massive problems with how Marisha played Beau as a woman of color after it became clear Beau and Yasha were going to get together, despite that being something that would not have changed in the slightest had Beau and Jester gotten together. It's not just "if a character is racist that means the author is racist which means the work is racist which means the fans are racist"; it's also that whether a work is racist or not is entirely determined on whether they liked what was happening in it.

I don't want to entirely decouple what one reads and enjoys from your politics altogether - obviously, someone who hates works on the basis of them including complex women or nonwhite characters or queer characters is going to be a bigot - but there really is a problem of people conflating what is explored in a work with the author of the work with the readers of that work, or people conflating (for example) not liking a specific queer ship or female or nonwhite character with homophobia, misogyny, or racism while themselves not abiding by that same rule, or generally just doing more arguing on behalf of fictional characters in fandom than living out any of their values in the real world. Like, really, am I supposed to believe the people who were assholes to Jewish people flagging how the anti-god arguments sounded uncomfortably close to real world anti-semitic rhetoric (and those people also deciding to put the word 'degenerate' in our mouths for *checks notes* thinking Laudna and Imogen are adults who are in control of their choices and actions and are not owed universal adoration) and who have, according to multiple conversations and some WILD confessions people have had in my tags, spent this entire campaign disparaging the colonized experiences of multiple people of color, particularly those of native/First Nations or Asian descent, are like...doing things in the real world that require interacting with people who aren't like them?

[pumpacti0n]

you can’t tell me that ableism isn’t as important as any other social struggle it’s when one of the main things reactionaries love to engage in to insult their political enemies.

transphobes regularly accuse trans people of being mentally ill, racists insist that black folk are mentally deficient, and misogynists will believe that women are “hysterical”/and emotionally unstable. not even non-humans are safe from it — wild animals are classified as inferior lifeforms due to their relative lack of intelligence or physical abilities, and thus ripe for exploitation by the “superior” (ostensibly able-bodied, sane, white and cishet,) human.

If someone is part of a marginalized group, you can bet ableism will follow and inform the character of their attacks on them. as such, all of these issues are intertwined with ableism. focusing on just one form of exploitation while leaving ableism intact and unaddressed is a futile endeavor.

however, we should be wary: this type of behavior isn’t exclusive to “the right” — cops and politicians are regularly called “psychopaths”, ignoring the reality that the vast majority of actual psychopaths are not inherently violent or abusive.

in an attempt to insult them, radicals resort to claiming that authoritarians and bigots are just “idiots”, but this shifts focus away from their hatefulness and targets their alleged lack of intelligence instead.

the problem with this is that it gives us the false impression that the right isn’t to be taken seriously, that it’s ok to underestimate them, that they are easy to outsmart and unable to devise complex strategies or organizations, when this is demonstrably untrue, and can be a fatal mistake during conflicts.

this framing also suggests anyone who is considered intelligent must have leftist values, when this is also untrue. doctors, scientists, engineers and scholars can each be abusive or conservatives in their own right. their academic achievements has no real bearing on their political leanings.

take ableism seriously.

resist the urge to call your political enemies ableist slurs. don’t fall into the trap of believing that ableism can be a tool for liberation or to score points against others during arguments. If disabled people aren’t free, none of us are.

[no-passaran]

I often see a confusion on Tumblr and other social media that seems very strange to me, because it mixes two things that are opposites as if they were the same. Every time there's a post going around which includes how some right-wing group has accused a collective (usually migrants) of crimes which are often made up and include some sort of variation of "to protect women and children", there's always someone to jump out and shout how ~Western feminism~ is racist and feminism is backwards and a tool of white supremacy etc etc etc. But dude where have you seen a neo-nazi claim to be a feminist?

Right-wingers claiming that men need to protect their women because women are weak and incapable of doing anything by themselves and always in the position to be treated as property, as a proxy attack to the masculinity of the men in charge of them if they couldn't protect them- and "protect" only in the ways that pay attention at protecting abstract concepts like family honour and not really the woman's life and free will (for example, the way that these right-wing organisation that use "protect women" as an excuse are always against legislation to ban gender-based violence like domestic violence, and even rape, and they won't even accept that marital rape can exist, not to even bring up sexual education, contraceptives and abortion)- this is feminism according to you? The same people whose political campaigns run on insulting and threatening feminists, which they consider the enemy of civilisation? The ones who say it's a husband's duty to violently discipline his wife (and so, make domestic violence from men against women legal and encouraged in the name of love) or say that gender-based domestic violence simply doesn't exist at all? Organisations and political parties whose affiliates or politicians literally call for the jailing and/or murder of all feminists?

None of this is to say there aren't plenty of things to criticise in what any movement that presents itself as feminism says. But this is all the opposite from what the feminist movement fights for. It's not about individual men being in charge of protecting "their women" (their romantic partners and direct family members, who they feel they have a responsibility over which ranges from paternalism to ownership) while they can still attack "other men's women". It's about collective responsibility as a whole society to see that women are in risk because of those same men and that there is no "natural"/biological reason for this, but a patriarchal culture that can and should be dismantled. (And if your so-called feminism considers that men are aggressive and behave like this by nature and not by culture, think again of why you believe that and where it comes from).

I guess it's more visible here because watching Spanish media we always see that the right-wing brings up feminism as the scary ghost threatening the country every day, while in the USA where most people who speak on the internet are from it's less mainstream to have it as the enemy, so it seems to be forgotten. But come on, some things should be basic knowledge. It sometimes makes me wonder how much of it is a badly expressed criticism of any of it from a point of good faith and how much of it is done on purpose to discredit feminism and advance a conservative agenda.

Anyway thank you for coming to my TedTalk or whatever but man I'm tired of seeing this

[skaldish]

Hey - i am looking to become more of a spiritual person and I did some research into my lineage which led me to norse paganism. I've seen some pretty disconcerting search results about nazi's. i've seen some blogs that are very blatantly homophobic, transphobic, racist, misogynistic. i am very concerned about continuing this journey... but i came to your page and noticed you had pronouns and nazi's not welcome so i was curious if you could help me steer clear of troubled water?

TOPIC: Navigating White Supremacy in Heathenry

I certainly can! Nazism in Heathenry is a pretty extensive topic but I can definitely give you the lowdown to get started:

Where It Came From

The blending of Norse Paganism with pro-Aryan concepts began with Neo-Völkisch movement of the late 19th century, continuing into the rise of Nazi Germany. This time period produced Else Christensen, a Dane who espoused a lot of Nazi ideals. She immigrated to Canada in 1951 and connected with the New York branch of the American Nazi Party, where she acquired notes on a new religion called “Odinism.” This religion was originally intended for the American Nazi Party before that idea was scrapped.

Christensen greatly expanded on Odinism and founded the Odinist Fellowship in 1969; this is where a lot of “racialist” ideals come from in Heathenry. Once established, she taught Odinism in the United States, particularly to prison inmates during the 70′s and 80′s. Before imprisoned for drug trafficking in 1993, she gave her membership notes to Stephen McNallen, who used them to build the Asatru Folk Assembly.

Heathenry that espouses “racialist” and “ethno-nationalist” views is called Folkish or Neo-Völkisch Heathenry. Because this is the first form of Heathenry to really be popularized in America, it’s the most common. Many Heathen books and resources are Folkish in nature or cite Folkish resources in their work. This is further confounded by the fact that European Heathens are now very suspicious of American Heathens and keep their material to themselves. Not many books by European Heathen authors are available in English, and the ones that are require digging deep for. Fortunately, not all Heathen books written by Americans are Folkish.

How to Navigate This

Unfortunately, all this this means you really have to be your own navigator in your Heathen practice. This is very different than, say, a Protestant approach, where you lean on authorities for guidance. Not so much in Heathenry.

While no book or resource out there is going to be truly unproblematic, you can definitely arm yourself with tools to navigate troubling material and grow your Heathen practice:

Google your authors. I can’t stress this enough. Learn about an author’s lineage, affiliations, and reputation. If you need to, type in “[author name]+controversy” into Google search.

Seek a wide variety of resources. There’s no right, true, or best way to be Heathen. Anyone or anything saying so is probably selling something. You can get started with some resources by visiting my pinned post and clicking on “Resources.” That’ll take you to a bank of resources I and others have vetted.

Recognize dogwhistles. I have another article called Discerning Dubious Heathen Resources you can find in my pinned post. It discusses the kinds of shady behavior I’ve personally witnessed in books and articles. It also contains a list of Folkish “dogwhistles.” A dogwhistle is a kind of coded language used to signal alliance with a belief.

Be cautious of dogmas. Is a resource saying you have to do X to be Heathen? Does it suggest Heathenry has a certain look, or has values you must follow? Stuff that’s more Folkish in nature has a habit of focusing on how Heathenry should be.

Don’t let communities, people, or resources prey on your resentment for Christianity. I’m not sure what your personal relationship is with Christianity, but I’m putting this here anyway. Many American Heathens come from Protestant backgrounds. Sometimes they’re resentful of this upbringing. A healthy community won’t encourage you to define your Heathenry by how much it opposes Christianity. Communities that do keep you in a place of anger, which makes it easier for you to believe in the “us vs. them” ideals found in Neo-Völkish Heathenry. You deserve to move past Christianity, not make it your “enemy.” If you need to heal from Christianity, I recommend seeking out a professional that can help you with that.

Some Closing Statements

Here are some extra random thoughts to make navigating Heathenry easier for you. Not sure if it’ll all make sense to you right now, but it’s worth saying:

Sonnenrad, or the Black Sun, is a Nazi symbol created for Nazis by Nazis. It’s based off actual historical Norse motifs known as “sun wheels”. The Black Sun has made its way into Heathen circles but is not Heathen itself.

The word “Folkish” can’t be reclaimed because it was never ours to begin with. It’s name is a callback to the Germanic Völkisch Movement. If you want to describe an ancestral Heathen practice, just say “ancestral practice.”

The word “Odinist” can’t be reclaimed either, nor is it a fancy word for “Odinsperson.” It distinctly describes the Neo-Völkisch designation.

The Nine Noble Virtues were created by the Asatru Folk Assembly and contain Neo-Völkisch beliefs. They’re not universal or ancient Heathen values by any means.

Speaking of ancient, calling Ásatrú an “ancient religion” is misinformation. The word was coined in the 1970′s and describes reconstructed Heathen practices. The ancient Norsepeople didn’t have a word for their practices. Likewise, there are no surviving pre-Christian Heathen lineages.

The Poetic and Prose Edda are historical texts that preserve stories about ancient Norse Pagan gods and heroes, but they aren’t scripture. Hávamál is not scripture either, though some Heathens do find spiritual value in it.

Controversy over Loki only really exists in America. This is due to the fact we live in a very culturally Christian society. Loki is absolutely beloved in countries all over Europe and isn’t regarded as an “evil” figure.

Heathenry is an open practice and therefore can be practiced by anyone.

I think that’s it for an overview! Like I said, it’s a big topic. Let me know if you have any more questions and I’ll do my best to answer! @yumsauce 

[schraubd]

ACES Wild

Last we encountered the "Alliance for Constructive Ethnic Studies" (ACES), they were pushing fabricated evidence and wild screeds against "critical race theory" in a failed attempt to derail the California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum after it was reformed in accord with tremendous efforts by a range of California Jewish (and non-Jewish) organizations.

Now they're back in action, and this time their target is California's new draft Mathematical Framework. What horrors are contained inside? Let's look!

The first draft of the California Mathematics Framework is out for review, and it includes as a resource "A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction," a guide that labels teaching practices like "addressing mistakes" and  "focus on the right answer" as "white supremacy culture."

This is critical race theory.

This is discrimination. 

(Is this "critical race theory"? Nope, not going to get sucked into that).

Unfortunately, as was the case in the ESMC debacle, we are given only the thinnest possible citations to the primary sources for the alleged offending content. The link to the CMF draft goes to a website offering a thirteen chapter document, all in separate documents, comprised of hundreds of page, with no indication of where in the morass the "Pathway" document is included. The link to the Pathway itself, for its part, goes to a site that contains five separate documents, again totaling hundreds of pages, with nary a clue as to where this language about "addressing mistakes" might be found. All of this, I suppose, is left as an exercise for the reader.

Well, I may not be a math expert, but I have gotten familiar enough with the strategies of ACES and its friends to know better than to accept what they say on faith. So I went in search of this resource and this language, to see if it is as scary and offensive as they say.

I want to begin with some good news: unlike the Ethnic Studies case, ACES and its allies do not appear to have completely fabricated the inclusion of the putatively offensive material. Congratulations, ACES! This is a big step forward for you as an organization, and you should give yourself a hearty pat on the back.

Alas, if we ask for more than "not fabricated" and stretch all the way out to "not abjectly misleading", things get dimmer.

Start with the CMF draft. From what I can tell, the section they refer to (where the Pathway document is "included as a resource") is on page 44 of chapter two (lines 1010-13). Here, in its totality, is what's included:

Other resources for teaching mathematics with a social justice perspective include... The five strides of Equitable Math.org: https://ift.tt/3qNG3O2

That's it (The website "Equitablemath.org" is titled "A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction"). It is mentioned, unadorned, in the "other resources" conclusion -- and as far as I can tell, nowhere else. Wowzers. I can feel the racial divisiveness cracking up from here.

One thing I'll observe on this is that often times one hears critics of "critical race theory" (or whatever random buzzword they're using today to connote "scary left-wing idea with a vaguely identity-politics kick") say that their problem isn't that the idea is included, but only that its indoctrinated -- it's not one perspective of many, it's the only perspective on offer. This protestation was always rather thin -- the many many bills banning "critical race theory" are decidedly not about ensuring viewpoint diversity -- and one sees just how hollow it is here. The raw, unadorned inclusion of the Equitable Math resource -- as part of a broader whole, not even quoted from directly -- is too much for these people to tolerate. This is not about ideological heterodoxy. This is about censoring ideas, full stop.

