#which means i can actually invalidate some of the claims she makes. bc i have information from dutch sources that she didnt have

[abrahamvanhelsings]

reading an academic article with a take so bad i don't want to highlight it bc it doesn't deserve it but i have to bc i know i'll need to refer to it later when i tear it to absolute shreds

[lucysweatslove]

Oh my goodness sorry I just.

My mom decided to get all mediator-y and something about deep wounds, which yes we haven’t but no I am not going to open myself up to being disrespected again rn because my sister’s pattern is to take no actual responsibility and shit it to me. So my mom decided to open up a group chat with both of us doing the martyr “I wasn’t a good enough mom” thing which is so not the point. And as I said I am not engaging until I feel safe again, which involves like an actual apology.

My sister has responded but I haven’t seen anything more than previews (bc I do NOT have the energy). You know what BS she is saying now? To our mom she is claiming the ball is in my court because she’s sent apologies I haven’t responded to (I have not received a single one, which she is smart enough to realize). She is also claiming that like “usual in her adult years” she has tried to accommodate me (no she hasn’t?? She constantly shit on me?? Repeatedly even after I told her to stop??). And is saying she doesn’t understand how the argument started as is “having trouble making sense of [my] feelings of invalidation when most of [her] responses did n…” (basically trying to say “I was doing my best with Lucy, she’s just being sooooo unreasonable”).

My mom decided to text me this gem:

“Like I said, I wish all of you had a better base of security and confidence so that none of you were mean to each other or too tender with each other at all.”

Guess what I’ve been called literally since I can remember as a way of legitimately gaslighting my feelings and experiences? Too sensitive/tender.

Oh. Fuck. No.

I am NOT pulling the pin on that grenade today so I ignored it. Which im going to do for an indefinite amount of time at this point because, yet again, im reminded of how in this family I am expected to put myself and my health and well being at risk to maintain some facade of peace.

I am not too sensitive.

My emotions are not wrong.

There is no appropriate middle ground to take in between me and my sister. My sister is a being a bitch, I said no you cannot treat me like this anymore, she went shock pikachu face. Boohoo that i’m prioritizing myself.

[nutterzebutters]

Op I don't think you realize how excited I was to read this bc SO MANY lily stans can't actually handle her character.

I'd like to elaborate on some of this because I am willing to take it five steps further.

I don't think people fully understand just how devastating the first beast yeast update was for the silver kingdom, not because we found out about the beasts, but because it ended up glorifying lilies character in the long run, and making this absurd idea that lily is the strongest circulate. The power scaling is ridiculously out of context and anybody I see going on about how she is the strongest will deny ever trading pitayas power or the fact that she DID seek power to fulfill her goals, power that wasn't initially her own. The trust Elder Faerie put in her is ultimately misplaced and irresponsible.

The one thing Pure Vanilla got right is even now a behavior that is seen in Dark Dnchantress is to seek power; after all he recognized a lot of these behaviors and still sees some of lily in dark enchantress. The big two whammies is the switch up about DE suddenly not being lily ((I have seen a variety of claims and I WILL be diving into them)) and the fact that lily is praised and taken out of context to be made better than she is (this comes in the forms of misinformation and not reading the lore or paying attention to detail, I have seen people outright denying the lore or otherwise say "it's subjective" when the context calls for us to take it literally)

This is seen throughout every single step of lilies and dark enchantress's character alike. Every event. And I think it is unfair just how praised and put on a pedestal lily is, because ultimately it defeats everything that the story is trying to tell us. In all honesty a lot of this behavior I see is defending lily but giving nobody else the same grace or understanding.

1, the love potion. Suddenly we have forgotten about the guild relics. There was a love potion since the guilds first featured update when they introduced the three bosses we have today, to start this off let's list some of the more popular claims I've seen

"it was just a drop" the love potion in the guild notes that a single drop is enough to become dangerous, because of the calibur of risk the production of the product is banned. This is the first piece of evidence that makes this claim deflectory, the other is that I believe in every single piece of media that a love potion is featured in warned that even a drop can be a catastrophe. That love is a powerful thing and shouldn't be tampered with, and a love potion wouldn't be true love, it's just an empty (and often lustful) fabrication of the real deal. This ties in with the "pure vanilla is too obsessive over lily" statement, why do you think the love potion WASN'T an exact parody of the one in the play that the costumes are based off of? That love potion was a prank on a guy, to fall in love with a goat, after he committed a disrespectful action himself. This makes the "it's based off of a play" argument invalid, it's too concerning to brush off, especially when you look at the ending of the costumes story, which sounds much more unnerving than romantic if you ask me.

2, Lily and the switch up about being Dark Enchantress. This is something I have shifted through for MONTHS to try and understand, and I have come up with the best reason I could on what's really going on in game.

Dark Enchantress was looking for lily fragments, right? We remember that when we met the shard of lily early in game, and when she was absorbed into the crystal as a means to give dark enchantress juuust enough power to escape. DE herself notes that she's been collecting them, that there were multiple at one point in time.

And now we have learned an important piece of information: as long as both exist at once, neither will be whole. Dark Enchantress must have known this upon slowly collecting lily shards, this infers that lilies body did split into two, but are still teathered because they came from the same dough and soul, the very same essence. From the beginning we've been given hints about lilies own behaviors, before beast yeast it was easy to infer that lily has always behaved questionably and that becoming friends with pure vanilla smoothed some of it out. The one April fool's update gave us a small hint that upon lily whites story, you are getting a version of a story that happened in the academy, otherwise she would have never been included after absolutely nothing on her for a while before hand, especially about the aspect of love, the biggest question that's still up in the air about her. Lily was short tempered, and even without that update we can see that, very easy to be angered or defensive just as dark enchantress is.

Pitayas update also proves pure vanillas statement about lily gaining power for her goals true, and disproved that lily could learn dragon tongue. She couldn't! That's the entire reason she traded the knowledge of a single word that had power. I see this claim and feel like many of the fans do now actually pay attention, and their views on a character is simply because they may not want to admit their fave is flawed, because they ignored that too. It's actually pretty gross that upon the absolute destruction of pure vanillas kingdom they still maintained that lily and DE were the same, but suddenly we see the reality of that bc cheese just showed it instead of said it, and she's not enchantress anymore...?? That's not right, cheese has every single right to be upset with her. I see people getting mad about pure vanilla being in denial about it, but what else are you going to do when you were friends with someone for THOUSANDS of years since childhood? They were the only two capable of the experiments they performed, dark enchantress uses this knowledge and has done so for matcha. I'm sorry, but the lily we have now is a small fraction that realized this was wrong, that didn't want to be bitter. When dark enchantress says "with the help of nobody but myself" what she really means is lilies already toxic tendencies, the fact that she got selfish and arrogant towards the end is exactly what manifested into dark enchantress and lost her the light of freedom. And it's exactly what lost the beasts their virtues as well.

3, getting off Scott free just because the light of freedom saved some of her soul, the fact is lily didn't think about the others and what would happen in her wake, her quest for the truth. After being warned multiple times by her best friend and others like elder faerie and deciding not to tell pure vanilla anything is nobodies fault but herself, what is happening is nothing BUT a prison of her own making, and pure vanilla blames himself for not being able to save her. But from what? Nobody asks what. The "what" is from herself. You cannot save somebody from themselves and lily only stopped when it was already way too late, that's a trait of selfishness "I thought the truth could set everyone free..."

But.. nobody but her was concerned about that, they were concerned about making cookies stronger which is why they rallied behind pure vanilla, his light of truth after all was trying to find the same truth, but in a different way that wouldn't just benefit himself. It would have set nobody free but lily, and now that she's witnessed (what we now know to have been cookies WITHOUT LIFE POWDER, normal cookies that you and me easy during Christmas) the tragedy, which mind you we also now know the cookies were created by good witches, that dark enchantress's goals are ... futile. They weren't based on reason in the first place, let's stop pretending that they were. I'm tired of seeing this idea that lily was suddenly right and everyone else was wrong, that cookies like pure vanilla are so terrible because they DIDN'T actively go out of their way to perform an act of transgression for a goal (finding the reason we exist, yk the big philosophers question). Lily has nobody to blame but herself, and we shouldn't be blaming anyone BUT lily.

4, THE POWER IMBALANCE. "lily is canonically the strongest ancient!" No she IS NOT. There are a few claims people use to support this, one of them is silver bell and the strength comparison statement. Silver bell was not just talking about lily, silver bell had said that he'd heard about the heros of light (the ancients) on crispa, but being in beast yeast the only records of the heros are the old ones, and the small bits of knowledge that the jams have found new owners, it is a fearsome power. Lily just so happened to be the showcase of that power, that put it into perspective of BEING as powerful or more than elder Faerie. If you read this right, that doesn't mean it's just Lily. It goes for all the ancients and Lily was just the first encounter they'd ever had to actually be able to visualize the fables of the ancients. "She was able to learn dragon tongue!" I was state once more she couldn't, which is why she traded knowledge for the power of one single word instead, which also means some of the power that she has isn't even hers. "Her spell circles are huge!" So are pure vanillas, atk≠full power. If we look at the circles he's capable of in the dark flour war (about 9x or more larger and complex) then we should probably be happy that he doesn't put all that energy into attack, and the endless implications that he is so much more powerful than he ever lets on simply because he prefers to use it elsewise. Shadow milk wouldn't have been trying to get him to cut down the silver tree if his power wasn't able to veto lilies or elder fairies entirely. You can also account for the fact that DEVSIS is not used to making games like this, it is the first game that they have made when it comes to coding in RPGs. Of course the cookies that are released earlier, including the ancients like pure vanilla, hollyberry, and dark cacao will not have skills that are as complex or as powerful as golden cheese and lily. Luckily next half of this update for mystic flower cacao will be getting a huge buff and hopefully they'll stick to their word about skill rewrites. It is unfair to use the individual cookies skill animation to influence the Canon.

All in all this may have gotten too long but there's a lot of just not reading or paying attention in the fandom, and this is just on lily. Out of all the characters that do make me mad, A lot of toxic lily fans can't accept that their fave is allowed to be flawed, this is the same with de fans which would be a whole other post. that's what makes her so important to the story. Her story device is perhaps one of the most complex I've ever seen and I appreciate that. It's dishonest to yell that somebody doesn't appreciate a complex character or only hates her because she's a woman simply because you don't want to hear criticism on the characters you love most. If you cannot also love them for their flaws you don't really have a right to say you're a supporter! Almost everything in the name of her defense is a smear on other characters, and those smears are actions that lily has performed herself, such as abandonment or cold shoulders. It's not right to favor one character and then shit on all the rest because you feel protective over them, that doesn't make for a good environment at all and it's rampant in this fandom! It makes it known as a toxic fandom and that's BAD.

Before I start this I wanted to mention how it seems, atleast with the lore we get with Mystic Flours update that cookies used the beasts and their abilities, and eventually the beasts snapped and murdered many of them. A bit dramatic but I kinda see where they come from, I mean maybe they stopped doing the things cookies asked first but then the cookies started 'rebelling' idk anything better to call it, and then the beasts started murdering them. Anyways that's all I have for that topic now onto something quite different.

Warning for all you White Lily lovers and defenders, I am going to be complaining about pretty much everything about her, so please if you don't want to see this, scroll past, if your fine with it, do whatever, but this is my opinion so please don't comment stuff like how I'm wrong. Also I wanted to add this isn't ment to be targeting any of you White Lily defenders and supporters, I just wanted to express what I think of her, and its that i really dont like her. So with all that said, I'm going to go ahead and essentially hate on White Lily.

1st of all, Toxic Purelily shippers, I know not all of you are bad, and I haven't ran into any of you, but I've seen some comments on anything that ships one of these two with someone else, and it's kinda annoying, they say stuff like 'this is cute, but I ship Purelily' or 'purelily canon' seriously there's no need to bring that up, if you don't like it scroll past, if you do like it don't mention how you like Purelily better because whoever created the posts probably don't ship them if they are shipping either of them with another cookie, and they honestly didn't ask your opinion on it. Also back when the costumes first came out, a lot of purelily shippers used those as their defense that it's canon, but they just ignored that in Pure Vanillas costume description it literally says he was put under a love potion, that would make Purelily canon or not, a bit toxic, especially if White Lily knew he was under a potion control, cause that's just being a shitty friend either way. If she didn't know, I guess it's better, but still it makes Purelily somewhat toxic because now we don't really know if PV had any romantic feelings for her before the potion.

2ndly Her being Dark Enchantress, because I remember back before golden cheeses update or before it was confirmed she was DE many people wanted her to be DE, but now after GCs update, and that she's actually at fault for something(actually lots of things, bc she also caused the beasts to be free) everyone's saying she's not Dark Enchantress, and in a way their right, her body didn't become Dark Enchantress, but I'm pretty sure her conscience was still in DE, therefore she was atleast somewhat aware of her actions, and if you guys say she isn't aware because she was corrupted, you better act the same way with the beasts, cause generally, it's the same thing for WL and the beasts. Generally rn in my mind WL is to blame for quite a lot of stuff in game lore.

