#sometimes it needs to be done

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

Welcome back. Took me a few secs there, haha, with the blog name changed.

Were you still following everything or did you completely detach from kpop while you were away? Just curious.

Hmmm, this is complicated, but I guess being honest about it will do more good than acting detached. Which used to be my spiel back in the BMT days. Not that I was pretending to be someone who I'm not, but a lot of the stuff I wrote and especially how I did was the result of filtering my emotions and reactions through a rational lens. I do that in my day to day life as well, so it's an actual problem, not only the way I present myself as fandom participant.

My initial plan was complete detachment because I ended up hating it. For so many reasons that I don't even remember all of them now. I really wanted a clean slate, but it's not as easy as I thought. I went back to my old blog which consisted mostly of the stuff I reblog now here with the films and pretty photos. I also unfollowed all the fandom-related accounts on twitter. And I tried to go back to my other passions, especially film. And reading some literature instead of wasting hours on a blog. It worked. Until it didn't. Because complete detachment is hard. Like I said in my first post after coming back, giving up smoking was easier. This is another type of addiction. Yes, it is. Is it shameful to admit that? I don't know, but I also don't care much about it and what others think of me based on this.

I closed the blog the day Jimin released Face, but I told myself I would still follow his promotions. And that I can follow one or two Jimin update accounts on twitter and that's it. But it was never just that. Because I still heard stuff here and there and my stupid curiosity got the worst of me and I would look it up and then I'd see opinions. Which is the worst when you try and stay from discourse. And then I would unfollow everything. And then I would go back to it a week, two weeks later. A constant cicle. Which annoyed me to bits. I was angry with myself because I thought I had no will. And it seems so silly in the grand scheme of things, when stuff in my personal life was a lot more important. Perhaps one issue was me always trying to dismiss my participation and contribution to the fandom as something frivolous when it was not. I dedicated time to it for the wrong and good reasons as well.

Tumblr was even worse than twitter. I would check some tags, block accounts that would annoy me and then I would log out. I'd get back to it and look up my blocked list and go through it. As an act of self hate? I don't know, but it was like I wanted to get angry. I was chasing that feeling. All the while telling myself that I don't want to have anything to do with it anymore.

Do I have a problem? Most likely. I know I never had these issues before, but this is the result of my first direct involvement in a fandom and also happening during a period of my life in which a lot of things have changed. And I'm trying to deal with all that and one way of doing it is by focusing on the objects of my interest. I'm still trying to find the answers, solutions, a more healthy way. Rebranding the blog by making it more diverse is one attempt.

[azureoctahedron]

I want to take this, and push this one step further because I'm sure people aren't going to catch the nuances here. And it's going to be really easy to dogpile on this and say "10000% restorative, get rid of punitive!"

I'm going to be the Debbie Downer, and say both ideologies need to co-exist together. The more tools in your box, the wider range of options you have in dealing with a Problem.

But this requires full understanding of what each does, and where they might come up short.

Sometimes you're going to need to just take out the guy at the top - because they're a symbol as much as they're y'know, the guy at the top. Because they've gotten there through Very NotGood means and need to be stopped from harming more people, and you want to send a message to others thinking about doing the same to Not Do That.

Other times, you're going to need to attack the system and beliefs that put him there so you can prevent a repeat. You're going to need to take out the guy at the top because he's a Fucking Asshole, but you need to take down the system as well because that was how he got there. So you need the longer-term restorative approach because then enough people will learn what happened, and do better next time.

But for true long-term lasting change...punitive isn't going to work. You absolutely need the restorative justice option. You need people willing to see where they went wrong, and to change their ways, and then teach that lesson they learned to the next generation. You're going to need people to change sides and help you out from the knowledge of why going the way they did is a bad idea.

You can try to throw out punitive justice, and you can try to go fully to restorative justice...but restorative justice takes time. It takes effort. It takes teaching. It takes having something set up to keep working on these people.

