#i will do what is best for *me* and not society actually. maybe i'm selfish when i say i wanna *live*

[uncanny-tranny]

"A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips" being said like that's a bad thing. How beautiful is it that the memories and experiences my body has gone through will be etched into me, even if temporary, even if it isn't "flattering"? Why would I want to be alive if it meant that I am not permitted to live? And why should I avoid myself like I am a sin, like I am a curse, worse than death and pain?

I will envelop myself in layers of care and love, even if it means that I am slightly different. I will continue to do so even if I am alone. I have survived long enough. I will rest now, I will find peace.

#mental health #mental health advocacy #recovery #body shaming #body shaming tw #fatphobia tw #disordered eating tw #disordered eating mention tw #i swear i will fucking hunt whomever came up with that phrase #pleasure can be temporary without it being cast as sinful and shameful. the temporary is just as important as the permanent <3 #like... wow i kept a small frame throughout my life but at what cost. why would i torture myself with that #i will do what is best for *me* and not society actually. maybe i'm selfish when i say i wanna *live* #because i have survived without living long enough and i deserve to rest #(and you do too. you have endured and survived long enough. let your weary bones rest for once)

[anulithots]

I got to chapter 236.

And maybe I'm finally getting closer to fully analyzing Gojo. Because.. this made a lot of sense of his character actually, and to me it does not seem out of character for him to seem 'less caring for his students' compared to empathizing with the king of curses himself.

I think that Gojo drew the line after Riko's death, because meeting Geto was the first time he allowed himself to be anyone but just 'the strongest'. He had fun and joked around and enjoyed himself.

But... the confidence given to him as 'the strongest' was taken from him. He wasn't strong enough to defeat Toji. So he doubled down on making himself stronger, and fought with a crazy streak.

From here on out, he was simply 'a living creature'. I'd even go as far as to say that he never let himself get as close to anyone as he did with Geto and Riko. He would love them, he does love them, but he had to 'draw his line', lest the same thing happen again. If he isn't the strongest for one moment, people he cares about die.

He couldn't allow himself to be around Geto as much. He needed to be stronger.

After Geto left, Gojo says he can only save those who want to be saved.... and I think that was Gojo's motive from then on out. (Like when he talks to Megumi about being selfish, he doesn't say anything until Megumi asks to be trained.) Because he couldn't save his best friend. He couldn't save anyone that mattered. Not even as the strongest, not even after he isolated himself to be the strongest.

Gojo portrayed himself as the strongest, the one who would handle everything and no one would see him as human. He wasn't human. He loved them, but he kept his distance. He'd protect them. But he'd keep his distance.

He'd make sure that everyone else could be strong enough to protect themselves without experiencing his loneliness.

Because the corrupt system makes it so. If you're strong, then you are lonely. If you aren't strong, then you'll still die alone.

Gojo's going to do everything he can to give them companionship and happiness... and the strength to protect themselves from the system.

Because he could only have one or the other. And he chose strength because... he was the strongest after all.

Gojo himself doesn't see himself as anyone but the strongest. The moment he allowed himself to have friends, they were taken from him, so he went back to being the lonely sorcerer he once was, regretting everything that happened.

In this way, he mirrors Itadori:

Gojo does regret the way he's lived.

I don't think Nanami would honestly say this. He may say something along these lines, but he wouldn't say it like this.

This, I think, is Gojo's perception of what others think of him. Because he doesn't do it just to satisfy himself, if that were the case, then he wouldn't have been a teacher or done all he did to protect his students (to the point where the moment he was sealed a lot of people got screwed over)

The only one who understood Gojo was Geto, but as @ellionwrites pointed out in this post, Geto left with the words of 'are you just 'the strongest'?

And to Gojo, it's almost like there's no hope for him now. He's the strongest, but what power does that give him really? In this society? He 'gave it his all' and in return he only got solitude from everyone else, who thought of Gojo as above them.

The only solution he can think of is:

Fix society so that way no one is alone anymore.

(not that Gojo himself would be alleviated from his loneliness...

One last thing:

Gojo might've lived with regrets, but he didn't die with them.

... sorry for rambling! Really tired right now. I'll try to make a condensed version of Gojo's character like I did for pre-shibuya Itadori soon.

@justrustandstardust @lmskitty @bygeto

#jjk #chap 236 #jjk 236 #jjk chapter 236 #gojo satoru #jjk gojo #jujutsu gojo #geto suguru #satoru gojo #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu sorcerer #jjk satoru #satorugojo #jujutsu satoru #geto #gojo jjk #gojo saturo #airport scene #jjk analysis

[mixelation]

(a)sync rotating

so in attempts to not have this drag on forever, i think i'll have minato fall for tori relatively quickly. after she nearly kills him, i have part of a scene written where he tracks her down and

tori obviously noticed his body disappeared. she is HOPING he just teleported away to die of his injuries, but she does quickly realize she may have just pissed off THE most lethal ninja in history. and she no longer has the "i'm just an innocent, harmless civilian :)" disguise

she's like: oooooh no. oh fuck. and she goes into Seal Development Turbo Mode

when minato DOES show back up, they end up at a stale mate where she traps herself in a barrier

minato is like "well that HAS to have a time limit" and then he goes through all her stuff

she's in seal development Turbo Mode so she has a bunch of her notes out, which is both like phylogenies she copied because she's trying to figure out if chakras are more similar in more related taxa, but then also like "results f attempting to flash-fry a rat in project Flash Fry the Yellow Flash"

minato: wtf why do you keep trying to COOK me?

he ends up just leaving her because 1. he doesn't have clear orders from Konoha on this; it's mainly a personal research project, so he'll do what he wants (he is..... very bad about this). 2. he thinks she's interesting. 3. he gets her to explain wtf she's doing and she actually DOES have motives and logic he finds sympathetic: she's trying to get away from war, and even if she's selfish, she doesn't like ninja harassing civilians and she'll intervene when given the opportunity. 4. plus she's like

and this logic speaks to him. minato is "a good guy" in that he's a loyal friend and he largely respects the rules of society (harassing people bad! etc), but he's also basically never once been like "oh, murder of an enemy is too harsh a punishment!!" like yeah, if someone is threatening you or your comrade, you just kill them? duh???

so minato leaves her and has upgraded her in his brain from "interesting potential enemy" to "person i just think is neat." and he's not like I AM NOW IN LOVE but he IS like "i am bored all the time now, and i think having her attention would be fun and interesting and we could get along, so i'm going to try flirting" except she just GETS MAD AT HIM???? and jiraiya has a bunch of very bad suggestions

so minato goes and does his monthly Track Tori Down field trip (tori is always like HOW ARE YOU DOING THIS??? and will switch up her behavior to be weirder and less predictable, it's SO cute) and she's at a bar chatting up some other ninja. minato will NOT admit he is jealous but also, if she wanted to talk to a ninja, he's more famous, superior at every single ninja skill, nicer, smarter, more charming, AND better looking?!