But maybe Equitable Math is such an awful or inane document that it would be wrong to include it, even as one resource among many. The way it's described, after all, makes it sound like Equitable Math is a group of hippies saying "2+2 = 4 is the white man's answer, man! Fight the power!" Is that what's happening? Is this a fever dream of post-modernism where nothing is true and everything is permitted?

Once again, I had to dig for myself to figure out where this content was so I could see it in context. The answer appears to be the first document on the site, titled "Dismantling Racism in Mathematics", on pages 65-68. Do they deny that there are such things as "right" answers in math? No: "Of course, most math problems have correct answers," but there are math problems (particularly word problems, but also data analysis) that can be interpreted in different ways that yield different "right" conclusions, and students and teachers should be attentive to that possibility. Do they say one should never "address mistakes"? No again, but mistakes should not simply be called out flatly but rather used as "opportunities for learning" with an emphasis on building on what the student does understand to lead them to recognize what they misapprehend.

I don't teach math, obviously, but there are many occasions where I'll say "such-and-such is the doctrinally correct answer -- but if we look at the problem from this other vantage, doesn't this other position become more plausible?" So when the Equitable Math site suggests, as an alternative to obsessive focus on the one correct answer, classroom activities like " Using a set of data, analyze it in multiple ways to draw different conclusions" -- well, that doesn't seem weird to me. Certainly, as someone who is also trained as a social scientist, I can say confidently that it's quite valuable to anyone who has seen how the same dataset can be deployed by different people with different priors to support different agendas.

Even more than that, the suggestions around "addressing mistakes" resonate with how I try to teach in my classrooms. Sometimes my students say something wrong. When they do so, for the most part I don't say "bzzzt" and move on, instead I try to guide them to the correct answer by having them unpack their own thinking. There's a lot of "I see what you mean by [X], but suppose ..." and ask questions which hone in on the problems or misunderstandings latent in what they're saying. And eventually they get there, hopefully without feeling like they've just been put inside an Iron Maiden for daring speak up. 

Admittedly, I've never thought of what I'm doing as "dismantling White supremacy" -- I just viewed it as good pedagogy. But then again, that's kind of what I've always thought when asked about such subjects -- we act as if there's this deep magic to fostering equity and inclusion in the classroom, when really it's employing the basic strategies of being a good teacher, one of which is declining to engage in a measuring contest where you prove you know more than the student does. Obviously I know more than the student does. I don't need to prove anything. So if they say something wrong, I do not gleefully pounce on them for it, I do my best to build on what they do know to get them to a position of right. Is that so outrageous?

Finally, ACES in its tweet identifies one other area of crazy-lefty-craziness in this resource: "the incorporation of 'Ethnomathematics'". What does that mean? They don't say, correctly surmising that fevered imaginations will produce something far worse than anything they might quote. So I'll do the quoting for them (this comes from page 8):

Center Ethnomathematics: 

• Recognize the ways that communities of color engage in mathematics and problem solving in their everyday lives. 

• Teach that mathematics can help solve problems affecting students’ communities. Model the use of math as a solution to their immediate problems, needs, or desires. 

• Identify and challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views. 

• Teach the value of math as both an abstract concept and as a useful everyday tool. 

• Expose students to examples of people who have used math as resistance. Provide learning opportunities that use math as resistance.

I know, I know -- we're all going to pitch a fit about challenging "capitalist views". But apart from that, this seems ... very normal? We all know, to the point of cliche, that a barrier to getting kids interested in math is that they fail to see how it's useful to them or "in the real world". So they advise that math be taught in a way that resonates with real world experience. And likewise, sometimes, for some people "in the real world", math can feel like an enemy (think "am I just a statistic to you?"). So figure out ways to name that and challenge that. For the most part, "ethnomathematics" just reads as a particular social justice gloss on "being a good teacher", as applied to teaching in diverse communities.

Now perhaps one disagrees with these concepts as pedagogical best practice. I'm not a math teacher, I'm not going to claim direct experience here. But that goes back to the intensity of the backlash -- that these ideas need to be banned, that they are outright dangerous and unacceptable and neo-racism. Can that be right? Surely, these ideas are not so outlandish that we should pitch a fit about their being (deep breath) single elements of an 80 page document which is itself part of a five part series being incorporated as a single "see also" bullet point in the second chapter of a thirteen chapter model state framework. Seriously? That's where we're landing? That's what's going to drive us into a valley of racial division and despair?

It's wild. The people engaged in this obsessive crusade to make Everest size mountains over backyard anthills are nothing short of wild.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/39P79OA

[adriennemareebrown]

what do we do with unthinkable thoughts?

who are we in our unthinkable thinking moments?

how do we adapt together if the clues to our next pivot are unthinkable?

maybe sharing these unthinkable thoughts will help?

i’ll start with the scariest unthinkable thought for me, which is that maybe we are in a state of collective suicidal ideation – the state of thinking about, even planning, the end of us. i have thought this thought many times, for years.

i have ideated suicide in the past, thought it didn’t much matter if i was here or not, and so it didn’t much matter how i treated myself or others. when i was in that phase of ambiguous commitment to life, i took risks with my mind and body that i couldn’t imagine taking now. i practiced cynicism and hopelessness, as if they were the measures of humor, of intelligence. it was a brief phase of my life, but during that time i believed in nothing.

i tried to exit.

i then had to choose life from deep within me. that’s why i’m still here. i want to live. i want to want to live. i think everyone chooses to move towards life or away from it, though some don’t realize that they are making the choice. capitalism makes it hard to see your own direction.

as i have watched the world respond to the pandemic, the borders between nations shift meaning in my mind. i can see which countries choose life, and which don’t. which countries have a majority life-minded citizenship, which countries/regions elect leaders who care for them. which countries pivot at the highest governmental level to protect their people, to guide their people to protect themselves – places with a variety of economies and exposure have found ways to move towards life.

i wonder about the movements in those countries, what it might feel like to live and organize in a place that chooses life.

choosing life means being able to admit we are wrong when new information presents itself about the dangers around and amongst us.

choosing life means committing to the adaptations to stay alive, rather than the stubbornness to stay the same.

the u.s., as a nation, does not choose, or love, life. not yet, and possibly never before now.

other nations, many amongst the most developed in the world, initially shrugged at COVID-19. then they adapted.

the u.s. response has been more egregious than a shrug; it’s been a flagrant disregard, running towards a category five pandemic tornado. it’s meant that those of us who want to live are watching in horror as the mutating coronavirus fills in the pre-existing grooves of collective suicidal ideation and the resistance of those who love life – with climate deniers and corporate polluters on one side, environmental and climate justice movements on the other. white supremacists and patriarchs on one side, solidarity movements in race, ethnicity, class, gender, ability and sexuality arenas on the other.

we are a nation not divided but torn – pulled towards life and pulled towards death.

when i get that torn feeling within, which in recent years comes very rarely, in twinges and whisps, i now recognize it as the suicidal tendency in me. it’s not the truth, not the only truth, not my truth, not the choice i want to make. but the tendency is wiley, using the voices of people i love to make itself heard. i have to be vigilant, listen between the lines, ask: who would benefit from my absence? who benefits from my self-doubt?

our nation has a tendency towards its own destruction, a doubt of its right to exist, that is rooted in our foundation.

i think our movements struggle inside this larger national suicidal tendency – we want to grow, but at the same time some of us don’t believe we will all get there, or get anywhere better, in time. that we can’t, and won’t, put forth the effort.

maybe the idea of our future generations experiencing peace and abundance is not enough to keep us going.

maybe we just need some more immediate signs of life.

maybe we are terrified.

i, we, have to be able to discern what is me/us, and what is fear.

which leads to my next unthinkable thought: do i really know the difference between my discernment and my fear?

my dear friend Malkia teaches me that there is the fear intended to save your life, vs fear intended to end it. what i mean by discernment is the set of noticings, fears, wisdoms, deductions, and gut tremblings that want to save, or even just improve, my life, versus the fear that makes me unable to do anything, which makes me unable to draw on my life force to take action.

do i think i am being discerning when i am actually frozen in place, scared to change?

am i too scared of standing out from the crowd to pause and discern right action?

am i acting from terror?

am i able to discern a decision or action that makes sense?

i was in italy when the pandemic really became clear as a threat to my well-being. i went to one of the places i felt at home. and once i got there, i again found myself freezing, in denial of next moves, as everyone asked me where i was and when i was going home-home or elsewhere.

in my frozen state i would hear just a bit of the news, the new numbers of crisis, and shake my head at the idiots in office, and then numb back out. having quickly identified who i blamed, i was even less able to feel any agency in me. i froze and delayed and froze until i was overwhelmed by the inquiries.

then i had an excellent therapy session where i noticed:

oh. i am afraid. i am afraid that the pandemic is on the rise everywhere and i am going to leave safety for a dangerous unknown. oh! i don’t know what to do!

as soon as i acknowledged i was afraid i was able to move into discernment. my fear became data – i am afraid because the numbers are clear that i am in a safer place than any of the locations i am considering going to. i should stay put, not because i am afraid, but because, as my fear is actually screaming on behalf of my informed intuition, this is the best place to be in this moment.

my fear made me freeze until i had to move. therapy helped me notice i was afraid, deepen my breath, and return to discernment.

i see the same vacillation between fear and discernment in our movements right now, with no therapist in sight.

we are afraid of being hurt, afraid because we have been hurt, afraid because we have caused hurt, afraid because we live in a world that wants to hurt us whether we have hurt others or not, just based on who we are, on any otherness from some long-ago determined norm. supremacy is our ongoing pandemic. it partners with every other sickness to tear us from life, or from lives worth living.

so we stay put and scream into the void, moving our rage across the internet like a tornado that, without discernment, sucks up all in its path for destruction.

our emotions and need for control are heightened during this pandemic – we are stuck in our houses or endangering ourselves to go out and work, terrified and angry at the loss of our plans and normalcy, terrified and angry at living under the oppressive rule of an administration that does not love us and that is racist and ignorant and violent. grieving our unnecessary dead, many of whom are dying alone, unheld by us. we are full of justified rage. and we want to release that rage. and one really fast and easy way to do this is what i experience as a salem witch trial, a false bid for justice, or the even faster method of lynching.

before i move on, i need to acknowledge that these are extreme terms, terms that refer to systems of death. i know that i am speaking of a social destruction, a significantly less extreme consequence – and i am trying to place my finger on a feeling of punitive justice unleashed in our movements.

in our movements, this feeling of punitive justice comes in the wake of call outs of leaders or those with some increased exposure or access. in the past week i have seen people called out for embodying white supremacy in the workplace, for causing repeated or one-time sexual harm, for physical, emotional or digital abuse, for appropriation of ideas and images, for patriarchy, for ableism, for being dishonest, for saying harmful things a decade ago, for doing things that were later understood as harm – for embodying all of the pain that supremacy holds. the call outs generally share one side of what’s happened and then call for immediate consequences. and within a day, the call out is everywhere, the cycle of blame and shame activated, and whoever was called out has begun being punished.

we are afraid, and we think it will assuage our fears and make us safer if we can clarify an enemy, a someone outside of ourselves who is to blame, who is guilty, who is the origin of harm. we can get spun into such frenzy in our fear that we don’t even realize we are deploying the master’s tools.

ah, audre, come in.

we’ve always known lynch mobs are a master’s tool. meaning: moving as an angry mob, sparked by fear (often unfounded or misguided) with the power to issue instant judgment and instant punishment. these are master’s tools.

we in movements for justice didn’t create lynch mobs. we didn’t create witch trials. we didn’t create this punitive system of justice. we didn’t create the state, we didn’t choose to be socialized within it. we want to dismantle these systems of mass harm, and i know that most of us have no intention of ever mimicking state processes of navigating justice.

the master’s tools feel good to use, groove in the hand easily from repeated use and training. but they are often blunt and senseless.

unless we have a true analysis of abolition and dismantling systems of oppression, we will not realize what’s in our hands, we will never put the master’s tools down and figure out what our tools are and can be.

oh – but you can’t say it’s a salem witch trial if it’s all Black and Brown and queer and trans people doing it…

oh – you can’t call it a lynching, because of the power dynamics! it’s a move against someone with more power.

but then – my third unthinkable thought – why does it feel like that? why do our movements more and more often feel like angry mobs moving against ourselves? and what is at stake because of it? why does it feel like someone pointing at someone else and saying: that person is harmful! and with no questions or process or time or breath, we are collectively punishing them?

sometimes we even do it with the language of transformative justice: claiming that we are going to give them room to grow. they need to disappear completely to be accountable. we are publicly shaming them so that they will learn to be better.

underneath this logic i hear: we are dunking her in the water to see if she drowns, because if she drowns then we know she wasn’t a witch. we are hanging him from the tree because then we can pretend we have exorcised ‘bad’ from our town. we are lynching to affirm our rightness.

which isn’t to say that some of the accused aren’t raging white supremacists in movement clothing. or abusers who have slipped through the fingers of accountability. or shady in some other way.

which isn’t to say that a public accounting of harm, and consequences, aren’t necessarily the correct move.

which isn’t to say we don’t believe survivors. because we must.

but how do we believe survivors and still be abolitionist? and still practice transformative justice?

to start with, i have been trying to discern when a call out feels powerful, like the necessary move, versus when it feels like the witch trial/lynch mob energy is leading.

it feels powerful when there have been private efforts for accountability. it feels powerful when survivors are being supported. it feels necessary when the accused has avoided accountability, particularly (but not exclusively) if they have continued to cause harm. it feels necessary when the accused person has significantly more power than the accuser(s) and is using that power to avoid accountability. it feels powerful when the demand is process and consequence based.

it feels like a lynch mob when there are no questions asked. when the survivor’s healing takes a back seat. when there is no attempt to have a private process. when there is no time between accusation and the call for consequences. and when the only consequence is for the accused to cease to exist. when the accused is from one or more oppressed identities. when it feels performative. when the person accused of causing harm does what the survivor/crowd demands, but we keep pulling up the rope.

no inquiry, no questions, no acceptance of accountability, no jury, no time for the learning and unlearning necessary for authentic change…just instant and often unsatisfactory consequences.

