#2) i do not care what your moral stance on anything is i don't even care if you're moral stance is '''''right''''

[thelioncourts]

+

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Love is Stored in the Cat: A Nepeta Leijon Character Study

I guess these are a series now! I also have a request for Feferi in my inbox that I'll get around to eventually.

SO! Dear, sweet Nepeta.

Nepeta is the troll that is most against the existence of the hemocaste.

I believe the Ultimate Self speech was originally going to be from her, not Davepetasprite^2.

She's bad at shipping.

These all make her extremely impurrtant!!!

So furst of all, I'm going to start with the same disclaimer as my Eridan essay (go read that first!!! It sets up a lot of ideas that I'm expanding on here), which is that the things Hussie says are going to be lowered in value, because he likes to play coy about plot stuff. I'm also not counting anything but the actual text as canon, and even with in that text, I'm counting everything after GAME OVER as soft canon - a suggestion of what would have been, often truncated for time, often a deliberate middle finger to the shitty fandom.

Okay, so with that squared away!

Nepeta Says Fuck The Hemocaste

I'm not going to bother doing a deep dive on Nepeta's characterization, because fur the most part, I think the fandom more or less gets her right - she wears her heart (h33h33) on her sl33ve, after all! She's a very sweet little catgirl who loves roleplay and shipping, who is also a vicious hunter of wild beasts and lives in a cave. She's very nice and friendly, but has a tough streak and a spine.

She also says fuck the hemocaste, why does that even exist:

CT: D --> Your fraternization with the base classes have 100sened your morals, can't you see this AC: :33 < no! i dont care, they are fun AC: :33 < and i dont know anything about classes or bases or blood color, it doesn't matter! AC: :33 < what does gr33n blood even mean! it doesnt mean anything to me and it shouldnt mean anything to anyone else!

This is a radical stance not outright shared by any of the other trolls. Aradia calls highbloods "hateful sn0bs" that she and Tavros shouldn't have "ever had anything t0 d0 with", the highbloods are, of course, all casteist to varying degrees, and even Karkat seems fairly accepting of the class divide, at one point taunting Vriska that her rejection from the blue team is "ANOTHER INFURIATING VICTORY FOR GUTTER BLOOD OVER ARISTOCRACY". Not to mention his long-held dream of becoming a threshecutioner.

Even Feferi, despite saying to Eridan that "W-E AR-E NOT B-ETT-ER T)(AN ANYBODY!!!!!", is actually perfectly comfortable with the caste system's existence, comparing having to stop using her royal typing quirk to "peasant-IFICATING" herself - and let's not forget that a Beforus under her rule had its caste system 100% intact.

This means that Nepeta is the ONLY troll who has said, in no uncertain terms, that the caste system should not exist. It's stupid, it's bad, and it doesn't meowtter!

AND SHE'S RIGHT.

But she's never able to fully express this opinion, which brings us to:

A COMPLICKATED RELATIONSHIP WITH EQUIUS

Now, before I say anything, I must insist that I do believe these two work as good moirails. That does not, however, stop them from being 13, and therefore, being poor to each other the way 13-year-olds sometimes are. I don't think they should break up; I think they should re-examine certain dynamics, and I think they need some space to breathe apart from each other.

Equius has a lot of problems, which I won't get into overmuch here, because... that's a whole essay on its own (are you people seeing a trend yet). But with regards to Nepeta specifically, he's extremely controlling and protective, to the point where she's a little scared of him before the game begins:

AC: :33 < well it does sound like it will be a lot of fun but i think i should get purrmission first GC: BL4R!!!!! GC: TH4TS SO STUP1D GC: H3S NOT TH3 BOSS OF YOU AC: :33 < i know! AC: :33 < but still im kind of scared of him and i think purrhaps its best to just run it by him first so there isnt a kerfuffle about it or anything

She's also afraid to tell him about her crush on Karkat, since she knows he doesn't like Karkat:

AC: :33 < well AC: :33 < i have never told anybody this not even my moirail AC: :33 < heh, actually hes the LAST guy i might tell, he so wouldnt appurrve X33 AC: :33 < but yes i have liked somebody for quite some time, but alas he doesnt know it

By the time they end their game, she's gotten over this fear, seeing as she spends many hours curled up with Equius in a pile of robotics parts, but it still must be noted that they have some issues in their relationship that were never resolved, primarily on Equius's end. What this means for Nepeta, however, is that in addition to setting her up as the most outright anti-classism troll, the comic sets her up to be socially isolated due to her moirail's paranoia about letting her associate with both lowbloods (seeing them as bad influences) OR other highbloods, seeing them as dangerous.

He's not entirely wrong - his refusal to allow her to participate in FLARP kept her from winding up entangled in the horrible chain of revenge, as Tavros alludes:

AT: iT'S PROBABLY FOR THE BEST, AT: tHAT YOU LISTEN TO HIM, AC: :33 < i dont know AC: :33 < you think so? AT: wELL, AT: iF YOU DIDN'T LISTEN TO HIM BEFORE, AT: yOU MIGHT HAVE PLAYED GAMES WITH US BEFORE, AT: aND SOMETHING BAD MIGHT HAVE HAPPENED TO YOU, AC: :33 < hmm purrhaps

But he's still wrong. And it's probably an uncontrolled manifestation of his Heir of Void abilities - he's both consciously and unconsciously hiding her from other people.

This isn't to say she doesn't stand up for herself! Many of her discussions with Equius are pseudo-arguments, and she does get her way often enough, managing to get him to roleplay with her, and managing to get him back in the roboti% pile to talk about his feelings about Aradia. She also talks to the humans explicitly against Equius's orders, although she's keeping it a sneakret from him:

NEPETA: :33 < but equius already furbid me from doing that :(( NEPETA: :33 < not that i am listening to him, but shhhhh! :33 KARKAT: WAIT, HE DID? KARKAT: OK, THEN AS YOUR LEADER I ORDER YOU TO RP WITH THEM AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. BE AS OBNOXIOUS ABOUT IT AS YOU CAN. NEPETA: :33 < yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

But the fact that she has to tiptoe around him like this speaks to them having issues in their relationship that go unexamined and unresolved, especially since it's clear that Nepeta really would like to be friends with more people, were Equius not getting in her way. So, even though I do think they are good moirails for each other - they clearly genuinely, deeply care about one another. But they could use some relationship counselling.

In fact, Jasprosesprite^2 outright calls her lonely:

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Or the girl who likes ships! Cause they made her less lonely. ;3

So, she's anti-hemocaste and lonely, two character traits that were set up and never resolved. And beclaws this is Nepeta, in her honor, I'm going to talk about a third:

Her Unrequited Crush On Karcat

She has the BIGGEST flushed crush on Karkat. It's seen on her shipping wall twice, once with the word OTP on it.

And, despite never discussing it with her moirail, Nepeta mentions it once to Jaspersprite, and once to Jasprosesprite^2.

Now, I'm not really here to debate on the validity of KatNep - I think it's fine, even if I don't personally ship it, and don't personally think it would work out (there are lots of indications that they wouldn't work out, including Jasprosesprite^2 outright saying so). However, her crush on Karkat is both complicated and creates some interesting setups for her character. I am going to discuss it fairly critically either way, so KatNep shippers have been warned.

A lot of her feelings about Karkat - and about shipping in general - wind up being heavily interlinked with her status as a Hero of Heart, so I'm going to expand on it more there. But what I will note in this section is the fact that, despite Nepeta insisting twice that she doesn't think Karkat knows about her crush on her:

NEPETASPRITE: :33 < it was karkat NEPETASPRITE: :33 < but i never told him and im pretty sure he never found out how i felt!

He tooootally did:

KARKAT: OK, BUT TO BE FAIR, I'M PRETTY SURE SHE'S STILL OBSESSED WITH ME. KARKAT: IT'S A VERY UNFORTUNATE, VERY RED AND VERY UNREQUITED SITUATION I'VE BEEN TRYING TO TIPTOE AROUND FOR A LONG TIME, OK?

Interpret that how you will for shipping purposes, but I want to propose that this is a reflection of their statuses as Heart and Blood players. Heart, despite its players' obsessions with romance, is not the romance aspect, Blood is. Karkat displays this very same romantic acumen when he tells Dave that he's known Terezi and Gamzee were a thing for a long time, despite everyone else on the meteor trying to keep it a secret from him. Heart is, instead, about identity, feelings, motivations, souls, and self. In other words:

Nepeta Is Kind Of Bad At Shipping

Let's take a look at those shipping walls.

Let's break this down a little. Nepeta's ships are not entirely wrong, but even the successful ones are kind of wrong. Here's what I mean. We've already discussed how Equius and Nepeta's moirallegiance has some... issues in it. If we go down her list of ships that actually do happen, most of them have some issues in them!

Aradia expresses her regret for getting together with Equius in the Ministrife. Kanaya and Rose suffer some major relationship problems when Rose starts drinking, to the point Karkat feels a need to step in as an auspice. Karkat and Gamzee fail, as Karkat is not calmed by Gamzee, and Gamzee stops listening to Karkat. And while Sollux and Feferi seem to be fairly healthy, after they both wind up in the Furthest Ring, he's pretty much always next to Aradia - he and Feferi don't even get to exchange words with each other once they're in the Furthest Ring. Purrsonally, I think he and Feferi are meant to end up as moirails, but shhhh.

So what's happening here? Well, this goes back to her identity as a Heart player. Heart is concerned with feelings and motivations.

They simply want to understand the one thing we all are stuck with for our entire lives, i.e. our own minds. Forging an identity is extremely important to the Heart-bound, and every decision and action goes toward building a coherent narrative of their own story. That isn't to say Heart-bound don't care deeply for their friends and allies; they just have a tendency to assume that everyone is as concerned with identity as they are.

Nepeta's shipping has also been associated with her isolation and loneliness. When you put this together, it implies that Nepeta's shipping is about her desire to understand others, and much of her ships are based on one of the parties having feelings, regardless of compatibility, feasibility, or broader implications. After all, despite the fact that she has pretty terrible romantic acumen, she IS able to instinctively identify that Eridan's advances toward her were insincere:

NEPETASPRITE: :33 < well ok i guess eridan hit on me a few times NEPETASPRITE: :33 < but his advances always struck me as cr33py and insincere

And that Karkat secretly LOVES and RESPECTS his friends:

JASPROSESPRITE^2: On the contrary Nepeta. You deserve someone who will RESPECT and ADORE you. NEPETASPRITE: :33 < well... yes NEPETASPRITE: :33 < i always hoped to find someone like that some day NEPETASPRITE: :33 < i dunno maybe youre right but in spite of whatever problems he might have i always felt like i saw something in him that made me think he could be that purrson!

Or knowing that Equius loves to play games, and still feels sad about Aradia exploding:

AC: :33 < i s33 right through your stupid act, who are you trying to kid! AC: :33 < look how you go out of your way to use words that have x's in them so that you can use your silly purrcent signs AC: :33 < or use these absurd words that you can shoehorn a '100' into, even if its not strictly replacing 'loo'!!! AC: :33 < you are so transpurrent AC: :33 < i can tell you like to play games, d33p down you are a guy who likes to play games! AC: :33 < i can smell a guy who likes to play games from so fur away with this nose, you have no idea X33

NEPETA: :33 < she was so happy, just like she used to be, and she said she would s33 you soon! EQUIUS: D --> That's a nice thought, and thank you for sharing it EQUIUS: D --> But it was only a dream, and will surely have no consequence in reality NEPETA: :33 < equius? NEPETA: :33 < are those f33lings i an detecting with my wiggly whiskery nose? EQUIUS: D --> Maybe

Because feelings, and not relationships, are her actual domain.

And speaking of Heart powers...

Nepeta and the Ultimate Self

So from this point forward, I'm going to assume you're more or less agreeing with my take that at some point after Game Over, Hussie - for whatever reason - gave up on his original ending, and wound up truncating his ideas so he could finish the comic faster. I go more into detail about that here.

