#Edit: I worded something wrong

[watermelonsloth]

I think the reason why Naruto fans get so passionate and upset about the series is because of how real it can be. Naruto isn’t about paragon heroes outdoing dastardly villains. It’s about human beings fighting tooth and nail to survive in a world surrounded by death. It’s about broken systems made and perpetuated by broken people.

The Hyuga clan isn’t just antagonistic or pretentious, they practice slavery.

The Uchiha clan weren’t just killed by some raging psychopath, they were systematically massacred.

Itachi isn’t just cruel to Sasuke because he’s a bad brother, he’s cruel because he’d been told time and time again that you can only survive by being cruel and he wants nothing more than for Sasuke to survive.

Nagato isn’t trying to take over the world just for the sake of power, he’s trying to take over the world because it beat him down to the point of believing that the only chance at peace there is is the world being forced into compliance through fear.

Iruka isn’t hard on Naruto just because he’s a strict teacher, he’s hard on Naruto because he knows from experience how unforgiving the world is towards orphans.

Kakashi isn’t just some silly and slightly lazy teacher, he’s a contract killer still grieving his loved ones and struggling to do better without knowing how he’s supposed to.

Sakura isn’t just a fangirl, she’s a normal girl in a very dangerous and abnormal world constantly being made to choose between what she’s supposed to do and what she feels.

Sasuke isn’t just some edgelord, he’s a survivor who lost everything then gets repeatedly told that he has to choose between keeping what he’s gained and doing better than his brother.

Naruto isn’t just trying to be the best Hokage there ever was, he’s trying to prove his worth to a society that abandoned him just for existing and, in a way, confirm his worth to himself.

The Naruto story is about humans trying to force themselves into the role of weapons because that’s what they were told they had to be. It’s a story where everyone is a perpetrator but no one is trying to do wrong. It’s a story where everyone is a victim but no one is a perfect victim.

The world and the characters aren’t simple and trying to simplify them only takes away from them. So of course we get passionate about showing off all the reasons why they shouldn’t be simplified and all of the ways they’re complicated. Of course we get upset when we see others simplifying them or selling certain aspects of their characters short. Of course we get upset when the series itself simplifies them. Of course we get upset when the series chooses to abandon them. Because it not only feels like the characters are giving up, it feels like the series is betraying anyone who chose to get invested in its complexities.

[antiqua-lugar]

aside from everything else about durgewyll I am loving how it highlights wyll and gortash as narrative foils. both their upbringings lead them to interact with demoniac entities, both can only become archdukes and join baldurian high society through uldred, both are swaying the dark urge from simply following bhaal (and arguably the dark urge sways them from simply pursuing an ideal and the dark urge can recognise both as their equal)

and by playing your card right in act 3 wyll just...gets everything gortash was trying to get? wyll really is a hero saving baldur's gate from the legion of the absolute. wyll influences gortash's favourite assassin into becoming someone they can defeat the netehrbrain together. they can even become archdukes together! ...or they can turn it down and then they can go to he hells to sneak around and have adventures (like gortash and durge used to) and save karlach's life (the same life that is at risk because gortash mindlessly threw it away).

like. it's a lot, wyll and durge can even murder raphael.

[vic-does-battlecats]

Minor spoilers for the already revealed chapters of the next A Starless Clan book Wind

[yourlocalabomination]

It’s so funny how everyone will be rooting for their fav character to win the death match on tonight’s livestream yet my fav character is Mr. Can’t-Stop-Dying

[systemrestart]

From Alison Bechdel's "Dykes to Watch Out For". Strip name "Au Courant", from 1994

I'd never seen this strip get posted, so I want others to see it. Mo, the character expressing 'concern' over the inclusion of trans women (as well as bisexuals) in lesbian culture, is often portrayed as being overly self-righteous, jumping to conclusions about others, and not critically examining her own biases and worldview. She was also the character in the comic commissioned for Transgender Warriors, where she learns she was wrong for being anxious about sharing a bathroom with a trans woman.

Mo is often either the butt of the joke, or receives a stark lesson in these interactions (whether by confrontation or just becoming socially isolated, because she's difficult to be around). And I found this framing important, especially as I've heard discussion of TERFs trying to claim Bechdel as one of them.

This comic was not made to validate Mo's opinions or feelings. The characters in Bechdel's comics are often messy, short-sighted, even bigoted. They're human. This comic does not valorize or 'condone' these flaws, merely shows them for what they are, as well as the consequences that come with them, and the effects they can have on your communities.

