#you are being intentionally misguided >:) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

osmanthus-wine-addiction · 21 days ago

Text

09 Edging

Zhongli x Reader / NSFW / Zhongli is a cold-hearted meanie in here, but you deserve it for being a flirty little brat / Possessive Zhongli / Filthy smut because the prompt demands it

Your beloved was such a polite and considerate man. Everyone who was familiar with him held that impression, including you. Mister Zhongli was always soft-spoken, always fair, always generous with his praises and compliments, giving credit where due.

So naturally, it would come as a surprise to be proven wrong. Although his tone would always remain gentle and patient, his actions would show you that this man was capable of being the cruelest bastard in all of Teyvat if he found a good reason to.

Alright, so maybe you had brought it on yourself. Maybe you deserved to be reminded that your beloved was the archon of Liyue at one point and authority was such a familiar thing to him. Nobody dared to cross him, intentionally that is. You, in all your misguided confidence, decided to not only ignore his request to keep your distance from a particularly charismatic guest at the gathering, but proceeded to flirt with them right in front of his face. Now, Zhongli was never outwardly a jealous man. You'd have to dig deep, peel back quite a few layers to get there. Tonight, with just a few careless words and a bit of wine, you had managed to awaken that slumbering dragon in him.

"Please… please, I need…" You choked on your words, begging like you had never begged in your life.

"I was under the impression that you could do without me, dear. How come you are going back on your words?" The cruel gentleman asked as if he hadn't just denied you an orgasm for the fourth time.

You grit your teeth, panting and heaving like you had just fought and lost a battle with an impossible opponent. Frustration was a form of arousal, you found out after he pulled out the first time. Each time he put a stop to your impending climax, the next one came with an even more vicious urgency. Your heart would beat so frantically, it felt like it would explode as your back arched off the bed.

"I was wrong!" You wailed, crying and sobbing as if you were truly ridden with remorse. "Please… let me have it… I'll be good! I promise! Z-Zhongli!"

"Dear. Look at you. If you had heeded my words, I would not have to resort to disciplining you in this manner."

"Please…" You whimpered as he continued to exert punishment on your swollen, overstimulated hole.

"Poor thing." He cooed, reaching out to tidy your disheveled hair a bit. "Do you want it so badly?

Zhongli leaned over you, close enough for the tassel dangling from his ear to tickle your face. You nodded desperately, eyes glassy from crying so much.

You were so tired, so frustrated. His constant edging drove you delirious with need. Your voice was hoarse from all the begging and whining. Your body shook as he drove into your wet and waiting hole, pumping in and out with brutal strokes. There was no more need for gentleness and patience. You want him to fuck you deep and hard until your mind becomes incoherent mush. Then perhaps you could momentarily forget how mean he was being to you.

"Please… please… Just let me come…"

A steady stream of pleas spill from your lips, mingling with his shallow breaths and grunts. You throw your head back, words replaced by whimpers. He brings you so incredibly close, you could almost taste the sweet release.

Just when you're about to tip over, the feeling vanishes. Your slicked walls clench helplessly, but he's already pulled out. Tears roll down your cheeks as you sob uncontrollably. Your mind was still a complete mess, unable to comprehend that another orgasm has been snatched from you. All you can do is lay there underneath the cruel bastard, crying like the tortured little thing you are.

Zhongli's conscience finally returns. He kisses you softly on the forehead and whispers apologies into your ear as you catch your breath. Very slowly, he reenters you. Your poor hole had been abused all night, puffy and raw despite being drenched in your slick.

"Are you alright, my dear?" He asks you.

"No." You replied, voice coming out halfway between a whine and a sob. "Are you going to let me come this time?"

He chuckles, placing another kiss on your tearstained cheeks. "It seems you've learned your lesson. I have no reason to further punish you."

You wrap your arms around his neck as he fucks you slow and deep, lips finding yours as he works up a gradual pace. Your breathing gets short and your lips part to let out a high pitched moan. Zhongli groans as he feels you clenching needily around his cock. This time, he intends to bring you all the way to the finish.

"Heartless." You huffed in between moans.

"I could say the same about you as well, my dear. You can be quite insensitive when you have one too many glasses."

Zhongli pins your thighs against your body as his cock impales you over and over. Whimpers spill from your lips as he drives into you at a maddening pace.

You tremble as the familiar sensations begin to wash over you. Pleasure clouds your mind like a thick fog. Everything stills for a split second. All the pent-up frustration and tension culminates into a single, tight coil that comes undone all at once. Convulsions rake your body as your walls cave around him.

Warm cum floods your insides, seeping out and soaking the sheets beneath you. Zhongli pulls out with a groan, cock drenched in cum and slick. Thick ribbons of milky white spilled from your hole, some of it still connected to his cock in glistening threads.

Turned out you weren't the only one tortured tonight from the amount of cum still leaking from his tip. How he managed to last this long, you didn't need to know. All you needed to know was that you should definitely watch your alcohol intake from now on, unless you wanted to purposely invite the wrath of a very jealous, very possessive god.

#zhongli x reader #zhongli smut #zhongli fanfic #zhongli x you #mdni #minors do not interact #minors dni #kinktober 2024

118 notes · View notes

redeyeliner · 11 days ago

Text

watching mouthwashing in chronological order really shows you how fucked everyone in the tulpar is just from the mere presence of jimmy

7 days before the crash you can tell how much this man just craves control. if being co-captain of the ship isn’t enough, it’s really evident he wants to be in curly’s position with how critical he is about everything going on in the ship, even towards curly, who sees him as an equal and would go foot and nail to excuse his shitty behavior simply because he’s his friend.

hell he’d go as far as to intentionally crash the ship because people like him thrive in the only environment where they know they have control!!

i think being co-captain really gave jimmy a sort of purpose in life (even if he lowkey hates it) because it’s better than the life he had on earth

so jimmy never wanting to leave the tulpar (and successfully doing so) was him selfishly wanting to keep everything as it is because to him, it’s the only way he can remotely control the decisions he makes in the ship which he ultimately does not take responsibility for

(and also this man is just delusional as fuck bc it makes me think how funny it is that he thought killing himself and saving curly was the ultimate act of heroism when in actuality he never took responsibility for anything and just took the easy way out lol)

(also him hearing curly say “I can fix this” once and then taking that to heart during events after the crash just proves how much this guy idolizes curly to the point of jealousy and sabotaging the lives of everyone else to fuel his very misguided delusions LOL)

#mouthwashing #mouthwashing jimmy #mouthwashing curly

54 notes · View notes

suffersinfandom · 1 year ago

Text

Alright, I’m gonna talk about Ed and abuse.

“Why? Why are you spending your precious time on Earth typing about some dumb fandom stuff when you could be doing literally anything else?”

In short, seeing the “Ed is an abuser who’s inevitably going to hurt Stede” takes has been driving me absolutely bonkers since I first noticed them. They’re not going away, so I have to essay about it.

In less-short: it’s because abuse is a serious thing and, as someone who’s experienced it, I get riled when it becomes a topic of discourse in my silly pirate fandom. It’s because it’s upsetting to read meta after meta accusing an indigenous man of being an abuser when the text doesn't support that reading. It’s because a lot of the abuse discourse in the fandom fails to separate real-life abuse from violence in a show. It’s because the vast majority of the abuse talk only acknowledges physical abuse which, while terrible, is not the only kind that hurts people and utterly destroys their lives.

It’s because calling Ed abusive or insisting that he’s a future abuser can harm people who are like him -- people who have suffered abuse or get angry sometimes or have hurt people when they were hurt. Victims of abuse, especially those who dealt with it in childhood, often fear becoming abusers themselves. They bottle up their anger for fear of hurting someone. They hurt themselves in a misguided attempt to protect others. They don’t need to see meta that enforces their fears.

Before I get into it…

I may as well come clean and say that I’m on team Ed absolutely isn’t abusive.

Plenty has been typed in Ed’s defense by POC in the fandom, so I’m not going to go into how deeply unfortunate it would be to make an indigenous main character an abuser. I’m just going to say that, when you consider OFMD’s genre and attitude towards violence, it seems clear to me that you can’t call Ed abusive without calling out other characters unless you have some kind of bias against Ed. His actions are deplorable in the real world, a bit much in OFMD’s world, deeply unhealthy, not okay by any means, and shitty and traumatizing for his crew, but they aren’t abusive.

Remember: Our Flag Means Death is a comedy with tons of over-the-top violence. If your theory is unrelentingly grim or looks at violence and its consequences in a real-world light, consider stepping back and remembering what genre the events of the show are happening in.

And if you think that only the violence committed by the indigenous lead is abuse, look at the actions of the other characters and ask yourself why Ed doesn’t get the same grace you’ve granted the others.

What is abuse in the real world?

