#but apologia is too far

[math-is-magic]

Wow the Kipperlilly apologists have really slid from earlier in the season "we don't KNOW she's done all these bad things" (reasonable) to "Actually she's RIGHT to be jealous of Riz's dad being murdered."

[rtdont]

Hmmm, trying to decide why Clara in s7 pulling a version of Sam's arc doesn't bother me while the mere idea of rose doing that and/or that being ruby's arc makes me wanna spit knives, and trying to come up with an answer slightly more rational than 'I enjoy Moff's writing so I will forgive him for this whereas davies annoys me and his slavering stans drive me up the wall so actually when he does it he's a hack'.

[kootiepatra]

#FFxivWrite2023 - Day 21: Grave

“The eyes! Cast them into the abyss!” 

A cry that would haunt Aymeric for moons to come.

In the moment, the urgency and overwhelm was like nothing he had ever experienced. The fate of his city stood on a knife’s edge. Was their millennium-long ordeal about to end? Or was it about to start all over again?

Long had it been known that the Azure Dragoon would have to constantly steel their will against that of Nidhogg. It was one of the terrible burdens and risks of such a calling. They knew that relenting in their discipline could lead to becoming corrupted by the Eye. But never in Aymeric’s worst nightmares would he have imagined such a total, complete possession and transformation was possible.

Did Nidhogg require the Azure Dragoon to achieve such a feat of incarnation? Or was it simply a feat achieved by having both of the eyes in one place? Nidhogg had been killed once before; Aymeric had no confidence he would stay dead now.

Seeing Estinien on the ground, motionless, maybe lifeless and maybe not, already wrenched at his heart. He was elated that the eyes had come free; it gave him hope of reclaiming his dearest friend. He did not know if Nidhogg could re-bind him again. Get those things away from him.

But another dreadful possibility presented itself. Both eyes were still here—one in the hands of the Warrior of Light, the other in those of the young master Leveilleur. Estinien was a seasoned fighter, with years of experience managing the power of the Eye, and even he was vulnerable to being taken over entirely. How was a largely untested 16 year-old supposed to stand a chance against him?

Or worse still—the Warrior of Light. Not only had Aymeric come to love her, feeling ill at the thought of losing her, he could scarcely think of a more dangerous vessel for Nidhogg to overtake next. The wrath and rage of that ancient dragon, with her strength, and possible access to the Echo? How could Ishgard repel such a being?

There was no keeping the eyes of course. Too many radical elements remained in and around Ishgard for it to be remotely safe—to say nothing of the rest of Nidhogg’s brood. Aymeric could not believe that any number of vaults and guards would be sufficient to prevent them being stolen away. And even if they miraculously could, it would only be a matter of time before one foolish generation down the line decided they had both a good reason to use that power, and the arrogance to assume they could handle it.

Absolutely not. The eyes must be destroyed.

But how?

Even just prising the eyes from Estinien’s armor had generated an enormous orb of aetheric light that had Aymeric fearing for the lives of all involved. The eyes were unfathomably powerful—just one had been strong enough to pierce an otherwise impenetrable Allagan shield. Could mundane weapons even harm them—assuming the bearer could get close enough to do so, without being struck down by a burst of either, or corrupted by Nidhogg’s influence? Would magicks be able to destroy them, without causing a devastating reaction as they did so?

There were so many unknowns. Ishgard never tried to destroy the Eye; they stewarded it. They protected it. They used it. Surely Nidhogg’s eyes were not invulnerable, but there were, so, so many unknowns, and so, so many potential horrifying outcomes should they make the wrong move now. And they may only have seconds to decide it.

Thus the obvious and safest solution seemed to lie right underneath their feet.

The abyss ever churned with violent winds and ice that would shred anything softer than stone which was hurled into it. It had long served Ishgard better than any moat ever could. Nothing lived in it. Nothing could survive in it.

With any luck, the eyes themselves would be destroyed by the raging elements. But even if not, at the very least, they were as good as dead to the world. No one could go in after them. No heretic, no zealot, no man, no Dravanian. No amount of noble intentions or evil motives could match that destructive power. And the abyss could never be bribed, convinced, or seduced into yielding up their bounty.

It was impossible for any living being to visit the depths and survive. 

Little could Aymeric know that the status of “living” would be the loophole. Never could he have predicted that a snap decision would carry such grave consequences. His intent was to get rid of the eyes for certain and forever. By all known logic, it should have worked. How was he to know?

Yet none of that stopped him from seeing the glowing, bound primal looming over Gyr Abania, and feeling like he should have known. If he had only anticipated. If he had just one, single better idea.

This was all his fault, wasn’t it?

[technicolorxsn]

going thru a terf blocking spree and it hurts seeing these somewhat intelligent women throw logic and reason out the window purely to hate people

[transhawks]

Maybe I want too much but like three and a half years after the reveal you think more people would write a canonly accurate Dabi, in which he's less wanting revenge over the abuse and more just upset and obsessed with being discarded. Like I've resigned myself to fanon Dabi being everywhere but sometimes I pause and just wish people could be okay with the idea Touya adored his father and his motivation is being thrown away by him, not that he was "pushed" to be better, because we know Endeavor did the exact opposite in canon.

I don't know, I just like that dynamic more. I like the Dabi who screams in jealousy that Shouto has amounted to nothing even with abuse and seems to even wish he could have been in Shouto's place despite knowing what his kid brother has been too. I like the rage at being replaced and cast aside, I like the entitlement that comes from being so close and so far to fulfilling his father's dream and the yearning to be looked at. And yeah, I also like the uncomfortable idea that for the first three or years of fatherhood Endeavor actually had a kid who loved him before he ruined it all.

It makes all the more ugly how it turned out, and far more human to realize how much Dabi craves his father's attention and when this is now such a core part of his character, why am I rarely able to see it in fic? Why are people so against portraying a Dabi who loved his father and wished exactly to be what he wanted at one time? I don't think this Endeavor apologia, wanting to see the canonly written dynamic between them? It just feels like we can't leave 2020 in characterization.

