#which is also partially where my issue stems from.

[nayatarot777]

PSA For Those Who Don’t Understand That Shit Ain’t Always Sweet Out Here In This Spiritual/Tarot World

I’m not one of these “love and light” tarot readers/spiritualists. You’re going to hear shit about yourselves in my readings that you don’t like, if that’s what Spirit wants to come out. Idgaf if it’s based on personal topics, relationships, work, health in any aspect - a lot of us self-sabotage. A lot of us are in situations with people and environments due to our own doing (partially). I’m not the reader that’s going to enable your perpetual victim complex and tell you what you want to hear to protect your ego from seeing a side to yourself that you don’t like. I’m not one of those readers who help you to lack accountability over what you allow into your own life despite having the option to do better. Of course I’ll try to put it in a delicate way where I can, but if a difficult pill to swallow is presented in a reading, I’m going to point it out.

I’ll point out your control issues that I see (no matter how much you try to hide or deny them). I’ll point out where you’re betraying yourself, where you’re disrespecting yourself, and where you’re disrespecting another. If you want to focus on love and light, then by all means - do that. But that’s the reason why so many of you are still unstable and imbalanced with no idea of how to balance and ground yourself. You think any of us could exist without darkness and negativity (which isn’t always evil and “bad”)? You think that you can exist only paying attention to the good parts of you without the bad? Go ahead and see how that turns out for you.

So many of you wonder why your intuition is thwarted and why you feel like you can’t connect to your higher self or the spiritual world without a “middleman” (such as myself). It’s because you’re not ready for that. Because you’re not ready to explore darkness within yourself in order to clear out a lot of the bs that’s clouding your vision. Why do you think that so many people who are great intuitives go through some of the darkest manifestations of life itself? Major abuse, betrayal, childhood wounds, just complete chaos - and they STILL come out to be some of the strongest and well-balanced people you’ll ever meet. They’re people who are strong enough to transmute darkness into light. You’re not going to do that by ignoring shit that you don’t like. And the darkness is terrifying. Exploring space, the deep sea, or any type of unknown is terrifying. But what would society look like if not one of us decided to do that? Where would we be as a human race if people with courage didn’t venture into those spaces and bring back a bunch of knowledge for us to expand our consciousness with? We all owe doing that for ourselves. Not doing so is self-betrayal and stagnation.

Intuition is represented by the moon. Does the moon emit light? No. Mother Luna is a dark entity and she lives in the darkness - which is the core of everything. And if you’re a woman/a feminine, you’re doing yourself even more of a disservice. Because darkness is pure, feminine energy. We come from our mother’s dark ass wombs. This entire universe began as a dark ass body of space-and-time before it formed physical planetary bodies and light sources. Reject yourselves all you want, but you can’t complain that you’re out of whack energetically if you choose to do so. Or when what you’re manifesting doesn’t come through (which also stems from the darkness btw). Don’t reject the darkness but expect to be able to use it when it benefits you. Sounds like shit that masculines have done to the feminine for centuries, huh? And so many feminines are doing that same exact shit to themselves. It’s sad.

We’ve seen entire groups of people with weak egos follow the same path of rejecting darkness/femininity and we see how difficult they are as people to co-exist with: ignorant men who have egos as big as the sun because they don’t want to face the hidden sides of themselves - that often times houses some ugly traits because of what they’ve allowed to fester in the dark corners of their psyche. Ignorant, male-centred religious people who identify so much with their religion that they only want to focus on the light, happy parts of their religion while ignoring how much harm that same religion can cause to others (especially feminines/women). Thats just to name a few. If you walk around with this idea that you’re nothing but “love and light” then just know that you’re another ignorant person in this world who is no doubt ignoring very real and human negative effects that you have on yourself and/or others - no doubt. And the darkness doesn’t always have negative effects (obviously) but it will when it’s suppressed and therefore forced to come out in uncontrolled, unconscious ways. If that’s what you want to do, then I’m not the reader for you.

[royboyfanpage]

Okay a post by @mew-poo got me thinking about Titans (1999) #15-#16 again, and I think I noticed something. This may be absolute bs, I haven't slept in two days so I might be doing analysis that doesn't exist, but-

I think Roy is the only one of the fab five who doesn't hold grudges.

Essentially the comics, particularly #15, focus on the fab five being stranded on an island with Gargoyle, who is bringing their personal resentments and grudges to light, causing a lot of tensions between the team. But one thing I've noticed is that the different arguments Roy makes are rarely centred around anything that happened between him and the others off the island. The main issues for him are-

-the current situation, or-

-regarding Lian. Comparatively, the things that the others say to him, such as Garth bringing up his addiction arguably unnecessarily-

-Donna suggesting that Roy's stupid for thinking their relationship will last (and later insulting him for leaving after she said that)-

-and Dick questioning his commitment to the Titans (which I won't post a panel of due to Tumblr photo limit, so imagine it's here), it's clear to see a difference. Despite being on an island intended to highten negative emotions, Roy never actually brings up anything anyone's done in the past (at least not yet) unless he's actively prompted to by someone else, like his defending himself from Dick's criticism-

-and the only time he really brings anything up without a prompt (prior to the end) is STILL in reference to something that was said to him on the island as opposed to years ago.

I think that makes a lot of sense for Roy as a character. He's a very practical man, and so it makes sense that he wouldn't dwell on old grudges compared to current issues he's faced with. It could also, at least partially, explain why it takes Roy so long to recognise that Garth is mad at his teasing. Roy reacts strongly in the moment to issues in his life and relationships rather than letting them brew (at least this era of Roy does, his reactions were different in the Snowbirds era), which may make it harder for him to see that someone *is* harbouring a grudge against him that they haven't acted on- that's just not how his brain works.

And then, there's the moment where Roy does snap.

I don't think that Roy's dialogue here stems from a grudge, and it's not based in negativity. As mentioned earlier in the comic, Gargoyle thrives on negativity, that was what was keeping them in purgatory. However, Roy's rant and punch was what managed to free them. It's not based in bitterness but rather... I guess violently constructive criticism? Roy doesn't like seeing Dick stuck in Bruce's shadow, and his tirade is based in concern for Dick more than anything, a wake-up call. And anything similar to bitterness in this is rather based on the double standards towards Dick- everyone has to walk on eggshells around Dick's issues, whereas Roy's issues are constantly brought up (Roy's addiction is mentioned in almost every comic with him I've read). He's angry that his friends will step in and give *him* a wakeup call, but they let Dick spiral without stepping in.

Anyway I'm very tired and forgot my point halfway through writing this, so do with this as you will and reinterpretations are more than welcome.

[doberbutts]

Hi, I recently came across a post of yours that said

"The only thing men have to lose from supporting feminism is misogyny. Feminism is not about tearing men down. It is about lifting women up."

I disagree with this assertion. Well, the first one at least, I absolutely agree with the second one.

I think men, materially speaking, do have things to lose from supporting feminism, aside from just misogyny.

Men would lose the ability to take advantage of women's labor. Either for free in the form of labor around the house, or for cheap by paying them less compared to men (this usually being achieved by relegating the majority of women in the workforce to positions that have been devalued as a result of being associated with womanhood, like teachers or nannies or housekeepers and so on).

I don't believe it's dangerous to acknowledge that oppressors dont have material reasons to cease their oppression, because after all if they they would've stopped a long time ago. Misogyny is pervasive not because of some pure ideological effort, but rather because it's a convenient excuse for the people in power to take advantage of a quite large subset of the world population (and as consequence spread as an ideology).

Of course I do think that quite a lot of men, once they understand this reality, would choose to reject the privilege being offered to them as they recognize accepting it would mean taking part in and upholding the system, but in doing so they're clearly not only giving up misogyny, but a tangible advantage in life that would make their lives easier (not to mention that, even if they did want to do this, the system is nonetheless pervasive and inescapable in its current form, so they would still benefit regardless of their intention. That's male privilege, after all)

I also do believe that men of all sorts suffer from living under the system. I reject the idea that all men equally benefit from it and that none ever feel its aftereffects. That being said, I do still think it's relevant to acknowledge that even men whose manhood is questioned by the system (either rejected or seen as a threat or any other way in which it doesn't fit the perfect idea of a wealthy abled cishet white man) and suffer as a result are rewarded for being men in the first place, even if they can't take full advantage of the benefits reserved for the ideal male archetype.

(I'm largely leaving my thoughts on how trans men fit in all this because I believe that to be a fairly complicated discussion)

I hope I don't come across as picking a fight or arguing in bad faith, and I'm open to hearing counterpoints if you feel differently from me (of course, if you even care to engage at all. Feel free to ignore this if that's not the case)

I mean I don't think you're picking a fight I just think you're dramatically misunderstanding what I'm saying, partially to the point where you're saying you disagree while repeating my logic back at me.