3rd, she got off the hook too quickly, literally everyone(not GC) forgave her for pretty much ruining their lives, She destroyed PVs Kingdom and is the reason he didn't remember like anything when we first met him. I can't say much with HB, but I'm guessing something happened that she's at fault for, Dark Cacao's son literally tried to kill him, because of her(yes it was the sword, but it doesn't take a fool to guess that the sword was made by her power) and Golden Cheese literally lost everything because of her. Then Elder Faerie died because she became DE and that caused the beasts to be freed, and then Dark Cacao's Kingdom is dying of a plague caused by Mystic Flour because the beasts were freed.

4th, She was let off the hook in general, this one is with the Witches though. Let's go back to what the beasts did before imprisonment, like I said earlier they were probably being used and got fed up with it, so they killed the cookies, still a bit dramatic but whatever, they didn't seem to be trying to fight the Witches they were just killing cookies, and they were imprisoned for eons because of it, But WL aka DE literally wanted to steal the others soul jams and actually (this is from what I recall) wanted to fight the Witches, or something like that, but the Witches don't do anything? That's just annoyingly unfair, DE wanted to actually fight the Witches but she got away scotch free, but the Beasts killed cookies(still a bit overly dramatic) and they get imprisoned for who knows how long, that's just kinda stupid.

5th, the power imbalance. The Ancients have half of what the beasts powers were, and at the beginning of the games cut scene we see that PV is pretty damn strong because if I recall correctly she stopped using her magic and actually brought her arm up to shield herself, therefore the black void or whatever was probably mostly caused by PVs magic. And thats half of Shadowmilks magic, Shadowmilk may have still been regaining his strength, but he still most likely should've atleast came closer to winning, rather than whatever happened in game(I'll admit though it was cool to see SM get this shadowy jester mask in the cutscene) and also the whole reason he lost was probably just to promote her costume, which is in general annoying.

6th, Shadowmilk was right, she's half a cookie, and could still become DE again, and I'm pretty sure she probably will, but she was given this power, which by is pretty stupid, because Elder Faerie I'm pretty sure used that same magic on SM earlier and he still died, so how was White Lily, half a cookie, probably still has a bit of corruption in her able to defeat SM with it.

7th, The Mystic costumes, they suck, they look like piss, and honestly weren't even needed. A Frost Queen Mystic costume would've made probably lots of players actually excited.

8th, the fact that all of the horrible events in the game were caused by her curiosity, I get that curiosity isn't always a bad thing, but the saying 'curiosity killed the cat' exists for a reason. She was way to curious about things she shouldn't have been curious about, and instead of listening to the cookies that told her to maybe stop before it's too late, she still went searching for answers, on that topic, why was finding out how they were created so important to her in the first place, literally why PV backed out before he went too far, she should've too. What happened to her was her own fault. She didn't need these answers they weren't going to be revolutionary for cookie kind, and when she got the horrid answer she became DE(which wasn't necessarily her fault because she fell into that jam or whatever) but she most likely still had some of her conscience while she was DE and instead of talking to her friends, who after being proven that DE was infact WL and were told the truth about their creation, they would've most likely sided with her. But she didn't do that, she decided to try and steal their souljams.

Okay I'm done now, I'm going to be honest I generally hate her with my whole heart, her designs cute, and her voice is amazing, but I really don't like her. I literally got her on one of my first pulls in her gacha and I have her turned off on the dashboard, I'm serious when I say I hate her. I'll say it again please don't come at me for this, it's my opinion, I'm in no way saying it's correct or anything like that, but it's my opinion I'm entitled to it, just as you all are entitled to yours, so I'm not saying you can't have your own opinion on her, I'm just saying what mine is.

[pinkmirth]

can i req some dad reiner fluff? i feel like he would have a lot of kids bc of the breeding kink 🥴 but yeah just some cute stuff pls thank uuuu!!

THE THOUGHT OF REINER BEING FATHER JUST DOES SOMETHING TO ME I- AJHSJS

THANK YOU SM FOR REQUESTING, ANON!! LET'S GET CAUGHT UP IN THE REINER BRAINROT TOGETHER <3

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—DAD REINER!

 (MODERN AU + MENTIONS OF PREGNANCY + FEMALE BODIED READER + FLUFF + SLIGHTLY SUGGESTIVE + REINER BEING THE BEST DAD EVER DUH + TW: SLIGHT LANGUAGE)

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Dad Reiner who was such a hot mess moments before he became a father to begin with. The pair of you are situated inside a hospital room, occupied with things much bigger than a sprained ankle. He stood alongside you, his beloved, all the while; Encouraging your efforts and attempting to ease your pain with the squeeze of your hand within his bigger one. As fretful as he feels, it's no surprise that Reiner ends up passing out a good few times, and he wasn't even the one in labor. Though, the hard part is now over, and all his worry has subsided.

Dad Reiner who recalls whimpering, weakly grinning, and eventually bawling of joy when holding his child for the first time. You'd never seen his cries mingled with such joy before. He cradles yours and his newborn within firm forearms and large, mindful hands. The pair of you sob and smile, ogle your baby with a relieved, content thrum in your heart. You allow Reiner to attempt squeezing into the hospital bed beside you, as broad and weighty as he is, with your child being held right between you and him. He’s a hot mess, but an overjoyed one who has you; and little Reiner x [Y/N] junior 🥺

Dad Reiner who converses with you for days before ultimately deciding on a name for yours and his daughter— Joyce Braun. He contemplated on “Karina”, the name of his dear mother. Though, he wants his little girl to be better than any past generation, and rather goes with a more revitalizing name, one that holds a simple, but deep meaning in his perspective. As obvious as it sounds, the name means “Joyful”. That's all he wants; for his kid to be happy in this life, happier than he ever was. Therefore, he bases her name, the root of his dear child’s identity, on cheerfulness.

Dad Reiner who tends to grow somewhat frustrated. Not with you of course, not even with Joyce’s incessant wailing in the early hours of the morning, but with himself. It wasn't as though he did anything wrong, he simply hopes that he won't. Begs himself not to fuck up with this whole “Parent” thing. If it wasn’t clear enough, Reiner wants to be nothing like his own father. He’ll never, ever shoo his child away and disregard them, but instead use those same hands to hold, guide, and lift them up. It doesn't take long for the blonde to snap out of his funk, because he's sure that he can become all the better for the sake of his little family.

Dad Reiner who wakes to your still, ethereal-like form every morning, and it's enough to make his day. A kiss to your neck, a nibble along your earlobe, and a couple repetitive rubs to your waist and thighs are enough to stir you right awake. And if that isn't the case, then it's usually the other way around; You pressing soft, lengthy kisses to his sharp, attractive cheekbones. Despite who arises first, there’s always one thing that's bound to happen— Joyce making her arrival into the bedroom via crawl, with a babble and a cute, happy little shriek upon seeing her parents.

The pair of you have no clue as to how she manages to make her way over to your room every time, but you're simply glad that she does so safely. It's Reiner’s cue to leap out of bed and scoop her off of the carpet and into his awaiting arms, clad in nothing but a white tee and the baggiest sweats. He appears disheveled, but it's still clear to see the main striking similarity between him and his pretty little daughter; Those amber brown eyes that hold the same warm, yellowish hue as his do.

He rocks the giggling one-year old, back and forth and right back again, gazing upon his squirming bundle of joy until you mention that he’s been doing so for a whole ten minutes. He grows sheepish and merely chuckles in reply, resting Joyce’s head upon his firm chest with a sigh. He could do this for ten hours more if it were up to him.

Dad Reiner who knocked you up a couple more times, and real damn good at that. There’s something of a breeding fetish that he’s got on him, which is the reason why your little family is now two kids larger. There’s Joyce, who’s now seven years old, along with her two baby brothers, the pair being a mere one year apart from the other. You and Reiner no longer have to worry about checking on Joyce in her crib, for she sleeps on her own bed now, like the “big girl” she claims to be.

Though, the boys now have you both occupied, and you’re lucky to have an older daughter who’s so understanding and rarely ever  grows jealous. Joyce, your girl who’s on more of the rambunctious side but ironically never pleads for attention, has been spending much more quality time with Reiner. Both you and him are busy with the boys, but the blonde tends to have free time on his hands every now and then. Besides, someone’s got to keep Joyce company.

Reiner happily obliges, and makes this father-daughter time worthwhile. Wholesome picnics to the park that always end in races back to the car and Reiner being a damned klutz and dropping his sandwich. Having a “spa day”, filled with Reiner’s not-so-great attempts at doing his girl’s hair, messy manicures and a hefty bag of makeup that Joyce “borrowed” from you. He spoils the girl as if the lot of you are rich (and since Reiner’s always got a hefty load of spare cash, you technically are), but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Dad Reiner who’s a lot more used to this “dad” thing now, since it’s been a couple good years down the line. You and him have amazing bonds with each of your kids, but they seem to latch onto Reiner’s large, broad body at any given time a lot more than they do you. Joyce is twelve, the brothers are five and six, and Reiner’s officially a DILF— The finest one at that. His stubble stays nicely trimmed, along with the subtle creases at his eyes becoming a little more distinctive. Goes to work, and sometimes takes the kid’s lunches instead of his own, because that's just the Reiner Way.

He’s the ultimate father in practically every situation, even when looking out for peers and comrades. He doesn’t mean to, it’s just that habits easily stick with Reiner, and it’s rather difficult for him to let them go. Besides, with three kids, how do you expect him to not be in “dad mode”?

Dad Reiner who utterly loves having random little talks with his kids, and never invalidates them, not for one second. It’s almost as though he can see things in their perspective, and they don’t know anyone else better to vent to other than their dad and mom. Though, when they tend to babble on about something that’s rather popular within their generation, it gets hard for him to catch up. They proceed to call him “old” and receive a good chase around the house before they get caught and looped into a tickle attack, and that's basically the worst thing imaginable if you’re in the Braun family. The reason being is Reiner’s unparalleled speed, despite his age; Thirties to early forties, but he’s still extremely fit, and has no problem running a mile if he has to.

Dad Reiner who’s in love with his family and the person they’ve gradually helped him become. You cherish him and your kids like none other, and he does the same. Sometimes it abruptly dawns on him; He’s a dad, and he’s actually a good one, who would’ve known? He smiles to himself, allowing his amber eyes to flit over to wherever you are before his soft grin grows wider. You look back, blow a kiss, and he does the same. The action is exchanged before he strides over to give you the real deal— Though, your sweet little peck is all cut short when Joyce and the boys skip in and start making kissy noises, with you and Reiner laughing all the while.

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“Papa,” Gale, the youngest son of the bunch, calls aloud and gains his father’s attention. Reiner peers up from his book and gives a brief, questioning response. “Yes, dove?” It’s a simple, sweet nickname; One that he calls you, Joyce, and the boys.

“Mommy’s in the bathroom crying.” The blonde drops his novel with an punctuating hitch of his breath, the book falling upon the couch with a dull thump. “—Why? Is she alright?” Reiner, the man who generally keeps himself rather poised, is now frantic, sharp brows downturned at his son's statement.

“Uh, I dunno. She’s crying, but smiling too.” This then causes Reiner’s brows to furrow. “Smiling, you say?”

“Yeah. Can we go out to get ice cream today? I wanna get, uh.. Chocolate chip, please!”

Reiner lets a brief laugh slip loose at Gale’s query, but he has to prioritize his wife over a summertime snack. He then begins to make a beeline towards the bathroom, in search of you. “Soon enough, dove. I’ve got to go up there and check on your momma first, alright—?”

Gale then shrugs and hops onto the couch, little feet padding along the spacey seat as the leather creases underneath his weight.

“By the way, Papa,” Reiner then pauses, open to any vital information his son could give, “she has this funny stick thingy in her hand. It’s got two little lines on it and stuff.”

Reiner chokes on his breath, lower lip beginning to tremble and quirk into a smile. If the case is what he thinks it is, he’s got all the reason to bust out with the teary eyes and jovial whimpers, just as he did when receiving the news of his three expected children in the past.

“A stick..?”

“Mhm,” hums Gale, proceeding to jump upon the dark brown couch, “Mama probably wants some chocolate chip ice cream too.”

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[firelxdykatara]

I’m just really confused as to where this idea that Zuko is gaycoded came from. Like people are allowed to have that headcanon but I don’t understand where people are coming from when they try and claim that he was undisputedly gaycoded and trying to deny it is homophobic when he’s only ever shown romantic interest in women.

I made a pretty long post on the topic a while back, but the ultimate gist of it is this: there are a lot of elements of Zuko's status as an abuse victim and trauma survivor that resonate with queer folks. This is understandable and completely fine! However, there are some parts of the fandom who have taken that to the other extreme and will now insist that those elements are uniquely queer, and that they can only be read as some sort of veiled gay/coming out narrative, even though that doesn't make much sense since there is no part of Zuko's narrative which is unique to any sort of queer experience.

