#aside from the bigotry

[fopsweat]

Actually, I'm angry.

[torgawl]

i have zero respect for anyone that believes shonen animanga consistently having badly written female characters isn't a problem within the industry. anytime someone comes forward with "the target demographic is young boys" i only question myself a) don't young boys have women in their lives they care about or coexist with? b) do young boys live in a parallel universe where women aren't relevant? c) why can't/shouldn't young boys have the right to see well written female characters in media? because that sort of argument to me is just a reiteration of "i don't care about women".

[americiumam]

i do not trust atheists who make hating religion a personality trait

[pinkfey]

me trying to explain to cishet men that playing video games is a boring baseline interest for them because all men play video games and they need to develop a personality beyond being a gamer if they ever want to be taken seriously or considered their own unique person and not just another part of the male hivemind that is gaming

[toxicpineapple]

discontinuing my hp/dr crossover au on ao3 as the more i learn and reevaluate what i read the more i realise how even enjoying the series separately from the creator or books counts as supporting jk’s legacy of harm and bigotry. it is a failure on my part that i posted to the series as recently as last year and for that i sincerely apologise 🙏 please lets progress past our need for whatsherface and her creations as we move forward as a society love and peace

[kekisu]

ok one more round of being a hater before i go to bed but its just really funny when p4 fans are like "lol p5 fans complaining about homophobia in p4 is so funny when p5 had to be censored XD" like its just funny as hell cause its literally 1 (or 2?) incredibly short irrelevant scenes that nobody even fucking remembers in comparison to the shitshow that is Persona 4 Golden where its basically the entire game thats based on being homophobic for comedy and plot development. of course p4 hasnt been censored because then the game would be 5 minutes long

also like the assumption that the people that complain about p4s homophobia wouldnt also have the capacity to care about homophobia in other games is wild like. its not JUST being a hater for the sake of being a hater its a criticism. lmfao

[idkwhatimdoingbutslay]

Interesting how some tend to analyze and look at the Arcane verse the same way they look at our own world. Only ever leads to misconceptions and misinterpretations.

Obviously, Arcane is inspired by what different nations around our world go through, but they also haven’t experienced all things that we have that lead to even more oppression and discrimination (ie. Black enslavement, women not having the right to vote or work, non-men consistently being victims of men’s abuse, gay marriage being illegal, colonization and genocide of particular races).

[seilon]

hm

[the-kneesbees]

omg transphobic kid had a civil conversation with trans kid AND asked for their pronouns?? character development

[vaultboyenthusiast]

you're right, a 16 yr old white boy should probably just stay quiet on these topics.

[bukuoshin]

Okay, it's. It's probably safe to say I'm autistic, lol

[blissful-ignorance-princess]

i love my friend who i have very conflicting feelings for that are very platonic but really border on romantic!

[myfandomrealitea]

With my recent Harry Potter posts gaining traction, I just want to make an important note:

You are not a bad person for having enjoyed Harry Potter. You are not a bad person for finding it hard to let go of something so ingrained into your life. You are not a bad person for enjoying the overall story of Harry Potter despite the bigotry JK Rowling managed to smatter into it.

Nobody should be telling you that you are. Your past relationship with Harry Potter is not the issue.

The issue is what you and we all do moving forward with the new information and facts that we know.

And the facts are that JK Rowling is a rampant and proud bigot who is hellbent on using the fortune Harry Potter made her to actively pursue the entire trans community with hostile intent.

And she does not care. She is happy that she is doing it. She is happy that people oppose her because it gives her an excuse to play victim and paint trans people who oppose her as violent, aggressive and evil.

This is not about how you engaged with Harry Potter in the past. Or even how you engage with it privately. This is about whether or not you choose to contribute toward her mission and towards the persecution of trans people right now.

Because when you buy that licensed merch in the store, she gets part of the profit. When you go to Harry Potter World, she gets part of the profit. When you buy the Harry Potter game, she gets part of the profit.

