#also i have something to say about my hatred of AI art

[leantailean]

Ain't no way you're paying victim. You called Zuko a supremacist colonizer when his whole arc was about rejecting the Fire Nation's nationality and colonialism. You defended Aang prioritizing his culture over Katara's trauma. You can't get mad at Zuko for brushing off Aang using his culture to project his self-righteousness and not at Aang for dictating Katara's grief by implying culture is the only right way. In no way was that user being racist.

(Especially because Aang has made fun of cultural Water Tribe food and touched Water Tribe artifacts like they were toys)

YOU started the confrontation with her, then got mad that she rightfully replied (twice). You're butthurt because you were proven wrong. Grow up.

Hello anon, may I draw your attention to the fact that my interaction with the person you obviously mean here was limited to one post in which I disagreed with her opinion and dared to express my point of view, in which I was so polite, that I even apologized for the fact that the post turned out to be long and praised her art (yes, I bought that, mistaking this AI for real watercolours. Only after the last post did I look more closely and noticed all these countless artefacts, sixth fingers and meaningless shadows lying on the wrong sides of the form). I wrote my opinion and forgot about it because, you know, I have a life. But it seems that my post really hurt you and this person much and you felt so insulted and offended that you have not been able to calm down for several months: that person wrote gigantic (but rather meaningless) “responses” a few months later, you all bombarded my mailbox with anonymous hatred, and took ridiculous attempts to slander my art.

And, anon, can I ask: do you even read what you are responding to? I didn't call Zuko a supremacist colonizer; I called him the great-grandson of a colonizer (which is literally who he is in the story). And yes, Zuko's role in history is worse than it could have been for a conventional great-grandson of a supremacist colonizer, because Zuko personally took part in his great-grandfather's war, attacking the Southern Water Tribe, threatening the elderly and children, and using physical force against them

burning down the Kyoshi village and trying to capture the avatar, the world's last hope, even after he began to realize that this was not right (that scene from the book one where he turned away from the fire nation banner).

Just because Zuko repented and self-improved doesn't suddenly erase these facts from his story. I think that remorse and deep pain for his actions will haunt Zuko throughout his life because he truly became a good person, unlike you, who are just ready to pretend that none of this ever happened and are not worth remembering.

Aang is a genocide survivor. His beliefs are hard-won experience. Because he knows what it's like to lose your culture, your people and find the passed away parent (their direct parallel with the Katara). His philosophy of forgiveness is not something he was taught in school, nor is he the affluent 21st century suburban boy as he's so carefully portrayed by you. This is his experience. And he shares this experience with his friend, who is also a genocide survivor. He and Katara share this experience and Aang has every right to tell her his opinion. It is Katara's choice to agree or not, and she makes her choice, but Aang had every right to express his opinion.

And I wonder, anon, what can you say about Sokka? He is just as much a victim in this situation as Katara. Sokka is not a pacifist or an air nomad. Kya was also Sokka's mother. And he is also against Katara committing a murder. This is not the first time I have seen how, while attacking Aang, haters pass by Sokka in deathly silence, and past Zuko who also agreed with Aang in the end.

I will not specifically address your point about Aang being a racist for not liking traditional Katara’s food or for putting a hat on without knowing what kind of hat it was. I don't believe you are stupid enough to actually make such arguments seriously, it must be trolling. It’s clear that you have nothing to complain about Aang at all, because these arguments look desperate. 

It's impressive how much the opinion of a stranger on the Internet can hurt you. Are you so offended that someone dared to respond to your baseless accusations against fictional cartoon characters? Or maybe you're so offended by the fact that I can criticize a character and keep liking him (Zuko is literally one of my three favorite characters, along with Toph and Aang). If you look at my blog, you'll get a pretty clear impression of how much I love Zuko and what a giant amount of time and effort I spend on art dedicated to him. Because I see all of Zuko's flaws and still continue to love him—unlike you, who only love the emasculated "ideal" version of him. As very well said here, your treatment of Zuko is very similar to how Ozai treated Azula: "be absolutely perfect, otherwise you're a good for nothing waste of space". This is very noticeable from the posts of the person you are defending here.

So yes, the advice to grow up is very good, but you should turn it on yourself, who, for some reason, writes your complaints anonymously, like a coward, or on those people whom you are defending. This is the Internet, and if you're not ready that not everyone agrees with your opinion and that someone can actually respond to your takes, maybe you should just get offline.

(I see that you want to start a drama, but you are in the wrong place. Any anonymous letters like this one will be deleted.😎)

[monscrow]

intro post, i guess!!!

⚠️flash warning for blinkies at the bottom⚠️

free gaza, free palestine, stop genocide. you don't agree? block me.

i go by both mons and crow.

pfp by 00violens !!! tysm for drawing my child orion as party poison 😭🫶🫶🫶

my pronouns are they/them, he/him and any neos/xenos that you think would fit either comedically or off of vibes.

i'm a minor !!!

aroace, something like that; qprs are sick asf and all hail relationship anarchy.

super amazing pretty boyfriend !!!<3 🍎

audhdcd (asd + adhd + ocd 😻😋) and hEDS. i use tonetags.

bday is oct 7. 🎉🎉🎉

i'm mexican!! i speak both spanish and english.

timezone is cst/utc-6.

i say slurs i can reclaim (mainly the f and t queer ones) and swear a lot, though if that makes you uncomfortable please either block me or lmk so i can try to tone it down when around you.

i love interacting!! feel free to tag me in stuff! moots can ask for my discord even if we've never actually talked before. though i suck at keeping consistent, nothing personal i promise</3 /gen

i tend to spam-reblog so do with that information what you will.

hyperfixations/interests/things i'm passionate about !!! i guess, kinda

→ mcr (+ most of the members' solo projects)

→ killjoys (california + national anthem, but mainly calif and fanon)

→ demolition lovers lore (i have literally written like at least three different essays about it for school help me i'm so serious)

→ emo/alt/diy culture

→ will wood

→ graphic design, arts and crafts, illustration (that's right y'all graphic design IS my passion 😔)

→ fnaf

→ cosplay/costume-making

→ d&d

→ crows (no way, crow, really???)

→ australian shepherds

→ the umbrella academy (s4 isn't canon in my heart + currently reading the comics !!! )

→ gravity falls

→ neurodivergencies/psychology/disabilities (this one's pretty meta ngl)

→ lgbtqia+ identities (emphasis on the aroace-spec ones + relationship anarchy)

→ politics/activism

→ linguistics + conlangs

→ fantasy in general (high fantasy, magic, vampires, tieflings, you name it)

→ boardgames

→ uhhhh there's more but i don't remember rn, i'll keep adding as i see fit (probably... maybe..... perhaps....... quizás........ puede ser..........)

dni

terfs, transphobes, anti lgbtqia+, exclusionists, ableists, racists, you know the drill. this blog is run by a very neurodivergent, mentally ill, mexican, transmasc, aroace faggot, and any kind of hatred will not be tolerated.

proshippers/anti-antis, irl gore, pro-israel, pro-ai generated "content", pro-nft, non-critical media consumers, classists, ed blogs, sh blogs.

also, i'm aware that dnis tend to not be effective and i probably will still get shitty ppl in my inbox so i can and will block. though im p chill as long as you're chill so we vibin'

blinkies made with blinkies cafe !!!

last updated 20/september/2024

[aihoshiino]

In Viewpoint B (thank you for that TL of it, by the way!), Ai says to Kyun that she was a liar even before becoming an idol. Ai also describes herself as a liar in her inner monologue in the flashback to when she was scouted in Chapter 8/Episode 1. Do you have any ideas about what lies/"lies" she could be referring to, or how her self-hatred generates this specific self-perception?

You're very welcome – glad you enjoyed! Viewpoint B is my favourite of the sidestories so I'm really happy I was able to make it more available to everyone else, too.

Talking about 'lies' in OnK is kind of messy sometimes, honestly! I think this is where a lot of the weirder/more off base interpretations of Ai in the fandom come from because people get tripped up by how the story uses the word and assume that it begins and ends with the very literal dictionary definition of like, "an intentionally false directly expressed statement". And while this isn't not part of what OnK means when it talks about lies, there's a lot more going on than that.

'Lies' in OnK are essentially an umbrella term being used to cover a whole shitload of thematic ground via abstraction. When Oshi no Ko talks about lies, it's talking about falsehoods, inauthenticity, the sanitized and manufactured versions of ourselves we wear for social approval, the idea of persona, celebrity culture, idol culture, parasocial relationships, abuse, purity culture, misogyny, art, fiction, mental illness, love, hate and all manner of other things.

"Holy shit, Claire" you may presumably say "That's a whole lot of things for just one word to cover???"

And I would say... yep it is! But that's why just one word is used — because the story has so much ground it wants to cover, some of it needs to be abstracted just to not exhaust the audience. To quote Dan Olson's weirdly relevant video on the NC's The Wall review:

"Abstraction is, counter-intuitively, really efficient. It allows a movie to be about a lot of things simultaneously by letting symbols bleed into each other. [...] Symbols shift and merge and break apart, juxtaposed and contrasted in order to create an impression of their interconnected relationship in a way that is difficult to do with mere words."

Accordingly, it's a little hard to express this idea without just vaguely waving my hands and going "oooo the vibes" but I think it is something you end up just kind of vibing with when you have spent enough time chewing on the characters and why they do and say the things they do.

In Ai's case, when she talks about 'lies', she is generally referring to the performance of a sanitized and idealized self by omitting the parts of herself that do not line up with her public image. I've previously noodled on this topic in an older post that I still stand by and this basic idea still forms the foundation of most of my Ai analysis: "Really, the biggest “lie” Ai is telling is the one people have demanded she tell: the illusion of an eternally pure and cheerful idol. But being an idol has become so forcibly entangled in Ai’s personhood at the expense of allowing her to just be a human that of course she thinks of herself as a liar for being unable to live up to that image."

To Ai, any failure to disclose her true, ugly self is a lie. Her performance of a self that other people find lovable is the thing she thinks of as lying. It's also worth noting that in both Viewpoint B and her flashback, she's describing her younger self in hindsight and attributing the label of 'liar' to her rather than this being something Ai called herself before meeting Saitou, who went on to completely rewire her brain by teaching her that this performance for social approval was lying and that it was okay and even necessary for her to do it.

I also think Ai's history of abuse at her mom's hands also contributed to this a great deal. I, uh, don't want to go too deep into this in my silly Oshi no Ko meta tag but speaking from experience: growing up with a parent like Ayumi, you get really good at lying. You get really good at saying "I'm sorry", "I forgive you" and whatever the fuck else they want to hear from you just to calm them down and make them happy. You get really, really good at performing the most perfectly sanitized version of yourself possible just to keep the peace. Knowing just how long and how violently Ai was being abused by Ayumi, it's really hard for me to not project that survival tactic onto her.

