#and personal anecdotes. ;;

[inbabylontheywept]

by tradition, the first day of the camp was spent pranking the group next to us. our prank was ziptying the zippers on their sleeping bags together. we figured one of them would sleep with a knife, because we all slept with knives, because we were dangerous maniacs and half the danger of a dangerous maniac is that they tend to think that they are Actually Normal. so. obviously that didn't pan out, and instead they got stuck in their sleeping bags for like half an hour and because their scoutmaster slept in their car and couldn't hear them yelling, they actually only got out when one of them went full caged animal and chewed through the plastic. which meant they had time to make it to the axe throwing station, but they did miss breakfast.

the scale of our victory was impossible to understate. it was an epic prank. unrivaled. the best in years. we knew they were going to retaliate, and we both feared and craved it. maybe i'm still a maniac, but that feels like a common thing, right? do well adjusted people that are not maniacs crave Judgement?

(serious answers only please, from people who would never spoon a knife.)

anyway, the next day we got back to our camp, and the neighors had skipped dinner to just come back and fill all our tents with pinecones. which was like, a decent prank, i guess, but it probably took them an hour to fill all the tents up, and it took us like 15 minutes to tip the tents out, and as a return volley to the ziptie prank it was incredibly underwhelming. we felt a little cheated.

so our scouting group held a council, and we agreed, unanimously, that our prank was 100% better and theirs sucked and that there would be no escalating tensions because we were the clear victors. they'd had their chance to retaliate, and they failed, and so the war was over. that was it.

we agreed on this. we swore. but madness is a relative thing, and in our group of maniacs, we still had J. i have many, many J stories. too many. i biked up to school with him from 4th grade to 8th, and i saw him get hit by cars thrice. he'd just swerve into the road sometimes. one time on a rainy day in 4th grade, a car splashed me, and before i could even consider my response J yelled I GOT THIS and then he blitzed off after the car. i didn't see him the rest of the day. i was so anxious i barely slept that night. i saw him the next morning and he told me that he'd chased the car until it got to a gated community and then he'd climbed over the fence and looked in peoples garages until he found the one with the car, and then he'd ripped the hood ornament off and broke their window. then he gave me a hood ornament to a different brand of car from the one that splashed me and i didnt tell him because i didnt want him missing more school. i want you to mentally adjust your mental model of the things a 9 year old is capable of doing to include chasing a car for five miles, hopping a fence, breaking into a garage, and vandalizing a randos car.

and that's just the tip of my J stories iceberg.

the point of all this is just to say that J was so crazy that he made us knife spooners look like accountanting enthusiasts.

so we agreed the war was done, and we shook on it, and then J, in the name of friendship, in the name of honor, in the name of avenging our pinecone filled tents, snuck over to their camp that evening and fornicated with a watermelon that they'd been saving in their cooler.

i want to emphasize, again, that this was not the consensus of the group. that is not a prank. like i know it seems like we dont know what pranks are because of the whole ziptie thing, but even we knew that fucking someones food is not a prank, it is a crime, and a sin, the kind of weapon that had only been ethically used once in history by Horus in his battle against Set and none of us dumb assholes had owl heads.

so.

the next day went pretty well. we threw some more axes again, which is a valuable and important skill for children to learn i guess, and we learned how to tie knots, which is a skill that turned out to be far sexier than i ever expected, and i learned how to light fires with a magnifying glass, which was great. i'm looking back at this, and i am actually just now beginning to realize that the clear and obvious point of scouting is turning child sociopaths into apex predators.

and then the day ended, and we went back to our camps, except for our leaders, who had a sort of Scout Leader Meeting they were going to have for a few hours at least. it was built into the camp, that day was supposed to be our day to chill as a group, and make peach cobbler, and just be buddies.

except, as it turned out, our neighboring group's alternative to making peach cobbler was eating their watermelon. so at some point they opened their watermelon, and woo boy. oh man. you think catholics hated seedless watermelons? you should see how much mormons hate seeded ones.

so we were chilling by the fire, and then we heard screaming from the camp over, but we didn't pay much mind to that because there are many reasonable explanations for a group of 10ish children to scream simulanteoulsy, such as wasps, which are abundant in arizona, and then the screaming got closer, which did not bother us because there were many reasons for a group 10ish children to scream and run towards us, for example, wasps, which are abundant in arizona, and then we noticed they had large sticks on them, which we figured were perhaps being used to drive away the wasps, which are abundant in arizona, and then they arrived and they started beating the shit out of us, abundantly, in arizona.

