#yeah. no. it's even more racist than the first one

[pinkvaquita]

hey u know class of 09 right? whatd you think of the flip side (came out today, jeckas pov)

Just make a post saying that it wasn't that much good-, but guess I can make a longer one because that other one was literally just those words.

Soooo... Oh god it had so much potential. It had so much wasted potential.

Going in order of routes. Spoilers Ahead

1° Jecka Suicide.

Again... Why foot fetish!?

Like I get that maybe using other options could not be possible because is 2009 and there is no only fans. But it could have been any other thing!

Like, in the last game they show us the whole myspace prostitution circle. They could have used that to make her sell swimsuit photos or questionable poses!

If they necessary wanted to use Jeffrey, maybe they could make Jecka do shitty cosplay or voice acting manga scenes!

And even if the foot fetish was totally necessary, they didn't needed the scenes to last that long! They could have done the whole "screen goes black" timeskip thing like when Nicole attempts suicide!

And now with the whole Nicole fucked her dad thing...

That was the only part I am not complaining.

Nicole is a sociopath, and as much (Wich is literally just the bare minimum) as she appreciates Jecka, this is in character for her.

She herself said in the first game she doesn't care enough for Jecka to try to see her after graduation. She was more than fine with leaving her alone with her pedophile brother. And only cared about it untill Jecka wanted to leave her.

And honestly, she only cares about Jecka when she tries to leave her. Like in the jail ending and the dating Ari ending.

And is only in those two! Like literally, we see her witness Jecka die and go to jail in the racist endings and she doesn't care!

Even when people hate her or love her, Nicole doesn't give a fuck, and would backstab for the most simple reasons.

She literally make a whole scheme to steal Megan's boyfriend and embarrass her about it In front of anyone, just because Megan was bossy.

She abused Ari, even if she didn't do anything wrong to her. Just out of fun.

Are we really that surprised she did this to Jecka? She has done worst for less!

And also, Jecka leaved a sorry message when Nicole killed herself. Nicole didn't.

And the monologue... Oh, that was depressing. Jecka's words were so sad. Although I have one problem with this. The pic.

Why is she in her bra!? Why is she in a pose like if it is a body pillow!?

Is this some weird metaphor I am not getting????? Because this thing looks to me like another weird thing going on in the developing.

2° Jeffrey dies ending.

Same situation with the foot fetish. Why????

Now going with the end... Damn that monlogu was also good. I do appreciate the showing how the different circumstances Jecka and Nicole had growling up affect their behavior. And also, Nicole voice at the end genuinely scared me. For a whole second I thought she was gonna use Jecka's abusive background against her and talk to her like an abusive parent would.

Other than that it was... Good? I guess. I mean, Jeffrey is a total creep so I don't really care if he died.

3° FYE

What the fuck was that?????????

Seriously, that was the most out of place and boring route. It felt like it was a total different game!

The dialogue, the scenes, the ENDING????

I mean, yeah I don't find that insane that maybe there is a whole warehouse filled with illegal porn and the FBI finding it and not telling anyone.

What I do find insane is a guy giving the place information I'm a riddle, two teen girls finding it, and that somehow ending in one dead and the other being victim of human trafficking.

And the dialogue of the counselor was so weird. Like, wtf?????

The only mildly good thing is that Kelly got some screen time. But that wasn't even enough because she had zero character explanation. She is the true bimbo, give her an actual exploratory arch like Emily or Ari. Or at least make her be worth to watch like with Megan! Give my girl something to be iconic about!

4° Ari dies ending.

Jecka turning emo was not on my bingo card. Honestly I like this route more than the Jeffrey one, even if involves Ari's death and Jecka still living with his dad (Wich by the way, I was also scared everytime he was on screen.)

The party scenes felt so real. Emily acting out an calling Jecka and Nicole possers was in character. The hat man scene was unnecessary but good enough to ignore it was out of place. Jecka with black hair was EVERYTHING. OMG I feel so bad for how damaged her blonde hair got.

Now story wise, I remember seeing a YouTube comment calling this a route were Jecka becomes slowly as bad as Nicole. Literally she killed someone and instead of the regret she would normally show, it was: "That was low-key funny" and "I'm so pretty when I cry"

Good route. I can live with this one. Live, laugh, love emotionally empty Jecka.

5° Jecka's version of Nicole suicide route

This was so heartbreaking.

First. I was not expecting this from Mister Kaz. He literally was the only teacher in the whole game that seemed to not be a pedophile or racist or both. I should have seen it comming.

Jecka's scene in therapy was tugging my heart so badly. Specially because of her desperately rambling and breaking down in tears. I almost forgot that Miss Ames was racist just because she was trying to help.(although I still hate her. And even more with how she acted in the foot fetish route.)

Second, seeing that scene from the first game word by word was terrifying because that was the signal of: "you know how this is gonna end"

The intervention scene was also realistic. The break trust. The attempt to get police involved. The fear. Even more when Jecka got home and was received by her dad screaming at her. I even though he was gonna kill her.

And all that tension and horror builds and builds untill we reach the scene. We know is gonna happen. And it still hurts like hell.

Seeing Jecka standing right besides Nicole's corpse (Wich again, why Nicole got such a cinematic picture for her suicide end but Jecka instead got THAT????) while reading the suicide note was so sad.

And the final dialogue was good. I feel kinda disappointed that there wasn't a final monologue. But that scene replaces it enough.

Conclusion. This was... Meh? The only memorable and well develop ending is the fifth one. The Ari one is good but is not that much good. The suicide one has too many weird things going on to be as iconic. The Jeffrey one is both things combined. And the FYE one is bad.

And even if there is some good things.the game feels so... Bland and soulless? There is no longer the social commentary or the routes were there is some sort of fucked up justice. Neither the humor. It could be because of Jecka not being as sociopathic as Nicole. But even when Nicole got bad endings, there was still some reflection about society in those.

It could have been so better. It wasn't worth the hype.

[rjalker]

I think it's kinda funny that by accident the moral of Avatar 2 is "you should kill the babies of colonizers unless you want them to grow up and become colonizers themselves".

[twpsyn-who]

Soulmates AU in which when your soulmate is in a situation that can result in their death you get to see through their eyes. Like, I don't know how to explain this- it kind of flashes between what you see and what your soulmate sees. You know those edits where there's a scene going on and there's another one faded in the background happening at the same time? Similar to that. The idea is that you get to see what your soulmate sees too, on top of what you're seeing.

Now, this AU but JeanMarco. With Marco asking the others where's Jean, just for him to start seeing a corpse right in front of his eyes not even a second after asking. Seeing through Jean's eyes as he's trying to get hold of that gear and stuff. And once Jean's safe, once it clicks that you know his best friend is his soulmate Marco can't wait for them to graduate so he can you know tell him that.

Then, you know. That happens. And Jean is so fucking confused because he keeps seeing Annie crying, looking down on him. Only when Annie starts getting off the gear, when his soulmate starts moving around trying to get away he starts panicking, starts moving around faster than before. And maybe he's too late. Or maybe he shows up in time and kills the titan. I don't know. That's not where I'm trying to get, but to the second option AKA Marco pulling an UNO reverse on Annie because he's a smart sneaky bastard like that and being like 'Hey you can't kill me, my soulmate will know it was you' which makes her stop trying to take off his gear. Reiner keeps telling her to do it, Bertholdt keeps yelling about that titan coming closer, but Annie... she has seen things, at some point. Flashes of moments that weren't hers, happening right in Trost- right in that moment. And she didn't give them too much thought until that moment, until it got confirmed that it has nothing to do with her titan powers.

'What do you mean by that?' she asks, because she needs to know more. Because she wants to know more. And Marco starts explaining how it works. Tells them that he has found his soulmate, that they will put all the blame on them for his death. Reiner doesn't believe him, keeps insisting that he's playing them around - he, and anyone born and raised on Marley, has never heard of something like that before, it doesn't exist - but Annie tells him to shut up and to let Marco go. Cue to the plot of any fic in which Marco doesn't straight up die after finding up their secret.

Anyway I don't know man, just,,, We need more soulmate aus for JeanMarco. That's an order.

[s-the-seething-songbird-2]

Me at an outdoor festival: wow this is great! Everyone looks so cool, and the air smells wonderful-

Cannon ball 50 feet away:

Me: This Is The Worst Day Of My Life

[libraford]

It is possible to interact with people whom share opposing views and no this is not about pineapple on pizza. In fact, it is imperative that you learn how to be civil with some people who you may find difficult to agree with.

At work, Youngin would often tell me that the guy that trained him (Ginger) was a misogynist. I had never met Ginger, and I had very little to say on this matter. But I would ask Youngin some questions about him because I like to know the other seasonal workers a little. I ask about Ginger- first words from Youngin's mouth 'he's a misogynist.'

I asked him why he thought that. (There are many misogynists at this location, as someone that is woman-shaped I see it often, I am comparing notes.)