@waffliesinyoface suggested Plasticity lore character Batta of Grass, so that's who Tori's target is. minato reflects on jiraiya's advice and is like FINE I WILL MAKE HER JEALOUS and saunters over and hits on Batta HIMSELF. obviously batta is more interested in talking to him than to tori and abandons her. except now.... now minato is talking to this random unimpressive ninja he doesn't care about and NOT the person who WANTED to see?

batta: (bragging about killing TWO ninja in one fight)

minato: (internal screaming) that's SO impressive (best most resilient fake smile)

and tori looks scandalized for like five minutes but now she's just smirking at him from across the bar. minato is silently begging her to bail him out.

not sure how the batta part of this ends (with him dying in some comical way, maybe?) but i want the fallout to be

tori is like "you are so fucking stupid, i was trying to get him to go kill some road bandits for me bc they're making travel basically impossible"

minato is like "whyyyyy didn't you just ask meeeeee i have been dropping SO MANY HINTS THAT I LIKE YOU"

tori is like "no, you treat EVERYONE like that. you just sat around for two hours treating batta like that even though you don't give a shit about him"

debating if she tells him he's met her TWICE before the boiling incident here, or if it's better to have another mirrored conversation later where instead of "minato why are being dumb" it's "tori why are you acting insane." kind of leaning toward the latter option maybe with them confronting the fact that tori WILL kill minato's allies and he doesn't want her to do that?

minato: ......you could minato: you could ask ME to clear out the bandits

he wants to show off so he takes her down the ENTIRE trade road and clears out every bandit, plus some ninja sitting around

tori IS incredibly blushy and flustered by this!! flirting successful :)

#asynchronicity #toriverse

[archon-maenad]

oh my goddddd I am so so so not normal about the concept of the endbringer truce, even more than I am about kill orders (and I am very not normal about government licensed assassinations).

the endbringer truce was ratified. and cauldron was obviously responsible for it crossing from cultural phenomenon to an actual set of laws, but to push that in the first place they had to make sure the concept was deeply important. and it is, it's become a cornerstone of both caping and just being a citizen of earth bet.

that leads to a lot of different ways to look at the concept. there's the cynical outlook, the bitterness the ordinary citizen feels when villains get away with running roughshod over them just because they show up to endbringer fights. heroes have their own flavor of this too, because there's a very real sacrifice of morals that comes from working with a nazi. even if people agree the ends justify the means here that doesn't mean those means don't cost you something. no hero on bet has clean hands, and they know it.

then there's the emotional outlook, where all the feels congeal. I'm such a sucker for humanity banding together, even in the face of hopeless odds, and the endbringer truce makes me tear up when written right. a week from now they'll be at each other's throats but in the moment, with levi or behee or simmy looming above, with the wreckage created surrounding the aftermath, villains and heroes work together. it's beautiful.

and then there's maybe my favorite aspect, the comparative outlook. how starkly the differences in mindset are between earth bet citizens and those of other worlds enchants me. that society has normalized setting aside grudges for the sake of survival in a way that most people can't, because the emotional hurdle is too much to pass even if they get the logic, and stories where that shows are just the best.

I read a post-gm isekai fic where taylor's gambit to rally a group of people against a bigger enemy failed, and that moment stuck with me because she specifically noted that it failed since she assumed the world would have responded like bet would have, and that even baseline humans from her home dimension would have understood the plan. and y'know what they fucking would have. because everyone agrees you Don't Fuck With The Truce.

having to actually explain first why the truce is important just did not occur to her, the argument was focused on why the enemy was obviously truce-worthy. but tay listed out the core concepts and people Did Not Get It and that was such a wild bit of culture shock from her perspective. being too cowardly or morally uptight or selfish to put aside grudges so you can survive gets culled real quickly on bet, but in that new world it was the norm.

it also let to a hilarious moment where she stone cold maimed (or maybe straight up bodied I don't remember) a guy who broke truce and to her surprise people were absolutely horrified. for once tay was not actually trying to deal psychic damage and someone sane could agree that everyone else is overreacting, because maiming or killing people who break truce when birdcages or life sentences aren't available is a completely reasonable response on bet!

I love exploring culture shock and reactions to it in the context of earth bet citizens on other worlds, and the endbringer truce is one of my favorite avenues to do so. it's status as a cornerstone of that society led to a fundamental shift in mindset that truly I am very very very not normal about as evidenced by this nine paragraph post about it.

#betpinions #parahumans #endbringers #taylor hebert

[thinkingaboutbones]

Yellowjackets Characters Ranked from Most to Least Likely to be a Communist

The ghost of Karl Marx possessed me and made me write this.

Young Nat - I mean come on just look at her. Girlie hates the system!! My anarchist queen!! I love her.

Lisa - She's part of Lottie's intentional community, putting in the work to better herself and the community! You could tell me she's canonically a communist and I would not be surprised.

Adult Lottie - Now I don't think Lottie is a full communist. Like she's running an "intentional community," which is like basically a commune, but she also deliberately positions herself as a leader. You can even see it in the clothes she wears. Like put on the heliotrope comrade!!

Adult Van - Idk I know she criticizes Lottie's community but she just has comrade vibes to me. She's a small business owner (a girl's gotta do what she's gotta do under capitalism) keeping physical media alive!

Adult Nat - She's a bit more jaded than her younger self. Originally, she questions Lottie's community. But she does buy in when she sees and experiences the benefits!

Laura Lee - So I originally had Laura Lee pretty low because of the correlation between Christianity and conservative beliefs in our society. But our queen isn't like that!! She learned how to fly the plane for the good of the community! Helped Lottie cope when she ran out of her meds! And you know maybe neither of those things totally worked out but she was doing her best!!!!!

Crystal - If Crystal can get along with MISTY she can get along with anyone. And she was SHOOK when she learned that Misty had destroyed the black box, aka done something literally so selfish/bad for the group. I think she would do very well in a world where everyone worked together and shared resources for the good of the community.

Akilah - Idk man this is a long list they can't all be well thought out. @lottiesacolyte said she seems open to anything, so I'm just kind of putting her here. Sorry to the Akilah stans.

Young Lottie - Initially I had young Lottie super low on the list, since she's kind of a god/idol to the girlies in the woods. But upon further consideration, she doesn't actually Want that. She goes out of her way to try and Avoid becoming their leader. She just wants everyone to work together and survive. AND she said that if she died they shouldn't let her body go to waste.

Young Van - Young Van's vibes are very similar to her adult self's, but she does kind of buy in super hard to Lottie as leader. I think that under different circumstances she would be more of a communist.

Young Taissa - Young Taissa is a tricky one. Because she is soooo against the Lottie as leader stuff that everyone else is buying into. But at the same time, I feel like She wants to be the leader? Which tracks considering her adult life. I think that her and Van could have been happy living as communists together, but that's not the way life panned out for them.

Adult Shauna - Shauna is fed up with her boring suburban life. And you know what would make you happier, queen? Communism!

Randy - Okay this one is a little silly goofy. But he's just sooo down to help Jeff. Help him with blackmail, help him seem like Shauna is cheating on him. He's a real one. I don't think it's likely that Randy would be a communist but like if Jeff was doing it? Maybe!

Jeff - Very similar to Randy, I think that he would just kind of go with the flow with what everyone else is doing. He's pretty traditional, but if Shauna wanted to try communism he'd give it a whirl with her.

Javi - Javi is a child. He's an icon and I choose to believe he would adjust to communism, but let's be real he's gonna just go with the flow.

Sammy - Sammy is also a child, even more of a child than Javi. He'll do what his parents tell him to do.

Gen and Melissa - Okay I put them together because I don't know a single thing about either of them. They're side characters, they'll do whatever everyone else is doing LOL.

Mari - Mari is kind of a hater. And that's so relatable. She's kind of a go with the flow girlie. But also because of her hater energy I feel she would not immediately adjust well to communism.

Jackie - Jackie is a traditional girlie. She's used to being queen bee. She doesn' adjust well to living in the woods, and she wouldn't adjust well to communism. I think that she could if pressed! But she would be resistant, let's be honest.

Young Shauna - While Jackie's alive, Shauna will do whatever Jackie does, regardless of her own thoughts on the matter. After Jackie dies (rest in peace my girlfailure icon queen), Shauna's a little more ambitious. You think a girl who's mad she didn't get to be antler queen would be immediately down with communism? Absolutely not. I think she would adjust, but not easily.

