#i blame the internet for the stereotyping

[vknq]

not the tarot reader acting like you can't be extroverted and shy at the same time lmao

[leikeliscomet]

Asexual theory 101

Right I keep getting asked on most of my asexual posts 'What does this mean OP? Where's the sources?' so imma make a quick ace theory 101 post so if anyone says they don't get it I can say I tried. Let's go:

'What does being ace have to do with race/racism?/There's racism in the ace community???'

Pretty much everything as people of colour experience various forms of sexualisation and desexualisation at the same time, which is why POC are rarely included in asexual representation:

Asexuals of Color Still Seek to Validate Their Asexuality by Ebony Purks

Stereotypes & media about Black masculinity made it harder to come out as asexual by Tyger Songbird

Your Assumptions About Black Queer Masculinity Are Erasing My Asexual Identity by Timinepre Cole

It's Time To Start Celebrating Black Asexuality in Media By Tyger Songbird

Yasmin Benoit: ‘People had a hard time believing that I could be Black and asexual and at Pride’ by Alastair James

Brown and Gray: An Asexual People of Color Zine

'What do TERFS/transphobia have to do with asexuality?'

There's a growing TERF conspiracy theory that asexuality is the side-effect of transitioning. The LGB movement believes the community is exclusively for 'same-sex attracted persons' and so identities that don't involve attraction e.g. the TQIA should be removed. Most backlash towards Yasmin Benoit, aroace activist, is from white TERFs and conservatives:

Acephobic conspiracy theories have transphobic and fascist roots by Sherronda J Brown

Anti-trans movement has a new target: The asexual community by Yasmin Benoit

'But how can conservatives hate asexuality if they hate sex?'

Because they don't and never did. If the term 'puritan' was used correctly in modern internet discourse, it would be known Christian puritans believe heterosexual sex for reproduction is a gift from god and mandatory so being asexual doesn't exactly fit with that worldview. Their beef is with any form of sex and sexuality that falls outside of cis heterosexual marriage, including asexuality. They're not anti sex but anti sexual autonomy:

"Anti-Sex" and the Real Sexual Politics of the Right by Lee Cicuta (ButchAnarchy)

The religious right is now targeting sexless marriages as “selfishness.” They Want to Ban Those Too by Tyger Songbird

Asexual people targetted by right-wing pundits following landmark report by Harriet Brewis

'What does being ace have to do with gender?'

It's commonly assumed that because patriarchy shames women's sexualities and considers all men's sexuality as biological and unavoidable, that ace women only and exclusively experience desexualisation whilst ace men only and exclusively are pressured into being sexual beings. This can true as a broad overview but it can vary based on race, disability, class etc. This also becomes complex for asexuals that exist outside the gender binary. This is known as 'gender detachment'.

Impossible for Men, Unremarkable for Women by Canton Winer

My Work on Gender Detachment and Asexuality Strikes a Nerve by Canton Winer

'There's asexual studies now?'

Yup. On the general experiences of asexual people in the UK, including discrimination in education, the workplace and healthcare:

The National LGBT Survey (2018)

Ace in the UK Report (2023)

Asexuality in the UK: Public attitudes towards people who experience little to no sexual attraction (2025)

Specific names:

Asexual theorists: Ianna Hawkins Owen, Michael Paramo, Julia Sondra Decker, Canton Winer (non-ace), Sherronda J Brown, Angela Chen

Asexual activists: Yasmin Benoit, Tyger Songbird, Marshall Blount (TheGentleAce)

Asexual artists: Kimberly Butler (TheAsexualGoddess)

And I'm gonna update this with more if they're worth adding. I don't wanna hear any excuses anymore or blame towards aces of colour, gay aces or trans aces for not being specific enough anymore. Read!

[utilitycaster]

2,3,5 from that violent ask game

2. Riz Gukgak would not top nor bottom as he is ace.

5. Gonna put 3 at the bottom because it's the only long one; I'm not putting any discord server I'm in on blast because like, that's obnoxious but I will say that before they mostly shut it down the Dropout one was AWFUL, and I think the Beacon mods are much, much better than the Dropout mods were but I will admit that I exclusively use it for the AMAs/Firesides and announcements; I'm not really interested in any of the discussion going on there.

3. So I'm going with worst relatively recent take, and it will have a long lead-in. So fandoms tend to use a lot of epithets/words as code for a set of traits that may or may not be true. Top and Bottom are one example, with Top also usually used (not entirely accurately) as a shorthand for traits like confidence and decisiveness and dominance, because apparently fandom has not moved on from the stereotypes held by ancient Romans when it comes to gay sex. Then there's the words that have a therapy/social justice aspect to them, and to be clear, in many cases they are accurate but they are also a very broad category: Thoreau Lionett and Trent Ikithon are both abusers, but that is insufficient terminology to actually discuss who they are as people, the harm they inflicted on Beau and Caleb respectively, and to understand Beau and Caleb as people, because not all abuse takes the same form nor looks the same nor is the same degree of harmful. And in the same vein, the abused person or victim is also one of those shorthands, and tends to be a shorthand for assigning that person "lack of agency/can't be blamed for what they do", which is inaccurate (and indeed it's heavily implied Thoreau is part of a cycle).

That's all an example. The word we're going to talk about is one that's very popular in social justice/internet leftism circles, and it's Colonizer. The Colonizer is The Ultimate Evil; the Colonized the Ultimate Victim (abused/abuser was the trend a few years ago, and yes, it is a trend, because as discussed this isn't about actually discussing these characters with depth and nuance: it's all the Fandom Moral Purity/My Blorbo Is Justified And I'm A Good Person And You're Bad For Not Liking Them Enough framework). Anyway, people have assigned Ludinus Da'leth the status of "white colonized person". To be clear, in real life, there are white Europeans who have been subject to at least some degree of colonization (by other white Europeans), notably everyone else in the British Isles by the English and much of eastern Europe and north central Asia by the Russian Empire, but this was used to somehow equate him to white people in the Southern US who are, in fact, of the colonizing group, and specifically his alienation from his own culture, and how this is somehow unique to the Southern US; and also how this doesn't make him comparable to a Trump voter.

Let's unpack how fucking bad this is:

This would make an entire separate post but Exandria works very badly for colonization metaphors because there is mortal colonization in Exandria, but it tends to shy away from being nearly as brutal and complete as it is in our world. It's also notable that the only place that has, to our knowledge, experienced no colonization on its shores (and in fact has colonized others), is Marquet, the continent that draws from SWANA, South Asian, and SEAsian cultures (ie, places that in our world were heavily subjected to European colonization, though there were of course empires in those regions themselves). That isn't to say you can't discuss it, but you need to tread exceptionally carefully.

Ludinus was orphaned by war. It was a global war of the gods for the survival of mortals. It's not easy to place using real-world metaphors but it was not motivated by colonialism; he was not colonized. He then, incidentally, proceeded to destroy the center of Wildemount's elven culture, ie, he was the one who displaced people into Bysaes Tyl (subject to some degree of assimilation by the Empire, in which he personally became a powerful figure, which the elves are still opposing) and Uthodurn (managed to actually meld and blend cultures peacefully while maintaining distinct traditions but did involve some compromises re: elven culture). He is not remotely comparable to colonized people and is indeed deeply complicit in the displacement of others and their own forced assimilation himself (which the post touches on but, as most defenses of Ludinus do, because obviously they have to, ignores the ludicrous quantity of blood on his hands).

American whiteness, and especially in the US South, is a construct to justify the oppression of people of color. If you are white and American and do not know your heritage to a specific region of Europe, it is either because someone in your family tree was orphaned at a young age (valid, understandable, super not related to colonialism) or because your ancestors prioritized Not Being Black Or Native over Being [English, Scottish, German, whatever]. Which is not your fault, but you are not really a victim of anyone but your ancestors' racism. It was also a voluntary assimilation into the oppressor class for the benefits it offered, vs the much more forced one that nonwhite, non-European, and non-Christian (and to an extent non-Protestant) people were subjected to. The idea that white Americans are in some way denied their heritage of Whiteness is quite specifically a white supremacist talking point - there are plenty of white European cultural celebrations out there (eg, Polish or Italian festivals). There is a concept of generalized African-American heritage in the US due to enslaved people actually being deprived of their specific heritage and traditions and developing a semi-pan-West African culture that is distinct from that of modern voluntary African immigrants to the US (and even then there are specific subsets, like the Gullah-Geechee); General Whiteness is purely a justification to oppress others. (This is a good recent post that puts this succinctly).

this is also... literally what most white Trump voters are - white people who may experience other forms of oppression (socioeconomic) but also might just miss being as powerful an oppressor class themselves and who use their whiteness to oppress others.

so yeah in an effort to defend White Man Who Killed A Lot of People, unsurprisingly, we got straight up racist propaganda talking points, presented with the language of social justice.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA for telling my sister that she doesn't have OCD?

I (17n) share a room with my sister (15f). She's been a "neat freak" her whole life and is absolutely anal about certain things. She used to have a lot more of those fixations and got anxious enough about them that she would burst into tears if they weren't fulfilled, but I'm fairly sure she doesn't anymore. For example, she used to have anxiety around not being on time to get places, but now she always severely underestimates the time it will take her to get ready for something and makes us all late, and doesn't seem to care all that much. What's more, she yells at me frequently for leaving my stuff out around our room because it isn't "tidy", but she leaves her dirty clothes and makeup out all the time and doesn't put them away for days.

