#like compared to real genocide......... man

[artcinemas]

[tittyinfinity]

it's rude as fuck to hop on a stranger's post to "correct them" about their own personal life experiences, but many people on this website seem to see this as totally normal behavior

[comicaurora]

Sorry to drop a hella irl-political question on your mostly webcomic blog, but have you/any of the OSP gang heard of/been participating in the week-long strike for palestine that's been (presumably) all over tumblr/the internet?

For some background info: Following the attack on Oct. 7th by the hamas militant group (a terrorist org. Or resistance group, depending who you ask), the state of israel (which is practically a mass colonial settlement on Palestinian land since '48) has taken the attack as an excuse to indiscriminately bomb the homes of thousands if not millions of homes while forcebly displacing almost all of the ~2.3 million people crammed in the gaza strip with no escape.

'Israel' has also tightened it's blockade on the strip of land such that a growing majority of people there are experiencing catastrophic starvation, disease from sewage-infested drinking water (as water aid is too scarce). Soon even deaths by preventable causes such as diabetes will occur since insulin pens for children have been blocked from entering by israel, who controls gaza's borders, water, power, food supplies, and shoreline. Civilians in Gaza are very frequently and indiscriminately killed often in places they were told were safe zones to evacuate to. It's agreed upon by both experts and laymen worldwide that what is happening (and has BEEN happening before Oct.7th) is nothing short of genocide.

In the occupied Palestinian west bank, where there is no hamas whatsoever to use as an excuse, Palestinians are still arrested without a fair trial for years, abused, prevented from using certain roads, shot, and often straight-up have their houses stolen by armed or military-backed israeli settlers (many of whom have no ancestral connection to the land at all) in a system often compared to or outright stated to be apartheid.

Very recently, a journalist in Gaza by the name of Bisan Owda called for a strike from January 21st to January 28th. The conditions of the strike can be paraphrased as:

Cease all unnecessary purchases or payments, avoid generating ad revenue when possible

Do not go to work or school if you can possibly avoid it

Pay for things only in cash if you must

Use social media exclusively to flood the internet with palestinian voices and resources about the ongoing genocide against the palestinian people

Attend protests if you can

Be visible.

It's the 26th now, but joining late would be far better than to not join at all and stay silent.

I figured I'd ask since since OSP has covered various topics about history and/or politics and we're kinda watching some awful history unfolding, the kind of history where neutrality doesn't really work and a side needs to be taken.

Opinions? (Sorry if I'm coming across as condescending! I just really want my favorite blogs to be aware and take a stance rather than being silent hhhghf)

Okay, here's my answer.

OSP has been supporting calls for a ceasefire for months, and we were fundraising in direct support of it via Doctors Without Borders all through November and December. Total, we raised over $30,000. If we include the UNICEF fundraiser we ran on the Spider-Man streams, the total is over $40,000.

During our charity livestreams, we have made our positions clear – we support a ceasefire, Israel is perpetuating settler-colonialist violence and has been for decades, Hamas is a terrorist organization that endangers Israelis and Palestinians alike, the innocent people of both Palestine and Israel deserve safety and peace. We concluded that the best thing we could do under the circumstances was empower those who are in a real position to actually help by providing funding for their work. We believe this is significantly more beneficial than adding Another Angry Internet Post to the pile of insular outrage on Internet Land. Fundraising for the organizations with boots on the ground feels like it does a lot more good than being loud online for the benefit of other online people.

This is not the first time I've heard reference to the strike, but it is the first time I've seen the parameters of the strike laid out, which to me indicates that it wasn't spread as widely or effectively as it could've been.

I understand and appreciate why you sent this ask, but your premise worries me. I know this may surprise and startle us denizens of the internet, but being extremely loud on the internet is not the only or the most effective form of activism, and people not being extremely loud on the internet with every account they have is not the same thing as silent complicity in war crimes, and people acting like those two things are the same thing has been unbelievably frustrating to watch.

If we act like everything is a binary moral choice between "scream your loudest, most angry opinions online every time you feel angry about them" and "not doing that is literally the same thing as participating in genocide", we are creating a very strong pressure to flood the internet with our angriest, most unformed thoughts, lest we be branded as complicit in war crimes. Social media sites live and die on engagement, hence why twitter has rapidly trended towards doomscrolling and encouraging inflammatory clickbait - angry shouty people are traffic and traffic is money. The cynical part of me is utterly unsurprised that social media encourages the idea that the only true form of activism is being loud on social media.

It sounds like you had the feeling that sending me this ask was weird and a boundary overstep, and you were correct. My platform is not world-changing or in any way politically powerful beyond our ability to create charity fundraisers for causes we believe in, and we are doing what we can to help in the tiny ways that we can from halfway across the world, from a position of absolutely zero political weight beyond emailing our representatives. You are just asking me to also shout about it online loudly enough that I measure up to an artificial loudness metric, because my existing shouting was not already loud or omnipresent enough.

You are not entitled to know every thought in my head or every action I take in my life. I am not online to perform outrage and live up to an arbitrary moral standard of Shouting Enough. I am especially not online on my fantasy webcomic blog to do those things. Please understand that what you see of me is what I choose to share, and I am under no obligation, moral or otherwise, to share more.

[tyrantisterror]

Your recent train of posts about you-know-who’s book series got me thinking. You once said “The Owl House works as a sort of rebuttal to Harry Potter in a lot of ways”, care to elaborate on that statement? Especially in regards to how The Owl House’s worldbuilding and themes clash with Harry Potter’s?

Oh man... I don't want my blog to be consumed by Harry Potter Hot Takes. I'd prefer to vent most of those feelings through my wizard books instead, it's more productive that way.