So, in this hypothetical original ending, I firmly believe that the speech about the Ultimate Self would have come from Nepeta. First, let's take a look at what the "Ultimate Self" entails, as it appears within the comic:

DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < everything that ever happens to every version of you is an important part of your ultimate self... like a superceding bodyless and timeless persona that crosses the boundaries of paradox space and unlike god tiers or bubble ghosts or whatever, it really IS immortal DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < but in your physical form there are all these partitions in your mind that prevent you from remembering any of that which makes your existence f33l totally linear DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < which is probably for the best! DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < in a regular body s33ing all that would be too overwhelming ... DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < and after it sinks in for a while you start coming to this understanding of a greater self DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < maybe i "got it" quicker though because of the two people i was and their aspects DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < understanding heart is all about the nuances of a distributed self DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < nepeta never got to make much headway with her aspect but shes finally gettin the chance DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < the time aspect is all about running into different versions of yourself so you kinda get confronted with it in a really literal way that can be disturbing DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < obviously davesprite stuggled with that too, but now its fine DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < hes fr33 from worrying about it all and what it means for his place in reality DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < because he can s33 now all his selves have relevance in painting the full picture of who he truly is DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < im not COMPLETELY sure because im not like some sort of ASPECT MASTER but DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < my avian slash feline intuition tells me that all roads will lead you here eventually DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < gaining the d33pest possible understanding of any aspect will bring you to the same final conclusion about your ultimate self

Now, I believe - and I hope you'll agree - that it's kind of lame, narratively, for Davesprite to have been set up with so much angst about not being the "real Dave," and for Nepeta to have all her issues with loneliness and shyness, and for these two specific iterations of each other to have never interacted, but suddenly getting double-prototyped fixes all of their problems, and they achieve Ultimate Selfhood despite being two total strangers to each other. So let's instead break down the more salient points about what Ultimate Selfhood entails, divorced from the fact that it's Davepetasprite^2 doing the narrating:

Every player in the game possesses an "Ultimate Self," an ultimate culmination of all their experiences and memories, specifically referred to as a "persona"

Normally, people are not aware of this, because it would be too overwhelming to deal with so many memories and iterations of each other.

Everyone will achieve Ultimate Selfhood eventually as the final culmination of their understanding of their aspect.

Heart is all about the nuances of a distributed self.

Let's talk about that last one some more, and by that I mean, let's see what Calliope has to say about it:

TT: I don't know why it had to be this way for me. Juggling these two waking selves at once. TT: I guess I'm used to it, but it still makes for a pretty intense existence. TT: Do you even know what the deal with that is? Like is there any precedent in your readings? UU: i don't know aboUt precedent, bUt it makes plenty of sense to me as the type of path one might expect for a hero of heart. UU: a path rUled by the heart aspect can be a joUrney of splintered self. UU: that is, the player's being may exhibit the same kind of fragmentation which certain classes coUld caUse in others. UU: i think this is what has triggered yoUr dUal-awareness between waking and dream selves, thoUgh it woUld not sUrprise me if the symptoms manifested in even more ways than this.

Now, Dirk has a clawmplicated relationship with his alternate selves, given that he's a Prince, but Nepeta wouldn't have the same struggles, or at least, not to the same degree. The problem is, hampered by Equius and her own shyness about discussing her thoughts and feelings with others:

NEPETASPRITE: :33 < i get so shy and worried what people might think of me if i say how i f33l NEPETASPRITE: :33 < im always so scared that they wont f33l the same way or just think im stupid or pathetic or something

She never actually gets to explore this part of herself.

But What If... She Did?

The way I imagine the original ending going is that each troll that gets saved by John's interference in the timeline then asks John to help them fix their own mistakes, thereby saving somebody else. Each successive trip through the meteor brings new character development, and also riddles the comic with progressively more password pages, which I think would be really funny. And throughout all this the Game Over team is searching for Vriska, Meenah, and the treasure, and resolving their arcs that way, so it's not like they would be replaced - they're the ones who get to kill LE. The process, in my mind, goes like this:

Terezi asks John to save Vriska, and prevent her from getting too spades with Gamzee, as these are her two greatest regrets.

Vriska obviously had great regrets about killing Tavros, both pre- and post-retcon, so she asks for his death to be prevented.

Tavros staying alive means that he and Gamzee wind up hashing out some stuff - Gamzee mentions that he feels "So aT ChIlL WiTh yOu" while talking to Tavros, and Tavros reciprocates the friendship and also - interestingly - acknowledges Gamzee's religion, calling it beautiful even if he doesn't necessarily believe in it. This is interesting because Karkat's inability to do so is explicitly one of the reasons their moirallegiance broke down. So having Tavros back, alive, means that he and Gamzee would likely end up in some sort of relationship, probably pale despite flushed leanings, and would bring Gamzee back into the fold.

Gamzee would then be like, yeah, wow, that time I killed Nepeta and Equius was pretty bad, huh? Especially since his decision to hang onto his friends' bodies and prototype them is often interpreted as him genuinely feeling bad about his dead friends (he tells Kurloz to shut up when Kurloz mentions all the dead friends, and his religion seems to be about a paradise he wants to share with his friends anyway). So he'd ask John to prevent him from killing them, resulting in the two of them getting to live.

Things get much more hypothetical from here, since so much of the character dynamics would have changed, but I think by this point, Equius might command ask John to let him say goodbye to Aradiabot before she explodes, which he expresses feeling very sad about. However, in doing so, John and Aradiabot end up in the same room, and when she realizes that he has the ability to change the timeline without repercussions, she'd seize him by the arm and demand that he take her back in time, to before she died. After all, she expresses regrets about her reckless actions, and how she always felt like it was all one big setup.

She would take Aradia's place in the Vriska revenge chain, being once more freed of her robot chassis, and from there, would trick Doc Scratch and the Handmaiden into thinking everything was still going according to their designs. Meanwhile, Alive!Aradia would be hanging out at Equius's place, borrowing his void powers to avoid notice, coordinating a new timeline that keeps the beats of the original (too much deviation causes unpredictability, and an paradox'd timeline offshoot without John's direct interference would still become doomed), but allows them greater freedom and the ability to overcome the machinations of Doc Scratch and associates.

This would also prevent Sollux from becoming so self-loathing, since it's no longer "his fault" that Aradia dies, although he winds up in that hole again after Feferi gets killed. Now that his Aradia is alive, he wouldn't feel like he might as well stay in the bubbles because his closest companions are there, so he'd make it to the end, and would ask John to prevent Feferi's death.

Eridan still dies; he's so disconnected and isolated from all his friends that his course of actions is largely unaffected even by everybody else's timeline tweaks. But before Feferi can suggest bringing him back, Karkat would butt in.

The Friendship Troll should be the one to demand that ALL of their friends be revived, especially if they had everyone except only one guy, and Karkat and Eridan are heavily implied to be moirails anyway. The course of Karkat's fixes are so comprehensive, and primarily romance-based, that the end result of this final loop is everybody not only being alive, but god-tiered, with appropriate character development.

Now, where Nepeta's Heart powers would play into all of this is that she would start to notice something going on. After all, Heart players are sensitive to their splintered selves, and (Nepeta) is probably much closer to Nepeta than regular doomed timeline offshoots. As the loops continue, and Nepeta has more and more time to talk to people, and meets her dead alternate selves, and even meets (Nepeta), she starts to awaken to her Ultimate Self - to come into possession of alternate memories.

And if the Ultimate Self is a very soul-y kind of concept, such that Heart players have a natural advantage in coming to understand it, then isn't it a natural fit that a Rogue of Heart - one who steals from Heart or steals Heart for others - would be naturally inclined to share the wisdom of her alternate selves, and even the very concept of the Ultimate Self, with her friends?

Because the Ultimate Self is actually, in my opinion, a pretty good narrative device. It turns the sadness of the dead and doomed timelines into something littersweet instead, and makes it so any weirdness regarding time travel and not really knowing your friends anymore will eventually be resolved, even if off-screen.

It's not really narratively satisfying when Davepetasprite^2 suddenly comes into being and reaches enlightenment, but imagine if instead it's a post-character development Nepeta comforting Davesprite on his relevance, or Jade on her loneliness, or John on not really knowing these new post-retcon versions of his friends? It would feel a lot better, since in this hypothetical, she would have reached that point after on-screen character development. Being able to share her true self with her friends on the meteor - by necessity, since what else are they going to be doing for three years - leads to her finally being able to fulfill her role as a Rogue of Heart.

Also, at some point during these repeated meteor trips, she dates Karkat (whether that's successful or not, I'll leave to reader interpretation - you already know where I stand), fulfilling Jaspersprite's musing that she might only be able to date Karkat after she dies.

So that's two out of thr33 of her outstanding plot hooks resolved... okay. So, I try not to make these essays into ship propaganda, but hear me out:

Hate Is Stored In The FefNep

Okay, so, remember that thing about how Feferi is actually a huge casteist hypocrite? Well, let's also note that the comic, post-Murderstuck, seems to put Nepeta and Feferi together a lot - they're a Commodore and Rear Admiral in the ghost pirate army, respectively, and they also wind up as Fefetasprite. So I think it's not entirely out of left field to say that these two were implied to have SOMETHING going on.

And that something... is a difference in political views.

I mean, let's be real, there's a reason Fefetasprite is the most explode-prone after Tavrisprite. Miss "The Hemocaste is Stupid and Shouldn't Matter" vs. Miss "I Love Being A Princess And Call Jade Hornless and Finless (Derogatory)"? Come on, tell me you don't see it.

Without getting too much into Feferi, this hypocrisy, and unwillingness to check her privilege (so glad I found an excuse to use that term unironically), are probably her greatest character flaws - ie, the things you would expect the story to address about her. Meanwhile, one of Nepeta's flaws, which she laments to Jasproseprite^2, is that she feels too shy to talk about her feelings to other people, leading to her having never expressed her views on the hemocaste to anyone but Equius.

I think that they initially think they'd be friends. Each one of them would go "oh man, this other girl is soooo cute, I wish I could talk to her more often!"

And then, once they do, they realize they fucking hate each other. Nepeta would go "X00 < you are such a hypocrite who f33ls like youre better than all of us!!!" and Feferi would go "You're suc)( an uneducated glubbing P-EASANT! 3X0" and then they'd claw each others' eyes out. It would be so funny, and if a homestuck ship isn't extremely fucking funny, then why are we even here.

But more importantly, this would further them along into resolving each others' arcs - Feferi would be forced to grapple with the greater implications of classism, and Nepeta - who is shown having a spine the most in defiance of somebody else - would grow more aggressive about being open about her feelings in defiance of Feferi. Even Equius would get roped into it in a positive way - you can just imagine him going "D --> Can I really believe my auricular sponge clots D --> Nepeta, you are finally taking interest in politi%" and be 100% on board with teaching her so Feferi won't be able to call her uneducated.

And then for flushed, I dunno! Karkat's an option, and Jade and Jake also both love the fuck out of furries, and Tavros seems nice. But yeah I'll die on the fefnep hate ship. Guys it would be so funny.

Thank you as always for reading! Let me know if there's a troll you want to hear me ramble about next.

[ineffectualdemon]

I understand that there are young people on here around age 13 that are new to both Tumblr and AO3 and you're confused how it works because it's very different to other social media and websites you've used. I have a 13 year old. I understand the confusion

And I know on the surface the pro censorship stance of: "ban stuff that has paedophile and incest" seems reasonable

We all agree that stuff happening irl is bad! So why should stories be different?

And there are reasons it will not work especially not for an archive like AO3

1. Content about those subjects ≠ favourable. There are a lot of published works, famous works, that cover these topics in your local library. They cover these topics to challenge people to stop ignoring that these horrible things happen. To raise awareness, to give victims a voice, to help victins know "that wasnt normal and that shouldn't have happened to you". And those stories are extremely important.