Some crises are not going to have the patience for you to do that.

This is what I believe the OP means in case some of you missed that part.

Some situations call for using restorative justice for the correct message, and sometimes there will be so many moving pieces that you have to use punitive for the short-term, and get the setup for the long-term restoration going.

Have more tools in your toolbox, but understand them completely. Don't automatically discount one or the other, but look at what best fits your situation, and recognize that there's always more than one right way to fix a mess.

Also, media absolutely needs more takes on restorative justice. To reflect what I said above, you can't push people to use a tool they don't understand. That's going to make a worse situation. You have to be willing to take the risk and show that there are more options than only punitive justice.

Steven Universe I think went in the right track in not having the Diamonds die, but instead learn from their mistakes. That was so core to the show's messaging I think it actually works.

(My personal take as to why it went wrong in people's heads is that the heel-face-turn went too fast, and didn't seem to fully fit the Diamonds' misdeeds. I have a whole rant somewhere in the past about how the redemption arc has to fit the crime, or it feels like a handwave. This is my take on SU's approach. It wasn't wrong, it was in how quickly they wrapped that whole thing up. Had they gotten a longer runway for it and a little more time to offset the cognitive whiplash, it probably would've landed better.)

Star Trek in particular does a good job of pushing the more restorative justice aspects with almost all the Enemy Races. Klingons became allies, the Borg got humanized as unwilling drones forced into the Collective, even the Romulans ended up being a key part in fighting the Dominion, and so on.

Hell even Star Wars took a swing at it with Luke choosing to willingly face the Emperor to bring Vader back to the light. He still died, but he at least died a redeemed man who laid down his life for his son's survival. I think that's actually one of the better restorative approaches shown, because Luke actively looked for an alternative to the punitive method.

Babylon 5 had a restorative approach in ending the Vorlon-Shadow War by just sending both offending races (who were destroying planets left and right by that point) off to beyond the Rim. Sure it felt a bit pat (the network forced them into it basically by threatening to cancel the show), but they took the risk to do a full after-War season to show the fallout.

Even the Expanse takes a shot at showing both punitive and restorative approaches - showing both their successes and failures. But I like that it ended on a restorative approach - one of the warmongers causing trouble was dead, but one of the mainstay characters who started a warmonger went slowly but surely in a completely 100% different direction by the end. (Avasarala despised Belters to the point of torturing them in the beginning, but negotiates with and willingly helps them by the end).

The more often media actually approaches restorative justice and shows how well it can work for situations, I think the more kids will grow up and start using it as another approach to justice than only punishment.

Sometimes I think about how and why some people had such a *bad* reaction to the end of Steven Universe, specifically in regards to the Diamonds living.

Even though they no longer are causing harm to others and are able to actually undo some of their previous harm by living, some folks reacted as though this ending was somehow morally suspect. Morally bankrupt, even.

And I think it might be because so many of us were raised on a very specific kind of kids media trope:

They all fall to their deaths.

Disney loves chucking their bad guys off cliffs. And it makes sense- in a moral framework where villains *must* be punished (regardless of whether their death will actually prevent further harm or not), but killing of any kind is morally bad for the hero, the narrative must find a way to kill the villain without the protagonists doing a murder.

It's a moral assumption that a person can *deserve* to die, that it is cosmically just for them to die, that them dying is evidence that the story itself is morally good and correct. Scar *deserves* to die, but it would be bad for Simba to kill him. So....cliff.

Steven Universe, whatever else it's faults, took at step back and said "but if killing people is bad, then people dying is bad", and instead of dropping White Diamond off a cliff, asked "what would actual *restorative*, not punitive, justice look like? What would actual reparations mean here? If the goal is to heal, not just to punish, how do we handle those who have done harm?" And then did that.

Which I think is interesting, and that there was pushback against it is interesting.