So, ok, short version: The Owl House is about a teenager from the mundane world discovering there's a magical world hidden away, goes there to learn magic, and in the process uncovers a plot by an abominable fascist to commit genocide. In very simplistic terms, that is more or less the same plot as Harry Potter.

But the devil's in the details, isn't it? Luz doesn't have any grand inheritance to claim, no prophecy to fulfill, nothing that makes her the most special specialest special person of all time. There's even a whole episode early on where a villain tries to lure her to her doom by claiming she's the chosen one, and the lesson is that NO ONE is "chosen" for greatness - greatness is something you make yourself, not something that's thrust upon you. She is not inherently gifted as a witch - in fact, she struggles harder because she doesn't have a a special bladder true witches are born with, and has to learn an ancient and forgotten method of spellcasting basically from scratch to cast spells at all. She is, emphatically and at times definitely deliberately, the opposite of what Harry Potter is.

So is her academic experience. There's a magic school in this setting, and (at first) it wants nothing to do with Luz because she's human, not a witch, and thus is believed to be incapable of casting spells. So Luz's primary mode of education on magic comes from a private mentor, Eda, who is also a wanted criminal and social outcast because of her disdain for the draconian rules of their society. Eda is an unconventional but magnificent mentor, one who is as willing to try new things and learn new methods as Luz herself, and who helps Luz discover ways to make possible what everyone else claims is impossible. Eventually Luz does convince the magic school to take her in, but in the process she changes how it runs, challenging a lot of its preconceived notions and forcing them to do better.

Which is vital, because the biggest problem facing the society of this magical world is narrow-minded reliance on outdated social categorization. Like HP, people are sorted into categories (covens here instead of houses), which they are then forced to stick to and never dabble in the others. It is explicitly compared to both the concept of tracking in real world education (i.e. forcing kids into a career path early and ONLY giving them education relevant to that one career) and the house system of HP:

And it's wrong. It's both presented as needlessly limiting, terrible for encouraging advancement and growth of both the students and society as a whole, and an immoral system that's only kept alive by the "Well, this is how we've always done it" inertia that keeps so many awful traditions in education alive. And I really do mean it's immoral, because it's the brain child and secretly crucial evil tool of a genocidal fascist.

I kind of cringe at writing those two words since I feel people have been WAY too quick to accuse cartoon villains from children's shows of fascism and genocide - like, Chairface Chippendale writing his name on the moon with a laser would probably kill a shitload of people in real life, but that doesn't mean he's an analogue to Hitler. But Belos, like fellow Disney villain Frollo, is clearly intended to be exactly that: a genocidal fascist. In a world full of magic-fueled absurdist black comedy beats, Emperor Belos stands out as a consistently serious threat, tonally dissonant with his surroundings in a way that makes him chillingly effective as a villain. And like real world powerful bigots, his power primarily comes from the fact that the systems of society favor his mindset over those of outsides like Luz and Eda - all the systems of oppression our heroes chafe against were either created by or worsened by him, with the express purpose of using them to kill everyone and everything in the magical world.

Luz could not be more thematically opposed to her enemy, and the story is incredibly consistent in showing how defeating Belos alone isn't enough, but that the systems that empowered him have to be disproven and dismantled. His enablers must be destroyed or humbled, the prejudices he encouraged must be torn down and fought at every turn, and innovation and progress must be embraced for the good of all. There's so much stuff you could analyze about the themes in that show regarding oppression and the othering of people who are different, and it's all so, SO much more consistent than the discussion of the same themes you'll find in Harry Potter.

[largemandrill]

Alrighty girlies, I won’t let us ignore him any longer.

This guy. This fucking guy. He’s a great summon, good health, AMAZING damage, and most importantly: Messmer lore.

WARNING: This joke post got super out of control. Get ready for a mini-essay below

He was second in command to his commander father, Andreas. Both served Messmer until Andreas discovered his “serpentine nature”, this lead to a rebellion that the commander led. Naturally, his son follows him to the end, that end being imprisoned deep within a catacomb. All pretty standard lore, shows that Messmer’s troupes weren’t entirely cool with the genocide they were doing. What I want to talk about is this line that is only on Huw’s description, and not his father’s.

“Messmer mourned the loss of a brother-in-arms”

If this line was on both Ashes, I would assume that Messmer mourned the lost men in the rebellion, despite their betrayal. Yet it’s only present on the captain’s description, not the man who led the rebellion in the first place. You know damn well what I’m about to do with this.

The main reason I’m jumping straight to “they were probably like a little gay” and not that Messmer was close to the leader of his main offensive force is the fact that Huw is a second in command. I would assume that a lord would have a better bond with the lead commander, there are less steps of hierarchy in between their positions. Messmer would have also known Andreas longer, (Let’s be real Huw got that position via nepotism) thus there would be higher familiarity.

What should also be mentioned is that Messmer’s feelings about others (excluding his mother) are hardly lingered on. Rellana was his sword, yet we only know her motives, not his. He was friends with Gaius due to both of them being cursed and also being mentor figures for Radahn, but there’s much more about Gaius and Radahn’s bond than between him and Messmer. This is the only (?) time that Messmer’s feelings on the matter are mentioned so bluntly. “Comrade-in-arms” in the context of Elden Ring is used much more frequently. If I remember correctly, this is what Freyja calls you if you summon her for the Dancing Lion. I’d argue that using brother is a signifier of a deeper relationship. To view someone not as an ally but as family, someone you couldn’t live without, a loved one. There’s also the fact that it’s mentioned that Huw followed his father. That reads like he was hesitant to betray Messmer, but his blood came before any affection he had for his Liege. Isn’t that the most classic of Tragedy? To choose your flesh and blood over your heart’s greatest desire? I’d hate to get poetic here, but the story writes itself.