"We were on our way to a location and a driver was going really slowly. When he got around her he said 'fucking women drivers.' Like he was going out of his way to prove that the driver was a woman."

The last month or so, Youngin worked exclusively with me because I knew that it was a matter of time before he said something that pissed off one of the guys. He was not going to get along with people here, it just wasn't happening.

When he left, everyone wanted to know what he was like to work with. And I finally got to have a conversation with Ginger.

"I'd like to ask you something a little strange- he said that on his first day there was an issue with a driver going slowly. Can you tell me about that?"

"Oh yeah! She was going super slow and when I got around her I said 'yup- little old lady driving.' And he was like 'what's that supposed to mean?' And I just kind of dropped it, but I hear he was saying I was a misogynist over it?"

So I give Youngin some grace because he's young, he's got a social bubble that's very liberal, he has not met very many people that weren't part of that kind of scene. But he often talked about how every person here has said something that pissed him off and he seemed really surprised that I (woman-shaped queer liberal) would be okay working with all these sexist homophobes.

And I give grace to Ginger because he had no reason to think that his words would be interpreted like that. What he was saying was normal to him. This is... somewhat the culture of landscaping jobs. And its not even close to the worst thing I've heard out of these dudes mouths. (Literally had one of the dudes comment that he would like to 'motorboat' one of the pedestrians.)

It was weird for Youngin to carry that with him for the whole two months that he worked here, over a very... small comment.

Every single person I've worked with here has said something that has given me pause and I tuck it away to rant about later and then I let it go. If it gets out of hand, I talk to one of the bosses about it. I know how to contact HR. I came into this place knowing that I was going to disagree politically with most of the people that I work with because I'm coming in to a culture that is fundamentally different from my own.

If I am being frank, I find the overt bigotry somewhat better than the corporate bullshit of 'we value your contributions, but won't be granting your accommodations request out of fairness to other workers' or the glass cliff or literally being fired for my sexual orientation but phrased with 'oh you just weren't a good fit for the culture here.' I at least know what I'm getting into when I come to work. I know what not to talk about. Last time I thought I was safe to talk about something queer with my boss she blindsided me with some transphobic garbage.

Its admirable to stick up for the marginalized people in your life, but part of changing minds is knowing the time and the place to comment. I think I've changed more minds at this warehouse by being a visibly out lesbian at work than I have by making carefully crafted speeches.

That is fine. It is fine to disagree. Sometimes you have to work with racists, homophobes, and assholes. That is part of being an adult. You talk about things like... sports or TV or weather or some cool bug you saw. Finding common ground with people who are different from you in many ways is an important part of socialization and it sucks to think you have anything in common with a jackass but look- you're spending 7-ish hours with these people and at some point some of them are going to say stupid shit. You are going to say stupid shit also. I have said my fair share of stupid shit. Deal with the fact that you're all stupid shits.

And for fuck's sake, wear your hardhat.

[royalarchivist]

Quackity: But before I start, I want to talk about a very serious topic, and a reminder to everyone who's watching this stream, because I know a lot of you know about my project QSMP, and I want to give a very important reminder to everyone who consumes the QSMP, and everyone who consumes my content and the content of everyone in the QSMP:

I want to start off by saying that QSMP is an international global server which has the objective of uniting creators and cultures globally. We are the very first project to create a global international content-creation space by breaking language barriers. That's literally why I started QSMP, that's why it exists. And I want to make one thing very clear: the negativity that has surrounded certain parts of the community since the very beginning of this project is an aspect that I completely disagree with. Constantly, time and time again, I've called it out and I've made myself very very clear on that. Anyone who watches and consumes my content knows that. Constantly I've even been very, very outspoken over the difficulties I faced with racism and xenophobia in my personal life, growing up, and to this day.

Before starting QSMP, and even to this very single day, I get private, racist and perverse messages daily where I am berated for my culture and for who I am. And for many years, I've taken the stance to give zero importance to the people who do that, because these are people that only want to do harm. Recently, now more than ever, it's clear to me why I do what I do, and it's clear to me why the QSMP exists in the first place. And even if there's one person across the world who this project is helping, then that to me is worth it enough to continue doing what I do.

So I want to make it very clear: What the QSMP project does is it embraces the cultural differences in order to unite people from all across the world in a positive manner. That's its objective and that's why I created it. So if anyone intends to consume QSMP with any scope of negativity, whether it be towards the events, the administration team, the creators, any communities, or any of the cultures, then QSMP is simply not for you. I've met some of my best friends, thanks to the server, so it's very clear to me that this concept works and it's going to continue to work. So anyone who watches QSMP and is not ready to accept any inherent cultural differences that will arise from this project, nor is willing to consume this project in the positive way that it was created in, then this project is not meant for you. And I want to make that incredibly, incredibly clear.

Lastly, I want to remind people of something very important: We are not a small community. We're a massive community. We're a huge international community. It's not small at all. So please remember, and please keep in mind that there are external people outside of this project who don't even consume QSMP, whose only goal is to destabilize and divide the QSMP community. There's people who are maliciously as well, and purposefully, provoking others in the community with harmful remarks. Do not- do not give these people what they want, and do not forget what the project and what the community as a whole stands for, which is respect, tolerance, community, open mindedness and unity. That's why I created the QSMP and that's why it exists. And I have to make that very clear for everyone who follows the project. So, yeah, I wanted to say that before we got the stream started, I wanted to clarify that and remind everyone of that fact. But yeah!

[anyroads]

OK you know what, if we're gonna talk about Bake Off then fuck it, let's do this.

It used to be this wholesome, lovely show! We used to watch it for the bakers! And the learning! And the light banter and occasional bit of coy innuendo! What happened?

Channel 4 happened. When they bought the show they made a number of changes, most of them Not Good™️. Not just in the sense of them resulting in a lot of 😬 and 🫠 moments, but in the sense of how they changed the show's purpose, atmosphere, and brand.

Look, I know most people are just like, "whatever, it's just a baking show," and yeah, sure. But it's one of the UK's most successful TV exports, and where it once shifted the tone of reality competition to being wholesome and supportive of contestants, it's since moved towards creating tension at the contestants' cost. So aside from the fact that most people watching it signed up to watch a nice show, it has also shifted the goalposts of what that even means. And that, lovelies and gentlefolk, is some bullshit.

I decided to break my rant analysis into four main parts: theme weeks, the hosts, the judges, and the bakers. Let's get to it!

Theme Weeks:

If you watch Bake Off, you know the show's always had a specific theme for each week. The staples that come up in most seasons are:

cake

biscuit

bread

pudding/dessert

pastry

patisserie

Less common but consistent are things like caramel and chocolate week.

Then there are the fun episodes! When GBBO was on the BBC, this started out with things tea week, tarts, pies, tray bakes, basically little tangents still focused on emphasizing specific baking skills. In Series 6 (still on the BBC) they had their first nation-focused theme week with French week -- fairly innocuous given that a lot of patisserie is French, France and England share much more culture than either cares to admit [Norman Flag dot gif], and it was a nice change from watching Paul make the bakers do recipes that involved boiling things while talking about how wonderful boiled doughs are (are they, Paul? Are they?).

The show kept mixing it up with innocuous themes like advanced dough and alternative ingredients weeks, European cakes, Victorian week, batter week, and botanical week. And while it was frustrating to watch Paul Hollywood mispronounce things like the Hungarian Dobos Torta and lecture bakers on babka when he clearly knew nothing about it (or about Jewish baking in general, go off Past Me), the show's general attitude was that the judges had their own opinions, which were separate from the immutable facts around the chemistry of baking (more on this later) and shouldn't affect how bakers are judged.

After the show moved to Channel 4, the number of themed weeks increased and more of them focused on specific countries. In 6 seasons on the BBC, there were only two country-focused theme weeks, and in 5 seasons on Channel 4 there have been five. And while they've also had themes like vegan baking, roaring 20s, the 1980s, spice week, etc. the show has really started to go hard on exoticizing other cultures in outright disrespectful and racist ways. There's been Italian and Danish week, German, Japanese (it wasn't, it was East Asian week), and now Mexican week (which doesn't touch on interspersed Jewish bakes that didn't get a theme week, like versions of bagels and babka set as technical challenges that were borderline hate crimes and mansplained by a guy who has no idea how to make either and once wrote in a cookbook that challah was traditionally eaten during Passover). Each time the hosts played up the theme with racist bits and jokes that can be used as evidence in court if your case is "why should shows with scripted content have a professional writing staff."

Which touches on other issues the show has now...

The Hosts:

When GBBO was on the BBC, the show was hosted by ✨Mel Giedroyc✨ and ✨Sue Perkins✨. They encouraged the bakers! They'd hold stuff for them sometimes! They were interested in them! If a baker had a breakdown, they would start singing copyrighted material to render the footage unusable! When the show moved to Channel 4, they left, though I'm not unconvinced that Channel 4 offered them impossible to accept contracts to force them out so they could rebrand the show. They replaced them with Sandy Toksvig and Noel Fielding. Sandy was a lovely host in the vein of Mel and Sue, and she and Noel had a relatively sweet rapport, but she left a few seasons ago and was replaced by Matt Lucas.

