#but discussing the inherently messy elements of it

[fatherramiro]

look maybe this is cringe or something but god what i wouldn't give to be a professor who teaches film, literature, and a few courses on the intersection of digital culture around media through a sociological and creative lens

[sunnydbd]

some fanart of HEAT STROKE! by @zorno-graphic on ao3 + 3L!Scar

text in second pic: You're a messy eater

uncensored link : ❤︎︎

twt : @ sunnybutlame

the rest of this post is just yapping abt the fic,, so light spoilers for heat stroke!

ngl im super nervous posting this and idk why??(i do, its bc im tagging the author..)

anyway, i didnt think this fic would ever be finished as the months went on and rolled over into next year but then i got the email notification and nearly screamed(yes that is embarrassing to admit..)

i cant, and probably could never, fully explain the sheer amount of detail that zorn put into this fic(and also the other fic ive read from them, Tweetheart, which is my roman empire) youll get more insight, and far less rambling brain slurry from the recesses of my animal brain, if you read both the fic and the comments as discussions on there are far more introspective citing direct quotes from the fic also have great author feedback, the rest of this post is something i wanted to note

the fic is riddled with contrasting elements(im mostly focusing on chapter 2 when i say this as its fresh in my mind) like in the descriptors, monologue, and characterization. 

comparatively Grian’s and Scar’s characters are complete opposites, Grian’s invasive to intimacy and outright tries to deny it(trying to physically leave their house) while Scar is the one who initiates the intimacy and craves vulnerability(not saying Grian doesnt initiates anything between the two just that Scar is less repressed.)

a similar example of this is in the sex scenes, the inherent intimacy of sex and how Grian acts during(practically begging sometimes) is contradictory to his established character, standoffish(once again im directing you to the comments as lovely user sheepfriend and zorn have a great conversation further explaining Grian’s character better than i am) while Scar is so delightfully pathetic and almost takes a submissive role(??) which is against his confident demeanor throughout the fic(dunno know where else to mention this but i love the uses of dog imagery for Scar its just so good, mwah chef kiss)

 in Grian’s inner monologue he feels remorse when looking at the scars hes caused on Scar’s body but then later on, still in his inner monologue, revels in the fact that hes left his physical mark on Scar(again reading those comments from sheepfriend and zorn give far more insight) 

water and thirst is often used as a metaphor for desire in the more intimate scenes, "Water sidling up to the hard coast that is Scar’s body, the firm landing strip of bones.”, “He’s thirsty, he realizes, the withering curling need gathering on his tongue and down his throat.” this imagery is very contrasting to their environment, which is a desert, and also to the catalyst of the fic, Grian’s heat(in an etymologic sense rather than in the context of the fic)

theres in fact no thesis statement to this long post aside from the fact that zorn loves the use of contrast(thats the entirety of the 2cents i wanted to chip in,) but if you want a far better explanation of the insane rambling i just wrote i direct you to this lovely post by zorn from his blog ! i recommend if you havent read HEAT STROKE!(or Tweetheart because its good !!) you should read the fic first and then the post as it really puts the vibe you get throughout both fics into words❤︎︎❤︎︎

honestly zorn's writings have greatly influenced my writing and(when i first read Tweetheart) got me back into writing, their writing style is so good and is chalk-full of detail and care i truly cant recommend their works enough or put it into words(which is why this paragraph is so rambling,,)the sheer amount of creativity and detail in every aspect of his fics❤︎︎❤︎︎

also, didnt know where else to mention it, i love the way zorn writes Grian's and Scar's dynamic(like?? hellofjdkj???)

i have no idea if this makes any sense i havent slept in hours and its catching up to me,,.

[jesncin]

So after that episode my adventure with superman. There's a lot debate surrounding the love interest of superhero finding out their identity some really hated it and some think the loved one deserve to know

MAWS spoilers discussion incoming!

What's frustrating about the discourse MAWS started about "superheroes being open to their love interest on their secret identity" is that it's an inherently disingenuous framing of what happened between Clark and Lois in MAWS.

Because what actually happened is "acquaintance discovers that a guy she met less than a week ago is Superman, and she's insulted he didn't disclose that to her sooner despite her claiming to want to dox Superman" It's been 5 days. They didn't even date yet!

The problem with framing this as just "being honest" to your loved ones about your "superhero identity" is that is leaves out the fact that there is a marginalized element to Superman's identity as an alien immigrant. There's a difference between Bruce Wayne telling someone he's Batman and Clark Kent coming out as an alien to someone he trusts.

MAWS pulls a direct parallel between Clark's marginalization as an alien to that of a gay couple, allegorically likening his experience to that of a closeted person. Under that lens, doesn't it make sense why Clark doesn't trust his friends?

Despite Jimmy apparently knowing Clark is an alien but not wanting to bring it up because it "seemed like a sensitive subject", he still outed Superman as an alien on his channel, did nothing when Lois proclaimed she wanted to "force Superman to tell us all his secrets", and handed Lois the tabloids that outed Clark to Lois. Neither he nor Lois created a safe environment for Clark to feel comfortable to come out to them.

And yet the narrative sides with the entitled allies' feelings. Lois lies to Clark and Jimmy on day 1 and nearly got them fired. She even keeps lying to Clark afterwards despite promising not to! Only to turn around and say she hates being lied to because of daddy issues. The hypocrisy of this is never called out. Jimmy isn't even a little understanding that his superhero friend would miss out on a camping trip because he's busy saving people! This is part of a common trend of Vilifying Closeted People, and Clark's arc fits it to a tee.

TLDR The discourse around this arc is so messy because MAWS presented it that way. The show only recognizes Clark is marginalized when they want to lightly touch on themes of xenophobia but completely ignore it when his friends are entitled to that part of him. It's a show that can't make up its mind.

[keitheaverage]

As per my last post, please don't interpret it as me wanting to gatekeep Tack or TTATC in general from being found by others. On the contrary! it's good that the film is getting its flowers for the LITERAL DECADES of work that was put into it by Williams & his crew (plus all the work that's been done just on the Recobbled Cut). And if some young adults are going gaga over Tack and want to make fanart and thirst edits of him, I'm the last person you will see trying to stop them from having their fun. That's not the energy I want to bring into the studio today.

I'm just [🙏💥] PRAYING that these new kids on the block keep any discourse or absurd takes or petty arguments or misinformation that could potentially sour the film's legacy* towards outsiders and animation enthusiasts to an absolute bare minimum. Have fun, get to know each other, but be nice to each other, at the end of the day.

*This is said with the full understanding that there are elements of the film that in modern contexts and sensibilities, did not age well, chief among them being certain character designs, not to mention the messy production history. I am not saying the film is without its faults, nor that it is inherently bad to acknowledge those faults or controversies in civil discussion. Only that with the years of hard work having been put into it, I, as an artist, would find it deeply upsetting if this film was reduced to nothing else but cheap discourse fodder for young people on the internet who solely want to be the loudest and smartest person in the comment section.

[revanthraj01]

Crafting Elegance: Exploring Luxury Modular Kitchens in Chennai

Introduction: In the clamoring cityscape of Chennai, where custom meets advancement, the core of each and every home beats inside its kitchen. A space for culinary manifestations as well as for family social occasions and discussions over sweet-smelling flavors and stewing curries. Lately, the idea of extravagance measured kitchens has flourished, changing commonplace cooking regions into up-to-date, proficient, and ergonomic spaces. How about we dig into the domain of extravagance measured kitchens in Chennai, where usefulness weds polish.

The Essence of Luxury Modular Kitchens: Gone are the days when kitchens were restricted to simple usefulness. Today, they are imagined as expansions of one's way of life and character. Extravagance secluded kitchens typify this advancement, mixing complexity with usefulness flawlessly. In Chennai, where the metropolitan people looks for both first impression and significance, these kitchens have arisen as images of refined residing.

Design Aesthetics: One of the characterizing elements of extravagance measured kitchens in Chennai is their wonderful plan style. From smooth moderate plans to extravagant customary themes, the range of styles is huge. Inside originators in Chennai imbue these kitchens with components that mirror the city's rich social legacy while embracing contemporary patterns. From shiny completions to matte surfaces, everything about fastidiously organized to make an amicable visual allure.

Premium Materials: Extravagance particular kitchens focus on quality materials that guarantee life span and tasteful allure. In Chennai, where mugginess levels can be high, the selection of materials turns out to be much more critical. Premium materials like high-grade treated steel, rock, marble, and designed wood are leaned toward for their sturdiness and protection from dampness. These materials upgrade the kitchen's visual allure as well as endure the afflictions of day to day use effortlessly.

Innovative Features: Past feel, extravagance particular kitchens in Chennai are outfitted with creative highlights that lift the cooking experience. From best in class apparatuses to brilliant capacity arrangements, each perspective is intended to upgrade usefulness and productivity. Inherent machines, hid capacity units, and ergonomic workstations enhance space use while keeping a messiness free climate. In Chennai's quick moving way of life, these elements reverberate with mortgage holders who esteem accommodation without settling on style.

Customization Options: One more sign of extravagance particular kitchens is their adaptability and customization choices. Chennai's different populace, with changed inclinations and ways of life, requests customized arrangements that take care of their remarkable necessities. Whether it's a smaller kitchen in a skyscraper condo or a roomy manor kitchen, measured plans offer vast conceivable outcomes. From design setups to variety plans and gets done, mortgage holders have the opportunity to make kitchens that are a genuine impression of their taste and way of life.

