#and like ads aren't inherently evil

[medicinemane]

Honestly ads are just so evil at this point that it's simply a matter of safety to use an ad blocker (not "Ad Blocker", as far as I know they got bought out by ad companies ages ago and it's very compromised, uBlock Origin is what I use and is still good as far as I know)

I was browsing a site, and then suddenly a new tab opens up which thankfully my ad blocker was like "this is sketchy as shit, I'm not opening it unless you tell me to", but this is my point. It's literally dangerous just to click pages without an ad blocker

Cause here's the thing, was it trying to insert malware my my computer? We can't say

Are sites that are willing to use ads that will open a new tab just by clicking around more likely to be unscrupulous, and are ads willing to do that particularly suspicious? That's just a fact

Ads have shown themselves to range from intrusive and annoying at best (very few exceptions to this) to literally just trying to get some horrible piece of malware on your computer, and I don't want either of those, so ads have lost their existence privileges

#they can have those privileges back never #and like ads aren't inherently evil #one site I used to visit would run simple banner ads which were usually bought by people selling stuff related to what the site was about #and I'm still very happy with the plushie I pre ordered as soon as the ad popped up because it was exactly what I wanted #and I order the whole set as they slowly released more #and I was very glad they made an ad to inform me this was something that was going to exist soon #but that's a targeted ad to a targeted audience and it didn't have to track me to get that level of targeting #it was like putting a 'tractor wash' ad in a tractor magazine... you figure those people might want to buy that from you #advertising isn't inherently evil and can even be a good thing... but the way corporations at large have been approaching it #that is inherently evil and I won't play ball with it #well I mean look at those glass snakes I always keep queuing back up in reality that's an ad for that person's work #but I just think they're nice to look at and want to remember they exist should I ever eventually have money and an interest #and I just want to look at them #ads that inform are fine #but screw the rest of ads

[kyouka-supremacy]

_

#random rambles #The last ask sent me on five different tangents I wasted the whole afternoon over #I opted against adding this to the ask because it'd be unrespectful to Anon but if I don't let it out somewhere I'll die #Everyone knows how beyond what it may look like that I don't like bsd and that includes Beast #But the ask touches the exact reason why I think Beast ultimately fails as a story #because it constantly tries to frame Akutagawa as evil and heartless; but what's framed as his most cruel action #- the one of mindlessly slaughtering his enemies at the start - is itself moved by love #And I know someone in the wings is already arguing #“that's the whole point. the reader is supposed to see through it‚ and see that Akutagawa wasn't inherently evil to begin with” #… But I don't think that's the case. This is not the place to talk about it but at the same time I don't want to make a post about it #but at the same time I feel like I won't have peace untill I've brought this up. #That's not the case because 1) Dazai says it's not the case‚ and Dazai is the character with most authority in the entire franchise #and 2) Ryuunosuke's later scene with Gin reinforces the fact that Akutagawa's action was cruel and inhuman #But it's not true. It's just that the author is a little nihilist that doesn't believe humans are inherently good. #So please let's just stop pretending they aren't? Because bsd fans. in my very humble opinion - are in severe need of someone #to remember them they are free to like aspects of the franchise even without acting like its morals aren't completely fucked up #Sorry for derailing it's been tormenting me since forever I desperately needed to mention it somewhere. #I've recently read someone say that bsd sustained that humans are inherently good and like... What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. #Like there ARE series that do that? T/pn is one of them? Read t/pn if you want that? It's good? #But bsd definitely doesn't c'mon it's not that hard #Ugh. sorry for this. It was just to say #I love Beast but I don't like bsd and Beast is part of bsd and Beast does ultimately adhere to bsd's fucked up morals Kyotag out #I'm just saying we should all be able to recognize where our personal worldviwes end and where the author's start. #If you don't you aren't reading you're projecting #I'm not even rereading this #if I'll overthink it a second more I know it'll end up together with my millions black posts at the bottom of my drafts #Post

[bookshelfdreams]

do it. gimme the Izzy straight-coded meta 👀

I feel like I need to preface this by saying that Actually, Izzy Is Straightcoded would be the inflammatory clickbait title I'd give this if it were written to draw traffic & ad revenue to my shitty website. So don't take that term too seriously.

There has been a lot of ink spilled about Izzy thinking he's in a story where one can only be subtextually queer. Some even by yours truly, but the more I think about it, the less sense it makes. What would be the purpose of queercoding Izzy?

In general, villains* aren't queercoded to show that men being attracted to other men is bad. It's often the outcome; but it's not why the trope exists. It exists because cishet people tend to be (and are encouraged to be) profoundly uncomfortable with gender nonconformity, and so, making a character gnc becomes a quick and easy way to make him appear twisted and untrustworthy. If he** can't even obey the fundamental rules of his own gender (rules that are inherent and unchangeable!) what other rules does he disobey?

Or: If a man is insufficiently masculine, he can't be trusted to have morals. The villain isn't gnc because that's an evil trait to have; rather, the gender nonconformity is a symptom of his evilness. Being evil is what enables him to embrace his feminine side, and embracing his feminine side is what others him and marks him as a villain.

This only really works when he's contrasted with a hero (or heroine) who is Doing Gender Correctly. The villain is foul to highlight how good the hero is. The Hero will be honest and straightforward, brave, physically powerful; the Queercoded Villain treacherous, cowardly, and physically weak. The hero is a Proper Man, a Good Person. The villain an Improper Man, and therefore, a Bad Person.

Of course ofmd fundamentally rejects this. The shorthand wouldn't work, because ofmd simply doesn't think effeminacy is creepy. It's uninterested in moralizing self-expression; it just lets people be how they are. There's a wide range of expressions of masculinity on this show, and none of it is inherently bad. People are allowed to be hypermasculine, flamboyant, and anything inbetween, can express their gender in whatever manner they want, and it's all fine - as long as they are authentic about it. Be however you are, but be yourself, and this is what Izzy fails at. The repression marks him as a villain. The strict adherence to what he thinks a Real Man Pirate ought to be like. He's very preoccupied with enforcing a traditional (and toxic) masculinity on himself and others. It's no coincidence the characters he antagonizes the most - Stede and Lucius - are also the most effeminate ones. And I know, I know anglophones have a much more casual relationship to twat and cunt, those don't nearly feel as uncomfortable for y'all as they do for me, so I don't want to assign too much significance here, but he is the only character who constantly uses this kind of language, and also the one who uses the most gender&sexuality based slurs (as far as I remember).

