#there's also some other caveats that I'm exploring

[evidence-based-activism]

you’re still ignoring WHY the rates for men are so high, because women get underreported and don’t get taken seriously at all when they commit crimes. Women abuse children more and initiate 70% of domestic violence, yet men are still portrayed as the villains. You should read the comments or some of the reblogs under that post. Full of people who have been abused by women and have been safer when around only men,and never been taken seriously. You say it’s a strawman fallacy but no it’s not, radfems say this shit all the timesee. and are very gender essentialist themselves. Maybe you’re not saying it but a lot of popular radfems are, to mostly agreement from other radfems,so you can’t really blame people for seeing that and understanding it to be a popular TERF take.

Hi -

So, I'm going to answer this ask and the one that includes the bustle link that I expect was also sent by you? However, I'm not going to continue putting in this degree of effort (i.e., reading and researching the information you send) unless you start matching that effort. It will be difficult for you to do so in an ask (although I suppose you could try), so I suggest you reblog this post to further discuss.

So, on to the response:

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No, there is not a significant reporting gap (at least, not one caused by sex).

You said "women get underreported and don’t get taken seriously at all when they commit crimes", but there is no evidence that is the case. Let's take the crime data from two sources: the criminal victimization survey by the BJS [1] and the FBI crime data explorer [2]. These two sources are helpful for this discussion because the BJS attempts to determine total offenses including those not reported, while the FBI only looks at reported offenses.

For 2022 (rounding numbers) and looking at violent offenses (excluding homicide as the BJS report is interview based):

Male violent crime: 4,750,000 estimated by the BJS and 1,990,000 reported by the FBI for an overall 42% reporting rate

Female violent crime: 1,220,000 estimated by the BJS and 777,000 reported by the FBI for an overall 64% reporting rate

These numbers would suggest that more female offenders than male offenders are reported (i.e., a greater percent of female offenders, even though in absolute terms there are far fewer female offenders). However, there are some caveats to this data that makes me reluctant to state this conclusion:

The crime definitions between the BJS and FBI differ slightly. For example, I had to search through the "other crimes" for the FBI to find simple assault and several additional sexual assault categories to try and match the overall BJS "violent crime" statistic.

These stats are incident based not offender based. So, for example, if John commits 10 aggravated assaults and 5 of his victims report the assault to the police, 5 incidents are recorded in the system. Therefore, recidivism may or may not play a role in reporting rates.

I calculated the rate using the offender stats for individual offenders and "both male and female offender". Proportionally speaking a greater percent of female offenders are in the "both" category (23% vs 6%). Other statistics suggest more severe crimes are more likely to be reported to the police (e.g., 50% of aggravated assault is reported vs 37% of simple assault). If we make the assumption that violent crimes involving multiple offenders are more likely to be severe, then this could partially explain the disparity.

However, this point is essentially irrelevant, as the statistics previously discussed in the CDC report don't rely on reported crimes, they specifically interview representative samples in order to determine prevalence rates. (The difference between this data (and data in the BJS report) and the number of reported cases is how we know these crimes are under-reported.)

Just to drive the point home: the BJS study, which again, looks at both reported and unreported crime indicates:

Men take part in 84% of violent crimes and the only offender(s) in 79% of violent crimes (the stats for women are 21% and 17% respectively)

The offender-to-population ratio is 1.6 for men and 0.3 for women. That means the share of men in the "offender population" is 60% more than the share of men in the US population. The share of women offenders is 70% less than their share of the US population.

And before you send me another debunked myth: no men are not victimized more: the victim-to-offender population ratio for all violent crimes is 1.0 for both men and women.

I've also talked about how men don't under-report abuse (at least, not anymore than women do) in the past, so see this post for a couple more sources.

There's also no evidence that crimes committed by women get taken less seriously. However, it is true that when women do commit crimes, they tend to be less severe than the crimes committed by men (i.e., women commit more simple assault and aggravated assault). Given this, women's crimes may be taken "less seriously", but that's because the crimes are less serious, going by the accepted definitions of the crime. (And this is not my personal opinion! There is an actual "crime hierarchy" used in the American justice system that ranks crimes by degree of severity.)

In terms of legal consequences, women and men receive similar sentence lengths with one major caveat [3]. Caretakers of children, especially, young children, routinely received shorter sentences. Since women are more likely to be the primary caretaker of children, they'd be more likely to see this sentence reduction. However, this gap has been closing since the introduction of mandatory minimum sentencing. Some research suggests women may receive harsher sentences than men for "traditionally male crimes" [4].

Either way, crimes by women are clearly taken at least as "seriously" as crimes by men.

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No women do not abuse children more.

You said "Women abuse children more", but this is an oft-repeated statement from terribly misinterpreted data.

The misconception comes from data from the child maltreatment report from the HHS [5]. This report looks at reports of child abuse and neglect. In it they found that 52% of victims had a female perpetrator and 47% had a male perpetrator. At first glance, this looks like women abuse more children (hence the wide-spread misinterpretation), however this neglects to take several things into consideration.

First, since about 51% of the population is female, even if we considered nothing else, these values would suggest parity in maltreatment (abuse + neglect) rates. Of course, even this interpretation is deeply flawed, but I thought it merited pointing out.

Second, and perhaps most important, these stats are not looking at incidence or even prevalence rates. This isn't a rate at all. For example, you may be tempted to interpret these as "52% of children in a women's care are abused" or "52% of women abuse children". These are, and I must stress this, completely incorrect interpretations. These stats say only that of child maltreatment (abuse+neglect) victims identified by CPS, 52% of them were maltreated by a women.

Next, these stats fail to take into account the fact that many more women are the primary caretaker of children. According to the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), mothers spend 80% more time caring for children than fathers. This disparity widens even further when you exclude the "entertainment" categories like playing or reading to children (130% increase, or more than double) [6]. This matters because it provides some insight into how rates of abuse would be different. You need to adjust for time spent with children to get a meaningful rate. Another way to look at this is that despite mothers spending almost twice the amount of time around children as fathers, they account for the same number of perpetrators. This alone should tell you that a child is more likely to be safe in the company of a randomly selected woman than a randomly selected man.

In case you still aren't convinced however, the report also clarifies that the perpetrator sex varied widely by maltreatment type. Women were the perpetrator in 58.5% of neglect cases (vs 41%) and 70.5% of medical neglect cases (vs 29%). But men were the perpetrator in 49.5% of physical abuse cases (vs 49%), 89% of sexual abuse cases (vs 8%), and 59% of emotional abuse cases (vs 41%). While no form of child maltreatment is ever acceptable, I hope I don't need to explain how abuse (which "requires an action") is different from neglect (which "occurs from an inaction") and requires different responses.

Speaking of neglect: there is much discourse on how much of the neglect (and medical neglect) registered by CPS is "true neglect" and how much is a result of poverty. This is particularly relevant considering single mothers are much more likely to live in poverty than married couples or single fathers. Examples of this may include: a mother doesn't have enough money to buy food and pay for rent so she and her child eat very little until her next paycheck, a single mother can't miss work without being fired so she sends her sick child to school, a single mother can't pay for child care so she has to choose between leaving her child home alone or having an unfit adult (her own abusive parent? an unsuitable boyfriend?) watch her child. In all of these situations, something absolutely needs to be done to help the child, but it likely isn't the same something as a child who's being beaten or sexually abused by his father.

Other notes on neglect: even the relatively higher proportion of female perpetrators for neglect and medical neglect in this sample are well below parity when adjusted for time spent with the child. It’s also likely that men’s rates of neglect are likely severely under-reported here. Why? Because a neglect case is rarely (if ever) opened for absentee ("deadbeat") dads; it's also unclear how many men with non-primary custody are listed as perpetrators of neglect. (I ask you: if mothers are considered neglectful for failing to intervene on behalf of their child in abusive/neglectful situations, why aren't fathers?)

Other studies on child abuse perpetration (sadly no national reports) show:

Evaluations of child fatalities in Missouri over a 8-year period showed men inflicted 71% of fatal injuries on young children [8]

Evaluations of fatal and nonfatal abusive head trauma over a 12-year period at the Children's Hospital of Denver found 69% of the perpetrators were male (including 74% of the perpetrators of fatal head traumas) [9]

Data from conviction rates and victimization surveys suggest that 4-5% of adult, child sex offenders (as in child sex offenders who are adults) are female, meaning that 95-96% are male [10]

Altogether, this indicates that men are more likely to abuse a child in their care than women. Unsurprisingly, it’s safer for children to be around women than around men.

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No, women do not initiate more domestic violence/commit the same amount of abuse.

You said "women ... initiate 70% of domestic violence". It took me a while to find a source for this statistic, but I eventually found out it comes from a poorly done study that unfortunately finds company with a number of other poorly done studies touted by MRAs and anti-feminists.

Before we address that study specifically: a brief history of the nonsense plaguing domestic violence research.

To be clear, this is not a new discussion, we (the general we) have been having this same discussion about whether there's gender parity in domestic violence for, oh, 50 years or so. It is, possibly not entirely, but certainly mostly the result of the "Conflict Tactics Scale" (CTS). Intended for use in family violence research, it has several methodological flaws which make its results ... let's go with unreliable.

I really thought I'd discussed the CTS before now ... but can't find anything on my blog. But there is this post which is a nice pictograph about this next topic, which I will loop into our discussion of the CTS.