The Future of Luxury Modular Kitchens in Chennai: As Chennai develops into a powerful city, the interest for extravagance measured kitchens is supposed to rise further. With progressions in innovation and configuration drifts, the conceivable outcomes are unfathomable. From reasonable materials to coordinated savvy home frameworks, the eventual fate of extravagance kitchens is ready to be both eco-accommodating and mechanically progressed. As Chennai embraces advancement while remaining established in custom, extravagance particular kitchens will keep on forming the culinary scene of the city.

Conclusion: In Chennai, where culinary customs are profoundly imbued in the structure holding the system together, extravagance particular kitchens address an amicable mix of custom and advancement. As mortgage holders look for spaces that reverberate with their way of life and goals, these kitchens arise as safe-havens of style and usefulness. With their dazzling plan style, premium materials, imaginative highlights, and customization choices, extravagance secluded kitchens in Chennai rethink the specialty of culinary residing, promising a magnificent excursion for mortgage holders who love the better things throughout everyday life.

[vinooshiya]

 Exploring the Overlooked Realities of Data Science

Within the expansive field of data science, certain elements often linger in the background. Let's delve into these less-explored facets from the Best Data Science Training Institute.

  1. Navigating Data Cleaning Challenges: The Unacknowledged Heroism

While much attention is directed towards model building, the often-underappreciated reality lies in the meticulous task of data cleaning. Managing messy, incomplete, or inconsistent data demands careful attention and patience, serving as the essential foundation for extracting meaningful insights. If you want to learn more about Data Science, I highly recommend the Data Science course in Bangalore because they offer certifications and job placement opportunities. You can find these services both online and offline.

  2. Ethical Crossroads in Data Collection: Treading Carefully

Beyond the spotlight on analytics, data scientists grapple with ethical dilemmas concerning privacy, consent, and biases within datasets. Striking a delicate balance between deriving insights and maintaining ethical standards is a nuanced challenge deserving more open discussion.

  3. Model Interpretability: Unraveling the Complexity

While sophisticated models take the stage, their interpretability remains a less-explored yet pivotal aspect. Decoding and explaining the decisions made by complex models holds implications for trust and accountability.

  4. Continuous Learning and Adaptation: The Unseen Endeavor

The swift evolution of data science necessitates continual learning and adaptation. The unspoken reality lies in the perpetual cycle of acquiring new skills and embracing emerging tools, a challenge not always openly acknowledged.

  5. Communication Challenges: Bridging the Gap

Effectively conveying insights transcends technical expertise. Bridging the gap between data scientists and non-technical stakeholders requires both analytical acumen and adept communication skills, aspects often underestimated.

  6. Embracing Uncertainty: Confronting the Unpredictable

In the pursuit of certainty, the inherent uncertainty in data science often goes unmentioned. Recognizing and navigating this uncertainty is a reality; models provide predictions based on available data, but the future inherently holds unknown variables.

In conclusion, shedding light on these less-discussed dimensions adds depth to our understanding of data science. Acknowledging the challenges of data cleaning, ethical considerations, model interpretability, continuous learning, effective communication, and dealing with uncertainty fosters a more comprehensive perspective on the field.

[organized-chaotic-disaster]

you cant be an anti and also hold the same beliefs outlined in the "authors shouldnt be allowed to write about-" post you reblogged criticizing the people that say things like that. those people and antis are the same kind of person with the same set of beliefs- antis believe that there is inherent harm in portrayals of messy relationships and/or outright abusive ones, they believe that anything with unpleasant elements should be censored. they are the same people and by being one you are contributing to the rise of censorship and fascism

I have important work I need to do so I'm going to try to keep this brief

I assume you're talking about anti with regards to being the opposite of pro-shipping. I never said I was an anti. I have said I don't like pro-shipping, because my understanding was that pro-shipping endorses things like pedophilia and other types of abusive relationships— if that understanding is wrong, please feel free to kindly correct me

It's one thing to endorse something, and another thing to write about it

Take fictional stories about war, for example. A lot of the time, these stories are very ANTI-war. Yet they still write about it. They don't endorse it, they use it as a method of telling their story about why it's bad. To discuss why something is bad, we need to discuss it in the first place

I don't appreciate people genuinely shipping underage characters with adult characters. I also don't appreciate people genuinely shipping relationships they portray as abusive, like incest or other abuse. I don't appreciate people genuinely endorsing racist beliefs and stereotypes. I believe such topics should be allowed to be written about and discussed, but endorsing them is another topic entirely

If something is not doing active harm, that's fine. Literacy has been used to do active harm, yes. So in those cases, people need to be properly educated about why those cases DO cause harm if they're to engage with them

Some people I know read Matt Walsh's transphobic book recently. That is doing active harm because they read this and endorse transphobic beliefs as a direct result. But someone that understands why this book is harmful should be able to read it, so that way they know what it's saying and how to combat its harmful ideas. I believe that's why the post said even these kinds of texts should not be censored, but read VERY carefully and with scrutiny (apologies if I'm misremembering that part of the post)

In order to combat harmful beliefs, we need to understand them so we can refute them and explain why they're harmful. Just plugging your ears and pretending it isn't there doesn't help anything or anyone. I assume you understand this, based on your message, as do I. Which is why I reblogged that post

I'd like to reiterate that what I DON'T like is people genuinely endorsing the harmful things portrayed in such works. Some people genuinely ship underage characters with adult characters, in the way that, if they were real people, they'd be happy to see them together in a romantic and sexual relationship. That's not okay! THAT'S what I'm "anti" of, not the critical portrayal of such topics in the first place!

Personally, I don't read fics that include pedophilia, incest, or other abusive topics, because I find them squicky. But I understand that, in some cases, these people are simply writing about a dark topic they don't endorse because we need to discuss these things! For some people, writing these stories is how they process such trauma they've experienced— I've done similar writing myself!

TL;DR: it's not the existence of writing about dark and harmful topics that bothers me, it's the endorsement of them

I hope this clears things up. And if I got something wrong here, like what it means to be pro- or anti-, please let me know kindly, not aggressively

[tailsrevane]

[book review] blood and chocolate by annette curtis klause (1997)

this is really messy ya fiction that goes to some fucking intense (and i think, occasionally, irresponsible) places. i know i say this a lot about books like this but it really does feel like a similar energy to the kinds of writing i always really vibed with in fanfic but never really intentionally seek out in profic and i really do need to do something about that because i frequently end up loving it.

also it does that super fanficcy thing where it refers back to characters’ backstories in a way that makes you wonder if you missed a previous book or something even though this is the only book in the series. perfect. exquisite. i’ll take three.

i just fucking adore this kind of heart-on-its-sleeve bullshit. and this one also does that thing where it feels like a pretty restrained, conventional narrative for a good long while and the intensity just very abruptly spikes and it’s like “oh! ok. we’re doing this now i guess!” for the rest of the book.

that kind of thing can frankly actually be detrimental if it just doesn’t land for you for whatever reason, and for me at least i find my reactions to this kind of thing to be pretty fickle, and in this particular case i actually found myself completely onboard with the abrupt shift (... heh, shift).

like there is for sure shit in here that i could be obstinate & complain about if i really wanted to, and i wouldn’t even be wrong because i actually do think a lot of it is big-P Problematic, but for whatever reason this particular book just really lulled me into enjoying it anyway, and i like liking things so i’m just gonna go ahead and let myself like this.

(spoilers, cw: suicide mention, age gap relationship)

if you’ve followed my reviews for a while in one form/venue or another you might be thinking, “wait, robin, it sounds an awful lot like you’re describing a guilty pleasure, you said those aren’t a thing.” but i promise you that is not what’s happening here? nor am i “enjoying it ironically” (something i basically refuse to do, heck something i might be incapable of doing). my enjoyment is genuine. i will certainly allow that this is a “problematic fave,” which i suppose some people consider synonymous with a “guilty pleasure,” but i still think there’s an important distinction to be had there.

enjoying (or not enjoying) art is an inherently dialectical process and the meaning isn’t produced wholly in the media itself or wholly in you yourself, but rather in the relationship between those two things. i do not feel guilty about enjoying blood and chocolate. (wow that sounds like a whole thing out of context lmao.)

i am uncomfortable with some of the messages that can be derived about relationships from gabriel’s 180-degree turn from a guy made of literally nothing but red flags to the embodiment of gruff but tender masculinity, given the patriarchy-shaped patterns of abuse many women are subjected to in their searches for mates, and i think especially for a book marketed largely towards young women this does them a serious disservice.

but i’m an adult and i know better so i can separate my enjoyment of this from its problematic elements as long as i responsibly call them out when discussing the book. and against what i thought were pretty long odds when i realized where this story was going, i do like gabriel & vivian’s romance. i do like the guy he turns into later in the book, no matter how blatantly unearned that turn was. and i’m perfectly willing to just allow myself to enjoy that, in spite of all the fairly obvious reasons why i “shouldn’t.”

hell, his ideas about werewolves having an instinctive need to dominate & protect are fucking hot and i could easily see them being rewardingly incorporated into a power exchange relationship? and also like… even in the context where they came up in this book, they actually aren’t horrible? he’s basically explaining why relationships between werewolves & humans are inherently unsafe, but he’s doing it in a very empathetic, nonjudgmental way. and just… if that really is how things work in this world, i’m actually super behind his take?

