#and more blatant than ever

[ratsandfashion]

You know how I’ve posted before about how some people seem to have only gotten into social justice in order to just be more bigoted than ever but to make it seem progressive? Like wanting to get applauded for what’s just plain misogyny so they just put white/cis/straight/etc in front of their comments about women

Yeah that’s what’s happening right now with antisemitism. Like some people were clearly just WAITING EAGERLY for the FIRST CHANCE to be violently anti-Jewish monsters and feel like they’re the good guys.

[starcurtain]

Oh, so when IIIII make the "mutual" joke it's delusional, but when Hoyo makes it--

(Actually, since that Youtube end card tried to gatekeep it, here's Ratio's tsuntsun sweatdrop as he tries to think up a good excuse for going on TV to talk about some guy he's definitely not "friends" with:)

[seriousbrat]

Why do people like Lily? From what we've seen of her in the books she seems like a charming and good hearted person but also someone who is shallow, judgemental, a social climber, a classist and immature. Why do people make her out to be this feminist, kind hearted role model that is always morally above others and everyone likes her because she is oh so kind and great? It makes me cringe. From the text we can see that she had a black and white thinking, was shallow and probably self righeous, always thinking she's right and not being able to see the perspective of others. (We can see this in her interactions with Snape) So why do people love her? Do people really need a 'girl boss' in every fandom? There always seems to be one that's just made up by the fans. It looks like people just need a character they can point at and say "see we care about female characters, this one is oh so great, she can't do no wrong, worship her please." 🙄

Look, no offence, but... what? 'Shallow, classist, judgmental, social climber' what? Where are you getting this? Because she stopped being friends with a boy who literally called her a slur? Because she criticised that boy for defending and befriending people who were bigoted against people like herself? Like sorry but I think I'm entirely the wrong person to come to with this kind of thing. I fully disagree. I could not disagree more.

Black and white thinking? The opposite. Lily remained friends with someone who espoused the exact opposite of her beliefs for way too long. Not just her beliefs, but her right to exist. She tolerated Snape (and I do love him as a character, but still) way more than she should have, objectively speaking. That's the opposite of black and white. She was way too understanding, way too empathetic with him. She didn't judge Snape hard enough, in my opinion.

Nah, look idk what you were hoping with this ask but I'm sorry, I'm generally a staunch Lily defender and I heavily disagree with what you're saying. It's not that I think she's a perfect person, she certainly has her flaws like anyone. I don't think that she should be idealised, I think she should be given complexity like any character, but neither do I think she's classist (esp since she's meant to be working class) nor particularly judgmental nor shallow nor immature. I love Snape but he was terrible to her. He befriended people who wanted her dead. Lily didn't owe him anything, and her """righteousness""" as you say is not only entirely justified, but objectively speaking she should have dropped that bitch way earlier.

Why do people (including myself) love Lily? Because she was a good person. Because she was brave and decent and kind. She remained friends with Sev for years despite peer pressure and common sense and she defended him without hesitation. She dedicated her life to fighting for what was right. Lily is a good person. She's not inherently, morally above others, she's not perfect but she was a good, kind person, the way her son is a good, kind person.

Not that difficult to understand imo, unless you have way higher standards for male characters than female characters. Not everyone has to like or be interested in Lily but pretending she's somehow worse/less worthy of interest than Snape, James, Sirius, Regulus, etc (and I imagine you've got to be a fan of some of these marauders era characters if you're reading my blog) because she dropped a guy who wanted to join a fascist group that wanted her dead is absolutely ridiculous.

Lily is so kind and great. Her act of bravery and sacrifice is what kickstarts the entire HP series. Sorry. Like absolutely not, I completely disagree with you about Lily's character. People liking a female character doesn't mean that they have a shallow 'girl boss' approach to that character, and I find that a condescending explanation for why people like myself might be fans of Lily Evans. Maybe, and you perhaps should consider this, us fans of Lily just enjoy and are interested in female characters the exact same way we might be interested in male ones.

Look I don't want to be mean, but can't you tell from my icon, which is clearly supposed to be Lily, that I love Lily? Lily is one of my favourite HP characters. I really don't want to be rude but I'm absolutely the last person who'd share this viewpoint.

