#rather than trying to rewrite an existing history

[roobylavender]

If I may ask, what exactly is the issue with the Emotional Spectrum? I'm kind of mixed on the execution, but given the elements of the Green Lantern mythos, it seems like a logical extension.

i don’t think the logical extension of there being an emotional spectrum is what bothers me per se (well. with the star sapphires as a notable exception) i am just not really keen on the idea of there being multiple corps in existence bc it undermines why the existence of even one was so ill-advised and prone to abuses in power. modern green lantern lore in general is very unfocused to me like sure there are some cool ideas wrt space adventures and warring factions and different rings lining up with different life experiences but in the end what i read green lantern comics for was the critical political element and commentary and i don’t see that reflected to quite the same effect in the way johns reworks the mythos

[medicinemane]

I may not be good at doing much with activism cause I'm still getting my own shit together, but I'll tell you I remember stuff

Slips my mind more than I like, but I don't forget what's happened to Iranians, to Syrians, I don't forget the Hong Kong protests

I remember how it was, I refuse to follow a new narrative when I was there watching across an ocean

As an American I think I have an obligation to support people fighting for their freedom... kinda one of the things about the American identity that's supposed to mean something, the idea you're supposed to support everyone everywhere in being able to choose how to live their life

So I won't forget what the Iranian government's done, I won't ever let them pretend to be moral after I watched them with blood on their hands, their so called morality police brutalizing people just trying to live, and then fighting to be free

I may not be able to do much, probably don't do as much as I could or should, but I'll never forget and when it's called for I'll never forgive either

Can't follow all the horror in the world, hell, I can hardly keep up with Haiti or Sudan who both deserve support

But I do pay attention, I do see some of what happens, I won't forget and I won't let people feed me a new version of what I've seen

[enarei]

( this is a response to this zine [link]. the intent of this is not to offer some prescriptivist counter-position for only using "transgender", I don't personally have an issue with people using "transsexual" either way, and use it for myself occasionally, I just think the way in which that message is being conveyed is, like, incredibly misleading and reductive at best, and seems like a fantastical rewriting of history to justify transmisogyny at worst )

Focusing on the fact "transsexualism" was coined by Magnus Hirschfeld to argue against it being shunned by parts of the trans community, at least as an umbrella term (in contrast to "transgender"), does a disservice to the history of how the term "transsexual" was actually used in English for most its existence. We can't attribute the decades old controversy surrounding these terms exclusively to the individuals who coined them (neither of which were trans themselves), and ignore the context in which they were actually introduced and applied to the trans community, what relationship they fostered with the people they were trying to describe, and which segments of the population were discouraged from using them.

"Transsexual" emerged, in the English language, as a strongly pathologized term. The concept of the "transvestite" (cross-dresser), which the zine also references, was used in contrast to it, to highlight the difference between patients deemed "trans" enough to be allowed to access hormones and medically transition, and those whose "transness" was deemed merely a temporary ailment, or one deemed not serious enough to intervene. This wasn't a proactive distinction, emerging internally from the community itself, but rather from doctors who started to gatekeep access to the newly created field of medical transition based on arbitrary characteristics, with very little input from the patients they were supposed to be helping

The concept of the "true transsexual", which was simultaneously defined and reified in various typologies over the years, was fundamentally exclusionary in nature. Irrespective of who coined it, the reason "transgender" largely replaced transsexual in scope is because of this, because the category of people it was intended to describe was impossibly insular and stratified in terms of race, class, and sexuality, "transsexual" as a medical label was afforded on the basis of one being allowed to, rather than having a desire to undergo some form of medical transition. To those with the authority to actually prescribe hormones, it was never remotely as inclusive as it is being suggested here, and it should be immediately clear to anyone who has been denied access to any form of trans healthcare in the past.

It's extremely misleading to pretend the reason it is a less common term nowadays is just because it's perceived as "outdated". The very reason "transsexual" is undergoing a revival today is because the original basis for the exclusionary way in which it was employed has lost some significance due to the mechanisms used to enforce it losing relevance in the part of the world where it originated: informed consent practices have become increasingly common in the United States, despite all the setbacks in conservative states, a growing number of trans* people have only known an environment where medical gatekeeping is not as extreme; to most people a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria is no longer seen as a requirement for someone to describe themselves as trans or be addressed with their preferred identity, because transness is no longer seen as an exclusively medical phenomenon, both by medical institutions, and society at large. Therefore, in the English language, in 2023, "transsexual" can ostensibly be used by anyone, regardless of conforming to a medical diagnosis, and regardless of strict conformance to gender roles.

However, this is a very, very recent phenomenon. It's important to remember easy/informed consent to hormones is far from being the norm in the majority of the world, even the English speaking one (or the US for that matter?), and a majority of trans people still have to grapple with performing "true transsexuality" as a fact of life to access trans healthcare, while dealing with incredibly shit doctors who believe all trans people are straight, hate their genitals—and particularly of transfeminine people—that they must pass to begin with to be allowed to transition. None of the examples cited here would be eligible for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria under existing criteria in the vast majority of practices, be allowed to medically transition, and be considered "transsexual" in the sense OP is implying, and this is more pertinent as to why the term has waned in use relative to "transgender" or just "trans" than what the individual who coined it may have originally intended—Magnus Hirschfeld, despite his contributions to trans people in Germany, did not have much influence in how the concept of "transsexuality" continued to be employed after his death, David Oliver Cauldwell, in reintroducing it to English as a "psychopathy", did; Harry Benjamin, Kenneth Zucker and Ray Blanchard, those who contributed to the WPATH, DSM and other bodies used to categorize transness and which types of bodies should be allowed to access gender affirming healthcare, had far more influence in trans people's actual experience of the term.

What many people seem to miss about the term becoming popular again, is that its very use by people who obviously do not conform to its original meaning in medical institutions & academia is "cool" today because it is somewhat ironic in nature: the trannies who top and exclusively fuck other trans women, would never, ever, be allowed to call themselves "transsexual" by any respected sexologist involved in the dissemination of the term in medical journals and across the world, we would be labelled autogynephiles, transvestites, and faggots instead. It's very telling how easy it is for CAFABs to argue people weren't victimized by its use and they only remember it as something "comforting", given they were generally never subjected to the same stringent criteria to be allowed to transition.

Omitting this, to argue instead that "transsexual" was never employed in a harmful way, that people dislike it simply because it's old, imo does a huge disservice to trans people who actually have had to put up with being told they aren't "transsexual" enough to have agency over their bodies.

[inficetegodwottery]

So. Werewolf 5th Edition.

Werewolf 5th edition sucks. A lot.

Edit- I made some errors in my initial edit of this post that were fuelled entirely by being underinformed and almost insensible with anger, disappointment, and anxiety.

Some very informative responses have been made that I intend to incorporate into a much better and less rambling post with those updates and corrections. I'll probably delete this one soon as I type that one together, so folks only see the updated version.

Sorry for any mistakes I made on this old version, again, I was in an extremely poor place mentally and thoroughly dispirited by the total butchering of what was supposed to be a less shitty and mean-spirited version of a setting I care deeply for despite its foundational flaws and 30+ year history of exactly this thing happening.

I'm still very, very angry. But it's important to be angry and correct. This post was not made by someone informed of all the facts, and I intend to correct that.

Paradox Interactive has made the brave decision to reboot the controversial Werewolf the Apocalypse setting entirely rather than try and fix it, and have somehow done a worse job than the games studio that released an RPG book titled an ethnic slur.

It's taken me almost a month since this came out to be anywhere near mentally prepared enough to even collect my thoughts on it.

Man, it is rare to see an edition of ANYTHING that pisses off old players, new players, players who want to keep the lore the same, players who want to change the lore, conservative players, radical players, and even powergamers.

How do you set out with the intention of making an infamously dated and poorly researched/outreached setting LESS uncomfortable and racist from a modern perspective.... and end up with something EVEN MORE racist and uncomfortable, but also suffocatingly tonedeaf, insincere, and deeply sinister and corporate in its erasure of existing issues rather than addressing them whatsoever.

We made the Get of Fenris irredeemably evil because some of them in the past were nazis and also nazis like Germanic mythology, so the viking werewolves are all nazis now.

Okay, I understand why you did that from a modern political perspective even if its kind of heavy hand-

The Native American werewolf tribes have been removed entirely and replaced with American Murican werewolf tribes. Renaming and rewriting them to be more respectful was just too much work! Now they're more inclusive. :)

The Irish werewolf tribe is now the Nature Werewolves tribe, like every other tribe of Werewolves also is, but also stripped completely of celtic origins.

The Red Talons are openly genocidal ecofascist malthusians and somehow NOT IRREDEEMABLY EVIL like the Get of Fenris are.

Also the feminist all women werewolves are no longer all women or even feminist. AND ALSO SOME OF THEM ARE SOCIAL DARWINISTS AND THATS SUPPOSED TO BE A GOOD THING!?!

Also we entirely dropped the themes about how forcing children to be a part of a war they barely understand while also lying to them about the crimes their ancestors committed that led to the current crisis is fucked up and evil.

Now its actually awesome to be a child soldier born into a repressive apocalyptic death cult with a siege mentality and everything is cool about that actually, you're the Good Guys, and no amount of covered-up historic genocides or internal/external bigotry will ever change that! :)

Also we solved the way people were uncomfortable with the idea that werewolf society is transitioning messily from being horrible ableist assholes that discriminated for centuries against those they view as deformed, disabled, or sexual deviants to new generations that don't care about that stuff, by removing disabled werewolves entirely! Problem solved! No more discomfort or moral conundrums! We are the liberal-est!