Noel Fielding is mostly known for his quirky brand of comedy, a sort of British Zooey Deschanel who's goth from the neck up, an upperclass British gay divorcee from the neck down, and basically an early 60s Beatle re: trousers. Matt Lucas has almost definitely never watched a single episode of GBBO and his most redeeming quality is his thinly veiled contempt for Paul Hollywood.

The two treat the baking tent as their personal playground. Far from the supportive attitude of Mel and Sue, they tend to get in the bakers' way during the most stressful moments, especially when they try to do hilarious "comedy" bits (I can't not put that in quotes) like Noel's talking wooden spoon thing, or Matt talking over Noel to do time calls. During theme weeks like Japanese and Mexican week, they do culture-specific bits that are both racist ("just Juan joke" and "is Mexico a real place?") and unsurprising, given that both Matt and Noel did blackface on their respective sketch shows and absolutely could and should have known better because it was already the current fucking century.

All this to say, there's now a separation between the bakers and the hosts, as if they're on different shows. The hosts are doing their own thing and the bakers are doing GBBO. The show has gotten meaner to the bakers, and the hosts aren't there to support them anymore, they're just there to be comic relief. Because when you refocus your show on stressing the bakers the fuck out, you need a forced laugh I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

The Judges:

First of all, a sincere congratulations to Paul Hollywood who managed to squeeze I jUsT cAmE bAcK fRoM mExIcO aNd YeT sTiLL pRoNoUnCe PiCo De GaLLo As 'PiKa De KaLLa' and I aM aN eXpErT oN s'MoReS wHiCh aRe MaDe WiTh DiGeStiVe BiScUiTs AcCoRdiNg tO mE, aN eXpErT oN s'MoReS, just two in a giant pile of astoundingly wrong hot takes, into a short enough time span that they all aired within Liz Truss's term as Prime Minister. A true man of accomplishments.

In the interest of fairness, I need to preface this with a disclaimer that, due to the fact that I've been watching Bake Off for most of its run, I'm biased. Specifically, I can't stand Paul Hollywood's smarmy, classist, egomaniac ass because he's proven time and again he's more interested in looking smart than actually knowing what he's talking about. Since the show moved to Channel 4, they've changed the occasional handshake Paul would give bakers to the HoLlYwOoD hAnDsHaKe™️. It's gone from being an emphasis of someone's skill to a goal, a reward, and one that emphasizes the judges' place above the bakers.

The judges used to function as teachers, imparting their skills and insights to the bakers. When the show was on the BBC, the voiceover leading to a judging would focus on the bakers' work being finished, saying how it will now be evaluated based on their skill and how well they met the brief. The voiceovers now, on Channel 4, focus on the judging (literally saying something along the lines of, "the bakers will now be judged by Prue and Paul"). There is a clear distinction Channel 4's producers have made, to mark that the show is now about whether or not the judges approve, not whether the brief was understood and executed well. On the BBC, it was irrelevant whether the judges liked a particular flavor, as long as the bake was well-made. Now, the bakers are expected to know the judges tastes and cater to them, which is frankly bullshit. A judge doesn't have to like a flavor to know whether or not it was executed well, ie. is it carrying a bake and was it meant to etc.

The judges have been turned into a brand. Cynically, Channel 4 knows that by building them up and focusing the show more on them, they can exploit their image more for profit. In the process, they've become much more biased and their own biases have come out as well. Most recently in the flaming dumpster fire that was Mexican Week, Paul Hollywood tried to intimidate a baker by telling them he had just gotten back from Mexico (which must have been a fruitful learning trip if he couldn't even learn how to pronounce pico de gallo correctly). Where do I even start with this? Here's an amateur baker from England (the show specifically casts middle and lower middle class bakers for the most part??) who likely can't afford trips to Mexico, who lives in a country with incredibly limited access to Mexican cuisine, who is expected not only to understand the cooking and baking traditions of a completely different culture but to do so well enough to play with it and do something creative with it. On top of which, one of the judges is now using his privilege of traveling halfway around the world as some kind of leverage, as if this were a bar that any amateur British baker could clear.

Prue, meanwhile, has openly asserted her biases against cultural flavors and textures, prioritizing her own personal preferences over them, as if they were in any way relevant to the skills and knowledge necessary to execute the tasks she sets to the bakers. She has also been consistently elitist, criticizing bakers for choices they made that were clearly informed by their experiences within income brackets that are too low and foreign for Prue to comprehend. She once had a go at a baker on a Christmas special because his Christmas dinner themed bake didn't have a turkey, even though it was clear from the stories he shared of his own Christmases that his family likely couldn't afford one. "It's not really Christmas dinner without a turkey," Prue said into the camera angrily while sitting on a chair made of live orphans and telling the ghost of Christmas Future to come back when he had another museum gift shop necklace for her to round out her collection.

The show is no longer about which baker has the best skills. It's become about which mortal can appease the gods of Mount Olympus, ie. the judges.

The Bakers:

Remember when the show was about them? Channel 4 doesn't! Because this is a reality competition show, the bakers are chosen both based on their skills, as well as cast-ability. They're cast as characters, distinct from each other, from different areas, age groups, ethnicities. All of them are amateurs. All of them are middle or lower middle class. They've ranged from college students to supermarket cashiers to prison wardens to scientists.

Something I noticed when the show moved to Channel 4 is that the baker who goes home in the first week is always wildly behind the rest in skills. I have no proof of this other than my eyeballs and deductive reasoning skills, but I think that Channel 4 deliberately casts a ringer each season who they think will be an easy send-off in the first week, just to get the audience's feet wet.

Anyway, like I said, this show used to be about the bakers - about them building skills and learning, and having walked into the tent with a self-taught foundation and understanding of the processes and chemical reactions involved in baking. When the show was on the BBC, the end of each round had some (often brief) moments of tension - will they finish in time? Will they get their bakes on the plate before time is up? Did they forget to add sugar to their batter and only remember at the last minute? In the end, they usually managed to finish and we'd all breathe a sigh of relief and think, yeah! You go, Bakers Who I'm Rooting For!

Now, on Channel 4, the end of round drama has been stretched to be so much longer that they've composed extra music for it. The bakers often seem out of their depth, whether because the instructions for the technical challenge are too vague (bake a lemon meringue pie??? As if anyone in the UK under the age of 60 has had one in the last decade???), or because they were expected to bake something that required a more than a basic foundation they weren't told of. Often it seems like they just aren't given enough time, a tactic used by reality competition shows to manipulate contestants into giving the cameras more dramatic content. On top of all this, the hosts get in their way, instead of helping them plate their bakes. As has been pointed out before, when everyone fails the challenge, the real failure lies with whoever set it.

In conclusion:

The show no longer exists to teach the bakers - and the audience - skills or knowledge. It now manipulates contestants for dramatic effect and prioritizes showing conflict over wholesome content. Channel 4 sees the bakers as social media content they can churn out season after season, and don't care about them because in a few months there'll be a new batch to exploit. Meanwhile, the judges are also out of their depth, co-opting recipes from other cultures and butchering them horrendously, while the camera gives them nothing but status as they hold bakers to the expectation that they learn how to make things very much the wrong way. If you saw any of the tweets about Mexican or Japanese week, or read my post on how Paul Hollywood isn't allowed to go near babka ever again, you'll understand.

So what would fix all this? Scrap the current judges and the hosts altogether. Bring back Mel and Sue, and replace the judges with expert bakers who have a love of their craft and want to share it with others. The draw of GBBO used to be its warmth and comfort - if Channel 4 isn't going to start its own version of Master Chef For Bakers, then it needs to stop trying to find a balance of how it can insert that vibe into GBBO. It can't. That's not a thing. Stop trying.

[ains-disco-spam]

Thoughts on Lena

The first time I played through Disco Elysium, I talked to Lena right after Kim joined my party and immediately got the dialogue option where she says something racist.

Because of that, I was iffy on her from the beginning. But I’ve seen a lot of people say that they actually didn’t know about this dialogue or that they didn’t get it on their playthrough. Whenever I see this dialogue mentioned, there are always a lot of people saying how disappointed they are that she would say something like that because she seems like a nice old lady.

I think that this moment is actually one of the most important depictions of racism in the game. Besides this one instance, Lena is friendly toward you and Kim. If you call her out on the implication that Seolites are a different species than her and Harry, she basically says that being a different species isn't a bad thing because white people have earwax that smells and Seolites don't.

The whole interaction is such a small moment within the game, and a small part of her character. It’s so easy to miss. And that is exactly how racism works.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been talking to an older person who seems kind and then all of a sudden they say something extremely bigoted out of the blue. I actually got the idea to write this after the nice old lady who is a custodian at my job said something transphobic in front of me and it totally broke my heart.