but what really helped the most is that it wasn’t until vivian had been through something similar to what gabriel had been through, and he shared his story with her, helping her begin to recover from her trauma, that i was really sold on them. because their relationship really is built on them being kindred spirits.

i’m deliberately ignoring something rather huge here, and that’s the fact that vivian is 16 and gabriel is 24. and, i mean… some of the discourse about age gaps in romantic & sexual relationships can be overly rigid. like, as someone who was simultaneously being emotionally abused & manipulated by someone roughly my own age in a “romantic” relationship while also being in a much healthier fuckbuddies-shaped relationship with someone who was almost twice my age, i just don’t see how so many people can see this as such a one-size fits all kind of thing? but in the case of a 24-year old adult man and a 16-year old high school girl, i feel pretty fucking okay saying that this is one of the clearest-cut cases of “that shit is not okay.” and again this is an aspect of the story where i think the book pretty clearly fails its target audience, because holy shit should you never be drilling into people’s heads that that kind of thing is normal.

for the record, i also will briefly mention that i also don’t really think the way this book treats suicide is responsible at all, again especially in view of its target audience. i don’t super want to get into it in any more depth than that? and i am sorry if anyone feels let down by my bringing it up but not really feeling super comfy getting into it in depth, but i frankly just wouldn’t feel responsible if i didn’t mention it at all.

but, again, that really isn’t what decides whether i like a given story or not, it’s just context that i feel responsible to put out there. because in spite of all of that, i really like this book.

it really helps that vivian is actually super into being a werewolf? she isn’t all angsty & self-hating, she thinks her werewolf self is beautiful (because it fucking is) and she is hurt & confused & angry when aiden can’t see that. and gabriel seeing that & understanding it and talking her through it was a pretty huge breakthrough for me with that character. but really i just love vivian as a narrator, and i actually got pretty fucking miffed when a reviewer i usually like found her annoying because she really is my favorite thing about this book.

this is not only a problematic fave, it’s a problematic fave that has me excited to branch out and discover whole new problematic faves in this genre, because i understand that both a lot of the things that i found uncomfy in this book and a lot of the things i liked about it are basically genre staples. and yeah, i can for sure deal with more of this.

a-rank

[piejumper]

Did a reread of chainsaw man to solidify my thoughts on part 1 and more specifically to get a better view of my problems with it. tw for themes and discussions of incest and sexualization of minors and spoilers for chainsaw man, long post below the readmore

Reread chainsaw man part 1 to refresh my thoughts on it and approach it again after the initial feelings if being so taken in with the spectacle and horror of it have faded and I think I've settled a little on why I like it and also why I don't like it, because of the more glaring flaws it has and why they're probably gonna explode into controversy later.

One of the things about it that still make me uncomfortable in a serious way is its approach to sensuality in regards to the relationships denji forms that aren't sexual in relation to characters like power and specifically how it's depicted visually, and how the Manga as a whole has a serious issue with sexualizing minors in a way that I feel the narrative doesn't justify enough to clearly land what (i think) is its messages and how it damages how its trying to frame the way in which denji is exploited by the women around him because of his traumatic and neglected childhood and warped preception of love as a result.

Specifically with how the imagery in the later half of chainsaw man when denji is supposed to be taking care of power as like a sibling the author seems to exploit the fact that they aren't related to insert a lot of really uncomfortably sensual positioning where it didn't need to be for the message of denji not viewing the relationships he has with her as needing to be as a physically romantic one either.

And while it's not actually bad that this approach was used removed from context as a way of showing denji's relationship with a girl he lives with that he met only recently in his life that hes come to care for, it's the retroactive recontextuallized perception later that denji and power were meant to be viewed as siblings that I feel damages the integrity of the moments because fujimoto has a skeevy past when it comes to how he depicts brother and sibling relationships in his other work and his seeming fascination with themes of incest in his previous works like fire punch and one one-off he did that's escaping me.

I don't feel he dose a good job of carefully exploring the messy and terrible complexities of incestuous relationships to do the subject matter the justice it deserves for people hurt by them without depicting it in a fetishistic and voyeuristic light. And that extends to how he chose to depict the other exploitative relationships involving women in the Manga esp the ones that are minors.

And his use of sexualized imagery in that regard i feel also fails to not be an inherently fetishistic and objectifying display in places where that display doesn't add anything or enough to the story in a way that justifies it. I like the story fujimoto told with the elements he included outside of these visual elements, but his usage of serious subject matter in ways that fail to not actually avoid or condem the incredibly fucked up implications they have and it makes his work feel surface level and exploitative in itself and hurts the kind of people irl that the story itself is supposed to be about and the horrible relationships hes supposed to be exploring.

It could be argued that these are problems more endemic to Manga as a whole but in this case that the extent fujimoto takes these kinds of things I feel far extends past what's the norm and also regardless of conventions are, are things that should be criticized and are examples of a more core problem with his work.

Reze is the primary example of this outside of power that comes to my mind when I think of this because in a few ways the manner in which she's shown in an objectifying light do make sense because she's meant to be denji's first real shot with someone like him and in the context of denji thinking about her in the way a horny teenager dose it makes sense he would be thinking of her in that light, but in outside material and the way this is visually approached in the manga reze is fetishized despite the fact that she's supposed to be around the same age as denji who is *16* in cannon at that point, despite the fact that we never get an actual answer about how old she is, making it so the Manga dances on the line when it comes to actually crossing the line.

It's hard trying to describe the way that this occurs because while I was reading I was seeing how the ways these moments happen most of the time can have deeper meanings that do reinforce the fact that what you're watching happen to denji is fucked up and exploitative and also why denji is doing the things he dose, and I do think that csm overall dose keep in line with that idea, but as fujimoto pushes that envelope he crosses the line in a number of areas that make it feel like cms is caught in between trying to be a story that engages with fucked up subject matter in a critical way, with Being a voyeuristic spectacle for that fucked up subject matter and that really sucks.

Tl;dr I don't think fujimoto did a good job with his approach to sexuality in csm, it being voyeuristic and objectifying with the serious subject matter he engaged with in certain areas

[becca-e-barnes]

The "minors DNI" posts that I've been seeing crop up everywhere by fic writers are always so interesting to me.

First and foremost, I 100% support your decision to post a "minors DNI" for your safety and their safety. You're being responsible, doing your due diligence as a responsible adult, and trying to ensure that everyone enjoys what you put out there in a safe way.

And I know you specifically have not said this so this is not a slight on you by any means, but I think you'd be more open to the discourse of such an interesting topic like this—the problem I have with some fic writers is that is them saying they will block anyone who does not have their age posted in their blog.

This, I believe, is an incredibly dangerous precedent to set. On the one hand displaying your age if you are over 18 seems like a non-issue, right? Sure. But setting the precedent that people should display their age in their blog encourages minors to share their age on the internet which in turn can make them an easier target.

Personal preference for me—I'm a thirty-two year old lady (plz sing this appropriately) and do not share my age in my tumblr because, well I don't want to.

We're all technically violating TOS anyway, so it doesn't really matter if a minor interacts with your fic or not at this point—by interact I mean like/reblog/comment, not DMing you to talk about sexual stuff. That stuff you should absolutely block/delete for obvious legal and safety reasons.

And while I understand the legality thing, if you are not explicitly engaging with said minor, there's not a whole bunch that could hold up in court. How many lawsuits do you think E.L. James gets for 13 year olds waltzing into a bookstore or buying 50 shades of grey off amazon and reading it? There was actually an interesting article written about the "common sense" engagement with this book back in 2012.

Anywho, you are right to ask and set a boundary, and do what you feel is right to protect yourself and using the DNI minor blanket statement is ultimately a good thing, especially if it's a personal uncomfortableness with minors reading your work. However, even if a minor just decided to lie and say they were 21 and read your stuff anyway, unknowingly interacting with a minor is just as bad legally as knowingly doing so so at the end of the day, we're still just taking risks. The safest thing for all of us would probably be to not interact with anyone or ask everyone to use anon, but there's not fun or friendship in that. Your mutual who has stated they're 25 could still be 16 and you wouldn't know it.

My perspective may also just be entirely outdated as well because I grew up in the internet age of it being a lawless wasteland and everyone lied about everything, so I don't see the value in trying to police my work when people will just read it anyway and I don't have any control over that at the end of the day other than to tag appropriately and/or not post anything at all ever.

This was long and not necessary to answer, I'm just always fascinated by the rigor at which fanfic writers are so quick to banish people for not putting their age in their bios when I think it is inherently more dangerous for minors to do so because it puts a target on their back.

Before I start, I recognise that we’re of the same line of thought! I saw this long message and panicked thinking that someone had taken an issue with my stance on it and I’m glad that’s not the case 🙈 Anything I raise here is in the interest of discussion and I completely respect your point of view. 💗

This is really interesting actually and truth be told, I’ve avoided any discussion on this topic for a very long time for fear that I won’t adequately explain my stance on it. I feel like I’ve had a chance to do that and I hope it’s been taken up by everyone as I intended.

I will admit; as a minor, I read smut. Without going into detail, it entirely warped my perspective on how relationships should look. To provide a little context on my stance, at 14/15 (and younger), I had no business reading the things I was reading. Unfortunately, I was in a “relationship” at the time and I fully believed that I had to engage with my boyfriend in ways that mirrored what I was reading. I ended up in situations I didn’t want to be in. To me, it’s my responsibility as a writer and as someone who learned the hard way, to ensure that younger people don’t make the same mistakes I did.