Abuse “includes [a pattern of] behaviors that physically harm, intimidate, manipulate, or control a partner or otherwise force them to behave in ways they don’t want to. This can happen through physical violence, threats, emotional abuse, or financial control.” (1)

“Emotional abuse includes non-physical behaviors that are meant to control, isolate, or frighten someone. These behaviors are often more subtle and hard to identify but are just as serious as other types of abuse.” (2)

It’s important to emphasize that not all purposeful harm to another person, physical or otherwise, is abuse. “What abuse really means is control. When a truly abusive situation exists, it’s because one party is seeking to control the other through abuse.” (2)

Abuse is a pattern of behavior that involves one person intentionally harming another. That harm is meant to control, and it can take on more forms than just physical.

In our world, all abuse is terrible. Vitally, our world is not a pirate rom-com.

Adding context: what is abuse in Our Flag Means Death?

Our Flag Means Death is a romantic comedy with one core romantic couple, Ed and Stede, whose story takes priority over everything else. It can be dark, it can be serious, but it is, at its core, a comedy, and not a subtle one at that. (3) Sometimes things are just funny and that’s it.

The show’s meanings aren’t hidden under layers of red herrings and subtext; if you’re compelled to bring out the conspiracy corkboard, you’re probably in too deep.

But this isn’t just a rom-com: it’s a pirate rom-com, and that comes with gratuitous violence. Here’s a short, fun list of examples of things that we can consider canon-typical pirate violence:

Tying hostages to the mast and letting them cook a bit

Wanton murder during a raid (“Note the gusto!”)

Threatening a crush at gunpoint until they stab you

Whippies and yardies

Cutting off toes and feeding them to people “for a laugh”

Literally any violence directed at a racist (this violence is, in fact, good and encouraged)

There’s also the pirate-typical killing of other pirates. Duels don’t seem entirely unusual, and Izzy outright tries to get Stede killed at several points in season one. When Chauncey Badminton and the English navy show up after being summoned by Izzy, Stede’s life isn’t the only one on the line: the rest of the crew is also put in potentially life-threatening danger.

In short, Our Flag Means Death has a lot of violence and peril, and very few instances of violence (looking at you, Hornigold) are treated as anything other than socially acceptable. But do you know what’s really important in the show?

Feelings.

The way characters feel as a result of something is given an immense amount of weight. The show’s subtleties are in the realms of the mental and the emotional, and that’s where the real pain is too.

Nigel Badminton’s death was bad because it was emotionally and mentally devastating for Stede. Ed’s father’s murder was bad because it hurt him and forced him to create a monstrous alter ego to cope. Both of those men -- Nigel and Father Teach -- are totally acceptable casualties. Their deaths would be net positives (in this universe where abusers are punished for their behavior) if they hadn’t had such strong impacts on our leads.

Feelings are everything in Our Flag Means Death, and the feelings of our leads are the heart of the show. That’s where the story is. That’s where the complexity and ambiguity is.

So what is abuse in this context? The casual treatment of physical violence and the seriousness of emotional distress tell us to adjust our own moral judgments accordingly. Physical violence is everyday, straightforward, and often comedic; emotional violence is devastating and complicated. Physical violence is cartoonish and, often, part of a punchline. Emotional violence is real and raw and not a joking matter. Planning to murder a guy and steal his identity can be shrugged off; ditching your boyfriend after experiencing a traumatic event is more complicated.

When we ask ourselves if something in OFMD is abuse, we have to consider the act in the context of a rom-com that’s all about the feelings of two guys, set against the violent backdrop of piracy, and absolutely packed with people getting maimed and murdered in casual, comedic ways.

So...

Is Ed abusive in the context of the show?

No.

Aaaand we’re done!

Joking, joking. Obviously I’m going to pick out the examples of “abuse” that people cite and discuss each one, but first: we need to talk about Ed, violence, and anger.

Ed is not a violent person. He’s not full of rage that’s threatening to erupt at all times, and he’s not some kind of sadist who revels in hurting people. The violence of Blackbeard is a fuckery: it's the theater of fear, an illusion of cruelty calculated to terrify others into surrendering and obeying without (much) bloodshed.

Ed has his whole thing with murder that's rooted in childhood trauma. Killing his abusive father to protect his mother scars him so badly that he distances himself from the situation -- he blames Father Teach’s death on the Kraken, an invented monster. As a pirate, he creates loopholes and rules that technically put one step between him and killing (in his mind). He orders murders and causes deaths and maims and maintains his image as the bloodthirsty Blackbeard, but Ed doesn’t do “the big job” himself until the end of season two. When Stede’s life is in the balance, Ed can kill to protect him.

Edward Teach kills only to protect.

But that’s killing, and we’re talking about general violence. It's true that Ed is casual about the day-to-day violence of piracy. He participates in it, incites it, and doesn’t feel bad about it. No one does; violence is part of the job.

That leaves us with the "anger problem." Ed is sometimes characterized as an angry person who lashes out when enraged, and canon doesn't at all support this interpretation. Ed gets mad, yes, but his anger is always at least understandable (and, in my opinion, he's one of our more restrained characters). It isn’t a constant, simmering thing that turns him into an abusive monster when he’s triggered. He doesn't always deal with his anger -- or any of his other feelings -- in a good and constructive way because both of our leads lack emotional maturity, but I think it's a grave mistake to characterize him as an angry person.

Hopefully I can elaborate on this idea -- the idea that Ed is only violent and angry in a normal and canon-appropriate way, and anger is by no means one of his defining characteristics -- by doing a run-down of all of the times Ed is accused of being abusive or showing signs of being an abuser-in-the-making.

---

Ed loses his shit on a falling snake during his nature adventure with Stede (S1E7). In this scene, he’s embarrassed about the treasure hunt, oblivious to Stede's intentions, and annoyed by the very existence of nature. He is not relaxed. When nature takes him by surprise, he stabs the crap out of it in a scene that is played for comedy. There’s the important part: this is comedy. Ed is grumpy and his childish tantrum is harmless and silly. It isn’t a red flag. Overreacting while irritated isn’t an indicator that someone will be abusive.

Ed punches Izzy after the English have taken the Revenge, captured Stede, and turned Ed over to Izzy (S1E9). Honestly, I think the fact that Ed lets Izzy talk before punching him demonstrates a great deal of restraint on his part. This is justified anger and fear for Stede’s life. This is not an indicator that Ed makes a habit of hitting Izzy.

In his post-pillow fort era, Ed is cleaning up his cabin when Izzy confronts him (S1E10). Izzy insults Ed, tells him that he’d be better off dead than as he currently is, and says that he serves only Blackbeard (Ed better watch his fucking step). Ed reacts by grabbing Izzy by the throat and telling him to choose his next words carefully. This is, in my opinion, a reasonable reaction and exactly the response Izzy was fishing for. The only pattern this scene indicates is one where Izzy goads Ed until he starts performing the violence expected of Blackbeard.

Which takes us to The Toe Scene.

In real life, it would be extremely fucked up for a boss to remove an employee’s toe and make him eat it. OFMD is not real life. One episode earlier, Ed was talking about the life he was glad to leave behind -- the life where The Toe Thing was done “for a laugh.” Not as punishment, but for fun. It’s set up as something that’s gross (“yuck”), not a grave punishment. When Ed feeds Izzy his toe, he gives Izzy what be asked for: he gives him a violent captain. He gives him Blackbeard. He gives him the guy who fed people toes for fun.

But what’s important here is that Ed is not having fun. He’s having a lot less fun than Izzy is, going by their expressions in the scene. This isn’t who he wants to be, but after having the possibility of a better life snatched away, Ed throws himself back into the sure thing. He becomes the Kraken -- the captain Izzy wants, the violent monster that Ed thinks he is and tries to distance himself from, and the only thing Ed thinks he can be. It’s sad. It’s desperation, not anger and abuse.

In the second season, Ed headbutts Stede after he’s revived from his coma-death (S2E4). In the next scene, Stede is holding a cold steak to his face and calling it an accident. Roach says “that’s what they all say” -- a line that alludes to domestic violence. The thing is? It’s not, and the crew has expectations of Ed that Stede doesn’t (as indicated by Stede's earlier assertion that Ed's a nice guy in response to Olu's concern that Ed will kill him).

Ed is freshly out of a coma (or newly alive). He’s nonverbal. His brain is, medically speaking, couscous. He still has one foot in the gravy basket. When he sees the man who left him hovering over him -- the man he loves, the man who just appeared to him as a mermaid -- he tries to say something. When that fails, he resorts to a headbutt. This is a single violent action perpetrated by a confused and hurt man who doesn’t know what to do with all of his feelings. He can't talk. He can't push Stede away.