[solisitude]

if you people don't start tagging your anti-ship posts as anti-ship posts i'm gonna start tracking you down, and beating basic fandom etiquette into you

[vyingeyes]

Happy belated Ace Day of Visibility! I should've posted something yesterday but I kept trying to wait until the boys got their paint before I posted anything with them in it. Unfortunately, the 2014 tumblr asexuality discourse has found its way to Twitter (in large part thanks to a certain disgraced author) and I had to turn my chair and make this real shitty overlay from a panel Monarch drew 90 years ago because she's too swamped for me to request a dedicated piece of her son. So, have her boy you haven't met yet (his name is Meter, he is lovely, and he is aroace) and a boy you have (Course is probably most like me of my sons, and therefore has inherited the asexuality umbrella). Bonus Myth in the background (not ace, but very supportive 😌).

For those curious, this likely takes place around chapter 7/8ish? It gets fuzzy with an intermission after chapter 6.

[shima-draws]

Someone ACTUALLY just tried to tell me that it’s more “morally acceptable” to ship Luffy and Hancock than it is to ship Sanlu. Are you for REALLLLLL

[bonefall]

How do you feel about "character joins bloodclan" aus? Im curious about ur thoughts since youre really in tune with the themes of the series but personally i just hate them bc its ALWAYS aimed at 'unfortunate' characters and always ALWAYS ignores the fact that bloodclan is a horrible place in-canon and that they're just reflavoring the abuse and trauma the characters qent through to be more emo or goth themed.

Ravenpaw is ALWAYS a prime target for this and its like. Great. You took the character being abused by their mentor figure and is being harmed from the violent culture the clan has generated... and giving them an EMO mentor figure who will inevitably abuse them and harm them as a result of the violent culture the emo clan has generated. Sasha is another one I've noticed- you've put the woman who lost her kit and is struggling to survive with the others while being controlled and abused by someone who sees her as an outsider (aka alone and easy to isolate), and are gonna put her in a faction who specifically separates kin from one another to easily control them and who have canonically tried murdering those who stick with their family. What was gained here.

Like i know bloodclan is revamped in ur au (thank god for it) but in canon bloodclan is HORRIBLE. People ignore that in favor of putting their favs into bloodclan bc bloodclan is cool and killed tigerstar that one time bc of revenge. Ravenpaw becomes Scourge AUS are SO SO SO much worse bc of this too- sure you manage to point out how scourge and raven has roughly similar stories in their youth but you could also do something interesting and make an au where raven and scourge are FOILS and do a firestar/scourge thing, while pointing this comparison out!! Instead you just went "Ravenpaw emo now and is sad about beating up Firestar his friend" and basically kept everything the same.

Sorry im basically venting here but i just dont like how people forget that scourge in canon does NOT look out for the 'little guy', he's a murderer and abuser who wants to keep his subjects afraid and separated so that he alone has power over them. Bloodclan is not the cool strong goth group, its the group where two cats slaughter eachother over a piece of twoleg scraps, only for the survivor to die bc the food was poisonous to cats and no one knew bc theres no cohesive group that can pass that knowledge around. its a fucking horrible place to live. Im not saying that you cant do interesting "character in bloodclan" aus (a Rusty who lives in bloodclan who STILL wants to do good but is shaped by the horrid reality of bloodclan would be fun imo) but its so often used with already traumatized characters as a 'solution' or 'fix-it with some emotional issues involved' that i just foam at the mouth and howl like a rabid animal on principle at this point.

Hmm... I think for me, it doesn't tend to read that way for me when the fandom makes AUs for it. I'm coming at BloodClan from a point of really deep critique and frustration.

BloodClan's not a REAL place, and what that means is, every speck of how horrible it was is a choice the writers made to justify its treatment. It was something they actively decided, because, BloodClan was a tool to suddenly invalidate the previous 5 books of TPB so that the series could comfortably conclude there was no need to upset the status quo.