All of this while being clearly, obviously queer himself! I do not feel like I need to explain this; his flustered reaction when Lucius asks him if he's ever been sketched speaks for itself. The fact that he meets Stede and immediately slices his shirt off of him, speaks for itself. And so on.

Izzy isn't straightcoded in the sense that the story wants us to believe he's exclusively attracted to women. Much like a queercoded villain doesn't need to be shown to be attracted to men (and can even be shown to be attracted exclusively to women!) to still be queercoded. He's straightcoded in the sense that he's a stand-in for restrictive and toxic gender roles that society enforces on people. He buys into the idea that there's a way of Doing Gender Wrong, and this is presented as a tragic character flaw. Something he has to overcome to be able to do the thing that actually marks a hero in this show: express himself authentically.

Part of why I found his death so moving is because it enables him to set right the toxicity he spread. His rehabilitation arc was about himself; about finally allowing himself to be, accepting love, accepting community. His death was about taking responsibility. About fully recognizing the hurt he caused. Looking death in the face enables him to finally abandon the last shreds of that toxicity, to apologize and be granted forgiveness. In the end, he was not beyond saving, and the harm he has done will be healed.

*Izzy is introduced as an antagonist to both Stede and the central romance of this romcom. I'm not gonna debate this; if you disagree, fine, but you clearly have such a fundamentally wrong different view of the show that it's pointless for us to try and convince each other.

**of course Queercoded Female Villains exist s well, but they are a whole different can of worms and less relevant to this discussion

#okay now that i typed this all out i realize that i just basically keep writing the same izzy post over and over sorry for that #but i spent too long on it not to post it #i do not remember who said it but i saw a post a few days ago along the lines of #izzys death reads like the fantasy of a repentant abusive parent #and i think theres truth to that #may also read like the fantasy of the kid of an abused parent #finally the person who hurt you is able to apologize and you can part on good terms #but also wont have to deal w the fallout #i write as my grandmother who doesnt speak to us is probably dying idk #anyway! #i hope this is somewhat interesting #our flag means death #ofmd s2 spoilers #izzy hands #thoughts #anonymaus #message

[spaghettioverdose]

The fundamental problem with trying to make tolkien-style fantasy worlds with dwarves, elves, goblins, orcs etc. that aren't racist is that the very premise of this world is "races and race science are real, races can have a race character and some races are better in most ways than all the other ones (except that they can't breed as fast)". The way fantasy races are thought of and treated as, is very much just taking colonial race science categories, exaggerating them and adding magic into the mix. That is an inescapable fact of what fantasy races are and why they're even called races in the first place.

A lot of fantasy racism discourse tends to gravitate around orcs often being inherently evil creatures who mostly exist as dumb brute enemies to be slaughtered at will, but I've personally seen less mention of the fact their role in the stories and games is to essentially represent The Barbarian Oriental Hordes and The Savages. This becomes very apparent if you look at the way they are designed. The good guy human faction has cathedrals, churches, temples, priests and clerics. The orcs have tents, totems and shamans.

This also applies to elves. The high elves are basically always some sort of tall, blonde, white skinned ubermensch who are vastly better than everyone in most ways except breeding (almost always borders on some sort of great replacement theory type shit). Wood elves are almost entirely the noble savage trope.

In almost all cases they also get a racial character where for example the high elves are depicted being smart, elegant, speak in an eloquent and flowery way and have all sort of other behaviours baked into them. Orcs are framed to be stupid, brutish, have no appreciation for art (their totems and paintings don't get counted because they are "savage" and "primitive") and are naturally destructive.

The only real way to avoid the racist tropes of fantasy effectively is to drop the whole race aspect of it. And this doesn't mean that you need to have a regular-human-only setting. You can still have a guy with pointy ears but just without framing them as a race of people. As an example, the fantasy setting I've been working on (on occasion) doesn't have races but it does have people with pointy ears, multiple eyes or other stuff like that. In this setting it is due to mutation and transformation brought through magic in one way or another. Some through using magic, others through curses.

#long post #fantasy

[khorneschosen]

Why the claim like that of extra credits that fantasy races have a good/evil alignment being wrong, so wrong that it can't be applied in media, is itself wrong, is what I am going to argue here.

I think what is necessary to fundamentally express why their opinion is wrong, is the background of why they made it. They made it aligned with the academic view that man is purely a blank slate, with no rationality, no genetics shaping him in anyway, and are ultimately a product of their nurture rather than nature.

One aspect I want to point out is they often claim, "this is morally flawed" only because they try and relate them to real kinds of people. Or that "this is boring" or "this is lazy writing" or some other claim.

It isn't because they believe these things are argued on that basis, because they don't as they don't argue on that basis, it's because claiming its boring changes the debate from them applying their ideology directly to an issue as in "my ideology, which you don't practice says this is wrong" to "this is boring" which is an aesthetic debate rather than the naked policing of other people.

I am not adding what they are policing people on. Which you gain the police someone on their hobbies you do it on the rest of their life as well.

Fantasy races, are not just some endless variations on human. Whether defined by evolution, science fiction, magic and etc, they are different from humans, in both form and/or nature in some way.

This is why you make a fantasy race to show, create and strain the contrast that comes in comparing the fantastical to what is human.

It's why humans are often the everyman of every setting because while human nature can be complex, the fantasy race is the contrasting element, the nature of the contrast can change by degrees but not that it is a contrast.

They fundamentally must be of a different nature to us, even if we are blank slates which we aren't, that fact alone provides the contrast. You could do culture differences but then you have to constantly deal with the fact that contrast when it erodes the very second that race is separated or living in shared space. The inherent to the species implies the constant application of that contrast and how the human deals with it.

