#over literally me trying to do the morally correct thing??

[switchytransboy]

everybody fucking leaves

[designernishiki]

aight im just gonna say it. some folks really gotta stop treating nishikiryu like they’re actually related and considering anyone who’s so much as Okay with them as a pairing of being incest apologists. like. that’s a legitimately fucked up and serious thing to accuse someone of just because of your view of two factually unrelated fictional characters.

[goodolreliablejake]

Fantasy races are an uncomfortable concept, because they present a world that literally works the way racists think that it works. The attempts to mitigate this problem often fail to address the core concern, merely making the idea more palatable.

A big example is trying to correct by changing the language from "races" to "species." This attempt fails for two reasons:

1) Exactly! Racists think that people of other races are a different species. That's the foundation of "race science," phrenology, all of it.

2) Are demihumans different species, though? Like, the interactions between elves and dwarves don't resemble the interactions between different species in our world. They don't act like snakes and lemurs, or whales and krill, or even cats and dogs. More often we've got different groups of people, who may speak different languages and have different cultural practices, engaging in diplomacy or war and struggling to coexist. In practice, they are treated as nations: ethnicities. Except they're ethnicities who are biologically distinct enough to have objective differences in ability.

This is something that puts me on edge in Mass Effect, otherwise one of my favorite games. True, the game ultimately lands on condemning the genophage, and it's not subtle about that. I mean just look at the name... But it's still considered debatable, morally grey, and Mordin Solus remains one of the most charming and enduring heroes of the series. The setting has bent over backwards to make every racist stereotype and talking point as legitimate as possible. In this setting, it is objectively true, scientifically proven that it is in the DNA of Krogans to naturally be violent, warmongering killing machines whose explosively rapid breeding poses an existential threat to the galaxy. That in turn is meant to make us think that maybe forced sterilization is something worth considering. It's hard to ignore the parallels to real life racist propaganda. I don't think it's malicious, just ungrounded and thoughtless; the result of creators to whom these ideals are abstract thought experiments, rather than reflections of real history.

Another big example is Dark Elves. They try to make it okay, to mitigate the message by fleshing them out as characters, by scapegoating an abusive deity rather than an ingrained nature, by erasing the monster manual description that reads "Always Chaotic Evil," by trending skin tone away from black and towards purple, or gray, even pale white. But none of it really changes the core issue, does it? The idea of drow is to equate dark skin with evil, to fetishize that idea, and to tell a story about a subsect of people cast into darkness as a result of sin in a direct parallel to racist Christian beliefs about dark skin being a curse or punishment from God.

So, do I think we need to cancel Mass Effect and stop playing D&D or telling stories about drow? No, not really. I mean... I do all these things. Truth is, I don't have an actionable solution, for myself or anyone. But the dynamic is clearly present and worth describing. And the attempts to challenge it are often insufficient, more about making ourselves feel better about what we're already doing than enacting real change.

[galactic-rhea]

It's ranting hours sunday for me: Y' know, I think when people complain soooo much about Padmé getting with Anakin, they're failing to see a lot of things. BUT ESPECIALLY...That it was her choice, and if speaks a lot of her character and personality.

She was already done dirty by the movies by getting so many deleted scenes, but then if you try to take away the agency she had on marrying a human disaster or her choices, like her forgiveness/understanding, it's actually undermining and flattening her character.

The fact is that she's actually very similar to Anakin, she's stubborn, deeply traumatized, compromises a lot for the sake of others and loves beyond reasoning. We, the audience, know that Anakin will become Darth Vader and one of the most iconic villains of history; so everything he does can be seem as a red flag that really isn't there.

From Padmé's POV, Anakin has done terrible things, but it's capable of incredible acts of love and compassion. They're in circumstances that aren't normal at all, she was queen at 14, and he was born a slave and joined the space wizard monks and his normal is kill or be killed. Our modern and omniscient POV can't be applied onto them because there's no point of comparison in this sci-fi-shakespearen tragedy-soap-opera-fantasy.

Besides...she was actually right in the end, and I don't believe is "feminist" or progressive to take away a big part of her core personality, that actually had repercussions in the whole story, and make her out to be either unaware and naive of marrying a monster, or (the worst one, imo) being jedi-mind-tricked-brainwashed-abused by her husband.

The "right, correct, girlboss and queen" actitude does more damage than help, leave Padmé to be a person. A person who wanted to have a fairytale romance with some guy who would fight for her and makes her laugh.

Also, the hell why you wanna blame her for something Anakin does, come on. That's a whole other can of worms, though. My point is, that trying to avoid or re-work-or re-contextualize the fact that she chose Anakin despite him literally telling her about murdering a whole village, is actually changing a big chunk of her personality traits.

She was a child queen, then a politician at the edge of an inminent war, manipulated by the same guy that groomed Anakin into a massive murderer, saw her people being taken into camps, had assasination attempts weekly and had to rip off of her individualism by becoming a public figure, giving up her sense of being a person by having several almost identical decoys, she had to stop being just Padmé to be Queen and then Senator Amidala and she did all of that showing little to no emotion.

Then Anakin does all what she herself had to rip off of her in order to be a politician: Honest, passionate, and able to show emotions; like love or anger.

She has morals and she represents democracy and justice, in a way. But I fully believe that inside her she had the same passionate anger and love capable of burning the galaxy that we know Anakin had, which makes them different sides of the same coin, and I think she realized that. Anakin perhaps didn't , as he never stopped of seeing himself as a slave and therefore inferior, whereas he held Padmé very highly, but I think Padmé saw them both as equals. She didn't have a "I can fix him" mentality, she had a "We're the same, we're both lonely, confused, hurting and scared of losing everything. And if he's like me, then I know he can do the right thing for love."

In other words: She was as insane as her husband, she only seems normal because she wasn't put into the monk warrior order and groomed by the devil for over a decade. (And I don't mean insane as, 'she's crazy for loving a murderer' harley quinn style, I just meant it on a daring, hopeless romantic and tenacious way)

[flower-boi16]

The Problems With Charlie As The Main Protagonist

I've spoken about my thoughts on Charlie as a character before a few times on this blog, but I think it's finally time to discuss why Charlie isn't exactly the best protagonist. On the surface, there doesn't seem to be much wrong with her, she's likable and endearing enough and she's easy to root for. But...once you look deeper, the problems begin to rear their ugly head.