[bonefall]

i found a god awful doc about this one person (who, too, is a god awful being) trying to reason why mudClaw would be a bad leader. I'ma try to find the doc but meanwhile I'll submit this because someone could have the link, I'll need your honest thought about it bcs why are we defending oneWhiker now

Anon, buddy, I'm gonna have to sit you down and gently discourage you from casually calling random human people "god awful beings" in my inbox like this. Not when you're just talking about relatively basic media analysis. That isn't ok or normal.

I hope that when I speak harshly, it's coming from a place of condemning hurtful actions and the tangible harm that they cause. I don't appreciate people trying to get me to directly beef with other people directly by requesting I break down their individual posts or analysis documents (when I ask for people to share links, it's so I can see and prepare to counter the ideas because they usually "float downstream" if they get popular); but in a second ask, you linked this document and there's nothing harmful in it. In fact, it's got a far more neutral tone than I'd take if I was writing an analysis about Mudclaw.

If you couldn't tell the difference between a document like this and one that contains active abuse apologia rhetoric, I would be filled with concern. But I don't think you read it. I think you maybe skimmed it and stopped reading, or just heard the title.

Because this document literally says this;

and your takeaway, something you felt so strongly about that you came to me hoping I'd validate it, was "Why Are We Defending Onewhisker Now."

Art is a tool we can use to explore our own biases, and teach us something about ourselves. That overwhelming sense of anger and disgust that you probably felt when you saw "Mudclaw Would Be A Bad Leader" made you jump to an emotional conclusion and you assumed something that was not said. I know the feeling. You might have had a reactionary impulse.

You are not a bad person for doing that-- you're human. You can grow.

Why did it upset you this much, though? Is there something very personal about this that set you off? ...are you spending a lot of time in spaces online that keep you angry? These are questions for you to reflect with.

I do not know the owner of this document or "what they've done," if anything, so I will not link it, because their Discord is at the bottom of the doc. If they are truly a "god awful being", please do not engage, just block and move on. Nothing is accomplished by following around 'A Bad Guy' and boosting their cat takes.

But something VERY bad WOULD be accomplished if I indulged an anon for a situation I know nothing about and unwittingly became part of a harassment campaign. How do I know that you've got good intentions?

I usually just delete unsolicited links to docs and videos that are 'fightbaiting' like this-- trying to get me to beef publicly with a 3rd person. But I've seen more of these than usual lately so I would like to try and cool it down.

[nekropsii]

Atomic Ask Bomb... 2!!

Hello, all! We are back in the mines immediately, because you all love me and my inbox so much. I still have 200+ more asks to sort through after this and that is not hyperbole!! Oops!!

Content Warning: Long, and Cronus is There.

You can be both. I am both. I think Terezi's easily in the Top 3 of Best Written Homestuck Characters, no competition. AND she compels me.

Mituna Fans and Terezi Fans flocking together like how Gays and Lesbians are supposed to.

------

He doesn't have a Recuperacoon. He doesn't NEED a Recuperacoon. Who needs a Recuperacoon when you have a bathtub? You pile a bunch of slime in there, and then you can pop the drain open in the morning and take a shower right there where you just got up. It's convenient. And not at all sad. It's not sad guys.

Let's pretend for a moment that either Vantas would have regular bathing habits for the sake of this joke.

------

Even if that's the case, it really doesn't change anything. Insecurity doesn't justify literal actual sexual harassment and sexual assault. What?

People will do anything to excuse random shitty men for being shitty. Sympathy is the favorite weapon in Fandom Misogyny's arsenal. So often will fans pull some random bullshit out of their ass just to say that it's fine that a male character is abusive, especially if it's to women, because "He's Sad", so he should never face criticism or punishment for his actions.

We should all start putting people in blenders. We've let these arguments go on long enough. People are far too bold in their abuse apologia. We need to kill them.

------

Yeah. Like, he interests me a lot, he's one of the characters I take the most interest in out of all of the Alpha Trolls. I literally write sov!Cronus. I hate his guts, though. It really is just that easy to be a fan of a character and also fucking hate them. Not once have I ever made an excuse for him. The goal Hussie set out for when writing him was making him inexcusable and irredeemable, down to Cronus literally knowing what he's doing is bad and hurts people, and simply just not caring.

Cronus is genuinely fucking evil. That's the whole point. If you make him misunderstood, if you make him mean well, if you make him lack self awareness, if you make him sympathetic, if you give him any redeeming qualities at all... You are missing the point completely. If you want a sympathetic asshole character, you want Vriska. The point of Cronus is that he's The Worst Character In Homestuck, and that he has zero redeeming qualities and trying to fix him or redeem him is a Hopeless venture. He is beyond saving. Don't you dare even think about trying - to try to make him palatable is to erase Violent Bigotry, Incest, and Child Sexual Abuse. Just don't. Enjoy him as he is, do NOT defang him.

------

He truly is the worst! I think we should explode all depictions of fanon!Cronus. Forever.

------

Yeah, there's a huge reason why I do not say I'm a fan of Cronus or call him a favorite character of mine or anything. It projects a certain... Image. The wrong one. There's just such a strong precedent for anyone saying they're a Cronus Fan or calling him their Favorite Character being a person who just completely fucking ignores everything about him, or even pardons it, saying it's fine, actually, because He's Sad, or that it's Not That Bad, actually. I can't stand it.

I'm aware there are Cronus Fans who are totally normal, but I cannot help but immediately be wary of them, or flinch for a moment even when they offer the reassurance that they know better. It's a natural response, having been here for around a decade and having been a Mituna Fan the whole time.

Liking characters who are terrible people is fine. Based, even, in some cases. But... It's truly difficult with Cronus, because so much of that fanbase relies on excusing/minimizing/condoning abuse and bigotry. I don't have any qualms with people liking characters that suck, but when a fanbase for a character is so heavily focused on pretending that character isn't a horrible, terrible, awful person who abuses people - even children, even people they're related to, even children that they're related to - for nothing but their own sexual gain... I start having issues. That sets a pretty dangerous precedent, to me.