Men have nothing to lose from supporting feminism except misogyny. Taking advantage of women's labor is, in fact, misogyny.

Feminism is not about tearing men down but about lifting women up. Yes, by losing male privilege, one could I suppose argue that there are a lot of losses that come with that. To me, that is not a material loss, because the only thing we'd be removing is the entitlement to that privilege.

When I say feminism is not about tearing men down but about lifting women up, what I mean is this:

There is a fairly well documented pay gap, with men of most demographics being paid higher (even if marginally so) than women of equal demographic. Fixing the pay gap isn't lowering men's salaries. It's raising women's. What they have stays the same. What they lose is the ability to pay women less- the misogyny.

There is a fairly well documented disparity regarding women in the workplace vs men, especially in physical labor and in STEM. Fixing this issue does not remove jobs for men- it judges job candidates on their actual ability instead of sex or gender.

This is also what I mean when I say this contributes to a net positive for both sides: don't hire a shitty welder just because he's the only man applying. Hire any number of the experienced and proven welders that are women who also applied. Return to teaching welding in schools, get any kid interested in the trade the knowledge they need to start. This will not only improve the quality of the trade skills your specific employer has to offer, but it will also improve the quality of trade skills for the future generation that will replace you when you retire or die. Literally the only thing men have to lose in this situation is misogyny- the misogyny of keeping women out of the workforce, and the misogyny of keeping women from learning the trade in the first place. They get more qualified people working and all for the low low cost of not being a jerk to women.

Misogyny, like most oppression, is about control. It is not about making things better for just one demographic, because often time that very same demographic does suffer under that oppressive system while simultaneously benefitting from it. As said in my previous example, continuing to hire shitty welders just because they're dudes while deliberately passing up good welders just because they're women just makes things worse for everyone.

Not accepting college applicants just because they're women while taking substandard men who can't get in without daddy's money just makes things worse for everyone.

Continuously questioning the credentials of accomplished and professional women traching a class while nodding along in agreement to some jerk-off man's half-assed non-researched opinion on twitter just makes things worse for everyone.

Voting for Old White Man #736194 because his opponents with politics that align more closely with what the country wants- and needs- are women just makes things worse for everyone.

Ditch the misogyny. That's all. Level the playing field by actually bringing women up to the standard we've set for men. Feminism is about lifting women up.

[cherry-pop-elf]

Chubby George Weasley 🧡 Headcanons

Because Fuck You, I Wanna!

The weight didn’t exactly start, until the shop had been open for a while. They were put into a position of a very stable income, and didn’t have to worry about food anymore. Along with breaking some habits, such as eating less so Ron and Gin could eat more

Was more so actually healthy weight, compared to being bean pole thin all the time. Still was over all slender, as they did a bunch of Manuel labor and hands on work, just didn’t look like they’ll pass out if you don’t keep their blood sugar high enough

After the war? Yeah, he had to fight depression somehow. Baking was what soothed him, and he was also needing to keep the shop steady for a while. Until Ron came to help, of course

You still couldn’t tell he gained some extra pounds, given his attire slime him greatly, but he’s got that soft chub. That sweet dad belly pillow that every kid gets in their childhood, that makes it the perfect spot for naps

It more so went into his stomach, thigh area. Due to beating a beater, he had a lot of muscle to work with. As we know, muscle is still excess. So when it’s relaxed, it’s all soft and squishy. So he has a rather evened out chubbibess, which is why it’s hard to notice when he’s in his work attire

He is so cuddly, and makes for the best napping partner. Always smelling sweet from the shop, with that good bear hug squeeze. Given there is still muscle under the squish after all

He’s rather self conscious of going soft, but this man deserves to not stress about it. He’s healthy, he survived a war, he built an empire, grew up poor where food was always scare to begin with, lost his ear which made him partially deaf, and lost his twin. He’s allowed to finally have some stress off his shoulders

The children definitely love that he’s not stuck thin anymore. They can just run up, to their favorite shop owner, and get the best hugs EVER. Big squishy hugs, and the comfort of his warm personality

Because he went back deeper into baking, from the stress of the second war, you know he’s somehow mastered being a master at baking. You know you can count on him for the best desserts and sweets you could ever dream of

He is shy about his belly, but the kids certainly help him with it. It’s a dad bod. He deserves it. Stretch marks and all. The kids love hugging him, and it’s nice to no longer have to be so stressed on his appearance. The community utterly adores him, and will protect him as much as he protects them

Anyone who says anything honestly might get attacked by his employees before he even says a word. He makes sure his employees are provided for. Dental even! Bet your ass he’s the community dad, of Diagon alley

Freckled. Belly. Need I say more? Freckles, scars, tattoos, and a sweet little happy trail

The best hugs, the best sweets, the warmest soul. What more could anyone want?

Please tag me in any Chubby Georgie Art/Fanfics/Whatever pls!

((Yes this kinda stemmed from the fact it’s very hard to lose weight because of my health issues and I’m projecting, but also chubby Georgie hugs))

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

So my best friend (F28) and I (F26) have been friends for seven years. We met on an rp site and hit it off right away. After a lot of issues with other people on the sites and the sites themselves (tbh it was a real shit show, they were controlling and excluded others and kinda homophobic) we left and just kept rping ourselves. We mainly do this over whatsapp, instead of writing long posts we just do quick messages and it’s fun like that. Again, this has been going on for SEVEN YEARS, rping with a quickness that was like…. A response every 10 or 15 minutes. Predictably, this made us somewhat… codependent. It’s something we’re aware of and that I’ve spoken about in therapy and that I’ve been trying to work my way through. I’ve recently also been diagnosed with ADHD so I realized that my dependence also partially stems from it being quick dopamine fixes and being very constantly stimulated.

Additionally, the way we rped was not always the healthiest. We’ve recently noticed that at the start of things, we used it to work through a lot of issues that we were having (darker storylines tended to really coincide with moments where one or both of us were having a hard time). It was a both drown or both rise sort of situation, I guess. Recently, we’ve both been doing much better and we noticed our stories tend to be much happier and lighter. Fluffier if you will.

One of the things that bothers me most is that I feel likeI tend to be the one doing the heavy lifting on this friendship. I’m the one that finally got her to go to therapy, I’m the one helping her fix issues in her life and find ways around problems, I’m the one keeping track of storylines and plots, I’m the one checking up on how she’s feeling. Like, I honestly can’t remember a moment where she’s asked me how I’m feeling unprompted by a comment I’ve made.

RECENTLY things have gone to shit. On my end. I noticed some months ago that things started to change. She was going through a hard time with some things and so was I, but while I tried to be supportive and help her while also dealing with my own shit, she never even asked about me. This kept going on for a while but I didn’t want to say anything and sound self centered. However, when I’m going through a hard time, I tend to rely on us doing some RP just to keep my mind occupied and have something nice through the day. It’s not healthy and I try not to say anything, but she knows this anyway. Answering usually takes less than a minute and she’s always on her phone. We used to answer every ten minutes and then suddenly it was taking her four hours to answer. Sometimes even just once a day. So while I was annoyed at this, I was also sort of worried because this had never happened before. It kinda came from two sides. On the one hand, I was really feeling the absence and I started feeling like an afterthought, and on the other hand I was worried about what was keeping her so busy that she hadn’t mentioned. (Full disclosure, whenever we thought we’d take a while to answer we would send a brb or let the other know we were in class or at work etc, so unexplained absences weren’t common). So like I knew she didn’t owe me anything, but a head’s up would be nice. I feel like I would have been less bothered by all of it if she’d just let me know she’d be gone for some days.

Things came to a head about a month ago, I told her I didn’t wanna do rp like this anymore because I honestly got bothered every time and it wasn’t healthy, and that she’s going through a hard time but so am I and that while I’m considerate of her issues she’s never as considerate of mine. She was hurt and apologized and said she’d try to communicate better (and that we’d put the rp on hold which I get and it’s fine, or I want it to be fine) but then… she didn’t. Now, she barely sends me a hi once a week and keeps saying I’m still her best friend she’s just going through stuff and is trying to stay off her phone. But I know she’s texting people because our common friends tell me they’ve spoken to her and I honestly can’t see how hard it is to send a “hi how are you” when I’ve already messaged first to check up on her.

AITA for being upset and angry and wanting clearer communication on this?

What are these acronyms?

[kafus]

i'm thinking about this image i drew ages ago (like in 2021 or something. the art is so old. help) and how much it frustrates me. i think i really missed the mark on what i was trying to convey

i still agree with the intention behind this art, like i was trying to convey that DID is not eternal torment with evil alters trying to possess you and make your life a living hell as is often stereotypically thought, and actually i have supportive and loving alter experiences, in my case literally being in a romantic relationship with an alter.

but the way that i framed it was as a dichotomy where only one or the other is true. this was partially for the comedic effect of the sharp contrast and like... its ability to be easily consumed on social media (something i unfortunately cared a lot more about back then) REALLY influenced this image's presentation. but that's just not accurate and i didn't view it as two direct opposing sides at the time either, despite my flawed art.

