#that is such a victim blaming narrative

[vikingpoteto]

you mentioned it'd been awhile since you read that arc with babs talking about killing the joker (last laugh) and the max humor in the situation is that's in issue #3 and Dick is like where does it end Babs we can't kill. And then in issue #6 Dick thinks the Joker killed Tim and Dick beats the Joker to death. like idr Helena or somebody gives the Joker cpr as if somehow starting his heart will uncave in his diaphragm lmao

god, that's frustrating. See, I wouldn't mind that as a plot point if it was intentional or at least addressed. It makes sense that it's easy for Dick (or Bruce, or Tim, or anyone really) to say that they have to be better than that and then not follow through when emotions are high.

I don't mind suspending my disbelief and accepting characters surviving impossible situations if it meant a more interesting story, but the Joker surviving means that Dick doesn't have to examine his actions - and that WOULD make for an interesting arc since Dick is a really passionate and sometimes impulsive person.

I know comics are obsessed with keeping the status quo because changing it would mean they can't keep publishing the same character forever but the Joker went stale about 50 years ago and he brings nothing interesting to the story. The only reason he's alive is plot armor otherwise a random person with a gun would have killed him already. Hell, one of his goons would've, if not for being pushed too far, they would do it for self-defense.

[odinsblog]

Hamas ≠ Palestine

👉🏿 https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/11/the-occupation-of-water/

👉🏿 https://www.tumblr.com/odinsblog/730635185110073344

[brrmian]

something that so many star wars fans somehow fail to realize is that george lucas always intended for the fall of the republic to be a completely unavoidable tragedy. that’s what makes it such brilliant storytelling.

placing the blame on just one party in the galaxy-wide farce that was the clone wars just isn’t interpreting the story the way its writer intended. neither is saying that all players should be held equally accountable. i don’t think the jedi were at fault for the state of the republic, and (despite the fact that he did horrible things) neither was anakin, on a galactic or governmental scale.

the real villain is palpatine, who shaped the government into a corrupt system by his own hand. the blame for turning a democratic republic into an authoritarian dictatorship (which it was long before it became the empire) under the noses of thousands of incredibly corrupt politicians must be placed entirely on him, and him alone.

by the end of the war, the jedi council recognized that they had already lost the ability to hold onto what it truly means to be a jedi. in their prime during the days of the old republic, the jedi knights were “the guardians of peace and justice.” they’re meant to as diplomats, peacekeepers, mediators, and public servants. when the clone wars began, they were essentially forced into being soldiers, generals, and quasi-politicians by palpatine and the senate. all of those things are antithetical to the jedi’s beliefs, but they had no other choice.

placing even the smallest bit of blame on the jedi for anything leading to the republic’s downfall—and their own—is not only unfair, it’s factually incorrect. the jedi order is a monastic organization. they have no say in the senate and no voting power. saying they’re corrupt, when in fact they were just as conned by palpatine as the rest of the galaxy, is victim-blaming and scapegoating.

palpatine shoved the jedi face first into fighting the war, and pretty much threw the clone army into their laps on top of that. the jedi had no say in the matter, and they certainly had no say in the war itself being started, either. because he controlled both sides, palpatine was able to make the CIS and the republic declare war on each other even though its citizens wanted the same outcome: political independence and survival. if not for palpatine’s schemes, the separatists would have been allowed to secede peacefully, the republic would have continued existing, and the war would have been completely avoided. but that was unfortunately not the case.

so in a galaxy thrown into an unavoidable war by its own secret dictator, with an army of sentient slaves suddenly at their command, and the risk of billions of deaths at the hands of the droid army imminently approaching, what do the galaxy’s official peacekeepers have no other choice but to do? be peacekeepers. why wouldn’t the sworn defenders of the galaxy be out on the battlefields trying to end the war? if they sat in the temple and did nothing, they simply wouldn’t be jedi.

the jedi were forced into a lose/lose situation. every religion and organization has faults, but that doesn’t place any blame on them for the catch-22 they were trapped into falling for. when the clone wars started—and the key point here is that it never should have in the first place—the jedi still needed to be jedi. unfortunately for them, that meant having positions of power not meant for them being thrust upon their shoulders. they couldn’t drop the burden, because that meant actively choosing not to save lives—but the other option, becoming soldiers despite the tenet of their beliefs that dictates they shouldn’t, was no better.

see what a cruel trap palpatine set? it’s like a fish being caught in a fisherman’s net. the net is spread out across the ocean floor, and the fish swim above it, not knowing that the trap is waiting to be drawn in around them from below. in the end, when the net starts to tighten, dragging them closer to the surface, they can’t swim fast enough to escape from the middle to the edge—and to safety—before the net is completely tied. it’s the cruelest kind of trap: the kind that gives you just the right amount of time to think you can escape while being sprung just quick enough to make actually escaping impossible.

in the end, the order actively chose to fight the war because they needed to. there was no other way to continue on as who they were. militarizing the order was not the right choice in a vacuum, but this was not that; this was a situation in which every galaxy-changing choice was the wrong one. the jedi knew they were making a decision that drew them farther away from their beliefs, but it was the lesser of an infinite list of evils, and they didn’t see the walls closing in on them until it was too late.

lucas himself has even said that the order was not corrupt or decaying from the inside, nor did they make a series of bad choices that ultimately led to their own destruction. they were always just trying to do the right thing—but unlike literally everything else in fiction, the jedi order’s death was completely unaffected by any of the choices they made. no matter what they did, they were always going to lose. the fall of the republic wasn’t caused by its defenders choosing what they saw as the least bad choice. it didn’t come down to any decisions, political or not, that the jedi council made with the limited tools that they had. it certainly didn’t come down to one emotionally unstable twenty-three-year-old’s slow descent into insanity, either. the republic and the jedi would still have been destroyed with or without anakin’s unhinged nervous breakdown.

anakin, just like the order, the republic, and the separatists, was taken advantage of by palpatine. even if a person’s choices are their own, they don’t exist in a vacuum.

anakin would have made better choices if not for palpatine, but he didn’t. the jedi order would have kept the peace if not for palpatine, but no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t. the republic, and democracy with it, would not have crumbled if not for palpatine. not the order, not anakin, not the separatists, and not the republic.

in the end, they were all just pawns in a decades-spanning plan, one that none of them saw coming until it was too late—and by then, it was already irreversible.

[lucidasidera]

🤡 Markus and McFeely 🤡: “Yeah, Bucky’s just a POW who had his entire agency explicitly removed in not one but TWO ways but he’s for sure guilty because we don’t want him to have fruit salads with Steve”

[covertblizzard]

Maybe I'm being sensitive but this whole scene just frustrates and annoys me because like

comparing Steph and Tim so callously with comments that he's "better" and a "quick learner" after her death

having Cass lowkey victim blame Steph for her own death "But she chose--" and "She messed up." plus trying to convince Tim that it's not Steph's fault

the "Maybe it's time I gave you a lesson" like I don't really have a good reason for this one it might just be a personal thing but the tone of that whole sentence makes me feel frustrated and talked down to

[fromtheseventhhell]

Robert, Cersei, and Joffrey watching everyone blame Ned and Arya for Lady's death (and barely talk about Mycah cause who cares about an unimportant low-born boy? 🤪)

Arya committed the horrible crime of wanting to defend her friend and Ned physically carried out the act...after her death had already been decided. Right. It's interesting that of the three, Sansa is the one who gets blamed the least despite George saying she held some responsibility.

He was a bit coy in answering our questions but in the end he did indicate that Sansa did have responsibility for Lady's and Ned's deaths.

I'm not saying she should be blamed but if you're pointing fingers and not including her, then it seems more about personal opinion than the story being told. I'm all for her age being a factor in people not blaming her but it just has to be consistent. It can't be that Sansa shouldn't be blamed because of her age AND that Arya can be held responsible despite being younger. And yes, Ned is an adult, but what does that really mean in this situation? He's going against the Queen, a King who refuses to intervene, and a Prince making accusations while surrounded by Lannister guards and traveling South to become the hand of the King...I'm genuinely wondering what he was expected to do? He'd already taken the best course of action by bringing Sansa to tell the truth about what happened. According to George, her lying had an impact on Lady being killed so...why exactly does he get blamed? Why does Arya? This is the moment that tells us the Lannisters aren't to be trusted and the Starks aren't safe in KL, but who cares about the narrative right? It's really one of those situations when you can tell people are only looking at a scene from the perspective of a specific character.

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

one thing i realized about fandaniel's dynamic with xande that really fucks me up is, like.... there are the obvious parallels that canon draws between meteion and xande, and their roles in hermes/fandaniel's lives. and there are also the parallels between fandaniel and meteion. there's a lot to unpack.

but it hit me recently that one of hermes' deepest, most devastating regrets is having failed meteion, with abuse and hypocrisy and the project he had the authority to make her a part of.

he was painfully aware that he wasn't fit to be a father; that he'd put them in a bitch of an unsatisfactory situation with his lack of foresight; that he was currently fucking things up in ways he did not know how to understand or articulate, much less address. he knew that there was no support system for this; not just for his mental health issues in general, but to educate him and hold him accountable about how to be decent to her, because he knew no one would give a fuck. the closest thing anyone would have given him to advice would be to just kill her and start over.

he says he hopes she'll find a better parent out there in space somewhere, because he knows there is not one to be found for her anywhere on this star, including him. she was one of the most helpless, vulnerable people in their society, and there was no backup for her if he mistreated her, if he failed. and he did.

so of course his next attempt to find a meteion would be an emperor. of course he'd be at the very top of the most powerful empire in the world, at the time. of course he'd position himself as his servant, devote himself to him utterly, and value his authority above all. he wanted someone he could never hurt the way he hurt meteion again.

[life-set-to-random]

Even with the controversy of her name not being an actual Japanese name, even though she’s basically a woman shaped plot device… I still like her. 🤷🏻‍♀️♥️ She’s nice, kind and calm, very nurturing and reminds people to take time to simply be. Not every second has to be a life or death situation or preparation for such!

I enjoy AU’s where in she lives and the brothers get to have a female influence in their lives before April is dumped in their laps by fate lol. Wether she’s their mother or their grandmother, I think our boys could have benefited from getting to have Tang Shen in their lives.

[yuridovewing]

actually it feels better to make sleekwhisker a sympathetic villain to me bc the books very much felt like they were trying to go "she implied she didnt believe in starclan one time so she's a demon atheist who cannot get better and must be punished"

[odinsblog]

Transcript:

“Interesting how, when a Black person is murdered by a white man, so begins a national debate about crime that somehow never centers on the white man who committed the crime, or the crime he committed. Only the hypothetical crime the Black person committed in the eyes of the white people who decided to kill them, and white America, who can only see them as a defendant and never the victim.

I have represented hundreds and hundreds of people, all impoverished, many homeless, many of whom were arrested and criminally charged for just entering the subway station when they couldn't afford the $2.75 fare in that same city, on those same subways.

Daniel Penny could kill someone for everyone to see, and go home. Something Jordan Neely didn't even have. Which is why he was on the subway in the first place, screaming out for food and water and doing so in vain.

Because the people his desperate pleas would fall on would sit front row to his murder, and not a soul would lift a finger to help him.

And much has been said and asserted as fact regarding Jordan's mental health. How he was having a mental health crisis, how he was dangerous, how he was acting erratic, crazy and aggressive.

And there's been a significant effort made on the part of people hoping to humanize him by saying things like, the passenger's fears were valid, but he shouldn't have been killed, or we shouldn't react to mental health episodes this way.

But I would like to seriously ask this: Why are you defending against a premise you need not accept?

Is it mentally ill to be fed up?

To be angry?

To be desperate?

That you do not have a bed, food to eat?

Water to drink?

And that life has shown you, time and time again, that you're more likely to get it from a prison than from someone who sees you as human as they see themselves?

Is it legitimate to be afraid of someone for that?

Not nervous, anxious, agitated, concerned, worried, sympathetic, or to feel pity - but afraid? So afraid that you think you're in danger?

That this man who has not touched you, has not presented a weapon, or made any advancement towards you, needs to be put down?

Is it “self defense” for a trained Marine to choke an unarmed homeless man who had not threatened him, from behind?

Is a person who you must creep up and attack from behind, posing a threat to you?

Too often, even the well intentioned public embraces legitimizes and concedes to characterizations and narratives they feel they must then defend against.

I encourage you to reject that practice and instead embrace reality. The reality being that there is absolutely nothing new about what happened to Jordan Neely, or how America is trying to justify it.”

—Olayemi Olurin

[urproblematicfav-arsonk]

is it a good April fools joke for me to post the outline of the fic I'm definitely probably not ever going to finish

[sukibenders]

"Cannibalism as a metaphor for love is such an interesting narrative choice!" Until you add poc into the narrative and here come the millions of "think pieces" that either 1.) dehumanize them for the same thing their yte counterparts are praised and, sometimes, even...applauded for (eg. Yellowjackets and other supernatural media), 2.) or use it inappropriately to justify harm brought on to poc communities. But that's a conversation for another time.

(tw for some of the tags as well)

[starsnores]

Gamzee... Scape goat.......

[cleromancy]

if i neverrrrrrr have to see another dumbass post like this itll be too goddamn soon

like. fundamentally. as a person. tim cares when people die. because he cares about people. even if he didn't care that robin died for its own sake, and he does care about robin, he would care because dick and bruce cared. every stupid unfunny joke about "actually he should be glad jason died" is so blatantly just throwing every other robin than dick under the bus like come ON its 2023 can we not just get on the same page that legacies are good actually. im going to break into your kitchen and make a mess of your pots and pans.

[who-the-fuck-knows-blog]

[post that directly states/implies that izzy saying ‘a shark did this’ was him admitting that he is responsible for everything ed did to him and thats part of his character growth]

good fucking lord

[s0fter-sin]

“maybe if i, an 8yr old, managed to talk sense into my groomed and deeply traumatised 13yr old brother, maybe he wouldn’t have accidentally almost killed himself and become a villain” and no one in that room disagreed with him??