theaxisofidiocy

[theaxisofidiocy]

i'm still reeling over how effective and suspenseful the climax of arc 3 is like- even putting aside from the fact that i didn't know caitlyn was in the game and spent 5 whole seconds Freaking Out when jinx brought out the platter, the three of these people talking around a table had me more on the edge of my seat than any action sequence. something my brother pointed out is that from the perspectives of vi and silco they are each fighting for powder/jinx's soul which is A Lot

SAME, I really, truly thought Caitlyn was dead. They make you wait just long enough between the shower scene and the dinner party scene that you remember the dread you should feel for her, and we don’t know how much Jinx has been affected by shimmer, so we really think she’s capable of anything. Even after the tension releases when Jinx makes a joke – “I’m not THAT crazy” – you are on a knife’s edge until the very end.

Both Vi and Silco believe the other is the worst possible influence on Jinx. But Vi is at a disadvantage the whole time because Caitlyn is there too. Silco, on the other hand, can focus completely on Jinx and not worry about anyone but her getting hurt. That alone makes me wonder if Jinx knew the answer of who she would “choose” the whole time. She might wonder if Silco is using her for power, but there’s nothing in the room that would compromise him. Instead she sees Vi constantly divide her attention between her and Caitlyn. So Silco’s argument makes more sense to her in the moment, because she can see the evidence right there.

It’s so nuts, it makes me go INSANE, how the only way she can truly trust anyone is for her to hurt them and see how they react. And when Vi is hurt, she turned on Jinx. And when Silco is hurt, he forgives her. It’s the only way she would ever have really trusted, bone-deep, what he was saying to her. And he knew that was the only way she would accept it, so he uses all his energy to tell her that, and know that she knows he means it.

[theaxisofidiocy]

Bro I swear this is the most happy and relaxed we ever see her. The baptism ALMOST worked! She almost made peace with her self and her past...and then Vi came back. Its so fucking tragic I could scream!!

idk if anyone had already noticed this, but in the "She's back" scène you can see a drop of water dripping down Jinx' chin.

Then she spins in her chair in slow-mo and there are even more water droplets flying around her.

At first i thought it was sweat, but then i realized that this scène took place right after Silco "baptized" her and her hair and clothes are still wet!!! Girl, the details, THE DÉTAILS !!!

[theaxisofidiocy]

ye awaken with a minty butthole

how do ye proceed

[theaxisofidiocy]

i know it's a little bit toxic but nothing is more satisfying to me than when a fictional character who is generally very dignified, polite, and calm even under pressure is finally persuaded to unleash their anger and it fucking explodes out of them with enough molten volcanic rage to level entire cities

[theaxisofidiocy]

Imho the idea of ‘cruelty free’ products or food shouldn’t mean that nothing died to create it, but rather that anything and anyone involved in the creation process hasn’t been exploited or harmed.

Leather is good actually. Veganism isn’t the end all be all to morality and consumption. The issue isn’t that a chicken died for those nuggets, but that while the chicken was alive, it’s life fucking sucked. Vegan chocolate means little if the cocoa that made it was gathered by child slave labor.

Factory farms, abuses of the people who pick the fruit and vegetables we eat, the focus profit and productivity over all else - that’s the fucking issue here. It’s capitalism folks.

[theaxisofidiocy]

new fun trend: take this quiz and tell me your score

[theaxisofidiocy]

The real reason viktor is dying is because his anime hair vents aren’t being maintained properly

[theaxisofidiocy]

OK OK SO. mel and jinx really are the most perfect foils in arcane, despite never meeting directly. let me explain

they grew up in opposite circumstances, with jinx raised in extremely poor conditions and mel in an opulent noxian family. but they both struggled with sets of expectations about and from these familes. mel obviously with what ambessa expected of her, but remember mylo’s line to vi about powder? “you were twice the person at half her age.”