1. Charlie Never Grows

The first major issue with Charlie as a character is how she never really grows over the course of the first season. The show never really gives her much of an arc...? Like, by the end of the season, what does Charlie really learn by the end? The only thing I can think of is that she was right about sinners being redeemed and...that's it.

And it doesn't really make Charlie that particularly compelling as a character, she's entirely stagnant. She does have a conflict with her father, which, while executed fine, isn't enough to make her a developed character. She only gets small tinges of development and that isn't really enough for me.

Charlie doesn't learn anything or grow as a character, which makes her pretty underdeveloped as a character. The show never really gives her any real character flaws to grow from and become a better person, she's always portrayed as in the right anyway and never challenged once. Speaking of that...

2. Charlie is Always Right

This more or less ties back into the "Charlie never grows" point I've said before and I've talked about this several times before, but it's still an issue with Charlie's character; she is ALWAYS in the right. Charlie's "everyone can be redeemed" mentality is never once challenged by the narrative, and anybody who does oppose Charlie in any way is considered as wrong by the narrative.

The reason why this is a problem is because Hazbin Hotel heavily preaches about being against black-and-white moralities, as seen with Heaven and especially Adam. Heaven is meant to be seen as bad because of its black-and-white mindset of "Sinners can't be redeemed and never will". This is put on full display with Adam, and his song Hell is Forever, to the point it literally includes lyrics like "the rules are black and white there's no use in trying to fight it".

You Didn't Know further pushes this with this line "the rules are shades of gray when you don't do as you say and you make the wretched suffer just to kill them again".

So the show wants to push a message of "black and white morals are bad", but...it's rendered moot by the fact that Charlie is purely portrayed as in the right. Charlie is completely correct, everybody can be redeemed, everyone even the most evil people who did the worst possible things can still be good, and anyone who opposes her is wrong cuz she's completely in the right...gee, for a show so heavily against black-and-white moralities...doesn't this all seem very black and white in it of itself?

Charlie's "everyone can be redeemed" mentality is just as black and white as Adam's "nobody can be redeemed", they are both extremes leaning in opposite directions, that are also both wrong in their own ways, yet the show portrays Charlie's extreme as the right one and Adam's as the wrong one.

I've already talked about this before but Adam is a pure straw character; he only exists so Charlie can prove him wrong, he cant have any real character depth beyond being a generic asshole or have a real point because the show is so dead-set on making Charlie purely in the right no matter what; the narrative never challenges her and anyone who opposes her is portrayed as automatically in the wrong.

This is not the only time this happens btw. In episode 5, Lucifer is also portrayed as automatically wrong for opposing his daughter’s goals. He himself says that “Our people are AWFUL. They got gifted free will and look what they did with it!”, and the show…never counters this, despite what Lucifer is saying…being true. The people in Hell ARE awful and it's their own fault, many of them ARE deserving of death because…well, their shitty people.

Charlie is never challenged once throughout the show and its a problem because not only does it fly in the face of the show being so anti black and white, it also wastes an opportunity for the show to develop Charlie as a character; with her learning that some people can't be redeemed because they either are incapable or uninterested in changing.

That would fit more with the show’s anti-black-and-white themes and also have Charlie go through real growth as a character as she learns that not everything is all sunshine and rainbows. But sadly, we can't really have that.

So Charlie's ideals are never challenged by the narrative and thus it not only flies in the face of the show's themes it also wastes an opportunity for Charlie to grow as a character. Now it's best to get into the next issue with her...

3. Charlie is Barely Focused On

Another big issue with Charlie as the show's main protagonist is that the show doesn't really focus on her that much, especially the first half. Now, shows don't need to focus on the main protagonist at all times, obviously giving some screen time to other characters is definitely something shows should do.

But the problem is that Charlie gets very LITTLE focus in the series despite being the main protagonist, and this contributes to the problem of her being underdeveloped. The first half of the show is especially bad at this; episode 1 Is the only episode in the first half that focuses on Charlie, but even then it's overtaken by the B-plot involving the other characters trying to film a commercial.

Episodes 2&3 are entirely dedicated to what characters like Alastor or Angel Dust are doing and episode 4 is completely focused on Angel and his arc. It contributes to the issue of the show not being able to develop Charlie that much as a character because she's constantly being overshadowed by other characters. The second half is better in this regard for focusing more on Charlie but still, for the first half of the show, it feels like Charlie is overshadowed by other characters which is embarrassing because, well, she's the main character, yet she feels like she's barely gotten any actual spotlight.

4. Conclusion

I want to love Charlie as a character. I really do. I mean, she's a part of one of my favorite character archetypes. I always LOVE over joyful optimistic characters because I just find them a joy to watch on screen, but sadly, Charlie doesn't have much depth beyond that archetype. She isn't that developed making her fail to be much of a compelling protagonist, her ideology is never challenged by the narrative wasting an opportunity for her to grow and contradicting the show's themes, and she's heavily overshadowed by other characters despite being the main protagonist.

So ya, that's why Charlie isn't that great of a protagonist...bye.

[suzukiblu]

‘The middle of starting over’ by Sabrina carpenter kind of reminds me of Krypton lives and Kara did not sign up for this

“Do you understand what I mean by that?” Kara asks, suspecting she should dread the answer but knowing she needs to be clear here. “That you belong to our house?”

“Our genetic material is Kal-El’s. Not our own,” Match replies, neutral and by rote. Thirteen’s mouth goes even tighter. 

“We’re not stupid,” he snaps at her, his fists clenching by his sides. 

Kara considers committing a war crime against a backwater planet. Just one war crime. 

“The insult of our continued existence will be tolerated as long as we prove useful to the House of El,” Match says, just as toneless and just as practiced as before. Like it’s something he’s said a thousand times, when he hasn’t even been alive long enough to say a thousand things. Something he just knows to be a foundational fact of life. 

. . . maybe two war crimes, Kara thinks, carefully packing up her seething fury before she can start shouting at the two people in this situation who deserve it the least. There’s two of Thirteen and Match, so that’s fair, isn’t it? Justifiable? 