I think the problem really does stem from two things being conflated--Zuko's history of abuse and trauma, and trauma&abuse being something a lot of queer people have experienced. I suspect it goes something like 'I see a lot of myself in Zuko, and I was abused for being gay, therefore Zuko must be gay too in order to have had similar experiences.' This can then lead to feeling dismissed or invalidated when other people point out that those experiences are not unique to being queer--but on the flip side, abuse victims and trauma survivors whose abuse&trauma do not stem from queerness (even if they are queer themselves) can feel invalidated and dismissed by the implication that their trauma must be connected to their queerness or it isn't valid.

This is also where the 'people don't actually know what gay coded means' part comes in, and I realize now that I didn't actually get into what gay coding (and queer coding in general) actually means, since I was so hung up on pointing out how Zuko doesn't really fit the mold. (And the few elements that exist which could be said to count are because of the 'villains historically get queer coded bc Hays Code era' thing and mostly occur in Book 1, not because of how he acts as an abuse&trauma survivor.)

Under a cut because I kind of go on a tangent about gay/queer coding, but I swear I get back to the point eventually.

Queer coding (and it is notable that, with respect to Zuko, it is almost always framed as 'he couldn't possibly be attracted to girls', rather than 'he could be attracted to boys as well as girls' in these discussions, for... no real discernible reason, but I'll get into that in a bit) is the practice of giving characters 'stereotypically queer' traits and characteristics to 'slide them under the radar' in an era where having explicitly queer characters on screen was not allowed, unless they were evil or otherwise narratively punished for their queerness. (See: the extant history of villains being queer-coded, because if they were Evil then it was ok to make them 'look gay', since the story wasn't going to be rewarding their queerness and making audiences think it was in any way OK.) This is thanks to the Motion Picture Production Code (colloquially and more popularly known as the Hays Code), which was a set of guidelines which movies coming out of any major studio had to adhere to in order to be slated for public release and lasted from the early 1930s until it was finally abandoned in the late 60s.

The Hays Code essentially existed to ensure that the content of major motion pictures would not 'lower the moral standards' of the viewing public. It didn't just have to do with queerness--cursing was heavily monitored, sex outside of marriage was not allowed to be seen as desirable or tittilating, miscegenation was not allowed (most specifically interracial relationships between black and white people), criminals had to be punished lest the audience think that it was ok to be gay and do crime, etc. Since same-sex relations fell under 'sexual perversion', they could not be shown unless the 'perversion' were punished in some way. (This is also the origin of the Bury Your Gays trope, another term that is widely misunderstood and misapplied today.) To get around this, queer coding became the practice by which movies and television could depict queer people but not really, and it also became customary to give villains this coding even more overtly, since they would get punished by the end of the film or series anyway and there was nothing to lose by making them flamboyant and racy/overly sexual/promiscuous.

Over time, this practice of making villains flamboyant, sexually aggressive, &etc became somewhat separated from its origins in queer coding, by which I mean that these traits and tropes became the go-to for villains even when the creator had no real intention of making them seem queer. This is how you generally get unintentional queer-coding--because these traits that have been given to villains for decades have roots in coding, but people tend to go right to them when it comes to creating their villains without considering where they came from.

Even after the Hays Code was abandoned, the sentiments and practices remained. Having queer characters who weren't punished by the narrative for being queer was exceptionally rare, and it really isn't until the last fifteen or so years that we've seen any pushback against that. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is famous for being one of the first shows on primetime television to feature an explicitly gay relationship on-screen, and that relationship ended in one of the most painful instances of Bury Your Gays that I have ever personally witnessed. (Something that, fourteen years later, The 100 would visually and textually reference with Lexa's death. Getting hit by a bullet intended for someone else after a night of finally getting to be happy and have sex with her s/o? It wasn't remotely subtle. I don't even like Clexa, but that was incredibly rough to witness.)

However, bringing this back to Zuko, he really doesn't fit the criteria for queer coding for a number of reasons. First of all, no one behind the scenes (mostly a bunch of cishet men) was at all intending to include queer rep in the show. This wasn't a case where they were like 'well, we really wanted to make Zuko gay, but we couldn't get that past the censors, so here are a few winks and a nudge', because it just wasn't on their radar at all. Which makes sense--it wasn't on most radars in that era of children's programming. This isn't really an indictment, it's just a fact of the time--in the mid/late 00s, no one was really thinking about putting queer characters in children's cartoons. People were barely beginning to include them in more teen- and adult-oriented television and movies. It just wasn't something that a couple of straight men, who were creating a fantasy series aimed at young kids, were going to think about.

What few instances you can point to from the series where Zuko might be considered to exhibit coding largely happen in Book 1, when he was a villain, because the writers were drawing from typically villainous traits that had historically come from queer coding villains and had since passed into common usage as villainous traits. But they weren't done with any intention of making it seem like Zuko might be attracted to boys.

And, again, what people actually point to as 'evidence' of Zuko being queer-coded--his awkwardness on his date with Jin and his confrontation with Ozai being the big ones I can think of off the top of my head--are actually just... traits that come from his history of trauma and abuse.

As I said in that old post:

making [zuko’s confrontation of ozai] about zuko being gay and rejecting ozai’s homophobia, rather than zuko learning fundamental truths about the world and about his home and about how there was something deeply wrong with his nation that needed to be fixed in order for the world to heal (and, no, ‘homophobia’ is not the answer to ‘what is wrong with the fire nation’, i’m still fucking pissed at bryke about that), misses the entire point of his character arc. this is the culmination of zuko realizing that he should never have had to earn his father’s love, because that should have been unconditional from the start. this is zuko realizing that he was not at fault for his father’s abuse--that speaking out of turn in a war meeting in no way justified fighting a duel with a child.

is that first realization (that a parent’s love should be unconditional, and if it isn’t, then that is the parent’s fault and not the child’s) something that queer kids in homophobic households/families can relate to? of course it is. but it’s also something that every other abused kid, straight kids and even queer kids who were abused for other reasons before they even knew they were anything other than cishet, can relate to as well. in that respect, it is not a uniquely queer experience, nor is it a uniquely queer story, and zuko not being attracted to girls (which is what a lot of it seems to boil down to, at the end of the day--cutting down zuko’s potential ships so that only zukka and a few far more niche ships are left standing) is not necessary to his character arc. nor does it particularly make sense.

And, regarding his date with Jin:

(and before anyone brings up his date with jin--a) he enjoyed it when she kissed him, and b) he was a traumatized, abused child going out on a first date. of course he was fucking awkward. have you ever met a teenage boy????)

Zuko is socially awkward and maladjusted because he was abused by his father as a child and has trouble relating to people as a result. He was heavily traumatized and brutally physically injured as a teenager, and it took him years to begin to truly recover from the scars that left on his psyche (and it's highly likely, despite the strides he made in canon, that he has a long way to go, post series; it's such a pity that we never got any continuation comics >.>). He was not abused for being gay or queer--he was abused because his father believed he was weak, and part of Zuko's journey was realizing that his father's perception of strength was flawed at its core. That his entire nation had rotted from the inside out, and the regime needed to be changed in order for the world--including his people--to begin to heal.

That could be commingled with a coming out narrative, which is completely fine for headcanons (although I personally prefer not to, because, again, we have more than enough queer trauma already), but it simply doesn't exist in canon. Zuko was not abused or traumatized for being queer, and his confrontation with Ozai was not about him coming out or realizing any fundamental truth about himself--it was about realizing something fundamental about his father and his nation, and making the choice to leave them behind so that he could help the Avatar grow stronger and force things to change when he got back.

TL;DR: at the end of the day, none of the traits, scenes, or behavior Zuko exhibits which shippers tend to use to claim he was gay-coded are actually evidence of coding--they aren't uniquely queer experiences, as they stem from abuse that was not related in any way to his sexuality, and they are experiences that any kid who suffered similar abuse or trauma could recognize and resonate with. (Including straight kids, and queer kids who were abused for any reason other than their identity.) And, finally, Zuko can be queer without erasing or invalidating his canon attraction to girls, and it's endlessly frustrating that the 'Zuko is gay-coded' crowd refuses to acknowledge that.

[itsonlystrange]

So I just took a deep dive on Byler Twitter and realized how many people literally devote their whole accounts just to talk sh!t about Kaypeace and her theories along with Byler shippers in general. Honestly, the duffers would not be proud of this. Is this seriously what our show has become? People are BASHING someone just because they have hope in a ship?

They’re calling Bylers deranged, delusional, lost soldiers, “in need of a rude awakening”, and more! Like who hurt you? How upset do you have to be with yourself to say this about someone just for shipping two fictional characters? They seriously can’t stand the fact that someone has hope for something and that there is actually proof tied to it. I’ve seen countless people say that she’s “digging up dust bunnies and pretending it’s gold.” Or that she’s “deranged and needs an awakening.” Which is just horrible! Why would you say that about someone?! Just letting you know that Finn, Millie, AND Noah would 100% find you HORRIBLE for saying things like this. This ISNT the fandom they wanted to raise. The show is not surrounded by byler OR Mileven and either way the show is phenomenal without either and there are so many more components. The duffers would not be proud of this behavior. You gotta admit, there are a lot of byler clues throughout all 3 seasons and calling us deranged for seeing something like that is terrible of you.

Saying that she needs mental help for picking up on hints that 2 people may be in love? Seriously? What is wrong with those people! Why do people have an issue with someone having hope. It’s not like we as Bylers are doing this for Mileven. I haven’t seen a Mileven Hate account in ages. And we personally do not claim those who do that. But I don’t understand why people seriously have an issue with the fact that two people could potentially end up together. How am I deranged for shipping two fake characters? Finn has said countless times to STOP with the ship wars and that he isn’t proud of it. This fandom is so toxic at times and is so horrible. You cannot deny that there are some pretty solids hints of Byler being canon. Kaypeace is not treating herself as If she is some saint. She has never said that all of her theories will be correct. But hell, some of them have been in the past! And with all of this proof, how are we deranged for seeing what’s clearly there? And how are we delusional for having faith in something? People really just wanna ruin our parade and ruin our happiness just because we see potential in 2 characters dating and being end game. This show is NOT a romance and exists without any love in it! So can we all stop acting like the show runs on Mileven or Byler or Jopper or Lumax or Jancy or whatever! We both can acknowledge that both ships have a lot of proof and that is that. Whatever happens, we cannot change. If people seriously get this worked up over the fact that Mike may not be in love with El, that seems like a personal issue. I’m not saying there aren’t toxic Bylers but the Mileven community from what I’ve seen has been HORRIBLE. They gaslight us and completely invalidate how we feel just because it’s “Delusinal” and “isnt canon”. Like?? What???

Also, please stop using the words “delusional” or “deranged” or “mental help” over FICTIONAL CHARACTERS. Implying that someone needs to go to a mental hospital just because they enjoy watching a tv show and analyzing it is HORRIBLE. And also horrible to ppl who actually experience delusions as well. It is not a mental illness to ship Mileven or Byler and none of what either are seeing are “delusions” or “hallucinations”. Google what Delusions means first before being an a$$ about it. The hate in this fandom is SO TOXIC. And if the duffers saw this behavior they would be mortified. The duffers would not invalidate either ship in any interview so can we all just stop. It’s THEIR show and at the end of the day they’ll do whatever they want to it. If that means that your ship isn’t canon, then so be it. But saying that “Milevens are always gonna win” and that “Mileven is end game” and then claiming Bylers are delusinal for shipping 2 fictional characters,,,,,, then doesn’t that make Milevens delusinal for shipping 2 fictional characters too?? None of us are delusinal or deranged or anything. We are all human. Let us all have faith.

And also, nothing, and I mean NOTHING is set in stone. Mileven isn’t endgame yet and Byler isn’t end game yet either. For f@!$ sake, Mike could even end up with Max! El could end up with Lucas! We literally never know! So, stop treating like we know the end of the show. We have proof and we analyze it. Why would the duffers be giving us this much proof if it wasn’t to analyze. If Milevens are allowed to theorize then so are Bylers. Hell, maybe Will AND el die by the end and Mike ends up lonely with 3 cats.

This is STRANGER THINGS. The show is all about subverting tropes. So just take all of your expectations and throw them out the window. Because 99% of the time, we are completely blown out of our minds. If there was any show that was gonna leave us in total shock when the season finale airs, it’s stranger things. The duffers know how to write. And they know exactly what they are doing. If Mileven does end up together, so be it. But if Byler is end game, don’t cry about It. Don’t make up some false reality, because ironically that would make YOU the delusional one, haha. But in all seriousness, nothing is set in stone. Anyone remember how off our theories were for season 3? Or how off our theories were for season 4 compared to now? People were convinced S4 was taking place during thanksgiving break, that Steve was joining the Force, that Robin was getting a girlfriend (I hope!), etc. Everything in this show happens for a reason, the duffers said so themselves. And this show is an ENSEMBLE SHOW. No character is the main character. This isn’t a rom com and the show could very well end up with everyone dead besides Keith! We literally don’t know. So can we stop calling ppl delusional or insane for shipping 2 fake people. We’re allowed to theorize. And just bc it isn’t your opinion doesn’t mean it isn’t valid.

