#not to invalidate anyone

[elrondsscribe]

I’m new to this fandom so I may be speaking out of turn, but the concept of ship wars here of all fandoms is baffling to me

Like are all these vampires canonically not part of maybe a handful of big messy drama-filled polycules worldwide?? Like 5 tops?

(Except Lestat at some point at least tried to fuck basically everyone, so really one massive polycule lol)

[sapphic-boy]

"How many genders are there" legitimately I think there are as many genders as there are people on earth, you can be a boy but is your version of boy 100% identical to any other boy?

[gettinontopic]

Way too many binary trans people (Edit: Op is actually nonbinary as well. Which makes this all more baffling for me?)

Because this is still showing desperation for a world where they have people guess their gender based on appearance bc my daily experience is nothing but a hypothetical to them.

It's not degendering unless they explicitly know your pronouns and gender and circumvent it using neutral terms.

Using Neutral pronouns when you do not know someones pronouns is not fucking degendering it's making the world safer for nonbinary people and trans people everywhere.

For fucks sake what the hell why are we going backwards on the things that allow our genders not to be assumed by cis people?? why are we moving the line to where they would want it???

Why the fuck is it so hard to believe those who try and stay inclusive of nonbinary people are out to get you and your fucking gender?

Like this was so uneeded!!!

Not to mention you know full and well it was not degndering (A purposeful act) bc you know it would be misgendering you to call you she/her or a woman if you were nonbinary. You acknowledge that right there. So it also at worst is this person unmaliciously misgendering you on accident.

But that's not it and you know it! It was a stranger at the bar! They do not know you so it makes sense they're not assuming!

You however assumed the pronouns and gender idenity of everyone else involved though so maybe I shouldn't be surprised that you don't care much for breaking cis peoples need to make assumptions either.

[afterthelambs]

How I interpret Joker Persona 5

Since Joker is a silent self-insert protagonist it can be hard to get a reading on his characterization. He can make inconsistent choices gameplay-wise that clash with what was set up. He's supposed to be the righteous leader, and yet... you have the option to cheat on girlfriends, or sell your friends out to Yaldobaoth and become Evil, or doom the world for a selfish wish. It's easy to dismiss all that as 'not the true ending' but to me that would be boring and a cop-out. These are treated as equally-valid choices in terms of player input, so I think any interpretation of the character has to account for that. Like he is definitely a little unhinged.

Is Joker evil? No because he spends most of the game being a good guy and can choose to be a hero till the end. The desire to do the right thing is ingrained in his character.

So is he inherently good? No because it's coded into the game that he can betray all his morals. In P3, Makoto at worst betrays his team to protect them from pain. He never turns sinister the way Joker can in the Yaldobaoth-deal ending. P4 has an accomplice ending but even then you at least have collaboration of some sort, as opposed to Joker who is alone in his fall from heroism. The good ending being the 'true' ending doesnt erase the fact that Joker has the potential to go dark in a way the other protagonists dont. This is also a part of him, which I think makes him wayyyy more interesting.

So how are you supposed to reconcile all these inconsistencies into a cohesive characterization? Is it just 'out of character'?

Ironically, I think the best way to understand Joker's character is to first understand Akechi. If you accept that they are two sides of the same coin (and the game beats you over the head with that lol) then that means they share a lot of internal rage and pain about the world. It means Joker did not have his emotions together nor a healthy outlook on interpersonal relationships, at least in the beginning. It explains why a lot of Joker's confidants start out transactional. The main difference (asides from Akechi being more marginalized) is that Joker has the opportunity to respond to his traumas in a healthier way. He channels his rage into a good cause, and he can choose to do so til the very end (ie the true ending). It also explains how he can reach a breaking point and go down a darker path instead, similar to Akechi.

This is my preferred way of interpreting Joker in light of all the wildly different directions he takes in the actual game. It's why I personally like my Joker characterization as a little unhinged, a little dark, very emotionally troubled and evasive, AND very kind + empathetic to others despite that. He knows he's a little fucked up inside and that's why he's desperate to do the right thing. Joker isn't just good by nature, he actively chooses to be.

If you need any more proof, look at Maruki. He's the only other character that gets this much parallels drawn with Joker. But the ways that Joker's characterization can be derived from Maruki is a whole other post. I'll probably get to that some day, but it's interesting that when the writers decided to make a parallel to Joker for an extended story, they went with another unhinged antagonist that understands him on a deeper level.

[alarrylarrie]

Sending love to all my fellow older fans. I was living on my own and working a grown up job when I landed in this fandom. One Direction was not apart of my childhood and I did not grow up with them in the same way a lot of other people did. None of that changes the devastation I feel over Liam’s death. No, a piece of my childhood did not die, but a piece of my heart sure did.

[lyculuscaelus]

So lately I’ve been seeing a lot of posts asking people to stop trying to make Odysseus look nice in their works cuz he’s a “messed-up person in the mythology”. Your opinion is valid however I have but one thing to point out:

You want to know who started all this? Who started to “make Odysseus look nice” in the first place?