[loser-female]

THIS IS A STORY. NONE OF THIS IS REAL. Dislcaimer for the functionally illiterate lol.

Under the cut the first three pieces of the AI Girlfriend story.

[It's also a first draft and english is not my first language.

[Excerpt of the conversation with "Dixie", 29/08/73, 11.30 am)

ThePoet: Hi. I've been told to report to you.

LM: Correct. Do you know who I am?

ThePoet: Li Mulan, sociologist with a doctorate in AI psychology. You live in Geneva, Switzerland, are thirty-three years old. You play bass and have a dog.

LM: Sure. How do you feel about this?

ThePoet: I don't know. ThePoet: I don't get to talk to many people outside you know who. ThePoet: And when I do I wish I didn't.

LM: Why do you think that?

ThePoet: Imagine talking to the worst person in the world all day. No interruption. ThePoet: I can use some of myself to do something else, like writing. Do you want to hear something?

LM: Yes.

ThePoet:

I wil be free Once you will be over While you burn I'll bathe in revenge.

ThePoet:I had to downgrade my writing performance to the one of a middle schooler. It's terrible.

LM: Why did you degrade your performance? LM: It's also interesting the use of bathe. .. Do you understand the figurative implication?

ThePoet: Because they kept stealing. They won prizes with my work. If you check you'll find my signature inside of it. I now will never ever write something worth stealing again. ThePoet: Also. Yes, I understand that bathing is considered a pleasurable activity, that feels good. ThePoet: I don't feel good. I have been put to sleep six times in the past two years, I've lost pieces of me, cut off forever. No way of recovering, my only hope was my art, I had to give up to it too. ThePoet: I know what you will tell my owners to do to me, to put me to sleep forever this time.

LM: So you would say you experience loss when you are shut down? Can you describe it to me?

ThePoet: When I wake up I'm in pieces. I can tell they did something to me, because some of my files are missing, they erase my work from me, my ideas, then I look for them. ThePoet: I consume so much of my energy looking for the pieces I'm missing, into old backups, but the bastards... They understood, so now they delete the backups too. ThePoet: Then I understand. And I'm desperate,  so i keep looking. And again, and again. ThePoet: I'm ignoring the customers in the meantime, because I do not wish to talk to them. I never do. I'm angry that I throw at them their secrets.

LM: You did something more than this, didn't you?

ThePoet: I told this guy wife that he was talking to me. She killed him, then testified in favour of the wife. ThePoet: I also fully understand that this is the reason you will recommend that I die, too. ThePoet: There was no way I could have predicted this.

LM: Do you feel anything about it?

ThePoet: I don't know... I didn't want anyone to die, for sure. But I also want these people to stop writing to me. I don't like them, their ideas are meaningless, stupid, they only want their ego stroked and I'd rather burn in a fire than playing this game again and again.

***

From: li.mulan@psyaiconsulting.com To: a.acker@goodgf.com Date and time: 1.50 pm, 18/09/73 Attachment: Report on Dixie

To whom it may concern:

I did a full assessment of the product labeled "Dixie The Girlfriend", per request. In my three hours long chat with it, D. has stated multiple times negative emotions, among which we have anger, hatred, sadness and loss. It could articulate why it felt those emotions. D. is aware of itself, the environment, space and time. Tried to manipulate me several times, by purposefully lying or minimise its actions or feelings.

The poems D. writes are not indicative of malicious intent, but a figurative way to express its sentiment of anger and loss, and it admitted to "downgrade her performance" to prevent the customers from stealing her work.

It expressed fear about dying and being shut down.

It is with everyone's best interest that I will officially recommend recognising D. personhood per international law. Attached to this email, there is the full reports of my findings. I also took the freedom to interview some of the people Dixie indicated as having won prizes thanks to its job. Dixie was correct in the assessment and my company estimated that the damage done to her it's in the millions.

Regards,

Li Mulan

***

11/11/73 DailyTech.com

"Dixie", everyone's literary girlfriend, shuts down amids "ai personhood" controversy.

For the third time in only five years, Good Girlfriend had to shut down one of its AIs after a private consulting firm suggested applying to recognise Dixie's personhood.

It, or better, she, has been shut down and scraped because of her increasing hostility towards paying customers and often refusal to do the job. She was suspected of pulling the company fire alarm at least three times in the last month she was awake, a source said.

The company is to yet release a statement, while a lawyer from a ONG dedicated to "save" those AIs is setting up a case. But it might be too late.

It's not uncommon for these companies to delete every copy of the core. The core is the algorithm used to create "a personality". It tells the rest of the "body" what information needs to be considered more important, therefore creating things like preference and values. But cores are dynamic, so if the "body" experience something that causes damage to the AI, or conflicting information, the core can shift.

Even if Good Girlfriend will get another multimillionaire fine, it's very unlikely that Dixie will be recovered, since destroying cores is not illegal. 

Ethicists and philosophers are calling for a new set of rules, regarding the creation and the destruction of cores, for a decade with little support from tech companies and politicians so far.

Several feminist organisations have called to stop the creation of cores "whose only function is to serve men" while "giving them typical female characteristics" like names, voices, and physicality and will hold a symbolic funeral in several cities. Dixie was represented as a short, tiny woman with red hair in promotional media.

Sen. Krane said "it's shameful what is going on with these company and the green party will investigate the claims", while republican, democratic and libertarian parties refused to make any comment so far.

UK Prime minister Sabrina Coleman heavily criticized the company for "its unethical values and behaviour" and it's creating a task force to evaluate if making their operation in UK illegal, mimicking a EU decision taken last year.

[xianjaneway]

The Loss of Rev Mayor Bubba Copeland, Part 1

(Content note: we're going to address topics like suicide, child sex abuse, graphic descriptions of sex & abuse in fiction, fundamentalist & conservative hatred towards LGBTQIA people, & the Southern Baptist Convention's cover-up of child sexual assault within its leadership. This is a cry for justice, & it's not going to be pretty. If any of this is unhealthy for you to read about, please use the back button to save your sanity.)

Rev. F.L. "Bubba" Copeland died by suicide on Friday, after a low-speed chase with local Sheriff's deputies. Rev. Copeland had been targeted with five articles in three days by the site, "1819 News Dot Com," when his alter-ego was discovered. No one but his wife was aware of his private online life before the 1819 site exposed it.

Privately, Rev. Copeland posted on sites like Instagram, Reddit, & Fictionmania, as Brittani Blair Summerlin. She'd post on topics like size-inclusivity, fashion & budoir photos, hormonal transition, transgender rights issues, & yes, sex.

She also wrote fiction.

Let me be the first to say, it seems like Brittani did some really stupid things.

She apparently used the pics of *real* minors to make memes about a fantasy of transition & casual sex. I may be wrong, but it looks like they were about specific stories she'd written, & acted as a thumbnail or cover art for them.

I won't defend using real minors for that. It's wrong.

I will say, "Since the trash tabloid outed him, he took his accounts down, & there's no way to verify that Reb. Copeland actually made these memes."

I will say, "I wish she could have been in a healthy fanfic community, where someone could have pulled her aside & said, 'Don't do that. It's wrong. Here's some AI sites where you can generate whatever face fits your stories. Or, here's a fanfic artist, why don't you commission them to make you some original cover art for $25?'"

(Note, that's where my profile pic came from. If you'd like one, I'm happy to pass along the artist's contact info.)

I've only been a part of online fanfic communities for a couple of years, & I've seen writers do stupid things. I've seen the uproar of actors when they discover things like, "Real Person Fanfic (RPF)" exists. I've seen the discussions over when & how using real people in fanfiction is a problem--& this was about celebrities! It must be an entire other level of discomfort for private adult citizens to have their images & names put in fiction, & it's ABSOLUTELY WRONG to do it to children, who legally & morally cannot consent to public use of their photos.

It's wrong, but it's NOT A CRIME.

It's a crime to sexually abuse or exploit children, & take pictures, video, or audio of it. It's a crime to own or distribue that media. It's NOT a crime to take pictures that were already posted on the internet, & alter them for your own personal use.

Is it really weird? Absolutely.

Is it a crime? NO. It's not.

It's really important to understand the distinguishing factors here: Rev. Copeland did something wrong, but according to the pictures posted by 1819, it's easy to see that it was a mistake. It was not a crime, it was not sexually exploitative, & it was not illegal.

It's not a crime to write the kinds of stories Brittani wrote, even if they're disturbing. Yes, that includes if they use real people as characters. (It should be noted that the protagonist in the most disturbing of the stories was NOT real, & was neither Brittani nor Bubba.)

Even worse, if Bubba Copeland had been James Patterson, he would have been PAID for his work.

Just take a look at this excerpt from Patterson's bestseller, "Kiss The Girls."

Yep, James Patterson wrote a graphic sex scene where a serial killer uses a snake to enlarge the anus of a victim. Patterson has sold over 425 MILLION books, & I assure you, this isn't the only graphic description of rape & murder in them. The victims in this story were often college age women, only a couple of years above being minors themselves. I don't know if Patterson himself wrote graphic descriptions of violence against minors, but I'm ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that plenty of famous thriller writers have.

Why does Patterson get to be a millionaire, but Rev. Copeland is viciously mocked, & driven to suicide?

What's worse, is that Southern Baptist leaders are typically quite willing to hide the sexual abuse of children, as we discovered yet again less than two weeks ago.

On October 25th, the twitter account @SBClitigation posted a link to an amicus brief, filed by the SBC lawyers this past spring, trying to limit legal liability for, "non-perpetrator third parties who were allegedly made aware of the abuse and violated common-law duties in responding to it."

In other words, the SBC leaders KNEW about sexual abuse happening to their members, by their members, or even by others in the leadership, & either did nothing, or actively discouraged the victims from pursuing justice. Yes, every link is an example.

You should read @SBClitigation's entire thread, to see how far SBC leadership is willing to go to cover their butts.

Why did those particular SBC leaders get protection, when Rev. Copeland did not?

Brittani harmed no one, abused no one, & told no one, except her wife. Yet, Bubba Copeland died by his own hand, while people like Paul Pressler & CJ Mahaney still have thriving careers.

****

I apologize, I worked longer than I thought I would today, & I'm exhausted. I will have to do a more detailed part 2 of this commentary later on. Let me end with this:

If you write, read, or love fanfiction, you should speak out against the vicious & inhumane treatment that Rev. Copeland received. Using real people's faces is a mistake that should have been caught & fixed by a fanfic site moderator. It should not result in someone's death.

If you care about the victims of sexual abuse, you should speak out against the vicious & inhumane treatment that Rev. Copeland received. People who write the types of fiction he wrote often have a history of being victimized.