This needs to stop! Millie and Noah and the rest of the cast would not be proud of this behavior. Respect everyone’s ships. And for the love of god, stop making accs just to sh!t on Byler or any theorizer. Be a better person

(Please reblog)

@lolbyler @willthecleric @hawkinsschoolcounselor @kaypeace21

[breefarrow]

Hey! I read your post about the ask Emily got from a ziammie and I wanted to say I completely agree with what you said+I would like to add that I don't get why ziam shippers can't just leave us alone the way we larries leave them alone. Regardless of what the truth about ziam is, spamming larry blogs about ziam is unnecessary and uncalled for. Especially when the person in question has already done their research on the topic and has taken a stance.(also don't feel obligated to answer my ask :D)

Hi thanks for the ask and yeah I completely agree it's even more wtf when these ziams claim larries are being rude and anti like to them [were not] It's legit toxic solo liam stans and zsquad members hating on them not us but everyone hates larries so surprise surprise we are always blamed for everything. This supposive hate from larries includes Emily but these ziams are from twitter not even on tumblr but made a tumblr to send @lovemylarents an anon hate ask to say larries are hypocrites yet again umm what you came to an app to HER acc and constantly drag us into your lane.

I've said this before both here and on twitter but if they were ACTUALLY calling larries hypocrites bc larries are calling them delusional or saying their favs would hate them that would be fine but their not their just trying to shove ziam MPs and proof down larries throats every minute and calling larries who say they don't believe in ziam hypocrites. Even calling larries like @lovemylarents who have been in this fandom for a decade and DID read the MPs or YouTube videos they recommended and still doesn't see it hypocrites.

If they want to go there since they keep calling us hypocrites for not believing in ziam, we will. Their BG proof/reasoning for saying it's a BG is inconsistent with not all ziammies believing the same thing, some of their MPs are legit just comparing ziam to larry going larry did this well so did ziam and half their proof is larry proof/songs going it's also ziam related. Ziammies need larry to be real for ziam to be real larries don't need ziam. Larry had a concrete foundation that makes the house of larry stable ziam only has an unstable house with no concrete foundation bc they just stole extra parts lying around from the larry house to make a ziam house.

I'm tired of it I use to be believe what you want and I really don't care what you believe but when they constantly go LARRIES YOU SEEING THIS OR ARE YOU A HYPOCRITE I'm going to say something. I'm not kidding tho they steal a bunch of larry proof and say it's for ziam [examples: warning selfies for BG, triangle from louis, Home, Alive, RBB&SBB,"this specfic shade" ext.] The triangle necklace fron liam can possible be linked to liam not being straight but there is no link to zayn. For example for larries in the Miss You MV we not only have the triangles but the word styles written meaning it's Louis saying I'm not straight AND I'm with Harry. Or another one we have not only Louis triangle tattoo [permanent unlike a necklace] BUT also Harry tweeting the same week Louis got the tattoo "you can tell a man by his ankles." Which once again is proof Louis might not be straight AND proof of Harry being his lover.

Funny tho all this hate to @lovemylarents started when she debunked their popular most stable proof to link the bears to ziam on twitter. The proof is the Ziam Levine Stylinson sticker on the bear one night which turned out was/is a tumblr fans url and they gave the sticker with their utl on it to a tech person who found it funny and put it on the bear during the concert but it was only on once so it had nothing to do with the boys. Emily like all veteran stans debunk/make it known when well used proof is fake [example: 2013 larry marriage theory] it's what they do and the sticker had STYLINSON on it so wouldn't Emily want it to be real?

They claim these things especially the bears have always been linked to Ziam to or that Ziam has been as big as Larry since the beginning but any old time veteran fan I talk to [plus from my own knowledge of being a 9 year fan] ziam wasn't really gaining traction until late 2014/early 2015 and any major 2015 bears MPs ziam is not mentioned. For me the thing that pisses me off the most is when they say "larrys closeting didn't worked and ziams did thats why less believe in ziam over larry."

IF LARRYS CLOSETING DIDN'T WORK YOU WOULDN'T HAVE SOME LOCALS SAYING THEY WON'T JOIN THE FANDOM BC THEY THINK LOUIS IS HOMOPHOBIC OR GP THINKING HARRY IS A QUEERBAITING WOMANIZER! This phrase invalidates everything larry has been put through I hate it so much. And @lovemylarents made a good point if they believe larry and ziam are genuinely real this phrase makes it seem like ziam didn't fight hard to show the fans the truth of what they are being put through the way larry did.

This response is getting long haha sorry but my last statement is Emily like other veteran larries don't believe in ziam they have been here since the beginning and Emily along with myself and the rest of our GC have looked at ziam info and don't see it so PLEASE stop calling us hypocrites all the time for not believing in it.

[zukoshotleafjuice]

The funniest thing about june teasing katara and zuko about being a couple is that she just sees a pretty girl and an attractive guy, both looking almost the same age which immediately makes her go "you two must be a couple" and it just reminds me of zvtara shippers, you know what i mean? I'm convinced one of the reasons a lot of ppl ship them is bc of their looks. katara being the female protagonist and also a pretty, smart and powerful girl & zuko, despite not being the male protagonist, being the most attractive guy in the gaang. Boom, a "bomb ass ship". It is worth to recall that "people ship zutara bc they projected onto katara and had a crush on zuko". And if they say they don't ship them for that reason, then it's bc they read too much between the lines in every interaction they have. So, back to june, she didn't even care if they had chemistry or if they were friends or anything, she just straight up teased them about being a couple lmao. Because in all honesty zvtara can be an appealing ship in anyone's eyes but THAT'S IT, it doesn't go further than that. I can be testimony of that😅Before even watching the show i was like june, one day i saw a zk fanart and was like "wow aren't those zuko and katara from atla? They look so good, she's gorgeous and he's hot" i already knew kataang was endgame and that mai was zuko's love interest but seeing zuko and katara together was pleasing to my eyes. However once i watched the show for the first time (2 months ago i think) i realized there was really no romantic chemistry between them, nothing, literally nothing, i mean, i wasn't even waiting for the zvtara content in the show that made ppl ship them so much, i was actually very neutral about ships, i couldn't care less about them, but i still realized nothing was happenig between them and that it was obvious since book 1 ep 1 that kataang was endgame. Zuko and katara were two teenagers from opposite sides of a war that tried to kill each other multiple times and when zuko changed sides they developed a completely platonic relationship. As i said, people either ship them because it's an appealing and aesthetically pleasing ship (water/fire, enemies to lovers, opposites attract, the common red & blue ship) or they just love reading too much between the lines, OR BOTH, because they were so thirsty about it they ended up convincing themselves there was romantic tension between them, that they liked each other and that zvtara was scrapped when it was never planned in the first place. Not to mention the reasons why they claim zvtara should've been endgame are based only on symbolism and things they have in common that are just so ??? Random. e.g. (i saw these on a post on facebook and the comment section was hilarious, it was full of ppl being sarcastic about it & making fun of it) saying they should've been canon bc:

1. "They both lost their mothers at a young age" (?)

2. "katara was good but had rage in her heart and zuko was bad but had good in his heart so it was like yin and yang, and that was the main purpose/topic of the show" (?)

3. "they both had alter egos (painted lady and blue spirit)" (???) this one sounds like saying maiko was canon bc zuko worked in a tea shop and mai worked in a flower shop😂

4. "Zuko was the only one who supported katara in taking revenge on her mom's assassin" (?) if you ask me, that just proves zuko is not right for katara, he led her to do something she was gonna regret later (not trying to hate on zuko, i love him, and since i love him i acknowledge his flaws. I understand why he thought it was the best thing to do, he's an impulsive and resentful boy (he would've done the same if it was his mom) and he noticed how thirsty katara was for revenge, ofc he wanted to help her + he wanted her to accept him and thought it was the right thing to do in order to gain her trust, but it wasn't) unlike zuko, aang tried to make katara come to her senses and do the thing that was best for her: forgive and let go, and it was basically what she did at the end. She didn't do what zuko expected her to do. She did what aang expected her to do. She didn't forgive her mom's assassin, but she forgave zuko, and she didn't do THAT thing she (and aang) knew would regret later. Aang knew katara and what was the best thing for her to do.

5. and the most ridiculous one, "they both saved each other's lives in the final agni kai"(???????) and the funniest part is that it was followed by "WHAT MORE PROOFS DO YOU WANT???". Honestly wtf did ppl expect? Did they expect zuko to stand there and watch katara die? Did they expect katara to just stand there and watch zuko lay on the floor & die? And this has been said a million times and i am going to join and say it once again: zuko would've done that for ANYONE from the gaang, he would've done the same for toph, sokka, suki and aang. Because he learned to care about them. As for katara, she would've done that for anyone too wtf she healed aang once too and even brought him back to life. (I wouldn't be surprised if zk shippers used that as a parallel for romantic zvtara proof bc they're just like that💀)

There were more "reasons" but they're just so stupid and taken out of context like "they care for each other" & "katara was the one who encouraged him to talk to his uncle" like yeah that's what friends do. Basically all zvtara shippers do is REACH.

Also, i just can't see it happening. I like the enemies to lovers trope, maybe if the writers really intended to make it canon, i would have been down for the ship, it would've been interesting to see how it developed, but,, they didn't, and later i came to the realization that if it would've really happened, it would've been so... weird. Time to bring up the "colonized and colonizer ship" and how some ppl feel uncomfortable about it. Besides the fact that a relationship between zuko and katara wouldn't have worked (they're incompatible af, katara is a girl with a strong character and zuko is a guy with anger issues that takes everything personal, they'd be at each other's throats 99% of the time) it's just weird to think that katara would choose to marry a man from the fire nation, the nation that caused a big war that traumatized her, the nation that took her mother away from her. Imagine katara ruling along with zuko a nation she despised for years. Fire lady katara doesn't sit right with me, and i'm sure it doesn't sit right with a lot of ppl as well. I don't see katara doing that, and yes, i know she forgave zuko, but still, she would've never done that 🤦🏽‍♀️ i think it would've been so OOC tbh.

Another thing i laugh my ass off at is when they say "zuko should've chosen katara instead of mai" as if they were ever in a relationship for zuko to say "ok imma choose katara i wanna be with her". As if katara was EVER an option for him. They never showed interest in each other, what's not clicking?????? And zuko only had eyes for mai, not to mention that despite zuko and mai had a rough relationship, no girl would've dealed with zuko's bs better than mai. Can you imagine katara dealing with zuko blowing up over everything? Because i can't. Also people saying things like "zuko deserves someone who is always there for him and listens to him" (and ofc they're talking about katara) like, ok, you hate that katara is aang's "therapist" but you want her to be zuko's therapist. Logic? Where? And I do remember mai being a supportive gf and trying to cheer him up multiple times. Did they watch the same show as me?

Zvtarians try to play the victims about how they were "robbed" bc some voice actors shipped them and from what i've read people who worked for the show suggested to go for zk, but that's stupid, it doesn't count as "they planned it but scrapped it, we were robbed". The only word that counts are the creators' voice and they have stated they were always rooting for kataang, so no, you were not robbed.

People are just so in love with the idea of zuko and katara together they really convinced themselves it was likely to happen. Honestly zvtara it's a fine ship as fanon but ppl ruined it for me and what i hate the most is when they ship it and hate on aang and mai at the same time and make them look SO bad to invalidate kataang and maiko. Saying aang is abusive and mai is toxic is complete ✨bullshit✨ and lastly, it's ridiculous when they say the creators were cowards for not making it canon. They're cowards for not fulfilling your greatest childhood wish? Something they never planned? It is THEIR show. If you hate sm how things turned out then quit atla once and for all and go find another show that you know is gonna give you what you expect,,, it's tiring that they've been crying about it for 15 yrs , like, i joined the fandom recently but i can imagine how tired old atla fans must be of this.

OK so I have a lot of thoughts about this and firstly,,,anon I appreciate the dedication that it took for you to write  this, and I agree with many of your points. However, the attitude I have on this blog towards Avatar ships is far more neutral than what you’re saying.

Ultimately, romance is not and never was the focus of Avatar. Romantic development was always secondary or tertiary plot, and the entire show was far more focused on platonic relationship development. My attitude towards shippers on here - including Zutara shippers - is that people can ship what they want, as long as they’re respectful of each other and of the other characters that “interfere” with their ship. End of the day, shipping is irrelevant to the core of the show. 

People shipping something because they find it aesthetically appealing is honestly,,,fine. Personally, I think it’s reductionist, but I don’t care if you do because everyone has the right to enjoy media however they want to. 

That being said, we absolutely should call out racist or problematic tropes that we see, including ‘fire lady katara”. I also agree that it’s upsetting when people bash other characters in order to further their ship, as much of the bashing is also pretty racist and/or misogynistic. Calling that out, however, is separate from calling out every single person who happens to enjoy certain ships. 

“She didn't do what zuko expected her to do. She did what aang expected her to do. She didn't forgive her mom's assassin, but she forgave zuko, and she didn't do THAT thing she (and aang) knew would regret later. Aang knew katara and what was the best thing for her to do.”