so we ran into the woods.

now, at this point, we had no idea what was up. we knew that the camp next to us was out for blood, which was crazy, because we'd actually locked them in fartproof bags for 30 minutes and they'd barely done anything back, and were trying to figure out what could possibly have happened that could drive them to Terrible Violence when we realized that J was cackling like a witch that had learned how to order children off of ebay.

so we politely asked J what the hell he had done, and he politely explained that had "done" their watermelon, and we politely beat him with large sticks because life is nothing but endless cycles of violence.

we were still being chased by the other camp btw. so it was them, chasing us, chasing J, and then they got tired and went back to their camp, and we chased J a little longer because we were mad we'd all been walloped with sticks, and J did not care because he was a supernatural entity whose only weaknesses were Needles and Fire, and then we got tired and went back and J kept running, and we just kind of figured he would come back eventually.

he did not.

we went back to our tents, and we waited, and J did not come back. we stayed up all night, peering into the forest, worrying. our leader came back, and we did our best to hide our battlewounds, and he either genuinely did not notice or simply accepted this as part of Boyhood. then he went to bed, and we waited, and waited, and waited. And Waited. and did not sleep.

eventually, we convened again, and we agreed that if J was not back by after breakfast, we would have to tell the scoutleader about what exactly had transpired. and we really did not want to do that, because it would have meant that everyone would have gotten in a very large amount of trouble.

morning came around, and J still was not back. we went to breakfast, and we ate very, very slowly. we were afraid the other camp was going to continue their war with us, but they actually looked fairly frightened. one of them actually came to us and asked for a truce, and we agreed because we truly felt bad for them. like, yes, they did beat us with sticks, but J fucked their watermelon. we werent complicit in the watermelonfuckening but they didnt know that, and it was definitely the kind of crime that left one outside the bounds of the social contract.

and then when we could eat no more bits, when breakfast was almost done, right when i was getting pushed to go and tell the scoutleader that we needed to find J, he arrived. he was sleep deprived, and noticeably scraped and bloody, and tied to his belt was a blood squirrel tail.

and i asked him, J, where did you get that? and he said, don't worry man, it was already dead, which did not answer by question and gave me several more.

the camp ended that day, and the other groups avoided us like the plague, and it was not until some weeks later that we were able to piece together what happened.

J, in his sojourn through the forest, managed to find (or, possibly, make) a dead squirrel. he then cut off the tail to keep on his belt, because he was a weird little freak like that. he also took the dead squirrel, and he skinned it, then he tied it to a little crucifix made of wood, and he left it in the other scouting group's camp. which is why they were so scared of us.

it was such an unhinged thing to do it actually sobered us up for a while. scouting became a scary thing for us. we'd found something dark and primal there, in the place where no adult could see, and our appreciation of J as a wild ride kind of changed into seeing him as something truly dangerous. we had a sense wherever he went, something terrible would follow, and the only way to escape it was to not be there when it arrived. and so piece by piece, the scout group dissolved. it wasnt until he moved out of that ward that the rest of us started daring to go back to scouts.

and for the final epilogue of the tale:

i have a little brother who was friends with a younger cousin of J's, and the two would go to parties together in highschool. and sometimes J, who was in his early 20's at that point, would show up at the parties, and it was unsettling in such a way that it just became a known risk at parties with the cousin. and at one party, they were playing truth or dare, and J wasn't even in the room, but someone asked him the Truth of how he always knew how to find the cousin, and J said the cousin's mom had mentioned she was worried about him and the parties so he'd put a tracker in his car. and when he saw that the cousin was out of the house on weekends, he'd made a visit by, just to make sure he was safe.

then he left. and every single person at that party went over that poor kid's car. they searched the wheel-wells, checked underneath it, the works, until they found the tracker. then because they were clever, they didnt break it, or throw it away, or anything that would've given away what they'd done. they just gave the tracker to the cousin, who put it in his glovebox. and on schooldays, he'd take it with him, so J could see him in the parking lot. and on weekends, he could leave it in the garage, so he could go to parties with out Hell coming with him. because everyone that met J - every single person - knew that the only way to be safe from him was to be far, far away.