If you haven't read it before, I recommend this post I made on how Darkest Hour Is A Personal Disappointment, but anyway;

We spend a whole series on how Fireheart challenges a broken society, because he is different. Their xenophobia, how isolationism and glory get people killed, the way that Tigerstar's greatest asset is how respected he is... these are bad things. They're things that Fireheart fights for several books.

But then, in the LAST book, in the 11th inning, they introduce BloodClan. They're just evil. They have no nuance. The narrative bends over backwards to stress that this group of evil foreigners LOVES murder, hates friendship, and doesn't believe in our good god.

Suddenly, the Clan cats have to be EXTRA xenophobic and glorious to kill these filthy, murderous foreign hordes. Clan cat belief in their good god makes them stronger than the bloodthirsty barbarians. Firestar kills Scourge and we can feel happy and triumphant about it, when Tigerstar was killed a few chapters ago and given a tragic sendoff.

So, I encourage you to step back from an emotional response to how Filthy and Murderous this group was portrayed, and look at it as a writing choice.

When Tigerstar, known cat-racist and murderer of mixed-race people, is killed by Scourge in self-defense, he is grieved by Firestar and commended for his "good qualities". (and then they retconned in that it was actually secretly revenge all along, not just self defense, so this killing is extra evil)

When Scourge is killed, Firestar just thinks about how it's cool he's not going to heaven, and how all of the previously ferocious BloodClan warriors look so inferior to the forest Clans.

And so, with all that said,

I'm 100% in favor of how the fandom widely looks at this, says, "fuck that" and just makes them the Cool Goth Group. I'd argue pretty strongly that the least nuanced idea of that is still infinitely better than canon.

There was nothing there. It was literally just Xenophobia-Is-JustifiedClan. They literally hated love and friendship and banned families so that Clan cats would look good in comparison. Banned families. You don't get this level of stupid evil from anything else but an 80s cartoon.

Maybe I just don't see the AUs you tend to see (I curate my Tumblr experience very well and generally hang out in more adult-oriented spaces, I can imagine a place like Amino being mostly kids who tend to be immature. Edgelord Angstpiddle is just a normal part of growing up), but every project I see that gives me a glimpse of BloodClan Ravenpaws and Sashas come with such tweaks already assumed.

Like, these are examples I've seen,

They'll have Raven be involved with the formation of BloodClan

Scourge will actually be a character with some pity and mercy, like how he was in Rise of Scourge when his abusive siblings begged him for food, and he fed them before sending them away.

no ban on love and friendship. Lol. Lmao, even.

More of the social structure will be based around acquiring food for people in a 'harsh' environment, leading to that battle, instead of just Evil Foreign Greed (which canon!scourge only had after being almost killed by tigerstar, because he said "actually, in light of new information that you are a murderer, i need to reconsider our deal.")

BloodClan will be overhauled completely. I've seen this a few ways. Connecting them to SkyClan, or the Oakstar raids on Chelford, or even as a positive entity; a surprise ally. (VERY common with BloodClan Ravenpaw AUs I've seen).

Anyways... (Shrug), I dunno dude, it doesn't bother me that much.

[iowafashionweekbegins]

"all of us are like shinji ikari, people hate him because theyre reminded of themselves" speak for yourself 😭 personally i do not see myself in a 14 year old boy who sees girls his age as stand-ins for unmet social, emotional, and sexual needs, and who willingly commits physical and sexual violence against them as a punishment for feeling personally slighted by them, but you do you i guess??

[ahopefulbromantic]

In a post on May 3rd you said that if someone goes to God and says "this is what I would need to believe" he'll give it to them (eg. Thomas). I am therefore curious how you would explain the fact that during my whole abusive childhood I begged God, Jesus, and Mary (and even Joan) to give me a sign that any of it was real, and I got nothing. I wore a cross and I prayed on a rosary and I sobbed in bed at night praying and apologizing to God for not being able to believe in him without some evidence, I apologized for this so much and pleaded for a sign, and man did I look for one, but I got nothing. Nothing. I threw my Bible in the trash at 14. I normally don't bother to talk about religion at all anymore but something about that reply to an ask got under my skin.

