#I want to exist and for that existence to have value

[theloudbystander]

Reblogging this because it needs to be said LOUDER:

And honestly? Too many people in our world today are being misled.

The West has spent decades training people to believe that any call for peace, justice, or basic human rights is criminal action and evidence of "support for terrorists" or "enemy governments." They have criminalized entire nations. They have criminalized entire races.

They’ve criminalized compassion. They’ve weaponized ignorance. They’ve convinced some people that protecting lives = supporting enemy regimes.

The Truth IS Saying “don’t bomb civilians” is not saying “I love a particular government.” Saying " Dont bomb Iran" is not saying “I hate all Jews.” "Don't bomb Iran" means “respect their right to exist.”

You can condemn state violence without endorsing any government. You can want due process instead of drone strikes. You can believe every life has value, no matter what flag they live under.

The world doesn’t need more people who think war crimes are just celebrity drama.

It needs people who know that justice doesn’t stop at borders.

i kind of feel like if you take "don't bomb iran" as an endorsement of the iranian government, you're not intellectually ready to engage in conversations about real-world politics. Go talk about steven's universe instead

[avalineryu]

Ironlily Interview

@ironlily-art can be found on Facebook currently.

What inspired you to get into depicting action women / historical waifu?

Honestly, it's simply because I love them. I love European history, I love anime-style girls, and I love strong female characters. But it’s hard to find existing genres that combine all of these, especially where they’re the main theme rather than just backgrounds. So I just wanted to be greedy and merge everything I love into one, to explore the possibilities.

Do you think you're attracted to the women in your own work?

To be honest, the girls I draw are often inspired by ideals I hold dear, or by a certain kind of person I deeply want to portray. If my characters were real, I’m sure I’d fall in love with them. In that sense, yes—part of what drives me to draw comes from affection or desire. I believe creating something requires some level of passion, even romantic or sexual feelings.

But once these characters are created, I see them as independent individuals living in their own world. I don’t project excessive desire onto them after. Maybe that’s why some fans feel my characters seem real—because I don’t depict them as having any motive through the fourth wall toward the audiences on the other side of the screen.

Are the women in your works inspired by anyone you know personally? Optionally: Gender, including trans status if applicable or already out, and sexual orientation.

My characters are shaped by many life experiences and by what I observe around me—blended with imagination. Sometimes, I wish the world could be more beautiful and fun, where girls aren’t bound by societal expectations and can joke about their bodies as freely as men do, without facing judgment. That’s how characters like Ebenholz and the Hoplitissa came to be.

As for my gender identity, I don’t have anything particularly unique to say—I’m just a regular heterosexual person. In my country, topics like gender identity aren’t very prominent, but we respect cultures where diverse identities are more celebrated. Likewise, I hope people can also respect those with traditional values. I’m grateful that I have a kind and respectful community.

Has the animation/comics/game fandom particularly influenced your artistic decisions?

If you try searching for Takami Akai, and Seiji Kamiya of Vanillaware, I think you’ll quickly find the answer. (laughs)

Are you familiar with the Weibermacht genre? If not, why?

I wasn't aware of it before, but after looking up the term, I realized I’ve seen some renaissance artworks that fall under this category. However, I don’t have much to say.

What are your thoughts on polite society's imposed gender roles? (Polite society: Whatever the social norms are where you live)

Speaking strictly about such societies, I believe they have always served as a necessary structure for society value. However, as time changes, they need to evolve, adapt, and be reinterpreted. Setting aside any malicious human intent related to gender oppression, every culture and era has required a set of norms to maintain social unity and divide responsibilities among genders. This ensures both societal stability and the continuity of the human population.

That said, society also needs spaces for those who do not fit into mainstream roles to find refuge. Monasteries, for example, historically served such a purpose—providing an alternative social structure. Both Ordo Mediare and Hoplitissa are fictional worlds I created with this kind of concept.

What is your cultural background? Do you think it has an impact on your artistic depictions?

I come from a non-European region, also one without a deeply rooted historical tradition of its own. We've been heavily influenced by Japanese anime, and that influence has certainly shaped my artistic preferences.

Do you think your works will inspire change in society?

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that my work can change society—nor do I necessarily believe that society must be changed. Rather than calling it 'change,' I prefer to see it as ‘creating a space’ gathering and inspiring people, and moving forward together. In doing so, I hope my ideas gain more recognition and appreciation."

Do you have an interest in history as a whole? What are your other hobbies beside artwork?

My interest in history is actually quite narrow—I’m really only passionate about the Western European cold weapon era. But I think that's more than enough to keep an amateur like me busy for a whole life. Of course, I don’t reject other cultures; it’s just harder for me to actively dive into them.

As for other hobbies, definitely gaming. Also food, drinks, and cute things. I have a lot of interests, but each one is pretty specific—I only like certain games, certain types of food, certain kinds of alcohol. I like to call it… loyalty!

What do you predict in the future of the New Weibermacht genre?

I’m not sure where this term originally came from or whether it represents an established aesthetic trend. But what I can say is this: if it’s framed as a strong ideological stance that tries to change, replace or correct existing artistic directions, then it will inevitably face criticism and backlash. Like many ‘new’ ideologies today, it could spark quarrels over positions among communities, and in the end, creators might get lost in these ideological battles.

Personally, I’m better at looking to the past than predicting the future. I believe creators should focus on what they love. It doesn’t need to become a slogan. If there’s going to be a slogan or aesthetic philosophy, let the thinkers and theorists take care of that.