[mellosdrawings]

ITS THE FACT THEY STILL HOLD HANDS EVEN WHEN JAMIL SWITCHES TO LEONA’S LEFT 😭😭🙌

YOU HAVE SUCH AN EYE FOR DETAIL

Little details make everything :3

I can't claim I always do those things, but hand placement or little details like changing the side with which you carry a bag when you walk alongside someone is important. It shows thoughtless care, which is the cutest, most important show of silent love to me.

[sunlight-shunlight]

i really wish flemythal got more of... anything, really, in dragon age before it croaked, bc i was genuinely so stoked to see her as a legit antagonist after all the buildup. give kate mulgrew some MONOLOGUES and MENACING LINES!! i wanted to see her go ham and wreak havoc. betray solas right back! kill elgar'nan with hammers! gaslight gatekeep girlboss!!

[iinryer]

i keep thinking about chris’s “i tried complaining once, it didn’t work” line and also how he’s super witty and funny and perceptive and also A Teenager and how that all would influence the way he navigates a world that isn’t always accessible to him…

just imagining post-ladder-truck-crush-injury buck and chris both using crutches while buck is still getting used to things suddenly being inaccessible to him and getting like, little zingers of insights and life lessons from his best friend’s kid while out and about. chris showing him how he gets up and down the tall curbs when a sidewalk is blocked off unexpectedly, and very loudly and often proclaiming his distain for the “fuck-you” steps (the 1-2 tiny steps at the front doors of houses and buildings that immediately make that entrance no longer accessible)

like buck researches a couple of easy activities for them to try while he’s is still healing and tired and is looking into the establishment’s accessibility accommodations, and hey! the place says on the website that they’re wheelchair friendly! that usually covers his and chris’s bases, so they should be good to go. but when they get there it turns out that, while there IS an accessible entrance with a “ramp”, it’s actually the cargo loading zone that’s literally on the other side of the building which would require them to walk a couple of extra blocks up and back down the street on the other side. obviously they can still get in, but buck feels awful because that’s not what he wanted out of his preparedness. chris just tells him “it’s okay, it happens a lot actually”, and buck is even MORE sad about it, but chris just conspiratorially adds “this is my favorite kind” and starts making his way towards the set of like, idk eight stairs at the front of this building. buck is obviously confused and looks at eddie who just shakes his head fondly, sighs and says “yeah, he does this sometimes” before encouraging buck to follow. when buck finally reaches chris, he’s balancing his crutches on the first stair and turns to buck to whisper “now we get to make them feel bad about it” and proceeds to very feebly, very slowly—and buck has seen chris rough and tumble and rocket his way through things that could (and do) trip him up, this is the most dramatic act of put-upon helplessness buck has EVER seen from this kid—make his way up the stairs. he even sticks his bottom lip out into a little pout for good measure. one of the staff sees them through the glass doors and comes out to tell them about the “ramp” in the back of the building, and before buck can even think of what to say in response, chris is just telling them, very sadly, that he “wouldn’t be able to walk that far without getting too tired 😔😔😔” and continues his hammed-up, sad, slow trek up the stairs while a very harried staff member kind of hovers, not knowing what to do.

buck has to bite his cheek to keep himself from laughing at chris’ act, and then again at the face the staff member makes when they catch sight of buck too, as he begins very dutifully following chris’s lead, eddie in their wake.

[ivibells]

maybe i'm swinging a bat at a hornet's nest here but as an aroace person, i think it's kind of messed up to say that levi is canonically aroace now

yes, he said that he doesn't care about people and that concepts like empathy, compassion, and love are unfamiliar to him. but attraction is not the same as any of those words. i get that people may want to headcanon him as aroace (especially since we don't get a whole lot of representation in the first place), but to insist that it's canon feeds into stereotypes about people with low empathy and aroace people alike

[bumbled-bees]

Getting Close Was What Set Me Free

(Or: Why I Do This Work)

So I've come to realize that getting close to Lily was what set me free. And by that I mean: the reason I was able to finally see Lily for who she really is wasn’t because I stumbled across some damning document or a big exposé. It was because I got too close to her to keep lying to myself.

I was in her server from June to September 2024. Three months. Not long in the grand scheme of things, but long enough to change everything.