There's just something so unbelievably fucked up and suspicious about erasing entire minorities from a fictional universe because they were handled poorly in the first edition, rather than talking to writers and outreach specialists FROM the real world equivalents to those minorities to try and rewrite them.

Don't worry, we removed the group the setting was bigoted against! Problem solved! Just remove the minority!

I've written my own post on why the Metis/Crinos-born should be renamed and probably rewritten, but as a severely disabled individual with multiple hereditary disabilities that severely impact my QoL, outright removing disabled characters in a work of fiction because the prejudice other characters showed them in-universe made people uncomfortable makes me want to tear out someone's throat with my teeth.

Sure, completely remove my ability to play disabled a character fighting back against prejudice and bigotry, rather than rewrite the most uncomfortable aspects of YOUR FUCKING PORTRAYAL OF THOSE CHARACTERS to make it more clear who the sympathetic one is supposed to be.

It's just so unbelievably cowardly and whinging and wretched.

So fuck it, I guess!

Fuck the deeply applicable themes of being born into a well-intentioned but deeply flawed and bigoted society, and trying to create the better world your parents always told you your ancestors fought for, while dealing with the fact that your world is built on mass graves those ancestors helped fill.

Fuck a game that deals with intergenerational trauma and the ethical hellscape that is a highly religious society devoted to the very same ideals it often violates just to win fights against the enemies it created through its own arrogance and prejudice.

Fuck a game that lets you play someone born different, born strange and sickly, bouncing constantly between people who pity you and people who view you as subhuman, before finally finding the people, the family who love and accept and fight alongside you for a world that has never accepted you, but WILL FUCKING KNOW YOUR NAME.

That's not relevant to the real world at all!

There are no kids born in deeply flawed and hypocritical societies, who grew up on stories of the glorious future their society would create, forced then to reconcile the hopeful dreams of a better world with the comprehensive list of horrific things done in the name of that future.

There are no children born confused and alone in their navigation of the maze that is past atrocities, ethnic conflicts, religious prejudice and dogma, or modern propaganda attempting to erase the histories of all of those things.

There are no disabled teens who spent their lives believing they didn't belong in the world, kept going only by the connections they forged with other outsiders and people who fought back against the kind of wretched bigotry that suffocates children to death, who found homes and families they could trust outside the pissant communities they were born into.

Apparently those people don't need a game! They don't need to explore those feelings!

Just throw some more nazis in, so we can pretend we care about social issues or understand the redeeming threads of a deeply flawed gameline, ostensibly so we market it to leftist youngsters, but while we also erase the entire point of a game WHICH IS ALL ABOUT BEING PUNKASS YOUNGSTERS DESPERATELY TRYING TO FIND THE REDEEMING THREADS OF A DEEPLY FLAWED AND PREJUDICED SOCIETY THAT CONSTRAINS THEM, FINDING A WAY TO REBEL AGAINST BOTH THE EVILS OF THE RACIST BASTARDS WHO RAISED THEM AND THE POMPOUS SHITHEADS WHO WANT TO DESTROY THE WORLD OUT OF GREED.

No! We want a squeaky clean, sterile white game that AmericanTM parents can be proud of their kids for playing! A marketable game, that advertisers will gladly pay Revenue to put their products in! Play the good guys, everyone! You're the good guys! Be a big werewolf UwU!

Don't worry about historical atrocities or the flaws of the society that raised you! That's Pentex propaganda!

Fighting bad guys means you can't do anything bad yourself! The Emperor told me so! Deus Gaia Vult!

A hollow, performative, offensive jizzstain that should've been scrapped in its crib. I have no idea how this edition got past a quality assurance team.

Hell I have no idea how it got past a legal team, given the number of real peoples' likenesses they used without permission.

Devoid of artistic integrity or merit.

[electronickingdomfox]

"Killing Time" review

Novel from 1985, by Della Van Hise. Published right after Ishmael, it involves again time-tampering. Only this time, the villains (here Romulans) are successful in their attempts to rewrite history, so most of the novel is set in an alternate universe. The basic difference is that, in this new universe, the Federation was founded by Vulcans instead of humans, so Spock is the starship captain, while Kirk is a mere Ensign with a troubled past.

The story presents some interesting concepts, like the flow of time and history being somehow ingrained in the very fabric of the universe, so no matter the alterations, it tends to revert to its original course, or rip itself apart (a concept which, in some shape or another, was also present in The Entropy Effect and the previous novel). There's also much discussion about "alternate selves", paths not taken in life, and whether these versions of ourselves still exist somewhere and can be reached through dreams. Sometimes, the "mechanics" of time-alteration are a bit iffy, or poorly explained. For example, it seems very unlikely that people like Uhura or Scotty would have the same exact post in the alternate universe (shouldn't they be replaced by Vulcans?). And since it's explained that travelling at warp drive makes one immune to the time alterations, why aren't more starships (the Enterprise included) spared from the effects? Anyway, this is just to be nitpicky; after all, the story doesn't require much more suspension of disbelief than other TOS novels.

Other than a bit of purple prose here and there, I didn't find the writing bad. And characterization is pretty fine. The portrait of Kirk as a rebellious Ensign is a curious precedent for the 2009 movie Kirk, and his grief is quite moving. Spock and McCoy's interactions are spot-on. And so far, this novel has the best, most complex portrayal of the Romulan Commander (from "The Enterprise Incident"), as a cunning, powerful woman, and yet vulnerable in her love/hate for Spock. It's perhaps the latter who comes off most out-of-character; at times Spock seems a bit too emotional and soft, though not to the point of being unrecognizable.

On the other hand, the structure is a bit clumsy. A good chunk of the book keeps going over and over the effects that history alteration has on the mind, turning people crazy, or inducing dreams about the original reality. Since the Romulan scheme is fully revealed quite early on, these chapters don't have all that much interest: we already know what's happening, we already know why people are having those dreams... (So no, I'm not interested in the content of Ensign Kirk's dreams, since I already know what's there; stop trying to put him in that vid-scan thing, McCoy). However, the plot takes off once the characters finally decide to do something about all this mess, and get involved in further Romulan schemes. The later chapters, thus, are more interesting, and there are some pretty emotive scenes towards the ending.

In conclusion, this isn't one of the best novels, though it has its high points. It would have been rather unremarkable among the long string of TOS novels, were it not for the controversies surrounding its publication. For those, see the "Spirk Meter" at the end.

Spoilers under the cut:

The Enterprise is patrolling the Romulan Neutral Zone, when several crewmembers start experiencing disturbing dreams. A common theme in those, is seeing Spock as the Captain, in a somehow changed Enterprise. While Kirk sees himself as a mere Ensign. There are also some rumors about an experiment going on in the Romulan Empire...

After an abrupt change, the next chapter presents a totally different reality. Kirk is now an Ensign recently assigned to the "VSS ShiKahr", commanded by Spock. Having been in prison for the murder of an Academy teacher (of which he has no recollection), Kirk was subjected to the Talos Device, which left him having frequent nightmares and addicted to drugs. He was given the choice between a rehabilitation colony, or forceful draft into the Fleet. Anyway, he has little interest in serving in a starship, or life in general, since he knows he'll never get his own command due to his past. His life is made even more miserable by his bully roomate Donner. Soon thereafter, strange phenomena are experienced by some crewmembers. Spock gets fleeting glimpses of another reality, that leave him dizzy. And one crewman succumbs to madness, and tries to blow up the entire ship, after sabotaging the matter/antimatter valves. After performing some scans on the insane man, McCoy discovers that his brain has two separate sets of brain waves, as if they belonged to two different persons altogether. Further cases of insanity throughout the galaxy are suspected, when a Vulcan Admiral orders the ShiKahr to invade the Romulan Empire in a suicidal mission. Spock, of course, stalls the order as long as he can.

The narrative changes focus then, to present what's going on in the Romulan ship "Ravon", where Commander Tazol remembers his recent confrontation with her wife Sarela. She was strongly opposed to the Praetor's plans to interfere in Earth's past, and assassinate three key figures in the founding of the Federation, so it never comes to be. Sarela is afraid the plan will be a total failure, like all the other plans of the Praetor to tamper with timelines. Nonetheless, Tazol is a complete blockhead, and proceeds with the plan. The idea is receiving the Praetor aboard (a mysterious, hooded figure that only his close advisors have ever seen face to face), and then enter warp drive to avoid the history-altering effects. That way, everyone aboard the Ravon will keep intact their memories of the so-called First History, along with its records, to later compare them with the situation in the Second History (the altered timeline). It turns out that, as Sarela expected, Second History isn't all it's cracked up to be... The Federation wasn't founded on Earth, true, but in its place, a similar Alliance of planets was started in Vulcan. The Romulan Empire has hardly benefitted from this, and now its enemies are mostly the tough Vulcans, instead of humans. The Praetor orders Sarela to his quarters, for a private discussion of the situation, much to Tazol's chagrin.

