#don't like don't read uwu

[franciskirkland]

fic update: currently working on dancing w/ a stranger chap #9, about to start chap #5 of boys don't cry in a bit, and still compiling the songfic collection. but oh i'm starting a FACESS+ family mpreg fic?? for anyone who's interested in overwhelmed suburban mommy françois/politician daddy arthur? this one will be a doozy...

[inkskinned]

it is totally okay to be hurt and tired and fed up with the american schooling system but i need you to understand that we need to be better about loudly and routinely defending public education.

yes, many teachers suck, many schools utterly suck. i also got bullied and was absolutely not given the right support for my needs. i am not defending public education because it was kind to me. i am defending it because it needs to exist.

right-wing republicans do not want an educated population. they want kids to be homeschooled or in private school. there is a huge religious undertone to this.

the most common argument is that despite high costs, the "result" is not "good" enough. they point to failing schools as proof that public education is just never going to work out. there will be arguments made here that you actually agree with: that teachers can be bullies, that we taught online for 2 years and still charged the same amount of tuition, that we have no recourse for students to actually have agency or a voice, and that schools are now unsafe for kids due to risk of illness and gun violence.

these are all placing the blame in a fraudulent way, one intended to get your parents to homeschool you. the less kids in a school, the less federally-awarded funding for that school, the less any school succeeds. they will not mention the fact it is their legislation that takes away important funding opportunities, that teachers are living at or below the poverty line, that buildings are not kept up to code, that administration is overpaid and forces specific curriculums, that corporations like (my personal enemy) Pearson Education control certain classroom goals because teachers can't afford other options. they pretend to be ignorant of the gun violence and say "oh just get a gun" - but these are the same people who will be sending their child to a private school with a bulletproof backpack. they don't care if your kid dies, though. they "don't believe" in covid, but they did get their kid vaccinated, because of course they did.

it is a closed loop. conservative parents hear the fearmongering and remove children from the system. frequently these parents are also deeply religious. the kids are raised without access to other media & learn to parrot their parents. you have now created a new generation of conservatives. additionally, one of the parents/caregivers must stay home and homeschool the children, usually for free. i will give you 1 guess which parent tends to stay home to homeschool the children. these parents are encouraged to have many, many children. those children are most likely not getting access to safe sex ed.

we might laugh at fox news suggesting teachers are forcing children to use kitty litter but: first of all, there is kitty litter in the classroom. it's part of an emergency kit in case children are locked in due to a shooter. so that's fucking dystopian, and the fact they've completely reimagined the scenario to somehow make the teachers look bad when it's instead a fucking huge symbol of our failure as a country to protect our children.... it feels a little intentional.

secondly: don't just dismiss the situation. because, yeah, obviously, no teacher is encouraging kids to be a catboy. but the actual undertone that fox news is trying to sew is an outright distrust of teachers and of public education. they rely on the dehumanization of trans people as a common touchstone to hide the fact they're pushing two agendas at once. (which is ironic. because the thing they accuse teachers of. is pushing. an agenda.)

whenever someone tells you they want you to read less, you should be suspicious of that. when someone tries to separate you and your education, you should be suspicious of that. i don't even like incel rhetoric nor would i want my kids exposed to it - but i would not take away my child's (age-appropriate) access to the internet. i would just provide more educational materials, not less. the difference here is that i believe we can resolve ignorance with knowledge; whereas conservatives believe that ignorance is bliss.

they misappropriate funding and demonize teachers. they pull the same trick each time - the same thing we are seeing with anti-trans rhetoric. they do not want you to have access to safe sex ed, so they act horrified, claim sex ed teaches you how to thrust deep, claim that we have no idea what "age-appropriate" means. since the mid-nineties, the united states has spent at least 2 billion dollars on abstinence-only education, even though to quote the above link: "a preponderance of studies has found no effect of abstinence education at reducing adolescent pregnancy". conservatives want you to think less of any person struggling with addiction so they can continue their racist "war on drugs", so they spend up to $750 million dollars a year on the DARE program which has absolutely no effect. acting like teachers "must" be "grooming" children is just the same thing - so they can demand that funding either goes to their causes or the funding doesn't "exist" ("i'm not paying for our kids to learn that thing!")

and they want you to feel uncaring about this. they are aware that you will hate some parts of your school experience. pretty much everyone does. they want to lean into the parts that you hate so that you don't put up a fight about it when they take it away for not being "good enough."

i know i maybe sound like a conspiracy theorist. but truly. truly. it is beneficial for conservatives to reduce your faith in the american public schooling system.

one of the explicitly stated campaign promises of the conservative party: to axe the Department of Education in 2024.

i know we are all tired and burnt out and there is so much else wrong with their entire platform. but maybe just - pay attention to this one.

[separatist-apologist]

Feyre: Rhysand is my mate and I'm telling you this to your face.