Before that, I was just a casual fan. I watched her videos, nodded along with a lot of her takes, maybe rolled my eyes at a few. But I still trusted her. I still believed in the version of herself that she presents—the version that’s loud, unfiltered, “honest to a fault,” as she might say. Someone who’s rough around the edges but ultimately good-hearted. Someone who "says what everyone else is thinking." That’s the version she wants you to see.

And for a while, I bought into it. A lot of people do. Especially if you’re neurodivergent, LGBT+, or otherwise looking for a voice that feels like it “gets” you. She markets herself directly to us—those who’ve been overlooked, who’ve been hurt, who want to believe that someone loud and confident must know what they’re talking about.

But once I got inside that server, once I was in her space every day, I saw the real Lily. Not the polished version, not the performance. The person.

It started small. Subtle acts of condescension toward her own viewers. Passive-aggressive remarks she clearly expected people to just “get.” The way she acted offended if someone asked a question she didn’t feel like repeating herself on. That kind of thing. It wasn’t abusive in an overt way at first. But it chipped away at you. It created this atmosphere where you always had to tiptoe around her mood. And if you didn’t? Well, you were either ignored, mocked, or quietly exiled.

What really changed things for me was realizing how much effort she puts into controlling the space around her. That’s what it comes down to. Control. Everything is about control—what people are allowed to say, what kind of questions are allowed, what “tone” you’re supposed to use when addressing her. And the more time you spend in that environment, the more you realize that nothing you say is ever just a question. It’s a potential offense. A potential threat. Every interaction with her is a test you can fail, and she gets to decide the rules.

The incest game folder is when I started going back to old allegations, to posts I’d brushed off as “haters” or “drama.” And suddenly everything clicked. It wasn’t just “cancel culture” or “jealous ex-friends.” These were patterns. These were consistent behaviors. And they matched exactly what I was now seeing firsthand.

That’s when I got out. But that’s also when I realized how dangerous her grip really is.

Because if I’d stayed a casual fan? I wouldn’t have looked any of that up. I wouldn’t have believed the claims. I would’ve kept assuming that anyone who criticized her was just bitter or couldn’t handle a “strong personality.” And that’s what scares me most. How many people are still in that mindset? How many people are still where I was?

That’s why I started documenting. That’s why I made this blog. Not to “get back at her,” not to cause drama. But to lay out the patterns. To name them. To put them in the light. Because they are recognizable—and not just in Lily. The same red flags show up in other online spaces, in other creators, in other parasocial relationships. And if this blog helps even one person get out of a toxic space, or recognize that they’re not crazy for feeling like something’s off? Then it’s worth it.

I do this because I’ve been there. I saw it up close. And I got out. Now I want to help others recognize what I did—before they get pulled in too deep.

This isn’t a callout blog. It’s a flashlight. And I’m just trying to shine it where it’s needed.

[codenamesazanka]

rant. this was a vent in response to the final chapter, but the anime reaching the heteromorph riot arc got me all whiny again. embarrassingly personal.

On "Peaceful Resolutions" + general heteromorph riot arc stuff

When I was in elementary school - I forget what age - there was a snow day. Children love snow days. Me, my younger sibling, and my grandmother went outside to play. We wanted to use the neighborhood hill to sled. Unfortunately, it was already being used by some older kids. Middle schoolers only a few years older than me?

They didn't want to share the hill. So they pushed and shoved us. They threw snowballs at us. When I cried for them to stop, they laughed. When my grandmother, who didn't know English, who spoke only Chinese, yelled at them to stop, they laughed, and mocked her. "Ching chong ching chong." After that, no matter what me or my sibling said in English, they pretended not to understand and just kept chanting slurs. There is nothing more frustrating than screaming out your pain that you know people can hear and understand, and having it fall on deaf ears; more than that, your pain is enjoyment for them.

Was this discriminatory incident resolved peacefully? Well, me, my sibling, and my grandmother cut our snow day short and went home. Our retreat was 'peaceful', but I guess the incident wasn't exactly resolved.

Would attacking them back helped? No, of course not. (And not that we could. We were two elementary kids and an elderly woman. Understand that bullies nearly always purposefully target those weaker than them, ones who can't fight back without negative consequences.) Indeed, things would've just escalated. But we didn't want to retaliate. We didn't want revenge. We just wanted them to stop.