I do fully agree, minors stating their real age on their blog raises all sorts of different issues, as you rightly said. You’re absolutely right, to a minor there are no advantages to displaying your real age on here. Fic writers will block you, creeps will be more likely to engage with you. So I fully understand that this might seem like a reason to lie or provide no age at all.

Leading on from that though, if a minor lies on their profile and claims to be over 18 and they interact with my smut, from a legal perspective, that is not going to have any repercussion on me. I have put my disclaimers up, I vet as many profiles as I can and I do everything I would be reasonably expected to do in the eyes of the law. (This isn’t an area of law I studied in significant depth but that standard of reasonable expectation would still apply). I do as much as I can to protect myself and them.

You brought up 50 Shades and I understand your point but the issue here is not just the fic itself. If anyone comments/ reblogs my fic, I like to send a little reply back! I love when people take the time to give me feedback and I want to thank them for it, as a lot of other writers do! The issue here being that if the blog commenting is a minor, the writer would be engaging in a conversation about sexual material with a minor. And that’s fucking messy. This is mainly where fics differ from a teenager buying a copy of 50 shades. In that situation, there’s no interaction there between the author and the underage fan so it loses that personal element.

On the issue of blogs with no age, I see where you’re coming from and I see that you both read and write fanfiction. But I also see it from the other perspective given that a lot of writers like to do as much as possible to protect themselves and potential minors.

I totally support that’s a boundary that you set and it’s your choice. In the same sense that it’s a fic writer’s choice to protect themselves by blocking you. It’s a matter of boundaries clashing at the end of the day. I really do see both sides here. I’m a really organised person so honestly, if anyone wanted to send me a private message just confirming they’re over 18, I’d put them all into a list to make sure I don’t accidentally block them for interacting. But of course, not every writer would be able to do that and I’m sure many readers would want to do that either! I just see it as the only way to compromise on that issue and keep everyone happy.

Thank you for sending me this! I hope I covered everything and if I haven’t been clear enough in some areas, feel free to come back to me! 🙈 And I really appreciate actually having a discussion on here! It’s so great to hear others’ points of view in a nice, respectful way. Tumblr loses that sometimes! Have a lovely evening 💗

[fattyfreya]

Could you elaborate a bit more on how nonfat models make fatness a caricature? This is something I’ve never thought about before, so I’m very curious. I guess I’m having difficulty separating the caricatures of fatness from just common feederism tropes (which, to me, are indeed caricatures of fatness). Or are you saying that common feederism tropes themselves are inherently fatphobic? I’d definitely agree there. Anyway, I hope to hear more of your thoughts on this. It’s a very interesting discussion!

Ok so sorry for the slow reply, I wanted to kinda gather my thoughts the best way possible! Also, thank you for asking this, I do sincerely appreciate it.

So because nothing exists in a singular incident we have to think about how troupes of fat people exist in popular culture. From Fat Monica on Friends, to Fat B@stard in Austin Powers, fat people have traditionally been a joke, and actors aren't just using the script. A LOT of this comedy relied on how fat people take up spaces, they are portrayed as an intrusive nuisance, at times bumping into things, knocking over people, walking absurdly slow, or at worst taking space from others. Often an over-exaggeration of how fat people move and operate in spaces. I won't lie, a lot of those portrayals of fat people have trickled down into this fetish.

So I often see non-fat models, or models who aren't viewed as fat by traditional beauty standards, or who haven't had to navigate the systemic shìt that comes with being a fat person (esp a fat k!d), talk about how their mobility is gone at 180 pounds, or how they can't fit into spaces, to even a forced waddle. To see them so willingly play into those tropes, and then to profit from the fatphobia that those tropes are built-in, is incredibly disheartening. I understand fetish and fantasy, and believe elements of that are fine, but at what point are some of these folks bending to fatphobic views? And at what point is being the socially acceptable version of fat playing to this and just reinforcing fatphobia?

I do think that a lot of feederism tropes are based in fatphobia. Not all, but quite a few. From the idea that at a certain point or weight all fat people are lazy, overindulgent, unable to fit in clothes, or even being messy. I do think there is power in reclaiming some of these narratives, and I especially think this is true for fat creators. On a personal level, I wish I could do more of this, but that type of content doesn't perform well for me. I have performed a span of adult work, and in each of the lines of work I was fëtï$ized.

Happy to talk more about it, and hope this helps.

[g-perla]

From “Nessian Shipper!!” to “Nessian…Shipper??”

This...is going to be a long one so strap in.

Years ago when ACOMAF came out and the kind people of tumblr posted screenshots of the Wings and Embers short, I found myself looking at Nesta and Cassian, considering the idea of them being romantically and physically involved, and found myself with the following thought; that’s my SHIP. These feelings were reinforced throughout the smattering of brief interactions between the two we got in ACOWAR, probably until the very end where it was unclear if Cassian had gone to see Nesta before or after she headed up the stairs seeming distinctly not ok. That wasn’t a very big deal though. For all I know he did, and she pushed him away, or maybe they did have a talk. Feyre’s perspective is very limited after all. This didn’t really stop my Nessian shipper heart at all.

My Nessian shipper heart became compromised in ACOFAS and in the teaser to ACOSF. I still haven’t re-read ACOFAS so I just want to make it clear that I’m still dealing with 2+ years of accumulated messy, largely unexplored feelings about this ship. That being said, I wasn’t very impressed by Cassian’s behaviour towards Nesta. The interactions between them we were shown left me questioning the stability of a ship I had previously loved with reckless abandon. I questioned Cassian, I questioned Nesta, I questioned their independent trajectories, and them as a couple in the context we were given. My conclusion was that I could no longer really ship them as eagerly in good conscience.

A week or so ago I wrote in a post that Cassian seems, to me, ashamed of Nesta. This idea came to me after considering his behaviour mostly in ACOFAS and to a lesser degree in the previous books. A post by @inyourmindeye, where they put forth their arguments about why Cassian isn’t ashamed of Nesta made me reconsider, however. I read their post carefully and took some time to gather my thoughts after taking in this other perspective. I will share them now.

First, I will say that the word “ashamed” perhaps isn’t the most exact word to express how I feel about Cassian’s complex emotions when it comes to Nesta. I think a more apt word would be conflicted. Second, I want to clarify that when I wrote “ashamed” I didn’t mean to imply that he didn’t care about Nesta. Feeling ashamed of something or someone because of the feelings of attraction or care one might have is certainly possible. Additionally, these emotions aren’t necessarily contradictory, nor do they necessarily depend on each other. They do, however, complicate each other and create conflict.

But what exactly is the source of Cassian’s possibly conflicted feelings?

In the most simplistic sense, I suggest the source is Nesta and the Inner Circle. Or rather, Nesta v. the Inner Circle.

Many in the fandom and some of my own posts have discussed the inherent incompatibilities between Nesta and the IC (as depicted in the canon texts we have access to as of 21/10/20). These incompatibilities are largely ideological such as different definitions of “free will” and agency. Nesta simply does not tolerate the messy dynamics of the IC and the tacit acknowledgement that Rhys has the most authority. For Nesta to fit into this world, she would have to abandon the elements of her character that constitute her core self and which make her subversive within the narrative and without: a disdain towards authority, a resolute mind that isn’t easily moved, quick to anger and abrasive and hostile in her expressions of this anger, but capable of making concessions if the situation gnaws at her strict moral code, morally grey, not nurturing, generally unpleasant to those she doesn’t trust, judgemental, unapologetic in her sexuality or in her femininity, lacking in patience when it comes to idiots and sycophants, critical to a fault, not immune to enacting cruelty, etc. See, if this were a man and if this book had been written during the Romantic period and we were reading it now we would just say “well, I’ll be! What a text-book example of a compelling Byronic hero! We love to see it.”

Note how the men (sorry, males) in SJM novels tend to have many of these same characteristics. They are also pretty good examples of Byronic heroes. The main difference is the energy most people bring when they criticise women. One of the characteristics of a Byronic hero is his refusal to be confined. This confinement can be moral, ideological, epistemological, or physical. Basically, people in the world of such a hero (or even in ours) can’t compute when they encounter him and are unable to put him in easy categories. This often manifests as irrational hatred towards this character because it offends our sensibilities about what is known and what is unknown.

It’s attractive to think that we are immune to this as people existing in the 21st century, but we are not. We still rely on the “Other” to define our identity by both creating it and violently rejecting it. I suppose it’s as good a time as any to share the thesis of my overarching analysis project; basically, Nesta is the ultimate representation of the Other. She is Other in her womanhood (or I guess femaleness), she was Other even as a human, now that she is high fae she is Other to humans but tragically she is also Other to the high fae because she was Made. She is Other as a magical being, she is Other to the IC, she was and is Other to her bio family. She is Other to many of us because we simply cannot comprehend her actions in ACOTAR (how could she have been so cruel????). As of now, there is not a single place where Nesta can exist without offending the very core of what a lot of people value.

One framework for the Other was proposed by the French psychoanalyst Jaques Lacan. He basically said that the Other is that which we must reject when we start forming a concept of the Self. The Self is the known therefore safe; the Other is the unknown therefore dangerous and disruptive. The Self creates the symbolic order which is essentially the blueprint of accepted life to which the Other is antithetical. I can go on and on about the intricacies of this, and Lacan himself certainly did, but I’m working on a review of different conceptualisations of the Other so I will stop here. What I want to establish while bringing this up is that Nesta is essentially the Other to the IC’s symbolic order, i.e. fundamentally incompatible and an epistemological threat. This is a very theoretical way to explain the IC’s hostility and dislike towards her, but I find it compelling enough to pursue (and I am a nerd).