So ... why is the CTS so unreliable? Because "domestic violence" is not a homogeneous phenomenon. If I asked someone to picture an abusive relationship they are almost certainly going to imagine an abusive man controlling his partner through intimidation, likely restricting her behavior, and possibly hitting or otherwise physically harming her. This "typical" dynamic is what we think of when we hear "domestic abuse/violence". (I'd argue that it's what we should think of when discussing domestic violence, but I'm open to being convinced otherwise.)

Notably, what this doesn't include is the -- far more common -- case of situational violence. A "typical" example of situational violence is arguments that "gets out of hand" and end with one partner slapping/shoving/etc. the other (switching between perpetrator for different incidents) or two people who routinely get "nasty" (name calling, personal insults) to each other during arguments. There's no intimidation or controlling behavior and it doesn't escalate. It also is generally not associated with significant victim hardship (i.e., no/little increase in depression, anxiety, or PTSD; little fear or feeling unable to escape the relationship; no or few physical injuries; little or no economic hardship; etc.). It's also what's predominately being measured by the CTS.

This isn't to say that situational violence is "okay". It clearly isn't, no more than a bar fight or slapping a co-worker is okay. It is, however, far more comparable to these examples (bar fight, slapping a coworker, etc.) than it is to the standard conception of domestic violence (which itself is more comparable to being a prisoner of war [11]). Some people have tried to resolve this by renaming the standard conception to "intimate partner terrorism" or "domestic abuse with coercive control". I have ... mixed thoughts on this, so I'm going to leave it at this for now.

If you'd like to read more about this, Michael P. Johnson at PSU (who originally proposed this division back in the 1990s!) has written a book and also has numerous articles about the topic.

I have a lot of sources about the CTS/differences in violence perpetration rates, but this post is already very long and I plan to make a whole separate post about this at some point. So, I'm going to briefly summarize the points and give some references that would be particularly helpful.

So, the issues with CTS include:

Failure to include a full range of possible violent behaviors, including many that are almost always perpetrated by men, including: rape, murder, choking, and suffocation.

Failure to examine post-breakup/divorce time periods, despite post-separation being one of the most dangerous time periods for abused women (but, notably, not men).

Failure to examine context. This gets back at the paradigm I mentioned above: studies that do examine context have shown that the vast majority of coercive controlling violence (i.e., traditional abuse) is perpetrated by men and the vast majority of responsive violence (i.e., self-defense) is perpetrated by women.

Failure to examine the severity of the violence and/or violence impacts. Studies have also shown that women routinely receive the more severe injuries than men. That applies to both the injuries received from coercive controlling violence and from situational violence. Notably, men are rarely ever injured from responsive violence. Women also routinely report more severe psychological and social problems as a result of abuse.

Extremely poor phrasing of the questions. The CTS is unique in its false positive rate, as has been established by several other measures of violence. For example, simply adding the stem "Not including horseplay or joking around..." reduced the number of violent incidents reported and also showed higher rates of female victimization than male victimization.

Inconsistency with every other scale/measure used for determining prevalence rates of abuse! Hopefully it is obvious why this is an issue, but as an example: if I created a new measure for "depressive symptoms" and I found that it correlated very poorly with every other accepted measure of depressive symptoms then my new measure would be considered to have very poor "convergent validity". In non-politicized situations, my measure would likely never make it to the publishing stage, and would certainly fall out of use once this poor validity demonstrated by another study. Unfortunately, science is not immune to politics any more than the people conducting it are, as we can see with the survival of the CTS.

I gathered this information from a bunch of sources, but I've selected a few reviews (i.e., papers that "review" or condense many other papers into one) that would be helpful to you [12-16]. I recommend [12] in particular, although [13] touches on much of the same information and is much shorter. Ultimately, the CTS can, at most, be considered a measure of situational violence (and it's not even very good at that!).

---

So, finally, why is the 70% study [17] particularly bad?

All of the above problems with CTS apply, but in addition to all of that, they didn't just use the already flawed measure as it was ... no they, narrowed it down into 6 total questions. In total it asked about the respondent's perpetration of victimization of the following forms of violence: threatening with violence, pushing/shoving, throwing something, slapped, hit, kicked. They then "assessed" severity by asking a single question about injuries ("How often has partner had an injury, such as a sprain, bruise, or cut because of a fight with you?" and the corresponding victimization version.)

So, let's see ... failure to include predominately male forms of violence? Check. Further exclusion of even the existing items on the CTS that do examine this? Check! Failure to examine time past the relationship? Check. Failure to examine context? Check! Failure to examine severity of violence? Check. (Asking about a sprain or a bruise but not hospitalizations? broken bones? concussions?) Inconsistency with all other measures? Definitely!

Other problems with the study: they asked individuals to rate their perpetration and victimization, they did not examine their partners responses to such questions. This is a problem for a study like this, given that men tend to over-estimate their partners violence towards them and under-estimate their own violence towards their partner, and women do the opposite over-estimating their own violence and under-estimating their partners [12]. A note that a related problem has also shown up for the original CTS (i.e., if you asked both partners to complete the scale, their responses may agree on the "explaining a disagreement" item pair, but there was little if any agreement on the severe items like the "beating up" item pair).

To make a bad problem even worse: they condensed their multi-item (8-point) scales into binary (yes/no) categories and 3-item (low/medium/high) categories. This reduction in variance likely created artificially high rates for women and artificially low rates for men.

Hilariously (infuriatingly), they make it all the way through this data and then acknowledge that their study may not actually have examined domestic abuse at all! Instead it describes "common couple violence or situational violence", which, again, goes back to what the paradigm I introduced earlier. Of course, they don't revise their title or abstract to be less misleading ... that wouldn't be sensational enough.

Also, just to point this out: even this poorly designed, misleading study still showed "men were more likely to inflict an injury on a partner than ... women". So ... there you go. Even tipping the scales/design as far in favor of a "gender symmetry" result as they can possibly go, women still end up injured more than men.

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So, for the rest of your ask:

"yet men are still portrayed as the villains"

well when 1 in 3 men around the world openly admit to abusing women, and they are the perpetrator of 90+% of homicides, and 10-67% of men openly admit to believing non-defensive physical and sexual violence against women is at least sometimes okay it's pretty easy to see why women can see them as the villain/enemy.

"You should read the comments or some of the reblogs under that post. Full of people who have been abused by women and have been safer when around only men,and never been taken seriously."

This is one of those cases where critical thinking skills are pretty important! Let me start you off:

Do I think that a social media post will garner a representative sample from which to draw conclusions? Or is more likely that people who agree with the post will comment on and re-blog it, spreading it more people who are more likely to agree with it?

Can I see the re-blog I'm making comments about (i.e., evidence-based-activism's re-blog?). If not, (hint: it's not in the re-blog viewer :)) is it possible that there are other hidden replies that are disagreeing with this post?

Maybe most importantly: do I need female-on-male or female-on-female violence to be as common as male-on-female and male-on-male violence in order to show compassion to those who do experience it? (Hint: you shouldn't!! Something doesn't need to be common to deserve sympathy and rare =/= excusable.)

In addition, this is touching on a pretty common issue with discourse these days -- the prioritization of "feeling" over "being". Someone (male or female) may feel safer around men, but statistically speaking they are safer around women. It's reasonable to respond to and accommodate people's feelings on an individual basis, it's not reasonable to base an ideology or policy around them.

"You say it’s a strawman fallacy but no it’s not, radfems say this shit all the timesee. ... Maybe you’re not saying it but a lot of popular radfems are, to mostly agreement from other radfems,so you can’t really blame people for seeing that and understanding it to be a popular TERF take."

Similar to the last point ... views on social media are not representative of a population. Views that you, specifically, are seeing are not representative! If they were, then "well, I see more posts preemptively criticizing people for not including men than I see posts excluding men" (which is true, almost every post I read now-a-days includes caveats like "but men are abused too!! and women can be abusers!!") would have been a valid counter-argument to your ask. But see, I know that my experience on social media is not universal, and I should hope you can acknowledge the same of your own!

Also ... to be fair to all these unnamed "radfems", I'm guessing that you would consider my posts (like this response) to be an example of someone "saying this", which is very much not the case. I am acknowledging social trends and making reasonable generalizations to allow for communication about a complex topic (you know, the way people do for any and every topic ever), but I'm not claiming that no women is ever abusive or that no man has ever been abused. I'm guessing that these other posts are pretty similar (if less verbose).

side note, you also said: "radfems ... are very gender essentialist themselves".

Either you don't know what "gender essentialist" means or the people you are talking to/about are not radfems. I acknowledge that there are a number of people going around and saying they're radfems, but the nice thing about a political group like this is they have (at least some) defined beliefs.

So, for example, if someone went around saying they are a communist, but then when asked to describe their desired economic system, describes an economy based around the free market and decentralized production ... then they aren't a communist no matter what they call themselves. A command economy is a central tenant to communism, so much so that a desire to implement one/have one is intrinsic to being a communist.

In the same way, if someone is calling themselves a radfem, but supports the preservation of gender/gender roles or believes that femininity/masculinity is biologically innate ... then they aren't a radfem.

---

TL;DR:

Violent crimes for women and men are reported at similar rates.

Women and men are punished similarly for violent crimes (i.e., people do take crimes by women seriously).