“i’m not a fighter.” unlike vi. neither is mel, despite her mother’s wishes for her to be the fox and the wolf.

so they instead succeed through untraditionnal ways that are ignored/disregarded by the people around them but that nevertheless work very, very well! powder is a genius who makes machinery out of scraps, mel is a political creature who is good at manipulating rather than fighting directly.

they are both artists, again in opposite ways. jinx’s art remains childlike, drawn in bright and neon colors over every surface she can access. mel’s art is beautiful and delicate, but it’s how she expresses her feelings and longing and her trauma.

the perfect example of this is jinx’s repeated motif of the monkey, the one that destroyed her life. mel too paints the objects of her trauma–red noxian sails, the bloody necklace of the heir to the throne she wanted to spare.

of course they are both direct parallels and opposites in other ways. powder/jinx is an open book about her trauma and her emotions. mel instead builds massive walls around herself. powder is chaotic, her workplace is a mess, she lets her guts and suffering spill freely. mel keeps herself tight and distant and regal, far above the common of mortals.

but both crave for validation that they can’t quite ever satisfy or find, even from others. silco might give jinx every drop of love in his body, she remains insecure. no matter how well mel does, how wonderfully she performs, she knows it will not be enough.

and here we come to the subject of parents.

ambessa and mel are the perfect, perfect foils to silco and jinx. the two toxic parent/child pairs that act in opposite ways.

silco meets jinx, sees her trauma, and immediately embraces both. he sees himself in her. he validates her every emotion and action, without giving her any safeguards or trying to stop her. he has expectations for her for sure but he does not burden her with them, and he lets her essentially do as she wants and as she feels like, for better or worse. he lets her own emotions drown him and consume him. he lets her get in the way of his every goal if it means she continues to be free and by his side. silco believes jinx to be whole as she is, even when she is very clearly unwell and needs help. he wants her as she is, chaotic and destructive and broken in ways that match him. and he WILL defend her and her state of being even to anyone who sees that she has very clear problems and needs help, or at least to change. he will not see her change.

ambessa does the very, very opposite. ambessa wanted mel to be a certain way, and mel isn’t, and rather than embracing it ambessa pressures mel. ambessa offers mel the world “if you prove you can take it”. when you watch the show for the first time you keep thinking, how on EARTH can mel not match her mother’s expectations when she is so good at everything she accomplishes? then you meet ambessa and it’s as clear as day. mel could never meet her mother’s expectations and be what her mother wants her to be. she IS perfect as she is but her mother wants another beast entirely.

and unlike silco, ambessa never coddles her daughter or gives her validation she really wanted AND needed. unlike silco, ambessa is ready to push mel away for her own goals. unlike silco, who saw his broken reflection in jinx and wanted him by his side even if it cost his life goals, ambessa saw in mel a gentler side of her that TERRIFIED her and made her banish her own daughter far away from her.

silco does throw away all his goals the moment jinx is the bargaining ship. he literally SNARLS they can all burn because it’s just him and jinx, the two of them against the world. nobody else. he will see zaun die in chains rather than see jinx live in chains.

ambessa talks about her goals of preserving their family again and again, and yet pushed her daughter so far away, and herself admitted that the moment she realized mel was her weakness, she wanted mel gone. and now she goes to mel wanting her by her side because her other child is gone, by what she considers is her fault. but she still doesn’t want mel as the full human being! not the one who grew to love piltover and want to protect it. she wants mel, the medarta genius heir. mel the investment. mel the daughter who made her weak, but also the one who fulfills the role of Family Heir. mel who she now expects to fall in line behind ambessa, no matter her feelings on the subject.

“pull yourself together, i taught you better than that.” ambessa was never really there for mel, was she? as silco was for jinx, even as he taught her very poor coping mechanisms and instead to embrace her trauma and drown in it as he continuously drowns in his?

which leads to the very final scene!

or first what leads up to it. jinx is slipping from silco’s grasp, his hopes for her, by possibly going back to vi. mel is told she has a place back home with her mother, like a good child.

jinx was supposed to build the weapon for the war for silco, mel is expected to provide ambessa with weapons for her own war. your family is going to the battlefield, child; i’m counting on you to provide the  devastating blow for our cause.

jinx is tormented and torn between vi and her childhood, and silco and her present. mel is tormented and torn between noxus and her childhood, and piltover and her present.

for jinx there are no ethical quandaries, rather a very personal one. but it’s an identity one nonetheless. mel hadn’t much ethical qualms, until she realized how like her mother she was thinking.

silco…. dies, telling jinx she is perfect. he dies, sealing jinx to be who she is, giving her uncontional love and acceptance, including all her jagged edges and destructive tendencies. ambessa expected mel to simply follow her because she asked her to.

