#was ableist in her old species

[sophieinwonderland]

didnt you support transrace and transabled people (dont know if that was you or if it was a other account that looked verry simulair to yours)

Okay, this has been sitting in my drafts for a while. This seems as good of a time as any to finish this.

More than anything, my opinion is that my morality has to be logically consistent. For most transabled people, this seems fairly simple. BIID is a recognized disorder by many psychiatrists and trying to prevent a group of disabled people from identifying by a label that they feel describes their experiences seems ableist.

Transabled people who identify with a mental disorder are different from those with BIID, but I don't feel like they're causing any harm.

Transrace is... so much much more complicated. The very idea of race is a minefield because no one can even agree on what race is. Is it skin color? Is it history? Culture? Definitions can vary from person to person and from culture to culture, as well as what is considered offensive. There are things that everyone can agree are objectively harmful and racist. Hiring discrimination, areas with high numbers of POCs being denied education and infrastructure funding, racial profiling by police, etc. These are things that have clear, direct negative impact.

But other areas aren't as clear cut.

Not only do different cultures have their own ideas about what is and isn't offensive, but it varies so much within those subcultures. Something offensive to Japanese Americans may not be considered offensive to Japanese nationals and vice versa. For example, there are places across Japan that will fit tourists with Kimonos to wear, and it's even seen as polite (from what I understand) to adopt the fashion of the culture while visiting. But there are many people of Japanese descent abroad who are more likely to say that this is appropriation.

And where do we draw the line for what a headmate can identify as? A headmate can identify as other humanoid species such as elves and dwarves. What about fictional human races and ethnicities?

Is it only real races and ethnicities that are off limits? Are you allowed to identify as Azish?

I hear that people don't mind headmates having different skin colors as long as they don't identify as that race. So can a singlet also identify as having darker skin color than their bodies? And in what situations is it deemed appropriate to appear as your chosen race?

Headmates can draw themselves as any skin tone and use those as profile pics on Simply Plural. This doesn't seem controversial from what I've seen. But what about VTubing or VR?

When looking up statistics about her situation, one thing I found concerning is how it seemed that her identity was opposed more by white people than it was by black people.

And if race isn't skin tone but culture and lived experience, then what about people who are adopted by one race and raised in that culture? Can a white European child adopted and raised by a Korean family identify as Korean? And if they can, does it matter the age they're adopted by? Is there a difference between a baby and a 14-year-old who is adopted by a family of another ethnicity?

Another concern is whose opinions are being represented the most here, and making sure that the voices being represented are actually representative of who they purport to speak for. I prefer listening to statistics over individuals in cases like this. And that brings me to Rachel Dolezol who was the most high profile case of transracialism on the public stage.

When looking up statistics about her situation, one thing I found concerning is how it seemed that her identity was opposed more by white people than it was by black people.

However, while most white (65%) and other minority voters (68%) believe Dozelal was being deceitful, just 46% of black voters agree.

In fact, 52% of black voters think Dolezal should have stayed in her position as President of a Washington chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a view shared by just 20% of whites and 32% of other minority voters. Majorities of the latter two groups think she should have resigned from her post.

And while in another poll, most people of every race viewed her actions as unacceptable, black people were far more likely to view it as acceptable than white people.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of the statistics, because it does show that a majority of black people do find her behavior unacceptable... but the fact that they're more than twice as likely as white people to deem it as acceptable gives me pause.

I think part of the reason this is so complicated is because race itself isn't real. It's a social construct. It's something people invented to categorize and other different people. The very concept of race was invented to hurt and discriminate against people based on the color of their skin and places of origin

There is a mountain of complexity and nuance to these topics and I can't begin to wade through it all. Especially when you throw plurality into the mix, which current societal standards are not made to deal with.

Ultimately, I'll respect anyone's identity as long as it doesn't harm anyone. And I do mean "harm." Not just "offend." Because there are always going to be people who find atypical identities offensive. There will always be people who will see unusual things as strange or cringey.

TERFs are offended by transgender people. Transmeds are offended by non-dysphoric trans people. Endogenic systems offend anti-endos by our existence. You can never please everyone, and shouldn't have to change your identity to do so.

And that's my moral standard, at the most basic level.

My identity as a cis woman who occupies an AMAB body is going to offend TERFs and Transmeds alike, and my existence as a tulpa in an endogenic system will offend anti-endos. But their reaction to my identity isn't my responsibility and I won't hide who I am to make others feel better.

