#judging victims moral but never the abusers

[furiousgoldfish]

'Aw but don't you feel sorry for your abuser' 'oh maybe they've been abused themselves, you have to think about that!' 'but maybe they're only doing it because they have a mental illness! You have to look at it from their perspective!'

DON'T YOU THINK MY PRIORITY SHOULD BE TO GET AWAY FROM ABUSE WHILE I'M STILL ALIVE?

Also, why are you immediately putting yourself in the shoes of my abuser but not me? Do you feel it's more likely you'd be abuser in that situation, rather than the abused? Do you think this situation requires some virtue signaling and boasting about how you'd be a 'more compassionate' victim? Are you here to help them abuse me? Are you here to make sure it keeps continuing? Do you think anyone with a mental illness should have free reign to abuse me, or you? Do you think people threatened by a predator need to be running away or stopping to see how the predator would feel about it?

[stardustizuku]

Unfortunately I came across a very strange and misinformed video about Black Butler.

It’s not good. Don’t watch it. Unless you wanna ruin your day, in which case have fun.

Despite it all, I watched it. What left me wondering, however, was how off the mark the person who made the video was on, well, everything.

From their insistence that the Book of Circus Arc theme or point is non existent, to reading Ciel’s character so badly they genuinely thought the Green Witch Arc did nothing for his character development.

While baffled, it also made me think on how someone could read Black Butler so badly.

Sure, you can say that there’s no real way to read or interpret something “in the wrong way” but interpreting The Hunger Games as a pure battle-royale action story would make you believe it’s bad.

“Why are we focusing so much on how the capitol preps them?” Or “Why isn’t Katniss winning everything?” Or “I wanna know more about the rebellion” All questions that miss the actual point of the story - which is criticizing (not solving or ignoring) the way that media distracts us from violence via spectacle.

The same thing applies here. While there is no “right” way to consume media, there’s things that the author makes clear they wanna focus when creating a story. Things that, if you understand, make the story you’re reading actually make sense.

And in Black Butler there’s three things that you have to understand to properly get what Yana is saying.

Sebastian is the protagonist

Ciel and Sebastian’s relationship IS the story.

And that relationship is, fundamentally, a positive one.

A quicker version of it would be:

Black Butler is a love story from the POV of Sebastian, and you have to ship it to get it

- but that’s not entirely true.

You can still look at it as a complex but ultimately positive rship and get in broad strokes of what it’s conveying. It doesn’t have to be romantic. Although, it helps much more than a platonic framing.

(That said, interpreting their rship as father and son, still isn’t the best way to go about it. Mostly because by its very nature of “soul consuming” their relationship is extremely sexually charged. And hey, if you’re into that I don’t judge. However, if you’re desperately trying to interpret their rship as NOT romantic to the point you fall back on heteronormative patriarchal ideals of nuclear familiar as framing device, I don’t think this interpretation bodes with you)

Now, having all that ground work:

Why do I say these are the key components to understand BB?

Okay so, first,

1. Sebastian is the Main Character. The protagonist.

There’s a lot of people who wanna argue against it, claiming he’s either the villain or the antagonist. Both wrong.

He does not function as an antagonist. Even if, and an emphasis on if, you consider Ciel to the protagonist, Sebastian isn’t a narrative antagonist.

If you wanna go back to Creative Writing 101, be my guest. An antagonist is directly defined by the protagonist. It’s the opposing force. If the protagonist wants A, the antagonist wants to stop them from getting A.

Sebastian’s catchphrase is “Yes, my Lord”. He never opposes Ciel, in fact quite the contrary. By the mere fact they’ve created contract, it means that they’ve both agreed in the inevitable outcome.

People want to frame Sebastian as the villain, because Ciel having his soul taken by a demon, would be a BAD END in the context of their moral compass. They see Ciel as a frail victim of abuse, who’s being tricked by Sebastian, who wants Ciel’s soul.

Which is an. Interpretation. A bad one. But still one.

The narrative (and whether the narrative fits your personal moral compass and lack of critical thinking is irrelevant) treats Ciel as an agent in his own destiny. The abuse he suffered was the moment in which he had no control. It’s only after he meets Sebastian that he can rid of both his guilt and his despair, and do what he wants.

In this case though, it’s revenge.

The famous “Asthma” scene shows this. If Ciel is taken back to his past, he becomes helpless. Swarmed with pain and memories that make it so that he can’t even react. Sebastian is his saving grace. If Ciel didn’t have him, and the power he wields to rebuilt what’s broken, he would crumble once more.

If Ciel has a panic attack, because of all the pain he has, Sebastian picks him up and says “you are not a helpless child anymore, you are not a victim anymore, you have the power to do anything. So, what do you wanna do?”

Ciel’s answer is to kill them.

A proper analogy would be to say that, if Sebastian offers a gun, Ciel pulls the trigger. They are both at fault. Sebastian, strictly speaking, is not here to directly cause Ciel’s downfall, but as a tool Ciel uses to plunge into the abyss.

If, again if, you were to frame Ciel as a protagonist, Sebastian falls closer to the “Voice of reason” character. Not a literal voice of reason, but a literary one. If you have a protagonist and an antagonist exchanging ideals, the Voice of Reason serves to engage with the protagonist on their own ideals.

That said, Ciel isn’t the protagonist. The story quickly falls apart if you interpret it as such.

Things such as Ciel’s character arc being…shall I say odd?

It’s not that his character arc isn’t there, but it’s never lineal. His goals stay the same, the only thing that happens is that we start to peel back the “why”s of his goals. Throughout the series it’s never about Ciel understanding himself better, he knows who he is, he knows what he wants, he knows why he wants it. He doesn’t ever need to uncover these, but simply remember them. Because it’s always about the audience understanding Ciel.

He knows he wants revenge.

In the Circus Arc: He knows that he needs Sebastian because without him, the pain of the abuse he suffered would be too much to bear. But WE are introduced to it.

In the Book of Atlantis: He knows that with this new lease he does not want happiness and peace, he wants revenge. The one being told this is the audience.

In Green Witch Arc: He knows that their revenge isn’t for his family, the real Ciel or guilt. It’s because he wants it. He’s angry, he’s upset, and this is entirely for him. The one being told this is the audience.

Except. Not really. The one either discovering or remembering these key moments - is always Sebastian.

Sebastian is the one who reassures him that he now holds the power of a demon to override the pain. Sebastian is the one who remembers that to override that pain, Ciel wants revenge. And Sebastian is the one who discovers that that revenge isn’t built out of grief or guilt, but for himself.

We are witnessing it all, through the eyes of Sebastian.

This is why we have an extremely vague idea of who Ciel is, Sebastian does not have the whole picture.

If you haven’t been reading this manga with your eyes closed, you’ll realize we have a better grasp at Sebastian’s character than that of Ciel. We get a lot of insight on how he thinks and what he values through light hearted dialogue he has with the servants. You even see the character development in these little interactions.

Think about how when he first arrived to the mansion he magically created food with no regards to taste, but when he meets Bard he states that food is created to see whoever will eat it, smile.

That is character development, more than you will be able to see from Ciel.

Because Ciel’s character, while not static, doesn’t go from point A to point B. Mostly, cause it doesn’t need to. He went through that when he lost the real Ciel and got Sebastian. Everything we are watching is the falling out.

Now, given the fact that I’ve told you that it makes more sense for Sebastian to be the protagonist/main character, and that he 100% isn’t either a villain or antagonist in ANY of the interpretations you can get:

Do you believe me?