In short, their series of videos on the topic are just wrong. Races of evil or good nature are not boring, lazy, or whatever aesthetical judgement they are pretending it is, and the view of humanity in regards to the blank slate is fundamentally wrong.

#extra credit #extra credits #extra history #fantasy writing #fantasy #fantasy race #philosophy #politics

[lord-squiggletits]

The thing about Prowl is I don't really think canon was ever trying to frame him as a "necessary evil" or anything along the lines of "he's a shitty person but his work was necessary" like mmm.... That feels very much like something Prowl wants to believe about himself, not something that's actually factually true in reality.

I can't really make a good argument about it because I only remember like a handful of standout Prowl Moments in IDW1 but like... Prowl dropping a bomb on a neutral city and blaming it on the Decepticons is not "a necessary evil," that's a war crime. Prowl trying to destroy the space bridge to Caminus to keep Starscream from getting power over it, dooming the entire planet and its inhabitants to extinction by starvation, is not "a necessary evil," it's a fucking war crime. I feel like trying to frame such drastic measures as him "doing the dirty work of the Autobots" feels way too much like an excuse for actions that actually aren't justifiable. Especially since Prowl himself is far from being the 100% rational guy he thinks he is, considering how often he bases his decisions on things like his anti-Decepticon bias and his general refusal to follow any orders that contradict what he thinks is The Right Thing To Do (TM).

But also I think this is kind of the fault of the narrative of IDW1, since very few Autobots besides Prowl are given the chance to actually be morally gray even when the worldbuilding implicates them in some very morally gray things. Like, for example, JRO adding in the existence of MTOs which implies that the normally squeaky-clean leader Optimus was willing to approve the creation of new soldiers just to throw them into combat (and even the attempts to humanize the MTOs by giving them "an education" were eventually cut down to nothing but combat optimizations). And there's also the fact that Optimus knows about the Wreckers and has been known to call them on missions at least once (Stormbringer), meaning he's very much aware of the Wreckers and their tactics and is willing to call them in for fights when it's necessary.

I don't think you need to use Prowl as a crutch to make the Autobots morally gray. I think the Autobot leadership (or at least, Optimus, since few people besides him or Prowl seem to have major tactical command over the army as a whole) is plenty morally gray enough on its own, because the nature of war is inherently morally gray no matter how righteous your cause is. Reducing the lives of your own people into numbers on maps, harvesting resources, bringing MTOs to life just to die in a war they practically have no stake in, those things are enough.

And tbh it kind of bothers me when people try to saddle Prowl with the "dirty work of the Autobots", not just because it frames Prowl's blatantly evil actions as some sort of savior act taking the blame from the rest of the Autobots (which isn't even accurate, because the blame for war crimes falls on the entire army as an institution rather than one person), but because it downplays the moral grayness of the Autobots and pretends that no Autobot BESIDES Prowl ever participated in morally gray actions, which simply isn't true.

TLDR: Prowl isn't as much of a hero as he thinks he is because committing atrocities in the name of your cause doesn't change the fact that they're atrocities (and may not have even been justified). However, painting Prowl as the "token evil teammate" of sorts also places too much blame for the atrocities of war on him in particular, when in reality that's a burden shared by Optimus Prime and any other members of the Autobot military command structure.

#squiggposting #meta #prowl feels like one of those characters where people trust what he says at face value when like. he's very much not a reliable narrator #prowl SAYS that he does the dirty work no one else is willing to do but. is it really dirty work? #or is it just him authorizing dirty work and hiding it on his own and justifying it in the name of 'it's for the autobots'? #to draw on an old fandom of mine: 'what is the difference between you and the decepticons now?' #'isn't it obvious prime? i serve the autobots' #but also this is kind of the fault of JRO because like he's the main idw writer that explores what things were like during the war #while still being unwilling to part from the ideal of OP as the best prime and the all good and loving leader #barber gets into morally gray OP but it almost entirely concerns post war stuff so i wouldnt really count it

[entropy-sea-system]

I'm the kind of 'doesn't give a shit about nonrose relationships' person (bc I'm atertiary and repulsed by these relationships and have opted out of them!!) that allotertiary aspecs hate tbh... And I know they probably don't intend to be aphobic with this but it is literally aphobic towards atertiary people if you think not liking nonrose relationships is inherently evil.

You're allowed to be upset if people aren't valuing you in the nonrose ways you want them to, and you should ask them for what you want in your interactions(drops my 'communicate or break up' advice as an atertiary I guess) . But please don't malign people like me just bc we can't care about people in tertiary/nonrose ways, while you complain about this.

Just a reminder that, by the way, an allorose atertiary person or apl, afamilial, etc. person is just as aspec as you and belongs in the aspec community if they wish to. I'm just adding this because I see some of you acting like things like family or friendship are not seen as necessary and are not enforced as something everyone should have, even if in some places these may not be the most 'superior' relationship to society(reminder that some of us do live in places where friendship or family are seen as more required than romance though).

Even if larger society does not always conceptualise these as attraction, you cannot deny that people are expected to have meaningful interpersonal connections that are not romantic or sexual (see for example how people are expected to raise a family, have friends, etc.) . And besides, its not like people conceptualised of the concept of romantic attraction before the aspec community started talking about it. However, it is understood that romance was still expected of people back then. And its similar with nonrose / tertiary relationships and attractions.

Some exclusionists literally go out of their way to say that they think aros and aces are valid but think atertiary spectrum labels are bullshit. Don't think it benefits you to agree with them or to exclude atertiary people from the aspec community. Aspec includes atertiary and agender spectrums as well, not just aro and ace spectrums, so please actually meaningfully include us in aspec things.