Yes some authors write it to just write it. But if you throw out those stories you also throw out the important ones. And a story that seems to be romanticising to one person is something important and supporting to another

Also a lot of the more "for fun" underage content on AO3 is written by teens exploring their own feelings which will get more into later

2. As soon as people start censoring they start twisting what comes under the objectionable content. I have seen people argue that a relationship was paedophilic because one character was 18 and the other was 17. Which is silly. Or that a relationship between two adult characters was paedophilic because there was an age gap. It becomes ridiculous really fast which means...

3. ...any and all lgbtq+ content will be censored as our existence is often seem as inherently sexual when it's not. We're already seeing that happen in the real world. But queer people just existing is enough for people to want to censor us. We know this because it has happened many many many times. People call for censorship and the first thing to get censored is any mention of being anything other than straight and cis

Censorship laws and rules have always been used as weapons against the community.

It doesn't matter if they say it will be different this time. They always say that and it's always a lie

4. This is purity culture 2.0 and purity culture messes you up. When I was 13 I read a magazine at my church that was aimed at young teens. It told me that feeling sexual desire as a teenager and handling those feelings alone meant you were definitely going to grow up to be a paedophile and a rapist and that messed me up so bad.

Obviously what the magazine said was not true . It is perfectly normal to feel desire and attraction as a teenager (also normal not to. Asexuals are valid) and having those feelings doesn't make you a monster

and even though my feelings were normal and I wasn't hurting anyone I had such shame and guilt and it really fed into my self loathing and depression and self worth for a very long time. It led to me hurting myself in many many ways. And I know many other people who were hurt by purity culture. Made to feel shame over the smallest thing. I don't want anyone else to experience that

And censoring fanfiction will do that. Telling teenagers that they morally degenerate for writing fanfiction and exploring their sexuality in one of the safest ways possible is damaging. Writing for self expression including sexual expression is healthy and very normal

It's definitely not something to shame someone for

-

All of this to say AO3 will remain uncensored because it is an archive, not a curated list. It has a great filtering system that allows you to filter out just about anything and a careful reading of the tags will also help you.

A lot of authors who write more intense fiction put more trigger details in the author notes so you can make an even more informed choice or tell you how to skip any specific scenes

It is one of the best websites for avoiding content you don't want as long as you know how it works.

Now I'm not an expert but I am willing to answer any questions on how to use AO3

I know it can feel like everyone is looking down on you but I promise I'm not looking down on you for not knowing

On that I will also say for Tumblr it's pretty easy for you to filter out tags now and filtering out stuff you know will upset you makes your life much nicer

Anyway I hope this helps explain why people are so anti censorship

There are more reasons and I could have gone more indepth but I only have so much energy but I truly hope this helps

[oldguardleatherdog]

CW: Looooooong post

https://werewolfbarista.tumblr.com/post/697188935986708480/now-that-tumblr-user-hypnokinkdoggo-seems-2-have

This is about me. My termed blog @hypnokinkdoggo is being used to heap abuse and hate speech on me based on my age, disability, 9/11 injury, HIV status, and perceived mental state.

People are actually encouraging others to search for my posts and artifacts and continue harassing and abusing me. Check out some of the more toxic comments that have been slung my way:

This began with @commonpigeon in August 2022 and has caused me to be ridiculed by more than 9,000 people.

Repeated reports have been ignored.

I'm finding more of these all the time.

Cyberbullying is against the law. So is online hate speech.

I have hundreds of screenshots of what's been posted and I'm gathering more each day. Anti-harassment resources are out there, and I'm using them.

As I muck through this cesspool of violence and hate targeting me, I've been posting excerpts here with context and commentary. Some will be springboards for monographs I'll post here where I will explicate a hate comment and find the connection to our fight against the storm of RW laws etc. coming our way.

I'm not "calling people out" or encouraging others to make trouble for these posters: they're overwhelmingly Gen Z, with all the purity culture, casual cruelty, and lack of self-awareness and basic human decency that years of 4chan and bad parenting and moral numbness and MAGA have wrought on these kids.

But if you look at their blogs, they're trans, furries, queers, kinksters, pup players, artists, fandom experts, writers, students and more who fill their spaces with beauty and musings and song and art of their own creation and self-healing and introspection that's remarkably perceptive, sometimes moving, even profound.

They're capable of compassion and caring about strangers who just might be queer, furry, kinky, GNC, pups, seekers, writers, and fighting for trans rights - *their* rights - in ways not so different from their own.

But they refuse to show that care and compassion to me, and I don't have the slightest idea as to why I've been singled out and targeted for the most horrific and vile abuse I've ever seen in 60 years of hard living.

And it's not because of my identity, or anything I did that was controversial, or any political or cultural stance of mine, or that I behaved in an antisocial way or slurred anyone with hate or threats -

Its because a 20-year-old girl in Scotland found a stoned 3 AM post I made on a religion thread that was, well, a stoned 3 AM post about religion (I was a Lutheran seminarian and LGBTQ+ equality activist in the 90's) Stream-of-consciousness, rambled a bit, but nothing at all remarkable.

She copied my post from the blog where I'd replied, and she reblogged that *stolen* post for the express purpose of "dissecting" it for ridicule by her followers, and they obliged. Hard. Gleefully. Death wishes toward me included. Done just for laughs, for entertainment, for the lulz.

When I posted some of this a while ago, a follower of mine said, "I feel like the worst part is that they're not even like, 'I'm x-phobic and I hate you', this is just like, a Thursday night for them, it seems".

I've spent my life fighting - effectively - for our community from the minute I came out. Queer Nation, ACT/UP, med cannabis, marriage equality, trans rights, I've been there and I'm still here.

I'm not about to give up. There are too many younger than me who have been asking me to share my experiences with them, and I'm eager to do just that. I know how to fight the fascists with tactics you won't find online; they're in my activist heart, and they're yours for the asking.

For a useless cringe pervo insane grandpa on death's door whose ancient presence here is scandalous, I've got a good supply of wisdom and understanding. But with this, I am at a loss, and no one I know can figure it out.

I'm fighting for my own justice here. Thanks for reading. Peace.

[delete-the-kisses]

rant about religion/christianity below

i've thought about religion and queerness a lot recently, mostly because my friendgroup now has queer people and also a straight, religious girl.

i used to believe in god. and when i got older i just stopped believing. there was science and evidence and the internet and my baby gay brain was like "woah! i'm not a sinner because none of this shit is real!"

my family apart from my grandma and aunt aren't really religious either. my mom and dad have never repressed me or my identity and haven't tried to make me believe in anything. and don't get me wrong; i don't really have any childhood religious trauma either? so now it's like, why do i of all people care?

but it truly, truly hurts me how much of this whole fucking world is being run by major religion. why is christianity a part of literal fucking social structures? why do they teach religion in public school? (not in every country but mine) why does the president say god bless you in their speech? (once again, could be just my country.)

and another thing that hurts is that it's scientifically proven that being religious can give you brain damage. because religion refuses to change with time and the sole fucking reason humanity has survived this long is adapting to change.

i know there's accepting christians. my friend's family is incredibly accepting. my friend may be allocishet, white and christian and she's one of the most open-minded, kind, amazing people i've ever met. her family is so kind as well.

but then, there are the ones who say that being queer is a mental illness. there are the ones who invite a priest over to cure their child who just came out. there are the ones making anti trans and queer laws and banning pride flags. that's the other extreme.

most christians i've met aren't straight up hateful. they're a calm, civil, hidden kind of hateful who get kind of uneasy when there's discussion around queerness or just... something that doesn't agree with their stance.

and i GENUINELY have trouble understanding how your worldview can be centered around something that there's literally no scientific proof of. sorry (not) if this offensive but to me, it's equivalent to believing in unicorns. but i respect your beliefs and i won't make fun of you for them or hate you for them BECAUSE i refuse to be equally bad.

i also don't understand willingly being a part of something that limits the things you can do. why are you living a restricted life to get into heaven where there truly isn't any certainty that it even exists? how do you blindly trust this? isn't religion just a socially acceptable cult?

and why the fuck do you claim to accept other people's beliefs and religions but the SECOND someone's a satanist you go guns-a-blazing at them. (fun fact: satanism isn't even about the christian satan!) (fun fact 2: no queer person is going to hell for their identity and telling someone they'll go to hell is mean and disrespectful!)

is it TRULY necessary to "spread the gospel" to people? that is literally just shoving your beliefs down other people's throats... the EXACT thing you claim the lgbtqia+ community is doing. or is it only okay since it's your belief?

why are your morals based on your religion? i see shit on social media saying "atheists, what's restricting you from just killing someone if your religion isn't telling you not to?" and maybe that's an extreme example but what do you MEAN "what's restricting you"?! MAYBE MORALS? BASIC HUMAN DECENCY? like... do you find yourself lacking those??? if the bible tells you to hit your wife and support slavery do you do those things??? (the bible probably says both of those lmfao.)

so. that was my rant for today. ain't no hate like christian love, amirite? if you're christian or religious otherwise and find yourself reading this with an urge to comment "jesus loves you" or "god please help her" just save the time. every time i get a comment like that i carve a pentagram on a dead goat! xoxo

(everyone believe whatever the fuck you want i don't care but remember anyone has the right to question it. christianity is the biggest world religion btw and the "oppression" you experience stops existing when you put your phone down. stop whining at it. that's all fr byee)

[funkymbtifiction]

Is it true that counterphobic vs phobic in 6s is something like this: 8 fix is counterphobic, 9 fix is phobic, and 1 fix can be phobic or counterphobic. <- yes, that's usually how it goes

So is it possible for a 6 to be phobic (conflict avoidant, with a mellow disposition, prefer to go along with others, keeping opinions to themselves to not be rejected by others) and still have a 1 fix? <- up to a point, then the 1 fix will "moralize at you / harshly judge you on my way out the door"

I used to think i was a 629 just because i'm very conflict avoidant with strangers. Strangers usually see me as a very passive person who is not capable of standing up for herself. I've been told this. Not so much with my loved ones. Even my therapist decided that our goal for this month was going to be overcoming my passiveness and becoming assertive instead. I'm not actually asleep to my anger like most 9 fixes are.

All of that is extremely 9, and not all 9s are asleep to their anger; one of my 9w1 friends says anger is her go-to emotion, and I have also seen it in my 9w8 friends. Anger comes before almost anything else. Both of them are aware of being angry ALL THE TIME, but they just can't express it in any kind of a healthy manner -- so they repress it, and stew, and resent having to give people their way all the time, and are passive about asserting themselves without it coming out in an explosive "punch." It's a myth that all 9s are oblivious to being mad -- some of them know about it, others don't, a few deny it. Anyway...

I actually repress my anger because it makes me feel guilty and like a bad person, but it turns into resentment and harsh criticisms of myself. Then i explode and get into awful fights with people around me. I have never seen 9w1 fixes get so angry before. I can go months without standing up for myself or my beliefs before exploding. I'm like an asleep volcano.

9w8 behavior. Asleep to self > explode > clean up the mess > repeat the cycle.

But that seems to come from a 6 motivation. I can't be "too much" because people don't like that and my friends could abandon me and people in my community could reject me, and i would have to face the world by myself and i don't think i can do it on my own. So i repress my needs, my anger, my opinions, my feelings. Because I have to keep people on my side and not gain enemies that could harm me.

Attachment types all have things in common, and for 6 and 9, it's not wanting to be abandoned by their loved ones. I realize in this ask, you are trying to nail down a fix, but it's very gut-centric. It could be core 9w8. Are you really afraid of making enemies, or is this more about not wanting separation from the people you care about? If you are positive of 6-ness, then your next fix is obviously 9w8.