If you don’t, you’ll probably believe Yana herself.

This is from the first Volume, where Yana herself describes the process of making Black Butler. The primary idea behind the creation of BB was a butler as a “hero”.

If you go back to the introductory chapter, you notice that Ciel is barely mentioned. He’s simply the one to give Sebastian impossible tasks and standards that Sebastian must find how to overcome.

Ciel is properly introduced until the NEXT chapter. The second chapter has this formula too, introducing Lizzie as a problem to overcome. Although, to Sebastian the best way to “get rid of the problem” is simply to indulge her.

The issue here being that the problem isn’t as simple as a business meeting but something directly tied to Ciel and Ciel’s past. Each time that Sebastian has to solve a problem, it chips away at Ciel. While with Lizzie he shows a persona, once he’s alone with Sebastian he acknowledges the toll it took on him. It serves to build Ciel as Sebastian’s master, and how some problems aren’t as simple as discarding a tablecloth.

The third and the fourth, are a unified narrative, with a similar premise to the first chapter. Ciel gets kidnapped and Sebastian must find a way to retrieve him without raising suspicions.

If the first chapter is to set up what Sebastian must do as a butler, the third and the fourth serve to set up what he must do as a demon.

The entirety of the volume, and up to Book of Circus Arc, is about how Sebastian tries to follow the increasingly absurd orders that Ciel has - it is not about Ciel trying to solve them.

That’s how they work, we follow Sebastian for the most part, because he’s the one having to come up with the solutions.

If anything, in early Kuro, where the emphasis was more on a slice of life conflict, Ciel is the antagonist. He’s the one creating problems for Sebastian to solve.

What’s more, in the second volume, the very first chapter is one from Sebastian’s POV. So far, we hadn’t gotten an entire chapter from Ciel’s POV. In fact, I would find it hard to point to a single chapter where Ciel is the POV throughout. The reveal of real Ciel and the flashback is the closest contender.

But once we move past early Kuro, and into Book of Circus, this set up changes.

It’s fairly easy to assume that Ciel is the main character, because from this point on the conflict of the plot sorta surrounded him. We spend a lot of time with him and with his story. The enemies start being people directly tied to Ciel and Ciel’s trauma. Rarely, if at all, we get to see Sebastian before he met Ciel.The framing device for the story, is Ciel.

This is where point 2 gets intertwined.

2.- Sebastian and Ciel’s relationship IS the story.

The story begins at the point where Sebastian and Ciel met. Who Ciel was before he met Sebastian, informs why he’s the way he is when he does. You have to know all he went through to understand why he’s a brat, why he lashes out. However Sebastian’s past doesn’t matter…because Sebastian himself doesn’t care much for who he was, before he was “Sebastian”. That’s also part of the narrative.

Unlike Ciel, he doesn’t seem opposed to revealing information from before the contract. He talks about how pets from where he is from are gross, he talks about how he knows how to dance because of other places he’s been to, and alludes to the life he's lived before.

Just that, to him, they're footnotes.

He makes allusions to a very bland, uninteresting life, up to the point he meets Ciel.

That’s why we don’t know more about his past.

As for why we focus on Ciel’s story…okay maybe we need Creative Writing lessons 102

I studied Dramaturgy for about 3 to 4 years. And something you notice is how play-writing is the quintessential story telling. It’s making it work with the bare bones of a story.

Some other mediums have more finesse, more depth, or more spectacle - all amazing things that work for whatever they’re created for. But understanding a play, how and why it works, helps understand the fundamentals of any derivative story telling medium.

Particularly, conflict.

Conflict is dialogue and dialogue can take many forms. A story, in its essence, is a dialogue between two opposing ideas.

Take Batman, for example, who embodies the ideas of justice and order. On his own, he’s not a well rounded character.

If you ONLY present him, in a vaccum with nothing else, you don’t have a character. You have a list of characteristics that you’re supposed to know.

You only know who he is when you have dialogue with another character.

I say Dialogue, but it doesn’t necessarily mean spoken language at one another. Dialogue can mean fist fighting, playing tabletop games, talking to other people about the other, or even just a competition. The idea is to simply to compare and contrast both ideas.

If you want an example on how tabletop games serve as dialogue, watch the video “Well, Someone Had to Explain the Liar’s Dice Scene” by Lord Ravecraft

Another example, were we to retake Batman, you have him fight Joker. Who’s the embodiment of chaos and randomness.

In the following picture, you get far more information than the one previously shown. While the Joke fights with daggers and fake guns, Batman only uses his fists. He doesn’t use the tricks that Joker does. His serious demeanor, contrasted with Joker’s glee at the dangerous situation. The fact that Batman has a deathly grip on Joker’s shirt, while the Joker doesn’t, which shows a desperation to catch him.

You are being shown, through a dialogue, who Batman is.

It’s so much easier and much more effective to explore a character through another character.

This is the reason why Shonen has a tendency to make incredibly good gay ships. If you want to explore Naruto’s personality, and his feelings of inferiority, you HAVE to have him interact with Sasuke.

If you wanna understand Hinata’s passion for volleyball, you have him enjoy himself the most with the only other crazy motherfucker who’s as obsessed with volleyball - Kageyama.

And I think that originally, Yana had this problem.

Sebastian was the protagonist, but she had little room to develop him as a character in the confines of the manor, dealing with random enemies.

She likely tried to create Grell as someone of the same stature as Sebastian. Someone who could be this other person to engage dialogue with and show or allude to his past a bit more.

The problem being that Sebastian didn’t care for his past. Or really, engaging with anyone. He sees everyone as below him, but when confronted with Grell who isn’t below him, he doesn’t wanna talk to her.

So you’re stuck in conundrum.

How do you have dialogue with a character, that as a character trait, doesn’t really wanna have dialogue?

Well, Grell also solves the problem. Because only the moment she gets him to start any semblance of a dialogue - is questioning why he’s serving Ciel.

And this is the moment when it’s perfectly cemented that the focus of the story is their relationship.

Why is Sebastian here? Why does he stay? What did he see in Ciel that made him want this extremely convoluted contract?

THATS the dialogue.

THATS the conversation we’re having in Black Butler.

We need to know Ciel because understanding who he is, let’s us know WHY /Sebastian/ is here.

Then slowly, with the introduction with the Undertaker, we find out Sebastian’s conflict.

Which is…

He’s scared of losing Ciel. It becomes apparent with the constant imagery of the Undertaker taking away Ciel and at some point even obtaining r!Ciel’s body, that he’s worried it might happen.

But he can only be worried that Ciel might be taken away if he wants to stay near Ciel.

And that’s his character arc.

Realizing that he actually likes Ciel, cares for him and the role he plays a butler that he doesn’t want this to end.

In the first chapters, he doesn’t feel a need to protect Ciel anymore than what’s strictly necessary. Just don’t die, that’s about as deep as his involvement in chapter 4 gets.

But by the Green Witch Arc, he feels a need to protect Ciel from ANY harm.

This is why I also said

3.- Their relationship is fundamentally a positive one.

In broad strokes, Sebastian to Ciel is the person who allows him to survive. He’s not worried about giving up his soul since he’s already dead. While Ciel to Sebastian, is someone who’s making him have fun. He’s slowly becoming more and more attached to Ciel and the life he has with Ciel.

Their relationship is not that of just a predator and prey, but also of master and pet.