“No,” she says very, very evenly. “It means you’re part of our family.” 

Thirteen flinches, and looks very briefly hurt before his jaw clenches. Then he just looks angry. Match’s expression is the most perfectly blank it’s been so far and doesn’t change at all. 

They’re very different, for how alike they look. She shouldn’t be surprised by that, but it’s . . . disorienting, a little. 

Mostly because they’re both so different from Kal, she thinks. Neither of them is a thing like him at all. Even at their “age”, he was nothing like either of them. She can’t even imagine how hard a time he must be having understanding them, when they’re both so wildly different from him in such different ways. 

But at Thirteen and Match’s “age”–at both of their ages, both the literal and physiological ones–Kal was an adored only child with a bright future and brilliant prospects and all of Uncle Jor and Aunt Lara’s morals and love instilled in him, not a pair of lab-built “weapons” who must’ve heard their existence called an “insult” somewhere. Who must’ve been told they were stupid time and time again; must’ve been told they weren’t worth anything more than being carriers of the DNA that’d been stolen to make them time and again. Must’ve been told they were possessions and things and at best slaves to–

Kara exhales, very slowly, and pulls the rice out of her pantry. 

“I’m making milk rice,” she informs them shortly. Milk rice sounds like something Earthling children’s palates should appreciate. Mostly children eat it here too, so it makes sense. “What kind do you want?” 

“Milk . . . what?” Thirteen wrinkles his nose in confusion. Has Kal even given these kids dessert before, Kara thinks, trying not to lose her mind. Was there any real information about food or fashion or culture in that “gesture of goodwill” information packet that he presented the Earthling governments with? Because judging by how they’re dressed and the dialects they’re using and the fact that they don’t even know milk rice . . . 

“Milk rice,” she repeats. “It’s a dessert. Milk and rice are involved. Usually it’s made with either bly fruit or katso sauce. Or spygin, but that’s mostly an Argo City thing.” 

Thirteen and Match both stare blankly at her for a moment before their eyes slide to each other instead. Thirteen’s jaw visibly tightens. Match’s eyes just barely narrow. 

“We don’t know what that is,” Thirteen says, glancing back to her warily. “The . . . ‘buh-lye fruit’ and ‘kasso sauce’. Or . . . ‘spy-geen’?” 

Right, Kara thinks, and doesn’t let herself sigh again. They’re going to get the wrong idea if she keeps doing that. 

“Bly fruit is sweet and katso sauce is savory,” she says, carefully enunciating the words without making it completely obvious that she’s correcting Thirteen’s pronunciation. “Spygin’s a spice. Kind of . . . sharp and smoky, I guess, but a little sweet too. It’s hard to describe. Goes good with milk-based things.” 

“. . . you’re asking us what flavor we want?” Match asks incredulously, like the idea’s somehow just occurred to him. 

Maybe three war crimes, Kara thinks. Lantern-level war crimes with a side of unfathomable solar superpowers. No one could blame her for just three, at this point.

[factsilike]

Really tired of constantly seeing posts declaring that everyone in MXTX novels is complicated and 'morally grey' and that's what makes her works wonderfully written, and that everyone else who doesn't see that is stupid, or is 'demonising' characters and bashing them for rightfully criticising their shitty, very much unjustified actions.

And ironically it seems so simplistic to just declare that, because yes her stories are wonderfully written and complex, but not for that reason. You're clearly not reading her works and only spouting what you think her stories say. There are many morally grey characters in morally complex stories out there, but MDZS IS NOT ONE OF THEM.

NONE OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS (i.e protagonists and their male leads except for LBH maybe) ARE MORALLY GREY OR MORALLY COMPLEX.

THEY ARE ALL MORALLY RIGHTEOUS.

Just take a closer look at their actions compared to the actions of literally everyone else around them, it's not that hard to see.

Not to mention that MXTX herself literally says that WWX and LWJ are both morally ideal and that ahe hopes her readers can be like them, but people seem to have no respect for the word of authors in the name of their self projection onto the characters being contradicted nowadays 😒

(also saw someone dismissively say that HC may think that the world revolves around XL or whatever, but others don't and they're right??

First of all, did you even read the novel? HC made his judgement based on how others treated him versus how XL did when he was a CHILD. And how XL continues to treat others to this day. He is well within his rights to think the world of XL, especially since XL suffered more than every other person and still doesn't succumb to evil, despite having every right to do so, miles more than others. He all but regards XL as his moral compass, because he's proof that truly good people do exist in this world, and not ONE other person in the novel is shown to be as good as him.)

One of the reasons why I really don't like the Xianle Trio is this; neither FX nor MQ seem to regard XL as his own person with his own agency, who is capable of making his own decisions initially as HC does, and only near the end of the novel do they let up a bit when their asses had to be saved by XL multiple times. (especially considering what fools they made of themselves in that spiderweb cave lmao)

Both of them try to enforce XL ALL THE TIME ("Your Highness don't do this or don't do that or don't say this or don't go there or don't talk to him"), as if XL has not survived perfectly well on his own without them FOR 800 YEARS.

The difference between them and HC is clearly spelled out when FC asks HC about why he is not stopping XL, and HC replies that while he may not agree with some of XL's decisions, he would never force him to do what he thinks is correct, something both MQ and FX are CONSTANTLY shown to try to do.

Like please. Xianle Trio who? More like suffering XL and his pair of nuisances who think themselves to be his babysitters. And most of the time he's the one babysitting them.

Another thing that irks me is that their frequent arguments are often played off for laughs, but XL is truly a saint, because if my friends were constantly bickering over petty things all throughout our dangerous journey and giving me nothing but headaches, especially in survival situations, I'd given them the boot a long time ago.