Thank you for writing. I'm so sorry this happened to you. Abusive childhoods suck. Being unanswered by God feels awful, too.

You're asking me to explain your situation, but i can't explain it. (Pathetic, i know). I have no idea why it happened and why God allowed it and i am sorry you had to go through it all.

I want to tell you many things, many things out of which i don't know if anything will help you (long post alert heh):

First off, i said that God gives everyone whatever they ask for and think they need. And i gotta say, you got me, cause now that i think about it, it's not actually true. God doesn't neccessarily give us what we ask for, but They do give us what we need. And what we need feels harsh sometimes and what we need might sometimes have to wait until we're ready to receive it. And sometimes what we need is nothing because nothing no evidence no proof groping in the dark is enough.

I want to tell you that faith isn't about being certain at all. That it's not a feeling of having it all figured out, not a reward for your good behavior. That some of us are Pios, who live immersed in Christ all their life and have ecstatic visions. Some of us are Pauls who get a spectacular conversion experience. Some are Thomases who get proof, a sign they specifically asked for. But some of us are just seeking and doubting all their lives answerless, and they go to Heaven kicking and screaming and crying. (Who am i kidding all of us come to Heaven kicking and screaming and crying.) And that's okay, God loves us for it, not despite it.

I want to tell you God loves you. But not in a way anyone else has ever told you. I wish i could tell you in a way that would make you truly believe. That God's love isn't tolerating you or emotionlessly orchestrating the objectively best life course for you or liking you as a part of the human family, an ant in the ant colony. That it's real and individual and God. Loves. You. More than anyone ever has, more than anyone ever could, in a way that no one ever could. I want you to believe in impossible that you've been shown no proof for like a lunatic and a fool. Because God is a lunatic, too, and it just happened that They made impossible the truth.

I want to tell you God was crying alongside you. That in those moments, They were not above you, silently judging. They were not evaluating if you believe enough, if you are enough yet. No, They were right there, invisible, silent, untouchable, sharing your every tear, even the ones that you shed because of Them. Maybe especially those ones. Their heart broke within yours breaking.

And you know what? I wanna tell you yeah get angry with Them! Scream at Them! Tell Them you can't believe! Accuse Them! But don't apologize cause it was never your fault. Knowing Jesus one day when you finally meet He will take all the blame anyway. He'd never hold something like that against you.

And as outrageous as it sounds, i want to tell you you will get a confirmation sign. One way or another. I know it, without a doubt. Unfortunately it may only be after you die. Which sucks, at least it sucks now, but it's how it is.

And i want to ask you, if you really didn't believe why did you pray? Why were you crying, why were you talking to God, why were you so desperate to find a sign if you didn't believe in the first place? Faith isn't about feeling things. Sometimes it's about being miserable and alone, so alone, when it feels like They've abandoned you but you keep going. Because what else is there? And my dearest sibling in Christ, there is no more precious faith than that. And if you just keep going you have better faith than all the saints who had it easier with visions and stuff. Proof, visions, spiritual experiences? It doesn't take anything special to believe after that. But kneeling and bearing your heart when you don't even know if it's all real, when it hurts and you feel like it destroys you? That takes a titan of faith.

I want to tell you about how years ago i thought i lost my faith for a while. It felt horrible. I just felt like there was no God. And i felt so guilty about it, i apologized for it, i even said it as a sin during confession, i was looking for anything i could've done wrong to have brought it upon myself. Now, looking back, i want to hug the younger me. I want to tell her she won. She did everything right. That it wasn't a sin, it was a test, a test that she, that i passed. And i want to hug you, too. Because what other reason did you have for weeping and seeking and screaming and trying with no results (with so many results actually) and begging than LOVE? Why would you care so much, why would you feel guilty if you didn't believe so strongly already?! And why would you write to a random person on the internet if it didn't hurt you still, if it weren't important?

And i want to tell you that i pray for you, and i ask everyone who reads this to pray for you, too. We pray for you to the same God that cried with you, that for whatever reason was hiding from you while always being there, that didn't give you any sign you could read clearly and maybe wants and maybe in some way even deserves to be screamed at for it, who maybe even wants you to hate Them for a little while, but also just to give Them another chance, to the same God that you felt abandoned by while so desperately wanting not to feel abandoned by and to the same God that maybe desperately wants you to not abandon Them, either.