We can’t forget that Cassian is a known element of the IC’s symbolic order, thus one of the Selves let’s say. The Self should seek to annihilate the Other (as it usually does)…not love it, desire it, care for it. To do so is to enter a profound state of existential precarity. To pursue his feelings for Nesta, Cassian would have to question the fundamental assumptions that are at the core of his known world. There is nothing simple about such a task and I can’t really blame him for struggling. 

Still, understanding something isn’t necessarily synonymous with liking it. I wish that the distance between these two characters were not so great. I wish both could just sit and talk with the respect I know them to have for one another. The constant insults and underhanded jabs made by both parties are messy and not in a fun way. As the ship stands, I don’t feel comfortable liking it with the same reckless abandon as before. I think their hostility is too raw, even if their actions contradict them most of the time. Is it unreasonable to want them to interact without reservations in situations other than those between life and death? I hope ACOSF can provide the development they both deserve. Maybe then I can stop having one leg in the ship and the other overboard.

[mexicancat-girl]

Ok guys, I can't take it, I’m seriously at my limit here.

Uraraka vs Bakuboi was a sham of a fight and none of it makes any goddamn sense.

Uraraka deserved her win, for multiple reasons.

Shout out to @bnhasalt, who’s post reminded me how indignantly furious this arc makes me.

More under the cut over both how salty I am, and how Uraraka losing against Explodo Kills makes absolutely no sense, even narratively.

(Warning ahead for a discussion on sexism, misogyny, forced fanservice, the blatant favoritism towards That One Specific Character even if unearned in the narrative, and the general incompetence on how to write female characters.

I call B/kugo “Bakuboi” in this analysis bc I don’t want to write his Actual Name out and have it pop up in his character tags. Also, heads up, I’m sorry for how messy and long this rant is )

First, can I just say that Horikoshi is uhhhh Bad at writing female characters?

Which I’m sure many female fans already have an inkling about, but goddamn is it never more obvious than in the Sports Festival Arc. Because hey, at least the female characters are THERE and PARTICIPATING and have their own time to shine! This ISN’T one of those arcs that just stars THE BOYS, so that MUST mean this arc is equal opportunity! Right...?

God, I wish. I wish...

See, the girls are the minority of the Sports Fest in general. It shouldn’t be this way. And quite frankly, the fact that the classes (and UA in general) isn’t closer to being a 50/50 gender split also makes no sense, considering all children are raised in a society that values heroism EQUALLY and almost half the population is male and half female.

But, okay, let’s say I actually believe in the most illogical character ratio imagineable of there being a 2 boy to 1 girl, like this is another round of Naruto But It’s Superheroes So It’s Different I Swear.

We all know that there is going to be an emphasis on Izuku, since he’s the protagonist and he wants to make All Might proud during the Sports Festival.

Pre-Festival, there’s the reveal that Uraraka wants to do her best, with her main motivation of becoming a hero to give her parents a good life. Iida also wants to make his own family proud, specifically his brother, because of his family legacy. 

Since these three are a trio, you’d think they’d all get some time to shine, right? Since they’re Izuku’s friends? And Izuku considers them his equals?

Yeah, no. Wrong.

This arc is dominated by Izuku, Shoto, and Bakuboi. That becomes clear very quickly. 

I knew I shouldn’t expect much, since these three are powerhouses and also the most popular characters of the entire franchise (just look at the popularity polls) but still. I’d thought at least Uraraka would get a chance to shine! Since we get some character development and motivation revealed from her!

But the female characters in general get done so dirty this arc, despite it being first set up as a perfect arc to let the girls have just as much opportunity to participate as their male peers.

The most significant part of the female characters all getting an ‘equal time to shine’ is when He Who Must Not Be Mentioned and Kaminari trick the girls into dressing as scantily-clad cheerleaders. Which is both Tiring and Unncessary.

(This scheme also shouldn’t have worked because Momo is Vice Rep and she is an intelligent girl, top of her class. She would be smart enough to go to a teacher and actually double-check to see if Class 1-A girls really needed to cheer in the activities portion of the Sports Festival. 

But noooo, Horikoshi can’t pass up a chance for FANSERVICE and forcing his underaged female characters to be uncomfortable for The Funnies! Thanks! I hate it!)

The female characters that move onto the final round of the Sports Festival, and thusly have the most attention, are: Uraraka, Mei Hatsume from Support, Momo, Mina, and Shiozaki from 1-B.

Wow, I sure wish these girls could like...show their worth. And maybe NOT get steamrolled and easily tossed aside in their matches because they’re facing Boys and Boys Have Strong Offense-based Quirks, That’s The Rules Folks.

(Before you come at me, I know that isn’t a rule that applies to every single male character in the series, but the strongest and offense-based Quirks tend to go to the male characters, while the female characters tend to get more support-based Quirks. It’s both sexist, but also an inherent trend in media in general. Please Just Let Women Punch Shit To Smithereens And Control The Elements.)

Yes, Mina and Shiozaki won their first rounds easily! And that’s great to see! But then we turn right around, and they're eliminated just as quickly in their second matches! Without even a fighting chance!

Good God, Shiozaki is literally PUSHED OUT OF THE RING. That’s it, that’s how she lost. Same thing with Momo in her match! And Mei straight-up forfeits because her character is based more on advertising her inventions/babies, so she doesn’t even fight.

So essentially, the female characters are shucked away if they’re not used to make the male characters look good, or there for fanservice, or there to show a shallow form of ~feminism~ so Horikoshi can pat himself on the back and say “See! Girls strong! I can write girls!”

And now we get to the meat of things: Uraraka.

Oh, poor Uraraka. Out of all the female characters, your potential was the greatest, and also the most squandered...

As a reminder, at the start of the arc, Uraraka speaks with both Izuku and Iida about how she wants to do well in the Sports Fest. They all promise to do their best. Izuku’s friends admit that they want to face him in later matches, because they want to be his equals.

Uraraka wanted to stand on the same level as Izuku and Iida, but she's the only one that doesn't move on past her first match!

And man, what an absolute bogus match it is.

Is it emotional? Yeah. Did I tear up when I watched it? Sure, every single time! But that's more because Uraraka is one of my favorite characters and I feel empathy for her and thought she deserved better.

The match gets to me because I also hate how Bakuboi is so fucking entitled and gets everything handed to him on a silver platter.

Bakuboi himself is written as, essentially, a Gary Stu. He always wins. ALWAYS. And even when he ‘loses’, he still manages to beat his opponents to the point that they need to be hospitalized (see Izuku vs Kacchan pt 1) or he makes his losses ALL ABOUT HIMSELF by twisting logic to fit his own narrative.

Remember how Bakuboi won against Todoroki in the final match? And was so pissed at him he was ready to Physically Assault Todoroki for him not being able to Get Over His Trauma to go 100% during their match? And even though Bakuboi LITERALLY won the entire Sports Festival, he’s so entitled that he demands a rematch because he feels like he “didn’t actually win”?

Not wanting a rematch for Todoroki’s sake, because Todoroki has been through a rough time and Bakuboi overheard Todo’s Tragic Abusive Backstory. Oh no, that would make too much sense and show too much character growth, we can’t have that! Bakuboi, even when winning the Sports Festival, demanded a rematch because he wanted to beat the shit out of Todoroki AGAIN to assert his dominance.

You see, Bakuboi is always rewarded in the narrative. Even when he loses it’s not seen as his fault. He’s never really punished for it, and he never learns any lessons from his losses.

Ah, and let’s not forget, Katsuki Bakuboi has the Best And Strongest Quirk Ever. Strong enough to even do the impossible and work to his advantage when it shouldn’t!

Like how he SOMEHOW manages to ‘beat the odds’ by breaking the laws of physics to win in Round 2. He manages to PUNCH THROUGH A QUIRK THAT CREATES A SOLID WALL from 1-B’s Tsuburaba in order to get back his team’s headband and move on to Round 3.

Or hey, his finishing move, Howlitzer Impact? Doesn’t make any sense either. It shouldn’t work as a...cyclone? Tornado? Drill thing? 

Look, the logistics of it shouldn’t work. Yes, this is anime, but do you HONESTLY think that a teenager YEETING himself in a fast spiral will somehow accomplish anything more than spreading out some explosions in a circle around him? You honestly think any other character would be able to pull that bullshit off WITHOUT upchucking their entire lunch?

But because it’s Bakuboi, it works somehow. Because Bakuboi’s Quirk is The Shining Beacon Of Quirks. 

Drawbacks? Sure, he SUPPOSEDLY has them. They’re noted in his character profile and everything. But very rarely do those supposed “drawbacks” ever actually come into play and actually, like, stop him. Or slow him down. Or, yknow, ACTUALLY WORK LIKE DRAWBACKS ARE SUPPOSED TO WORK.

Because apparently, human limits don’t exist for Katsuki fucking Bakuboi, nope, not at all!

One of Bakuboi’s "drawbacks" is supposed to be that he can't overexert himself or he can fuck up his wrists/his forearms will start to ache. 

Cool cool cool, except...This rarely slows him down or effects him at all. 

It’s actually astounding he hasn’t given himself Carpel Tunnel, because that would be a natural consequence to over-using his Quirk. Hell, he should be fucking up his arms almost as much as Izuku does to his own arms with a destructive Quirk like OFA! Explosions are dangerous and cause massive destruction, and that should be fucking up his arms SOMEHOW!