Huw’s coffin was more beautifully decorated than that of his father. There were active guards, flowers, the room was larger. It’s quite gaudy when compared to Andreas’ open coffin in what could be described as a closet when it comes to size comparison. One was buried like a champion, beloved by a lord. The other buried with minimum respect given his status, but with the bitterness of betrayal.

Brother-in-arms.

[singingcicadas]

I find it super ironic that Cyclonus has this highly romanticized, propagandic view of the Decepticons, because like:

This is him 🔽

And this is also him 🔽

Dude you yourself was a member of the ruling elite of the old order. Even if what you said about the Decepticons were all true, you're a big part of why people needed to be emancipated in the first place.

He was part of Nova Prime's inner cadre during a time when bigotry and oppression was even more predominant. Nova. who's literally the founder of functionism, which flourished and peaked under the so-called Golden Age of his rule. And Galvatron's... Galvatron, I don't even want to talk about him everyone knows what he's like. But Cyclonus was somehow fine with being yes-man to both?

The way he spoke about the Decepticons, it sounded as if he's this super dedicated sjw filled with righteous passion about stuff like liberation and revolution and emancipation and 'the people', when in truth it's shown that he'd never cared about any of those things before that point.

Nova Prime's ideology was literally this:

And Cyclonus didn't have a problem with it during his entire life before the Ark, compared to more decent people like Dai Atlas and Omega Supreme who eventually clashed with their group and got kicked off the Ark b/c they couldn't stand Nova and co.'s lack of a bottom line and misuse of the word freedom.

As a matter of fact Cyclonus still believed in Nova Prime after he became Nemesis - not that he was much of a better person as Nova. Where's his sense of justice against corruption? Nova got turned into a literal demon, surely it's hard to get more corrupted than that. But his only complaint wasn't about what Nova/Nemesis was trying to do, it's about the process being too much of a damn ordeal.

He's super excited over the anticipation of murder and has no scruples whatsoever about killing non-combatants. The same thing happened again at Kimia.

He finally grew enough of a conscience to break off from Galvatron in the end but notice his wording. It's not 'you forced me to hurt people', it's 'you forced me to hurt Cybertron'. He even said Cybertron twice for emphasis.

It's not mind control, he just thinks like that. The guy's obsessed with Cybertron - with what Cybertron once was. The Cybertron he lived in. Nova Prime's Cybertron. The Golden Age. He's shown to repeatedly lament over it in his internal monologues.

It's all about the loss of his 'perfect world.' The infrastructure. the scenery. the Tetrahexian real estate lmao. How about let's feel some sadness for the billions of Cybertronians who once lived on it? When did he ever spare a thought for all the people who died?

The Decepticons worked so hard to destroy this. It's a gilded carcass rotting from the inside. It eats people alive. The rot was already there in his own time. He was complacent in putting it there. But he only had eyes for the beauty and nolstalgia.

In the first panel he lauded the Decepticons for wanting radical change. Well he himself seemed to be dead set against change judging by the way he kept wanting things to go back the way they were 8 million years ago.

Back in the Golden Age he would not have looked twice at a bot like Tailgate. He was part of the people who didn't give a shit about the disappearance of one waste disposal bot. He still wouldn't have given a shit if circumstances hadn't forced them together over and over again.

Looks to me he's enarmored with the grandness of the concepts of liberation and revolution and emancipation for 'the people' in the Decepticons' (theoretical) ideology. The concepts of fighting against corruption and bringing down the old order. Just like how he bought into the concepts of Nova's 'spreading freedom to the galaxy' and the glittering prosperity of the 'Golden Age.' Does he know that the Decepticon ideology is a twisted lie built on terror and massacres and genocide and despotism? Does he know that Nova's idea of spreading freedom and enlightenment is galactical conquest and his beloved Golden Age is built upon a foundation of misery and suffering and systematic subjugation? Of course he knows he's not stupid. He's nose-deep in it, it's virtually impossible not to. But he's able to willfully ignore those ugly truths as well as his role in them by only engaging in shallow romanticism through rose-coloured lens and refusing to delve deeper.

It's either that or imperalist mindset and the endorsement of violence and casual murder resonates hard.

[moved-to-mettatonsbestie]

You know what. I DO wanna know about the religious imagery with Mettaton. Tell me all about it *laying on my chest kicking my feet up in the air*

@therowansweeps @mtt-brand-idiot

Let us start with his name. Remember that majority of the names in Undertale/Deltarune are very particular, whether it be for a funny joke or something with a dual meaning (ex: Toriel is just Tutorial, Undyne being Undying, etc). The etymology is rather important with characters, and Mettaton is certainly no exception. His name is most likely derived from the angel Metatron, found in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He was one of the only two humans to attain Heaven in the form of an angel, he was originally a righteous man named Enoch who was gifted with the form of an angel by God once he died. Now, the names being similar could very well be a coincidence, but one must also take note of the fact that Metatron is transliterated as MTT in Greek; which is too much of a coincidence to not be intentional.

So... his name is taken from an angel, which is already an allusion to the notion of deities and religion. Furthermore, this angel in particular is a rather interesting candidate to be compared with Mettaton... Both of these figures were something else entirely before they obtained their true forms, and changed their name along the way. They have even further parallels when you look at the name's meaning and Mettaton's actions. Metatron is most likely derived from the verb memater, which means to guard or protect; very striking when one considers the fact that Mettaton is very much a protector in Genocide/No Mercy Route; he quite literally gives his life to protect the Underground, as a guardian angel would do.