#aspec #aromantic #asexual #crosstagging aro and ace bc you ppl have got to be normal about us #Im aro myself too but . wow other aros are not always normal abt atertiary ppl like me !! #atertiary #vent #aphobia #platonormativity #apothitertiary #nonfriending #nonfriending aplatonic #apl #aplatonic #nonfriending apl #aplphobia #relan #relationship anarchy #I started at relan and I guess Im here complaining about how aros and aces are not always supportive of aterspec ppl like me

[tonyglowheart]

in the great tradition of making up an argument in my head and writing about and publishing it a la the great philosophers of old except also this does come from posts I've seen around too lmao, I am back here today with a very correct opinion on Yan Wushi and Shen Qiao.

So. a couple of types of opinions I've seen in old meta posts give this impression that people are treating the "Yan Wushi believes humans are inherently evil"/"Shen Qiao believes humans are inherently good" as, like... fixed worldview/viewpoints that these respective characters have.

I simply do not think this is so. And I think it not only does a huge disservice to the characters and MengXiShi's writing, but imo it also affects the way you interpret the characters if you think that they respectively hold such fixed rules about the world as their viewpoint.

Like just on a general level, to ascribe so black-and-white, simplified, fixed worldview to these characters doesn't sit right with me because these kinds of rigid worldviews are very immature type of worldviews. To reference to Kohlberg's stages of moral development, to have such fixed "good"/"bad" views is a very conventional-stage way of thinking, and textual interpretations aside I think it'd be very foolish to have such a rigid, unnuanced worldview.

But beyond that, I just don't think the interpretation that either of them holds such rigid unnuanced worldview uncritically bears out in the text.

The biggest/easiest chunk of text to reference here is Chap 46, where SQ flashes back on something his Master Qi Fengge taught him:

“Because ‘tip of sword pointing upward’ is just a vague description. There’s no established rule defining whether one should point it up by an inch or two. Ah-qiao, rigidly adhering to the rules will only limit your own thoughts and visions, and this is true for learning martial arts as well as for conducting yourself.”

“There are many people in this world —— some of them are good, and some of them are bad. But there are even more who can’t be simply classified as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. They may not think in the same way you think, or walk the same path you walk. Just like the case with Yu Ai and Yuan Ying —— even the same set of sword arts looks slightly different in different people’s hands. Don’t deny others just because they are different from you. Like how the ocean is capable of holding water from thousands of rivers, a person should be forgiving and tolerant to diversity, and it is the same for practicing martial arts. People who are narrow-minded can only achieve so much. Even if they do reach the summit, they cannot stay there for long.”

(QQ ch46, snowycodex tl, emphasis added)

I like this chapter since I think this helps sum up a lot of transferable concepts that imo we see bear out in SQ's conduct and worldview.

So I think, rather than saying "he believes that humans are inherently good," a more accurate way to describe it is "he believes in the inherent goodness (the possibility of inherent goodness) in all people." Which isn't to say that there aren't "bad" people in the world - he killed Huo Xijing for example, and doesn't express any regret about it. But that he believes in the ability of people to do good/be good, even if that doesn't bear out all of the time. It's a very optimistic sort of view on the potential of humanity.

Yan Wushi on the other hand, yes he has declared "you're too naive SQ, humans are evil by nature," etc but this happens by way of him making certain points to SQ, not as part of a philosophical discourse where we might see the full nuances of each's philosophy argued out, so I think to see it as a fixed "rule" he has for the world is shortsighted (and also ascribes a shortsightedness to him that I just don't think he has. He sees SQ as a curiosity sure but not like an aberration against a fixed worldview. He's amused when SQ chooses kindness, not perplexed).

So I think a more useful interpretation of YWS's worldview is more along the lines of, like, averages. In that instead of seeing YWS as "he believes all people are Evil by nature," it's more like, statistically speaking he believes that humans can/will be led astray by a variety of factors, and that even the most "good" person can have "evil" actions teased out of them if they are pushed enough - the exact experiment he is running with SQ. To me, this idea that like, in his experience humans are more statistically likely to act out of selfish/self-preserving/"evil" intentions than altruistic ones in the longterm, works a lot better for interpreting his character and making him a good foil for SQ. He's the pessimism on "human nature" to SQ's optimism - the "even if you have a close relationship, if you get in the way of self-preservation then people can be pushed to the point of valuing the self over you."

But yeah, the tl;dr of it all is, I don't think Yan Wushi and Shen Qiao are the "humans are inherently evil/good" characters, it's more, Shen Qiao is the "humans are capable of doing good/being kind and I choose to believe in that," and Yan Wushi is the "if you push someone enough they will abandon altruism, everyone has a bottom line including you" (though I think he underestimates how much hope SQ can find in the little kindnesses in the world lol, cuz like in Chap46 we see him close to some sort of abyss of despair but is QUICKLY brought back up by encountering Shiwu. But I think per the rule of statistical averages, SQ is very much a Kindness Georg so that's why I don't think he rocks YWS's worldview - he still has a place in the bell curve he's just way far out on the narrow end lmao).

But anyway, this complexity is what makes them (1) interesting characters, and (2) good foils for each other. Thanks for coming to my TED talk lmao

#qian qiu #thousand autumns #qian qiu meta #yan wushi #shen qiao

[transmascpetewentz]

The reason that transandrophobia is a real, systemic oppression is because both transphobia and misogyny are forces of systemic oppression that greatly affect the lives of transmascs. Misandry need not exist for transandrophobia to; what I call transandrophobia is the intersection of transphobia and misogyny that affects transmascs, as well as anyone perceived to be transmasc or transmasc-adjacent.

I would also argue that transandrophobia usually refers to the way that a combination of transphobia and misogyny are used to speak over transmascs, take away our autonomy, and treat us like objects who don't have opinions on everything that affects us. It's the way that some of us, usually those of us who primarily date cis women, try to be "one of the good ones." It's the way that everyone is immediately suspicious of us being incels, especially if we aren't attracted to women.