Children are safer in the company of women than men. There is insufficient research to accurately describe perpetrator demographics of "minor" child abuse/neglect, but there is significant research indicating that men are the perpetrator of the the vast majority of severe injuries, fatal injuries, and sexual abuse.

Men commit the vast majority controlling domestic violence (the type of violence people think of when thinking about domestic violence); women's violence is predominately responsive. Women are also the recipients of the vast majority of injuries (minor and severe) and are the victim of almost all fatalities.

Social media posts are not representative studies.

Critical thinking skills are important!

And, everyone -- regardless of sex or any other demographic characteristic -- deserves compassion when harmed. It is still appropriate talk about trends and create policies that assist the majority of those harmed.

A reminder that I will expect a reasonable degree of engagement with this information if you plan to engage in further discussion! I'll answer the bustle link ask, but after that I'll simply delete asks that don't make a genuine attempt to think critically about this information. (Clarifying questions are okay to ask though :)).

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References below the cut:

Criminal Victimization, 2022 | Bureau of Justice Statistics. https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/criminal-victimization-2022.

“National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) Details Reported in the United States .” Federal Bureau of Investigation Crime Data Explorer, https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crime/crime-trend.

Myrna S. Raeder Gender and Sentencing: Single Moms, Battered Women, and Other Sex-Based Anomalies in the Gender-Free World of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, 20 Pepp. L. Rev. Iss. 3 (1993) Available at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/plr/vol20/iss3/1

https://web.archive.org/web/20240406064949/https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2019/jan/12/intimate-partner-violence-gender-gap-cyntoia-brown

Child Maltreatment 2022. https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/report/child-maltreatment-2022.

“Average Hours per Day Parents Spent Caring for and Helping Household Children as Their Main Activity.” Bureau of Labor Statistics, https://www.bls.gov/charts/american-time-use/activity-by-parent.htm.

Shrider, Emily A., Melissa Kollar, Frances Chen, and Jessica Semega, U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P60-273, Income and Poverty in the United States: 2020, U.S. Government Publishing Office, Washington, DC, September 2021.

Schnitzer PG, Ewigman BG. Child deaths resulting from inflicted injuries: household risk factors and perpetrator characteristics. Pediatrics. 2005 Nov;116(5):e687-93. doi: 10.1542/peds.2005-0296. PMID: 16263983; PMCID: PMC1360186.

Starling SP, Holden JR, Jenny C. Abusive head trauma: the relationship of perpetrators to their victims. Pediatrics. 1995 Feb;95(2):259-62. PMID: 7838645.

McCartan, K. (Ed.). (2014). Responding to Sexual Offending. Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137358134

Comparison Between Strategies Used on Prisoners of War and Battered Wives | Office of Justice Programs. https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/comparison-between-strategies-used-prisoners-war-and-battered-wives.

Michael S. Kimmel. (2001). Male Victims of Domestic Violence: A Substantive and Methodological Research Review. The Equality Committee of the Department of Education and Science. https://vawnet.org/material/male-victims-domestic-violence-substantive-and-methodological-research-review

Flood, M. (1999, July 10). Claims About Husband Battering [Contribution to Newspaper, Magazine or Website]. Domestic Violence and Incest Resource Centre Newsletter; Domestic Violence and Incest Resource Centre. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/215068/

Walter DeKeseredy & Martin Schwartz. (1998). Measuring the Extent of Woman Abuse in Intimate Heterosexual Relationships: A Critique of the Conflict Tactics Scales. VAWnet.Org. https://vawnet.org/material/measuring-extent-woman-abuse-intimate-heterosexual-relationships-critique-conflict-tactics

Shamita Das Dasgupta. (2001). Towards an Understanding of Women’s Use of Non-Lethal Violence in Intimate Heterosexual Relationships. VAWnet.Org. https://vawnet.org/material/towards-understanding-womens-use-non-lethal-violence-intimate-heterosexual-relationships

Shamita Das Dasgupta. (2001). Towards an Understanding of Women’s Use of Non-Lethal Violence in Intimate Heterosexual Relationships. VAWnet.Org. https://vawnet.org/material/towards-understanding-womens-use-non-lethal-violence-intimate-heterosexual-relationships

Whitaker, Daniel J., et al. “Differences in Frequency of Violence and Reported Injury Between Relationships With Reciprocal and Nonreciprocal Intimate Partner Violence.” American Journal of Public Health, vol. 97, no. 5, May 2007, pp. 941–47. PubMed Central, https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2005.079020.

#feminism #male violence

[vigilskeep]

I'm curious what you don't like about dao Leliana? If you've got any posts about it could you please point me in their direction?

i probably have posts somewhere but god knows where they are now. i will present a little overview

and to be clear, because i know this website, this is completely a matter of personal taste in writing and character, i am not, um, cancelling leliana dragonage or having anything but appreciation for those who like her, i am saying i probably wouldn’t want to hang out with her. i am also not attempting to convince anyone or justify anything, i am explaining my own feelings since i have been asked about them. i am going to use language that sounds a little overly harsh because i am trying to express those feelings succinctly without making this post very long by apologising and minimising with caveats about when i do like her

i find her a little grating. i find her characterisation based on her backstory irritatingly inconsistent, with genuinely confusing naivete for someone with a supposedly hardened backstory. she’s a literal bard, and she’s always always on the back foot in dialogue with quicker thinkers who can easily shock and scandalise her, and she believes horrors are too ugly for anyone to write about (literal bard!). i’m also vaguely baffled by the amalgamation of vibes they went for visually, like, idk for example, repeatedly mentioning the supposedly ragged boyish hair of someone incapable of understanding a lack of interest in high fashion and who expresses friendship by talking about nice shoes and hair specifically. it makes me struggle to buy into her as a character, and i find her hard to picture.

i think her compassion for others rings fairly false, possibly just on a poor voice acting level; if they wanted me to believe in it from listening to her dialogue when she chimes in during side quests, they got it wrong, i don’t. those bland comments, as cloying on the tongue as artificial sweetener instead of real sugar, are a let-down when i could have someone more entertaining in the party. i hear her talk and think: i wish i’d brought someone else. and her kindness is often shallow, buying into prejudice easily when left unchecked. which is again, weird for a character whose entire concept is being more worldly than she appears. part of that backstory is also definitely growing up mostly surrounded by elven servants, which makes those biases in that direction even more notable to me than they otherwise would be. she’s someone who’s absorbed in her own internal struggle yet who has never noticed the struggles of those around her until directly confronted. i am constantly disappointed by the missed opportunities with her character, like her mixed cultural identity barely being discussed in a game where the backdrop of the ferelden-orlais conflict being under-explored is to me one of really very few big storytelling mistakes, or like her mechanic where you can ask her about wherever you are—a really fun idea, for a bard!—and she literally never not once has anything interesting to say. like, come onnn. im the worldbuilding enjoyer. hit me with something

some of this is going to be affected also by me having spent the most time with her as my surana, who happens as a character to be a natural born hater, and also predisposed to share some of these feelings. i do find dao leliana much more fun to hang out with when playing a non-elven, non-mage character, but given the in-world context, that in itself is perhaps not a glowing recommendation? (obligatory note again, i am not up in arms that this fictional character has fictional prejudices against fictional people and i in fact think this part is good writing that suits the world. the version of her i adore is, after all, in dai when she has done significantly more wrongs including against elves and mages specifically.) it’s more that kindness should be what leliana has going for her as one of the most prominently good-aligned companions, and i don’t believe in hers. if i’m committing to this being me disliking the character rather than disliking some writing flaw, i could say that i read her compassion as a performance, and that’s something i happen to never really like in a person or character: when they act because they want to look like a good person, and feel like a good person, rather than because they truly care about the impact of their actions. maybe i don’t prefer her in dai because she’s somehow better written; maybe she just drops that mask i don’t care for. hard to say!

also her personal quest has some of the worst writing and acting in the game i never want to hear marjolaine again. please.

#and now for a childish addition: also i cant believe i get leliana and maric gets katriel. i shouldve had katriel #i wouldve treated her right. #leliana enjoyers please dont hate me for this i love your work. i love that you love your girl shes just not for me #top ten posts i am going to regret in the morning. hits that post button

[whoopsitswincest]

For me, the thing i love about wincest is the love.

like,,--

Okay. So. Back when i was young and naive and new to tumblr/fandoms, i was so confused about the concept of shipping just for hot, smutty sexual dynamics vs shipping for romantic/loving reasons. I remember exploring posts about Game of Thrones on tumblr and stumbling across the Ramsay Bolton/Theon Greyjoy ship (for the blissfully unaware, in canon the former brutally tortures the latter in cold blood). I was at a complete loss for how anyone could ship those two, because all I saw in their interactions was sociopathic cruelty and miserable trauma. I didn't realize that the BDSM vibes were sexy for some people. It was the first time in my life (I was like 22 lol) that I realized that you could ship characters just because you think the sex would be hot as fuck. And I get that. But for me, I've never been able to ship someone unless I can see the love in canon.

So. Bringing it back to our beloved brothers. At first I thought wincest was just one of those sexy ships, not romantic ships. Because both characters are tall and jacked and hot and badass and violent. And I used to be an anti because I was like "but they're brothers?? Ew??" But THEN you actually WATCH the show (or in my case, rewatch) and you see the way they interact with each other. They love each other so much. Like LOVE love. They will do anything for each other. They will die for each other, kill for each other and go to the ends of the earth for each other. Nothing matters more than each other.