Come back, please.

I don't know if it's of any use for you but it's the only thing i got, I'm sorry.

[justacrazylilguy]

To The Metal Gear Fandom

Okay so silly question but i see a lot of yall on here and you say all the homoerotic stuff in mgs is canon right? Especially otasune, bbkaz, bosselot. Not to sound like a hater but the first game came out in 1998. You know what age hideo Kojima was back then? 36 with a wife and kids. So what's his real purpose for making a whole game series about a buncha gay guys? That's what leads me to believe it's unintentional but idk. If he said why then lmk cause I dont get why he would? I've been thinking about this a lot recently because I've been seeing a lot of people saying it's deliberate. Anyone can answer btw my askbox is open because i Need an explanation. More in tags cause im insane.

[wyverwithy]

that guy in the tailchaser's song tag saying that it's the best book they've ever read is funny. as resident tcs special interest haver who's worked on 80% of the content of the old abandoned wiki and is currently working on a new wiki, here's my message: get better standards

[grimm-the-tiger]

My FL main went through some really weird, organic development over the...oh god, I think it's been five years since I started playing now.

So my main is named Skadi Larkin. They are a little bastard. They started out extremely 2D; I named them after my favorite Norse goddess and the protagonist of the book I was reading at the time. I originally wanted to make them female like both of their namesakes, but the second I saw the third-gender option, I thought it was too good to pass up. This is where they got their primary base characterization as a mad scientist who wanted to Cause Problems.

Then I started the Nemesis ambition and forgot which option I'd chosen for who I was trying to avenge, so they lost both their lover and their older brother under tragic circumstances (only the lover was killed by Nemesis's antagonist, though).

Then I got an Exceptional Friendship and had to give my tragic backstory in order to gain entry to the House of Chimes. Skadi pulled said tragic backstory (orphaned in a hansom accident) more or less out of their ass, but it did establish that their parents are dead.

Somewhere down the line, I realized that technically Skadi is a linguist, since the Correspondence is a language, and I made that their profession on the Surface as well.

Around this time, I started working on character designs for my fan comic. I got really into messing around with skin tone, and somewhere along the line thought it would be fun to draw Skadi (who was originally white) with darker skin, and it stuck.

Then I abruptly realized I was taking a lot of options that increased my Melancholy, and almost all of them were based on the Surface. So now Skadi has a longing for the Surface.

I left the game for a few years, but somewhere during this stretch of time, and I don't know how this happened, but I decided Skadi was now Native American; specifically, Metis. I changed their design to incorporate a sash woven in a style characteristic of the Metis, which also added a bit of color to their design (which was mostly black or grey at this point).

During this time, I started incorporating Skadi into my fan comic. This would eventually lead me to actually flesh out their backstory in greater detail. When I started playing the game again, I also created my first alt by total accident (long story), and I decided to weave her backstory with Skadi's.

So Skadi is in the interesting position of being an Indigenous person who is what we'd probably consider Two-Spirit today but they'd just call "Bollocks to that gender crap". They never belonged on the Surface, since the Metis are in a bit of a liminal space compared to other tribes due to their interesting background (the Metis are the descendants of French settlers and Indigenous inhabitants, mostly Cree), and Skadi exists in a liminal space within that liminal space due to only being half-Metis and raised primarily in white culture, although they still maintained a connection to it through their late mother. They also never belonged because no one else on the Surface outside of the communities they already felt isolated from would ever accept them for their gender. London gave them a chance to express one of those, but not both, and despite knowing that the Surface hates them just for existing, they still long to return.