It's the way that we are constantly forced into the role of a woman: how we're expected to put up with forcefem "jokes," detransition "jokes," corrective rape "jokes," and other such "jokes." If we don't let people walk all over us, calling us feminine terms, reminding us of our place, that's toxic masculinity. We can't have any relationship to womanhood, either, or else we're creepy men invading women's spaces. But if we reject womanhood entirely, if we exist as men who only love other men; then we're basically the same as MGTOW guys! /s

The difference between us and MRAs is that MRAs are straight, white, and usually able bodied and neurotypical. Meanwhile, transmasc-centered feminists tend to be neurodivergent and/or disabled gay trans men, and there seems to be a good mix of different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds speaking up. The MRA comparison doesn't work because when MRAs don't want to take women seriously, it is from a place of misogyny and often straight privilege. Gay trans men that don't worship cis women in every way are just guys who are tired of being forced to be women. There is a big difference here.

A lot of this new discourse is very much "gay men are more likely than straight men to be misogynists because they don't even like women!" repackaged, except it's not even repackaged. You just added "trans" to the beginning of everything! I don't know why I have to explain to queer discourse Tumblr in the year 2023 that not being attracted to women when you're a man doesn't inherently contribute to misogyny and patriarchy.

Gay trans men aren't making a choice to leave the Good Pure Women's Team and join the Horrible Evil Incel Faggots. Kill the radfem in your brain that believes that queer male identity and sexuality is inherently oppressive. Kill the homophobe in your brain that believes gay men need a woman in their lives to prevent them from going off the deep end. Kill the biphobe in your brain that believes that the only moral thing for an m-spec man to do is to date a good pure woman.

Transitioning is not a calculated choice for the vast majority of transmascs. I do not owe any cis woman the rest of my life spent in emotional pain due to dysphoria in order to make her happy that I'm not one of Those People. No one owes anyone else suppression of their personal identity and desires for gender expression in order to serve someone else's political framework. If your social or political framework does not include someone's identity, that is a problem with your framework, not their identity.

Gay trans men are not predators. Putting "trans" in front of your homophobia doesn't make it less homophobic.

#wentz.txt #transandrophobia #long post #homophobia #this isn't directed towards anyone in particular #just a few thoughts i've been having + someone asking a question in the transandrophobia tag a bit ago #also i'm just one guy so take this with a grain of salt

[ramenheim]

About prev reblogs: I have never seen TME used to complain about & demarcate cis men's behaviours.

Despite the term ostensibly lumping together *almost any gender configuration that isn't binarily trans woman*, the only times it's used recently is to complain about (trans) ppl that get lumped in with cis women (as intersex ppl trans or otherwise are *never* factored into this dichotomy anyways), including cis women themselves.

I have never once seen it used to delineate trans women from cis men, even as it gets used to delineate cis women's experiences from trans women's experiences. I have only seen /haphazard/ acknowledgement of non-binary experiences included in TMA, but only really as an afterthought or when it's framed as the precursor to 'fully realizing trans womanhood'. I've only seen intersex folks brought up if they elect to use the terms TME/TMA for themselves, with bizarro interrogations into 'how' they were raised/had their genitals 'corrected' only once they individually disagreed with the terminology or had a confounding opinion in a public discussion.

It is regularly used to delineate trans men from trans women; but its users almost uniformly deride any attempt by trans men to coin a term to describe their own unique combinatory transphobia that isn't TME; again despite TME literally just supposing to mean 'transmisogyny-exempt'.... so why would it be used to discuss trans men's *unique* experiences with hatred directed at the fact that they either "are/aren't (real) men" by anyone who wants them to suffer?

It's been *changed* into hastily recycled AGAB terminology bc of wider recognition of the flaws with /that/ but without the driving flaws of that **tool for analysis** ever being fully addressed; and therefore has gotten subsumed into the 'new euphemism' for the Innie vs Outie false dichotomy as its usage became more widespread.

I think it still is a useful discussion tool ONLY when it's viewed *as a tool* and not some inherent marker of identity. It is DEFINITELY just bigotry when used as a NOUN that has negative behaviours ascribed to it, esp in the context of complaining about trans men** as a whole homogenized group, instead of highlighting individual behaviours/belief systems for the harm they contribute to against TMA trans/nb ppl.

Young queers really need to stop swallowing the tradcath radfem juice of "Women Pure + Good & Men Bad + Evil" [**that tumblr feminism has always had a problem with] and acting like you aren't being a transphobic shitheel by adding the word Trans in front of it-- & This is ESPECIALLY a problem when non-trans "Allies" do this, as it sets up trans women for failure whenever they make a mistake/can be reframed as 'being a cause-traitor' since women are punished more harshly for any percieved failure of Righteousness, AND allows them further to enact their unbridled transphobia onto trans men (& enbys/genderqweirdos) and pass it off as 'being an ally to trans women'..... despite them just being extremely transphobic (+ misogynistic + homphobic + intersexist) & then hiding behind """"TMAs"""" as a negative PR meatshield.

TL;DR if you are using TME to mean (nc)AFAB in vent posts, just have the guts to fucking use that as the word & see how it reads then.

(**since transmasc & transfem do not imply either a 'starting' or 'finalized' gender state; they are personal adjectives in and of themselves. Please do not warp them into new innie vs outie binary divides).

[**see related: the raw ass treatment of 'AMAB enbys' on here and in similar online/irl "feminist" environments. (Which was one of the driving factors behind the original TMA/TME coinage & is where I still find useful inter-trans discussions utilizing it as a term; importantly I don't think the term should stop being used altogether!!)]

#(nc is the non-coercive perisex gendering to seperate it from the coercive gendering that intersex babies face) #(I don't think that's the term but it's what I'm trying to describe; I can edit if there is a better way to say that!) #also it's not above my notoce that most of the women using it in a shitty way came out of incel heavy spaces like. #if you KNOW you came from misogyny heavy spaces & you KNOW about the ideological pendulum effect-- #then you should take more time to step back and analyse WHY you think certain ppl are '''acceptable targets''' to lash out at #bc none of these bitter ass TME posts EVER complain abt behaviours or spaces associated with cis men #but DO complain abt spaces associated with 'women and women-lite' and have a specific spite towards ppl who celebrate queer men #it's not that cis men & their hobbies/subcultures are an OK target; but their noticable exclus from complaints is Informative in'n'of itsel #anyways if you see someone talking about their experiences with transmisogyny using it to talk about themselves-- that's not what this's abt #if you see someone noun-ing tme to complain about 'trans afabs' oppressing women then you've found a trans radfem & should act accordingly

[luimagines]

Adding to more human-Hylian differences, their minds.