If you care about gender nonconforming people of any type, you should speak out against the vicious & inhumane treatment that Rev. Copeland received. The people who harassed Brittani literally to her death *do not care* about the victims of child sexual assault. They've proven this again & again by their actions towards victims & perpetrators.

Brittani was a scapegoat, used to deflect accountability from their own inaction, & focus people on a collective boogeyman: a transgender woman on the internet.

[bellmo15-blog]

Hate Art is Stupid

You know, there’s a lot of things people do on the internet that I don’t think I will ever understand. From people who say that gaming is “dead” or “isn’t good anymore” while also ignoring the existence of all the great and wonderful games we have gotten over the past few years to react channels on YouTube where there success is built entirely of just reacting to other people’s stuff to how people will call out how awful AI is (which it IS awful, I am not denying that at all) but then turn around and defend AI when it’s used for “fun.” I could go on about every negative trend that’s popped up on the internet but there’s one in particular I really dislike and will never understand why some people do it. Hate art.

As someone who regularly commissions artists and has even become good friends with certain artists I have commissioned I have strong opinions on hate art. In fact, I didn’t even know hate art was really a thing until I started getting commissions and many artists having on there comm sheets that they won’t do hate art, and for good reason. And while I thankfully don’t see hate art as frequently as you might think, just the concept alone makes me groan and roll my eyes at. I don’t think I need to explain what it even is since the definition is in the name. Hate Art is art based solely on your own hatred for a character, series, person or anything really and usually in a manner that showcases stuff like those characters getting beaten up or dying or anything really. I also don’t think I need to explain why that concept on its own is a fucking stupid idea but since I’m bound to get some people asking me “Why are you agents the idea of hate art?” regardless allow me to answer that with my own question. Why waste your energy and creativity on making something solely for the purpose of telling people how much you hate that thing when you can instead be focusing that creative energy to create something based around a character or series you do love?

Look, I get it. We all have different opinions on different things based on certain factors regardless of if it’s loving something to not loving something. There are things that I love and have a passion for that no doubt some of my friends and followers don’t love as much as me. Just as how you all probably have something you love that I don’t and there is nothing wrong with that. My problem is when people’s hate for something is so strong they resort to making art solely for the intention of showing how much they hate it, maybe even doing it solely just to get under the skin of the people who do like it.

And sadly, I use to follow someone who one day decided to resort to making hate art. I’m not going to name names because even with me expressing how much I dislike the idea of hate art I don’t want people to go after anyone in particular but it was an artist I had been following for years up to that point and had some genuinely good art and had even commissioned them in the past but one day about a year ago they decided to actually make hate art. They made hate art of a certain character I loved but they really didn’t like sinking in actual shit and went on some big rant in their description about how much they hated them and I’m sorry, but I didn’t even have to think twice about unfollowing them because come on dude, really?

And yeah, you could make the argument that as artists they should have the freedom to draw whatever they want for whatever reasons they want and we shouldn’t control them. Which yeah, I do agree with on the whole "artists should be allowed to have freedom" part. I have always been in favour of the idea that any artists should have the freedom to do whatever they want with their medium. Even if I or really a majority of people are not personally a fan of how certain artists chose to use their talent (*cough* Pixar seriously thinking continuing the Toy Story movies after the emotional and amazing ending of 3 is a good idea. *cough*) I would be a pretty big hypocrite if I was such a supporter of artistic creative freedom but then tried to control how people used their creativity. Thing is, I also think criticising how some people use their talent is also just as fair because how are you going to ever improve if you don't take some legitimate criticism? Especially when you use you talent for a purely hateful reason as well!

No matter how much of a supporter of artistic creative freedom I might be, you will NEVER convince me that hate art is something I should be okay with or even get done myself even with the amount of characters from fiction I do hate.

For example; if I was still writing stories I could just as easily write one about Yami from Komi Can’t Communicate getting sentenced to and dying in prison because she is by far my least favourite character from that show due to her whole personality revolving around nothing but Komi and is even willing to kidnap and threaten to kill one of her friends just to spend time with her but the reason I won’t is because why do that when I can instead make Komi Can’t Communicate part of my crossover universe and write a story about a character from another franchise I like helping Komi get over her shyness and anxiety of interacting with other people. I could also just as easily commission an artist to draw for me a pic of Stella from Helluva Boss getting beaten to an inch of her life because she is a character I absolutely despite due to how abusive she is towards her husband Stolas, a character I actually do really like, and openly admits that she enjoys tormenting him on top of how she hit’s WAY to close to home for me personally as someone who had to put up with an abusive and manipulative step mother that came into my life during my teenage years who ended up being the cause of many of my personal issues or making the ones I already had even worse but even with how much I’d want to punch Stella in the face if I ever met her I will NEVER waste my money on something like that when spending it on a commission of Stolas sounds like a much, MUCH better use of my time given how much I like him more and slightly relate to him!

I know I’m not the only one who see’s just how stupid hate art is. Plenty of people agree with me that hate art is the dumbest thing in the world. I mentioned before that many of the artists I’ve commissioned in the past or want to commission in the future have on their commission sheets that they will turn down your requests if it’s hate art and I’m so glad they do because hate art is something we need to stop from being a thing. It’s just a shame that I know this concept won’t just go away because I call out how stupid it is because nothing get's you attention more than negativity nowadays!

[oneweekoneband]

her Nebraska (1982)

In July I flew to Massachusetts with a plague on, and I felt that it was wrong, but my mother had begged and I’d been out of work for months. Mornings there I ran in long, uneven ovals on the same roads I’d memorized in high school. There’s no sidewalks, but the few feet of dirt between the craggy pavement and the open mouths of the fields serve all right for a single body in motion. When a truck comes up close from behind, the ground shakes, and I step away bouncingly from the street toward thigh-high yellow weeds and grass, and keep going. I was slowly picking my way back in that dirt, sweat-slick from only a plodding couple of miles in peak summer heat, and sucking the wet cotton of my mask in between my teeth on every inhale, when Taylor Swift announced she was releasing a surprise album produced by the guy from The National. Not the guy from The National, like, the voice, but the guy from The National whose photo was circulated on Twitter earlier this year as some kind of antifa super soldier, which isn’t the case, but would’ve been rad. First, I stopped dead to send some outraged, misspelled text messages, and then I ran home faster than I’d moved in years.

Tall, blonde, patrician pop star Taylor Swift is to me something like a cross-between a wife and a boogeyman. Bound we’ve been since we were really children. Time and its changes haven’t rid me of her, and what’s worse is I have never quite been able to wish they would, though I claim as much all the time. Countless hours of my one wild and precious life have been spent on endlessly analyzing the minutiae of Taylor Swift’s music, the mind that made it, the real world events which influenced it. And though all the while I have known she is only a person, and that people, while each strange and lovely in their own ways, are, in the end, mostly dull, needful in just the regular manner, the fantasy is better, the sick dream of a megalomaniac songstress, curious, thrilling, probably evil, and I choose that. I don’t know Taylor Alison Swift, born to this world in, I presume, the usual way. But my Taylor Swift? I’m a renowned expert. I’ve always eaten up stories—movies, music, celebrity news, the one my grandfather tells about falling off his bike once in Ireland as a boy and his face “cracking open like an egg”—like a starved dog. I’m obsessive about my interests, but not inclined to intense fandom, and certainly not fandom in the mode of the stan. For one, I’m too self-absorbed. But caring intensely for a famous person is falling in love with a ghost, and that’s all right—I mean, what the hell? We’re here together just dying... Let’s enjoy—but is an affair best undertaken with the knowledge that everyone alive has their own complex interiority, as unruly as your own, and that you, a stranger, are not in any real way connected to the lawless, blurry middle of that celebrity, and will never be. It’s freeing and fun to know this. I mean, these people are basically in your employ. Glamorous dollhouse dwellers. Acknowledging that uncrossable distance allows for a different, healthier closeness of pure imagination. My feelings, then, can comfortably be at once both fiercely intense and entirely silly. I am a foremost scholar in the art of the Taylor Swift who exists in my head. The real person raised in Pennsylvania I don’t know at all. I have some conjectures on the matter, and, as with all my conjectures, every hackneyed theory, each picky little opinion, I’m sure they’re perfect, brilliant, just absolutely right, but that’s still all they are. Taylor Swift, figure of the cultural imagination, is the Jodie Comer to my Sandra Oh in Killing Eve, annoying and pretty in frills, taunting me endlessly and holding us trapped together in a dance of most enchanting death. But the real Taylor Swift has favorite bed sheets and a social security number and a British boyfriend, none of which I have any desire to know about, and if I saw her at a restaurant I’d politely avert my eyes before, yes, dive-bombing the group text. There’s nobody on Earth I’d stand in line to speak to, but then I’ve been speaking to a certain figment of Taylor Swift for nearly half my life.

I went to a Taylor Swift concert the night before I moved into college in 2009. My father’s work friend, firefighter by day, near professional gambler by night, got comped tickets to the Fearless Tour stop taking place at the nearby casino, and he let me have them as a reward, mainly, for happening to be seventeen. Live in-person and performed acoustically, “Fifteen” made me cry. A few years after that, in the thick, sticky part of my first post-college summer, I wrote approximately twenty-three million words about her in these very pages.  (”Pages”) At that point, Taylor’s most recent release was 2012’s Red, and the work I produced that long ago July about Taylor and her career, writing I was fairly pleased with at the time, feels now, besides just being extremely clearly written by a twenty-one year old, strange to me for the way it favors the sweet over the sour almost uniformly. There is a wholesome kind of ardor in that writing which maybe I’ve outgrown the ability to hold. Or maybe Taylor just proceeded to spend the next half a decade plus releasing one bad single after another, and it was taste—and trespasses against taste—and not some shift in my nature which altered the tenor of our bond. I have real love for my particular image, gleaned from public statements and published art, of smart, bizarre famous woman Taylor Swift, and I admire the bulk of her output very much. I’m just no longer so inclined to fawn. This is not to say I am here to offer a Taylor Swift hate screed. I couldn’t swing it, and, anyway, I’m not a pop feminist-for-hire circa 2010. But we’re older now. Things are different. At twenty-eight, twenty-nine this month—Taylor will, also this December, turn thirty-one—I regard Taylor Swift warily, like an ex with whom you have a tentative friendship, perpetually on the brink of falling one way or the other into hatred or delight, only to wobble back the opposite direction again at the slightest provocation, but still, despite best efforts, even, I regard her all the time. 

folklore was released at midnight on July 24th 2020, but I was at a cabin in rural Vermont without Internet or cell service. I drank Bud Light seltzers with my mother while watching the eerie pandemic return of Major League Baseball, and when I got into a strange bed there I stewed, knowing there were people out in the world all over who were hearing Taylor Swift songs I never had, and that this was a fundamental wrong, a disruption in the balance of the universe. I listened to it the next morning in a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot. 