Callie - Callie's in her edgelord, I'm cooler than everyone else era. Perhaps one day when she is older she will embrace the radical joy and love communism can provide, but for now she would Not be happy with a change in the status quo. She has big Jackie queen bee energy, and she doesn't want that to change.

Adult Travis - Travis' response to the trauma of the wilderness was to move to the middle of nowhere, so I don't think communism would quite be his vibe. But I do think that he'd be more open that his younger self, just due to life experience and Hopefully being less misogynistic now. But we don't really see a lot of him so who's to say!

Young Travis - Travis buys into so much heteronormativity and toxic masculinity nonsense that I think it would be really hard to shake it out of him.

Simone - She's married to Taissa, so she's clearly bought into the idea that a liberal government can somehow liberate us.

Adult Taissa - She's literally part of the system. Also she can eat dirt for free under capitalism, so why bother being a communist? She's a deadbeat dad, acting like providing for her family monetarily is the only thing that matters and not Love and Quality Time.

Adam - Adam would tell people he's a communist. He might even think it's true. But when push comes to shove? That man is not going to radically change his life. He's fake woke and I hate him, good riddance.

Adult Misty - She was NOT on board with Lottie's intentional community. She abuses the elderly. She murders people. Misty wants power and control, and communism wouldn't allow her to have that.

Walter - This man is RICH but instead of redistributing his wealth he bought a big fancy house and all he does is go on Reddit and be crusty and lame.

Coach Ben - They're literally stranded in the middle of nowhere and this man keeps trying to act like he's in charge? Like you only have one leg my dude, just let the girlies take care of you. And then instead of talking things out when he disagrees with the collective, he BURNS THE CABIN DOWN. Evil evil man.

Young Misty - I hate her. She's a creep. She broke the black box just because she liked feeling important. She killed Crystal to keep her secret, and doesn't even want anyone to eat Crystal's body even though everyone is starving. Keeping valuable resources from the community is NOT very communist of her.

Kevyn - ACAB!!

Jay - ACAB ACAB HE'S SO CRUSTY I HATE HIM HE'S A CREEP!!!!!!!!

#if u disagree with me pls be nice #also to be so honest i am a vibes communist not an educated in theory communist so sorry if this is wrong somehow #yellowjackets #natalie scatorccio #lottie matthews #van palmer #misty quigley #shauna shipman #shauna sadecki #taissa turner #jeff sadecki #communism #laura lee #jackie taylor #javi martinez #travis martinez #ben scott

[nekkodiaries]

— knock me down. (teaser)

RELEASE: march 18, 2023.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: finally hard-launching the fic that i've been working for a few months now. hhhhh. i'm excited but also very insecure because a good quarter of this fic is written and i'm so ! anxious ! about my writing skills (as someone who knows they're bad at describing and bad at being literate in general. rip.) anyway. i hope you guys enjoy this fic like you did with cheating on you. if you want to be added to the taglist, just reply or send an ask.

reblogs are super appreciated! 🫶

after a tough day of contributing absolutely nothing to the greater good of society, jay decides to do what men like him choose to do to relieve stress: by playing a high-stress game.

what he wasn't expecting, though, was to get a snarky partner who would actually reciprocate his angry chats (as a result of his bad temper) and shit-talk him back. like what they're doing right now.

killstrike: wtf you should have covered me notursniper: yea well u shouldnt have been peeking. killstrike: ur ign fits u bc ur shit at sniping 😂😂 notursniper: i HAD him but ur big ass head was IN THE WAY now u got headshot boohoo 😛 killstrike: just stfu and come revive me

jay was pissed. there's no way he's losing this duo match. it's down to three teams and he can't risk losing more points for his rank when he's so close to reaching crown four, so he breathes in and out, trying his utmost best not to let the arrogant demeanor of his partner get on all of his nerves. notursniper heals him and fends off two players while he heals, leaving just one more team. 

you got this. you got this. jay internally chants before a barrage of shots echo from his phone's speaker. he's too busy to look for the enemy to notice his partner's been knocked down. the motherfucker's proning. the circle's getting smaller and jay's getting anxious over the constant request for healing when all of a sudden: 

better luck next time player killstrike! top 2/100.

"fuck!" jay shouts in frustration, watching the loading screen as the game demotes him from crown five to regular crown rank. "great. that's just great." in the heat of his frustration, jay adds notursniper just to be able to message them— and as soon as he sees them added to his "friends" list, jongseong taps his frustrations away. 

killstrike: its your fucking fault. now im just crown

notursniper: 🤨 ?

killstrike: well??? are you gonna admit your wrongs???

notursniper: 1, is this how u treat women lmao and 2, no i wont :p notursniper: maybe if you actually healed me then we wouldve ranked up notursniper: but ur too selfish and tried to shoot before attending to ur teammate notursniper: so i'd say that rank demotion is DESERVED ❤️

killstrike: man fuck u 😐

notursniper: sry there's a line for gamer boys who wanna bang. you gotta get in line babes 😘

was it possible to choke on air? because jay's convinced he choked on air when he read that. it doesn't help that his eyes immediately darted to the icon where her cuteness was radiating despite her hand and phone covering her entire face. he blames his temper for why he's feeling hot right now— definitely not because he got a visual of what could happen if he did choose to get in line. definitely not. never. no.

killstrike: ew

notursniper: hey u can block me if u want to lmao 🤣

impulsive by nature, jay taps a few times and gets so close to removing user notursniper as their pubg friend but he hums in thought. having a higher rank meant having more skilled enemies and he's never seemed to get past top 40 players without dying, so it was a miracle he got until the top 2 tonight. his teammate's shit-talking aside, he'd say they were actually really good. 

and again, real cute on her icon.

"what?" his own intrusive thoughts snaps him back to the real world, to see that she actually removed him as an in-game friend. what the fuck? in a span of panic, he tried to add them again. 

a few days pass by but alas, no response from her. jay does not know why he's itching to check on his phone every now and then. heeseung and sunghoon don't even want to question why he's been staring at phone with his brows furrowed for hours now.

it's only because they're a good player and they can help me rank up. that's it. 

soon enough, jay's routine has become waking up, going to school, and checking if user notursniper has accepted his request at every waking second of the day. the same goes for the following morning when jay anxiously opens the game again and finds one new message from a friend.

notursniper: hey loser. back for more?

masterlist. ┆ next.

summary: park jay lives life as a hot-headed gamer by day and.. well.. still a hot-headed gamer by night— except he secretly goes by the name killstrike. after losing a match, he finds himself trash-talking, his teammate notursniper, who happens to be the mysterious classmate he's been admiring for over a year and more.

taglist [open]: @yvnjin-s @wondering-out-loud @rikisly @babystrlla @shinrjj @homelycat

#enhypen #enhypen x reader #jay x reader #social media au #enhypen social media au #smau #socmed au #enhypen smau #enhypen socmed au #twitter au #enha smau #enha socmed au #enhypen x you #enhypen jay #enhypen jay fluff #enhypen jay x you #heeseung #jake #enhypen jake #sunghoon #sunoo #jungwon #niki #kpop smau #smau: knock me down

[kenobihater]

Hello! Sorry if this isn't a topic you want to speak on (so feel free to ignore this) but I have two questions regarding different arguments I've seen about the Hogwarts Legacy bullshit, as there were mixed views from both trans and Jewish people when I went on a blocking spree earlier:

1. I saw a couple of the fans that paid actual money for the game defend their choice with "but Im trans" or "but Im Jewish" or both. Thoughts on that?