What if human brains are more mathematical, logical, etc, while Hylian brains are better at pattern recognition? Think of the dungeons. A human might need a guide, but the Links could all solve the puzzles, even at 8 years old. But then, you ask a Hylian to do Pythagoras' theorem, and it's more difficult, because their brains aren't built like that, while human adolescents are perfectly fine with a squared + b squared = c squared. Humans are way better at abstract concepts, while Hylians need the puzzle to be in front of them. Hylians are also more elaborate in their puzzle solving. You ask an average human, and they will hit the puzzle until it works, while a Hylian will analyse the pattern and quickly find the solution. Sheikah are like a branch of Hylian that evolved the more human-like mind, but not quite, because they still used magic as a crutch. Hylians also seem to value aesthetics a lot, even over practicality, because look at those dungeons where people apparently lived. All those pretty structures and yet you can't feasibly imagine it being convenient to live there. And the Divine Beasts, along with the Guardians. Are those terminals in practical locations? They look cool, sure, but then you wonder just why in the world they have such glaring weaknesses. They added unsecured entrances all over the place, it's no wonder the Blights could invade, and the Guardians have the eyes **right there**. And then, when their magical power source backfired, instead of electing to fix it, they turned them all to scrap and buried them underground. Also, as a history nerd, Lookout Landing is honestly terrible for defense, if you've seen Bread Pirate's video, you'll know, along with most places in Hyrule. And then, you compare all these settlements to Ordon, human run. Bridge can be blocked prevent enemies from crossing if I recall, and they have a sustainable food source inside the village if they get trapped, along with trained fighters, and it's surrounded by mountains. It actually seems like one of the better places in terms of defense. Humans are practical, while Hylians are still living in Hyrule, the place with an active volcano, a resurging evil, and a monster infestation. Meanwhile, Hytopia, another human populated land, is doing so well that they can turn all their focus to fashion with no consequences for their safety. It is no wonder Hyrule keeps getting taken over and attacked.

Dang, you out a lot of thought into this. ^.^*

I completely agree with what your saying.

But maybe instead of inherent pattern recognition, maybe Hylians are just better at processing/working with abstract concepts. If their society is more magic based anyway, it would be pretty difficult to be more abstract than literal magic.

I think you're right about Humans being more mathematical in that sense. They would have to be better at crunching numbers and all the logistics that follow because they don't have the luxury of throwing things at the wall and seeing if it sticks or not.

That being said- yeah, I can totally see Hyrule just keeping up with this cycle of post apocalyptical destruction, (curse aside, of course) while literally everyone else is just moving on with their lives and staying happily in their own lane.

#pinky replies #human! reader

[raw-law]

Anything you'd change in the law, of you had the chance to?

Light:

My answer is, dear Anon: nothing. I'd change absolutely nothing about the law. Let me explain.

The laws---if you're talking about international ones, that is---they're generally well thought-out. Well formulated by a group of intelligent people over hundreds of years. All we, the general public, have to do is simply: follow the law.

But there are people in the world who aren't part of this 'general public'. Politicians, world leaders, presidents, ministers, who hold a lot of power in their hands.

Anon, the sad truth is this. No matter how many changes you make to the law, no matter how fair you try and make it, how hard you try for justice to be served, there will still be people escaping the long arm of the law.

For people with power, that's the problem. No one can stop them, even if every single law says that they're wrong. Much less if the person is a world power, a powerhouse country with others backing them up.

That's why my views align so much with Kira's own. If the law can't get them, then it's time to go beyond the law to delegate out punishment to those criminals. We can't let them get away scot-free, can we?

Thanks for your question, Anon.

L:

i don't think i'd change anything with the law either, but i share a slightly different mindset.

in my eyes, there's not much you can change to suddenly cure the world of all its evil. no matter what laws you add, there will always be people who wish to wreak havoc on others. if anything, adding more laws might tempt people to break them even more... what would really need to be changed is how we go about keeping people like this contained.. how do we effectively weed out the sick and prevent them infecting anyone else?

well, we have trials. lawyers. prosecutors... but, let's be honest. i think everybody knows it's not a perfect system. nothing can be. there's no point in changing law if you can't change the government itself. and even if you are to change the government itself, nothing is ever going to be ideal. humanity is inherently flawed. anything humanity tries to create, especially when based around their society, will be flawed as well. if anything, the current law is probably the best we'll be able to construct.

i still can't excuse kira's murder sprees but... in a question like this..? i'm afraid i can't entirely oppose his thought process either...

#fictive #l lawliet #ask blog #death note #dn #light yagami

[itsclydebitches]

I'm honestly curious as to what Salem was referring to in the first volume when she said, "there will be no victory in strength" - alluding to all the times Ozpin has failed to defeat her. Interestingly, Salem never directly strongarms her followers into working for her - violence only comes in when they disobey her (Cinder) or she has her followers do it for her. Meanwhile every conflict the heroes face is solved with violence with the exception of heel-turned antagonists who are either narratively disposed of (Ilia + Raven), added to the cast-bloat of 20+ onscreen characters (Emerald + Aceops) or killed off (Hazel), thus not having to reconcile with new dynamics that aren't "everyone is best friends, all the time".

In some respects it feels like a reversal of the standard moral we would expect from a tale like RWBY. (Though, as I always want to stress, not an intentional reversal.) Meaning, most shonen-esque, fairy tale-esque, young protagonists fight some evil force-esque stories present the message that it's not their literal power that saves the day, but rather the Power of Friendship/Love/Purity/Whatever. Or, more accurately, one leads into another. By embracing the emotion that the story wants to uphold as significant, they receive their power up as a cosmic reward (like going Super Saiyan over the love of a friend), or are otherwise rewarded with the solution to their difficulty (like the Guardians of the Galaxy crew splitting the power of the infinity stone). The in-world universe looks at the hero who has Behaved In The Morally Correct Way--which often includes overtly rejecting power--and says, "Here, have a lot of power anyway as a treat. You've proven that you deserve it." Something, something the best leaders don't want to be leaders (insert Ruby's Beacon arc here) and similarly, the people to have a ton of power are those who don't inherently want to be powerful because now there's little chance that they'll misuse it. And for a hot second RWBY went in that direction with a "simple soul" who doesn't want to be the "bees knees" but does want to "help people."