Return to New Weibermacht Masterpost.

[bright-side20]

Elain is pleasant to look at, her mother had once mused while Nesta sat beside her dressing table, a servant silently brushing her mother’s goldbrown hair, but she has no ambition. She does not dream beyond her garden and pretty clothes. She will be an asset on the marriage market for us one day, if that beauty holds, but it will be our own maneuverings, Nesta, not hers, that win us an advantageous match. Nesta had been twelve at the time. Elain barely eleven.

My Nesta. Elain shall wed for love and beauty, but you, my cunning little queen … You shall wed for conquest.

I think this is important and deserves some analysis.

What Mama Archeron said about Elain may seem contradictory at first, but at its core it wasn't ,it was intentional. That was her strategy.

Their mother planned to arrange Elain's marriage, but she also wanted it to appear as though Elain were marrying for love which was merely an illusion. Elain was the beautiful, sweet, docile daughter perfect for a love match on the surface and her mother saw value in presenting her as unambitious. A beautiful, pleasant, passive girl with no visible agenda would be far more attractive to powerful suitors, especially in aristocratic or courtly settings where appearances mean everything.

And we can see how effective that image was from Elain's own words when she said that she have never truly been looked at. That single sentence says so much. It means that all the men she had met, with the exception of Grayson at the time only saw her outer beauty. None of them ever truly tried to understand her or love her for who she was beneath the surface.

Their mother essentially wanted to market Elain as a prize a delicate flower that a prince or noble would want to "win," not realizing he was walking straight into a trap of their own making.

It's deeply ironic when you think about it , Elain's mother pretended to be giving her a perfect fate, full of love and beauty but in truth she was denying her any real agency.

Which if you ask me is very similar to what I call the fake bond , the one I believe is between Elain and Lucien. It forces fae who are not truly compatible to stay together under the illusion of ultimate love, when in reality it exists only to produce powerful offspring. That serves the agenda of the Daglan who manipulated the Cauldron and fed on fae power.

Going back to how Elain was raised, she was conditioned to believe she had no ambition or dreams beyond her flowers and gowns, and she began to live into that expectation which became a kind of imprisonment for her. But even so, she still grew into someone more complex, which is clearly shown through her development in the series and it's powerful.

Elain chose who she wanted to be with when she was human, she gave him her heart willingly.

She survived the void of the Cauldron, which says everything.

She chose to help the Night Court politically, knowing her heart would break.

She picked up a knife when she had never even held one and did what no one expected, she killed the KoH . That moment wasn't given to her randomly and I believe it will be proven when SJM finally decides to free us.

SJM took what Mama Archeron did to her daughters and turned it into something empowering, which I find well written.

Feyre the daughter her mother neglected, became High Lady with the seven powers of the high lords and mated to the most powerful high lord of all.

Nesta the daughter her mother saw as sharp, meant to be used to gain control over wealth, lands and power ,she became a Valkyrie and fell in love with a general.

And Elain? She will indeed marry for love and beauty but on her own terms. The bond will not decide for her.

In my opinion, the moment Lucien told Elain she was his mate while she was still traumatized and while he was a stranger , their relationship was doomed. SJM already decided they are not endgame. Simply because in that moment, he stripped her agency. He could never be a real choice for her, because it would always be conditioned by the existence of the bond. And being with him adds absolutely nothing to her development as a character.

So if you look at Elain's arc it's clear where it's heading. Her story makes perfect sense: she will reject the bond and choose her own fate. Love triumphing over the mating bond will be her ultimate growth. She will break the toxic fae assumptions surrounding the bond and challenge what countless fae females endured for centuries having to meet fae expectations and follow their rigid mating rules. That is a powerful development for her.

Elain will live her peaceful garden life, but she will also train and go on important missions to help the NC.

And that image the beautiful girl who only dreams of gardens and dresses ,the one everyone assumes is passive, harmless and easy to mold? That's exactly what will make her an excellent spy. Just like the women spies of WW2 whom SJM has spoken about before.

Yeah

Watch the soft princess challenge fate, become a spy and fall in love with the spymaster of the NC because she chose him. Not a bond.

[dcdreamblog]

So, I once happened to be in Central City and I of course went to the Flash Museum, and they mentioned that certain areas were closed as they were cleaning up from an attempt by The Trickster to rob and/or vandalize the place. I was given to understand that this sort of thing was not an unusual occurrence for them, and I've heard the Superman Museum in Metropolis has a similar issue. Do you guys have the same problem?

(not sure if this went through, so trying again)

Ha, no. No we do not and we very much work as hard as we can to keep it that way! It comes down to a difference in scope and a difference in philosophy when it comes to the Perisphere as compared to institutions like the Flash Museum.

(A photo I took of the Flash Museum while on the tram to go see it)

The Flash Museum was really the first of its kind, funded by the people of Central and Keystone City with the intention of being a shrine and celebration of the Flash legacy soon after the appearance of the 2nd Flash and has been expanded ever since. The museum displays everything it can possibly get its hands on, from wax statues of villains to photographs and videos of the hero in action to the part that gets them in trouble:

Artifacts from the exploits of the Flashes and the other heroes of Central and Keystone City.

I've talked before about how, here at the Perisphere, we have a policy of only accepting artifact if they have been placed in their "least operative state" meaning that all internal mechanisms and machinery that might make them dangerous or useful have been removed. All of the actual artifacts we have on display are mostly inert shells with nothing on the inside because that's all we need to show! Most nobody who visits us is the kind of physics savant who would get anything out of a full diagram of Starman's gravity rod in the first place and if they ARE there are endless scientific papers and publications with Ted Knight's name on them to look over.