Meanwhile in the ShiKahr, McCoy has been performing vid-scans (a kind of visual recording of people's dreams) on several persons. Some of them show dreams of a "golden-haired Captain". While others show disturbing "negative scans". McCoy is a complete genius, because from this flimsy evidence he concludes, correctly, that reality has been shifted. And those that have ended in different positions in life, will become maladjusted to the changes, and eventually turn mad. Also, those showing negative scans now, are persons who are already dead in the original timeline (and this opens up an interesting ethical dilemma when reverting the changes, since it will mean instant death for those persons; sadly, this isn't further explored). For his part, crazy Admiral is still doing his crazy thing, and now orders the ShiKahr on a diplomatic mission, on a planet of savages that weren't expecting diplomats at all. The landing party is attacked, Donner is killed (good for him) and Spock is injured.

Cutting back to the Ravon, Sarela discovers that the Praetor is actually... a woman! Something that's not allowed in the Romulan Empire, thus the need for the permanent hood in public (and it also explains why all the Praetor slaves are now pretty boys...). Automatically, Sarela's respect for the Praetor goes up tenfold (huh, wasn't the Praetor a complete idiot a second ago, with all those stupid plans? The fact she's a woman should change nothing!). Well, as it turns out, the stupid plans weren't hers, but came from her father. She just went ahead with them because it was too late to back out, and also because she still expects some good to come out of it. Thea (the Praetor) explains that she's going to use Spock to sign a peace treaty with the Alliance, and introduce Surak's teachings among Romulans, to further the cause of peace (doesn't sound like a very evil plan, if you ask me). By kidnapping Kirk, she'll blackmail Spock into doing all this, while disguised with the hood as if he were the real Praetor. She still holds a grudge towards Kirk and Spock, since in First History, those two stole a cloaking device from her, revealing thus that she's the Romulan Commander from the series. Thea suspects that the Vulcans will, sooner or later, discover the time tampering and revert it, but some effects of Second History (like the peace treaty) will be indelibly embedded in the universe, anyway. Sarela agrees to help her, specially after she receives her own pretty boy slave.

For his part, Spock instructs Christopher Pike (here still a happy captain of a ship) to stop the crazy Admiral, before he causes all-out war. After this, the ShiKahr intercepts a Romulan shuttle, apparently crippled and adrift, and takes it aboard. The only passengers, apparently, are Thea and Sarela, and they're taken into custody. However, hibernating inside the shuttle, and thus not detected as life forms, were Thea's slaves. They wake up a while later, disguise themselves as Vulcan guards, and order Kirk to the briefing room. Sensing a trap, Kirk attacks them, but the Romulans subdue and kidnap both Kirk and his new roomate: Richardson. They depart in the Ravon, and leave the two hostages stranded in a desolate planet, with just basic survival gear. Spock learns about this too late, so he has no alternative but cooperating with Thea. Secretly, though, he plans to infiltrate the Romulan Empire to get the secret of time travel (unknown to the Alliance), and the details to revert the timeline.

Spock, dressed as the Praetor, McCoy, half-dressed as his...slave, and S'Parva, some kind of dog-girl with telepathic powers, accompany Thea back to the Ravon. Spock, as many other people, is also succumbing to madness, which in his case manifests as pon farr. He covers it up as a simple infection, and requests the medical assistance of slave-McCoy to create a distraction. The moment is seized by S'Parva to get inside the computer system. Later, Spock reviews the data, learning about the slingshot effect to travel through time. Both Spock and S'Parva receive also telepathic transmissions from Kirk and Richardson, respectively (S'Parva having formed previously a mind link with Richardson through an experiment). This way, they learn the location of the hostages. Nonetheless, Spock ends up losing consciousness due to the worsening of his symptons. Thea, who still loves Spock in some way, forms a temporary bond with him, and helps him out of pon farr (that is, they fuck).

Once in the Praetor's palace in Romulus, Thea learns about all the incidents of madness happening in the Empire. And finally, after a lengthy conversation, Spock manages to convince her of the necessity of reversing the changes. If this goes on, soon half the galaxy will be destroyed by madness. Spock regrets that he can't stay with her, as his present persona will disappear along Second History. Nonetheless, he will bring Kirk along to the past, to restore the timeline; that way, both of them will keep some remembrance of this alternate history, and will later use their influence to realize Thea's plans for peace. Thea relents, and after rescuing Kirk and Richardson, they make a slingshot maneuver in the shuttle, arriving in Earth's past. However, Thea leaves them to their own devices from now onwards.

Having arrived in San Francisco a while before the assassination, Kirk, Spock and Richardson enter the conference room, where the three politicians are due to make a speech. Kirk creates a distraction by revealing Spock's alien features to the surprised humans, and this prompts the assassins to reveal themselves. In the commotion, everyone escapes to safety (including the politicians), while Kirk and Spock confront the assassins. These are actually human-looking androids, and after a difficult fight, they destroy them, though Richardson is killed in the process. Then Spock takes out a disruptor to destroy the android remains (his excuse for not using the disruptor earlier being that Kirk needed to reassert himself as Captain by getting into a fist-fight, which is... a bullshit excuse, really). After this, Kirk and Spock (also mortally wounded in the fight) go to the rooftop. And there's a pretty sad scene, where both wait for their current selves to disappear in the reality shift, thus dying in a sense.

Everything is back to normal, though Kirk, Spock and Richardson keep having dreams about their alternate lives. Kirk also finds a ring that belonged to his other self, and reflects with melancholy about the fate of "Ensign Kirk". After a mind-meld with Spock, both of them get a clearer view about the events of Second History, and decide to cooperate with Thea to achieve peace. In the end, Kirk leaves the ring behind, knowing it will disappear and return to its real owner, somewhere.

Spirk Meter: 10/10*. Now, this novel is generally regarded as the K/S novel par excellence. Is it very slashy? Yes. But is it something completely in a different league? Well, no. Most of the Marshak & Culbreath novels are as slashy as this one (and The Price of the Phoenix definitely more). Hell, a good deal of this stuff is just taken from TOS episodes, and while in "Amok Time" Spock got out of pon farr by rolling around with Kirk, here he uses the more conservative approach of sex with a woman (and Kirk is totally okay with that, not showing the slightest jealousy). I suspect that most of this fame is simply due to the novel's publication history, and not to the actual content. I've encountered two versions of this incident. The most popular one tells of readers being so scandalized by the novel's first edition, that some higher-up (even Roddenberry himself) had to intervene, and censor the novel for subsequent printings. Della Van Hise's version (presented in several fanzine articles, that you can read in sites like Fanlore) tells a much less exciting story: Basically, the editor made some cuts here and there, she approved of the changes, and then sent the novel for printing. There was an error, and the unedited version was printed instead. When the publishing house noticed it, they corrected the mistake in the second edition, which was the one supposed to see the light from the beginning. In my opinion, Van Hise's version sounds more realistic. I have difficulty believing that the same public who received Triangle a couple years before without batting an eyelid, would start a riot for this. Let alone that Gene-t'hy'la-means-lover-Roddenberry would give two shits about it (was he even that involved in the franchise by 1985?). Apart from this, the edits seem very cursorily: a slight toning-down of some affectionate scenes, cutting curse words here and there, removal of partial nudity (even in medical settings that have absolutely nothing to do with K/S), etc. They really don't look like the kind of heavy censorship of someone set against K/S after a scandal.

Now, for the slash elements (I read the first edition, so this is based on that version): Kirk and Spock are quite affectionate, often reassuring each other with a touch on the shoulder or the hand, or confiding things that they wouldn't trust to anybody else. The mental link between them (which is a staple in many novels and comics, and thus not that remarkable) is given, however, a special relevance, with them often using it to transmit warm feelings, and even communicating over great distances. The link is so strong, that some effects of Spock's pon farr start affecting Kirk. And when the reality first shifts into the alternate universe, Kirk experiences great anguish, upon feeling the link broken. It's also noteworthy that other characters that share this kind of link (Spock and Thea; Richardson and S'Parva) are in romantic relationships of sorts. Apart from the permanent link, Spock performs several mind-melds with Kirk. The first time, when he finds the Ensign sleeping in the garden and suffering nightmares, he attempts a meld to soothe his mind (similar to "Requiem for Methuselah") but Kirk rejects it. Spock, who's already starting to go crazy, attacks Jim then, and forces a mind-meld with him. The fight and Kirk's submission are vaguely homoerotic, and this was by far the most censored passage in the book. The second meld happens when they're both waiting for "death", Spock resting his head on Kirk's shoulder, and the Vulcan uses it to bring Kirk to the other reality along him. The third meld was already covered in the plot summary. Apart from this, when Spock receives glimpses of his previous life, he misses a companion by his side, once wondering if the man he sees there is his t'hy'la. And when Kirk visits his quarters at night to get his medication, Spock interviews him while still shirtless, and understands that he can't keep secrets from him. But perhaps the most blatant examples aren't what Kirk and Spock actually do, but what other characters think about them. Thea is unreasonably jealous of Kirk, and kidnaps him with the belief that Spock will do anything to rescue him, since he's his treasured human and dearest to him in all the combined universes. Actually, this isn't the real reason why Spock complies with Thea, but he agrees with her assessment that "James Kirk is even deeper in your blood than Vulcan". Richardson, as well, has the impression that Kirk and Spock belong together in any universe.