It’s Homer. It’s nobody else but Homer himself.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would try to murder people out of his own interests. He’d murder Palamedes without remorse (and we’d be cheering over this but it’s a murder after all), he’d attempt to murder Diomedes just to get the Palladium himself, he’d volunteer to kill Astyanax…meanwhile you wouldn’t find any mention of either Palamedes or Nauplius in Homer’s poems, neither did he mention anything abt the Palladium heist (and Diomedes necessity did not happen until Conon’s version), the death of Astyanax, the distribution of war prizes, etc. And all the details in the Odyssey seemed to deny the existence of Nauplius’s vengeance at all, so Odysseus would not take any of the blame.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would be depicted as “cruel, treacherous”, meanwhile in book 10 of the Iliad Odysseus was not mentioned to have killed anyone during the marauding, neither did he promise Dolan anything at all. The negative interpretations are denied by these details subtly put by Homer.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would be widely known as a “coward” for only shooting arrows from afar. But Homer gave him a spear and had him absolutely slaying in both the Iliad and the Odyssey. That part of Ajax’s speech was invalid already.

Most importantly—a non-Homeric Odysseus would be having kids everywhere else, and the loyalty to his own wife as seen in the Odyssey is no where to be found. Meanwhile his lineage was a single-son line made by Zeus in the Odyssey, and his love for Penelope was one of his main drives, especially seen in book 5 of the Odyssey. He loved his family as a loving parent—something you don’t get to see in most of the non-Homeric writings—for most of the time they followed a different tradition indeed, in which Odysseus wasn’t half as nice as in the Odyssey.

TL;DR: in case you haven’t noticed, the characterization of the Homeric Odysseus was quite different from a non-Homeric version of Odysseus. It’s not that Homer didn’t know of the existence of other versions—he knew them too well, which is why in his version of the story, you don’t get to see any mention of them.

[bucksboobs]

I do think at some point in the not too distant future, the 911 fandom, at least on Tumblr, is going to have to reckon with the fact that despite M!slash being the main driving force of the fandom, gay men like myself are in the vast minority (I think a recent poll put us at something like 6% but it didn’t separate bisexuals by gender so it’s hard to say how many mlm are actually in the fandom) and in the same way being a gay man doesn’t exempt him from being incidentally or purposefully misogynistic, being some other flavor of the rainbow doesn’t prevent someone from perpetuating homophobia against men who love men.

At some point the jokes about how Tommy is just here for dick or should just get dick and move on (when he’s already made it very clear that he wants a relationship with Buck) are going to start to sound like hypersexual stereotypes of gay men. At some point the constant push to get them to break up as soon as possible and for Tommy to die or get shipped off to Arizona or wherever is going to seem less like regular ship hate and more like wanting a gay male character to be punished for daring to seek a relationship with a man in the first place. We obviously aren’t there yet but I do think we should be aware that it is fast approaching.

[oro-junestar]

trans people are some of the strongest, bravest people on this earth.

so much could go wrong. surgeries could be botched. your body could have bad reactions to treatment. your identity could be shrugged off as a joke. people could try to stop you from doing the things you love. they could relentlessly harass you. they could commit hate crimes against you and no one would bat an eye. people who you thought had loved you could turn against you. your government could try to write you out of existence. your entire community could despise you.

and you take that risk with a smile, all while looking absolutely gorgeous.

cause there is NO ONE more beautiful than someone who loves themself, is kind to the world, and freely expresses what truly makes them happy regardless of what others think.

i will fight to the death for your rights. i will not rest in peace until all trans and other queer people can live peacefully and happily without risk of being hurt for who they are.

i love you. trans rights are human rights.

[yourresidentstanlover]

Stan was normal. 

He’d always been normal. He wasn’t like Ford. He knew when people were being sarcastic, he knew not to take everything literally. That’s why he protected Ford, because he was the ‘normal’ one.

Nevermind the fact that he felt like he didn’t understand what people were saying sometimes, despite the fact that there was nothing physically wrong with his ears. Ignore the issue of him not being able to focus on his work for more than a minute before getting distracted. And the times that he felt like crying because everything was too damn loud? Not important, that’s what. It’s stupid whenever he breaks down crying because he’s overwhelmed and upset– he shouldn’t be crying, he’s a man, dammit!

Sometimes he’d sit in his chair like a frog, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t normal, he just liked to be a little silly sometimes. And so what if the texture of Brussels sprouts made him gag, most kids hated vegetables anyways. 

What do you mean he shouldn’t be getting so attached to people he barely knew? And just… ignore the inability to tell the difference between romantic attraction and platonic affection, that’s not relevant here!

Stan was told so himself: Ma said he’s a normal kid. He’s not like his brother.