Problem is--as you say--Ruby and the group just solve all of their conflicts with violence. Not in a Power of Friendship/Love way, but ordinary, prodigy, punch-them-until-they-stop-moving violence. Particularly in the later volumes. Ruby doesn't defeat Cordovin with a power-up because a teammate was injured in the fight and she now wants to protect them, they just shoot at her until a massive grimm shows up to finish the job. They don't defeat the Ace Ops with the Power of Teamwork, they all split into separate rooms and we're told they're simply more talented than these professionals, period. Blake doesn't find the strength to defend herself by thinking about Ruby, she begs Ruby to wake and do the work for her. Jaune doesn't save Penny by unlocking some upgraded semblance at a crucial moment out of a love for her, he slits her throat. The group doesn't defeat Cinder in Volume 8 at all. There's no strategy anymore, or success tied to Love--and I do use the word "anymore" deliberately. Because for a long time RWBY's saving grace (no matter its other flaws) were the Silver Eyes: a straightforward ability Powered By Love that was at the heart of our hero's development. Ruby sees Pyrrha die and it activates. She sees Blake in great danger and it activates. Even in Volume 6 when it was getting very flimsy with memories of decorating the dorm and what-not, at least it still revolved around the concept of a found family, even if it was retconning the idea of mortal peril being a trigger. It still mostly worked.

Now though, Ruby simply decides that the fight is over and disintegrates the Hound--no emotion necessary--and she doesn't react at all when her sister is murdered. We lost the one aspect of the show that still revolved around the Power of Friendship/Love.

Which finally brings us back to Salem's opening speech. "There will be no victory in strength." AKA, the standard moral. You can't defeat me by training, learning fancy techniques, or even being a prodigy. At least, you can't wield those things on their own. All the straight-forward power in the world isn't going to bring me down. Her immortality should be a metaphor for that message, wherein the cast learns the thematic lesson of upholding the Power and Love by figuring out how to circumvent the practical problem of an enemy that can't die. This setup works. It's tried and true and tested!!

But than, as said, RWBY swerved hard. Now they're saying that strength is enough. Strength is the ultimate weapon. How do you deal with a traumatized ally? You punch him and demand that he return for more violence. How do you convince an abused brother to help you? Threaten him with your sword. How do you beat the best team in Atlas, possibly the world? By just being more powerful than them, duh.

How do you defeat Salem?

By fighting her. That's the closest the group gets to offering Ironwood a "solution" to their problem: we'll stay here and fight her. How is that going to work given the whole immortality thing? They don't know. They don't care. There's absolutely no discussion about the issue, yet the protagonists continue to push the message that the best--the only--solution is to stand your ground, sharpen your weapons, and find a way to punch the problem into submission. Oh, RWBY still appears very Power of Friendship-y with all the speeches about how they have to work together, but post Volume 4-ish the writing hasn't followed up on that message.

RWBY said, "There will be no victory in strength" and then halfway through its run went, "Never mind, strength is awesome. Why would we write a story about strategy, creativity, and the importance of strong bonds when our heroes can just be More Powerful than the enemy? It's so much simpler to write a story where they're inherently as talented as the plot needs and they've all read the script, so they know they'll win in the end--that's their reasoning and justification. So much better than writing that complicated metaphor."

You know, I'm thinking now about Ironwood's final moments as he reached for his gun and then dropped his hand. Besides the fact that it reads as more sympathetically tragic to me than, I suspect, the pathetic angle RT was going for, within this framework it really reflects his whole philosophy. In a "normal" Power of Love story, there might be something to the idea that he isn't trying hard enough; that unlike our protagonists who Persevere, Ironwood demonstrates a pronounced weakness in giving up. But since the story has established quite clearly that conventional violence will not win this fight--AKA, a gun--it reads more like a tragic wisdom. In his final moments he's not giving up because he can't fight anymore (I mean, whatever else we might say about the guy, he's incredibly determined and resilient), but because he understands that the only course now available to him is useless. From the moment Oscar told him the truth, Ironwood has been working within the realities of their situation. It led him to doing horrific things in the name of finding a lesser evil, but it's narratively significant that he (and Ozpin) is one of the only characters who truly accepts the problem of Salem's immortality and doesn't bow out of the fight (like Raven). He understands that picking up a gun and shooting this being is the height of stupidity. It's a waste of time, of energy, of focus. It might be comforting to pretend that their weapons are still a viable option, but he's not going to spend his last slice of life chasing a delusion. It won't work.

Meanwhile, or protagonists are still ignoring this problem 99% of the time and the other 1% they're going, "Hmm... but what if we tried brute strength 🤔?"

#rwde #rwby #mymetas

[jewishvitya]

So I think this is the last post I'll make on the subject of Hogwarts Legacy, unless someone has a genuine and respectful question. I'm done.

I had an anon I'm not planning to post because they were excusing and denying JKR's transphobia. They're blocked. But in their ask, they also said something else, and I'll address that because I think it might be useful to remember beyond a conversation about this game.

They said that all the issues I take with the franchise from an antisemitism perspective are ridiculous, because they conflict with the main story, in which JKR's heroes fight against blood supremacists who are an allegory of Nazis.

This idea has things backwards. You aren't doing Jewish people a favor when you use our trauma as inspiration for your fantasy story.

In my opinion, using real atrocities as inspiration for stories isn't inherently wrong. If you want to have bigotry in the social dynamics of your story, it's good to look at history and what real people went through.

But you need to look at this the right way: this is the trauma that real people still carry, and you are using it to enrich your story. If you aren't doing it respectfully, you're just exploiting it.