Stede understands all of this, even if the other characters don’t. He sees the headbutt for what it is: a bit of a bitchy move. He isn’t afraid of Ed. He never is.

Stede also isn’t afraid of Ed when he acts out later that episode. When Ed learns that Stede went back to Mary, he excuses himself from the dinner table, smashes a chair against the wall, and knocks a vase to the ground. In this entire episode (this entire season), Ed is having intense feelings that he doesn’t know how to express or work through. The reveal that Stede returned to his wife is the final straw. He takes his tangled feelings out on an acceptable target (a chair, a vase) instead of Stede because he doesn’t want to hurt Stede.

This looks like displacement -- when “an unacceptable feeling or thought about a person, place or thing is redirected towards a safer target.” Displacement is an “intermediate level coping mechanism.” That is, it’s more sophisticated than the ways children deal with intense issues, but it’s still not entirely mature. In an adult, it indicates a level of emotional immaturity. (4) Ed is emotionally immature, not inherently violent. He gets overwhelmed by his feelings and lashes out -- not at a person, but at something that can’t get hurt.

Displacement is not an indicator that someone is an abuser. It’s a coping mechanism. It’s an attempt at emotional regulation. It’s not the best coping mechanism, but it’s not a sign that someone is going to go into a rage and assault people.

Stede cringes when Ed smashes the chair and sends the vase crashing to the ground, but he’s not afraid of Ed. He is never afraid of Ed because he knows that Ed isn’t a real threat to him. He cringes because sometimes that's what a person does when a loud thing happens. That's what people do when chair shrapnel starts flying. Also? It's kind of embarrassing behavior on Ed's part. They're guests enjoying a mediocre dinner! That's no way to act!

And this leaves us with the first two episodes of season two.

Ed is fully in his Kraken era. He has no hope that Stede will return, he no longer trusts the crew, and he feels trapped in a life he absolutely doesn’t want. He thinks that he has to perform Blackbeard until death sets him free. He sobs in his cabin when no one’s looking. Publicly, Ed fades into the role of remorseless and bloodthirsty pirate captain.

Needless to say, this makes for a shit work environment. Ed works the crew (and himself) too hard. He drinks and does drugs (note that his drug of choice is rhino horn -- visually coded as cocaine -- instead of alcohol, the drug associated with his father) and runs everyone ragged. He’s an absolutely terrible boss, but he isn’t abusive.

That isn’t to say that the crew left on the Revenge isn’t traumatized. They are! They’ve been thrown off balance by the sudden change for the worse in someone who was previously a pretty cool guy, and they’re traumatized by the neverending violence that the constant raids -- raids that are bloody and deadly, not the fuckeries of the past -- demand of them. They’re traumatized by that final night in the storm when Ed does everything in his power to goad them into killing him, almost murdering everyone in the process. They’re traumatized by their own attempt at murder and their own capacities for violence.

In S2E4, Blackbeard’s crew has flashbacks to the violence they perpetrated under the Kraken: Jim fighting Archie, Fang breaking a man over his knee. They’re haunted by guilt about what they did to Ed, as evidenced by their Lady Macbeth-style scrubbing. Their own violence is a significant part of their trauma.

No, that doesn’t absolve Ed. He drove the violence -- demanded it of both the crew and himself. He hurt other people because he was hurting, and that’s terrible.

Ed’s behavior in the first two episodes of season two is horrible, especially when his desperation reaches a fever pitch, but there's no attempt to control and no habitual mistreatment. Nothing he's doing is normal for him. He's spiraling and unraveling and pulling the world apart around him. Not all bad or violent behavior is abuse.

(We also have to ask ourselves just how bad Ed’s behavior really is. Archie, someone from the pirate world who has no idea what the Revenge was like pre-Kraken, tells Jim “that’s how these things usually go” at the height of Ed’s violence. She doesn’t act like she experienced anything out of the ordinary.)

But what about Izzy?

What about Izzy indeed. Let’s walk through the first two episodes.

One of the first things we see Ed do in season two is shoot a man. At first this seems like the show telling us that Ed is embracing the kind of violence he couldn’t manage before, but if we pay attention, we can see that he’s still following his “not a murderer on a technicality” logic. The man he shoots has a sword through his chest; he's as good as dead. He also falls offscreen before Ed shoots, making the action less impactful.

OFMD is not subtle and this is a quick way to communicate what’s going on with Ed. He’s not doing well and he’s more violent than he was last season, but he’s still himself under the Kraken’s makeup. He hasn’t done a moral one-eighty. If the show wanted us to think that Ed's a monster, they would have made him a hell of a lot more violent.

So. Izzy.

Immediately after Ed tells Izzy that he’s replaceable in S2E1, we reach the scene that some point to as proof of domestic violence. This is where Izzy breaks down because he has just been told in no uncertain terms that he’s not Blackbeard’s special little guy. That’s devastating to him, and he cries when the crew approaches him with kindness and sympathy.

Jim tells Izzy he’s in an unhealthy relationship with Blackbeard. Frenchie describes their relationship as “toxic.”

A toxic relationship is “any relationship [between people who] don’t support each other, where there’s conflict and one seeks to undermine the other, where there’s competition, where there’s disrespect and a lack of cohesiveness." (5) And you know what? Yes, Ed and Izzy definitely have a toxic relationship. And is their relationship unhealthy? It sure is -- for both of them. But the crew is, understandably, more sympathetic towards Izzy because they’ve never been present when Izzy was hurting Ed.

(Only tangentially related, but the crew must have really liked Ed pre-Kraken. As far as they know, the man went dark with no warning or cause. They deal with him for approximately three months (assuming one raid a day), and he has to go so far before they put an end to him. Remember when they were ready to toss Izzy overboard after, like, twelve hours under his command?)

Even though they only have one side of the Izzy and Ed story, the crew isn’t accusing Ed of domestic abuse. The term doesn’t apply to the mutually fucked-up thing that Izzy and Ed have and, beyond that, the scene is played for laughs. Jim and Frenchie use comically modern language. The whole thing feels like an intervention for a stressed-out middle manager with a shitty boss. It's funny. It's a comical thing in a comedy show.

Izzy returns to Ed and tells him that the crew won’t throw treasure overboard to make room for more treasure. Ed says, “And that’s another toe.” Losing a toe is the penalty for failing the kind of captain that Izzy said he will serve. It’s obviously not okay to punish an underling by taking toes, but we’ve already established that toe-removal isn’t a cruel and unusual pirate punishment.

(Specifically, toe-chopping is the cost of Izzy’s failure. Frenchie disobeys and lies to Ed in his short time as first mate and he doesn’t lose a single toe. Izzy bears the brunt of Ed’s cruelty because he’s the one who demanded it.)

This is not who Ed wants to be, but it’s who he thinks he has to be. It’s who Izzy told him to be.

Next, Izzy makes the mistake of invoking Stede and Ed storms above deck. He holds the crew at gunpoint, one by one, and asks them if they think that the vibes on the ship are poisonous. No one gives him a positive answer and Ed turns the gun on himself. He works himself up until Izzy interrupts and the following exchange happens:

IZZY: “The atmosphere on this ship is fucked. Everyone knows why.” ED: “Well, I don’t. Enlighten me.” IZZY: “Your feelings for Stede fucking Bo--”

[Ed shoots Izzy in the leg. Ed steps over him on his way back to his cabin.]

ED: “Throw this shit overboard and get suited up.”

The fucked up vibe is not because of Ed's feelings for Stede. Ed's feelings for Stede resulted in Ed having a nineties-rom-com-style breakdown and proposing a talent show. The Kraken and the ensuing fucked atmosphere were ushered in by Izzy.

Izzy is only shot after he proposes talking it through (something he attacked Ed for in S1E10) and publicly places all of the blame on Ed's feelings (feelings that he previously threatened Ed about -- Izzy owes his loyalty to Blackbeard, not a "namby pamby in a silk gown pining for his boyfriend" who would be better off dead). Whatever Izzy's intentions are, it's not irrational for Ed to interpret this as a further threat or an attempt to stir up a mutiny.

What’s important for this post is this: Ed's actions are not unusually cruel for a pirate captain who considers his first mate out of line. Shooting someone in the leg is the kind of thing that the idea of Blackbeard that Izzy worships does to maintain his reputation.

Fang cries when Ed shoots Izzy because he knows Blackbeard. He has been with Blackbeard longer than anyone else, and this isn’t Blackbeard. Blackbeard doesn’t work his crew this hard. Blackbeard doesn’t disregard the deaths of long-time crewmates like Ivan. Blackbeard doesn’t shoot his own crew. Fang is off-balance and distraught because his captain of twenty years is acting far, far more cruel than the one he knew.

This is not Ed as he usually is. Ed at his worst is breaking all of his past patterns. He’s behaving like a different person. His actions at this point in time are not typical of his past actions or predicative of his future actions.