------

It's crazy to me how so much of the apologism is because he's hot. Because he literally isn't. You all have terrible taste.

Let's all appreciate for a moment just how fucking ugly he is. The fan art is lying so bad. He needs a haircut. His shirt doesn't fit him, and honestly looks like women's clothes - you know those women's shirts that have the sleeves that stop halfway down the damn shoulder? He looks like a 16 year old. He's so skinny, and his shoulders are so... rounded and small - which are fine traits to have, but literally every piece of fanart portrays him as broad-shouldered and ripped when the literal opposite is true. You just know he has too much product in his hair. His actual sprite is even worse.

The way his fly doesn't even go all the way up. The way his hair clips into his face. The way he's slightly yellow for literally no reason. The shitty belt. This fucking sucks. He's so ugly. He isn't even hot.

------

------

Mituna having Memory Loss as a result of his TBI is literally a myth invented by Cronus to emotionally manipulate Mituna and perpetuated by Cronus Fans. I think if they were friends in the past, Cronus's actions would be worse, actually.

Could you imagine getting sad that your friend doesn't remember you because of a Traumatic Brain Injury, and your response to this sadness is to abuse and sexually assault them on the regular? What, is that Just Bro Things now? Cronus literally says he targets Mituna because he thinks he can get away with it due to his struggles with communication. The thing about them being buddies in the past was one of his trademark Lies. Because he is known to do that, specifically to manipulate people. Because he is known to manipulate people. Emotionally. Because he is abusive. And terrible. And not redeemable. This isn't rocket science! It isn't rocket science to say that pushing the fault of Mituna's abuse onto Mituna is Victim-Blaming!

------

Positively fucking ridiculous that so many people did not recognize their romance within the comic. If they were boys, there'd be no god damn question about it. It'd be up there in everyone's OTP list alongside DaveKat.

I think they're adorable. They're one of my favorite pairings.

------

It's great in the source comic, especially during earlier phases of its existence, but the quality deprecates drastically the further you get from that point. I hate it in Fanon and in Dub/Post-Canon.

It's a great off-screen pairing for a lot of lore reasons - namely it being great to let Dave slowly allow himself to love and be loved in private, with no fear of eyes on him. He's never really been able to have privacy before, with all the cameras and eyes on him all the time, and he's never been able to really let his guard down and be vulnerable. He's never been able to love and be loved, safely. I ultimately think they should've kept their relationship mostly private, even after Dave's recovered quite a bit, because sometimes having something just for yourself without that need to perform it is healing in itself. Mental health maintenance.

In Fanon, it seems like pretty standard yaoi, though. Boring. Tired. Literally everywhere. Voyeuristic as always.

------

Thank you! My Inbox generally really isn't that bad at all, honestly! Most people are pretty cordial! Anon Hate for me is pretty rare. Thankfully, the Delete Ask button exists, so I don't have to worry about those Anons for very long, lol.

------

I hate to say this, but back in my day, plenty of people actually did do that. In fact, people only knowing Homestuck through fan material and then still calling themselves a fan is a big reason why old Homestuck fanon was so bad and so far off the mark!

I have a name for those kinds of fans, because it was such a frequent occurrence it begged for a title. I call them Secondaries. Like "Secondary Source"!

------

World's most based triad, I think. Should be real. It's real to me.

7H15 15 MY 91RLFR13NF, L47UL4. 4DN 7H51 15 7UL45 9R1LFR13ND, P0RR1M.

------

I think everyone should start watching actual horror movies. I think these people should watch Re-Animator and Bride of Re-Animator. I think this would fix the fandom, because a lot of people are just posting about horror movies without realizing they're posting about horror movies. Go watch a horror movie. They even have more and, frankly, more interesting gay representation than... Whatever Dirk and Jake have going on. Sorry.

If you're a gay man, get some hair on your chest and watch a bunch of horror movies. There's more in this life than anime twinks and skinny white pixel men. There's BlackRom Old Man Pet Play (The Lighthouse, 2019), there's Tormented Huge Dirty Bear (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, 2006), there's The Bisexual Psychological Torture + Betrayal Chamber (Saw, 2004), there's Dysfunctional Gay Marriage Disputes (Re-Animator, 1985, Bride of Re-Animator, 1990). And way more other ones than I can really list. Expand your horizons.

------

Not much. It's a bit mysterious. Here's what Aranea had to say about Mituna in general, which gives us most of the crumbs we have:

The Heir of Doom was once a powerful psionic. He had much to say when it came to warning us a8out the path of doom and destruction we were all headed for, 8ut no one took him very seriously. 8ut one day he lost all those abilities when he 8adly overexerted himself. It's hard to get any specifics from him, 8ut indications are that he applied every last 8it of energy he had toward some great act of heroism, saving us all from some looming threat. Not only did his exertion permanently 8urn out his psychic a8ilities, 8ut it left him somewhat... er. Incoherent. The entire incident is shrouded in mystery. From his limited and scattered accounts of what happened, it seems very likely that Kurloz was with him at the time, as the only eye witness. And of course it's impossi8le to get any relia8le information out of him. I guess we may never know, sadly.

This does say quite a lot, but not really anything specific. We've got some stuff about how he's the session's Cassandra, the fact that the GAoH was NOT an accident (this is the misconception that pisses me off the most, I think - I hate when people call it an accident), the fact that he was protecting everyone from something... The fact that he DOES remember it, the fact that Kurloz was there, as the only eye witness, and refuses to talk about it.

It leaves plenty of room for speculation. A little too much room for me, honestly, but that's fine, I'm not really pressed about it.

------

[blasphemecel]

ngl still being a kaiser fan after 261 is lame

Omg this ask got me so tight when I got to it I had to hop on mylaptop to type my essay

Ok this is a little Personal and some of yall aren gonna fuck with me after this but it's ok . Kaiser is a character I identify with because he's a good portrayal of someone with NPD so WE WILL GET INTO IT!