a moment on this: one of the main demands i see in call outs is for a public apology. to expect a coherent authentic apology from someone who has been forcibly removed from power or credibility feels like a set up. usually they issue some pr sounding thing and we use that paper as more fuel for the fire at their feet.

i have seen the convoluted denial-accountability-nonapology message from many an accused harm doer, especially when physical or sexual harm is involved. sometimes they are claiming innocence, sometimes they are admitting to some harm, rarely at the level of the accusation. sometimes they say they tried to have a process but it didn’t work, or they were denied. who knows what they mean by process, who knows if the accuser was ready for a process, who knows what actually happened between them, the relational context of the instance or pattern of harm, who knows?

the truth about sexual assault and rape and patriarchy and white supremacy and other abuses of power is that we are swimming in them, in a society that has long normalized them, and that they often play out intimately.

the truth is, sometimes it takes a long time for us to realize the harm that has happened to us.

and longer to realize we have caused harm to others.

the truth is, it isn’t unusual to only realize harm happened in hindsight, with more perspective and politicization.

but there’s more truth, too.

the additional truth is, right now we have the time.

the additional truth is, even though we want to help the survivor, we love obsessing over and punishing ‘villains’. we end up putting more of our collective attention on punishing those accused of causing harm than supporting and centering the healing of survivors.

the additional truth is, we want to distance ourselves from those who cause harm, and we are steeped in a punitive culture which, right now, is normalizing a methodology of ‘punish first, ask questions later’, which is a witch trial, lynching, master’s tool methodology. which, because we are in the age of social media, we now have a way to practice very publicly.

supremacy is the original pandemic, an infectious disease that quietly roots into each of us. we might have supremacy due to race, citizenship, gender, class, ableism, age, access, fame, or other areas where we feel justified to cause harm without consequence, sometimes without even realizing we’ve caused harm, because supremacy is a numbing and narrowing disease.

i want us to let go of the narrowness of innocence, widen our understanding of how harm moves through us. i want us to see individual acts of harm as symptoms of systemic harm, and to do what we can to dismantle the systems and get as many of us free as possible.

often a call out comes because the disease has reached an acute state in someone, is festering in hiding, is actively causing harm. i want us to see the difference between the human and the disease, to see what we are afraid of, in others and in ourselves, and discern a path that actually addresses the root of our justified fears.

this is not a case against call outs – there is absolutely a need for certain call outs – when power is greatly imbalanced and multiple efforts have been made to stop ongoing harm, when someone accused of harm won’t participate in community accountability processes, the call out is a way of pulling an emergency brake.

but it should be a last option. the consequences of being called out at this point are extremely dire and imprecise. the presence of infiltration in our movements is so documented and prevalent. call outs are an incredible modern tool for those who are not committed to movements to use against those having impact.

right now calling someone out online seems like first/only option for a lot of people.

i can’t help but wonder who benefits from movements that engage in public infighting, blame, shame and knee jerk call outs? i can’t help but see the state grinning, gathering all the data it needs, watching us weaken ourselves. meanwhile, the harm continues.

i don’t find it satisfying, and i don’t think it is transformative to publicly call people out for instant consequences with no attempt at a conversation, mediation, boundary setting or a community accountability process with a limited number of known participants.

it doesn’t make sense to say ‘believe all survivors’ if we don’t also remember that most of us are survivors, which includes most people who cause harm. what we mean is we are tired of being silenced, dismissed, powerless in our pain, hurt over and over. yes. but being loud is different from being whole, or even being heard, being cared for, being comforted, being healed. being loud is different from being just. being able to destroy is different from being able to generate a future where harm isn’t happening all around us.

we are terrified of how widespread and active harm is, and it makes us want to point the finger and quickly remove those we can identify as bad. we want to protect each other from those who cause harm.

many of us seem to worry that if we don’t immediately jump on whatever mob wagon has pulled up in our dms, that we will be next to be called out, or called a rape apologist or a white person whisperer or an internalized misogynist, or just disposed of for refusing to group think and then group act. online, we perform solidarity for strangers rather than engaging in hard conversations with comrades.

we are fearful of taking the time to be discerning, because then we may have to recognize that any of us could be seen as harmdoers. and when we are discerning, when we do step up to say wait, let’s get understanding here, we risk becoming the new target, viewed as another accomplice to harm instead of understood as a comrade in ending harm.

perhaps, most dangerously, we are, all together now, teetering on the edge of hopelessness. collective suicidal ideation, pandemic burnout, 45-in-office burnout, climate catastrophe burnout and other exhaustions have us spent and flailing, especially if we are caught in reactive loops (which include the culture of multiple daily call outs) instead of purposeful adaptations. some of us are losing hope, tossed by the tornado, ungrounded and uprooted by the pace of change, seeking something tangible we can do, control, hold, throw away.

the kind of callouts we are currently engaging in do not necessarily think about movements’ needs as a whole. movements need to grow and deepen, we need to ‘transform ourselves to transform the world’*, to ‘be transformed in the service of the work’**. movements need to become the practice ground for what we are healing towards, co-creating. movements are responsible for embodying what we are inviting our people into. we need the people within our movements, all socialized into and by unjust systems, to be on liberation paths. not already free, but practicing freedom every day. not already beyond harm, but accountable for doing our individual and internal work to end harm, which includes actively working to gain awareness of the ways we can and have harmed each other, and ending those cycles in ourselves and our communities.

knee jerk call outs say: those who cause harm cannot change. they must be eradicated. the bad things in the world cannot change, we must disappear the bad until there is only good left.

but one layer under that, what i hear is:

we cannot change.

we do not believe we can create compelling pathways from being harm doers to being healed, to growing.

we do not believe we can hold the complexity of a gray situation.

we do not believe in our own complexity.

we can only handle binary thinking: good/bad, innocent/guilty, angel/abuser, black/white, etc.

it is a different kind of suicide, to attack one part of ourselves at a time. cancer does this, i have seen it – oh it’s in the throat, now it’s in the lungs, now it’s in the bones. when we engage in knee jerk call outs and instant consequences with no process, we become a cancer unto ourselves, unto movements and communities. we become the toxicity we long to heal. we become a tool of harm when we are trying to be, and i think meant to be, a balm.

oh unthinkable thoughts. now that i have thought you, it becomes clear to me that all of you are rooted in a singular longing: i want us to want to live.

i want us to want to live in this world, in this time, together.

i want us to love this planet and this species, at this time.

i want us to see ourselves as larger than just individuals randomly pinging around in a world that will never care for us.

i want us to see ourselves as a murmuration of creatures who are, as far as we know right now, unique in all the universe. each cell, each individual body, itself a unique part of this unique complexity.

i want us not to waste the time we have together.

i want us to look at each other with the eyes of interdependence, such that when someone causes harm, we find the gentle parent inside of us who can use a voice of accountability, while also bringing curiosity – ‘why did you cause harm? do you know? do you know other options? apologize.’ that we can set boundaries that don’t require the disappearance of other survivors. that we can act towards accountability with the touch of love. that when someone falls behind, we can use a parent’s voice of discipline while also picking them up and carrying them for a while if needed.

i want us to adapt from systems of oppression and punishment to systems of uplifting and transforming.

i want us to notice that this is a moment when we need to choose life, not surrender to the incompetence and hopelessness of our national leadership.

i want us to be discerning.

i want our movement to feel like a vibrant, accountable space where causing harm does not mean you are excluded immediately and eternally from healing, justice, community or belonging.

i want us to grow lots and lots of skill at holding the processes by which we mend the wounds in our communities and ourselves.

i want satisfying consequences that actually end cycles of harm, generate safety and deepen movement.

i want us to hold Black humanity to the highest degree of protection, even when we have caused harm. i want us to see each other’s trauma-induced behavior as ancestral and impermanent, even as we hold each other accountable.

i want us to be particularly rigorous about holding complexity and accountability well for Black people in our movement communities who are already struggling to keep our heads above water and build trust and move towards life under the intersecting weights of white supremacy, racialized capitalism, police brutality, philanthropic competition culture, and lack of healing support.

i never want to see us initiate processes for Black accountability where those who are not invested in Black life can see it, store it, weaponize it. replace Black in that sentence with any other oppressed peoples and i still feel the same way. it is not strategic, and, again, it is rarely satisfying.

i want us to ask who benefits from our hopelessness, and to deny our oppressors the satisfaction of getting to see our pain. i want them to wonder how we foment such consistent and deep solidarity and unlearning. i want our infiltrators to be astounded into their own transformations, having failed to tear us apart.

i want us to acknowledge that the supremacy and suicidal ideation and hopelessness and harm are everywhere, and make moves that truly allow us to heal into wholeness.

because against all odds in space and time? we. are. winning.

we are winning in spite of the tsunami of pressures against us. we are moving towards life in spite of everything that wants us to give up.

we in movement must learn to choose life even in conflict, composting the bad behaviors while holding the beating hearts.

choosing life includes asking: do i have the necessary information to form an opinion? do i have the time to seek understanding? what does the survivor need? did a conversation/process already happen? is a conversation/process possible? how do we be abolitionist while gaining accountability here? who benefits from me doubting that movement can hold this? who could hold this well? what will end the cycle of harm here?

we must learn to do this before there is no one left to call out, or call we, or call us.

….

thank you deeply to shira hassan and malkia devich cyril for loving feedback on this piece.

* grace lee Boggs ** mary hooks

[adhoption]

blame the sorting hat

I know we talk a lot about how Hogwarts is crazy dangerous & has no regard for safety of its students, but I was just thinking about how fucked up the existence of Slytherin house is. Salazar Slytherin is not a role model. the school had four founders, but the other three kicked him out because he refused to teach any students other than pure-bloods (you know, because dirty muggle blood made students untrustworthy & not worthy of an education). boy was institutional racism. he was a creepy blood supremacist, even for his time.

so what did the other founders do? they named a house after him (because of course let’s honour the person we banned for racism), and selectively populated it with students with his clearly desirable characteristics! what could go wrong? I know that Rowling and everyone has retrospectively tried to position Slytherins as having a balance of positive and negative traits, rather than just being the house for Bad Guys, but come on: Slytherin selects for pure blood, cunning, ambition, resourcefulness. it selects against things like generosity and honesty and fairness. it canonically selects against children with ‘impure’ blood. they just straight up let the racist segregation continue, and found a way to make it worse.

now, segregating most of the pure bloods into a house of their own, a sort of childhood apartheid where they are kept apart from muggle-borns in different lessons and kept to their own kind, is bad enough. but then they are also selected for ruthless ambition and cunning, and put into a house named after a blood supremacist who thought muggle-borns should be banned, and they are encouraged to have pride in that house and compete with other houses. how exactly did you expect their worldview to develop?

to reiterate, you’ve put the ruthless pure-bloods into a blood supremacist house and made them actively compete with the muggle-borns (in sport, in lessons, in everything), you’ve segregated children by blood status and personality and then encouraged a bitter rivalry between them. how is that going to end in any other way than creating a new generation of blood supremacists. 

“there wasn't a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin”? yeah no shit Hagrid. you’ve taken all the impressionable white kids, selected the coldest bastards amongst them and stuck them all in one dorm, kept them apart from the diverse and friendly people, put them in the no-blacks-allowed house named after Hitler and told them to fight for its pride and the other houses are their enemies. how is it a surprise that Slytherin students go in as kids and come out as neo-nazis.

oh, and then it emerged 50 years ago that Slytherin literally put a monster in the school to ‘purge’ it by killing the people with impure blood, a weapon to be used by a blood supremacist literally called the heir of Slytherin, someone takes up his mantle and a muggle-born girl is murdered, and they just... re-open the school and keep sorting kids into a house named after him. then it happens AGAIN, and there are a whole bunch of attacks on muggle-borns and other minorities, again directly in Slytherin’s name, carrying out his vision, and they still welcome 11-year-olds and tell them they are now ‘Slytherins’.

Hogwarts raised generation after generation of blood supremacists. they created Voldemort. they created him an army, and then they created him another one. if they had just mixed the classes randomly, there would have been friendships between people of diverse backgrounds and personalities, producing rounded, healthy individuals across the board. imagine if Hermione was getting points for Draco’s house. imagine if Snape was Neville’s head of house. how did the rivalry and constant competion, with teachers encouraged to be a part of it, help anyone. 

in short, the sorting hat is a tool of apartheid and effectively to blame for almost all of the evil in the magical world.

[humaudrey]

TheThings is back on their bullshit

(WARNING: LONG RANT AHEAD!!!!)

Anyone know how to delete a YouTube video from someone else's channel (or just their entire channel all together) because...

This

Is SO

I don't even have the words!!!!

Once again, your girl watches one of their videos (several times unfortunately to really analyze this ish) so y'all don't have to and let me tell you, this one is 1,000,000x more infuriating than the one when they belittled Uma to lift Mal and make her better in comparison (link to my post on that here).

I've been recommended this video so many times since the trailers for D3 dropped and when I saw the title, I KNEW I was gonna hate it and low and behold, I DID!

So let's go over their "5 Signs on why Audrey is the real threat", shall we?

#1. Audrey's Outburst

So, their first piece of evidence as to why Audrey's the unfathomable dark force (their exact words) is because of the fact that Audrey yelled no as Ben proposed to Mal, "ruining their beautiful moment". They then explain that it would be "natural for Audrey to be jealous since she is Ben's ex-girlfriend", being perfect okay with the ugly "black, bitter, ex-girlfriend" trope that many have loved to stick onto her in their fanfics (I see y'all 👀), and then compares that moment to when Ben asked Mal to be his date for coronation in D1, stating that she didn't react so strongly before, so why now? EXCUSE ME?! Our girl left the Tourney Field crying that her BOYFRIEND had serenaded another girl with a love song, and not a single person ran after her. She had every reason to be upset then, too. Who's to even say why Audrey's saying no? It could be a terrible misdirect on the trailer's part. The theory that Audrey's possessed is swirling around everywhere, maybe it had already begun to take effect, which is why she's "acting so strangely". D3 hasn't even been released and they're already villainizing her. Figures.