Did we do anything about it? No, it was just some kids being mean. A very minor thing (even as the incident, only one among others, continues to destroy our perception that this neighborhood was ever safe for us, truly our home. But my town had an active neo-nazi gang that liked to vandalize houses and slip posters into newspapers, so it was never going to be safe.) We didn't know our neighbors well because of language barriers, because we stood out as a Chinese family in a largely white neighborhood and people didn't talk to us much either. We wouldn't know how to alert the parents of these kids. And we thought, even if we did complain - a non-violent method of action - they might just find us annoying. They might hate us more. What if the language barrier leads to more confusion and conflict? We didn't want to risk it. We kept our heads down and let the incident go. My family became more reluctant to go out, to let me and my sibling outside to play. We maintained the peace.

Understand that it doesn't really matter what an discriminated minority does to resist discrimination - the perpetrator can find any act of resistance inappropriate. That is their prerogative by being in the position of power.

Shoji saved a girl, gave the community peace by preventing them from having to grieve her death. His village then bashed his face with a hoe for daring to resist and break the norms of the village, for daring to touch the girl to save her life.

A third party, of course, can come and resolve the incident by de-escalating everything. But for my incident, it was not me that this third party needed to stop. We did not engage in violence. It was the older kids. And had I retaliated - idk how, as a child; tackle them? - to protect my grandmother, my younger sibling - that would be self defense, likely because I wanted the bullying to stop and had to resort to violence when nothing else worked; because I feared the violence they were about to do to us more than my fear and reluctance to engage in violence in the first place. Maybe self-defense is too strong a word here for schoolyard bullying, but the principle is the same.

(It wasn't just schoolyard bullying, obviously. There were other incidents, from when I was younger, when I'm much older. This incident is one that I feel is less revealing/personal/vulnerable to tell.)

There was no peace in that incident that wasn't broken by the perpetrator to begin with. Not that the peace was peaceful for us in the first place. Bringing about true peace is solely on stopping the perpetrator, and ultimately on dealing with the root cause.

“Discriminatory incident” is so vague. An incident can be anything. “Peaceful Resolution” implies responsibility on all parties. What we're told isn't 'Shoji stops the bigots nonviolently'. (Also: The bigots are afforded this. Villains must be put down with violence, but not the people throwing rocks and spraying pesticides on children. I'm of course of the opinion that violence shouldn't be used to stop bigots or Villains except as a last resort, but the manga has demonstrated that no Hero ever stopped a bigot using the same methods they use on Villains. Why is that?) It isn't 'Shoji saves victims of hate crimes'. Judging by Shoji's own statements and how the heteromorph arc plays out, a peaceful resolution is stopping both the heteromorph victim (who may or may not be lashing out - in response to the hate crime) and perpetrator - If anything, more stopping the heteromorphs.

I’m going to suggest that rarely, heteromorphs ever actually retaliate with violence. True, the heteromorphs we see (Shoji, ordinary lady, Koda's mom) aren't part of the rioters but are we to believe all these rioters are people who react with violence every time, and it's their first solution? When they stopped the damn riot themselves because they didn't want to hurt the healthcare workers? (and even the riot wasn’t purposeless, indiscriminate violence - they were solely there to retrieve Kurogiri). Pig Nose guy says he's been beaten up for no reason, so he's already at the receiving end of violence that justifies self-defense, but we can assume he didn't actually lash out any of those times because he's the one who stops everyone, feeling so bad about just the idea of hurting someone.

I can’t say that’s 100% canon that none of the heteromorphs ever lashed out (and of course ‘statistically’ some of them must have), but overall, for most of them, it’s a legitimate assumption to be made. The heteromorphs from the Jeda or 6/6 incidents were fully massacred. Shoji and Spinner were children - Shoji was on the ground, getting bashed in the face with a farming hoe wielded by an adult. Spinner got sprayed with pesticides for walking outside and became a hikikomori, saying that he accepted being a ‘lizard freak’, he was ready to give up. (And he only took action when the extraordinary moment of Stain getting on TV made him realized he hated this suffocating world where Heroes failed him, never protected him.) Ordinary Lady never lashed back out at her attackers. Koda’s mom had to be protected by Koda’s dad.

Even the PLF agitator - his wound is a long deep scar on his head - a head injury that would’ve thoroughly incapacitated him, if not kill him. It is likely not the wound of someone hitting back with self-defense as if the PLF agitator was the one attacking someone and they were fighting back for their life.