It’s easy to condemn a cross-burning KKK member or a homophobic preacher who says that all LGBTQ+ people will burn in hell. It’s a lot harder for people to condemn bigotry when it comes from people that they otherwise see as kind.

But most bigots are not like Gary the Cryptofascist or Measurehead. Most of them are like Lena. They are the uncles who think that “if people just cooperated with the police then they wouldn’t be shot.” They are the classmates who make fun of the professor’s accent. They are docile old ladies who think that Seolites are not as human as white people are.

And that makes it harder for people to see the bigotry within themselves. People can easily tell themselves things like “I don’t want all trans people to die, so I’m not transphobic. I’m just worried for the children.” When the media only portrays bigotry in its most extreme forms, it is hard to see that being a little bit racist is still being racist.

And this is even more interesting because of her and Morrell’s friendship with Gary. He is a self-proclaimed fascist with an extensive collection of racist mugs, but Lena and Morrell still keep him around, presumably because they are willing to overlook his “differing political opinions” because they think that he is a good person in other ways. And because his fascist ideas do not affect people that look like them.

So yeah, I want to see more people talking about how fascinating Lena and Morrell are as depictions of racism in Disco Elysium.

[whyse7vn]

Us -

[ot7 x reader]

AGUST DUI 🛴🔥

7 participants - 7 online

———————————

tae: ok raise your hand if you think yoongi should of died in the crash

namjoon: why would you say that?

tae: jungkook raise your hand

jk: ok

tae: not in real life the emoji please

jk: ok sorry

wait how did you know i raised my hand in real life??

tae: just do it

jk: like nike LOL

tae: i’m going to skin you alive

jk: sorry

🙋🏻‍♀️

tae: why are you a woman

jk: gender is a construction

hobi: construct

jk: control

hobi: we are not playing a game

i am correcting you

jk: oh

tae: connecticut

hobi: stop

tae: i wanted to play :(

hobi: it wasn’t a game can you read

jk: omg i know someone from connecticut

i think

jin: you have no friends don’t lie jungkook

jk: no i swear i do

tae: he does

hobi: don’t act like you know

tae: i know

hobi: who is jungkooks friend then?

tae: jungkook tell this idiot ☠️

hobi: i’m asking YOU to tell me

jk: i don’t know who it is

but i know

i’m going to go insane who is it ohmygod

y/n: jaehyun lmao

hobi: oh

jin: yikes

jk: i’m sorry

tae: how dare she lmao like she didn’t just cook my first born alive by saying that name

jk: she typed it btw

tae: that’s not the point jungkook

i’m throwing up

jk: ur right me too

i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry

y/n: ???

don’t be sorry

jk: >.<

yoongi: lol

jin: tf he laughing at?

yoongi: we’re always talking about jaehyun for some reason

hobi: be fr

yoongi: …

y/n: shouldn’t you be dead from the crash or something

tae: IM SAYING LIKE

jk: maybe he’s still drunk

hobi: LMAOOOO

yoongi: i did not crash

namjoon: he just fell over guys

yoongi: right

jin: ofc the bitch with no license is defending the other bitch with no licence

y/n: typical 🙄

yoongi: why do you know he’s from connecticut

y/n: what????

namjoon: uh??

jin: wasn’t he JUST complaining about how much we talk about you know who…

hobi: kook was right this man is still off the juiceeeee

ha juice by shinee

i’m so funny wow

tae: if we think about it wtf is connecticut

what the fuck is that srsly

i hate that

what does that mean

america is so strange

another white thing i don’t get

i hate white people

jin: ur borderline white

tae: wtf is wrong with you never say shit like that again

ur borderline old

ur borderline dying

AND ur paler than me

like wtf

this poc erasure

someone get him

jk: connecticut more like connectiYUCK 🤮🤢🤮🤢🤮🤢🤮🤢🤮🤢🤮🤢

EWWUUUUUU 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤮🤮🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

hell on earth

yoongi: what

namjoon: ?

yoongi: are we talking about again

i just lost my train of thought

hobi: choo choo

y/n: chuu chuu

namjoon: jaehyun…

jk: 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤮🤢🤢

tae: AND we are talking about poc erasure if you even care

you probably don’t

because you’re a racist

just like your father namjoon

jk: yoongi is older than namjoon

btw

tae: ok???

maybe i wasn’t even talking to yoongi

jk: ok i’m sorry

tae: it’s ok son

hobi: who the fuck were you talking to then?

tae: well yoongi but like maybe i wasn’t at the same time yk?

y/n: shut up

jk: yes

y/n: ?

tae: ok raise ur hand if you think hoseok is being unnecessarily mean to kim taehyung the 3rd today

namjoon: anyways

yoongi are you ok??

yoongi: yeah sorry my head is just all over the place rn

forget everything i said

hobi: is this due to your alcohol consumption

or is it your age getting to you LOL

since your old

older than namjoon

jk: older than namjoon

jin: jungkook is 27 btw

y/n: 23 forever

jin: that’s almost 30 yk?

hobi: at least it’s not 31

yk…

like you

jin: ok

jk: ok !!!!

namjoon: yeah i don’t know what you wanted to get out of that one…

jin: kys

ALL of you

hobi: ❤️

jk: love is love

y/n: awoman

jk: awoman

tae: if you all loved me you would send me a stack

hobi: notice how no money is being sent to your account

take that into consideration

tae: how about you consider my fist in you face

ok i take that back

hobi: don’t

y/n: bryson tiller

tae: why not :(

you didn’t even know what i was gonna say hobi >.<

hobi: namjoon tell him to shut up

namjoon: tae please

tae: yeah ok 😔

cuz you know i do NOT want the smoke

he might do me like he did jaehyun 😭🙏🏼

hobi: will you STOP bringing that up

tae: will you send me a STACK?

hobi: no

tae: then NO

namjoon: both of you stop

also where is jimin??

physically i mean

like do any of you know?

yoongi: y/n’s house i think

y/n: no he’s not??

tae: woah

jk: btw that is also my house yoongi

so y/n AND jungkook’s house

yoongi: y/n and jungkook’s house then

y/n: he’s not here

yoongi: but he was

y/n: how do you even know that??

yoongi: i just do

y/n: ok ????

yoongi: ok

jk: ok \ ^0^ /

tae: wait

jk: JIMIN WAS IN OUR HOUSE ?????

jin: keep up ohmugod

jk: LIKE PHYSICALLY IN OUR HOUSE

WHERE I SLEEP AT NIGHT???

y/n: he wasn’t in my room no

if that’s what ur asking

jk: BUT HE WAS HERE???

AFTER HE WAS SO MEAN SO EVIL?!

y/n: it’s been weeks i was gonna talk to him at some point ig

hobi: communication is key!

not key from shinee btw

jk: WHEN DID HE COME????

WHY DID HE COME????

y/n: he came a few weeks ago

august 6th ? i think

to talk about everything and apologise

jk: you let him in?

tae: LIKE…

y/n: yes

jk: and where was i?

y/n: it was a wednesday so ur boxing class?

jk: i’ve been staying back for those classes

so he came late right?

y/n: yeah

jk: did you invite him?

y/n: no he kinda just showed up

jk: and you still let him in??

y/n: yes jungkook

jk: why didn’t you tell me??

y/n: i wasn’t trying to keep it a secret or anything it just a lot

like a lot seriously

i wanted to give both me and jimin some time to process it all before we brought it all back to you guys

but i was going to tell you

all of you

jk: yeah but like it’s been weeks…

namjoon: to be fair i also did talk to

jimin and didn’t tell anyone

jk: namjoon

jin: also did that

hobi: u all know i talked to him so…

jk: guys???

i’m confused like what he said was wrong but you’re all still talking to him

like everything’s ok???

namjoon: he apologised to her kook

jk: FUCK HIS APOLOGY?????

tae you get it right?? you didn’t speak to him right??

tae: no i get it

i get you

i understand fully

but i won’t lie to you

i DID speak to him

on the phone

only for 5 minutes tho

i counted

i just wanted to make sure he didn’t yk like kill himself or something…

you know jimin is weak like that

not calling people who commit suicide weak but like calling jimin weak cuz that’s what he is

jk: TAE?????????????

tae: SORRY SUICIDE IS REAL YK?

AND LIKE IT DOESNT TAKE AWAY FROM THE FACT THAT I STILL WANT TO PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE

i was just

uh

checking?

namjoon: you can say you were worried about him you know that

jk: SHUT UP???£/8/8/8,&&:&,

NO HE CAN’T

YOU ALL HAVE NO BACK BONE /£2&/&&:&:

NO LOYALTY

HE BASICALLY CALLED Y/N A WHORE AND YOUR ALL FRIENDS WITH HIM AGAIN??????

LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED?????

tae: NO I’M MAD IM STILL SO FUCKING MAD THE FUCK????