Transcript of the comic below the cut:

[ID: A "Dykes to Watch Out For" comic strip by Alison Bechdel, featuring the characters Mo and Lois. The conversation is as follows:

MO: Oh, jeez. Here's a submission for "Madwimmin Read" from someone named Jillian who identifies as a transsexual lesbian.

LOIS: Cool.

MO: The cover letter says, "I hope you'll consider changing the name of your reading series for local lesbian writers to be inclusive of transgender and bisexual women writers too." Oh, man!

LOIS: Guess it's time to get with the program, huh?

MO: What am I supposed to do? Have bi women and drag queens come in here and read about schtupping their boyfriends?

LOIS: Why not? I'm sure they'd have a unique perspective on the topic.

MO: Lois, I'm still trying to adjust to lesbians using dildos! What am I supposed to make of a man who became a woman who's attracted to women?!

LOIS: Love is a many gendered thing, pal. Get used to it.

MO: Well fine. Let people do what they want. But I'm not gonna add this unwieldy "bisexual and transgender" business to the name of my reading series. I don't even know what transgender means!

LOIS: It's sort of an evolving concept. I mean, we haven't had any language for people you can't neatly peg as either boy or girl.

LOIS: Like cross-dressers, transsexuals, people who live as the opposite sex but don't have surgery, drag queens and kings, and all kinds of other transgressive folks. "Transgender" is a way to unite everyone into a group, even though all these people might not self-identify as transgender.

LOIS: In fact, the point is that we're all just ourselves, and not categories. Instead of two rigid genders, there's an infinite sexual continuum! Cool, huh?

MO: How do you know all this stuff?

END ID]

[cayde6feetunder]

tfw you agree fully with OP but they push the complains about terms like tme/tma as being ~ transmascs complaining they’re being labelled as tme ~ like terms like tme/tma aren’t disgustingly intersexist and while there are some people who do complain because they’re being labeled “tme” (I may not have ever seen this ever but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a possibility it happens) I and many others don’t fuck with it because it’s fucking intersexist and trying to dismiss that as an actual real issue with the terminology is dishonest. Get real.

[sketchytea]

A drizzling rain falls during Qingming,

Travellers on the road are full of melancholy.

May I ask where the nearest tavern lies?

The cowherd points in the distance to Xinghua Village.

- Qingming, Du Mu (Tang)

celebration - day 2 for @historical-hetalia-week

[buddieinmybeddie]

People who only like and support ONE ship and go around sending hate to other ships/shippers are so weird , I as a multi shipper cannot understand..

I love to explore the dynamics my favorites would have with other characters, there are of course ships I don't like but I'm not gonna go around hating on them who DO like them for no reason

[eskawrites]

word randomly deciding to fuck with my files and screw up the saving process is going to give me a fucking heart attack

[liquidstar]

Can you not edit asks anymore wtf??

[magnus-rhymes-with-swagness]

while i’m truly genuinely happy there’s an aspec club at my university, some of the people there are very annoying

[nickiemoot]

i had a laughing fit this morning until i cried and almost couldn't breath over "what's the deal with bathroom penis"

[corpsesoldier]

the john chapters in ntn are so fun, I love seeing people discussing his justifications and motivations and failings, he’s such a good villain.

his narration is very much the account of someone who cared so much and was backed right up to the edge and decided to just fucking swan dive off. and I think it’s broadly true, or at the very least is true to how he understood the events, if not the specifics—when questioned on the order of events, he stumbles. “what’s the difference between the truth and the truth you tell yourself,” etc.

I think his explanation to alecto, in the aftermath of her destruction, isn’t him looking for absolution. he doesn’t want to be forgiven. he reacts badly to alecto/harrow saying “I still love you,” and I think that still is doing a lot of heavy lifting, because that means I love you despite, and that implies wrongdoing. but he isn’t a guy who makes mistakes. I don’t think he wants forgiveness. forgiveness doesn’t exist. I think he wants his audience (alecto primarily, harrow and us circumstantially) to go “okay. you didn’t have any other options. I get it now.”

but this seems like john’s account more or less immediately after the destruction of the planet and his reshaping of alecto, and we the reader have seen what he does afterward, and see exactly how many options he had—ten thousand years worth of them—and how every time he chooses to double down and keep hunting, keep punishing, keep building a wall between himself and accountability. because he doesn’t make mistakes. but it doesn’t work on harrow, and it doesn’t work on us, because we exist outside of the narrative john tells himself. we know too much.

[agueforts]

urge to pick fights with everyone who is so wrong about colors all the time

[queen-scribbles]

*checks angst prompt fill word count*

lol. lmao, even

[fortyfive-forty]

.