But, nope. Bakuboi is as fresh as a goddamn daisy. He can Never Have A Weakness.

(Another drawback is cold weather/Winter season is supposed to weaken his Quirk. Makes sense, since heat would help him produce more nitroglycerin sweat, and the cold would make it hard to sweat. But that sure as hell didn’t stop him during the Joint Training Arc in the future, and he didn’t struggle whatsoever to almost singlehandedly win that for his team.)

Not ONCE does Bakuboi’s Quirk ever effect him negatively and forces him to weaken! He keeps using his Quirk like it's nothing!!

And that’s the crux of the entire problem with Uraraka vs Bakuboi’s match.

Bakuboi apparently has “drawbacks” and “limits”, but he keeps somehow managing to break them without a sweat (ha) and without consequence, essentially PULLING WINS OUT OF HIS ASS.

Bakuboi was using his Quirk LITERALLY NONSTOP during Round 1, and kept using it to throw himself around in Round 2. Logically, he should’ve fucked his arms up and been at the very least SLOWED DOWN by the third round of the Sports Fest because he went past what were SUPPOSED to be his Quirk’s canonical limitations and logic!

It would've taught Bakuboi that he can't fucking steamroll through all his problems! He has limits! There are consequences to over using his Quirk! He’s a human being and he doesn’t have endless stamina like some sort of God!

Hell, every other character has these limits very clearly shown and outlined with their Quirks! Uraraka throws up when she over-uses Zero Gravity. Shoto, before using his fire side, would get frostbite. Iida’s Engines will stall after using Recipro Burst.

The other characters have limitations to their Quirks that slows them down, shows consequences for their actions, but Bakuboi NEVER HAS ANY.

THIS is why he’s a Gary Stu. THIS is why he won his match against Uraraka.

Not because of any logic. Because HIS QUIRK HAS NO FLAWS. And on top of that, THE NARRATIVE KEEPS REWARDING HIM, EVEN WHEN HE HASN’T EARNED IT.

Bakuboi SHOULD have been weakened from using his Quirk non-stop. Bakuboi SHOULD NOT have managed to pull out that “one final big explosion” that ruined Uraraka’s final attack.

Bakuboi was literally hissing about his arms hurting earlier, before their match started. And Uraraka forced him to use his Quirk so much that she managed to amass a ton of debris to knock him out and win the match. HIS EXPLOSIONS SHOULD HAVE SPUTTERED OUT, AND NOT SAVED HIM WITH THAT LAST-SECOND ASSPULL.

Like, I’m preeeeetty sure the entire reason Horikoshi wrote Uraraka vs Bakuboi in the first place was because he was attempting at writing Feminism.

See, Bakuboi Hates Everyone Equally, he’s not a violent misogynist for beating up Uraraka! It’s a Match, he Respects Women And Sees Them As Equals! The Crowd of Pro Heroes are the ones being Misogynistic and Judging The Match Early!

And look at Uraraka, she’s a Strong Woman! She keeps getting back up! That’s the Shonen Spirit! And she’s smart, too! Look at her amazing plan to win--

Oh, wait. Wait, nope. She didn’t win at all! :) Because our shining beacon of perfection Katsuki Bakuboi never loses!! :)) Look at all her hopes and dreams being blown to literal smithereens, because of Bakuboi’s ass pull, even though he shouldn’t have had enough time, sweat, and strength to muster up that last explosion!!! :)))

Can ya’ll feel my incandescent fury right now?

Because Horikoshi can NEVER write Bakuboi losing, Uraraka COULDN��T HAVE WON, even if her winning makes THE MOST LOGICAL SENSE.

This scene was supposed to show Uraraka’s strength. But it feels like Uraraka is being literally spit in her face, for even DARING to TRY to win against Katsuki fucking Bakuboi.

How much more impactful would Uraraka’s breakdown have been, if she had moved onto the Second Round with Izuku and Iida? How she would feel ashamed that she couldn’t keep up with them, with how Powerful their Quirks are? Especially after seeing Izuku and Todoroki’s amazing match, and seen how destructive and close a match it had been?

How DEVASTATED she would have felt, beating BAKUBOI--one of the strongest of their class!--and then STILL managing to lose the Sports Festival?

That would have been SO much more interesting! And even SADDER!! C’mon!

Uraraka SHOULD have won her match! It would’ve provided both character development for herself, and for Bakuboi! Bakuboi would realize he has limits to his body and Quirk, and realize not to underestimate his opponents! Uraraka would realize that she’s strong in spite of her Quirk not being necessarily combat-oriented, but still has a long way to go in being a Pro Hero!

But, nooooo. We can’t have CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, can we? We ESPECIALLY can’t have THE FEMALE CHARACTERS IMPACTING THE PLOT IN SOME WAY, either! Or--what’s this? FEMALE CHARACTERS ACTUALLY HAVING THE SPOTLIGHT FOR ONCE? Perish the thought!

The only good parts about this godforsaken arc are 1) Mei Hatsume 2) Hitoshi Shinso and 3) Izuku vs Todoroki fight and Todoroki’s Tragic Backstory Reveal. Everything else is hit-or-miss, if not completely hot garbage.

Anyways, thanks for coming to my TED Talk, and for reading this entire thing! Four for you, reader. You go, reader.

[tothedarkdarkseas]

You've been asked about female!Murdoc with male!2D and lesbian 2Doc, but how do you think that their relationship would change if Murdoc was a boy and 2D was a girl?

Behind a cut for length and (respectful) discussion of abuse.

I’m sorry to say but that is the configuration I like the least! To be honest with you, I probably would not ship it, at least not without major overhauls that would pretty much change their entire relationship from the beginning. The thing that I like about 2Doc is finding a way to balance the power and steer it more toward a mutually assured destruction, with maybe a glimmer of hope of being comfortable down the line-- and naturally, on the flipside, the 2Doc that does nothing for me is the 2Doc where Stu is stripped of agency, stripped of flaws, stripped of permission to be resentful and therefore rather ungentle with Murdoc emotionally. I suppose there is a world where Stu could be a woman like Paula, a harsh woman who still holds the cards over a man who wants her to be kept, but... it’s more difficult to justify that if the backstory is still about Murdoc putting her into a coma, mishandling her while comatose, mocking and belittling her while growing an obsession with her... and then there’s the matter of Plastic Beach, to make things even more unsalvageable. Can you still build off that to a place where she gets to come out with power over him, can you still mold the characters around each other in a way that makes them seem... too tightly bound to stay apart? And it’s a bit tricky to talk about because the rebuttal, and one that was made quite a lot a few years ago when 2Doc was a more hated ship, was exactly this: that it would be awful and abusive if Stu were female, so if you’re justifying it between them as men, you’re justifying abuse. What I think this argument discounts is how writers would add to and change their narrative, not just for the sweeter souls who made repentance and forgiveness the major themes, but the few who tried to bring the two to the same level by removing physical violence and adding human failings to Stu, adding the weight of anger and shame and all those hateful things to make the relationship feel less uneven. There is something compelling about exploring a balanced but deeply unhealthy relationship, and I admit, I think it would be easier to achieve that if both characters are of the same gender, or if Murdoc is female. Whether it’s hypocritical to say, it’s hard to feel exactly the same way at the idea of a woman in angry, resentful tears, screaming at the man who physically disfigured her and profited from it and then shagged her, and likewise it’s harder to find a less-treacherous path into Murdoc’s obsession and mental breakdown leading to his choice on the beach. It is a powerful dramatic story perhaps, but it’s... one that is just inherently more difficult to give “unhealthy balance” and not one I’d ship. None of that is to say it’s easy with their genders as they are, but... with all respect I do think there is some naiveté in denying any difference in how (traditional, outdated) gender is baked into our society and our storytelling. I don’t think it’s totally accurate to say there’s zero difference in Stu’s ability to assert some power and dominance over another man who has rubbed his own damage off on Stu, or the way his sexual relationship with Murdoc can be compounded with his own ignorant feelings on gender and sexuality, versus a female character expressing her anger but still “giving into” a sexual relationship with the man who hurt her and commodifies her-- it isn’t right or fair to still feel there’s an unbalance, but I can’t help feeling like there is.

All to say, I think that some of the elements I’ve tried to rewrite or reframe in their relationship would probably have to be thrown out entirely, and I’ve never been able to come up with a good alternate story. I don’t want to just excuse Murdoc’s bad behavior and erase any accountability in the relationship, as at that point they may as well be completely different characters; I also don’t want Stu to be a completely static victim who has no personality or shortcomings that lend themselves to this symbiotic host/parasite sort of relationship, but I admit, it is a more fun exercise to build them as mean, interesting, troubled women together than to brainstorm how to make a traumatized and exploited 20-year-old girl “bad.” I also tend to recast Stu’s lack of intelligence as less childlike (and borderline creepy) and lean more on the ROTO comment “he’s a bit thick,” and I try to add a little levity to Murdoc’s quips at Stu’s expense and Stu getting sour over them. I don’t think this would translate as well if she’s female and Murdoc is still an older man taking potshots at her intelligence or treating her as the “stupid pretty face” of the band. It can be tiring for women to be tokenly cast as the reasonable and intelligent one against more fun comedic male leads, but I’d also feel pretty uncomfortable with that relationship dynamic and would probably want to make changes to it.