When we reach S2E2, Ed is chipper. He’s cleaning up, he’s tying up loose ends, and he has decided that, no matter what, this is the day that he dies. He’s determined. First, he’ll give Izzy a go at killing him; next is the storm, the destruction of the steering wheel, and taking increasingly desperate actions to get the crew to stop him. He tells Jim and Archie to fight to the death. He goes to blow the mast away with a cannon and doesn’t react as nameless crew members are being washed overboard.

Ed is stopped only by Izzy’s reappearance and the violent mutiny that follows.

None of what Ed does here is abuse. This is desperate violence. This is an unwell man begging everyone around him to send him to doggy heaven.

And finally, we have the big murder party in the season finale. A surprising number of fans interpret Ed’s willingness to cut down naval officers as a sure sign that he’s gotten worse and he’s more violent than ever. This is, in my opinion, a take that completely ignores everything we know about Ed and his relationship to violence.

It bears repeating: Edward Teach kills only to protect. He murders his father to protect his mother. He kills as Blackbeard to protect himself (and no matter how he tries to distance himself from that violence, he still causes deaths). He mows down colonists for Stede. He kills for safety and for love, and by the end of season two, he has made some kind of peace with the Kraken and his own capacity for violence.

It’s sweet. It wouldn’t be sweet in the real world, but in this world? In a world where physical violence is funny more often than it’s serious? In a world full of pirate characters who all have hefty body counts? It’s growth. It’s Ed healing.

Ed is doing better. He’s not a threat to the man he loves, and now he’s not a threat to himself either.

Anyway.

No, Ed is not abusive. No, there’s no indication that Ed will become abusive in the future.

Dislike characters. Take issue with things. Feel whatever you want to feel, but remember that abuse survivors are not a monolith. Consider, just for a moment, that the abuse you think you see in the show is not textual. Ask yourself if Ed is truly worse than all of the other characters or if you have some bias warping your view of him.

Finally: please keep in mind that I’m not trying to present The One True Interpretation. I’m just rolling all of my arguments and thoughts into a ball and throwing it out into the wild. You don’t have to agree with me but, if you don’t, I hope you’ll at least consider what I'm saying.

Peace and love and goodbye.

#ofmd #ofmd meta #edward teach #long meta #like too fucking long #abuse #tw abuse #cw abuse #me typing things #fandom critical #kinda?

269 notes · View notes

valyrfia · 3 months ago

Note

am I incredibly cynical if I say that him and McLaren PR have noticeably doubled down on Lando’s struggles with mental health since his general misguided cockiness has radicalised a majority of the F1 community against him or

No you are not because i feel the same. They really use his struggle with mental health just whenbthey need it

I think that mental health is a difficult topic to approach with the nuance needed because it is such an emotional one and I can already see "user valyrfia on tumblr used LANDO'S STRUGGLES against him!", but nonetheless I think McLaren have folded it into their PR strategy and it leaves a really bitter taste in my mouth. Bad mental health can explain you being an asshole but it doesn't excuse you being an asshole.

In general I'm not a fan of how the internet and stan culture handles mental health in that 'protect your peace' and 'put up boundaries' only work if you're being kind and intentional in it, instead internet mental health seems to adopt a 'no blame' culture where it's somehow okay if you're a cunt because you have anxiety. This seems to be Lando's current PR angle and as someone who's struggled with mental health it makes me rage. It removes the intentionality and agency of those struggling with mental health, certain situations make me anxious and therefore more snappish but if I snap at someone I damn well apologise.

Also, it chills me McLaren are always only desperate to push this angle when their driver or the team is in hot water, despite the fact I have it on pretty decent authority that the team culture is crap. Let's not get it twisted no F1 team is a good employer, but McLaren make it very sinister by pretending they're all about mental health–they did the exact same when Daniel Ricciardo was more open about the ED and loss of mentality he experienced in that team. I think if they truly cared about Lando's actions and mental health they would force him to work with a professional, but what do I know.

#asks #anon #anti mclaren

45 notes · View notes

masochist-marmot · 2 days ago

Text

Just finished watching MHA season 7

I am not okay. I am in shambles. A shallow husk of a human being. I have exhausted all my emotions and have nothing left to give. I'm sitting right there in the middle of charred earth and ash with tears frozen on my face. I might need a hero to sacrifice themselves to stitch my destroyed heart back together.

The level of character writing in this series is amazing. I stand by my (probably controversial) take that there are some issues with pacing and setup/payoff, though I haven't read the manga so I can't tell how much of that is an issue with the adaptation. But what the show does excel at is portraying a large cast of characters with deep and diverse motivations, and it somehow manages to build on them in a deliberate, believable manner. (Let me piss off another fandom real quick: JJK could never.)

I was spoiled on the Dabi reveal before I started watching the show. In fact, that spoiler got me interested in watching it in the first place. I picked up on the tiny hints that were sprinkled in from very early on and was interested to see how they pull the reveal off. I was a little disappointed with how one-note Dabi was for the entire time up until that point, and the reveal itself was far less effective without the intended shock value. I almost wrote it off as missed potential. However, the seeds that were sown were not in Dabi himself, but the Todoroki family dynamic. Once we get to the flashbacks and eventually the grand emotional showdown, we have already gone through a character arc with Shouto, Endeavor and the rest of the family, and we have seen how All For One grooms vulnerable youth to his cause. In the present, Dabi is only fueled by hatred and revenge. In the past, we see a sad little boy who is raised to believe that his value comes from the strength of his quirk, and who is then told he can't use it (thus stripping him of his value). He's practically abandoned as a failed project, and Endeavor's misguided attempts at discouraging him by distancing himself instead of showing him he's got value beyond his strength and usefulness drives poor Touya even further along his doomed path. And this is incredibly fertile soil for All For One's grooming. It's heartbreaking. The reason Dabi is so one-note is that there's nothing else left in him. He's too far gone to be saved. We can bring the entire Todoroki family together to finally see his cries for help and acknowledgment, but it's simply too late. Sometimes it's just not possible to bring the "black sheep" of the family back from the edge of self-destruction. God, it's too real, and devastating, and narratively satisfying.

And then we have our misguided pansexual queen Himiko Toga. I was pretty neutral on Toga for most of the series, because the yandere archetype never really appeals to me. Turns out there's a lot more to her than that. For her entire childhood, she was ostracised and derided for being different and gross. I see an interesting mix of autism-coding/queercoding in how her innate ways to approach love and affection are seen as wrong and abnormal, and how she fails to conform to social norms because nobody's explaining them to her. I do like how neither allegory is one-to-one, and how it's internally consistent with how the world and Toga as a character work. Her childhood environment stunts her emotional development and leaves her with a black-and-white thinking, where you are either good or evil, cute or gross, completely accepted or completely rejected... a hero or a villain (boy, the society desperately needs reconstruction). It leaves her desperate for deep connections, and the deepest connection she can get is from becoming the target of her affection with her quirk. It's a selfish kind of affection that literally weakens the other party. At the same time, she's sabotaging her relationships by intentionally showing her ugly side and looking for signs of rejection to enforce her expectation of not being accepted for who she is. As someone who's struggled with (and, through therapy, learned to manage) traits of borderline personality disorder, I can relate to her chaotic approach to interpersonal relationships and powerful but volatile emotions. When both Deku and Uraraka very reasonably condemn her actions as a villain, she takes that as a total and complete rejection of her as a person. This is an especially heavy blow to her after the loss of Twice has brought her entire worldview into question. Then, when Uraraka reflects on this more and tries to reach out to her again, she's in full defence mode. She can't risk being rejected again, so she lashes out to keep Uraraka at an arm's length. Yet despite all the maliciousness, despite being stabbed, Uraraka fights to get through to Toga and show her that she sees the beauty in her and is willing to accept her in spite of her flaws. And then, after being properly seen and accepted by someone she loves, she's able to commit a purely selfless act of affection by giving away her own blood to keep Uraraka alive. Blood is her love language, and for once she's able to give instead of taking. It's hauntingly beautiful, and it's heartbreaking, and it closes her character arc wonderfully. (Mind you, I think their relationship would have been toxic and codependent, but I don't care. I'll be a Togachako truther from this moment until the day I die.)

This season alone had a lot of effective (and also some less effective) character moments that I won't touch on because this post is already too long and rambling. I especially have a lot more thoughts about best boi Kacchan, but I'll leave that for another day.

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #mha #bnha #mha spoilers #complex characters #character analysis #the hellish todoroki family #toya todoroki #mha dabi #himiko toga #togachako #emotional damage #sympathy for villains

24 notes · View notes

sepublic · 8 months ago

Text

I find it a missed opportunity that Cole didn't play a role in Seabound with helping Nya unlock her Spinjitzu Burst; If you ignore The Island, which is basically part of the larger Seabound arc anyhow, Master of the Mountain comes right before and is all about Cole learning the Spinjitzu Burst. Given its requirements are to be surrounded by one's element, it's general fanon consensus that this was what Nya did when she unlocked the power of the sea.