I was talking to my wife about the crazy shit these brothers are willing to do for each other and she goes, "i mean, that's how i feel about you." And i'm like YES! EXACTLY! I have a younger brother. My wife has two older brothers. But neither of us feel about our brothers the way we feel about each other. She is my great love. She is my forever. She is my everything. And Dean and Sam's relationship looks way more like my relationship with my wife than my relationship with my brother.

Yes, they can be codependent and possessive and toxic. Yes, they've been through some fucked up shit and they've DONE some fucked up shit (to EACH OTHER) and yeah that could make for some really hot sex. But for me, the appeal of wincest is the deep, abiding care and devotion they have for each other. The LOVE!! It makes me crazy.

A caveat:

I also love the dynamic between sam and dean just as canon gencest or platonic soulmates (that's for another post, lol). And there's something to be said about society's prioritization of romantic/sexual relationships over all other and the lack of representation of healthy platonic relationships in media (especially among men).

But i'm allosexual and alloromantic. So for me, my love for my wife is very romantic and includes an important sexual aspect. So because Dean and Sam remind me of me and my wife, of course i'm gonna project a sexual relationship onto that.

#wincest #samdean #sam/dean #sam x dean #deansam #dean/sam #dean x sam

[simplydnp]

genuinely wondering why phil was considered the "ugly one" out of dan and phil. he's so hot? like there was a time where by some fans phil was literally seen as second best always... has that changed completely? i see more phillies than dannies these days which used to be absolutely the other way round if i remember correctly... like maybe it's just due to the fact that the fans grew up and delevoped some brain cells and/or phil having a glow up. what do you think abt this?

caveat: attraction is subjective and this is not a definitive guide as to what counts as hotness, nor is hotness the epitome of existence or something that people 'need' in order to exist, but instead this serves as an exploration into the culture surrounding perception of appearance as it relates to dan and phil, with care to note that 'conventional' beauty standards are highly correlated with white features and are problematic for many reasons but especially the racist aspect. i do not endorse the 'conventional' standard as the only acceptable one, but it would be remiss to ignore the fact that it plays a role in this conversation, especially in 2010s culture.

this is an interesting question for me because i don't Get all the layers of attraction just in general. so much of it makes very little sense, despite how hard i've tried to understand it. and what i've found out is that it's not supposed to make sense, it's something that just is and. well. my brain doesn't like that 😂 i've 'learned' what 'conventional' beauty standards are and thus can somewhat identify 'objectively' attractive people/qualities, but i'm absolutely just three possums in a trenchcoat on good days 🤣 so my best approximation is as follows:

- phil *pulled* back in the day online

- he stopped playing into it as much and because he wasn't exuding it as much, people stopped seeing it

- combine this with the less traditionally masculine energy he conveyed, alongside moving moreso away from the fully 'emo' look

- i think his fashion sense/choices played into this as well, came across very much like 'guy in tshirt' --which is fine, but unless your features really meet societal beauty standards at the time, it's not 'selling' you in the 'hot' department

- as well, contrasted with dan who had more of the 'societal beauty standard' look, people were less likely to see him in that role, especially because he seemed quite happy not being there (i'd argue some of it was a confidence thing too, especially on a day to day--the outfits video in gamingmas kind of confirmed that for me. he Knew he rocked that plaid suit, cause he did, but i don't think he felt that about his every day attire)

- people love to sort people into boxes and did as much with dnp, especially in making dnp 'opposites' (despite this not actually being true)

- truly think the fringe staying as long as it did didn't help, especially when, self-admittedly, it got a little blocky near the end.

- i think quiff really unlocked something in him. it really suited him, and he felt quite confident about it, as he had every right to. this, combined with a fashion upgrade in him paying a little more attention to it and developing his own personal style, people started to notice. (also dan hyping him up publicly about it made us talk about it more too)

- further style enhancements, more quiff experience led to him experimenting a little more, which let him find things he really liked

- i also think he's learned how to pose better/isnt 'being intentionally awkward' in pictures as much

- his ykw i want a change and idc what you all think attitude in going back to brown, and then into messy--he really Knows he's attractive now and how to dress himself to bring that out (even if he doesnt feel like it all the time)

there has definitely been a shift--i think the fandom has gotten smaller, and a lot of their 'mainstream' audience were dannies back in the heyday bc of the 'societal beauty standards'. so combine many of those people leaving, at a similar timeline to phil figuring his 'look' out, his audience getting older (and the lesbians being Very fond of him), and his consistency in uploading the last few years, i think it all swirls into this current existence where there's a lot of phillies out there and they're loud and proud about it (as they should be), especially cause a lot of them have Always Known but it wasn't the 'popular' take at the time.

i am but a hapless dannie and any phillies who would like to share their two cents/drag me for being wrong pls do so

#i hope this makes sense #there has absolutely been a culture shift and there's a lot of reasons imo why #dnp #c.text #answered

[utilitycaster]

@disastergenius replied to your post “perhaps unpopular but while I do agree the EXU...”:

re: this party doesn't talk much; i think that narratively, fcg's death isn't the call for them to talk in the way that molly's was? Molly's death happened early and bc of molly, but it was the wake-up call the party needed while separated and to actually begin to work together. bh's have different problems and fcg's death wasn't a result of party but was fcg's decision. so it also makes sense that it's not bringing the group together or anything, it's just mourning

​So I think this is part of it but I also wanted to post this as a full response because I've been thinking a lot about this! In short...having experienced a death within a friend group, people respond in weird ways, and for the most part, with the caveat that this was a friend among my friends from college and she died when we were all adults in various different cities and therefore not necessarily closely in touch all the time, we did not have a big sit-down and go around talking about our feelings. It's much slower. And I've talked a lot with people who have experienced a death within a friend group that was closer. Sometimes the group falls apart dramatically. Sometimes it just drifts apart. Sometimes it's sort of a weird blank space no one knows how to deal with.

I found Ashton's behavior in particular to be really well done on Taliesin's part and deeply affecting. They're exhausted not just mechanically but emotionally, and they don't want to really talk to anyone, but they do very much want some kind of comfort that doesn't require a lot of effort and most importantly, they don't want to be alone. When I had to learn about the (Jewish) religious practices surrounding grief and mourning, one of the things they tell you about sitting shiva (and to be clear this is not unique to shiva, it's just that Judaism has very clear time delineations of the mourning process) is that sometimes you just go there and sit with someone who doesn't want to talk much. His reaction felt incredibly real and natural, is what I'm saying. Grief can be isolating and tiring and difficult to talk about.

It feels right for the others too. Like...we can talk about the rapid pacing but that's been the case for much of the campaign, and no, I didn't like the EXU decision but what's done is done. I think deciding to, as Chetney said in 92, "make it count" seems very natural. I do hope there are conversations in Zadash and/or Aeor but at this point "we're drunk and tired and aren't ready to really feel this", especially since in-world, everything might be over in a week or so, makes a lot of sense. I also think FCG's death has united the party at least in the sense of purpose, and I think some people just dislike that the purpose is "double down on the moon plot." I think at the very least we'll have to visit it when they tell Imahara Joe (and hopefully Dancer, too.)

Ultimately, again, while I do love the episodes after Molly's death, episode 27 only has three party members in it, and episode 30 is arguably more about Fjord and Jester and Yasha being rescued (and on a meta level, welcoming Travis and Laura back to the table after parental leave) and incorporating Caduceus into the group as it is about Molly being dead. A lot of the conversations are about that, and 31 is very much about fucking around in Zadash and doing weird shit! Jester and Veth make Molly illusions not long after while on Darktow! The effects of Molly's death ripple through, quite honestly, the entire rest of the campaign and the grief is very nonlinear. Again, I adore episode 2x30, but I think one should be careful not to overly romanticize it; the party is still very much working through those initial feelings throughout the entire pirates arc, which takes place over the span of a couple of months. Bells Hells might not have months, and it might not get explored to the same extent, but I do think we'll see the effects nonetheless.

#disastergenius #cr spoilers

[thesiltverses]

Diff anon but: thank you for your opinion on the new True Detective. It's been tempting me but I'm kinda picky Abt "murder mystery detective" type stories. Would you recommend the first 3 seasons? Your work is amazing!

Hello and thank you!

With caveats and of course a reminder to check the content beforehand, I'd definitely recommend Season 1 of True Detective - not least because it was a source of inspiration for TSV but also a few other recent genre-hopping works, like Disco Elysium.

Since we were talking about Bong Joon-Ho last week, I think Memories of Murder is a pretty good comparison in terms of atmosphere, tone, unease, and ambiguity (albeit without the dark slapstick violence). Both works effectively capture the dread, wonder, and rising terror of peeling back a rock at the bottom of the garden and finding something horrible writhing underneath.

I do have strong personal disagreements with some of the writing choices: the show explicitly and thoughtfully grapples with the pessimistic cosmic-horror idea that we might learn an unbearable truth at the heart of all things which destroys us and drives us mad (in the Ligotti quotes, in the Chambers references, in the theme song itself) - it ultimately ends up disagreeing with that notion, but in my opinion it never produces any particularly satisfying or interesting counter-arguments on its own behalf.