Furthermore, he is quite literally a celebrity, an idol. He even says it himself, he is the idol everyone craves. This is a double entendre, referring to him being a celebrity or figure to look up to, or a literal deity. Deities are all considered idols, they are to be worshipped; the very notion is entirely what his character is about. He loses his humanity, he is no longer a person. Hell, he is not even seen as alive, in his quest to be the true idol for humanity and monsterkind. He is worshipped and adored, yet is it genuine? Do the people know and love the real him? No. He is the heater, the Underground's sexiest rectangle, he is seen as just a robot. He is complacent in this, yet to hide his past and help Alphys he gave his humanity away.

It is a rather cruel twist on the story of Metatron actually... Metatron was given a wonderful gift by his creator, God gave him immortality and the blessing of being truly holy. This transformation into something else was divine, yet the same cannot be said about Mettaton. He was given the body of his dreams, yet it will never come without a terrible cost. His humanity and agency was given away, he even got used for functions he would be completely against; such as his creator giving him human eradication functions to "make him more useful", something the human loving ghost would never agree to until the last possible moments in a Pacifist run. Regardless, Mettaton falls into both the categories of being the idol and being God's pawn, which is rather interesting.

And of course... he is not without true fans either, take Spamton for example. Spamton supposedly spent all of his time praying to an artifact, the very machine that created NEO; which evidently has direct ties towards Mettaton NEO. I honestly never played the Spamton NEO fight yet, so I cannot comment too much on it, however Mettaton is quite literally an overworld being being unknowingly worshipped and prayed to by someone who resides below; this blind faith being found in every religion.

So yeah... Whether it was directly intentional or not, Mettaton as a whole has a decent amount of religious imagery and themes with his character that it becomes rather important to properly dissect him fully. I barely remember writing any of this, he probably possessed me and made me write this.

[jedi-enthusiast]

@confusledqueer apologizes for not responding sooner, it’s been a busy couple days and—honestly—I forgot for a bit.

Moving on-

—————

Me equating some of the things that anti-Jedi people say to antisemitism and, sometimes, outright Nazi-esque rhetoric is not “wild” or “a stretch,” as you’re implying.

Justification of their genocide, denial that it actually was a genocide, a belief that the genocided party “caused” their own genocide, and a belief that they genocided party were wrong or “led astray” while one person was sent to make things right- (via either making them change their ways or outright destroying them/their culture) -are all things I’ve seen people say about the Jedi…

…but they’re also things that people have actually said about Jews.

Take the example I put in the post of someone denying that the Jedi Purge was actually a genocide, and how—by changing “Jedi” to “Judaism” and “Force-religions” to “Abrahamic Faiths”—it sounds verbatim to Holocaust denial.

Or, as another example, people claiming that the Jedi “kidnapped kids to brainwash them”…don’t you see how that sounds like Blood Libel?

So me pointing out that a lot of stuff anti-Jedi people say sounds like antisemitic rhetoric isn’t a stretch, not when a lot of it sounds verbatim to what people are saying with the rise of antisemitism and stuff they have said in the past.

—————

Now, I’m not Jewish, but it’s not just me, your neighborhood White Girl™️, who’s pointing this stuff out.

Actual Jewish people have pointed out the alarming similarities between anti-Jedi rhetoric and straight up antisemitism. So, if you wanna argue about- “you shouldn’t compare real world discrimination to fictional stuff” -then you should probably take that into account.

Go ahead and try telling Jewish Star Wars fans to stop calling out antisemitic rhetoric in the fandom, I’m sure that’ll go down real well.

I also find it hilarious that you’re telling me to be careful about the rhetoric I use in a thread about how I shouldn’t point out that some of the rhetoric other people spout is basically antisemitism rebranded.

And my point in that post wasn’t- “since this is based off of a real world culture/religion, you can’t criticize it.”

My point was- “since this is based off of a real world culture/religion then you need to be careful about how you criticize it, otherwise you might unconsciously be spouting bigoted beliefs and antisemitic rhetoric because you don’t recognize that that’s what it is because you’re saying it about a fictional culture.”

By all means, I get that some people just don’t like the Jedi, that’s their prerogative and we all have our own tastes.

Criticize them, if you feel like it, but don’t go around spouting rebranded antisemitism to do it. I’m sure you can come up with plenty of things to complain about them for without doing so.

—————

Now, I can understand why you might be worried about the slippery slope from this to shit like actual censorship—which, I think we can all agree, is a bad thing. Or how you might think criticizing this could lead to the whole “fandom purity” debate.

My thing is, it all comes down to does it actually harm people?

Perpetuating harmful stereotypes via saying stuff like the Jewish based characters “steal children,” or “lost their way,” or “they caused/deserved their genocide”—that does cause actual harm.

Think about why the “angry black man” stereotype or the “cheating bisexual” stereotype are bad and people- (rightly) -push back against them. It’s the same thing here.

Shipping a problematic ship, calling a fictional serial killer “babygirl,” writing about dark topics*, headcanoning characters as gay or trans…none of that is actively harming people.

(*obviously when writing about dark topics you should tag appropriately so people can avoid triggers, but that’s another topic for another day)

That’s the difference.

And, for the record, I think letting people spout bigotry just because they’re saying it about something fictional is the more dangerous mindset than calling it out.

[curieklei]

listen man you can do your own thing and life and that’s all cool, it’s hard to ignore the people from my side who are unnecessarily angry with regular Jewish folk rather than the Israel government. Just don’t go out of your way to paint a false picture, eh? Use your brain just enough to draw all the parallels between what happened to we natives, and then compare it to what’s happening in Palestine will ya. Y’all can co-exist, your higher ups just choose not to. Rally for peace, not death 🕊️

Uh... I'm not sure what false picture you're talking about, but I confess that I tend to take people less seriously and put less effort into my arguments to them when they whiff me away as a "genocidal hasbara bot" or whatever they wanna come up with. I assure you that my takes outside of toxic reply sections are very much peaceful two-state solution oriented, while still being realistic and mournful of the many casualties. Besides, it's the only way I find people that are actually down to have a real discussion, and it's always a very pleasant surprise. So far I've only found like 5 of these, you are very welcome to become another, if you feel like it.