FUCK JIMIN I MEAN IT

jk: you are a liar

LIKE

guys what£/£/&/&:&:

i thought you guys were better than this ???

i thought you all cared

jin: don’t be stupid

of course we care

jk: then act like it????

y/n tell them

y/n: jungkook

jk: tell them

in fact

jk added jimin to “AGUST DUI🛴🔥”

jk: tell ALL of them

y/n: jungkook please

jk: y/n seriously

jimin: hey

jk: shut the fuck up

tae: dude

i know ur upset and angry but doing this rn isn’t gonna solve anything

namjoon: he’s right jungkook

ur acting on emotion and not thinking properly right now

jk: IM not thinking properly???

was jimin thinking properly when he called her a slut and then ran away like a bitch?? was he????

namjoon: obviously not jungkook

hobi: but they’ve talked it out and he’s said sorry

jk: HIS SORRY DOESN’T MEAN SHIT

WHAT DO YOU GUYS NOT UNDERSTAND?

his fucking sorry means nothing

him saying sorry doesn’t take back the words he said

or any of the hurt he caused

namjoon: jungkook like she told us they’ve talked about it and he’s apologised

i not sure what more you want

jk: I WANT YOU GUYS NOT TO MOVE ON SO FUCKING FAST??

I WANT YOU GUYS TO AT LEAST TELL HIM HOW FUCKED UP THAT ALL WAS

BOTH PUBLICLY AND PRIVATELY

he should be walking around eggshells around us rn

you guys should be giving him a hard time

not wondering where he is or whether he’s depressed or not

and you wanna know something?

after it all happened she cried for hours

hours

i have genuinely never seen her so upset

she told me not to tell anyone but i have to so guys can fucking understand

and the fact that we didn’t even know that her and jimin spoke???

does that not bother you all?????

the fact that she was “so fine” and “okay” about the whole situation but didn’t tell us that they had supposedly ‘made up’

tae: she said that she was planning on telling us

jk: yeah but she didn’t did she? it’s been weeks

she said they spoke august 6th right?

we are quite literally in a whole new month

and you ALL should know that when she doesn’t tell us things it’s because she’s upset

you should KNOW her

and how she deals with things

you all claim to care but i’m yet to see how

you know i was really excited about this

we were all you know realising

and coming to terms with this

us

i thought that we felt the same

but this has shown me that you guys don’t even feel a quarter of what i do for her

and you probably never will

the way that you all just took her word for her being fine and okay about the whole situation without actually genuinely checking in with her is insane and the way you all rushed to make sure jimin was ok was even crazier

i just

whatever

bye

—

as you can probably tell this was supposed to be released last month but i tried to adjust it as much as i could

tags: @piw6n @92jinnies @birdie-vhs @earthela @hob3loveofmylife @jujubiism @bloopkook @ratchetpizza1 @myntalks @arloo00 @watamotee33 @y2kcy3brz @taiwan0618 @freyadanvers @gguksbeloved @raetf @bbsantc @winuvs @medicinemybish @bxnnyhime @seokmyballs @baetukki @zyaaaszn @thelilbutifulthings @jazminethecreator @meowgiz @jmnscutie @threeopossumsinacoat @cynicalyoongs @lightningpussy54 @eunthv @gigiiislife @lowkeykin @iammeandmeisiam @socksfirstalways @knilvr06 @lailaisarmy @thvkives @xstfudaisyx @xxxanimangxxx @solstice34 @ml8dy @hoeforseoks @futuristicenemychaos @featjunranghae @jksgirlfrl @yeetedandoboi @stellamalonesolaria @joonsprettygf

#happytimessoon >.<

[elizabethrobertajones]

kriles summer trust top is kinda problematic tho... lalafell r smol and should be wholesome.

Aw, come on.

I'm sorry but I have to disagree because within the fiction, lalafell are just as mean, gross and horny as anyone else. Gegeruju is a perv, and the whole Ul'dah Syndicate is full of evil little bastards. On the good side, lala are just as complex and grown up as anyone else - Tataru courts followers and dances in a skimpy outfit in the Forgotten Knight, Giott is a roaring drunk stereotypical fantasy dwarf (not to mention whatever the heck is going on with the Tomra and Komra dwarves in general tbh :P). And Lamitt's story was sweet but it did involve her having adult feelings for Ardbert.

Like, really, I can only think of 4 completely wholesome lala out of a cast of hundreds, and they happen to mostly be the ones we've interacted with a lot (Nanamo; Pipin who is a Heroic Knight archetype; Papalymo, who was a grumpy old scholar man; Krile). But that's more about them being main characters serving roles in the narrative rather than indicative of how lalas behave as a whole. In fact after going through ARR, meeting Pipin and finding One Good Ul'dahn Lala is an enormous relief (since the other one is apparently dead now).

And Krile is a main character now so she's allowed to step out of the shadow of being uwu cat hoodie girl who wasn't written with much depth outside of being serious and earnest and rather spooky; she's actually 22 years old according to the first wiki I found - regardless of if that's totally accurate she's definitely meant to be a peer of the other adult Scions and they all treat her like an adult. Her introduction cutscene has her ribbing Alphy as an older friend laughing at how a much younger one used to behave, so we're supposed to immediately understand on meeting her that she's post-teen since she knew 11 year old Alphy and was of course older than him since he was a freak entry into the Studium at that age. Probably a necessary writing moment because establishing lala's age with hilarious moustaches or deep voices or whatever is a part of how the game has to present them.

Out of the fiction, I know lalas are part of a much wider trope that people do find problematic as a whole (e.g. just because in universe Tataru has babes across the globe and that's normal to everyone involved, who are consenting adults in a world which wholly understands Tataru as a consenting adult, is it actually really creepy that it's happening at all because her body type is toddler-esque? Is it weird in general that lala emotes are SO baby in the same way miqo emotes are SO kitty?

ffxiv definitely goes waaay further into borderline creepy territory than many games with smaller fantasy races in it, when it comes to how lala look, so yeah I know it's a fraught area and can be discomforting to see the game present child-shaped people as having adult desires and a thing some people understandably set aside along with other elements as things they're not happy with co-existing in the game with things they really love.) We can absolutely talk about that on a meta level of how we relate to the game and feel about it, just like things we find racist or uncomfortable in other ways e.g. eng translation Hien's treatment of Yotsuyu being a really problematic point.

But, that's one thing, versus talking about us here in fandom and how we relate to it, and I think your ask is, well, really not very deeply considered on any level, but I think is talking about how we as fandom relate to lalas, based on an inaccurate reading of them in the game, meaning you're really not even analysing a thing about it and therefore your ask comes more in the terms of policing how we should FEEL about Krile's beach outfit, and dictating that we SHOULD find lalas smol and wholesome, and that therefore there's an inherent problem in anyone reacting positively to the outfit, rather than critiquing its place in the game in the first place. Having hit a cognitive dissonance in seeing swimsuit Krile existing you've come to me to complain it's problematic rather than taking any actual meaningful action. Ergo, this is a fandom problem to you, not a game problem. WE should find it problematic and say so, you are implying, shocked that so many people looked at a post about the beach outfits and no one commented as such.

Aside from lalafell being fictional and at no point other than the visuals are they treated as children (and emotes aside, playing through the MSQ as a lala wol you easily fall into seeing them as an adult because of course all the cutscenes share the same level of gravitas no matter what you're playing or what clown costume you have on any player), there ARE actually real humans who are built somewhere closer to lala than not, and would be drawn to playing any of the smaller races in a game (like, gnomes in WoW, halflings in D&D, etc) because that's just their chance at representation. And because FFXIV doesn't have anything other than precious moments doll-shaped people the look might be great in the sense that they have the proportions of a cherub statue and it is a lot harder to meet in the middle than a halfling (notoriously hairy middle aged bastards and much easier to read as adult, though that doesn't exclusively represent people who've had growth developmental differences), that IS still the only representative option some people have in the game and if they want to indulge it rather than play something else with proportions forced on them by many games, then what the hell is wrong with that?

And they WILL go to bat for lalas and get upset when people say that they have to be precious baby characters who act like children. I've seen that on tumblr: there's a whole lala community who keeps kinda low key and away from everyone else by their own admission BECAUSE as soon as they get too much attention they're deluged with hate for playing characters who have adult desires and dress fancy - or, you know, like any other random slutty elf WoL. The fact I wandered onto lala blogs at random and saw that complaint on the first pages should speak to how often they have to deal with it. And, again, within the fiction of the game their characters are completely 100% normal and doing what other lalas who are written by the game do as well. I KNOW those blogs are out there and they'd be scared of getting this exact ask, and it would greatly upset them and ruin their day and put them off having any interaction with the community, which fucking sucks. We're here to have fun!

That said I'm not a weirdo anti all up in others' business, it's also fine to just like lalas and stuff without some huge circumstantial justification like "they look like me" - or - "my IRL wife" or whatever - you can also just play a lala or ship with one and it's like, your business. If that's all you're doing and it's not a hypothetical child molester who also has a whole gallery of lala porn that the cops find when they impound the computer full of REAL CHILDREN stuff as well it's never going to be anyone else's business anyway, ever, and that's like, one hypothetical awful person for a whole fandom of normies who are just surprised by how much idk Pipin's deep voice rocked their world and changed their whole perspective on what a hot character was.