2. There have been claims that pirating the game is alright as long as you don't talk about it online, whereas others posed that engaging with the game through piracy is in itself harmful - maybe not to the wider society as a whole, but to Jewish, trans, and other marginalized individuals in that persons life. What is your stance on the matter?

I have some ideas about these myself but seeing as I am neither trans nor Jewish I think it'd be best to ask first and only follow up with a dialogue if that is wanted of me. I know that outsiders can sometimes have more nuanced/better positions than insiders (like with the whole truscum and transmedicalism rot going on about in some trans circles) but. Yeah. Asking predominantly out of curiosity but also because you tend to be aggressively clear and honest about the shit going on with HP and I like that.

I'm fine with answering this, though I will add that I'm not Jewish and so I'm not qualified to speak in depth on the antisemitism present within the game other than to acknowledge that it is very blatant and wrong.

From the perspective of a trans person, I think that even trans people can hold harmful and transphobic stances when it comes to this game bc they're letting their nostalgia blind them. Being a minority does not inherently free you from being wrong and bigoted, even against a group you yourself are part of. Sidenote - considering how this game actually has a trans person in it and to my admittedly limited knowledge it doesn't engage in transphobic rhetoric or tropes like it does with the antisemitism, I'd find it VERY sketch if a trans gentile claimed they could play the game bc they were trans. Like, hello! The antisemitism isn't negated by your transness!!

Onto your second question: I've thought about this myself and I think I've finally decided on my stance, though it's quite rambly. Imho if someone is absolutely 100% going to play the game, I'd prefer that they pirate it, do so behind closed doors, and not speak of it bc there's no such thing as bad publicity. But like... they're knowingly engaging with a game that is steeped in antisemitism and monetarily benefits a transphobe. The simple decision to play that game, even if it doesn't impact their worldview in any way, even if they aren't lining joann's pockets, even if they give it no publicity... they're still making a decision to put their own pleasure and enjoyment over the pleas of Jewish and trans people. That's selfish in my book. Like, if someone hasn't dropped HP I doubt anything I can say will change that, but I just find it sad and exhausting that people will call themselves allies and then refuse to do anything that could possibly challenge or inconvenience them. They post infographs about the rise of antisemitic hatecrimes and reblog "fuck terfs!", but will they actually show up to rallies? Call their legislators to complain about bigoted legislature? Educate themselves? Make room for Jewish and trans voices and be silent when necessary? Consistantly reflect on their own biases and bigoted behaviors and grow as a person? Something tells me that if they can't even refrain from playing a blatantly antisemitic wizard game just bc it reminds them of a book written by a terf they read when they were 12, that that's not very likely.

#thank you for asking my opinion! i kind of needed to rant abt this to someone other than my mom lol #len answers #idiots get blocked! so don't even bother rbing this if you wanna add bigoted shit! #transphobia tw #antisemitism tw

[submalevolentgrace]

Regarding this post:

https://at.tumblr.com/submalevolentgrace/young-queers-hate-anyone-that-isnt-young-i-wish/ao1vgv8zjr5w

I’m a young queer and I don’t hate older queer people but I can think of like 2 trans women over 40 and a few older gay men and that’s it, how do I meet older queer people?

i'm gonna be honest, i don't know. a few people have asked me, and i don't really have great advice to give... but i'll give it a try.

i met a wide variety of people through going to a variety of local events (family picnics, pub chats, munches, support-type groups, meet-up-and-discuss-a-certain-topic dinners, music performance nights, multicultural days, sex parties yes im not kidding, marches, and just random park day hangouts). but i withdrew once i started getting the beginnings of the aegist hate, and from what i know of my local area, the kinds of things i was going to have stopped happening in favour of the youth centric and meat market type things...

my best advice would be seek out whatever yearly pride march/event/festival is in your town/city/region, and check out what sort of community efforts are being supported by a wider range of age groups, and see if you can get involved. if you want to be super proactive, use the usual IRL event-finding methods (in my day it was the community boards at libraries and the one queer bookshop in town, facebook groups, word of mouth, and the queer radio station), then give as many of them a try as possible. if they all skew incredibly young (and aren't specifically youth groups), maybe ask the event organisers why. best case scenario you'll get leads for where to meet more all-ages group, worst case you'll raise uncomfortable questions, get kicked out, and in the process be some friction for change. if you're religious or can tolerate it for the strong community aspect, there are usually denominations or churches that attract higher proportions of queers people, in my area it's uniting and the quakers (though obviously this is highly dependent on what the background radiation of religious extremism is like where you are, and as an escapee myself i wouldn't consider it but it's worked for some people i've known). if you want a long shot, a lot of community centres/orginisations hold conversational/social groups for lonely elders and they're always looking for younger people to participate, and you never know who you'll find; organisers might even know they specifically have queer members, but it's maybe worth it even if they don't, depending on what you're looking to get out of it.

on that note though, i do feel the need to just put it out there; know what you're seeking and why, and don't be selfish about it. you're dealing with humans that have a long life full of many feelings, not informational dispensaries and self growth mentors. and... well, a lot of older people are going to unintereted and even hostile to opening up to intergenerational friendships, because they've already suffered the wrath of the youth and a youth worshipping society. it's shocking how quickly society disregards the opinions of aeging people; i'm starting to feel it ever increasingly myself as i approach 40.

i think it's definitely a good goal to have a broad group of friends and be part of an intergenerational actual community; but beware that what you'll find has a decent chance of pissing you off and people will disagree with you; and you can't just write that off as them coming from a different time or being conservative; sometimes they just have more perspective from experience, and it's incredibly difficult to accept that.

but i think if anything, wanting to foster that communication and acceptanceof disagreement is a strong driving force behind my wandering rants like the one you're responding to.

so, idk, i got off topic, but. yeah. i don't know because i already left. but, older queers are out there, and some are wanting to share their wisdom, so keep looking, and good luck.

[toddhewitt]

Todd Hewitt for the Reverse Unpopular Opinion meme 😁

my favorite of all time 😭 i have extensive notes written on why exactly that is but to sum it up it's mostly about just being human. making mistakes, feeling bad and saying you'll learn from them, then making more mistakes and that cycle repeating itself. redemption as a non-linear process, the way both todd and mayor prentiss raise complex questions about what makes a person ir/redeemable - this all weighs so heavily on todd's shoulders and he's not dealing with it like a hero, he's dealing with it like a human. more specifically, a human raised by two parents who are more moderate (and one of whom actively strays away from toxic masculinity) in a violent extremist society based on said toxic masculinity, and the contradictions that come with this kind of upbringing. he's kind, but he fails. he feels everything so much, he has so much rage and love and anguish in him. he's just a kid who's not remarkable at anything of his own making, it's just that upbringing that made him into the emotional guy he is.

and the intensity of these emotions is that power. this is made explicit by the mayor (and others) multiple times, and is shown to us specifically with everything regarding his noise. todd is undoubtedly at his weakest in the middle of the second book because he's numb, and echoes of it, a different kind of numbness, appear in the third book. both times, that numbness breaks when he's at a sudden emotional extreme - in the ask and the answer it's seeing viola again, especially when she shows him the band, and in monsters of men it's hearing ben's song. as he gets farther away from the mayor and closer to ben, his noise literally opens up. it's such a perfect way to show the power that is in todd's emotions, and i haven't even mentioned the noise battles.