Blah blah blah, ramble ramble! I apologize for this answer sort of lacking an answer, but I don’t really have an idea myself of how to write that relationship dynamic and maintain the same feeling that you could achieve by changing both of their genders, or just Murdoc’s. In no way am I just handwaving away that abuse is cool if they’re blokes, but the challenge and intrigue of the relationship for me is writing in a way that isn’t plainly abusive, one that instead breaks down and reassigns the power imbalance but still maintains an ugliness, a resentment and a codependence over the years. And while gender is much more complicated than “male and female” and “man strong, woman weak,” there is a long history of men oppressing, controlling and brutalizing women that can result in a very specific and troublesome power imbalance between a “toxic” heterosexual pairing. I’m not saying it couldn’t be done by anyone, there are definitely compelling films about failing marriages and the like, but I think it would be more difficult to achieve the Weird Messy 2Doc thing I’m going for with that particular setup!

[the-light-followed]

EQUAL RITES (1987) [DISC. #3; WITCHES #1]

“‘Where does it say it?’ said Granny triumphantly.  ‘Where does it say women can’t be wizards?’  

The following thoughts sped through Cutangle’s mind:

…It doesn’t say it anywhere, it says it everywhere.  

…But young Simon seemed to say that everywhere is so much like nowhere that you can’t really tell the difference.  

…Do I want to be remembered as the first Archchancellor to allow women into the University?  Still…I’d be remembered, that’s for sure.”

Rating: 6/10

Standalone Okay: Yes

Read First: Yeah, if you like magic and bad puns, you’ll be fine.

Discworld Books Masterpost: [x]

* * * * * * * * * *

Equal Rites does not mess around.  It’s early Discworld, so you’ve still got a little bit of that High Fantasy vibe to it, where sometimes Pratchett just spews fantastical-sounding terms and concepts so that the reader can’t forget that This is Fantasy, We Are Not in Kansas Anymore, Folks!  And to be perfectly honest, a lot of the plot, especially the early stuff, is kind of forgettable.  There’s a lot of people talking to people about doing stuff before the actual doing gets done, if you know what I mean.

But that doesn’t really matter, because Equal Rites has important shit to say and, by god, Pratchett is going to say it. And in case you didn’t bother to read the book itself, you can tell just by looking at the title that a) it’s about gender inequality in the magical community, and b) there’s going to be puns. So many puns.  Sir Terry, please, take pity on me.  I just don’t have the time to go around explaining to every person I meet on the street why this kind of thing makes me absolutely batshit feral for the Discworld.  

I love it so much.

Anyway.  Equal Rites is the story of Eskarina Smith, or Esk, the first ever female to be born a wizard.  The whole concept of ‘the eighth son of an eighth son is chosen by the magical staff of a dying wizard to become a new wizard’ brings up a lot of questions for me—a lot of questions that will never be answered—but if I ignore that and just accept that it’s true, then by Discworld tradition Esk is undeniably a wizard. She is the eighth, uh, child of an eighth son, chosen at birth by the magical staff of a wizard who promptly dies and decides to be reincarnated as a weirdly randy tree and then, later, as an ant.

…Cool, I guess.

More importantly, and also by Discworld tradition, Esk undeniably cannot be a wizard, because she’s born female.  Honestly, Pratchett might as well have named this Sit Down and Shut Up While I Talk About Gender Roles and Gender Inequality, You All Are Going to Listen to Me Because I’m Going to Make Bad Puns While I Do It.

Over the course of the book, Pratchett does some deep dives into what it means to be a witch, what it means to be a wizard, how they’re the same, how they’re different—and why none of that actually matters.  For something published over thirty years ago, I think Equal Rites holds up incredibly well as a conversation on gender and society, and it’s still just as relevant as ever.  It just goes to show that a) writing with thought, kindness, and care makes for a timeless product, and b) society really hasn’t made that much progress since 1987, has it?  It’s a little sad that the issues Pratchett wants us to think about here are still just as recognizable and just as common in the world as they were thirty-three years ago.

(Kind of as a side note, there are definitely things I don’t think Pratchett considered about the basic premise he’s set up, namely that just because Esk was born with a certain set of genitals, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything about her gender.  I’ve seen a lot of discussion, especially on the internet, about trans Esk, and trans wizards and witches, and what that would mean for the Discworld universe—really interesting stuff, things people should definitely look into, but not what I’m going to focus on here.  I would highly recommend that people think about it, especially cis people like me. It would be wrong to go through Equal Rites without even bringing it up, even if I read the text as more as a discussion of gender roles rather than gender identity. Since Pratchett was a cishet man writing this in the 80s, I’m also willing to bet it’s what he was intending. But it’s still an important conversation to have.)

Anyway, let’s jump in and look at the dichotomy that Pratchett is setting up for us!

What is a witch?  What is a wizard?  How are they the same, and how are they different?  Why does that split matter?

I did the messy work of going through my copy of the book and highlighting every instance where definitions are provided for ‘witches’ and ‘wizards,’ specifically so that I could run a compare-contrast, and I want to point out right off the bat that basically all of the details on so-called ‘defining’ features of these two schools of magic are provided through characters and their POV—direct dialogue and thoughts—not by word-of-god narration or omniscient POV.  So, obviously, we have to run all this through the internal bias filter; this stuff is all what people believe about wizards, witches, and magic, not necessarily how things are.

What makes a witch, according to Equal Rites:

Magic out of the ground

Dress in black to look the part

Witches bow. They’ve got to be different from everyone else; it’s “part of the secret” (headology)

Cunning, old (or they try to look it)

Suspicious, homely, and organic magic

Appearance of magic can do more work than actual magic (headology)

“Leaving the world as it was and changing the people”

They can “Borrow” and work gently

“Fighting her [Granny] was like swatting a fly on your own nose”: if you don’t struggle and make waves, you can do a lot with less outright power

Do the messy, practical stuff, not just the flash

Always, “without exception, women”

What makes a wizard:

Magic out of the sky

Over-the-top ways of dressing up to look the part, often with robes and sequins

“Books and stars and jommetry.”  (Granny absolutely does not know what geometry is, or what it is for.)

“Talked too much and pinned spells down in books like butterflies,” and looked at “numbers and angles and edges and what the stars are doing”

Wise, old

Powerful, complex, and mysterious magics

Magic is condensed out of the air and into the staff, and used by the wizard

“Magic changed the world in some way, wizards thought there was no other use for it”

Can’t “Borrow,” only take/seize control

Too busy with the “infinite” and “never noticing the definite”

 Always, “without exception, men”

Witches “normally work with what actually exists in the world,” while a wizard can give thoughts shape, “put flesh on his imagination.” Witches learn to walk softly and move over and around an obstacle, while wizards puff up and fight to go straight through it.

Witches “need a head.”  Wizards “need…a heart.”

In short, witches are self-taught, intuitive, grounded in reality, and fluid in their magic use—when they actually use it at all.  They work with what they feel and what they know about the world.  Wizards are academics and learn from set rules and their books, and their magic is often over-complex, overpowered, and difficult to control.  Wizards are more rigid and structured in their magic use—ritualistic, even—but less connected to reality or grounded in the real world.

And, of course, both groups wear fabulous outfits and dramatic pointed hats!

Just look at ‘em.  Such wonderful weirdos.

The more I look at the ‘definitions’ like this, all laid out and proper, the more I start to think that the witches who do things we would consider ‘bad’ witchcraft are just correctly using elements of wizardry. For example, think about Mrs. Earwig, with her books and rituals, her special tools and fancy dress code; even though she doesn’t focus on the world around her or the people in it, the way a ‘good’ witch would, she’s good at what she does, and so certain in herself that she can stare down the glamor of the Queen of the Elves without flinching in The Shepherd’s Crown.  On the other hand, we have our classic ‘bad’ wizard, Rincewind, who demonstrates some exceptionally witchy tendencies—he’s excellent at headology even if actual magic isn’t really in his wheelhouse, as Interesting Times makes pretty obvious.  And despite the fact that he’s a coward-sprinter who’d really rather avoid danger if at all possible, when it comes down to it, he’s still the man who’ll put himself between the world and a great evil with nothing but trembling knees, a spine reluctantly turned from water to iron, and a half-brick in a sock.  As Granny would say, he walks the line.

So, really, what does gender actually have to do with it? Why is there a distinction at all? Is it actually important?

And to make a long novel short, what Pratchett is saying in Equal Rites is that it’s not.  There’s no difference between witchcraft and wizardry that actually makes for a good reason for a gendered split.  Men aren’t inherently better at math and academia, or as Granny says, “jommetry;” women aren’t inherently more practical, emotional, or intuitive.  That’s a social construct, not a biological one.

And beyond that, even, there’s no real reason for the two ‘types’ of magic to be split up at all.  They might be different ways of operating, but it’s all magic.  Anyone could do either.  Or neither.  Or both.

There’s an early conversation between Death and the wizard whose mix-up with his staff marked Esk as a wizard—just after the man has died, when he’s realized that he’s passed his magic along to a female and, in his mind, made a terrible mistake.  “I was foolish,” he says, “I assumed the magic would know what it was doing.”  But instead of agreeing, Death tells him, “PERHAPS IT DOES.”

It all comes down to what Esk calls magic beyond magic—the reality of the thing beyond the concepts we’ve created to define and confine it.  If we’ve invented these distinctions between ‘types’ of magic, between ‘types’ of gender and the self, then what remains once we’ve removed them?  What happens when we peel them away and see what’s left behind? Why do we cling to our invented categories, the things that limit both sides and create conflict?