The Flash Museum has a different policy where their artifacts must be "Functionally Disarmed" meaning that, say, when they display Captain Cold's Cold Gun they simply remove the trigger mechanism without touching the internals.

There are pros and cons to both policies. One could credibly argue that the Flash Museum's collection is more complete because the displays are as close and humanly possible to how they were recovered. *I* would argue that our policy keeps the front wall from being blown in every other Tuesday!

There's also just the different function, both social and emotional, that the two institutions play.

The Flash Museum is the living celebration of a heroic legacy that is still very active and that otherwise has no publically accessible "headquarters". The Flash Family doesn't exactly have a clubhouse in the phone book. So if any of the Flash's villains want their technology back, OR they want to make a statement by attacking the Flash as a symbol the best place to do it is the Flash Museum.

Alternatively, The Trylon and Perisphere are the historical headquarters of a superhero organization that has been functionally defunct for 75 years and counting. We are a museum to the history of the All Star Squadron, NOT the Justice Society. The Justice Society, still an extant organization, still HAS a working headquarters that is publically known. It's up near Battery Park which on a GOOD day is 30 minutes by car and an hour's ride on the subway.

Supervillains have no reason to attack here. There's nothing of value between these walls and there's no organization still in existence that this place symbolizes and anyone who comes to town with the intention of fucking with the remaining golden age heroes would probably just head up to ACTUALLY call out the JSA.

[ihavenoideahowtodream]

lol

point 1, hey it makes me sad when all these people are calling me a transphobe. babygirl, if one or two people have then thats not something to go off of. if most trans people and trans allies do then honey a spades a spade

point number 2 falling under the same category as the "ladies lets find out what men are comparing us too today!" bit. You dont find dogs fuckable. uhhhh. congrats? whats this gotta do with trans ppl? also ppl have value outside of your desire to fuck them. shocking i know

point number 3 is how all queer phobia works. theres the Het Straights™️ and then there are the trans, cis queers, and allies*. the HS™️ have created arbitrary categories and thats why we are even having this conversation in the first place. it is bigotry at its finest but you are being the bigot because, pardon the star wars reference, anyone not for queer and minority liberation is against us even if you are also queer or minority. inaction to preserve is allowing things to passively degrade and you will end up dying with us just not at the same time. people can only be categorized in one of two groups: alive and dead. negligence causes death more than any active assault. the moment we start putting people in more than those 2 categories is the moment we start killing with negligence.

point 4 back to sex? again? what does sex have to do with the trans life expectancy of 35? sex wasnt even mentioned by op. also trans ppl can be ace

point number 5 is the same argument as when my very Pro-birth ex mom said "my body my choice" when she said she wasnt getting vaccinated for covid. This does not affect only you. these kinds of ideas kills en mass

point number 6 is the tolerance paradox.

so lets sum up. you do not need to be available for sexual consumption or any kind of consumption to have a reason to exist. people upset on an individual level because they have decided a Pro Idea is an Anti Them Idea is how fascism works and gets people in the Pro Idea category, that they have likely been shoved into against their will, killed.

to your credit, you were 100% clear.

*dont @ me about including the allies either. they are vital in our liberation as they are the straight neighbors who teach our kids in school, elect people who make our laws, and provide cover for us when we are in the closet but want to participate in queer gatherings. they are proof to the world you can be straight and accept queer folk so the straights who dont accept us do not have to act the way they do. They dont face the same repercussions as us as severely as we do but they are the person left in the work place that fired us for being queer that decides they are going to change the work place culture so that queer folk dont get fired for being queer again

Ideas are cooking for my pride outfit.

[ilikekidsshows]

I hate how Marinette immediately fell in love with Cat Walker because he's the abused Prince with no wants beyond worshipping her that she wants as her care taker.

I hate that Adrien in Adrinette still has to act like Cat Walker because Marinette can't breathe without having an abused Prince.

I loathe that Marinette's just believed Cat Walker when he put all the blame on Chat Noir to instead call her a flawless goddess of equality and justice who just wasn't taken care of enough by the evil and ungrateful Chat Noir. All that even though from Marinette's perspective, Cat Walker wouldn't know ANYTHING and never once met Chat Noir. I hate that Marinette can't ever be written anymore to care about justice when it's not in her favor. Anything bad can happen and she'll allow it as long as it's done in her favor.

I hate that Marinette stopped giving a fraction of a shit about Cat Walker the second he stopped being useful and how even her last question to him "do you feel rejected?" was selfish of her because she literally fell in love with Cat Walker because she knows he would NEVER tell her so if it was the case. I hate how obvious it is that her knowing he would never say it was the only reason why she had the guts to even ask that in the first place.

I hate how she never reached out or even gave the option of giving him another Miraculous. He had no use or space in her life beyond validating her for acting like a selfish and abusive leader and "friend".

Marinette was selfish to the core in that episode and was 1000% rewarded for all of it. Chat Noir was even blamed for HER poor hero performance in the end because she thinks he doesn't know that she sucked because she prioritized getting into Cat Walker's pants. But of course that's CHAT NOIR'S fault because what isn't in Ladynoir?

But what I hate the most is that Chat Noir only became worthy of something resembling to love when he "learned his lesson" and started acting like Cat Walker too.