Now, here's the thing. For as long as I can remember, she's been blaming these behaviors on "OCD". She has never been diagnosed with it, though she did once try to claim that the counselor she saw when she was younger diagnosed her (this is obviously false as school counselors don't have the authority to diagnose you with anything, at least not in my country). Now, I support informed self-diagnosis, but A) she's been claiming OCD since long before she had access to the Internet or any other resources to research it, so her only exposure to it at that point would have been pop culture, which is notoriously inaccurate, and B) when I asked her why she thought she had OCD, she said it was because she felt an urge to make things neat all the time, which, while I'm sure it could be a manifestation of OCD, is more in line with the stereotype than with common presentations of the disorder, nor does she seem to have any of the characteristic anxiety of the disorder anymore. Even her urges to make things clean seem entirely focused on me and my stuff, and she's completely okay with leaving her own things out wherever and whenever she wants. So while normally I would never fakeclaim anyone, I really don't think she actually has OCD.

I don't know if she is genuinely self-diagnosed with OCD or if she just uses the label as an excuse to be controlling, but either way, I'm sick of it. She did it again yesterday: I had put a folded-up blanket on my beanbag chair in our shared room, and she told me I had to move it because it "didn't look nice" and was triggering her alleged OCD. WIBTA if I told her she doesn't have OCD and can't use it as an excuse to be pushy about where I put my things?

I might be TA because: fakeclaiming is wrong, and it's possible she does happen to have anxiety about the specific things she gets anal about, since mental illness isn't always rational.

I might not be TA because: she has none of the symptoms of actual OCD and doesn't seem to understand what they are, she uses it as an excuse to harass and scream at me

What are these acronyms?

[alexaloraetheris]

Alrighty, I was going to stay away from it but since that post about the worst rated movies blew up, and everyone and their dog was insisting it was being review bombed for this or that reason, I decided to put on my clown shoes and figure out what the problem was. Other than, you know... The movie itself.

*honk honk*

1. Racial backlash against Rachel Zegler

I can already confirm this is definitely a yes. One of the first links I found was none other than Joe Rogan complaining about Snow White being 'woke' now. Zegler is a Latina, which does make sense if you're trying to reach Spanish-speaking audiences, where Blanca Nieve is apparently pretty popular, but right-wingers are losing their minds, seemingly even more so than The Little Mermaid being Black. White supremacists are very likely behind some of the review bombing.

(Side note: I first heard about this movie being blasted for hiring Gal Gadot at all, because she's Israeli. I hadn't heard who was playing Snow White, but I read she was a POC too, and was 100% sure they hired a K-Pop singer. I mean, if you're looking for an actress with 'skin white as snow, hair as black as a raven's wing' who can also sing notes so high only dogs can hear them, it seemed obvious to me. But I can only imagine how much the conservatives would have been freaking out about THAT.)

2. Gal Gadot being Israeli

This one everyone knew, and yes it's part of the review bombing problem. People outright admitted that. The rightwingers hate Zegler for not being white, the lefties hate Gadot for being Israeli. It didn't seem to occur to anyone complaining that casting a Jewish woman into the role of an antisemitic trope is not as 'woke' as these people seem to think, but these guys would have been pissed if she had been hired as a background character. As a primary antagonist? Definitely review bombing.

3. Peter Dinklage being blamed for the CGI dwarves

This one is a bit misinterpreted. Dinklage pointed out in an interview that the OG Snow White dwarves were rife with harmful stereotypes, and if Disney was going to aim for progressiveness [by hiring a Latina actress] they are not doing a good job if they portray the dwarves as 'living in the caves'. He was obviously campaigning for a better portrayal of the seven dwarves, but of course, Disney being Disney, they decided to keep the dwarves as is but instead of hiring little actors they just used horrible CGI and call them 'magical creatures' a decision everybody was universally unhappy with.

Personally, I think they could have kept the setting as it was in the OG but if they were going for a more 'politically conscious' narrative, they could have included a backstory as to WHY the dwarves are living in the middle of the woods (prejudice and discrimination within the kingdom) and make Snow White sympathise with them, promise that when she was queen she would make her kingdom a better place for dwarves, something like that. Gives them motivation to help her and her to return back to face her evil stepmother. Very tropey and very Disney. Even Snow White and The Huntsman managed that much but not Disney apparently. Alas.

4. Rachel Zegler's 'Free Palestine' tweet

If I learned one thing about Zegler on this research, is that this girl has NO self-preservation instinct. None. Please get her a better agent before she's eaten alive.

In one of her contractually-obligated promo tweets, she tacked on a 'Always remember, Free Palestine' which is a very 'celebrity performing activism' kind of tweet, but she got shredded by Disney's management for it and made her co-star need round the clock protection because she was recieving death threats. She refused to take it down and has shown no sympathy or care for her co-star's safety, which is also not a good look for her. The internet, of course, lauded her for being brave (even if I wouldn't call it that), but she definitely pissed off some more people and I wouldn't be surprised if the movie is being blasted for it.

5. Rachel Zegler's posts against Donald Trump

Remember when I said this girl has no self-preservation instinct? Celebrities are usually a bit more careful (or better managed) to keep their political opinions milquetoast so they don't get put through the social media wringer any more than they already are. No one told her that. She slammed Trump voters pre election and then expressed a lot of genuine horror when he was elected. She got put on full blast for this, and I'm guessing that's the point Joe Rogan got involved. One of the Disney execs flew across the Atlantic to yell at her and hired her a social media manager. Rather telling they only thought to do that AFTER leaving her out to dry for the whole movie production.

Honestly, I read that instagram post, and she was right about that one and her concerns were all in place, but AGAIN. No self-preservation instinct. She posted an apology for THAT one tho, but I doubt she's the one who actually wrote it. Anyway, if the movie hadn't been review bombed before, it definitely was now.

6. Rachel Zegler's comments about the movie itself

Sigh. Seriously girl. Fire your agent, manager, whatever and get a PR coach.

It's worth noting on this one that Zegler is 23, very much Gen Z, and she considers Snow White the OG (rightfully) old fashioned in some aspects. But her ideas how to fix it are... Not very mature, honestly.

She has, among other things, derided the original message of seeking love, said Snow White would be more 'empowered', and that romance with the Prince who 'stalks her' has been cut out. Which is a stark show of not getting what the OG was about, and it gives the impression that Zegler doesn't even like the original cartoon and is basically deriding anyone who DOES like the romantic elements. And since Snow White the Regurgitation primarily and even solely depends on the core audience that likes the OG movie (and NOT the 'Snow White but better' narrative she's trying to portray) this was the PR equivalent of shooting your movie in the foot.

To be fair to her, she's hardly to blame for the movie themes being shitty. From what I've seen she DID do her best in the actual film. Everything Zegler criticised could have been adressed in a better way, but Disney handled that as well as they handled the CGI dwarves. In the OG, Snow White was 14. They could have kept her 14, and made the Prince an uncle or a cousin who got concerned when his only living family stopped sending letters and he hauled ass back from the war front to save her from his shady sister-in-law. Change the kiss to a forehead kiss a la Maleficent. It would have still been about love, and that there is no shame about accepting help when you're in over your head, which was one of the core messages of the OG movie, but adjusted for more 'modern' sensibilities. And this is just me spitballing. I don't know what kind of conditions those poor writers were working in that they handed in a script THIS BAD.

TL:DR Yeah, the movie is getting review bombed from both left and right sources. But to be clear, even though Zegler dominates these points, she's the least of this movie's problems. She's just a 20-something with a big platform who hasn't been properly coached on PR management. The only thing she ruined was her own prospects. The movie was a goner from the casting couch in this political climate, honestly, because the Trumpers lost their minds about her being Latina and the Pro-Palestinian crowd lost their mind about Gadot being Jewish. Even if Zegler had been more conscientious about her social media and Peter Dinklage got his way, there is no saving a bad movie from itself.

If none of the above happened? Snow White might have gotten as high as 3⭐ instead of 1.5⭐ it currently has. But that's all.

[fair-fae]

the funniest interaction I ever had was in Overwatch when some dudebro heard my voice and kept trying to troll me about being a woman playing a healer and asked me "why do women always play healers?" and I responded "because we're used to baby-sitting incompetent men" and he laughed and told me "you sound like you're either super cool or some kind of awful feminazi" and I was just like "yes"

the current ffxiv "drama" on twitter is like... what is there to even say, women have been talking about how we're treated in gaming especially competitive scenes for like the past decade or two now lol

[sukirita]

does anyone else feel like the Meg Griffin of their family? Having to suffer being the first kid of completely dysfunctional, emotionally unavailable, mentally ill parents? Not being attractive enough to have someone rescue them from the shit life they have?

Fuck it, I'm headcanoning meg griffin. Using the bits of canon pieces from family guy, but keep in mind that the lore is not consistent at all.

- she's an internet kid, she grew up on it. Maybe when the show started it was as a "phone addicted teenage girl" stereotype, but now it seems like the internet is her escape from the shitty life she has. She can have "more chances" when people can't judge her for how she looks first.