but the thing is - he doesn't want to use that power, and it's not a necessarily positive or heroic statement. there's being greedy for power, and in opposition there's giving up on power and the indication that it's resisting greed and so it's valiant. but that's not the case with todd; he's actually told that his power could do the world good, that he can help bring change. viola tells him that in the tent scene in monsters of men, which is, in my opinion, the most important scene for his whole character arc. and it's because he's simply saying - no. i know i have this power and that it can help, but i've been trying to do a lot of good, and it's exhausting me. there are adults who can help handle the situation. i just want to live quietly with the people i love.

that rejection of the hero role imposed on you by others is not something that this story invented, but here it's the most powerful way i've ever seen it used, because for three books we have been inside the mind of this kid, who is full of anger and full of care, reading about his constant turmoil at the questions, "am i moral? am i forgivable? am i good?" so this is todd saying he doesn't owe anyone an answer to these questions, including himself. this is him recognizing that the world should not put him in situations where he constantly needs to ask these questions, that a society which challenges his goodness in its cruel reality is not one that he wants to keep living in, and that he wants to find an alternative. it sounds almost naive but i think it's also mature in its implications, or like, accepting his own naivete. he doesn't know he's the protagonist of a story but everyone seems to think he's special anyway, and he's rejecting the responsibility that comes with these things. sounds selfish? maybe. but it's human. maybe "i'm human" is the best answer he can give to the questions he's been asking himself... embracing the chaos of personhood, this intuitive wording feels right.

i love the way his internal voice is written. it's so genuine and so fluid, like a flowing stream of thought. i love his terminology, especially in the hebrew translation. i love his imperfections as a human being and i love that he feels so much like a human being. he's human. that's the thing i love most about him ❤

#mayareplies #chaos walking #i know for a fact that not everyone agrees it's a likeable quality of his/of the books #(in fact that's why i'm here now - a negative review i stumbled upon about six years ago #made me feel guilty for liking and relating to todd's character #and then i read the trilogy again with the intention of figuring out what this character means to me and in general #and what i've written here is a significant part of my conclusions from that journey) #but regardless of whether it's a likeable quality or not #i feel like the simple notion of that humanity is recognized by readers #and it is what makes him likeable to many readers who i've had interactions with #so this is me expanding on the idea in my own way #'i have extensive notes' she says and proceeds to write their contents in a new way lmao #nah to be fair this IS only summing it up. i have a beginning of a doc of meta on the entire trilogy so this is quite short really #chaos walking books

[chemiicalformula]

Ok bc of your doctor jekyll and mr hyde post I am now extremely curious. What's your favorite interpretation of the original story?

ah! hello anon!! sorry i took a while, i usually don't get asks and this honestly made me very happy!!! 🧪 buckle up because you've just opened the flood gates

(also i use commas like my life depends on it, so my apologies in advance for run-ons)

so, let's see, my favorite interpretation of the strange case of... , that's a bit of a tough one seeing as i like quite a few i've seen around and also my own, sort of, which is...

essentially, what i got was henry jekyll and edward hyde are both henry jekyll. one man, two bodies ; not two men, one body/head/mind, you get me? i don't exactly enjoy how media has turned them into a "split personality" symbol when that's not what the original story was about, and i also don't really enjoy how people try to write off henry as some sort of saint when he was simply going incognito mode by mixing a potion and disguising himself so he could try and just live life until it unfortunately took a turn for the worst

and with that said, i feel i must address that when it comes to the movies (although i absolutely love fredric march's performance as the doctor and mister hyde in the 1931 film) i really hate that most of them try to:

A. make him appear far younger and more innocent/naive than he is because come on, he's written as a large, fifty year old man who is a bit (well actually a lot) unhinged and selfish but knows how to act like he's not (and i love him for it)

B. have him be engaged to marry a woman (most times the daughter of sir danvers carew when that's the dude he literally murdered like huh???) when i'm a firm believer (as a bisexual nb man) in henry jekyll being someone who was forced to hide his sexuality because of the strict victorian society he lives in, so he just never marries and goes on about his life alone out of shame with a hint of fear

C. try to pass it off as some sort of intrusive thoughts or split personality thing because it's not either, and finally

D. don't add in utterson or hastie because!!! come on man, they were in the story too! and poole, and enfield because some of their dialogue made me giggle for no reason (in all honesty, i find a lot of the book very humorous but maybe that's just because i love the characters and feel a strong connection to the premise given personal reasons)

now, i do love hearing theories; one big example is utterson thinking hyde was some sort of secret lover or even more outrageous (a long lost son??!) who's planning to blackmail jekyll. it's really funny to me in a dark comedy sort of way because it's such a huge leap to make seeing as gabriel is one of his best friends, yet he came to that kind of conclusion so quickly after henry said edward hyde was someone of interest to him, but given the time period and the customs, it's not surprising to understand why he could be thinking that (plus i don't think jekyll running down the stairs after waking up as hyde in his hilariously oversized clothes or filling hyde's townhouse with expensive stuff made it any better)

"i can't pretend i shall ever like him." GABRIEL, DEAR SIR, THAT'S JUST JEKYLL YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!! and it's so funny!!

i also love the interpretations by everyone who says they head canon henry jekyll/edward hyde as being on the spectrum or/and that he's trans, because hell yeah dude, as someone who is both, i will give all of you a high-five for being so rad and so cool

i feel like there's more i could say but i've rambled so much already and i apologize for that, but thank you once again for the ask and feel free to message me if you ever want to talk about more (anyone for that matter can do so because i really want to engage with more fans!!) 💉

bonus : for reading this far, here's a silly drawing

#the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde #dr jekyll and mr hyde #gothic lit #gothic literature #anonymous ask #mineart

[vivacissimx]

Hi !whats your thoughts on suguru and satosugu ):

the ): at the end of this ask made me laff

Suguru is one of my favorite characters in JJK & one of the most emotionally complex ones to parse when you get past the obvious. It's so binary on it's face, Suguru being an outsider who comes into the insulated jujutsu society with a supercharged cursed technique, the only person to ever be on par with Satoru whose very birth was like a cataclysmic event, but oh no, he gets corrupted. His morals are so strong that they're inflexible—which of course turns out to be a massive problem—but also they're rooted in a really naïve, selfish place. Suguru's desire to protect normal people (seeing as he's "strong" and they're "weak") collapses in the face of his friends dying & Toji's assassination because his moral position was too rigid to give him space to grieve, to empathize. If the strong exist to protect the weak, and the strong die in that cause, then it was an honorable and justified death. However, his personal feelings of loss clash with that view & the curses that are killing his friends aren't even their fault—it's normal humans who (unknowingly) create them.

So Geto transitions into wanting to protect only those he chooses to care for instead. I think to a point he was able to accept that humans create curses, but when he saw baby MimiNana locked up by humans for having cursed techniques it just broke him, perhaps knowing then that there was no way to ever eradicate curses fully & stop the dying, that jujutsu sorcerers are actually the most vulnerable ones, being both on the frontlines of fighting curses & massively outnumbered. It's a lot of ego involved with Suguru's worldview, a lot of philosophical bullshit, but at his core he's probably much more selfishly motivated than he can comfortably admit to himself.

It's also so interesting how much Suguru hated his own cursed technique. Obviously the MC is Yuji, whose cursed technique is more like 'has Sukuna' which he can't truly utilize, but he adjusts to that much more successfully that Suguru does housing curses. He always goes for hand to hand combat as a first resort and with Kenjaku we see that there's a lot about his cursed technique that Suguru never even knew, probably due to his resentment of it. I think he was in desperate need of guidance during his school years and instead the school only cared about churning out soldiers. Thus we have a Suguru who never aged out of his very black-and-white thinking, just twisted himself into a knot around his beliefs / versus Satoru whose position was always more like 'I'm just doing this because I'm doing this, I'm not gonna take any huge moral responsibility onto myself just for being born' and he matures thanks to that breathing space. There's a selflessness in his carelessness.