[prettyboykatsuki]

how surprising ur response doesn’t address the issue at all!!!! i would love for u to go off on me because it’s easy for me to win a disagreement when i know i’m right lmao and also i KNOW 100% for a fact that countless people would agree w me but it’s not reaching the correct audience w a sane mindset cuz all ur followers are 🌽 addicts too thinking the same shit as u and pitying and comforting ur ass in ur replies🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️shits cringe to watch but anyway every normal person knows it’s weird and that’s all the matters i suppose cuz post that shit literally anywhere else and your ass WILL get dragged

maybe let’s try a one month no 🌽 challenge and try again! maybe ur mind will detox and you’ll realize ur fucking weird

i didn't respond to your ask with any dignity because the original premise of your ask was not worthy of being dignified with time nor attention.

ive gotten tens of asks of people who also want to hold moral superiority over me by regurgitating opinions they've adopted from their online internet circles without any real nuance and thus i have no reason to take it seriously. you are not the first person to try to peddle this to me and there is nothing about your ask that warrants any of my thoughtful consideration.

i normally wouldn't bother with correcting this one either, but because im already in a deeply irritable mood - sure, i will give you the response you are asking for, starting with the post you are criticizing.

firstly, you're incorrectly reading my post. you intentionally misrepresent my post with your wording and also the sort of joke i was making by implying "memed about waiting for the age of consent" so i can indulge my porn addiction."

im going to disregard your application of harmful real world rhetoric to what is essentially fiction and go along with the idea that fictional characters are in anyway effected by my posting.

the main issue is fundamentally that you are misreading it. i know you are because i am the original poster and the author of this post - which means i can directly tell you that the point of this post is ironic.

it is poking fun at the people who have accused me of pedophilia for aging up a fictional character for years because he is now, in canon, an adult.

the irony of that is that i was doing what horikoshi was when writing my fics. the people who treated my aging up as invalid simply because horikoshi is the author are no longer able to wield it against me. the author has no confirmed his adulthood, which makes that argument moot.

your argument is that i was in some way making a joking about having waited for izuku to reach adulthood in order to sexualize him. this is blantantly incorrect and a misreading of the post in general. that is not something you can counter because if you've spent any time on my blog at all - it would be very clear i was already aging up and sexualizing characters on my own whims.

both posts for better viewing.

the other thing you spout off about is porn addiction. this is the main reason i didn't find any reason to take your points seriously. if you knew, researched, or understood any of the points you've borrowed from your peers on tiktok - you would know why porn addiction is not a term you can apply to erotica.

in the first place, there is no universally understood diagnostic criteria for porn addiction. there are other forms of research related to how porn interferes with cis-heterosexual partnerships and the quality of sex life and some affiliation with watching porn as a compulsive behavior - but neither of these things qualify as addiction.

pornography is a highly politicized topic because our society is structured upon old school protestant christian beliefs and puritanism. but pornography and sexually explicit materal is a difficult thing to quantify in usage. it is culturally ubiquitous and has several nuances in relation to its use. it is near impossibly to quantify sexual behavior because it is a normal, human urge like hunger or thirst whether or not you choose to believe that.

here are three articles making points about the claims around porn addiction from reliable sources that you're welcome to point out.

one | two | three

as i keep repeating - addiction is a specific line of behavior and being frank, it's rather insulting you think i suffer from a porn addiction given i used to do actual drugs and suffered from real life addictions lmao.

but if you want to use other addiction diagnostic critera in this argument. my posting on silly erotica tumblr does not

interfere with my daily life or relationships

negatively affect my performance in school or at work

cause me to withdraw from social situations

lose interest in my other hobbies and activies that improve quality of life.

none of the above applies to me. but im guessing you don't have any actual concern.

it's very clear to me and everyone else that your peddling of this term has nothing to do with whether or not i actually have the addiction - and everything to do with you attempting to moralize my behavior to an audience and boost up your own points.

if i really did have a porn addiction, implying i had an addiction - you are implying that this is something i should be ashamed of just as you are implying my fellow porn addicts should also be ashamed.

you see addiction as a point of shame and not a disease and don't show any actual empathy which makes you a morally bankrupt human being in my subjective view. you don't have any actual arguments about how this might effect my behavior or character. only that addiction (a thing people can't control) is bad, that i am bad for watching porn and being addicted to it.

neither of these are provable as you do not know me.

instead your attempt to find fault is to arm yourself with puritan talking points and internet tiktok buzzword language and make your clauses have some kind of ground or validity. it is trite and frankly embarrassing watching you come into my inbox with such confidence that you would be able to argue with me critically and meaningfully.

the last thing i will address is your point about this not being a popular opinion.

you are under the impression im not aware of this and that this is not a choice i've made deliberately so i will be kindly blunt.

i, unlike you, have formed these opinions with my own critical understanding of culture, sociology, psychology, and politics by researching and reading from people who study these things with more expertise than me.

these opinions are formed by my own discretion and worldview. they are unpopular opinions.

unlike you, my peers are not decided by my moral parading. rather, im frank and upfront with those world views and have formed a circle that agrees with them.

i do not need your validation nor the validation of people online to confirm whether or not im a good person. the reason people agree with me is not pity, but because they too have formed their own opinions and ours happen to allign.

you think this is pitying behavior because the people you choose to align with would cast you out for showing even a breadth of disagreement or critique. you have not fostered a space for intelligent conversation because you can't see disagreement without accusing someone of this or that.

you are all the same and you are all equally confident in your hivemind opinions. i applaud your audacity and admire your confidence in your own ability to argue something you've barely formed your own conscious thought about.

i dont need to detox anything and i dont care about being weird. i also, really don't care about you or your opinions.

you are unoriginal and boring, a pest of the highest pedigree and i don't find you intimidating. your inability to receive validation from your own moral character will doom you to shame and guilt for as long as you allow and thats much more punishment than i could ever dole out to you

have a good day pookie 🫂🫂

[murder-cookie-dust393]

OK. SO. ITS ME YA BOY WITH THE CONSTANT PV BRAINROT AND I FEEL OBLIGATED TO GIVE MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THAT LAST POST. Im gonna tell some headcanons rn

Pv would absolutely wouldn't allow anyone calling mc a criminal.

"b-but your highness they are a criminal"

"No they are not."

"they killed like 3 cookies"

"it might have been an accident.."