DID is a fucking nightmare sometimes where my alters hurt me (there is nuance to this, even persecutors are trying to protect themselves or simply repeating what they've learned from trauma, but i digress) or i feel like i'm being possessed. sometimes "what people think DID is like" is how DID is, without any overtly magical elements of course, and the real issue is that people ONLY see DID that way and cannot see DID as a wide range of experiences from positive to negative.

really i just want people to see me as a whole person and accept that i have a really fucked up disorder stemming from childhood trauma which is bound to suck sometimes but also that i am still a person who experiences the full range of human emotion, including love and joy, and surprise surprise sometimes that is represented through my DID experiences too, which affects and ties into my entire life and identity.

this post is kind of messy, i'm just stream of consciousness-ing this shit, but tbh i'm just really irritated with the ye olde social media-ifying of my DID art and the oversimplification of my actual thoughts on the subject. i'm glad i've been moving away from that

[almacambiondaughterofsaleos]

My Criticisms For The Released “Missing” Eight Episode

While it was great seeing the episode finally released, it’s no wonder it’s called filler and only partially calls back to the fall out to the previous episode. Like how Bee overflows on empty calories, so does this episode. It also calls into questions things that contradict the worldbuilding. 

* While it’s a nice call back to “Die Young” her being partially hellhound really brings up questions as well. Mostly because if the hellhounds are the lowest level of citizens then why is a Demon Lord like her respected. 

* Bee-Lzebub in my opinion should have been a total insect instead of a hellhound because of the fact it just makes her look so much generic rather than unique. I know hybrid monster but again Vizie seems obsessed with playing designs too safe. I like her hellhound designs, but I totally think Bee should have been a full insect. 

* Also does Vox work for Verosika when he’s dating a Demon Lord. It doesn’t make sense. 

* Also if it’s a bad look for a demon noble to sleep with an imp then why isn’t she getting flack for being with a mere hellhound. And in a future episode we will see Asmodeus get in trouble for it. 

* Also I noticed in the episode that again a lot of these so-called nobles who are supposed to be enjoying their sinful embodiments are the safe type of edgy. Like Bee is against Blitzo overindulging himself because he’s miserable, instead of fulfillment but if she was a true lord of gluttony she wouldn’t care. And again it’s a product of watering down hell into a magical dimension instead of a place of all out vice.

* There is Loona where the emphasis is the relationship but from the episodes next season so far everything goes back to her being a bitch to Blitzo like nothing was learned and it feels even more pointless. 

* And again more of the drama. But at this point it’s expected because the show has strayed far as heck about being an agency hunting down humans for clients. 

And again it does seem this episode shows a lot of issues people are having with season 2 which seems to stem from here and it’s probably not going to get much better due to the fact that we are getting so many character episode instead of pertaining to the og premise. It really feels draining and you don’t really connect and just roll your eyes. I do believe by the next episode those criticism will be back in full. 

[solitaireships]

Someone joined a group chat I'm in today and I instantly discovered they're a non-Asian person using an Asian name which led me down this whole thought process about my own relationship with my identity so ramble beneath the cut

But I think a big thing that frustrates me with it is that it's a thing where like. The people that do this have no ties to whatever Asian culture they're using a name from. But they use those names like it's nothing, seeing it more as an aesthetic or something that sound since or a connection to a character than something that is so often a part of someone's cultural identity

And it's frustrating for me bcs like. I'm mixed, and of the ethnicities I'm mixed with, the ones that were always put at the forefront were me being Korean and Italian. I know the most about my Korean heritage, and that's the one I feel most connected to so to speak. But I'm a quarter Korean, and I look very white. It would feel wrong for me to use a Korean name in any context just bcs I look white, it feels like something I don't really have right to. I don't even use Korean names for my self inserts even when they're more OC-ified bcs it doesn't feel like I can

Like yes, I am Korean, but me being whitepassing is something that effects my experience of world. My name also effects that bcs I know if I had a Korean name, my experience would be different since then it would be more obvious just from first meeting me I'm Asian

It's frustrating with the whole thing bcs I know that part of my hate of people who aren't Asian using Asian names stems from my own issues with identity and sense of self. There is an understanding at the core of my existence that I do not fully fit pretty much anywhere. I have a partial claim to things, but never enough to feel like I can truly say it’s mine. Meanwhile people with no ties to something that's a part of me that still feels forbidden to me will just go around using it like a costume

[thecoolerliauditore]

One small thing I think a lot of people seem to have trouble differenciating twink and fem, like they can overlap but they are not interchangeable and one of my biggest complaints about the anti-twink thing is that when most people say it they mena anti-fem. Which... I will not get into it but I will point out that throughout all of western history from greeks looking down on gay men who take on the "feminine" role of bottoming to the edwardians with their "feminine gay men are a third gender" ideas, to the late 20th centurys misguided respectability politics of "straight gay" and "manly gay" and the distane for overtly feminine or camp gay men as offensive that followed, any percieved femininity in men being bad is a time honoured tradition even among queer folk. You even see it within the minor acceptance of gnc aesthetics where femboys and fem androgyny get backlash while bearish men wearing makeup and pink are praised as being more gnc. Kaz Rowe has touched on this topic in their videos on occassion alongside other similar topics. People WILL find a way to rag on men for daring to be feminine even within spaces made for feminine men...

... but that's all getting way too deep into queer history and far away from mcyt fandom, but I think about that a lot whenever I see someone using twinkification to complain about the overtly or implicitely feminine features specifically rather than the boyish and youthful aesthetics of twinks as a whole. There's overlap as you said in being clean shaven and petit but I do not think a lot of people have actually sat down enough to break it down and think about why they dislike those particular features that are often sited. A common example: being short is in fact not a twinkish trait, its a fem trait. This is a general issue of unmasculine = feminine to most people and the lack of acknowledgment of androgyny or ungendered traits. Either youre manly or youre not and if youre not youre fem, and if youre fem and a man especially a gay man that's bad.

I don't think anyone is being overtly misogynistic I just think as the internet spaces are wont to do they've moralized their preferences or examined the social acceptability of them as much as they would like to believe. Its like complaining about dyed hair and pride flags being the default popular option, you are in the counterculture space where those things are finally acceptable and people are allowing themselves to express those traits. Please learn to separate preferences from morality.

.... sorry i went on a tangent I think I dont remember why im here talking about this...

Not much to add except that this is a good add on, and alot of this also acts as another reason I try to emphasize that I don't pass moral judgments based on how people draw characters -- I too have biases I could easily project onto others and what is moral in my worldview could be the opposite for someone else with a different mindset.

FYI I do agree on the young twinkish /=/ fem, using my own designs as examples again I do think my Grian and Scott you could argue are feminized compared to their respective CCs, but I wouldn't call them feminine on their own. I mean there's definitely wiggle room and something there about comparing designs inspired by anime tropes which stem from Japanese beauty standards and conceptualizations of masculinity to maybe some of the whitest men currently walking planet earth but. yeah in my opinion my Grian isn't fem he's just a twink which other people might see as "feminized" -- I just made the assumption anon was at least partially talking about designs like mine because I feel like he's pretty much the standard fanon grian design to me unless the entire grian tag started drawing him with eyelashes whilst I wasn't looking. Psychosexual game of telephone.

But anyway yessss good shout on the queer history, I was actually just on a derek guy thread mentioning the "manly gays" of the 80s who dressed in a way to combat the effeminate reputation gay men had (and thus alienated the gay men who Were feminine). He talked about how a lot of that style has now gone mainstream and been adopted by very homophobic men which is very funny and ironic but also interesting how that loops back into itself.

Also got interested in the videos you mentioned and this was the one I watched (cus I found it first)

LOTS of good points in here I think people should know because this made me realise despite how influential anime is on this fandom, most of the people here aren't necessarily weebs or aware of fujoshi history. Really liked the points about xenophobia and how western BL is held up as "progressive" whereas asian BL is "problematic" in peoples minds as well as the mentioning that a lot of the strongest anti-fujo sentiment comes from people who would very much be considered fujoshi by the men who coined the term. This comment sums it up better than I could, I think.

Because. Yeah. Thinking about that point I talked about awhile back where a lot of the people who I've seen hate on "anime twink grian" have very twinkish designs themselves. It also seems to be a sliding scale of what a "twink" even is, this is a non-fandom example but I was reading this manga with a friend and they called this character a "twink", which I think really emphasizes how a lot of peoples conception of "twink" is more of an amorphous concept than just the body type.