Everything Marinette "loves" about Adrien and Chat Noir is Cat Walker. That's all she wants. And abused Prince Charming who would rather rip himself apart then not reward her for 5 seconds for treating him abysmally.

All she's asked to do in return is "forgive" Adrien and Chat Noir now for being human enough that their entire existences do not exclusively revolve around worshipping her, so she doesn't get to 10.000% only take benefit out of them being alive. Sometimes, they will unfortunately inconvenience her and of course that means she's just so brave, gorgeous, and loving that she manages to still see value in them despite that (please ignore in how many ways Adrichat was already human sacrificed and devalued in his personhood by her and her actions)

It hate this. I hate this so fucking much that Adrichat is only worthy of love because Marinette wants CAT WALKER but he was too distracting and didn't made Marinette feel entirely flawless about how badly she treated Chat Noir (and she can't have that, so Chat Noir has to come back and learn his lesson that he's to blame for everything! >:(

so now she had to be rewarded with Adrien and Chat Noir being the two equally messed up and human sacrifice sides of Cat Walker.

It's so disgusting that Miraculous did this to Marinette and the love square. Cat Walker should have been everything Maribug is disgusted about Adrichat's abuse, and yet, here we are. It's all the romantic worth she apparently sees in him.

---

It's been pointed out how the lovesquare copies heterosexist tropes, but sometimes reverses them so that fans can claim the show is subversive and feminist. Well, there is a stereotype of men, when they're looking for potential wives, looking for someone to take care of them in the way a mother would, which is why they don't learn to take care of themselves; they expect their future wife to take care of all the actual caretaking. I suppose we can say Miraculous is definitely reversing that stereotype by having Marinette be the one looking for a mom spouse to take care of her when she moves out.

Marinette knew exactly what Cat Walker was doing and that's why she fell the fastest and hardest she's fallen in this show so far. And, yes, it's exactly as you said: the only reason she dared to ask Cat Walker all these questions about feeling left out or rejected was because she knew full well he’d validate her treatment of Cat Noir so she could stop feeling guilty. This show is written so weirdly, Marinette supposedly can't understand that other people have feelings too that aren't always convenient for her, but she knows exactly how to manipulate everyone around her into validating her when she's been 100% in the wrong. She does this kind of stuff so much it's a clear pattern of behavior. Maybe she does it subconsciously (and by that I mean the writers).

'Kuro Neko’ is the episode that made me realize I’d never be able to enjoy Miraculous the same way again. It was the reason I dreaded it when the start of season 5 briefly seemed engaging, because, if the show had actually gotten good, I would have had to watch ‘Kuro Neko’ to catch up. This episode is worse than ‘Reflekdoll’, the most despised episode among the analysis community once upon a time. It's worse than ‘Kwamibuster’, what I once thought was the lowest point this series could reach. ‘Kuro Neko’ is the episode that brutally murdered Ladynoir in broad daylight.

[boiledprawn99]

Did you know I'm also a writer? Sort of. Anyway here's some more Pressure thoughts:

I saw some new dialogue between Painter (P) and Sebastian (S) today. P mentions that it's been two days since the lockdown started, and that S hasn't gotten any sleep at all during it. There's more to it but I want to focus on the "two days" thing.

It makes me think about the amount of time the game actually takes place in, and the game's story itself.

(Warning: long and probably very incoherent thoughts about Pressure's in-game timeline, mechanics and lore implications.)

Pre-WTW, we knew P and S were trying to slow the EXR-P down so that they didn't get the Crystal, because S needed more time to negotiate/find a way out for both of them. But, post-WTW, as soon as we reach S's shop, we have the option to tune the radio and find out that Innovation Inc is already confirming that they're going to collect the two. I'm assuming this radio change isn't something that happens after you play for a few times, and it's a part of the story that's existed before the player first steps into the Blacksite (more or less).

Then, during the Ridge, we find P at the dock mentioned in the radio broadcast, waiting for pickup. It seems that when the Blacksite loses power and everything goes offline, that's when "skies are clear"...? I'm sure, in any other circumstance, Urbanshade would notice a foreign vessel docking at the Blacksite and grow suspicious of it, especially if they're out for S and P.

So, if S needs the optimal time to escape being in the short time when the Crystal is obtained to when the backup power comes back online, why bother trying to stop the EXR-P from getting to it in the first place? If that's when the skies are clear, why still bother trying to halt the EXR-P?

This made more sense pre-WTW, when we (the player and S) had no confirmation if Innovation Inc had picked up on S's negotiations. But, post-WTW, the timeline's been changed so that Innv has already confirmed this deal before the player even reaches S's shop (again, the radio).

But it couldn't all happen that quickly, right? S still has to gather data, negotiate, set traps and scavenge. He didn't kill one guy, set a bunch of anomalies free, and then just go right to contacting other companies.

The player is in a time loop of sorts, we know. The question is: does time progress outside of that loop? When the player dies, does everything rewind back to how it was, minus Seb's and the player's memories? Evidence: grand encounters being reset, player spawning back at the docks. Contradictory evidence: Navi remembering if you've been to the Firewall or Abomination grand encounter. Or does the player respawn without everything being reset, and time still runs normally (like, a respawning immortal being type of situation). Evidence: S mentioning he found your corpse, Navi remembering you. Contradictory evidence: dying with the Crystal sets it back to where it was (wouldn't it just be on the ground with your corpse?), data respawns back.