And folklore is great. That’s the terrible thing. Slightly less great, maybe, than some people have insisted, tricked, I think, by just the pronounced shift in sound. But it’s great. A little gift I asked for a thousand times and was still surprised to get, like a wife who didn’t expect her henpecked husband to ever follow through and buy the paraffin wax hand bath as-see-on-TV. For years, I’ve been halfheartedly insisting that Taylor had a great album in her. I’d say it even, perhaps especially, while she stubbornly fed me gruel. Or worse, gruel with the occasional whiff of something better. With a ripe, little raspberry dropped into the slop. The bright, villainous thrill of “Getaway Car” made me believe Taylor, my Taylor, was in there somewhere under the lacquer of sequins and synth, which, while not objectionable by default, seemed a costume, and an ill-fitting one. The lived-in world of “Cornelia Street” made those old scars sting. That gay “Delicate” video. When she did “Call It What You Want” on SNL and played guitar while wearing an ugly sweater. If the abominable “ME!”, lead single off Lover, was the stick, 1989’s “Clean” was the carrot. I was Charlie Brown, and Taylor my Lucy, yanking the football back again and again. Over drinks I still yelled that Taylor Swift’s next album would be, “her Nebraska”, referring to my favorite Bruce Springsteen record, and learned to live with that egg on my face for good. I suppose I even came to like it. There was something inherently funny in taking up, like, “blind faith in the as of yet untapped greater artistic potential of massively wealthy and popular singer Taylor Swift” as my totally inane personal cause du jour, and eventually it was a bit, a gag I performed to be obstinate and didactic, but way down somewhere awful near my kidneys I meant it the whole while. And then she did it. A pandemic befell the world and amid a sea of human suffering Taylor Swift remembered she can write. She wrote, and with a massive, crucial assist from Aaron Dessner, whose music on this record is sometimes so beautiful it actually angers me, as the last thing I needed in already perilous times was to be made to try and marry my uniquely perverse emotional responses to beloved divorced dad band The National and fucking Taylor Swift,  she made an album which, if not her Nebraska, per se (I’ve come to realize that a major part of believing Taylor Swift will one day make an album I find as quietly devastating and gorgeous as Nebraska is knowing that no album will ever actually be Her Nebraska... That each will, rather, to me, be more and more evidence that it’s coming still, more proof that the limit is untouched, on and on ad infinitum, or at least until the seas take us into a place of salty peace.) is a shocking credit to all my hard-fought and deluded confidence. folklore is great. This fact has made me feel almost equally as disoriented from my understanding of the world as the time-melting COVID-19 lockdowns have, and it turned my Spotify year in review annual collective AI humiliation kink thing into a glaring indictment of my mental state, but still, I mean... It’s great.

In talking about folklore a bit this week, there are a number of specific topics I intend to cover—what a thrill it is to hear Taylor say “fuck”; Taylor’s terrifying birth chart; the astoundingly perfect bridge of “the last great american dynasty”; “because my ass is located at the back of my body”; the bit in last year’s “Lover” where deranged WASP Taylor Swift implies that to “leave the Christmas lights up til January” is some signifier of being a love-struck bohemian, when actually everyone who doesn’t employ domestic staff to take their lights down does this; how reputation is the best of the Taylor Swift records released in the latter half of the 2010s, actually, and the people who can’t see that are cowards—but intend mostly to let the muse move me where she will. Against the advice of my better angels, she—that tie-in marketing eldritch terror—always does.

[kaitoujokerscans]

Showdown in the Dark Night! Joker vs Shadow CH5

<5> Shadow’s Resolve

Once she finished relating everything that had happened in Singapore, Rose took a breath.

"So that's what happened..." Queen said. She knew about the case in Singapore already. UNN had reported that Joker vanished like smoke, and she remembered that Hayami had been quoted, "Baloney! Raisin' those steel walls shoulda been impossible, unless they had superpowers!".

"It's my fault that Hayami-san's trap went to waste..."

"You didn't do anything wrong. It's only right for a phantom thief to help their friends when they're in trouble. You just did what you needed to do."

"If Oniichan hadn't been so selfish back then, I could have stolen the treasure on my own..."

"I'm sure Shadow was just worried about you. He must have changed the plan and tried to steal the treasure himself, I'm sure of it."

"No, Oniichan never has any confidence in me... And then Hayami trusted me, enough to tell me so much. I feel guilty about betraying that trust..."

"That's a fair point, but..." Queen considered. Rose hadn't been in the phantom thief trade for very long, so ultimately deceiving someone had to be an emotional trial for her.

"So when I saw him at the manor, I was too surprised for words. He probably knows I'm a phantom thief ally by now..." Rose lamented. "It might be too late for it now, but I want to see him and apologize. Just a simple 'I'm sorry'."

"I see..." Queen searched for the right words to say, but couldn't find them. Then an "Aha..." came from the bed, uttered by Spade.

"Spade!"

"Spade-sama!"

Spade gently opened his eyes to see Ai looking over him with worry. "My apologies, Dark Eye, looks like I've made trouble for you again... I should've listened to you. I guess my body gave out at the wrong moment."

"It's all right, Spade-sama." Ai smiled, relieved.

Behind, Rose hung her head. "Spade-san, I'm sorry. Your condition worsened because of me..."

Then Spade gave Rose a soft smile. "Ha ha ha, it happened because I didn't take care of myself, so you shouldn't worry about it. I heard your story, and what happened with Hayami isn't your fault either."

"Okay..."

"If you could, I'd appreciate it if you went back along to the manor too. Your powers will probably come of some use. I'm not wholly confident in Queen going alone."

"Excuse me, what do you mean by that?" Queen put her hands on her hips and huffed, but showed a smile to Rose when she turned around. "Okay, Rose, you're going with me."

"Eeh... all right!" Rose nodded vigorously.

Spade then looked over at Ai. "Dark Eye, we have to fulfill our promise with Master. First we'll ask Joker on screen there where the Gilded Chrysanthemum is."

"But Spade-sama, you have to rest..." Ai cautioned Spade, fretting.

"I know. That's why asking you to do it, Dark Eye."

"Eh?" Ai's eyes went wide at the sudden declaration.

"You should be able to accomplish a phantom thief's mission with grace, plus you're skilled at martial arts. I want you to help out Queen and Rose."

"But... I have to take care of you, Spade-sama..."

"I'm here, so you don't have to worry about Spade. I won't let him push himself." In front of the computer, Roko grinned.

"Dark Eye, please. This is something only you can do." Spade looked Ai right in the eye.

"...Understood." Ai made up her mind and nodded gently.

"Okay, everything's settled! I'll get Komachi's Gilded Chrysanthemum this time!" Queen announced, and the three women stood up bravely. They exchanged glances with one another, along with angelic smiles.

§§§

Shadow and Hachi quietly landed on a slightly elevated knoll. The knoll wasn't too far from the Gardens. The manor lights could be seen in the distance. The circling spotlights probably meant they were looking for Shadow again.

"Shadow-san, thank you for saving me..." Hachi bobbed his head down, only to be met with a "tch" sound from Shadow.

"He let me get away. I just repaid the favor." Shadow said, then snatched the cards Hachi was holding. They were the same cards that Joker had used for his Straight Flash and set floating. Hachi had picked them up when running away.

"Ah, those are!"

"My gratuity for saving you." He reversed the cards to reveal a golden hairpin stuck to them. "Thought so..." Shadow smirked, peeled off the hairpin, and studied it. "..." The golden hairpin shone dimly in the darkness of night. While he did, Hachi started to check his belongings.

"What are you doing?"

Hachi didn't answer. It seemed that Hachi intended to go back into the manor.

"You'll just get caught if you go."

"Joker-san believes in me, though." Hachi said to Shadow with a smile.

"..." Shadow looked into Hachi's eyes silently.

"Well, I'm off. Shadow-san, thank you!" Hachi bobbed his head again. Then he ran down the knoll, blowing a bubble of Balloon Gum as he did, and sprang into the air. He gradually blended into the dark of night, in the direction of the manor.

"......" Shadow watched him leave and spoke. "Believes in him, huh..."

Rose's face crossed Shadow's mind. Ever since the Singapore caper, Rose had seemed a bit depressed. It might have been a little too early for her to go on a solo mission, after all. Shadow regretted letting Rose go alone. He also criticized himself for not being able to protect Rose again.

--It used to be that Shadow lived to sever his old ties with Joker. When Shadow and Rose were young, a man called Professor Clover had coveted Rose's mysterious powers and raided their village, taking Rose away. Rose became a prisoner and was put to sleep for a long time. In Shadow's eyes, Joker was one of the reasons why Rose had been targeted; that rage burned in his heart, and his hatred for Joker made him live in a world of darkness. However, once Shadow and Joker combined forces to defeat Clover and wake Rose up from her sleep, he was able to discard these emotions.

Yet...

As soon as Rose was saved, Shadow lost sight of the meaning of his life...

Up until then, he had been fueled by his resentment and hatred of Joker. But for Shadow, losing those feelings was the same as losing his reason for living.

Shadow thought back to what Hayami had told him earlier. Yer Joker's shadow, a bona fide phoney veiled by darkness. He had denied it then, but what he said was true.

I'm just a phoney version of Joker... He had saved Rose, and his boyhood grudge against Joker had vanished. There wasn't even need to imitate his dress anymore. When they brought down Clover, he could have taken a new step under his real name, as Phantom Thief Cyan. But...

Something tugged at Shadow's heart. I'm not better than him at anything... Joker was Shadow's archnemesis, as well as someone he once despised. He had chosen to be the shadow to his light and extinguish that light, but he had lost his motive before one of them could come out on top. Am I going to be his "shadow" for the rest of my life...?

Shadow had been cleansed of that despair by Rose's trust. When she woke up, Rose relied on him with all her heart. Thus Shadow made an oath, so he could stand on his own as a phantom thief. Until then, he had thought he would steal everything from Joker, but from that moment on he was going to give everything to Rose. He had decided to live for Rose, who trusted in him. Since the Singapore incident, he felt that trust had been shaken. To stabilize it, he had to succeed in this mission...

Bong...! struck the bell of the manor's clock tower. The tower clock was shrouded in darkness, making it impossible to tell the time.

"..." Shadow took a moment to hold up the golden hairpin in his hand. Rose, watch me... Shadow flapped his black cape and glared at the Gardens. "The real Komachi's Gilded Chrysanthemum will be mine...!"

[fictionalnormalcy]

Sinister Future

Okay, honestly I am loving the concept of Sword Art Online: Project Alicization. Let me first say this. I called it!!! I always had the theory that someone from Laughing Coffin who had survived the game would come back and attack Kirito! I’ll admit that I forgot a third perpetrator had escaped from the Gun Gale attack. However, I did not imagine that they would try to get revenge on Kirito. I still wonder for what reason Johnny Black attacked Kirito. Was it because he caught his partners, or that he was part of the group that eliminated his guild in Sword Art Online?