In the terms that Black Butler itself would call: Sebastian is a wild wolf acting like a collared dog.

Ciel is aware that the wild beast will eat him at the end of the day, but if he clings hard to leash for now, he might just be able to have Sebastian maul his abusers.

Sebastian as a dog, currently finds that he enjoys being a chained dog.

(This is demonstrated in the Green Witch arc where he quite literally says, he doesn’t wanna be a wild beast and prefers to be a butler)

And much like the actual DOG Sebastian, Ciel constantly interprets his attempts to get close and protect him, as an act of aggression.

This push and pull of Ciel’s perception of Sebastian and Sebastian’s true motives is what feeds the story.

And the briefs interludes were that isn’t the case (what other people call the “plot”, but I would refer to as the connective tissue) such as Sullivan and Wolfram, the other servant’s past, the grim reapers and the like, serve as a parallel to Ciel and Sebastian relationship. Either to signify how they care for each other, highlight their weaknesses or fears, or explore how they feel.

It’s no surprise that Sullivan and Wolfram are parallels to Ciel and Sebastian. A sheltered sickly child who seeks the protection of a cold hearted machine that only knew how to kill, but who eventually found he cared for her genuinely.

Undertaker and Claudia’s relationship being heavily paralleled with them, even though we aren’t 109% sure what they had but heavily implied it was a romantic attraction from the undead supernatural creature and a Phantomhive.

Everything is a parallel.

That’s why, like the approach of the terrible original video, is flawed.

Trying to interpret Black Butler as action scene after action scene, with mystery after mystery with the only connective tissue being the mystery of who burned down the mansion - is missing the trees for the forest.

That’s not the point.

And if you’re too much of a prude to engage with gothic horror in its gothic horror game, I see little point as to why you even bother to engage with it at all.

A lot of people, including the person who create the video, simply refuse to acknowledge Black Butler IS the story of Sebastian and Ciel as a close and positive relationship, romantically and sexually charged. The reason for it being that they’re “put off” by it.

Part of me wonders how much that is genuinely true, and how much is just performative outrage. It’s like ignoring the fact that Cersei and Jami are in an incestous relationship and try to frame it as “platonic love”, because the idea of it is THAT off putting.

But regardless of that, if you don’t like the fact that it’s as canon as canon can get, I would reccomend you don’t engage with the story at all.

As I’ve explained, the entirety of the series is about them. If you refuse to see Sebastian and Ciel as, at the very least, a duo that cares deeply for the other - you aren’t reading Black Butler.

I have no idea what you’re reading.Perhaps your own biases and subconscious stigma with British aesthetic. At that point, watch the fucking British Royalty Gossip Magazine. You’d find more substance there.

Just don’t be like the person in the video, please? Don’t play dumb. Don’t ignore the fact that Yana is a Shotacon, don’t ignore the fact Sebastian is a hero, don’t ignore the fact that the entirety of the story is based on Sebastian and Ciel’s dynamic.

Because if you do, you are ashamed. You are ashamed of what this story is about. You don’t wanna engage with the text, you want to engage with yourself. You wanna project into Ciel whatever traumas and experiences you have, for the sake a vanity project, where you come out as the morally superior.

You don’t wanna talk about Black Butler, you wanna talk about how good YOU are. How you “don’t sin” by watching it “without all the gross unholy stuff”.

Which is the exact opposite of what BB is about.

So, if you don’t want to, save us all the humiliation fetish and leave.

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Halloween prompts no. 31 (part 8)

Danny was getting yelled at by his Tinder date. This whole day had gone up in flames (heh) and he was honestly just done with the whole situation. The guy wasn't even yelling at him for something that was his fault. He can't control the people of Gotham and even if he could he wouldn't. He had morals.

Judging by the sudden silence from his failed date he guess he might have said that out loud, but Danny would have never guessed his response. He held his face in shock, nursing the new bruise on his face while the guy screamed at him even louder than before.

----

Robin watched from the rooftops thinking he was going to have to interfere in a domestic violence case when the victims eyes turned an oh so familiar green. Before Robin could think to do anything the Lazarus guy kicked his attacker in the crotch so hard it lifted him off his feet. When the man double over in pain the Lazarus kid kneed him in the face and Damian took delight in hearing the man's nose crunch.

He watched as the abuser was thrown into a nearby dumpster and the victim melted the lid shut in rage. Robin chose that moment to jump down, startling the kid bad. He went from enraged to sheepish at a record pace, "Is this about the guy or the dumpster?"

Well, Grayson did say to go make friends tonight. So he took a note out of his own book and tried to joke. "The dumpster. The trash belonged in there but the dumpster did nothing wrong."

Appearently it worked and the guy laughed. The guy was secretive and kept deflecting everytime he was asked personal questions. Interesting. He was a potential friend and mystery wrapped in one.

This was going to be fun.

.

.

.

On a side note, they kinda just left the guy there

[mikuni14]

I remember watching The Glory, already wary of the tiring approach to revenge trope, the compulsion to forgive, the obsession with the "purity" of the soul (and the desire for revenge as a negative feeling poisons the soul) and disillusioned in this matter. Every episode was me waiting, like oho! now she will probably "convert" and give up making her bullies pay, after all, the purity of the soul is the most important thing! 🙄 The perfection of this series is that it showed the literal nature of bullying, what effect it has on the victim (even years in the future), showed how this victim actually fights for herself, but has everyone against her: school, her poverty, her own mother, and allowed the victim her revenge, punish the perpetrators, end her revenge logically on the roof of the building and then GIVE HER A CHANCE FOR A NEW LIFE, without erasing her old life. From the point of view of the art recipient - it's EXTREMELY SATISFYING. That's why, for me, The Glory is a model of what a revenge series/film should look like. Because it also shows the consequences of revenge on the victim, but also on innocent people who accidentally become collateral damage. But it DOES NOT deny the victims this revenge in the name of "high ideals and ethics". Ideals and ethics that are somehow always required from victims, never from their abusers 😉 And it's the same with DFF. Because those who hurt Non never paid for it, never compensated their victim, did nothing to right the wrongs, atone… at least to make their own lives a little uncomfortable. Oh yes, they felt guilty and sad… in their homes, at their movie premiere, in college, free, having fun, planning the future, healthy and alive.

Coming back to The Glory - I remember a certain scene when Moon pointed out that the husband of her main bully visited her dingy, poor apartment and took off his shoes, even though he is rich and powerful and could give a damn, be repulsed or whatever. This one gesture moved her. Because he saw her as a person who deserved kindness and respect, even in such a small gesture. And in the end, this man did what was right, even though he paid a high price for it and it was inconvenient for him - even though he didn't have to.

Let me put it figuratively this way: none of Non's bullies ever went to his house and took off their shoes. And then didn't go through the "inconvenience" to do what was right. "Inconveniences" that have nothing to do with the "inconveniences" experienced by Non's family… That's why I can't help but side with Tan. And I never expected noble behavior from him. Because whatever Tan does (like Non did), is and always has been a reaction to what happened to them. Each of the characters made mistakes, behaved badly and stupidly - but ONLY NON AND HIS FAMILY PAID FOR IT, and it was a price disproportionate to the guilt. I won't judge Tan, let him cook 💖 And let him win. Let at least he be the one from this tragic family to win. Morality? Ethics? High, noble ideals? They were packed in a black bag with Non's body.