"they admitted on trial that-"

"shhhhhh"

He isnt all that good with his anger either, so in his mind everything mc does is justified

He is CONVINCED he can marry mc. Mc has no interest

-🍋

Ok so this was based on a idea I had (for those of you who didn’t read the post obv)

Basically, MC is a tyrant of a neighbouring kingdom, and Pure Vanilla wants to join their kingdoms. Through marriage. But MC also hates everybody and has mad anger issues.

Tw: mentions of murder and manipulation

“Your majesty, that tyrant literally murdered the previous royal-“

“Oh silly you! They’re just simply taking over after the unfortunately death by natural causes.”

.

.

.

“Your majesty, you can’t just say everything they do is morally correct!”

“…But it is-“

.

.

.

“IM NOT MARRYING YOU- BACK THE FUCK OFF YOU OLD VANILLA PLANT-“

“My sweet don’t say such things! We’ll be so happy together once we marry and join our kingdoms!”

I also think Pure Vanilla would try to manipulate anyone who is trying to call out MC for their crimes. Trying to convince the opposing party that they’re just a troubled cookie who needs love.

Pure Vanilla would find the most irrelevant excuses to visit MC’s kingdom.

(I love how we agreed Pure Vanilla is actually delusional lmao-)

- Celina

[weebsinstash]

Now that I saw that doodle Vox made again, I'm just wondering how tf he knew Alastor has hooves

Also noticed that he was a lil fixated on Al's ass in that same doodle so there's that :>

I literally searched the Hazbin wiki for the source and couldn't find it but I've seen multiple people posting some screenshot of some website that says, Velvette previously stated Vox had an Alastor body pillow, and I don't know if that's an old Voxtagram post or more recent but it's been living in my head rent free ever since

Like there have been so many Viv streams and q&a's that have mildly spoiled things or mentioned facts that have since become non canon so I'm not sure what to listen to anymore but dude, reading the wiki of all the amalgamated facts is A TRIP. Vox is Actually Totally Correct: despite Alastor having his gentlemanly persona and some weird "serial killer moral code, like dexter", he canonically has awful oral hygiene and both Vivzie and... Fautisse? Have mentioned this. His demon form has black gums. Vivzie said he "probably doesn't prioritize oral hygiene" and also probably wasn't a cannibal in life so that's literally a new hobby he picked up in death so also um. THE SECOND THIS MAN HAD FREE REIGN AND THERE WAS NO RULE OF LAW OR CONSEQUENCES HE DECIDED TO START EATING PEOPLE SO LET THAT SINK IN.

You start reading Alastor's wiki page and it makes it pretty clear he's like DERANGED, hypocritical, he's like borderline a megalomaniac? It's all hidden behind this, persona, this wall he puts up, his well put together demeanor that allegedly never cracks, but underneath his showmanship he's a haughty, insecure, judgy, gossipy, genuine FREAK who responds with insults and violence whenever he can who relishes in trolling people and scaring them, literally enjoys knowing when he's making people uncomfortable

I have so many conflicting feelings but like PRETTY SURE HIS VERSE IN THE FINALE WAS A VILLAIN SONG, HE'S LITERALLY SINGING ABOUT BEING PISSED AND WANTING TO RETALIATE BECAUSE HE'S BEING FORCED TO DO STUFF HE DOESN'T WANT TO

THUS

I AM CONVINCED VOX IS JUST A BOTTOM AND A SLUT WHO THINKS ALASTOR IS JUST REALLY COOL AND HAS A ONE SIDED PATHETIC BOY CRUSH

Bro the sound I fucking made when his wiki trivia says he's been described as "painfully white, like phlegm in the back of your throat white" NO DONT DO MY TV MAN LIKE THIS 😭🤣

Anyways, you've probably seen the posts but for someone who claims to be so hip and modern, Vox goes out of his way to dress similarly to Alastor. The coat with lapels in the front and a tail in the back, a bow tie with a cravat, cuffed sleeves, intentionally or not the color contrast of Vox's hands resembles Alastor's and Vox CAN customize his body...

He's just. I just completely forget sometimes that Alastor literally called him OLD PAL in episode 3 and yes he was obviously saying it to talk down to him but like ALASTOR DID ACKNOWLEDGE HISTORY BETWEEN THEM, and also oh wait what's this, Vivzie has confirmed Vox and the Vees are major antagonists of Season 2 and that Vox and Alastor's history is going to be expanded upon so.... radiostatic shippers stay winning ha ha

I read a post that I meant to reblog that was something like "Vox is actually an incredibly cunning charismatic manipulative businessman who is a legitimate threat and we see this for all of 5 minutes and the second Alastor is mentioned he starts completely coming apart" and it's SO TRUE, he can be ur angel or ur devil. He's a legitimately OP threat and he's also A PATHETIC SAD FAILHUSBAND. Give me Vox who's efficiently marketing more hypnosis equipment to substantially grow his own wealth and manipulating his shareholders and then he's going back to his computer room with some popcorn and kicking his little feeties as he watches his darling and Alastor on like 30 different monitors. Give me Vox who can know the INSTANT someone is trying to go behind his back and double cross him because he has mass surveillance all over the city and he's using his endless resources to develop high end 3d printers to make posable figures of his crush and Alastor.

Give me Vox who loses his cool and insults you to your face and you two get into a huge argument and maybe Velvette and Valentino lash out at you in defense of him and he's going to his room and crying from frustration into his body pillows totally not plural, totally not ones of you and Alastor and calling himself a stupid idiot because he hurt your feelings and then spends the next like week SUFFOCATINGLY showing up almost every single place you are and embarrassing himself as he tries to bond with you and prove to you what CLEARLY AWESOME boyfriend material he is

[doberbutts]

It's honestly kind of weird and scary how a lot of modern "politically correct" people have gone completely in the other direction to the point that they go "You CANNOT interact with another culture, you cannot learn a new language, you cannot date someone outside of your race/culture/etc." and it's like...

Do they not realize that they sound exactly like white supremacists who are against immigration/race mixing/etc. It's exactly the same thing except replace "You can't mix with those people because they're nasty animals" with "You can't mix with those people because you're fetishizing and appropriating their culture"

Not to mention it ALWAYS seems to be white people saying this, even if people of said culture are like "Yes please come learn our language and wear our clothing and eat our food we want to share it with you!"