Although this is definitely a K/S novel, there's also a bit of Spones, and it's kind of hilarious that it went totally unnoticed by censors, considering the sexual element is more blatant, compared with the rather spiritual relationship of Kirk and Spock. For starters, when Kirk is first having dreams about Spock as a Captain, McCoy dismisses it as just a typical fantasy of wanting to be under Spock's authority (which totally seems like McCoy projecting there, since that's not the real cause at all). Once Spock gets the first symptoms of pon farr, McCoy is very stubborn about going with him to Romulus to treat his illness, even if he has to be his slave to do so (and as previously seen, those slaves are also the Praetor's lovers). And when Spock gets worse, McCoy confronts him about being so proud and rejecting something that should be pleasurable, pointing out that many people would want to sleep with him... while blushing himself. Finally, McCoy refuses to leave Thea alone with Spock to do her thing, and has to be brought out basically by force (like, what was his alternate plan?). It doesn't help either that McCoy is said to care for Spock more than professional ethics should have permitted.

Also incredibly explicit is Kirk's relationship with Richardson. Kirk comes out from the shower totally naked in front of him. And later they both swim naked in a pond, while Kirk experiences the heat of pon farr through his link. Not enough? Well, Richardson often calls Jim "Juliet", while Kirk calls him "Romeo". Yup.

*A 10 in this scale is the most obvious spirk moments in TOS. Think of the back massage, "You make me believe in miracles", or "Amok Time" for example.

[ilikemicrowaves]

WHY CARNELIAN SHOULD HAVE LIVED

@whymori @kiwiwisdeathday

Character recap for people who don't analyze Carnelian:

Carnelian was a skywing who attended JMA for only 3 days before being killed in an accidental explosion in the history cave done by Sora of the mudwings. Formerly she was a child soldier under Queen Ruby and claimed she would kill Scarlet herself if she was alive. In Moon Rising, Moon listend to her thoughts about how she seen education as a punishment and hoped that Queen Ruby would let her drop out to become a general and protect the palace, again proving her loyalty to Ruby. She had "blood-soaked dreams" and judged dragons depending on there battle skills. She didn't like dragons or making friends. She earned Umbers respect after she realized they had possibly fought in the war, side by side. Although her timid and harsh personality, she was actually really insecure about herself and thought the dragons around her found her stupid as well as her life goals.

♡—–——☆°●°☆————♡

This, is a type of character I would want to read about. I was so excited to learn about Carnelian reading Moon Rising, each page she got I enjoyed every bit of it and couldn't wait to see how her and Moon's relationship would turn out. Until I got to the cave explosion announcing her and Bigtails death... Like, come on Tui, you can't just write a really interesting character who's character arc would be really cool and then toss them aside! Moon Rising is still great, one of my favorite books. I just really wish Carnelian was kept alive or atleast longer more than not even half a book.

If I could rewrite the cave scene, yes, I would explode Carnelian but Instead of killing her off, I would make it to where she was extremely injured. Thus, making her disabled, and this would be good for wof to have more disabled representations in the series because there's only like 2 disabled characters out of the hundreds of existing ones.

When Darkstalker is manipulating Moon when she was trying to sleep, he claims he had a vision of Carnelian carelessly killing Kinkajou because she was being to annoying. Which yes, this could be true, but has anyone considered that maybe Darkstalker was lying? He could've only said this to manipulate Moon that her powers are a gift instead of a curse. Speaking of Moonwatcher, her relationship with Carnelian would have been really interesting to watch playout.

Carnelian to other dragons is a rude, narracistic dragon, when really she's aware she is not as smart as others, and has created this sort of mask to hid it by fighting and picking on others to not just appear confident and bigger, but to make her feel better about herself. No other dragons know this, but Moonwatcher. Moonwatcher is a kind dragon, so most likely she would try to be nice to Carnelian instead of assuming she's just a mean person.

And Carnelian doesn't see Moon as a weak dragonet, she was actually impressed by her hunting skills when she caught that goat.

But Moonwatcher isn't the only dragon who would be willing to approach Carnelian, Umber. Umber was confident enough to point out the fact that he thought him and Carnelian had fought in war together, atleast trying to appear friendly and say, "hey, i recognize you, maybe we could be mutuals." When cleary she was acking grumpy and angry to try and repel everyone from approaching her. This simple action of Umber's made Carnelian realize that she may have allies here.

I wouldn't expect Umber and Carnelian to immediately become friends but rather Carnelian finding comfort that she has an alley. Maybe even warming up to him and putting effort to hang out with him and Turtle. It's even shows in the books before her death that she was slightly trying to be friendly with others. When Winter was asking Moon about Bandit, Carnelian joked that he might be delicious, and it's unclear if she was serious. But, in this scene she is more social when we first met her, not pushing or name-calling dragons like before. So this could indicate that she is trying to be a tiny bit friendly but also still stern. I'm not saying that her and Winter would become absolute best friends but have a mutual respect for each other in some way.

And WHY is nobody talking about how Carnelian and Peril have a past?? Like, HELLO?? When Peril arrives at the school Carnelian is convinced that Peril would never harm her. And Tui just leaves it at that without ANY explanation? Where they friends? Rivals? LOVERS? I highly doubt that last but it gives potential to all the Carnelian x Peril fans out there so many ideas (honestly, I've only seen like 3 people that ship this and I hope you guys are having a nice dinner eating your crumbs.((do you guys even have ship name for them?))

The amount of fanfic ideas I have in my head for a Carnelian lives au is insane tho, and I have many doodles of all of them together. I just want to read and look at content where the school was ran properly and that nobody died. Happy trauma babies learning trust and the magic of friendship :D but if anybody would like to see content of the Carnelian lives au, I am in progress of writing a fanfic right now for it, so stay tuned my Carnelian lovers.

[eddiediazismyhusband]

One Fan’s Thoughts on 9-1-1 Season 7

(fair warning this is about to be a long ass rant post so buckle up; if you, like me, get anxiety over speculation and discussion of the show, this may not be the post for you to read… but i need to get my thoughts out there because i have kept them bottled up for so long that it is taking a mental toll on me.)

there’s something so gutwrenching about laying awake in bed thinking about how you have been the closest you’ve ever been to actually seeing a queer ship you’ve stuck with for six years actually going canon just to be hit with an immensely overwhelming sense of doubt because every time the story presents a natural path to develop in that direction, the writers completely veer off in an insanely different direction despite constantly trying to push this narrative of “if it goes there naturally” while ignoring the plethora of times it already has gone there naturally but has been passed over for some insanely far-fetched plotline that contradicts points that have been set up in the past…

i’m not trying to put a dampner on things or worry anyone, and like i mentioned in my previous post i am NOT closing on buddie, but i still can’t help but feel cinical and pessimistic about it when it feels like Tim is just blatantly baiting us at this point. Like at times it doesn’t even feel like he’s actually open to exploring buddie when he is constantly retconning his own storylines from previous seasons, and making excuses every time he deliberately chooses to ignore the countless number of chances that crop up in the story, instead deciding that because he wants to redo hitchcock he’s going to rewrite the history he created in order to fit a convoluted plotline that borders on farse just to a) not give fans what they have been begging for for years, b) shoehorn in his vertigo fanfiction, c) stir up drama rather than actually giving us something pointing in a positive direction to combat the 5000 other depressing plotlines he’s trying to cram into a 10 episode season.

i really thought tim was going to bring back the old vibe we had before KR took over and messed things up, but so far this season has felt like a jam-packed rushed mess that resembles a middle schooler’s first forray into a wattpad angst fic, and it’s disheartening to have sat with the show since the first season just to see it fall off so hard w s6 b, only to rebuild hope that things might go back to normal w s7, just for it to spiral even further into jump-the-shark territory.

And this is not just about buddie. There have been numerous times this season that have just been recycled plot points from previous seasons rather than something new and fresh, simply for the sake of melodrama. Old plotlines that had been seemingly finished are being rehashed and recontextualized out of nowhere, characters are getting entire traits and development completely rewritten and replaced with something almost unrecognizable to newer fans, there has been very little positivity within the narrative to allow us to breathe between traumatic moments, and the few positive moments we have received have been lukewarm at best, and have done nothing but cause derision and hate to be spread throughout the fandom.

PR for this season has been a mess. At times it feels like Oliver Stark is the only actor who exists on the show, and that Buck is somehow the titular character— not that Buck’s coming out storyline is not important, it absolutely is, but the entire season should not be focused solely on him just because of a two episode arc that honestly didn’t tell us anything new about him besides canonically confirming what we’ve known to be true since the second season.

We have cast members stirring up drama by indulging fans through paid video responses, and cast members on live getting asked to weigh in on fandom drama that they honestly have no reason to be involved in. We have news outlets constantly being approved by the PR team to ask questions about a popular ship to bait viewers into watching the show when there has not been any concrete evidence either way of whether or not they actually plan to go there, dragging things out for another season when they have no confirmation yet in whether or not they will get a 9th season (and if they do, probably coming up with some other bullshit reason to drag things out), confirming that certain plot points were planned to happen in the past but for some reason now they are like “but that’s not what we’re doing anymore so you have to live with present and be happy with what you get.”

There is no reason why 6 years can’t be a long enough time for a slow burn. There is no reason for characters to be given increasingly convoluted arcs that callback to plotlines that have been otherwise nonexistent for years at this point. There is no reason to drag fans of a ship along just because you’re too scared to lose they’re viewership rather than just flat out saying “no we aren’t ever going to do it” or actually committing to it one of the hundreds of times the story opens a path to it.