It's a well-read show and actively explores human beings' tendency to regurgitate narrative and philosophy in the pursuit of meaning, but also flirts itself with outright plagiarism to an extent that I find inappropriate (it is, after all, a big-bucks HBO programme cribbing from comic-books and relatively impoverished horror writers).

It's consciously attempting to skewer male entitlement, male self-mythologising and misogyny within a heightened framework that turns the toxic-masculinity angle of detective shows up to 11 (female characters all appear either indoors or close to the threshold; only dead women are allowed in the wilderness. All of the female characters are effectively imprisoned, with no real ability to alter their circumstances onscreen other than through offering or withholding sex) but I think it sometimes falls headlong into the trap of 'be careful that you are not mistaken for the object of your satire'.*

Season 2 feels like a scabrous, frenetic, not particularly enjoyable meta-commentary on the response to Season 1 (Seven Psychopaths to the In Bruges of S1). Season 3 in turn is stolid and heartfelt, an over-cautious course-correction to an incautious course-correction.

I'd try S1 and see what you think.

*likewise, the show is openly about, and critical of, whiteness and heteronormativity, but its narrative utilisation of black characters and a single queer character in the margins of the story is something that has its own unintended consequences and, I think, failings.

[copperbadge]

Sam, how did you find your therapist and build such a good working relationship? Every attempt I’ve made at therapy seems to fizzle out after a few months… and no therapist has ever understood the RSD aspect of my ADHD, which makes it all feel a little worse every time I try.

I mean, I think really we're still building it -- I haven't had her more than a couple of months and functionally it's been an every-two-weeks situation most of the time because we keep having to move/cancel. I don't know that I can really speak intelligently to building a relationship with a therapist because this is the first time I've ever done it where I was an adult and in control. As for finding one...

Chicago has a group called Clarity Clinic, which is like a WeWork for mental health professionals -- they offer scheduling, billing, and IT/office space to local people who I think are mostly independent operators otherwise. They have a directory that is highly filterable, so I found my psychiatrist there by filtering to stuff like Adult ADHD and medication management. He's great, but he didn't want to be my therapist and I didn't want him to. When I decided on therapy, I asked him if he knew anyone he could recommend, since he knew what my deal was in terms of personality, behavior, etc.

So he gave me a couple of names of fellow Clarity Clinic folks and I had a look on the website and chose the one that sounded like she'd get on best with me. I think I struck it lucky to be honest -- she's young (compared to me) and has ADHD, and she's very familiar with disability discourse, spoon theory, etc, even fandom to an extent. If I were to go looking today I might look more at therapists who specialize in twice-exceptional individuals, but she's good enough with what I'm aiming at that I don't want to change.

So the best advice I have is if you're being treated for other stuff by someone you trust I'd ask them, but also look for someone experienced with adult ADHD, and I'd look for someone on the younger side who's more likely to be understanding of neurodivergent needs. (I also recommend filtering to queer-friendly therapists if you can; I didn't necessarily need that but it means they're likely to be generally accepting and probably have more liberal politics. With the caveat that in shady places like BetterHealth, "LGBTQIA" counselors are sometimes homophobic creeps with an axe to grind.)

Building the relationship has taken proactivity on my part -- ensuring that I always have an appointment on the books (we book out about six weeks in advance now, because we know one of us will likely need to cancel/rebook at times), making sure that I have either an aim for treatment or at least something to talk about, etc. I think in your case probably having a list of things you want to deal with, so that you can check some boxes up top, might help.

I would definitely open with "I have ADHD and I need help with [aspects of that]; I also have RSD and I need to work with someone who respects that diagnosis and understands how to help with it." I went into mine saying "I have ADHD and I'm also struggling with some really big emotion, so I'm looking for help with those, but also like...I'm not really sure what therapy can offer. I've had some bad experiences in the past but they were all when I was a child, so I'm trying to explore some options." Her reaction was a combination of sympathy and a discussion of the kinds of things we might work on, which helped a great deal.

But yeah, I think it starts with establishing right from the jump what you want and need, and then spending time making sure that you both stay on top of that until you find a rhythm. We're still finding our rhythm, but it's getting easier as I'm learning to be clearer about what I want and more comfortable with being a participant instead of someone therapy just happens to.

#therapy #sam has adhd

[thatsparrow]

can’t imagine the watcher decision wasn’t informed by the success of dropout, a streaming service I and many other people happily pay for, but this news undeniably feels like a disappointment in comparison, and am trying to articulate why:

1. amount of content. I can’t speak to when dropout first launched (I think I started subscribing late 2019?), but I know that when I joined, it already felt like there was an enormous backlog of series to explore—not to mention the amount that was also uploaded to youtube, albeit on a delay (I know I watched at least the first half of fantasy high s1 on youtube, if not the whole thing, and by the time I signed up for dropout, there was also s1 of unsleeping city, bloodkeep, tiny heist on the horizon, and s2 of fantasy high currently live streaming. not to mention the number of full episodes they'd uploaded to youtube of um actually, game changer, breaking news, etc. and how much more was then available on dropout)

I don't know what conversations were happening behind the scenes at dropout, I don't know in real-time what was subscriber-only and what was getting uploaded to youtube, or what the breakdown was of series getting created and solely released on dropout in comparison to content they were releasing for free. all I know is that when I heard about d20 and wanted to check it out, I was able to watch a good chunk via youtube, enough to know that I wanted more, and also to know that dropout had a whole lot else to offer that I was also curious about.

so that's one of the things that feels immediately different about the watcher announcement. they're teasing new series that will be available, but for the moment, it seems like everything that will currently be on the new platform is already available for free on youtube (to clarify, because there's been a lot of confusion on this front, they are not deleting their old content off youtube. all those videos are staying there). there's also a question of release schedule — are they talking about weekly episode releases of one season airing at a time, as was their youtube model, with stretches in between? I guess I come back to, if you're trying to go subscriber-only going forward (with the caveat that the first ep of a season will also get released on youtube, and also with the caveat that obviously dropout had to reach a certain level of success before it was able to release content at the volume, consistency and quality it does now), are you creating enough to justify the sort of wholesale transition they seem to be implementing? i'm not sure the answer is yes

2. paying/supporting artists. no one's arguing that you shouldn't pay or support artists, and there are incredibly valid critiques of how youtube hamstrings creativity and the issues with being beholden to advertisers. more creative freedom is a good thing. more independent artists is a good thing.

that said, it feels like there's a disconnect between what supporters are looking for from where there money is going and how watcher wants to spend it. the video really emphasized wanting to make tv-quality productions, and that they feel like they've hit a ceiling with the youtube business model in terms of achieving that aim, but are watcher fans looking for tv-quality productions? of the new series they mentioned, travel seemed like a pretty big element, which is obviously expensive. I think of new shows released on dropout, and they've clearly got solid production value behind them, but they're also still all filmed on a set (it's 3am in a warehouse!!) — even ambitious and expensive episodes of game changer are still basically shot in the same set of rooms, with the stakes raised from there (the escape room ep, bingo, etc.)

look, I don't work in digital media, and so I don't have a sense of what it costs to put on a show, but I can't help but look at some of watcher's stated ambitions that clearly need to have a significant budget behind them vs something like too many spirits (something I have to imagine has to cost a lot less, but which is just as enjoyable to watch) and wonder if part of the backlash has to do with how it feels like their current revenue is being spent/prioritized

and maybe the problem is that there's just a fundamental disconnect between the kinds of shows watcher wants to make, and what their audience is looking for, but if that's the case, it doesn't feel like moving to a subscriber-only system is the solution

#watcher #now hyping this up as some big exciting announcement without understanding it Will price out some viewers is tone deaf. wild choice #also given the level of miscommunication around whether or not old videos would be deleted off YT i'm hesitant to assume the new service #won't be available to people outside the US and wonder if this isn't another miscommunication or technical issue that needs to be ironed ou #anyway. a mess all around #kayla posts

[kanansdume]

So, again, with the caveat that I am in no way saying Hayden Christensen doesn't deserve his time in the sun right now after all the shit he was put through, but I find it a tad frustrating that we got an ENTIRE EPISODE with Ahsoka meeting Anakin again in a Force vision/flashbacks in order to explore her feelings about him and the impact her relationship with him had on them both, but we've had one singular throw-away line mention of Kanan.

And I GET that it's the Ahsoka show, it's named after Ahsoka, not Sabine or Hera. But it's clearly also THEIR show, Sabine is the one going through the most obvious character journey on this show, to be perfectly honest, and we're getting almost as much of Hera as we are Ahsoka or Sabine.

Ahsoka spent 1.5-2 years with Anakin, AT MOST, before she left him and then spent like 15 years believing he was dead, 1 year trying to convince herself he was dead before he tried to kill her, and then another 7-8 years on her own before he ACTUALLY dies, and like 8ish years since then. Ahsoka spends SO MUCH of her life without Anakin around at all and building relationships with so many people OTHER than Anakin that her time with him feels so minuscule in comparison and yet it's all anybody ever looks at or wants to talk about.

Hera meets Kanan when she's a teenager, just off of Ryloth, and probably spends a good decade or more with him as partners in business and in life before he dies and she becomes the single mother of his child. Kanan is arguably the singular most important relationship in Hera's life for the majority the time that we've spent with her character and there is a very visible continued reminder of his impact on her life that will probably stay with her for even longer. And yet she hasn't even mentioned him ONCE. There's been no discussion of him with her son, no stories shared, no memories brought up. Even when Jacen is using the Force, neither of them brings up Kanan at all.