As for the higher ups - Hamas is being squashed, and Fatah (a much less radical group that is mostly in the west bank) is hopefully still willing to work with Israel. Meanwhile, the far right government of Israel has lost a lot of its reputation due to an attempt at a judicial reform, against which people were protesting for about 9 months before getting shelved on Oct 7, as well as other things which led to the latest elections being repeated like five times or something. I don't believe they have a real chance to stay the ruling party, but we'll see that on October 2026.

I do not "rally for death", I only stay realistic about it being inevitable when:

a. There's a war against terrorists

b. The terrorists are glad to use human shields and civilian infrastructure.

c. The civilian infrastructure is packed with civilians

d. Weaponry of extreme precision is not largely available

The "unnecessary anger" you speak of has given some of us (Jews) pre-holocaust vibes. I hope you understand what this means, because I simply don't have the words to help you with that. The abhorrent antisemitism, fandom-like behavior, history inversion and yes, rallies for deaths are not "hard to ignore", they should be given all of the attention and criticized until the movement overall would be actually considered more productive than performative. Burning yourself alive isn't "a heroic act of protest", it's something you'd hear about in death cults.

[closetsof-backlogged-dreams]

opinions on morgwen

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHDSJFH;DAJKSDJ

hot take of the day: morgwen, when looking at just the plot and its existing holes, actually makes more sense than merthur

ik!! ik!! outrageous. proposterous. INSANITY. but morgwen would actually ASSIST in fixing my biggest problem with the entire series, the biggest hole in morgana's very holey character arc: her hatred for arthur.

ive actually talked about this before, in this post:

"for example, when morgana began to hate arthur and want him dead and stuff—that development came out of nowhere. for the entire series up until that point, she had loved and cared for him. now, all of the sudden, she wants him dead?? now, it had made sense for uther. he had done terrible things to morgana and could very clearly see the line between her love and hate for him. you could to watch her tip-toe along it in real time until she began plotting his murder. that arc made sense. but arthur? there was no point where we saw arthur do anything that would make her hate him the way she did. he was just randomly lumped together with uther as another pendragon she had to kill to get the throne. but, again, it doesn't make sense! she never lumped them together. in the episode To Kill the King, morgana directly compares arthur and uther by telling him that, 'You're a better man than your father. Always were.' again, she never lumped them together! yet, later on, that's exactly what she does."

expanding on the beginning of that quote: in my opinion, this is what a character arc should look like: (and behold, the reason this ask took me a hundred years to answer... a CHART (made by moi))

^that is a very basic idea of a character arc, when a person starts one way and ends in another, all because of different inciting incidents forcing them to change. a slightly more complex version of this will look a little like this:

In this one, there is a very clear "Point B" where you can see that they've changed—that there is still more change to come, but that they have grown. this is how Morgana's character arc is shaped. in season two, you can very clearly see that Point B, and it's actually why it's my favorite season of Morgana's character development. season two showcases her gradual downfall as she struggles being a sorceress in the center of Camelot as Uther's own ward. everything you see her feel and struggle with feels very real.

season three is when it all starts to go awry. we obviously know that this is the season that she reaches that horrible Point C, when her character arc is complete and she turns into that wretched villainess we all know and love.

the issue with this is that there is a very important checklist-style of things she needs to believe in order to turn into this person:

✅find out about her magic

✅hate Uther

✅meet Morgause and believe in her goals

✅hate Arthur

i fully believe that she would not and could not change into the person she became without hating Arthur, because that was why she wanted to take the throne—she believed that both Pendragons couldn't be trusted to repeal the magic ban, and would continue the endless cycle of genocide. if she still cared about Arthur, still had faith in him, then she wouldn't have been so desperate to be crowned queen.

do i think that Morgana's faith in him was already wavering? absolutely. but i also believe that something HUGE had to happen to shatter her faith in him entirely. what could have been one of the best ways to do this?

eating away at her affections for him, slowly, with one or two issues before wiping out every good feeling she has ever felt for him with one big incident. how does morgwen tie into this, though?

it's simple: make arthur and gwen's relationship very obvious to morgana. force her to encounter it often. make her uncomfortable, because SHE loves gwen, has always loved gwen, and now her brother who spent years not even knowing who she was is supposedly in love with her?? that would be enough to eat away at anyone's affection for their brother. morgana wasn't stupid. she figured out their relationship very quickly, and was obviously disgusted with the idea. BUILD on that disgust. and then, once its obvious morgana is heart-wrenchingly jealous of arthur, make arthur do something stupid or harmful towards magic. shatter morgana's faith in him.

it would work so perfectly!! everything would fall into place!! all those weird plot holes surrounding morgana's downfall would make a million times more sense. imagine really only loving two people in the world: your best friend, your maidservant, the love of your life and your childhood friend, your ever-lasting nuisance, your brother. imagine them both falling in love while you can only watch helplessly. that's a perfect villian origin story, paired with uther's abuse, morgause's manipulation, and her own alienation from the people around her.

so, i know this was a lot, and took me a hundred million YEARS to respond to, but i'm literally so passionate about this its not even funny. if you want me to expand on anything or if you have any questions, please let me know!!! i love talking about this part of the show:)

[imaginesangie]

I was the one who sent that “old man” the ask that they were equating disgust about fiction with real life harm (the genocide) and quickly blocked them afterwards but I didn’t think he’d actually double down and say feeling disgust over a fictional ship is as equally important as talking about the genocide Palestine…

he didn’t even know that ao3 (he posts on it) was created by an incest shipper who goes by the name astolat, the platform is for likeminded people like them. There’s no help for this guy, but I seriously hope nothing bad happens to anyone involved with him either. You know how antis are, they have more skeletons in the closet than the people they accuse of having, especially the ones that think fictional incest is equally harmful as irl abuse

He was super adamant that he was not out of touch for saying something along the lines of “they’re not the same type of bad they’re just both bad” like that’s still ok. Genuinely I have no idea how deep into shipcourse you have to get in order to forget what makes something a real issue. The fact that he even thinks to compare genocide and fiction is insane.