So like that being said. What do you mean 'Still liking Kaiser after the leaks is lame' like genuinely what do you mean. I just woke up but are you guys like SURPRISED by this. I liked him when he was introduced and this is what he was acting like. There have been A HUNDRED more chapters of him acting the same way past introduction. And now he's still acting like it. I understand if you just hate him right off the bat that makes sense but this doesn't really. Even if you're one of those people who just liked him for the backstory reveal because you have a I Can Treat You Better hero complex re:abuse victims that behavior WAS shown EVEN IN 260. "I hit the ball but it doesn't hit back" - the author has a very specific way of writing and this was VERY much intentional

Also like I understand there might be an initial shock when reading such words. Like it's Unpleasant it's Ugly. But also it boils down to a State of mind which personally I've observed as common among victims of severe trauma. "These people are born 'humans'. Different from me, they were born 'wanted humans'." = I hate people who weren't hurt the same way I was because I am jealous and bitter, I'm so jealous and bitter it feels good to me to make others feel like shit. And I'm not trying to get on some Hurt People Hurt People bullshit because that shit is annoying and apologia but what I'm trying to say is that sometimes Trauma makes you unpleasant and ugly and erratic and I appreciate that Kaneshiro actually wrote it out. Also like that feeling by itself isn't inherently evil. I think it's a very natural response! In this case Kaiser goes too far not by experiencing this emotion but by acting on it.

So now with THAT out of the way too, I think we need to sit down and think more into the Ness situation. So first he says, "I can't accept kindness because all I know is malice. If anything I think malice makes life easier." Then he goes to say he is specifically looking for someone to make a "dog to his malice" and reads a psychology book to achieve that. Like first of all I'm sorry but that is so comically evil it's hilarious to me. He read a textbook to be a more efficient male manipulator. But anyway the way I understand that isn't a deep underlying evil within him but a need for control. I think he believes everyone will hurt and disorient him unless he feels like he's Controlling them. From an abusive household the only relationship dynamic he knows is person of authority - inferior party. His only friend is Ness and the only person he feels safe around being Ness is because of he tells himself Ness is his "dog" and therefore won't ever raise a hand to him. And that's because he thinks anyone who isn't his dog/under his control will do exactly that.

And so... If we go from there, from the parallel we understand Kaiser didn't see his meeting with Ness the same way Ness sees it. However, that doesn't mean Kaiser's view is the objective truth. I think they're both UNRELIABLE and EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE. So what that means is that Ness sees his time together with Kaiser through a more glorified lens, while Kaiser denies himself thinking of Ness as a companion because that puts him in a vulnerable spot, so to maintain his feeling of being in control he exerts distance and tells himself Heh we aren't actually friends because he doesn't even know that one time I giggled at him in the showers I was actually just manipulating him all along because I am sooo evil and untouchable 😏. Like do we actually take this perception at face value here because to me it just seems like a Scared and Cowardly person trying to act out his idea of a strong person because the ONLY other time he's been in any meaningful proximity to someone he got beat up and degraded.

With that I also think Kaiser is very much narcissist posturing. He'slying to himself to make himself seem invulnerable and self-aggrandizing himself through his malice (I think pretending we are 100% evil and irredeemable makes a lot of us feel safe because it seems inhuman and people are easily hurt so you don't Ever want to be a multidimensional person with layered personality traits). Because like if you think about it without the emotional reaction of "I hope Ness kills you you stupid whore" that we all have... He actually isn't doing anything that big. Like in his head he's like Heh I'm soooo Patrick Bateman I have all the control 😏 but all he did was like find a guy to play football with.

Like he's trying to say to himself that he's all that. Sure he does insult Ness and that's not good! But he didn't pull off some Complicated deeply horrific scheme. I do not believe Kaiser has an objective view of himself. It really takes away the power from all of that when you realize what he's doing is just Very Pathetic and Paranoid and Intimacy Averse. "I can't have normal friends let me get this guy in on my master servant roleplay and I'll act like he's not enjoying it too because it'll make me feel more powerful" Men will do anything but go to counseling

Addendum: This is also not Kaiser. Now I don't know what kind of person Kaiser is but considering I read it as him suffering from NPD/a disordered personality that means he doesn't have a "real" identity most of the time, this is a shell we're seeing. He just has a mask maybe there's something underneath maybe there isn't and he's empty inside, but the point is he is the kind of character who has a specific way they want to portray themselves and will lie to both themselves and the audience to achieve it. Yes I believe that includes the I'm a male manipulator evilest person alive 😏 shtick too (I think the actual truth is probably somewhere in the middle of his and Ness's view. Most likely they're both incorrect).

Notice how Barou and Rin overcame things? That is because they have a real ego. Kaiser doesn't have a "real ego"/sense of self right now, all he has is his selfish act. I believe that is intentional because I think the Blue Lock mangaka shows a good grasp and understanding of psychology. The development is pointing towards him actually getting one during this match we'll see. Hey he might even change and grow as a person if that happens but I wouldn't get too overly optimistic!

Also we need to understand that we only see these people playing football we don't know what the fuck he's like outside of that. I currently don't have any reason to believe he's anything beyond rude and insufferable when like talking to people who aren't his football rivals and in Blue Lock on principle I believe everyone is at least 30% a better more bearable person off the field.

And to finish off my demented rant some of yall are fucking HYPOCRITICAL. So when Isagi takes joy in ruining people's dreams it's fine but when Kaiser does it he needs to kill himself? Let's be very serious.

TL;DR Kaiser's behavior makes total sense, his 261 characterization falls in line with everything we've seen of him before so there's no need for shock, and he looked good being dysfunctional and messed up too

[the-clay-quarters]

Woe, 1000 blorbo refs upon ye

I've been making these reference boards for all the ocs I've been drawing! Everyone I've shown them to so far thought they were neat, so I figured I'd share them here too :3 They're fun to make and also really useful for me personally, otherwise I'd just keep swapping between tumblr tabs </3

I put these together in pureref, which is made for stuff like this and works wonderfully imo! It does all the resizing and aligning easily, so the only "work" is grabbing the images and rearranging them. It also saves the actual files as vector images I think, so you can zoom in super close in the program and not lose any details. ..okay I'm done, # not sponsored

Anyway, if anyone's interested, I have both the pngs and the pureref files in a gdrive! I already have most of my pc backing up there, so I might as well share this folder :3 Since this is literally a live backup of my main folder, it'll also update whenever I change these or make new ones yippee

Pings for everyone under the cut again!