On Facebook one of my white friends went off on one of her friends for cultural appropriation because she was making dreamcatchers... Said friend was literally Ojibwe.

I think about this every single day at work because a Native client from the nearby reservation gave my clinic a medicine wheel he made himself and we have it displayed at the front desk. And I think if any of these folks walked into the clinic and saw it their heads would explode. Nevermind that tied to it is his hand-written note about what it means and why he made it for us. But it's a white-owned, mostly white-run clinic and we've got this very clear Native piece front and center as you walk in.

Idk man. It feels gross to me to say "you MUST have part of this race in your DNA if you want to partake in ANY of this at all", especially when it's not coming from those *within said culture*... like how studs and voodoo are black-only closed culture things vs "you can't learn [language] because that's appropriation!!!"

I'm blaming white people flattening all nuance over "political correctness" though- they don't want to be politically correct, they want to hold the moral high ground and prove they're one of the good ones. Personally I think it's better to just vibe and try not to be an asshole and to be open to change when someone says you're hurting them.

[thanatika]

people on that child support post are talking as if patho classic daniil is great with kids and it's pathologic 2 daniil that people are getting this negative idea of him from, which got me thinking...

daniil's main characterization of how he treats kids in patho 2 comes from artemy's POV of him, which is biased against daniil due to daniil making a really dickish first impression, and is also based off of unreliable narrator accounts:

first by some kids outside of rubin's house who lead artemy to believe that daniil refused to treat poisoned children when it was actually just dying dogs, which can be followed by artemy confronting daniil himself where he continues to misunderstand the situation and assumes daniil is calling children animals, until he finally visits the kids' warehouse and learns it was just the soul-and-a-halves' pets. which, obviously it would be a nice thing to save pets from dying, but he really ISN'T a veterinarian and there's a deadly plague starting. he's doing triage.

and then another early incident with the kid in the warehouse dying of sand pest, where notkin passes along a message telling artemy not to bother trying to save him that makes him sound very dismissive ("Don't waste your time on Patches, it's over for him"). reading between the lines though, it's pretty clear that he came to that conclusion not because he doesn't want to save people from the sand pest, but because this is a seemingly incurable disease with no medical cure, and at that point he probably hasn't had the chance to test the schmowders on himself so would have no reason to believe in their effectiveness, and assesses that loading patches up with drugs will just kill him. which, he's literally correct! whether you treat him with tinctures, pills, or a whole schmowder, patches dies that night. obviously trying to treat him or at least ease his suffering is a morally good dead, but you can also see the implied basis of daniil's actions, that every second is precious in the early stages of trying to prevent a widespread outbreak, so you shouldn't waste time on a patient who ultimately can't be saved. (which fits in really well not only with his arc in both games where he comes to the conclusion that the whole town is unsalvageable, but with the bigger emphasis on time management and manipulation that his remake has been described as having. hell, maybe from daniil's POV he knows for certain that patches will die due to whatever time manipulation that's going on with him, and that spending the time on that patient allows for a larger disaster to happen elsewhere). so, the situation is framed by notkin (understandably, because he's just a kid and that's his friend dying) and artemy (because he's honestly pretty petty about daniil) as just "the bachelor is an asshole and abandoned these kids" when it's more of a genuine ethical quandary.

he's also pretty rude and dismissive in how he talks about grace to artemy later on, but again, it's pretty clear that he's not just being a hater to a 15 year old for no reason, the point he's making is that she shouldn't be left in charge of a graveyard filled with potentially bio-hazardous corpses.

all that to say, the main canon info about how he treats children in patho 2 basically comes from the fact that a lot of kids end up disliking him, because he's extremely pragmatic to the point of being heartless, but still ultimately pretty understandable in what he's trying to do (stop a plague).

meanwhile when we do get to see his POV in the marble nest, i would say the way he treats children is pretty much consistent with how he talks to them in pathologic classic -- if anything, he's a bit nicer to them? he has some fed-up, yelling sort of dialogue options to the kids, but pretty much all of those are based on being upset that they're out breaking quarantine and putting themselves at risk of death. meanwhile other dialogue options make him come off very much willing to humor them and talk to them on their level. and when another adult is much harsher about the kids being irresponsible, he defends them, with no dialogue option to agree with corporal punishment:

meanwhile in pathologic classic, i do think that on the whole daniil is pretty nice to kids and willing to go out of his way to protect or help them (to the point of risking death, such as the late game sidequest where he can agree to go take on several soldiers to keep the father of two children from being wrongly executed). but he does also have some really unkind and spiteful dialogue options, like some of what he says to clara both in his own route and hers, and on the topic of corporal punishment...

[actual-changeling]

Crowley, Aziraphale, and the art of boundaries.

Look. They love and care about each other, but they are also the only two celestial beings on earth and thus each other's only option when it comes to friendship and relationships. Humans die very quickly by their standards, and if they do not want to be alone for six millennia, well, they only have one person to ask for company.

From the get-go, this dynamic is everything but ideal. It automatically creates a certain emotional dependence since you go to one person with all your emotional and social needs, and no matter how much you love someone, you cannot fulfil all their needs - and you shouldn't have to try!

They are individuals and have their own life separate from the other for the first couple centuries, but after Job at the latest, their lives become incredibly intertwined. When they agree on the arrangement, they only deepen that dependence, and now they have the additional pressure of needing to keep the other safe from both sides.

Crowley quite literally orbits Aziraphale, all the while trying to help him realize that heaven is using him and not what he thinks it is, yet he knows if he pushes too much, he will not just be alone but lonely.

Aziraphale is a stable centre of gravity for Crowley and himself, but he takes Crowley's presence and their push-pull dynamic for granted. He does not want to be lonely either, but he is so good at creating an internal system of cognitive dissonance and compartmentalization that he can hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time. This leads to him refusing to listen to Crowley on any matters related to their respective sides or morality, while also believing that Crowley is fundamentally good and should not have been cast out.

Crowley pushes, Aziraphale steps back, Crowley pushes some more until Aziraphale either finds some twisted internal logic that allows him to do the thing or he lets out his frustration of not being able to do the thing on Crowley, blaming it all on him "tempting" Aziraphale into it in the first place.