Also yeah the whole AO3 shit is very confusing to me. I’ll see people in defense of using it despite the fact that it would apparently go against their own morals. I’m not gonna pretend like AO3 is perfect, especially since I’ve heard they have zionists running it, but it’s not the place for puritans. It’s a place used to archive fictional works of all shapes and sizes, regardless of their context or pairings.

I’ve been harassed and abused online many times before over shipcourse, so even if something does happen (such as a callout or me receiving abuse) it probably won’t phase me much.

You’re definitely right about the whole skeletons in the closet thing too. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen puritans trying to defend being bigoted and abusive because they did it to a “pedo” or a “proshipper”. The stance has nothing to do with caring about the harm of real people and everything to do with brownie points and a fake high horse to sit on.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

"Then you should understand people choosing the bear"

I'm a sexual assault survivor. When I was 15, a 55-year-old woman assaulted me and three of my friends at a party where she served a bunch of 15-year-olds alcohol. Way to go Granny.

And I don't hate women. I've stepped in to defend women against attacks from men in city streets or bars. I can't say if they're all sexually related or sexually motivated - they probably were.

But when we get to the question of this, I mean, like I do empathize for victims. I get that.

But the question isn't real. And we all know the question isn't real. It's hypothetical.

I was just at a store. There are hundreds or thousands of people at this Walmart, men and women walking around, doing their thing minding their own business. Not a single woman in there was shifty eyed, dysphoric or afraid of any of the men in that store.

I was just at a restaurant. I was at a bank. I was at a coffee shop. I was walking through a park. No one was afraid of men.

Replace any of those men with one bear and see what happens.

So, because we know it's hypothetical, let's have an adult conversation. Ready?

The existence of the question at all creates bias against men. I can trick you just the same way. I'd say, what do you think more Islamic men use to murder their wives with, guns or knives or rope?

The fact that I asked the question, you go, well why is he asking that question? Do they murder their wives a lot?

The queston is: safety, bear, man, alone. Right, those are the four real words in that question. It is embedding a bias against men. Every woman that has answered that question "bear" has stepped out in public since, has interracted with hundreds of men. The average woman will interact with 300 men per day.

Maybe they'd opted for the bear just cause they wanna mix it up. They're like, I'm getting so bored with the thousands of men that I see every week that maybe I just wanna see a bear.

I don't think you understand the gravity of this question. As a abuse survivor, I'm standing up against a false claim against the nature of men, where one in a thousand men - or maybe just a hair over one in one thousand men - will commit a crime of this nature. It's a very thin number of men.

And as a man whose family was responsible for starting World War I - you know, the assassination by the Black Hand, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, my family paid for that assassination. We started World War I, which is why World War II happened. Because I'm so closely tied to that genocide, I've studied it.

And, Hitler and the Germans use the same type of questionings and comparative logic to wage war against Jews. I am literally trying to stop thousands of women who don't know any better but than to participate in a trend from creating this wave of propaganda against men.

Someone is trying to use this question against men, and women think it's a cool, dramatic way to say, "I'm afraid of men." But they're really actually not afraid of men. Cause they wouldn't go outside. They wouldn't go shopping. They wouldn't walk through the park. They wouldn't do anything. They'd be so actually mortified of men.

The question appeals to a logical fallacy called the Fallacy of Relative Privation. They're trying to say that because a single man could do more harm than a single bear, that all men are more dangerous than all bears on average. Regardless of the context of the interaction. That strips away all sense of goodwill or truth to the fact that women interact with 300 men per day on average. That strips away the truth that a woman, per male exposure, if you walk down the sidewalk and you see a guy, you have a 1 in 35 million chance of being forcibly [g]raped in that walk by on the sidewalk.

That Fallacy of Relative Privation strips all logic to the fact that men are, by and large, safe. But yeah, 81% of women will report being sexually harassed or assaulted. 43% of men just the same.

The number of people who will experience unwanted sexual contact, men and women, are roughly the same[**]. Men will underreport at three times the rate of women. Men are victimized just as much, but we're stigmatized against talking about it.

Both sides are victims, but men are not doing this campaign to smear women to try to damage the entire, like, gender of women.

Except for me, now. I'm doing what's called logical parallels. My whole argument for the last two weeks has been such: since women assault children, their children, their biological kids at 2.5 times the rate that all men assault women sexually, then women should lose custody of their kids until they stop it. Because, the phrase going around online right now is all men until no men. So, until no women, all women. Women do not deserve custody of their biological kids if any of them are capable of harming a child. Because children are innocent and honestly, all parallels aside, it's the abuse of children that is propagating people who are becoming monsters later on in life.

So, if anyone could make a decision right now to make the world a better place in the next 15 years, it's women not abusing their kids. It's already too late for us as adults. We're already screwed. We all have our trauma that we have to work through, and that's gonna be a dog fight. But if we wanna guarantee the world's gonna be a better place, let's stop abusing kids.

So, the reason why women are choosing the bears is cause it's not a real question and they won't have consequences if they answer in a dramatic way for effect.