So what you end up with is people who draw very standard Grians and then hate on others for drawing more or less the same design but in a more explicitly anime-inspired style or like. slightly smaller/skinnier.

I'd be interested to hear what your disagreements are with the video cus personally I'm not so sure about the roundabout "But Bad Yaoi is still Bad" stuff which is essentially still the same Good Queer, Bad Queer attitude that haunts so much queer discourse but that's just me. Also not entirely sure about the women liking BL because they like men, nearly all of the fujos I know have very little interest in men irl, but I'm also very much surrounded by queer people so my data is also biased.

REALLY GOOD POINT ABOUT THE TERF/ANTI-FUJO OVERLAP TOO. Not much to add in that regard but it's been something I've noticed and I'm glad I'm not the only one. I remember seeing a lot very. Strange stuff coming from people with rainbow flags in their bio about the creator of the webtoon Boyfriends when I was paying more attenton to webtoons.

I think you mentioned the whole. pushback against twink designs being counter-counterculture awhile back and I think that sums it up really well. Let men be masculine, etc etc

And all of this really doesn't even? Mean much from me I think cus I'd like to think most of my designs although differing from the CCs ARE pretty recognizable as 30+ men with like. very minimal frills (long haired etho clawed out of me kicking and screaming I think). So I really do not have a horse in this race at all lmao I just don't like people trying to police fandom with nebulous assertions of morality, especially when it's like. That video of the hyper-woke dude and the trump fanboy who have different takes about topics but arrive at the same conclusions. Girl just draw your own shit if you don't like luminousslime it really is not that serious and sometimes a specific design just. leaves a deep impression on the fandom consciousness. What I said before about how I appreciate people who just make their own shit instead of complaining that they're not being catered to.

[siryouarebeingmocked]

Glass Onion (2022): Mixed company, mixed feelings

This movie is very Current Year, even though it finished shooting in 2021 and is set in May 2020. One minor joke early on; Blanc plays Among Us during lockdown, because he's so bored.

I am not making that up.

I had the same issue with the first movie. I wasn't sure what all the Topical References™ added to the movie. And I know we love to say that great art is timeless.

But as someone who actually does read a lot of old, public-domain, popular books, many  had topical social issues in them. Heck, the first Doc Thorndyke book is about fingerprinting, which was cutting edge science at the time, and even makes a self-depreciating joke about it's inspiration, Sherlock Holmes.

I've enjoyed the odd Clancy or Connelly or Cussler or Cavanaugh or Patterson thriller. And those tend to be pretty topical. (obnoxiously so, in one case) Not to mention my love of the Vorkosigan Saga, which was so progressive in the 80s it's still progressive now.

I've also seen stories that had poorly integrated topical issues and much better-handled ones in the same show. The same episode, even.

So I don't know why the political stuff in the two movies rankled. I'd say my issue is "politics I disgree with", but I just mentioned enjoying a book series which is clearly waaay to my left.

Heck, both movies are blatantly inspired by Agatha Christie, and I distinctly recall topical stuff in my mum's old copy of *Third Girl*.

Like, literally the whole plot.

I read it a long time ago, but I think I'd still enjoy it.

Other, less important criticism. And spoilers.

-Blanc intially felt like a caricature, which was very different from the way he appeared in the first movie. turns out that's deliberate. He later says he was playing up the folksy Southernness.

Even though he's an internationally famous detective who lives in a $10,000,000 Park Avenue penthouse.

Don't ask me about the high-waisted pants, the cute little scarf around his neck, or the 19th century bathing costume he wears to the pool. Apparently his style in this movie was partially Daniel Craig's idea.

Also, he's gay.

It's not made explicitly clear during the film, and the guy he's living with could be a roomie or friend or assistant, but Johnson confirmed it. I'm not sure what it adds to the film, except an explanation for the scarf.

And also some irony when Birdie flirts with him, even though he's famous and probably publicly known to be gay. Heck, just his visible discomfort in those scenes would be irony enough, whether or not he liked women.

Miles Bronn -possible shallow Elon musk parody --he’s fooling people w/ fake genius, when he's really just a charismatic idiot. And one who gets swindled, possibly. -There's one bit of irony. Early on, Miles guests on his private island get a COVID vaccine. It later turns out Miles is an idiot.

Since the movie takes place entirely in May 2020, the implication is that Miles should know it's basically impossible to develop a proper vaccine in just a few short months.

Cough.

The actual main protagonist isn't Blanc, it's Cassandra "Andi" Brand and Helen Brand. Andi is a tech genius who Miles ripped off. And also murdered. So her twin sister Helen, a teacher, steps in.

Anyone familiar with the Trojan War is probably going "hey, wait a minute..." Did I mention that this takes place on a Greek island in the Aegean Sea? Which has Troy on its borders?

And the first things we see in the film are tantalizing wooden boxes?

Helen poses as Andi with Blanc's help, so they can investigate the murder and figure out which of Miles friends, “the Disruptors”, killed Andi.

Both Brands are played by Janelle Monae. A famously left-wing singer and actress, whose biggest film role was in the movie Hidden Figures, where she played one of a team of black women in STEM forgotten by history.

And in this movie, Monae plays two hidden figures, eclipsed by white men. One maliciously, one charitably.

Birdie --Birdie is an idiotic middle-aged singer who keeps getting cancelled because she does dumb stuff. -She sexually harasses Blanc. This is possibly why Blanc's gay, to make it extra ironic. -She's introduced at a party during lockdowns. When she arrives at the island, she wears a completely decorative facemask.

-Birdie prides herself on her honesty. In this case, it means she's inconsiderate and narcissistic, with no filter. Which makes it kinda ironic (or something?) when the day is saved in the end by a combination of lies and truth.

Duke -Dave Bautista plays an alt-right mra. Supposedly.

-He supports a girlfriend and his mother, who abuses him. He's  three or four times mom's size. He goes "Mom, I told you not to interrupt when I'm recording!" and she physically slaps him. Not even any ramp-up, she just does it.

She also tries to disrupt his call with his friends by "helping" him solve Miles' puzzle box, right up until it's done, and she stops caring.

So the show decided to mock MRAs by...making one a male victim of domestic violence and emotional abuse from a woman.

And from what I saw on Youtube, plenty of people didn't notice the irony. In fact, I found an official Netflix short of the scene, and the comments were glad he was getting "put in his place" because he politely asked him mom to let him do his job.

Also, remember when I mentioned how Birdie sexually harasses Blanc?

This movie includes two examples of the exact sort of issues MRAs talk about all the time.

-I know he's supposed to be a parody, but of who, exactly? jordan peterson? andrew tate? Pewdiepie? All of the above?

I think they even got some alex jones in there when they mention how he sold pills. Specifically, "performance" pills for men, made from rhino horn.

-Duke carries a gun near his crotch at all times for most of the movie. Specifically, an underpowered Tokarev, I've read. On top of the abuse, he also self-cucks himself so his GF can try and pillow-talk Miles into supporting Duke's next endeavour.

Subtle.

And while I was looking up the gun, I found someone on /r/liberalGunOwners saying "well, maybe it's supposed to look Russian because he's pro-Putin like a lot of right-wingers?"

That's possible, but it would be a really obtuse reference in a movie chock full of really blatant references.

-Also, there's something a tad ironic about a supposedly (alt-)right influencer being a large, muscular, tattoo'd Hispanic man. Unless that's supposed to be a tan.

Claire -Claire is a left-wing, environmentally friendly politician. She wears beige, and always looks terrible (to Katheryn Hahn's frustration). She's also a hypocrite.

Some TVTropes editor: it's about progressive politicans that gradually turn conservative.

No, the message here isn't "conservatives bad". It's "hypocritical left-wing politicians are bad". And I'm not sure about the "left-wing" part.

Duke is a hypocrite because he self-cucks for advantage, and is also physically abused by his tiny little mom. Claire is just a straight up liar, as politicians often are. There's a contrast between his performative peacocking in every aspect of the way he presents himself, and Claire's beige cold mess.

I'm not kidding. That was the stated intent of her costume and makeup.

-claire calls duke an MRA. I'm not sure if the writers were wrong, Claire's wrong, or Duke actually calls himself an MRA in-universe. He's certainly a traditionalist, which MRAs usually aren't. He also wants women to get back in the kitchen, which MRAs usually don't.

And finally, there's Miles’ No 2., tech wizard Lionel, who spins Miles' straw - or napkin ideas - into gold. In fact, he spends most of the movie with a gold wishbone pin on his lapel. GEDDIT?

Duke is a right wing tradcon MRA who cares about physical appearances even though he has a bad social rep, Claire is a left-wing progressive with a terrible physical appearance and a good social rep, Birdie is an idiot who keeps saying un-PC things, and Lionel is the smart guy, who is apparently more or less apolitical.