This game works when the subject does not matter too much, when it's about food or drinking together or small favours as part of the arrangement. It's not super healthy, but largely without consequence when it is mostly playful.

However, and here is the "but", it stops working when the subject IS important.

When it is about their safety, about humanity's or a few specific human's safety, when it's such an important topic that the outcome will affect both their lives forever - like the apocalypse or Jimbriel.

Crowley wants to keep Aziraphale out of harm's way first and foremost, and for that he needs to be helping him with whatever is threatening him. The problem is that whenever he disagrees with Aziraphale, the angel turns into a five-year-old and starts either manipulating Crowley into agreeing with him or goes off to sulk.

Crowley cannot risk that, not when it's important. So what does he do? The only thing he CAN do, which is ignore his boundaries, ignore his ideals and wants and needs, and do what Aziraphale wants.

Over and over and over and over again.

Aziraphale does not care about that. He does not care about what Crowley wants or doesn't want when he thinks that HIS wants are the correct and more important ones.

The most obvious proof for that is Aziraphale calling Crowley kind/nice.

"Don't call me that," is what Crowley has been telling him LITERALLY since fucking Eden. A demon can get into a lot of trouble for doing the right thing. Aziraphale knows hell punishes him for good deeds, but does that stop him? NO.

"Don't call me that," he says, every. single. time.

And every single time, Aziraphale decides that no, he wants to tell him that so he will, fuck what Crowley wants, my desire is more important.

Fuck that he hates to hear about forgiveness, I want to tell him that sentence so I will.

Fuck that he told me over and over that he hates being compared to the angel he was, I will keep doing it because I want to; I will keep bringing up the fact that he is an evil, bad demon and I am a pure, good, kindhearted angel.

Fuck that Crowley has never lied to me once, I want to lie to him, to his face, so I will.

Fuck our friendship, I will say disgusting, vile, and hurtful things to his face and then never apologize; instead I will wait for him to crawl back to me and say sorry because he always does.

Fuck the fact that I am the one who screwed up, I will pressure Crowley into doing the apology dance because I cannot admit that I'm wrong, fuck what he thinks.

Fuck that he told me he doesn't want to let me drive the Bentley, I will pressure and manipulate him until he gives me the keys and then change the car without permission and then throw a pity party when he asks me to change it back.

Fuck that Crowley is terrified of Gabriel, memory loss or not, I will make fun of his concern and then force him to babysit him.

Fuck Crowley's idea for getting Nina and Maggie together, I will ignore him and instead force a bunch of humans into a non-consensual roleplay because I say so.

Fuck whatever Crowley suggests, I want to do it my way and I expect him to follow me without question.

Fuck that Crowley wants to tell me something important and asked me to listen, I will ignore every single verbal and non verbal sign of discomfort and make decisions for him without asking what HE wants.

Fuck Crowley - unless he does what I want.

I do not believe that Aziraphale does it out of malice, a lot of it is a trauma response, but he still CHOOSES to do it. He still CHOOSES to behave that way, to treat Crowley like that, and unless he starts holding himself accountable, they will not get anywhere, love or no love.

Crowley's choices are either going along with Aziraphale and ignoring his boundaries, or being alone on earth for the rest of his infinite existence. Those are his choices, and the second one isn't really a choice, is it? It's fucked up and horrible, so yeah, going along with him is the only thing he can realistically do.

So, no. I do not want Crowley to take him back. For the first time in their existence, Crowley has set a boundary, put himself first, and refuses to cross it for anyone, including Aziraphale. He had the RIGHT to do that. It was this or being destroyed by heaven. Those were his options, and he chose what he wants, what he needs - not what Aziraphale wants, who is still not fucking listening to him.

What I want is for Aziraphale to realize how horribly he has been treating Crowley for centuries, apologize, and then shut up. What I want is for Crowley to learn that his wants and needs are important, that he is allowed to put himself first, and that allowing Aziraphale to walk all over him has damaged their relationship, not improved it. That he CAN expect Aziraphale to respect him, and if he doesn't, then it is his right to not want to be around him.

I want Aziraphale to get out of heaven's claws and start recovering, and I want Crowley to keep recovering.

I want both of them to get to a point where they can have a healthy relationship with boundaries and mutual respect; it is not a fairy tale ending, and I don't want it to be one.

Love is not enough. Love is never enough.

I want them to be happy, healthy, and together, and to get there, they both need to grow separately for a while. They're both complex, deeply flawed characters, neither of them is good or evil, and that's the point.

That has always been the point.

[dapper-lil-arts]

Thank goodness I've found someone who can't stand Fluttercord. To be honest, I'm not too fond of Discord either. It always struck me as weird that the show seemed determined to sell him as this reformed villain who's changed for the better, and yet he's continued to do the same stuff he did as a villain. And let's not even get into the toxcity of his relationship with Fluttershy. "Keep Calm and Flutter On" is one of the worst episodes that's come out of My Little Pony! It's like this show was desperately trying to make you forget about the moral of "Griffon the Brush-Off".

yeahhhh I'm kind of in a weird place in all this because like. if the intent of the narrative was to explore that being born with cosmic power makes you unfit to wield it and an entirely unsympathetic unempathetic creature, they nailed it. Like, making this guy think hes always the smartest in the room while he's also bitter, petty, easily prone to jealousy and even controlling-- That is exactly what is correct to expect from a being of unlimited power that was born with it. In a sense, it would be clever exploration. ...But it's kind of not that, he's supposed to be one of the good guys and regularly fucks shit up on purpose for everyone, and that's just a weird attitude for the good guys to forgive. Celestia wanted him to use his powers for good, but I struggle to think of one example of him doing so. Even when the changelings took over, his powers were nullified, so he could have been replaced by an earth pony. And then the narrative goes to the thing of "He's only nice now because there's one girl thats cute and pretty that he simps for" And that is just kind of insanely fucked up?! Don't get me wrong, power imbalance can be a fantastic way to explore relationships-- But if I was Fluttershy I'd probs be terrified of having a yandere god that only listens to me because I give him attention, and the moment I decide I want relationships with other people, those people are gonna get turned into piñatas. Okay, tangeant almost over. Maybe this affected even more negatively than most because I watched a show called "Jessica Jones" Where the antagonist is an evil mind controling sadist, BUT, he has a huge crush on the protagonist, and she realises that if she were to sacrifice her own life to be with him, she could essentially trick him, if not convince him to use his insanely powerful powers of coercion to change the world for the better. ...And that's just horrific. Sacrificing your life to be the object of affection of a powerful being just because they might do good things with your presence, not out of their own volition. But hey, that's all subtext, the MLP text is generally lighthearted. (nevermind the finale in which discord literally endangers equestria for shits and giggles, and nevermind the fact that gen 5 proved that without fluttershy Discord would lose his shit and do deranged things to the whole world)