I understand where you’re coming from, but I honestly disagree with this take. Both Aang and Zuko were approaching the situations from their own life experiences, but Katara didn’t do what either of the boys wanted. She chose her own path, by both sparing Yon Rha’s life but also refusing to forgive him. The episode is about Katara and her personal trauma and its focus should not be on her relationships with either Zuko or Aang. 

When I make posts such as this, it’s less about hating Z*tara and more about how this fandom focuses all its attention on romance and shipping, to the point where if you acknowledge a relationship’s importance it’s assumed you pair the two romantically. I don’t read Zuko and Katara’s relationship as romantic (for reasons that it would take too long to explain here), but their relationship development is extremely important, the two of them share tons of parallels and the final Agni Kai marks the culmination of both of their character arcs. Yes, Zuko would have taken the lightning for any of the characters, but it’s thematically important that it was Katara. None of this inherently means it’s romantic, but refusing to acknowledge the significance of the relationship between them is equally reductionist. 

This isn’t an attack on you, anon, and you’re 100% allowed to have negative feelings about a ship. But at the end of the day, it’s not worth getting this worked up over. If I were you I’d focus more on creating/consuming content for a ship you like than bashing ships you don’t!

[junior-goddess]

Ok, so a few months ago I tried to confide in my mom about how my supposed best friend had earth-shatteringly betrayed my trust and exploited a traumatic experience for me, and her response was “oh, I forgot. Anytime someone does or says something you don’t like they’re ‘being mean to you.’” and this honestly was such a stab in my heart (which I let her do to me repeatedly bc I yearn for her love and acceptance, but that’s another issue). She is constantly manipulating and gaslighting me, invalidating my feelings at any and every chance she gets. So now set the stage for tonight with this memory fresh in your mind.

At dinner every night for over a week my stepdad has asked how we’re all feeling about thanksgiving (specifically if we’re comfortable with my brother and his girlfriend, and my stepdads three kids plus one of their partners coming to dinner). We have all said we’re okay with it, every night for a week (I’ll get into why later). The household is currently me, my little brother, my mom, and my stepdad. I nanny once a week and my little brother leaves once a month to buy food for his lizard. That’s all we do, but my parents are different. My mom has 20 different students come to our home each week for private instrument lessons (she did stop for like a month and a half at the beginning of the pandemic), with both parties wearing masks, washing hands when they come in, and sanitizing doorknobs and instruments in between each student (not good but could be worse). My stepdad has not changed his work routine in the slightest and goes in to work 5 sometimes 6 times a week. Most of his department (sales) works from home at least partially, but he claims he can’t because he has to do inventory (which is maybe 4 hours of his entire work week). He’s had 2 ‘scares’ and one test since the pandemic started because he was potentially exposed to the virus from his coworkers when they were in office, but everything was negative. He didn’t disrupt his work routine for this and still went into the office daily.

In addition to this current schedule of our work lives, each potential thanksgiving guest group has been over before during the pandemic. My brother and his girlfriend have visited twice from the next state over. They do not leave their house other than grocery runs and the visits to us. My step sister A has been over once or twice for dinner. My step brother has come over once a week+ since the start of the pandemic, despite having several ‘scares’ (he is a hypochondriac and also just dramatic. All of his tests have been negative). He still goes in to work every day and sees his friends. He claims he wears a mask during all of this socializing but I would be willing to bet serious money that that’s a load of bullshit. My stepsister B and her boyfriend have been over once or twice since the pandemic began as well, but we are pretty confident they make no health concious choices and know they do not wear masks the majority of the time. They claim they already had COVID (despite testing negative when they thought they were sick and ignoring the possibility they could get it more than once). And once during September we had all of the mentioned parties at our house for lunch. We were seated outside but still right next to each other. And at no point during any visits have either my siblings/step siblings worn masks, even when it was all 10 us in September.

So now the issue is, my brother wants to come see us for thanksgiving with his girlfriend. My mom has okayed this but stepdad doesn’t trust stepsister B and her partner so now wants to cancel any visits to make it ‘fair’. I want to see my brother and honestly don’t give a fuck about the step siblings. My stepdad has been trying to ‘convince’ us to tell him to cancel thanksgiving so he can do it without feeling bad, making it just the 4 of us in my household. He told us the state my brother is from ‘has gotten so bad they’re completely shutting down again’ which we (we being myself, my mom, and little brother) know isn’t true and that they’re being preemptive to combat any surges because of the holiday. Since he couldn’t convince us that way, next he brought up that cases are surging in my state with over 7,000 new ones yesterday, which while true, is misleading because those cases are mostly on the other side of the state from us. Our area is doing relatively well. Next he tried to say that even his boss cancelled his thanksgiving, but left out the fact that their holiday was going to have over 30 people there from all over, and has now been cut to just their household, which is not much smaller than our group. And In his final attempt to sway us, he said 2 of his coworkers just got it, but failed to mention that they were in a different department on the other side of the building that he’s had no contact with.

So after a week of him asking us and lying and making himself anxious, I explained to him that I still wanted to see my brother and failed to see how he was going to tell him he couldn’t come. To me, my stepdads not taking the appropriate precautions because he still goes in to work when he doesn’t have to and wears a mask everywhere but his desk, yet has still been exposed now 3 times. More than that, he’s had each member of the family over separately, AND EVEN ONCE ALL TOGETHER. If he was really that worried he wouldn’t have done any of those things. I didn’t really have a say in any of the other visits, but he asked how I felt about this one and I was honest. We’ve already done it, and if he doesn’t want his kids there at thanksgiving bc he doesn’t trust them, then he shouldn’t punish my brother for that and he needs to work it out himself.

Well, apparently he felt like I was making fun of him and making him out to be over reacting (which I think he is but whatever) and that hurt his feelings. So my mom came down to my room to condescend to me and tell me. I don’t think I was rude, sarcastic, angry, or mean in anyway. I was just being honest about how I felt and why, and I relayed it respectfully (not it like a tone or anything). I told my mom I didn’t understand why he accused me of making fun of him, and, get this, this woman said to me “well those are his feelings. You hurt his feelings”. Like, ARE YOU KIDDING?

So basically this was just a novel length explanation to why I’m now boiling with rage. I really need to know if I’m right and she actually is being pretty fucked up, or maybe am I over reacting? I honestly can’t tell, all I know is I’m offended and upset with her for treating me like this.

Also, I don’t think I was mean to my step dad at all. Does it sound like I was? Do I need to apologize or something? My mom is so passive agessive and she’s the only one who raised me so I genuinely do not know or recognize anything below absurdly mean and horrendous behaviors.

If anyone can offer some insight/clarity to this situation from an outside perspective that would be fantastic. And any tips for surviving until I get a job and can move out (other than killing myself :) ) would be greatly appreciated.

Tldr; I hate my parents and want outie

[firebirdsdaughter]

Okay…

… I feel very bitter right now.

But I am going to be eternally frustrated by the fact that as far as I could tell, Aruto’s (and therefore Izu’s) definition of ‘heart’ was ‘happy making humans happy.’

Or… ‘Seeing that humans are ultimately good’?

Really, just… I define a heart as ‘feeling emotions.’ Feeling emotions is useless unless you know how to handle them, which Horobi didn’t, and no one seemed at all invested in teaching him how. Just made him feel worse and worse, pressured him about something that terrified him and pushed him over the edge, and then a human who really should have known better went and grabbed the fucking Ark Key??? Like. Horobi’s somehow completely at fault for Izu pestering him until he lashed out like any emotionally immature child or even animal would and then she doesn’t move out of the way even though she easily could have, but Aruto grabbing the psycho Key and going nutty is ‘totally understandable bc grief.’

For one thing, wtf would Horobi believe Izu’s nonsense, she’s programmed to love and obey Aruto, and she never develops anywhere past that. He knows she’d say anything to save her beloved master. She has no identity out of ‘exists to serve Aruto and occasionally be cutesy.’ Listen, Takahashi, you need to work on your female characters when you resurrect one w/ no memory and she’s exactly the same.

My lack of sympathy for Izu’s ‘death’ is bc it could easily have been prevented by multiple other people even if Horobi did literally nothing different, and bc literally nothing was lost. If any of the humans had actually used that compassion they sing to the skies about, you know, like, the fact that they have years of practice knowing how to feel and control emotions. I’m sorry but, ‘did you feel Izu’s pain?’ Well, first off, no, bc she didn’t seem pained at all, she just kinda stood there parroting Aruto’s bs, but… What about feeling Horobi’s pain? Or… Was Izu being ‘sad’ Horobi didn’t magically forgive humanity for everything they put him through and took from him more important than him having being mind raped, controlled, conditioned, and abused for twelve years? ‘I believe in your heart’ you mean you ‘believe’ he’s going to magically switch around and conform to your views that humans are ultimately good and anything bad they do can be excused bc they teach you about ‘hearts’? Meanwhile, none of her memories changed her at all. She gazes lovingly at Aruto, she participates in his jokes… There was pretty much nothing to her other than ‘loves Aruto.’ Her character fell into the trap of KR’s general attitude toward female characters that they exist to be pure angels who unfailingly believe in the hero and the series’ attitude toward AI, that the definition of ‘goodness’ for them is completely devotion to humans and unrealistic purity and benevolence.

The question should never have been ‘will AI have benevolence towards humans’ but ‘do humans deserve it?’ ‘what can we do to justify that?’ Why do HumaGear have to ‘prove their worth’ and ‘teach humans to be nice to them’ but humans don’t have to… Like… Know how to be decent? Aruto’s sympathies and dreams for HumaGear were exclusively rooted in how they benefitted humans. He expects the ‘hearts’ they develop to be completely ‘pure’ and ‘benevolent’ even if humanity has given them no reason to be so.

Horobi was the most aware of how horrible the Ark was. Everything he did, he did bc he was conditioned to believe it was right for HumaGear. Bc he saw the cruelty of humanity, and wanted to protect his people from it. He was conditioned/programmed to react w/ absolutes and extremes. He didn’t turn on the Ark bc he realised humans were actually ‘good’ he did it bc she turned on HumaGear, and he fought bc he loved HumaGear. His love for HumaGear, for Jin, was stronger than her control. That was it.

But he also knew that she was created by humans. Deliberately. It doesn’t matter that Gai had a personality one eighty bc the satellite printed him a dog and Aruto’s only for humans AI therapist talked to him for a hot minute. This shit doesn’t work like that, Gai should be at least facing jail time for his part in things. Yotacrappy’s response was to manipulated Jin into trying to kill him as a sacrifice, even after the Ark was out of the picture. Not a single person reacted w/ ‘maybe we should give this poor AI who has literally had his entire mind and life fucked over by humans and has no reason to like us a bit of kindness and support to help deal w/ the emotions he’s suddenly feeling.’ Izu’s speech was kinda close, but the tone was ultimately ‘she’s right and he’s wrong.’ The attitude shouldn’t be that ‘humans can sometimes be beneficial, so that makes the wrong they do okay.’ The fact that they tried to pretend that even the most twisted humans were ‘actually just misguided’ was ridiculous.

Horobi’s suffering was real and valid, and deserved recognition beyond ‘lol, but humans are actually nice, tho.’ He was scared and confused, but no one was trying to help him through that, they were just belittling the very valid reasons he had to be angry at humans. Rather than being like ‘I understand you’re angry and in pain and those are valid feelings, but there’s a better way to do this’ the response was either aggression or ‘no, you’re wrong, they teach us to want them to be happy and to dream or serving them well!’ (pretty much what Aruto’s definition of ‘good HumaGear’ seemed to be). And then even the people who should understand the most how her feels act like he’s spreading a ‘shocking’ and ‘bad’ thought by offering HumaGear a chance to stand up for themselves. I really hate how the protests were treated as Horobi spreading ‘malice’ to the HuamGear and all conveniently disappeared when Aruto ‘won.’

Again. The Frozen quote is eternally accurate for Aruto’s ‘dream.’ ‘It’ll be just like it was except for we’ll be best friends.’

Aruto’s dream was never equality or freedom for HumaGear. What he wanted was for them to go back to work for humans w/ smiles painted on their faces to make humans happy. HumaGear’s meaning in life shouldn’t be to ‘be useful to humans.’ I wasn’t expecting the ending to be ‘everything is okay now,’ but I was under the impression that there would be some kind of motion toward HumaGear getting some rights and protections or respect by virtue of being, like, living beings rather than needing to work and be ‘useful’ to justify their existence. Aruto is very face value, he thinks that the programmed personalities humans give HumaGear are their ‘true natures’ when they’re not, they’re just a starting point. They need to branch out. The fact that Izu’s entire life just revolved around benefiting Aruto made it hard to sympathise w/ her in place of the more interesting and dynamic characters. The fact that Aruto tries to claim HumaGear are his ‘employees’ when the definition of that word literally is ‘someone who works for a wage’ and people pay his company to get HumaGear to work for them and he delivers them to people in boxes… It’s just ridiculous. They shouldn’t have to just be ‘perfect pure forgiving little angels’ just bc humans made them and occasionally are nice to them? Izu’s data was just as biased as Horobi’s, they should have met in the middle rather than her being painted as ‘right’ and ‘good’ for only thinking of humans as good.