Like, granted, that one HYPOTHETICAL weirdo will make everything rancid because there are people waiting to jump on people who like lalas, but also it still won't actually change what other people are doing into being Evil just because someone who actually hurts children found lalas attractive too. That, again, was the hypothetical awful person's problem and not theirs. And in no way can we just casually imply ALL people who like lalas are just inherently going to be dangerous, like real children, or enacting a private psychodrama teetering on the edge of all that.

They could in fact be completely average and boring psychologically and also have a crush on Tataru. Or, I guess, normal amount of weird for a fandom, but basically average XD In a fictional world where these characters are treated as adults, even normal people will naturally end up drawn to them as adults because, well, that's the story that's we're all engaging in. It's not inherently a thought crime to do so, because, weirdly, thought crimes don't exist.

Also, of course, people will literally discourse that hobbits are child-coded and shouldn't be shipped or seen as sexy, despite the most famous halflings, who made the entire halfling race as a generic brand, all being middle aged, hairy, smoking, drinking, guys with normal adult desires and mindsets. I mean yeah Elijah Wood was 18 when they started filming LotR (over several years so he was Krile's age by the end :P) but also Frodo celebrated his 40th birthday before setting off on the Ring Quest in the book and he was the baby of the group aside from Pippin.

In any case, there's no fucking winning and so I can understand completely that if a fucking Hobbit from Lord of the Rings gets shit for being short, and people are getting called a perv for fancying Sam Gamgee, then why not just embrace it with a Lalafell because you're literally damned no matter what in the eyes of someone who won't meet a LOTR HOBBIT where he stands as an adult man.

There's some DEEP puritanical brainrot going on online and I don't want to be a part of it whatsoever, so it means accepting lala likers for the sake of protecting Merry and Pippin's right to be seen as hot, than like, I know which side of of the line I'm dragging my beach chair. It's not even a question. I'm defending people who think lalas are appealing.

ANYWAY none of this is my business, I don't even find lalas sexy, I just think Krile looks nice in her cute summer top and it's lovely that she's getting fashion advice from her besties, and there's a million reasons to be happy about that and for her as a character, and only miserable bastard reasons to go "aurgh aurgh it's problematic" and condemn the game and everyone who plays it just for enjoying something. Lalas are NOT smol and wholesome, they're short and people, and that's fine.

[notaplaceofhonour]

Understanding Alex Jones’s place in the Bush-era anti-war scene would do the left a lot of good in understanding (and not repeating) similar mistakes that the current anti-war scene is making today.

For those who aren’t old enough to remember, there was actually a time when Alex Jones had a decent amount of goodwill on the far left. He was obviously always a lunatic conspiracy theorist, and most everyday people saw him as such, but there was a significant enough portion of the anti-war left that liked him, that actually promoted InfoWars, appeared on AJ’s show, and linked arms with him at anti-war protests.

Without the momentum that his Bush-era popularity gave him, Jones would not have become a recognizable or relevant media figure like he did. The model InfoWars pioneered, which helped pave the way for the entire far right griftosphere that sprang up around it—from Breitbart to OAN & the Epoch Times to the sea of smaller Q-fluencers—owes its success in part to this diagonal reach across political lines. The extreme right wing conspiracy theory platform that has all but consumed the GOP would not have been able to gain nearly as much of a foothold if it were not for the years of work InfoWars & outlets like it did to normalize it in the Bush years.

Obviously I am not going so far as to say “The Left Is Solely Responsible For Alex Jones™️”. But much of the anti-war/anti-government left absolutely participated in helping him rise to prominence. They were willing to jump in bed with Jones without paying attention to his work or else were willing to turn a blind eye to who Jones was, all because he was saying things that were convenient to their cause. It didn’t matter that he was a rightwing or grade-A bigot; he opposed the US government & the war.

And I’m fully aware that there’s a common refrain among a lot of that “I used to listen to InfoWars” section of the left that would push back against this and say, “well, yeah, Jones is obviously a fascist now, but back then he wasn’t like that; he was kooky back then, sure, but the pre-Sandy Hook, pre-Gay Frogs Jones wasn’t nearly as bigoted or rightwing as the ‘Hillary For Prison’ Trump-era Jones became”.

To that I say, no, that’s bullshit. If you actually go back and listen to his show from back then… holy shit. He was homophobic as fuck. He was racist as fuck. The entire NWO/Globalist framework that he hangs all his other conspiracy theories on is built around antisemitic tropes from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion he regularly hosted & promoted explicit antisemites like his pastor Texe Marrs, who openly espoused that Jews (often named as such) controlled the world politically, financially, and religiously through Zionism, a global banking cartel, and Communism. In some ways, Jones was even more transparent then than he is now.

“Okay, but what does this have to do with the current anti-war movement?” I hear you say. “I never fell for Alex Jones; I’ve always hated that guy.”

To begin with, you should be on the lookout for the internal biases and lack of vetting that lead the left to tolerate Jones in the first place, whether you think you’re liable to or not (arguably, it is all that much more important when you think you aren’t, because you are never more susceptible than when you think you aren’t). But unfortunately much of the anti-war left of today has been making the same mistake, just with different people and organizations.

Take for instance Jackson Hinkle, a tradcath & self-described “MAGA Communist”, who has gotten a lot of traction with the leftwing anti-Zionist crowd (and I would be remiss not to mention, has also been a guest on InfoWars). Or take another AJ, the media outlet Al Jazeera, which says a lot of things that are attractive to the left out one side of its mouth while spewing a bunch of rightwing theocratic garbage out the other, much like Bush-era InfoWars did. Take PSL/ANSWER (Pro-Putin Pro-Assad Pro-Xi atrocity denialists & conspiracy theorists) are one of the most common fixtures of the current protest movement, regularly advertised as organizers by other prominent organizations like JVP & SJP. A lot of people on the left have been embracing figures and organizations that espouse Khazar Theory, Deicide, Media Control, and Blood Libels not at all dissimilar to the accusations you could hear from Jones and his pastor friend Texe Marrs, with the same figleaf of “anti-Zionism” that Marrs frequently used himself.

Whether by sheer ignorance or willfully turning a blind eye, the left keeps making the same mistake of tolerating & even embracing figures & organizations with similarly noxious politics & conspiracy thinking now that was made with Bush-era InfoWars. We need to do better. We need to learn from the past so we can stop repeating its mistakes.

[absolutebl]

10 BLs That Shook Me

@trribledelight asked for "BLs that made you think or learn smthg or shook you culturally? Eg the political considerations in Not Me..."

Let's get the rough ones out of the way first, shall we?

1 2gether

Green. One of the most egregious reps for punching down humor against femmes in BL (and there sure are a lot out there). Seriously GMMTV? Must you?

At the time we all watched this because there wasn't anything else to watch, and it's been a long time since I bothered with a rewatch, but Green is one of the reasons I just can't with this series.

I'm not knocking the actor, but the character and how the other characters behave around him, and the director with regard to this aspect of the plot and portrayal was rough going.

What shook me was how casually homophobic 2g was. It was just so odd to watch a gay romance gloss over and degrade queerness. I was like, wait, aren't they supposed to me on our side?

(Ah, the before times.)

2 Fish Upon the Sky

Shall we address the head wrap in the room? This BL has some of the most shockingly racist content I've seen in a long time. Also punching down humor. I fast forwarded through it and I still don't want to think about it. GMMTV should be throughly ashamed of themselves... Again. I was shook, but in a bad way.

Okay, now for the ones that shook me in a good way.

3 Until We Meet Again

I watched this early in my Thai BL journey (while it was airing) and I had no idea what to expect. Frankly, you could watch it now and still not know. It's just very unusual for a Thai BL.

The plot twist about how they each ended up reborn. Just so brilliant. I still can't get over it. So simple. SO CLEVER. So punishing for the families.

Fantastic!

4 Secret Crush On You

This one kinda shook me all along but that Daisy & Touch scene. It lives on in my head rent free forever. Just because it was so beautifully sweet and genuine and kindly towards a femme character.

I still don't like this BL.

But I love that scene in it.

5 My Beautiful Man

I went on a JOURNEY with this show. Mostly because I didn't think Japan had it in them to land something this complex. But they managed it beautifully by not shying away from the delicious messy ugliness of it all.

Possibly the greatest final episode in all BL.

And from Japan. Usually so bad at endings.

I remain gobsmacked.

6 Unknown

I shouldn't have been shooketh by this one but I really was.

The style of it while staying so down home and gritty.

How old school Chinese BL it felt yet it still managed to be very modern BL about it.

The execution and quality of the acting.

How it was aired (available in YouTube?! we NEVER get that from Taiwan!)

Also the pair branding. We haven't gotten this level of pair brand from the leads in a Taiwanese BL since SamYu.

I'm was absolutely riveted by everything about this show and its production.

I loved seeing it. I hope we get more BLs like this from Taiwan as a result.