Of course there's things that are just for gameplay reasons. Nobody can hold that much data (all those CDs, USBs, files, tapes... where do they go?). The player spends all this time trying to win, and it's only canonically been two days, allegedly. The timeline's still fuzzy, a lot of things are based on RNG, so you could get certain dialogue in places where it may not make a lot of sense? And, of course, it is a game.

The secret third option is that it is, canonically, a game. Of some sort. Lopee has crazy amounts of control over the narritive of Pressure (seen mostly in the bad ending), and we can assume he's the one that "resets" everything when the player dies. I see some people are linking it to Deltarune, with the player and Gaster, and like, yeah, that's basically what's going on here if we take everything at face value. Pressure is literally a game, we're not pretending we're a character in some fantasy universe like SCP: CB or Control, we are a Player piloting an expendable and there is an entity in this game making sure everything goes to plan for its own amusement, or in Urbanshade's favour. There's obviously a universe outside of the "game", but right now, everything inside the Blacksite has been literally gamified. Pressure is not a story, it is a game.

So anyway even before Worth the Wait I've been wondering what Pressure would be like if it was told as an actual story with a coherent narritive and timeline. What if the protagonist (which was the player) wasn't some vessel for something else? What if they were just a person, randomly selected by Lopee to play in his game and ensure Urbanshade wins? What if they could talk and react to everything happening to them?

Anyway yeah I'm making an AU and writing a fanfic, but whatever.

[intheyearofourlord800]

People on TikTok are looking so dumb right now. How the hell are you gonna be mad at the people who didn’t vote like it actually mattered? Y’all do realize yall were only picking the lesser evil, right? Also, Kamala and Biden both still support Israel just like Trump. There are articles everywhere about it. So, fuck no I don’t care about voting for people who want to justify Palestinian children being obliterated fresh out the womb.

It’s about time y’all actually wake up from being 'woke' and realize both are equally terrible. Change comes with changing the mindset. As human beings, we are meant to evolve not stay stagnant. We need to realize that our government needs to be abolished altogether.

To abolish our corrupt government doesn’t mean to destruct but to reconstruct.

We need somebody with actual disciplinary values, someone who can improvise and improve our conditions as Americans. Not another puppet with empty promises, but real leadership rooted in humanity, justice, and accountability.

Our Second Amendment rights are basically our First Amendment rights just in our hands. Our voices matter, and they do have impact, but words alone can only go so far. When a system refuses to listen, we need to be prepared to defend our right to exist, to resist, and to rebuild. Self-defense isn’t violence it’s survival.

BOOST !

[clarasdomain]

Genevieve's love for fashion.

I think Genevieve's love for fashion was born due to her parents' neglect.

As I mentioned before, they weren't necessarily cruel. They just weren't there emotionally. They didn't love her, they just tolerated her. Therefore, they never cared about her tastes.

So when Genevieve entered her pre-teen years, already dealing with bullying, but also starting to get exposed to the internet (around the mid-2000s, because when she went to Twisted Wonderland, it was 2010 in her world) and started wanting to experiment with new styles, her parents laughed. The clothes they bought her would still be the same boring, basic clothes. There's nothing wrong with dressing basic (the classics exist for a reason), but Genevieve wanted to be able to express herself through her clothes.

She had to do something with the little money she got from her parents. And that's when she discovered thrift stores and DIY projects on the internet.

And that's where her whole adventure with sewing begins.

"If no one will care for me, I'll craft something worth caring for."

Fashion became a safe space for Genevieve. It became her shield, her stage. A way to escape from reality, along with videogames and anime. It gave her color, identity, joy, in a world that tried to erase her.

She wanted to become what she didn't find in real life. So she dived in fashion and explored different aesthetics. Even if Pinterest didn't exist in the mid 2000s, her room became covered in stickers, printed moodboards, posters, and everything she ever used for inspiration.

She learned to appreciate the value of clothes. Sometimes she would spend hours in thrift stores, looking at each piece carefully, not just at its material form, but at the potential of each one and the story that each piece of clothing carries. She understood early on that clothes are not disposable, and that even if you don't like something that much, it is always possible to customize it or even transform it into something completely new (woohoo upcycling).

Genevieve became a bit of a fashion chameleon, never sticking to one aesthetic. She flowed from vintage 80s to scene girl to hello kitty girl, and sometimes even ventured into goth. She refused to be boxed in, and always mixed styles fluidly.

When her ideas no longer fit in her head, Genevieve began to draw. Thousands and thousands of designs that she dreamed of one day being able to create. Who knows, maybe have a brand in her name. Be known worldwide...

If only she wasn't just a weird girl trapped in her room, maybe she could find someone who understood her.

Genevieve's passion for fashion didn't go unnoticed at Night Raven College, but it wasn't as noticeable as it once was. She customized her uniform, used accessories and such, but she still didn't have the wardrobe she had built over the years in her old life. But one thing for another, at least in this world there were people who cared about her.

So, of course, most people are kind of shocked by Genevieve's skills. She sews a lot of things by hand, crafts accessories and was even learning to knit before she came into this world. It's surreal—Deuce thinks it's impossible for her to have so many skills and be the same age as him, for example.

But a key moment in this journey is when Sabine (my OC twisted from the magic mirror) and Vil end up seeing Genevieve's designs.

It happened at book 5, during the rehearsal period for the SDC.

Sabine, despite having refused Vil's request to be in the performance (lore for another post), was also staying with Ramshackle to help Vil in the rehearsals. She was even Deuce and Epel's ballet instructor when Vil told them to practice.