But let’s just gloss over the fact that Stan always felt like an outsider whenever he was having a conversation. That he had to think about how long he should look into someone’s eyes before looking away. And the times when he was told that the questions that he asked were inappropriate? Eh, he was just a kid, kids say dumb shit all of the time. Just don’t look at the fact that he tends to blurt out painfully honest truths sometimes. Don’t look at when he would overshare to a point where he made everyone uncomfortable. People overshare all the time, it’s fine. And the fact that he seemed to never shut up? Probably just the sugar in those Asbest O’s. He should probably quit chewing on those hoodie strings…

As Stan got older, he found himself becoming more ‘normal’ but… feeling more terrible. It’s hard to talk to people in a normal way. Sitting in chairs normally sucks. Eye contact is an awful thing to figure out. It doesn’t feel too great to stop moving his arms around.

…Maybe he wasn’t all that normal, after all…

[jewishvitya]

Okay so like. I'm nonbinary. But I live practically as a cis person. Which sucks, for a bunch of reasons, but that's what it is basically, don't feel like getting into that aspect of it. But the thing is, this means I avoid dealing with... outright hostility and violent transphobia, medical struggles around transitioning, all those things that can be life or death for many trans people that do transition, nonbinary or "binary" (don't know if the word makes sense). I don't have to confront The System, I don't have to deal with the different legalities and medical situations. I have my own experience in a world that doesn't see my existence as an option, but there's so much I don't go through. It's not a "more valid, less valid" thing it's just a different experience. Just like a person is equally queer in and out of a relationship, but if they're visibly queer or in a visibly queer relationship there are more experiences attached to it. I know that a lot of the support I get from social workers and such is because my family looks like "the right kind of family," and if we didn't, they'd be making us jump through hoops. I think it's important to acknowledge positionality in addition to identity.

And seeing someone with basically my same positionality wrt gender speaking over other trans people, not to talk about struggles someone like us might go through but to minimize the struggles they go through as transphobes are getting increasingly more bold and dangerous and many people have their access to gender affirming healthcare threatened, and they're using "I'm trans too" as a talking point, which yes true but what the fuck, it makes me so fucking angry I want to bite someone.

[bixels]

I'm not getting into The Giving Tree discourse...

[baelonthebrave]

‘reform got as many MPs as the greens why are they getting so much coverage’ bc they were the third most voted-for party after labour and the conservatives! the only thing keeping reform out in the cold right now is the first past the post system. reform candidates are racist, bigoted scum, yes, but many of their VOTERS tend to be disenfranchised working class people who have been convinced that immigration and identity politics are the root source of their problems. these are people who have been consistently let down and shut out since long before david cameron or even tony blair set foot in downing street. generations of poverty and pain and systemic inequality compounding and being capitalised on by scum like farage and rupert murdoch’s press who use some carefully chosen words to stoke fear of the ‘other’ so they can feed their egos and their wallets. britain’s problem is a CLASS problem at its core and the longer the left keeps ignoring that fact, the more we push the people most at risk towards extremist bullshit like this. reform UK is akin to a cult that preys on the vulnerable and the isolated. the solution is to make these people less vulnerable and less isolated.

[kristalijah]

HE'S CHECKING OUT GARY!!!! I REPEAT, HE'S CHECKING OUT GARY!!!!

[uatia]

I'd like to share my collection of Lance Stroll pictures because he's my favorite and reminds me of myself a little too much sometimes...

If I get any lance hate on this post I will block you because no one deserves the kind of hate y'all seem to give him.

More like this

[nfatcheese]

it sounds weird but i think timebomb is a big part of why i love lightcannon so much. they're both such good ships and they complement each other so well.

first, we need to understand why timebomb is doomed. how the love is still there, despite everything that's happened, but they still can't be together. because ekko and jinx are different people now and they need fundamentally different things.

jinx can't stay in zaun. she would be living in hiding, trapped by her past. she has to break the cycle. she has to walk away from zaun to heal.

ekko can't leave zaun. after fighting for his community for so long, he can't abandon them now, when there's so much work still to do. he has to heal with zaun.

no matter how much they might wish otherwise, being together would destroy them. that's the real heart of the tragedy, that the love is still there, but they have to move on.

lightcannon works so well for jinx because it represents the moving on and healing on her side of it. lux is so bright and optimistic, she brings the light back into jinx's life and gives her something new to live for, a new way to love and be loved.

jinx is also a perfect complement to lux. she brings out lux's rebel heart, reminds her how to live, helps her be her true self, damn what anyone else thinks.

lux and jinx are healing to each other, and that's what is so important about them. ekko heals with zaun, he has the firelights and his community to support him. but jinx is alone until she meets lux. she is the way that jinx is able to begin healing.

and one day when enough has healed, maybe jinx and ekko can finally reconcile. maybe they can move on, appreciate each other as friends and let go. or maybe they can finally be together, after lux and jinx have helped each other and can go their separate ways. or maybe all three of them can figure something out, together.

but not right now. for now they need to heal. for ekko that means rebuilding his community, and for jinx that means lux.

[pluralhottakes]

sometimes pro endos and anti endos should just. chill. interact. don't limit yourself to only interacting with people with morals that are 100% the same as yours. everyone's all "no one is perfect" until the imperfection is that they don't agree with you on something. like no actually flaws aren't just skills people aren't good at, they're also moral things

tl;dr just chatting with people who disagree with you is ok and not everything is about syscourse

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