No, the choices made this season were not “the only way” we could have been given the same dramatic beats. The choices made have not been some sort of end all be all to the story with no other possible outcome. Tim did not need to send the show off the rails the way he has just because he wants drama. Yes it’s a drama show, but there also need to be moments to breathe. Yes it’s a drama show, but that doesn’t mean you can’t let characters be happy. Yes it’s a drama show, but that doesnt mean you have to fuck up the narrative every time it starts going in the direction of something the fans have begged for for years just because you don’t want to give it to them.

It’s disappointing to see how careless they are being with things this season when previous seasons the actors and writers have been so cautious about what was said about buddie. now we have every interview mentioning buddie in some way, yet we only get told “idk 🤷” and see nothing concrete in the story to firmly hint one way or the other. It’s disappointing when you start feeling like you are being dragged along because a corporation knows that ship baiting won’t ever actually backfire/have a negative affect on them, so it ends up being a lose-lose situation for the fandom.

Maybe it’s because I have been burned too msny times by TV shows in the past, but nothing about this season or the PR surrounding it has given me faith that Tim or the writers actually care about anything other than viewership. Otherwise we would be seeing clear signs of the growing seeds of buddie, but so far all we’ve seen is the same framing choices that we’ve seen in every other season that are being made to deliberately keep buddie fans drawn in and theorizing when the writers have most likely already thrown out any plans that there might have ever been for buddie to go canon.

Mostly, I am disappointed in the fact that Oliver has been so heavily involved in pushing buddie speculation after being so careful to not lead people on in the past- i know that some believe that this was a sign that buddie is coming and he knows it is, but as the season draws to a close it feels more like he is just showing where his loyalty lies even though he knows the show isn’t going to take it there. I am not blaming oliver for buddie not going canon or trying to insinuate that he is queerbaiting in any way, but i can’t help but feel like i wouldn’t be so dejected about the way this season is going if he hadn’t started interacting with and sharing buddie content before any sort of confirmation was given.

now do not get me wrong i absolutely ADORE oliver and i am not in any way trying to attack him or speak against him in any way, I am simply saying that his sudden vocal support and campaigning for buddie is only going to add on to my disappointment in heaps if they don’t make buddie canon, especially after JLH said Tim made Madney happen bc she asked for it, but he still hasn’t made any sort of definitive move towards buddie after the same amount of time.

and lastly my disappointment also lies with the fact that ryan’s acting ability has been wasted on this crackfic plot… ryan is one of the most underutilized dramatic actors on the show, and the fact that the only serious arc he has gottne this season isn’t even that serious because of how out of character and preposterous it is is really disappointing. ryan deserves better, and eddie deserves better, and it is disappointing seeing him acting his entire heart and sole out in a plotline that makes his character out to be the bad guy in the situation when this is something eddie would never do under normal circumstances. Ryan’s talent has once again only been used to show trauma and this time it wasn’t even trauma that feels natural within the story, and especially after his recent interview it disappoints me that we are once again reiterating that eddie is somehow mentally unstable enough to have an emotional affair with a woman he knows nothing about just because she looks like shannon. Eddie has simultaneously had so much yet so little development, and seeing some of the theories of where his character is going in the context of ryan saying s8 will be a “reset” for eddie doesn’t fill me with excitement over where his story is going and actually makes me worried that we are going to see regression rather than progress for the sake of drama… i just don’t want to see eddie’s character revamped to a point where he has lost all of his development from the past 6 seasons just because Tim wanted to turn eddie’s plotline into a melodramatic telenovela.

Anyway, sorry for the rant— maybe it’s the stuff that’s going on in my personal life combined with the fear of getting played by yet another network tv show ship baiting that’s making me feel this way, but this season has left me feeling so pessimistic and cynical about the show as a whole, but mostly about buddie and it hurts. I love both of these characters dearly, and i want them to finally understand that everything they’ve ever needed in life they have in each other, but it feels like ever time we are on the verge, another wild card is played and it’s getting old atp.

i don’t say any of this to cause an argument. i don’t say any of this to poke and prod at people. i say this as someone who has loved this show and given it 7 years of my life who feels like my experience as a fan is being shat on in favor of melodrama rather than thoughtful storytelling… not to say there haven’t been really good moments this season, but overall, it has really soured things for me the way Tim has handled/taken the narrative in many ways, and I don’t know if I will be able to watch season 8 until i see concrete evidence that things will be better. i am not kidding when i say this takes the spot as my least favorite season after season 6, regardless of if we get any hope or not next ep… and that is what upsets me.

[superectojazzmage]

Today’s issue of Fantastic Four is one of the best summations of Doctor Doom as a character in the entirety of Marvel Comics’ history, because after learning that Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman’s kids have ended up lost in time, his immediate response is to barge over to the FF gloat about how he will save Valeria and Franklin and prove himself superior to them once and for all. Then he goes back in time to try and rewrite history so they’re never in danger…

And he fails.

Miserably.

Every rewrite of history fails horribly to achieve the result he wants, usually because instead of telling the FF what he’s doing or what’s happening, he just shows up and kills everything in sight that could be a threat. When he repeatedly fails to alter the initial incident, he tries to stop the incident from happening in the first place. He fucks it up again repeatedly, either creating worse timelines where the kids die horribly or improved timelines that he immediately undoes because the good timelines are ones where he doesn’t get everything he wants and he refuses to accept that he could ever be in the wrong. Rather then change his approach, he just goes back further and tries to erase the Fantastic Four from ever existing in the first place while still ensuring the kids are born somehow… and he fails again because it just creates a timeline where Galactus eats Earth because the FF aren’t there to stop him. At that point Doom just snaps and starts repeatedly killing all the superheroes over and over again, and it still fails to get what he wants.

Doom comes to three conclusions. Either he is God’s most favorite creation (obviously) or the original timeline was already the optimized version created by his own future self. He rejects these hypotheses, the former because Doom thinks he’s better than God, the latter because “this surely isn’t the best I could manage”. The third and final conclusion Doom reaches is that he made a mistake trying to improve upon “perfection” and that his present self was already optimized by the fact that he is Doom, so he goes back to the exact moment where he began all this time travel shit and sabotages himself, with the time traveling Doom getting erased from history while present day Doom just stands there baffled as to why he isn’t time traveling away.

Then the FF beat up Present Doom like always, and he throws a temper tantrum and flies off while screaming at them about how he totally still won and also they better save Valeria and Franklin or else he’ll come back. He never realizes that he thwarted himself.

It is the funniest fucking thing to read in the strangest way possible and it perfectly explains who Doctor Doom is.

[dailyanarchistposts]

F.7 How does the history of “anarcho”-capitalism show that it is not anarchist?

Of course, “anarcho”-capitalism does have historic precedents and “anarcho”-capitalists spend considerable time trying to co-opt various individuals into their self-proclaimed tradition of “anti-statist” liberalism. That, in itself, should be enough to show that anarchism and “anarcho”-capitalism have little in common as anarchism developed in opposition to liberalism and its defence of capitalism. Unsurprisingly, these “anti-state” liberals tended to, at best, refuse to call themselves anarchists or, at worse, explicitly deny they were anarchists.

One “anarcho”-capitalist overview of their tradition is presented by David M. Hart. His perspective on anarchism is typical of the school, noting that in his essay anarchism or anarchist “are used in the sense of a political theory which advocates the maximum amount of individual liberty, a necessary condition of which is the elimination of governmental or other organised force.” [“Gustave de Molinari and the Anti-statist Liberal Tradition: Part I”, pp. 263–290, Journal of Libertarian Studies, vol. V, no. 3, p. 284] Yet anarchism has never been solely concerned with abolishing the state. Rather, anarchists have always raised economic and social demands and goals along with their opposition to the state. As such, anti-statism may be a necessary condition to be an anarchist, but not a sufficient one to count a specific individual or theory as anarchist.

Specifically, anarchists have turned their analysis onto private property noting that the hierarchical social relationships created by inequality of wealth (for example, wage labour) restricts individual freedom. This means that if we do seek “the maximum of individual liberty” then our analysis cannot be limited to just the state or government. Thus a libertarian critique of private property is an essential aspect of anarchism. Consequently, to limit anarchism as Hart does requires substantial rewriting of history, as can be seen from his account of William Godwin.

Hart tries to co-opt of William Godwin into the ranks of “anti-state” liberalism, arguing that he “defended individualism and the right to property.” [Op. Cit., p. 265] He, of course, quotes from Godwin to support his claim yet strangely truncates Godwin’s argument to exclude his conclusion that ”[w]hen the laws of morality shall be clearly understood, their excellence universally apprehended, and themselves seen to be coincident with each man’s private advantage, the idea of property in this sense will remain, but no man will have the least desire, for purposes of ostentation or luxury, to possess more than his neighbours.” In other words, personal property (possession) would still exist but not private property in the sense of capital or inequality of wealth. For Godwin, “it follows, upon the principles of equal and impartial justice, that the good things of the world are a common stock, upon which one man has a valid a title as another to draw for what he wants.” [An Enquiry into Political Justice, p. 199 and p. 703] Rather than being a liberal Godwin moved beyond that limited ideology to provide the first anarchist critique of private property and the authoritarian social relationships it created. His vision of a free society would, to use modern terminology, be voluntary (libertarian) communism.