Not only does this connect back to a previous season and make the show feel more intertwined, it also gives Cole something to do, builds off of his previous characterization, but also creates the opportunity for emotional conflict. He might be reluctant to teach Nya the Spinjitzu Burst upon hearing what happened to Nyad, or she may intentionally keep this a secret from him. When Nya does perform her big sacrifice, we could have Crystalized begin with Cole feeling guilt because he taught Nya the Spinjitzu Burst; Without it, she wouldn't have merged with the sea.

You could call back to Master of the Mountain again by having Cole ultimately make peace with what he did, by remembering his promise to Lilly, and recognizing that she would've done the same in Nya's place; He would've done the same in her place. In the end, all three chose to stand up to those who were cruel and unjust, to protect those who could not protect themselves.

...That also gets me to another point; The beginning of Crystalized is so similar to the beginning of Tournament of Elements; Both arcs follow the emotional aftermath of the ninja splitting up after a member of their team performs a great sacrifice to defeat the villain and save the day, and eventually have to get together when they're given hope that their dead teammate isn't so dead after all.

I really wish Crystalized hearkened back to that period where the ninja mourned Zane, because it would've been both a sensible callback, and a way to differentiate this arc from that one, by building off of the one which came before. Maybe the ninja ARE still sticking together, with Zane being different in that he's never had to mourn a teammate before; He was the sacrificial teammate the first time. That could lead to him turning off his emotions.

But while on the surface, the ninja seem to be handling it better than with Zane, since they learned their lesson, they may still express their grief in other ways. Such as with Kai becoming more ruthless, which canon already teased at; Maybe this could tie into Lloyd's Oni arc. Like with Zane's sacrifice beforehand, Lloyd urges the team to stick together and this time they do. But like Kai, his frustration with himself for not being good enough, thus necessitating Nya's sacrifice, could lead to Lloyd being more ruthless as a ninja, which could transition into his struggle with the Oni half of him, Harumi's return, the revelation that the Overlord is his grandfather's misguided attempt to purge his Oni half, etc.

That last bit especially, which was left out of the final product, seems to be building up to a lesson about Lloyd not repeating the FSM's mistakes by accepting his Oni half, and he already knew Mystake, Garmadon was finding good in himself, plus the implications of an Oni getting together with a Dragon to create his bloodline... But nothing comes of that. Imagine if Lloyd didn't succumb to his Oni form, but instead accepted it, and by extension accepted the Overlord, absorbing him into his body and making peace with the darkness the way his grandfather didn't.

That could be more interesting than Oni Lloyd actually being evil after all, which is basically the same moral takeaway as canon, just explored differently. It also hearkens back to Star Wars, which Tommy Andreasen takes big inspiration from when writing Ninjago, and the climax of Hunted, if Lloyd chooses not to fight the Overlord, and wins because of it; Rather than fighting Fire with Fire.

#Ninjago #Ninjago Seabound #Ninjago Master of the Mountain #Cole Brookstone #Nya #Spinjitzu Burst #Ninjago Crystalized #Lloyd Garmadon

82 notes · View notes

sepia-mahogany · 1 year ago

Text

Please stop intentionally mistagging content.

“Canon Jiang Cheng” tag is for discussion of things he did in the novel, explicitly, that means if you want to talk about how brave he was for saving Wei Wuxian from the guards or about how terrible it was that he made things worse for WWX and WRs. Positive or negative interpretations from the novel source are welcome here. The main “Jiang Cheng” tag is for everything, headcanons, fanart, cql donghua every other adaptation canon than just the novel, gif sets, video edits, fanon content, canon content whatever you wish to do.

It is honestly disappointing that after requests from other Jiang Cheng fans (and also to avoid the mess that was people getting hate over posting the direct novel quotes) we made a separate tag so everyone could curate their content and consume what they wished, only for some people to intentionally mistag content (fanships for example, or cql gifs) as a misguided attempt to “reclaim the tag”.

What exactly are you accomplishing by intentionally mistagging content? All you’re doing is making curating content harder, so please stop intentionally mistagging content when you can just block the tag you wish to not interact with but making it so people don’t have a safe fandom space is beyond being rude.

#canon jiang cheng #jiang cheng #because this post is for both sides #intentional mistagging is not a cool thing to do

202 notes · View notes

dutchdread · 10 months ago

Text

"things won’t go well between Tifa and Cloud, even without Sephiroth", the most misrepresented quote in the LTD.

If you've spend any time looking into the LTD you'll probably have heard the claim that Nojima said that Cloud and Tifa were incompatible and that their problems have nothing to do with Sephiroth. This belief comes from a misunderstanding of the following quote.

“‘Episode Tifa’ … first off, there’s the premise that things won’t go well between Tifa and Cloud, and that even without Geostigma or Sephiroth this might be the same. I don’t really intend to go on about my views on love or marriage or family (laughs). After ACC, I guess Denzel and Marlene could help them work it out. Maybe things would have gone well with Aerith, but I think there is a great burden from Aerith."

~ Nojima

The meaning they're trying to take from the quote is that when Nojima says "without Sephiroth or Geostigma", that this refers to a scenario where Sephiroth had never existed. The implication being that the issues Tifa and Cloud are going through are internal, not external, and potentially even inherent to their natures. But what the actual "internal" problems they're facing are is never brought up, which is weird since this is rather important. What they want you to think is that the internal problems are either somehow inherent to them as a couple, aka, they're just not a good fit. Or else that the internal problem is "Cloud is in love with Aerith".

But the problem is that they don't provide evidence of any of this, and worse yet, we KNOW what the actual issues are. This quote isn't a mystery, we KNOW exactly what Nojima is referring to. This quote isn't a refutation to the Cloti telling of the story, like all pieces of evidence it supports Cloti perfectly but is simply unintentionally misunderstood or intentionally misrepresented. Before we go into the problems themselves though it's important to take a minute to notice something. Namely that inherent in the argument that "things aren't working out for Tifa and Cloud", is the idea that their relationship is one where 'working things out' is applicable as a concept. Much like getting a divorce is proof of marriage, using the fact that Cloud and Tifas relationship is going through a rough patch as evidence that they're not in a romantic relationship is....misguided. The next part of the quote makes this even more concrete: "I don’t really intend to go on about my views on love or marriage or family". So whenever people bring up Tifa and Clouds relationship troubles as evidence against Tifa and Cloud, please thank them for conceding that they're in a relationship.

So based on that, lets clearly lay out what is being asserted here in its most general form. The claim essentially has two parts. 1: "Cloud and Tifa are in a relationship, but it is troubled"

2: "The reason for these troubles is related to Aerith being the real love interest of the story"

Note that if they can't prove point 2, then this quote hard cements Cloti. The argument stands or falls on Clotis inability to address point 2.

So let's address it.

First lets address the "without Sephiroth or Geostigma" part. The interpretation that this is meant to be read as "if sephiroth was never born" is patently absurd. This is an interview about a very specific point in time in Cloud and Tifas life, which specifically points at a thing that happens in THAT point in time, namely Geostigma. He doesn't say something generic like "if Cloud and Tifa had never ran into hardships in their life they'd still be incompatible", no, he points at two specific things, Sephiroth and Geostigma. Geostigma we know is only a problem during the time of advent children, it's not a disease going back right through to Clouds childhood. Sephiroth is but he's also very specifically attacking Cloud DURING advent children, he returns DURING advent children. Clearly this quote is addressing the current events of Sephiroth and geostigma, aka, the movie, not the more generic impact that Sephiroth has had on Cloud and Tifas life since childhood. If that was meant to be the case he'd have said "sephiroth, jenova, and Shinra" or something else more chronically substantial. And what are the troubles they're going through? Well, luckily we don't have to guess, since that's been reiterated again and again and again and again. It's mentioned in games, it's mentioned in books, and it's mentioned in interviews.

"As long as Cloud blames himself for Aerith’s death, he won’t be able to move on with his life. One of the first ideas we had for Advent Children was to have Cloud overcome and resolve that immense feeling of guilt. For Cloud, no one other than Aerith can solve that problem for him." ~ pg. 58 of Reunion files.

Failing to protect people important to him is his sin… Convincing himself of this, Cloud shuts himself off. What does his meeting with Aerith bring him? ~ Cloud Strife profile 10th AU

Two years after returning to the planet, Aerith still lives on in the hearts of her friends who saved the planet. And in particular to Cloud, as a symbol of his failure to having being unable protect those dear to him, ~ Aerith Gainsborough 10th AU profile.