here is the tragedy. in the final, final scene, mel and jinx are THE biggest parallel. mel has to choose between her mother (her house, her past, her hopes and dreams for her family, to one day be fully accepted and loved by her mom) and piltover being at peace. her new home, with people she has decided to let in and let them love her. she makes her choice. she takes off her ring, and votes for peace, and leaves the weapons behind. chooses to be mel, just mel. to leave her mother and the suffering she caused behind. to renounce the expectations people had for her, in order to bring genuine peace and happiness to a home she grew to care about.

here is the tragedy. in the final, final scene, mel and jinx are the biggest parallel. just as mel votes for peace, jinx chooses to be everything her father had wanted her to be. she decides to show them all. she chooses the weapon. she breaks all contacts and ties with anybody who wasn’t the father who loved her and doomed her. she decides to show them all, for silco.

just as the camera focuses on jinx’s finger pulling the trigger, it then shifts to mel pulling the medarda ring off her own finger and raising it for peace.

is it a coincidence, then, that the missile first reached mel?

(btw i am not joking. these are pairs of SUCCESSIVE shots. direct parallels to each other’s decisions and and lives.)

[theaxisofidiocy]

here is the dynamic: jinx is everything to silco, and he would be anything for her. the only limiting principle for how their relationship is defined depends on her and her needs and desires. the father/daughter bond is textual and good. but if jinx ever wanted to situate herself differently, to be his partner, or enemy, or sister, or lover, he would go along with it because he is an open wound spilling love for her, and she is the one who directs its flow. so i am open to any aspect of that subtext that people want to talk about.

[theaxisofidiocy]

Academically speaking, I still find the whole “anti-shipper” movement to be fascinating from a sociological perspective.

You have what amounts to a extremist purity cult whose beliefs align nearly precisely with those of Conservative American Christianity in terms of sexual purity politics (admittedly with some additional flourishes that I’ve watched develop in real time), but is mostly composed of minority members whose sexual-and-gender identities are opposed and oppressed by Conservative American Christianity.  Additionally, their tactics also mirror religious pro-censorship groups (such as Warriors For Innocence), but their rhetoric is entirely secularized and derived from leftist theory.

Did they arrive at this structure via convergent evolution?  Via socially dominant concepts in the greater socio-cultural space that they occupy?  I doubt it was by direct emulation but the possibility does exist on some levels.

[theaxisofidiocy]

Society has moved beyond "what if cute thing creepy" AND "what if creepy thing cute" we must destroy the boundary between revulsion and attraction. New and strange paradigms of beauty are necessary.

[theaxisofidiocy]

PSA

avoid conforming to traditional gender norms by avoiding this common palette:

try using these palettes instead!!

[theaxisofidiocy]

URGENT: 🚨🚨EARN IT ACT IS BACK IN THE SENATE 🚨🚨 tumblr's nsfw ban hitting the entire internet this spring 2022

February 1, 2022

I’m so so sorry for the long post but please please please pay attention and spread this

WHAT IS THE EARN IT ACT?

The EARN IT Act has been roundly condemned by nearly every major LGBTQ+ advocacy and human rights organization in the country. This is a bill that will make children less safe, undermine online safety and security, and trample free expression, because it carves out another exception to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA 230), which the ACLU describes as “foundational to modern online communications.” This has been the law that has let the internet grow into what it is today, we’ve had this law since the 90s. (For context, Trump wanted to get rid of this law because he knew it would lead to mass govt surveillance and censorship of minorities online.)

The EARN IT Act will lead to online censorship. Platforms will be incentivized to scan their users’ communications and censor all sex-related content, including sex education, literally anything lgbt, transgender or non-binary education and support systems, and sex worker communication according to the ACLU. All this in the name of “protecting kids” and “fighting CSEM”, both of which the bill does nothing of the sort. In fact it makes fighting CSEM even harder.

If this bill passes, we're going to see most, if not all, adult content and accounts removed from mainstream platforms, for fear of the liability that could come with ever accidentally hosting CSAM, as well as the erasure of end-to-end encryption on messaging platforms.

This is really not a drill. Anyone who makes or consume anything “adult” online has to be prepared to fight Sen. Blumenthal's EARN IT Act, brought back from the grave by a bipartisan consensus to destroy Section 230.

EARN IT will open the way for politicians to define the category of “pornography" as they — or the lobbies that fund them — please, (Right now, right wing organizers are catgorizing books about racism as ‘porn’ to ban them from schools) which is a cherished goal of organizations that seek to reintroduce obscenity prosecutions for content now protected by Free Speech jurisprudence. This will 1000000% be used to eradicate anything LGBT online.