It also reminds me of the folks who get very weird about Aang not killing Ozai at the end of Avatar. And like, Ozai still gets chucked in prison, so it doesn't even push back on our cultural ideas of punitive justice *that much.* and still, I've seen people get real mad that the child monk who is the last survivor of a genocide that wiped out his entire pacifist culture didn't do a murder.

[beaft]

google help me

[potato-lord-but-not]

Holy Ghosts: Chapter 1. Part 1.

LETTTSSS GOOOOO WE’RE ACTUALLY STARTING THIS THANGGGG WAHHOOOOO

sorry they’re so pissed off at each other we’ll get to that bittersweet friendship soon <3 well, after Noel hits bedrock ofc <3

[bruciemilf]

“Bruce is emotionally incompetent and can’t step outside his own morality” yeah it’s a character flaw.

“Dick is extremely stubborn and thinks he’s right all the time” yeah it’s a character flaw.

“Jason has hypocritical tendencies” yeah it’s a character flaw.

“ Tim is entitled and doesn’t think about people when seeking results, and often acts uncaring” yeah it’s a character flaw.

“Damian is rude and bratty” yeah, it’s a character flaw.

Also, some people may not even regard everything listed above as flaws.

Having negative traits allows incredible flexibility within your characters, what makes them intriguing, what makes them easy to relate to. If you want to write people, then write people. But they can’t be good and clean all the time.

[egophiliac]

trying to finish up some older stuff before the new year (and also subject everyone to more endless Meleanor forever)

have a good one, guys! ❄️

[lazylittledragon]

relocating

(psst this is not on webtoon but it has its own ig now)

[thestarlotus]

Hilson should have had ONE. (1) honest to god fistfight. Not talking about no pansy ass scuffle either i need a FIGHT. Im talking bloodied noses nd bruised cheeks. I need them to exchange words that will alter the course of their relationship forever. MOST OF ALL. They need to make out nastystyle afterwards

[synesthete-sylke]

gem and the scotts because that team didn't get enough love!! it was such a great vibe, all three povs were super fun to watch

[vertigris-art]

Just found you for the first time and I like your art! What's your manga about, if you don't mind me asking?

(Read from right to left)

Thank you! I'm bad at writing blurps (especially in english) but: It's a slice-of-life, comedy manga in which you follow bear girl Gris on her daily shenanigans as she moves into the city of Kemoshima — a city that was once heralded as the safe heaven for Chimeras but has since become a derelict slum, ran be mafia families.

I've got about 37 pages released so far over on my dedicated website. Right now you need a Patreon sub to read it but when CH.1 is fully released, it will be free to read!

[windfalling]

1.02 // 1.06 // 1.08 The Stranger vs. Sol on recognizing and differentiating Osha and Mae

[tommygotwrittenoff]

i literally do not care about big emergencies on abc's 911. i want to see my characters talk to each other and have stories that are parallels to small, everyday (everyday for first responders) emergencies

[fictionalsownme]

smash???????? who said that?????????

engineer doesn't get enough love on this blog considering how much I cannot express my devotion to him, so I’m working to fix that :) this is similar to what I did for damien but it took foreverr!! iswm lighting is so so pretty which makes it impossible to get right ;;u;; the saturation is really high and there's multiple light sources so in terms of rendering it, its like it was personally designed to leave me dead on the floor :))))) either way,, I'm happy with how it turned out!! he’s very prettie :))

also bonus:

[rjshope]

Life is like balancing act, much like walking on a tightrope. People who manage to maintain a good balance between things are most admirable to me. (x)

[kaddyssammlung]

[starlight-eclipsed]

It never hurt to be careful. The last time Demise caught wind of Dark’s sharp tongue, he’d spent ten years in isolation sealed in a crystal at the bottom of the temple.

Hello everyone! This line (from chapter two of A Dark Among the Lights by @luckylectio over on AO3) has been on my mind for the last year, so I finally sat down and drew it :D