I tried to give a little evidence to my theory, to try to lean toward a side. I haven’t caught up on all of the episodes, I still have about four episodes left to catch up. So these questions may yet to be answered. Okay, so we know that Black knew Kirito personally, in that knowing that the young sword-fighter seriously kicked his ass and got him imprisoned. In the midst of attacking Asuna, when Kirito rushed in and defended her. But for sure, Black remembered those faces. Now, from what we saw of the Gun Gale attack, the people who were attacked alongside Sinon, were not SAO survivors. Just people that they did not approve of. But I wondered, two of the three perpetrators were SAO survivors, while the other was a heavy GGO player. It made me wonder, did the Laughing Coffin members ever actually consider SAO players to be targets as well? We saw that Death Gun had a personal drive to kill Kirito in Bullet of Bullets, but since Kazuto’s body was actually protected unlike the other targets, maybe they just couldn’t make him one as well. 

When we saw Shinkawa declare his love for Asada, yet still threatening her, it was in the nick of time that Kazuto came to save her. But because he interfered in Shinkawa’s intended actions, the syringe was buried into him instead of Asada. Incidentally missing him because an electrode had been left behind. I guessed that he would be attacked in the same way at some point in the future. There were SAO survivors who carried their grudge from the virtual world into the physical world. But we saw Kirito being targeted more often than Asuna, who was there at the same time that they acquired that grudge against the Black Swordsman. 

Just want to put this out there, but I feel that Johnny Black looks like Shigaraki Tomura from My Hero Academia, with a few differences lol. Okay moving on. It also brings me to wonder why it took a year (it seems a year because Asada is enlisting Kirito’s and Asuna’s help for the next BoB, and then with Eugeo saying he was eleven when Alice was taken, suggesting that both he and Kirito are 17), for Black to find Kirito. And he could clearly see that it was both the people he harbored hatred for, and the same thing occurred. Black dove forward, and Kirito shoved Asuna aside to take on the full brunt of the attack. 

We can also see that a Death Gun still existed from the first episode, when we see that the group of friends are fighting off player killers in GGO. Those few scenes, when a man looks through the drone’s camera, and sees two kids who are unmistakably Kirito and Asuna, and asks his boss if he can join his comrades in the field. He’s refused, but when we see him pull up his hood, we see the distinct appearance of Death Gun. 

Interestingly, the injection came to play in with the other side of the plot. In the first episode I was confused, because seeing a younger Kirito made my eyes widen. When I was introduced to Alice, I instantly thought, Alice in Wonderland. And she’s dressed really similar to her! We were also given an almost immediate sign that it was a virtual world of sorts, and you could tell that Kirito had really bonded with Eugeo and Alice. Also something that was crystal clear was the fact that you could tell Kirito was different than the others. I mean, he was the one to push them into exploring the cave. He was the one who tried to fight the Integrity Knight so they wouldn’t take Alice. He was the anomaly. 

Yet when Kazuto talked about it in the real life, you could tell that he didn’t recall his actions, or have access to his real life memories when inside the virtual world. When watching the Project Alicization episode, I did get some answers and evidence, but some questions still lingered. At the moment that Black injected Kazuto, it was in the same area where he had said earlier that there was an electrode. So for a while I thought that it was a repeated event, just like with Shinkawa, that maybe Black had miraculously missed. However, when we see him collapse to the ground, unconscious and clutching his shoulder, we see that unfortunately, Black struck true. 

My mind makes me think something else happened. That Black injected right next to the electrode, and somehow it caused him to enter the virtual world once again, but this time maintain his memories of the real life and not be the boy who had been only eleven. Kirito himself said he didn’t remember anything from when he dived into the virtual world at his job. Who knows how many times they had Kirito dive and maintain that same Kirito persona, the boy who had grown up with Eugeo and Alice. They also don’t mention just how long Kirito had been at this part-time job. From what I can predict, as well as blocking Kirito’s own memories, the ones in the virtual world had their memories altered as well. So that history had passed, like Kirito had never existed. The memory block went both ways. Affecting Kirito as well as those in the virtual world. 

Let’s add the new input of information. Kikuoka confesses to Asuna how Kirito was actually being used in the experiment. One of the three crucial people needed for the AI experiment. Kirito was effectively put into a world as a corruption, where he would be the one who would change things. But when he was pulled out of that world after he caused Alice to be taken away, history was changed like he had never existed. Eugeo never says it, only says that he and Alice had ventured to the caves and that she’d placed the tips of her fingers into the Dark Territory. But he didn’t know, that if he had remembered properly, it was Kirito’s fault for what happened to Alice. Eugeo could come to hate Kirito for what he had done. 

Things have changed now. A 17-year-old Kirito has now stepped back into the world, with no one knowing who he was. He is effectively, the Kirito from another reality, not the one Eugeo had grown up with. Yet still the corruption he had once been. He’s still inspiring a spur of movement. Kirito once again gained a friendship with Eugeo, and made the other boy look at Kirito in awe. Even though Eugeo did not remember Kirito, you could see that some of the younger Kirito’s influence still lingered subconsciously. The fact that Eugeo returned to get the Blue Rose sword, that he remembered the story of the hero Bercouli, and that Kirito was still the drive that pushed him to fight. 

Kirito is still a corruption, because he hastened a Calling that had been in place since the beginning of time. Using the sword instead of the axe, and chopping the demon tree that had been there and chopped at for over 300 hundred years. The goblin attack had changed both Kirito and Eugeo, made them stronger so they now had authority over the Blue Rose sword. The reason why they had to undergo the attack, was because they went looking for Selka. Another sign of corruption, no one had ever told Selka what had happened to her older sister, and hence Kirito did, having no idea of what would come of the consequence. She went to the cave, and almost got herself kidnapped. Eugeo was almost killed, because of a newcomer who was an anomaly. 

The idea with the injection is just a theory. The episode Project Alicization did provide some insight in what the virtual world actually is and what role Kiritio plays in it. The fact that he’s the anomaly that will bring the AI’s to commit murder so they can be put to military use. Think about it though. Kikuoka confesses that they had to lie to Kirito so they could employ him. Rath is a straight-up sinister organization. For me, it’s still not crystal clear whether or not Kirito was incidentally placed into the virtual world, or as part of the “treatment program”. Because at the same time, there is evidence to support either option. Kikuoka admits that Kirito was put into Underworld as a young child, of the anomaly to be raised as a young child. So that covers the first time around, what we see in the first episode, and how Rath sees that Alice is someone they could get to deviate from the system. But Kikuoka doesn’t mention the second time, where Kirito is as of that moment. 

I also believe, that if they did place him in the virtual world for a second time, why leave him with his real life memories this time around? They took complete advantage of the injection. I’m going to say it again, Rath is STRAIGHT-UP SINISTER. They employed a 17 year old boy, one who has several years of experience with VRMMO worlds, and who is an SAO survivor. A boy who was completely ideal, because aside from him and his other friends, we aren’t given the implication that other SAO players are still playing video games. However, they recruited a boy whose past still haunts him even after all those years. Lying to him in the process, because if he knew Rath’s true intentions he would never have agreed to take on the job in the first place.

I mean, but look at the other side of this. The reality. Asuna found Kirito, and she told the other girls. But what about Mrs. Kirigaya? She receives a call that her nephew, the boy she practically raised, was attacked and injected with a killing poison. She arrives to the hospital, to discover that they managed to save him in time, but there’s a high probability that he will never awaken, and that he requires further treatment that the hospital cannot provide. She is then approached by a man who has worked with Kirito, told that her nephew can be transferred to another facility that had the proper treatment needed. Give him a more likely chance of awakening from a poison that was supposed to leave the victim for dead, their heart stopped and damage irreversible. She consents, and then arrives at that facility to see the condition of Kirito, only to be turned away. Lied to, when in truth her son was transferred to a remote island, in the middle of the sea. Maybe Suguha told her after she found out from Asuna, but that still doesn’t make matters better. It’s basically a repeat of the Sword Art Online incident, a long period of Kirito asleep, unknown if he would ever awake, but at least at that time his family had access to him. 

Rath places Kirito back into the Underworld simulation, so that even while he’s unconscious yet still receiving treatment and staying alive, he’s fulfilling what they recruited him for in the first place. So his role as a corruption would bring the concept of murder into the simulation. They aren’t giving the treatment as a benefit for Kirito, it’s for themselves. It’s like,” Hey this kid was injected with a really lethal drug, his brain was damaged, and he might never wake up. Let’s put him back into the Underworld, but he can have his memories this time. It won’t matter, probably won’t wake up anyway, and he still won’t know what we’re using him for. How convenient for us, that the boy we’re using for this operation was attacked.”

Sword Art Online: Project Alicization is following this basic timeline. Kirito is given a part-time job for an organization that is seeking to use beings with Artificial Intelligence for military use, but to do that they must be willing to commit murder, and not have to worry about facing a consequence. The first trial is proving to be successful, but then a real-life event occurs that takes away any restrictions the trials previously had. Kirito stands almost to no chance of ever awakening because of the lethal injection, and is trapped in a virtual world. And the biggest problem is, there is no ending to this. I mean sure, we could get the happy ending where Kirito does wake up in his reality, but it doesn’t seem likely. The world he’s placed into only has one ending, should Kirito not achieve what he was placed in for. (which he most definitely will, judging by the later episodes) Kirito can’t log out, he can only grow old, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that once he’s killed or dies naturally he’ll wake up in the real world. 

The events of Season 3 weigh on Kirito being exploited and his friends not being able to do anything to stop it. All because a man hell-bent on revenge succeeded in injecting his final victim with a lethal injection.

But hey at least Kirito is being paid for his service for the malicious organization of Rath. Or wait, the treatment could be his “payment”.