Also, the movie has obvious inspiration from Christie's "And Then There Were None". And maybe Clue. Or Among Us.

Or all three.

[raayllum]

Hey! In retrospect, this might be kinda obvious to some, but I was just thinking about the scene early in Season 4 where Callum recalls the fact that he's destroyed multiple powerful magic objects/artifacts and I realized that that scene was probably meant to highlight/make it hit harder later in the season when Callum can't do the same thing to the cube and I got excited lmao

So I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about what gets lamp shaded / referred back to specifically in S4 and possibly why, re: exactly what you pointed out, dear nonnie, in 4x02 (which made me Yell the first time around because I loved it as a lamp shade), as well as Rayllum's scene on the Pinnacle in 4x05. So why not talk about about them? If you are curious about more on Callum's "breaking magical objects" pattern I'd recommend this meta as well as this one, although there shouldn't be too much repetition here

Let's go

4x02 - Accidentally on Purpose

Including this shot because it has the Ocean-Star rune combination for the cube, my beloved.

The primal stone, Ethari -> Rayla -> Callum's pendant, and the Moon Henge all shudder. The mirror, too, will shortly be broken, although by Aaravos' own hand rather than Callum's (at least, not directly). This line and pattern also underscores one of Callum's key flaws, as his impulsive flippancy ("'It's the winter lodge, Rayla, no winter no humans' ugh" / "He tried to copy Claudia's lightning spell, but he doesn't know how to finish it!") when it comes to magic is ultimately related to how Selfish he can be. He, like many characters in TDP, can tunnel vision so hard he doesn't see or fully consider the possible consequences of his actions, but I do think Callum has a thread of like internalized focus that makes it stem from selfishness (more akin to perhaps Claudia and Viren) than it does shortsightedness/shame (Rayla) or inadvertent steamrolling (Claudia, Ezran).

For Callum, just knowing magic isn't enough. He's always focused on how he can use it.

"I just don't want to be useless," he said (S2 novelization, set during he and Rayla's late night talk about "I have to be a mage again").

He'd always known that cube was important. Maybe now Rayla would start listening to him... and maybe now he would find out how he could use the mysterious cube. [...] But Callum was awake obsessing over the Key of Aaravos. What could he achieve with it?

Now, does Callum ever mean to be selfish? No, of course not. He doesn't mean to put Rayla and Zym in danger with his pursuit of magic (or his lie to Amaya), but that's what happens anyway. 2x04 has always stood out to me as a particularly interesting episode, precisely because it shows this flaw on full display in ways that S1 could've neatly resolved. In 1x04, Callum pursues magic ultimately to the group's detriment (just how much, depending on what the cube does, remains to be seen). Then in 1x09, through smashing the primal stone (which we'll talk about more in a minute) he puts the group above his pursuit of magic. It's a nice little full circle, and it could've easily been the resolution of this behavioural pattern. But it isn't, so I'm curious to see if/how it'll come back in future seasons (maybe S5) in some capacity.

To me, this is one of the things that make TDP's characterization so realistic. Callum can learn one lesson partially in 1x04 (don't take unnecessary risks) and apply that portion fully in 1x07 (regarding elves and humans), be willing to sacrifice a more tangible pursuit of magic for Zym ("But without this, I'm nothing") in 1x09, but still not fully learn his "Look before you leap when it comes to magic" lesson by the time we roll around in 2x04 or even 2x07 (although the context for the latter is vastly different). Just like how if saving Zym or being a good enough protector could solve Rayla's self worth issues, she would've been totally fine after 1x09, but we see her have the exact same kind of breakdown two seasons later ("This is all my fault. I dropped it. I let you both down. I let the world down" / "It's me, and it's all my fault. I failed them! I let them all down") because well - issues and emotional wounds are not so easily solved.

Anyway, back on topic: what does any of this have to do with S4's lamp shading of Callum's tendency of breaking magical objects?

Well, I think you're right: the Key is seemingly rare, powerful, and possibly sought after by Aaravos. At the very least it's connected to him, and Callum is now terrified of him. But he won't relinquish/destroy it at this present time, so there's a nice contrast there. The cube has a pull over him for whatever reason, whether that's curiosity, it being Harrow's last parting gift to him, or even possibly the fact it was the first thing he and Rayla really bonded over ("Hey sad prince. Let's go get your cube") and his own potential as a mage. He does, after all, look at the moon rune specifically after lowering it.

But I also think it's indicative that the object and conversation Callum is most directly referencing is this one with Claudia in 2x02 about breaking their joint primal stone:

Which was pretty noble, and inspired a very strong character arc for Callum, full of struggle and interesting character aspects. Breaking the primal stone wasn't the ideal situation for him by any means, but it was undeniably the Right Thing To Do. On the surface, there's nothing to be worried about... except:

I have not seen the stars in centuries. But when I see them again—when the stars are forced to look upon me, their dark brother—they will know how I have waited. And when everything they have built lies shattered, I will savor their fall from the sky. (Patience, TDP reflections)

The Whole World is like a Giant Primal Stone. When backed into a corner and able to save someone he loves and/or cares about, Callum is willing to sacrifice his own source of power. He's willing to bend his morals and do dark magic. He's willing to jump off a cliff with just the faintest hope he can grow wings and save them both. We also know that Callum, either within a possessed state or outside of it, has to play into Aaravos' hands, otherwise it is unlikely the Startouch elf would be released (and he has to be released).

Which, all of this also works fairly well in tandem with

4x05 - You saved me

So Rayllum's scene on the Pinnacle is one of my favourite scenes between them in the season, as well as one of the most interesting. After all, the Pinnacle is the place for quite a few important Rayla and Callum moments in season three: Rayla finding out the truth about her mum and dad, thanks to Callum; Callum trying to tell her that he loves her for the first time (which Soren's interruption also lampshades); and of course when Callum jumps off the Pinnacle to save her. And while Soren's dialogue is a more comedic callback to the second one, Rayla's dialogue calls to mind the latter:

(Callum's face only falls in the second screencap when she gets to "certain death," by the way.)

It's not entirely clear why Callum starts crying when he looks away, as he has a lot of reasons to (the fear of what Aaravos may make him do, thus turning him into something that hurts people rather than saves them; the fact that he's had only like, 1.5 days to process the return of the love of his life and all those complicated feelings) but he does start crying. Rayla then does her best to help, but doesn't get a chance to, and it's not clear if Callum would've let her, either.

But I thought the emphasis on "saving" was interesting, to say the least. Why not be more explicit about the way this was the first time they said "I love you"? Some note of "so much has changed, but not everything's changed" from Rayla, if they wanted a nudge of some sort. Or it could've been something about Rayla's parents, grateful that she was able to forgive them and realize the truth, that'd they'd left for "a good cause".

Well, I think the most straight forward thing is first, that Callum and Rayla are a couple who has always been very defined by reciprocally saving each other; Callum defends them from the smoke wolves, Rayla defends them from Runaan, etc. Rayla saves everyone (Bait, Ezran, Zym, the downed dragon), and Callum saves her (1x05, 2x04, 2x07, 3x09). The second is that S5, if it brings back Callum's possession plot line (and it likely will, with the emphasis on darkness and drowning from some of the TDP shorts for the season: "Soren gasped the darkness like water into his lungs. He could not breathe. He was drowning") Rayla is probably going to the one to ultimately save him from it, somewhat due to the light and dark symbolism as well (Rayla showing up haloed in moonlight with the cube on her shoulder).

An emphasis on how Arc 1 culminated in a big show of love as Callum saved Rayla, if Rayla is going to be the one to successfully save Callum from brainwashing next season (and restore to her that "We can't save everyone" isn't true after all) makes a lot of sense, especially with it foreshadowed / spelled out more directly in this quote from the Book One Moon novelization:

“Wow. So they look identical, but they might kill you or they might save you,” Callum said.

“Exactly. Just like me…” Rayla smiled.

She's certainly not going to kill him and thus, Rayla has to save him. There we get that mutual reciprocation, especially when she left in TTM to try and save/spare him - it'd be a good way for her to realize that the best way to save/protect him is to stay, right here, with him instead. She'll risk the world ("You let him live but you killed us all" "You have two choices: you all die, or just the evil wretched human dies"), and it'll be worth it.

However, as I've already said, Callum has to play into Aaravos' hands in order for the Startouch elf to get out. And Aaravos is clearly pretty confident it'll happen, whether precisely because Callum is worried because of the possession (a more likely manipulation tactic) or due to the possession itself (less likely, as why reveal your checkmate move ahead of time?).