Sabine meets Kanan some time before Rebels starts, probably about a year or two prior, and so would've known him for about 5-6 years total before he dies. In that time, he becomes something of a father figure and mentor to her and helps train her every so often. It's KANAN who teaches her about mercy and patience, and it's KANAN who trains her in how to wield a blade, specifically a lightsaber. And yet, when we see Sabine training with a saber again on the Ahsoka show, Ahsoka attributes Sabine's skill to the fact that she's a Mandalorian rather than to her training with Kanan. Sabine is completely fucked up about the off-screen loss of her family and the desire to find Ezra, but never once is the loss of Kanan ever even mentioned. His impact on her life is nowhere to be found on this show. If you hadn't seen Rebels, you'd be forgiven for thinking Sabine had never even met Kanan in her life.

Ahsoka brings up Anakin several times before episode 5 and her ENTIRE ARC is about his impact on her life, but he's honestly such a small part of it. And in contrast, we've heard one person so far mention Kanan at all and it's Huyang, a character who never shared a scene with Kanan once, and Kanan's impact upon Hera, Sabine, and even Jacen is missing entirely. They never talk about missing him or how his loss continues to affect them and their relationships with other people. There's no mention of Sabine having trouble working with Ahsoka because she keeps comparing Ahsoka's methods to Kanan's or something like that. There's no flashbacks for Sabine or Hera about Kanan where we get to see Kanan in live action, too. Kanan is just left behind as completely unimportant to this plot or its characters, even though he was one of the MAIN CHARACTERS of Rebels.

And now that Ezra's back, Kanan's literal Padawan, hopefully we'll hear Kanan get mentioned at least once more, but I'm not holding my breath or counting on it at this point.

#star wars #kanan jarrus #sabine wren #hera syndulla #kanera #star wars ahsoka #ahsoka show #ahsoka series #sw ahsoka #ahsoka 2023

[veliseraptor]

for the ask game: xueyao! ship it or not?

it's complicated!!! should be an answer for this meme, just for me, but I guess loosely speaking I'll say ship it (with some caveats, mostly that I ship it in the traditional sense exclusively as friends with benefits, and I'm much more attached to them as a platonic relationship)

What made you ship it? the whole dynamic between them! the partners in crime aspect but also the way that they are so very different. also the fact that xue yang knows jin guangyao with a depth and thoroughness that few people do, the good and the bad, and while I wouldn't say he understands him that's still something that I find fun to explore.

What are your favorite things about the ship? as with so many of my favorite dynamics, I think what particularly draws me about the relationship between these two (whatever form it takes) is the parallels/foils between them as two characters who are both outsiders in cultivation society, both seen as low and dirty by others, but who have responded to that very differently. where jin guangyao strives for acceptance and status, xue yang rebels by rejecting norms of society and all external judgment. and at the same time, xue yang makes jin guangyao laugh and offers a kind of unconditional acceptance that's decidedly scarce (and is willing to go to bat for him, in his own way), and jin guangyao offers xue yang a respect that pretty much nobody else does. love that for both of them.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? I feel like there are two unpopular-ish opinions I have about this ship, though as usual I don't have a great metric for what is actually "unpopular", but based on what I see around about the relationship between these two: the first is that I think jin guangyao genuinely liked xue yang - he wasn't just a job or a duty he was forced to deal with, but actually at least sort of a friend, if one who is (as friends sometimes are) frustrating at times. this isn't to say that jin guangyao actually, like, approves of everything xue yang does (I think there are many ways in which they both think the other is profoundly, shall we say, misguided; their approach to society is almost diametrically opposed), but I think he does like him and, at least to a certain extent, enjoy his company.

on the flip side of that opinion, I do think that jin guangyao meant to have xue yang killed. I can see the justification behind saying that he didn't - that he just ushered him out the back door and someone else attacked him later; it certainly does fit with jin guangyao's modus operandi with other people that are inconvenient to him (sisi, notably) - but I think that jin guangyao would see that as too much of a risk, and xue yang himself as too much of a loose cannon, to turn him loose like that. I think he'd be sad about it, and reluctant, but ultimately the calculus comes down on the side of it being necessary in order to start over as chief cultivator and disassociate himself from his father's less popular actions.

#conversating #thatswhatsushesaid #xueyao #xue yang #jin guangyao #the sad queer cultivators show #lise memes

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

911 has been on my dash lately and it's what I needed, I'm glad I started watching. Someone close to me is dying and the show has been oddly healing.

911 is definitely a soap opera, and the occasional Christian sentiments and acts of god probably hit better with Americans than with me, but it's a show with touching ruminations about life, death, healing, tragedy, love, family, and what it means to be an individual and part of a community. What we owe each other, and what we don't.

I'm in season 3 now and I'm pleasantly surprised by how queer friendly the narratives are. Henrietta has an amazing presence on the show, so too does Buck. (Some of the writers worked on Buffy and Angel and I do think it explains the character driven arcs, easy queerness, and quirky humour). I love all the main characters. How could I not? So much time has been spent filling them in and much of the Drama is used to say something greater about how to move through the Belly of the Whale rather than existing gratuitously to cause rifts between the characters. It's just... nice.... and a rare choice for a show.

The Queerness comes with a caveat, however, US shows are a bit predictable in how they write queer characters. Hen can be one of the mains but her wife can't. Michael and Josh can exist on screen as long as they are side characters and only mention their love lives once a season. Buck can have an incredibly homoerotic relationship with his best friend (Buck: best friend and codependent co-parent) but can only voice his sexuality in later seasons (even if he's very bisexual now and I'm only on season 3). Buck is a beautiful young manly man you see, we mustn't alienate the young men whose demographic he's supposed to represent (sorry for the cynicism).

Really though, 911's relationship writing is top notch except for when it comes to Buck or Eddie's love interests. With the exception of Buck and Maddie, their characters' best relationships are either with each other or with Christopher and I can see why Buddie is such a popular ship. It's more obvious, too, when the romantic storylines are as good as they are for the other characters (and I'm hard to please). It's like the writing is super thoughtful about why a romantic relationship works for everyone else but keeps forcing it with Eddie and Buck because they want the pretty young men to be with the pretty young women. Buck's best love interest was Abby because they were trying to explore why it worked even though it was obvious it eventually wouldn't, that was in season 1 and I don't see it getting better. Look, all I'm going to say is that multiple partners only work when all parties know they're in a romantic relationship. That way you can be honest and mindful about how committed you are. Maybe that's why their relationships don't work now. Buck and Eddie don't realise they're dating each other.

Anyway, thank you Tumblr for bringing this show to me at this time in my life. Also, if you're interested, my otp is Maddie and Chimney. Don't tell me if they don't work out or you'll make me cry.

#911 abc #911 spoilers #henrietta wilson #evan buckley #eddie diaz #chimney han #maddie buckley #buddie #karen wilson #christopher diaz #madney

[sh3nlong]

my thoughts on aang, morality and the role of the avatar in atla and korra

i don't think aang is a bad character by any means i really quite love how he's written he has very believable flaws and a lot of complexity/depth to him, i think i'm just personally biased to like 'spiritual' and 'holy' type characters. i am actually so glad that the series and also korra explored the flipside of spirituality with tenzin's character and how spirituality is used sometimes to bypass trauma and as a crutch for one's own personal shortcomings. also how kya II and bumi get to see aang as a more complex and flawed character through the lens of him being a less than perfect father.

the show touched on this a lot with aang's internal struggles with forgiveness vs. justice, and how much it tore him up. as if anything the avatar or any other character faces in the show is morally easy and black and white. and i also think that the caveat is the morality of the show is not easily translatable to real life situations especially real world politics, in which people get killed all the time. we also don't have bending in the real world and we do not have the option to non-violently navigate the world or to not have violence or abuse thrust upon us when we seek justice as aang did with ozai during sozin's comet. one thing aang had to learn the hard way as we do in this world is that you can't just avoid and run away from your problems all the time.

also another thing i think of a lot is how real world history and the world history of the four nations in canon cannot be viewed through a 'great man of history' lens... i.e. you cannot believe that great leaders or the avatar are the sole makers of history without the context of what was going on in society, politics and the economy at the time. idk i kind of think of the avatar as like the nuclear bomb of the world, the spirits' way of having 'mutually assured destruction' against humans who throw the world out of balance. but is just one and not the most important way of achieving balance and stability.

and speaking of balance and stability i just watched beginnings 1 & 2 in lok season 2 and loved the backstory of the first avatar wan, it really shows you how the avatar in general was just like a historically contingent figure who happened to be needed in the context of total world war and domination by vaatu. wan himself didn't want to be above others, and i don't think any avatar wants or claims to be (unless a dark avatar such as unalaq or one who is severely undertrained and unbalanced), however the people tend to see them as such. idk anyway this post is over just wanted to type up some disjointed thoughts i had ab lok and atla

#atla #lok #legend of korra #avatar the last airbender #aang character analysis #aang #avatar #four nations #wan the first avatar #thoughts

[thenightfolknetwork]

Thisss is a bit of an odd question, I think but...