Cloud feels an incredible sense of guilt for not being able to save her, but sometimes he can still hear her voice in a soft whisper. ~ (Reunion Files, Aerith’s profile)

Zack&Aerith For Cloud, they were people whom he can never forget. The two irreplaceable people, Zack, “who was sent to death because of him”, and Aerith, “who met a tragic fate as he couldn’t protect her” became “the unforgivable sin” in his heart. ~ ACC POST CARD BOOK.

“I’m going to live. I think that’s the only way I can be forgiven. All sorts of things… happened.” ~ Cloud in case of Tifa

"Cloud is scared that the peace he has now might shatter, so he is living on his own." ~ Nomura

Deep down, Cloud knew that he shouldn’t be so hard on himself, but at the same time he couldn’t let go of those feelings of guilt for what happened to Aerith and Zack, or the thought that he could never forgive himself for it. But then his companions made him feel better by telling him to let go. - Takahiro Sakurai (Cloud’s voice actor) pg. 15 reunion files.

"She knew that Cloud was in great pain because he couldn’t protect Aerith. Cloud was trying to overcome that and live on" ~ Case of Tifa.

The happier he is now, The more Cloud is tormented by painful “memories” of the past. ~ Cloud’s 10th AU profile.

The more he realizes how happy he is living with Tifa and the children, the more the fear of losing that and regrets toward the past trouble Cloud… ~ Cloud’s 10th AU profile

"when Cloud contracts Geostigma he disappears. Behind these actions lies feelings of guilt towards his past failure to protect people who were important to him, but through his battle with Kadaj’s gang, the legacy of Jenova, he regains the courage to face reality." ~ FF7 10th Anniversary Ultimania Cloud Strife Profile

"Cloud continued to regret the deaths of his best friend and comrade, who were dear to him, in FFVII. In AC, he says “I want to be forgiven.” ~ Dissidia Cloud’s profile

"Cloud’s heart continued to be tormented by a deep sense of regret and blame towards himself." ~ Cloud’s Dengeki profile

Aerith still lives on in the hearts of her friends who saved the planet. And in particular to Cloud, as a symbol of his failure to having being unable protect those dear to him, she was a major factor in causing him to close himself off." ~ Aerith’s 10th anniversary profile.

“I want to be forgiven. Mm. More than anything.”-Cloud “By who?” ~ Aerith

“Isn’t it time you did the forgiving?” ~ Aerith to Cloud.

“But… I let you die…” ~ Cloud to Aerith

“I never blamed you. Not once, you came for me, that’s all that matter.” ~ Aerith to Cloud

“Are sins ever forgiven…?” ~ Cloud to Vincent

“I’m not fit to help anyone. Not my family. Not my friends. Nobody.” ~ Cloud to Tifa in ACC

You're too weak to save anyone, not even yourself ~ Sephiroth to Cloud in remake

"You've failed again I see" ~ Sephiroth to Cloud in remake

"It's just like, when I failed you" ~ Cloud in remake

Man, they sure love to go on and on about Cloud feeling guilty and wanting to be forgiven, about failing and feeling like he's not strong enough, that he can't protect anyone and that he'll fail again in the future....it's ALMOST as if Cloud has other things on his mind that don't have anything to do with his compatibility with Tifa and/or Aerith, it's ALMOST as if these things are central to his character arc. You could even say that these are troubles that have been with him for all his life and have been exasperated by the death of Zack and Aerith and his resulting fake persona. One could even say, that perhaps, just perhaps, CLOUD WOULD STILL HAVE STUFF TO DEAL WITH EVEN IF GEOSTIGMA AND SEPHIROTH HADN'T SHOWN UP IN ADVENT CHILDREN AND THIS IS NOT A GOD DAMN TEENAGE LOVE DRAMA! For the love of all that is holy, if you've ever used this quote to discredit Tifa and Cloud, STOP. Stop making this sorry excuse of a "point", stop linking this quote and thinking it supports Clerith, it doesn't, this is insanity, you are demented. So based on everything I've said, here Is Nojimas quote again, paraphrased by me to steelman its meaning. "Cloud is going through an internal arc, his problems are not just finding a cure for his disease and stopping the remnants and Sephiroth, his real fight is internal, he has to forgive himself".

The quote has nothing to do with Nojima trying to disprove Cloti, and only the most fanatically misguided shippers would ever think otherwise. Shippers are often accused of making everything about romance and when it comes to Cleriths they are right. The idea that Nojima here is just looking at FFVII as a romance story, rather than him addressing the specific events that happen in ACC and OTWAS is childish to the extreme. Cleriths thinking that this quote does them favors only serves as more proof that they simply don't know what they're talking about, this is a childs interpretation of storytelling and anyone agreeing with it should feel a deep sense of shame concerning their own lack of comprehensive reading skills.

#cloti #ffvii #ffvii remake #cloud strife #tifa lockhart #rant #shipping #aerith gainsborough #adventchildren #ffvii advent children #advent children #ff7

69 notes · View notes

athenawasamerf · 1 month ago

Note

Is it Islamophobic to question why Muslim women in Western countries advocate so hard to wear burqas and niqabs? Or to generally critique gender and religion and using Islam as an (unfairly) intense example? Especially from non-Muslim women?

Religion is important to people and sure women should wear what they want, but I’m not sure if others deserve such harsh criticism in asking why or saying that it’s not a good thing but a fetishized modest ownership tradition. It’s not fair to the women who want to practice their faith wearing it, but a good part of liberal western society acts like calling out traditional conservative behaviors from a majority probably ‘non-white’ religion is bad.

Obviously women pulling off their veils or hijabs should be their choice, and that simple acts like that shouldn’t be simplified as ‘liberation’ (a very western narrative), but is it also wrong to see it that way? Religious women are deeply entrenched in conservative narrative which I can understand; it just makes me sad.

I wish you well, sorry to bother you and if you prefer not to answer that is valid!

I don’t really believe in the concept of Islamophobia to start with. Being wary or critical of any religion isn’t a bigoted stance, and all religions need to be criticised for human rights and women’s rights issues. That doesn’t mean that Muslims aren’t oppressed in regions where they’re the minority, but I believe that has a lot more to do with racism than religious persecution.

Is Islamophobia a useful term to discuss Arab/brown-specific experiences in the west? Maybe, but I find it a lot more harmful than helpful most of the time. It seems to be mainly used to stifle discussions and criticism, and foster a narrative of persecution to create an ‘us vs them’ mentality which is subsequently used to control Muslims and prevent them from seeking community with the ‘other’, and to scare them into remaining within their existing community and faith. It’s a lot like the Jehovah’s Witnesses tactic of sending their young out with intentionally annoying guides to ‘recruit’ people, knowing they’ll be met with hostility that only reinforces their safety and belief within the religious community.

That said, critical analysis of why women hold on to, and even advocate for, religious or cultural practices that contribute to their subjugation - even when they live in countries where they can theoretically be free of these expectations - is not only not Islamophobic/racist, but necessary. I could go into that topic in depth on a separate post if anyone is interested in hearing my thoughts.

Critiquing religion, as I mentioned, is a cornerstone of feminist analysis and can not be ignored to preserve people’s feelings. However, most people who are the racial or religious majority in their communities will hold conscious and unconscious biases towards racial and religious minorities, and don’t usually bother to learn about the religion or culture they’re critiquing. These critiques tend to be based on stereotypes and fear mongering, and usually stem from a place of xenophobia rather than any true concern for women. The best way to remedy this is to take the time and effort to learn about the religion and culture in detail, and listen to women, feminist or not, from said culture or religion to properly understand their experiences and issues before you start making criticisms. Try to run your thoughts by someone from that culture or religion who shares your political ideology (in this case, Muslim or ex-Muslim radfems, especially from SWANA) to sound out any misguided ideas or unconscious biases. It’s a lot of work, so if you’re not up for it, maybe it’s best to stick to criticism of your own culture and/or religion.

When it coms to hijab/niqab/burqa/other modesty garments, you need to tread carefully with real women (as opposed to impersonal ideological critique). Modesty culture is deeply ingrained and many religious people are brainwashed into fear and abject horror at the mere notion of critical thought about their beliefs. Try not to get into heated arguments with religious women unless you’re trained in de-programming and cult tactics. On the other hand, if you’re talking to a liberal who supports dehumanising and oppressive religious/cultural practices on the basis of cultural relativism, you need to stress the dignity of women above any culture or religion. That said, gently questioning the beliefs behind something is never a bad move if you can keep the discussion civil; best case scenario you plant a seed of doubt that can lead to more critical examination, worst case scenario nothing happens and you move on with your days.