[boytoyhalo]

I know this is a hard pill to swallow, but if you want society to improve especially in terms of how we treat criminals and mentally ill people, if you want to abolish cops and prison and work towards building better communities, if you want the cycle of abuse to end - you HAVE to accept that EVERYONE can change and grow. That includes people who have done things that you consider irredeemable - rapists, abusers, pedophiles. EVERYONE.

Before you get on my ass about it, let me make it incredibly clear that I am NOT saying that anyone, least of all victims, is obligated to forgive or give any sort of grace to people like that. This post isn't solely about forever's current situation but I'll focus on it as an example since it's relevant - I am not going to continue following forever's content, I don't feel comfortable knowing what I know. But I absolutely don't think it's fair to demand that no one support him, or that he not be allowed to continue having a presence in mcyt spaces. Regardless of your feelings on his past actions, it's become clear that he's not currently a threat to anyone and that he really isn't who he was back then, so who does it help to bring it all up?

Especially given that the people who brought up all the tweets weren't even the alleged victim, I don't think any of this should have been the public's business in the first place. All it's done is cause unrest and pain for everyone involved. It is not on us to be the judge jury and executioner for cases that we are not involved in - and if we don't let people leave behind the people they used to be, then those people will never go away. If we continue to isolate and ostracize and crucify people for things that they've already atoned for or grown past, then how and why would they become better people and break the cycle? If we lock into this idea that certain things make you completely irredeemable, then why would they not just continue doing those things?

Dragging up past discretions like this when they're no longer causing harm to anyone just for the sake of putting them in front of everyone IS NOT accountability, especially when it's being done without the consent of the victim. It's punishment, it's this incredibly catholic idea of needing people to face repentance or mass humiliation for their sins instead of actually building up from them. It is not, and never has been, on us as uninvolved fans to decide whether or not someone "deserves" their platform based on isolated incidents from their past.

It's completely understandable if this situation has changed your view of the cc, it's certainly changed mine. But I beg you not to try and force people to stop watching or supporting him or to decide that he's irredeemably evil and anyone who continues to associate with him is too. That helps no one, least of all the people actually affected by the things he's said. Decide for yourself, and only yourself, for your own comfort instead of moral purity.

TL;DR people who do bad things, no matter how bad, are still people and are capable of growing and changing if they choose to do so. And by refusing to let those people grow and change all we do is keep all the pain and damage they've caused around forever. No one can heal if we keep tearing open the wounds

[actual-changeling]

…im sorry i feel like im still missing something. gabirel and beelzebub didn’t unlearn anything, though? they were in positions of power and left the system when they got bored. they’ve never been terrified for so long the way crowley and aziraphale have been (as far as we know). they implemented fear into the lower ranking demons and angels to keep them in line with threats of violence, of falling, condescension, and actual implementation of punishment via execution. g+b arent comparable to a+c because g+b actually felt like they had control over things in their lives. and what other angels and demons have unlearned everything the system has taught them? do you mean unlearn as in they now view the system the same way crowley does? if i understand you correctly (and correct me if im wrong), you’re saying aziraphale is in the same position as all the other angels so therefore has no excuse to “not change” but he (and crowley) are in distinctly unique positions from everyone else because of their time on earth and with each other. that gives them unique struggles, right?

I'm sorry, but at this point I'm wondering if you've even watched the show because it is all right there on the screen.

Aziraphale is in a unique position yes, and it is BETTER than literally everyone else's. Heaven does not give a single fuck about what he does and does not do, he has more freedom than any other celestial being and can do whatever the hell he wants. The only time heaven cares about him is if he is directly working against their world-ending plans—otherwise they forget he exists. This is canon. Heaven somehow judging and punishing him is made up. They don't care about earth or what Aziraphale does down there.

And are you trying to tell me that Gabriel and Beez are somehow in charge of the system? Because they're not. They're victims just like everyone else. The Metatron could have his memory erased and his life destroyed with a snap—they survived the way they were forced to live, just like every other angel. They have no more control than Muriel does, they are just as paranoid and terrified and lonely. They can be punished like everyone else, their jobs are high-risk.

Gabriel is not lying to Beez' face. He is not insulting them, being cruel, trying to change them, or calling them an evil demon like it is the worst thing it could possibly be. Beez is fine with being a demon and Gabriel is fine with being an angel, and they both understand that those identities mean absolutely nothing once you look past the institution. Everyone knows that, except for Aziraphale, because he refuses to see that.

Angels are working with demons, and yes, they have their roles, but they also know that those only matter while they're actively doing their jobs. None of them have fucking control, not demons, not Archangels, not Dukes of hell, not Crowley. Angels and demons are not the enemy here.

Heaven and hell as institutions are, not individuals who were forced to live within them.

Again, Aziraphale had almost total freedom because he's been on earth since the beginning, his "concern" is based on made-up beliefs so he does not have to look past his own comfort.

"Unique struggles" for CROWLEY, who is canonically being tortured and followed and watched 24/7. And HE STILL CHANGED. He fucking worked on himself, he is not being cruel or cowardly, he is not hurtful, he understands what it means to live in an abusive system and he still changed because that's what is right. What is decent. Crowley is kind despite the fact that it can get him killed because he actually looked in the mirror and built his own moral compass instead of shutting eyes & ears and sticking to bigoted views to make his life easier.

Aziraphale does not change because he does not want to. He keeps hurting Crowley because it's the path of least resistance, the easiest way to avoid having to look in the mirror, and he takes it for granted that Crowley will come back to him no matter what. That he can demand anything and everything and Crowley will follow—and if he doesn't, he throws a tantrum like a toddler and goes to pout in a corner (see the argument about Gabriel in episode one, for example).

Aziraphale was in a unique position with endless opportunities and he did absolutely nothing with it—his beliefs and words are the same as on the walls of Eden. Six thousand years and Crowley is still the second choice and heaven his first.

[queersatanic]

On Christian sexuality and abstinence

Abstinence as a primary but especially as a sole strategy for instructing others to navigate the world is clearly a very bad one.

One of the most obvious reasons why is that people act in our weakest moments differently than our strongest moments. Telling young people, in particular, to rely on abstinence for good results is like telling them to rely on coitus interruptus (the pull-out method) for birth control. Under perfect use, that’s actually a great strategy for avoiding unwanted pregnancies. In actual use, it’s very bad because, of course, it depends on self-control at the very moment where that's the most difficult.

But it goes deeper than that. Abstinence is usually not just abstinence but paired with ideas about purity and value, especially for girls and women who are judged on things like "virginity" or "body count". So when you are a victim of sexual abuse, the added trauma on top of the direct abuse is the messaging all around you that you are now like a piece of already-chewed gum no one else will want, or that you can never give your whole self to someone because your abuser already has some of it. This is beyond reprehensible, yet it’s common to all sorts of Christian churches.

Importantly, while sex can hurt you in lots of ways, so can lots of things. That seems rather irrelevant set next to “how do the bad possibilities stack up to the good possibilities?” Frankly, for most people, sex is really good. That’s why so many people — including deeply, sincerely Christian ones — do so much of it, including when they believe they’re not supposed to. Having sex with more than one person in a lifetime doesn’t diminish most people who do that, either because they have premarital sex before settling on a long term monogamous partner or it’s not until several marriages that they find the right person (or because they never marry and/or continue having new sexual relationships throughout their lives quite happily).