Also Feyre: If you try and break my mating bond, I'm going to ruin your life.

Also Feyre: If you drag me back to Spring against my will, I'll destroy everything you love.

Tamlin: Break her mating bond so I can drag her back to Spring and we can start over.

Also Tamlin: I can't believe you destroyed everything I love and ruined my life!

[sunnymainecoonx]

Bad Sans Poly for my dearest @cakesmelons ;3

I had an art crisis the entire year so I'm like experimenting and testing with art and sh- so here you go, some bad sans snuggles(I'm still relearning how to draw, barely recovered)

[nguyenfinity]

Here’s a. Very real dream I had last year. Happy pride.

[mamawasatesttube]

this isn't like comics-fandom specific by any means, but one thing i do think about semi-regularly is that like. some people are so insistent on stuff being "for fun" so that they can justify never actually thinking about what they're doing, and that's... idk man. in a world where we are inundated with propaganda and bullshit all the time, media literacy, critical thinking, and reading comprehension skills are pretty important. and yeah like no one can have their brain running at max capacity 24/7 but you still gotta like... put in SOME critical thinking. otherwise you just get people being like SO WHAT if this comic is really racist??? you can't ask me to think critically about how it portrays characters of color!!!!! im just here for fun!!!!!! and it's just like. dude.

[that-was-anticlimactic]

*sprays fandoms with a spray bottle* height is NOT a personality trait!!!

[demonicbaby666]

'I love it when you quote me' is seared into my brain. Send help.

[entamewitchlulu]

yeah last week tonight did a piece about public libraries and man it set me off.

reminded me of the way my old boss constantly undermined me, pretended to be outwardly liberal and defensive of her staff, while behind the scenes she was pressuring me to "stop ordering so many lgbt books", forcing me to reclassify tens of books as adult because our vendor said they were (even though professional review sites said they weren't), refusing to let me run more queer programs because "wasn't the one and all the controversy around it enough" and waiting until I was on vacation to steal almost 20 books from the YA section and reclassify them as adult so that I wouldn't notice.

[randomnameless]

To continue the woobified view of the Elites and my comparison of them to the Black Eagles :

Same for me regarding the BE, especially because they also literally fought Edelgard's troops in WC when you choose their house, and even if you don't, they definitely still would know that Edelgard dus nasty shits in WC.

The idea that media literacy is dead is quite fitting, because the idea that even rotten persons have loved ones/that having loved ones doesn't mean you're not rotten is a known thing, yet the Eagles and elites get a pass solely because "they genuinely believe in the cause" and "they love and care for each other"

Probably Fraldarius was as devoted to Nemesis as Ingrid to Dimitri, Lamine very well may have been as sassy as Dorothea, perhaps Goneril was as brave and endearing as Caspar, or Maurice was as loyal to his clan's interests as Petra to Brigid's happiness (through a strong bond to the Empire) but like the BE, they are butchers, who relished in the destruction of everything those against them hold dear, lap dogs and rabid curs of someone they definitely know have crushed innocents and scorn the very idea of peace except under their domination.

The only meaningful difference between Edelgard-following BE and the elites is that we can know more about the BE and we are forced to dislike cutting them down even as they refuse to let northern Fódlan alone.

Honestly I need a fanfiction where the BE are called out for that bullshit.

Yep!

That's the tone deaf feeling I got from Nopes, the Deers are hunting someone bcs their leader wants her dead for no reason, but Raph only comments on how hungry he is.

Uh, sure Raph, you're not the most thoughtful character in there, but come on? Some commentary or exposition on what you're doing? Hello KT? Can we have characters be challenged or even react to the events of screen instead of wondering what's for dinner/teatime?

No??

I wouldn't say it's an issue of media litteracy being dead, but more something in the lines of people being more and more "all or nothing" nowadays, without any nuance and conflating liking a character with the idea/image that might project on you : if I like ASOIAF's Cersei, I don't think everything she does is "justified", but modern fandom, I feel like some people would categorize you as a "good" or "bad" person based on the characters you like, and it's just... not what fandom is or was supposed to be imo, I'm here to nerd and gush about favourite characters, not write litteral essays about the Geneva Convention.

Corollary is what, imo, made the Fodlan fandom hell : some people really take "criticism" against a character personally - sure the way FE16 was written invites projection, but at the end of the day, making a Berning Fire Joke is, just, making a joke about a bunch of pixels, nothing more.

Back to the BEs, they can have a sense of camaraderie and genuinely support each other... as they tear apart "people because Supreme Leader told me to" and fight side by side with Bob the Carpented who was turned into Waldi the demonic beast.

Ferdie can skewer Flayn on her father's lance because she is "a creature that has plagued humanity for ages" even if they reached a C support before shit hit the fan - and still protect Mercedes and Bernie from their abusing Fathers. Does that make him a great guy? A nuanced guy?