Yes, Horobi should have responded w/ violence, but literally no one even tried to put real effort into showing him other ways to react, or to help him through what happened to him. They either shouted at him, put him down, invalidated his suffering (admittedly bc she was just as out of balance maturity-wise as he was), or outright tried to kill him. Any child or animal will lash out when stressed or panicked. It is the responsibility of the people w/ more awareness to know what they’re dealing w/ and act accordingly. Izu knew he was armed, she saw the weapon pointed at her, she had plenty of time to move, and choose not to. That was not Horobi’s fault. It also wasn’t Horobi’s fault that humans decided to not give her a back up to benefit themselves. How was he even supposed to know that? Where was Aruto? Why was he running around outside trying to make the other HumaGear go back to his definition of ‘normal,’ while telling them there’s ‘no reason to fight anymore,’ which really should be their decision??? If he really cared and wanted to help Horobi and saw HumaGear as people, wouldn’t he have run in and tried to properly talk Horobi down? Then we have Yua’s hypocrisy of reacting aggressively to Horobi and them giving a speech to Yotacrappy for reacting the exact same way to the protests. And then Fuwa literally shooting down the one time Horobi genuinely tried to reach out… While kinda in character… Definitely did not help. Horobi was never in a place to parse out implications.

Basically, they pushed Horobi over the edge, then blamed him for being broken. Meanwhile, they have all sorts of ‘compassion’ and ‘understanding’ for Aruto and it’s ‘not his fault’ bc ‘grief.’ The attitude that Horobi’s suffering at the hands of the Ark was less important than Aruto’s trained AI letting herself get shot? The fact that Horobi, however horribly they influenced him to think he was completely at fault, was willing to ‘forgive’ humans for everything he suffered through bc of them… Is much more compassion than Aruto ever showed him.

Horobi had every right to be angry w/ humans and blame them for their part in what he went through. And humans never admitted responsibility for that, and never apologised to him.

But he’s supposed to need forgiveness from them?

[tacittherapist]

((HS2 Spoilers under the cut!))

((For all the shit I give the epilogues, it does have its moments. Specifically highlighting this bit of dialogue here: ROXY: you think you choice mattered so much that no one elses could measure up? ROXY: n then what ROXY: did u get what u wanted? ROXY: did your life end and the points got tallied and you came out on top or like what? ROXY: still p much seems like were movin to me ROXY: and you sure dont seem like ur winnin so wheres all this good shit you got that you gotta go around handin out apologies for? ROXY: also damn dude while were at it!! ROXY: u forgot to actually say sorry in that apology! JOHN: no, i didn’t — i just meant... JOHN: i’m sorry for fucking up your life, or making it not— ROXY: i like my life!!! ROXY: i mean it aint perf and i got my share of fuckups n mistakes in there but you dont get to tell me its fucked up ROXY: or that it isnt real or somethin ROXY: its mine!

First: criticism. The writers wield this little section like a crude cudgel. They use it to underscore the weight of ‘canon’. This is the ‘candy’ timeline, so it supposedly ‘weighs less’ than the ‘meat’ timeline, but its characters still have meaningful thoughts and emotions. Here, John supposedly makes a choice that supposedly invalidates a bunch of supposedly important events, and Roxy here blows it all out of the water by claiming she made these choices too and that part of the blame rests with her in the direction her life has taken... which is total dogshit used to justify a bunch of really overt swings in character thematic. Continued here: ROXY: you wished i was one way the whole time we were married ROXY: but i wasnt ROXY: but now that youre all convinced ur the only real boy in a crowd o puppets ROXY: here i am bein me just like you ordered only i did it without your help ROXY: widen ur zoom my man!! ROXY: im not actin like this now because you want me to or bc you dont want me to ROXY: i was bad at standin up for myself then and im learnin to be good at it now ROXY: ive got my own self actualization train ROXY: ur just pullin in to one of my many roxy figures some shit out stations right as i built it JOHN: but... JOHN: you were never like that before i... ROXY: dude ROXY: where tf do u get off trying to decide what is or isnt me being “like me” enuff ROXY: do u think ppl stay the same their whole damn lives or what JOHN: you’ve really never felt like anything about our lives here was... off? ROXY: off from what exactly?? JOHN: the way things should be? ROXY: what does that mean???

Roxy here argues that there is no ‘one right way to be’ as a half-baked wink to the audience that all this gross mischaracterization is intentional and that it diverges so grossly from the established character arcs in order to demonstrate that nothing is set in stone. While technically true, this also makes for some pretty terrible writing.

Roxy was a caring, almost too involved individual before the epilogues. Her ditching Calliope for John and this messy marriage business and just letting Jane warp into a full-blown dictator makes no sense, even couched within the idea that ‘characters change.’ Yes, characters change, but there’s generally a reason for it! And not a shitty deus ex machina reason such as ‘John makes a choice!’ What even fucking happened to Candy Calliope anyway? She just fucked off somewhere? How do you sincerely throw a character away like that and then have the gall to wink at the audience as if what you’ve done makes sense? Changes in character are generally brought on by catalysts in their life! Trauma, joy, death, new settings, new ideas, events! Not... John deciding to eat a plate full of candy. If we had insight into Roxy’s thought process behind ditching Calliope and marrying John and having a kid on a whim, this might be saved. But we don’t even get a glimpse. Instead we’re pawned this shitty excuse for a very glaring departure from what we knew about Roxy. Character development is just that -- development! As in to become more complex or advanced! Roxy has made wrong choices in the past, yes, but her reasoning was laid bare in such a way that those wrong choices made sense for her to make. She then makes different decisions later because she learned from her wrong decisions. This is development! Her character is learning and changing behavior because of the things they’ve been through! Her reasoning for this awful series of bad choices is just... not explained, despite going against a ton of shit Roxy has learned. It’s slipshod. It’s careless. It’s sacrificing the tree to showcase the topper. The audience isn’t vested in this Roxy because she’s seemingly robbed of her agency, and then they’re trying to foist this idea that she somehow still has agency on us as if they didn’t preface the entire timeline with ‘well, all this shit is going to happen because we decided it and no other reason!’

Now: the praise. This bit of dialogue has huge implications for ‘non-canon’ dynamic. No, not ‘non-canon’ in the cheeky way the epilogues and HS2 claim to be ‘non-canon.’ I mean ‘non-canon’ as in this blog that I run and all the blogs that you, the reader, are writing and reading as well. Roxy’s insistence that characters change can swing the other way, too. Characters can develop in bad ways as well! Not bad as in bad writing, but bad as in flawed character reasoning! Suppose what Roxy learned from her time in HS1 was that most things can be solved by unvoiding fix-all solutions into existence? Then we might be able to see her trying to fix the human-troll-population issue by just... making more planets! Or unvoiding some sort of device trolls could wear that inhibits hivemind tendencies! That would be interesting and perhaps morbid to write about!! It would at least track with her past experiences!!! Or better yet: perhaps she actually takes a side against Jane (as she has done in the past) but instead of using their friendship as the moral plating, she went right into sarcastic arguments FOR eugenics to demonstrate how bigoted Jane was being? That’s a very Roxy thing to do!! She could have made the argument that if trolls need eugenics to suppress their violent tendencies, then so should humans! Having read about the Condesce’s eugenic practices during her formative years, this should have been fairly obvious to Roxy that what Jane was suggesting was from the same playbook, at least.

But I digress. What this bit of dialogue really does is give credence to us, the audience, in exploring these stories we’re currently writing for these pre-established characters. YES, canon Rose likely didn’t dabble so thoroughly in game magics, and she likely didn’t have as much anxiety as my Rose. BUT I prefaced my Rose’s current state with a bunch of events that make sense! She missed her rendezvous with the others! She had to float adrift, alone in a broadcast satellite, for nigh on a decade! She’s had a long fucking time to develop all these anxieties and mental illness because that’s what happens when you’re isolated for years! It is a tool I use to express my own anxieties and explore how someone might somehow overcome them! And most importantly: she’s still Rose. She has unprocessed mother issues. She cherishes her friends. She’s more than a bit gay. And she knows when the meta is using her and when it’s not, because she’s had a traumatic experience being used by Doc Scratch as a plot device. And that trauma isn’t going away (well, unless she gets therapy, but given the setting we’re writing... not likely), so she’s going to be overly cautious when it comes to big decisions involving her friends. What she’s not going to do is suddenly abandon everyone she’s departed from because uhhh Jade ate some bread the wrong way or whatever.

tl;dr: What this section of the epilogues/HS2 (well, really just this bit with Harry Andersen, Tavros, and Vrissy that is somehow more interesting than virtually EVERY OTHER PART of HS2) is telling us, the audience, is that it is good to diverge from canon. Non-canon characters will still have very real feelings and face very real consequences for their actions. Just... don’t do it like they did it. All these characters we’re writing for and all these events we’re writing around them... they’re valid! They matter! Just because they’re not canon doesn’t mean others are willing and wanting to read them, and that makes them important! Unfortunately, this also means the epilogues/HS2 are important, but let’s ignore that for now. What I’m trying to say is: be indulgent! Write the things you want to write! As long as they’re well-reasoned, they’re good writing! Characters can be overpowered! They can be cliche! They can have teenage problems as an adult! Just... give them a good reason.))

[headspace-hotel]

my mom and I both read Hillbilly Elegy over the past few weeks and she has...thoughts

basically, this book is the extremely popular memoir of a guy whose grandparents grew up in eastern Kentucky and whose life was profoundly affected by the problems (e.g. drugs and dysfunction relationships) his family passed down to him. Now I’m not going to say someone’s actual lived experience is invalid, but then he tries to be like “this is what Appalachia, and the people of Appalachia, are like and why” without...really...being from Appalachia.

for perspective, this would be like *my* kid writing a book claiming to have like, insight or something into Appalachia. bc my mom Actually grew up there. She’s more qualified to write a memoir about it than this dude and if she did she wouldn’t generalize her experience to everyone.

so this book is really popular among liberals and I guess academia? my friend had to take a class on Appalachian history and her teacher used to reference it all the time. And it’s weird that liberal people are obsessed with it because this guy blames a lot of the regions problems on personal choice and “laziness,” which is a typical conservative explanation. The guy is a conservative, he explains this, he doesn’t think welfare programs help people. Et cetera.

Everybody who hasn’t actually grown up in Appalachia seems to like this book and people who have are very critical of it. And that should be a problem, since the *author* didn’t even grow up there, shouldn’t it? But it’s still a wildly successful book

My mom was talking about the domination of race in discussions about privilege. She told me, someone who didnt receive a good education growing up, whose parents were drug addicts, who struggled with malnutrition, isn’t going to be Privileged just based on being white. And I guess obviously we all rush to say well white privilege doesn’t mean that and you can have white privilege while having other problems, but do we actually believe that or do we bring it up in this specific conversation?

Because it’s just so suspect that this book, which blames people for their drug addiction and brings up anecdotal evidence that welfare fraud is widespread, is so well liked among people who normally wouldn’t believe things like that.

It’s almost as if people really do hate the poor, except that it’s not acceptable to hate poor people of color, and our ideas about racial privilege allow us to place the fault for their poverty on their oppression due to their race, but when it comes to poor white people, people bounce back to It Must Be Just Their Fault alarmingly fast. And their classism just comes roaring out because there’s an acceptable target for it.

I just feel like if these same people didn’t Have To feel sympathetic toward immigrants and poor POC to be accepted at the table of ideas and believe that their racial identities contribute to their lot in life, they’d hate them (the immigrants and people of color) just as much. Because deep down they see lack of education and nutrition and wealth as some symptom of something within a person, not within society, and if there isn’t a Reason for a person being poor, their minds revert back to the idea that some people just...are rotten.

Or something. I’m trying to explain it in my own head.

It’s totally contrived that making fun of poor health and education among Appalachians is acceptable and among anyone else it’s not. Seriously.

Race based oppression is definitely a cause of poverty but that doesn’t mean that anyone who is poor and not oppressed based on a group they belong to just deserves it. That’s classism. If we really pay attention to the ideas that we espouse, we’ll realize that under them poverty is never a moral failing even if you DO make “bad decisions,” it’s a symptom of the dysfunctionality of our way of life.

Prejudice against people who simply are poor and work with their hands is real. It’s why my mom totally lost her accent in college—it associated her with one of those people who do dirty and back breaking labor and who typically don’t go to college. Prejudice related to one’s speech is typically associated with immigrants and Black ppl wrt AAVE, but Appalachian dialects—which are distinct from “southern accents,” btw, and often need to be subtitled in documentaries for unaccustomed ears—receive some kind of prejudice too. They’re a relic of Scotch-Irish immigrant speech, iirc, and obviously associated with the poor working class. Both of those are probably reasons.

Usually people justify all this with “the south is racist/homophobic” or whatever and that’s still a part of the poisonous idea that poverty is deserved, is ever deserved. An entire region doesn’t deserve lack of access to adequate food, health care, and education because they’re stereotypically associated with being racist. That’s...so ridiculous I shouldn’t have to say it. Hell, maybe if they had access to educated and the ability to travel the racists could learn better.