Finally, if the argument is that Christian sexuality should conform to Biblical values, which Biblical values do we mean? Because — from a man being instructed how to sexually assault the people he enslaves acceptably; to how the real crime of rape is damage done to a woman’s owner to believer communities being told; to not marry since the end of the world is coming so soon — there would seem to be a lot of wiggle room for what exactly sexual morality is supposed to look like across all 66 books of the Christian Bible, and much of what is there seems best set aside. Or at least, if Christians are apparently willing to set aside the stuff about turning the other cheek, not suing each other, forsaking wealth, and taking care of immigrants, it seems like something other than pure piety would be motivating close and selective readings of sexual morality as described in Biblical texts.

[hippiegoth97]

Let Me Make Some Shit Clear

Hey, everybody. I never thought I would have to make a post like this, but here we go. Today I was tagged in a post by the lovely @violetpixiedust (please check out their post about this as well they cover it extremely well) and found out I was mentioned in a 'call-out' post for my Gator Tillman one-shot. The OP of the call-out post didn't have the balls to tag me, and instead listed me with many others and blocked me unprovoked. Here's screenshots of that post. I'll go into my feelings on that in a second. But, take a moment to read through all that.

So, let's set the record straight so nobody misunderstands me.

I do not in any way support MAGA bullshit, or any conservative ideology of any kind. I am a bisexual, leftist, atheist woman who believes in equality, respect, and rights for all.

I do not condone the awful actions of Gator Tillman, or his shit father. My story was very clear on that as well, he's extremely flawed and I thought I made that obvious. I really tried to drive home the fact that he's a product of abuse.

I was rooting for Dorothy Lyon the whole fucking season, because she is a badass woman who has been through too much for one lifetime. I myself am a victim of child abuse which has carried on into my adulthood. I know her. I am her. But I also know, and am, Gator. The OP also completely glazes over the fact that Gator was extremely abused. We see how Roy treats his 'property'. I do not think Gator would have been able to leave the ranch either, unless he got married off. If he left, he would be hunted down too.

Also, Gator knows he did bad things, he was ready to go to jail to pay for them as long as his awful father was kept away from him. Because he FEARED HIM. He was literally a child stuck in a grown man's body, and that is how we sympathize with him. And he killed that poor old woman on accident, I'm sure he took no pleasure in that. And the man in the skirt paid him back triple.

And another thing, it's fanfiction. And for those of you who have been in the trenches as long as I have would know that all kinds of stories get told in this community of ours. Is it always ethical? no. Is it always 100% morally sound? No. Does it explore many taboo subjects through artistic expression? Hell yes. There is a ton of stuff out there that I find repulsive and would never read. I will not say what because it is not my place to censor or judge others, or tell them how to express themselves. I simply focus on the works I do like, and read those. And this is something new fandom culture has seemed to have forgotten. Over and over I see people wringing their hands at smut, or subjects they find triggering, or things society says are wrong. But you're really opening a fucking can of worms when you're calling for the reporting, banning, and censorship of those who think differently than you. That's how you get laws like KOSA that directly target POC and LGBTQ+ content because some think it's 'pervasive' to children. That's how you get laws prohibiting teaching real history and removing diverse books from libraries.

Lastly, I will NEVER, EVER censor myself to please others. I will write whatever the fuck I want. You don't have to like it. That's fine. I learned a long time ago that I'm not to everyone's taste. And I've long since stopped giving a rat's ass about it. I am an artist, and I will continue to create the art that I am passionate about until my last dying breath.

[butwhatifidothis]

It's just so genuinely frustrating to me that almost every single other female character always gets pushed aside in this discourse. Doesn't matter what you think of or how you treat any of the other women, some of whose morals could be discussed just as extensively, the only opinion that matters to judge you is Ed3lgard and Ed3lgard only.

You really just gotta look at how they treat Rhea to see how shallow their care for misogyny is.

Rhea is someone who went through unimaginable suffering and due to that suffering did things that were indeed morally questionable, but (other than Fhirdiad) never cruel. She did everything she did because she wanted to make sure that everyone in Fodlan was safe, and mostly left the humans to their own devices (save for when either the Church was directly threatened or they asked for her assistance). She is someone who puts her own life and safety on the line to protect her people, up to sacrificing her own life to do so.

She gets called an abuser. A tyrant. Crazy. Because when her trauma is not simply left untreated but actively attacked and she reacts poorly to that, that is when her "true" character comes out to Edelstans. Everything she ever does, ever, in any context, gets deliberately misrepresented into being villainous.

Edelgard is someone who went through unimaginable suffering and due to that suffering did things that were not just morally questionable, but undeniably cruel. She did everything she did because she wanted power and wanted Fodlan to go back to how it once was (completely under Imperial control), up to attacking people who went out of their way to stay out of her way (the Alliance). She is someone who won't just endanger the lives of her citizens, but will outright have them killed if it means she can gain more power, by her own admission and as shown in her actions.

She gets called a liberator. A hero - the hero. A victim of a world who hates progress. Because when Edelgard says that she's doing it for "the weak" (ignore that she will sacrifice them as soon as it would help her), because she says that she wants to get rid of the importance of Crests (ignore that Plain Jane inheritance-based systems, which are arguably even more unfair, are still around in her endings), she must be telling the truth! Because Edelgard would never lie!

Even if we were to do a No No and fight in their pit wrt Rhea's characterization, the way that they portray Edelgard is literally no better than how they portray Rhea. She also sacrifices people "for the greater good," she also lies to keep up a certain image to her people, she also colludes with murderers because it suits her wants, and she also rules Fodlan tyrannically - everything that they accuse Rhea of doing, they portray Edelgard as doing, only with hoards and hoards of excuses and Fine Print and Um Ackchually's tagged on.

And that's their main like, way to say that they totes fr fr care about misogyny; villainizing Rhea as a devil while uplifting Edelgard as a pinnacle of morality and heroism, and "debunking" any defense of Rhea/criticism of Edelgard. It's not out of a genuine care about sexism against women, but just a tried-n'-true Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card to pull out for their fave.

So it's like, I'm sorry, but at this point unless a non-bot, non-troll, actual person comes out and vomits shit about Edelgard needing to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen or some garbage, whenever anyone says that they found a misogynist talking about Edelgard? I'm just gonna assume that the "misogynist" said something like "oh they must have said that genocide is bad," because that is how wrung out and insincere they're made their usage of the term out to be. Especially when they can't be bothered to treat actual breathing women with any kind of decency the second we say something Mean About Edelgard, which is its own conversation by itself

[bookishfeylin]

One of the biggest issues I have with acotar is how you don’t know what standards to judge the romantic relationships by. The first book is fine, because while it’s a retelling of a relationship that’s inherently unhealthy by real world standards, it’s also a romance and fantasy story that isn’t trying to have a moral.

But that’s flipped in the books after. THEN it’s trying to make a commentary on unhealthy/abusive relationships. So like it’s weird, obviously, but you’d also assume that from then on the relationships would at least try to adhere to the standards recently brought into the universe by being healthy by our standards, right?

Right guys?

SO LIKE WHY DID SJM MAKE RHYSAND LIKE THAT?? Because he’s bad in the first books- has already violated the newly placed rules in acomaf- so first of all, why did SJM try to add real standards about relationships into acomaf while simultaneously making Feyre get with the guy who sa’d her in acotar?

Second, the whole “faking it” or “it’s just a mask” excuse is bullshit, because it doesn’t change the fact that he still did it to Feyre in acotar. By SJM’s standard of Tamlin locking Feyre up still being wrong no matter his intentions (which I agree with), Rhysand “faking it” shouldn’t excuse him sa’ing Feyre.