- she's not ugly, or hideous. She's a teenage kid going through puberty through the show who clearly has to figure everything out for herself because her mom won't teach her, and judges her about it when meg dares asking (something something about how Lois told meg "I never had that, and no woman that I know ever had that" something like that...)

Besides Lois never bothering to teach meg and help her discover her style, femininity, puberty, hygiene... She also can't look trendy with new clothes and a popular fashion sense because her dad is a blue neck collar who rather spend his little sum of money on beer, and her mom is trying to be independent from her own rich father, who doesn't seem that close to meg to actually care about her and spoil her.

She's not ugly, she's not hideous. She canonically looks like Lois and just has a tough time figuring everything out for herself when her resources are clearly limited and her knowledge probably comes from the internet only

- I said she grew up on the internet, where she probably socialized more, and since she's been shown to be an extremist from BOTH side, knows Russian, been on the dark web, and likes ponies, I think she's been to 4chan. Like c'mon, that was one of her weird kid stops.

- she's mentally ill, and I can see it being blamed on her parents even more than the bullying of her peers, which probably just broke her completely: I'm not going to begin analyzing Lois and Peter, this ain't about them, but they're clearly mentally ill who come from harsh childhoods that shaped them this way, and Meg either inherited her share or got it as a result of being a literal punch bug for the family. I don't even have to talk about how meg has been treated by them.

She had rough patches. Depression, anxiety, even post trauma. I know I'm getting kind of serious here but I just feel for her and it makes so much sense. The bullying, the feeling of never belonging, never being someone's special one, not her romantically, sexually or platonically, being chronically online, it didn't help what was already messed up from her childhood. She smoked weed in the show, and self harmed, and I think she would use substances and SH as coping mechanisms. Developed an ED maybe, she would hate skinnytok.

But she is recovering and probably internalized her various traumas rather than externalize them. She did, a couple of times - the storm episode, meg goes to prison, etc etc, her various shenanigans where she's shown not caring about her family and emotionally distancing from them, but ultimately her parents borderline sociopathy helped her become a sensitive, protective, loyal and good person overall, who just strives to be loved.

- besides the family, and mostly her siblings and sometimes Brian who occasionally show sympathy and love towards her, I think Quagmire and Joe were good influences and borderline father figures for her.

- NOW HOLD ON, I KNOW QUAGMIRE HIT ON HER. yes, he's a rapist maniac who has no respect towards women, but after he got with meg for that one episode and the occasional sexual jokes she was featured in, he has shown care towards her. He got her a job, he teached her to defend herself against bullying, he was a person she went to when she needed help and they both have mutual respect and care for each other in recent seasons. I think it was a good choice by the writing team. And Joe has shown to care about her. Not to mention he knows what it's like being the black sheep who no one cares about. Not to mention quagmire has been shown to care for his kids when he occasionally adopts one of them.

So yeah, they were both positive influences on her. Maybe not too much, but compared to peter? They RAISED her. They were there for her.

- In later seasons it seems like her relationship with the family and her life changed. They stopped picking on her and Meg became this weird character doing her stuff in the background and sometimes flexing on her family while still being nice and good matured to them. I feel like it's the result of internalizing trauma and "forgiving", by emotionally distancing herself from everyone in her family but still being affectionate and kind to them, willing to do things for them. And you can't tell me it's not true after the storm episode. She gave up on the justice she deserved because she didn't want to break the family. Also, it's not like they actually listened and were willing to change. Peter laughed at her face and acted petty on purpose and I'm sure Lois wasn't going to suddenly change as the enabler for her husband.

- what I'm getting at is, that I think meg grew more confident with herself as she grew (she's 18 now, driving, drinking, having jobs, going to college...) she had a lot of trial and errors, her dysfunctional family forced her to mature early and being chronically online and trying to fit in at all costs caused her to be exposed to adult stuff early. Ugh, she's just like me.

- anyway, what I'm getting at, again, is that she learned to accept her situation and her family. She might be bitter about how her siblings are being treated better than her - don't get me wrong they suffer too but Stewie is a baby, and being the first child means suffering as your parents learn. And she was the black sheep of the family,

She might be bitter about how her dad hates her, beat on her, can't provide for her and is an infantile man child (yes, both child and infantile),

She might be bitter about how her mom emotionally abandoned her, never helped her fit in, competed against her, and enabled her father,

She might be bitter about how the dog does not give a fuck about her and is being treated like more of a family member than her despite him a grown adult asshole who never made something of himself and was never there for her except rare time where he and Stewie help her,

But she learned to accept the role and just matured. She is going to move out, she tried to do it many episodes, and ultimately I think she would "leave the family behind" to make something of herself that will be meaningful to her. She will still come and visit, and talk with them, but she emotionally will leave them in the past too. I don't think she will forget the treatment she received. But she won't let her family control her anymore.

I don't think family guy started to write her well, I don't think they really care about her more than they used to, but their various inconsistent bits kind of build a personality and a reasonable outcome of someone who feels like life's black sheep, despite being a clever, skilled, funny, loving and accepting person

Maybe she's not as iconic, maybe she doesn't stand out too much, maybe she doesn't have her niche aside from being picked on, but when you look at her character you see someone who might actually make it out of this dysfunctional family with their sanity intact and emotional intelligence and empathy that none of the griffins can truly reach. Holy fucking shit, meg is the family guy.

The true family guy was Meg Griffin all along.

[ghostkingdoesstuff]

that "rick's been acting very jk riordan" caught me like a slap in the face. can you elaborate?

I have so much shit to talk about the man who raised me, I can forgive the fact that he's trying to do good for the world, but there are just some things that erk me a lot about Rick Riordan and the legacy he stands for.

Is he as bad as JK Rowling? No, not by a mile. His clumsily executed writing about race, gender, and sexuality packed enough "You're valid" for me to eternally be grateful for the existence of his stories for the good their existence in school library's can do for kids like younger me. That "JK Riordan" comment was in reference to a blog post he made where he said Percy Jackson is Straight, which had the same energy as JK declaring Dumbledore gay despite what's in cannon. Can't currently find the original blog post, but I found a reddit thread of people confirming it happened. To Rick's credit, he's also stated that the only true cannon is what's in the books and that readers are allowed to interpret that as they wish, but the vibes were similar to eachother is the main point I was aiming to draw. I'm not mad he's straight, I just think that's really funny.

The other shit feels petty to complain about, but I do feel it's worth being mentioned as an actual reason to dislike the man. Staying neutral on the Palestinian Genocide because Disney signs your checks. I don't believe one can be neutral about the deaths of innocent people without being a little evil. To publicly state such a stance perpetuates inaction towards Palestinians, I believe. Maybe there is a two state solution, but he has never publicly condemned Israel's war crimes (I mean, he never condemned the God's either, so idk why I'm really shocked. The moral to his story can be read as "Yeah, the world suck, innocent children die because of our shitty systems but lol new God's? Don't try to be a hero or a blonde man. You die faster.")I can't help wondering if the cost of my entertainment is coming at the cost of human lives because I know it is, and that sucks but not as much as living through actually war where your small native community is being attacked by an army backed by the biggest global superpowers and histories biggest colonizers.

On that note, and this is actually petty comparitivly, casting the Black haired, green eyed, OLIVE SKINNED protagonists of your story as a blond haired blue eyed white guy just FEELS LIKE WHITE WASHING! He's from a part of New York that's known to have a high Latino and Asian demographic, I know he's never stated to be any race... but that stings. It's not Rick's choice exclusively probably and I'm sure the best actor for the role got the job (DO NOT BULLY THE CASTS OF TV SHOWS BECAUSE THEY DON'T LOOK THE WAY YOU WANT! LOOKING AT YOU LEAH HATERS YOU RACIST MOTHER FUCKERS DON'T KNOW THE PAIN I'VE GONE THROUGH AND NEVER ONCE DID I THINK "I'm gonna bully Walker Scobel about it")I blame Disney's oversight because Hollywood loves casting white actors as the leads of stories when the evidence in the source material points in every other direction. At the very least, the race blind casting for the rest of the cast at least gives POC actors opportunities to work. Mildly salty that the desi guy (I'm Desi) got the Disney famous "POC folk as animals/ transformed into animals/ not entirely human" treatment but Grover Underwood is indeed The Goat so I'll count my blessings about it. Walker and Aryan could have switched roles, and frankly, I think the story would be the same if not better for it.

Petty shit: he's really bad at writing POC characters. I've heard complaints from basically every demographic he's represented that he relies too much on stereotypes when depicting other cultures in an attempt to be inclusive (you really didn't need to make Sam marry her cousin to show you support Muslim culture. That feels gross for so many reasons. Fuck it this story is ripe with incest by nature might as well at that point, I guess.)

If he's my uncle, he's my weird dierogitory uncle, but at least he's not my transphobic aunt... could really do without some shit though.

[theomnicode]

Hello! What do you think about how the society in OPM accepts that King is the most powerful being in the world? While Saitama is hinted at what may become a danger to society if his strength were to become known? Considering that King has (accidentally and through his own fault) stolen Saitama's merits?

Sorry this one took a bit to answer, I had other business to attend to. This one is another long piece, but I dropped a tl;dr at the end lol.

Honestly though? I think it's perceptional bias.