They also use the typical argument that Audrey's into titles and she wants what Mal has, and that she didn't want Chad because he was merely a prince.

She doesn't want Chad because CHAD CHARMING IS A MANIPULATIVE TOOL! Ask Evie! Chad only thinks that being king would get Audrey's attention. You wanna talk about jealousy? Titles? If ant character is jealous of anyone's titles, it's Chad freaking Charming, not Audrey.

#2. The Crown

An obvious piece of evidence is the fact that "Audrey" steals the Queen's crown and Maleficent's scepter from the museum. Whatever, right? They assume that Audrey's faking her slumber when the sleeping spell hits, giving her an alibi. They then have the FREAKING AUDACITY to say that AUDREY, a non magical princess, who has been so anti-magic since D1 (with a grandmother who she loves dearly, that's triggered by the mention of said spells and curses), was the cause of the curse. Their evidence? Well, her family's VERY familiar with it, so it makes sense, right?

NO!!!!

Audrey has NO magic whatsoever!!! Did they forget that? The only reason her family is "so familiar" with the sleeping spell is because THEY ARE VICTIMS OF SAID SLEEPING SPELL!!!! And it's not like she could cast it, because, again, AUDREY HAS NO MAGIC!! If anyone is familiar with a sleeping spell, it's Mal. After all, she almost put Evie under just so she could grab her mother's specter from her.

How dare you take an Innocent family's trauma and turn it around to make them the bad guys?

#3. The Scepter

They continue to say that "Audrey" is to blame for the sleeping spell, rather than Celia, Hades, or Uma because "Audrey" has the specter. And immediately, they suggest that maybe Audrey's not working only. You wanna bet who they hinted Audrey was cooperating with?

If you guessed Uma, you'd be correct. All because Uma's seen laughing in her teaser. WHAT?! So, not only do you attempt to take Audrey's entire character and drag it through the mud, you take ANOTHER black girl's name that you've already tried to ruin and tarnish and say they're working together because they're BITTER?

If they're BITTER, it's ONLY BECAUSE YOUR WHITE, PLAIN, BARNEY COLORED DRAGON FAIRY PRIVILEGED PRINCESS PROSPECT FAVE had treated them HORRIBLY.

They end their third sign with the line "We knew Audrey was a mean girl, but we didn't think she'd stoop so low".

The meanest thing Audrey has ever done INTENTIONALLY, was 1.) Tell Evie that she and her family don't have a royal status in Auradon (to which, she is technically correct) and 2.) Tell Mal that she and Ben wouldn't last because she's "the bad girl infatuation".

Jane should be branded the mean girl because she turns on the one girl that helped her with her rise to popularity (which, granted, was for malicious INTENTIONS and caused EVEN MORE self esteem issues by degrading her).

MAL should be branded the mean girl, if anyone! She's:

Dumped rotten shrimp on her former best friend because she laughed at her

Forced a guy to throw a party since his mother was away, knowing that his abusive mother wouldn't be okay with it

Then locked a girl in a closet full of BEAR TRAPS at said party all because she wasn't invited to her birthday party when they were SIX YEARS OLD

Dumped lye on another former best friend's hair because she DIDN'T WANT TO BE COMPARED TO HER

Told another girl that all she had going for her was her personality, so she needed the wand to make herself pretty

ROOFIED HER SOON TO BE BOYFRIEND INTO DATING HER IN THE FIRST PLACE JUST TO GET A FRONT ROW SEAT AT HIS CORONATION SO SHE COULD STEAL THE WAND

AND TAKES SAID WAND FROM THE GIRL SHE EMOTIONALLY MANIPULATED EARLIER AND POINTS IT DIRECTLY AT AUDREY ALL BECAUSE SHE KNEW THAT MAL WASN'T GOOD FROM THE JUMP

Let's see a video ranking Mal's top five worst moments, huh? There's plenty of those to use for a freaking video.

#4. It's All About Mal (sounds like D3)

They start this point off with: "Audrey has beef with Mal".

AS SHE SHOULD!

They use the fact that Mal stole her boyfriend and her title and their families history with one another, so Audrey has this motivation to ACT OUT AGAINST HER ENTIRE COUNTRY? Not buying it! I won't buy it, especially since both parties seemed to have made amends at the end of D1 when Mal silently curtsies as a lame form of an apology that Audrey gracefully accepts anyway like the future Queen of Auroria would. Audrey's even seen bowing willingly at the end of Set It Off, and is even cheering and dancing with her friends as Mal and Ben share their moment under the fireworks, so clearly, Audrey's not broken up about it in the slightest.

They propose a theory that Audrey's absence in D2 is because she's planning her revenge in Sherwood Forest, and that she doesn't have car troubles because "Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather should be more than capable of handling it, so she's only calling Chad to help her plot her scheme.

Whatever they're smoking, I want it.

Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather can't help Audrey with her car troubles because of the MAGIC BAN!! They needed Chad to help with her car.

And I HIGHLY DOUBT that Disney would plan something so carefully since the entire series is branded with plot holes and inconsistencies anyway, so... 🐸☕

#5. Face Off Time

Their final point states that Mal has to face off against the enemy and they use the first teaser of dragon-Mal blowing fire at "Audrey" on top of the castle, and the card at the end that says "betrayal", that Audrey has betrayed all of Auradon. And since Mal only turns into a dragon against SERIOUS ENEMIES LIKE UMA IN D2, Audrey has to be a REAL THREAT.

Thank God they're probably not making a D4, because if they continue this trend of WOC wronged by Mal as the villain, I'd be scared for Evie...

So, in their words, Audrey and Uma, two of the few black girls in the entire franchise who have every God given right not to like/trust Mal, are Mal's MOST SERIOUS rivals, as if Hades doesn't at ALL pose a threat to Auradon. No, Audrey is So mUcH MOre THreATEninG thAN ThE GOD OF THE UNDERWORLD, SO SHE MUST BE STOPPED!!!

I see you, TheThings, and if I didn't despise your channel before, I hate it that much more now after enduring 5 minutes of hell with you guys.

AND, TO TOP IT ALL OFF THEY CLEARLY SHOW THEIR BIAS OF MAL OVER AUDREY!!

Like, just say you're racist and GO! Audrey's clearly influenced by some magical being, whether it be Hades (WHO WE SEE DOING SOME KIND OF MAGICAL RITUAL WITH HER AND HIS EMBER IN A TRAILER, BUT I GUESS THEY CHOSE TO IGNORE IT FOR SOME REASON 🐸☕), Dr. Facilier, Celia, or maybe even Maleficent. Your reasons for making Audrey the villain are pathetic, and I wish I could block a YouTube Channel so I would NEVER see another video from your channel ever again.

I'm so sick of how "mean" brown girls are treated in media AND fandoms. Why does Audrey get all of his libel while Mal gets away with EVERYTHING? Why are the Cheryl Blossoms, the Quinn Fabrays, the Kitty Wildes, and every other mean girl that Emma Roberts has ever played are so praised and are instant fan favorites while the Josie McCoys, the Santana Lopezes, and the Brees are seen as the bullies when, at the end of the day, they're both different sides of the same damn coin?

And if you don't see a problem with this, then, newsflash, you are the problem!

So, I end my rant with this:

And a short tag list containing: @amityravenclawelf and @coco-rena because I know these two are looking forward to this!

Have a wonderful day everyone!

And I apologize for the typos but I was HEATED!!

[tearsoftheearth]

WHAT IS BIO WEAPON AND HOW ARE WE ENTERING INTO THIS BIO-WEAPON ERA?

"Nothing is going to hurt this country, not bioweapons, not a nuclear weapon, not a terrorist strike-there is nothing that can hurt us if we stay united and move together and a vision for moving to the future right away “~Wesley Clark.

 Sure enough 'united we stand divided we fall’, but examining the factors that endanger our unity could be the first step towards safeguarding mankind.

 We are aware of several ammunitions that have been used in human history as media of hate, revenge and power acquisition. With the intervention of science and technology, the weapons are gaining a holocaust capacity.

 One such weapon is Bio-weapon. Biological weapons (often termed "bio-weapons", "biological threat agents", or "bio-agents") are living organisms or replicating entities. As the name suggests they are obviously weapons used in war. So bio weapons are used in biological warfare. Biological warfare agents are a group of pathogens and toxins of biological origin that can be potentially misused for military or criminal purposes. Anthrax, plague and smallpox are regarded as the most dangerous biological weapons by various institutions. They may be developed, acquired, stockpiled or deployed by nation states or by non-national groups. In the latter case, or if a nation-state uses it clandestinely, it may also be considered bioterrorism.

 According to NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information), "All diseases caused by biological weapons may also occur naturally or as a result of a laboratory accident. Risk assessment with regard to biological danger often proves to be difficult. In this context, an early identification of a potentially dangerous situation through experts is essential to limit the degree of damage”. Certainly, the bioweapon designed could perhaps wipe out the whole human race including the creator of it, if a single accident happens. Its fatality should be taken into consideration and also stringent steps to control its outbreak before initiating its making.

 Biological agents have the ability to adversely affect human health in a variety of ways, ranging from relatively mild allergic reactions to serious medical conditions, including serious injury, as well as permanent disability, even death. Genetic modification may enhance their lethal properties, or render them impervious to conventional treatments or preventives. Since many bio-agents reproduce rapidly and require minimal resources for propagation, they are also a potential danger for lifeforms worldwide.

  Laws regarding banning of bioweapons

 The Biological Weapons Convention (1972) is an international treaty banning the use or stockpiling of bio-agents; as of February 2015, there were 171 state signatories.

Laws will be made but its implementation is what fulfills its virtue.

 History of bioweapon attacks

 Biological warfare has affected our wars, our peace, and our research throughout this century. During World War I, animals were deliberately infected with glanders. During World War II, biowarfare research was carried out by Japan, Germany, England, and the United States. Japan carried out biological warfare attacks in China. England used biological warfare for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. In the 1950s and 1960s, Army researchers released bacteria over U.S. cities in biological warfare tests.

 In current scheme of world involvement in Coronavirus pandemic, the previous weapon- fought world wars, cold wars and war against terrorism have been superseded by this “Virus invasion” global war. Is China really a trigger for this bio World War Third?

 Coronavirus as a bioweapon

  The blame game has started for blaming nations for the coronavirus outbreak.US, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas has repeated the charge that the virus was a creation of the Chinese military while others source it to North Korea. US President Donald Trump has been roundly condemned for “a racist remark” after describing the deadly disease as “a Chinese virus. “US intelligence officials are probing the possibility that America’s enemies might use the coronavirus as a bioweapon, according to an alarming report. The Department of Defense is monitoring for the potential of the virus to be weaponized, possibly against prominent, high-level targets. Andy Weber, who served as assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense program under President Barack Obama, said "In its natural state, the current virus could be used as a bioweapon by less sophisticated groups, or, for a nation-state with a more advanced biological weapons program, this virus could be given enhanced characteristics"

However, there’s no evidence yet to back up a theory that the virus originated in a lab in China or that it was intentionally created to be used as a weapon.

   Apart from all the drama, death rate is increasing manifolds.197,859 people have died so far from the Coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak as of April 25, 2020.There are currently 2,846,536 confirmed cases in 210 countries and territories. The fatality rate is still being assessed.

 All these numbers represent human lives and not commodities. Weapon or not, war or not, we are losing lives. That’s a real threat. Even if this was designed for a war, let us be honest that this battle is not doing anyone any good. It is a catastrophe. It is a reality check; a wakeup calls for us to stand side by side and not opposite. We're one, this weapon sees us as one, attacks us as one. Science is a tool in our hands. It is up to us to either make it a boon or a bane.

[gofancyninjaworld]

OPM Manga Chapter 116 Review: Holding Out for a Hero

Thoughts

You probably know what I’m going to talk about but first, a moment of levity.   It’s definite: Flashy Flash has a face that he only pulls when someone calls him on his crap.  I love this face of his and his subsequent refusal to actually own up to being wrong. It’s so him. 

The face of a man not actually willing to concede to being wrong

Anyway, let’s leave him and Saitama running round in circles deep underground and move to where the action is actually happening. 

In my review of Chapter 111, my one wish in the tags was that the support heroes left safely.   Alas, my wish was not granted.

What went wrong?  Well, it looks like the support heroes reprioritised their mission.  From Chapter 93, there was no question about what was more important -- bring the hostage BACK.  

No ambiguity about what was important

It’s reiterated in Chapter 111, both when Sekingal asks Child Emperor if the latter doesn’t want to retreat now that the main objective has been achieved and when Child Emperor insists that the support heroes stick to their mission. 

But the support heroes are heroes first, which means that they’re individualists with a strong sense of responsibility and a weak sense of obedience to someone’s say-so.

And so they paused to mop up the escaping monsters and seal the exits (seeing Gearsper using both dowsing rods and a pendulum to pinpoint them is super neat -- normally that’s pure hokum, but in the hands of an actual psychic, they’re legitimate tools) before falling back.    Alas, it looks like either Sekingal has no command presence to insist on immediate retreat or he’s gotten caught up in the mood of the moment.

This is seriously one of the cutest panels this chapter

And then it was too late.

Murata brings across so well what a cat looks like from the perspective of the birds, mammals and amphibians beset by one (please keep cats indoors, thanks).  Sneaky. Unexpected movements.  Terrifyingly long, sharp claws.  Too many teeth. Cruel. Persistent.  We have here a monster cat that can bat heroes around like mice and layers sapience and malice on top. 

A face fit for any horror story. Keep your cats inside, folks.  Wildlife will thank you.

I really hate seeing the support heroes torn up so. Sekingal passing Waganma to Food Battler to escape with was an excellent moment -- good, good, you might make a hero yet man, but you need to live first -- but it’s a small bright spot in what has been one of the most ghastly chapters to date.  In particular, I don’t care what bullshit needs to be pulled, but One-Shotter better not die.  To see them all work together and yet be utterly helpless in the face of an enemy far too powerful for them is a grim foreshadowing of yet another confrontation to come.   

why are you bleeding was the most chilling and economical demonstration of Nyan’s power for me -- the monster taking them down with so little fanfare it took them a few seconds to notice

Paradoxically, it’s precisely because Nyan is a cat that the support heroes have any chance. Until he gets his claws on Waganma and rips him apart in front of the helpless heroes, they get to live.     