And all of those things result in three consequences:

It shows the marketing departments that Harry Potter is still a cashcow.

It shows JK Rowling that she can say and do whatever the hell she wants and nothing is going to stop that money rolling in.

She is given a steady cashflow which she uses to bankroll anti-trans movements and spokespeople and government petitions.

That is the reality of your choice from here on out. That is why people are asking you to set aside what you once had with Harry Potter and to stand with the people she has made it her life's mission to destroy.

You don't even have to let go of it completely. Just let go of the interactions that directly fund JK Rowling. Just cut off the cashflow she's using to ruin the lives of people she's never even met.

Buy fanmade merchandise or learn how to make your own. If you're cosplaying? Buy unofficial cosplays or buy second-hand off resale websites. Same with other merchandise.

If you want to watch Harry Potter, there are hundreds of non-licensed steaming websites showing it which do not contribute royalty income to JK Rowling.

If you're writing Harry Potter fanfiction, use a site like AO3 which will defend you tooth and claw if she gets desperate and starts coming after fan creators.

Harry Potter might be the comforting memories of your childhood, but JK Rowling is an active threat to the literal livelihood of trans people. People who could lose legal rights and protections simply because of one vicious woman with a bigoted agenda and deep pockets.

All we're asking is that you compare your reasons for enjoying Harry Potter with the facts of why you should make a few simple, easy choices to avoid bankrolling her and determine which is more important.

Or rather, which one should be more important.

And make the right choice.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA (I don't have time to unpack everything into a single question)

First things first, I am a supporter of consang AKA consensual sanguinity AKA consensual incest. I'm not interested in practicing nor is it a kink thing, I just believe there's nothing wrong with two consenting adults in a relationship, related or not. Any relationship can be abusive and some are more prone to abuse than others bit that's not an excuse to condemn all of them, blablabla, all arguments against inbreeding are literal eugenicist talking points.

Anyways, disclaimer aside.

I'm in this moderately big server where I chat once a week or so. But I do check the blacklist whenever it updates. And this new person had added incest to it. Which, well... I'm not against because I know for many its a triggering topic. But I still believe being against it is a form of bigotry and I can't necessarily just bring it up to anyone, so I try and determine who in the server I can bring it up with.

There's this other girl in the server I've chatted with once or twice, and I know the country she's from has comparatively high rates of incest compared to other countries. I send her a DM asking how she feels about the new person in the server, totally neutral. She says she hasn't talked to them before and asks why I'm asking and I just say (again, trying to be neutral) that I'm wondering what her opinion on their "stances" are. She catches on that I'm asking about how they hate incest, and ask what that has to do with her. I admit that I thought that she'd understand given where she lives. She doesn't respond, and the next day I discover I've been banned from the server.

I mean it when I say I handled the conversation as respectfully as I possibly could, and I wasn't asking out of ignorance because it's right there in the statistics. I myself am a westerner, but that doesn't mean I think the beliefs surrounding consangamoury in western countries are correct, and I thought she would understand that. AITA for approaching her?

What are these acronyms?

[butchmartyr]

i especially hate it when shitheads try to paint discussions of intracommunity transmisogyny and the scary alienating situation of another trans person being transphobic to you as “transfems hating all men/transmascs for being transmasc” because aside from their blatant transmisogynistic misreading, there is so much love in my heart for transmascs. i have so many transmasc friends and owe so much of my current understanding of my own gender situation and my gender politics to being able to being able to bounce off and level with them about gender and transness, and id never put any kind of shitty essentialist accusations on their identity because my gender politics have fucking principles.

it boils my blood to see people act like you can’t hold transmisogynists accountable for their bigotry even when they’re trans, while at the same time loving and standing with your community. im sick of it!

[burst-of-iridescent]

i've written before about how fire lady katara isn't an inherently disempowering or racist trope, as have many others, but lately i've been thinking about how arguments against fire lady katara often tend to utilise a surface-level interpretation of colonial trauma.

[edit: this post will use the term "colonial trauma" because those who argue against fire lady katara usually use the same wording or are referring to that concept. but it's important to note that according to show canon, the fire nation did not colonize the southern water tribe and zuko and katara did not have a colonizer/colonized relationship.]

antis who present this argument usually posit that marrying zuko would be a form of re-traumatization for katara, while marrying aang would "protect" her. katara is supposedly more shielded from confronting the impact of colonization in the southern water tribe or on air temple island than she would be with zuko in the fire nation, which contextualizes colonial trauma purely through the lens of physical interaction with the colonial power (ie. living in the fire nation or looking after the people of the fire nation). whether intended or not, this argument inadvertently limits colonial trauma to the geographical boundaries of the colonizing country and implies that it can be reduced or averted solely by minimizing contact with said country.

even leaving aside that we have seen katara in the fire nation (and enjoying herself there), the implication here is that active engagement with a colonial power as a member of colonized peoples is an inherent form of re-traumatization... which i take issue with for multiple reasons.

firstly, katara lives in a world that has been permanently shaped and changed by imperialism, and that's going to affect her no matter where she goes. sequestering herself in the south pole her whole life and never seeing a glimpse of fire nation red again won't allow katara to escape the legacy of colonization or the trauma it has caused her, because its influence is rooted in everything from her family to her tribe to her own bending. believe me, i understand the appeal of a world where women of colour can avoid reckoning with the impact of colonization by simply never setting foot in the colonizing country again, and why people might be uncomfortable with zutara individually as a result - but i can't accept it as a valid argument against the ship, because that's just not how colonial trauma works.

secondly, the idea that this "protects" katara reeks of paternalism because katara is not a character who chooses her path simply based on how safe or comfortable it is. if that was the case, she would never have left the southern water tribe at all! she could've remained there her whole life and likely been safe, since the fire nation had no real interest in the south pole any longer. katara is fundamentally defined by how relentlessly revolutionary she is - over and over, she chooses to do what is right, what is hard, what is unexpected, even at cost to herself. she challenges injustice and discrimination and bigotry; she fights for the downtrodden and speaks for those who can't speak for themselves; she will never ever turn her back on the people who need her. does that truly sound like someone who needs to be hid away and protected from her own supposed re-traumatization?

thirdly - and i fully accept that there are those who might disagree with this - katara actively choosing to engage with her colonial trauma can be empowering just as it can be traumatizing. don't get me wrong: as a woc and a minority in my own country, i understand how tiring it is to do this. i understand the exhaustion of confronting what was done to you and your people, of facing down bigotry over and over. i understand the desire to run away from it all, and why it can be wish fulfilment for others to let katara do so. i really, really do.

but there is also wish fulfilment in letting katara fight, as a brown girl with power and resources that few brown girls in the real world hold. there is a power fantasy in seeing katara head into the belly of the beast and emerging triumphant. there is empowerment to be found in seeing katara struggle with racism and ignorance and mindless hate to enact change - and succeed. i love reading and writing about katara unpacking her trauma regarding the fire nation, about growing to love the place she once hated, about reconciling both her homes and healing from the wounds of her childhood.

and ultimately, i think that's what katara would want for herself. after throwing herself head first into the fight against the fire nation, after facing down her greatest trauma instead of letting it consume her, after helping and protecting the people of the fire nation, after refusing to let the fire nation take anything else from her - i firmly believe that the last thing katara would do is allow herself to be ruled by the fire nation instead of being the one ruling it.

personally, i find that a more hopeful and victorious narrative than one where she remains safe and sheltered away from the fire nation, but forever haunted and dictated by her trauma. would that be realistic? perhaps. but the entire point of foiling katara with characters like jet and hama is to show that she's not doomed to be mired in the pain of her past. that where their stories could only end in tragedy, hers can - and does - end in hope for something better, as she always believed it could.