Perception bias is a broad term used to describe different situations in which we perceive inaccuracies in our environment. It is a type of cognitive bias that occurs when we subconsciously form assumptions or draw conclusions based on our beliefs, expectations, or emotions.

There are several subtypes: Implicit bias: individuals hold attitudes towards people, or associate stereotypes with them, without being aware of this. Fundamental attribution error: individuals tend to blame their failings on circumstances around them, but consider that others are responsible for their shortcomings. Selective perception: expectations about people or situations affect perception.

King is revered as a strong hero and so people would accept and expect him to have strong abilities. Child Emperor pictures these abilities and describes them to King. (Cpt 152, Check) King is also tall, large and mysterious man who somehow exudes a strong aura of being strong willed, capable and a just person. But the public does not know him well enough to actually see through their bias: A physically weak and anxious man who just tries to live his life in peace, but who has heart of gold, wise beyond his years and incredible sense of justice.

Yet despite all this, I worry for King a lot, because the cognitive bias working against him is too strong, almost unnatural. It makes little sense about why this false image is so strong, considering he nor Saitama have THAT many actually proven feats on record or even publically observed. I mean, Saitama literally destroyed a meteor and got accused for it and killed Sea King and the public turned against him...and yet none of those actual, legitimate feats are being exaggerated to this degree like Charanko describes them as in Chapter 192: Level up.

Charanko's examples are so utterly ludicrous without a single shred of actual evidence that the utter shock being told they were lies of it was enough for him to at least start shaking off that cognitive bias and question his perception and seeking out the actual truth. The guy is completely overlooked as just being a weak nobody comic relief character archetype, but he is strong willed, like when he had the guts to attack Garou in direct confrontation.

But I mean, look at this thing, this is completely absurd. Where is the entirety of OPM people's critical thinking skills?

Who in their right mind would seriously believe rumours like solar system destroying level of bomb with a bonus black hole from some rando dude on the internet? Or King not having even been born yet, somehow being the second coming of christ itself?

Plus there is only one goddamn mythology piece in this entire manga that even closely fits the bill of a human(oid) character's birth being foreshadowed and that is OPM's God's mural in a place where literally nobody has seen it before.

Who the F would even be crazy enough to imagine up and spread such a rumour that King, of all people, is actually OPM God who legit nobody even knows exists? So absurd. :D

(Above image is from volume redraw)

It's such a malicious and cruel rumour too, capable of sowing distrust and discord in the entire Hero system when people stop believing in their heroes because they think the entire system is a lie. And they would blame King for it, thinking he's to blame for the lies because he broke their idea of an hero fantasy.

The only hero I can think who actually knows about OPM God is Blast, but he's not malicious. Zero motive whatsoever.

I heavily suspect Psykos for spreading it because this kind of rumour could only come up straight from the source itself. Because she's an alarmist (Cpt 175, Visitor) and OPM God has her in his backpocket to emotionally manipulate. Fubuki might uncover some more information to discover the truth, but I'd take it with grain of salt because Psykos appears to be under some kind of mental illness, possibly psychosis, as Fubuki has pointed out that she had never been a tough girl and something changed her. But I'm no detective and I'm not void of any bias, so here's a sherlock holmes quote:

"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? We know that he did not come through the door, the window, or the chimney. We also know that he could not have been concealed in the room, as there is no concealment possible. When, then, did he come?"

Honestly, the magic man in the sky is prolly doing it, we just don't know how because there's not enough evidence, only context clues.

-*-

Bang on the other hand, cannot shake off his bias even if his heart is in the right place. But he was just directly told face to face by King himself that he is weak and he still refuses to believe it because he stubborny keeps believing in his own biases, thinking he's always correct.

Old people do oftentimes think they're always correct don't they? Because they're oh so old and wise and experienced. He does the same thing with Garou and Garou won't accept it.

-*-

Anyways, I worry for King's flailing mental health for reasons because he's thinking about self-harm and he wants to unalive himself by monster hand because he thinks it's already Game over for him.

The cognitive bias around people's minds is actually and ironically, shielding him from the cascading effects of the mass public outcry since he's not ready to face it yet. He lacks willpower, that mental fortitude, to withstand that kind of attack on his psyche. He might do it if people suddenly just snapped out of that cognitive bias.

Some might even say... that he's the cognitive bias itself. King can bullshit so effectively because he's can literally project bullshit out of his every orifice if he needs to. If say, he needs to protect himself or other people. And as long as people keep their cognitive biases, it would help him sustain the image that he's strong and not be hated by everyone if they suddenly snapped out of their cognitive bias. So you could say that...the cognitive bias is helping him survive and protecting him.

A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behavior in the world. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, and irrationality.

Look, they're instantly second guessing themselves. Seems to be working very effectively. And Atomic Samurai did some incredible mental gymnastics to convince himself that just by sitting there, King just casually cut the apple even when he saw nothing and nothing literally happened in front his very eyes. (Chapter 189, Blade test.)

At least he has Saitama at his back, because Saitama has a bullshit radar a mile wide and Saitama believes he can change to be stronger. He respects King's opinion to do what is right despite knowing he lacks real power to be that force of change himself. He does not appear at a glance to show implicit bias towards King. He originally saved the guy just because he needed saving and then did it again, despite not knowing a thing about King, aside from the assumption that he must be a strong hero, even if he was asking for information to form an opinion. And then tries to dig deeper into that and questions the logic of King running away and showing lack of bias with his objectivity. (Chapter 38, King)

So as long as Saitama believes in King, he probably won't come to any real harm. But Saitama also has to believe in his own ability to actually help King if the need arises and act upon it, because otherwise it'll just be 166 chapter redux in the absolute worst case scenario.

-*-

So, about perceptive biases towards Saitama, they come out in negative light by default unless proven wrong by him directly.

I'll let the following panel demonstrate. (Chapter 55.7, Sense, vol 20 Extra)

The judge became immediately biased without any reason and attacked his integrity and pretended to know all about him when he actually knows nothing, despite this being ONLY a hero suit contest, not a character judgement and ignoring Saitama's explanation to why he likes to wear what he wears.

The judge won't acknowledge what he saw with his plain eyes as he refuses to believe what happened, Genos is showing different kind of bias because he too, is biased in favour of Saitama and thinks Saitama should win a hero suit contest just because he's strong, despite objectively having a really bland and cheap outfit even HE didn't like. Like a cosplay contest gone wrong if the judge just picks their favourite without any objectivity to their actual suit or performance and what is the point of the judging in the first place. Other people, despite cheering him on...show their true facets with their snide negative comments with their leaps of logic, attempting to tear him down for his good deed and nobody criticises them.

Now for a different kind of perception bias. (Chapter 16, Passed the exam)

Chewing gum might on a first glance, seem very disrespectful when towards authority figures who want your full attention because it inherently implies that the person is too busy chewing gum rather than paying attention, thus creating bias.

However the act of chewing gum in a situation where one wants to study and retain information has been seen as beneficial by studies.

Turns out, chewing gum may have more effects than simply making your breath smell good, or giving you something to do when bored. In fact, some studies show chewing gum can actually increase feelings of relaxation, increase attention, lower stress levels, and improve memory.

Saitama has shown even at the early stages of his teenager years that he DOES actually possess the attention span to study...as long as the subject actually interests him and he has selective interests. Despite all the chatter around him, he's able to tune them out and focus on his study. Give him something really dry and boring that just won't seem to stick and his attention span will waver, because attention is a resource to be managed.

Things like studying psychology can have their humble beginnings often in the interest in what affects human health, because personality types who are keen about bettering others like knowing what makes people tick in order to help them.

So it can be assumed that Saitama, knowing he has a poor attention span in boring seminars but has studied the subject before, anticipated this and simply brought chewing gum to help him focus just a bit more. Unfortunately, Snek became hostile to him and Saitama completely lost his focus and his attention wavered. This is how negative perception bias affects Saitama in his everyday life.

Another example of this selective attention span is where he watches the television because he's also interested in bettering the world as a whole, again because he likes helping other people and it brings him satisfaction. He often watches tv as an adult as well, to the point of doomscrolling. He even has Mob Psycho shirt on, a nod to ONE's other series to show that he's very empathic at his core. (Chapter 8.5, 200 yen, Vol 1 extra)

However, it is also shown that Saitama is incredibly sensitive to baseless judgement, hostility, bias and outside influence and he will get defensive and angry when faced with such and when challenged. (Meteor and Sea king fiasco) People like this who also have high moral integrity like Saitama has shown time to time again, also care great deal about their reputation in other's eyes, because it shows to them if they are doing a good job or not in their moralistic actions. Like a peer review.

Not getting any good feedback and instead met with various levels of hostility just conditions them to not try at all because they think it's their fault that everyone is against them. So Saitama early on has been faced with conditioning and now for instance, he thinks he just can't learn anything new even if he made an honest attempt. He has become insecure and self-critical and will think of himself in a negative light. (Stagnation and growth, chapter 76.) He has effectively build cognitive biases about himself and his true identity.