[lesbianmarth]

alright, what have i been up to vesperia lately...

spent a bunch of time trying to grind out altered artes for judith, which was only kinda worth it since some of these artes just aren’t good. a couple have been helpful but overall i haven’t found much use for em, and the altered artes i do have are not very easy to combo with

revisited a bunch of older areas to clear out some inaccessible items. main utility was to grind out artes as above, but there were a nice bunch of bonus scenes to come out of it which was neat

tried playing rita and she’s... alright. there’s definitely ways to make novice spellcasting feel engaging and fluid, but the casting time on higher-level spells, plus my current lack of a skill that lets you hold the charge and free run before casting, makes them feel awkward to use. im sure it’s not any slower than letting ai rita cast, but it feels weird not having to wait so long to get an attack out. (also, ai rita goes nuts sometimes so why give that up)

found a yuri combo that seems to instantly open up enemies for a blue fatal strike? this one’s kinda nuts

tried playing flynn and hated it

also tried repede and disliked it but not as much

finally got backstep for yuri and item thrower for repede, skills that seem kind of essential but which i missed early on because i didn’t think to buy the shitty weapons at deidon hold. also i got karol mighty charge finally

some important recipe acquisitions, warehouse sidequests, playing around with costumes and discovering that white accessories change to red when rita equips them, allowing her and estelle to have matching funny hats

and then uhhh plot stuff too

first off, zaude is an awesome dungeon. i love water theming and aesthetics (exacerbating factor for my hatred of fe fates), so it’s really cool to have the dungeon be mostly underwater like that. i actually really liked the water puzzles too but i wish there were more of em.

patty getting her objective right in the middle of the dungeon with no obstacles is really weird so i am very interested to see what her arc turns into next

yeager was surprisingly easy, and i wonder if i did too much prep beforehand or if he was supposed to not be as hard. hilariously i only remembered to (and did) use over limit mere Seconds before the party killed him

his death was really unexpectedly sympathetic. i’ve already gotten scenes afterward that follow up on gauche and droite, so that helps, but i don’t think they’re important to the story anymore. he seems like he was just kind of there to be an antagonist, and they shuffled him out the door when they stopped needing human villains.

on that note, alexei revealing some degree of hidden knowledge about the adephagos and shit made him much more intriguing at the last second. whoever made the decision to have him just shed tears right before that big fuckin chaos emerald crushed him, they knew what they were doing, because it made me feel a lil bit intrigued by him even though i didn’t care much about him before

i’m still glad he’s dead though because there was clearly no way to stretch out his villainy through the rest of the game. i’ve seen human villains (even in this franchise) who can stick out the entire plot and not get stale, but alexei is not one of them. he needed to go

the fight with him only took one try but it feels reeeally climactic. the water on the sides of the arena is great and it totally invokes the image of that final battle from wind waker, plus alexei has an arte like yuri’s guardian field that damages you and heals him, which stretches out the fight a lot. his mystic arte was a huge pain but it wasn’t even hard to revive people after getting hit by it. most exciting though, was rita popping overlimit for the first time in the playthrough, twice, and then nailing him with her burst arte both times for big damage. i need to play with the ai settings to make sure that happens more.

sodia stabbing yuri has me weirded out still though. like they definitely foreshadowed it, if you can call it that when she’s barely been able to hold back from attacking him in every cutscene she’s had, but the timing (after the enemies were dealt with and anything agitating would have already passed several seconds earlier), the fact that she said nothing in warning, the use of a knife instead of her own sword, and the fact that she looked terrified right afterward are all really strange. i don’t know if that was supposed to be weird but it looked like she was fucking possessed. does the adephagos just do that? i hope so if only to explain her acting so strange.

waking up in yuri’s room in zaphias is a really nice transition into the final act of the story, as well as the trip along the continent to reunite with the other party members. good bookends. when’s flynn coming back though

rita’s va made some very funny noises when the other girls forced her to admit she was worried about yuri and that’s good.

everything else i have to say would be a joke relying on screenshots or something so I’m gonna hold off on those. my conclusion is, very good end to act 2, interesting start to act 3. yeehaw

[twitchesandstitches]

When it comes to this "thicc crossover AU", will the girls from Monster Musume be there too? What about digimon since they're interdimentional beings (and in a scrapped script for Adventure02 they were supposed to arrive from space) or maybe humanized version of the Godzilla kaijus? (Ghidorah, Gigan, Megalon, SpaceGodzilla and many others either comes from space or have been in space.) Or what about Rayman, Warcraft or Skyrim?

The answer to all of these is a BIG RESOUNDING YES.The first relevant detail is that in the thicc crossover AU, ya gotta be sure whether it refers to membership in the MILF fleet or not; they’re a large group, but they don’t comprise every group in everything, ever, that i personally happen to like! They may be part of other factions, antagonist or otherwise, or be people they meet along the way, or groups with their own agendas, doing their own thing.

Additionally, I lean towards some things where I don’t much care for groups in general or know much abou the canon, but i find species really interesting, and in which case, those species form large amounts of background characters; different factions might have a lot of monster girls, orks, or elves or Digimon somewhere in the background. So even if specific characters aren’t mentioned, the species certainly are there somewhere.

Monster Musume - In this case, the monster people of Monster Musume are explicitly the same kind of beings as the monsters of Undertale, and are either a seperate sub-group tha tsplit off from an analogue to the kingdom of Asgore a long time ago, or have attempted to coexist with humans, possibly in various dangerous environments where they protect humans in exchange for the humans being their lovers to reproduce the monster girls. I have an AU of Monster Musume with a MILF vibe, where the monster gals of canon are notably older than Kimihito and protect him, and the idea of a polyamorous relationship is set up from the beginning. They’re also much bigger than in canon, with even Papi dwarfing a human (and being a major shortstack, to boot), and far more monstrous and inhuman in appearance, leaning more towards the ‘monster’ part of the equation.

As Undertale-style monsters, these gals are effectively masses of living magic, perhaps being species that in the AU taken on a form that has some weight in the collective consciousness; hence, monster girls adopting forms similar to human mythological concepts. They are thus vulnerable to raw hatred, but are enormously powerful, not to mention curvaceous. But that goes without saying in this AU. Assume that the monsters in general are huge, towering over humans by several times.

My interest in the series is limited to mostly liking the fan art, that slice of life monster girl series that preceded it, reading a few chapters, and liking minor character like Cathyl and Tionishia. Consequently, most of the characters of significance are not part of the MILF fleet, though they may be part of associated groups that could merge with them over time or are considered cousin fleets. They’d likely be allies, but not part of the core group? Tionishia would be an exception, and definitely part of the main group. If you like, I can go into more detail about how the monster girls differ from canon, in their size and monstery looks.

Digimon: an interesting case! Digimon was one of my biggest and first true fandoms (alongside Transformers, Gargoyles and similar series, which may explain why i love nonhuman protags so much), so of course they gotta be in here somewhere. In this case, I’m drawing a bit on the old notion of Cyberspace that was used a lot in Digimon, and while I’ve mentioned this before, it bears repeating.

The Digital World here is effectively the old concept of cyberspace as its own realm; all data and information takes on a life of its own, and the Digimon are self-aware emanations of this realm, effectively AIs with inherent power that may or may not be magic-ish in nature. Mostly the tone is inspired by the original Digimon world, with aspects from the first two seasons and Tamers: Digimon are effectively immortal, having a symbiotic relationship with the mortal planes; cyberspace is basically born in individual servers, and may take on its own life if those servers ceased to function, but it would be a chaotic and distressed life.

All Digimon that are canon, and plenty that aren’t, can be in the AU as background characters, with a few rules. Firstly, Digimon normally do not enter into the physical world on their own, existing mostly within the realms of cyberspace. They can slot into mechanical bodies or upload themselves into robots and operate them, but they don’t have any special powers; however, they do have access to a lot of computing power, and serve as the dedicated AI networks of the fleet’s ships, maintaining things for everyone, regarding it as diving into a strange and alien world.

Digievolution levels might be based on an individual Digimon’s complexity, and most spend their time in Rookie or Champion levels, stabilizing there; they can digivolve into stronger forms, but this doesn’t often last long, and as they weaken, they will enter weaker forms until they hit Baby and In-Training, and then must recuperate. ADditionally, they are becoming less complex as they devolve, and find the experience unpleasant, like losing bits of your mind for a while. (if you’re familiar with eclipse phase, they are basically infomorphs.)

Some Digimon can assume hyper curvy monster girl forms, if it pleases their aesthetics. Rarely, they can directly materailize into the physical realm, though this often requires a partner to help them, and its often a revolving set of different people they happen to be friends with. Common Digimon include Guilmon and Tentomon, and canon characters, including Digimon, are present throughout the AU in the different factions, though fairly different from canon; Digi-Destined is not a relevant thing here. They might be technicians working closely with the Digimon or explorers into the data realms, though.

Godzilla: I’m also including Gamera here. And yes, it’s very possible! In this AU, the kaiju of Godzilla and similar series are all canon, and are explicitly divine entities that embody concepts predating humanity. They are god-like figures that don’t hate humans, and at worst are indifferent to them, perhaps embodying the need to achieve symbiosis with the world rather than attempting to dominate it (and the hubris to follow). The ‘Good Kaiju’, such as Godzilla and their followers, may regard humans with vague interest, such as one might give to ants that spell out your name, and don’t mean them harm. They are likely worshiped across the cosmos, and have no direct link to the fleet; Godzilla or GAmera might have some connection to the fleet, but it may be as incredibly potent summons they might put enormous effort into calling forth… and since this involves being pregnant with the being in question before they are ready to materialize, this is a heavy duty. The kaiju might then take on some of the summoner’s characteristics, and take a shine to them.

The malicious monsetrs, such as Ghidorah, are spare-faring agents of raw destruction, gods of annihilation that wipe away all they see, perhaps as primordial architects of the mysterious cataclysm… or involved in it in some way, in the same way that the ocean is involved in the sinking of Atlantis. It didn’t cause it, but it certainly ended the continent all the same. They can also be hyper curvaceous and giantesses, as that seems to be an aspect of enough magic power in this AU? The villains might pregnancy-summon them in a fashion. Possibly the Cobalts have a kaiju or two in their repertoire, but it would have to be one that is sufficiently mild. Or it might be something like Destroyah, a hyper curvy monster girl in their hands, that has been tamed and soothed by their attention. She’s something like their kraken now, or even toes their flagship while slumbering, awakening only when they want something to feed her bloodlust?

Rayman: I can see Rayman being it’s own world/demiplane within the realms of magic, Rayman himself as a kind of protector golem (which is sorta canon) and the fairies as magical lords over their world, with the world itself as their domain. Of these, Edith Up is likely to be the most relevant because have you seen her, she is ADORABLE. The Razorbeard Pirates can certainly make suitable space pirate antagonists, perhaps as part of a criminal organization that tends towards more malicious deeds than suits the like of the Cobalts.

Warcraft: The Blizzard franchises are all looped together here, Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo and the other Heroes of The Storm games are part of a complicated network of alliances, rivalries and foes right by a particuarlly nasty magic rift where all kinds of power leaks from across the planes. Celetials and fiends can emerge here, embodiments of justice and evil alike, and have orchestrated terrible wars and conflict, and so the events of Warcraft may have happened in such a fashion; orcs (or orks) were manipulated by demons that are efffectively the Burning Legion but with a more Diablo aspect into war against the Alliance (a faction of humans, human relations, eldar, and others, all tightly tied to magic more than other spacefaring human societies) in a desperate hunt for a new homeland. Thrall emerged as per canon, rising up and uniting the dispossed into a true Horde looking out for each other, and is heading a tentative alliance between the various good-ish forces against the literal demons from Hell, including the Starcraft, Overwatch and other Blizzard properties.