Third, it gets fucking worse. Feysand’s relationship goes places I could never even have nightmares about. Like the death bargain or whatever it’s called (the bargain where if one of them died so would the other)? What?? Who, in a relationship as healthy as SJM and the feysanders want Feysand to be, would want their partner to die with them? If they were so healthy wouldn’t they want the other to be happy if they died?

Fourth, the pregnancy. The FUCKING PREGNANCY WHAT DO I EVEN SAY ABOUT THAT?? Stans keep trying to excuse it saying stuff along the lines of, “he was trying to find a solution and didn’t want to stress her out!” Which, is already stupid enough without counting the times I’ve seen people saying she could’ve miscarried if she had information ON HER OWN BODY, but also just... again, stans keep saying that Feyre’s feeling as the victim carry more weight than the intentions of her abuser (which again! I agree with!), but that only seems to apply when Tamlin is doing the abusing. When it’s Rhysand? Then only HIS feelings, HIS intentions, how Feyre’s possible death made HIM feel, that’s all that matters to stans.

Like I just want to know what the fuck are the standards here. It’s just so annoying and confusing.

Anon I want to print out this post and pin this it on my wall 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

And this part right here:

stans keep saying that Feyre’s feeling as the victim carry more weight than the intentions of her abuser (which again! I agree with!), but that only seems to apply when Tamlin is doing the abusing. When it’s Rhysand? Then only HIS feelings, HIS intentions, how Feyre’s possible death made HIM feel, that’s all that matters to stans.

YES!!! Feyre’s abuse matters until it’s Rhysand doing the abusing, then Rhysand’s feelings trump Feyre’s abuse. And that’s honestly horrific.

I honestly don’t have much more to add, because this ask is perfect as is

[jitteryfool]

I still am bitter about the whole plotline surrounding Harlan, and also to a smaller degree the whole confrontation between Allison and Viktor, so I guess I will postpone watching the rest of the season until I feel ready to continue.

I was pretty intrigued when it first was confirmed Allison would become darker this season, but right now, I can't quite bring myself to really sympathize with her character despite everything. At first, I did really like the direction her character took, but then the Harlan Plot happened and just... yeah, I disliked that. A lot.

But I already saw some posts discussing why people are treating Allison like a villain when Viktor did objectively worse things with a wider reach and it did make me pause and reflect on my own gut reaction to all this, and there were good arguments made about the different standards Allison and Viktor are held to.

And I think the reason why I at least have a harder time liking Allison than Viktor in season one comes down to one big difference between their plotline, which is intent.

I think a good comparison are their two big fights in season one and three, that I think really parallel each other.

Viktor's actions, while much more disastrous and should be held accountable for, were presented as made in the heat of high emotions, in the middle of an emotional breakdown, and for example the 'slitting Allison's throat' incident made clear that Viktor never would have done that if he had taken the time to think before act and he showed immediate regret the moment it happened.

In the season three fight, Allison acts and speaks with the clear intent to hurt Viktor as much as possible - her using her power against Viktor is framed as deliberate, she doesn't pause to be shocked by the outburst and doesn't regret it. The comment about the basement didn't slip out in the heat of the moment either but instead obviously carefully picked as an immediate way of causing more pain for Viktor (the way she takes time to close in on him, almost whispering the words directly in his ear).

Though, there is also a vital difference in why S1!Allison and S3!Viktor were blamed and attacked during their fights - Allison, the moment she realizes what she'd done, immediately comes clean to Viktor and she doesn't hide her mistakes. S3!Viktor meanwhile deliberately hid an important information from Allison and still tries to justify his decisions during the confrontation. Prior to this, they both were the only ones in the family trying to help the other (Allison trying to include and bond with Viktor in S1 while no one else looked out for him, Viktor comforting Allison about her daughter and trying to get the briefcase back while no one else seems interested in doing so. Ironically, despite being the ones that tried the most, they both also get blamed the most about the trauma and situation the other is in).

So, yeah, a lot of similarities but pretty important distinctions in the details.

I don't think we can objectively judge which ones worse or more in wrong, because everyone has a different view on how important a role intent should play in a moral judgement. If you consider the consequences of their actions more important, Viktor is less sympathetic. If you consider the intent behind their actions to be more important, Allison is less sympathetic. Viktor's worst actions are made impulsively, Allison's are calculated.

Also, I just liked and found Harlan much more sympathetic than Pogo which is why Allison's murder appears worse to me than Viktor's. This also comes down to intent, though this time the intent of their victims. Pogo helped and enabled Reginald's abuse and manipulation of Viktor, fully aware what he's doing, while Harlan lost control of his powers when his mother died. And like with Allison and Viktor, one character did terrible things with intent while the other did much worse with long-reaching consequences but accidentally.

As it turns out, I am more preoccupied with how they ended up making these decisions instead of the consequences which I think has a bit to do with that I prioritize the emotional aspect in characters more.

I'm not going to deny their degree of relatability plays into this as well, Viktor being neglected and ignored hits closer to home than Allison losing her husband and daughter because I have not yet experienced a loss to that degree. That again boils down to personal preference.

Again, this isn't written to say one character is more redeemable than the other or one is more villainous, but just to showcase there are many reasons why someone might like one character's corruption arc more and/or is able to forgive their actions more than the other despite their similarities.

While I have different opinions, others do consider Viktor's actions more unforgivable and you know what, that's fair.

[they-them-that]

(spoilers for Zero Calcare's "The World Can't Tear Me Down")

I just finished binging "The World Can't Tear Me Down" on Netflix. It's a heavy watch that tackles white supremacy and xenophobia but it was well done imo and a great follow up to "Tear Along The Dotted Line". A lot of adult comedies can be flimsy (and outright problematic) about how it represents social issues and I was worried this series would toe that line but it was able to represent how people get coaxed into supporting the wrong side without excusing them either. It isn't black and white although I do think it's still important to hold individuals' responsible for the way they hurt others.

Cesare and Sara are Italian born citizens who despite being disenfranchised in their own ways, do end up threatening stability for the refugees which is an abuse of their privilege. Although I can understand that Sara's plight is both due to her own struggles and being misled to believe the school shut down is due to the refugee shelter, I couldn't really sympathize when her motivations felt ultimately selfish and at the expense of the refugees' safety. At the same time, I can understand how Zero was conflicted as a cishet white male who's also a famous cartoonist. Zero obliviously tells Sara they're "still young" and Sara had to point out that a woman nearing her 40's is seen as socially useless, something Zero failed to consider when a man in his late 30's isn't looked down on in the same way (and he's someone who's already gained a stable job where he doesn't have to job hunt at his age unlike Sara). Zero was also confronted with his own privilege that challenged his right to judge others with Cesare who was victim to the social stigma and government neglect against addicts and impoverished people. All of this while Zero is conflicted on whether or not he should speak about the xenophobia on TV because of the way it could affect his career. The fact he was considering being quiet himself but lectured Sara and Cesare for their complacency/participation in the issue was a deliberate point of hypocrisy and we'll never know what Zero would've done in the end.