What this bill says it does on the surface is make platforms liable for their users’ activity if that activity involves sex and minors. However, because of 230, platforms are not liable at all about their users' activity. This has allowed platforms to grow and thrive and many niches online to as well. The bill also creates an unelected commission to create “best practices” to combat online child sexual exploitation. While these recommendations are nominally voluntary (so Americans have no decision on who gets to be on it), platforms that refuse to comply will be liable for criminal prosecutions and lawsuits should the government decide any of their users is engaging in online child sexual exploitation.

This is already a nightmare enough. But the bill also DESTROYS ENCRYPTION, you know, the thing protecting literally anyone or any govt entity from going into your private messages and emails and anything on your devices and spying on you.

This bill is going to finish what FOSTA/SESTA started. And that should terrify you.

Senator Blumenthal (Same guy who said ‘Facebook should ban finsta’) pushed this bill all of 2020, literally every activist (There were more than half a million signatures on this site opposing this act!) pushed hard to stop this bill. Now he brings it back, doesn’t show the text of the bill until hours later, and it’s WORSE. Instead of fixing literally anything in the bill that might actually protect kids online, Bluemnthal is hoping to fast track this and shove it through, hoping to get little media attention other than propaganda of "protecting kids" to support this shitty legislation that will harm kids.

The entire EARN IT act is based on *multiple* misunderstandings of the law and reality. It's a really really really bad policy that will do serious harm. But because Senator Blumenthal wants headlines, he'll pretend that it "helps protect the children." It won't. It'll do real damage. It will make CSEM much much worse.

One of the many reasons this bill is so dangerous: It totally misunderstands how Section 230 works, and in doing so (as with FOSTA) it is likely to make the very real problem of CSAM worse, not better. Section 230 gives companies the flexibility to try different approaches to dealing with various content moderation challenges. It allows for greater and greater experimentation and adjustments as they learn what works -- without fear of liability for any "failure." Removing Section 230 protections does the opposite. It says if you do anything, you may face crippling legal liability. This actually makes companies less willing to do anything that involves trying to seek out, take down, and report CSAM because of the greatly increased liability that comes with admitting that there is CSAM on your platform to search for and deal with. This liability would allow anyone for any reason to sue any platform they want, suing smaller ones out of existence. Look at what is happening right now with book bans across the nation with far right groups. This is going to happen to the internet if this bill passes.

(Remember, the state department released a report in December 2021 recommending that the government crack down on "obscenity" as hard the Reagan Administration did. If this bill passes, it could easily go way beyond shit red states are currently trying. It is a goldmine for the fascist right that is currently in the middle of banning every book that talks about race and sexuality across the US.)

NCOSE, the far right anti-LGBT hate group behind the global anti-sex legislations, is pushing the idea that any form of sexual expression, including talking about HEALTH, leads to sex trafficking. Their goal is to eliminate all sex, anything gay, and everything that goes against their idea of ‘God’ from the internet and hyper disney-fy and sanitize it. This is a highly coordinated attack on multiple fronts.

The reason these bills keep showing up is because there is this false lie spread by organizations like NCOSE that platforms do nothing about CSEM online. However, platforms are already liable for child sexual exploitation under federal law. Tech companies sent more than 45 million+ instances of CSAM to the DOJ in 2019 alone, most of which they declined to investigate. This shows that platforms are actually doing everything in their power already to stop CSEM by following already existing laws. The Earn It Act includes zero resources for proven investigation or prevention programs. If Senator Bluementhal actually cared about protecting youth, why wouldn’t he include anything to actually protect them in his shitty horrible bill?

The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) along with a coalition of 26 civil society organizations urged the United States Senate to reject the EARN IT Act. Groups on the left and right, including the ACLU, Fight for the Future, EFF, and Hacking // Hustling oppose it. Because it threatens free expression online and will threaten marginalized people’s safety while being totally unnecessary and failing to fix the problem it claims to address. The EARN IT Act empowers states to give law enforcement access to users’ private conversations and force companies to create encryption backdoors for law enforcement. This is totally unnecessary. Platforms are already handing over CSAM to the federal government. It’s actually likely to make prosecuting child molesters more difficult since evidence collected this way likely violates the Fourth Amendment and would be inadmissible in court.