As Sabine walked down the hallway, she came across Genevieve’s room, the door ajar. When she stepped inside, it was a lot to take in—posters, mood boards, glitter, scraps of fabric—but what caught her attention was a small board on the wall, covered in drawings pinned to it.

They were fashion sketches. Lots of them, all very well drawn by someone who clearly seemed to know what they were talking about. Someone had made them with a lot of love and care. And they all had the same signature: Genevieve's.

Sabine immediately brought Vil to take a look. After struggling to ignore the mess that was the redhead's room, Vil finally laid eyes on Genevieve's sketches. For a moment Sabine swore she saw his eyes light up, both of them smiled.

Vil recognizes talent when he sees it, and what he was seeing now was talent in its purest form.

When Genevieve arrived in her room and saw the two of them standing there looking at the sketches, she froze, a little tense. She expected a scolding for the mess, or perhaps for not following the diet Vil had established for the team properly. But instead, Genevieve received a sincere compliment from Vil, who left as if nothing had happened, followed by Sabine, who had a smile on her face. Genevieve didn't understand anything at the time.

Later, at the beginning of book 6, when Vil gathered the entire SDC team for that meeting, he gave Genevieve a gift. A sewing machine. The first one she had ever had.

At first, Idia was terrified by how full of life Genevieve was. The amount of colors and accessories she wore, my goodness, it was so bright that sometimes it hurt his eyes.

I think that for Idia, fashion was never a big thing in his life. Sure, clothes were cool, cosplays were awesome, but that was it. He never saw fashion as something deep, social, political. Until he started dating Genevieve.

Genevieve completely changed his perspective on fashion. That fashion was expression, history, politics. That it was possible to identify the economic state of a country at a given time just by analyzing its trends. That fashion was interconnected with everything they saw, and that everything you wear conveys a message. He understood that the way Genevieve dressed, always full of accessories and with different aesthetics, was a way of expressing who she was. Even he started to put a little more effort into the clothes he wore after that (sorry, I needed an excuse to draw more Idia dressed as a mid-2000s teenager).

Idia is also the first person to buy Genevieve new clothes, not because they are practical or cheap, like her parents did, but simply because she had liked it. So Genevieve, who had always dreamed of designer clothes as if they were unattainable... Now occasionally received them as gifts, along with an excuse about how he thought she might like them, even though every gift Idia gives Genevieve is planned down to the last detail. He has a list of "things she said she wanted or thought were nice."

This was supposed to be short, but I got carried away, sorryy 😭

[Dividers]

[darksideofthemamon]

.

[lucabyte]

On autonomy, and what it means to be Obliged to Help.

Bonus:

[prommytheus]

me: im not a asoryu divorce truther, but i AM an asoryu taking a break & eventual unlabeled-long-distance-situation truther. they ABSOLUTELY needed to go on different paths at the end of the game. i totally get people who rewrite them to go back home together after 2-5, but it misses the point IMO. their split is a bittersweet thing & a testament to their devotion to each other as people and friends more than it’s a toxic split and a tragedy. it’s not ryuunosuke leaving in bitter anger at kazuma’s deceit, or kazuma being idiotically self punishing. rather, it’s them mutually saying “We need to exist outside of each other for a while for our own development as people. But i would never leave you in anger. You will always be enough for me, but you also need to learn to be enough for yourself. And ultimately we will meet again at the crossroads. When we need each other the most, and we are finally ready, and we will walk our paths side by side. Unbroken, and never having been broken. And that bond is stronger than both of our deceit, violence, shyness, and ignorance combined.”

their physical split is a show of their assurance that they could never spiritually ‘fall off’ from each other. no matter what happens, they stand together in a cosmic sense. they need to be apart so that kazuma can find a self that will live past 24, and so ryuunosuke can develop the self he found in his own journey— the self that sees its value at all. basically, ryuunosuke is leaving for himself to prove that he has a self, and kazuma is staying for himself so he can learn to care about himself enough to put his struggle in the hands of the people offering to him— so he can learn to stop running. do you get me?

you, tied to a chair and actively being waterboarded: BLBLBLBLBLLBLUBUBU—

[dedusmuln]

yeah you support trans people but are you normal about trans men who choose to get pregnant

[airedelalmena]

Stuff like this is so frustrating. Because people can take the same action for multiple reasons.

Whenever I've done something like this, i.e. with a younger sibling or friend, it's to encourage them to use THEIR smarts. Because I know they're smarter than that, but aren't using it.

The idea that ego could be involved is foreign to me, and I'm truly pushing those I love to self-improve for their own sake. And in a situation like this, though I wouldn't have harped on the same word, might have been nearly as blunt for the sake of their health and safety. I've seen friends with lifelong eating disorders, tried gently to say a kind word here or there, and been looked at as if I ran over someone's dog by the enablers who'd rather sit in silence.

The willful misinterpretation of intents like these feels really unkind because they ascribe automatic bad faith.

I try my best to be kind, but IMO sometimes kind messages for someone's betterment can't and shouldn't be sugarcoated, but made clear. For me, to show respect for someone's good traits (i.e. intelligence) is to expect it of them at all times, and point out when they're not living up to the person I know they are, etc. As a friend. Coddling existing problems feels like feeding the problem, keeping it alive. It's what I would want from my friends and family - extreme directness to help me to grow, not fearful silence that actually keeps me from hearing needed comments that might support my growth.

I guess I just don't understand people who feel uncomfortable with directness or disapprove of it as a problem-solver.