Rayla realizing she can save Callum is also, indeed, only one piece of the puzzle. She also has to realize that she deserves to be saved, which 4x05 seems like a step in the right direction of (she's happy and lovey about it, not guilty) even if her self worth issues are still very prevalent: "This is all my fault. I left [Soren] alone. I shouldn't have—" as well as trying repeatedly to go off on her own.

So 4x05 emphasizing the last time Callum saved her, setting up that he'll also save her again (and possibly risk the primal stone world again, helping to free Aaravos in exchange for also freeing Rayla) in S5?

He'll risk the world, and it'll be worth it.

[aihoshiino]

I saw recently you said that you dont like the current version of akane, and I honestly agree. But what are your reason you dont like post tb akane

Hello anon, sorry for the wait!!! I have actually been pecking at the response for this all week because it ended up dovetailing into some of my broader thoughts and issues with the manga using my feelings about Akane's characterization as a sort of lens/jumping off point. I hope this is still interesting to read even though it took forever to answer lol.

I also want to note that the bulk of this post was written before chapter 128! Some of my issues that are mentioned in this post did get sort of poked at and paid some lipservice in a way that makes me hopeful we'll get some improvement on this stuff as the movie arc progresses. Think of this as 'my pre-128 thoughts' if you come across it in like a post chapter 130 world in the distant future. It's also uh fucking long (it was over 2000 words long when I stopped counting.....) so enjoy this mini essay???

To get my most neutral thoughts out of the way up front, Akane is a character I really like in LoveNow! I think the arc she's given is compelling and her struggles feel super real. The gradual peeling back of her outer layers and the reveal that she's just as damaged by the industry as the people around her was really good and my only real major problem with LN is that I felt like the aftermath of her suicide attempt (at least, emotionally speaking) was glossed over a bit too quickly for my liking. On top of that, I like a lot of ideas about TB Akane on paper and I'm not inherently against any of the things that get put on the table in relation to her. My issues are more to do with the ways Akasaka executes said ideas and – imo – fails to capitalize on a lot of the interesting potential that a character like Akane presents.

I think this issue partially stems from the fact that Akane and Memcho were (iirc anyway) not actually originally intended to stick around with the main cast past the LoveNow arc. Memcho didn't really have a personal arc during LoveNow and during the rest of the manga, she sort of has a "flat" arc, so I think she makes the transition a lot more gracefully. Which is not to say Memcho herself is a flat character lol! Rather a 'flat' arc is when a character doesn't necessarily have some major change in themselves, but their intrinsic traits/beliefs/etc help to advance the arcs of characters around them; sort of like a mentor type character, if that helps.

Akane, by contrast, had a pretty dynamic character arc that felt as though it was intended to be relatively self contained and conclusive but with Akasaka's plans changing behind the scenes, Akane has ended up sort of outlasting the arc she was originally set up to have. That's not to say a character can't still be relevant after their arc is done or that a character needs an active ongoing arc to work within a story but there's a lot of things about the way that arc is simply not resolved that bug me – for example, the arc wrap makes a big point of saying that Akane will probably have to deal with ongoing online negativity for the rest of her career but this never comes up again even in places where it really should be relevant. I also just personally am not a big fan of how quickly and completely Akane's suicide attempt gets swept under the rug and is literally never addressed again once LoveNow wraps but that's more of an issue with OnK's bad habit of dropping loose threads a whole than it is something specific to Akane.

As for the rest of it… uh, this might be a bummer to see in the main tag if Akane is your Oshi no Girlie so I'll put the rest of my thoughts behind a cut. Akane enjoyers, please feel free to pretend I'm just talking about my favourite ice cream flavours or something. Or even go get some ice cream yourself and say it's on me. I don't care if it's October, ice cream is a forever food!!!

SO… To get the most immediate and shallow points off the table first, I just find the character design change between LoveNow and TB Akane really jarring lol. Like, I guess it's not necessarily impossible for her hair to have grown down to her chest in the time between LoveNow and when she pops back up but that combined with the changes in how she starts being characterized really just widen that gulf. The only time she ever really feels like LoveNow Akane to me again is when she takes Aqua to see a 2.5D play and is just so happy afterwards that he enjoyed it – that's cute! That's charming! That's the Akane I liked a lot in LoveNow and I feel like we don't really see her again after that but it's hard to put my finger on what feels so off. It's kind of just Vibes.

Getting into more serious, structural stuff a big part of why I feel post-TB Akane falls flat for me is simply that a lot of the interesting things Aka put on the table for her during LoveNow have been swept away and ignored. There are so many things that could be done with Akane as a character that are absolutely screaming out with incredible thematic potential but Akasaka hasn't really taken advantage of any of them. At the worst points of the manga, it feels like she's being used as a blunt force tool to make the plot go at the speed Akasaka wants it to progress and this has resulted in Akane spending a good chunk of the story doing literally nothing on-panel that doesn't revolve around Aqua in some way. Everything else – her rivalry with Kana, her passion for acting, her relationship with her family and her manager – is paid the barest bits of lipservice if it's even acknowledged at all but when you really get down to the nitty gritty of what Akane meaningfully engages with and achieves in most arcs now exclusively has to do with Aqua.

It's not inherently a bad thing for a character to be motivated by outside factors or for their actions to be driven by devotion or even hatred for somebody else – Aqua himself is a good example of a character whose arc is driven by both of these things, as his devotion to Ai and hatred for the man who hurt her are the main external things driving him through pretty much the entire story so far. But Aqua also has things going on outside of this – other important connections and relationships, feelings and conflicts and motivations that make him feel, imo, more well realized. Not only that, but his arc has a very well conveyed and easy to understand "want vs need" conflict, of his continued pursuit of revenge having clear and tangible friction with his emotional need to let go of his past trauma and move on.

Akane has, since Tokyo Blade, been sorely lacking in a lot of these areas. Her acting career progresses entirely offscreen with no apparent conflict or effort on her part and she has absolutely no strong or meaningful connections to the cast outside of Aqua and arguably Kana, but they haven't really had any sort of meaningful or meaty interactions since way back around, what, the mid-70s, in chapter terms? Not only that but her existing relationships have largely been completely put to the wayside, too. LoveNow establishes her as a person who cares deeply for the people who care for her – her mom, her manager, her friends on the show. Akane felt so bad about people saying bad things about her mom and her manager online – not even harassment actually directed at them, or that we have any reason to believe they saw or received! – that it contributed to her suicide attempt. Contrast this to when she is literally about to walk off and attempt a literal actual fucking murder and all she's thinking is "aqua… let's have crepes together… let's be together forever…". No consideration for her parents, who are about to go through unimaginable pain, or the promising acting career she's about to destroy? Nope! Akane revolves entirely around Aqua now. It feels insulting!

I don't even necessarily hate or even disagree with taking Akane in the direction of her fixating on Aqua in response to him saving her and feeling like she has to cling to him and throw away her life to 'save' him in return. I do think the story is purposely portraying this as an unhealthy fixation and does not want us to uncritically celebrate this aspect of their relationship but I also just think the story kind of fails to really examine Akane to the logical conclusion of that flaw.

In general, Akane is one of those characters who like… I don't quite know how to express this feeling so forgive me if I go in circles on this topic a bit, but there are occasions where Akane will do or say something genuinely shitty or deranged or display a pattern of behaviour that speaks clearly to a flaw of hers in ways I want to be on board and engaged with but as time passes, it becomes clear that the narrative does not actually see anything wrong with what just happened and so it never gets addressed or meaningfully engaged with. There's a lot of little bits like this (can we talk about how Akane leveraged her suicide attempt against Aqua as a manipulation technique in TB and this never comes up again?? lol???) but the thing that really truly sticks in my craw is the way Akane is repeatedly depicted as continuing to use her fake 'Aikane' persona (as conveyed by the star eyes) during her acting career and starts getting famous at least partially because of it.

This is going to sound really dramatic but as someone who deeply, deeply cares about Ai and is so, so compelled by the tragedy that was her exploitation in life and death – this is so horrifying! This is Akane directly profiting off her exploitation of Ai's image. This is Akane digging up Ai's corpse so she can rip out her guts and parade around wearing them. It is absolutely baffling to me that the story at no point pauses to at least acknowledge that this is another way in which Ai is being exploited even in death – that even now, almost twenty years later, she cannot ever escape or be left to rest in peace as a human being.

Honestly Akane's relationship to Ai is SUCH a mountain of missed opportunities it makes me kind of crazy. Like, we get some wishy-washy stuff about ~Ai's emotions that were revived in her~ but seemingly the only thing done with that is to give Akane a cheat code to magically know things about the mystery she should have no reasonable way of deducting. But like - if Akane really does understand Ai so completely and it's so empathetic that she can Sherlock scan the emotions of a dead woman she had never met then why does she never, you know… express any kind of opinion on her? What does Akane think of Ai? What does she think about the way Ai was exploited and abused by the very industry Akane is trying to break into? Holy shit! It should be SO obvious to draw a parallel between Ai's death at the hands of a ex-fan and Akane's suicide attempt driven by fan harassment. But Akane just… never talks about Ai or even really treats her like a person even though she apparently downloaded Ai into her brain by reading Wikipedia really hard.