But i relate to multiple 1 things because i feel like my focus on duty is too strong and it would make sense if i was triple superego. I literally never rest in the way i judge myself, it's like i can never have fun or rest without feeling guilty, being a workaholic, i fail an exam and suddenly my life is over and i cry because i can't accept anything less than perfect for me, i'm way too obsessed with my influence in the world and what i can do to change it, feeling worthless if i can't do everything for other people, holding a lot of resentment for people who are more selfish than me, hating people who are not as concerned on self improvement as me, the type of "catholic guilt" consumes me and i end up hating myself for all my sins. And so on.

Yeah, that is very ego-stance based / dependency type (all about "I should" / being hard on myself). But all of that could just be coming from 6 and a 2 fix, in which case you wouldn't need 9w1.

The only thing is that i would never force my opinions / morals on anyone. As a 6 i'm not even sure what my morals are... and as an ENFP my focus is not so much on moral... <- is it that you aren't sure, or you have none and are easily influenced? 6s have a lot of strong opinions about behavior and right/wrong, but core 9s have a haze around themselves, an inability to sense who they are independent from others. Is that maybe what is going on here? What's blocking your Fi from identifying your trigger spots? A 6 ENFP usually is more rigidly moralistic than a 9w8, who is more "eh, it's all okay :)".

and i always keep an open mind and can easily adapt to different ways of seeing things. <- more 9 indicators.

So is my mellow exterior enough reason to think i have a 9 fix? Or could all of that be explained just through being a passive phobic 6?

There's a lot here that suggests core 9w8 to me, so maybe explore that as an option. Since 9s move to 6 under stress, that may be why you identified as a 6. Consider it, read up on it, think about it, you may find that it fits you quite well.

I should also add that 6s will get into it with people. If they are phobic, they back off faster than the cp6s, but they still have a fierce sense of attachment and super-ego opinions about what is and is not appropriate and may try to enforce those standards on others. You are also talking about a type that either has a competency and withdrawn wing (5) or an assertive and aggressive wing (7). 6w5s will be more sure of themselves in defending their views and challenging wrong information, and 6w7s will be more aggressive once triggered.

[itsclydebitches]

Ive blocked like 3 people today for the kylo ren shit takes lmao theyre just trying to start shit. i feel like if you're going to flatten "character who becomes a nazi-allegory space wizard and is proud of it, and then kills his own father on a good vs evil space opera" and "pirate romantic comedy antagonist who doesn't actually achieve his goals even Once and doesn't do anything too far from the moral baseline of the main characters", and then put it in the character tag, you cant be surprised when people ignore you.

Is kylo ren the only popular villian they know (what rock do they live under) or just the one they know scores the most disgust points out of the gate bc of the morality crusade the sw fandom went on over his fangirls??

(Also while I dont like kylo ren bc i found him boring i dont actually care that people like him?? It has 0 impact on my life. What got me out of the sw fandom was all the hate if you shipped any of the main three in the Wrong Way, the kylo stans were a bit annoying sometimes but this is fandom. We're all annoying.)

(I don't even have that much of an opinion on Kylo Ren because my interest in SW is focused almost entirely on the Clone Wars era. I watched the new trilogy once lol.)

I've also seen Snape come up a couple times as a comparison, which is its own can of worms. Honestly, I knew the moment tumblr started diving into Izzy that a lot of other fans would be upset by that focus and I do have sympathy for them because I've been there. I've absolutely been the person standing on the sidelines, feeling left out of many popular conversations, struggling to find kinkmeme prompts I want to fill, all because the community has latched onto a character that makes my skin crawl. It's a sucky situation to be in, but that doesn't mean the rest of the fandom is in the wrong for catering to their preferences. Over the past 2+ months I've watched posting move from playful complaints and semi-private venting to far more serious accusations that equate liking Izzy with some sort of moral failing: as a fan who isn't writing the characters "correctly," as a viewer who isn't reading the show "properly," as a human being who is, supposedly, making a conscious choice to reject the diversity in the show to instead uphold the awful white man, so that makes you racist, homophobic, ableist, etc. And I mean, I knew this would happen because it always happens (RWBY friends, you KNOW it happens)... I just didn't expect it to start really kicking off with Kylo Ren of all things.

Ultimately though I'm an old school fandom granny who subscribes to the general philosophy of "Don't like; don't read." Everyone should be allowed to engage with the canon in the way that makes them happy. You don't like what they're creating? Ignore it! Block freely and without guilt! If you disagree strongly with a fandom stance — as I've done tonight — that should be posted on your personal blog and shared by like-minded folks; don't go throwing yourself into a tag you hate, screaming at those trying to enjoy themselves. Moral crusades against people who like villains/antagonists, or aren't enjoying them in the "right" way, is nothing new, but it never gets any less frustrating to encounter. Plus, despite my description of Izzy's popularity above, this isn't actually a fandom where the "wrong" character has taken over. AO3 has over 4,000 fics for Ed/Stede compared to 500 some for Ed/Izzy (with Lucius/Black Pete coming in before that at 604). I've already reached the point where I'm shaking my head if someone tries to seriously claim that the fandom, as a unified whole, has rejected the loving, diverse, healthy canon relationships for the toxic, white man-focused, fantasy relationships and that makes you a bad person, didn't you know? There's plenty of content for the "right" characters and the "right" ships alongside interest in Izzy. Plus, we can have both! [cue everyone's shocked gasps]. I'm writing a fluffy fake dating au AND a woobified Izzy suffering from hanahaki disease! I guarantee you the world will not end if you let people 'poor little meow meow' a fictional character once in a while.

[stxleslyds]

MY TOUGHTS ON PART THREE OF RED HOOD BY CHIP ZDARSKY :)

A DC RENDITION OF THE SONG “MOTHER KNOWS BEST” FROM TANGLED.

Here I will leave the links to my reviews of Part 1 and Part 2

Well, here we are, three issues in this story of only six parts and i still cant tell if i like it or not. What i know for sure tho is that Zdarsky never read any Red Hood books, i had my suspicions but now i am at least 95% sure.

This Jason has been nerfed. We had a perfectly balanced Jason back in 2005 he was smart, skilled, confident and strategic. Then from 2011 to 2020 (let’s put the fact that Lobdell is trash aside for a moment) Jason was skilled, he had the whole “chosen one” thing going on with the all-castle, and in some moments you could even see him being quick witted and confident. But now in this first half of this story he is extremely insecure, his skill set and expertise is barely there and is presented as just reckless. 

The other day i was talking about how DC treats Jason, how they just can’t decide on who he is, what motivates him or what he wants. His personality is a whole ass mess, it was fine in 2005 and 2010 when Winick wrote him but then Lobdell from years 2011 to 2020 just couldn't decide what he wanted to do with Jason or his relationship with Batman and his rules. After Lobdell finally left Jason was passed around people who either only read Lobdell's work, or didn't read anything from him or didn't take into account Jason's life because their book was set in a future that may never happen. 

What i am trying to say is that Jason doesn't have a personality, and writers don't really add things to the Jason that we “know”, what they do is start his story from zero over and over again. There is no consistency to Jason's character and while you could argue that maybe this new start could be the definite version of Jason Todd/Red Hood i will point out that this nerfed version of him is a major disservice to the character that he was when he was brought back to DC.

It’s simply not nice. 

And in this particular issue the “Jason isn't that good at this whole vigilante gig” is even more pushed because of the whole “batman knows best” bullshit. I am not getting this (anthologies) book with a Red Hood story just for Batman to come in and be like “I am actually good at this job, you know nothing AND i have the moral high-ground”, this is NOT it.

If you are reading a Red Hood story chances are that you will be interested in Red Hood not Batman. 

Oh one more thing, Jason was an excellent Robin. He was kind, smart and skilled. I liked the flashbacks in UtRH because it showed Jason being all that but he also understood a couple of things about the kind of criminals that Gotham had, your common thug is easily scared of the concept of Batman but the dress-ups knew that no matter what they did the Bat would never kill them, that’s what Jason thought about criminals there.

This Robin Jason is treated rather poorly by Zdarsky at times, he feels insecure and inferior to Dick but he is also dismissive of him and the Robin mantle in the first issue, now in this one he is shown as way too reckless (which is kinda bad because it feeds into DCs favorite trope of “Jason’s death was Jason’s fault”) and his stance on “low level” criminals is weird, like it was made clear that drug related criminals are Jason’s biggest issue, thieves were not. 

Those are my general thoughts on this issue and the current state of Jason’s characterization. I have some panels from this issue that i want to talk about in more depth tho, so here we go. 

The issue stars were we left off once more, Tyler defends Jason and when Batman asks who he is Tyler says that he is the Blue Hood, that was really sweet of him, that child is adorable and he needs to be protected. 

Once the Bat distracts Tyler Jason tells the Bat that the man he killed was Tyler’s dad. 

There are a couple of things i want to point out from these panels, Jason feels incredibly guilty, not about killing Andy but about leaving Tyler in a situation that is similar to the one he was left in when his own mother died. He still believes that Andy was not a good man and deserved to be dead, after all he was drugging his own son and was the reason Tyler’s mom overdosed and is now in the hospital. It just hits incredibly close to home for Jason and i understand completely. 

The other thing i want to point out is that Jason says “I know your rules. No killing in Gotham” so, this is (to me) confirmation that Jason hasn’t killed in a long time and that he has been sticking to the Bat's rules (at least in Gotham). Andy (a drug-dealer) is the only person that Jason has killed since the events of UtRH (that are apparently canon in this story because it was mentioned in the first issue). 

Following this conversation the Bat says that he will take care of Tyler’s mother (yikes, i really thought in my last post that Jason was the one who would have tried to get her the help she needed, to me it seems more appropriate if Jason does it given that this is his story but what do I know) 

This is where this Red Hood story transforms into the Batman show.

Not only will Bruce take care of Tyler's mom but he will clean up the mess and shut down the making of the drug all by himself. Jason tells him that he will do it but the Bat tells Jason that if he wants to do it they will have to do it together because there is no way he is letting Jason out of his sight, he made a mess!

Yes, nothing like making the lead character look incompetent at his job. Love that for Jason.

Before the team up starts Batman and Red Hood go to Leslie's place to leave Tyler with her. This is a good moment only because there is a dog involved, well…Tyler, Jason and a dog are involved, best panel in the whole issue? I think yes.

Maybe I have a couple more panels that are my favs in this issue, here they are, a lil bit of positivity in this extra bitter post.

Now I will be honest, I hate Batman (Bruce’s Batman, love Dick Bats he was the MVP) so him saying that he is helping a Robin makes me want to shoot him. You are not helping; you are overtaking, as you do. Never a team player, the Batgod must always be the center of the show.

Back in the new cave Bruce talks to Jason about the drug and who he thinks might be behind it's production. He also makes sure to let Jason know that he is very smart and might be the only person outside of Crane's circle that knows how analyze a very unstable compound…weird flex but okay. He also teases Jason about his detective skills. Yay.

Flashback time! Get ready!

Robin Jason and Batman are at a crime scene and Jason doesn’t seem to be in the mood to play CSI: Gotham with Bruce.

At one moment Jason says “and then we will stomp the guy who did this” (“this” being murder), which makes Jim Gordon (who came to see if batman was done playing Sherlock Holmes) uncomfortable, so Batman tells Jason to wait for him. As Jason is going he sees someone acting suspicious.

Back to present day Batman and Red Hood are visiting the woman that created the compound that makes Fear Gas, the interrogation starts well but because this is the Batman show and Jason is bad at reading people and asking questions we have a scene that shows Jason being a bit too much.

I honestly thought that the first question was fair, but then after they leave the office they were in Batman basically goes on a rant about the things that Jason missed.

Ok, I get it Batman = good vigilante. Red Hood = Incompetent.

Zdarsky is honestly trying to make us believe that Jason hasn’t picked up any of those things, in his years as Robin with Batman AND Nightwing? They both taught him, there is no way Jason doesn’t know the basics of how to read people. Also do you guys remember Jason in UtRH and Lost Days? That guy read people perfectly, how is UtRH canon in this story, did Jason lose his skills in the explosion when he blew up the Joker?