These are the ‘Discriminatory Incidents’. What does a peaceful resolution look like, here?

The heteromorphs at the hospital aren’t there to get revenge. They’re there because they’ve been pushed into a corner and probably have become afraid for their lives, their future. During a national crisis where Heroes order civilians to go into hero-guarded shelters, these shelters had the audacity to refuse heteromorphs, leaving them out on the streets, vulnerable to the dangers of jailbreakers and lack of resources.

The peace was broken first by discrimination. The heteromorphs probably took Spinner’s call to action as a life preserver. Heroes had refused to protect them during the collapse of the state; and so they likely found truth in Spinner’s word that if Heroes win the day, nothing will change. They weren’t there to hurt anyone at the hospital - they were there to take back Kurogiri.

But Shoji framed the whole thing as revenge, as being avengers. He accused the heteromorphs of being violent and non-peaceful, without ever naming the first act of violence on the part of the non-heteromorphs. He didn’t want to risk the heteromorphs’ hard-won reputation and status (“You’ll set us back 30 years.* They’ll target your children.”) He wanted the heteromorphs to do what my family did - kept our heads down and let the incident go. Maintained the peace.

Shoji said that those who hurt the heteromorphs weren’t justified, but he then says “there has to be a better way”. We never find out what this was, beyond the vague ‘Shine bright’.

(I shined bright, too. I was a straight-A student. I did extracurriculars - piano, viola, art, softball. As did my sibling. My family were hard-working citizens. My mom worked two jobs. I hate telling these details, because they don't matter. My worth as someone who doesn’t deserve to face discrimination does not and should not depend on my grades or trained skills, how pleasant or cool I seem to someone. None of that matters to the people who wanted to hurt us because they simply saw being visibly Asian American as the offense.)

We don’t find out how Shoji’s better way works in the final chapter either. Just that he resolved the incidents ‘peacefully’. Because he wanted to solve discrimination peacefully. As do everyone, oppressors and the oppressed. But ‘peace’ often means something different to oppressors, and something different to the oppressed.

(Did Shoji resolve the heteromorph riot peacefully? Not really. He shouted a lot to the crowd, but he also fought Spinner (ah, you might say - well, Spinner was using violence! Shoji has to react to that with punching as well! Yeah. That's what I mean.) Koda had birds shoved someone off a building.)

Shoji’s better ways - I will assume it’s stopping the blood cleansings. That is a noble goal. It is a necessary and vital goal. And so, how? How does he cover the large areas of rural land, so that he’s there to stop these hate crimes? How does he know when something will happen? Is it a campaign and community-level action? Uraraka’s tackling of Quirk Counseling is a ‘project’, widespread and implemented on a macro level. Shoji’s efforts are on what’s implied to be individual incidents. But putting that aside for now, I will assume “resolving” is talking down the perpetrator. I will assume it’s protecting the victim while negotiating with the person holding the weapon.

Peaceful implies that he does so without violence (as he should! As a Hero Law Enforcement of the State!); but a blanket label of ‘peaceful’ also implies stopping the other party (the victim) asking them to stand down as well.

I just think - during my Discriminatory Incidents, how can anyone have me stand down, have stopped me, when I haven't done anything in the first place? And if I did have to be stopped from engaging in self-defense, that's not a resolution. That's a save. That's someone saving me from the violence, saving me from having to resort to violence.

Heroes save people. There's no question of 'peacefully' when they fight villains to save people. There’s no framing of ‘peacefully’ when they do so. But it seems heteromorphs are not allowed the same language of ‘peacefully’ and 'save'.

-

tl;dr. idk. the heteromorph mini-arc’s writing and message is awful.

-

*re: “set us back 30 years.” I know we don’t know exactly what happened 30 years ago, but we can guess - and so I don’t think guessing one of the named massacres is too wild. From my own experiences, the murder of Vincent Chin was about 40 years ago. I grew up with Vincent Chin as a horror story.

Being told that, due to whatever actions I was doing, would set back all that progress Asian Americans made since then is just cruel and wrong and illogical in all ways. Vincent Chin didn’t deserve to be murdered whatever he did 40 years ago, and he deserved to have his murderers be brought to real justice. The sheer injustice of that case is objective. There is no way someone can tell me that I’m setting time back to when the murder of Vincent Chin happened, that I would be causing injustice like that again, I’m responsible for any more murders that happen, and have that be in any way true.