Just like the 30-something percent of boys are like, well, dude, if like, there's no consequences, I'd totally take advantage of a chick. See, yeah, maybe people are bad people by nature, but people still obey the law. And that's why if 32% of college men would commit SA if there's no consequences, but then only one out of every thousand men will commit that crime, that shows how much people have discipline over their nature.

And you cannot say the same thing about a bear.

==

** The following numbers are taken from the CDC National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) from 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2016/2017.

--

P.S. I'll just leave this here.

[aldruiel-scribbles]

I can't stop thinking about it.

You know how when you romance Solas there's a power imbalance (that at first we don't know of) since our edgy puppy is immortal and so ridiculously powerful that I don't know how DA:D protagonist is going to survive, and because of that most fanfiction (especially those set after Trespasser) depicts Lavellan struggling because she fell in love with an almost god who's about to commit a genocide to fix a previous accidental genocide.

So what if there was a character that from the beginning could level down that power imbalance gap and slap the fuck out of that elvhen glory bald head? I was already thinking of a crossover with the poll I made, but now another idea has formed. Solas x Dovahkiin.

I know there's already a few fanfics about this pair, but I haven't yet found one which truly delves into how things and people would truly be affected by the dragonborn's presence and decisions (whether they're inquisitors or not). And most of the time the LDB is seriously scaled down in power. Nothing compared to canon lore. So I have an emotional itch that hasn't been scratched by the gods of fanfiction.

Also when I talk about power, I'm not necessarily talking about them fighting, flexing on their magic, or any sort of display like that. But in the sense of how every single interaction would be changed because now, Solas is facing someone that could possibly stop him. Maybe Solas would be the one to win. He doesn't know. He just knows that in some way they're equals and this means a whole new dynamic is unlocked, and THAT, I would die to read.

Because I think, that despite Solas feelings for Lavellan are very much real and intense, there's still a tiny little part of him that still sees her as a Da'len. Not necessarily disrespectfully, but still kinda patronizing. After all he's Fen'Harel, thousands of years old and he's a prideful man that doesn't believe Lavellan has the power to stop him.

So, introducing a character that not only changes the rules but the game itself would be delicious.

P.S: After everything that egg made me go through, I want to make him suffer. A Dragonborn would certainly achieve that, in the most diabolical 'rivals to lovers' kind of way.

[judogo]

Okay, I don't think anyone will actually see or understand this, but I gotta register this singular moment in history on this blog, so I can at least look back at it.

Yeah, Brazilian president Lula compared the genocide in Palestina with the Holocaust, a bunch of people got their panties in a twist because a genocide was compared with another genocide yada yada yada, Lula has not backtracked and reafirmed his position, etc.

What I really want to register is that Israeli prime minister and some of its "diplomacy" started throwing tantrums at Twitter, getting to the point of calling Lula a Holocaust denier:

At that moment Brazilians started to get fed up with this and activated what I like to call "guerrilla tactics" on the internet. Knowing the country doesn't really have any real power, angry Brazilians on the internet tend to act like "pedras no sapato" ("a rock in your shoe") when they have beef with you. Meaning "I can't do real harm. So I will be as annoying as posible until you start going ABSOLUTELY INSANE"

That's basically the tactic. The Brazilian meme guerrila complex was activated, and there was no stopping.

Netanhyahu made a tweet saying Brazil had "crossed a red line" and saying the Brazilian president would not be welcome in the country until he offered "apologies".

And then immediatly got ratioed by a random Brazilian man calling him a slut:

"God doesn't listen to sluts crying 💔" got more than double the views on Netanyhu's original tantrum.

Then Brazilians started what we call "Vampetaço". Historical context: there was a nude photoshot of a football player called Vampeta for a gay Brazilian magazine in 1999. "Vampetaço" is when Brazilians decide to follow people around flooding every single post they make with naked Vampetas. Some beautiful examples:

A tweet by Israelian diplomacy calling Brazilians to "stand together with Israel" with a cringe drawing got edited to show them staring at naked Vampeta with "Israel is not a legitimate state" penis:

So, yeah. I don't know when this will stop. I don't know if it will even have any effects at all. But Brazil is keeping up with its tactic of being as chaotically annoying as posible on the internet with the intent of driving Israel's government and diplomacy body insane, and it's sort of becoming a matter of national pride.

And I had to ramble about it somewhere.

[boreal-sea]

I find your post about policy disingenuous. 1) because making it seem like; "it's just about Palestine" is incredibly racist in ways I don't have the spoons to explain right now. But 2), your list leaves out the very real and very racist policy actions that Biden has taken against prisoners and immigrants. Under Biden the situation in prisons and at the border has gotten considerably worse than under Trump. He literally has more children in cages than Trump ever did. But apparently children in cages are only bad when Cheeto Man does it.

I'm not the one making it "just about Palestine", the people screaming "Genocide Joe!" are the ones making it just about Palestine. I'm trying to get people to look at literally any other issue besides Palestine - that's the entire reason I made that chart, to PROVE there's so much more at stake than "just Palestine". Stop blaming single-issue voters on ME when you're actually angry at THEM.

I am in fact currently going through the entire list because a different Anon claimed Biden is not "for" any of the things on the list. It is going to take a long time. But I will tackle your specific concerns.

Biden and immigration

It is frankly unfair to compare the number of people at the border under Biden to Trump's era, because their immigration policies are very different.

Yes, immigration at the border gone up since Biden took office. Most of the encounters at the borders have been with asylum seekers. And yes, technically there are more children "in cages" that there was when Trump was in office... because Trump wasn't letting children into the country at all. Biden is not turning them away, unlike Trump, who cited "COVID concerns" as his reason for turning starving and dehydrated children away from the border. In Trump's case, this was actually just straight up racism, because he hates Mexicans. He also hates Muslims, and enacted many immigration and travel bans against people from majority-Muslim nations. So yeah, of course there were less people being processed through immigration centers: Trump was turning them all away.