As if that wasn’t enough Batman calls Red Hood reckless after they don’t agree on what to do next.

To this I say the following: Never again make me believe that Jason will willingly work with Batman. They don’t work together and neither are willing to meet each other halfway, even less let the other lead. This makes the idea of Jason following the Bat’s rules and him being part of the “Batfamily” the joke that it actually is.

They don’t work well together anymore; bring duality back to Gotham 2021.

Back in the past where the previous flashback is resumed we have Jim telling Batman that the new Robin seems a bit too rough around the edges. Did Jim ever meet Dick as Robin? I mean, don’t get me wrong, Dick was a sweetheart but he also beat criminals alongside batman every night. It just doesn’t feel like what Jason said was that much of a violent statement or anything, maybe I just don’t get it.

But don’t worry if you don’t get it, because we are shown Robin Jason going after that suspicious man, he is beating him asking if he knows anything about the murder or what exactly he was doing so close to the crime scene when Batman arrives. Through Batman we are told that that man was no longer a criminal, to which Jason says this, “…The guy is a jewel thief! He will always be a thief” and Batman responds “I refuse to believe that. Didn’t I meet you in the middle of stealing the Batmobile’s tires?”

I can’t believe Bruce went full “It’s over Jason. I have the moral high ground” on Robin Jason.

I mean Jason is OOC, we know this, but he has to be that way in order to make Batman look better when compared to a child. DC hates Jason Todd #Confirmed.

It kinda reminds me of that thing DC does with Dick and Barbara, Dick is skilled and smart as long as Barbara isn’t in the room, if she is then Dick will forget to check if there is someone inside his apartment and then be thrown across the room by her and then be told that he sucks at putting security in his living space.

Moving on...back to the present one last time Jason is interrogating a man while he dangles him from the edge of a building (did Dick teach him that? I bet he did.) After getting some information he calls Oracle so he can make sure that the place he is going to is safe. Oracle tells him the she will help him but she did not like the fact that the last time she helped him someone ended up dead.

Now, fair warning, Barbara and Jason big NO for me and after Geoff Johns and his antics in Three Jokers I have zero love for their “team-ups”.

Jason says this, 

Believing in him? Excuse me? Chonky, baby, she only helped you find a building.

All I can do at this point is pray to whichever god or whoever hears that this does not lead to Jason pinning for Barbara. We don’t need it (Barbara doesnt need it), I might be overreacting, I hope I am, but nobody wants that kind of drama right now, thanks.

When he arrives to the place he was looking for I think everyone can tell that it’s a trap, everyone but Jason apparently. 

How on earth does Jason not realize it’s a trap up until it’s too late? Are you joking? Is this a Red Hood story? Are we really doing this? Just how incompetent is Jason in Zdarsky’s eyes?

Freeze…is it Freeze? I don’t care but he is there, he freezes Jason and that’s the end of the issue.

Listen, I wish I could say that this is the worst Jason has been treated and that this book is horrible, I wish but I can’t. I can’t do it because this isn’t the worst characterization or book of Jason, this is still a pretty good story, could it be better? Yes.

I mean this story is written by someone who obviously doesn’t know Jason and that sucks but it still isnt the worst characterization and it messes me up. Three Jokers was worse than this, certain plot decisions in Future State: Red Hood were worse than this (in my opinion) and Lobdell’s New52 RHatO was pure trash (that is the worst book, just horrible please dont read it). 

I am saying this only to make it clear that even tho this issue was painful (mostly if you don’t like Batman) I still have hope that it can turn out to be good. I cant help it, i want and need this story to be good and there is still time for it to get better. 

Alright thats all i have to say, let me know what you thought about this issue and my review, bye!

[butwhatifidothis]

Can I say it seriously annoys me how Captain just takes everything thats interesting about Three Houses, like the parts where it actually deviates from your typical jrpg plot, and degrades it into something predictable and tropey? Like its INTERESTING Edelgard still doesnt trust her allies at the end of CF but nope, Captain has to make her and the BESF into the boring overused found family trope. Its INTERESTING that a church in a jrpg isnt pure evil - woops, never mind, religion bad 1

so back to the religion of evil slash evil church tropes that exist in like nintey-nine percent of jrpgs we go. Its like Captain is rewriting the game based on what he expected or wanted to happen but didnt. 2

For real! Like, I'm not gonna sit here and say that I don't love me my found family dynamic, but that is just not what the Black Eagles have with each other, especially on CF. Playing as the villainous people who are unaware of their villainy is a really cool idea (if executed kinda whack), but Cap'n is determined to water it down to a sing-song friendship is magic quest of happiness and sunshine as EdeIgard enacts war on a continent. The Church being a genuinely morally gray institute and not just "lol what if the religion was SeCrEtLy EvIl" snooze-fest is interesting, but Cap'n is hard-set on making it an objectively evil thing with no nuance at all whatsoever. It takes away everything that makes CF such a neat concept.

And bro, "Its like Captain is rewriting the game based an what he expected or wanted to happen but didnt" I'll take a bold stance and say that that is exactly what he is doing. I'm sorry, almost nothing in this fic suggests that Cap'n cares much at all about what actually happens in the game - the characters are laughably OOC, the lore is misrepresented if not flat out incorrectly represented, and the story deviates from the one in canon (and not just in "Kronya lives" ways either, I mean "EdeIgard tells people about her coronation even when she literally doesn't want people to know about that in canon" kind of ways) often.

Like, a CF parley scene does not happen and would not happen in canon. The Kingdom does not strike the Empire first at any point in CF. Claude is trying to put up a united front in an attempt to ward off EdeIgard. And out of the timeskip, EdeIgard willingly hands of the Death Knight to TWS. EdeIgard never promises to not use Demonic Beasts anymore and would not promise such a thing. EdeIgard is never scared of Rhea, Dimitri, or Thales. Dimitri is not obsessed with EdeIgard until after the Flame Emperor reveal. Rhea and Dimitri are not angry people until their trauma buttons are mashed by EdeIgard. EdeIgard would not see Marianne as a strong person, and Marianne does not become stronger on CF. No one considered Lonato's rebellion a commoner's rebellion. No one likens Lonato to Loog in the game.

None of that shit happens! That's all made-up by Cap'n! But he and Edelstans will swear up and down that this is either what happened or is otherwise true to EdeIgard and everyone else's characters. Cap'n wants this to be what had happened, which would normally be literally nothing! As someone who wrote a long as fuck rewrite of an entire route, I think maybe, perhaps I can understand that feeling! That's like, a major reason people write fanfiction in the first place! But he and an alarming amount of others are unironically saying that this is meta of the game when he's LITERALLY MAKING SHIT UP. He's using shit THAT'S NOT CANON as part of his "analysis" (using content that was literally cut from the game to make a point about anything is... not something I would suggest, to put it nicely). It's just nuts

[gallavictorious]

I really wish people would stop excusing their favorite character's actions with convoluted theories instead of just accepting that their faves aren't perfect. Ian should not be comparing Terry and Frank. Full stop. Especially not to Mickey's face, when Mickey is in the middle of trying to deal with the complicated feelings he has about the father that raped him by proxy and tried to actually murder him. It's ok to say "yeah you're right I don't know what you're going through but I'm here" and not make it into a shitty father competition.

And I really wish people would refrain from making groundless assumptions and recognize that trying to understand a character's motivation for doing something does not equal taking a stance on whether or not the action discussed is morally sound but alas, nonnie, we live in an imperfect world.

For those just turning in, this ask was received in response to my addition to this post.

Now, nonnie, if I understand you correctly, you disapprove of what I wrote because you see it as 1, an attempt to excuse Ian's behavior because 2, he's my favourite character and 3, therefore I can't stand to have him do something wrong. You also think that, no matter his motivations, Ian shouldn't be comparing Frank to Terry. Below, I'll quickly refutate points 2 and 3, as well as detail the difference between explanations and excuses and – hopefully – demonstrate why you can't with any sort of certainty claim that the offending post is an example of the latter. I will not really engage with the question of whether or not Ian was wrong for saying what he did, because (as we shall return to forthwith) that was not the issue originally discussed, it doesn't actually interest me, and as you do not offer any sort of reasoning for your moral judgment there really isn't anything for me to work with there anyway.

Strap in, kids; it's another long one.

Let's start with your claim that Ian is my favourite. I'm not actually going to spell it out there, but instead direct you to paragraphs 3-7 of this post. A little lazy, perhaps, but I'm sure you can appreciate why I have limited time to point out the same basic flaws twice in a fairly short period of time. (Should I pin a pic of me holding up a little sign reading ”Actually, Mickey is my favourite, even though I love Ian too” to the top of my blog? Would that be helpful?)

Moving on to point 3, I do agree with the general notion that it's fine to accept that the characters we love (no matter who that character is) are flawed and make mistakes! If you had taken the time to familiarize yourself with my thoughts on Ian and Mickey – or if you had, you know, just asked – instead of jumping to completely unsubstantiated conclusions based on a single post, you might even have realized that them being fucked up and making fucked up choices from time to time is one of the things I find most compelling about them. They are messy and complicated and human, and I love that. I neither think nor want either of them to perfect, because perfection is unrealistic is static is boring.

With that out of the way, let's get to excuses versus explanations. If one confuses the two, any attempt to discuss or explain a persons behavior will be construed as an attempt to excuse it, but to understand something and to condone it are actually two different things.

For instance, I can explain and understand why Mickey acted the way he did in 3x09, but still think kicking Ian in the face was wrong. I can explain and understand why Ian called Mickey a coward and a pussy in 4x11 but still think he was wrong for doing so. Do you see? Understanding – or trying to understand – why someone did something is not the same as saying that what they did was okay. Understanding the reasons for someone's actions might lessen the severity of our condemnation (for instance, stealing is generally considered wrong, but most of use would agree that stealing bread to feed your kid is less wrong than stealing bread because you're too stingy to pay for it) or might remove condemnation entirely (hitting someone because you are angry with them is wrong, hitting someone as part of consensual BDSM sex is fine), but understanding an action does not automatically lead to declaring said action morally correct. In short, ”why did X do Y” and ”was X right or wrong do to Y” are two different questions, and the fact that our answer to the second question often is at least partly dependent on our understanding of the first does not change that.

So explanations and excuses are not the same. And yet, sometimes the reasons for doing something (or failing to do something) are offered up as an excuse; as a reason why someone should not be held responsible for their actions, or why they were correct in performing/not performing them in the first place. That neatly leads us to the question of whether or not that's what's actually happening in the post you took exception to. And the answer to that is... you can't know. What boys-night and I discuss in the post is what Ian is actually doing (is he trying to compare trauma och convince Mickey he had it worse) and why he is doing it; that is, we are trying to understand and explain his behavior. Neither of us make any sort of statement on whether or not he was right or wrong for saying or doing what he did: that's just not the topic of conversation. Now, maybe I do think his motivations means that he's morally justified in what he said; maybe I don't. My point is that you can't know that just from what you've read in the post. You might draw some tentative conclusions, and they may be correct, but you don't know, and the reasonable and responsible way to go from there is to seek clarification by asking (polite) questions, not aggressively throwing around accusations about others grasping for straws in a despertae attempt to exonerate their favorites from wrongdoing.

(And just to remind you, even if I were making excuses for Ian, it wouldn't be because he's my favourite or becuase I can't bear to have him do wrong.)

You are perfectly free to disagree with any of the points made in the post, by the way, but you need to recognize that what we're disagreeing on then is motivation, not morality.