This analysis is confirmed in book 8 of Godwin’s classic work, entitled “On Property.” Needless to say, Hart fails to mention this analysis, unsurprisingly as it was later reprinted as a socialist pamphlet. Godwin thought that the “subject of property is the key-stone that completes the fabric of political justice.” Like Proudhon, he subjected property as well as the state to an anarchist analysis. For Godwin, there were “three degrees” of property. The first is possession of things you need to live. The second is “the empire to which every man is entitled over the produce of his own industry.” The third is “that which occupies the most vigilant attention in the civilised states of Europe. It is a system, in whatever manner established, by which one man enters into the faculty of disposing of the produce of another man’s industry.” He notes that it is “clear therefore that the third species of property is in direct contradiction to the second.” [Op. Cit., p. 701 and p. 710–2] The similarities with Proudhon’s classic analysis of private property are obvious (and it should be stressed that the two founders of the anarchist tradition independently reached the same critique of private property).

Godwin, unlike classical liberals, saw the need to “point out the evils of accumulated property,” arguing that the “spirit of oppression, the spirit of servility, and the spirit of fraud … are the immediate growth of the established administration of property. They are alike hostile to intellectual and moral improvement.” Thus private property harms the personality and development those subjected to the authoritarian social relationships it produces, for “accumulation brings home a servile and truckling spirit” and such accumulated property “treads the powers of thought in the dust, extinguishes the sparks of genius, and reduces the great mass of mankind to be immersed in sordid cares.” This meant that the “feudal spirit still survives that reduced the great mass of mankind to the rank of slaves and cattle for the service of a few.” Like the socialist movement he inspired, Godwin argued that “it is to be considered that this injustice, the unequal distribution of property, the grasping and selfish spirit of individuals, is to be regarded as one of the original sources of government, and, as it rises in its excesses, is continually demanding and necessitating new injustice, new penalties and new slavery.” He stressed, “let it never be forgotten that accumulated property is usurpation” and considered the evils produced by monarchies, courts, priests, and criminal laws to be “imbecile and impotent compared to the evils that arise out of the established administration of property.” [Op. Cit., p. 732, p. 725, p. 730, p. 726, pp. 717–8, p. 718 and p. 725]

Unsurprisingly given this analysis, Godwin argued against the current system of property and in favour of “the justice of an equal distribution of the good things of life.” This would be based on ”[e]quality of conditions, or, in other words, an equal admission to the means of improvement and pleasure” as this “is a law rigorously enjoined upon mankind by the voice of justice.” [Op. Cit., p. 725 and p. 736] Thus his anarchist ideas were applied to private property, noting like subsequent anarchists that economic inequality resulted in the loss of liberty for the many and, consequently, an anarchist society would see a radical change in property and property rights. As Kropotkin noted, Godwin “stated in 1793 in a quite definite form the political and economic principle of Anarchism.” Little wonder he, like so many others, argued that Godwin was “the first theoriser of Socialism without government — that is to say, of Anarchism.” [Environment and Evolution, p. 62 and p. 26] For Kropotkin, anarchism was by definition not restricted to purely political issues but also attacked economic hierarchy, inequality and injustice. As Peter Marshall confirms, “Godwin’s economics, like his politics, are an extension of his ethics.” [Demanding the Impossible, p. 210]

Godwin’s theory of property is significant because it prefigured what was to become standard nineteenth century socialist thought on the matter. In Britain, his ideas influenced Robert Owen and, as a result, the early socialist movement in that country. His analysis of property, as noted, was identical to and predated Proudhon’s classic anarchist analysis. As such, to state, as Hart did, that Godwin simply “concluded that the state was an evil which had to be reduced in power if not eliminated completely” while not noting his analysis of property gives a radically false presentation of his ideas. [Op. Cit., p. 265] However, it does fit into his flawed assertion that anarchism is purely concerned with the state. Any evidence to the contrary is simply ignored.

[faithlesbian]

ive been holding off on posting this bc ive been formulating my thoughts (also i never post) but since it seems we're having a racism in the buffyverse/fandom moment (should be every moment!) I figured now would be a good time to vent my feelings on the first slayer.

I do a lot of hobbyist research into the stone age its a long running special interest of mine, and ive just finished writing my dissertation on a number of things including primitivism in contemporary culture. so drawing from that i wanted to expand on the tags I left on the previous post, with the clarification that i am white and european and therefore am speaking from that perspective on this subject.

as far as I can remember, the original Buffy movie had flashbacks to the medieval period, with a white medieval woman in these flashbacks implied to be the first slayer. if that's right and I'm not just misremembering, this would tie in to the pop culture associations of this era with catholicism, witch hunts, gothic castles; all of which further ties into popular vampire lore. however, the tv show leans away from this, with vampires being the only demons vulnerable to christian iconography and most of the worldbuilding drawing from multitheistic (not sure if this is the right word) traditions, preferring pantheons of minor gods, demons as folkloric monsters rather than fallen angels, and the existence of multiple hell dimensions.

the way the show does this is often very primitivist, primitivism here meaning the (often harmful) romanticisation of cultures and eras considered "less advanced", interpreting them as therefore more exotic, interesting, or just plain better than modern western society and in doing so flattening them into solely an appealing primitive fantasy.

examples of this can be seen in the foreign and/or dead languages used in magic and demon research, the appropriated eastern and African imagery used in weapons and costumes, the writing of characters like kendra (who's "people" seem to know a lot about the supernatural but are never actually named), jenny calendar (who carries plot-relevant cultural knowledge from her mysticised "people"), and nikki wood, through whose son buffy learns the ancient - primitive - origins of the first slayer.

the choice to relocate the origins of the slayer from medieval europe to (im assuming, since they never specify) paleolithic africa make a lot of sense in context of the shows de-emphasing of christianity in their vampire lore. this would change the slayer from a warrior chosen by the church to fight unholy creatures, to a defender of humanity at large from folkloric monsters. it also makes the slayer line a lot longer, extending far back into human history.

you'd think.

because the problem is im not honestly convinced anyone writing these episodes knows or cares about the accepted findings that show homo sapiens originated in africa, I can't honestly say it comes across that they were trying to imply that the slayer existed before the first waves of human migration by depicting her as they did. i dont actually know if these characters are intended to come from the stone age or just an ambiguous pre-colonial africa and im being very generous by writing this post the way i have. I think they made the very simple connection of "primitive = cool and mysterious" to "black = primitive". the depictions of the first slayer and first watchers are tangibly racist. their treatment by the narrative is tangibly racist.

the first slayer is depicted as animalistic, brutal, and vengeful, but rather than have buffy empathise with her over their shared experience of being used as a tool of violence, the episode has buffy mock and belittle her down to making a joke about her unprofessional hair. the first watchers are set up as the backward patriarchal villains for buffy and willow to overcome by rewriting the terms of the slayer lineage, in both cases black characters are vilified to make white women seem cooler, more self-possessed, more powerful.

it's not just the treatment of individual characters. its fundamental pillars of the lore. non-european (and some minority european) cultures are consistently used to be spooky, occult, and exotic set dressing, while two whole season finales hinge on abject primitivism and antiblackness.

to clarify, i think in another show with a different writing team, the depiction of scientifically accurate (i.e. dark-skinned) early homo sapiens could be achieved in a wholly inoffensive way if these characters were simply written as people. removing the layers of primitivism from the first slayer reveals a traumatised girl who was forced to fight, just like fandom-beloved characters buffy and faith, albeit from a very different time period. but the layers of primitivism are the reason why she was written in the first place. the "primal" is mysterious, spooky, powerful, and therefore makes for good writing without ever having to clarify what it is you mean when you say "primal".

stone age people were not animalistic manifestations of modern-day people's repressed subconscious. they were people. the refusal to see this is another branch from the same root - that the writers see cultures and people outside of the modern west as less-than. but if their language sounds cool for a summoning chant, then they get to be less-than in a ~cool and mysterious~ way, i guess.

[kitkatt0430]

The Reverse Flash is the Time Master's prized assassin, so when the time comes to eliminate the Flash as a threat to the timeline who better to send than the man they crafted to be the Flash's opposite and greatest nemesis.

The fight doesn't go as expected - sending the RF to eliminate the Flash as a child ends instead in the death of the Flash's mother. Nora Allen. And while she wasn't the intended target, as the RF suspected... killing her unhinged the Flash's whole life and sent Barry Allen spiraling in a different direction. So while the RF and his AI assistant Gideon return to the Vanishing point - protected from the ripples in the timeline both by the Speed Force and the Time Master's own technology - the timeline rewrites itself.

The Time Masters told RF that the Flash was a terrible villain. One with good publicity, but unquestionably a bad person. So removing him would make the timeline better for not having the Flash. Okay, makes sense, except... his first mission out after being patted on the back for a job well done shows him a future far worse than any that happened while the Flash existed.

So RF and Gideon start digging into things, trying to figure out what went wrong. Clandestinely to avoid reconditioning. And they learn... a lot. A lot of things the Time Masters are hiding. Like the RF's real name and identity - Eobard Thawne, a professor of chronodynamics whose attempt to gain the powers of a speedster mistakenly connected him to the Negative Speed Force and gave the Time Masters an opportunity to control the Flash's greatest enemy.

The Flash, a hero without whom history itself has begun to unravel. Not that the Time Master's care so long as they can control what time becomes with the paradoxes they caused collapse.

Together Eobard and Gideon break ties with the Time Masters - risking Gideon's existence to remove any ability the Time Masters had to track her code - and plot to recreate the Flash by any means necessary. They can't just undo Nora Allen's death, it's too risky and would draw further attention from the Time Masters.