Satosugu is delicious of course because it's impossible, Satoru's existence makes sense but Suguru's is more like a wild card the universe threw out. And Satoru's love for Suguru is the most human thing about him! He keeps looking for another equal in his students, but Geto is the only one who ever was (was, until he wasn't anymore). Whereas Suguru is going through life pretty much aware that Satoru is going to kill him one day according to the jujutsu society's laws, but he hasn't yet, and maybe he won't. It's called trust. Suguru is the one who goes back, who forces Satoru's hand.

At the end, they don't really need words but they share them anyway cause why not? It was a stolen luxury for love's sake. I think part of Suguru wanted to be punished. I also think Satoru thought of Suguru as belonging to him (his best friend, his equal, his to kill), and that we keep coming back to this singular selfishness for a reason.

#asks #jjk #geto suguru #gojo satoru #satosugu #text

[this-is-krikkit]

Top 5 queer characters

ooooh good one, thank you !!

5. Frankie Bergstein. The most gentle soul out there, hilarious whether she wants to be or not, an incredibly loving and warm character who ends up falling in love with a woman who's shown her nothing but disdain most of their lives before they end up in the same shitty situation. What i especially love about her is that in my headcanon where that show didn't queerbait us to death, she's the bold and crazy one who doesn't care about other people's opinion, she's the one you'd expect to be brave and loud and clear about how she's in love with her best friend and it's not just platonic. But i actually love the idea that she might be the one struggling most with that realization and how to act on it, because she used to be so open and loving of everything and everyone (and still seems that way) for the seven decades before the show starts ; and she got her heart broken so badly from the twenty year old affair, that although she did get attached to Grace quickly enough and jokes about being more than friends all the time, she's deadly afraid of those feelings and what may come of them. I absolutely love this strong and funny and silly woman on the outside, who hides a much more vulnerable and frightened woman on the inside, who deserves all the lifetime of love and affection Grace has never allowed herself to feel or show anyone.. until now, post-canon !!

4. Crawley, my actual demon child, who is way too good for this world, and the other two he's visited. (And i've been torturing myself for a solid half hour trying to pick between him and his equally amazing boyfriend Aziraphale, and ended up flipping a coin for it. I'm sorry Aziraphale. I love you so much.) Anyways, back to Crawley and his ridiculous crush on an angel that makes him do crazy things such as going to actual heaven to save said angel's ass, and who embodies Iris by the Goo goo Dolls so perfectly it's a lil suspicious and he probably had smth to do with that song coming to life while he was under cover on Earth. I love a tv show that brings a book to my attention, i loved both of those media and i cannot wait for season 2.

(do i need to explain that gif choice ? no i don't. bye.)

3. Charity Dingle, chaotic bisexual icon if i ever saw one !! haven't had a chance to catch up with the soap since the Vanity shit hit the fan, but i'll get back to her one day because i miss the truly Slytherin Queen that she is (sorry for the HP mention but it belongs to us now, fuck JKR and terfs in general). Pretty sure she's the most flawed character in this list, but i apparently LOVE a queer anti hero ? She's a lot of things and not all of them good ; she's a cheat, a liar, a bad mom most of the time, selfish and venale and has trust issues towards everyone and herself the size of a mountain. She's also a survivor of terrible abuse, a fighter, a love-starved but deeply insecure person who won't let that be seen easily. She's the only such representation i've ever seen of a wlw woman esp in a popular soap, and her simply existing gives me so much hope that society might just be evolving in the right direction ? Idk man, on the good days where i still have faith for lgbt future, she sorta gives me hope for our queer lives to become part of the norm and not just sensational and weird.

2. Regina Mills from OUAT. What a great show with a great lesbian power couple and awesome message about queer families, or so i'm yelling somewhere in that parallel universe where the two cowards who wrote it grew courage instead of magic beans and made Swan Queen canon. I grew to love this character, it wasn't love at first sight (although def lust at first sight, shout out to them Evil Queen gowns) and now i'm trying to write self indulgent fics from her pov and day dreaming about all the things she deserved that she never got. Best redemption arc (apart from my #1 down there maybe) i've ever seen, a full badass bitch energy. Sidenote, Lana Parrilla being the biggest and loudest Swan Queen supporter in the cast felt suspicious to me in the beginning (idk, i don't get me either), but i'm finally at a point where i can fully appreciate how awesome that was of her.

(Yes that gif was queerbait. Yes i still get excited seeing it.)

1. Obv my number 1 queer bitch forever is ROOT from Person of Interest, it's been 6 years and i'm still in denial of the byg trope they pushed down my throat a meer day after she finally got her tiny sociopathic soulmate back. She was a lot of things that i can't detail or i would die from dehydration bc the tears would consume my entire stock of water, but she also happened to appear in a TV show i actually loved. I mean i did start watching strictly for the gayness i vaguely knew was ahead, let's be real, but POI is a show i really came to love so much even when she wasn't a main character. It touched me deeply, and i still rewatch it and get blown away by the genius of so many of its episodes, from the mind blowing plot twists to the soundtrack. I had so many kids on that show and loved them all so much, just thinking about it hurts... We were robbed of a Shoot reboot, and i'll leave it at that.

(look at her being so passionate and right and fierce and hot. loooooook. i would have followed her into battle from day one of her psych ward escape 😢 )

#root #regina mills #charity dingle #crawley #frankie bergstein #wlw #lgbt characters #lgbt stuff #person of interest #once upon a time #emmerdale #good omens #gay omens #grace and frankie #still mad at three fo these for their finales lmao #tumblr games #trying-to-get-somewhere-real #asks #I HAD TO PICK AMONGST ALL MY KIDS I FEEL LIKE SUCH A BAD PARENT AAAH

[companionplanting]

We've been debating on how to properly tackle this kind of subject without coming off as ignorant, contradictory, or belittling to others. So if our words come off in that way, please reach out to us and let us know.

With the rampant scene of various mental illnesses being painted as malicious (ASPD, NPD, Schizophrenia, etc.), TERF/SWERF ideology being mainstream as well as on the other side of that same coin of "Alpha" males, it has clearly been shown to us what we had speculated for a while.

People don't want to confront their pain, and blame their trauma on anything but the truth.

I'm gonna go more in depth with this so hear me out.

We had (and still have) gone through a multitude of confronting our trauma, processing it, then eventually having to accept it and move on. It's challenging to say the least. But it's necessary. We have a lot of trauma, so we have had to do this song and dance multiple of times. None of us can say it gets any easier each time, but it has always lead us to getting better.

Each time we are confronted with the same question,

"Why did this happen to me?"

Of course sometimes it goes deeper with other questions, but we always circle back to that same one. A lot of people have asked that, honestly it's not new. We also acknowledge the outside factors that lead to moments of abuse or trauma like systematic oppression of various groups, indoctrination of ideologies, generational trauma, as well as lack of different kinds of support and community. Of course those are explanations, not excuses.

So we then go back to that question after learning what we know about the world and it's harmful systems. "Why me?". What we ultimately came up with was

"It just happened because."

It's anticlimactic and frustrating, we acknowledge that, but true. You can point to all the outside influences, you can dissect people's personhood down to their very core, you can label them with whatever would fit best but none of that is going to answer why it happened to you.

And it won't. But that's okay. There wasn't a grand scheme, it's no one culprit, it's not a big master plan, it's simply just happenstance. You were in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and it's awful, but it had nothing to do with you specifically.