Here is Saitama attempting to unravel the cognitive bias around himself because he made a self-discovery. King, in his infinite wisdom, gives Saitama some objective perspective when Saitama immediately wants his second opinion about his perspective surrounding this new discovery. King, bless his heart, attempts to genuinely help Saitama but he misses the point of the discussion when Saitama was trying to see if he could bounce his ideas around, such as throwing a video game analogy to King that Saitama knows he SHOULD understand well. Saitama is just very poor at expressing his words due to his upbringing and loneliness and detatchment from emotions, especially without properly parsing it out first. He often thinks a lot louder than he seems to talk, which is why he's often misunderstood.

That is, unless he apparently connects on a deep level like with Genos and then the two of em could talk about anything and everything that comes to mind for days or until they run out of breath lmao. (Maji Drama CD vol 1, Saitama makeover)

King's perception bias towards Saitama is because he just does not know him well enough and his perspective is a bit skewed because of media influence that bring him comfort for his own emotional loneliness...because Saitama is always hung up about something or another because he has so much issues it hurts. King just does not see it or is not willing to believe "Super strong Saitama" could possibly have any issues since Saitama hides them well.

Saitama has far too much free time to think and ruminate, but his own cognitive biases stop him from seeing his true self without all the negativity surrounding him. The negativity of things such as his upbringing as a lonely boy who's sensitive to hostility. (Chapter 15.5, Brushing up, vol 2 extras)

-*-

Perception bias also serves another more...sinister purpose for Saitama. Psychological conditioning. There is potential evidence for deprivation of basic needs, conditioning for violence for protection and subliminal messages for suggestion, among other things. I won't go into details because I'm afraid of also potentially spoiling stuff, so I'll keep the suspense. :D

Here's maslow hierarchy of needs pyramid that explains about our intrinsical needs as human beings to have wellness in both body and mind.

Being deprived of all these needs is akin to mental torture. But so is facing all of the underlying issues at once via hypnotherapy and cognitive behavioural therapy if the patient is sufficiently dysfunctional in a societal setting like Saitama happens to be. Especially if the therapies are performed...poorly.

CBT has shown to be the most effective intervention for people exposed to adverse childhood experiences in the form of abuse or neglect Criticism of CBT sometimes focuses on implementations (such as the UK which may result initially in low quality therapy being offered by poorly trained practitioners. However, evidence supports the effectiveness of CBT for anxiety and depression. Evidence suggests that the addition of hypnotherapy as an adjunct to CBT improves treatment efficacy for a variety of clinical issues. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and its symptoms have been shown to improve due to implementation of hypnotherapy, in both long and short term. As research continues, hypnotherapy is being more openly considered as an effective intervention for those with PTSD.

In short, in order to heal mentally, Saitama may need to face mental torture because he has such strong willpower and such strong mental barriers shielding his vulnerabilities on a basic primal need. He can essentially dip himself on lava and ignore the shock reaction from the extreme heat (Chapter 112, Sacrifice) and does not even need to breathe in space and does not notice the extreme cold or pressure of space nor the sun's harmful rays, that's how strongly he shields himself from outside influence. (Saitama vs Garou fight, cpt 167-168) But there only needs to be a sufficient trigger.

ONE sent Saitama home to restore his energy levels in Chapter 197, What only I can do...because he's going to sorely need them for the upcoming confrontation.

Empty Void's ability to genjutsu people casually and cause parallel shifts in the reality and using these to abuse emotional dependencies is like a loaded Chekov's gun on Saitama's forehead. Because Saitama has been roleplaying to re-learn his emphatic skillset after he had suffered too much mental trauma and he's done that a lot with Genos just via interaction. I heavily suspect that Saitama's emotional regulation and empathy suffered when he became too strong and he was emotionally blunting himself.

So, if they so happened to use Genos against him and trigger his PTSD, there's no telling how Saitama will react.

Saitama more than likely has some mental illnesses like disorders and at the very minimum PTSD, not just depression, which can be used maliciously against him and the entire OPM world. There is one more thing about psychological conditioning, but I'm not gonna say it out loud here on this meta, I'm afraid to spoil it. :p *rubs hands gleefully*

There is also a high chance that if he's stressed enough and sleep deprivated enough, he could honestly go into psychosis if the entire world suddenly turned on him because he's sensitive to criticism and hostility.

Psychosis is a condition of the mind or psyche that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior that is inappropriate for a given situation. There may also be sleep problems, social withdrawal, lack of motivation, and difficulties carrying out daily activities. Psychosis can have serious adverse outcomes.

That's where he would truly become a danger to both himself and the entire Earth he's living on if he starts to have delusions, hallucinations and becomes out of touch with reality and also paranoid. So unless Saitama's mental health is adressed in a proper environment, he's a ticking time bomb till someone pulls the trigger on that PTSD and other issues he has. Empty Void can easily do exactly that by abusing his attachment to Genos in a cruel way, just like he tried to do with Flash and Sonic, starting from Chapter 200, Void.

Even seemingly normal, kind and well-adjusted people at the core can become very unpredictable when under high amount of duress and psychosis.

As underlined above, everyone always seems to default to the negative viewpoint of Saitama due to their perception biases and if Saitama's true strenght became more know...public would outright fear him simply because they cannot understand the scale of how powerful Saitama actually is, abnormally strong. Like they'd suddenly become prey to some unknown entity. Add in Saitama becoming more and more loose with his inhibitions from things like sleep depression and they'd have a huge mess in their hands.

Even Garou who fought against Saitama with everything he has, is completely shocked about how insane Saitama's abilities are, because they defy physic laws like it's nothing, so Garou goes "This is insane! What the hell IS this monster!?" when Saitama sneezed jupiter apart. (Awakening of the gods, chp 168)

Saitama has also shown dubious morality by attempting to punch and kill Garou to avenge Genos, but not really thinking or caring that the entire Earth would become collateral damage like Blast mentions as he portals and contains the explosion in Earth atmosphere. Chapter 166, Squared & Cpt 167, I.o) Saitama's mental state, when normally calm and seemingly well-adjusted, was thrown out of the window when he saw Genos died on him and has now become a PTSD trigger. He literally vented out all that anger in his fist in a massive clash of divine power, as told by the Blastice league.

So if perception bias surrounding Saitama was to turn sideways and he'd get dumped the pressure of the world against him, the consequences might become...bad. Saitama needs to be able to regulate his emotions far better in order to withstand mass scale attack from public opinion. Otherwise ONE is playing with fire with Saitama's mental health state, because he does NOT react well to criticism an such and will lash out like he did during the meteor incident, but far worse.

Thus, a danger to society.

-*-

Tl;dr: King has always been viewed in positive light so people perceive his powers as good thing and non-threat because they believe King is a great hero, whereas Saitama has always been surrounded by negative preconceptions about whatever he seems to be doing and public opinion about his hero status is not good, so Saitama busting out his massive, unknown power would instead cause uproar and mass scale panic that someone is even capable of such.

Thanks all for reading and thank you itsmaferart for this question. :)

[missdrummond]

album 78 reaction 4

What was Buck trying to set up about pickels? 🤣

"It's off the internet is has to be true" Oof! You're not Wyatt Perkins please don't

Oh come on! If these losers think any less of him because of this I will personally fight these kids in hand to hand combat.

"Impersonating a police officer" well now I need that story!

"I only kidnapped my mom" 💀. Also wouldn't he have been an accessory to that kidnapping?

What was he supposed to say? Hi I'm Buck, football player, recently released from juvie, and I play guitar!

Ya'll this is the Christian group! 😭 My heart!

These are adult women! Like yeah I get it's awkward when you find out a kid is on parol and protect your kids and all that but ostracization isn't the answer!

No! No, you don't hate it! This actress is laying on the false support thick. Also not to stereotype, but like they started it, Buck was a teen foster kid! You don't wind up in the foster care system because you had stellar parents and often that means you're record (whether that be legal or just social) isn't squeaky clean.

She's his mom not him!

Yeah and she needs support! Also taking a jab at her husband being out of town hurts. The undertones of that statement!

I have to keep pause every two seconds just to seethe at this woman.

Ok the car thing was at the very most a year ago. Probably not even that long ago but still.

You know I didn't say anything last episode because that last time I had a bad feeling about a church the writers went in a completely different direction saying actually no Mr. Mega Church pastor is great and cool, but yeah there's a reason I kept specifying "if they're chill"

Thank you, coach!

Yeah, and you know who turned against his teammate and started a fight YOUR son lady

What's with all these 8 year old who think crime is cool? First Camila now this kid? 🤣

Buck quoting the Bible?

Buck quoting the Bible without knowing?

I HATE Marla!

Kid! Kid! Please Please please tell your parents about the lovely life advice Buck just gave you and NOT about hot wiring cars. Ah who am I kidding this kid was way too psyched about hot wiring

"Even murders volunteer at the library" what a phrase

We're you just badgering him about this at the football game? Why suddenly the change of tune?

Ah it's because coach set him straight.

Im only 16 mins in 💀

You know what Marla? Where is your husband? Like genuinely is your family ok. I understand this character assassination isn't really about Buck but if you don't talk about this all you'll do wruin a kid's second chance at life and potential cause a rift between you and your son.

Oh kid you're making this so much worse

Katrina I love your optimism but I know Kathy's just about to rip my heart out.

Coach is the the MVP of this episode this suspicion is unfortunately warranted

I HATE the way Marla talks!