I really like that Equal Rites never puts Esk into a specific category.  She doesn’t end the book as a ‘true’ wizard or a ‘true’ witch, but she also doesn’t fully reject either.  As sad as I am that Pratchett never goes much deeper into Esk (her brief appearance in I Shall Wear Midnight doesn’t actually explain much), I’m fine with not having a concrete answer.  One, the other, both, neither—it’s not the point.  Magic is magic.  People are people.  Gender is, honestly, irrelevant.  Beyond the academic divides we’ve made for ourselves, it’s all the same stuff given different names.  Esk does magic, and she is herself, and in the end, she’s not bound by the limitations that witches and wizards put on their reality.

Infinite possibilities!

It’s something the other wizards and witches never get to have.  They’re so locked into what they believe magic to be, what they believe themselves to be, that they never really look outside those boxes.

It’s wild to me that the concept Pratchett is introducing here—specifically about wizards and witches and gender—basically disappears as long as Esk does.  Esk is a really cool character; the idea of female wizards and male witches is fascinating. I want more of all this.  So, I’m genuinely sad that Esk doesn’t reappear again until the Tiffany Aching books, specifically I Shall Wear Midnight—in 2010, more than twenty years after Equal Rites was published.  And we don’t get another wizard or witch or magic-user in general working outside their typical gender alignment until Geoffrey appears in 2015 in The Shepherd’s Crown and asks to become a witch, and even then, the witches take to calling him a ‘calm-weaver’ instead.

I like that the idea eventually comes full circle.  I don’t like that the circle takes thirty years, and goes basically unacknowledged in the meantime.

But the point Pratchett is making is still there in the Discworld, and it never really goes away.  Remember how I said earlier that this stuff—all this ‘witches do and are x, wizards do and are y, that’s how it has to be’ nonsense—it’s all what people believe about magic and such, not how things are?  Pratchett and Discworld are huge on belief.  Belief shapes reality, belief becomes real, and we see that over and over again.  But part of what Pratchett is saying here is that even if we all believe in something, then it doesn’t mean that it’s right.  Just because something is doesn’t mean it should be.

More importantly, though, it also doesn’t mean we’ve locked ourselves in place.  Esk proves that much.  We learn. We grow.  We change our understanding of our reality and ourselves, and we believe something different.  And then the world changes, too.

* * * * * * * * * *

Side Notes:

We get to see Granny Weatherwax for the first time!  She’s absolutely fabulous and I love this sharp-tongued bitter old lady so much.  In later books starring the witches we will focus in a lot more on Granny herself as a witch and a person, rather than just as a teacher.

Granny Weatherwax is said to live in the village of Bad Ass in Equal Rites.  In future books, she will live in Lancre.

There actually aren’t that many footnotes in this one.  Since I kind of just…expect footnotes to appear in every book Terry Pratchett touches, despite the fact that they’re super rare everywhere else, it’s almost weirder to not see a footnote every page and a half.

Esk does some magical nonsense—mainly by not realizing the magic she’s doing should be impossible—that ends up “changing the Discworld in thousands of tiny ways.”  This is probably part of Pratchett’s attempt to slowly shift what he started establishing in The Colour of Magic to what we’ll see in later Discworld books, moving from High Fantasy to more of a, I don’t know, steampunk-y magical surrealism?  What even is the Discworld, I ask you?  It’s impossible to describe.  But what Esk does to it here is described as follows: “the wavefront of probability struck the edge of Reality and rebounded like the slosh off the side of the pond which, meeting the laggard ripples coming the other way, caused small but important whirlpools in the very fabric of existence.  You can have whirlpools in the fabric of existence, because it is a very strange fabric.”

We get our first mention of sourcerers here in Equal Rites, but they’re not very well defined. We’re just told that they’re now extinct.  They’ll turn up in a lot more detail in a couple books, of course, once we get to Sourcery.

Favorite Quotes:

“I know what I mean, she told herself.  Magic’s easy, you just find the place where everything is balanced and push.  Anyone could do it.  There’s nothing magical about it.  All the funny words and waving the hands is just…it’s only for…  She stopped, surprised at herself.  She knew what she meant.  The idea was right up there in the front of her mind.  But she didn’t know how to say it in words, even to herself.”

“‘But,’ he said, ‘if it’s wizard magic she’s got, learning witchery won’t be any good, will it?  You said they’re different.’  ‘They’re both magic.  If you can’t learn to ride an elephant, you can at least ride a horse.’”

“The old witch yanked the staff out of its shadow and waved it vaguely at Esk.  ‘Here.  It’s yours. Take it.  I just hope this is the right thing to do.’  In fact the presentation of a staff to an apprentice wizard is usually a very impressive ceremony, especially if the staff has been inherited from an elder mage; by ancient lore there is a long and frightening ordeal involving masks and hoods and swords and fearful oaths about people’s tongues being cut out and their entrails torn by wild birds and their ashes scattered to the eight winds and so on.  After some hours of this sort of thing the apprentice can be admitted to the brotherhood of the Wise and Enlightened.  There is also a long speech.  By sheer coincidence Granny got the essence of it in a nutshell.”

“‘Never mind what I said, or common sense or anything.  Sometimes you just have to go the way things take you, and I reckon you’re going to wizard school one way or the other.’  Esk considered this.  ‘You mean it’s my destiny?’ she said at last.  Granny shrugged.  ‘Something like that.  Probably. Who knows?’”

“Animal minds are simple, and therefore sharp.  Animals never spend time dividing experience into little bits and speculating about all the bits they’ve missed.  The whole panoply of the universe has been neatly expressed to them as things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.”

“‘Why are you holding that broomstick?’ he said.  Esk looked at it as though she had never seen it before.  ‘Everything’s got to be somewhere,’ she said.”

“Why was it that, when she heard Granny ramble on about witchcraft she longed for the cutting magic of wizardry, but whenever she heard Treatle speak in his high-pitched voice she would fight to the death for witchcraft?  She’d be both, or none at all.  And the more they intended to stop her, the more she wanted it.  She’d be a witch and a wizard too.  And she would show them.”

“‘Million-to-one chances,’ she said, ‘crop up nine times out of ten.’”

“For a moment he nursed the strangely consoling feeling that his life was totally beyond his control and whatever happened no one could blame him.”

[astrologyisfrequentlyaccurate]

Hi I was wondering which house placement you use? Is it possible to relate to different house placements in your whole house chart and Placidus? For example Moon in 1st in Whole sign and when in Placidus Moon in 12th. Sorry just really confused about placements because I feel like I relate to both. Thank you!

Yeah so house systems is a super messy discussion. Primarily, I find that different house systems are better for different perspectives on the chart–ie, whole sign may give you a more accurate description regarding rulerships (because signs correlate with houses, you can easily look at “what’s the fifth house from the second house? and have a fifth house view on the second” if that makes sense. I don’t think it does but I’m about to link some articles lolvsplacidus is often more accurate for transits because it uses planetary hours, etc. Here’s an article that breaks them down beautifully (if not…academically) but here’s the tldr:

Whole Sign Houses – Shows what area of life a planet’s placement pertains toEqual Divisions – Shows a specific degree of emphasis within a whole sign house topicPorphyry Divisions – Shows how strong or weak a planet isPlacidus Divisions – Shows a planet’s hour ruler 

I also love this article bc it’s an astrologer’s own experiment. I encourage you to try to do something similar if you can, as I think each person interprets events and signs in their own way, and so some house systems will be easier to apply to your life than others.

Now, to answer your specific questions: I generally use placidus, but my placements are all in the same houses for all the main systems (Equal, whole, koch, meridian, regiomontanus, placidus) except for porphry–and here’s where it gets tricky for me. The only things that change is that my venus is moved to my 1st (from my second….where I have a stellium)(campunus also changes this placement but ONLY this placement) and aries rules my fifth instead of taurus, libra rules my 11th instead of scorpio. I still have virgo/pisces intercepted, but instead of taurus/scorpio duplicated, it’s aries/libra, which i relate more to……BUT I have a libra mideheaven. And an aries moon. Like, I’ve got these energies floating around pretty prominently in my life regardless. So it comes down to the nitty gritty, and honestly i’m still not sure if I relate more to placidus or porphry chart. If I follow intuition, which I generally vaguely recommend, I go for porphry. But this feeling is not rooted in certainty or fact. So I use placidus, because it’s common and widely accepted, but whole signs is also very popular. I personally don’t like whole signs, mostly bc i feel like a lot of arguments for it are “It’s so much simpler!“ while i feel that astrology is inherently incredibly complex and to simplify for the sake of making it easier to read defeats the purpose if you’re studying advanced astrology. That being said, it definitely has some merit, as all the house systems do. In regards to your specific chart, I must ask: is your placidus 12th house moon conjunct the ascendant? If it is, then you’ve really gotta dig into the specifics of the differences between a 12th house moon vs a 1st house moon, bc your 1st house is going to have elements of the moon regardless. If not, then consider looking at your transits like the above astrologer, or even your moon progressions throughout your life. The progressed moon highlights a period of a couple years, so check any major changes in your personal life to see if your progressed moon is near a house cusp in either placidus or whole. Note: This is another big reason why I emphasize aspects so much in readings–the house system you’re using matter less, and when it comes to personal planetary aspects, the fingerprint feels much more unique to an individual. Hope all this helps!!