#stop point scoring off tragedy

[devouringyourson]

better not see people using this horrible jon//than m//jors abuse to go like haha lol fuck marvel all their plans are ruined have some fucking empathy that's real life violent abuse of multiple women and ruined 1000s of people livelihoods

[hadesoftheladies]

“that’s just war” is what i keep getting told. women get raped and butchered? that’s just war. children get bombed and buried? that’s just war. when i read stories of the hamas hostages and the frustration and pain of jewish families caught up in the war, what do online politics offer? “that’s just war.” that’s just the price of resistance. when i tell my dad while watching the news on palestine “thousands more children were bombed by israeli forces this week” all he can say is “that’s just war.” if a man pointed a gun at you wouldn’t you want to have a gun, too?

were the allied soldiers better than the nazis? depends on who you ask. they bombed, raped, sabotaged the planes of women in their own army. nazis were terrible. did that make allied soldiers saints? we weep for the mass graves in 20th century concentration camps across the world. then when we grow up we learn that those black and white photos were actually grey all along. the victims had also victimized others. male prisoners could rape as the soldiers did.

“ignore war men will be men” some women say. “they’ll find a way to keep killing each other. let them have at it.” is it feminist action to bask in our own self righteousness as women? do people sleeping while sirens go off in their city have any choice other than to wake up and run? can they ignore such a thing?

where should i stand? will the white women online help me if their president ordered a siege of my country? my country’s history is riddled with blood. the resistance gave me freedom. I can walk on my own land. go to school and own a car. I can dress myself without dressing a white mistress first. I can farm for myself and not for some smelly englishman. that’s good, isn’t it? but they also killed scores of setttlers, the resistance. they raped white women and girls. slaughtered white children and dumped their bodies in pits for their husbands and fathers to find. wasn’t that bad? but wasn’t it the black kikuyu children and women that bent their backs over white fields? wasn’t it the white people who put them in camps and exacted harsh curfews. didn’t white men shove broken glass up black detainee’s private parts? which white women came to free them? didn’t they laugh at the same racist jokes as their husbands did? didn’t she smile and pour tea for him as he told her about work? didn’t she love having such a wide sprawling estate? wasn’t that bad?

“so you stand with the evil black men that raped white women just because they could? you think their rape served a purpose?” no, but— “so you stand with white women who were okay ordering your people to be shipped, slaughtered and starved?” no! these questions are like asking me which bullet i’d prefer to be shot with. the answer is i don’t want to die. i am not comforted by the rape of women or by the enslavement of my people. why would either be something i want?

what this all is, ultimately, is a question the entitled never like to hear. in regard to the oppression of women by men, blacks by whites, the indigenous by the colonial, the one question at the heart of it all is this:

who has the right to self defense?

why is the woman that killed her rapist jailed? why is the slave that killed his master himself killed? by what means and to what extent do we rule an act of violence as self-defense or something monstrous?

the answer is even more uncomfortable: to the extent that we view the aggressor as human.

it’s not an answer that really solves anything. it doesn’t change what happens in war. it won’t stop any war.

but in these scenarios, my way has been to accept that there is rarely such a thing as moral purity in a human, and for this reason, our default attitude may need to be humility, the acceptance that we can be hypocrites. that we aren’t exempt from tragedy or more special than another life. that we’re as alike as we are different, even if we may not be equally guilty of certain acts. because if we are open to the humanity and dignity of the life of others (and I do extend this to animals as well, because they have the capacity to suffer and the will to live), we are bound to be less prone to repeat the cruelties we decry.

and maybe that’s more of a solution than a neat, easy answer or a casual dismissal like “that’s just war” might be.

[coveredinmetaldust]

The discourse around the OceanGate situation is making me really fucking mad. You are getting a lot of posts like this one where people are decrying how inhumane it is for people to meme on the situation instead of grieving for the kind of people would work you to death if it meant a 0.002% stock price increase.

Yup, these fucking losers are equating willfully creating a death trap and killing 5 other people instantly to a car accident.

I don’t even entirely disagree that yes, it is tragic. I’d rather they didn’t die from an implosion caused by their metal death-tube crumpling in on itself because the arrogant shithead CEO decided that all these safety standards other subs adhere to were getting in the way of innovation. Obviously it would have been preferable to find them drifting on the ocean surface a day later shaken but ultimately unharmed.

No, I’m mad about how blatantly lopsidedly this flavor of moral outrage is always applied. You never see these people on Reddit, Twitter, etc crawl out of the woodwork to denounce the people saying “well he was no angel” when a person of color is gunned down by the police. You never see these same multi-paragraph posts decrying how immoral it is to say “play stupid games win stupid prizes” when this shit happens to the poor, disenfranchised, etc.

You don’t see it, because the people currently on their high horse are the same people who would call you a fucking idiot if you were on this submarine.

If the entree fee was $250 and five working class people were killed I can guarantee you'd see these same people joking about Darwin awards instead of saying stuff like this.

But no no, suddenly now is the time to stop victim blaming and start grandstanding while clutching at pearls. Now is the time to get indignant and accuse people not of feeling empathy and being inhumane sociopaths. There are now were entire call-out topics on Reddit where they organized and briggaded anyone who dares to say anything bad about these poor billionaires. Where the FUCK was this outrage during, I dunno, pick any one of the numerous fucking examples of brutality and/or exploitation occurring within the last three years. Oh right, these dopey fucks were too busy wagging their fingers at the victims and telling them to take Personal Responsibility™. Too bad, if only they were born rich—then maybe these paragons of virtue on social media would go to bat for them.

But you know what the worst part of this discourse is? I can’t quite put it into words, but it’s so blatantly fucking obvious to me that all of this is insincere—this is actual virtue signaling. You can just tell by the tone, the regurgitated talking points, the slimy smug indignation. This is false empathy over people they couldn’t care less about and won’t even remember in a week, because the point isn’t to being a compassionate person.

No, this to grandstand and get that dopimine rush by calling people out. This is being done to score points for some political ideology and Own The Libs/Commies/Socialists/[insert any slightly left of center ideology]. This is so the Panglossian shitheels of social media can maintain the status quo and feel superior by stamping out any act of defiance or rebellion.

None of these of these people seemed to care about how disrespectful this kind of disaster tourism is for the victims of the Titanic. (Victims, who, were mostly lower class since the wealthy were the ones who were allowed to escape.) They don’t care that these rich assholes were profiteering off a tragedy and making a spectacle out of visiting a mass grave. No, they save that smug, condescending, and cynical response for the people who call out these rich assholes.

It makes me want to throw my computer into the ocean.

Now, if you are one of these people I’m screaming into the void about, and you genuinely do not understand why people are memeing the situation so hard, you need to take a step back and recognize that this is, objectively, an absurd and cartoonish situation. This could have easily been a plot for an episode of The Simpsons. This whole goddamn situation reads like something thrown together by a room of writers who were trying to out “yes and” one another until one stopped everyone and said: “Woah woah, hold on. The CEO’s wife is a descendant of the Titanic victims? Isn’t that just a little much?” And then everyone else ignored this person and just kept fucking going.

In short: it was the perfect storm of absurdity, coincidence, hubris, tragedy, and stupidity.

But that's just a surface level explanation which ignores the context of the last hundred or so years. Ask yourself: "why are so many people so unsympathetic towards these particular victims?" Well, there are a multitude of reasons that contributed to how we got to this point and this guy does a much better job of explaining it than I ever could:

[lynninlyn]

Dark Paradise_Michael KaiserxF!Reader

This is inspired by the song Dark Paradise - Lana Del Rey. I constantly have the urge to write this although by writring is bad and English is not my native language. Please read with easy and feel free to point out my error. Thank you all!

Warning: Fluff to Angst, Major character d*ath, OOC, bad grammar and missed spelling, no-proofread.

All my friends tell me I should move on I'm lying in the ocean, singing your song Loving you forever can't be wrong Even though you're not here, won't move on

"Are you ok?" "Ok what? Stop asking useless thing, Ness. I know what I am doing."

Glaring at the brunette boy whose the worry is all over his tired face. Kaiser shake the thought off his mind, continues observing the field and calculating for the next attack session. Focusing and executing another glorious victory for Bastard Munchen, embellishes his throne.

Or that were what Kaiser thought.

Is it that obvious that to other people? How can Ness knows he is not totally dedicate to the match? How dare of him to assume Kaiser was absent-minded?

And god please let Kaiser know how stop himself from consantly looking at that certain seat in the VIP area that always reserved for his precious Y/n.

"Wwoahhhhh-" "It's him again, it Kaiser impact again" "A beautiful goal at 90', executed team XXX last hope, an absolute win 2-0 for Bastard Munchen"

The Bastard Munchen's crowd bursted in excitement for the just happened victory. His clown-like teammates make the ridiculous celebrate moves like the highschool team experiences a win match for the first time. Isnt this result is an obvious scene when they have the Kai-fucKING-ser as their savior, freed them from their arrogance like the background characters in his heroic play?

Empty. Kaiser feels nothing.

Mindlessly walking to the locker room. Shouldn't he feels satisfied as another decoration on his long-listed trophy is achieved and the spotlight is all on him? The adrenaline in him should reach it climax at this moment, he used to enjoy the afterward of every match as you will immediately rush up to him, kiss him passionately, congratulate him, sweet words pour from your cherry lips and you will discuss about the later plan on that day to spoil your loverboy for his victory.

Oh-

Kaiser realizes now. All this distraction, emptiness, and lost feelings is because of your absence in his life.

You weren't here this time, you weren't here to cheer for him, to worry for him every time he aims for the perfect shooting spot, and celebrate with him for every goal he scores in the match.

For his last 23 matches, you hadn't been here with him. He wonder how has he managed to last through that much time without you by his side.

The harsh reality that you will never be able to show up at his matches anymore, and add more to its tragedy, you are not here anymore for him to love you, embrace you, and hold you in his hands 'till the day the both of you draw your last breath.

You were gone. And he can't move on.

And there's no remedy for memory, your face is like a melody It won't leave my head Your soul is haunting me and telling me that everything is fine

From high school sweetheart to the IT couple that football fans and media use to address you and Kaiser everytime you guy drop anything on social media or Kaiser, once again, intentional drops in the middle of the interview to brag about his lovely baby.

You has been with K from the very first day, gone through up and down in his football career. Even when him tried to push you away because of his arrogance and cocky younger self, you was still by his side to work everything out together.

PDA

Pictures of you and him is all over Kaiser's social media accounts. Not a single day that Kaiser hadn't post something about his darling beauty and your caring for him and only him.

Kaiser want the world knows how much you mean to him and how good, how wonderful you are. Shutting down any chick that dares to claim themselves could be better if they could get in the place of his precious significant other. Not even in sleep they can dream about that, never ever.

Doesn't care to express his love for you even there were paparazzi taking the picture of you guys on public dates. Holding hand, peak on your peachy cheek, kiss on that honey lips, embrace you in his protection. "Turn to angle 3 o'clock babe, lets him capture my kiss on your hand when we got out the car. I will get that pic for the my new bio avatar."

Aftermath

Picking you up by your hip, winging you around and peppering your goddess-like face with kisses to relieve all the adrenaline he got from playing and shooting the whole match.

You looks like a cute bunny when hurrying run to him. And he wont tell you that you even look cuter attened his matches in winter,  the puffy jacket makes you look like the snowball rolling, but don't get him wrong. You are totally not look childish and funny (or maybe you are?)

Your curiosity when examines his new medal or trying to hold the Bastard München's just received cup.

"Hey don't bite it like I starved you. It is fake, like the pile of medals that stacked up in my exhibition room at home."

They know us but don't know these The most casual moment with you were the thing that haunted him most. The peacefulness that both of you cherish and Kaiser scared to lose, he feared when he wakes up the next day, you will not even be by his side to accomplish him for every beat that his heart beats.

When you come and wait for him to finish his late night practice.

When Kaiser want to hug you tight out of sudden while you guy were heading out the Bastard Munchen's stadium.

When Kaiser wakes up with you in his arm, hold you tight for 15 more minutes before getting ready for morning training.

When the ritual of the good luck kisses you press on his cheek, his temple and sometimes for lips before you two must parted as Kaiser back to the locker room and ready for the matches.

"Thank you my goddess. Your knight in shining armour today will once again establish another glorious victory with you endearing blessing. These clowns will be blinded by your charming power. "

"Oh dear! Please leave before Noa will rocket himself up there. He has been calling for the tenth time to get you back with the team."

"It was 35 calls last time baby. Hah, he must be used to it"

"MIKA!!!"

Every time I close my eyes, it's like a dark paradise No one compares to you I'm scared that you won't be waiting on the other side There's no you, except in my dreams tonight

Kaiser knows your love is immeasurable. He glad that god still has mercy on him, gives him a chance to realize how precious, one of a kind your love is before his arrogance, led by the depression he got in Blue Lock, made him lose you.

It would have been the eternal punishment for his soul.

But there were times Kaiser wishes that your love isn't that strong and you would not deeply care for him to the point that you wouldn't hesitate flight yourself overseas to support him, cheering for his match in foreign country.

"Breaking news. The Amour Airlines's flight BB-1234 on day x/y/20xx from Munich, Germany to Tokyo, Japan had been reported to unfortunately crashes on the XXX island while it was crossing the Indian Ocean due to the unpredicted storm. The passenger list had been provided by the Airlines and they are calling for the family of the passengers to contact to help the searching and identifying progress. The list- .... Y/n, female, xx years old, nationality: ____"

And everybody's rushing me, but I can feel you touching me There's no release, I feel you in my dreams Telling me I'm fine

[youhideastar]

Why you should watch Story of Yanxi Palace

It seems ridiculous to do a promo post for literally the most-watched television show on the planet, but I follow a lot of accounts that post cdrama gifs, and I don't think I've ever seen a single Yanxi Palace gif, and that's a tragedy.

Story of Yanxi Palace is a 2018 period drama with 70 episodes, set in the harem of the real-life Qing Dynasty Qianlong Emperor and featuring some real-life events and characters from that period. Our heroine is Wei Yingluo, a teenager who enters the Forbidden City as a maid, seeking to solve and then avenge her sister's murder. It was a smash hit when it was released, although it was later censored. You can find it on Viki.

If you liked Nirvana in Fire, you will probably like Yanxi Palace: Wei Yingluo is very similar to Mei Changsu in all the best ways, in that she is devious, ruthless, occasionally very funny, driven by revenge, and possessed of a fundamental core of decency despite her scheming ways. She is also a fifteen-year-old girl. (At the beginning of the show, that is - the drama spans more than a decade.)

Wei Yingluo's relationship with the primary love interest, Fuca Fuheng, is also just *chef's kiss.* She suspects him of her sister's murder, tries to secretly off him a couple times, and he then confronts her about it and hands her a knife, saying, "If you really think I killed your sister, you can kill me now. I won't stop you." We've all seen this scene a dozen times in assorted movies and shows; she loves him so she can't bring herself to do it; she'll drop the knife, they'll embrace--

Reader, Wei Yingluo takes that knife and STABS HIM IN THE CHEST. She stabs him in the chest!!! How can you tell she likes him? Because he survives the experience. Barely.

After that, you think this is a Mei Changsu/Mu Nihuang pairing where there's a relatively normal person who loves their devious little meow meow--and then Fuheng turns around and gaslights Yingluo with zero remorse and you realize that this pairing is actually 100% deranged 4 deranged. The shit these two do to each other and for each other is completely unhinged. At one point, she kills his wife and the two of them never talk about it. Not before, not after, not ever. Legendary. He calls her his zhiji. They will convince you that the height of romance is marrying other people but knowing one another so deeply that you can coordinate intricate political schemes without ever communicating with each other because you can predict one another's moves with perfect accuracy.

Also, the costumes, sets, and props are ridiculously beautiful (and historically accurate!), the characters are like 20 incredibly intelligent and complex women and then like 4 hot dudes, and the score is incredible.

Is there queer rep, you ask? Nothing explicit. But there are a lot of female characters who have very intense, passionate relationships with other female characters. Also, there's a subplot where the Emperor suspects the Empress is having an affair with one of his consorts and you can see his point; finally, there's a character who is intentionally set up to have a very ambiguous sexual orientation: I think you could plausibly argue that he's ace, that he's bi, that he's gay, or that he's straight. I'm not sure even he knows.

There's a lot more to love about it, but when a show's been streamed more than 15 billion times (yes, with a b), I feel like I don't have too much to add. 😂 Give it a try!

[danganronpa96]

idk if this is the right place to ask but what was the planned story of despair gang? (if you're okay with answering!)

At this point I have to be honest with myself and realise that no, I’m probably never going to go back to that fic considering all the plans I have for myself for the future (lol)

In that case, I’m finally going share what was going to happen in the rest of the plot (fun fact chapter 6 had already been half written before I stopped working on it rip)

So, for anyone curious, I’m going to leave a link to the unfinished chapter 6 (with some extra notes and art) and the rest of the plot under the cut

So, I kind of split the story into 5 acts and an epilogue, and chapter 6 was the start of act 2. Bear in mind I only wrote down a vague plan of the story as the majority of it was in my head at the time.

Chapter 6: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p8uFhqoSiFgyAz5PYmYn1O7EHHVPkZXF3xMi_d4b7to/edit?usp=sharing

When it cuts back to the gang, before making it to the apartments, they come across a basketball court full of Monokumas in their way. They deal with them together as a team.

They then have a round of basketball together (Rin and Papyrus vs. Hajime and Matt) — Hajime manages to score the final dunk only because of the help of Izuru, who he quickly attempts to repress as the others cheer for him.

Afterwards, they find the apartments and settle into one that’s the least destroyed and messy.

Rest of Act 2:

At one point, the gang find a playground where Rin and Matt go on the swings. They talk about what they should do after the tragedy, mentioning theme parks, which sparks Hajime to chime in. Rin and Matt then go to the bathroom, leaving Hajime and Papyrus alone. Papyrus tries to talk to Hajime about what happened at the basketball court.

Another day, Hajime and Papyrus go out to find entertainment for Rin and Matt after the two complain about having nothing to do. Hajime gets his leg slashed by a Monokuma during an ambush, so Papyrus carries him to a bookstore where he can safety bandage him. He then gives Hajime a pep talk about his confidence. Hajime wants to say something back, but Monokumas once again catch them off guard, forcing them to flee back to the apartment.

Another day, Papyrus and Rin go out on a supply run while Hajime heals from his injury. During this time, Hajime gets to know Matt better, where he talks about his time working for Despair Melody (and puppy crush on Parappa).

There was going to be a scene where Hajime and Papyrus end up in an arena similar to the UDG game but instead of fighting a child, Gumi invites them into the middle of the arena for a challenge, demanding she gets Rin if she wins. However, Hajime and Papyrus manage to win, so Gumi cuts off her finger much to their horror.

The end of Act 2 would have the gang’s apartment being found and burned, forcing them to flee into the sewers.

Act 3:

After navigating the sewers for a while, they come onto land again where they realise they’ve ended up in a district all about Miku: billboards, flyers, merch stores, and music all around. They would go onto infiltrate Despair Melody’s base (which is the Parappa Town school). I think this was because they were going to use it to gain good reception to contact Future Foundation (and talk to Nagito and Parappa).

Act 4:

In an act of defiance and manic, Gumi kills Sunny. The gang wait atop the rooftop (of the school I’m assuming, perhaps to be picked up by Future Foundation) but are ambushed by Gumi, who they see has replaced her chopped off finger with Miku’s somehow. They would then flee through riots in the streets (probably Despair Melody’s doing) where they loose Matt during the escape. However, Izuru finally manifests, allowing Papyrus and Rin to be captured while he flees.

(I don’t remember what act this was going to be, but at one point while sitting alone, Hajime would finally gain the courage to tell Papyrus about Sans, but to his surprise, Papyrus figures it out himself. The two then have a hurt/comfort moment about it.)

Act 5:

Hajime is awoken/saved by AI Teto (was gonna be a whole other plot thing lol). Hajime then locates and saves Papyrus. As the two go to find Rin, AI Teto would take over a Monokuma and ensue some hijinks. Gumi would tell Rin the truth about Len: that he’s dead. He was the body that Miku used in the 3rd case of the 69th killing game that they dressed up as Miku (yes this is actually canon when Teto says “I didn’t want Miku to kidnap—” but cuts herself off in the 6th trial, she was going to spill that they kidnapped Len for that case). They save Rin and confront Gumi. Izuru manifests again, but this time to finish off Gumi himself by slashing her stomach.

I don’t know how this happens but in the plan it then says ‘the building explodes as the three are rescued by a Future Foundation helicopter’.

(I also assume this is the act where Hajime is finally true with his feelings towards Papyrus and is 100% reciprocated c’mon c’mon reverse sansmaeda real and true)

Epilogue:

The gang (I srsly don’t know what happened to Matt at this point maybe he was already on the helicopter that would be cool) join Future Foundation as the world starts to be rebuilt together. Gumi, who didn’t die, is put into the hope rehabilitation program.

Bonus: Hajime and Papyrus adopt Rin and Matt and now live as a family because a human and a skeleton can fall in love and raise a singing robot girl and a dog boy. The end :)

Also for anyone wondering, the participants of Sunny’s killing game were all planned to just die in the explosion, but hey wouldn’t it be funny if they were all found and rescued at the end instead 👍

[tarisilmarwen]

Rebels Rewatch: "The Holocrons of Fate"

In which things get Force Weird and Maul is the actual worst.

Full disclaimer in the name of honesty, I still think Maul's "resurrection" in TCW was stupid. It will never not be stupid.

That being said, I'm glad they decided, "Well, let's actually do something interesting with him." once they had him.

Making him into a Sisyphean/Tantalus-figure--always reaching, never grasping--adds a layer of depth and tragedy to him. No matter how hard he tries, Maul will never gain what he seeks. When it's within his grasp, he will inevitably self-sabotage or have it slip away from him.

We meet him at a time in his life when he's just lost everything, again. He finds new purpose and motivation in the form of Ezra Bridger figuratively falling into his lap--here's someone to carry on his legacy, that he can mold and teach--but in his eagerness to have him, he irreparably damages any chance the boy would have had to learn from him willingly.

But like Sisyphus pushing at that rock, like Tantalus reaching for the grapes above him, he cannot stop trying.

Probably fitting that his question to the holocrons is an answer to the inevitable existential dread of his own existence.

But I'm getting waaaaaay ahead of myself, he hasn't even shown his ugly face yet.

Instead we drop in on Kanan and Ezra, on a CR90, presumably coming back from a mission they headed up. Ezra's asking after the holocron again, still not quite over his obsessive addiction to it, still hyper-focusing on it as the only good thing that could have possibly come out of the mess at Malachor.

"But if not to get the Sith holocron, why did Master Yoda send us to Malachor?" That's a good question. *stares at writers*

Kanan offers up the idea that is was for "a chance to destroy the Sith." Sure we'll go with that.

Their conversation is interrupted by them coming to their destination, a rendezvous point with another Rebel ship.

Thaaaaaaaaaat Maul has almost completely murderized. This scene is one of the ones that does a really good job subtly showing off Kanan's blindness. Ezra offers commentary for Kanan's benefit throughout, Kanan has a hand out to feel, he mentions the carbon scoring smell and inclines his ear towards the sounds coming from behind a door.

The only survivor can only gasp out about a "red blade... after you." ("you" being very specifically Ezra) and that the Ghost was in danger.

Right so I'd just like to emphasize, for the fandom's sake, Maul murdered an entire Rebel ship looking for Ezra.

Kanan and Ezra assume, naturally, that "red blade" means there's a new Inquisitor after them and rush to contact the Ghost. Whereupon they discover that it's Maul who's threatening them now.

And ooooooh Ezra's piiiiiiiiissed.

"No... I betrayed your friends, but I would have remained loyal to you." *rubs eyes* That's... There's not a significant emotional distinction there for Ezra, you know that right, Maul? Of course you don't.

Back when fandom was Absolutely Certain that Maul was going to successfully abduct Ezra in "Twilight of the Apprentice" there were theories flying around that Sabine would have to ply her Mandalorian connections in order to get information about where he might be hiding, since we knew by then her family had ties to Death Watch. Things didn't happen that way, obviously, but it was still nice to get a nod towards that connection.

Maul proceeds to be the world's worst houseguest, forcing Hera to take him on a "tour" of the ship while he comments snarkily about each room.

Like you have room to talk mister Lived In Literal Garbage For Years.

Anyway this tour seems to be mostly a ruse to look for Kanan's holocron, and Maul very creepily and uncomfortably pulls the information out of Hera's head. (Possibly along with Kanan's real name??? It was never actually elaborated on how Maul knows "Caleb Dume", but it would make the most sense he skimmed it from Hera, to throw her defenses off guard for his stronger mind probe.)

You leave mom alone you cockroach.

I know this is serious but boy I would have LOVED to hear the conversation Kanan and Ezra must have had with Sato when they got back.

"Hey we need to borrow a speeder to go out into the desert past the sensor beacon fence where all the spiders are to visit a giant weird Force Moose and retrieve a Sith Soul Jar because a creepy spike-horned Dark Side nutcase kidnapped everyone else on our crew."

I'm just picturing Sato throwing up his hands all, "Just take whatever you need."

Also amusing: the idea of Ezra trying to describe the Bendu to Kanan later.

I absolutely dig this idea of holocrons creating a Force Convergence powerful enough to grant visions. I'm always in favor of Jedi artifacts being just a little bit weird with the Force. I mean, kyber crystals sing and hum to Jedi, lightsabers are a living extension of the Force moving through them, their temples carry thousands of years of emotions and feelings sticking to the walls, why shouldn't their holocrons be able to join with Sith holocrons to make an oracle?

The Bendu says he's neutral but he's also clearly set up this little test in order to help heal the rift between Kanan and Ezra (and he gives a fond little smile when he can sense their reconciliation).

"Why take his weapon?" "He's got to learn to solve problems without it." *WEEPS IN FINALE FEELINGS REMEMBERING THAT EZRA LEFT HIS LIGHTSABER BEHIND AND RELIED ONLY ON HIS UNIQUE FORCE ABILITY TO CONNECT IN ORDER TO SAVE EVERYONE*

Lol @ Maul trying to blunt force the Jedi holocron open. My dude. My guy. You were the one to point out that Sith holocrons can only be opened by a Sith or one who thinks like them. Follows that Jedi holocrons might operate on the same principle? Maybe?

Not sure what the point is of getting to the engine room quietly given the racket y'all made literally a second ago.

This is actually a new part of the ship we haven't seen before now. It's accessed both by a grate in the floor under the main central ladder and the door at the very back of the cargo hold.

And this is a really clever idea with magnetizing the hold, remembering that Maul's legs are metal. They almost pull off their own rescue here.

Bastard.

Sans his lightsaber, Ezra reaches for his blaster holster instead. Except I think that's empty too, I looked but I didn't see it equipped.

Kanan senses his panic and distress from outside and follows in. This scene reminds me a little bit of when Vision!Kanan showed up in "Path of the Jedi". Not sure why, just kind of does.

Ezra instinctively moves to shield Kanan from the krykna, aww.

Ugh this return to that timid, self-protective pose. :( We haven't seen Ezra shield himself like that in ages and it makes him look so much smaller.

Kanan tells Ezra everything Ezra's been desperate to hear for six months:

It wasn't your fault.

I never blamed you.

Forgive yourself.

<333333333

Haven't talked about the music much but this is a nice rendition of Ezra's theme here for this heartwarming moment.

Ah noooooope I like the krykna EVEN LESS now, wtf is this it's creepy.

Ezra nervous little glances as the krykna uncurl. <3

Ezra passing Kanan's mask into his hand. <3

Bendu's "Once a secret is known, it cannot be unknown." was a lot more ominous in the trailers, ngl.

Kanan showing a remarkable amount of trust in Ezra, leaving the decision on whether to open up the Sith holocron or not up to him. Ezra looks trepidaciously at it a moment and then decides not to, passing it back to Kanan.

(And then he never touched the Dark Side again lol.)

I can't even be mad that Ezra got the first blind joke in. At least he beat Maul to the punch.

Hhggngnghhh I hate him so much this rat bastard trash man. He immediately takes advantage of Kanan's blindness to lead him to an airlock and tries to space him.

EZRA WASN'T EVEN OUT OF SIGHT LONGER THAN A MINUTE OR TWO, MAUL, CAN YOU NOT?!

You actually can survive the void of space very briefly. You have about 15 seconds before you pass out, possibly more if you exhale first.

Uggggggggghhhh this scene makes my skin crawl, Maul is literally fresh off his second attempt to murder Kanan and orders the droids to kill the rest and Ezra is standing there completely unaware of the danger he's in or what Maul's done.

Maul bald-face lies to him and tells him his friends are fine. Just imagining the horror of what would have happened if Kanan hadn't made it back inside, how Ezra would have emerged from the holocron vision only to learn the awful truth that Maul had killed everyone he loved, that he was alone, alone with a deranged murderer who had decided he was his apprentice...

*shudder*

As they prepare to join the holocrons, it's interesting to note that Ezra's wish is a bit Dark Side tinted--he wants the answer on how to destroy the Sith--while Maul's is Light--the vaguely described "hope". Hope for what it's not clear at first. Hope for meaning? Hope for purpose? Hope for another chance to fix what he considers the point at which things went wrong? Commentary from behind the scenes has said that Maul's motivation for revenge against Obi-Wan is primarily rooted in his fixation on his failure at Naboo. "If I can just kill this guy, the person who was there when everything went wrong, it will make it all better."

I think, given that Maul had become self-consciously legacy-minded, thinking about the future he planned to create with Ezra at his side, he turned his mind backwards to unfinished business from the past, messes he still had to clean up, in order to move forward.

And that's why he manipulates the holocron vision to show him Obi-Wan's fate.

This sequence is really pretty.

The music cue that accompanies this moment is not overly bombastic, but rather sly, mysterious, and eerie, high vocals mingling with strings to create an odd balance.

The resignation on Sabine, Hera, and Zeb's faces when the droids point their weapons. :(

Hera's elation when she hears Kanan there. :D The very worried Spacefamily books it to Ezra of course.

Maul doesn't see anything from the vision at first, "Only oblivion!" he says, because the path he's on can only lead him there and urges Ezra to "Go deeper!" It just occurred to me that he's basically doing what his old master Palpatine would try to do in Season Four--piggybacking off Ezra's connection and using him as a conduit to achieve what he wants. He pushes Ezra to look harder because he can't see anything himself.

The brighter burst of blinding light could have just been an effect of Maul and Ezra sinking deeper into the vision but also I like to think Maul manipulated the convergence to try to keep the others away because it swells up right when we hear Hera calling for Ezra.

This bit is so cool, the Force is so loud and present in the room that Kanan's blindness doesn't matter, he can physically see through it even with his ruined eyes. Hera's voice distorts and fades as if it's coming across a large distance even though Kanan only goes a couple steps away. The orchestra rouses with full strings and chorus. The negative film effect makes Kanan, Ezra, and Maul look like celestial figures of pure energy.

THE WAY THIS IS BOTH (LITERALLY) ABOUT THE TWIN SUNS OF TATOOINE AND (FIGURATIVELY) ABOUT LUKE AND LEIA, THE CHILDREN OF THE CHOSEN ONE AND THE TWO MOST KEY PLAYERS IN THE ULTIMATE DESTRUCTION OF THE SITH.

THE WAY ALL THREE OF THEM--LUKE, LEIA, AND EZRA--ARE NARRATIVE "CHOSEN ONES" WITHOUT BEING THE IN-TEXT CHOSEN ONE, HOW THE FORCE STILL PUTS THEM IN KEY PLACES IN ORDER TO BRING ABOUT THE FULFILLMENT OF THE PROPHECY.

THE PATH TO LIRA SAN WILL BE DECIDED BY THE FATE OF THE THREE.

Ezra ultimately trusts Kanan and looks away just before Maul can discern where, exactly, Obi-Wan is. The severed connection explodes outwards, throwing them all across the room, and the holocrons are shattered.

Maul's cackling and crazed body language as he stumbles out to escape make it seem like the knowledge that Obi-Wan's alive has actually driven him insane. It's quite disconcerting.

The Spacefamily surrounding Ezra worriedly. <3 You have to wonder if Kanan is fearing a repeat of Ezra's collapse back in "Gathering Forces", if perhaps for a moment he's a bit too still here.

Oh look the two Most Important People in Ezra's life and narrative journey!

The way Kanan keeps his hand on Ezra's shoulder until the very end. <333333

With a few minor nitpicks (mostly that a few of the mysteries aren't well explained or answered, see Maul's knowledge of Kanan's real name) this is a pretty solid episode, a worthy follow-up to the premiere. We continue to settle Ezra's Dark Side temptations, burying them mostly for good in this episode, though the lingering effects it had on him emotionally will continue well into his characterization, motives, and arc down the line.

Maul is an awful bastard in this and such a good villain. :) He's so much more confident and assured of himself, clear-headed and calculating. 0 for 2 on successfully kidnapping Ezra but his menace will still pervade and influence a lot of Ezra's decisions this season.

I'll talk more about the overall effects and purpose of the holocron arc when we come to its end in "Twin Suns" but for now I'll just enjoy this episode once again, it's great.

[moonyinpisces]

LWA: So, GOOD OMENS is a comedy!

I'm tempted to say that that's the sum total of the ask, but...folks, it's a comedy. It's a comedy with occasional moments of drama to manage the viewer's affect, raise the narrative stakes, and accentuate the humor, just as tragedy normally has occasional moments of comedy to relax the audience and accentuate the horror (the Porter from MACBETH staggers in, waves, staggers back out again). Not only does it behave like a comedy, all of its characters act and, within the narrative, are interpreted according to comic conventions. One of the reasons I've bounced so hard off GO fanfic is that so many writers transfer the characters to dramatic (or even tragic) narratives without changing anything about how they interact with their fictional world, and as a result Aziraphale & Crowley mutate into the gods from AMERICAN GODS, who, even when "nice," are still all selfish SOBs.[1]. (That's what happens whenever you try to play a comic character "straight" without radically revising it: most comic characters would turn into villains if you put them into non-comic plots.) The reason I can talk about the child murder subplot from s1 as just a matter of Crowley having to learn that, no, sweetie, just because you've hired a hitman doesn't let you off the hook for the death (also, you know your friend trusts you, maybe quit taking advantage of that, hmmm?), and not as an urgent call to Aziraphale to DTMFA, is because that subplot still operates according to the rules of gallows humor.

The many legit complaints about S2's structure and pacing aside--this was a miniseries that could have been a movie--the reason that Gaiman could undo S1 so easily was because /as a comedy/, S1 works just fine. Most of the conflicts--Crowley attempting to get Aziraphale to kill a kid for him and what that reveals about his unwillingness to take responsibility for, well, anything; Aziraphale vacillating in his loyalties to Crowley and Heaven and what that reveals about his struggle to develop an independent moral framework--are worked out through minimal dialogue, symbolic action, and a fair amount of mood whiplash. Madame Tracy stops them from killing a kid? OK, that's sorted. Yo, Crowley, if you don't do something, something you think is legitimately bad will happen! OK, Crowley has suddenly discovered that taking responsibility exists. Yes, we tried murdering you a couple of minutes ago, but let's give you a pep talk! OK, fixed that subplot. Oh, I am going to give Crowley a meaningful look after my pep talk about the superiority of being "human incarnate"! OK, clearly Aziraphale has got that part of his problem mostly sorted. Hey, we're having a gentle conversation on the park bench! OK, Aziraphale doesn't actually accept Crowley's invitation (to the place or the side) in words, but there's symbolic lighting! And he sits next to him on the bus! And he clearly went to the apartment! So /that's/ fixed too. Right? Now we're risking our lives to save each other! OK, we've finally gotten past the damsel-in-distress game, and score another point for Crowley taking responsibility for his actions and Aziraphale choosing Crowley over Heaven. Then, in good comic fashion, everyone pairs up at the end, and Aziraphale and Crowley dine at the Ritz to romantic music.[2] Comic reconciliation, everyone! All of this is completely appropriate for the medium; trying to put the original dialogue for Aziraphale's and Crowley's moral epiphanies at the airfield on the screen, for example, would be both awkward and too much of a tension killer for the moment. But it does mean that all Gaiman and Finnemore had to do in S2 was to say that everything "resolved" through action and, at best, minimal dialogue had not been resolved at all, because virtually nothing was ever /named/.

I have no predictions for S3, because who knows, but...these are comic characters. Most of the angstier demands for the conditions under which Crowley will accept Aziraphale back or, quite frankly, vice-versa, don't seem to fit their established characterization or the comic narrative structure in which they exist.[3] It's highly unlikely that said established characterization will change very much, because, again, they are comic characters, and comic characters by virtue of their function tend to be both resilient (a character from a serious TV drama could never plausibly survive a sitcom unscathed) and limited in their ability to develop. Will Crowley learn about moral responsibility? Sure. Will he ever learn that actions have consequences? Almost certainly not, because that's one of the key drivers of the series' humor. Will Aziraphale fully shake off his allegiance to Heaven? Sure. Will he ever stop getting into trouble because he is INT 20, WIS 0? Amost certainly not, because ditto. Has anyone looked back at PRIDE & PREJUDICE recently? Within 3 very short chapters, Lizzie Bennet's fury at Darcy after the botched proposal is almost entirely DOA, thanks to her honest reading of the eye-opening letter he writes her; a couple of chapters later, she still has no regrets about turning him down (because his behavior truly wasn't "gentleman-like"), but she has otherwise admitted his sterling character and come to grips with the fact that his criticism of her family was, alas, on the nose. That's much more aligned with GO's narrative economy and characterization than C&A being enraged at each other for six episodes straight.

[1] I should note that I'm excluding cases where the author is, in fact, experimenting with different story-telling modes to see what happens. Ironically, Dark!AUs for both protagonists are arguably by far the most honest accounts of what happens when you strip the comedy out.

[2] I read the novel for professional rather than recreational reasons, and didn't see anything posted on Tumblr or AO3 until months after the TV series came out, so I'm afraid that my reaction to the end of the novel was not "ah, a cosmic romance, unlike the ill-sorted and screwed-up human couples," but "however you read this, Aziraphale and Crowley are just as ill-sorted and screwed-up as the human couples; it's just that that's what love /looks like/ in this universe."

[3] I guess I have to explain that I don't relate to or identify with the characters, and when it comes to analysis it doesn't matter if I like or dislike them. The TV characters are not people, but the collaborative product of the script, the actors, the production crew, and indeed the audience's interpretations, and they are inseparable from their narrative function. (E.g., the child murder subplot in S1 interests me because, besides telling us something about both the protagonists' failings, it is also part of the series' bigger arguments about free will and moral deliberation.)

[skye-huntress]

The Witch from Mercury Season 2 Reaction

Episode 20: “The End of Hope”

Ominous title

Let’s see. Norea is ready to explode, Miorine is freaking out, Guel seems hellbent on taking down Shaddiq, and Grassley Squad is making their move. Shaddiq again seems to be laying much of the blame on Guel, even though this tragedy happened as he was leaving.

Who knew Rouji of all people had mastered the art of interrogation? Or is Martin just that much of a wuss?

Who knew Lilique could get mad?!

So Suletta has finally gone back to class, but now she’s being harassed as well. Now that she is no longer the Holder and no longer Aerial’s pilot, she’s naturally an easier target.

Now Petra is being nice to Suletta. Guess saving her boyfriend scored her some points.

Guel may be learning to be a better person, but he should learn to be smarter.

Shaddiq seems out for blood now

They’ve released a pissed off witch from the basement and she’s fixing to go on a rampage. The ball is in your court, Number 5.

Looks like Chuchu’s Demi-Trainer is out for the count. They don’t have any mobile suits left.

Petra, stop talking! You’re waving so many death flags right now with the things you’re saying! She’s going to die right after I found a reason to like her, isn’t she?

If Shaddiq is openly admitting his crimes on their comms, I doubt he plans on leaving Guel or anyone else alive.

Look, Guel, you need to understand your father was a grade-A a-hole. You could have a lengthy debate over who is a worse person between him and Shaddiq.

Now Lauda knows Guel killed their father. Will either of them live long enough for that to matter?

Not the Greenhouse! Oh, that bitch done it, now!

Now Felsi is in the firing line! What am I saying? Of course, she is. Any pilots with working mobile suits with the guts to be out there is gonna be. Too bad that even if they didn’t have the school’s limiter, they’d still be hopelessly outmatched.

When Secelia decides its time to move the plot along, she delivers. A brand new mobile suit for Chuchu and the timely return of her traitorous mechanic.

Since when did Pompom Head become a thing? That’s the second person to call her that

It’s not like I don’t get Shaddiq. He is a demon of the Benerit Group’s making. I can’t even say with confidence that in his position I wouldn’t have made similar choices. He’s still crossed a line, and got innocents among both Spacians and Earthians killed. He’s also not as clever as he thinks he is, ready to blame Guel for interfering in his plans when he is the one committing crimes.

Did Guel just outsmart Shaddiq and Sabina? And he disabled their suits without killing them. Not only was that impressive, this might be his first real win in the entire show. Unfortunately it came at the cost of Norea going on a rampage but there was a solid chance it could have happened, anyway.

I begrudgingly give points to Number 5 for talking Norea down. Unfortunately, that win is short lived. Serious though, who was the dumbass who thought it was a good idea to fire on them after they stopped rampaging? And if you were going to do that, why only take out one of them when the other as far as they know is equally dangerous?

Back to Suletta, finally. Aaaaaand, yep. About what I expect. Oh , and there’s the title card!

That is such a Suletta thing to do, honestly. She used to do this kind of thing back on Mercury, too, so really, she’s falling back on what she knows. I’m also genuinely surprised that Earth House hasn’t suffered any casualties, though they’re probably going to get blamed for this, too.

[denimbex1986]

'It struck me watching Christopher Nolan’s masterful three-hour epic telling of the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, long labeled the Father of the Atomic Bomb, that this is a period piece with an exclamation point for audiences today.

In the 1940s, Oppenheimer and a team of brilliant scientists traveled into the unknown to create the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, the A-bomb, but with the noble reason that its use could be an end to war, its explosive and wide-ranging ability to tear apart vast areas of the planet would be used ultimately as a deterrent, not an endgame. It would be used against Nazi Germany in World War II, an answer to Hitler’s own demented vision of world dominance and annihilation. But anytime you are doing something never done in the whole history of humanity, there is risk, moral questions, unintended consequences and the possibility of building a monster even Dr. Frankenstein could not have imagined — or stopped.

So I was thinking about the current discussions of AI — its potential for good and life-changing breakthroughs but also, as scientists and its Silicon Valley creators have been warning recently, a new gadget (as the A-bomb initially was nicknamed) whose use could careen out of control and destroy us all. This is no mere science fiction, and neither was getting “the bomb,” which did the thing for which it was built and had the effect of ending World War II (but after Germany surrendered) when it was dropped twice on Japan in August 1945, first Hiroshima and then Nagasaki. The result for humanity there was devastating, but it turned out it was just the beginning.

Nolan is simply an exceptional filmmaker whose cinematic sensibility is steeped in the classics but merged with modern sensibilities and tools to make one-of-a-kind visual experiences with real ideas about the world around us. With Oppenheimer, his interest is in the complex mind of J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy in his sixth collaboration with Nolan but first as the lead), a complicated but brilliant physicist tasked with leading the Manhattan Project, the secret effort to create the nuclear bomb, a weapon so powerful it could be used to end war forever — in the right hands. Oppenheimer, a man with leftist politics even accused of being a communist, knew he could bring all the elements together but also — as we see his story played out in an unusual first-person approach in Nolan’s stunning screenplay based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin — a moral conundrum gathering in his head as he begins to envision the dangers beyond a short-term use of a weapon that could — and did — spark an arms race and a new world order that changed us forever.

Nolan’s movie is set right at the start but serves as a fascinating glimpse into those who had it in them to pull off this remarkable feat but also had to live with its consequences, something we all have to live with today in a shaky time where the nuclear threat has sadly not gone away but only brought the doomsday clock closer to midnight than ever. How many times lately have we heard Putin try to make its use in Ukraine a possibility, even pointing out the Americans have been the only ones to ever use it — so far?

It is not a spoiler to reveal that Nolan ultimately chose not to show the horrific results of what happened the first time the Americans dropped that A-bomb over Japan. Instead we see it played out through Oppenheimer’s haunted eyes, a far more effective and chilling approach, achieved with some superior special effects married to music (Ludwig Goransson did the pulsating score) and superb, ear-rattling sound design. This ultimately is not an action spectacle or bomb-dropping war movie but a very human one in which its title character faces a moral dilemma shared by few in history, if anyone.

Oppenheimer’s story is told in non-linear style, shuffling back and forth to different periods in time, his own tale shot in color and told in first person, the later trials explaining how it all happened from various points of view shot in striking 65MM black-and-white film — particularly Robert Downey Jr.’s cagey Lewis Strauss, who was the founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and later a Cabinet appointee as Secretary of Commerce in the Eisenhower administration.

Although they are two key players here, Nolan has made a very dense film with a very large and starry cast — three recent Best Actor Oscar winners have small supporting roles, if that gives you an idea — the kind we used to see in ambitious Hollywood films by great directors but not so much lately, at least on this intellectual scale. Matt Damon is excellent as Leslie Groves, the Army officer who was director of the Manhattan Project and brought Oppenheimer into it; Emily Blunt is riveting as Kitty Oppenheimer, his wife (on her fourth marriage) but the one who clearly was his match; Florence Pugh plays Jean Tatlock, with whom he had a sizzling but tragic affair; Josh Hartnett is full of his own energy as the lively friend and nuclear scientist Ernest Lawrence; Kenneth Branagh is Niels Bohr, a Nobel Prize winner in physics who serves as sort of a mentor; Benny Safdie is great as Edward Teller, the theoretical physicist who pushed further into development the terrifying H-bomb, something Oppenheimer vehemently opposed; and on and on.

Those three recent Best Actor winners have memorable, if brief, moments as well. Casey Affleck is Boris Pash, the Presidio’s Chief Army Counter Intelligence Officer; Rami Malek is an associate physicist who makes his mark in a Senate hearing later in the film; and an unrecognizable Gary Oldman is highly amusing as President Harry Truman in one of the film’s most memorable scenes as he invites Oppenheimer into the Oval Office to congratulate him on the A-bomb, only to hear Oppenheimer’s new misgivings about its use going forward and that the Russians are on the path to getting it. He shuts him down, dismissing that idea and reminding him, in pure Trumpian-style bravado, that it will be he who will be remembered as the one who actually used it and won the war.

Shout-outs as well to David Dastmalchian as William Borden, a zealous nuclear advocate; Jason Clarke as Roger Robb, who was Special Counsel at the 1954 hearing to deny Oppenheimer’s security clearance; Tony Goldwyn as Atomic Energy Chairman Gordon Gray; and Jefferson Hall as Haakon Chevalier, a key early friend of Oppenheimer’s. Veteran actor Tom Conti also is simply terrific in his few scenes as Albert Einstein, a famous confidant of Oppenheimer’s. Casting director John Papsidera should get plaudits for helping to put together this far ranging cast of fine actors, way too many to mention here.

At three hours, there is a lot of story to tell here, and Nolan condenses it nicely and really moves this along with the pace of the best thrillers. The scene where the big first Trinity test of the bomb occurs in the New Mexico desert is pulse-pounding suspense (no one knew when the button was pushed what its effect on the Earth’s atmosphere would be), aided significantly by the razor-sharp editing of Jennifer Lame and ace cinematography by Hoyte van Hoytema, working for the fourth time with Nolan. But this is a movie where you never look at your watch no matter what the running time. Murphy gets the deserved role of a lifetime and really captures all the contradictions of this brilliant, tortured, complicated man. Downey gets his best role in years, a real standout as well.

From a man who has taken us into places movies rarely go with such films as Interstellar, Inception, Tenet, Memento,the Dark Knight Trilogy, and a very different but equally effective look at World War II in Dunkirk, I think it would be fair to say Oppenheimer could be Christopher Nolan’s most impressive achievement to date. I have heard it described by one person as a lot of scenes with men sitting around talking. Indeed, in another iteration Nolan could have turned this into a play, but this is a movie, and if there is a lot of “talking,” well he has invested in it such a signature cinematic and breathtaking sense of visual imagery that you just may be on the edge of your seat the entire time.

Hopefully people will see it in a theater, a place of worship for people like Nolan and me. It was made on the biggest film stock possible and meant for the largest screens, but it isn’t mere summertime escapist entertainment like most of the movies in large formats these days. At the very least, it is a necessary reminder that we are still sitting on the powder keg Oppenheimer and his team created, and we still need to heed his warnings, maybe now more than ever.

Oppenheimer is the most important motion picture of 2023, and maybe far beyond.'

[gale-heart]

So I haven’t had much success with making post-timeskip art for Ilyssae (I have a bad habit of sinking too much time into my sillier warm-up doodles) but now that I’m getting active in RP again I wanted to rework a few aspects of her backstory!

——

Age: Bumped up from early/mid 20s in chronological years to the ever-nebulous elven equivalent of that age as of Dragonflight. In hindsight I’m not really comfortable with her being as young as she was during some of the stuff I put her through—this way she’s still young by elven standards, but not “holy SHIT this is practically a BABY” young. She still never successfully integrated into modern kaldorei society or culture, and still does did lots of dumb and reckless shit due to an unfortunate mix of hubris, a low wisdom score, and having easy access to powerful magic.

Shadowlands: Rewrote Ilyssae’s involvement with the Shadowlands entirely. Her attempted portal to Argus still imploded due to the shockwave effects of Sylvanas destroying the Helm of Domination at the same time. She spent the majority of the expansion trapped in a nebulous state of limbo between death and life, and only popped out conscious into Ardenweald after the anima drought was resolved. Eventually she was located and brought safely home to Azeroth through the combined efforts of her mentor/matron Eoselle and many other friends. She’s still foggy on the details of whatever the heck else happened while she was out, but all things considered it could have gone a lot worse!

Angst: Ties into the previous plot point. Being stuck in an existential long nap and cut off from contact with the universe gives a soul lots of time for introspection and healing. By the time she woke up again Ilyssae had largely come to peace with the losses and tragedies she’d been through, and with a little more help from therapy her mental health is far more stable nowadays. (She hasn’t stopped being a show-off or holding a few grudges, but, you know, other than THAT she’s chilled the fuck out.)

——

Present Day:

Ilyssae took things easy for a while after returning from the Shadowlands and joining the Fence Macabre, but the last three years saw her dive headlong into her new connection to natural magic with a fervor untapped since her university days (though, blessedly, she was better about sleeping and taking breaks this time.) She rapidly established an affinity for the sea and weather spells as an extension of her pre-existing talents, and as a fresh-trained Squallshaper she’s now just as capable of guiding the Fence’s mercantile flagship safely through a tempest as she is of turning that storm against her foes.

She also spent many months harassing any druids of the Talon she could meet for guidance on tinkering with the shape, size, and capabilities of her bird form. She’s a deft flyer now, and can even adopt a battle form with minor storm magic abilities, but still prefers to take on the shape of a simple silver raven in most occasions.

Conversely, she ran up against the limits of her magic in her experimentation. Although adequate at healing moderate wounds, she was never quite able to achieve the same mastery with it that she has in manipulating the elements. Further, plants refused to so much as twitch for her despite her best efforts (she did accidentally freeze or wither several in the process of trying.) All things considered, though, she’s not too fussed about those shortcomings. She’s always excelled in grand, flashy shows of power—now she’s even more justified in showing off!

These are undoubtedly the best years of Ily’s life so far: sailing the seas with a job she enjoys, putting on some actual muscle, kicking ass, helping people, belonging to a tight-knit community (and lovingly annoying a certain sindorei port warden!). She’s even started using (if with no great hurry) those piles of gold she inherited from her brief disaster marriage! Her cats have never been more spoiled, her hoard of plushies grows, and her new wardrobe and beauty regimen have her feeling like an absolute baddie. However…she still doesn’t feel completely whole. After literal centuries of isolation and being made small under someone else’s power, she vowed to never again let herself be trapped in one place—to embrace her new freedom and fight tooth and nail against those who would bind her down. She still has every intention of doing so…but lately she’s been reflecting on her old apartment, and how good it felt to have a physical place to call home, a place that was entirely her own to do with as she pleased. She’s realized she misses that, and wants to have that again. At the very least, it would be nice to have someplace permanent to keep all her books (her cabin on the Fiona’s Pride ran out of space months ago, and saltwater isn’t exactly friendly to paper). Now it’s just a matter of deciding where, and how ostentatious—assuming of course that she survives the guild’s current adventure on the Dragon Isles!

——

Perhaps someday soon I’ll find an excuse to break Ily’s brothers out for use, or Elune forbid bring out her mother to make other characters’ lives worse. But I’m pretty happy for now with how my main is shaping up!

[leviathangourmet]

Let this sink in: There are more people enslaved today than at any other point in human history, including when the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was legal. The summer’s top film Sound of Freedom has succeeded in not only becoming a surprise box office hit but also in bringing the reality of modern slavery back into the spotlight.

The International Labor Organization estimates 40.3 million men, women, and children are subjected to human trafficking per year. The true figure is likely far higher.

Human trafficking involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain labor or a commercial sex act. The US Department of Health and Human Services says human trafficking is the fastest-growing criminal industry in the world, generating an estimated $150 billion in profits annually—that’s the entire net worth of McDonald’s.

But are children really trafficked that often? According to UNODC’s 2020 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, compiled using official figures from 148 countries, one in three trafficking victims detected is a child. In a survey of 260 survivors of domestic minor sex trafficking, one in six were trafficked under age 12.

Though the Trans-Atlantic slave trade has long since passed, the remnants of this tragedy are regularly brought to the forefront of conversation. Yet somehow, many Americans live in either blissful or willful unawareness of modern slavery, and its vast number of victims. The untrained eye can easily miss the signs of it happening all around us, and it’s easier to go about our comfortable lives if we don’t have to wrestle with this weighty reality.

Thankfully, Sound of Freedom has brought this injustice back into the public forum, where it belongs.

Angel Studios, makers of the hit series The Chosen, released Sound of Freedom on July 4 to 2,600 theaters nationwide. So far, the film has raked in over $100 million at the box office, surpassing Disney’s Indiana Jones which was released the same day. The film is inspired by the true story of Tim Ballard, a Homeland Security Investigations officer whose career in locking up pedophiles compels him to rescue children exploited for sex and child sexual abuse material (CSAM, or child porn). It highlights the trafficking networks that prey on vulnerable children and the role American sex buyers play in fueling it worldwide.

Despite the fact that fighting child trafficking is a cause people of all ideological backgrounds should be able to get behind, this film has sparked quite a controversy.

Some critics have gone to lengths to associate the film with conspiracy theories and “right-wing extremism,” primarily using guilt-by-association arguments. Their implied message is “child trafficking isn’t a big problem” and it’s blatantly irresponsible.

Others celebrate the film’s message but lament that it promotes the search and rescue style method of fighting trafficking when, in reality, most anti-trafficking work doesn’t look like this in practice, particularly in the US. Most trafficking doesn’t involve being kidnapped by a stranger, rather victims are often exploited by family members or someone close to them. These kinds of concerns are valid, especially for anti-trafficking organizations, and trafficking survivors, who need to re-educate new volunteers that think they’ll be kicking down doors. Still, it doesn’t negate the fact that this film has sparked a fresh surge of people who are asking “How can I help end modern slavery?”

That is the all-important question.

First, we must cut off the demand. Sex trafficking would end today if men stopped buying sex. The desire to purchase another human for sex is, in large part, one natural byproduct of porn use.

Anti-trafficking and filmmaking nonprofit Exodus Cry interviewed scores of sex buyers, and every single one shared that they began consuming porn in childhood. The effect of porn use on shaping sexual appetites is alarming and well-documented. In Exodus Cry’s documentary Raised on Porn, one convicted consumer of child sexual abuse material shares the escalating nature of porn addiction, “After a while, the stuff that worked before doesn’t work as well… I found illegal pornography, child porn… I got the rush. It worked like nothing else did anymore.”

As shown in Sound of Freedom, as well as Exodus Cry’s documentary Nefarious: Merchant of Souls, American men are among the most frequent child sex buyers, often flying to countries where they have unfettered access to trafficked children.

Our nation is one of the top countries for sex trafficking and the top consumer of CSAM. We cannot fight slavery while actively participating in it.

Second, we must demolish the “sex work is work” narrative. Prostitution and trafficking are often intertwined. In prostitution, women and children exist to fulfill the sexual desires of men. Buyers often view them as less than human, a product to be bought and discarded. Unlike what sex work advocates want you to believe, prostitution isn’t sexual liberation, it’s sexual slavery.

Most women in prostitution (approx. 90%) are under pimp control, meaning they are likely not receiving the money earned, and fear of their pimp keeps them trapped in a life of exploitation. Eighty-nine percent of those in prostitution surveyed across nine countries wanted to escape it. Prostitution isn’t empowering, it’s usually exploitative and it’s often trafficking.

Third, we must urge legislators to pass laws that criminalize sex buying, pimping, and brothel-keeping while decriminalizing those in prostitution and providing them with resources to find a life outside of exploitation. This legislative model, called the Nordic or Abolitionist Model, is the only law with a proven track record to uproot trafficking.

Without fail, every country that legalizes “sex work” sees higher rates of sex trafficking than countries that have made sex buying illegal. This drives more men to consume women and children for sex. Traffickers and pimps capitalize on that demand.

There’s so much we can do to fight today’s iteration of slavery, and films like Sound of Freedom can help audiences realize that the injustice they see on the big screen can be cut off by starting with the small screen.

[summerlycoris]

Actually, now im thinking about it, Tony and Mami have similar but distinct character flaws that ultimately lead to their doom in similar ways. It all comes down to trust, and lack of it.

Like for Tony? What sets him up to fail is being so willing to unravel the mystery of GGY, even when people warn him repeatedly- his parents, crystal- that he needs to be careful with either investigative journalism, and especially with sticking his nose into GGYs business. But he cant help himself- even after Crystals warning, he hands in that story based on GGY, and even goes to investigate further.

His big character flaw? Working by himself, and not working with his friends. Imagine, what would the three amigos had created together if Tony hadnt rushed off to make a story without them, if hed actually used his social skills to talk to his friends instead of a multitude of strangers, and convonce them to help him? It wouldnt have been the GGY story, thats for sure. It wouldve probably been more fictional, if Ellis and Greg had worked on it to begin with. And Greg probably wouldve suggested a better idea than researching some high scores on the arcades.

Just. Including his friends and trusting them to work with him wouldve saved his life by preventing him from ever getting on GGYs bad side.

And the thing that seals his fate? Is trusting Greg, and not putting 2+2 together to get "Omg, my new friend killed the therapists. And may kill me if I dont keep my mouth shut." If he does go to the pizzaplex with Greg afterwards... rip. Its over, rover.

For Mami? What sets her up to fail is making her wish and becoming a magical girl. Shes unlike any of the other magical girls in pmmm- she makes a wish selfishly, purely for her own benefit- begging Kyubey to save her life. Even if, she could have used that wish to save her whole family from the car accident. I cant blame her- she wouldve been scared to death, and just begging for anything that could help her at that point. And we know from later, that making wishes on behalf of others (like Homura, Sayaka, and Kyouko did) can also lead to tragedy.

But making that wish, regardless of how understandable it was, doomed her to be a magical girl. A fate theres only two ways out of. You die a magical girl, or you die a witch.

Her character flaw, of sorts, is similar to, but distinct, from Tonys. She works primarily by herself, like him. But she has wanted to work with other magical girls before, its just never really worked out. Shes made efforts in the past to work with others, and does a good job when with them. In timelines where madoka becomes a magical girl, they work together, alongside Sayaka, Homura and Kyouko sometimes. For the most part, she pulls off working by herself as well as she does working in a team. Shes self sufficiant, she can win her fights pretty easily using years of experience. Shes given chances to get out of her fate- Homura warns her against taking Madoka and Sakaya with her to battle Charlotte, warns her not to go. But she doesnt listen to Homura, instead ties her up out if the way. She doesnt trust Homura enough to let her help, because Homura keeps trying to kill Kyubey.

Working by herself in this timeline, having no family or friends to confide in, leaves her lonely. It leaves her susceptable to...

What ultimately kills her. Its trusting Madoka and Sayaka in the current timeline. Neither girls are magical girls at that point, but Mami learns to trust them in battle, despite that they cant actually help her in battle. She stops behaving in her self sufficiant manner, and thats what lets Charlotte get the drop on her. Mami got so used to working on her own, relying on herself, that the minute she thought she could get a reprieve from her loneliness, she dooms herself.

Theyre both just. You can track the trajectory of their tragedy, from the little mistakes they make. To the flaws that ultimately doom them. And in both cases, its trusting someone who cant be trusted. Madoka cant save Mami from Charlotte- she cant even save herself- shes not a magical girl! She and Sayaka just cling to one another as Kyubey begs then to pact with him and make a wish. Without Homura being set free after Mamis death- from the trap Mami put her in in the first place- both the girls wouldve also veeb eaten.

Tony, like Mami, made a very human mistake- trusting his new friend even if theres red flags that his 'new friend' isnt who he says he is.

I am definitely not making much sense. Its been forever since I watched PMMM and Ive DEFINITLY got stuff wrong because im tired and dumb rn but like. I needed to write this down before my brain imploded so uhhhh. Bye!

[vidavalor]

Mobius' backstory delay = a really good sign for Lokius

The writers didn't just pull showing us Mobius' family from S1-- they likely shifted all the storytelling they wanted to do with that family onto the Other!Mobius we just met at the end of the S1 finale...

...and all of that is very, very good for Lokius.

How, you ask?

Consider that the one big difference from the Other!TVA to the one where we spent the rest of S1 is that they all know that a variant of He Who Remains runs the show. That heavily implies that none of the Other!TVA agents, including Mobius, are kidnapped variants. They all *just work there*. It's a regular, bureaucratic 9-5 job. No need to kidnap & brainwash people in this timeline: people are just recruited & work of their own free will. They have choices and their own lives. They go home at night when their shifts are over. Some of them likely have families. If you think the show just kicked Loki in the teeth over him realizing that he's in another timeline and this Mobius isn't his Mobius, wait until he meets this Mobius' *goddamned perfect, totally sweet, equally cinnamon-roll-y f*cking romantic partner*...

Other!Mobius: Oh, Agent Loki! I don't think you've met my other half yet. Honey, meet my new partner on the time force.

Ben Stiller (lol): So, you're the guy my husband can't stop talking about!

Loki: *dying a slow death inside* Ah, I do believe I hear B-15... Barbara... whatever her name is... summoning me for ah, some very important reason!... lovely to meet you!...

Y'all, Our Loki is going to have spent time during S2 in an alternate timeline where Mobius has a sweet guy and maybe a jet ski and probably a dog and maybe possibly a kid and definitely all the free will he can imagine and will be a lovely guy as all Mobi fundamentally are but won't be *Loki's* Mobius and won't have the experiences specifically that Loki's Mobius has that specifically make him the man who he is, who is also the man that Loki loves. All the boldly gluttonous amount of angst that the show wants to play with by giving Mobius a family around Loki just as Loki is realizing he wants to be Mobius' family is now something I'd be willing to bet they're doing with Other!Mobius in S2... for the express purpose of pushing Loki into action when he reunites with his Mobius.

The show spent time in S1 setting up the idea of Mobius regaining his memories and even had space to explore that in. I predict it was a consideration for Episode 5, when they all spent some time chilling in The Void and there was a strong theme in that episode in particular surrounding family and found family. Could they have had Mobius get his memories back and given him a family and would there still have been hope for Lokius? Of course. Mobius was almost certainly a younger adult in the 1990s, which means giving him a family without an express ability to get back to that family without, y'know, destroying the fabric of time (at least at this point in time) would have resulted in a really good, angsty plot. Or, hell, he could have *had* a family and might have even if we see his memories at some point. Maybe that husband from the other universe that Loki theorizes could be the love of Mobius' life in every universe? Maybe Loki's theory isn't wrong. He could enchant Mobius and we find out that the partner died or something. Ben Stiller could well be an universal constant, y'all, and even that might not even destroy Lokius. That's just truth.*

The point of doing anything with Mobius' various backstories on the show is going to be to advance Loki and Mobius' relationship in the present and that's going to be true even if these stupid time agent idiots don't just kiss at some point. It's true of their friendship as well as any potential romance. I think that learning what Other!Mobius' life is like in the other universe is going to lead Loki to continue to act very selflessly when it comes to his Mobius' happiness when they reunite (continuing off of having told him he was a variant in the first place in S1) and to make sure that he knows about IGiveUpOnCallingTheHusbandAnythingButBenStiller in the other universe. Loki will offer to enchant Mobius' memories back to try to reunite him with this potential long love. This'll kill them both dead inside, of course, as Loki was last seen doing the Rom Com Run of Love Awareness and Impending Confession at the end of S1 and Mobius had a scene so overtly jealous of Sylvie that they named the damn score to it "Lokius" so these two, by the time they reunite, are well aware that they are in love with one another but haven't *told* one another that yet.

Hell, this could even be how they do. What if Mobius' response is just to tell Loki that he doesn't need his memories back because who he was then isn't who he is now and he knows that he doesn't love Ben Stiller because he loves Loki and he knows without a doubt that he's never felt like this before?

Yeah, oh yeah, Lokius Nation, we're going there...

What else is the point of admitting that Tom & Owen, I mean, the writers!, decided to scrap the idea that Mobius has a guy waiting for him in a Texas Blockbuster in 1997 if not for making sure that, while there can be angst a-plenty, there ultimately isn't somebody else that our Mobius decides he has to honor his commitment to and shatter Loki into pieces over? The writers want to play with all the pain of these two, for sure, but this is Marvel, not The English Patient. (I'm making all the '90s references here, I know.) There's plenty of tragedy already here in this show that has an unusual obsession with hinting that they're steering this boat towards a version of Peggy & Steve's Endgame ending in the short term.

Kate Herron said they cut Mobius' family because they aren't sure what exactly his backstory is yet which is a way of saying that the one thing they *are* sure of is that they don't want him to have had a normal family life in the past-- otherwise, they would have just done that already. Why would you yank out all that angst when it's clear you still need to play with it because of the nature of Loki and Mobius' relationship? Why toss it to another Mobius to have the family and provide that scenario for Loki's development and his and Mobius' relationship development when there was an option to give it to our Mobius? Easy answer there:

they need a clear romantic path for our Mobius to Loki.

One could still have existed-- and still will exist-- if they give our Mobius a family in S2 but it's really suspect to me that they had plenty of opportunity to do that already and decided they didn't want to give him one and just said basically "we'll figure out exact details of his life as we go next season but it ultimately doesn't matter what the specifics of those are when it comes to our overall S2 story plotting because we know what we want the *jist* of it to be and that's that Mobius isn't missing a heck of a lot in his past life-- that the loneliness and need for adventure that he has that we know in the present is possibly also some spillover from who he was before-- and that whatever he's going to find in his memories are not going to ultimately impede furthering his relationship with Loki."

He can have a jetski empire or have been a private eye or was an accountant whose nexus event was trying to kill himself, who the hell knows-- it'll all be *interesting* when we see it but the second the writers decided that Mobius wasn't a man with a wife and 2.5 kids in '90s Texas... that's the moment that the path to Lokius just became quite a bit easier and I say that as someone who is fully aware that the two characters I am discussing are presently trapped in different timelines.

So yeah, just some writer's two cents but we'll see.

*Ben Stiller as Other!Mobius' husband in a jealous-off with our petty God of Mischief... no wait. WAIT. Ben Stiller as Other!Mobius' *Loki variant* husband... not sure how that works since this universe doesn't seem to have Lokis that we know of yet but let's deem it so and will it into existence...

[vettelcore]

Bruh, that thing about F1 being a competitive sport, like I knew people can say absolutely anything on social media without the need of critical thinking, but it's still so hilarious when people act like they are somehow being wronged because there's competition, like Hellooooo!!! That's the entire point of sports, it's meant to be a competition between players and teams...

And especially with Mercedes fans saying the rule changes were to hinder them, like I don't know how long you've watched the sport but rule changes are the sole reason Mercedes got to dominate in the first place, please stop coming up with bs. And it's even more hilarious because this year's rule changes were very specifically to reduce down force and top speeds of cars and the load on tyres to ensure safety, and before the season started both the FIA and all the teams had been vocal about how the rule changes were going to benefit the low rake cars, we literally had everyone declare it's going to be an easy 8th for both Lewis and Mercedes, effing Aston Martin went around claiming they would be a firm 3rd in the constructors and would even try and challenge Red Bull for 2nd... But it did not go as planned, literally no one before the season had predicted the rules to favour the high rake cars, but the moment the other teams came through, which has been very rightly alluded to the diffusers both RB and McLaren have produced this season allowing them to claw more of the down force lost due to floor cuts, people started shouting about rule changes being made to stop Mercedes, like lol no, Mercedes themselves were so confident about this season, even during testing, hiding their car like they had something up their sleeves that would blow everyone off, and that didn't happen (they stopped developing last year's car to work on this year, and were so confident about their pasta floor lol)

It's so annoying, Mercedes have dominated the hybrid era solely on the engine advantage they have had, and even this year have the best engine and that coming from a rumored $1billion worth of investment from Daimler and work starting on the V6 engine as early as 2007, and very definitely from 2010 like they literally kept their resource expenditure minimal in the 2009-2013 period to work on the hybrid era, what more do you all want... The other teams were participating in the sport to actually be a part of it, Mercedes literally came in as a business investment to make money off of rule changes lol, and they have managed that, and the 3 drivers driving for them in that period have statpaded enough already.

Effing Valtteri Bottas is some 10th or 11th on the list of most podiums scored, what other kind of statpadding is going to satisfy you??

It's hilarious and sad in so many ways, we are having a championship fight between two teams for the first time since 2012 that looks like it can go down the wire and instead of enjoying it, people are busy feeling entitled, like I understand we all want to feel happy seeing our drivers and teams win, but I'd rather it be a hard earned victory than just going into a race already knowing who's going to be on the podium unless something mind bending happens during the race... that happiness is unmatched, and no one can question that.

you literally have the biggest brain in the entire fandom, holy shit

I also don't understand the complaints about the rules changes "to hinder mercedes!!!!" because, duh? every major rule change implemented has been made to stop teams from dominating the sport

they did it with ferrari, they did it with redbull to the point where they drove adrian newey away from f1 for a couple of years because every single thing he came up with the fia would make it illegal, and they're trying to do it with mercedes too

and i say "trying" because like you said, these rules changes where meant to benefit mercedes lmfao or things like "hey mercedes, why don't you test the new tyres we want to use in the future?? <3"

like seriously everyone has spent the last few years complaining about HAM BOT VER podiums because they weren't exciting, and now that we have competition and go to most races not knowing who's gonna win we complain? make it make sense!!

like sure it sucks to see your driver go from winning everything to... not winning everything..., i know that feeling lol but acting as if it is the biggest tragedy that we don't see someone drive to the victory without a single issue is just so mind blowing

especially since lewis is still winning and getting incredibly lucky many races, he's just getting beaten sometimes or doesn't have an easy ride to p1 like he did in the past

[mellometal]

Is it time to tear ANOTHER Dhar Mann video to shreds? YOU BET.

I've been sitting on this one for a bit because I wanted to make sure I talk about this tactfully. The subject of parents abandoning their disabled children is a very touchy one.

Parents abandoning their disabled children simply for being disabled is way too common. Like, I understand that not everyone has the resources to care for a disabled child (which is why you reach out for help, and why people like me, who work with disabled people, exist), but it doesn't mean you just walk out of their life. There are exceptions, like if you truly didn't want children or something like that, but just flat-out walking out of your kid's life BECAUSE they're disabled is fucked up.

I know someone personally whose biological mother abandoned her when she was born. Why? Because she's disabled. Physically, and mentally, to a point. I work with this woman on a daily basis. I don't really know WHY exactly her biological mother abandoned her, but I do know that her being disabled was part of it. It's sad. It doesn't affect her, thankfully. I'm happy that she's got her biological dad, her brother, and another maternal figure in her life, at least.

ANYWAYS. Before we get to the topic at hand, I need to put an obligatory trigger warning, like I do with EVERY Dhar Mann post:

This post will be talking about parents abandoning their disabled children simply for being disabled, treating disabilities like they're tragedies (in this case, we're talking about autism...again), divorce, and some SPICY ableist bullshit from an allistic (nonautistic) PIECE OF SHIT.

If any of this triggers you or makes you uncomfortable in any way, you don't have to read this post. This isn't worth putting yourself in a bad state mentally. I would never ask for any of you to put yourselves in that position all for a post. Put your mental health and well-being first. Consume media that sparks joy for you.

As far as my response goes, it's definitely more calm than normal. Funny....since this video is about autism spectrum disorder again. (Third time's the charm, huh, Dhar Mann? NOT.)

LET'S FUCKING GET IT.

The video starts off with these two parents (Gwen and Allen) in a psychologist's office. The psychologist tells the parents that their son (Chance) is autistic, and she tries to explain what autism is to the parents, but Allen cuts her off. Why? Because he teaches at a prestigious university, so he AUTOMATICALLY knows what autism is from that fact alone.

Um, excuse me? Just because you're a teacher at a prestigious university, it doesn't mean you're an expert in everything. It doesn't make you an expert in ASD or anything like that. Unless you SPECIALIZE in that area. Even then, shut the fuck up. The people who know about being autistic are AUTISTIC PEOPLE THEMSELVES! SHOCKER.

Hey, Dhar Mann! QUIT WITH THE VIDEOS ABOUT AUTISTIC LITTLE WHITE BOYS AND YOUNG WHITE AUTISTIC CISHET MEN! I'M SICK AND TIRED OF IT. It's annoying, ignorant, and it feels like you're doing this on purpose at this point to piss people off. If you're so uninformed about autism in women and girls, FUCKING ASK AUTISTIC WOMEN AND GIRLS! DO BETTER RESEARCH THAT DOESN'T INVOLVE AUTISM SPEAKS. The Autism Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) and the Autistic Women and Nonbinary People Network (AWN) are great organizations to go to for any kind of research on ASD in women and girls. STOP GOING OFF OF THE BRAINS OF AUTISTIC WHITE BOYS AND AUTISTIC WHITE MEN.

I don't feel I need to go too deep into the fact that autistic women, autistic girls, autistic nonbinary people, autistic BIPOC, autistic AAPI, autistic LGBT people, autistic teenagers, and autistic adults exist. Y'all already know.

Gwen asks the psychologist if that means Chance isn't healthy. (I understand not knowing about autism, but don't treat it like it's a terminal illness. Please.) The psychologist tells her that Chance is fine, but he just learns differently and might need more support compared to his peers.

Yeah, autism can affect how you learn about certain things (limited and repetitive patterns), but there are other disabilities that can affect learning as well. Like how dyslexia can affect your ability to read, dyspraxia can affect your ability to do math, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) can affect your ability to focus or on impulse control. Autism affects how your brain is developed, it affects you socially, behaviorally, and how you communicate.

Allen is upset, says that he can't have a son "with a learning disability" (ASD is a neurological disability, not necessarily a learning disability), and treats Chance like he's stupid for being autistic. Gwen tells her husband that autism doesn't make you any less intelligent, WHICH IS SO FUCKING TRUE. ABSOLUTE FACTS. I was totally with her until she began that little monologue with "Just because a person HAS autism". SAY "JUST BECAUSE A PERSON'S AUTISTIC" INSTEAD! IT'S NOT HARD. PERSON FIRST LANGUAGE ISN'T WHAT EVERY DISABLED PERSON PREFERS. Allen says that "they could have another kid" and "put Chance up for adoption". Gwen obviously wasn't down with that. Allen gives his wife an ultimatum that it's either HIM or their son Chance. Gwen says that she can't choose between the two, but she will stand by her autistic son. Allen gets up and leaves the office, saying he wants a divorce.

Years pass by, Gwen is single and taking care of her autistic son Chance, and Allen has a new life with a ✨perfect son✨ (Samuel). He never mentions the son HE abandoned (Chance). He's completely forgotten about Gwen and Chance. (YOU OWE SO MUCH CHILD SUPPORT, ALLEN.)

Hey, Allen, how much do you wanna bet that your ✨perfect son✨ Samuel is autistic too?

There's the SATs, they're announcing a winner, and guess who it is? IT'S OBVIOUSLY CHANCE, OF COURSE. He's got the highest score in the country, with Samuel in second place. Allen is PISSED.

Chance gives a speech about how his mom really helped him, he struggled with autism, how Allen LITERALLY ABANDONED HIM, and THE CROWD GOES FUCKING WILD. Samuel, instead of being a sore loser, APPLAUDS FOR CHANCE. Stay humble, Sam.

My thoughts on the video? If you cannot tell by my tone throughout this post, IT WAS DOG SHIT. This video was insensitive to the true reality of parents abandoning their disabled children just because they're disabled. What do I expect from Dhar Mann at this point?

Here's my response to his video below. Don't worry, I will fully type out my response soon for anyone who cannot read the screenshots easily. It's a lot easier for me to do that on the desktop site than it is for me to do it on my phone.

For anyone who can’t read my response, I’m typing it out for you. Like I said, it’s easier for me to type it out on the desktop site than it is for me to type it out on my phone. It’s a real royal pain in the ass. But because I’m trying to make my posts easier to read for people, I’m doing this anyway. /lighthearted

First, second, and third screenshots (broken up into paragraphs):

Hey, listen, I appreciate the message you’re trying to go for, but can you please stop putting autistic people into a box? Can you stop treating being autistic like it’s a tragedy? Not every single autistic person is a little white boy in elementary school who’s considered “wild and unruly” or “super quiet and makes no friends”, nor are they a young white cishet man who’s a super genius or is how Chris Chan was before she came out as trans. (For anyone who doesn’t know about Chris Chan, there are many documentaries people have made on YouTube, and I highly recommend Geno Samuel’s docuseries, if you’re really interested in learning about Chris Chan.)

Autistic women, girls, nonbinary people, BIPOC, APPI, LGBT people, teenagers, and adults all exist too. 

It’s very apparent now that you get your resources from Autism $peaks, a hate group that spends the vast majority of their money on funding eugenics instead of helping autistic people like they claim, claims that only little white boys and young white cishet men are autistic and ignores all other autistic people who don’t fit that description, have no autistic people on their leader board or on any board for that matter, have members who have actually fantasized about k1lling their autistic children, treat autism like it’s a tragedy or a disease someone can catch (completely false), act like autism should be cured (there is no cure, and ABA therapy is a total shit show in itself), and treats autistic people like they’re broken and need to be fixed. Also, not every autistic person is a Super Genius(tm). That’s so demeaning to autistic people who aren’t seen as intelligent in any way. I’m autistic and seen as smart; however, there are subjects I’m stronger in than others.

If you can’t handle the possibility of having autistic children, or just disabled children in general, DON’T HAVE CHILDREN. If you can’t handle working with or alongside disabled people, including autistic people, maybe find a different profession. Even if you do that, you’ll never get away from disabled people. Disabled people aren’t a disease. We’re human beings just like neurotypical and able-bodied people.

Fourth and fifth screenshots (broken up into paragraphs): 

I would highly suggest getting resources from reputable organizations for ASD, such as the Autism Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) and the Autistic Women and Nonbinary People Network (AWN). Talk to any autistic person who isn’t a little white boy or a young white cishet man. 

Instead of using the puzzle piece, which is a symbol that many autistic people, myself included, are offended by (because of Autism $peaks and other organizations before them using it, plus it symbolizes that only autistic children exist and that we’re “missing a piece” like we’re broken), use the rainbow infinity sign (for all neurodivergent people) or the red and gold infinity sign (just for autistic people). Instead of “lighting it up blue”, light it up red or gold. Do both if you want. 

I’m actually really sick and tired of seeing just autistic little white boys and young autistic white cishet men being represented in the media, and y’all manage to fuck that up too. 

Before anyone mentions Sia’s movie “Music”, that’s also very poor representation of autistic girls. Besides, the actress who played the autistic girl isn’t even autistic. She MOCKED autistic people. I know she’s a kid, but that’s still super fucked up. I hope she’s able to turn that around. 

If anyone would like to discuss this topic with me or ask any questions, feel free to. I’ll answer as best as I can. Thank you and have a good night.

Before I get attacked for mentioning Chris Chan in my response, I bring up Chris Chan because allistic people think that every autistic person is like her (especially before she came out as trans). That person is part of why I wasn't open about being autistic or talking about my diagnosis until this year. I didn't want to be grouped up with Chris Chan because I do have very similar interests to her, I've been seen as cringey for having said interests, and just the way Chris treated autistic people who were formerly diagnosed with A$p3rg3r$ $yndr0m3 (like I was) really made me feel even more alienated.

Also, S1a supports A$ (Autism $p3aks). She's not a very good person to support. Some of her music is good, but her as a person....no. Her movie "Music" was gross, from what I've read about it and seen pictures of.

If you've read this far, thank you so much!