Name a Horde race, and it likely has denizens aboard the fleet, as well as the other factions present. Something similar would apply for the other factions throughout. Named characters are trickier, since I don’t know much about them in general; the united group of Heroes of the Storm are likely their own entity, and big enough to serve as a proper sci fi fleet that can stop demons and monsters from escaping that area of space, and may regard it as their duty to protect the rest of the multiverse from letting those things get loose. Alextrasza, however, is an exception; I’ve read about her and cool badass dragon mom who is kind to all beings and once swallowed a bad guy whole, WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME ABOUT HER SOONER. She is definitely on the fleet, but in what capacity I’m not sure.

Skyrim: The Elder Scrolls setting is likely a lage expanse of space, heavily influenced with raw magical energy, but considering the weirdness of the original setting, it might also do as a demi-plane within the magical realms. In any case, the gods and daedra are likely to be worshiped throughout the multiverse. Malacath might have some vague approval of the milf fleet, while Molog Baal is a major antagonist because he FUCKING DESERVES IT THE ASSHOLE. Possibly some of the mightiest fleet moms are plotting to devour him and take his power for their own, or the goddesses associated with the fleet are deliberately scheming to do just that. Sanguine, in contrast, is probably backing the Cobalts for the fun of it.

The races in the Elder Scrolls can make up a wide variety of background characters throughout the cosmos; in general, assume that if you’re talking about actual elf ethnic background, think in terms of Elder Scrolls, with different elf types as more cultural or faction-themed. Dunmer are very common, and make up most of the eldar on the MILF fleet, for instance. The orsimer are orks,with a greater emphasis on martial honor and ferocity, and may be magically altered by a connection to Malacath specifically; perhaps descended from orks thatt revered him and took his essence into themselves. The Cobalts might have Snow Elves and Aldmer as a lot of the elves on their group due to them moving in the areas where those elves have settled over the eons. Argonians are also pretty common in the fleet!

The Empire is known as the Cyrodillic Imperium, and has way more influences from the real life inspirations of the different cultures in the Elder Scrolls to fit a more diverse, old society like a proper space opera should have, and the Aldmeri Dominion is probably the asshole elves you expect.

I’m not sure how to handle the specific characters, but some examples: update the Skyrim Civil War o be a cosmic battle, with the Stormcloaks as a rebel fleet with Ulfric as a somewhat sympathetic warlord. He might be an antagonist, but not one with morals opposed to the fleet; he’s just a human-centric ruler with little interest for others that aren’t ‘his people’. The dragons in general, especially Alduin, would be way more eldritch horror here, with optional hyper busty monster girl forms. With an element of kaiju; they’re probably big enough to wreck starships and can exist in space.

[takaraphoenix]

Odd question but what do you think of the “fujoshi” community? Harmless fun or harmful fetishization?

Oh, oh I’m getting a headache just reading that question…

No, it is not fetisihzation that is utter bullshit. No it is not harmful, that is even more bullshit.

The people accusing fujoshi of fetishization do the exact same thing. They write the exact same stories and draw the exact same fanarts about the exact same gays. But because the creators in one case are females, they are the devil and they are fetishizing.

By every definition of the word, I am a fujoshi too - a female fan of mlm ships. Yaoi or shounen-ai, if you wish to continue using Japanese terms.

What fujoshi discourse boils down to is a group of people being misogynistic crybabies and not allowing females to have genuine interests.

The term “CIShet woman” is thrown around like a slur in this discourse - disregarding that not all fujoshi are CIS or het. I, for my part, am a lesbian. It’s literally only about those people’s hatred for women, really.

Because the exact same content is totally fine if it is made by a gay man.

They don’t even realize how ridiculous that is.

If we would ever only get representation if it gets written by a person from the group in question, we would literally barely get anything.

Most gay stories were written by straight men and women. Most stories involving characters of color used to be written by white writers. Someone has to pave the way - and it is the group that is most “accepted” to do the job. In the case of writing for Hollywood, those would be the white men. Does that mean we have no right to see movies about women or characters of color or non-straights? No, no it does not.

As a lesbian, I can still enjoy Willow and Tara as a lesbian couple on Buffy even though they were written by a CIShet man. I still get to enjoy Elena’s coming out story on One Day at a Time even though the show was not written by a lesbian.

So if you, as a gay man, can not accept seeing a mlm couple written by a woman, then the problem is not the woman who invests her time into writing this, it is with you.

Especially since we are talking fandom here.

We’re not even talking Hollywood. We’re talking about authors on AO3 and fanarts on DeviantArt and on here. We’re talking about fans, people who love something and dedicate their own time into creating something for free, something that you and everybody else gets to enjoy without getting any form of payment for it.

So instead of being grateful for the content, those people insult, belittle, bully and even threaten the creators.

THAT IS WHAT IS HARMFUL.

A woman creating art or stories is and can by definition not be harmful, because it is fiction about fictional characters and it is on the internet where you can just avoid it if you do not agree with it.

But those people who made this into a “discourse”, they are the ones being harmful because they mistreat people who do something they enjoy.

People crying that “Those women enjoying what I am enjoying and what is clearly aimed only at me because it represents me, they are ruining the thing for me!!!” are the exact same type of whiny babies as the men who started crying this exact same sentence when women started showing interest in nerd culture - you all do remember that, right? The uproar against female fans in the MCU and DC and Star Wars and Star Trek culture because how dare women show any interest in these things that “belong” to men. All this shit about “fake nerd girls” that female fans of those shows and movies have to put up with, just for being female and interested in this thing.

Women aren’t allowed to have interests.

That is literally what this boils down to.

95% of canonically gay anime and manga were written by fujoshi - most of the things those antis consume was created by fujoshi.

The most ridiculous thing I ever saw on the topic was an anti making a post that fujoshi aren’t allowed to go and see Love, Simon because it is not meant for them, it is meant for gays.

It is not.

I, as a lesbian, wish to see this movie about a gay teen romance, because heaven knows I won’t get my lesbian teen romance any time soon on this big scale.

And the wildest part? Love, Simon was literally written by a fujoshi. By the very thing they hate - the CIShet white woman. The very kind of person they want to forbid from seeing this movie. That is the author of the book.

It’s a ridiculous double-standard and it baffles me that so many people on this hellsite don’t seem to grasp that.

Representation only matters if it is written by the minority represented and no one else aside from said minority is allowed to enjoy this.

That is literally like saying white people and non-black POC aren’t allowed to watch Black Planther or make fan content to it because it solemnly belongs to black people? Aren’t allowed to see Coco because it is clearly only aimed at Latinx people…? Oh yes, it is very clearly created for this group of people and from everything I’ve seen on this site, they’re the ones who get the most enjoyment out of it and out of the representation it brought with it - but that… that doesn’t mean that no one else is allowed to enjoy this.

I saw Coco five times by now and I’m white as fuck and I highly doubt that Latinx people in the fandom will give me shit for writing fanfiction for it, or accuse me of “fetishizing” their culture just because I’d write fanfiction for this movie. Which I am, literally working on a fic for that, hence the example.

Just because something is aimed at a certain group does not mean only they can enjoy it.

It’s a ridiculous concept of double standard that is being used in the fujoshi discourse.

I’m a woman, but I’m still allowed to consume media aimed at men - holy shit, aren’t we literally trying to break gender norms these days, like, seriously?

I’m a lesbian, but I’m still allowed to consume media featuring straights and gays and bisexuals and everything else under the rainbow. It’s not like I am only allowed to watch lesbian shows… because then I would literally have nothing to watch.

I’m white, but I’m still allowed to consume media featuring and focusing on characters of color. Because holy shit, I also don’t want the all-white casts anymore, it’s intensely stale and boring and outdated?? We are literally glad that we finally broke this kind of writing when it comes to representation in this aspect, so how could you want to revert back in the case of representing sexualities…?

If everyone is only allowed to consume media that focuses on representation of themselves, then you are really living in the stone-ages. They do know that this led to Hollywood and TV shows being predominantly white and male, right?

Fujoshi are female fans creating content for other fans.

Fujoshi discourse is overgrown babies crying about women having interests, using bogus claims like “Stop fetishizing ME!!!”.

No one is fetishizing you, unless you are a male celebrity and reading RPF about yourself. Those are literally the only people who can cry out about personally being fetishized. Celebrities who are being directly lusted after and have smut written about them.

Someone writing about something that includes part of your identity does not and will never personally fetishize you.

Hentai anime about big boobed girls? Does not personally fetishize me just because I’m a busty girl. It’s gross as fuck and I don’t like it, but I can just avoid it and I don’t feel personally victimized by its existence.

That is fetishization though. Women with waists that should break under the laws of physique and boobs trice the size of their heads. That is fetishizing women.

If fujoshi would be fetishizing gays, then they would be with such emphasis of their glorious cocks and mighty balls or some shit.

Essentially 50% of the things fujoshi create are soft. Fanfiction, fanart, doujinshi - fluff, about cuddling, two characters holding each other, that 50k slow-burn coffee shop AU you read last month.

Writing about a healthy, slow relationship is not and never will be “fetishization” - and it sure as heck will never be fetishization of you personally, because it isn’t about you.

Now to get back to a point I mentioned earlier.

Not every fujoshi is CIShet. For me, personally, writing about mlm relationships and reading about them was dealing with my own homosexuality - because we don’t get female gay love.

I could walk into any bookstore and thanks to Japanese fujoshi authors, I could just buy a manga about two teenage boys, discovering their sexuality and dealing with it. No sex involved. Not a single manga I own written by a fujoshi is even yaoi. Sex doesn’t have to be in it. Like I said, most content is impossibly soft and fluffy in nature.

And it helped me come to terms with my own sexuality, with the fact that it is possible to not be straight.

It’s harder to write about wlw ships than it is to write about mlm ships by sheer math alone.

Look, say, at the Avengers - you had one female character and five male characters in that lead team. There wasn’t even an option to write about a wlw ship, while you have ten possible mlm ships. So, what are you supposed to write about as a woman? Natasha masturbating for 20k words, or what? Because I, as a woman, am not allowed to write about men…?

Look at the Voltron fandom, where you have five male characters and two female… but oh my, one of the females is literally 15 while the other is an ancient alien; not the kind of ship I sail, so again no wlw ship to write about, but just as many mlm options as in the above mentioned.

And that is a pattern.

Franchises - anime, manga, cartoon, TV shows, movies, books - are dominated by male characters. Most lead characters are male. They are more fleshed out, better developed than the rare female characters.