Related— On Bnha's apparent ideal of "a hero is someone who is willing to suffer in silence" and "we'll get it right next generation!"

From Asian American Dreams, by Helen Zia:

The reaction within the Detroit area’s small, scattered Asian American population was immediate and visceral. Suddenly people who had endured a lifetime of degrading treatment were wondering if their capacity to suffer in silence might no longer be a virtue, when even in death, after such a brutal, uncontested killing, they could be so disrespected.

[...]

Vincent was part of an entire generation for whom the immigrant parents had suffered and sacrificed. Other Asian Americans also found a strong connection to the lives of Vincent, Lily, and David Chin. Theirs was the classic immigrant story of survival: work hard and sacrifice for the family, keep a low profile, don’t complain, and, perhaps in the next generation, attain the American dream. For Asian Americans, along with the dream came the hope of one day gaining acceptance in America. The injustice surrounding Vincent’s slaying shattered the dream.

[nikkis-bug-blog]

I remember one year in middle school or grade school I went on a hike with my girls scout troupe and we stopped at a rest stop bathroom on the trail in woods where ladybugs were swarming. There were so many of them gathered inside the tiny room, huddled together against the creeping cool in the last dregs of summer. More than I had ever seen in one place before. In some places they covered whole surfaces with a buzzing fluttering mass of tiny red and black bugs

[mala-santa-radfem]

i think one of things that peaked me was when i saw a TRA on twt saying the usual: jk rowling is a nazi blah blah and someone asked him where they could read a little more about it, they wanted to show their mom (who didn't speak english) about how bad jk was.

so this twt user just told them to go to jk's account and see by themselves. but again they say they can't just show that to their mom, they were probably looking for screenshots or links. mind you, this was very genuine. this person really wanted to know, they already believed jk rowling was a bad person but they didn't know why.

anyway, their questions were constantly met with aggression and mocking and "its not my job to educate you". just because they asked for evidence. there's something here to say about how TRAs have no proof of jk rowling being a nazi that wants to kill people and that's why when you ask for evidence you're meet with aggression and they'll assume you have bad intentions.

[artbyblastweave]

Funniest thing I've seen recently, and not funny in a ha-ha way, more funny in a "the endless entropic void gnawing at my will to live" way, was somebody asking around for alternatives to Neil Gaiman, in the light of Neil Gaiman's ongoing fall from grace. As though what we're currently sitting through isn't the collapse of the carefully curated "Good Guy Neil" image that caused people to parade Gaiman as the same kind of preferred progressive alternative to, say, Rowling. As though we won't be in the same goddamn situation in a few years or months, with some number of the new progressive sci-fi/fantasy darlings- not all of them, to be clear, but at least some of them- when their impeccably-curated marketing implodes in on itself and they're revealed to be the same kind of sex pest or abuser. Can you not see the wheel to which you are strapped. The game of human pinball you are condemning yourself to with this mindset. Maybe you do see, and you're just resigned to taking it one soul-crushing disappointment at a time, one "I never would have guessed" after another. I mean I think we all need to get resigned to that one way or another, sun's gonna go out before it stops happening

[peachdoxie]

Saying "I've been up since 6 am" to my mother as an indication I'm having a rough day feels kinda weird considering millions of people get up that early every day and function fine, but to me it's basically meaning the apocalypse is happening in my head.

[lelouch]

I've seen a lot of arguments like this when i go to block rdfems, or when they go bother trans people. this is probably a result of rdfem spaces being incredibly white and unwilling to learn LGBT history that contradicts their strict and transphobic worldview. the addition of gender identity being "gringo" is what called my attention, specially coming from a white person.

I can only talk about my country, but we've had non-binary genders since the dawn of time.

Muxes are a third gender identity from el Itsmo de Tehuantepec in Oaxaca. They have specific roles to fill in society, and are a separate category from the binary man/woman role since before the colonization.

The mexican nonbinary community has been pushing for gender neutral language, specially one magistrate called Jesús Ociel Baena. They legislated towards inclusivity, recognition of nonbinary identities and the ability to change your legal documents not only from one sex to another, but giving the option to opt out of the F/M.