I want to get into the 'dating sphere', but I'm stuck with a few caveats:

-I receive rather decent work in the village closest to me (it's remote enough I had to send in the post to a friend to transcribe) so I can't find myself moving to someplace too much more populated, but also my next point:

-I'm a very anxious person on account of the reaction most people have to me. I'm one of the more ophidian genuses which definitely shows in the face, a bit tall for a lady, and my tail tends to be a bit...adventurous. Most people that ask for my spellwork don't stay long after getting their product. I can see the fear or worry in their faces. It leaves me rather self-conscious to the point I have to put a homo-sapien disguise to gather supplies in-town.

that leads into my final problem. There is somebody who's shown interest in me. Rather he's interested in the disguise I wear in town. He's rather handsome and its hard not to fantasize being more than acquaintances, but...I'm scared of getting my hopes up if I ever reveal to him that I'm not really what I show on the surface. That I'll be back at square one.

Do I try actively seeking out folks who enjoy my real form, at the cost of maybe having to move? or is there a way I can navigate this one right here without him thinking I'm leading him on or tricking him?

I'm so sorry you've been subjected to such unkindness, reader. The difficulties faced by liminal folk in rural and otherwise isolated communities are all too often overlooked, or dismissed by urban nightfolk who suggest their rural counterparts simply move away – as if there is anything simple or reasonable in such a suggestion.

It is entirely right that you should not only hope but expect to be treated with kindness and respect in your local community, no matter how isolated that community may be. But in order to get that support, you first need to show your community that you need it.

Presenting as sapio when you go into town may be more comfortable, but comfort must sometimes give way to necessary, healthy vulnerability. I worry that by habitually hiding your liminal nature, you may be compounding your self-consciousness rather than alleviating it.

You have nothing to hide, reader. There is nothing wrong with having an adventurous tail or being all “for a lady” (a lady of what genus, might I ask?) Other people's discomfort with you is their problem to deal with, not yours.

Besides, the world is very different for the community today than it was just a few years ago. Thanks to major advancements in both communication technology and liminal liberation, your neighbours are used to seeing people of different genuses in the media, and very likely will have experience with nightfolk in their places of work or even among their friends and family.

I encourage you to set aside your romantic concerns for the time being and work on building up your confidence to be yourself in public. You don't have to cast off your disguise all at once, but it is well worth exploring spaces and times where you feel able to venture forth in sapio society without pretending to be one of them.

Some people will not respond well. This is sadly to be expected, but again – not your fault and not your issue to solve. But I feel sure that you will be pleasantly surprised, and that your community will, by and large, rise to the challenge. And, with any luck, this “rather handsome” somebody will be among them.

#answered #monstrous agonies #the nightfolk network

[one-flower-one-sword]

(this is illuminatedferret)

One little thing I am curious to hear your thoughts on, but that I don't really want to clutter our ongoing monster discussion with: considering his track record with orchestrating events across canon, if Jun Wu already knew about the Cave of Ten Thousand Gods, do you think Xie Lian and co. stumbling upon it was genuinely happenstance, or do you think he was conspiring for them to wind up there?

it did indeed become a monster discussion, didn't it XD I cherished it though

ok so hi, this is an excellent question, thank you for sending it!! I wondered this exact thing myself many times while pondering those chapters. caveat that I honestly don't know if I can give a satisfying answer because iirc it's never stated clearly by the text. We do get this:

Mu Qing tore at the silk as he yelled. "I knew you were the one who threw us into that pit!"

[...] With the match decided, Hua Cheng sheathed his scimitar. "I threw you in to save you from disaster. Otherwise, you would've never had a chance to find this Cave of Ten Thousand Gods," he jeered. "And it was your yelling that caused the avalanche. Why don't you thank me for saving your puny little lives?"

(Vol 6, page 64)

but it has to be kept in mind that Mu Qing and Feng Xin accidentally causing the avalanche that landed them in the cave is based only on the information they have at the time.

so, on the the one hand, I don't want to fall into the trap of attributing everything that happened to Jun Wu's manipulation, and he could have simply used the aftermath of that avalanche to his advantage. on the other, he is the master of the Kiln, and the Mount Tonglu area is a place he has immense power over. there's also the fact that 1. Xie Lian had a nightmare/vision of seeing Bai Wuxiang after the avalanche and that B., it separated Xie Lian from Hua Cheng, at least temporarily.

I mention the separation because it provided Xie Lian some time to explore the cave without Hua Cheng there to try and steer him away immediately. I'm trying to side-step our whole "did Jun Wu know Hua Cheng is Wuming" discussion so we don't get entangled in that again, but I think what we did agree on is that Jun Wu knows, to some extent, that Hua Cheng worships and desires Xie Lian, yes? and also that he's correctly deduced that Hua Cheng still hasn't dared to tell Xie Lian any of this because he fears his reaction. so from that angle, it would make sense that he'd conspire for them to wind up there, especially with Mu Qing and Feng Xin in tow, since they basically do Jun Wu's work for him in how they try to change Xie Lian's opinion on and view of Hua Cheng as a person and of Xie Lian's relationship with him by force, by painting Hua Cheng's love, devotion, and desire as something twisted, disgusting, and dangerous. And when that isn't enough to sway Xie Lian, Jun Wu uses their likeness, as we've discussed previously, to try and manipulate Hua Cheng into hurting Xie Lian himself, because surely then Xie Lian would finally reject Hua Cheng and tell him to stay away :

It seemed like they were purposefully trying to provoke Hua Cheng. But there was no reason for that; they knew they couldn't beat him, so what did they want? Moreover, their tone subtly pointed the spear in Xie Lian's direction. It was like they wanted to stir up confusion - as though they wanted Hua Cheng to do something to Xie Lian in a fit of anger.

(Vol 6, page 72)

Then when all of that doesn't work either - and, in fact, only brings hualian closer together by causing them to confess their feelings for each other - Jun Wu immediately tries to fracture their relationship from another angle :

"Don't worry, I simply sent him outside the Kiln. Even if he wants to rush back in here, it's too late now." [...] "But it's probably for the best that he doesn't come in," White No-Face continued. "Even if he wouldn't agree right now, who knows if he'll still want to be with you when he sees what you'll become."

(Vol 6, page 106)

Of course, Jun Wu's main objective in getting Xie Lian and himself alone inside the Kiln is that he wants Xie Lian to walk the exact same path as him, to become exactly like him. But I'm bringing all this up because I think it can't be overstated how much Xie Lian and Hua Cheng's relationship was an obstacle to those plans, and how far Jun Wu repeatedly went to try and "prove" to both Xie Lian and himself that no one can be trusted not to hurt and betray you, and that no one will stay with you no matter what. Because, in his mind, Xie Lian would then come to the same conclusion Jun Wu did - "understand" the same thing he did:

"He guessed what I was thinking and asked me slowly, 'Are you leaving too, then?' [...] And then His Highness murmured to himself, 'It's all right. I expected that. No one would stay now that I've become something like this. I can manage on my own. I understand now - I've always been alone! I don't need anyone!"

(Vol 7, page 215-216)

All this to say - I'm not sure. But with what we know about Jun Wu's power and the way he tries to make it look like he's not meddling while actually meddling all the time, plus the way he repeatedly manipulates events to try and keep Hua Cheng away from Xie Lian... it wouldn't surprise me if he wanted them to land in the cave, and used an avalanche as a cover to make that happen.

#tgcf meta #answered asks #jun wu #hualian

[maggot-monger]

lucifer gender symbolism essay masterpost

have you ever gone “huh that’s interesting” about lucifer supernatural appearing as a woman in white a lot of the time? have you ever been watching endverse and gotten A Vibe? have you noticed people referring to lucifer by she/her pronouns for no apparent reason? do you want to spectate while someone online acts deranged about some niche old shit? well do i have the post for you!

this is my thesis on fem!lucifer aka she/her lucifer aka “the devil wears nighties: a supernatural phenomenon” aka whatever else you want to call it. a long fucking essay exploring why i have been so hung up on this concept forever. it won’t be totally comprehensive, but all the sections together are like 13k words long, so it’s uhhh comprehensive enough to be annoying.

the sections are:

mostly non-spn background, context, & caveats

gender in supernatural

the dead nun

women in white

white women

mothers vs fathers

daughters vs sons

jarpad and mark p’s acting styles

sexual connotations of “vessels,” stabbing, and holes

villain gender in supernatural, comparisons

villain gender in supernatural, effects

they are mostly stand-alone, so if you want to skip some parts or skip around, the individual sections should be easy enough to follow.

the full essay is also on ao3 here

notes

my view on spn angels is that they are essentially non-gendered, or gendered in a way that has no resemblance to how humans are gendered. i am not attempting to argue that lucifer IS a woman, or that lucifer is meaningfully feminine. this is all about frames of analysis, that are difficult to avoid due to the non-human characters all being played by human actors who present and are most readily interpreted, typically, in a (binary) gendered way. i don't approach lucifer or any of the other angels as being intrinsically gendered, but as symbolically gendered.

i am focusing on a fem reading of lucifer because the masc reading seems to be more widespread in the fandom. since the more fem interpretation is not the default but is (imo) just as viable, it feels worthwhile to address it directly like this, since it also adds something to how the character comes across/how lucifer reads as a character and an antagonist.

i will sometimes rely on gendered (and sometimes cissexist) symbolism established in spn and modern culture more broadly, and some historical sexist tropes. i have done my best to address these topics with care, but i have sometimes chosen succinctness over thoroughness in being critical of the underlying misogyny and cissexism inherent to some of the symbolism. 

there will also be some discussion of other sensitive topics. i have put content warning notes around the major ones so you can skip those sections if you would prefer.  

this whole thing has a heavy emphasis on kripke era. it is what it is.

pronoun usage for lucifer is going to fluctuate kind of randomly between he and she. i don’t THINK there are any “It” uses thrown in here, but you never know.

i hope that it is abundantly clear throughout this essay that this is not terf shit, but i'm saying it up front anyway.