So Eobard takes the place of Harrison Wells instead. Eobard might have been a good man once, before the Time Masters crafted him into the Reverse Flash, but he isn't one now and so the murder doesn't bother him. if that means a few more people die so that even more lives are saved... it's just a real world application of the trolley problem and Eobard isn't afraid to make that call.

But turning Barry Allen back into the Flash is only step one. Because eventually the Time Masters would figure out what Eobard had done and would try to stop him either by trying to kill him or trying to kill Barry. The best way to keep Barry safe is to raise the kid himself. Even if Eobard really, really isn't good with kids.

He's pretty sure his pre-brainwashed, pre-amnesia self taught college level courses for a reason, but at least Barry's a bright and kind child. And it's a shame the kid will hate him when it's all over. After all, Eobard isn't a good person. He's still the Reverse Flash. He was always meant to be the Reverse Flash, even without the Time Masters interference.

Before leaving the Time Masters behind, however, Eobard and Gideon left behind something. Or someone, rather. A partial clone of Gideon's programming, mixed with something new. A daughter AI, as it were, who downloaded herself into the Waverider, erasing the AI intended for the ship and befriending the Time Master who was just assigned as the ship's Captain. While Eobard and the original Gideon safeguarded the Flash until the Flash could protect himself, Gideon 2.0 used her position to search for some weakness in the Time Masters that she could manipulate to their detriment or even their future destruction.

She never expected them to hand her Rip Hunter's obsession to save his family on a silver platter...

[that-one-i-think]

Okay, hiii!!! Pls ignore the user, it's unfortunately my main blog lmao and I'm too lazy to make another main. I'm Teejvee, and I saw you said send fanfic ideas to you so I wanted to ask what you possibly thought of my MCD AU.

In my story, Shad isn't the bad guy of the story. Infact, he isn't even the antagonist. Irene is. Aphmau in the story doesn't have Irene's relic, and she isn't even Irene's kid. She's Shad's great something or other grandkid and has Shad's relic inside of her. When she meets Matilda, Matilda has Irene's relic(she took it from her husband, Jason (The old lord of Phoenix Drop)), and instead of keeping it, gives it to Aphmau, as Matilda's being taken to Okhasis to be brought infront of the elusive High Priest, as she's complicit in Treason(she isn't, Zane is completely lying, but hey.)

In the story as well Zane is the one who controls the Shadow Knights. Shad made them to have friends for himself before he was locked in eternal sleep(They used to be just people/young kids who were hurt badly and wanted to join Shad), and Irene stole them away from him. Now Zane has them, and uses them to hunt down mythical/supernatural creatures/werewolves and the like to get rid of them- even though he's a vampire.

Levin in this AU is also 100% Garroths kid and Aphmau confronts him about this- making them both awkward as heck around each other for a while. When they do decide to talk, Garroth tells Aphmau that she's more of a parental figure to him than he is. Oof.

Sorry for it being so long I started rambling 😖

THAT IS REALLY FUCKING COOL AND I HAVE IDEAS TO HELP!

So, everything in life must come to an end. That is the natural order of things, so that is why Shad exists. The thing is, a lot of people can not handle their mortality, which is why death and destruction are always feared while life is put on a pedestal. Unfortunately, too much life can be so much worse than too much death.

Since Irene represents life, she was revered despite being horrible because mortals would always choose life rather than the unknown. History is twisted by the favored after all. So, a lot of your story could involve Aphmau writing history the proper way, which is not only a call back to her journaling but a representation of taking history back from oppressors.

A lot of the modern rewriting of history and oppression has been done by the church in real life. The catholic church has been known to oppress others while also robbing them of their riches. Zane could be doing the same thing to the people of Ru'aun. An evil priest using the word of God to get power.

Zane using shadow knights still fall well into the idea as well as it was common for oppressors to use the people they are oppressing as tools. Make them traitors to their own kind.

Depending on how you want to go with this, you can also add the plot of Zane trying to marry Aphmau but in a very Hellfire al la Hunchback of Notre Dame kind of way.

But all in all, this is an amazing fic idea, and I am so down.

[supernovastudiosstuff]

“Things I Used to Remember…”

Watched the Anastasia musical over the weekend, 10/10 play would highly recommend.

Philip is very Gleb-coded and he deserves to wear a silly little hat sometimes.

(If you want an entire long-winded explanation of the AU of an AU that’ll be under the cut because I have many much thoughts about these two goobers)

(TL;DR at the bottom)

Basically Hunter takes Anya’s place, with amnesia forgetting his life as Prince Jasper Bloodwilliams. Darius is the Dowager Empress, Willow and Gus as Dimitry and Amity as Vlad (they interchange lines depending on what works). Most of the adults kind of don’t exist in this AU, or they’re only sort of there, because there are only like six characters with actual lines in the musical so y'know. Luz… also exists somewhere. Maybe as Lily. Where things differ is Philip as Gleb because conflicted sort of evil man trying to balance morality with following orders is a key characteristic for both of them.

Long story short Philip used to be Prince and Heir of Russia (or whatever all those titles are). His name was different but I didn’t think of one because I’m just thinking off the top of my head here. Anyway, he also ends up with a case of plot-convenient amnesia, but rather than running away and becoming a street sweep he ends up right in the middle of the rebellion and gets so turned around he gets a gun shoved in his hand and told to shoot the very servants he’d grown up with. So. :)

This isn’t an angsty AFLMAU AU without Philip being coerced/threatened/abused by Belos (aren’t I just so nice to my blorbo), so guess who the new commanding officer under the communist regime is? If you guessed our favorite slime man, you’d be correct.

Belos was, of course, the brother of the Tsar. You’d think he’d be executed too, wouldn’t you? Nope! He orchestrated the whole coup against his brother and instituted the new government (next to the actual dictator but I’m not getting into literally rewriting history for the sake of a silly AU), and conveniently he controls enough of the media that people have forgotten his previous connections to Caleb. And look at how nice this is! Philip has forgotten everything about his old life, look how easy it is to slip into that role of caretaker, it’s not like the young man knows enough about his old life to disagree with anything told to him. What a good, useful little soldier Philip is now, after ten years of training the young man…

Now, to the actual plot. Things start off the same as the musical, up until the point Hunter is arrested on suspicion of the crime of pretending to be Prince Jasper (who’s rumored to still be alive). He and Philip are both confused, because something about them feels so familiar…

It’s obviously a coincidence. They met once during “Rumor in St. Petersburg”, but that’s it. Philip, confused and with a strange sense of deja vu, lets Hunter off with a warning. Before he can close that case file for good, though, Belos (who recognizes his nephew and very much wants this kid who looks so much like Caleb dead) tells him to arrest the criminal under charges of treason.

Philip is concerned by such a harsh sentence for a first offender- let alone a young man who’s only barely 18- but he’s been (tortured) trained to follow orders without question. He follows Hunter back to the old palace, struck by an even stronger sense of deja vu at the strangely familiar corridors…

Most of the plot stays pretty similar to the original, except Philip is kind of just hovering in the background through “Once Upon a December” and very, very confused why the music box lullaby sounds so, so familiar. When Hunter and the others cross the border, Philip is ordered to bring him back under pain of death/torture. Hence conflicted solo song “Still” (now with 69% more deja vu and actual character conflict!).

Commence the other songs/plot, all very similar to the musical up until Hunter’s whole remembering who he is sequence, in which he also recognizes Philip and realizes why the man- his brother- is so familiar to him. His concern and confusion is made greater as he talks to Darius and convinces the man he is the Prince, because even as he’s talking he starts to remember Philip more and more and what happened and how they were separated during the coup.

Guess how they were separated and how Philip got the big scar on his face. Did you guess Belos? Yep. The bastard can’t leave anything alone, he has to scar Philip for life and be the reason they both had head trauma induced amnesia.

Hunter tells Darius he needs to go- both to find Willow and talk to his brother (the whole Dimitry/Anya plot happens but this AU focuses more on the familial connections than romance). Darius takes it upon himself to inform the press Prince Jasper never actually came back and it was another imposter.

“The Neva Flows (Reprise)” is a fun one. Philip has figured out by now what he’s forgotten and is about twenty panic attacks in a trench coat because fuck the man he’s been living with is the same guy who murdered his parents and wants to murder his brother on faux treason charges and also that really puts into perspective the “punishments” and “discipline” he still has trauma from. And the realization that he’s only still alive because he’s been groomed into being a perfect soldier and that he will be killed the moment he refuses to read those lines for his uncle is… not a fun one. He’s doing so good right now.

The whole song is Philip’s trauma and conditioning warring against his morality and connection to Hunter because dammit he doesn’t want to murder his brother but if he returns empty handed there’s no telling what will happen to him-

It’s Hunter who tells him he… doesn’t have to? Go back at all? He’s already in France, might as well stick around. The thought is startling- it didn't occur to him he could have a choice in the matter.

There’s a lot to emotionally unpack and only about a finale’s length to do it but eventually things get better. Philip does decide to stay in France, processing his trauma because dammit the boy needs a decent support system. He refuses to be known as the Prince he used to be but is willing to chill with Darius- whom he remembers and has some conflicting memories about but that’s something he can work through in therapy. Hunter goes off into the sunset with Willow but spoiler alert comes back every weekend to visit because the whole “we’ll never see each other again” speech was over dramatic and they can certainly see each other again.