Can we verify this with the Pizza world security cameras? Also is Pizza World associated with Burger World?

"I'll take the blame" is a very diplomatic confession.

Really good Chris wrap up.

Conclusion: Marla better have a pretty good sob story in the next episode. Also maybe more Christians should interact with excons and/or incarcerated people.

[mrnightingale]

Edwin and Charles are literally coded with red and blue “hero colors” in the series. This is why people draw them like that. They are also written to be the brain (Edwin) and the brawn (Charles). It is fine to be creative and write works that reverse the roles in order to be transformative, but knocking other people for writing them the way they are presented in series is not the take you think it is. P.S.- there isn’t any turquoise on that image of George’s eyes. Turquoise is far more vivid.

Dear anon,

I'm pretty sure both posts you're referring to start with the "unpopular opinion" caption. That's because I don't intend any of them to have the same strength as canon content or generally accepted headcanons, but as a funny thing I thought and I wanted to post it here, because I can, because this is my little corner of internet and I can share it here. I don't have much irl people to talk to about the show, so I post it here.

I think I was very respectful when doing so, but if not, I'm sorry. Language has this thing that leads to miscommunication. Unfortunately I don't know how to avoid language, I can't share the half-formed though from my head to yours. When I'm non-verbal I usually use my hands or head to indicate things, I can't do that online. I'm not blaming anyone who writes/draws them as fitting in those categories, because actually most people do so. Because these are the tropes they fit in. They're written to fit in categories so is marketable, that's how it works. I don't intend to ignore that.

My point wasn't against fandoms, but against the very clear tendency that media has been having the last few years. I think fandoms have the enough power to make, if little, a change in the course of action of things, but not only bc it's the fanbase that consumes this media, but because it's composed by artists. Talented people that actively put effort in perfect their skills to make something beautiful and worthy, for the sake of doing art about the things we love. That's why I love fandoms. It's people creating art about art, sharing it with other people that appreciate it. I think it's beautiful.

The other half of my point is because came from anime/manga fandoms who's majority were conformed by teens who don't give the characters the profundity they have, labeling them based on stereotypes, and basically don't see the complexities of the character. That's why I like the term "fictional people", it has more personality, in my opinion.

My little disagreement with this relies on the headcanons who reinforce said stereotypes, mainly in terms of romantic and sexual relationships between the characters, ignoring some important aspects of their canon relationship or personalities, only to make them fit in stiff roles of, let's said, dominance and submission, and that has to apply in every other aspect of the character life. Of course, not everyone does this, but it's something that I, personally, usually have in mind, so it's obviously reflected in my art. Bc irl people don't fit in labels. You might be smart in some things and don't know others, you might don't be physically strong but have agility or flexibility, you might be bad with people but have really strong connections once you get to know them, you might seem oblivious with some things but be sharp and clever with others. It's about contrasts. Ofc we don't know absolutely everything about a character, bc probably more of those things aren't even defined canonically, bc they aren't important for the canon story. But they're important to the fans, that's why headcanons exist.

That's why I like to give my versions of Edwin and Charles some attributes that defy said stereotypes (and also, most of them are based on the actors, historical fun facts or symbology I like to give them). For example, strong Edwin is bc George is stronger than Jayden, as you can see in some interviews... I think it was with Teen Vogue. I don't say Edwin is the brawn, bc as I said earlier, even if he might be physically strong he has a very strong reaction to trauma and he freezes, that's why Charles is the brawn. Even if I headcanon Charles being a geeky nerd, that doesn't mean he isn't the one who fights, and that Edwin has more of the academic knowledge they need to solve cases. It's just something I like to think about them to give them profundity and complexity in my mind, it makes them more realistic, at least to me. You don't have to like my headcanons, as well I don't have to like yours. And that's fine, we're a community, but we can think for ourselves.

And the turquoise bit, I don't know every word to describe every shade of colour between blue and green. I know some in Spanish, but not in English, and I didn't want to search the Pantone colour palette bc I'd be hours lost in Pinterest, and that's... Not ideal. I don't even know what specific shade of colour "turquoise" even is, that's why I used cyan, but cyan is too vivid so that's not the word either. I don't know what's the word to describe George Rexstrew's eyes, that's why exist a whole thread discussing it XD. But I don't like blue or green either, that's why I said turquoise. It's not all that serious, really.

[this-is-where-i-hide-my-bullshit]

Seeing people constantly claim that asexuals are all puritans. Meanwhile I'm asexual and I write bdsm porn and post naked pictures of myself online for fun.

Just because I have no sex drive and I don't fuck people irl and very rarely ever jerk off doesn't mean I think sex is bad and disgusting.

Stop making general assumptions about people you don't know based on negative stereotypes. And stop blaming us for fandom internet brainrot.

[caldella]

Beach Lumberjacks, Moon Cheese, and Horse OC's

A collection of the top 10 weird ads I've gotten on Tumblr this week.

This is off brand for my blog. I don't care. I've been sitting on some of these for like 6 days. Ranking them by what, in my opinion, is least to most bizarre. Your opinion may vary. Remember I have no affiliation with these brands and am not recommending any of them! Some of these are legitimate, but some could and very likely are scams.

10. Hockey Dreams

What is a hockey advisor? What are hockey dreams? Is this gambling? Fantasy football stuff but for hockey? Why did I receive this?

9. Flannel on the Beach

You know what warm flannel needs? No sleeves. You know where warm, sleeveless lumberjack plaid flannel belongs? Badly photoshopped onto a beach! These belong together! Don't question it!

8. Who is This Man?

Why is he staring at me like this? Why is the color balance so bad? How am I supposed to believe he worked at Khosla Ventures? I don't like this. I feel like I need to call HR on him.

7. I Don't Live Anywhere Near Dallas

An ominous field of trees in tubs, and a pile of rocks - those definitely sell "foundation repair" to me. Is the rubble all that's left of the foundation? Is this a photo from an insurance claim?

6. Actually, I Would in Fact Like an Air Dancer

Blocked out this company as it was regional for me. Not the weirdest ad, but not sure why Tumblr thinks I want a wacky waving tube man when I don't have a business myself. Then again, they're not 100% wrong. I don't think yelling at them with a megaphone will do anything.

"Air Dancer" sure sounds like they're fluffing their resumes, though.

5. Cheese Moon

I gotta give credit to this one - it's blatant that it's an ad, and apparently this book is exactly what it says on the tin. What, scientifically, would happen if the moon was literally made of cheese? NGL it did get me to look up the book. It has decent reviews, and the author apparently has a sense of humor. I'm kind of interested. Would willingly get more ads for stuff like this.

4. Very Legitimate, Not Suspicious Honey

Texas is back. I'm sure this isn't sketchy in any way, and these 44 oz. of honey will arrive in a 128 oz. milk gallon and will all be from a trustworthy Texas beekeeper. Buy honey! Nothing is strange! Nothing to see here!

3. Netflix Made Dante a VTuber

This is how they decided to advertise a Devil May Cry series. They turned Dante into a Vtuber and had a badly synced voiceover ad promoting himself and trying to get people to share Dante gifs. I'm sad I didn't get actual video recording of this one, because the weird uncanniness and lack of lip movement sync really added something. The responses from Tumblr users was about as welcoming and supportive as you'd expect.

2. PREGNANT HOWRSE

(Aka "I blame Blitzø for this) @rainingfishandfrogs You requested a screenshot lol

It's the 'PREGNANT!' for me on this one.

What in the clickbait ad content farm--? Blitzø! Get off my internet! Turn the targeted ads back off! I respect your OC's; you don't have to try this hard!

Headcanon Blitzø has this game on his phone and has clocked about 200 hours on it.

1. Grandpa's Pregnant Big Booty Harem Thing

This was for one of those scummy short-form content miniseries apps. Apparently this guy was like, a rich guy who believed women with big butts were most fertile and went through like 10 wives and was trying to pick a granddaughter-in-law for his grandson based on her booty. I just ... yeah do I need to say anything that this screenshot doesn't? No explanation on why he was sitting there with a big belly, too. Some of the clips went by so fast that I wouldn't be surprised if this particular one was AI.

(For anyone unfamiliar with these short form content series, they tend to charge or make you wait between clips and you end up paying like $40-50 USD for about an hour and a half of badly translated, weirdly acted content with every story trope and stereotype trope thrown in).

And that's it for this week! ✨ My ads the last couple days have been much more tame. I kinda miss the insanity.

[douglysium]

Is FGO's Andromeda Black?

I already talked about this on Twitter So I figured I would mention this here and it was originally a sort of response to people criticizing for someone assuming Andromeda was some sort of gyaru.

I appreciate that people are aware of Andromeda’s Aethiopian / African origins in FGO but tbh I think there’s something to be said about how FGO design usually approaches drawing black people / features. Sure I think Andromeda is black but if you where to grab a random non-fate fan before putting FGO’s Andromeda, Amakusa, Emiya Alter, and Suzuka Gozen (Summer) in front of them with no context and asked them “Which of these characters is black?” or "Which of these character an African figure?" I hesitate to say that they would be able to tell you consistently.