Can someone come save them first?   

It’s not looking too good.

This better not turn out to be foreshadowing

Meta: Where are all the heroes?

We’re used to the idea by now that no matter what, the support heroes (and even that brat Waganma) won’t die because if nothing else, some hero will show up at the precise moment when all hope appears to be lost.

But where are those heroes? 

Isn’t there a white knight upon a fiery steed? Or a black one -- we’re not racist

Well, we know that there’s no point in anyone less powerful than a Class S hero show up: they’re just more toys for the cat.   That leaves us with slim pickings as most of the Class S heroes (and Saitama) are deep underground, many locked in mortal combat. 

Of those outside, we know that neither Blast nor Metal Knight will lift a finger to help.  Watchdogman won’t come -- Q City or bust, baby.   Metal Bat and Tank Top Master are both incapacitated at present.  

In decreasing order, the following might turn up to intervene:

Genos: he’s in the right place, and should be heading out soon regardless 

Drive Knight: he’s supposedly lurking around here somewhere. If he’s still mobile and battle-ready, his intervention would be most welcome

Sonic: he was planning to visit Saitama after all.  If he takes on Nyan, it’ll be a case of accidentally doing a good deed. 

The Council of Swordmasters finally make their move.  Left-field and unlikely but would be super awesome.

Or no one comes.  That is also possible. 

Place your bets, folks. 

Edit: 

Eh, fuck it. I’m gonna speculate.   So what I think of the various options

If Genos shows up to this, he will have to find some way to prevail.  Like the G-4 robot, there’s no Saitama to back him up if things don’t go his way. Dr Kuseno won’t be telling him not to worry about losing this time, for he will be dead. Nyan may dislike fights, but a wounded cat is a ferocious beast. To say that this would be a liminal moment, the thinnest possible of lines drawn between can’t and can, is an understatement.  Can he?  As he was at this point in the webcomic, no chance. But this is not the webcomic. In the manga, Genos has gained so much more fighting experience (and equipment) in the last few days, it’s incredible. He’s dealt with super-fast enemies. Cunning enemies. Erratically-moving enemies. Hacky-stabby-slashy ones.  Bitey ones. Super-skilful adaptive ones. Insanely strong ones. Even regenerating ones -- and Nyan is guaranteed to have nine lives.  This monster is all those things rolled into one.  In a draconic package.  Can Genos put everything together -- experience, insight, mental preparedness, physical ability -- into one beautifully deadly package?  And become the hero the rest of the cadre have to tag team because otherwise they’re afraid he’ll kill them too?  I have hopes, but I don’t dare bet on them.  Oh yes, one other good thing about his coming -- he’s someone who has been very serious about actually saving people. I’m sure he’ll look to get a drone to airlift One-Shotter out if no one else. 

Drive Knight is quite the unknown quantity.  We know he’s got to be powerful given his place at S-Class Rank 9, but he’s been so secretive even the Hero Data book is no help.  If he’s been lying completely doggo, then we should see exactly what his tactical transformations are good for -- a cautious, clever fighter should be a total treat.  On the other hand, if he’s been masquerading as G-5, then his tactical transformations are busted and he’ll be at a severe disadvantage against Nyan.  In that case, will he put his life on the line and help anyway?

Sonic lacks the offensive power to kill Nyan, but he can so completely frustrate the beast that it forgets about the heroes it planned to torment long enough for them to make good their escape.  And then we’ll get to see Sonic leave disgruntled at having missed Saitama.  Don’t you dare call him a hero or else. 

Council of Sword Masters.  Now that’s a forlorn hope.  They promised to participate, but the chances of their barging into a hot battlefield in the wake of the heroes (or vermin controllers as they like to call them) is extremely slim.   Still, it would be excellent if they did and show us just why they’re called Sword Masters.

Please no.  I’d quit if no one showed up -- it’s precisely because death is rare that I can afford to invest emotionally in the characters.

[bottlepiecemuses]

Top 11 One Piece Hate Sinks (Part One)

 Hello One Piece fans (in GrandLine Review voice). Welcome as we dive into the world of your favorite manga. In this case, we look at a group of a top list of hate sink villains. What is a hate sink you ask? While there are tons of villains in the One Piece series, a lot of them are the love to hate variety. However, these scoundrels as defined by Tv Tropes as” a character designed to be disliked for villainous actions, or for ludicrously intolerable traits, usually in lieu of a hateable main villain.”In other words, characters like Doflamingo and Crocodile although are evil to their core, they are too entertaining to truly dislike. These individuals on the other hand, do not have that trait and are shown to be so irredeemably awful that you want to see karma come down on them hard.

8. Wapol

Here we have another king character in the series, but one who appeared much earlier than Stelly. This is Wapol former king of the Drum Kingdom (now renamed Sakura Kingdom) and current king of the Black Drum Kingdom. Even his father when he was still a prince thought he would be an unfit ruler, and he was proven right. During his reign on Drum Kingdom, he was selfish and oppressive to his people. He banished all the doctors, while keeping all but twenty to himself so that he could force the citizens to come to him for help. Not only was he a douche to his own country, but also to other responsible leaders like Cobra, who called him out at the last Reverie for his selfishness. In retaliation, he kicked his young daughter, Vivi, who showed more maturity than him and put on a straight face. This prompted his then bodyguard Dalton to question his loyalty to a man, who handled a situation with less dignity than a child.

He also had a hand in getting Dr. Hiriluk, Chopper’s surrogate father, killed (who died by his own hand) by baiting him into coming to help heal his doctors and later laughing cruelly at his demise. This of course made him a hated enemy of Chopper. Even though he ruled his country with an iron fist, he left it defenseless when Blackbeard and his gang invaded. After spending two to three months on sea as pirates, they returned back to reclaim the throne, which was now occupied by his former subordinate, Dalton and his former citizens, who no longer wanted anything to do with him. Like an entitled child, he did what ever he could to get back what he thought was his. This meant fighting by force, while again confronting Chopper, who defended the castle that now served as his mentor’s tomb. Eventually he was defeated by Luffy, who sent him flying out of the country and again exiled for good.

Afterwards he wandered as a homeless bum, who resorted to eating trash until he by accident created Wapometal, which turned him rich again and regained status in life. He went onto form a company making the metal and married Kinderella aka Miss Universe. While you would think these events would change a person, then think again. Due to how Wapometal made him famous, he was given his own country by the Celestial Dragons called the Black Drum Kingdom. Thus showing he never recanted his old ways and is still shitty person through and through. This can be seen as Reverie, where he can be seen confronting Dalton and Vivi. Thus showing that even when you are given humble pie, it doesn’t mean you will get character development.

9. Stelly

Like Kuro, he takes residence in the East Blue, but was introduce in the Post-Marineford arc in a flashback. At eight years old, he was adopted by Sabo’s parents as a more suitable heir, while he was away from home. As apart of the Goa Kingdom nobility, he looked down on the poor and considered them to be nonhuman. So it’s no surprise he was on board with the idea of burning the Grey Terminal down, even the people -who he considered trash. It shows that even at that young age that he held little value over other people’s lives, especially if he considered them inferior.

He would get even worse as he grew into an adult and climbed the social ladder in Goa, where he married into the royal family, was heavily implied to have murdered the king and crowned prince, and become king. Throughout Revere, it is obvious that the newbie king for all his false bravado is a craven, pompus, spoiled, and sheltered nitwit. When he tries to boss Garp around just because he’s from the same kingdom, the retired marine hero tells him off, which shocks his bean brain. He also believes that he can get in good with the Celestial Dragons, so he could become one as well, even though you have inherit that title. He also displays a racist streak that extends to believing the false belief that Seafolk spread diseases. And probably the most problematic of all is how power hungry he is when it was his turn to place a sword on the empty throne- to symbolize that his country was equal to the others, he instead was thinking of what he would gain by sitting in it. Given what we know about the truth about the throne, this could cause trouble for the Goa Kingdom if he did. He just shows what a king should not be.

10. Kuro

Now this is going way, way back to the beginning. However, this doesn’t mean he’s not worthy addition to the list. Among the early villains of One Piece, there is a certain darkness that this character brings to the table in contrast with the previous ones who got so far, or even Arlong. The reason is because in contrast with how all the East Blue Villains were evil in plain sight, this guy was someone who had his agenda hidden until the Strawhats and Usopp at that time stumbled across his plan. Before he went by the alias of Klahadore and became Kaya’s butler, he was a notorious pirate who faked his own death by hypnotizing his own shipwright, brainwashing him, and letting him be captured For three years, he went under the radar serving Kaya, while planning to one day assassinate her and retire with her fortunes from piracy.

What really makes him hateable is how he views all the relationships and connections as expendable. Everyone from Kaya, Merry, and even his crewmates are convenient tools for him. For his former co-worker Merry, he cut down in cold blood after he defended him from Usopp’s (rightful) accusations. To show how petty he could be, he crushed the glasses that Kaya gave him as a gift. In contrast with his false image he gave to Kaya, he hated serving her for the three years he was under her employ. All to make it clear to her that she meant nothing to him. Even when she said she would give him the money if he said so, he still wanted to stroke his ego by killing her. Even his crew wasn’t exempt from being tossed aside, because to complete his total vanished appearance he would have had to kill them as well. Ironically, he could have had a quiet normal life from piracy if he didn’t think of this plan and even had a group of people to care for him. However, due to his self-centered nature he couldn’t see that and in the end had to go back to the life of piracy, because he wanted more.  

11. Hogback

Although this character hasn’t been relevant since his days in Thriller Bark, he still is a good contender for the bottom list. Many people would instead put in Abasalom in his place, but if you could think about it harder then you would realize he was a bigger deviant than him. Before he worked for Moriah, he used to be a world renowned doctor who helped people.  However,  he only did it for the fame and fortune, while seeing his patients as nuances. He then fell in love with the talented actress, Victoria Cyndry, who died a tragic death but later dug her up and turned her into zombie with the help of Moria.

Before you think this is a sweet moment for him, it’s far from the truth. He only cared for her looks, rather than personality when he made her into a zombie. He also loved the way she was now under his control, which gives off a lot of creepy vibes when you think about the implications. In general, the zombies he helped create for Moria, he saw only as servants to do his bidding. That included his so-called love, Cyndry, who he ordered to lick the floor to demonstrate his power over her. All of this is what drove his former admirer, Chopper, to denounce him as a doctor and free all the zombies under the Mysterious Four’s control. Though he was a lower contender, he was still a piece of work that hit the creep factor.

[khtrinityftw]

My counters to anti-KH2 Strawman Arguments

The strawman arguments presented here are taken from another blog; it’s sad that they were deliberately written as strawman quality and yet that’s exactly how certain obsessive KH2 haters actually type like.

Disney is reduced to pure filler! - Nope. Beast's Castle, Olympus Coliseum, Disney Castle, Port Royal and Space Paranoids all hold plot relevance, and the more filler-esque Land of Dragons, Halloween Town, Pride Land and 100 Acre Wood still have justifications for existing as levels in the game. Only Agrabah and Atlantica feel like complete wastes.

But what reason do they have to go to these places? Where's Mickey, Riku and Kairi? - You go there to stop all of the leftover Heartless from the mass invasion in KH1 from continuing to threaten the worlds' inhabitants, and to find out what Organization XIII and the Nobodies are up to. Later, it's to find a way into the Nobodies' home base (although this one admittedly gets botched by some truly bad writing).  This complaint is as stupid as it is when applied to the first KH, where the small detail of locking keyholes to slow the progression of a world-eating invasion of darkness is conveniently forgotten.

All the Disney Worlds' plots just recycle the plots of the movies! - Nope. Just the first visits to Land of Dragons, Port Royal and Pride Land, both visits to Agrabah, and all visits to Atlantica. Iconic movie elements used in otherwise original stories, such as in Halloween Town, does not count, since that's the same thing the original KH did.

Original and Final Fantasy characters dominate the game! - Somehow this was a complaint? Even though there is pretty clearly more Disney characters in the game than there are original and FF characters. And that among those Disney characters, there are just as many that are important to the plot as there are original and FF characters.

Horrible retcons, especially Ansem not being Ansem and the Heartless not being those without hearts! - The Heartless were not retconned in the slightest since them being corrupted hearts was established in the original game, and Ansem not being Ansem wasn't so much a problem as the writing of the situation around it was (having Ansem the Wise, disguised as DiZ, disguise as "Ansem" in order to get Riku to embrace the darkness, which causes Riku to disguise as "Ansem" and yet he can't change back to normal, and the enemy is Xemnas, the Nobody of "Ansem"...yeah, you get the idea.)

Organization XIII were bland, shallow villains and terrible characters who never should've been! - This complaint is very clearly fueled by backlash against how the KH fandom latched on to the Organization to...shall we say, an inappropriate degree. Organization XIII is fine. (Although no shit “they never should've been”, that's kind of the whole point. Why do you think their lair is called The World That Never Was?)

The Organization is severely underdeveloped! -  Not in the Final Mix version, they're not.

Yet the Organization totally steals the show from the Disney aspects! - Again, this seems more based around the KH fandom instead of based in reality. The Organization only got a little under an hour of screentime in the original version of KH2! For Pete’s sake, PETE had more screentime than Xemnas! 

The Organization are retconned into Nobodies who want their hearts back! - That's clearly what they were in CoM. They even said as much. This claim is bullshit.

The Organization subliminally have gay sex with each other! - Once again, fandom /=/ canon.

Convoluted and horrible storyline! - Convoluted? Yes. Horrible? No, especially when compared to the storyline of the series beyond.

The novels tell this story so much better! - Hahahaha, no. There are even some improvements made in the storytelling in the manga, but the novels are utterly worse in every aspect, as Tomoko Kanemaki is not really interested in telling the actual story of KH2, but of her personal KH2 fanfic.