And, oh, of course it would have been okay to say "yeah you're right I don't know what you're going through but I'm here", but that's not what Ian did. Now, if you are happy to go ”ah, Ian fucked up, he's not perfect” and move on, that's fine. You do you, nonnie, and if analysis and discussion of character motivations isn't your jam then it isn't and I'm sure no one is going to force you to engage in it. (And if they try to, you can simply say ”I don't care” and walk away.) However, to be perfectly honest I am a bit perplexed that you should be so indignant over other fans trying to make sense of his actions. Do you still feel that way now that you – hopefully – understand that trying to explain a characters' behavior doesn't necessarily mean trying to excuse it? I mean, surely you are aware of the fact that people usually have reasons for acting the way they do, even if the way they act is shitty or misguided? (Note that I'm not saying that Ian's actions were shitty and misguided. That is not the discussion we're having.) I am rather curious, actually, as to what you think Ian's motivations were? Do you imagine he was deliberatedly diminishing Mickey's trauma? Why, if so? Do you perhaps think that he is obsessed with being The Most Victim and thus takes every opportunity to list all the ways Frank sucked? Or maybe that his mouth just moves without any thought or reason and the words just randomly happened?

To be fair, it seems that Ian's motivations is not something you consider relevant: you write that ”Ian should not be comparing Terry and Frank. Full stop.” And that's absolutely a moral stance you can take, albeit certainly not the only one. Maybe Ian shouldn't have said what he said Had you given any reasons for this verdict, I might even have agreed with you because I can think of several reasons why it might be better if Ian refrained from comparing Terry and Frank, no matter his motivations. (And I might not, because I can also think of several reasons why such a comparision might be justified, even though Terry is clearly the more evil of the two.) However, we shall never know, because you fail to back up your claim. I guess that's because you deem it self-evident? It is not, and until you provide any sort of reasoning for your grand proclamation, I won't engage with the question. Not going to shadow-box with you, nonnie, or do your work for you; if you want a discussion, make your case properly. Though maybe make it elsewhere – as previously noted, passing judgement on the characters is not my primary interest when discussing them. I am much more intrigued by trying to understand why characters do and say what they do and say.

Phew. Okay, that's me done, I think. I realize that you might not be very impressed with this answer, nonnie, but I hope it may to some degree reassure you that no sneaky attempt to excuse my favourite character's actions with convoluted theories was made by this humble blogger. Not this time, at least.

[anonymoustalks]

The left has become absorbed by identity politics and is obsessed with race.. it scares me that they will create more racists than before they started

(6-17-20) You both like politics.

You: heyaa

Stranger: Hi

Stranger: How are you

You: anything you're interested in?

You: I am fine

Stranger: I'm interested in hearing opinions on things

You: oh, me too ^^

You: what kind of things?

Stranger: Politics is divisive, but in order to get a better understanding I wish to listen to both sides

You: awesome, I think that's great ^^

Stranger: :) thank you

You: do you have issues you care about most?

Stranger: The current fall of western society

You: fall of western society huh

You: can you elaborate more?

Stranger: Over the past few years we have seen western society devolve. Where once we were fairly united and we stood strong, we have become more divided and with the introduction of identity politics, that has just worsened till we have gotten to where we are now. China is currently pushing her borders, and yet with the US in flames and the uk following suit (along with France for that matter), noone challenges it

You: mhm *nodsnods*

Stranger: To speak out against the lunacy is to be called a racist and a bigot, not that that's anything new of course but those who are calling for these things seem to not really understand the importance and significance of their actions. I see this as akin to the 1920s Weimar Republic. They are pushing for things they don't want

You: you type a lot haha

Stranger: Sorry i am choosing my words carefully

You: mhm it's fine

You: so you think strong foreign policy is very important?

Stranger: I do. I am from South Africa, though I live in the uk. For those who live outside the us and Europe, we see the importance of Baro and the us on a geopolitical scale. China owns the east of Africa, if not central as well. The us has been the top dog preventing them and Russia from doing much for years, though that's going to change in the coming years

Stranger: NATO not baro* bloody autocorrect

You: oh okay I was wondering what that was haha

Stranger: If I may ask, where are you from?

You: the us actually

Stranger: I thought you might be given the time :) it's half 1 am here

You: yeah it's late!

You: so in your view, western countries need to have more of a spine?

You: is that basically what you're saying?

Stranger: Always. But history has a cycle.

Stranger: Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times

You: very fair

You: speaking of cycles, I think something that is floating around these days

You: is whether it's sort of like the beginning of the end of american hegemony

You: sort of like UK's empire gradually had its sunset

Stranger: This is what I am concerned with. All empires have their time in the sun, and all shall fade. I had hoped I would be dead before it happened. I made a prediction several years ago that should trump win in 2020 again, there will be civil war. I am unsure on my prediction of civil war, but I can see that he will win. Should there not be war, I give it another 2 presidencies before yourselves will fall, and ww3 breaks out

You: hmm the us is steamy right now, but idk about civil war

Stranger: It's been brewing for a while now by my estimation

You: that said I would not be surprised about China continuing to be more aggressive

You: that stuff with India yesterday?

You: ^^

Stranger: Without strong willed opposition, they will always push more overtly. They have done so in the shadows for years now

Stranger: And that's just one example

Stranger: They have intruded on Thailand air space as well

You: I don't think either democrats or republicans are very foreign-policy aggressive right now though

You: idk if your concern will be that much better with biden

You: clinton was a little hawkish but she lost 2016

Stranger: It would be much worse with Biden, or anyone from the left EXCEPT Tulsi Gabbard

You: oh you sounded like you didn't want trump to win lol

Stranger: I don't like him. But honestly, he's the best option out of what has been shown. Bernie is a socialist, Hillary is a warmonger, Biden will probably be a puppet. Who can stand? Hillary could be strong, but you would go to war. For all his faults, Trump has avoided war and conflict. He brought North Korea to the discussion table.

You: okay ^^

Stranger: I may not like him but he is effective, and has been a boon to you economy though as someone who works in finance, the next crash is due soon

You: fair enough although I think a lot of places are hurt by the coronavirus economy anyways

Stranger: Yeah.. the lockdowns are odd.. why quarantine those who are healthy? We have always quarantined those who were I'll first, and then those who go out and riot get a free pass? It's a bit confusing, and is a little bit of double think. Rules don't apply to you if you have the correct opinions it would seem

You: idk the US never really had forced quarantines

You: everything here was just you were supposed to do it

Stranger: The uk did, apologies

Stranger: Well not heavily enforced near me

You: we had college students going to beaches even though the quarantine was happening

You: because young ppl think they are invincible

You: and dumb ^^

Stranger: Hahaha yeah you aren't wrong in that

Stranger: But I have waffled on, may I hear your opinions on what we have discussed?

You: mhm, I disagree but it's cool yo~

Stranger: No that's great, it shows that we can discuss and hopefully come to compromise

Stranger: Thank you for being chill and relaxed

You: mhm I'm basically a hippie though so I don't usually take strong stances on international intervention

Stranger: That's fair and understandable. I used to agree with that as well for many years

You: I kind of think it's a little bit of a selfish position to take (the peace one)

You: in the sense that I don't want to deal with other people's problems

You: so in a sense it's kinda selfish

Stranger: It is and it isn't :)

Stranger: It's a moral good and a difficult thing. Peace only exists as reprieve from war. Humanity is a war like species, and peace only ever exists between them. And I applaud your pacifism

You: idk I'm not sure if it's always something to applaud

You: I think in a sense it's a kind of inaction

Stranger: A good thought experiment for you then, look at ww2

You: yup

You: I'm familiar with isolationism in history and its ramifications

Stranger: The us was neutral officially for years, and because they took no strong stance, the Nazis rose to power. Admittedly it was partly the fault of all the allies and ww1 but that's a digression.

Stranger: But war was thrust upon them officially by what happened. The peaceful stance can be taken from you, but that is not a bad thing in my opinion

You: yup

Stranger: What would you do if you could, at that time?

You: at that time?

You: hmm

You: it's not a question I've thought very much about

Stranger: I thought on that myself

You: and what did you conclude?

Stranger: My answer was intervention. Stop the Anschluss, the Munich agreement, the extremely harsh measures of the treaty at the end of ww1

You: oh yeah that was a terrible treaty

You: I kind of imagined myself as an average person though haha

Stranger: But I understand the reasoning at the time for allowing all those things to go through

Stranger: I am too

You: you would have protested your government signing that treaty?

Stranger: That's why thay generation was called the greatest generation. We the average man stood up and took up arms, because they believed what was right.

Stranger: It is difficult to say that if I lived in that time I would. Of it was today, 100%

You: mhm... war is frightening

Stranger: We cannot judge the past with the same moral standing we have today

You: of course

Stranger: And yes, war really is a horrible thing

Stranger: If peace was an option, I would go for it. Often times though, we have no control over that

You: mhm there is suffering in a lot of places, and violence that arises from suffering and hatred

Stranger: Look at the Nazis and the hatred of the Jews. That was extremely common all across Europe, the uk and the us. Many leaders in politics and business liked the Nazis initially. But just because something is common, does not make it right

You: I actually never understood antisemitism

Stranger: You are quite wise, and I agree with you. But the sad thing is, there will always be suffering

You: or why people hate(d) jewish people

Stranger: The scary thing is, many of those in BLM look up to a man called Farrakhan (forgive me on the spelling) who is a huge antisemite. Like he openly calls for violence against them. He gets away with it, because he is black. Why he hates them I don't know. They are hated I think, because they are the oldest abrahamic religion and the oldest monothesist one as well, from which both Islam and Christianity draw their teachings from initially

You: I just don't understand why they are hated

You: often by christians too

Stranger: Me neither, I find it abhorrent. They have been persecuted for thousands of years

You: yeah idk I just don't understand why

Stranger: I have yet to find out why. I know in Islam they hate them as it is dictated within their scriptures, though the exact wording I am unsure on. Christians I would think it's because they don't believe that Jesus was the son of God

You: I guess so

Stranger: But I may be entirely wrong

Stranger: Which I probably am

You: idk I don't know anything so I have no clue

Stranger: Hence why I like and want discussion :) we learn more through communication

Stranger: We become better the more we communicate

You: is there a reason why you dislike blm so much?

Stranger: I stand against identitarianism

You: so basically all those "pride" movements?

Stranger: I come from a racist country that segregated everyone and everything based on the colour of everyone's skin and I was hated for being the colour of my skin just for being born. I cannot condone movements that wish to implement the same things, as it will lead to suffering and hatred.

Stranger: I have nothing against being proud of your race, though I think the idea is a bit stupid. I have an issue with everything needing to divided up based on the colour of ones skin, I choose to judge someone on the basis of their character. I'm not perfect and there are times where I have been prejudiced but it is something I am consious of and wish to not do

You: mhm okay

You: I'm not sure if blm wants things to be divided up based on race though

You: I thought they were mostly against police brutality

Stranger: Some very much so are. Though I will concede that not all of them are, and I should tar everyone with the same brush. But as a counter to that, look at CHAZ in Seattle, they have segregated farms though calling them that is hilarious

You: I thought chaz is just a city block?

Stranger: On the police brutality, I agree with them and that reform must happen. Abolishing police is not a good idea. More funding is required, better training and better internal policies and structures to vette and review the officers is needed. Abolishing them will lead to anarchy. You are correct that Chaz is, but it is a microcosm showing the very things I stand against. I am against racism of all kinds, segregation is a form of racism. The us had a history where they did it too and agreed that it was wrong

You: mhm

You: I just wasn't familiar with blm as pro-segregation

You: that said, most blm activists are just really young

Stranger: They have been co-opted by those who are. And many activists are young white kids

You: I don't think mainstream democrats take them very seriously

Stranger: I'm not so certain. But I hope I am wrong

You: idk I mean these days who knows what kind media we each read

You: so I'm sure I'm in a bubble too

Stranger: They may see these things as a good and helpful idea, but the road to hell is often paved with good intentions

Stranger: Of course, and I hope I'm wrong. I recommend a variety of news sources, especially independent ones. A great one is a guy named Tim Pool on YouTube. He is a left leaning centrist guy who is upfront with his leanings. But he gives the news as it is

You: mhm I try to avoid youtube news

You: although idk if it's truly reliable to always go through bbc or ap or others

You: they are just mainstream

Stranger: BBC is very biased in my opinion. Tim used to work on mainstream media but he left. I would call him credible, he looks at news sources and verifies them. He's very milk toast and fence sits allot the problem with news is that all sides want to spin things the way they want it

You: mhm okay

You: is there any kind of mainstream media that you like?