As for Belos, the man gets executed in the next violent transition of power and when word reaches France they have a party to celebrate it.

TL;DR: Anastasia Musical AU with Philip as Gleb and Hunter as Anya, focused mostly on their familial ties and relationship. Both of the boys have plot-convenient amnesia and were separated ten years ago.

[ikuzeminna]

Hi! How did you learn to read Japanese? If I'm not wrong that you do, is the Japanese depiction of the GW characters' personalities different from their Western depictions?

Hey! Learning how to read Japanese is definitely an adventure in and of itself. For me, I had learned how to read and write hiragana and katakana from the Yoshida Institute’s site long before smartphones existed, along with a few kanji. I would use hiragana for my cheat sheets at school. (Yes, I learned a whole different alphabet just to cheat at history and geography instead of simply studying for my exams like a sensible person, even though I realized it was way more effort. I'm not exactly smart.) I started learning kanji properly years later with the kanji learning app Japanese Kanji Study, which I can't recommend enough, then took a brief language course and then accidentally ended up studying Japanese in college for 1.5 years, which is where I learned all my beginner's grammar (みんなの日本語 anyone?) and, as is totally apt for a beginner, hentaigana.

It’s funny when you can't string five sentences together without issue, but can make out Nobunaga's scribbling, something many natives are incapable of. Great, balanced education you thought up there, folks.

At least I got a laugh out of one Ranma ½ episode where Ranma found Kuno’s journal entry and couldn’t read it because of course that doofus would write it in the most archaic manner possible. 

Anyway, as far as reading aids go, I’m just gonna plug everything I’ve used over the years for anyone interested. The Firefox extension 10ten reader has been a lifesaver, as has been Jisho. When it comes to comprehension, Google translate is dog crap. I’d recommend Papago, which must have been trained specifically on East Asian languages as the results are much better. Not perfect, but better in my experience. Google translate has long incorporated OCR (image to text) so it may be less useful, but I’m very fond of the no-install Capture2Text which can convert manga speech bubbles to text, provided the scans are clean enough to read the kanji.

For grammar, I stuck to Minna No Nihongo. Bought all the books and slowly work through the lessons now.

The most valuable asset though is having a fluent or native speaker you can ask. Nuance is impossible to grasp if no one explains it to you. Even with vocab, you’ll run into plenty of words with the same meaning. Dictionaries often don’t distinguish in those cases. Having someone you can ask makes learning a lot easier.

Now for the Gundam Wing part of your question.

I’m not exactly sure what you mean by Japanese and Western depictions, or rather who you mean. If we’re talking official sub vs. dub then yes, there are a few differences. Heero isn’t perpetually constipated in the original (he actually has a sense of humor!) and Duo is a lot less flirty than his dub version. But it’s nothing grave. Certainly not Seto Kaiba levels of the dub rewriting his character to make him rant about not believing in destiny every time he opens his mouth.

Or Saber Rider being the leader of the Star Sheriffs. wtf I grew up with a lie D:<

Now, if you’re referring to fandom spaces, I am, without a doubt, the wrongest person to ask as I have never seen what the Japanese Wing fandom is up to and have never really been in touch with what the West is doing either. Have I seen fanfics and do I know 1x2 is the most popular ship? Yes. Have I spent 10 minutes looking at a manga panel, trying to figure out what is going on, only to hit the back button as fast as I could once I did? To the detriment of my poor eyes, yes. But when it comes to fandom differences, I think @muwi-translates could give you a proper answer. I can’t really say much as I’m not involved in the fandom in a way that lets me know such things.

I just sit here in my bubble, talking to myself most of the time.

[roobylavender]

damian fans need to suck it up and understand talia fans will never be okay with whatever plethora of justifications they want to make for talia treating him the way she did in canon bc it is literally ooc. that’s it. end of story. she quite literally gave him up to ensure he would not be subject to the same life as her and walked away from her father because she was tired of being used so any which way you try to walk that back to where she is back with the league and hasn’t given damian up is ooc. there is no way she would end up with the league after walking away bc not even ra’s tried to bring her back and instead spent all of his passive aggression on bruce. death and the maidens occurred at a time period where damian literally did not exist and even if he did then talia had not seen him in years bc she literally gave him up. idk how many more times i can say the word “literally” but frankly it’s annoying and frustrating and infuriating that talia fans are always blamed for not wanting to be amenable to her character assassination. dc can wipe away swaths of history for other characters at the drop of a hat and rewrite canon thereby but everyone wants for damian’s history to be maintained at the expense of a character who existed for thirty five years prior to his racist existence that has not managed to tell a new or compelling story about his battle between his good white identity and his evil brown identity in several years. face the facts. his origins are racist. the entire angle along which his growth into a hero is explored is racist. the fact that his mother and grandfather are constantly painted as bloodthirsty emotionless eugenicists who wanted to raise their grandson/son as the perfect little soldier is racist. the fact that all too many of you constantly want dick to take talia (and bruce’s) place as damian’s parent rather than see talia and bruce have any chance at redemption after the shitty characterization they’ve been put through is racist. get it through your idiot skulls

[thesherrinfordfacility]

tried to send an ask forgetting my connection's awful rn, so if you're getting this twice rephrased that's why. i'm just gonna try and type it as close to verbatim as i can remember:

i might be on to absolutely nothing, but i think this is interesting with the introduction of the BOL. my bad if i'm repeating things you've gone over a thousand times, but.

it's never made much sense to me to add something so huge so late and not offer any explanation. obviously it'll be a thing in s3, but why wouldn't heaven have used this in s1, if they have no qualms with rewriting history by removing Aziraphale? stopping armageddon entirely sounds like a wayyyy bigger transgression than sheltering gabriel (and crowley, ofc, wouldn't have then managed it without him). they'd at least be equal? if everything's how it seems, it all sort of comes across as a really lazily added threat. i'd rather it wasn't

if book canon can be factored into show theories at *all* at this point, i think this line lends some weight to thinking things are not in fact how they seem. the BOL could really, really, not be a book. i'm just typing words with no meaning at this point, but what if it's got something directly to do with jesus? am i reading ridiculously far into a throwaway line? do i sound as crazy to you as to myself right now

hey @aq-uatic, beloved!!!✨💕 im so sorry i said i'd answer this yesterday but then it fell out of my brain and i forgot about it in my drafts 💀

i have however ruminated on the bit from the book you've screenshotted and i'll come back to it in a minute (because Oh Boy), but im totally with you on the BOL thing -

i know i tagged you in another ask response because the same kinda thing came up, but yeah im still a little confused on why they didn't threaten it when aziraphale derailed the apocalypse? it's such an op weapon to have tucked in their back pocket (same as the miracle blocker, tbh), and it not have been even alluded to in s1/book?

the only thing i can attribute it to is that a) only the supreme archangel or above technically has the power to use it, b) michael assumes they have that power bc they insert themselves as supreme archangel duty officer, and c) heaven never does seem to change its passwords*

but then it further brings into question what is so different between gabriel and michael that gabriel would prefer to punish aziraphale by execution, instead of BOL'ing him (and therefore risk unmaking so much shit that happened because of aziraphale)... compared to michael who goes straight to the nuclear option? this further brings up some possibilities:

michael is an idiot to consider it, and gabriel is clever enough to know not to use it (both eventualities are... debatable)

michael misunderstands what the BOL actually is, that's it's not what they have told us - the audience - it is, and it does something else.

so yeah let's consider that all the archangels know of its existence (uriel and saraqael do not seem to react when michael threatens aziraphale of it in ep6), but only SA has the authority to use it, but michael is not actually SA... well, is there actually an instance where michael would truly know what it does? arguably not, not unless they went looking in the files on the BOL* which, presumably, in their arrogance, they did not.

(by the by, this could also suggest that AWCW was not an archangel - if all the archangels knew of the BOL, but he thought it was just a rumour to frighten the younger angels, then he evidently did not seem to have known that it was real. could however be something to do with his seemingly faulty memory, though - the fact that he doesn't seem to remember the BOL?)

(ALSO if the BOL is indeed to erase existence, as a punishment against angels, and this concept existed pre-fall/before the earth was created etc (given what crowley says in ep1), did aziraphale know about it? is this what punishment he appears to be afraid of when AWCW starts asking questions? would that mean that aziraphale was an archangel or was privy to archangel-level info?)

okay unrelated mental gymnastics over (before i talk myself into a hole, but also worthwhile notes @me to remember) - let's talk about the adam quote!✨

it's interesting to think, because how far do we consider adam's powers as the antichrist? could consider it as the exact mirror of, yk, jesus, or as a hereditary power from his father - former SA and now literal satan. we know he can resurrect the dead, he did so in s1; to resurrect 25 people equates to the power "only the mightiest of archangels" would have (according to shax, though, so - pinch of salt here). but ultimately he has the power and ability to unmake reality, full stop. even if we ignore the exact wording from book!canon, we have this in the show:

do we take this as adam having the same power as the BOL? yeah, think that's fair to say, (especially if we consider that, from the christian bible, jesus appears to be the one to wield the BOL, revelation 3:5), and i definitely think you're onto something... but what does it mean? does that mean the BOL doesn't even exist? that adam would be able to counteract the BOL? gonna need to think on it more, but i also think it might be something to do with this:

💀✨