The voice acting is great, the character conceptually is great, but goddamn, why did they think that he's more worth redemption than the literal child? #cozyglowdeservedbetterfromthewriters

[thewebcomicsreview]

hey, just wanted to say thanks for the rec for Cat Girl. it is the best kind of extremely uncomfortable! but it's got me musing on your note about the relevance of the cat girl element itself. I agree that it is depicting an abusive relationship, but it's clear that Peter is completely incapable of perceiving that that's what it is, because he's so far down a deeply screwed hole of ideology. (continued in a sec, hang on-)

- so Peter is the way he is because he has accepted a series of small explanations for the things in his life as seeming accurate, that has stacked up into a deeply dysfunctional worldview that he's too deep into to question at all. so I think the Literal Government Issued Cat Girl is very much a metaphor for a society-level case of "you don't question your own idea of normal". rather than address the root of the problem, a wildly unethical bandaid has been slapped on it. in other words; Peter doesn't question that his ideas are correct, when they're obviously very skewed. but the society that gave him Andi doesn't question that it is normal for people to get this twisted up in an effort to make sense of the world. of COURSE there are internet chuds, people like Peter existing is "normal". and in the process of just accepting that some people are unsalvageable, innocent people like Andi get hurt, and that's just "normal" too. Peter isn't unfixable. it's clear he could be better, WANTS to be better, because he is straight up miserable. but he doesn't consciously know that, or how to start. the decision that some people are just fundamentally screwed up and there's nothing anyone can do about it doesn't just hurt him, it lets him hurt the people around him. Andi is, metaphorically, everyone else being tossed under the bus alongside Peter by the simple act of treating him like he's just inherently a shitty person.

Man, this is a long ask! If I were the author of Cat Girl, I'd be honored to see someone spend so much time thinking about it. But I don't think I agree, exactly.

Peter wants to "be a good person", yes, but his understanding of what a "good person" is is completely self-centered. Him calling Andi "Yua" while talking over her trying to explain that she does in fact have a name is obviously establishing him as a douche, but it's also worth noting that "Yua" is a Japanese name. He's thinking of her as an anime waifu and not a person (or, given the first results when I google "Yua", a porn star, but maybe it's a Breath of Fire 2 reference)

And while he falls into depressive self-loathing after she complains about not having a change of clothes, his internal monologue is entirely about himself. At no point, ever, does Peter even consider that Andi has feelings or is anything other than a reflection on him.

When he locks her in a closet, his most overtly abusive act, he starts crying because he feels bad about what a bad person he is, but even while he's crying he's simultaneously blocking the door, which is a very literal depiction of their relationship. His angsting about being a good person is not his way out of the problem, it is the problem. He never even once considers being nice to Andi because she'll like it, it's entirely "I don't want to force her to have sex with me (because that would make me feel bad), but maybe if I'm nice to her she'll initiate the sex". And he doesn't even care about the sex itself, just the implicit validation of being Confirmed Good By A Girl.

Peter is the way he is because his morality is entirely self-centered. Andi is a way for him to prove his morality to himself (well, try to and fail), not an actual person whose feelings he's ever considered except for if she hates him or not. That's what makes him such an interesting villain, he keeps concocting a story in his head where he's the poor sweet babu trying his best and never stops doing that to let his girlfriend out of the closet.

[tanadrin]

How do you feel about the Gaza war all but ensuring Trump's reelection by destroying Biden politically?

It might; it's certainly hurt his standing with a number of different groups like Arab-Americans. Whether it will translate into a broader erosion of support I can't tell, and there are so many things that are up in the air still about this election (which is over a year away!) that it's kind of a fool's game to try to predict the outcome now.

I'm not sure that Biden's support for the Israeli bombing campaign/ground invasion is "destroying" him politically at all. That would imply he's paying a real cost among the majority of his supporters, but the Democratic party is quite right-wing on the Israel-Palestine issue at the moment. I think Biden is pursuing the policies that he thinks have broad support among his political faction, and unfortunately I think he may be correct in that assessment.

It goes without saying that if Trump or a similar politician was president now, or was president during a similar crisis in the future, he'd probably be even more enthusiastic about endorsing whatever the Israeli government wanted to do. That troubles me, of course. It would be nice if there were options for the American president other than "endorsing mass murder with a sigh of regret" and "endorsing mass murder with cheering and clapping of hands."

I have a lot of worries. I worry that for all the outrage, nothing will fundamentally change--that Israeli politics will (with Netanyahu in charge or someone else) continue to drift to the right, that Oslo will be the high-water mark for hope for a peaceful resolution in my lifetime. More parochially, I worry about the German government cynically exploiting this situation to justify a stronger anti-immigration and anti-refugee policy, hoping to outflank the AfD on this issue; and I worry that Biden will lose in 2024 and the lesson the Democratic party will take from it isn't "we need to be less like a bunch of cynical neoliberal death cultists" and instead "it was clearly our labor policy that was the problem, let's lurch rightward again." I worry that the lessons we took from World War II have faded already, or were always too narrow in scope--that we are sensitive to fascism only if it marches under literal swastikas, that we care about refugees and genocide only if they can be mythologized as the perfect victim, going meekly to their fate (preferably years after the fact, when it is too late to actually do anything about it).

I think there are a lot of good people in the world doing good things, who want to fight for what's right. But this is a really bleak situation, and none of them are in charge. We could use a leader with real courage who can vigorously articulate an expansive moral vision, something beyond massacre-for-massacre retribution with no end in sight.