Example: If someone's half-unconscious, injured on the side of the road, and I know first aid, and also know an ambulance is coming but it's 30+ minutes away, the answer is...

to call them and politely ask permission to go ahead first, uwu! Um, no.

to go straight into the first aid without any ado.

Like IDC "how that ~*~sounds/looks~*~" YK?

This is why I do this: We only live one life, and time is short. You could die tomorrow. I wish people had saved me wasted years of not being on the right paths by putting it bluntly into my system.

I experienced this firsthand about ten years ago and it forced me to choose to stop the social behavior of "being polite" and beating around the bush, and to realize the beautiful value of bluntness in saving a person's life instead. Because I almost lost mine to the toxicness of a "being polite" environment that HATED the truth, hated real words spoken to solve real problems. Would rather watch their friends and relatives suffer eating disorders, domestic abuse, severe health problems, near-homelessness in 100% silence as long as the "politeness" of the environment was maintained. No one cared enough about those hurting to speak of the elephants in the room.

Because I lack an interfering ego, I wouldn't be offended by someone doing what OP did in the above. I would consider where they were coming from and let my bubble be burst if it needed to be. I've seen these egos kill people, more committed to the pain than the healing. Because unfortunately trauma bonding happens, and "the comfort zone" of it feels artificially "good".

How many people say "I'll make (XYZ happier choice) for my New Year's resolution" and then never do it? A false friend pats them on the back and says "that's wonderful!" A REAL friend pushes them to make concrete plans, break them down into itemized lists of the steps needed to make it happen. Because I've seen entire lives go to waste saying "maybe one day..." or entire relationships break thanks to easily-solved but unsolved problems. So, as a friend, when I see something, I DO something or I SAY something, as most people were "too polite" to do for me (so-called politeness was actually unintended sabotage).

Being ultra-practical and no-nonsense tends to piss people off mightily, though. Trying to help gets misinterpreted as the wrong, "taboo" thing and shunned. The offended pushback from them starts fights, which I then have to fend off; after which, either my original help, or the fending-off of their fight is then re-interpreted as "my starting a fight". Scapegoating. Etc. I'm so tired and burnt out from years of having to go through this with people over and over again. People I care for and am trying to burst the comfort zone of, to help to heal.

Ultimately the OP's choice was the wrong one in this situation, here. But it seems like their intent was to bust up some of the myth's in their friend's eating-disordered thinking, to get them to wake up a little from the disease that is harming them. Was it perfectly done? No. But did the mother have proof that it was coming from an egotistical place? No, she jumped straight to the accusation. All I see is someone choosing a specific word as an opportunity to cut through some learned BS and point out why it might be BS. A young person doing it in a clumsy way. But so different from a surface-level attack on vocabulary and intelligence that it's being criticized as.........like, come on.......

Hi there, I love your writing and saw one of your recent answered asks. If you feel like it, could you tell or point us to a story about how you were taught kindness? I worry I have not learned enough kindness.

I actually got out of bed to write this. I saw the ask, and I knew the story, and I knew what I wanted it to be. It's a little fire and brimstone, compared to my other stories, but I think that's an important part. 

My mom was a young woman's leader for our ward and she cared a lot about her charges. One of the girls in her group had parents that were in the middle of a messy divorce, and with the mom reentering the workforce after 15 years, schedules were hectic. So my mom picked up their daughter from school for a while. The daughter only lived a block away from us, so it was a small thing to do for a family going through a very painful change.

Said daughter was fat. She'd been fat since we were all kids and she was deeply ashamed of it. Always trying to fix it. Always reading about and talking about diets. And one day, I was sitting in the back seat, and she was talking with my mom about some documentary she'd seen about the corn industry, and how corn syrup was in everything, and I remember her saying "It's literally poison."

And I just didn't leave it be.  

I said something about if she was sure it was literal, and she said yeah, totally, and I asked her if she knew what literal went, and my mom shot daggers at me through the rear view mirror before changing the topic. They chatted, and my mom told her some stuff about worrying less about food, and I don't remember the details but I know my mom was trying to steer her away from disordered eating. Then we arrived at her house, and she got out, and after that it was just me and my mom in the car. 

And it was awkward. We drove for maybe a half block before my mom said, Babs, what the hell was that, and I said something about how that's not what literally means, and she took me to task for it. 

Who cares what literally means, she said. Her parents are getting divorced. She feels terrible about her body. She feels terrible about everything. And instead of listening to her, you felt the need to point out that you're smarter than her. That you know a word she doesn't. You feel big, putting her down like that? 

I didn't have an answer. We sat there a few moments, silent, before she spoke again. I will never forget how tired she sounded. 

I know she isn't as smart as you, she said. But she's doing the best she can. And you could be doing so much more than this.

There was nothing I could say to that. I saw her face in the rearview a few times on the short ride home, and she wasn't sobbing but there were tears going down her face. I think she sat in the car twenty minutes after pulling in, just trying to get her composure back. I checked on her from the living room window like ten times. I can't remember the last time I felt like that huge of a piece of shit.

My mom is a gentle woman. She cried over worms with me. She hardly ever yelled, and she apologized after she did. That conversation caved my skull in like a cinder block dropped from a skyscraper. And I deserved it. 

I know it's probably not the tumblr way to encourage shame. But I have found it useful anyway. I think it is useful for me, to have a specific moment of knowing what failure looks like and feels like.  Missing the person to pick out the part that would make me look good, missing the big view of their life, missing the idea that what they need is not necessarily to be right. Too may misses.

There are a lot of stupid things that have crawled to the tip of my tongue, only to get stopped by the memory of my mom saying you could be doing so much more than this. 