But I ALSO hope they realize that a big factor in the popularity and the success of this show was in distribution.

It's what's for dinner.

Along with the stepbrother trope.

KOREA'S SUPRISES

I watch a lot of Kdramas as well as BL, and have done for a really long time. I'm riveted by Hallyu, from an entertainment industry perspective (what I wouldn't do to get my hands on some of their proprietary data). I also listen to a ton of Kpop.

Therefore, Korea dominates the P'ABL gets shooketh list because I had (and have) more expectations firmly in place around Korea's media product sfyle than anyone elses. Even before they started to make a big play into the BL scene.

My favorite BLs from Korea, like Semantic Error and Light on Me are EXACTLY what I expect from them, manufactured perfection. But I was also shook more times by Korea than other BL nations because I had such rigid expectations.

7 Color Rush

Yeah yeah. But it starred an idol. It started out pretty and stiff and everything I was expecting and then the concept hit me up side the head and I never recovered from the CLEVER of this show. I'm not used to my Kdramas or my BL being this high concept and SMART about their sanitized perfection.

8 Blueming

What with the 8th Sense and others since, Blueming seems to have been somewhat forgotten about. But at the time, I was shook by the down home grit of this show. By the actual pain from the characters. By the higher heat concept. By Korea actually going THERE.

And then these babies came along...

9 The 8th Sense

I just didn't think Korea had it in them. Yes, I realize now that it was a bit navel gazey, and we were weighted heavily towards the seme and his pain. I would have liked a better balance between the leads, but that's in retrospect.

At the time I couldn't believe it. A KBL dealing with mental health?

And can we talk about those sex scenes? How insanely comfortable the actors were with each other? How easy in each other's personal space? I've not seen anything else quite like that from Korea. It's super rare. I had assumed they, culturally, just didn't do casual intimacy, or if they did, it wasn't allowed on screen.

Of course now I know the CAN do it, I want more.

10 Love for Love's Sake

Okay, lots to unpack with this one. A genuine isakai BL, in the original sense of the term. The death twist didn't shake me up, but the execution, acting, open gayness, and a couple other things did. Enough to make me still think on this show with fond surprise and affection, despite its undercurrent of darkness.

I like to be shooketh.

(source)

[vaiyamagic]

Something that always bothered me about Elder Scrolls games is the lack of more than one generation of immigrants.

Sure, you have racial diversity: you get a family of Redguards in Skyrim or Argonians in the Imperial City, etc, but they're almost always the first ones of their family to have moved there. No one is the grandkid of the person who moved there. No one is like, yeah, I'm a Kajiit but my family has lived in Morrowind for 5 generations. Even in the beginning of Skyrim, Hadvar tells you your remains will be sent back to your homeland once you've chosen your race.

How do you know that's where I live?? Hm???? Maybe I've lived in Anvil all my life. You don't know. Racist.

I just want more realistic lives.

[suffersinfandom]

Controversial opinion (?): the Kraken Era wasn’t all that dark.

There’s a lot of meta and fic out there that portray Ed as a bloodthirsty, hyperviolent monster, and when that portrayal is challenged, the rebuttal is usually along the lines of, “I’m just doing what canon did. Did you even watch the show? It's racist, not me!”

I did watch the show, and honestly? I went in expecting far worse based on meta and fic I read during the hiatus. When I see people say they didn’t think Ed did enough to redeem himself or that he went past the point of no return, I just don’t understand.

I already went into this in my way-too-long meta about Ed and abuse, but I do think it bears repeating (in a shorter post) because it seems like Ed’s actions -- more than the actions of any other character -- are scrutinized and discussed outside of the context of a comedy about pirates. There’s tons of casual violence in Our Flag Means Death. Sometimes the violence is even funny! 

So what does Ed actually do in the first episodes of season two?

We see Ed directly harm someone twice in the first two episodes: first on the wedding boat, and then when he shoots Izzy in the leg. Kind of unimpressive numbers, yeah? I'd expect more out of a heartbroken Blackbeard.

The first instance involves Ed shooting a man during a raid. That man has a sword through his chest before Ed fires, leading me to believe that Ed’s still following his season one pattern of keeping himself a step removed from murder (technically, the sword killed that guy). We also don’t see the murder happen; the man tumbles offscreen before Ed shoots. This makes the action less brutal. If the writers wanted us to be appalled by Ed’s violence, we would’ve gotten a graphic kill or several.

And the second instance is Izzy. Ed shoots Izzy in the leg after he suggests that the shitty atmosphere is because of Ed’s feelings for Stede. Hot take, maybe, but I don’t think that was entirely out of line. Ed’s feelings for Stede are not the only problem; a significant chunk of the problem is Izzy. Izzy called in the navy and led to their capture. Izzy threatened Ed back into the Blackbeard persona the last time Ed tried to talk things through, and that was without an audience of potential mutineers.

We’re also told that Ed has taken more of Izzy’s toes between seasons. This isn’t cool -- bosses definitely shouldn’t be asking for their employees’ toes -- but there is a precedent for it. In season one, Ed told Stede that he used to feed people their toes for a laugh (yuck). For a laugh. This, to me, implies that it’s not a huge deal. It’s certainly not completely unexpected pirate behavior, and it seems more lenient than a keelhauling or a whipping. I think both of those things would've felt far more gruesome and dark.

As far as violent actions go, that’s not a lot. Like, numerically.

Things get darker in S2E2 when Ed becomes increasingly desperate for someone, anyone, to send him to doggy heaven. He’s unhinged and working his way up to a murder-suicide before he’s stopped. He hacks the wheel right off of the ship and threatens to shoot the mast. He orders Archie and Jim to fight to the death. He ignores anonymous crewmembers as they’re swept overboard in the storm. This is bad! It’s self-destructive and selfish! But it's also tragic and human and understandable.

In my opinion, the worst thing Ed does in these episodes is force his crew to do violence for him -- not because it’s violence (again, they’re pirates), but because the violence hurts them. THIS is what traumatizes them. Their trauma flashbacks are scenes of them hurting others, not of Ed hurting them directly. Ed didn’t physically torture his crew (with the exception of Izzy, and that’s complicated). His crime was driving them to do one violent raid after another, killing and plundering without any joy or theatrics. Ed feels trapped in the role of Blackbeard -- the role that he’s been desperate to escape -- and, in his heartbreak, he opts to trap his crew with him. 

Yes, Ed is messed up in the first two episodes of season two. I don’t blame the crew for almost killing him; it’s what needed to be done. I think that Jim, Archie, Frenchie, and Fang had every right to want Ed gone after Stede’s return. 

But I don’t think that Ed was a super violent monster who tortured his crew and murdered his way through his breakup. He engages in very little onscreen violence, and the person that most of his violence is focused on -- Izzy -- is the same person who told him to be violent. I think that anyone who says that Ed’s actions in the first part of season two are extremely dark is either looking at them out of context, misremembering what actually happened and just recalling the dark tone, or working with some kind of motive.

In conclusion: Ed is a man who, at his very darkest, was still operating pretty firmly within the bounds of "stuff pirates do" (but not stuff Ed has historically done, presumably).

Also look at him. Thank you.

GIF by unearthlydust

EDIT: Read the reblogs for some amazing and more nuanced additions!

[elumish]

I think one of the most important unspoken skills of being a writer is knowing how to take critique and criticism of your work.

This is not about comments once work is published--this is about how to actually deal with and adjudicate feedback from beta readers, sensitivitiy readers, editors, etc. Because at some point, if you plan to go through any sort of publishing process, you will need to deal with feedback.

Especially for content/structure comments (as opposed to grammar/typos/etc.), most people have an instinct to get defensive. It's normal! I get it! I also get defensive. These stories are usually the product of many hours worth of work, of time and energy and emotion dedication. Having someone tell us there's a problem can feel like they're telling us that we did something wrong.

So first, recognize the defensiveness. You're allowed to start with defensiveness (if you're not a jerk about it). But recognize that you're being defensive, let yourself sit with it as long as you need to, and then figure out how to move past it.

The next step is to make sure you understand the feedback. Sometimes feedback can be confusing or unclear (the people giving feedback are human too) or it can be talking about a problem that doesn't really exist. You want to make sure that you know what they're actually saying and how it fits in the story.

Along with understanding the feedback, recognize when feedback represents a fundamental misunderstanding of your story. Sometimes people misread your story or aren't careful or just have a vastly different interpretation of your story than the words on the page, and they will give feedback that reflects that. You are allowed to say, basically, "this isn't actually commenting on my story but the reader's interpretation of my story" and move on. But sometimes a fundamental misunderstanding means that your story is confusing or unclear, and it may signal that you need to make changes, even if they aren't the changes the commener suggested.

When you're working your way through feedback, trust identifications of problems more than you trust recommended solutions. This is not to say that you should never follow people's recommendations (and what recommendations you follow may/should depend on who they are), but it is your story, and ultimately you know it better than they do. If someone gives the comment that the pacing doesn't work in x section and that you should think about adding y scene, you may realize that what would actually solve the problem better for the story is updating an earlier or later section instead.