[ariadondo-trackingfossils]

probably the (few) best thing of the 1950s is that researchers started to conceptualize and diagnose autism

sad that at my youngest age it was simultaneously mocked and underdiagnosed and now it's expensive as fuck

why is it expensive as fuck now? my wallet is in shambles (it always was)

[aph-estonia]

i am So sorry to my irls and any of my other friends named madison or madeleine or anything that can be shortned to maddy because now when i think of maddy i think of this very lovely discord user who gets so fucking pissed whenever they get reminded of my existence like we are in a public server and i will type in a channel, not at all referencing or vagueing them, saying something relating to the channel subject, and they will respond, fuming, with shit like "nobody wants you here. nobody cares about you. you should leave the server. kill yourself." instead of doing the sane normal person thing of just leaving themself. they've stopped responding to me lately tho, makes me think they've actually learned that i feed off their negativity.

[kaleidoscopic-quiddity]

remmick and the vampires present a false dichotomy

Hogwood (the man who sold the twins the mill) and the KKK are very obviously bad, they are outright malicious bigotry, they use the n-word and plan to lynch the moore's and their community, they are so blatantly racist and hateful it's unavoidably obvious

remmick and the vampires however say that they believe in equality, say that they want to create a community, and yet remmick's goal throught the movie is to both metaphorically and literally steal sammie's ability for his own goal of reconnecting with his irish ancestors, a white man wants to harm a young and upcoming black man and use talents for his own goals without giving any regard to said black man's autonomy or agency

when sammie sings 'I lied to you' in the juke joint and calls forth the spirits from the past and future, it's a blend of cultures; west african, east asian, native american, and african american song and dance blend together across time and space to tell the stories of blues; where it takes its inspiration from, the music genres it then inspired, the complex history of black american culture and its intersections with other peoples of colour in the USA

when remmick and the vampires kill and turn the people in the juke joint, and then perform rocky road to dublin, only remmick's irish culture is on display, there is no influence from the black and asian people he has forcibly assimilated into his song, it's juxtaposition with the earlier scene is blatant, remmick is more than happy to assimilate people of colour into his 'community' of 'equals', and yet its only whiteness that is celebrated, that is normative

remmick claims that he's doing people a favour by turning them immortal, conviently ignoring that he literally has to suck the life out of them to do so, trapping their spirits on earth, he claims that he's the good guy, that the KKK were gonna come and lynch everyone at the joint in the morning anyways, conviently ignoring that he's doing the exact same thing; a white man leading a mob to kill a bunch of black people

in the final confrontation with sammie remmick repeatedly dunks him into the river, a forceful baptism. both the celtic irish and enslaved west africans had their religions suppressed and destroyed by colonialsm, had christianity forced upon them by the british empire, and in that scene we see remmick repeating that cycle, using christianity to inflict harm, and sammie reclaiming christianity, despite all the complex emotions he has arround it, as many colonised peoples have and still do, when he recites the lord's prayer

remmick and the vampires are no less racist than hogwood and the KKK, are no less predatory or evil, they're just less blantant about their bigotry, they represent the system, the normalised white supremacy that is seeped into the very foundation of culture in america, the point isnt that remmick would call any of the black characters in the movie the n-word, i dont think he would, the point is that his exploitation and desacration and inserting-himself-into-when-he-wasn't-invited of the juke joint is a microcosm of what white people have done to black american arts and culture since ever since there have been black and white people in america, and even before that

theres a reason vultures are shown early on in this movie

[not-gray-politics]

We need to talk about tumblr's systematic fatphobia.

Posts of fat people are being marked as "sexual content" even more frequently than they used to, but now we have this fun little addition as brought to my attention by a friend;

That's right. Not just blatant kink-shaming, but now, if you make posts about or with fat people, you can now be flagged as "promoting disordered eating"! Multiple completely innocent posts of fat people literally just existing in their own bodies have already been flagged this way.

Raise hell about it. Reblog and share fat content more than ever. Don't let this shitty website tell you that your bodies are "wrong" or that you aren't allowed to exist publicly.

Tumblr staff, if you care about eating disorders (you fucking don't), stop promoting this sense of shame and fear and disgust towards the idea of weight gain. Stop shaming and censoring people for posting about their own bodies and experiences. Fatphobia kills. Fatphobia causes disordered eating. Fatphobia is the disease you should be worried about.

This has also been disproportionately affecting fat trans people, because of course it has.

Don't stop talking about it. Don't let this bullshit ceo silence you.