It's frustrating because there SHOULD be a really great thematic idea here - other characters often treat Ai as this inscrutable enigma but with Akane, there was the opportunity to make a point that Ai was just a lonely, messed up person and that if Akane can come to understand and connect with her post mortem then the people in her life absolutely could have put in the effort to understand and connect with her while she was still alive. The story failing to have Akane treat Ai even the slightest bit like a person ends up making her feel really callous in a way that was clearly not intentional and is, as a result, frustrating to read. This also comes into play in the ways she's so tunnel visioned on Aqua. Like, there's just something really darkly funny about Akane acknowledging how insanely unimaginably tragic the horror of Ai's death is and the way the people closest to her were robbed of the opportunity to publicly heal and grieve and then she just... totally fails to acknowledge Ruby also experienced this life altering trauma? LIKE

"your little sister is on her own, though"

To be clear, Akane being callous and kind of tunnel-visioned is not in of itself something I have a problem with. As a Category 5 Women's Wrongs Enjoyer (my list of favourite fictional women includes Monika DDLC, Akane Shinjo and Junko Enoshima lol) so I actually think Akane having those sorts of nastier flaws or at least having blinders up that make her behave in such a way that contrasts her actually heart would be so good and juicy! It would be a really good opportunity to dig into ideas of like... someone can go through something horrible that negatively impacts them and maybe even makes them behave in poor and destructive ways, but just because someone isn't a 100% pure and sympathetic 'perfect' victim doesn't at all take away from the fact that they were victimized and they still deserve to be helped and protected. But because the story seems to be largely unaware that Akane comes off like this, it fails to be meaningfully engaged with which, again, makes it frustrating to read.

I do have hope that a lot of these issues will be resolved, though! The AquAkane breakup finally forcefully ripped her out of the role of 'Aqua's Perfect Girlfriend' and while she's still orbiting him a bit more than I necessarily would like, chapter 128 has already done a lot to address some of these issues. Even stuff as small as Akane talking to Memcho and Kana and not really having any page time with Aqua and her acknowledging that both Aqua and Ruby (with particular emphasis on Ruby, it seems!) are both still suffering in the aftermath of their childhood trauma. It's small, but a lot of my issues with Akane were of the 'death by a thousand cuts' variety so even having them addressed in these passing ways does a lot to help.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if I eventually come around on Akane and end up liking her a lot more. I've sort of had similar feelings about characters in works I like before – off the top of my head, I remember really disliking Naoto from Persona 4 when I first played the game because the section of the story she's associated with has some really bullshit pacing and Naoto is used in some really awkward ways by the narrative that made me associate those feelings of frustration with her. I felt similarly about Megumi from 13 Sentinels where I felt like some of the beats in her story dragged down both her arc and the arcs of the characters associated with her and really disliked her as a result. Upon revisiting both games though, I was able to properly separate my feelings of frustration with the narrative from the characters themselves and ended up coming around on both of them in a huge way.

Once Oshi no Ko wraps and we can see what Akane's arc looks like in its entirety, I fully expect to have a similar turnaround on her. I don't expect that she'll ever be one of my favourite characters but once we can see the totality of her character arc and the full scope of her role in the story, I expect to find more appreciation for her. Right now, though, while I'm still sort of stewing in disappointment, hope, expectation and frustrations it's hard to fully come around on her.

[cathkaesque]

actually i would be interested in your thoughts on hierarchies and hierarchical organising. i'm a communist myself but i keep also not settling into one kind of idea about hierarchies since I do agree about non-hierarchical organising not getting work done, have heard this from some organisers i know, but also I still need to do more reading around this and we've also had discussions on this in our group, so i do want to know more if you want to talk about this. ty!

Hiya! I have a lot of thoughts about this. I've had good and bad experiences of both. I am extremely delirious at the moment so this might not make sense, but

I think you've seen my post I just made on non-heirarchical organising and I'm really not a fan of horizontalism as both a practice and an outlook. A lot of these approaches stem from a very 2000s anti-globalisation movement idea of being the change you wanted to see in the world and creating the conditions for revolution by creating microcosms of total democracy. The result is that these organisations tend to have really weird, byzantine structures that only people who are well versed in the lingo can negotiate effectively. There was also a weird fixation on not having meeting chairs in the free education campaign I was on the periphery of, and these meetings tended to be pretty chaotic. Strange things about hand signals as well. There have been big moments in the last few years where organisations using these practices have suddenly swelled in ranks and then not being able to capitalise on this. Going back to the free education movement, there was a huge mass meeting at the start of the semester at my university, I think it was in 2012, hosted by the students' union which had been partially captured by people from the free education movement. Everyone wanted to get on with talking about how to take the campaign against the fee rises forward...but first we had to come up with a structure that wouldn't involve heirarchies. The discussions were long and boring and dominated by people who were into that approach and it ended up killing the whole thing. I think this practice has lost a lot of its explicit ideological appeal since the collapse of the social movements that emerged from the 2000s. A part of that collapse can be linked to these practices.

The issue with more hierarchical organisations is that work tends to end up concentrated among a very small number of people, who then end up dominating the group and/or burning out under the workload. Only a small number of people get the experience of carrying out the tasks of organisation. My experience of the SP was of an extremely heirarchical organisation, where political perspectives and activity were very much set by the viewpoint of the centre of the party and then translated to branches via the full time party workers. There was no way for the membership to replace or remove the leadership of the party (something that became a big issue when the 50 year long general secretary Peter Taaffe starting developing dementia) and the only input they had into policy was amendments to the perspectives document, which was essentially a discussion of what we thought was going to happen the following year. The document was written entirely by the central leadership and amendments were often diluted. This structure was unable to take on new initiatives or ideas from below, and when presented with a problem that it wasn't expecting (the SP had always thought that there was no way for leftists to take over the Labour Party, and then that happened with Corbyn) it wasn't able to easily come up with new approaches that fitted with the time. Increasingly the active part of the party was really the full time apparatus, with the membership as their foot soldiers whose role was essentially to fundraise to keep said apparatus solvent.

That being said, it did provide a good source of political education. The practice of weekly lead offs (short 20 min lectures followed by discussion). I developed as an activist while in the organisation, became a competent public speaker. However, every lead off ended with a response from the speaker where they integrated the questions that were raised into the established party line. When that line fell apart, there were diminishing returns.

I also don't really think organising based on command and control systems is appropriate to neoliberal societies. I remember hearing, I think this was discussed in an account of the Hong Kong uprising, of widespread distrust of "the stage" - people did not trust or want to listen to established political organisations. The issue we have today is our culture is hyperindividualised and people (rightfully) are suspicious of those who want to exert control over them or give them orders. People's political perspectives are totally disoriented and heterogenous. A lot of these opinions are also, frankly, stupid. So any appropriate structure would have to both be able to take into account these and facilitate the construction of consensus among participants, and crucially political education and not political education in the form of wrote learned Marx Engels Lenin, memorising quotes and dogmas rather than engaging with the thought as a living methodology, and an investigation on how the world works. The focus of any political organisation should be building the political capacities of participants in the organisation.

Generally a lot of my ideas for what a good structure would look like come from Walter Citrine's ABCs of Chairmanship. An organisation is based on a membership - people who have agreed with a fundamental set of positions and agreed to contribute to the running of the organisation (i.e. paying dues on a sliding scale based on employment status). Members are organised into local branches; functionary positions in this branch should, if the organisation is small, rotated between active participants so everyone can learn how to undertake these tasks, or directly elected at a regular general meeting if the organisation is larger (i.e. 50+ members say). National policy should be set at a national conference, where branches propose motions to be debate and voted on by elected delegates. A motion is passed at a branch level . It's a very bog standard organisational approach - but I would kill for their to be a radical left organisation that was based on member democracy rather than democratic centralism or horizontal consensus.

I do feel that issues with structure are a feature of political stagnation and disorientation rather than something inherent to one approach or another. A consensus based or top down structure that is made up of people who are engaged in good work, with a good idea of what they are doing, and believe in what they're doing, will always be healthier and more dynamic than an organisation with the perfect structure which is inert.

But yeah, I'm totally delirious with covid, so this is a stream of thought, but hopefully something made sense in there.

[asbestos-11]

i'd like to think ratio has both autism and ocd and that both feed into each other in the worst ways.

disclaimer: cw for discussion of ocd rituals (i try to not get into them too much just bcs they can be triggering to some). i have both ocd and autism and this mostly stems from my experiences with the two and yours might not be the same, so please be respectful. and lastly none of this is canon (even if i used canon as a basis) and is just my headcanon.

1st of all my reading of him as having ocd comes primarily from his book cleaning idle, his hobbies voice line and his about headpiece voice line (the latter also supporting the autism hc). is it a stretch? yes it probably is. but is it valid to read him that way? yes it is.

i specifically think ratio would have contamination ocd and a little bit of checking behaviours (as in having to check if you've closed the stove and doing so multiple times otherwise something bad will happen). so my reading of him stems primarily from these two types of ocd (that and i also personally struggle with contamination ocd so it's also projection).

in any case i like to think he has a set rigid routine for himself partially because it's comforting having predictable days and partially because if it were to change something bad would happen to him.

his headpiece both serves a self regulatory function and as a way to stop the contamination from happening. only really taking of the mask at home where it's "safe" and near trusted people.

i like to think that he's a nightmare to cook for because of his sensory issues stemming from autism and his ocd rearing it's ugly head. food must never touch each other, otherwise it's poisoned and it's now inedible. separate cutlery must be used for different courses. all the while his sensory issues fuel his compulsions thus making it all worse.

he cleans himself religiously, often spending several minutes just washing his hands, while his baths are unreasonably long (as it's his one activity that brings comfort and offers him a chance to relax fully). as a consequence his skin on his hands is usually irritated and cracked and hand creams help only minimally (the damage too extensive to be repaired by creams).

his compulsions directly feed into his autism and his tendencies in turn fuel his ocd. and so it goes in a cyclical manner until he has a meltdown and it all comes crashing down on him.

on that note i would like to say that ocd and autism are often comorbid and if one is already neurodivergent the likelihood of having an anxiety disorder does indeed get higher. as autistic people are more likely to face anxiety from their needs not being met (ie they aren't allowed to stim freely as it's seen as weird) and the general experience of masking. ocd is an anxiety disorder, one that preys on your fears and makes you act in irrational ways to soothe the fear. obsessions leading to compulsions which directly alleviate anxiety but in the long run cause harm to the individual. your compulsions, due to their ritualistic nature, feed into your autism as they become a routine, thus making you not want to deal with them. thus a feedback loop is made and congrats you're now fucked.

and think of the good doctor who helps others, being stuck in his own form of hell, unable to help himself overcome is, as it would feel like ripping himself apart. imagine how it would feel to at the same time be overstimulated and in the throes of massive anxiety, but not being allowed to self regulate and/or being barred from engaging in compulsions. to at the same time having to deal with a world that doesn't understand you and oftentimes activelly hurting you.

in any case he's one of my favorite characters so he gets to be blessed with my own neurodivergencies. ah veritas ratio blorbo from my game i am very proud to bestow upon thee the honor of being a true aucd warrior. fly high king

[script-a-world]

Submitted via Google Form:

I have several questions about building a world on a massive planet, possibly even larger than Jupiter.

I want all parts of the planet to have life, yes, this definitely means various adaptions but I do want quite a few species to be varied enough they can spread across the planet.

I want there to be many species of humans. This is one reason why I wanted such a massive planet. So unlike the real world where so many human species intermingled and some dying out/even being killed due to lack of resources. I want these humans spread all over the world, slowly adapting to changes that suit where they are and there are so many resources all over the world and they become more isolated.

Now, I have a problem with that because I am not sure how far to take different adaptions. Can they even look like the same kinds of human or could they evolve to something very different that doesn't look like just microevolution. In the real world, we all basically have the same look even though some have adapted to different climates better. That is what I want as the norm. But let's say. Humans that grew a flipper instead of hands? Humans that kept their tail? I am not keen on that as a norm.

Though, maybe as a rare mutation, sure. There are real life humans with a tail, though more just vestigal rather than actually a limb. Maybe in my world, there are in fact some that actually can use their tail as a limb. Maybe there are forest tribes where this mutation is in fact more common, perhaps because these people were praised and they passed on their genes, and if they ever found a man and woman both with tails living at the same time, they had kids. Yes that very well could be forced conception in the past..but people absolutely speak out against it in modern times. That is of course if they are a more modern civilisation these days and not still deep in the forests with no contact or even known about. With such a massive planet, isolation could be practically anywhere in fact.

The biggest issue I'm having of course is designing actual climates or where the planet is in proximity to the sun. I don't need to be very scientific and I'm quite partial to making things up, but I'd certainly like to know exactly where I am making things up and where I am in fact doing things that stem from accurate science. And of course trying to keep things consistent with the rest of the world building.

Wootzel: Hello! I’m afraid we don’t have a lot of solid input to offer, but I can toss out a few suggestions. 

First of all, in reality it’s probably impossible to have a rocky planet (aka a planet with a surface you could stand on) of the size you’re describing. Check out this article from NASA about planet types, which explains a little bit about the relationship between planet mass and characteristics. You could simply choose to ignore the constraints of reality here, of course. You might still want to consider that your massive planet must have very high gravity, and Earth humans might not be able to survive it. 

That being said, there’s no rule that you have to obey the laws of physics when it comes to fiction. If you want a massive planet with Earthlike conditions, you can just say that’s what you have. Parts of your audience might know that’s impossible, but I doubt most readers would refuse to suspend disbelief over it. 

As far as how far to push human evolution, here are two prior answers that you might find useful to read through: One about human adaptations, and one about how evolutionary processes might react to a sudden, global change in conditions. The former might be especially useful to how you think about what changes you want to put into your different groups of humans. However, also keep in mind that evolutionary pressures no longer have as much impact on humans as they used to, and this phenomenon will probably apply to your planet as well--humans primarily adapt to their environments by using technology and innovation to close the gap with anything they struggle with physically. Why have your humans evolved anyway? Lack of access to technology? Millions of years of small changes? Genetic modification? You may wish to answer this in order to decide how to tackle the scenario. Ultimately, you’ll just have to draw the lines where you want to draw them. You can decide to omit the possibility of flippers or tails just because you don’t want to include them, and there’s nothing wrong with that. 

You’re welcome to come back and ask again as you narrow down what you want to do with your world, but I strongly suggest you narrow down your question(s) as well. Check out our Before You Ask masterpost for some helpful suggestions about what kinds of questions we can most easily work with, and feel free to ask again!

[pep-the-artemis]

The hatred for F1nn5ter is ill placed.

Ok, so this post is about the cis male twitch streamer F1nn5ter but I will be talking generally about the entire femboy community as a whole since the issues people raise with F1nn5ter are issues with the community asa whole.

So, for those who aren't really in the loop, what is the contension between femboys and trans peole. Well it boils down to 2 main problems;

There exists sub-culture which partially overlaps femboy community which I'll call 'trap' subculture which believes that all trans-women are just femboys.

Femboy culture has deep roots connecting it to many transphobic ideas and stereotypes.

I'll be discussing both.

'Trap' subculture is undeniably transphobia, problematic, and full of objectification. My first note is F1nn5ter is not a part of 'trap' subculture is distinctly not a part of 'trap' subculture, he's been very openly pro-trans and done many things in support of the trans community including raising $50,000 in a charity stream for GenderGP, an amazing pro-trans organisation.

My second point is that 'trap' culture is one of the more progressive forms of transphobia since it does challenge patriarchal gender roles and is playing a part in dismantling the notions of a sex-based binary gender system just to no where near the same extent as the lgbt+ community. Not justifiying the subculture but it really isn't trans communities biggest issue.

The second point is more complicated since its a part of femboy culture as a whole and not just a subculture. This is also the main critisms of F1nn5ter. My opinion on all this is when peole bring up stuff like this, they're engaging in in-fighting. Yes lots of the femboy culture is in bad taste but engaging in territorial discourse is only going to make everything worse.

I also think its important to note is that femboy culture isn't transphobic, but the manner a large part of femboy culture engages with there identity mirrors and sometimes takes from transphobic ideas by virtue of the complex relationship being trans and being a femboy have with each other.

But F1nn5ter is aware of this and still engages with in these parts of the culture rather than straying away from it? That is true and this is were the discussion gets complicated. F1nn5ter isn't problematic because their existance is a massive middle finger to the idea's of the binary gender. By being a straight cis man who looks and dresses like a women, he is activly dismantling dillusions of the gender binary. He does engage with femboy culture in a prudish manner but the overlap between people who watch streamers like F1nn5ter and people who could be persuaded to transphobia by some jokes in bad taste is incredibly small.

I understand entirely if you find it uncomfortable to watch his streams but that applies to any content creator, you cannot expect everyone to find a creators work palatable but the critisms of F1nn5ter seem to stem from the natural lust for every content creator to be infallible.