[starswornoaths]

📔

I wrote these a bit lengthy, so I’m sticking a cut here bc spoilers for 4.5 but I was an indecisive bean and there’s an entry for Serella, Uthengentle, and just because I write him enough that I might as well, one for Aymeric as well! Thank you for the ask! \o/

(edit: OR IT JUST WON’T LET ME ADD A CUT WHAT THE ACTUAL SHIT TUMBLR I’M ON THE DESKTOP SITE SO FAIR WARNING SPOILERS FOR 4.5 AFTER THIS EDIT OKAY THANK YOU I’M SO SORRY WTFFFFFF)

Serella:

My name is Serella Arcbane. (her name is underlined)

Not so long ago I would have found it ridiculous that I needed to remind myself what my name is. Given that I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been referred to by my name instead of a title, however, I think I’m allowed. Now that I have another one, however temporary...it seemed a good time to remind myself.

Antecedent...the title carries with it too much pain. Too much loss. The remaining Scions approved of my accepting the title for lack of anyone else with any seniority willing or able to take it. I remind myself that it’s temporary, that the second even one of my companions wakes up, I get to just be the Warrior of Light again.

Just, I say. As if it were an inconsequential thing in itself.

At least then, when I was naught more than the Warrior of Light, I was able to still be Serella. I wasn’t made to isolate myself from everyone I know and love. It hurts, knowing that I had finally found family amongst so many people, so many I hold dear, who now can’t see me, either because they are unable to make the journey or because it would be improper of them to do so.

Ma came to visit me today. Her visit...I don’t know. When she called me by my name...I didn’t even respond to it at first. It was as if I had just...forgotten it. Perhaps I did. Perhaps I will again. She suggested I write it down. Said it’s how she remembers the little things about Da. I don’t know if it’ll help. I wish he was here, too. Of all the things I’ve forgotten, that I can’t remember what he looked like hurts me the most.

I’ve forgotten so many things I took for granted. So many little things about those I love. In writing, I hope I can remember at least a few- or at least, be reminded of them.

Raubahn has this deep belly laugh when I crack jokes with him- and really, he is the one constant patron of my puns, readily exchanging more with me for as long as we both have jokes to spare. Says it’s from years of being a father. I can’t remember how his laugh sounds.

Merlwyb would refuse to admit it- and if she ever catches wind of documentation of it, she’ll throw me to the Sahagin, of that I have no doubt- but I miss her singing. Low and rumbling as thunder, textured like velvet but fills the room like smoke. I’ve forgotten how the tune goes, which is ridiculous. I’ve heard her hum it a thousand times.

Aymeric...gods, for how he haunts my dreams you would think I would remember his smile. I should. I remember the things that made him smile. When I would bring sweets from that one chocolatier in town, or sweets from somewhere I had recently traveled. When I would move his bangs to kiss his forehead. Or sometimes...just when he looked at me. 

What shade of blue were his eyes? Were they a deeper shade like the night sky over the Steppe? Or was that the blue of his coat that I’m remembering? 

Why am I forgetting everything so quickly?! I have object permanence! It’s only been some moon and a sennight since I last saw everyone! I’m not some geriatric invalid rapidly losing who I am! I’m not some tempered thrall of a primal, adrift in want to serve my master and bereft of all concept of self! I am not-

(The following lines are writ with words made illegible with scribblings of ink and lines frustratedly crossed through them with enough force to nearly tear a hole in the paper. At the bottom, as if in triumph, there are only two more legible sentence:)

I am Serella Arcbane, and no one can take that from me. Not even a god.

Uthengentle:

Visited Ma over coffee this morning. I went fully intending to just say goodbye then and there. Made sense, I figured. We were leaving tomorrow.

I couldn’t say goodbye. I tried, Rhalgr knows I did. 

Had written a letter ahead of everything just in case. Only makes sense, given our line of work. Left that instead. Didn’t even have the stomach to say goodbye at the door. I left while she went to make another cup for me. I’ll have to apologize to her later. If we make it back.

...When. When we make it back. No sense in the doom and gloom; we’ve been through such shite before. Doubt this would be the end of it, either, but I can hope.

Ellie’s been having worse episodes with that voice, nearly passing out a time or two from what F’lhaminne told me. I hate I can’t be more help. I wish I could at least understand what she’s going through. All I get is headaches, sometimes a flash of an image, but it never bothers me. Krile suspects that has to do with Serella being more sensitive to aether and the Echo than I am. 

I just hope they stop once we leave. They should, right? If we’re going where we’re being called, they have no reason to keep callin’, I’d assume. Or their arseholes, and will do it anyway. Won’t matter. Let ‘em. We’ve got our family to save.

...Well. Some of ‘em. Still feels wrong to abandon everyone on the front lines. We should be there. The closer we get to leaving, the more ill I feel about it. From what Ellie said, she’s not faring much better in that regard. Said Aymeric told her to let them handle this fight, but he’s gotta know without us it could go either way. The man’s not stupid- none of ‘em are. Raubahn promised he’d defend the camp with his last breath...but I don’t want it to come to that.

Riol’s been scouting in Thancred’s place- from what he’s been able to gather, the Garleans are holding their cards to their chest. They have something big planned, and they’re just waiting for the right time to use it. Is that time when we’re out of the picture?

I hate that I don’t know, and I can’t find out before we leave.

I hate even more that we have to leave at all, but it’s clearly not something we have a choice in. Either we go to them, or we’re pulled to them. Better we still have our bodies and our senses and just bite the bullet. 

Warned Hilda to up the Watch with the Templars out of Ishgard. Not that she needs that warning; woman’s an unstoppable force already. It could be her and her alone standing at the gate if the Imperials march on Ishgard, and the safe money would still be on Hilda, far as I’m concerned.

I know my friends are capable without me around. I know they don’t need the Warriors of Light to keep them going. Doesn’t mean I don’t just want to be there to protect them- or failing that, die with them- and just fuck off to some far flung wherever.

We’ll be back before we know it. I’ll see to it myself if I have to.

Aymeric:

The battle continues into its fifth week, now. Though we have not lost an ilm to the Imperials, nor have they lost ground to us. Losses on both sides are mounting. We are hitting a breaking point, everyone can sense it. That there is a turning point fast approaching is not in question, but to which side the tide shall turn. 

O Halone shield your children from the encroaching dark, I beseech thee. 

The Warriors of Light make to leave in search of the Scions. The Alliance had to all but force them into leaving this battle to us, a turning point that came with the fear that (there is a name crossed out) the acting Antecedent had fallen to the same affliction that had claimed the rest. With her restored, however, they yet have hope to find those whose souls have been set adrift from this star. I only hope their path leads to victory, and then to home.

(the remainder of the entry is written in a different ink, presumably at a later point in time. The letters are splotched in places with drops of water.)

I nearly lost her. When Estinien laid her lifeless body in front of me, I feared the worst. We bore her to Ishgard with the full expectation that she would not wake. By the Fury, but when she did...

We are...no longer courting. I remind myself of this every time I am made to respond to one of her missives. That we are only separated by temporary obligation is beside the point: whatever relief I might have felt, whatever ache I carry in my chest will have to stay there, so long as she holds the title of Antecedent. 

Only for now. Another reminder to myself.

She yet shields me, even now, so far from the battlefield as she is made to be. Her promise still sits upon my hand. It shall do so unto death, and longer yet. I have already requested she not be allowed to take the ring from my finger. I have no need to be freed from it in Halone’s halls; regardless of her own heart, if I am the first to fall, then I will wait. I had long since decided thus, even before we were betrothed. 

I only wish I had not been so reserved with her for so long. I should have made more time for her. I swore to her I would never take her for granted and yet to dwell on our courtship, I always took her return as given. Now...now I only pray, and continue to fight that I might live to see her return.

(there are entire swaths of sentences scratched out, only some words such as, “promise,” “love,” and, “forgive,” are barely legible)

She must return. I know not what to do without her otherwise.

O Halone guide my beloved home in victory. 

[discyours]

(1/?) hello i need some advice. so, i'm really pissed at my mom right now and it has to do with me coming out as bi (i strongly prefer girls). for several months before i came out to her (about a week ago) she would always ask (at least once a week) "are you sure you're not gay or bi? i'll accept you even if you are sweetie." this had to do with me saying "boys are so annoying, boys are so obnoxious" all the time. then, when i finally did come out as bi and said i wanted to get married

(2/?) to a woman, now she's all like "are you sure you don't wanna get married to a guy? when i was younger i hated boys too but now i'm happily married to a man. boys grow out of their annoying phase you know." and just the other day she pulled me aside to talk and she said "so i talked to some of my gay coworkers and i think you're actually straight because they all said that they were always attracted to the same sex." i'm not even claiming to be gay first of all. but this got me thinking

(3/?) "what if i actually am straight?" her whole point was that one time, i told a boy that i liked him, and he laughed in my face. i keep on trying to tell her that i've thought boys were obnoxious since i was like 12 (i'm 15 now) but she thinks it's because he rejected me. that's always been a point of insecurity for me though. i realized i was bi only a couple months after he rejected me, and i can't help but feel that i'm just faking it and pretending to be bi because all of my friends were

(4/?) and now i'm feeling even worse bc my mom basically said "i know your sexuality better than you do and i think you're straight" but now she's fucking denying having said that even though she literally fucking said "you're straight." now i'm starting to think i'm not really bi and i just pretended to be bc my friends were bi/pan and bc i got rejected. i kinda hate myself more lmao. anyway, how do i convince her (and myself) that i'm really bi and not just faking it?

First of all, not everyone knows from a young age. I’m one of the people who did know at like, 6, and even then I repressed it and was unsure again by the time I was your age. There’s plenty of straight people who don’t get any crushes until they’re teenagers and there’s no reason that LGB people should be held to a different standard on whether their attraction is “real” or not. 

You don’t have to prove to her that you’re bi. You don’t even have to prove it to yourself. It is completely miserable trying to provide yourself with enough evidence and society is always going to tell you that you can’t be sure enough, so there’s no point. You don’t have to date anyone and you don’t have to try anything to know. Getting into same sex relationships is difficult and in the past it was even harder. Yet same sex couples have always existed. How do you think people with exceptionally small dating pools and all the societal conditioning to pressure them out of it have always gone through the trouble of finding each other and starting relationships, despite not having any prior experience with it? It’s because people can most definitely be sure about their sexuality even if they’ve never gotten “proof” of it (which doesn’t mean your doubts are “invalidating” or in any way uncommon). 

Just about every straight person has gotten rejected at some point yet the hets aren’t exactly dying out. And you know that this pressure you’re feeling to prove yourself is awful; is this really a better feeling than simply having your dating pool limited to the opposite sex when one member has already rejected you? Do you genuinely believe that it makes sense for rejection to push you into believing that you’d rather be bi, even if you actually aren’t, all while it’s causing you this much suffering? 

I hate to use a buzzword but you’re valid, anon. Everyone feels like they’re faking it at some point. I’m like 80% sure I love women more than anyone else on this planet and I still feel like I’m faking it sometimes. It’s okay to be bi and it’s also okay to need time to accept that. Don’t let it get to you. 

PS, reputable sources have informed me that boys do not grow out of their annoying phase and I hope you and your future wife will be very happy together. 

[justemotionalabusethings]

Tw: disbelief about abuse, accused of lying. How do you deal with people telling you that emotional abuse "isn't real"? I was in an abusive relationship for about 4 years (got out a year ago) and recently I've had a few people that I opened up to about my abuse tell me that emotional abuse isn't a real thing and that I was exaggerating about what I went through. Any advice?

this is an important question that i think lots of emotional abuse survivors have to face when we talk about our abuse. (under the cut because it’s gonna be long)

i don’t think i’ve ever had someone outright saying to me that “emotional abuse isn’t real/not actual abuse” but i have had friends say that “yelling isn’t that bad” or “why didn’t you just yell back” or something similar that implies that emotional abuse isn’t that bad. and i’m not gonna sit here and say that it doesnt hurt every time someone says it no matter how much i believe myself that emotional abuse is abuse.

but there have been two things that have helped me not get derailed when someone tells me that, no matter who it is. the first thing is believing myself that it was abuse, which took awhile. it’s not easy, and even after i mostly have learned to believe myself i still have doubts. so i’m not gonna sit here and tell you that it’ll be easy to do that or that once you can believe yourself that it will be easy. but in my experience when i spent my time waiting and hoping for someone to validate my abuse and tell me that it was in fact abuse, it only made me feel worse, especially because non abused people don’t see emotional abuse like they see other types of abuse. i’ve also learned that non-abused people are very hesitant to use the word “abuse” or “abusive” because of how narrowly they view the definition of it. my friends have only ever called my parents “shitty” or “toxic” or “controlling” before. but anyway, i feel like once i started talking about my abuse like i knew it was abuse already, even if i didn’t use the word “abuse” specifically (in fact i don’t think i have ever used that word when speaking about it out loud tbh), people didn’t question me as much or seem skeptical about it. but that might be because of a whole host of reasons that are just specific to me, like i switched therapists, got closer (and talked more about my past) with my friends who had said the “yelling isn’t that bad” comment before, etc. so long explanation short, learning to believe myself really helped me deal with the people who told me/tell me it’s not abuse. remember, just because someone else thinks it wasn’t abuse, doesn’t mean it isn’t. i had a licensed professional counselor tell me it wasn’t (literally she used the words “your parents are not abusive”), but she was still wrong. 

the second thing that helps me is to educate people on the topic of emotional abuse. this one has been helpful primarily with my friends when they say things like “yelling isn’t that bad” or whatever. and by “educate” i don’t mean like you have to sit there and be like “hey wait emotional abuse is x, y, and z! you’re wrong!”. you can just be like “hey but if a kid is young enough to not understand why something is wrong they shouldn’t be yelled at, and if a kid is old enough to understand why something is wrong then they shouldn’t be yelled at bc they already understand why it’s wrong, or you can just explain it to them”. you don’t have to openly make it about emotional abuse. also when i talked about how i felt when i was being yelled at i think that helped my friends to see how great an impact the yelling had on me, no matter what their opinion on “yelling” in general was.

once again i’m not claiming that either of these things is easy. it’s not as simple as saying “i believe me! uwu” and being done. like i said, it still hurts when people tell invalidate my experiences and i feel like i’ve mostly succeeded in believing myself. these are just some things that have helped me personally over the past year or so since i’ve realized i was abused. 