Zero spends the series reckoning with the complexities of moral righteousness that isn't as simple as doing the right thing when there are complicated circumstances behind making poor decisions that aren't just pure bigotry (but still deserves to be called out). At the same time, we get Selco who also grew up disenfranchised but still understood what side he's meant to support. He calls out Zero for essentially turning a social issue into a personal plight of virtue when what really mattered was standing up against Nazis. We end up seeing Sara own up to her mistake and join the protestors (although she condemns the violence in a way that treats it like both sides are equally at fault when it isn't) and Cesare also opens up about what really mattered to him, turning his back on the Nazis (but not exactly looking out for the refugees).

Among our main cast, there isn't actually a role model for us to project onto as the ideal moral pillar, something that the series purposely deconstructs for us with Sara's character. It reminds us that we're all people and we're not always going to make the right decisions nor the people we care about will either. We just have to keep doing our best and help those near us to stay on the right path. We have to grapple with our own privileges, complacency, and hypocrisy to be activists. We have to understand the humanness that comes from veering off that path in order to help those who do and to be able to diagnose the problem. That it's not just an individual decision but a systemic problem.

The only big complaint I have is that the refugees felt like a backdrop to the story of Zero's philosophizing despite the creator criticizing himself for doing the same thing, which may be the humanness I brought up earlier. Understandably, Zero didn't get to interact with any of the refugees until the end of the series and he clearly empathizes with what they go through but having the one refugee wax poetic to shed perspective on our White Italian male protagonist wasn't as moving as maybe it was meant to be.

[olderthannetfic]

Gotta say, as someone who is afrolatine who mostly hangs out in anime/manga/manhwa/BL/OI spaces, there's something really weird about the way that people in fandom engage with fantasy stories that have war, slavery, and oppression as backdrops. The stories themselves usually handle the subjects poorly, but the fandom jumps through hoops to justify characters' poor behaviors without considering context of how the real world works. Naruto and Villains Are Destined to Die fandoms handle it the worst I've seen in a long time.

Naruto's story is ultimately about a seemingly unremarkable guy who tells slaves that fate isn't real despite being a Child of Prophecy who goes around minimizing everyone's oppression from the fascist government because he, too, wants to lead the militaristic state, and it hurt his feelings that his "friend" who survived a genocide didn't validate Naruto's victim complex and wanted to change the fascist system while being an imperfect victim (even though Naruto continues to lie and spread misinfo about said genocide to protect the fascist state 10+ years later).

Then theres the VADTD fandom that treats a character (Eckles) as though he has the same level of agency as the main character and other love interests. "Eckles was lying to and manipulating Penelope the whole time to get her to like him 🤬." He's a slave. Of course he's going to lie to his master to avoid abuse or death when he's ranked even lower than a commoner in a classist hierarchy. "He betrayed her 🤬." He's a slave. They're not friends, and there's no such thing as a 'benevolent slave master.' He cannot 'betray' his master. That's not how it works. "Penelope offered him freedom, and he turned it down." You don't 'offer' freedom to a slave. You either give it or don't. She was attempting to emotionally manipulate him. He realized this, and responded in accordance with what he knew she wanted to hear... because he's a slave who doesn't want to die. "She gifted him a magical sword and expensive fur clothes, so she favored him despite him being ungrateful 🤬." A slave in a mink coat is still a slave. It also doesn't escape me that the male lead is the crowned prince, now a war hero, of the empire who gained his fame from his brutality against Eckles' people in the previous war that just ended maybe a few months prior to the story.

There's just something so odd about the ways in which people bend over backwards to justify imperialism and cruelty in stories just because the main characters are the ones who do it. I'm not completely sure if it's because the author's of the original works don't objectively see the undertones in what they wrote. or, maybe the fandoms are all just full of people who have victim complexes and project onto the main characters to make themselves feel better but don't see how their statements make others like me iffy of their stances on real world topics, so we avoid them, which then fuels their self-imposed victimhood even more as they whine "why won't x people in x fandom talk to me?! Or befriend me?!". Like, you just spent a whole essay justifying slavery and genocide because the main character was sad; I don't want to be your friend lol. I'm in the SnK fandom too, and despite the false statements others spread about the story, at least the fandom talks about the characters and themes with more nuance.

--

I never made it past the first few volumes of Naruto, but I do think many of these canons encourage people to judge morality based on what made the lead sad or not. The longer the canon goes on, the greater the dissonance between that message and whatever subtext is inherent to the setting.

[tanadrin]

In 3 months there is gonna be a call out about you that will make you abadon your tumblr

thanks for the warning! i'd hate for any callout posts to miss my most problematic opinions. let's see here... ok, i'm contemptuous of almost all forms of spirituality and religion, i think i'm on record as saying that astrology is both proto-fascist and a way for people to avoid having to deal with their actual emotional issues, 'victim's rights' as a movement is actually fascist, most anticolonial discourse is just white ethnonationalism that's been brownwashed, and most of the anti-racist activism that's in vogue right now is useless.

but here are some other opinions to cancel me over. pick whichever ones seem most problematic to you:

english orthography is good, actually.

there is no scenario on this earth where i would rather swim in the gross slimy ocean than in a nice clean swimming pool. absolutely none. fuck the ocean. it's full of dead fish and it's existentially terrifying.

i find it basically impossible to grok nonbinary people who present in a way indistinguishable from their ASAB.

cats are slightly preferable to dogs

almost all fantasy fiction is irredeemably derivative of first-wave fantasy (roughly ending with Lord of the Rings), in a way which betrays a fundamental narrowness of imagination among almost all fantasy enjoyers.

ASOIAF specifically is trash. And not the fun kind.

kids seeing fucked up things on the internet too young is good actually

ok, that's kind of a contrarian way to make my point, which is a bit subtler, but is essentially:

i trust young people to seek out information and develop their own intellectual curiosities and identities much more than i trust sanctimonious gatekeepers to accurately judge what is bad for them and what is good, and given the structure of our society the only people who are empowered by censorship are prudes, authoritarians, and bigots. i do not at all trust the average parent not to infantilize or intrude on the autonomy of their kid in a way that's more harmful to them than accidentally seeing weird porn on the internet

age of consent laws, on balance, probably do a lot more harm (in the form of subjecting teenagers engaging in consensual and healthy sexual activity to state violence, usually along lines of class and race and gender) than good (in prosecuting adults who sexually exploit children). there are much better ways to protect children from sexual exploitation by adults.

abolishing the nuclear family, for instance

"asexual" is kind of a weird label to form identity politics around. not saying it's bad, just that it seems fundamentally different from most other classifications of sexual identity, in that there have been approved social roles for asexuals for centuries, and if anything, celibacy, or at least a lack of overt interest in sex, is generally considered to be morally neutral to laudatory historically, unlike homosexuality or a deviant gender expression.

discourse on cultural appropriation is stupid

'witchcraft' is really cringe. imitation of older customs in an effort to revive them will always involve reifying things as conscious Traditions that were simply part of the normal background of life, which renders any attempt to re-create them pure performance that can never capture the spirit of the original. plus, nobody who's in to neopaganism or witchcraft seems to have more than a shallow understanding of the history and culture in which the practices they're interested in were embedded, even if they're nominally descended from that culture. in many cases such a deep understanding is simply not possible owing to a lack of evidence.

goa's annexation by India was not only illegal but unjust.

higher levels of buddhist practice and spiritual attainment resemble both spiritual psychosis and garden-variety spiritual abuse too much for that to really be a coincidence.

the dutch language is inherently ridiculous

communities do not have moral rights. individuals and collections of individuals have moral rights, and we can speak of group moral rights as a useful shorthand for that, but frequently we get lost at that layer of abstraction and start treating groups as first-class concepts, and this produces (at best) inane conclusions and (at worst) an excuse to fuck over individuals in service of the community--which in practice cashes out to serving the interests of the elite that runs the community, i.e., authoritarian conservatism. authoritarian conservatism is not better just because the authoritarian conservatives it serves happen to be a racial or religious minority.

not only should all monarchies be abolished, countries that have abolished their monarchies should make it illegal to accept titles of nobility

germany was too lenient by letting people keep their titles as part of their name during the German Revolution. they should have abolished them full stop.

even orders of merit are on thin fucking ice

maine is the rightful territory of massachussetts, and mainers are a fictional ethnicity created to justify the destruction of Greater Massachussetts. Massachussetts should annex it.