@thedeafprophet 's Aurora

@gmalaart 's Cavendish

@capn-twitchery 's Grace

@waterlogged-detective 's Doe

@viric-dreams 's Ockham

@house-of-mirrors 's Orsino

@violant-apologia 's Apologist

@the-masterless-press 's Mathilde

@anomaly-beans 's Merry

@msbeanfl 's Ms Bean

@lord-emerson 's Oswald

@pacmanthepeach 's Raz

@peliginspeaks 's Hallowrove

@cosmogone-spectacles 's Oversol

@zeebreezin 's Shaw

@neathyingenue 's Silvia

@dualclock 's Scrimshander

[allronix]

This one is for @caripr94 and this post

(I'm pretty sure someone in the thread blocked my cynical butt because I can be That Bitch)

Was it a horrible thing Anakin killed the kids? YES. Though I'd take a fast death by saber compared to whatever the hell Paplatine would think up.

My position though is that the kids never should have been there in the first place.

There is absolutely no universe, either real life or any fictional setting, where we're supposed to see the guys who conscript toddlers as the Good Guys. Especially when the explicit purpose of that policy being too young to have conscious memories or "attachment" to the caregivers. No way in hell that is ever done for benign or benevolent purposes. Even in universe, this whole thing is used to establish the First Order as a bunch of bad dudes.

No, it's not abduction or kidnapping. It's consenting (Jedi apologist argument #1)...though the consent gets kinda dubious in far too many cases. The recruiter has a mighty big thumb on the scale, and no one in the apologia camp has given a clear answer to "who is making sure the Seeker isn't cutting corners?"

And I've heard the Jedi apologist argument that "Oh, it's to make sure they don't accidentally hurt someone with their powers." (Jedi apologist argument #3) That's bantha shit. Anakin, Luke, Leia, Rey in the films, countless others in Legends...they aren't frying the cat or being possessed by demons. They just grow up wherever they are; maybe a little luckier or unluckier than usual, maybe the reflexes are a little uncanny. But no more or less dangerous than anyone else.

The only reason in real life (or fiction, for that matter) an organization recruits children is for control and power. Cut off any potential for disloyalty, any competing desires, any real chance they have somewhere to go if they want to leave. (And yes, I've ranted elsewhere about Jedi Apologist Argument #2, the "Oh, but they can leave if they're unhappy") Get them too small to run away or fight back. In real life, it was also used as a display of power by the ruling classes against those who were not in favor. We can march in and take anything we want, even your kids, and you can console yourself that it's a great honor we're doing it because you can do that or just suck it.

The kids are raised in institutional care without any real specific affection as far as I can tell. Maybe you get nice one like Zia. (Young Jedi Adventures is a guilty pleasure) Maybe you get Jorus C'Both. Developing the younglings as people isn't really the goal here. What this system is set up to do is produce useful tools for the organization. The only time we see a class of younglings in ATOC, for example, they are not learning peaceful communion with the Force or languages, or even playing. No, they are learning to use the organization's signature weapon. It was not really any different from the Clone boys being put through their combat training. Maybe that was a deliberate point on Lucas's part - it would be pretty cool if it were - but it doesn't seem to be the case.

It's like most Jedi compassion; maybe got some good intentions, but the end goal is to make these kids into resources in a weird arms race of "we take them and shape them to our army or The Enemy will take them and shape them into their army." And I can kinda see it with that logic. Take them young, cut off any possible competing loyalties that they could choose over you, shape them to a singular purpose, and you have perfect field agents who are psychologically incapable (in theory) of betrayal or defection.

[madnessofmen]

ATTENTION WWI TUMBLR

(and especially wwi aviation tumblr)

There is a user in our midst that has been allowed to stick around for far too long. @/subtile-jagden is a far-right, homophobic, transphobic, racist, white supremacist, tradcath. Do not give them a platform simply because they post cool pictures of pilots.

It's very disheartening to see users (especially lgbt users) reblog from them. If we want a community that is left wing and safe for lgbt poc, we cannot be letting people like this be central figures within it.

Receipts below the cut.

These are all from their likes

far right:

racism, white supremacy, white chritstian nationalism (with heavily genocidal overtones):

anti lgbt:

anti abortion, rape apologia, anti feminism:

[livseses]

"But why are all these DID tiktokers AFAB?? Quite suspicious eh?"

Cw // CSA mention

So this is this recurrent thing we see about DID folk who are presumably AFAB. There's this discrediting attempt of DID because the shithead making the argument sees mostly AFAB folk talking about DID and finds it quite suspicious. It makes no sense to them. There's nothing at all that could explain this disparity between perceived sexes.

It bothers us a lot that this comes up. We've come across two things that draw a glaringly clear line that explains (in part of course) why there might just happen to be some connections there.

First, is something we see coming up when we get into arguments about system origins. Usually it's something we find is being misapplied because it's being used to invalidate systems that don't have those experiences, but it's never denied as a potential cause. In that list of "what causes DID" CSA is always listed as one of the potentials.

Second, idk how tf in 20-fucking-24 people don't know the fucking horrifying stats on CSA. A) It's entirely fucked how common it is and B) disproportionately happens to women. Stats vary but it's always 1 in <10 women will have been assaulted before 18. Recently we saw 82% of CSA cases are female survivors.

So, when we see skepticism around why DID is so disproportionately AFAB folk, we immediately hear denialism. Fuck I'm willing to go so far as to say it just flat out is rape/sexual assault denial and apologia.

Caveats and clarifications below the cut

AFAB, women, and female are fucking impossible to separate out in the stats. Hell, even the jumping to AFAB by the deniers is likely erroneous, cause I'd bet that they're running on perceptions and assumptions. Unless the systems they're talking about specifically stated that they are AFAB, there's literally no way to know their AGAB. My apologies if my wording of this post equivocates them.

DID is not exclusively caused by CSA. It's not exclusively caused by abuse. And while probably exceedingly rare, its not exclusively caused by trauma. And while CSA disproportionately happens to those perceived to be girls, those perceived to be boys (or non-binary kiddos for as much as that might be happening) are victims and survivors as well. Do not take this data here to deny people's experiences. If you somehow read this as "Only AFAB folk can be survivors of CSA and therefore have DID" you are being incredibly shitty and dangerous.

Lastly, this has come up a lot with tiktok. While the skepticism skeeves us out regardless, something we had experienced with systok was outright statements from various system creators, or heavy allusions to being survivors of CSA. Sure, our experience may have been biased by the algorithm in the same way that these asshats who think that there's too many DID folk on tiktok. But we can't help but think of those data points in the context of systok.

[themathomhouse]

I haven't seen this posted about here but it's going round Twitter and tiktok, and I'm so beyond angry I can't let it go.

The UK imprint of Simon and Schuster have announced a history of Gaza is forthcoming from writer and academic Dr Anne Irfan. She's a professor at UCL specialising in Palestinian refugees and their treatment under the UNRWA. She's done extensive work and volunteering in refugee camps, advocates for Palestinians in the UK directly to government, works with a number of projects including in asylum applications, and writes articles both in academic journals and in newspapers about Palestine. Whilst studying for her thesis, she was denied entry into Palestine by Israel.

Sounds like a highly qualified person to write a history of Gaza, right?

WRONG!

According to activists on social media - all of whom have comparable work backgrounds and experience I'm sure - it's completely unacceptable for her to write this book!!! Some of which is due to her being a white woman (we'll get to that), and some is due to her husband being a soldier in the IDF and clapping for genocide (we'll get to that too).

The vitriol and backlash has been awful, and I haven't seen many takedowns so under the cut I will dissect the issues here.

1) she's not Palestinian.

This one seems to be true, and I do think that it's important that we allow people from a region to tell their own stories. This isn't the worst criticism, however given the other problems people have I think it's being brought up disengenuously.

She is an expert though, and I am deeply concerned about this progression to an idea that we should only learn about or discuss our own cultures. Palestinian voices not being elevated is a systemic issue, not the fault of one woman who we can at least say possesses the requisite expertise to write a history book.

She's actually already written one book - Refuge and Resistance: Palestinians and the international refugee system.

Here's a list of recent news articles she's written.

2) she's white.

This one I can't verify. There are claims from people purporting to be former students of hers who say she's Jordanian and has family in Palestine. Certainly her surname is Arabic and she's listed as being fluent in Arabic on her academic profiles, so I'm not willing to assume from the single photograph I've seen that she's white.

We have also seen from the rise in antisemitism recently that whiteness is entirely conditional, and I think in this case it's being thrust upon her to justify saying she has no business writing a book. I think this is trying to get at systemic issues with publishing, but without any of the facts.

Source:

3) her husband is an IDF soldier.

Her partner (not husband as far as I can tell) tweeted out the book announcement. He's a fucking marketing data guy who works for Twitter. He's not in the IDF. He's just Israeli and so probably did national service, but that's an assumption as he lives in London.

Source:

I can't add his LinkedIn or other profiles as they've all been deleted, likely due to this shit. This will have to do.

4) he supports genocide.

No.

He had a take that I don't personally agree with - saying Israel shouldn't agree to a ceasefire until the hostages have been returned - but that is an extremely far cry from any kind of support for genocide. His Twitter has been deleted so I've only seen screenshots, possibly someone made this claim but failed to procure the correct evidence; but that seems extremely unlikely.

Even the original person who tweeted about this has tried to walk it back (not the husband part but some of the other stuff).

There were no receipts by the way, possibly due to a change of heart.

Babe you called it coloniser apologia and attacked her personally as well as her partner, you're kind of the one who made it personal. Feel bad all you want but this is just you being defensive.

What now?

If you are going to make claims about someone supporting genocide or any of this shit, be really fucking sure before you throw a Molotov cocktail into the dumpster fire of this discourse. The publisher, an unrelated book news website, her editor (who's made her account private after being @ed in the comments), and she and her partner (both deleted Twitter) have been inundated with tweets and videos on tiktok yelling about it - most of which has been at best unhelpful, but comes from a place of xenophobia and an entirely misapplied desire to crusade for justice - and I'm being generous calling it that.

Has this helped? Has it? Did posting her university email and calling for people to call her a fascist in her work inbox manifest some Palestinian writers? Has tweeting shit like this helped?

Getting rid of academia is definitely A Good Take and not the step authoritarians take.

I've personally written to the publisher to express my sadness at this whole thing, agreeing that Palestinian voices are extremely important to uplift but also saying that Dr Irfan is clearly more than qualified to write this book. I admire all of the work she has already done spending more than a decade working with Palestinian refugees, and I hope very much that everyone involved is doing okay.

I don't know what else to do. All I can do is once again say that people need to really, properly fact-check before you post. This woman is actually doing the activism. She's an historian, yes; but also does work directly in camps and with the preservation of archives. Her crime seems to me to be that her partner is Israeli, and if that's where we're at then I don't even want to know where we're going.