It's easy for us to create a big boogyman to blame our problems. It makes it simpler, easier to digest.

For one example this comes in the form of vilifying people with mental disorders. Maybe it's to excuse their parent's or partner's selfish actions, sudden and aggressive bouts of unexplained violence, or simply neglect in every field.

For TERFs and SWERFs, it's anyone one that doesn't prescribe to their definition of 'womanhood'. Maybe it's to excuse the way past partners would twist and violate their romantic and sensual attractions. Maybe they feel hurt and scared in a patriarchal society, constantly watching and judging. Perhaps even just feeling scared and lost in a world they have very, very little control over.

For 'Alpha' males and their ilk it's to men not prescribing to their definition of 'traditional values'. Maybe it's an excuse to direct sadness and anger that has built up for so long towards society's lessers. Maybe it's an excuse to feel powerful and important in a sea of random unimportance.

I cannot say for sure what these people have been through or desire. Even still it's simply, again, explanations and not actual reasons. But it all goes back to pointing the blame at something, anything to make the world less scary.

The truth, the much more scary truth, is that there is no reason. The world is random, and that includes pain. Those people didn't hurt you because of their mental disorders, their gender, their occupation, none of what that person was.

It happened because.

Of course more awful things happen to various minority groups (LGBTQIA+, disabled people, POC, etc.). Even still, that is again an explanation not a reason.

But there is no one singular monolith you can tear down to make the world freer and happier.

It's just the many complicated and absolutely random layers of the universe.

That's okay, and you will be okay. It makes the world more unpredictable, but you'll find your footing. We're sure of it.

-🖋️, 🌲 & 🍂

#penn 🖋️ #chrysanthemum 🌲 #snails 🍂 #companion_planting #trauma healing #healing from trauma #healing from abuse #self healing #healing #trauma recovery #trauma #cw trauma mention #tw trauma mention #trauma mention #trauma ment tw #cw terf mention #terf mention #cw swerf mention #swerf mention #tw sanism #sanism #reprocessing trauma #working through trauma #traumagenic #traumagenic system #did system #osdd system #actually did #actually osdd #actuallydid

[ikemenomegas]

Not until then. And even though you understood it, for a long, long time it had still hurt. Because no one had ever stepped up to do the same for any of you

Screaminf and crying

There's this feeling of being abandoned by the system and being forever stuck in the cycle of getting killed for the sake of other people and never being able to have the certainty of having a painless death because you're not allowed to be selfish and this is all happening to a bunch of teenagers who haven't seen much of the world yet. That part hits me especially hard since I've had similar thoughts like that in the past and there's this nagging thought at the back of your mind going "what about me?" And it just fucks u up a bit.

I also love the myy oc and shoko pairing more than gojo x myy oc or geto x myy oc because the two of them were always like the ppl left behind by the two strongest sorcerers, if that makes sense at all. Shoko and myy oc can understand each other more and that scene of them in bed was just perfect because there was an equal amount of playful bantering and intimacy in the scene so i loved it

Thaaaat's them. And I absolutely get it, that's why I wrote it this way. There's something about watching other people get... saved I guess, either by others or by themselves, or even seeing bad things happen and going "why did no one save me" or "why am i not strong enough to save myself" or "am i not strong enough to do something that matters". It's not a nice feeling so we don't like to acknowledge it, but i don't think it's uncommon. I'm proud of and grateful to you anon for saying you relate, I'm sorry you have felt that way, but know you aren't alone in it.

just writing my reply to you, I realize that maybe of all the people in the group, Nanami might also understand (if he and myy oc were close enough to have this kind of heart to heart). It's a very particular kind of bitter adult feeling, it's only Nanami acknowledges the good he does in the world. myy oc broke in a way where they think it doesn't matter/nothing they do will ever be good enough ^^' (sorry for the sad)

For Shoko and myy oc I think it sucks in particular too because... Gojo and Getou were their friends, but didn't try to save them. Actually, they were abandoned too. Getou and myy oc share the non-sorcerer background, but Shoko and myy oc share the reality of being important parts of the power structure of jujutsu society without actually having as much power as that position should allow them.

You are so right though and I hope you'll love the road trip au where they just run away. Shoko is best wife, we stan Shoko on this blog. If Shoko has a character flaw, we're starting to see she's too internal, and kind of passive/accepting/avoidant. She very very seldom says what she means or actually wants to say. She should have asked myy oc to marry her first, they would have both been less heartbroken lol (there's a fic for that too btw 😉 the new season is making me itch to finish the shoko content in my drafts)

#from the notebook #ask answered #io.myy #ieri shoko #myy oc #i tried to make it a short reply T.T because i'm sure you're tired of my rambling #this isn't short #sorry

[paradoxiii]

At the moment, my stance on AI generated images/text is that they *could* be a good thing, in an ideal world. But they're pretty much just being used by selfish assholes.

First, I wanna mention that what I'm saying should apply to the AI generated "writing" as well, but for simplicity I'll just be talking about images.

If these generators worked off of art that the artists actively consented to being including, that would be a good start.

But also the idea of using these generators to completely replace artists, instead of tools to help make artists' processes easier, is particularly frustrating. It's incredibly disrespectful.

I think maybe, ideally, there could be one big database that these generators train on. Things in public domain. Things that artists themselves can submit if they wish to have their art included. CONSENT is the word here. There's a difference between someone studying another person's art style to try to mimic it (usually coming from being inspired by that person, fascinated by their art, it comes from love for the art) versus telling a program to make something but make it in a specific person's art style because they either don't want to spend money commissioning them or the artist is not taking commissions (usually coming from a sense of entitlement, and as much as I hate to say it, laziness).

And then, the whole shitty thing of replacing artists with these programs. There's a difference between technology replacing people in jobs that take a hard toll on their bodies, and technology replacing people in jobs that they actually want to be in. Of course, in a society without UBI and focused on making profit over helping people live their best lives, taking away any jobs from living breathing people is going to receive complaints. But taking away jobs from artists, who already don't make as much money as they should because art is viewed as something unnecessary, something that should just be a hobby or side gig, is like kicking someone while they're down.

I saw something about how the Spiderverse team used AI to help streamline the process. They trained it on their own works to do this (so they didn't steal from unconsenting artists) and it was a tool to help the process, not become the whole process. In this case, it's like using an electric mixer to mix ingredients you grew yourself to make baking a cake less strenuous, as opposed to having a robot steal ingredients from the store & baking the whole thing for you.

I would LOVE be to able to train an AI to make backgrounds for me that fit with whatever style I'm using for the characters. I hate drawing backgrounds, I love drawing characters. I often go to websites full of public domain images to find something to use as a background, but even then, I usually heavily edit it or even trace over it so that it blends in better with the character(s).

Using something like that Art Breeder site (which disclaimer: idk what DeepAI is trained on, so for all I know it could be stealing just as much as Midjourney and the like) to make faces for your characters is fun! It's a fun little thing to do, like using a picrew but more complex (at least with a picrew, you know the artist consented to you using the picrew).

On another note though... if you replace all artists with AI, what is left to train them on? Yeah, you have all previously made art, but you don't get any new styles, new ideas. You're just making an inhuman machine recycle old things. While I believe us humans should worry too much about originality (thank you dear creative writing professor who made us read "Steal Like An Artist" by Austin Kleon, as well as just theatre as whole), it's because we are living breathing thinking feeling human beings who are impacted by everything we experience & carry it all with us. An AI program is not that. It just does whatever you explicitly tell it to do. No thoughts or experiences, just input & output.