As for calling something as simple as shedding modesty items being called ‘liberation’, while I don’t think it’s offensive or a western concept (in fact, considering liberation a western concept is very… paternalistic? I can’t find the right word but it definitely rubs me the wrong way), it is a reductive way of looking at this. The shedding of modesty garments should be a protected human right regardless of faith or location, such that gaining the ability to do so is a tiny drop in the ocean of rights that need to be gained in order to achieve liberation. If we deem the simple right to dress as we please to be liberation, we lose sight of the much bigger battles ahead, and we give conservatives and religious extremists an opening to claim that liberal and feminist movements only strive to achieve sexual freedom and degeneracy for the benefit of men. We already see this happening in SWANA, where MRAs and religious extremists have taken up slogans like ‘they don’t want your freedom, but the freedom to get to you’ (aka the freedom to have sex with you).

Thank you for the thoughtful ask <3

#ask #radfem #radical feminism #radical feminist #feminism #radfeminist #islam critical #anti-islam #religion critical

14 notes · View notes

pillowspace · 1 year ago

Note

Pspsps tell me about your OCS 👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️

OKAY, SO SO SO, UHHH. Where is it. I'm about to go on the biggest ramble, you have no idea

THIS IS LUCA. There's also Carmen, who is Luca's older sibling / caregiver. Carmen is bigender, any pronouns. I don't have an official design yet, but Carmen has straighter, choppier hair and is years older.

In Luca's first life, he was just miserable. At a young age, he regarded his older brother Carmen (these were not their names at the time) as someone he greatly admired. Carmen wasn't the best brother, turned irritable after the grief of losing parents Luca never even had the chance to meet, but they still had their moments of fun and play. That was short-lived though, as Carmen quickly moved out, leaving Luca behind with only a glance. So at this point, Luca has already understood that he is not somebody worth saying goodbye to. Throughout this all, Carmen had been the closest Luca had to a friend.

After their grandparents who Luca had been living with passed, he was sent to live with his older brother at the age of thirteen. Carmen was cold and distant, always avoiding Luca, but always protecting him in all the wrong ways due to a sense of obligation. Luca was constantly sheltered away from other people while still not getting any actual attention within that shelter. It resulted in the brothers arguing, which resulted in an unhealthy realization: Luca would be looked at and talked to if he was causing trouble. So he began constantly acting out, and Carmen, who couldn't even realize why Luca was doing it, got more frustrated because of it.

Eventually Carmen got a wife. Luca, still only a teenager, would insult the wife to Carmen in private. But Luca actually adored her, so the insults were more just about Carmen's tastes, meanwhile she taught Luca archery. Those were the only times Luca could even remotely be himself.

It all just resulted in a downward spiral of Luca's mind, until he heard of a romantic legend from a neighbour he snuck out with one night. It was said that whoever performed it could remain with a lover through every lifetime, forever meant to be theirs. Forever to belong, with the memory of every life to cherish. Luca found it dumb, saying that immortality sounded more like a curse than anything. How could one bare the horrors and loss of every single life for all of eternity?

But it stuck with him. Until finally, at the age of seventeen, he reached a breaking point. He was convinced Carmen hated him, and Luca wanted nothing more than to be seen by his brother. So he took that ritual and twisted it into something terrible. It sounded like a curse, and so he would make it one. Luca attacked his brother, and performed it on both of them. It differed, in that Luca would intentionally fracture his own soul during it, so that Carmen would be the only one to remember, while Luca would never have to. For every life, Luca would find Carmen. Luca saw this in itself as a punishment, firm in the belief that he himself only served to make his brother miserable. For himself though, it was simultaneously a punishment on himself and a means to stay with his brother forever in his confused desperation. And for every life, they would die at the exact same age they died in their first.

For the first life after that, Carmen was scared of Luca. For the first few lives, she was avoidant and tried to flee. But it was true, that Luca was to always end up with Carmen. Luca was often only just a confused child who actually knew how to smile and laugh though, so he was always unsure why Carmen looked at him so strangely. It was as if these new lives of Luca were an entirely different person.

This progressed across lives until Carmen began to understand her brother. Avoidance turned to guilt, and guilt turned to horror for how misguided she had been in being both Luca's brother and caregiver. She had thought it enough to give him a home. She had thought it enough to shield him (though the joy she saw in Luca when he played with the other kids now filled her with doubt). And it was in the face of Luca so unfamiliarly happy that clicked in place how miserable he had actually been. Somehow, Luca's fighting had become no more than background noise. It had all just been background noise to Carmen, and he hated that he had allowed that to happen. What Luca did to him will always haunt Carmen, as he experiences loss after loss through every life. But that could co-exist with him still wanting to make up for his own wrongs.

So through every life, Carmen gives his brother the happiest life he can while trying to restore Luca's soul, so the curse can be broken on both of them. And after every death, Carmen sees the fractured soul of Luca's first life within the dark waiting room void between lives, and silently sits by it quietly muttering apology after apology, for he has grown to love Luca more than anything over their shared lives.

This is all a backstory though. There is a main story, and it's about a group of people who are all immortal through different means trying to find a way to lose their immortality. A reversal on people trying to find the secret to it. There are more OCs. Luca and Carmen (the actual names of this life, and Luca now has the design shown above ^) join in. Carmen does not tell Luca why they're there, but Luca has been... starting to wonder.

This is their second to last life before Luca's soul is finally restored. Before their story ends, in the black void once more, Luca (with all of his memories) makes one final request that he tearfully grants his brother the ability to refuse: one more life. Just one more life where they can both be happy, and neither have to remember the curse at all, living a final life that may only end in old age. Carmen agrees. And they have one more life.

In their final life, they live a happy childhood together. Luca finally grows past the age of 17 to become an adult. He becomes a florist, and there is both love but a healthy distance between him and his brother. Independence. The other immortals they had travelled with come to buy flowers from Luca only once, no longer remembered by him. They are happy for him, and leave both him and Carmen to live out the happiest lives they never thought they'd get to have.

And that, is Luca and Carmen's story.

#ask #ramble #[🎡 mutuals tag]

106 notes · View notes

gayloringinplainsight · 5 months ago

Note

the reason i have a problem with gaylors is because gaylors have made it infinitely harder for her to come out. say she does come out as not straight. that doesn't make all of the theories true (she can be gay w/o having dated karly, or written wonderland about dianna, or intentionally put daises everywhere, etc). just because i think those things are true doesn't mean they are, and to some people her coming out would be her confirming all of the theories.

I think she's queer I really do, but the lover era could have been done by a very misguided straight person, who realized she liked women years after yk?

that's why i have a problem with gaylors, because we've made it a hostile environment to come out in

(this is in response to your pinned post by the way)

yeah sure GAYLORS have made it a hostile environment to come out. GAYLORS. Who do queer readings of her work. Who research deep-cut queer history and make connections to her tour visuals. GAYLORS. Who notice the queer flagging she does — flagging done to signal! flagging done so other queer people will notice it and recognize she's queer! — and validates it, celebrates it, and honors it.

yeah GAYLORS have made it a hostile environment to come out.

Not hetlors, oh no, no way, no how, definitely not.

Hetlors, who spew the most vitriolic homophobic disgusting garbage about queer people and about the possibility of her being queer. Who think being queer is bad and sexuality is a dirty word.

Hetlors, who think the worst possible thing she could do would be to come out. Who threaten to stop supporting her if she comes out.

Hetlors, who dox gaylors for the fun of it. Who write gaylors abusive, homophobic screeds. Who send gaylors death threats.

But oh it's GAYLORS MAKING IT A HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT FOR HER TO CO—ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!?

#Taylor swift #gaylor #gaylor swift #someone please come over and shoot me #no way is this person a gaylor #revoke their gaylor card if so

29 notes · View notes

snoddie · 7 months ago

Text

Normally I don't discuss big drama topics like this on my quirky little Tumblr blog, but there's something about the whole HBomberGuy plagiarism video that truly fascinates me.

It's the way Internet Historian fans reacted to it.

Illuminaughtii fans were pissed at what she did and viewers were calling her out for years, especially after what she did to her former colleagues. AVGN fans have been dissatisfied with the state of his content for a while now, James Somerton practically betrayed his audience and Filip Miucin is so beloathed that I deadass forgot his name while writing this and thought his name was Patrick.

Basically everyone saw what these creators did and we're collectively either unsurprised or disappointed to say the least. Internet Historian fans however, they were probably the most vitriolic community during this entire event. They were quick to either label the video a hit piece, claim Bomberman was slandering IH, discredited the video because of Bomberman's political views and friendship with HassanAbi (despite a majority of the video going after a left leaning LGBT analyst..) and in general, just kinda meat riding IH.