[janeyshivers]

i'm sick of modern politics ruining JRR Tolkien's original vision

haha you thought this was gonna be about wokeness or Rings of Power or something didn't you dipshit. actually its about how Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (2014) has a bizarre hard-on for slavery apologia because it's unacceptable to call out the modern slavery we see in the prison system.

pretty much as soon as you start Shadow of Mordor, it draws a very hard line between the orcs in Mordor (bad, nasty, are using slaves to fuel their war effort) and the Men of Gondor (flawed but heroic, built and maintained the Black Gate with """prison labour"""). the slaves in Mordor must be liberated! most of the missions revolve around this! but the fact that Gondor also uses literal slaves is never brought up, because it's always elided as "prison labour", which is the same thing as slavery, with the crucial difference being that it's just the modern version that's still legal in modern-day prisons. and god forbid we bring any degree of focus to how the protaganist faction of mostly handsome white dudes actually engage in this kind of shit constantly, because that might almost border on social commentary. can't have that!

ok, that's shitty on its face, but i also think it actually misses a great oppurtunity to underscore Tolkien's original stories. don't get me wrong, i'm not trying to argue that the dude was a prison abolitionist or whatever. what i am arguing is that he was writing about Gondor as this kingdom that's slowly slipping into decline, corruption, and ruin because the royal line was broken. do i agree with that? fuck no, obviously not, royalty are parasitic swine and every kingdom on Earth would be better off without them. but if you're writing a modern followup to Tolkien's stuff, the slavery shit actually gives you a real oppurtunity to build on that. with a little tweaking, you could turn the slavery/"""prison labour""" dichotomy into a real illustration of how the slow rot of Gondor going to shit is making space for Sauron's return.

considering a lot of the Outcasts in Mordor who end up enslaved escaped from under Gondor's thumb, you could make a real argument that Gondor's breathtakingly evil policy of using slaves to maintain its defences was not only morally bankrupt by itself, but also delivered a population of defenceless slaves with nowhere to run to right into Sauron's lap. like the underfunding of the Rangers, like the lack of maintenance of alliances with kingdoms like Rohan, Gondor's weak and ineffectual political system under the Stewards is actively accelarating Sauron's return to power. again, i don't agree with making a story about how only the return of the king will fix the kingdom's problems, but if you're making a Tolkien story, that's the wheelhouse you're operating in.

the bones of this reading are in the game, but they're undermined by the game seeming to be utterly reticent to capitalise on it. at no point does a liberated Outcast slave say "hey actually, fuck you Talion, you and the other Rangers were as bad as the Uruk are". they are only ever deferential and grateful. even Dirhael's wife, who thinks Talion is a dick, doesn't go there. the orcs who are like "we're not so different, you and i >:)" only talk about how you like killing orcs, not the fact that you BOTH KEPT THE SAME FUCKING PEOPLE AS SLAVES. like it feels very deliberate that they don't go into this at all, like the devs are hoping you won't notice. this is ACTUAL "modern politics interfering with the story and themes of the game", far, far moreso than any like, black elf or woman with a big sword or whatever the fuck they've ever put in a Tolkien adaptation. the writers were too scared to commit to an idea that would have jived incredibly well with the themes of the story they were spinning off from, because it's a taboo to point out that the way prisons treat people in modern society is absolutely monstrous. genuinely craven shit.

[bonefall]

So, I'm writing an essay on the whole STATE of misogyny in WC for one of my university classes, and I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of things! No pressure of course, please feel free to say no!

A) Could I reference your good takes with appropriate harvard referencing and links back to your blog?

B) Are there any specific moments from the books that you think should be covered the most?

C) The end result will be a visual essay, so it's like those fun infographics people on Tumblr make on like ADHD and stuff, so when it's done, would you like to be tagged to read it?

(Sorry for anon, I'm nervous lmao, but if you'd be more comfortable I'll resend this off anon)

AAY good topic! You've got a lot to work with. Absolutely feel free to reference anything I've written, and tag me when you're done.

While you're here and about to write something so legitimate, I'm also going to recommend you check out Sunnyfall's video on gender in Warrior Cats. She breaks down the arcs into numbers, directly comparing the amount of lines mollies have to toms, and examining the archetypes women are usually allowed to be.

I think it's a must-have citation in a paper about WC misogyny.

...and, I think it's insightful to look at the WCRP Forum thread about the video. Note how the respondents immediately come into the thread to complain about how the video is too long so they didn't watch it, dismissing Sunnyfall as not being entertaining enough to hold their attention, even whining that she starts with statistics to prove her point, which I'm convinced she did exactly because they would have cried that she "had no evidence" if she didn't.

I am not a scholar, so I don't know how to document or prove that the books have an impact on the audience outside of anecdotes. But I think if you do write a section about fandom, it would be worth mentioning the in-universe and metatextual apologia for Ashfur and its reflection in the real world discourse, the authorial killing of Ferncloud because of fan complains, and the utter defensiveness against the discussion of misogyny you see outside of Tumblr.

You may also want to check out Cheek by Jowl, a collection of 8 essays about sexism in xenofiction by Ursula K. Le Guin. There's a very unique manifestation of authorial bias in animal fiction, having a lot to do with how the author views "the natural world," and it's worth understanding even though Warrior Cats are so heavily anthropomorphized.

So... Warrior Cats Misogyny

I think discussing individual instances can be helpful, but I'd implore you to keep in mind what's REALLY bad about WC's misogyny is framing and the bigger picture.

Bumble's death is shocking and insulting, but it's not just that she died. It's that the POV Gray Wing sees her as a fat, useless bitch who took his mate so she deserves to be dragged back to a domestic abuser, and he's right because the writers love him so much. It's that Bumble's torture and killing only factors into how it's going to hurt a man's reputation.

It's how Clear Sky hitting, emotionally manipulating, or killing the following women,

Bright Stream (pressured into leaving her home and family)

Storm (controlled her movements and yelled at her in public)

Misty (killed for land, children stolen)

Bumble (beaten unconscious, blamed nonsensically on a fox)

Alder (child abuse, hit when she refused to attack her brother)

Falling Feather (scratched on the face, subjected to public abuse and humiliation)

Tall Shadow (thrown into murderous crowd, attacked on-sight in heaven)

Rainswept Flower ("blacked out" in anger and murdered in cold blood)

Moth Flight (scratched on the face for saying denying medical treatment is mean, taken hostage in retaliation against mother for the death of his own child, which he caused)

Willow Tail (eyes gouged out for "stirring up trouble")

Is seen as totally understandable, forgivable, or not even questioned at all, when killing Gray Wing in an act of rage would have been "one step too far" with the ridiculous Star Line.

"Kill me and live with the memory, and then let the stars know it would only matter if a single one of your murder victims was a man."