#spnluciferweek #lucifer #meta #spn thots #spn

[gffa]

Hi! Loved your posts a lot. I love Nightwing and redhood .But the thing that annoyed a hell out of me is the way fandom jason is potrayed . Jason stans always want jason to be Nightwing 2.0.Their question is always like why jason isn't respected among heroes like dick? Why jason doesn't lead the titans like dick? .Was jason as good looking as dick?. Jason should be well suited to be spy than dick . Jaybabs is better than dickbabs.Dick is worst friend to roy. Jason should be Tim role model not dick.sometimes it confuses me if they both have same personality with different names. What's your thoughts on this.

I want to step carefully with this answer because I don't want to make it seem like Jason fans are a monolith (they're most definitely not, half of my Cool People in this fandom are the most excellent DC fans you'll ever meet and Jason is Their Guy!!!) or that I'm talking about anything other than a very specific subset of fans. And that any time I say "Jason fans", it is specifically about the subsection who falls into this, not the whole of his fandom!! And, as a caveat, I'm only talking about my experiences in Jason fandom--of which I do consider myself a part of!--but that someone else who is deeper into Jason fandom than I am may have COMPLETELY different experiences than what either you or I have experienced! And, to be clear, I will point the finger in any direction, that every Bat has a subset of fans that is deeply frustrating, Tim fans have it, Damian fans have it, Dick fans have it, Bruce fans have it, etc. Every one of them has that group of fans that I go ??? over. But also I think I should be clear in that I think we should try to approach other corners of fandom with empathy, because a) we're all annoying nerds to someone else as well, that's just what fandom is and b) this fandom is hostile enough over comic book characters of all things, I'm going to try to limit the amount of gasoline I throw on the fire. ;) I think what causes a lot of fanon Jason in a certain subset of fandom comes from a mix of - Not a lot of regular appearances/his own book/GOOD appearances in his own book/a consistent characterization in those books - A lot of people read more fic than they do the comics - People naturally want their babygirl to have nice things, that's a pretty human response - Jason was kind of created to be a Dick Grayson clone in the first place, in some ways, so it's a natural extension

Jason fans have it rough in canon because he is all over the place, he's not written consistently, so half of the time he's written as the woobie, half of the time he's written as two steps away from being full villain, and it feels like every author has a different take on how Jason sees himself or what he wants. It's hard to agree on what Jason's character is like/what the point of him in the larger comics landscape is, because even the canon can't agree on that. So, then you throw in all these epically long fics that are written by extremely talented authors, who have a consistent take within their own writing, which explores Jason's issues in a way that feels like it has a lot more depth and vulnerability to him, and it's easy to go, yeah, okay, comics are kind of thin, but now I have this strongly developed sense of him in my mind! And when comics don't match that, when Jason is meaner or more of a villain or less cool in the comics, because the comics didn't do all that character work, the fic did, it becomes easy to go, "This isn't what Jason deserves, he deserves to have his issues explored better!" And, like. Jason does deserve better than what Nu52 gave him. It's a thing that a lot of fic vs comics have--like, there's a subset of Tim's fandom that writes him as the most delicate character ever (there's a lot of fic that explores Tim's vulnerabilities, I am not talking about those!!!) and, guess what, has to make Dick a terrible person in those fics as well, like the whole "Dick tried to send Tim to Arkham" is a straight up lie about what happened, but how many of us have still come across it? Which I think comes from that Dick Grayson is a character that you just kind of can't remove from the foundational Batman narrative and mythos, like you can't remove Bruce and still get what you need for the set-up--but Bruce occupies the space of "Dad" for the characters, so he has a very different, defined place in the Robin Of Choice's life. Dick, on the other hand, you can't just lift him out--he created Robin, he was the one that dragged Bruce out of the dark in the first place and created the role of Adopted Kid Who Bruce Is Complicated About, and still occupies that space very strongly. Even when he hasn't been Robin in a long time, his shadow casts extremely long, because honestly I'll die on the hill that I think he's everyone's favorite Robin to this day. Bruce? Yeah. Jason? Yeah. Tim? Yeah. Damian? Even if he never met Robin!Dick, I'd bet he's still say Dick was his favorite Robin. Superman? Explicitly said it in a comic.

(And I feel like there's an element that can be explored on how Dick also set the expectation of how to grow out of being Robin--he moved on to being Nightwing, so we expect that of the other Robins. I've been complaining forever that Tim needs to be allowed to finally do this, to step out of being Robin and not just be Red Robin, but to find his own unique thing. And, honestly, that probably does look more like Nightwing than not. I think there's an expectation that eventually Damian will realize that he doesn't want to be Batman and will instead be something else--or at least that it's a strong possibility. Which again looks a lot more like Nightwing than it maybe should. Because what else do you do with characters when you want to establish them out on their own? So Jason should follow that same path, right? He's kind of halfway onto it, with being Red Hood now, it's just that Red Hood has such a complicated history with how many people he's murdered, so what other options should there be? And patterning him after Nightwing, just as his Robin was patterned off of Dick's Robin in a lot of ways, could be a natural step forward for him there, too.) So, the specter of Dick Grayson hangs over the role and the Bat-son's place in Bruce's life--two things that are big issues in Jason's life. Then you add in that Jason was basically created to replace Dick Grayson exactly, like you can't even tell the difference in half of the panels of Jason's time as Robin if you don't already know. Then you add in that, to try to flesh out Roy's character, they gave him Roy and Kory as friends, two people who were Dick's friends first. And that makes sense--who else would you have as Jason's friends, given his general age? The Justice League is too old for him, Young Justice is too young for him, the only major team in his age bracket are the Titans--characters he does have some connection with, via Roy and Kory. And it's a natural question of, well, why didn't Jason lead them, too? Because Dick lead a team, Tim lead a team, it felt like a thing Robin was supposed to do, to the point that, when Dick introduced Damian to the Teen Titans, he automatically assumed he would lead (well, that's also just Damian XD) because that's what Robins do, why shouldn't Jason, too? So, I see where all of it comes from and understand the appeal--it's a lot more fun than the canon for Jason can be at times and feels like it understands his character better and fanon Jason is a lot more likeable and there's often times a lot that's explore that is really, really good character stuff. I think a lot of Dick's characteristics get ported over to Jason because there's just not as much else established for him in the canon, whether friends or a solidified narrative presence or even a consistent characterization, and Dick's a fun character, he has a rich history of friends and complicated dynamics with characters, like his relationship with Bruce is ridiculously fun to dig into, his relationship with Jason can actually be really interesting, his relationship with Tim is both adorable and has some nice crunch, his relationship with Damian is heart-wrenching--who wouldn't want a character with a wealth of dynamics and characterization to step into? Especially when you go back to canon and Jason's borderline a villain who isn't justified in killing people but still does it anyway, whose trauma is not getting explored in a way that's as satisfying as fanon's version of him is, because canon Jason is a lot more of a hot mess and stepped over the line, while fanon Jason tends to be more righteous and still on the right side of the line. (Or at least intended to, there's a lot of "Jason should be allowed to kill people and not be a bad guy for it." out there.) I think this is why I get a lot of Jason fans reblogging my comics posts about canon who yell at me for liking garbage comics when, guys, I'm just reacting to what's actually on the page for Jason.

Jason is a character who has this massive fandom that has been built up around the potential of the character, much of which had to be borrowed from Dick because that's the only really available options and because his central relationship (the one with Bruce) has so many parallels to Dick's relationship (with Bruce) and because Dick being who he is means that he's very easy to like (Dick's not perfect and I'm certainly biased here, but I do genuinely think that Dick is pretty easy to like as a person) and because he has such a rich history of dynamics and relationships that fans see as being really fun to explore, if only Jason had had those relationships instead. I suspect a lot of it comes down to that there's this massive fandom for Jason--fic, posts about him, fanart of him, headcanons for him, etc., throw a rock in fandom and you'll hit a popular post that has Jason as their babygirl Blorbo--and comics themselves don't often match that and comics fandom are pretty notorious for hating their source material/throwing it out in a way that's borderline assumed default MO, so Jason fans aren't any different from people complaining that this comic or that comic coming out right now are garbage. Anyway, that's been my experience. It's not that Jason fandom doesn't do unique things with Jason's character (his death is different from what Dick's experienced, his relationship with Bruce does often come in different flavors, etc.) but the places where they overlap are ones that I can understand why it happens, even if I often personally find that it doesn't match up to who he is in the source material now and feel like there's a lot of really good, crunchy unexplored angles for a character who has been deeply hurt, but went over the line about it, like that's why the recent short story in Beast World Tour: Gotham went so hard for me, because it felt like it had teeth and claws in a way that I've been wanting for Jason for a long time.

#lumi.txt #dc #batfam #jason todd