THE NOBODIES! - What about them? They were fine. Nomura may have made them more convoluted than they needed to be, but as a concept they felt natural. If a heart can become a creature, then it's only natural that what gets left behind can become a creature as well.

The Nobodies are Designated Villains! - No, they weren't. Suffering from some kind of ailment does not give you the right to inflict it upon others. The Nobodies not having hearts and wanting them is sympathetic, but them planning to obtain hearts by forcibly taking the hearts from millions of innocents kills that sympathy and firmly makes them villains.

But you spend the first 5 hours playing as an Organization member/Nobody only to kill them off in the main game! - Except that Roxas was already killing off other Nobodies and had turned on the Organization by the time of that prologue. Roxas' tragedy is that because they're going by what they know of other Nobodies and Organization members, DiZ and Riku are boxing him into a heavy fate and not allowing him to choose, treating him as if he's an enemy and a tool rather than a person with feelings of his own.

The enemies should've just been the Heartless, the Disney Villains, and Ansem! - The Heartless known as Ansem is dead, where could he have logically come from to fill in that last enemy slot? The only way you could feasibly have him is through his Nobody, which is exactly what happened. Hence the Nobodies, Organization XIII included, being the third enemy after the Heartless and Disney Villains.

All beautifully constructed themes from the first KH were raped! - Please define which themes and how they were raped, because I ain't seeing it.

Sora is now an immature idiot hero who is gay for Riku! / Riku is a bland, monotonous emo and a non-character / Kairi and Namine recieve severe underexposure and minimal development / Axel is a raging pedofag who wants to molest Roxas! / Ansem the Wise is a old, boring Mcpurple prose racist peice of shit. He's not the one true ANSEM! / Mickey Mouse should not be a badass: that is out of character! / Roxas sucks! - This is all beginning to sound like ill-thought out, incoherent ramblings that are based on fallacies such as fandom depiction of characters or willful misunderstanding of the text. I just don't give a crap.

Namine was retconned into being Kairi's Nobody instead of a witch with powers over memory! - She quite literally called herself "the shadow of Kairi" in CoM, and Riku noted that she and Kairi had the same scent.  Re:CoM clarified the point even further by translating a line Axel said to her as "WE Nobodies can't ever hope to be Somebodies".  Like with the Organization being Nobodies, Namine being Kairi's Nobody was always the plan.

Maleficent suffered Villain Decay! - Yeah, that was the point. The whole objective behind her arc in this game was clawing her way back to the top. It's not a fault of this game that she wasn't allowed to ever reach that top afterward despite what the ending implied.

That Longest Prologue Ever sucked! - That is a very subjective opinion. 

Cloud's Side Story sucked! - Yes, but it's just a few scenes long, and finishing it is optional. It's a similar case to Atlantica, which is entirely optional. If you don't like it, don't play it.

Gameplay is no longer challenging! - This was never entirely true (certain points of the game are very challenging, particularly in its second half), and it has been particularly debunked through the Critical Mode of Final Mix.

Too many boring long-ass cutscenes! - Oh, you don't like that? Get used to it, it's not going away from the rest of the series.

These worlds are not fun to play through! - That depends on what you want out of them, as there are plenty of people who prefer the more linear, combat-oriented action RPG style than the larger, platforming style of the first KH, which they claim were the ones that were not fun to play through. And even if you want more exploration and item collecting in the worlds like there was in the first KH, then the Final Mix edition has you covered. 

The finale to the story was awful! - No. Not at all. Fuck you.

The experience is not magical whatsoever because the Disney magic was consumed in a Nomura explosion! - No. That's the series beyond. This was pure compromise: not as much unrestrained Disney magic as the original game but not as much of a Nomura explosion as what followed, but a balance where both were equally rich in quality and quantity, and so fans of both could appreciate it. Like with the Disney world visits, this is the way the series should have stayed, instead of granting Nomura unlimited power and the ability to destroy it with his own self-indulgent crap. 

[pass-the-bechdel]

Stargate SG1 s07e10 ‘Birthright’

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

Yes, eleven times, and with more than two female characters at the same time.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Six (54.54% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Five.

Positive Content Rating:

Four. 

General Episode Quality:

As an episode, it’s just average, but for the content, it stands out in a good way.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Neith questions Mala. Carter hears Ishta’s story, and Mala also speaks. Mala takes Ishta’s place on the Earth mission. Ishta asks Neith to let Nesa go. Mala asks Fraiser about her medical condition. Carter speaks with Mala. Fraiser tells Carter about Mala’s condition. Carter speaks with Mala again. Ishta and Neith make peace, and then speak further, later. Nesa confronts Neith. 

Female characters:

Samantha Carter.

Mala.

Neith.

Ishta.

Nesa.

Janet Fraiser.

Male characters:

Jack O’Neill.

R’ykl.

Daniel Jackson.

Teal’c.

George Hammond.

OTHER NOTES:

“because we have penises?” O’Neill doesn’t mince his words. Though he suggests his willingness to be used as breeding stock, he doesn’t overplay the lecherous joking and altogether he’s much more restrained and respectful than one might have expected the script to make him under these circumstances. Christopher Judge wrote this episode, and I’m just saying, I think that’s why it isn’t a disaster. I 100% believe that if one of the regular staff writers on the show had written this idea, it would have been AWFUL.

Ishta calls Teal’c on his sexism right quick, pointing out how he preaches about letting go of the old ways and yet his personal views are not so progressive. Then they fight, and even though Teal’c technically wins, it isn’t framed as if he’s proving his manly dominance over Ishta, and then even when she concedes the point over Trutonen, she takes the moral high ground in calling out Teal’c’s pride as well as her own. I was worried about how this was gonna play under scrutiny, but it’s actually quite well pitched to avoid wins or losses in either argument or combat being used as battle-of-the-sexes stand-ins. 

Teal’c fondly recalls Drey’auc, and it’s probably the most respect the show has ever afforded her character. 

Unfortunately, the debate over the morality of taking symbiotes feels like a misplay. Considering the context of the atrocities the women of the Hak’tyl are fighting to survive, Teal’c’s qualms about whether or not taking symbiotes from your fallen enemies is honourable are pretty beside the point. Focusing on how the raids endanger the warriors and threaten to expose their secret society unnecessarily when Trutonen presents a safe alternative is logical reason for debate; Teal’c playing the Jaffa Honour card is a distraction, and if it’s supposed to be a further example of how Teal’c retains old ideals despite how they disadvantage rebellion, it’s a misplay of that as well (especially since the tone of the episode suggests that Teal’c is in the right on that subject). I do feel a bit like they concluded the story on a different track to the one they opened with, and considering they opened with egregious misogyny, that’s a bad narrative thread to lose track of.

He may not have chased the plot to completion, but the good news is, C. Judge is tackling a long-standing world-building issue on this show: sexism in Jaffa culture. Episodes with Drey’auc have consistently scored poorly on this blog (a fact which will not change, her being dead and all) because of the outrageous way that Teal’c treated her whenever he was back in his old Jaffa context, and the extra-disturbing thing was that the writers didn’t seem to notice or care, even while they obviously were writing a deeply sexist culture on purpose. Nothing and no one in any of those episodes ever challenged Teal’c’s behaviour or even framed it as problematic, nor was any reason ever suggested as to why the behaviour existed in the first place: the insidious reality appears to be that the writers decided that Jaffa culture just is misogynistic, because how else could it be? Figuring out the role of women in a society is too hard! Why would you suggest that we should actually THINK about how it works? In order to not be the absolute worst, Teal’c has apparently had no problem getting his head around the idea of women as fully capable individuals when they are NOT Jaffa (something Christopher Judge included in ‘The Warrior’ episode, the first story he was responsible for on this show; the dude has always known), but for some reason when it comes to Jaffa women he lapses back into meathead mode, and again, the show has never exhibited any perturbation with that nor any desire to explain it. To be honest, it feels pretty racist, since Jaffa are largely depicted as people of colour and their culture is altogether coded both as ‘other’ and as ‘brutish’. Christopher Judge, however, does not seem content to leaving his character and his culture to be victims of some shitty writers’ lazy world non-building, and rather than trying to bury or mask the inherent misogyny that has been so pointlessly yet overtly written into the story, he has elected to take it on. Even then, he isn’t trying to excuse it or even make his character into the One Enlightened Male Who Gets It; by the same token, he doesn’t write misogynistic behaviour into the episode itself, allowing the reality of it for these women to be recognised and their pain - and anger! There are angry women in this episode and they get to live to fight another day! - to be acknowledged without them being actively mistreated onscreen. Teal’c is not the hero of the episode, he’s just a flawed guy, still learning; in fact, none of the members of SG1 are especially prominent in the episode, none of them depicted like the heroes rescuing these women from their plight. The Hak’tyl are the primary characters in their own story, and as fully-rounded Jaffa women their journeys through the limitations of pride and the pull of old traditions are their own, reflected in lessons that Teal’c himself is learning but never presented as tools for his advancement above their own. Teal’c doesn’t leave the episode magically cured of his sexist convictions (in fact, there’s a follow-up episode next season, also written by Judge), nor is any aspect of the story packaged like a morality tale about how Women Can Do Stuff Too!; the situation is what it is, not in a contrived way, but in a natural flow of consequences, the reality of extremes that arise in societies where injustice and inequality rampage unchecked. It’s not a perfect episode, not by a long shot, nor is it half as deep or detailed as one might have wished. But it is something where we otherwise had nothing but a shrugging assumption that no exploration of entrenched misogyny in bad world-building was necessary, and someone has to have the brains, the guts, and the heart to open up that dialogue. Bless Christopher Judge. 

[overfedvenison]

Dnd Session 6

Oh dang, I never updated my D&D journal for the past session.

So quick summary of the past events: An orcish princess was murdered, implicating our organizations and causing the orc faction to go to war with us, after we refused to hand over a stone that can empower demons of the Black Veil. We suspected the Black Veil - An organization allegedly dedicated to maintaining cosmic balance, but was clearly playing us in some way. Our investigation uncovered a grand conspiracy where the Veil's enemies, including a demon hunter, were trapped inside crystals in a secret house in the city.

But in the process, one of the Veil's members was interviewed in a circle of truth and exploded, and a shadow demon was unleashed from a crystal sphere from the rolm - The veil then declared war on us. However, we got proof of our innocence in these events, and found the culprit was someone named Rilo...

The party:

Charn, a human fighter from the Storm Petrel Academy currently acting as a revolver-brandishing PI unravelling a demon conspiracy and acting as the party's lawyer Arka, a lizardfolk bloodrager and close ally of Charn who had recently begun studying at the same school Pavia, the victim of a scheme to frame her for murder. She is a soldier of the Black Ravens, and has a colonial mindset. Erdrick, a dwarven barbarian who has recently entered an alliance with a demon to reclaim his lost honor And... An Aasimar I can't remember the name of. Slowly learning to stand for herself, but hasn't had a lot of screentime or character development

(Also Tosh, a kistune)

First, I presented my findings to the king, who was very irate at the investigation that transpired. Since one of the people we interviewed kind of... Exploded? The Black Veil had up and left town, and declared war on Angelpoint and the Storm Petrel Acandemy. I'm alive, though, free of treason for now - I uncovered various conspiracies from the Veil that proved that they were doing some incredibly dodgy things, and it's probably good that they're legitimately our enemy instead of just our enemy in secret. So things are kind of up in the air.

However, it's a bad situation... With the Veil gone and without the stone, there is a chance the apocalypse will happen within two years - If the Veil were telling the truth. What's more is that the person we have in holding is threatening us and saying how the Veil can invade us whenever she wants, etc. Of course, I pressed him: "If she's so powerful, why didn't she just go get the stone herself?"

We have to find a conclusive solution within two years, in any case, and then sailed off to present our investigation to the Orcs of the Mistveil Islands.

----

The orcs were receptive to our findings... We conclusively proved that Rilo was responsible for the murder, and not our ally Pavia as they believed. We also learned a nugget of information: Rilo did indeed bring the Obsidian Shard to the misty isles. The Veil, for all their conspiracies, mind control, and dirty deeds, did in fact have a traitor in their midsts working against them. One who took the Shard for his own means.

The orcs demanded a trial by combat for continued relationships. Through strength and valour, they would judge our valor.

Pavia fought the orc's strongest champion... She was quickly crushed, as he has immune to bullets. Tosh jumped in soon after, only to be overwhelmed as well. But Arka stepped up with great honor

"Heal my enemy. I will fight with all my might."

The orcs were impressed. "Very well," said the chieftain.

...The two barbarians raged at each other and traded immense blows. Arka's new magic allowed him to grow to the size of a giant, while the orc was naturally 8-feet tall and wore a mask of steel tusks that dealt horrible goring wounds.

After leaving his swamp, learning of the outside world, studying at the Storm Petrel Academy, and getting a metal arm in his adventures, and learning of the demons that would control the fate of the mortal realm... Arka died here, defending the honor of a human city. But in his death, he dealt a critical blow to the Orc - He collapsed of exhaustion just after killing the lizardfolk.

----

It was this sacrifice that allowed the orcs to forgive us - Somewhat. The chieftain was pleased, and a day later brought the now-recovered Pavia to his tend as we were readying to leave.

He asked of Pavia a request - To go find the true killer, and return his head to him. That will show that the orcs that Pavia is truly in her good graces, and valued Okra.

Pavia, however... As you'll recall, she hated the orcs. This made her the perfect target to frame in the first place - And all this trouble had only made her double down.

"No," she said "That problem is your own. I may not have pulled the trigger, but I hated Okra and I hate your people. I might have done it myself, had I the chance."

The Orc Chief became enranged, and punished her for this insolence. This attracted the rest of the party, who watched. He gave her one last chance to make amends - And she said "You have proven nothing to me. You are what I thought - Savages"

And so, she was executed. I returned the gifts they had given us, and the party left the island to a rocky and very tenuous "peace." This, too, we will have to fix.

----

The party was down a few members, but upon returning to town, got some back.