I will not make her say that a second time.

[stars-obsession-pit]

Hello! Can do a chapter fic off this fic prompt Danny phantom x dc: https://www.tumblr.com/corkinavoid/767516270934556672/dpxdc-legal-power?source=share

This isn’t a one-to-one recreation of that dialogue but it’s based on that as a framework/premise

Batman dropped down into the room behind a pair of figures—a teenage boy and a slumped adult—letting his landing create an audible thump to alert them of his presence.

If the teen noticed, he didn’t react. Even as Bruce approached, he continued to stare impassively at the wheezing figure on the ground, an old wooden bat with flaking green paint on its side loosely held in his right hand. Bruce had already suspected who the figure would be since he arrived, but seeing the Joker so broken was still bizarre. No laughing, no schemes. He didn’t even seem to be attempting to escape his binds, just… lying there, almost as if pinned in place.

Bruce paused a step behind the teen. “I don’t know what the Joker did to you, but this isn’t the right way to go about this.”

The teen scoffed, and Bruce felt a painful lurch in his chest as he was reminded oh so strongly of his son Jason. “And what, let him go kill more people?”

“I know he deserves to face justice, but not like this. Everyone deserves a right to fair trial. No one person should be judge, jury, and executioner.”

The teen turned to look at him with glowing green eyes, and Batman felt himself freeze. He had faced gods before, yet even using that as a comparison felt like an understatement. The boy’s eyes belonged to someone far older than his teenage form implied, and they radiated power. Inevitability.

When the teen—no, the entity—spoke again, his words carried an unearthly echo. “Perhaps, but I’m not acting for just myself.” He paused, glanced down at the Joker, then asked almost conversationally, “Do you know how many people he’s killed?”

Another pause, but before Bruce could even try to answer, the entity continued, “Eight hundred and fifty-six. He’s ended the lives of eight hundred and fifty-six human souls. I can tell you about every single one, if you want. About who they were, what their dreams were before he killed them. About the pain they felt at his hands.”

He punctuated the word ‘pain’ by raising up the wooden bat in his hands and ramming its end down onto the Joker’s arm. He let out a wheeze, muffled by the gag in his mouth.

“I have a duty to my people. I am the King of the In-Between and of all the souls that pass through it—even ones whose stays were as brief as his. I am the rightful arbiter of his fate. And with that power, I sentence him to death.”

He raised the bat again, adjusting his grip so he’d hit with the side rather than the end this time, then paused and let out a chuckle. “Of course, just because it’s based on some justice doesn’t mean I can’t have a bit of fun with it too.” He swung the bat down, slamming it into the Joker’s side, then hooked it under the clown’s torso and flicked him up through the air to slam into the wall. “We all really hate this guy.”

With the entity’s attention fully turned away from him as he sauntered towards the Joker’s slumped figure, Bruce could finally unfreeze himself.

Even if the Ghost King did have the right to pass judgement on Joker, Bruce still couldn’t let torture go on like this. He wouldn’t win a direct fight, but he could hopefully at least grab the Joker and bring him over to the police. Carefully, he reached for some of the smoke bombs and batarangs on his belt and readied his grapple. He’d have to do this very, very fast.

But before he could move, another figure entered the scene. Red Hood, emerging from the shadows on the far side of the room, an unexpected bit of a pep to his step.

“Nice to see someone else who gets that that bastard needs to die. But if I may make a suggestion, how ‘bout you use a crowbar instead of that old bat? It’d be a bit more… fitting.”

[sacred-algae]

As an ex-evangelical white American who fell into this trap years ago, and who has done quite a bit of unpacking over my adolescence and young adulthood, I can say to my fellow white leftist Americans that the thing you’re running from is a culture. You just haven’t done ANY work to loosen its grasp on you.

White American culture is fundie Christian stuff. It’s evangelicalism, white southern baptists, mormonism, etc. But you don’t wanna claim that, so you go and do the exact same fundie stuff you claim to hate by labeling things as other so you can more easily colonize it for yourself.

White American culture is corporate Christmas and Veterans Day sales. It’s visual moral, financial, and sexual purity culture: denim skirts and tank tops under V-necks for women and business casual for men. It’s after church brunch and gossip to put yourself on top as the best person in the congregation. It’s waiting for the rapture where everything of pure evil is cleansed from this world in a blaze of fire and glory, uncaring for the devastation so long as you personally get to see the other end of it. It’s cursing out minimum wage workers and voting in a blind haze of red. It’s capitalizing on Black American music and food and language on the internet and in Hollywood, using your white-washed version of it to colonize the rest of the world with the very culture you say doesn’t exist.

But you don’t like that, understandably so. You want something more community based? Appalachian culture (which is technically not all white, but it’s mostly white) has such a rich history and tradition behind it! …but you want all red states to die, that’s right. Sorry, my bad. Forgot your culture was sorting entire peoples into tiny boxes and forgetting that nuance exists and that there are good people living in bad places, and that all life has value, shitty souls or not. Appalachian culture only matters to you when it’s District 12 and you get to have your precious Katniss Everdeen moment for your rapture—sorry, I meant revolution. That’s what you’re calling it, right?

You’ve got culture. You’ve got a fuck ton of it. You say you distance yourself from it and YET everything you do to distance yourself proves you haven’t unpacked any of it whatsoever. White American culture is virtue signaling, blatant lies, and oppression

the reason you, a white american, believe that white americans don't have culture is the same reason fish don't believe in water