#tmi #admittedly i'm not an expert on how these generators work but I am an artist #and i've seen what other artists have said #and what these “ai bros” have said to defend themselves #and also Rayark firing all their artists to replace with AI #also purposely avoiding calling it AI “art” bc while I am of the belief that art can be anything. there's no line that separates “art” from- #-“not art”. I simultaneously do not like to call these AI generated images by selfish entitled techbros “art”. #it can be considered as art but i'm not calling it that.

[mettywiththenotes]

Hey. If you really don't mind me asking. What would you say are some key characterization points for Toga in your opinion. I actually am working on an au story of sorts (basically avatar and it's not even close to being ready yet so don't expect to see it soon. I just don't like posting things until I have the full outline and most of the writing stuff done) and I had this idea of a story for Toga but I'm kind of wondering at which point my adaptation will just become like a different character with the same name and though I find her really interesting I know I could use some tips on her characterization.

Don't feel obligated to answer at all but as one of those Hero and villain stans, with love for both, I think you have interesting insights that I would love to hear.

Well first of all thank you for thinking of me! 😊 that's nice to hear

(forgive me but I think this is going to get a bit messy lol, sorry about that)

The way I see Toga is that, on the surface, she's got that yandere vibe, yknow? Loves people and gets violent about it

But she's also very selfish, in the sorta way one thinks about their own needs before anybody else. The kind of way someone thinks about their own survival, or how well they'll thrive in an environment

She's not the sacrificial type, that's for sure. And I imagine that comes from childhood-into-teen years where she was forced into this box and pretended (perhaps tried to convince herself) she was normal. You spend most of your young life sacrificing your urges in fear of rejection and once you break out, you're bound to not sacrifice yourself ever again for anyone

Meaning that what she does for the League and the people she's around? That's a genuine want, baby. She wants to be around them, she wants to follow Tomura because she, too, wants to be free

If you recall, there are at least 2 scenes where Toga doubts Tomura, and she's pretty adamant in both scenes that she'll do what she wants and if Tomura's/the League's wants line up with hers? Great! But if they don't? Well, no skin off her back, she'll lean away from the group and do what she wants

(last one implies that tomura wanting to destroy everything is the deal breaker, because if he wants to destroy everything, that means even the things Toga loves, which she is not okay with. thankfully, tomura clarifies what he means and toga is happy to continue working with him)

The best part for Toga, really, is that the people she's with don't force her. Tomura doesn't force her. In fact, he's accepting to what his members want to do, and sometimes even accommodates for them. In this environment, Toga is thriving because she's working towards a society where she can be free (albeit violently) and she can do what she wants while doing so

I should imagine that, in an environment where Toga is being forced to do something, she would not take kindly to that at all, definitely not. She's already sacrificed and ached most of her life away, she's not doing it again

The biggest goal for Toga is freedom. What she wants to do and what she wants to accomplish. The fact that she's with people who are accepting to that is a great thing, and I should imagine that if she were with a group more selfish and abusive, she'd definitely find a way to leave. Maybe betray them, and in the process, get whatever she wants out of it (like steal a special device they had, steal some items, or something just as simple as raiding their kitchen and taking food for herself so she doesn't starve)

Toga falls in love. She loves anyone, really, but it's kind of selective. Examples being that she loves Twice, they're good friends and she likes being around him, but she doesn't love him enough to seek him out, drink his blood and become him

Though, she doesn't despair in not having his blood, there's no point where she's shown thinking "I have nothing of Jin left, not even his blood!", so I wonder if, for people she loves but doesn't admire enough to drink their blood, she values that kind of relationship well

Like, the concept, the very idea of being able to love someone close to her freely without her urges getting in the way is a relationship she craves too. Just love in it's entirety, both those she wants to become and those she wants to just be near

Toga crushes on people, but she values platonic love just as much (though she doesn't make as big of a fuss about it as the love she talks about)

I also think she's pretty good at reading people. She observes them well, can tell what they're really like, and that definitely comes from observing people before she drinks their blood and becomes them (she needs to put on a convincing act after all). One moment regarding seeing what people are really like that I remember is when Dabi destroyed the house she was abused in and she knew he wasn't saying the stuff he said out of snark or because he didn't care, he actually understood her and wanted to cheer her up, motivate her for the oncoming battle. Toga saw that and saw his intentions

Imo, Toga's urge to become people stems from the want to hide, and to be loved in the natural way someone loves Ochako or Izuku. It's admiration, really. As well as the fact that shapeshifting to hide from Heroes + police helps massively, people like Ochako and Izuku who are loved for simply being themselves, who can in turn love other people and not be rejected for who they are, that's something Toga wants for herself

She wants to love and be loved freely

You could argue drinking blood is a temporary fix of that experience, as she can become a Normal Loved person and do what she wants, get as close to people as she wants before it wears off and she has to go get another fix, but the simple act of just being who you are in your own skin and being loved because of that?

She's never had that in her life. And she wants it desperately

(It's one of the reasons she's so desperate when she fights Ochako and Izuku at Octo Island. She's at the stage of desperation, she doesn't want to be rejected again, she wants to be loved and have hope that there's a better and freer world for her if Izuku and/or Ochako accept her. And when that doesn't happen, Toga breaks. The girl who loves starts to talk about hate, she hates the world for being how it is. She held onto threads of hope that even people like Ocha and Izuku, her crushes, would save and accept her and see that she wants to be loved. And when they seemingly don't, that's enough for her to essentially give up and say "fuck it")

Toga does fear rejection. She hates it and fears it, especially when at the end of her rope. But then again, she's selfish in the way she looks after herself, and if somebody rejects her, she'll lean away and do what she wants, perhaps with a bitter edge to it (and understandably so with the way she's been rejected her whole life in some way shape or form). I don't think she'd beg for love after she breaks. Once someone is violent with her, once they make clear that they don't want to listen or be around her, I think that's enough for Toga to just opt out and leave

I'm of the impression that Toga is pretty okay at survival. I mean, she shouldn't have to be, not at 17, but what with her being homeless for a considerable amount of time after middle school, she's gotta at least have some knowledge of the streets

Toga, too, fears being caught. Understandably so, considering she's been told to be normal and hide her urges and essentially put on a persona to control herself. There's even a scene where she gives in to her urges, but it's at night, in the quiet of her bedroom, silently biting and sucking her own blood. It's generally implied that any time she did indulge like this, it was away from everyone else, in her own privacy

She kept up her act for at least, what, a little over 10 years before she was caught? So she's pretty good at acting, and I imagine there was that fear of rejection once again

We don't have the specifics of what happened with Saito (the boy she attacked and drank his blood with a straw), but it's assumed that Toga was at the end of her tether with pretending, decided "fuck it", and attacked and drank Saito's blood. And as soon as she does so, she leaves. Immediately. Doesn't stop to go home, doesn't try to act like nothing happened, she just leaves. Because she knows how bad it's going to be if she gets caught. She can't stand that rejection from the world, so she runs

And proceeds to keep running, on the streets, hiding as different people, evading Heroes and police, because sure she's been rejected by the world for who she is since she was 5, but for what she's done she's going to be rejected at an even more unforgiving rate than before. She knows she can't be caught, because if she is, she'll die

(and that fact is cemented now by how Twice died. sure, it was a fear before, but now that she knows that she definitely will (could) die if she's caught, that fear comes back tenfold. there was some hope with izuku and ocha, but now what has replaced that hope is utter hatred for the world she lives in)

I think that's it? Yeah I think that's everything for her general character (I honestly don't know if I should go any deeper into it, but let me know if I should)

I hope this helps! Good luck with your story :)

#thank you for the ask!😊 #asks with metty #bnha asks #bnha manga spoilers #toga himiko