[jageunyeoujari]

hello yaejin. i wanted to apologize for last night. i'm sorry i brought your mental health into an argument, and i'm sorry i invalidated your feelings. that was out of line, and i honestly fucked up. i saw a pattern ive seen before and i jumped to conclusions and it was inappropriate and cruel, especially while we were having an argument. i was dealing with a mental health crisis of a friend and i let it influence me and i wasn't good enough to walk away and say i couldn't talk rationally.

 (sorry, limit). my own situation doesn’t make it okay what i said, and i don’t want to imply it, i just wanted to let you know the context. i’m sorry again.

apologizing for what exactly. sorry for what exactly. you “brought up my mental health” as if it was just a little no-big-deal comment when you used my vulnerability in talking abt my recent mental health struggles as proof that i’m going insane & thus everything i say is illogical when i was talking abt racism in white ace/aro discourse. the ableism was literally a vehicle for you to derail a conversation about race so by copping to just the one, you’re not actually acknowledging the underlying issue framing it. this is such a vapid, spineless, fake apology that doesn’t acknowledge the underlying intent or impact of what that ableism did which was to derail my points abt RACISM & my experience as a lesbian woc who’s also ace. you’re just copping to the obvious thing that even some of the ppl in your clique might feel vaguely bad abt & ignoring everything else.

& you say you just “invalidated my feelings?” LET’S GO IN-DEPTH. first, you were openly hostile for even daring to question you. you brought up corrective rape as a gotcha bc you knew that was an explosive thing to drop & you could derail any objections i have to your ranting as invalidating survivors. & when i asked for proof for your claims of ace/aro oppression & them facing corrective rape, you said you didn’t want to look at triggering material when YOU were the one who dropped corrective rape in the first place w absolute no warning & w no thought if it would trigger ME (which it fucking did btw, thx.) it was curious to me that you used corrective rape as a gotcha for ace/aro oppression when it was created to describe the violence that black lesbians face in south africa. esp in light of how you seem to have this pattern of insinuating how lesbians are somehow so accepted by the lgbt community when we’re so uniquely bigoted & we never try to keep out terfs but don’t seem to take into account how ace/aros can can also be transphobic/terfs as well as homophobic & lesbophobic. that’s not a matter of a few “shitty” ppl. lgb ppl are also allowed to be wary of any non-same sex attracted person being homophobic as they necessarily benefit for not being same sex-attracted esp when have been oppressed for displaying any kind of sexual desire & deemed better if we are asexual. & it seems like you have a pattern of only calling out lesbians instead of like also gay/bi men which i find curious. maybe you do tho & i just haven’t seen. but lesbophobia in the lgbt community esp against lesbians of color is real so it’s just odd that for you to keep saying that we have a completely comfortable position in it. also you positing lesbianism & ace/aro identity as exclusive categories does play into the stereotype that lesbians are hypersexual which is esp damaging to lesbians of color. 

anyway, when i researched on my own & found no convincing evidence to support your claims, you threw a tantrum bc NO MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES & FEELINGS OF BEING OPPRESSED = ULTIMATE TRUTH OF ACE/ARO OPPRESSION. your experiences are valid & all. you’re allowed to feel upset by them. but i fail to see being ace/aro constitutes institutional oppression.  in my search, i mainly saw claims of individual microaggressions and acts of verbal violence as evidence of oppression when those things by themselves don’t prove that there’s an explictly anti-ace/aro system of oppression. i can experience microaggressions for being asian & also not being into sex but those are entirely on different levels for me. i know instinctively that racism is an institutional oppression. i’m literally ace & microaggressions for that mean nothing to me in comparison. you feel differently abt it & you’re allowed but again, personal experience of microaggressions doesn’t prove institutional oppression. i also saw vague citings of a study of ppl apparently being more likely to say they’d discriminate against asexuals than lgbt ppl. the study seemed too flawed to me & doesn’t seem to take into account how ppl might know it’s bad to admit they’d discriminate against lgbt ppl but that doesn’t prove they’re not actually homophobic/transphobic. like liberal white ppl likely won’t admit that they’re racist bc they know that looks bad. doesn’t mean they’re not racist. as for corrective rape, i don’t remember finding anything that wasn’t abt violence against black lesbians & certainly not any that cites specifically anti-ace/aro motivations. i’m not saying it can never happen. but in comparison, it can be proven that cr is part of an explicit system of homophobia & misogyny against black lesbians in south africa but i didn’t see any for ace/aros. & i mean, i researched this while reading abt cr which is deeply upsetting to me as a lesbian so it’s not like this was easy for me. but i don’t rly think you have a leg to stand on in this instance bc you never provided any proof & didn’t say what your exacting reasoning on this is. it didn’t even have to be abt cr & i’m not saying you should disclose traumatic experiences, but just… say something to help me understand where you’re coming from. otherwise you look like you’re just expecting a woc to blindly accept & follow you.

& i have to bring up white ace/aro discourse elides how misogyny & patriarchy & racism & other -isms impact pressures to be sexual or asexual.  poc esp black ppl are stereotyped as either hypersexual or asexual. being seen as hypersexual is dehumanizing & can be traumatic & lead to real life serious consequences. i’m literally asexual but i empathize w non-asexual poc esp woc & the struggles they face & thus have no interest in white ace/aro rhetoric that posits being sexual as a universally normal, ideal, uncomplicated privilege & asexuals are oppressed by them. also being seen as asexual/actually being asexual can be so damaging & traumatic to poc which is why so many of us are alienated by white ace/aros who posit it as a universally positive thing to be proud of. white ace/aros also imply that they can somehow face oppression by like non-sexual poc which is concerning in light of the history of racist/colonialist ideas of backwards, hypersexual black & brown menaces & seductresses versus the purity & chastity of whiteness. controlling the sexuality of poc is a key part of white supremacy so there isn’t an obvious oppressor/oppressed dynamic here like men/women, white/poc. & considering how reproductive justice is constantly under fire & how there’s societal pressure for women to be effectively asexual until (hetero) marriage, it’s hard for me to think how non-asexual women not in hetero relationships actually… benefit from being non-asexual. there’s also different expectations abt being sexual for men, esp white men, than women & white ace/aro discourse tends to ignore that. sure, men are generally encouraged to be sexual & the shaming of asexual men likely sucks. but shaming doesn’t necessarily mean ace/aro oppression & seems more like to me a symptom of patriarchy/gender roles & heteronormativity.  so in my estimation, misogyny & patriarchy & racism as well as other systems of oppression like ableism, homophobia, transphobia, & classism better explain these differing expectations for being sexual or asexual rather than ace/aro vs non-ace/aros being an entirely separate dynamic. i literally couldn’t find any evidence for your claims & you got so upset at me for that but never tried giving me one piece of proof. yes, i know that oppressors demanding the oppressed to prove their oppression to them is a legitimate thing & the oppressed don’t need to feel obligated to educate them. i’ve experienced this frustration many times myself. but your behavior in this instance strikes me as white entitlement & again, a sign of you being frustrated that a woc isn’t blindly accepting you’re automatically right.

& when i started getting rly into the racism in white ace/aro discourse, you rly lost your shit. you dropped your abuse history & claimed i was invalidating you being abused for being ace when i literally never did. you straight up lied abt that. & also i know you know that i have experienced abuse & if you like bothered to think, you would take into account that i could be triggered by you dropping that out of nowhere, but instead you dropped it in an attempt to derail & get me to shut up. now this is when you suddenly rave abt how it’s obvious i’m on a bad mental health spiral & i’m believing in conspiracy theories & i’m paranoid, all a transparent attempt to make everything i said abt racism apparently wrong. w/o giving me a chance to reply, you promptly blocked like a coward. oh, also truly hilarious how you’re such a hypocrite for bringing up your friend’s mental health crisis as an excuse for your racialized misogyny when you literally used my mental illnesses to derail & attack me & dropped 2 instances of potentially triggering shit as gotchas & never took into account how this all could impact MY mental health. 

rose also sent me a long ass screed abt how i’m rigid & narrow-minded & crazy & paranoid & lied abt how i’m guilting her abt not being an activist which i explained multiple times i wasn’t. she blocked before i could respond. so not just you but your clique sure seem to love throwing tantrums abt how your feelings equal the ultimate truth & how dare some bitch try to think critically abt institutional oppression & process her thoughts on her private twitter & be, god forbid, socially conscious. who does that chink think she is, am i right? why isn’t she just a doormat & shut up? why is she making us UNCOMFORTABLE?!?!?!! like maybe ask yourselves why you take it so personally & you all don’t like it when i talk abt sj & activism. rly look inside yourself for why that is. 

& as soon as you’re all done with your ravings, which are full of lies & deliberate misinterpretations of what i said & massive projection & anti-intellectualism & manipulation & guilt-tripping, you all block so you don’t have to face the consequences or have to hear me out. that’s so fucking spineless & cowardly. & that’s so loaded since you all prevented me from saying anymore on racism. that’s just classic white fragility & a fear of outspoken, critical woc making you uncomfortable abt race. oh, also shout out to runa who acted “impartial” but did effectively the same thing as you. she acted concerned abt my mental health so she could convince me i’m crazy & get me to shut up abt institutional oppression & racism & instead focus on “fun things” (i.e. non-political, safe topics so she could feel comfortable). i feel esp disappointed in her bc that kind of wishy washy behavior is extremely irritating & patronizing & two-faced to me. i hated her acting like she was worried abt me when she was effectively doing the same thing as you, silencing me & making me feel crazy which means everything i say is wrong. 

really try to reflect why you all thought it was threatening when i tried to facilitate a productive dialogue, i did try to be level-headed & open-minded, emphasized that i just want to understand your pov, researched on my own for your claims, & processed my thoughts on institutional oppression & my experiences as a lesbian woc who’s also ace. i tried to open up a dialogue but you refused & threw a hissy fit bc i dared to not join your echo chamber & tried looking at actual data instead of just believing that you’re automatically right w no proof which is esp loaded in this situation bc you’re white. sjc also pulled this on me too so yes i am angry you also did the same. you all treated me in such bad fucking faith & pulled such fucking passive aggressive, manipulative, cowardly, idiotic bullshit.

god, you know what? your behavior in this indicated a huge sense of white entitlement & a problem w black & white thinking & accompanying self-righteousness. i try so hard to be nuanced & compassionate & flexible & see from your pov & i clearly stated i wanted a dialogue.. what did i get in return for it? not even the bare minimum. you treated me like fucking shit & never gave me even a tiny bit of effort or consideration. that’s racialized misogyny. how fucking dare you give me this fucking insipid half-assed fake apology. you didn’t even fucking try to think abt how you actually hurt me. all i’m getting here is you attempting to assuage a vague sense of guilt FOR YOUR OWN SAKE. not even attempting to think abt how i’m an actual real human being w my own emotions, thoughts, & will. how fucking selfish can you get. not the first fucking time white ppl wanted me just be a doormat, to be their submissive smiling oriental doll only there to validate their stupid, self-centered asses & not the first time their apology was abysmal. actually, you know what, i don’t even know why i even bothered writing all this fucking shit trying to explain myself & wasting my time on you again when you’ve never tried to do anything for me, not even make a fucking decent apology.

in conclusion, this was all v obviously steeped in racism & white entitlement/fragility all in an attempt to silence me bc how fucking dare some woc bring up social justice issues in a way that’s not catered to you. you’ve all shown your asses & clearly demonstrated ableism & racialized misogyny. i’m profoundly disappointed in all of you & you’ve all hurt me so much. i’m blocking you now bc you’ve proven yourself to be a lost cause.