I’m not saying no character can ever be racially ambiguous or everything can fit cleanly into little boxes at all times but as tempting as it is to say someone not realizing Andromeda is black is merely the ignorance of an audience member I can’t help but think that Fate also primes such expectations with how they often approach black characters in general. I think parts of the internet do bend over backward trying to deny a character being black when it makes sense but I also ask when is the last time Fate has idk drawn really curly hair or dreads? Like seriously think about it.

(Lenora maybe isn't the best example because I think she plays into some stereotypes but the point here is to look at the hair texture)

So, I think as good as the conversation about Africa in Greek mythology is to have and how easy it is to blame it on the audience (which is not completely unjustified) I think we also have to question how Fate itself primes the audience or may handle things in such a way as to increase the chance of miscommunication. And this is not to say that it’s always Fate’s fault or that black people can never have straight hair and / or lightskin black people or what have you, but i find Myself having to debate whether a character is black or not in fate way more often than I have to debate if a character is black in other media. I think the weaknesses that Fate has with these kinds of designs is something I don’t see with Magic the Gathering or Pokemon or even Digimon. Outside of specific characters I don’t see people arguing Marvin Jackson from Digital-Police is a gyaru or Lenora isn’t black.

Like if you look at Sid Story’s Mansa Musa design for example I don’t think there’s really anyway for someone to misinterpret that she’s not black without looking like they are purposefully trying to troll others for engagement.

(Shout outs to illust_ringo (https://twitter.com/illust_ringo))

Like yeah, there is a lot of racism in some parts of the Fate fandom but Fate itself did also make a bunch of Detroit jokes with Emiya alter and clearly realized they made some sort of mistake with design since they’ve been walking back on some subtle stuff so I can only give FGO itself so much grace in that context. I love Fate but I think if we want to have a productive conversation we need to acknowledge the racism within Fate itself and how that can attract certain people or set up certain expectations (even with the censorship of characters like Emiya Alter).

I guess what I’m also trying to say is for some people if you give an inch they’ll take a mile. If you give even a little bit of a possibility that a character isn’t black, even if they’re supposed to be, some people are going to take it and I think that there’s some stuff Fate could be doing more often (even if not all the time) to help prevent misconceptions from occurring and prevent me from pulling out an essay or history lesson on why a character is or should be black almost every-time they release and African servant.

While I ended up talking about some of the ways I think Fate could do better I don’t think it’s always 100% their fault. Like I said if you give an inch some people will take a mile (and some people don’t want to ever count Egypt as part of Africa for some reason) but I also think there’s stuff they could be doing to help curb this. I also don’t think it helps that Fate barely touches any black figures around / outside of Egypt but that’s for another time (where’s Yasuke?! Im on my hands and knees begging).

Anyway, those are my thoughts because quite frankly one could go on all day with almost infinite ifs, ands, or buts and numerous exceptions and when the responsibility is more on the designer or more on the audience or how there are always exceptions, considering racially ambiguous people and designs, etc but this is from Twitter and my brain hurts so I'll spare you an entire chapter book's worth of thoughts. I figured this was also fitting to go over during Black History Month.

Extra Thoughts

There are a couple of other points I would like to mention though. Some people have argued Andromeda is a win because they didn't depict her as white and I'm not sure I completely agree? Yes, it is a major win that they didn't do that thing where they only look at how white Europeans from the medieval century depicted her and used pale skin as a symbol of beauty but there are some fan translations of her profile and it says this " A tomboy princess who prides herself on her swimming ability. Ethiopia (Aethiopia) is said to mean "land of the sunburnt people"[1], however, it does not necessarily correspond to the nation of Ethiopia which exists today."

So yes, Aethiopia does not correspond perfectly to Ethopia but it still refers to parts of Africa and Africans. Quite frankly, this part of the profile reads like a summer servant and while it might be easy to say "Fate gave her dark skin so it's a win" I also worry that what happened is that they interpreted "land of the sunburnt people" as a tan and took the depictions of white Andromeda and interpreted it as a sort of tan. Which is a doubt I REALLY REALLY REALLY wish I didn't have and I can't stress this enough. I so desperately want to believe that they are saying Andromeda is at least black but like I said I think we have to be honest that Fate's depiction of black and African people adds a lot of room for doubt. I think her skin is naturally tan at least and while she does indeed have dark hair in some of her ascensions it ends up turning blonde. You could maybe argue this confirms that she actually isn't a gyaru since most stereotypical gyarus have blonde hair but even with that in mind I think the way Fate handles Andromeda and just black designs in general can often fall a bit flat or unclear and sometimes I think fans are doing a lot of heavy lifting with good faith readings (including me).

This is not me saying Andromeda is white this is me saying that Fate pretty consistently falls short with these designs which feeds into a room for doubt. Like I said, I just want Fate to be more willing to include some black features more often so I'm not constantly having to pull up a small dissertation on why a character is black. It would be nice if there were just a few more of their black characters that I could point to and have no doubts about and not need to debate anyone.

Also, Fate just has a SERIOUS whitewashing problem and a weird relationship with blonde hair quite frankly. It feels like sometimes it's an obsession. Like when they made it so blonde hair was a sign of divinity for most of the Babylonian gods. Something that has a lot of Eurocentric baggage with the history of associating often white / "aryan" traits with purity, beauty, goodness, divinity, etc.. Not to mention, that in my opinion, Fate seems like it is basically going out of its way to avoid black historical figures most of the time unless they have do Egypt. Yes, I know about Strange / Fake and Nzambi but they barely touched most of Africa and even outside of Egypt they haven't really even mentioned characters like Yasuke outside of some fan-submitted design in one of their gag mangas. Combine this with designs like Emiya Alter and the controversy around that and I can't help but be left wanting a bit more of a bare minimum somewhere even if there aren't a lot of black servants.

Greeks and Pigment

Since someone is inevitably going to bring this up. Yes the Greeks do technically depict Andromeda with light skin even way back when but I just happened to take an art history class so I know a bit about this.

Greeks did this weird thing where they sometimes depicted women with light skin and men with dark skin so if you really wanted to commit to that argument then someone like Perseus for example would have to be black or at least dark-skinned. To me it can hold about as much wait as arguing a man has blue skin and a girl has pink skin because people associate those colors with boys and girls.

For reference, here’s a pot depicting Perseus and Andromeda from 575-550 BCE on an amphora from Italy. If someone did want to argue Andromeda was white than they would need to argue Pereus is black or something which is to say Greek art and skin tones can be weird.

Andromeda wasn’t the only Greek mythological figure from Ethiopia (such as Memnon during the Trojan War) and the Greeks had settlements in African areas like Egypt and traded with Africans. Additionally, the myth of Helios explains why dark skin tones exist (so different skin tones are literally incorporated into their myths) so I think based on context even with art like this we can assume the Greek culture generally probably knew about black people. Also, Andromeda's profile clearly alludes to the idea that the designers and writers probably know Andromeda is from Africa too.

Ending

Idk, I try not to come off as a debbie downer or seem like the only enjoyment I get from Fate is when I bash it but I feel like some people are getting really caught up in praising the design or the individuals who are probably misreading Andromeda's race or ethnicity and not seeing the bigger picture itself. Something that limits the productivity of the conversation. I also think that where possible we should maybe push for more clearly black designs to prevent things like this from happening. I know that's usually not going to happen because FGO is a Japanese game for a mostly Japanese audience but you never know who's paying attention or who you might inspire. I also think that some of us maybe shouldn't be settling for scraps or half gestures as often.

Andromeda does do well with not just depicting her as Perseus white but at the same time I think everyone also just has REALLY low standards (including me) so even that little bit was a surprise. Which is depressing when you think about it. This isn't me saying you can't like Andromeda or that every character needs to have their race plastered on their forehead but it's very clear that Fate's design philosophy has some major pitfalls and weaknesses (especially with depicting black people) and I think it could be taking some simple steps to resolve them. It feels like every time FGO releases a black character the same cycle happens in the community and I'm not really sure it's going anywhere because people end up debating about what is basically a symptom showing up within the fanbase without addressing the actual source and elephant in the room itself, FGO and maybe even Fate in general.

There are also even people in Japan who at least kind of care enough to try to depict black people in a less ambiguous fashion that isn't racist or a stereotype (like Jinkei who has literally worked on FGO: https://x.com/jinkei_bunny/status/1759352092467364240?s=20).

BHM

Anyway, happy Black History Month. I urge you that while criticism is good and healthy positive reinforcement is also great and just as important. There's no point in ever only paying attention to the negative but never fostering the positive.

In the spirit of positivity and being the change you want to see in the world here are my Yasuke and Shaka Zulu fanservant designs

Demon Saber: Yasuke Full Profile- https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/735141544541208576/mori-ranmaru-wikipedia

Grand Lancer Candidate: Shaka Zulu Full Profile- https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/721643569180557312/douglysium-douglysium-douglysium-grand

Steel Berserker: John Henry Unfinished Profile- https://www.tumblr.com/douglysium/735103259781578752/steel-berserker-john-henry-wip?source=share

[velvetvexations]

For two, I want talk about TRANSMISOGYNY to actually get taken seriously. I want to talk about how so many stereotypes of trans people as a whole come from shitty caricatures of trans women that THEMSELVES come from shitty caricatures of both "perverted" men AND "hysterical" cis women. I want to talk about how everything that is transandrophobic has a transmisogynistic flip side and vice versa. I want to talk about tokenism and the superficial support that vanishes the moment a trans woman isn't the "positive" caricature people made her out to be - and how the trans-specific version of that is only one example of a template that was codified against trans women but oh boy does it get applied to all trans people, see previous points. I want to discuss these things and have them taken seriously, WITHOUT people jumping on it as an excuse to just shit on transmascs and "theyfabs" and otherwise just take the path of least resistance by taking it out on another scapegoat minority. And I especially hate it, because the more I think about it, I'm pretty sure a lot of tumblr's most homophobic memes (e.g., twink (derogatory)) really did solidify right around the time that "homophobia" was damned near only being used to shut down ace people, and holy shit I do not want people to use this environment to do THAT.