Erdrick the Dwarf hired a new Black Raven Mercinary, a skilled but naïve soldier who does everything by the book and who is built to call out assists and spot. He's Pavia's player's new character, and is much more of an idealist (and much less of a racist)

I also encountered a summoner, who began to follow me around. He's Arka's player's new character, a socially-awkward summoner who makes friends with summoned creatures.

Finally, the NPC we rescued from the Veil - An experienced demon-hunter, skilled but unused to having a body after many years in a crystal. She is serious and intelligent.

Together, we had one final piece of unfinished business before we could proceed to bigger issues. - To defeat a shadow demon we had inadvertently unleashed when exploring the Veil's secret room.

-----

While we were planning, Erdrick met with his Patron. As you'll recall, when we refused to return the Shard, Erdrick became enraged and made a deal with a demon to retrieve the shard to restore his dwarven honor... And so he conversed once more.

This demon was Rilo, the very one who had killed Okra and betrayed the Veil, and was now playing him as well - To get the shard, and to betray the Veil for his own ends. He has a new plan - He wants to converse with me. He would come to our meeting place in disguise, and get me to agree to an accord to meet with him later...

The summoner and I spent the time researching the Shadow Demon in the library, getting an entire monster manual entry on the thing and planned out a strategy. Erdrick approached us as well, and got the party together to discuss plans. He took me aside as well, acting friendly and courteous - As far as I know, I'm our issues are over, and so Charn trusts him.

What we were speaking of was mostly irrelevant... Buy while we met, I heard a voice in my head from a passerby - Rilo was offering to explain everything to me. I told him that I would agree, and we would need to work out an accord... No magic, no allies, and no weapons. We would talk... In my research on the shadow demon, I also found the perfect spot - A section of the sewers with a metal grate between us. Furthermore, I agreed to get him to wear gloves and not phase through that grate with his mist form. Not an hour later, I would be in a nearby location to combat a shadow demon.

Charn and Rilo would meet. And talk.

----

The DM and I skipped ahead to the demon fight from this part because I had taken up a lot of screentime this game, and did this later.

The talk was long and tenuous. Charn started incredibly suspicious at first, but through either honeyed words of legitimately speaking the truth, he gradually said more and began to saw Rilo's side.

Charn was suspicious, but as crazy and prepared as always. He had a smokebomb on hand in case he needed a quick escape, and a plan for afterwards.

Rilo told me many things that seemed to make sense...

That the Veil was, for all it's misgivings, actually legitimate about protecting the multiverse from an apocalypse, and needed the stone to do so. Rilo stole the stone in order to seal off the material realm, and in doing so, would free the people of the god's control and the control of Shira so they might stand on their own

Shira, as seen with the followers, was controlling the fates of many humans for her own ends. She cares only for her own goals, and not for the hearts and souls of human beings. She is a villian, but not an evil one... She maintains a status quo in the blood war, but her existence is bad for humanity. Positives and negatives.

Shira can call in forces through the tower - This is something we have to deal with. She can also spy on us, but we are unsure how. The Veil Member in holding is also a liability, and should be dealt with.

He cleared up a bit about the murder... He actually climbed down from the roof, killed, and the became invisible after, for instance. But the broad strokes of Rilo as the culprit were accurate... Rilo betrayed the Veil, gave the Shard to the orcs for safekeeping, then when we didn't return it to him, panicked and killed Okra as a threat. The conspiracy with the Veil was unrelated.

And now, he asks that I help him - Go to the abyss, return his sister who is trapped there, and then seal away the material plane. A tempting offer... I told him that I would have to consider the philosophy teachings of the Storm Petrel Academy - A faction about defending from the apocalypse, the potential of humanity without fate and destiny, and hunting demons - to see what I should do.

This wasn't fast enough for him, so he had an imp slave cast Dominate on me - From a demon's perspective, an imp slave is no ally, just a tool to be used and discarded.

Charn would get him that shard, of his own free will, or not.

----

OR THAT'S HOW IT WOULD GO DOWN, IF I DIDN'T SEE THIS COMING!!

The party was fighting a shadow demon immediately after this meeting. A shadow demon's most dangerous ability is Possession... Which can be warded off with a Protection from Evil spell. Protection from Evil also suppresses mental control for it's duration - And so I had a few minutes to alert someone.

The demon slayer and Aasimar! Aasimar has perspective from Charn's secular humanism, and Seranrae's Church - Both anti-demon. The Demon Slayer is an enemy of the veil, but also an enemy of demons. I let these two in on my plans...

"A word - Before we fight this shadow demon, I was investigating the final aspects of the Okra case. I understand everything now... But I'm not sure why I made some of the decisions I did, and believe I have made an accord to meet with a demon, at 3 AM at (location) three days from now. Neither of us are to bring any allies, weapons, or magic...

Over the next few days, I need you to investigate me. If you think I've been dominated into being your enemy, or have become an enemy of this city, go there with any many forces as you can - But anyone who comes, must come as my enemy, not my ally, ready to kill me if need be. Capture his demon's soul in the crystal ball we retrieved so we can offer it to the veil to leave this city alone - this demon is a traitor to them. Then, give his body to the Mistveil Orcs as justice for murder, for peace on that front. I'm counting on you two... I trust you wouldn't fall in line with demons.

Hrm. Now then, this spell is limited, so lets kill this shadow demon before anything else."

The pieces are all in motion - These two will investigate me, and find out the truth. If they agree with Rilo, of free and sound mind, that is what our path forward shall be. If they come to try and free me, as allies, they will have come against my will - And thus, I have not brought allies, they have shown up on their own and against my wishes. If they show up as enemies, the city will be saved and the war with the orcs will be over. The only thing they have to do is not fail.

...metanarratively, I'm also giving the Aasimar some focus. She's kind of been a wallflower, haha.

----

Regardless, we manage to defeat the shadow demon and had a brief moment of levity with the town wizard which I may detail later... And are set for the next arc.

[stimmyvillainarchive]

WHY does the android app gotta suck so much, when i click the faq link it just like refreshes the page,,,, this happens with all links in bios on the andoird app :[

NNNN lovin this broke ass app.

I’mma go ahead and paste the FAQ just under the cut, hopefully you should be able to read it now :’))

(FAQ is written by Mod Joker)

“Are requests open?”

We get this ask a lot. And while I don’t mind answering, it does get a lilll annoying sometimes since we’re essentially repeating ourselves constantly. Before you ask, please check our ask box! It will ALWAYS give our request status!

From now on if we receive requests when they’re closed, we’re going to delete the message entirely. You’re free to ask again when they’re open, but we need breaks!

“Can allistic/neurotypical people follow?”

Yes! So long as you’re respectful of stimming and understand it’s not an aesthetic or something to make fun of.

“It says there’s two mods, but I only really see Mod Joker post.”

There is! But Mod Boo is rather, well, shy. We both are, tbh. I’ve just gotten used to talking a lot on this blog. And to tell ya the truth I invited her to mod this with me because she considered making a blog but wasn’t sure how she’d do it, and was worried she’d be too awkward/quiet. But she actually tends to see your messages a lot! She just tends to let me handle things. But if you ever wanna talk to her, just say the message is specifically for her and I’m sure she’ll get back to you. She’s very friendly and tbh one of the best people to talk to!!

“How do you make gifs?”

I use the same method stimmybby uses! His tutorial’s right here!

“How do you make banners?”

I use photoshop and for backgrounds (depending on what type of background), I use paint tool SAI. I made a tutorial on how I do it here!

“Can we use your banners for posts that aren’t stim related?”

Absolutely! So long as credit is given and you’re not in our dni, then use it as you like! Discourse posts, art, vent posts, promo posts, whatever floats your boat!

“Can I use your gif/s?”

As long as there’s credit to us for the gif/s and you don’t apply to our dni, you’re free to!

“How can I credit you?”

There’s a few ways! Such as

- Including the credit in the post and/or under the cut (this is the best way people can access the original post and see the credit!

- Include the credit in the post’s captions

- Include the credit in the tags

- Include a link in the post to another post that has the credits in it

- Saying you got the gif/s from us in the post

“What are bad/wrong ways to ”“credit”“ you?”

- Saying “I don’t own these gifs”

- Saying “credit to the original owner(s)/gifmaker(s)

- Straight up not saying you took these gifs from people/including in no credits

- Claiming the gif/s are yours/you made them

If I see any of these I WILL publicly call you out on it and you WILL be blocked immediately thereafter. That block will not be lifted.

“What does REG mean?”

Reactionary Exclusionary Gatekeeper. Meaning people who try to exclude certain queer people from queer spaces. Such a biphobes, transphobes, aphobes, panphobes, and so on.

“What does TERF mean?”

Trans/Transgender Exclusionary Radical Feminist. Meaning radfems who are transphobic and are violent towards trans people (especially trans women).

“What does SWERF mean?”

Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminist. They’re radfems who try to exclude sex worker from their feminism and often treat women attracted to men as less worthy.

“What’s the ADT community?”

ADT stands for “Actually Dysphoric Trans/Transgender” and was created by transmedicalists/truscum to break off from the trans community. It’s an insult to the trans community, an insult to the creator of the transgender pride flag (it’s removed the white that was there for people who ID as non-binary/outside the gender binary), and is there purely to start drama and create rifts in a community that’s already got enough enemies for simply existing in a transphobic world

“He/Him lesbians don’t exist/they’re transphobic towards trans men”

As a trans man who doesn’t think the world revolves around me and who understands that what lesbians decide to do it literally none of my goddamn business: get the fuck over yourself you whiny pissbaby

“What do you mean by people in the true crime community?”

People who sexualize, romanticize, excuse, and/or support serial killers and their actions/crimes. This doesn’t include people who are INTERESTED in the topic of crimes, serial killers, etc but acknowledging how these people are disgusting and their actions are unforgivable.

“Why are you anti-cgl?”

Cause we hate pedophiles and are decent human beings.

“You’re bigoted to kinksters just like homophobes are bigoted to gay people!”

I hate to break it to ya bud but I’m proudly kinkphobic and you’re a giant homophobe!!

“I’m a SFW cgl(re)/littlespace blog so I’m following/interacting uwu”

No the fuck you aren’t!! You’re a kink blog, there’s no such thing as a “sfw kink” even if you’re remaining two braincells are too busy fighting over the last pacifier to tell you some fuckin common sense. Your ass is getting blocked and I’ll also be using your blog to take a look at the people you interact and block them too just for safe measure! Eat a cactus, fuck nugget

“You hate lesbians if you hate TERFs”

You owe every lesbian an apology for assuming they’re all mysogynistic, LGBT+phobic pieces of horseshit like you are. Eat a dick.

“aces/aros aren’t LGBT uwu”

Wow… that’s so wrong Alexa play Fuck You by Lily Allen

“Me/Someone I know/(insert user/s) has been blocked. Why?”

There can be a number of reasons why you’re blocked, and I’m not afraid to block people as I want this place comfortable and safe for the mods and followers. So there’s several reasons as to why.

- You apply to our DNI (see BYF)

- You’re a (insert harmless children’s cartoon) critical blog (I tend to block those due to them saying LGBT+phobic things)

- You get into kin drama

- You’re an ace discourse, pan discourse, bi discourse, and/or overall REG discourse blog (this does not mean I block inherently block discourse blogs! I block the shitty ones)

- You’re a spam/porn/etc bot (if I’ve gotten this wrong, lemme know! I tend to block shady and empty blogs for this reason unless their desc/url/etc says it’s empty/weird for a reason)

- You’re a blog that frequently posts/centers around one or more of my triggers

- You’re an aesthetic blog (though I tend to soft block for them. But this is NOT an aesthetic blog and stimmy is NOT an aesthetic)

- You’re an “anyone can interact” stim blog

- You’re a stim blog that steals/doesn’t credit the gifs they use

- I feel you and I are going to argue and I’m just saving us the trouble of future unpleasant encounter/s

- You’ve been shitty to my friends or just been shitty to people in general and I’ve noticed it

HOWEVER I’ve made slip ups in the past! If you feel you don’t apply to any of these, you can contact me through my main and ask why. Sometimes I don’t always remember why I blocked somebody (sadly there’s a lot of shitheads on this site I’ve needed to block) or I’ve confused one blog for another person’s blog. Or maybe the person was more chill than I thought. Please contact me yourself rather than ask somebody else to do it though so I can get all the details! Even if I don’t lift the block, I won’t report you for block evading or anything.

“You used to be kidheart friendly and now you’re not, why’s that?”

Sadly, Raven (the creator of Kidhearts) has proven to be a bully sympathizer and feels it’s okay to compare agere to kinks/cgl and sides with regressionuncensored. She condones bullying/harassment/the sexualization of minors and I am not nor will ever be okay with that.

“But Raven sai-”

I don’t care what she says. She made it abundantly clear that she supports regressionuncensored and I don’t care that it came back to bite her in the ass. Bullies deserve no support, no sympathy, no nothing. And if you side with her than don’t come near this blog. This is agere safe and I will not allow people who support sexualizing it to interact. Kidhearts WILL be blocked on the spot, no questions asked.

“I’ve left a community on the dni list, can I follow/interact?”

Yes!

“Why are you anti-(insert thing on blacklist here)?”

Camp Camp: It’s racist + antisemitic

Dragon Maid: It’s pedophilic

Killing Stalking: It’s homophobic, ableist, sexist, perpetuates rape culture, and fetishizes abuse

Your Lie in April: It romanticizes child abuse and it literally starts off with a gross pedo joke when we meet the love interest in episode one

Split: It’s ableist

Hetalia: It’s antisemitic

Harry Potter/J.K. Rowling’s works: Actually there’s nothing inherently bad about the story. I just don’t like it. HOWEVER: I can’t stand J.K. Rowling as she’s a TERF/overall LGBT+phobe, and racist. So none of her creations will be featured here.

Sonic Boom: Nothing inherently problematic. I just can’t stand the show because it just fuckin sucks

13 Reasons Why: It romanticizes suicide and the creators refused to listen to actual mental health experts and have made the show potentially dangerous to anyone who even slightly deals with suicidal thoughts/urges

Detroit Become Human: It’s racist + antisemitic

Voltron: Legendary Defender: It queerbaits/it’s LGBT+phobic

“REG is a transphobic term”

I, Mod Joker, am trans. Try again.