I think the trope is called "even evil people have loved ones" or something like that?

I don't think so, but he is no random one note villain sycophant either - now, what is the more annoying with the Fodlan games is how this dichotomy is never called upon : everything is just a giant blob or Hresvelg Grey ("morally grey" but only applied to Supreme Leader) where no one really is angry at her, and all the "sacrifices" she's making are off-screen while the characters on-screen always moan about her "ReFoRmS" and "IdEaLs" without talking about the cost bar some milquetoast "but war bad". And no one, in the game, will ever throw this hypocrisy to their face - Gallant Ferdinand will dream about the Opera as he wipes off the blood of a young woman who just wanted to return to the only home she had.

Yay.

FWIW, some mutuals and I have nothing but pure lols about Doro's line in the non-CF routes being "we killed Ferdie professor :'(" because, hey, why should I care more about Ferdie than about random loldier 55 ? Rhea? Felix? Claude? Ignatz?

Maybe the Elites were really friends and became """"nice""" persons with time, to their families and loved ones ?

Does this magically erase what they did before? Will that "good" they did erase all the "wrongs" they have previously done? Will theyr forever escape the consequences of their actions?

In a game that depicts Flamey as a terrorist for 11 chapters only to drop that plot point by the window to moan, again, about her "IdEaLs", "consequences" are maybe something you can eat as a snack, or throw in a trashcan.

So following the rules of this verse, given how Supreme Leader never receives flak for her Flamey stunts, why should the Elites receive any for what they did? Look, Maurice calls Daphnel his friend, surely he is not that bad of a man? Well yeah, he might have seduced women and planted a lot of wild oats here'n'there, but he cares about his friends!

Jeritza likes ice creams and cats! Surely it's more important to paint him as a cat lover than to deal with all the consequences of his stunt as the Death Knight, kidnapping and implied rekting young woman while he was in GM, under Flamey's orders, right?

Calling it now, after eviscerating Seteth's older brother, Goneril might have melted in front of one of Rhea's kittens, and adopted the cat asap. Surely that makes Goneril a "good" character right? And forget the entire "genocided a bunch of hippies living isolated in their village" stuff?

I don't have fanfics recs where the BEs are called hypocrites, but I confess I don't read a lot of fanfics in the FE16 fandom because of all of the aforementioned issues.

[sysig]

Bad time of it, all things considered (Patreon)

[aroxis]

Can't begin to tell you how frustrating it is to see East Asian fanartists go viral on English speaking side because of either antis trying to sic mobs of puritanical cyberbullies on them or because their fanarts get stolen and reuploaded under the wrong tags and nobody thinks to check before sharing. In this fandom it's extra infuriating because the same people who make harassing Gojo x students shippers their whole personality are the ones happily spreading Gojo x students fanarts as fuel for their "found family" headcanons. Shame, self respect, none of these are to be found here.

[ilistentogirlinred]

i call dark academia books fucked up university books and i would say its accurate

[xhanisai]

.

[mamawasatesttube]

you guys i have so many thoughts about tdr. i have so much to say. like i don't want to be super mean but dude that comic fucking sucks and i can't lie i think it made me kind of homophobic actually

[amzarashi]

there's this thing where you can't say certain words or phrases or breathe a certain way or touch something for too long or nudge the book that's been collecting dust on your bedside for two years because anything and everything could turn the world against you

i can't sleep at night because my breathing doesn’t feel right and the prayer i said five times in row doesn’t feel right so i have to get up open the door turn the lights on retrace my steps until my feet start aching from how bad i need it all to make sense to fall into place to not hurt the people i care about because guilt makes your heart sink like stone and i still haven't learned how to swim

fox reads me poetry until fox is all i think about until the world isn't so scary and the static in my brain is quiet i tell fox good night i say i love you but it's rarely there so i say it again over and over because repetition speaks things into existence until it piles up on top of each other until i can gather it all in my hand and squish it together like putty and use it to close up everywhere the hurt is leaking through

exposure therapy sucks. it's not that i can't touch door knobs or cross the threshold or have to wash my hands so many times or that i have to click the lock and turn the bathroom lights on and the bedroom lights off and the doorway lights on and the people around me have to say good night with an inflection that tells me i won't die tomorrow because i don't know what my brain wants more often than not

words have so much weight and i haven't told anyone i love them and meant it because i’m scared if i do i will doom them to my fate of picking at nails and skin so i use loopholes like my life depends on them. i say it with breaks in between. the pauses are periods so it's a string of words not a curse set into motion it'd be nice to breathe without having to think about what i can or cannot say

instead i send poetry, i say read the orange by wendy cope listen to 400 lux by lorde it's not a love language because language was made to share love babel was a death sentence there are many words i want to say but can't say but roland barthes says, i've got nothing to say to you but it's to you i want to say this nothing