It's the way that fathers who physically abuse their kids out of their ego (Clear Sky, Sandgorse, Crowfeather) aren't treated anywhere near the same level of narrative disgust and revulsion the series has for "bad moms", even if they're displaying symptoms of a post-partum mood disorder (depression, anxiety, and rage), an umbrella of mental illnesses 20% of all new mothers experience but are heavily stigmatized with (Sparkpelt, Palebird, Lizardstripe).

It's Crookedstar's Promise giving him two evil maternal figures in a single book, while bending over backwards to make every man in a position of power still look likeable in spite of the fact they're enabling Rainflower's abuse. Leader Hailstar is soso sorry that he has to change Stormkit's name for some reason, in spite of leaders being unaccountable dictators the other 99% of the time, and Deputy Shellheart functionally does nothing to stop his own son from being abused or even do much parenting before or after the fact.

It's the way men's parental struggles are seen sympathetically, and they don't have to "pay for it" like their female counterparts (Crookedstar's PPD vs Sparkpelt's PPD, how Daisy and Cinders are held responsible for Smoky and Whisper being deadbeats, Yellowfang's endless guilt for killing her son vs Onestar's purpose in life to kill his own), even to the point where a father doesn't have to have raised their kids at all to have a magical innate emotional connection to them (Tree's father Root, Tom the Wifebeater, Tigerstar and Hawkfrost).

It's less speaking lines and agency for female characters, being reduced to accessories in the lives of their mates and babies, women getting less diversity in their personalities, with even major ex-POV characters eventually becoming "sweet mom" tropes.

You could zoom in on any one of these examples and have an amoeba try to argue with you that "Oh THIS makes sense because X" or "Ah well my headcanon perfectly explains this thing" or "MY mother/girlfriend was abusive/toxic/neglectful and I've decided that you are personally attacking ME by having issues with how a character was written or utilized," but the beleaguered point,

That I keep trying to hammer in, over and over, across books worth of posts,

Is that these are trends. More than just a couple one-off examples. It's the fabric that has been woven over years, showing a lack of interest in, or even active prejudice of, women on behalf of the writers.

LONG STANDING trends, which have only gotten worse as the series progressed. From Yellowfang being harshly punished with a born evil son who ruins her life in TPB and the mistreatment of Squirrelpaw that begins in TNP, all the way up to the 7 Fridgenings of DOTC and Sparkpelt's PPD being a major character motivator for her son Nightheart.

So, I would stress that in your paper, and structure it less as "the Sparkpelt slide" and "the Yellowfang slide," and more as "The paternal vs maternal abuse" slide, and "the violence against women" slide. They're really big issues, there's tons of examples for each individual thing.

Anyway to leave off on a funny, look at this scene in Darkest Hour that I find unreasonably hilarious,

"Everyone who matters to me; my truest friend, my sensible and loyal warrior, the wisest deputy I've ever known, and 2 women." -Firestar, glorious idiot

He can't even think of a single trait for either of them what the hell does "formidable pair" mean lmaooo, when I finished a reread about a year ago this line killed me on impact.

[thedreadvampy]

btw about Neil Gaiman I periodically agree with the 'Neil Gaiman is annoying' stuff bc I feel like both he and Amanda Palmer seem like people who I would go insane stuck in a room with bc we have very different ideas about art and suchlike. and I also do think that the career trajectory he's on lately is cynically redoing his greatest hits and pretending that was the dream all along when it clearly was not. which is at best meh.

having said which

as far as I can tell by far the most common complaint about Neil Gaiman is "Snow, Glass, Apples is problematic/gross/it's got incest and rape and frames the child as the aggressor"

which strikes me as a weird complaint to pull out of a 40 year body of work tbh when that short story is pretty clearly coming from a place of 'how far can I push this'. like you don't have to like the story. I don't really like the story. but it is. a horror story.

like and this is the thing with particularly 90s alt horror right? a lot of the interest is in transgression and sitting in the worst possible perspective and seeing what happens if you pull those strings. like I really like Clive Barker for example but there's a good chunk of his short stories that I'm like I'm not picking up what you're putting down Clive this seems Kinda Off. but that willingness to write some trite or Bad Message horror fiction that doesn't land is imo a side effect of being willing to try writing uncomfortable and unpleasant fiction at all. which is what horror is for, among other things, it's for creating discomfort as a form of catharsis or engagement.

like I am not a huge fan of the type of sex-horror that pops up in a lot of Gaiman's work and other contemporary horror writers - to me I don't find it upsetting or horny it just ends up feeling kind of edgy and tryhard - but I'm also a bit like. it does seem like a lot of people's beef with Neil Gaiman is that In The 90s He Was A Horror Writer

and this approach to Problematic Horror in Snow, Glass, Apples I find kind of microcosmic of how The Discourse often approaches art in this kind of 1:1 way. if you write a story which seems to line up with rape apologia it can only be because you agree with it. if you write a story about transphobia you're a transphobe. if you write a story that makes me genuinely uncomfortable you're attacking me.

but artwork, especially art like horror that's not necessarily trying to provoke enjoyment as its main response, is necessarily hit and miss. and if what you're shooting for is discomfort then whether it works, falls flat or goes too far incredibly depends on your audience. and making good art - as in art that makes its audience think, art that opens the audience up to discomfort and catharsis and sticks with them and changes them - requires the space to experiment and tbh the space to fuck up. like they aren't all going to be winners and they certainly aren't all going to work for you as a singular audience.

personally I don't see the appeal of Snow, Glass, Apples, less cause it's nasty and more cause it's hack. ooh an edgy monstrous version of a fairy tale where there's lots of rape and cannibalism? you're soooo original Neil. but like. that's fine. I don't really vibe with like 70% of Neil Gaiman stuff I've read but I still like Neil Gaiman because the stuff that works for me really works for me.

idk I think there's a lot of folk on this website who shouldn't interact with horror cause they clearly aren't interested in being horrified. that's not everyone who dislikes Snow, Glass, Apples, but it's a real undercurrent to a lot of the criticism and tbh this kinda vibe is shit for art. making standout art What Is Good also requires being ready to make art which stands out for the wrong reasons. sometimes they'll be the same art to different people.