“A-specs aren’t LG-”

*buzzer sound* wrong. So sad for you

“You’re not LGBT+ because you DARED disagree with me because you actually acknowledged that tumblr didn’t credit the community sweaty uwu”

We get this shit because a lot of you assume I’m ace or at the very least a-spec. And… Ya couldn’t be far from it. I’m a pan, genderfluid trans man. Even with all your gatekeeper (sorry, BULLSHIT) logic; I’d still be attracted to multiple genders and not be cis. I’m p queer. So no matter which way you slice it, I’m part of LGBT+. Die mad about it.

“You’re comparing aphobes to TERFs and SWERFs you fucking transphobe!”

Wow I didn’t realize setting boundaries meant that I viewed y'all in the EXACT same light. I’m so glad I have the lovely aphobes that have told my friends that they should kill themselves to set me straight.

Asking people not to interact doesn’t inherently mean I think they’re the EXACT same thing.

“Mod Joker is a gif-thief and reposts people’s content without properly crediting them!”

I have made this entire post explaining that’s wrong. Idrc if the post is too lengthy for you. Don’t talk shit if you don’t even have all the details.

Additionally, if you send me somethin about this in a negative light I’m IP blocking you. One strike and you’re out. If you want to believe people with false info and false accusations then that’s your baggage. Not mine.

HOWEVER if I’ve accidentally mis-credited, forgot to/messed up on crediting a person for their gif/video, or so on let me know! I’ll make mistakes, but I never do it intentionally.

[sparda3g]

Attack on Titan Chapter 108 Review

Survey Corps may have their own problems at Paradis Island, but that won’t stop a war coming for them. Ever since they returned home, nothing has been sunshine and rainbow. Only depression and misery. Eren appeared to no longer care about his friends. Historia is pregnant for reason unknown. Everyone else is falling apart. Is there a solution to this mess? This chapter presented answers to many questions with a couple of interesting setup for certain characters, and a sign of a next grand chaotic battle.

There’s nothing more disgusting than a dinner with nothing but disgusting people. The only exception is Nile, Erwin’s old friend. He’s practically the only sane and good person in that table as the rest are celebrating for their accomplishment for apprehending Yelena and others. For the record, I still like Commander Pixis despite his action. It’s only because politics forced him to do the dirty work. Despite them enjoying Marley branded drinks, they don’t take people as friendly. That’s racist.

Their reason to backstab Zeke and others is because they don’t trust the fact he can use mind control or alter their memories. On one hand, it would have been seen reasonable, knowing Zeke still has a bad reputation with Paradis Island. On the other hand, Zeke’s group and Survey Corps built a trust for a while, so why start now. Even Nile doesn’t think like them, showing how selfless he is in compare. In short, the politic is still crappy as ever.

The revelation of Historia’s status begins to surface when Roeg spouts out their true plan. They intended to have Zeke makes his return and by surprise, a titan that would have been Historia comes in to eat him, so she can inherit the Beast Titan. They don’t plan to wait until Zeke is ready to pass down; bunch of assholes. It turns out her pregnancy isn’t part of their plan, rather a move to prevent them to use that plan. Kind of sad if the case is forced pregnancy. If being racist isn’t bad enough, the douchebag only saw her as a low-life girl with a name Queen attached. That’s sexist.

For pairing fans or fans in general who desperately wants to know the father, the answer is here. It’s some guy from the past who bullied Historia by throwing rock at her; maybe asking for attention. Around the present time, he worked at her orphanage to redeem himself. From there on, they got together. Unless you’re like my friend, that’s how the story was told; you might as well move on. Unless NTR is really poisonous to you.

The real problem for the douchebags isn’t the love story, but the timing of her pregnancy. She cannot be turn into a titan without any damage effect while carrying a child. To them, it’s fine for her to carry one, but the timing is too coincidence. Basically, they have an idea that someone hidden told Historia that she’s about to be used for their plan, so to prevent that, she and the guy did their thing. Now, she is pregnant. Perhaps that’s why she doesn’t look so happy for she is treated like a tool; leaving her no room to make her own decision. It also explains why the guy doesn’t sound cruel or anything. He cares about her.

The hidden person is said to be Yelena because according to their logic, Marleyan plus Zeke’s right hand person equal the mastermind. They have no proof, but they believe so since it stopped Zeke’s demise. It’s not confirmed who the culprit is, so we got something to think over. Although Historia is pregnant, Roeg is like, “The hell with it! Let’s make her into a titan.” Nile, the reasonable man, warns him that the side effect can be dire to the child or her. Good to see him again. Roeg practically ends the argument by stating nation over people. Why I am not surprised?

Basically, Historia’s pregnancy is planned to prevent the backstab plan, not that the politic forced her to do so. Even so, she’s still forced to be pregnant under different circumstance. That’s just sad. The dinner table scene pretty much clarified that those guys are still bunch of craps. They have the courtesy to obtain some Marleyans to be their butler; more like slaves than anything. Even poor Nicolo is dragged into this mess; still broken over Sasha. It would be fantastic if the drink is poisoned, though that would mean Zeke did hide something. I don’t mind though…

The scene with the Survey Corps in the room is discomforting and concerning. The first page set the tone of unsettling feeling about the whole fiasco. It’s clear the effect of Sasha’s death is still looming around them. Now that they know what happened to Yelena and others, it’s like everything keeps falling apart for them. The first flashback was a sign of hope and carefree; now, it’s just growing dreary.

It gets worse when Jean raise a concern with Eren and his possible backstabbing plan. He starts to question if Eren is working with Zeke behind their back, especially since Zeke did say his plan at Marley provided great results. Supposedly, they did talk before, yet no one knows the content. After the last chapter, it’s hard to understand Eren’s intention or attitude.

What’s startling is Connie. It’s clear that Sasha’s death affected him greatly. His glare to the window is telling how much he can’t take this anymore. It got to the point that he will show no remorse if Eren is a traitor. Even with Mikasa trying to stop him, he doesn’t hold back his anger; unusually shows dominance in his stand. Mikasa is trying to keep hopeful about Eren, but she is struggling to keep it up. This whole corps is slowly falling apart.

There’s another flashback scene; this time is them working together on building a railroad track as they’re waiting for the response. Isayama really like pulling this stunt with Sasha still around; almost feel like he regretted killing her off. Seriously, it’s a nice scene with them working together like a family. It’s amusing to see how everyone acted their ways, including Sasha hogging all the water and Mikasa carrying woods with ease.

They waited to see if Hiruzu can start an international relation with the rest of the world using the connection to Paradis Island as well as the human rights. Hange and Levi returned to deliver the news; it’s no good. It’s because Hiruzu is a greedy nation that refused to share the resources of Paradis Island with others. I knew that drool scene was a terrible sign. Greedy bi---. Excuse me. The human rights failed as well since nations only saw the group as eccentrics with no one willing to support the cause. Lastly, they saw Paradis Island as a convenient source of trouble, so to keep them united and stable, they will leave it as it is. What a crappy world.

I felt bad for them since they did hope, even if it’s little, that they can start a peace rally and not resort to the flattening the world plan. It sucks for Armin since he would have love everyone to stop fighting and not resort to become the world’s enemy. I got to credit Hange for trying to uplift the corps’ spirit. She nailed it on what made them special in the first place; investigate the unknown. I don’t know if there will be a flashback with them confronting the political world, but it could be the turning point for Eren’s transformation.

Probably my favorite scene of the chapter is the train ride. It’s not plot heavy, but it’s filled with charming and lighthearted moments from the characters. It’s amusing that while heading towards to their mission, they speak about what they should try and take from outside the walls’ resources. They’re hanging out like the good old times. It’s a shame that Zeke’s time is basically their time limit since he’s the source of the plan. They’re pressured to take it or doomed themselves. It comes down to the next question: who will inherit the titan after Eren?

This is the best part in my opinion. Mikasa wanted to take it, but Jean told her many drawbacks that prevent her to become it, including being an Ackerman. Imagine her as a titan though. She will be godly. Jean insisted for he felt that he will handle it with care; obviously taking a shot at Eren’s reckless behavior. Connie disagreed for they don’t want an “awesome” commander to be on a death clock. How nice. He insisted to take it, but Sasha disagreed because he is stupid. Why she had to die again? She wanted to, but Connie snapped back by calling her out on her contradiction. Nice comeback.

This got me laughing, but more importantly, awed by their friendships. What sealed it surprisingly is Eren’s thoughts. He doesn’t want anyone to inherit it, rather prefer for them to live long. It somewhat suggested that he will die and probably end the cycle. I don’t know if it works that way. The point is he cherished his friends. It’s funny how Eren actually blushed, which made the moment more awkward than it already is. Armin said it’s because of the color from the setting sun that made everyone seems blushing, which it did. I believe Eren did genuinely blush, but if not, his words still hold great value. It begs the question: why is he acting so different now.

Mikasa is standing by Eren’s side and claims that he’s still with them and have no intention to discard his friends like fodders. Jean, on the other hand, press on the doubtfulness on Eren’s trust and the disaster could have been avoided, let alone Sasha’s death. It’s a bit of a stretch to say Eren believed in everyone to fulfill the mission. That’s such a reckless and risky move altogether. That said I can oddly believe in Mikasa’s words, because Eren has shown great concerns of his friends. Then the bomb is dropped by none other than Connie.

Mikasa and Armin didn’t see Eren’s reaction to Sasha’s death, but we the fans did. Last time we saw him, he looked guilty and upset. However, Connie said he laughed, and Jean backs this up. I don’t know if the panel shot of Eren’s reaction is considered laughing, but if it’s true, I don’t know what to say. It must have happened after that said panel. That said it’s strange, considering we just saw him reacting like a caring man losing a friend. What is going on here?

Armin, the peacemaker of the group, calms the atmosphere and reassure everyone that Eren can negate Zeke’s ability. If that wasn’t the case, this series would end dark. However, if Zeke roams around with army of titans attacking everyone, then Eren isn’t negating the effect; thus, he’s with him. That is a logical explanation; always count on Armin to bring balance. What I didn’t expect is his solution to the problem.

Armin usually handle the problem in the most peaceful manner possible, especially with Eren involved. After that trip, he won’t hold back. It is fine to go and ask Eren about his agenda, and that would be the end of it. But Armin takes one step further. If he’s with Zeke, Armin suggests one to take the Titanization formula and eat Eren. Wow. What the hell?

I get that it’s a logical approach for safety measure, but this is his best friend we’re talking about. Even Mikasa is caught by surprise that he would suggest something like that. After going through the flashback, the irony couldn’t be any crazier. I don’t think it will come down to it, but I am seriously curious on Eren’s positon. This can be the final nail to the coffin (no pun intended?), the point of no return. Hopefully, the issue will be solved in the next chapter.

This chapter shifts the scene to where Falco and Gabi are located at; taking a small break. I know the fans despise Gabi tremendously, but I do like how Isayama is handling the case of a lost brainwashed child with a small sign of intellect. She is similar to Eren from the first chapter, but instead of striving to survive to kill all enemies, she is a lost cause. Falco, on the other hand, is more “free” to make choices of his own. When Gabi tells him to do whatever he pleases, he takes out her armband of Marley. It come across like a smartass remark, but he is trying to help her.

She reacts badly, like an obsessed person who don’t want the collection to be touched. I can’t fault her so much because it’s pretty abundant that she is like Reiner back in the day. The words she spouting is what a trained brainwashed warrior would say; willing to die by the name of the country. It's a bit sad to be honest. I also can’t fault her since she does prefer Falco to live and not go in her way to death. You got to respect her to be thoughtful at least, rather than “I hate everybody! Die!”

A girl appears in the forest, asking them what they’re up to. I heard the girl is the same one that Sasha rescued a long time ago. I don’t know if it is her, but if so, well, the detail is nice yet eerie. Another example of brainwashed Gabi is when she was preparing to kill her with a rock. It’s only a harmless girl, yet she’s willing to kill her. Thankfully, the suspense ends with no one getting hurt; only now Gabi and Falco are invited to her place. I wonder if it’s where Historia is at. This should be interesting.

The chapter closes with the aftermath of Marley; reminding how bad the damage was. Pretty grim to see a child with missing limbs. Surprisingly, Magath found out that Zeke has faked his death and allied with their enemy. He should have died first to avoid this smart observation. Actually, the credit can go to Pieck as well. She theorized that Zeke has planned this for four years, which is true, and used collaborators from inside the Marleyan Army, which is also true. Damn, she’s good. It also helps that the 3D Manoeuver Gear was upgraded with their own technology. So much for dumb villains’ syndrome.

Just before the hype to strike back was about to begin, Magath orders everyone that they will take the war back at Paradis Island in about half a year. Thank God for the power of time-skip. That said although bringing all countries’ army together sound pretty intimidating, that would leave Falco and Gabi alone. God speed is what I would say. Thankfully, I think, Reiner objects this plan, because he wants the hype rolling.

Seriously, either he’s smart or suicidal, he wants to attack them now. He believes Zeke is expecting them to attack later on, not immediately. If they do the opposite, it may corrupt his plan altogether. Reiner doesn’t want to wait; he wants to surprise attack. This is an interesting endpoint. Reiner seems to have reignited his spirit; probably because of Falco and Gabi, since he did call them his reason to live. He probably wants to attack now to save them and maybe along the way, take everyone down. I would joke and think he wants to die quicker this way, but really, I am glad to see him in firing spirit.

This was a pretty interesting setup chapter. There was a good amount of new answers and questions (of course), with plenty of moments to look forward to, including Eren’s agenda. If anything, this chapter set up plenty of point of no return. The series is good at changing your view with each chapter. I don’t know what to make of Eren but hopefully, it’s a misunderstanding. I don’t think the heated action will ensue next, but it has planted that seed. When the time comes, hell will break loose. It��s this series’ nature.