I really feel the same way. I almost always have my hopes dashed when I see a really good post about transfem issues I really relate to and then it turns out the OP fucking sucks.

Reblog 5 posts about trans women every time I reblog one about trans men or else I'm bad If I make a post about my own problems, I have to be incredibly clear about how privileged I am and how other people have it worse or else I'm bad If I see a post that's transmisogynistic, I have to actively argue with the OP or else I'm some privileged dude doing nothing with my power and so I'm bad I have to br 100% clear about what my stance is on transcourse in the tags of every post or else I'll make trans women feel unsafe and so I'm bad It goes on and on. Eventually, I made up so many rules that I had to get off the internet bc every time I wanted to post ot reblog something I'd have to compulsively examine the post for days, search through the OP's entire blog, etc etc etc. It sucked! Glad I'm getting treatment! I wanna be clear though that I'm not blaming trans people of any kind for my. LOL! Caught myself!! Caught myself with "having to be 100% clear or else I'm unsafe" compulsion! Anyways, thanks for listening. I'm wondering if any other queer with moral ocd have had discourse affect them like this! 🤔

I'm sorry anon, I promise you don't have to live your life like that. You're not a bad person.

Ehhhhh. They are all those things, but I don't think most of them are former members of or directly sympathetic to 4chan culture. It's just that trans women are the in-group and 4chan happens to be where trans women who used to be (more obviously) problematic hung out the way that's TERFism for transmascs.

I haven't! A lot of things like that are triggering me in one way or another, either because it discusses hate crimes or just the general crushing opposition we face, but I like to read what I can make it through.

Happy to provide, anon. <3

[local-pal]

Dooming about Arcane Season 2, send help.

I’m throwing this word vomit on here. I'm sorry in advance.

So, Viktor’s been my favorite League character (for lore purposes only, I don’t reeeeeally play him much) since I can remember. And I don’t know if it’s nostalgia or fear of change speaking here but I didn’t care much for his character in Arcane. 

I don’t think lore Viktor is perfect, far from it. Though his characterization has come a long way ever since he was just a silly evil communist Russian stereotype, he’s not that developed and you can kinda tell the current lore was being held back by having to fit in the already established role he had, and the canon at the time. Like him being kind of a one-dimensional asshole even before he turned into the Machine Herald—because Jayce was also an absolute asshole and assholes only really do well with one another.  His silly goal of turning all of Runeterra into machines, or whatever the writers feel the Glorious Evolution is at the time. Blitzcrank just being shoved in there. His discussion with Jayce being only glazed over. His characterization is also really inconsistent in the games. I can’t blame League of Legends because his model and voiceover are incredibly old (ASU with Arcane, maybe?), but Legends of Runeterra’s feel like the writers didn’t really read through all of his lore and kinda stuck with the old evil communist Russian robot thing a bit. Also, his role as the one enhancing the Underground’s people has kinda been replaced by both Renata Glasc and some other cards of Legends of Runeterra. He doesn’t have much left at the moment.

So a complete retcon might not be that bad? But I’m not at all hyped for the lore being replaced with the one in Arcane. The following is all speculative—Internet-friendly itemized list coming up.

1| The Marketing

Viktor wasn’t really marketed as a main character in Arcane like how Jinx, Vi, Cait, and Jayce were. Honestly, I was surprised he was even there at all when I first watched the series. He didn’t get a skin, didn’t get merch (as far as I know), didn’t get a (now discontinued) Path of Champions story, nor an icon in the game. 

As far as I can tell from the marketing for season two, this is the case again. I don’t wanna sound like I don’t like the characters, because I loved Arcane (I watched it eleven times in the first year!), but I’m not happy with the story focusing on Jinx and Vi again. I felt like their relationship was almost established, with some more screen time in season two to fully cement the way the writers wanted it to go. Like there isn’t much to do unless they want to kill or redeem Jinx, at least from what I can see. I really hope I’m wrong and they do something more interesting with her, though I could not imagine why. 

So, does the marketing imply that the story is not gonna focus on him? I would be extremely disappointed. I think his character is the best to focus on the political themes on Arcane, but I’m not a writer.

2| The Season Is The Same Length As The First One

I don’t feel like there’s enough time in a six-hour show to tackle this as a main plot point and Viktor’s transformation into the Machine Herald; and they said this was the finale. And I honestly fully expected it to be the story of season two. 

Do I sound entitled? I feel like I might come off entitled. Maybe I do feel entitled.

Viktor’s (and by extension, Jayce’s) was always one of the most interesting stories League had for in my opinion. Not much of the Piltover and Zaun lore tackles any themes quite like his, as superficial as they might be. At least it kinda tries to say something about transhumanism and how people from oppressed groups have to try much harder than those from privileged ones (by pointing out the difference in Viktor’s and Jayce's attitude towards work, and both of their origins and perception by outsiders.) This is kinda what Arcane is trying to convey for much of its runtime as well, so it seemed like a good fit.

I highly doubt that’s gonna happen now. At most, they show the beginning of his life as the Machine Herald, but I honestly don’t think we’re getting much of what comes after—things like the work he does in the Undercity, his cult, all of the rumors, a deep look into his philosophy, Jayce’s feelings about his transformation. It seems like there’s not enough time. And I’m not even getting into my issues with his characterization in Arcane. So I guess it’s time for…

3| The Hexcore: Oh my God. Please don’t do this to me, Arcane.

They are sooooooooooo gonna make the Hexcore corrupt him and turn him insane. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am. Please let me be wrong. Please let him become radicalized (by the war?) and let all of his further development come from him and not from an entity that’s making him insane. That would make his entire character so easy to dismiss by the story. “Oh, he’s just insane now.”, “Oh, the Hexcore is putting all of its ideas on his head, this is not really him.” (Remember how it’s implied that it’s alive and it learns?)

I think I was always interested in thinking how could this philosophy (the Glorious Evolution) sprout from a somewhat normal person, albeit one under a lot of emotional distress over his banishment from Piltover. How much is it his actual ideology and how much has it been distorted by rumors or so? Because he seemed fairly reasonable in his color story. It seemed interesting to explore—something like the actual man, Viktor; and the legend, the Machine Herald. He even has a cult, come on. 

For what it’s worth, I’ve been dooming about this ever since the third act came out. I thought killing Sky was gonna be a turning point of some sort. I don’t know, I kinda deluded myself while I was watching. I was like, okay, THIS is the beginning of the Machine Herald! But I’m hazy on how act three Viktor is gonna come to similar conclusions to those of the Machine Herald himself. Which is why I’m scared they are gonna take the easy way out and make the Hexcore speak to him. This has been very exacerbated by being told that Arcane is canon now. And I’m sure they’d said they wouldn’t do that. I don’t know what I expected from Riot and how they manage the story. 

I hope I’m so wrong that I’m gonna look back at this and laugh myself to tears at how pessimistic I was being. He did look a little bit evil while confronting the council.

4| Jayce.

Contrasting what I feel about Viktor’s character, I think Jayce’s characterization in Arcane is superb. He might be my favorite character? Though they kinda took lore Viktor’s story and stole it from him. (A bit of a tangent, but if we’re lucky we get some parallelism if Viktor is ever exiled from Piltover without Jayce defending him. Kind of a “he did it for you but you won’t do it for him” kinda way, even when both had a lot to sacrifice. That would be fucking cool.)

I guess I’m worried about his willingness to use weird-ass magic to enhance people, unlike lore Jayce. Where is the Divorce Arc going to come from? Using Hextech as weapons? Are they not gonna present an opposing view of transhumanism? Everyone except Heimer seemed pretty on board, to be honest. And that might change with him getting to see other sides of the Undercity, so I don’t even know.

It kinda feels like they swapped their stories and viewpoints. In Arcane, Viktor is the one to oppose progress by wanting to destroy the Hexcore because it took a life. Though it might be just the guilt of the moment. My Viktor would never oppose progress for something as insignificant as that, come on! (/hf)

They BETTER give me toxic yaoi, too.

5| The Rest of the Lore.

So, are they gonna re-write everything? Jayce and Viktor being the ones pioneering Hextech has so many branching consequences for the lore at large. What happens with Camille? How fast is Hextech gonna develop? Noxus getting involved in the war between Piltover and the Undercity? Where does Swain fit in all of that, or is he not contemporary to these characters? They mentioned building Piltover specifically to flee the unyielding reign of mages; are they gonna elaborate on that? Are the Rune Wars going to be relevant like Heimerdinger said? 

The good thing about Arcane being self-contained used to be that nobody had to think about what they were retroactively changing. This is going to be a clusterfuck.