Your comparison, therefore, is extremely disingenuous. I don't think kids in custody is good, but I also think it's slightly better than kids dying of thirst in the desert or being forced to return to unsafe places.

Source: Politifact Fact-Check

Biden and prison reform

As for Biden's actions towards prisoners: Biden has been big on criminal justice reform his entire term. Here is a list of some things (among many more) he has done for criminal justice reform:

A majority of the people he nominated to appoint to courts around the country were people of color and/or women, in an effort to increase diversity in the criminal justice system.

He placed a moratorium on the death penalty.

He ordered the Department of Justice to not renew contracts with private (for-profit) prisons for federal prisoners.

He has pardoned and commuted many federal sentences for non-violent drug-related crimes (he has no control over non-federal convictions).

He provided grants to encourage the hiring of people with prior convictions.

He enacted a program to ensure prisoners leaving prison were given proper temporary IDs, which the were not in the past.

He pardoned federal offenses for the simple possession and use of marijuana.

He expanded Pell grants for prisoners to be able to obtain degrees during and after they leave prison

Added more options for prisoners with loans to consolidate and get onto repayment plans as low as $0 a month.

He enacted the First Step act, which facilitates prisoner reentry to society, rehabilitation, and reduces prisoner numbers in federal prison, including the release of over 30,000 prisoners.

He reduced the checking of criminal records in hiring processes for federal positions, enabling more people to be hired to those positions.

Added 19 new recidivism-reduction programs (programs to reduce the chances someone will end up back in jail).

This is not an exhaustive list. He has done EVEN MORE for criminal justice reform than this. You can just google this stuff, it's not hard to find.

Sources:

WhiteHouse.Gov

NBC News

Times.Com

[rwby-encrusted-blog]

Hey, can we talk about how Weiss is the luckiest Member of RWBYJNPR?

Just real Quick?

Like no one should compare traumas, it's not a competition. But. like.

Weiss has suffered the least of them all? But was somehow also the worst of them in the beginning?

Because She had

Abusive father

absent, alcoholic mother

threat of being attacked because of her name

Has a scar over one eye, doesn't show signs of impairment

And then she got better as a person and personally suffered

Forced 'home' by evil father

getting kidnapped

getting stabbed with a spear

...

Home literally falls into the water

Watched her team fall into the void.

Ever After shenaningans?

That's it.

That's all her own personal suffering, and for a lot of that she had friends and family, like Klein or Winter, or RWBY! She even left WHitley alone when she was young, clinging to winter!

Compared to;

Ruby

Mom presumed dead

Dad was depressed

uncle was alcoholic

Raised mostly by sister

entered into a combat school early (This one IS negative for her)

Jumped into and active cannon

hunted for her eyes

watched a friend die in front of her. Like. Four times, even if one was a mouse and the other was an illusion

Watched Yang Take a hit and Fall into the coid, assumed she was dead.

a friend that came back to life died to another friend

feels the weight of the world is on her shoulders

LITERALLY ATTEMPTED SUICIDE

Yang

abandoned by mother

step mom presumed dead

father was horribly depressed

uncle was an alcolholic

had to raise sister

lost arm

abandoned by partner and sister.

Had to kill to survive

Self sacrificial tendencies.

Watched Sister she had raised attempt to Commit suicide

so yeah she's got abandonment issues

Blake

Is a minority, suffers from peoples racism.

Abusive, genocidal ex-boyfriend

Said Ex attempted to murder her and Yang, forcing them to kill him instead.

More Racism

Watched the woman she loved sacrifice herself.

AND JNPR

Jaune

His parents actively kept him from pursuing his dream

Criminally negligent, literally didn't know the basics of Hunting

Given Terrible romantic advice by dad

bullied, blackmailed, beat down on.

constantly belittled and denied by his crush (I don't blame weiss for saying no, but it still hurt him)

First person to believe in him Kissed him, Didn't believe in him, ran off to her death.

Suffered severe imposter syndrome and survivors guilt, along with depression and suicidal thoughts

never felt good enough

Nearly got Weiss killed because of Cinder

Took anger out on oscar, Regretted it

Nearly got his team killed because they agreed with his plan to steal an airship

Neo beat up his team! Stole the Relic of Knowledge!

Watched so many of his Friends fall into the Void

had to assist in a Friend's suicide

Family Sword (And therefore legacy) Broke

LEFT BEHIND BY WINTER, WHO COULD HAVE VERY EASILY SAVED HIM.

Lost in a Goddamn fairytale world for a decade or two, alone. on a beach. ALONE.

Drank poison because that's what the story said to do. Couldn't even fucking die right.

The Paper pleasers. Just everything with the paper pleasers

His friends, once reunited with him, thought he had gone insane (He kinda had lost it, but really who wouldn't have?) and They didn't believe him. That hurt.

Pyrrha and Penny Illusion by NeoCat

Damn Jaune really is the Spider-man of RWBY, isn't he. His story is fucking sorrowful.

Pyrrha

Put on a pedestal above her Peers, very lonely

Object of affection focused on someone else

Given a nonchoice to protect people.

Fucking Died. Has remained dead. haunts the narrative.

Ren

parents died

lived on the road most of his life

His power is literally emotional repression

only had Nora

Lost his new family in the Void.

Nora

presumably never had a dad

abandoned by Mother

Lived on the road

only had Ren

That Shock-Force-Field thing in Atlas, left with permanent scarring.

Family Fell into the Void.

So, like. Can Weiss spread the wealth a little bit? In terms of luck?

The rest of them could probably really use it.

OF COURSE

None of this is to say Weiss Hasn't Suffered, she really has suffered in her own ways.

But like.

Not as much as any one other individual in her group.