I don't think Bomberman went about the IH stuff perfectly, I definitely believe he had some hang ups with him due to IH's more...let's just say 'Chud' style of humor and the audience he cultivated. But to say the entire segment or even the whole video was a Historian hit piece is misguided at best and dishonest at worst. Historian might be reserved, but there's no denying that his silence regarding the plagiarism allegations kinda did lead to a snowball effect, people are too familiar with false copyright claims and some were a bit..too eager to bring the Jews into this. Yes he did resolve a lot of this, but there's a level of distrust I feel now, like how I feel with the other examples Bomberman used, if they were willing to do it once, what's stopping them from doing it again just with an even more obscure source? Historian and some of the others don't even have the algorithm breathing down their necks because they upload as frequently as Deltrarune chapters come out, so why not take time to come up with your own shit?

This is why I found the sudden nosedive into politics so...bizarre, because I didn't see this with the other supporters, not even Somerton and he's arguably the most political creator of the group.

If I were to armchair psychology my way into some kinda explanation, I'd probably have one of two reasons:

Internet Historian is a beloved creator who many people consider a trustworthy and extremely creative individual, and hearing him be accused of something scummy can have the most loyal fans feeling a bit wounded and defensive. I was definitely a huge fan of his work before the Bomberman video hit, I probably watched The Fall of 76 ...76 times? So learning it was made by someone willing to pull from someone else's work and pass it off as his own, it kinda stung.

The second (and let's be honest more likely) possibility is that there's political motivation behind it. No one can deny that Historian has appealed to more 'Anti SJW' crowds before, those people tend to be either more right leaning, center leaning or left leaning but don't like the way extremists behave. If you watched any video about Tumblr IH has made, it's quite clear whether intentionally or not what kinda audience he appeals to. Likewise, when the one person IH's audience despises the most (a leftist commentator, male feminist and someone actively criticizing IH) shows up, their instinctual reaction is to cry 'woke libtard getting mad at gigachad meme man'.

The reason all of this frustrates me, and why I even crawled out of my comfort zone of posting random crap and gay Homestuck drawings, is because it's a genuine example of political brainrot and creator dickriding muddying the waters of the discussion being had. Like Bomberman or not (I like his shit but don't always agree with his takes) you have to admit his video opened the floodgates for people actually kinda giving more of a shit about plagiarism online than before, highlighting how easy it is to get away, how there's almost nothing you can do about it law wise unless you're REALLY lucky and how much it can hurt genuinely talented or marginalized people.

And I'd hate for us to just ignore that conversation because you don't wanna admit your favorite funny internet guy might not be the best person.

Here's an unrelated picture of Wurmple eating soup.

#rant #discussion #youtube #internet historian #hbomberguy #plagarism #istg if the fall of 76 was plagiarized its gonna be my 13th reason

37 notes · View notes

noxexistant · 24 days ago

Text

ai-less whumptober; day nineteen

@ailesswhumptober 19 — disassociation, losing a sense, “I wish I could get you back.” ↳ the farm, intentionally vague word count; 1.2k

cw; violence, abuse, resulting in disability

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

It's just one hit that lands wrong.

Morris is fourteen when it happens.

Both he and Oscar are well-versed in being hit, being beat to absolute shit by their father — and Ma, when she was in the mood — and thus Oscar had always held this misguided belief that they're both toughened up by it all. The hits don't really matter anymore, have lost their weight with their frequency — and they can take it. The same way a scarred knee stops scraping as easily, the same way his arm that Da had once wrenched from its socket no longer seems to hurt as badly when it's wrenched in the exact same way by that same hand. They're strong, toughened, even though Morris still cries most of the time when Da goes at him.

Oscar knows immediately that something is wrong when the usual crying shifts distinctly with Da's last hit.

Da's been laying into him a while, over some stupid little thing that never mattered, but he's got this way of riling himself up when the violence starts. He'll just keep going, spurring himself on, remembering every tiny thing that Morris has ever done until he's furious, and then he'll go at him until he's satisfied. Or exhausted. Whichever comes last.

The final blow is a crack across the side of Morris' face, not particularly more brutal than anything else, but it has him curling up on the floor and wailing, both hands coming up to wind around his head as if to shield himself. But Oscar's seen him take worse. There's a bad feeling in his gut. Morris is making an awful wailing, high-pitched the way he used to screech when he was a baby hurting.

Da walks away, doesn't look back. Oscar scurries over to his crumpled brother's side.

"Mo," he says, reaching for his brother. Morris ignores him. "Mo, c'mon, it's me."

He gets closer, trying to yank his brother's hands away from his head to see what the damage is, but Morris fights him. His one arm finally goes, goes limp as it does, but the other is holding his palm clasped desperate over his ear — the one facing up towards Oscar. The one Da had cracked him across.

"You bleedin'?" Oscar asks him, gentle as he can, and tries again to pull the hand away. He's strong enough that, for a moment, it goes — and he does see blood. But it's not a gouge along Morris' ear or anything, it's blood dripping out of it. And…something else, something paler and more watery. There's something…so distinctly wrong-looking to it, something that makes Oscar's stomach twist.

Morris is still screaming.

"Mo," Oscar says. "C'mon, stop. You're makin' a fuss. It'll get better, okay? It'll stop hurtin' soon."

Losing his patience — panicking, though he'd never admit it — he forcefully rolls his brother over, intending to haul him up, and Morris freezes when he sees Oscar above him like he'd had no idea he was here.

"Os," he says, but it's. Garbled and weird. He doesn't make the sound right, the way people talk when they're sick and real bunged up. "Os. Os—?"

"What? What? I'm here, Mo, alright?"

Morris stares at him for a second, unmoving except for how he seems to be swaying, listing. There's something utterly petrified in his eyes, and in a moment there's tears dripping down his cheeks again. Silent this time.

"Os, p'ease—"

"I'm right here. You're fine, okay? He jus' caught you in a bad spot, but—"

"Os, I can't hear you."

Oscar is initially adamant that it'll fix itself. His own hearing has gone funny before, when he's been sick or after he's been stood too close to Da with the shotgun. He'd been deaf in one ear for days, just like Morris seems to be now. So he calmly cleans and wipes the blood and gunk leaking from his little brother's ear and promises him, mouthing the words real clear, that it'll get better. The pain and ringing will go away and the hearing will come back, be as good as his other ear again.

It doesn't.

Oscar's left to wonder, sometimes, if maybe it would've. If it hadn't been for everything else, if Morris had had the chance to just heal without being hit again and again on that same side of his brutalised head, whatever had been broken in that one ear surely being broken worse and worse. If he hadn't kept being overworked, sent out into the fields in the blinding heat and freezing cold, made to keep working even when he's sick, even when his ear starts leaking again. If they'd had the opportunity to just see a fucking doctor rather than Da ignoring it all, never once saying he's sorry, never once even facing the possibility of what he did.

But it doesn't.

The pain fades, and Morris cries less. Steadily, he stops falling over whenever he walks, though he still bumps into stuff constantly, gets real dizzy real easily. He's shit at following instructions and worse at paying attention, lists to one side when he's zoning out — and, sometimes, he disappears entirely.

It's something Oscar would love to blame on the deafness.

The fact that Morris will go catatonic sometimes, unresponsive, would be so easy to blame on him just not being able to hear Oscar's calling for him. But he knows better. Knows it's Da's fault, just like the deafness is — so maybe that comes together, at least. Morris will shut down rather than face what he can't. Oscar gets that. Wishes he had the same luxuries, but he can't seem to get any respite, awake or asleep — and though Morris is much better now at hearing, knows how to pick out the sounds and read them against lip movements, and Oscar knows how to speak and where to stand so that Morris can always understand him, there's so much that's lost. Been lost.

Oscar's spent every year missing that brother he lost at fourteen. All the time lost to Morris having to relearn how to hear with just one working ear, figuring out how to speak when he can't pick out the sounds he's making. All the worsened abuse from everyone else who never understood, insisted Morris was just rude and ignorant and belligerent when he didn't hear their murmured instructions or failed to respond to their speaking on his deaf side.

It's not fair.

And a part of Oscar knows he's being selfish, making Morris' pain — his own loss — about himself, but. It's for both of them, really. They've always been as much each others' as theirs, always together, and if Oscar is grieving a brother he lost then he's also grieving that Morris lost a version of himself too.

"I wish I could get you back," he says, to the silent air between them. Says it a little low so Morris won't be able to pick it out, but Morris is a million miles away regardless. Exhausted eyes staring straight ahead, glassy and empty, not even seeing the blank wall of their bedroom that he's been locked on all this time. Oscar had only sat beside him, shoulders brushing, ready to weather the emptiness as long as Morris holds it.

As much as Morris has had to relearn how to be himself, they're still relearning how to be them.

They'll figure it out.

#newsies #morris delancey #oscar delancey #ailesswhumptober2024 #my writing

11 notes · View notes