Trans and nonbinary people of color have been here since before the spanish colonized us, it's insulting that people try to paint us as results of a white phenomenon, being that colonization was the exact thing that brought violence towards our communities.

[hellaverse-critical-confessions]

I don’t really understand why Lucifer is treated like this sad tragic figure when it’s his fault all of humanity is evil and he gets to cry in his rich castle full of servants while his weaker human subjects are victims of genocide and abused daily

Neglectful ruler and neglectful father. The guy's all around pretty useless. /lh

[leletha-jann]

As of today, I have been reading Girl Genius for five years!

(so yes, I'm still very new in town)

I remember because I'd borrowed the first novel from the library on a whim (we were in week MULTIPLE of a two-week Spring Break) and I needed books, any books, what books had I seen... I'd walked past what turned out to be a copy of novel 3 in my local bookstore multiple times. "Foglio" is an unusual enough name that it stuck in my brain. Might as well give it a try...

I will defend the novels to the absolute WALL, because it's no exaggeration that that book changed my life.

It made me laugh. It grabbed me. It demanded that I help it unbolt the engine!! while still falling. (For a moment there, I was totally behind unbolting the engine, hahaha.) It made me yelp and gasp and go "What?" It drew me in like I was meant to be there. I needed to know what happened next. It fit into my brain like a puzzle piece. I was in love.

I was phoning local bookstores the second I finished the last page, because I NEEDED to know what happened next, and I needed to OWN it so I'd have this world to hand forever.

I got very lucky. One bookstore had novel 2; another had novel 3.

I remember ping-ponging up and down the highway because if I waited too long it would be Easter the next day and everyone would be closed, and I COULD NOT WAIT, I NEEDED IT NOW. (This is how I know the date.)

The bookseller at the first store commiserated with me about the homemade masks we were both wearing. The bookseller at the second store gave the cover too quick a look, said "Agatha Christie?", and seemed confused when I laughed.

...it possibly was not a very sane laugh.

(Fun fact, that bookstore sold me the same copy of novel 3 I'd walked past all those times. Truly meant to be.)

(Also, oh ye gods, you cannot imagine my delight when I opened novel 2 and found footnotes. I was in the right place and I felt it in my soul.)

I had to get novel 4 from the library, as it was brand new and nobody nearby had it. I'd buy it later, but the library's eBook copy was faster, and I needed to know what happened next!

Also later, I bought a copy of novel 1 online...but before it arrived, I walked past another copy in a bookstore, and what was I supposed to do, just leave it there? When I could have it now? Of course not.

(Those copies are signed and drawn in now! I treasure them! I'm still looking forward to the revised editions, and I'll buy those too!)

I read my way through the novels a couple of times...but I still needed to know what happened next. And, well, that did seem like quite a lot of comics listed...clearly they'd gotten a lot further, so maybe I should be reading those...

And I have never looked back.

That year sucked a lot, for everyone.

Thank you, Professors Foglio, for getting me through it...and the years since. Thank you for changing my life and bringing me so much joy.

(Also screaming. There's some screaming. You know what you're doing.)

Five years ago today I started reading Girl Genius...and I am still very much in love,

and I still need to know what happens next!

[transformers0]

Voice Facade

A headcanon I had to explain Lor's voice changing over the course of the show is that the rough-and-tumble voice she started out with was her intentionally putting on a lower vocal tone to sound intentionally more rough and tough.

As Lor became more sensitive, more considerate, and more in touch with her feminine side over the course of the show, she gradually stopped lowering her voice and the lighter, higher tone that she has in later episodes is actually her natural voice.

And yes, when I have the time, I do wanna write at least one fanfic exploring this idea.

This headcanon of mine was based off of me doing the exact same thing when I was a preteen. Though since I'm male, me putting on a voice facade was due to me wanting to sound more like a man, since I was one of the last among my friends for my voice to drop.

I wasn't the last one though, so yay to that.

Though if I could go back and give advice to my younger self, I'd tell him not to be so insecure and superficial about his vocal chords.

You're only young once.

[puzzled-pegasus]

Drew this to give to my chemistry teacher tomorrow. For context, he says this when he's talking about cations which are positively charged atoms and every time he says "cats have Paws" he does the little paw gesture with his hands so I wanted to draw this to make fun of him lolll

(School mascot logo censored so yall creeps cant somehow find the town I live in)

@manygeese @just-call-mefr1es