I don't know why so many Senators are eager to cosponsor the "make child pornography worse" bill, but here we are.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

EARN IT Act was introduced yesterday! And it’s already scheduled to get marked up, which is the first step post-introduction. Most bills never go to markup, so this means they are putting pressure to move this through. IF YOU LIVE IN THESE STATES (IL, VT, CA, RI, MN, DE, CT, HI, NJ, and GA), CONTACT YOUR SENATOR AND HOUSE MEMBERS NOW. THIS IS URGENT. This is who gets first crack, and folks in all have Senators who are on the Judiciary committee.

I'm guessing this month or March is when the bill would be passed if there is no opposition 😭 The bill was re-introduced yesterday, already set for markup this Thursday. This feels like an attempt to fast track it this month. Additionally the current makeup of Congress favors those who want it passed. Back in 2020 it was mostly Senate republicans and democrats who are basically republicans (just like now, check the sponsors) pushing it with Ron Wyden using the filibuster to stop their efforts. The house dems didn't want to give Trump a win and needed to appear as pro-privacy/free speech for the 2020 election. Now the dems have the presidency, both chambers of Congress and if you've noticed have spent a few years repeatedly demanding social media censorship and desperately want to give Biden victories. biden isn't like obama who opposed sopa/pipa to appeal to younger voters. This is similar to how FOSTA passed with the group who made it happen last time back again. Far as I'm aware Wyden hasn't spoken about new earn it yet but even if he does oppose it, it's very possible there will be enough Senate democrats to join the republicans in passing it beating a filibuster. Then pelosi's band of house idiots pass it and we have to choose between breaking the law because they can't stop us from using encryption or being obedient sheep to a group who consider themselves above laws.

It already has a fifth of the Senate cosponsoring it. There is a very very very real chance this bill becomes law. This is an uphill battle that's going to happen fast and quick. PLEASE, FIGHT NOW.

202-224-3121 connects you to the congressional hotline.

This website takes you to your Senator / House members contact info. EMAIL, MESSAGE, SEND LETTERS, CALL CALL CALL CALL CALL. Calling is the BEST way to get a message through. Get your family and friends to send calls too. This is literally the end of free speech online.

More sources to read about this bill:

https://cathyreisenwitz.substack.com/p/the-earn-it-act-is-anti-evidence

Fight for the Future’s Statement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=678EW8v09z8&t=1s

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20220131/22423648395/senates-new-earn-it-bill-will-make-child-exploitation-problem-worse-not-better-still-attacks-encryption.shtml

EARN IT Act treats Myths as Facts.

https://surviveearnit.com/what-is-the-earn-it-act/ From 2020, but little has changed about the bill.

https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/earn-it-act-back

Center for Democracy and Technology’s Statement

TLDR: The EARN IT Act will lead to online censorship of any and all adult & lgbt content across the entire internet, open the floodgates to mass surveillance the likes which we haven't seen before, lead to much more CSEM being distributed online, and destroy encryption. Call 202-224-3121 to connect to your house and senate representative and tell them to VOTE NO on this bill that does not protect anyone and harms everyone.

[theaxisofidiocy]

2017: bro you have to watch rick and morty it's a smart show please bro it's based on science rick is a sociopath I identify with him come on bro it's cartoon nihilism please bro you have to watch this it's the funniest shit ever this show stands up for cishet men with high IQs please bro you have to watch this so you get all the memes I'll send you a torrent bro "pickle rick!!!" haha come on bro

2022: bro you need to watch rick and morty it's so gay it's the gayest show ever rick is in love with bird person please bro you have to watch this all the dudebros ran off because it's so gay and rick hates capitalists and fascists please bro you have to see it rick fucked a merman it's so gay come on bro I'll send you a torrent no one's screaming about szechaun sauce anymore rick is a grieving father and husband come on bro let's embrace the sadness for five more seasons bro

[theaxisofidiocy]

“real cp is just pixels on a screen”

well that just says it all huh

they dont give a shit about protecting kids, they just want to feel superior.

csem isnt bad because of people jerking off in a way you think is gross

it’s bad because a real living thinking feeling child was abused and exploited

I’m gonna cry, I swear.

please, I’m just begging fanpol to stop spreading misinfo, and stop conflating the exploitation of real life children with NSFW of fictional teenagers.