Stranger: I don't trust any of them when it comes to almost anything except weather and sport scores. I will listen to what is said from various sources before coming to my own conclusions. I have lost all faith in the media since 2016

You: I see, I guess it ends up being hard to find something to trust

Stranger: Unfortunately it is. My reasons for it was both the elections in the us for 2016 and the brexit vote here in the uk. I was very similar to you then, very much so a hippie and very left leaning. I disagreed with Trump and Brexit, but I lost. But the way the media and society within the left handled themselves and the situation, that put me off completely and pushed me to become more conservative than what I was

You: interesting, although I'm not exactly following what made you more interested in conservative things

Stranger: The constant denigration of those who you disagree with. The treatment hat those people got, most of whom are the working class, upon the backs of which society is upheld. They are not racist or evil. They have a different opinion and different values. How does making a choice in a democracy make someone evil when neither side is perfect?

Stranger: The left preaches tolerance, except that it doesnt in reality

You: mhm yeah I don't like that

You: I don't think it is effective either

Stranger: All it does is polarize people

Stranger: And drive them further away from reaching g a compromise

You: right

Stranger: Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with Brexit, but as a democracy we made a decision. So now we need to exact that decision. I would have voted for trump despite my disdain for him

Stranger: Enact not exact*

You: I think there are a lot of people who think similarly as you do ^^

Stranger: There really are

Stranger: The left has become absorbed by identity politics and is obsessed with race.. it scares me that they will create more racists than before they started

Stranger: Constantly calling your opposition racist and evil will force them into being it

You: mhm I think there are some things to distinguish between social media left-wing people and people in everyday life I think

You: the vitriol is always much more amplified online than people are irl

Stranger: Oh agreed! Twitter is not real life, but it has started to bleed over

You: I live in a fairly liberal state, although I don't really think I have ever seen twitter irl

You: although I do think there is probably self-censorship occuring

You: in the sense that people are afraid of what their neighbors will think

Stranger: There is allot of that

Stranger: Anything you say will be used against you. Even if it's not that controversial

Stranger: People have lost their jobs for an opinion not done at work

You: that said, I don't think that's per say the "left's" fault though -- I just think that public opinion has shifted dramatically in the last 10 years

Stranger: Or how about the man who lost his job because his wife said something controversial

Stranger: I agree with you

Stranger: I really do

Stranger: Allot of this I do think could have been stopped years ago

You: I don't really like the lynch firing of people

You: that companies do for their public image

You: because the truth doesn't matter

You: it's just public image

Stranger: They do so because they are scared of the mob

You: but at the same time, I think public image is a thing because majority opinion really has shifted in the past two decades

You: opinions on homosexuality have swung dramatically in the US

You: ten years ago it was totally okay in public to be anti-homosexual

Stranger: Obama was against gay marriage until it was politically important for him to win the next election

You: but public opinion I think has swung really fast

You: yeah

You: I think he swapped at the first poll that showed >50% of americans supported it

Stranger: Yep! I find it hilarious that that was the case

You: yes but I think conservatives find this kind of fast change extremely uncomforting

You: I can understand that sentiment

You: also isn't it getting kinda late for you? ^^

Stranger: Conservatives are by their very nature are conservative. Change is neither malevolent nor benevolent, but we cannot look at change as universally good. Not can we disregard tradition

Stranger: It's 3 am and I can still keep going, I'm enjoying this conversation :)

You: I need to do the dishes eventually lol

Stranger: If you wish to leave you can by all means :) I won't hate you for it

You: I'm fine either way tbh

You: are you working right now? if you have work tomorrow you should prob go to bed

Stranger: It's up to you :) I can go for ages though my coherence Kay descend

Stranger: I'm sadly unemployed at the moment having lost my job earlier this year

You: coronavirus?

Stranger: Sadly yes

You: that's unfortunate, I'm sorry

Stranger: Not your fault :) so don't stress

You: so aside from Russia and China and the decline of western things, is there anything else that you stress about lol?

Stranger: The drive of censorship

Stranger: I have serious issue with censory

You: mhm

Stranger: And yourself?

You: mhm I dunno really

Stranger: That's good, though I would urge you to become concerned with censorship

You: mhm maybe

You: for me it's sort of a contextual concern I think

You: in the sense that it depends on your vantage point

Stranger: Opinions, art and books doesn't matter. Today it is their voice, tomorrow it is my voice. The day after it becomes your voice. Censorship takes away their rights to speak, and your rights to listen

You: mhm, what I mean is that my family immigrated from China

You: so my reference point of censorship is literal government censorship

You: in comparison the "political correctness" thing just doesn't seem as big to me imo

You: because 90% of it to me is sort of like a person's relationship with the neighbor basically

You: the US government doesn't censor what you can publish essentially

Stranger: That's fair enough, but this is where it starts. Things take time, and if anyone gives in (such as they have in several cases) that builds. In time that becomes the norm, there after what gets censored will not be at the choice of the people but of those who are in power

You: perhaps, although I kind of have faith in the 1st ammendment and the US supreme court

You: we barely have libel laws or defamation laws in the US because of the 1st ammendment

Stranger: I have seen calls to change and amend it. In the uk we have no freedom of speech, people have been arrested for jokes, what's been said on Twitter, etc. There are those who say that it's ok to censor this and that because e they are problematic or it would be good for everyone. But that is how it starts. The US has so much freedom

You: ahh... yeah I feel like it is different in the uk

Stranger: The uk doesn't care for free speech. It's very worrying and there are calls for even more censorship here.

You: mhm that sounds worrisome

Stranger: I guess I project it across to all western countries, and that is something we have seen recently

You: I don't think the US will lose the 1st amendment anytime soon, it's not politically realistiic

Stranger: Look at Amazon censoring books and movies being removed etc, this is how this begins. If it is allowed now, how can we stop it in the future

You: idk the status of free speech in other countries

You: actually this is a very interesting topic

Stranger: The us is one of the only countries that has it

You: do you think freedom of speech should be protected in private spaces?

Stranger: Codified in law that is

You: because technically freedom of speech for us is supposed to be only related to public government relationships

Stranger: I believe it should always be be protected

You: specifically "congress will make no law restricting freedom of speech" (paraphrased)

You: so you believe that private companies should not control what is said on their premises?

You: I mean it's fine if you believe that, it's actually just a bit further than what the current status quo is

Stranger: Yes. They are not above the law. Society may shun them, but they should not become involved. Outright calls for violence are against the law and that should be honoured, outside of that no they should not impose on pthers

You: hmm in the US this is where things get super complicated

You: because conservatives are also the ones who want content restricted/said in their religious schools too

Stranger: I've noticed.. and that has an effect on the rest of the world

You: basically "freedom of religion" and "freedom of speech" being on the same political side here makes things very weird

Stranger: And yeah I am aware of that as well, though the pendulum seems to have swung to the other side now. And it will swing back to the other side again

You: kind of like "My store should have the freedom of religion to deny my patrons of being homosexual in my store" kinda thing

Stranger: Yeah it is hard but there is more to the opposite side than just the one thing

You: it's a weird convoluted thing when both are conservative issues

Stranger: That's a difficult one, but I would say that should be discussed and debated but the highest courts. I cannot say from a legal sense one way or the other, morally I can say that it's hard to decide. I think that everyone should get a choice but I am uncertain

Stranger: By not but*

You: mhm that's fine ^^

You: I just think it's very interesting because most laws here, they govern the relationship between between the government and the people

You: so our freedom of speech laws do not apply to amazon censoring books because they are a private company

Stranger: Which is the difficult thing

Stranger: They are protected by being a private company

Stranger: As it's not just them

You: maybe ^^ we have a free market though, so things that cannot be published on amazon will find an outlet elsewhere

You: provided there is a demand for it

You: that said, it also has some gray area with morality laws

Stranger: That is true but monopoloes make things harder to find

You: kind of like youtube banning pornographic content

Stranger: Yeah I can understand that morally, legally I don't know but I would assume that there is some laws regarding that

You: I mean I'm just used to many various sites having bans of various sorts

Stranger: The uk has some

Stranger: Yeah, but there are protections for them being platforms not publishers

You: I don't think there is any law forcing youtube to ban pornographic content; it's just a branding choice by the company

Stranger: If they are publishers, those protections don't apply

You: like I think they want to be seen as family-friendly

Stranger: Fair enough, would have thought there might be

You: porn sites are not illegal in the US lol

Stranger: Not family friendly, advertisement friendly

You: lol true

Stranger: Sorry I don't know enough to be able to say :) I'm happy to admit that

You: mhm aside from political correctness, I guess I just don't personally see a big problem with censorship in the US

You: although I think I have a different belief than you that I think it's okay for private companies to choose what they want to publish

You: even if the ban content

You: these companies still need to compete

Stranger: Them doing so is fine, but if they wish to be protected as platforms they cannot act as a publisher. I think that's the Crux of their protections

Stranger: It is something that has been going for a while though

Stranger: And I think Trump will have it in his campaign for reelection this year

You: okay ^^

Stranger: But I don't know, he has been interested in censorship and has said he is against it in the past

You: I think people mean different things by censorship

You: but that's just imo

You: there are almost no western countries that experience censorship by their governments

You: so people mean things like censorship at their workplace

You: although imo that's kind of less censorship and more on the political correctness spectrum

Stranger: True. That is very true. But if you don't stop censorship openly, then should it come from government you don't already know you can stand against it

You: but to me, that "political correctness" isn't anything new either; it's as old as time

You: like did we always worry about saying something that would offend our boss?

You: ^^

You: it's always been there

You: I just think people are uncomfortable because bosses have changed in the last few decades

Stranger: It's not just their work place. The new "town square" is has become online. Your freedoms online are not protected despite it being codified in law

Stranger: And you aren't wrong, and coming from China or at least your family, you bring an interesting perspective

You: I feel like in the US we have very little digital legislation

You: the US of is head of hear

You: *there

Stranger: The world needs a digital bill of rights, to protect us all and our data. But we won't get it

You: but I don't think we have anything guaranteeing that speech on the Internet is free by any regard

Stranger: I would argue we do

You: hm? which law?

You: I like most websites have ToS's and rules banning X Y or Z on their site

Stranger: Freedom of speech and expression

You: oh I mean in terms of law

Stranger: That is what I meant, so that we are free to speak and express ourselves. I also believe that our data should be private and cannot be sold and that should be protected. There are other things that I have heard but it's difficult to remember all those that were proposed

You: ahh

You: yeah we don't have those laws right now

Stranger: Today stuff is okay but you are not protected

You: although the EU has some privacy ones that we don't have in the US

Stranger: The EU doesn't care mostly

Stranger: Some laws only protect some information, I'm talking about all of our information

You: ^^

Stranger: Everything we post and do is tracked, monitored and sold

Stranger: We revel in it, "I was talking about cats/dogs and all of a sudden I got adds for cat/dog products"

Stranger: We hear that often

You: yup

Stranger: Also, with regards to our rights and things, who holds these companies accountable?

Stranger: Take google for example

Stranger: They have been caught tampering with the elections

You: well, again, we have basically no laws about this in the US so there is no accountability

Stranger: They openly censor news and opinions

Stranger: They are a monopoly

You: although some europrean countries have lawsuits whatever with them

You: yup they totally are

You: where are anti-trust laws lol?

Stranger: That's what I think Trump will be looking at, I would if I was in his shoes

Stranger: But they were given special protections

Stranger: Those need to be taken away, the large companies need to be broken up but governments are incompetent

Stranger: I don't trust them to do it well

You: mhm it actually reminds me of south korea actually

Stranger: I mean there are a few senators in the states that I think have the moral fortitude to do so, but I don't know

You: countries are loathe to break up companies that they're proud of basically

Stranger: Yep

You: like samsung in south korea lol?