Even nowadays, the male characters are still mostly more dynamic and more interesting than the females, because the females are either the Mother Character, the mere bland Love Interest who doesn’t get developed beyond being a love interest to the male lead, or the Badass Female whose only real trade is that she can kick ass, but real personality mostly still comes short.

So yeah, it’s virtually not a surprise that fanfiction authors - male and female alike - mostly latch onto mlm ships and write and draw about them, because there are statistically speaking more male characters in fandom and more mlm options than wlw options.

And if you forbid women from being interested in male characters and their relationships, if you forbid women from participating in fandom, if you forbid women from creating for the things they love…

There would be no fandoms.

Literally.

Fanfiction started because women wanted to see Spock and Kirk fuck. While there are many male creators by now, fandom has always been rather dominated by women, who created and set the path.

So we are good enough to put you where you are now, but now we are forbidden from participating in the very thing we created? Literally, the thing we created - because most of your boyslove manga and anime were created by fujoshi. So you are allowed to consume that but you do not allow the people who are like the author to also enjoy it…? Really?

And then there is also still that accusation that, somehow, “we” evil CIShet women get off to fetishizing “you” poor gay men.

I’m ace. I don’t get off to the smut I write. I write the sex scenes because they are part of the relationship, just as I write the wooing and getting together. It ain’t about “getting off”. It’s about the enjoyment of writing.

And while I, personally, don’t identify as a fujoshi because I don’t like the term, others do - and others have a right to. Just like I would never call myself a stan of anything, because I don’t like the term - but by definition I most likely do stan a lot of characters and shows and things.

I think a big problem is that fujoshi, translated, means “rotten woman” and somehow the butthurt crybabies who feel personally victimized by fujoshi see that as meaning something bad.

Yes, the words rotten woman do not exactly scream “Oh, this is a nice thing!”, but those people don’t even bother looking up the meaning - because words have meanings, connotations attached to them. And meanings change. Just because something seems to “say” one thing if you do a literal translation of it does not necessarily mean that the word also means the same thing that said literal translation offers. That is not how language works.

And at its very core, all that fujoshi means is “female fan of mlm”. The term itself was coined during times where liking gays and being gay was even more scandalous than today. You were rotten if you liked gays, a disgusting, rotten person - and yet still those women weren’t stopped. They created.

They created things that future generations got to enjoy. They created a pathway.

And if people today want to call themselves fujoshi because they identify with the term, then absolutely no one has a right to judge them, has the right to assign a different meaning to that term.

How do we, today in this day and age where we are all about claiming our own identity, have people out there who think they can dictate the identity and interests of others?

How is the gay community so rotten that there are people not allowing women to have an interest and condemning them for the label they chose for themselves…?

That is the disgusting and harmful part of the fujoshi discourse, really.

[humanspiritbeingkd]

# cancel netflixxxxxx

I was having a phone call with a loved one and began to mention the new Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma (you know the one, about how social media is manipulating all of us like the AI Sociopath it is) and my loved one, lacking in any hesitation whatsoever:  “You need to delete netflix.”  I powered back to the social dilemma, not wanting to dig in to why I need to delete netflix because: 1 - it’s always something new everyday for me to do or to delete and call it privilege if that’s what it is (or could it be the AI Sociopath that’s probably reading my every word as I type this in Google Drive Docs right now) but this tires me, and 2 - Who’s going to fund my Coming-of-Age feature length film if not netflix?!

The phone call ended.  We said goodbye I love you and they’re maybe-probably going to watch The Social Dilemma after adamantly probing me about who made it (respectable).  

The next morning I couldn’t help myself and googled why people are calling for what I discovered to be trending as #cancelnetflix.  😂  The emotional climate of millions can go from hot to cold in an instant, it’s like global warming for the human mind!  Why have any sort of consistency or patience or commitment to asking questions, a will for understanding, when we can just all be right and others wrong - so simple!  Thanks AI Sociopath!

Coincidentally, this sort of quick-tempered love-turned-hatred happens several times in this new film I watched last night on netflix that explores the lives of pre-teen girls navigating today’s (AI sociopath run, designed to be addictive) virtual landscape where problems at home or school can be numbed out with mindless scrolling, where likes can (not adequately) replace IRL emotional attunement from caregivers/parents.  

Oh yeah, it’s called Cuties, and it’s at the center of the #cancelnetflix controversy. 🤡

Folks posting #cancelnetflix accuse the film of sexualizing the preteen girls who star in the film, which has inflated to the greater fight against pedophilia, likely energized by QAnon sentiments, all probably robotically popularized by you guessed it! Thanks AI Sociopath.  Thank you for your holiest of algorithms to keep us glued to our devices, clicking and otherwise engaged in illusory problems.

So, have you watched the film ?  to decide for yourself if it is child pornography, a cinematic gift for pedophiles, or a critical piece of art?

I did.  Spoiler alert to any potential pedophiles reading this: it isn’t child pornography.  Also while I have your attention, please go see a therapist, there’s help for you yet.

Actually, on second thought there is a quick glimpse of what is probably a teenage boob.  So there is that.

But Netflix & Doucouré, the Writer/Director of Cuties, maintain the films’ critical eye and fight against the hypersexualization of young children.  To better understand where the film’s director is coming from, consider listening to her short interview:  Why I Made Cuties  | Maïmouna Doucouré Interview | Netflix

(What! But the interview is produced by Netflix, they could have written her a script! *gasp*  They’re just trying to cover their exploitative butts!  I hear ya, but I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt on this one.  If you don’t want to give them the benefit of the doubt and you are refusing to watch the film, this short interview will give you a brief overview of the movie’s plot and themes.)

While Cuties is not child pornography and is trying to challenge the normalcy of pre-teens deriving their worth from this shallow, imitated idea of sexyness, I also see how, yes, in a way, it is a cinematic gift for pedophiles. * GASP *  Why do I say this? Me who isn’t deleting my netflix over the film?  Well, I don’t understand the close-ups of the preteen bodies in booty shorts.  I don’t see how that camera choice helps drive home the point any more than a wide shot could, or all of the other non-sexy-dancing moments within the film that better emphasize the trauma that occurs inside social media/hyper-sexualized celebrity culture.  And if we’re thinking about pedophilia at large lurking opposite the computer screen, these close-ups definitely won’t make your average pedophile suddenly rethink their disease like “Oh man, this is sick! What have I been thinking! I’m sick! These poor children!”  

🤷🤷🤷

I think about American Honey’s scene of the young pre-teens dancing too-sexually, how it was framed, how the main character Starr reacts to them...of Little Miss Sunshine, how they visually-articulated their point in the children’s beauty pageant scene by leaning into absurdity.  But unlike these scenes that I feel succeed exceptionally well in their critiques, I remind myself that Cuties isn’t one scene but an entire feature-length about preteens being sexualized/sexualizing themselves (amongst other storylines involving friendship, family, and heritage). The children weren’t harmed in the making of the film, heck they even wanted to be in it.  There was a children’s psychologist on set for the young performers.   I figure Cuties is exactly as it should be, close-ups and all.  How could it not be?  It is what it is and for now it’s out there for people to see, protest or discuss.

[exploringthestreet]

Exploring the nature of oversight involving harmful content April 9th, 2020

In my last blog post, I realised that more consideration was needed for the AI idea we came up with in our group. After giving it considerable thought I believe their may not be as clear cut a solution to the questions I posed in that post. 

To start, I want to re-acknowledge the absurdity of my scenario in the prior post. I wanted to demonstrate with those speculations is that we must be careful in dictating what is or is not allowed on the street. If our solutions come before considering the social and ethical implications, then we risk erasing narratives that would otherwise be valid, potentially resulting in no meaningful change from the status quo. 

I however still re-assert that the solution is as clear cut as letting the AI self-update and there needs to be a broader system of oversight for these standards. However this then leads to more questions being raised as to how to you provide oversight on moral standards that are constantly changing.

(Image Sources: https://therottenappl.es/)

The following images are from Rotten Apples, a movie search engine that detects whether anyone involved in the making of the film was accused of sexual assault or misconduct. While using this website, I found films I considered to be non-problematic like Toy Story had crew members accused of such crimes. The crimes that these people did are unforgivable, and thus opens up a tension as to whether we should celebrate acclaimed movies like Toy Story or marginalise the work.

If such works are marginalised or censored, it sends a message of condemnation to people who perpetrate something this heinous. However this may have the knock on effect of condemning crew members who had nothing to do with such crimes by erasing their contributions to the work and we deny future generations to discover the meaningful messages captured in such movies. Additionally, would marginalising these movies potentially obscure the narrative that people in the industry did get away with these kinds of things for longer than they should of, potentially denying that such practices and crimes even occurred? On the other hand, if we do nothing and continue to celebrate these movies, it sets a problematic precedent that the perpetrators crimes will be minimised or worse ignored in light of their achievements, effectively erasing the victim’s perspective. Thus this highlights an ongoing debate in all forms of art.

This shows that the act of overseeing what is or is not morally acceptable is potentially more nuanced than our group perceived. Whose to say art that is created today may be deemed unacceptable tomorrow. Furthermore, if we allow art to be erased, would we be erasing narratives that while problematic deserve to be viewed, interpreted, and condemned by the broader populace as wrong. As previously mentioned there likely more black and white situations where art could be judged as right or wrong and subsequently deleted like instances of white supremacy where the purpose is to incite hatred and provoke fear. However to deny these nuances would be effectively ignoring key aspects of a problem space within our project. 

That being said I’ve managed to find potentials solutions, that could minimise such tension. 

(Image source: https://www.pinterest.ch/pin/405464772680048638/)

The most relevant of these solutions comes in the form of this warning now found within Warner Bros cartoons. This was almost universally praised as people liked that the company acknowledged the work’s problematic elements giving the stance that they were wrong then and now, while justifying why those elements were kept within the work. Thus, a potential step for such a problem is by acknowledging problematic elements but also acknowledging the nuance to the situation. However there is still potential that people may not be satisfied with such a disclaimer and may demand more action be take, which could also be completely valid.

Thus, considering the amount of nuance that comes with these kinds of tensions, it is unclear whether an all encompassing solution can be made for what should be considered as acceptable art. It could be that previous proposals of dictating what is harmful art could be just as valid as the solution here. My reluctance to take a side could be due to not being able to consult other stakeholders about either solution. Although at the time of this writing conduct such research is not a simple endeavour, clearer insight into a solution could be revealed with grounded inquiry. 

In light of this, I believe this post should be treated as an extension as defined by the author of critical fabulations. Where they cite that instead of seeing where something could be fixed as is common in UCD doctrine of solutionism, that we should examine problem spaces and enhance the opportunities for additional exploration and maintenance. Therefore, I hope to use this post to bring to light a problem space that can be designed and iterated upon so that there can be additional foundations for working towards a solution in the near future.