Trust your understanding of your story but allow it to evolve. You know your story best and shouldn't change it just because someone had an idea--but you should also be flexible about your story and not stick to your original story just because it was the first idea you had.

Finally, learn how to be okay with having been wrong. Sometimes your idea wasn't the best. Sometimes what you wrote didn't work. Sometimes it was racist or sexist or homophobic or transphobic or ableist. Sometimes it was confusing or unclear. Sometimes it was a stupid idea. And when commenters tell you that, the only way to fix it is to learn how to look at something you love and say, yeah, okay, this was bad and needs to be fixed.

And as a postscript to it all--remember that critical feedback isn't a reflection on you or your writing. Every author in existence has gotten critical feedback at some point (or, if they haven't, it's because they have a terrible editor). Nobody is perfect on their first true, and nobody is perfect in a vacuum. Critical feedback is one of the ways that you and your stories get better.

[heavenlymorals]

Dutch Van Der Linde: An Outdated Progressive

(Warning: This post contains period typical attitudes such as racism and sexism as well as spoilers for RDR2. This retrospective is also pretty damn long too.)

I love Dutch Van Der Linde. Honestly, he is one of my favorite characters ever and just the whole concept of his character and the philosophy of his character as well is something that just sticks with you.

He is charming, intelligent, cultured, charismatic, a right Messiah, and a right bastard all the same time.

But the thing that I believe people most remember about Dutch Van Der Linde is his romantic image. What I mean by this is the things he stood for and the things he wanted to change.

This makes Dutch have a positive image pretty quickly from the very start. In the first scene with him, he's encouraging people, rallying them up, and giving them hope in such an awful situation. He saves Sadie from a terrible fate and asks Hosea to send someone to bury her husband. Arthur and Charles talk fondly of him. He makes it clear in the train robbery that he despises the systems that keep men rich whilst most people starve.

Whether or not Dutch was always cracked, to the characters in the game, he was a great man because of his beliefs and because of his empathy/sympathy.

But what gets me is that a lot of people in this fandom misconstrue Dutch's character into being what we see today as a progressive. I see people saying things like "Bill shouldn't be racist, he's with Dutch's gang" or "why is Micah in the gang" and other similar things as to where people get confused as to why characters with immoral belief systems are respected and active heavy hitters in the gang.

This isn't saying that Dutch isn't progressive because he IS. For his time period, he was VERY progressive.

However, before I get into that, I want to establish some context in terms of the time period that we are talking about.

Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He once had dinner with African American leader Booker T. Washington. This one singular act of simply eating with one another as a white man and black man was so scandalous that it became an outrage to many politicians that the PRESIDENT, the literal face of America, was having dinner with a black American leader.

Teddy later put out this response: “The only wise and honorable and Christian thing to do is to treat each Black man and each white man strictly on his merits as a man, giving him no more and no less than he shows himself worthy to have."

A lot of people would take this event and try to say that Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive equivalent to our time when that is simply not true. Roosevelt was racist to many groups in his personal writings and he believed in the racial hierarchy, even though he had respect for any self made man.

Was Roosevelt a progressive? Yes. For his time, he was a progressive. He was pro union, anti monopoly, and created many government departments like the FDA. He also believed in the merits of a man. But the thing about historical progressives is that their standard of progression doesn't fit in with our criteria anymore.

Dutch is the same. Is he a progressive? Yeah, of course he is. But is he a true progressive in our standards? No. Not really.

This is why the gang allows racist gang members. That is also why the only repercussion to such racism is if the victim of it is willing to dish something out like Charles slamming Micah on the ground or Javier pulling a knife on Bill. It is also why the gang is pretty traditional and rigid in their gender roles. It's also why queer people (ie. Bill) are casually mocked within the gang too.

Another thing too- Dutch is a romantic. People misconstrue that with being a progressive when that really isn't the case. Romantacism is a philosophy that was a rejection of the realism of the Enlightment. It focused on Idealism. The thing with Romantacism, though, is that it was a super white-washed philosophy. It was made to mould into white cultures and belief systems specifically for white men. Dutch could say all men are equal and he may believe that, but it's clear that he doesn't see equality in the same way that we see equality today.

What I mean by this is that any man is equal but if told otherwise, that man is the one who has to prove them wrong. It's his business and he should be the one to deal with it. That's why other gang members don't back up Charles or Javier if they find themselves in a situation with another gang member who is racist. It's their responsibility to deal with their own beefs. It wouldn't be like today where we all publically shun racism.

Remember when Dutch, Arthur, and Micah come back from Sadie's cabin? Micah says something about not wanting to share a room with Bill and POC, to which Dutch can hear and doesn't say anything and Hosea only says "Get yourself to bed" instead of calling Micah on what he said. Same goes for Arthur too. He may condemn and do something about violent racism, like how when he helps the doctor in Rhodes get his wagon back, but he doesn't really say anything when Micah or Bill say racist things to Charles, Javier, or Lenny. That's their business, so to speak, and they should be the ones handling it.

Also note the poc's characters relationship with Dutch. Javier likes Dutch because of the revolutionary ideals that he believes in. Charles likes Dutch because he treats him fair. Lenny likes Dutch because Dutch is far more progressive than other white men, but he also calls out Dutch's romantic philosophy because it doesn't really include POC or their struggles. Dutch sympathizes with their struggles, but he cannot emphasize, which is the problem with his romantic philosophy. It's a culture that is a house to white people, but POC are only guests in it in terms of its European and American tradition. Yes, Dutch hates what the Europeans did to the natives, but given the context beforehand and the things he says, he hates less the violence and more the upheaval of the lifestyle that he wants, which is one that is connected to nature and earth. I also find it interesting how the only person Dutch kinda defends from racism is Lenny, the same boy who calls him out for reading too much into Miller and not into reality. It could very much be Dutch unconsciously trying to prove Lenny wrong.

And the thing with Dutch is that he isn't squeaky clean when it comes to racism either. He's racist too, but he's racist to groups that we don't see as marginalized anymore and this goes for Hosea as well. The biggest example of this is with Italians, who weren't considered white at the time, same with the Irish.

We have this conversation between him and Hosea:

"Have you ever met an Italian strongman before?"

"Not outside the circus."

I shouldn't have to explain that.

And there is also when Bronte set them up.

"That greasy son of a bitch, he set us up!"

It doesn't sound strange at first but context matters a lot. Though 'greaser' is a slur that we see thrown at Javier for being a Mexican multiple times in the gang, that slur was also used against Italians. So Dutch saying that is him still purposing that slur but in a different way.

Another thing that I noticed is that whenever Dutch wants to speak with someone who isn't white or wasn't deemed white at the time, he would dumb down or slow down his speech first before the person he's speaking to shows that they know English, in which then he talks normally. He doesn't automatically consider that hey, these are people who are intelligent and understand English.

Here are two examples:

This is Dutch to Bronte.

"Why do you take his son?"

"Excuse me?"

"I said why DID you take his son."

He fixes the way he talks as soon as he realizes that Bronte speaks english.

And then to Eagle Flies.

"How do you DO?" (In the game, he slows down his speech and emphasizes the do.)

"Not well, sir."

"I can see that."

This is such a subtle detail but it shows that even subconsciously, Dutch isn't as admirable as we sometimes like to make him out to be in terms of OUR time period and that we shouldn't be surprised when other gang members or Dutch himself do or say things that aren't cool.

And of course, there is the sexism of the gang and that Dutch is shown to be sexist multiple times in the game.

"There are two theories about arguing with women and neither of them work."

"Good Lord, a few more like her and we can take over the whole world." (This was a sarcastic dig at Sadie)

And given the rigidness of the gender roles in camp and that the girls are barely in any missions and are mostly just doing house work, Dutch supports this system because just like how political Romantacism wasn't really for POC, it wasn't really for women either.

He can also be religiously prejudiced as well, though this shows up only once in the game. When you get into Saint Denis, Dutch says this:

"Here we are in this strange land of Papists and rapists."

Papists is another word for Catholic and given how he connects them with rapists, it makes it quite clear that he doesn't like them all that much, which makes sense given that Dutch is some form of Protestant and the general disgust regarding Catholics at the time. There is also the fact that a lot of reasons why Italians, Irish, and Hispanic people dealt with discrimination is because of the Catholic background in many of their cultures.

Again, it's a small detail, but when you look at the time period he says that in, it opens up many doors to many other social issues that were there at the time and how Dutch, despite being better than many, is also still a man of his time and this idea that the gang is this beacon of prosperity and progression is generally overemphasized to something that it is not.

Again, I love Dutch's character and he was a progressive but it isn't surprising to see these negative equalities come out from him and from the gang as an extension. They all have their flaws, even if those flaws are especially jarring at points.

Historical people almost always have historical attitudes, guys. It's just the unfortunate truth.

In any case, this is already way too damn long and I hate proof reading so bye 😃