Stranger: They wouldn't break them up

Stranger: It would do serious damage to the economy and blah blah blah

You: their revenue was like 20% of the entire country's gdp

Stranger: Yep it's a difficult argument

Stranger: And I can understand why you wouldnt

Stranger: That 20% could drop to below 1%

You: anyhow it is getting kind of late

You: it was nice talking to you

You: and you should sleep ^^

Stranger: Likewise! :) I needed to move my sleep schedule for a 24 hour race on the weekend anyway, sp thank you for occuping my time and mind :)

You: goodnight!

Stranger: I'm glad to have met another willing to talk, take care my good friend

You have disconnected.

[eliminativism]

If you don't mind, I'd like to ask for your opinion on this: takimag(.)com/article/top_10_trump_myths_gavin_mcinnes#axzz4WT8GdY44

McInnes is a partisan provocateur, like Milo Yannopoulos. I wouldn’t take what he writes too seriously.

We are already beyond McCarthyism - the alt-rightists and neo-nationalists on tumblr are so far gone that they cannot read a single thing in the press they don’t like without mocking it as fake news. They are worse than feminists - and I say that as someone who has an anti-feminist with very radical anti-feminist stances for three years. You basically cannot get more anti-feminist than I am.

And I consider feminists more redeemable than people like McInnes lately.

The truth is that while the press has problems, you cannot throw everything out of the window without checking. But the “parallel media”, aka right-wing news blogs, have established themselves among their audience to provide any kind of lazy copy-pasting to show “the left media” is wrong, regardless of whether it’s accurate, as long as it reeinforces the biases of their audience. You can find whole networks right-wing blogs for anything, with vast databases of sources they built up - for the world being flat, for chemtrails being used to poison the population, that the world is cooling down and global warming is a hoax, that Noah’s flood was real, that Trump is a reasonable individual.

I have spoken against such falsehoods repeatedly, and always I have found people to be more stubborn and hostile than even a rabbid SJW could be - often from people who would love to point out how ridiculous SJWs are.

Simple fallacy: Just because one other position is wrong does not allow you to conclude your position is right.

Feminism and the new right follows the same human tendencies: The tendencies to see patterns, to see themselves as victims and deserving of more than they have etc.

The “left-wing media” is basically the right-wing’s patriarchy. Lot’s of plausible sounding platitudes with some enacdotal evidence here and there, but nothing overarching.

But maybe back to your link.

What McInnes does here is that he specifically picks a few things he can challenge to some degree and then makes the blatant statement that he is always right and the “left” is always wrong. Let’s break it down.

1) This statement by Trump has been blown out of proportion by the media, but it is also not what is really important about Trump’s assumed sexual crimes.

He has been accused of rape by three different women - a business partner, his ex-wife and a thriteen year old.

The case of the thirteen year old occurred in the 90s in connection with a party of Jeffrey Epstein, who is a good friend of Trump - a convicted sex criminal who has an investment company which is offering financial product specifically for billionaires.

Trump was never convicted - he did donate a large sum of money to the persecutor who was supposed to handle the case of the 13 year old and the case was abbandoned - so one cannot say that he is guilty.

But considering that the neo-nationalists have been going crazy over Pizza-Gate, I wonder why the story about Epstein’s parties, in which the candidates for an underage model agency of his attended, and who, according to the organiser, had to give blowjobs to Epstein’s friends, including Trump, to get “a better chance” at a modeling career, would not spark the same interest. Hmmmmmmmmmm....

https://de.scribd.com/doc/316341058/Donald-Trump-Jeffrey-Epstein-Rape-Lawsuit-and-Affidavits

The case had a hearing on 16th of decembre. Maybe it is just a story of someone who hopes to get money, maybe there’s more to it. We’ll have to see what comes of it.

2) Maybe, maybe not. It would fit to Trump’s personality to mock someone for that, but I wouldn’t say that it shows a disdain for the disabled. He might have just considered it some strange antics of the reporter, without even thinking about a disability. But Trump’s dedicated enemies interpreted it in the most unflattering way possible.

3) “ I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life. You’re pretty much looking at 12 failures for every successful venture“

This is ridiculous and shows that McInness is out of touch or lying.

Maybe such ventures with many bancruptcies is typical for a very small group of millionaire investors who are working in an American business climate where money is fast and loose.

But that has nothing to do with the normal economy. I have relatives who are entrepreneurs and business-owners, but all middle class, not upper class. Not one of them has ever grown bankrupt once. And those who do grow bankrupt in this field never recuperate - they have their debts to pay off for their whole life and hope their children don’t inherit the debts. And even if they recover, people are skeptical of making business with them further on.

Trump belongs to a financial class which is called “locusts”. They don't lose money from going bankrupt, they profit from going bankrupt. They never pay their debts - you know who stays with the debts? The small businesses Trump had contracts with, which he never payed and which he will get away with for never paying, because he can delay the court cases longer than small-businesses who barely have enough to continue to exist.

4) Everyone outsorces production to other countries when it makes sense.

That Trump does it is not the deal, the ridiculousness comes from Trump’s claim that he will bring the jobs back to America.

Yeah, he can... if the Americans are paid e.g. Chinese wages. Which will be an interesting enterprise with the costs of living in the US.

There is no system of encouragement behind outsourcing - with the additional cost of transport and the difficulty of running a business at a country you don’t speak the language of, and the often unstable legal situation in these low-wage countries, everything already speaks against producing there - but companies still do it because it makes economic sense. And it has been going on for so long that it shows it works.

Trump is not a hypocrit, he’s just a retard, like everyone else who believes that one can reverse that trend.

I mean, either that, or a Stalinist.

You would have to bring so much government control into businesses that you would basically disable capitalism if you wanted to dictate where a company can produce how much of what - and sell it for what price, if you want to keep it affordable.

I didn’t know Trump’s supporters would love to live on a kolchos, but surprises with them never end.

5) I never heard this, and I cannot say anything. Basically, if you are rich, it is easy for you to find ways to get richer. There are various ways to do that - legal and moral, or the Trump way. Both happens among that elite class.

6) This is Trump toeing the line to dehumanisation of immigrants just like the European neo-nationalists do with Muslims - they are all rapists, all criminals, it would be a better world if we would get rid of them etc. Oh, not “literally” all of them, but you know, you have to break some eggs to make an omelette...

This is just typical right-wing populism which is as old as modern politics itself. It’s not even something specific to Trump, it’s something every right-wing party does to some degree and it has been a beloved point of the Tea-Party movement, which considted of the most embarrasing American country hicks the world was ever displeased to witness on the news. McInness’ apologetics for it are laughable.

7) Well, Roe vs Wade is being attacked by many Trump fans.

I don’t really think Trump himself cares much. Trump just wants to make money - that’s what his presidency is about. He doesnt want you to bring the truth, he wants you to buy the newspapers his best friends own instead of those his friends don’t own.

If he could open a restaurant with dead fetus burgers, he would. The thing is that Trump is in bed with people who have ties to conservatism who would be interested in anti-abortion legislation. That ties in to the Republican senate keeping the surpeme court seat open for months without considering any candidate Obama suggested. Trump will suggest someone the rich American conservative establishment likes, so he lick their assholes and they can lick his.

8) Ties in to 7). If we look at Trump’s staff, he personally doesn't care about black vs brown vs white. He will just bring in anyone who will help him make money. He would appoint Göbbels for his talent of speaking to the press and he would butter up Malcolm X’s asshole if it would give him more support from the black vote.

Trump does not care about politics, he cares about $$$. He is completely amoral in that regard. And that’s how people who do care about polirics will be able to rise to political positions which would never be considered in any way fit for politics in a Western democracy. And Trump does not care what they will suggest in terms of social policies. That’s not his thing. If someone wants to build concentration camps with gas chambers on American soil, Trump would just ask “How does that sell? Do the approval numbers look good for that?” If the answer is positive, he would not care about the action itself.

That’s one of the big points about the campaign and the press coverage - people try to pin things like being against Jews of LGBT people on Trump, but it’s not true. Trump does not care. The thing is, Trump would also not care about the reverse. That is what Trump can be attacked about. He himself may not support bigotry, but if bigots would make him successful, they will be his best friends in the White House. That is the danger of Trump - not his personal views, but that he simply does not care. His lack of personal views is the danger.

9) Basically see 8). Trump will bend and break existing laws if he thinks it’s a thing that saying makes him popular. Immigration, right of assylum for the prosecuted - doesn’t matter, if it makes his voter base uncomfortable.

That’s exactly the same with Europe, Europe’s new right and England’s Brexit.

People have a “feeling” that something is wrong, they find some structure they pin their nebulous feelings to and then get agitated. Is there causality behind it? Doesn’t matter. Someone, somewhere is conspiring against me, and in my feeling of powerlessness I have to ruin it for everyone else. As I said, it’s why feminism is attractive to people with low self-esteem and a short-sighted view of society. The EU is the European right’s patriarchy or the post-marxist’s burgeouisie - people I have never met with some planned agenda against me that keeps me down, and though I cannot point to evidence or causality, enough people are talking about it that there must be something to it.

10) I have no idea what point McInness is trying to make here. If Trump wants to build a wall, he can. He cannot make the governent of Mexico pay for it. If America makes budget cuts to pay for the wall, then America makes budget cuts to pay for the wall. Has nothing to do with the government of Mexico. McInness is just rambling about a red herring.

[funkymbtifiction]

hi charity, i hope this question doesn't bother you, i am an enfj, as i accepted while reading your book (never felt so called out in my life, lol), but i can't decide whenever i am a 1w2 or 2w1, what is the key difference between them, especially in an enfj? thank you so much for everything you do and your precious help :)

I'm glad, it means I did my job and wrote it accurately. ;)

Since both are dependent and 'should' types, it can be easy to mistake them; but 1s carry tension in their bodies and their minds, they are rigid and have strong judgments about everything. They care more about the evident rightness of their position than the emotions or relational dynamics involved; when they have 2 as a wing, those are still secondary to their motives. They aren't coming at things from a personal place so much as a place of black and white, right and wrong, gut-instinctual energy. As gut types, they feel battered by a world that wants them to violate their consciences, and they refuse and fight back against it by repressing their reactions, denying how angry they are (yet it's visible to others), and being far more critical of everyone else than of themselves (the outward focus of a 1 is on everything around them, compared to the inner criticism of a 9w1, for example). 1s don't want to feel in the wrong, or see themselves as being wrong, inappropriate, or bad, so they tend to turn most of their emotional reactions into anger. 1s struggle to express their positive feelings, though they let people know their negative ones. Under stress, they become more emotional, and feel persecuted and misunderstood or alienated (moving to 4); when they are healthier, they learn to stop being so rigid and pursue pleasure without a sense of guilt about it (moving to 7).

2s are one of the most emotional types (compared to the relative firmness and stoicism of the 1); they are easily touched, easily emotional, and easily able to feel what others are feeling and want to do something about it. They want closeness more than anything, and can be gushing and affirming in how they reach out to people. They care less about black and white morality than they do meeting people where they are and fulfilling their needs. They want love more than anything, to be selfless, compassionate, kind, and see themselves as benevolent and needed. They need to feel needed, and won't feel fulfilled with anyone who needs nothing from them. They tend to be more self-critical than the 1w2, because 1 tags along, judging their mistakes within relationships (their main focus). They typically hide the things about themselves that they think others will not like, or reject things out of fear of rejection themselves, whereas a 1 does not alter themselves to be liked; they are firm in their stance against the world. 2s move to 8 in anger and become forceful, aggressive, and even controlling; in times of health, they move closer to 4 and learn that they can nurture their own interests, and be truer to their authentic opinions, without fearing others will abandon them.

1s will not take on a sudden fascination with a topic that has never interested them before, in order to grow closer to someone they want to love them, but a 2 will absorb their interests and hobbies in an effort to build a deeper connection.