I repeatedly said that with regards to antisemitism, I don't think JKR was intentionally harmful. But unintentional harm is still harm, and she never acknowledged it or apologized. She wrote the goblins and dismissed criticism as ridiculous because she didn't mean to do it. She used the holocaust in her Fantastic Beasts movies in an awful way. She even had a supposedly Jewish character join Grindelwald, another wizard Nazi allegory. So even if she can't change the books, the stories that get added to her franchise keep making it worse.

She repeatedly uses different kinds of bigotry in ways that are deeply disrespectful to the way marginalization works in reality. She isn't being careful or respectful. That's why I see her use of a Nazi allegory as the main villains - not once but twice - as exploitative.

I'm not going to give her credit for it as if it makes her an ally to Jewish people. These are the easiest villains to write, since they're (kinda justifiably) seen as the ultimate evil. With fascism on the rise everywhere, this gets more openly challenged, but it wasn't while she was writing the stories.

If you have them as your villains, you aren't doing us a favor, you're taking on a responsibility to treat antisemitism seriously.

And now she joined the fight on the side of fascists, like all TERFs and "gender critical" people did.

Side note: personally, I think the repeated use of the Nazis as the ultimate villains in stories both cheapened and dehumanized them to a dangerous degree. "Nazi" seems like an overblown insult instead of a an ideology. Their evil seems either mythological or cartoonish, something that can't be encountered in real life by real people. A trope, an archetype, a bunch of stock characters.

I'm not saying that writers are at fault for problematic attitudes. I'm not putting that on them. But I think it's an added point for why you don't automatically get credit for having Nazis as your villains. Think of the way people explain why they hate Umbridge more than Voldemort: you can meet someone like Umbridge, but Voldemort? That's a step too far, it's an evil that seems unrealistic.

This very popular explanation always felt off to me. It is realistic. It happened before and it can happen again.

#riki babbles #hogwarts legacy #HP #JKR

[nullconvention]

I don't have a lot of 10/10 games but Mirror's Edge is probably one of those, and a lot of that stems from how sparse it is. I'm not a video games minimalist - I don't believe that fewer mechanics, fewer things on the screen are inherently better - but I do tend to feel that a lot of things are added to games because they seem popular at the time and someone decided that this or that game NEEDED crafting or needs a certain kind of map or compass function, etc. and Mirror's Edge largely doesn't do that.

There's an exception to this - you can pick up yellow messenger bags throughout the level. These don't do anything and if you completely had forgotten about them, the game doesn't change whatsoever. Those are sort of the exception that proves the rule - they're out of place in the way the game plays but they're also so unimportant that they slide off the play experience like an egg from a new teflon skillet.

It's also pointedly not devoid of game mechanics. The most prominent of these is Runner's Sight which is a way of color coding for the player what would normally be something that stands out to Faith instinctively, picked up over years of practice and training. Since there's a great deal of bullshit over how bad it is that players just now realized that games put yellow on shit so you can see that they're interactive surfaces, this is a good way to recall that it's been done basically forever by now and that it's also done in real life spaces to make where you're supposed to go stand out. The items aren't actually red - but they make themselves clear as you're running at them full speed to help you keep your flow. After a few moments, it becomes instinctive for the player as well.

10/10s are pretty rare. They're games that essentially nail it, and that doesn't mean no flaws at all, but flaws that are so minimal that they don't detract from the overall experience, and I think that's the case for ME. I don't typically rate games, so it's shorthand for 'flawless experience' that goes up on the list with stuff like Hyperlight Drifter or Portal. Possibly Resident Evil 2's remake. There is nothing I would add to this game and nothing I could really take away - not even more or less playtime - except the very end level is slightly missing what makes the game stand out mechanically, forcing you to navigate a visually cluttered and largely horizontal environment. This is really so minor that I'm reaching for something. If you asked whether you should buy it now, after all this time, I would say "yes, absolutely" providing that you don't have a crippling fear of heights.

[painonthebrain]

I really like Oath's design!! I feel like there aren't a lot of angel characters with more natural colors other than white. What's the lore for angels in your universe? (Also demons? :D )

aw ty!

OK SO. (this is just like. background on all this)

Originally my angel universe started out as. A mystery skulls animated au based on the song (not) a devil by deco*27 and it wasnt very detailed at first

The basic premise was “what if Reverb (the demon character that appears for like. two seconds not counting when hes possessing people) was an angel? and then i ran with that and then au reverb became extremely ooc and mutated into an original character and i added charcters and lore and now its just its own universe

(ok anyway)

theres a lot of lore (still probably not entirely detailed as it could be because i think i have a favoritism problem with the angels and their lore…) also NONE of it is meant to be biblically/religiously accurate like. i do not follow any of those depictions or like. religion lore idfk what to call it i just took the concepts of angels and demons etc and RAN WITH IT

also heaven and hell dont exist in this universe we just have the angel realm and the demon realm

and you may be asking “then where do dead people’s souls go?” . eated by the myceliums

the basic lore for angels and demons are that theyre creatures created to work in tandem to protect earth. none are inherently good or evil. (its just that humans, being the way they are - attributted those labels to them) demons and angels used to interact and were actually allied at one point

however an outside force built distrust between the two and caused them to split apart

eventually the angels fall prey to the influence of a “god,” becoming more opposed against the demons and aggressive towards them, driving them out, seeking out angels who ally with demons, enforcing a strict rule on their own kind (executions, arrests, exiling angels, irrational fear etc). they declare themselves as at war with demons

the halos around their neck are from mainly forgotten origins, but seem to have been an attempt at calming their fears, exposing liars within their own circles

the angels live in a society oversaturated with propaganda and fraught with religious trauma

meanwhile, after the split, demons descended into anarchy and developed contracts as a way to combat the chaos and ensure their own safety and power

anyway thats basically the history and background of angel and demon conflict

oh yeah and humans. exist too HHAHAJAHA

theres a whole lot of other interesting bits of lore outside of history but i think this is enough for now HJAHAJA you can ask about more if you’re interested

#answered #toyybox #divine divergence (lore) #long post #my ocs