Make Washington D.C. Square Again

[takaraphoenix]

I came across a post that, paraphrased, went roughly "Every time you see someone speak up against censorship, it turns out to be about incest or something problematic".

And. Yes, that's kind of the point, because nobody is trying to censor the 100% wholesome, morally upstanding vanilla ships?? That's not where the conversation about censorship starts, and for a reason?

The way the point just COMPLETELY goes over these people's heads.

Censorship starts out with the "problematic" content. That's how they get their foot in the door with EXACTLY these people like that OP. Show them that no, no, we are just concerned, just want to take out this Clearly Morally Wrong stuff. That's fine, right?

No. Even if you yourself find the content horrible and would never want to touch it, it has a right to EXIST because the moment you open the door to censorship, you lose control of what gets censored and why.

And the really pathetic part about this is that most antis operate from a place of utter hypocracy, to begin with.

In every single fandom I've been in where there were antis, judging and harassing others for the "problematic" content they consumed, the antis themselves were hiding behind ships just as bad, if not WORSE.

It doesn't even take much efford to list things about antis' supposedly morally superior ships that makes them problematic. Heck. Most ships have something about them that constitutes unhealthy or toxic if it were a real relationship. Throw a ship at me, I'll tell you why it's problematic.

But these people's false assumption is that their personal interpretation of morals is the one that will be applied in this purge and only the content they dislike would then be censored while the thing they love would NEVER fall victim to censorship, so a bit of censorship would be fine, to clean up fandom.

That's not how it's going to be. Your own problematic fave gets censored too, because no blind eye and bending over backward to explain why this particular thing is somehow ~different~, despite being the exact same.

And once we're through with the biggest offenders? The search for problematic content will be widened, more things will be targeted and deemed problematic, based on a definition of the term even they may no longer agree on - but it's too late, because the door's wide open now.

It's less about protecting one specific fetish to get your rocks off to, it's about acknowledging that these are the conversation starters used to convince others to open the door and let censorship in and we need to stop it before it gets in, even if that means defending other people's right to create fictional things that we, personally and individually, may dislike or even find disgusting.

Because once you start limiting something like art, free speech and fiction in general, how those lines will be drawn becomes blurry and that power WILL be abused by the wrong people.

So let's not give them that power.

[maisanctuary]

14 common inner critic attacks

Here is a list of 14 common inner critic attacks divided into the key categories of perfectionism and endangerment. Each is paired with a healthier (and typically more accurate) thought-substitution response. Click here for the PDF version.

Perfectionism My perfectionism arose as an attempt to gain safety and support in my dangerous family. Perfection is a self-persecutory myth. I do not have to be perfect to be safe or loved in the present. I am letting go of relationships that require perfection. I have a right to make mistakes. Mistakes do not make me a mistake. Every mistake or mishap is an opportunity to practice loving myself in the places I have never been loved.

All-or-None & Black-and-White Thinking I reject extreme or overgeneralized descriptions, judgments or criticisms. One negative happenstance does not mean I am stuck in a never-ending pattern of defeat. Statements that describe me as “always” or “never” this or that, are typically grossly inaccurate.

Self-Hate, Self-Disgust & Toxic Shame I commit to myself. I am on my side. I am a good enough person. I refuse to trash myself. I turn shame back into blame and disgust, and externalize it to anyone who shames my normal feelings and foibles. As long as I am not hurting anyone, I refuse to be shamed for normal emotional responses like anger, sadness, fear and depression. I especially refuse to attack myself for how hard it is to completely eliminate the self-hate habit.

Micromanagement/Worrying/Obsessing/ Looping/ Over-Futurizing I will not repetitively examine details over and over. I will not jump to negative conclusions. I will not endlessly second-guess myself. I cannot change the past. I forgive all my past mistakes. I cannot make the future perfectly safe. I will stop hunting for what could go wrong. I will not try to control the uncontrollable. I will not micromanage myself or others. I work in a way that is “good enough”, and I accept the existential fact that my efforts sometimes bring desired results and sometimes they do not. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference” - The Serenity Prayer

Unfair/Devaluing Comparisons To others or to one’s most perfect moments. I refuse to compare myself unfavorably to others. I will not compare “my insides to their outsides”. I will not judge myself for not being at peak performance all the time. In a society that pressure us into acting happy all the time, I will not get down on myself for feeling bad.

Guilt Feeling guilty does not mean I am guilty. I refuse to make my decisions and choices from guilt; sometimes I need to feel the guilt and do it anyway. In the inevitable instance when I inadvertently hurt someone, I will apologize, make amends, and let go of my guilt. I will not apologize over and over. I am no longer a victim. I will not accept unfair blame. Guilt is sometimes camouflaged fear. – “I am afraid, but I am not guilty or in danger”.

"Shoulding” I will substitute the words “want to” for “should” and only follow this imperative if it feels like I want to, unless I am under legal, ethical or moral obligation.

Overproductivity/Workaholism/Busyholism I am a human being not a human doing. I will not choose to be perpetually productive. I am more productive in the long run, when I balance work with play and relaxation. I will not try to perform at 100% all the time. I subscribe to the normalcy of vacillating along a continuum of efficiency.

Harsh Judgments of Self & Others/Name-Calling I will not let the bullies and critics of my early life win by joining and agreeing with them. I refuse to attack myself or abuse others. I will not displace the criticism and blame that rightfully belongs to them onto myself or current people in my life. “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself”. - Jane EyreENDANGERMENT ATTACKS

Drasticizing/Catastrophizing/Hypochondrisizing I feel afraid but I am not in danger. I am not “in trouble” with my parents. I will not blow things out of proportion. I refuse to scare myself with thoughts and pictures of my life deteriorating. No more home-made horror movies and disaster flicks.

Negative focus I renounce over-noticing & dwelling on what might be wrong with me or life around me. I will not minimize or discount my attributes. Right now, I notice, visualize and enumerate my accomplishments, talents and qualities, as well as the many gifts Life offers me, e.g., friends, nature, music, film, food, beauty, color, pets, etc.

Time Urgency I am not in danger. I do not need to rush. I will not hurry unless it is a true emergency. I am learning to enjoy doing my daily activities at a relaxed pace.

Disabling Performance Anxiety I reduce procrastination by reminding myself that I will not accept unfair criticism or perfectionist expectations from anyone. Even when afraid, I will defend myself from unfair criticism. I won’t let fear make my decisions.

Perseverating About Being Attacked Unless there are clear signs of danger, I will thought-stop my projection of past bully/critics onto others. The vast majority of my fellow human beings are peaceful people. I have legal authorities to aid in my protection if threatened by the few who aren’t. I invoke thoughts and images of my friends’ love and support.

Source: Pete Walker in "Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving"