#why isn't anyone saying to me

[fridgrave2-0]

hehe ghost-turbo haunting felix au

turbo is connected to the last piece of his code in the whole arcade - a trophy he gifted to felix in mid 80s as a symbol of him genuinely caring about their relationships on par with being the best racer. felix also gave him one of his medals and both kept their gifts next to other rewards, but when roadblasters and turbotime were unplugged, the medal was gone with everything else

now, after burning in cola-lava turbo is basically dead, but scraps of his code still were intertwined with the trophy (after all, it was his first winner's cup, but felix never knew about it), giving turbo an opportunity to exist as a shadow incapable of interacting with anything and anyone besides felix, who kept the trophy even after the roadblasters incident

also I went crazy in tags, feel free to check them out

[iamacolor]

Casual touches between Sol and Sunjae 💛

LOVELY RUNNER - EPISODE 16

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Thank g-d for jewish punks who make music explicitly about being jewish 🙏🥰

[2129888]

im not smart enough to make this post but something something im thinking abt abe and mihashi both being ostracized from their peers growing up but abe chose it (separating himself from the group) while mihashi didn't (looking in longingly)

[skrunksthatwunk]

actually i'm still thinking about the moral orel finale.

he has a cross on his wall. do you know how much i think about that bc it's a lot.

a lot of stories ((auto)biographical or fictional) centering escape from abusive/fundamentalist christianity result in the lead characters leaving behind christianity entirely. and that makes complete sense! people often grow disillusioned with the associated systems and beliefs, and when it was something used to hurt them or something so inseparable from their abuse that they can't engage with it without hurting, it makes total sense that they would disengage entirely. and sometimes they just figure out that they don't really believe in god/a christian god/etc. a healthy deconstruction process can sometimes look like becoming an atheist or converting to another religion. it's all case by case. (note: i'm sure this happens with other religions as well, i'm just most familiar with christian versions of this phenomenon).

but in orel's case, his faith was one of the few things that actually brought him comfort and joy. he loved god, y'know? genuinely. and he felt loved by god and supported by him when he had no one else. and the abuses he faced were in how the people in his life twisted religion to control others, to run away from themselves, to shield them from others, etc. and often, orel's conflicts with how they acted out christianity come as a direct result of his purer understanding of god/jesus/whatever ("aren't we supposed to be like this/do that?" met with an adult's excuse for their own behavior or the fastest way they could think of to get orel to leave them alone (i.e. orel saying i thought we weren't supposed to lie? and clay saying uhhh it doesn't count if you're lying to yourself)). the little guy played catch with god instead of his dad, like.. his faith was real, and his love was real. and i think it's a good choice to have orel maintain something that was so important to him and such a grounding, comforting force in the midst of. All That Stuff Moralton Was Up To/Put Him Through. being all about jesus was not the problem, in orel's case.

and i know i'm mostly assuming that orel ended up in a healthier, less rigid version of christianity, but i feel like that's something that was hinted at a lot through the series, that that's the direction he'd go. when he meditates during the prayer bee and accepts stephanie's different way to communicate, incorporating elements of buddhism into his faith; when he has his I AM A CHURCH breakdown (removing himself from the institution and realizing he can be like,, the center of his own faith? taking a more individualistic approach? but Truly Going Through It at the same time), his acceptance (...sometimes) of those who are different from him and condemned by the adults of moralton (stephanie (lesbian icon stephanie my beloved), christina (who's like. just a slightly different form of fundie protestant from him), dr chosenberg (the jewish doctor from otherton in holy visage)). his track record on this isn't perfect, but it gets better as orel starts maturing and picking up on what an absolute shitfest moralton is. it's all ways of questioning the things he's been taught, and it makes sense that it would lead to a bigger questioning as he puts those pieces together more. anyway i think part of his growth is weeding out all the lost commandments of his upbringing and focusing on what faith means to him, and what he thinks it should mean. how he wants to see the world and how he wants to treat people and what he thinks is okay and right, and looking to religion for guidance in that, not as like. a way to justify hurting those he's afraid or resentful of, as his role models did.

he's coming to his own conclusions rather than obediently, unquestioningly taking in what others say. but he's still listening to pick out the parts that make sense to him. (edit/note: and it's his compassion and his faith that are the primary motivations for this questioning and revisal process, both of individual cases and, eventually, the final boss that is christianity.) it makes perfect sense as the conclusion to his character arc and it fits the overall approach of the show far better. it's good is what i'm saying.

and i think it's important to show that kind of ending, because that's a pretty common and equally valid result of deconstruction. and i think it cements the show's treatment of christianity as something that's often (and maybe even easily) exploited, but not something inherently bad. something that can be very positive, even. guys he even has a dog he's not afraid of loving anymore. he's not afraid of loving anyone more than jesus and i don't think it's because he loves this dog less than bartholomew (though he was probably far more desperate for healthy affection and companionship when he was younger). i think it's because he figures god would want him to love that dog. he's choosing to believe that god would want him to love and to be happy and to be kind. he's not afraid of loving in the wrong way do you know how cool that is he's taking back control he's taking back something he loves from his abusers im so normal

[uniiiquehecrt]

Voice actors are NOT the same as actors.

It takes a specific kind of skill-set and training to be able to warp and meld the voice. It takes a certain kind of talent and dedication to hone that talent into the ability to meld the voice and invoke emotion with one's voice alone. Actors are used to using their voice secondarily to their body language and their facial expressions. It's all mirrored back on camera. They do have nuance. But it's a different kind of nuance and a different kind of training to produce that nuance.

Voice actors might get their likeness transposed on their character's design, and maybe their mannerisms might seep into the character's animation. But when it's all said and done: their presence is in their voice. They are bringing a character to life, showing that emotion in their voice, trying to keep a specific accent, drawl, pitch, tone in that voice and keep it consistent for their recording sessions.

The voice actor is like a classically trained musician who can play first chair in a competitive, world-renown orchestra. The actor (who fills the voice actor's role) is like a moot who played violin in beginner and intermediate high school orchestra and thinks they can get into Juilliard with that 2-4 years of experience.

This doesn't mean that the HS orchestra moot can't play. They can even be really good at it. Maybe they won competitions and sat first chair. But they are not in the same league as the person who's been training their whole lives and lives and breathes to hone their craft using the instrument and all of the training they've ever acquired to perfect it. They are not meant for the same roles. They are not in the same caliber. You do not hire the HS equivalent when you want to play complex music in a competitive orchestra.

Actors are not the same as voice actors.

And furthermore, actors - especially big name actors - taking the roles of animated characters for big budget films or TV pilots makes no sense anyways when - at least in the case of TV pilots - there's not a point to hiring a big budget actors anyways. That money could be used elsewhere (like paying your animators), and the talent that is brought onto the screen for X character could then be hired on to voice said character no recasting required.

I wouldn't say voice acting as a profession is in danger exactly, but it's certainly being disrespected and overlooked for celebrity clout, and this has ALWAYS been an issue. Shoot, even Robin Williams knew that much - which is why he tried so hard not to be used as a marketing chess piece for Aladdin and got royally pissed off when it happened anyways. People shouldn't go to any movie (but especially not animated films) because "oh famous actor is in it". People should go because it's a good movie and the voice acting is good.

People who honest to god think that voice actors are replaceable because "oh well anyone can voice act" or "I like xyz celebrity so naturally it'll be good" ... Honestly I just wish you'd reassess your priorities because you're missing the point and are part of the problem.

Voice Actors ≠ Actors.

[retrogradedreaming]

my least favorite thing is when people compliment someone's work by using passive aggressive comments about what they hate about other people's work. like please, just focus on what is actually in front of you

[croakings]

i apologize for mithrunposting incessantly but honestly if any of you expected better of me you shouldn't have

anyway i get it and some of the failguy jokes are funny. i can tell that nothing i've run into is even malicious. but also it would be really cool and awesome if there were simply less posts calling a disabled person a failure or baby or a dog or whatever for needing accommodation or extra help, especially when like. hey did you know the source material very on purpose did not do anything remotely like that. critical thinking question: could there be some reasons these phrases are not great, potentially

[ladystoneboobs]

no of fence to jon snow fans who for some reason care about his exact age, but these discussions just annoy me no end. not only bc there's no way any weirwood flashbacks bran has to rhaegar/lyanna will come with time/datestamps, but also bc there's always comments like this:

SEVERAL turns of the moon (ie, months)?! have these people never seen a human baby before or just have no concept of their ages? even if we take into account travel time from the toj to wf, meaning jon was not a newborn too fresh out the oven when catelyn and robb arrived, there's still a difference between a newborn and a 3mo and an even bigger difference between those infants and an older baby 5-7mo. there's very good reasons these lines were cut. whatever birthdates can be worked out internally for jon and robb from when they're first mentioned as 15 and 16 don't matter in the end, bc grrm doesn't care about a consistent timeline and the actual text of catelyn's pov and ned's convo with robert about cheating on her should outweigh any guesstimates about jon's official nameday wrt robb's. catelyn may not have cared for jon, but she would sure as hell have noticed his nameday if it came before robb's and made him ned's firstborn. if jon's birthday canonically came before robb's then either ned's cover story would not involve adultery (not impossible for him to sire a bastard before his wedding), or he'd just give jon a new nameday along with his new name to fit the adultery lie. it makes no sense for him to lie about one and not the other, undermining the big lie with a little public clue of his story not adding up. whatever else she was as a stepmother, cat wasn't stupid and a bastard who was actually the eldest son being raised alongside her trueborn heir could be an even bigger insult than whether he was born of adultery or not.

BUT, the unknowability of jon's true birthday is not the only reason this annoys me, it's bc this is all based on the assumption that jon must be older since rhaegar/lyanna ran off together before ned married cat, as if both boys must have been conceived asap as robb canonically was when his parents consummated their marriage. and that's not how human reproduction works! even if you don't understand how fast babies grow in the first year, you should know that people who get pregnant do so through ovulation cycles and a lucky sperm finding an egg and all that, not just immediately getting knocked up as soon as one has p-in-v sex for the first time. not unless you only know mean girls sex ed where if you have sex you will get pregnant and die. (even tho lyanna did die, there's plenty of canon examples where pregnancy did not lead straight to death. also examples of people who did not get pregnant right away and even some who are/were sexually active and childless without always having moon tea on hand.) we can't know how long lyanna was having sex before that sperm+egg match happened or even how long she was with rhaegar before losing her technical virginity. if they were married, doesn't it make sense to think they didn't consummate their relationship until the wedding night either? that's the only leverage there is to ensure a status as wife rather than just mistress.

and while i just said grrm doesn't care about exact timelines and a lot is still foggy surrounding the rebellion and esp rhaegar, there is one timemarker wrt robert's rebellion he voluntarily threw in, time and time again: that stannis was besieged at storm's end for almost a whole year. that siege, which mind you, did not match the duration of the entire war. it only started after robert won his battles at gulltown and summerhall, returned to storm's end, and then went out and lost the battle of ashford, leaving his homeland open to the reachermen. the same siege which only ended when ned made a detour there after the sack of king's landing, before going to the toj. even if lyanna may not have given birth that exact day ned found her, she could only be waiting in that bloody bed for weeks at the most, not months. so if rhaegar knocked her up the very same night he carried her off and jon was still a newborn when ned found her after the siege of storm's end had ended, wouldn't that mean lyanna was pregnant for well over a year? that's not how human pregnancy works either! so, maybe that's proof that jon and robb, whichever order they were actually born in, were actually very close in age as babies, much closer than if they were both conceived asap.

and really, jon's actual birthdate does not matter imho, when he was raised not just as the bastard to robb's trueborn heir, but with robb also known by catelyn and the world as ned's firstborn (which he was, in any case, as jon was ned's nephew by birth). what difference could a birthdate before robb's make (even were there some means of discovery) after ned, cat, and robb are all dead? if one is looking only at his birth parents then he's only a firstborn child on lyanna's side, but definitely a second son on rhaegar's side. maybe he was always meant to be a second son with a not much older half-brother! even if the aegon fka young griff is not in fact rhaegar's son, he'll still be known as aegon vi targaryen, meaning jon will never be known as any father's elder son. if i may reference mean girls again, it's not going to happen.

[winteriron-trash]

rdj the (whitewashed) electric boogaloo

This is a reminder to everyone who's excited about RDJ's casting as Doctor Doom that this casting is whitewashing. Victor Von Doom is a Romani character and has been a Romani character since his introduction in the 1960s. (Fantastic Four Annual #2 [1964]) Not only that, but his Roma identity and the persecution he and his family faced due to it is integral to his character, it is what forms his identity. (Books of Doom by Ed Brubaker) Even if on the off chance this casting is meant to not be Victor but instead be some variant of Tony or whomever else becoming Doctor Doom, it is damaging to the character to rob him of that important cultural background. Doctor Doom does not exist without that history. Fans have been pushing hard to cast Doom as a Romani actor for years, especially since the MCU has whitewashed other Romani characters. (Wanda, Pietro, etc) This casting is not a celebration moment, it's fucking heartbreaking that the MCU repeatedly ignores the important and nuanced cultural backstories of characters.

I know I can't change anybody's mind on whether or not you want to be excited about RDJ's return to the MCU. But I do think at the very least you should be mad that the MCU is baiting us all and destroying nuanced and interesting characters for the sake of self-referential easter eggs and nostalgia bait. Because that's what it is. Feel how you'd like to feel about RDJ's return, but personally, this is soul-sucking. I had such a deep love for the MCU as a teenager, it was obviously something incredibly formative to me, especially Tony Stark. This isn't recreating what I fell in love with the MCU for. This is turning a well-planned and artistic storyline of adaptations into cheap cash grabs and fan service. Because, I think we're past the point of being able to call the MCU an adaptation of anything. They can use existing characters' names and powers, but to say they're being properly adapted is laughable.

This is not an adaptation of Doctor Doom. This is RDJ the Electric Boogaloo because Marvel's fear of losing the interest of dedicated MCU fans overrides their willingness to tell stories that are genuine to the characters. I don't know what there is to be excited about that. The MCU has lost its authenticity and aside from a few projects, feels heartless. Every movie is a copy of a copy. This announcement isn't something celebratory, it feels like a death knell of a cinematic universe that's so desperate to cling to relevancy it's resorting to nostalgia for a character/actor who hasn't even been dead for a decade. We're not getting anything new, we're just rinsing and repeating the same song and dance.

I get it. I love Tony Stark, his death destroyed me and I to this day, rue the ending he got in Endgame. It misunderstood his arc and it robbed him of a satisfying conclusion. But the solution to that isn't dragging the corpse out of the grave five years later to whitewash an existing character with rich and interesting nuance, just to forcibly tie his existence in the MCU to Tony. Whether he is a variant or not. Why would you want someone else's fave's legacy to be destroyed simply so your fave's legacy can go on? Hell, if we were really all so hellbent on the return of RDJ and/or Tony to the MCU, we have the multiverse for a reason. There were other ways to do it that didn't whitewash and ruin someone else. This just. Isn't something to be happy about.

[zukkaoru]

could you tell me more about why you dislike femskk?

okay disclaimer before i begin: this is not meant to be a dig on every person who enjoys femskk. the biggest reason i don't like it is honestly because it's just not my cup of tea and honestly it really makes no difference to me if other people like it. but beyond that my biggest issues with it are

1. the phenomenon of fans "yuri-ifying" the most popular m/m ship and then using that to prove they like female characters and f/f ships. this is not a bsd-exclusive thing; it happens with stsg too and i don't like femstsg for the same reason. but there's a big difference between actually liking female characters and just genderbending (or even making transfem) the big m/m ship. i literally went to the f/f category in bsd on ao3 the other day looking for fics and about half of them are skk fics instead of fics about like. the actual female characters in bsd. who i was looking for fics of. similarly, there have been some redraw trends going around twitter - specifically the i prefer girls cover redraw - and i have seen. i don't even know how many femskk redraws of that (along with a couple femfyolais and a femrimlaine) but only one redraw with actual female characters from bsd. same with the scene 14 redraw that was going around, and while that one wasn't originally two female characters, i have still seen significantly more femskk (and femsigzai, femsigchuu, femfyolai, etc) than i have ships with even one character who is female in the source material.

and imo this phenomenon is made even worse in the bsd fandom bc so many fans just see bsd as the skk show. so of course they're writing off the actual female characters; they literally don't care about anything besides skk. and obviously i can't do anything to force anyone to care about other characters but like.... bsd has so many other wonderful characters and dynamics (both romantic and platonic) that a good half of the fanbase won't even glance at because they're not skk. i do like skk, but bsd is about so much more than just them. they are, objectively, only one small part of it. like if you only care about skk, then just be outright about it and don't pretend you're "proving" you like female characters and sapphic ships bc you like femskk too

2. of the fans who only like skk and nothing else about bsd, most of them. don't even characterize dazai and chuuya correctly? i think the some of the best skk characterizations i've seen have been from people who actually like other characters and ships too, and some of the worst skk characterization i've seen has come from people who literally don't care about any other ships or characters. this isn't a hard and fast rule obviously but even with 30k skk fics on ao3, i have struggled to find ones that actually feel true to their characters. and the characterization seems to only get worse when it's femskk. if you're just going to turn femdazai and femchuuya into two completely different people, what's the point in it even being skk? why not write k.ousano or h.igugin or even a ship with one canonically female character? if you have to change the core characteristics of both dazai and chuuya... do you even really like them?

3. about femdazai: i actually don't mind the transfem dazai headcanon in general but most fans get her wrong. i made a post about it here but basically so many times i see femdazais that are just. completely unrecognizable as dazai. you can't strip away core aspects of dazai like idk the fact that dazai doesn't show any skin from neck to toe just because you made her a girl. i have seen some femdazai that's good! but i have seen so much that is just fundamentally wrong for dazai's character as a whole. mostly on twitter.

4. about femchuuya: i really truly just don't get femchuuya. i THINK the hype here is probably bc lesbians seem to get attached to chuuya (which. valid. i am also a lesbian chuuya fan.) and so they want to draw a chuuya they can be attracted to (i.e. femchuuya) which like. cool whatever i'm not here to judge. but looking at it from a "would this character actually identify as female" perspective, i don't actually think i can picture that for chuuya. maybe it's just because i so strongly hc them as nonbinary? idk. this one is honestly just a neutral "i don't see that but you do you"

tl;dr: from what i've seen, femskk is often mischaracterized, and genderbending the big m/m ships in a fandom is often a way fans "prove" they like the female characters and f/f ships while not actually caring about anything other than their main m/m ship

[allastoredeer]

I dunno why when it's radiostatic then I'm either indifferent or sometimes, rarely as it is, even like top!Alastor but when it's radioapple then even a thought about top!Alastor and bottom!Lucifer makes me wanna to gouge my eyes out haha

Samsies, Anon XD When it comes to radiostatic, I don't mind top!Alastor. I've actually like it on a few occasions of Alastor domming Vox. It's delicious. It's exquisite. Very yummy.

I think its the fandom-wide depiction of top!Alastor and bottom!Lucifer that turns me off from that dynamic. With Vox, Alastor gets to be more himself. He's not turned into this super suave alpha male dude (probs because Vox already fits that bill LMAO). Alastor gets to keep his fun and silly characteristics. I've seen more fan art of Alastor in a dress in radiostatic than radioapple, and I would like to thank the radiostatic community for contributing to my health. Thank you for putting my pookie in a dress, he looks amazing and beautiful just like he should.

And Vox gets to be his silly self too. He's still a boyfail. He's a mess. He's suave and charming, but obsessive and goofy at the same time. They match each other's freak.

From what I've seen, radiostatic typically feels closer to their canon counterparts than a lot of radioapple, which might be why I've been so drawn to radiostatic lately.

Their dynamic is so much more complicated and interesting than a lot of radioapple too, which is INSANE because Lucifer is literally the King of Hell, a prideful son of bitch, and an insecure, depressed mess who's been shown to despise Sinners. Alastor is a silly, girlpop, murderous Overlord who's rise to power is a mystery to EVERYONE (that should've been also impossible considering the assumption that he killed the other Overlords), he had an immediate dislike towards Lucifer that was never explained or expanded on, AND he's slowly been driven to (more) insanity because someone owns his soul, and that someone could very well be Lilith, Lucifer's ex-wife. THESE TWO ARE SUCH TASTY, COMPLICATED CHARACTERS AND RADIOAPPLE SHOULD BE THE TASTIEST OF SHIPS.

And yet, they're starting to feel like the oatmeal of ships. Bland and boring.

Don't get me wrong, I DO like radioapple. I do. I promise. I wouldn't be writing radioapple fanfic if I didn't. But it is hard to find enjoyment in the ship when most of what I see turns the characters into tropes and caricatures that strip them of all their tastiest qualities.

[oifaaa]

We do have electric kettles but unless you were a dedicated tea drinker or enjoy pour over coffee (compared to other popular extraction methods). Not many have one.

Also we have plug covers.

Never said you guys didn't have kettles said you didn't have good ones which is true bc the voltage in your plugs is lower then the Irish/UK plugs it means the kettles take longer to boil and becomes more of an inconvenience i also never said you guys didn't have plug covers I just said you have to buy them separately they're not apart of the plug like the irish/UK plugs

[cavennmalore]

tagging @myfairkatiecat because it is only fair after you requested this word vomit lol

The thing about Keefe not being a good person is a little complicated. Full disclaimer, I don’t really believe in the whole good/bad person dichotomy, and definitely not for KIDS. Nevertheless, I don’t disagree with the people who say that Keefe isn’t the awesome person Sophie’s (biased) opinion makes him out to be. Not for the manipulative reasons -- which, Keefe is a teenage boy and I don't know about anyone else but that is like THE demographic for being a little messy in relationships lmao -- but for a lot of his planning. Joining the Neverseen without telling anyone what his plan was? Proposing himself as Mercadir without giving anyone a chance to refute him? Lying at the end of Legacy and showing up to the confrontation even though it was explicitly agreed he'd stay back? Basically, everything he did in Lodestar? Not great.

It's not Certified Good Guy Behavior. But that's his role. Keefe was literally designed to occupy this grey, questionable space, both in the narrative and outside of it. He's Sophie's character foil. Lady Gisela's plan revolves around pushing Keefe to become a worse and worse person; that involves raising him in a way that cultivates bad behavior and forcing him into increasingly extreme situations that are designed to make Keefe "ready" when the time comes. That is a huge part of the plots of Nightfall and Legacy.

Admittedly, I don't think Shannon has made him evil/grey enough, which I know isn't a popular take. There was real potential to make Keefe a wild card in Lodestar and make it so that the question isn't what stupid scheme is he planning? but to what extent have Lady Gisela's machinations worked? It's an interesting plotline to me. It's why I'm so excited for Unraveled; it's a chance to see this push-pull in action without Keefe's "north star" (AKA Sophie) guiding his decisions.

But a lot of people don't feel this way. A ton of the complaints I see around the book have to do with Keefe getting too much page time, the plotline taking up too much space in the story, etc. Which is fair! If you don't like Keefe, I'm sure a lot of this is grueling. However, a point I see connected to this line of thought is a wish for the books to return to a more ensemble vibe. That there should be more Dex, more Biana, more Stina, more Tam, etc. the way that it used to be.

That version of the books, though? It only really exists in the first book. Keefe is a prominent character in Exile and a huge driver of its plot. It's only in Book One where he only exists on the margins and isn't super involved. The ensemble cast has grown exponentially since then, to the point where there are frankly too many characters to keep track of in a scene without straight-up listing them all (which did happen but I'm forgetting which book). The decreased page time of supporting characters isn't solely because Keefe is eating the narrative, but because there are way too many characters for everyone to get a subplot; rather than have pre-existing characters solve issues, Shannon tends to just pull new ones in, and then leave them to hang out for the following books. If the series was for a more adult audience, I would say that it was time to start killing people off (like the popular critique of The Boys) but because this is a kids series, they're going to just hang around and not do much.

A lot of the nostalgia for this old version of KOTLC presents itself in fandom discussions of Dex. Full transparency: I didn't really like Dex that much in the early books when I did my reread. I found him unbearably rude to Fitz and Biana. His crush on Sophie felt invasive at times as if she was catering to a boy that was projecting his feelings and making her accommodate him. It's very similar stuff to the current criticism of Keefe! But I have yet to see any discussions around Dex that don't characterize him as kind, goofy, or sweet. Maybe there is some discussion of him being snarky or sarcastic. The most criticism I've seen of him is about how he treated Stina in his introduction, which was taken largely in isolation.

But that sweet, goofy version of Dex that people talk about missing? He doesn't exist. Sure, Dex mellowed out a ton in the later books, but he didn't become a whole new character. And I don't believe that he disappeared from the books in the way that some people claim. He just... doesn't have a subplot anymore. His crush on Sophie was resolved. It was a sticking point in his and Sophie's friendship which made him part of her character arc, and that arc is done. If that went on for any longer, it would be a drag on the pace of the series. Like I said before, the presence of so many side characters, each with their own needs and motivations, makes it difficult to introduce him into new stuff. It's why he gets so much more page time in Unlocked. With the presence of so many other characters, Shannon tends to handwave a lot of the background group dynamics. Dex ended up becoming close to Keefe and was able to shine there, away from Sophie's perspective and their finished arc.

All of this is to say, it's not wrong to dislike Keefe or like Dex. But I think a lot of the conversations surrounding these guys can get muddled in nostalgia and what people think the books should be rather than what they are. I'm (severely) guilty of it too. It's part of a broader trend in fandoms as "fandom" as a concept becomes more popular. That is a whole other post, though, and frankly, this one is long enough lol

[ransomdemands]

yknow sometimes the way trans women talk about testosterone and being on estrogen is indistinguishable from the way terfs try to convince afab people not to start hrt

this is not a criticism mind you, their experiences are their own and completely legitimate, it's just a matter of competing needs - they need a safe space to talk about their dysphoria and how testosterone makes them feel and i need to not hear about how i am destroying my body with hrt

ordinarily these things are pretty insular to transfem circles but since instagram has been feeding me transfem content i'm seeing it more and more and yet again the algorithm is fucking me

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

I realize that the internet is a breeding ground for attitude problems and people being little jerks to each other but it drives me crazy when I see Christians acting holier than thou and like their specific opinion is the only proper opinion and anyone who disagrees is a heretic.