Ultimately, I've analyzed the moral arguments I've seen presented against people identifying as other races and ethnicities, and don't feel like I could justly say based on those that it's immoral while maintaining consistency in my own moral philosophy.

I guess that's kind of support, but I would probably consider myself leaning towards neutral just due the sheer complexity of racial identity that I prefer to not get wrapped up in. 🤷‍♀️

(There's also an issue over the term since "transrace" also refers to certain types of adoptions, but I don't think the term is the main point of contention here.)

#ask box #transid #transabled #transracial #discourse #radical inclusion #rad inclus

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s1 ep4: Phage

The episode that introduces the Vidians, it's also the first one I don't like.

The whole concept of an entire species stealing organs from other species to survive for 2000 years is kind of preposterous, aside from being, well, icky. It doesn't make sense that they would last long enough to keep reproducing enough to replenish their population if they all had this agressive fatal disease, and moreover, the notion that most of them would even choose to survive that way doesn't seem likely. Any decent people would not chose to survive by killing other people, and an entire species just being horrible unethical people is a pretty racist notion that goes against the spirit of Star Trek in my opinion. If they'd made clear that the two Vidians we meet in this episode are rogues who are taking a desperate course that their society doesn't condone, that would be one thing, but that wasn't implied here, and in later episodes it's confirmed that most Vidians do it as standard procedure. I suppose it's a problem in general with most Star Trek (and other scif-fi shows) species that they're often painted in broad strokes of 'all of x species on this entire planet have the same culture and temprament and behave in x way', which, as we know from the diversity of cultures, values, and opinions on our own planet, is incredibly unlikely, if not impossible. But at least with most other aliens who are villains, it's made clear that the villainy comes from the ideology of the government in power, and not an inherent trait of the entire species being naturally evil. I think the Vidians are the first time on Trek we ever had a whole species painted as inherently immoral, which is, now that I really think about it, why I actually dislike them so much. (And yes, we do meet a nice Vidian in a later episode, but I think it sets it up more as an exception to the rule, which reeks of 'but you're not like other people of your race/gender/religion' that bigots throw around to justify their bigotry even when they have a friend from the group they hate.) And how these two Vidians are portrayed as having rather creepy/icky/slimy voices and mannerisms also plays into ableist notions that people who are physically ill are somehow monstrous, or even, as old medieval superstitious notions would have it, that physical illness and moral decay somehow go hand in hand, or that one is the cause, or punishment, for the other. The Vidians as villains are just a bad, bad concept, which I never liked, and I've finally figured out why at last.

Other things I didn't like were Neelix's possiveness of Kes- he literally sees her being spoken to by another man, and he's off on a crazy diatribe accusing her of leaving him for someone else. Granted, he's going through a traumatic experience at the time, which can make people paranoid and lead them to say things they don't mean when they're upset, but he doesn't apologize afterward (even after she literally saves his life, jfc!) and he does it again in later episodes, so it's a character trait rather than an aberation. Ew.

I do like that Kes got to start studying to be a medic after this episode, since she deserves some more substantial stuff to do than having vague psychic sense of strange things going on (even Deanna Troi had an actual job as an actual psychologist, though they ignored it far too often on TNG.) And it's only fair the Doctor finally recognize her abilities and efforts after she spends most of her time on the show so far being his cheerleader and teacher. I used to like Kes and the Doctor's friendship in the beginning (why I stopped is a subject for future episode reviews) but looking at it now, even at this early stage, there's something kind of gender stereotyped about their relationship. The whole trope of him being the bitter middle aged man who just needed a sweet young blonde girl to see the good in him and love and encourage him to see it for himself. And he's not even an actual person yet, he's a computer program, and sees himself as such at this point, but she spends most of her screen time emotionally caretaking for either him or Neelix, both of whom tend to dismiss her, but she loves them anyway, wholeheartedly. It's just a little...yikes. Remembering the plot lines of some future episodes featuring them has me trepidatious, to say the least, but I'm gonna try not to think that far ahead. (Tbh Tom Paris was the only person who checked in on Kes to ask if she was okay this whole time; Neelix prob sweating bullets out there knowing he looks like an asshole next to Tom lol And he is. Like, even if Tom was being nice to her because he was into her, which I don't think he was, given how ready he always is to go out of his way to help people, showing concern and support is literally the right way to pursue someone??? Bad boy seducer Tom where???)

Tl;dr: not a fan of this one, sets up some ongoing stuff I very much do not like, on multiple fronts.

#star trek: voyager #voyager rewatch #rewatching star trek #phage #star trek

[fluffy-froggie]

Blog Info!!

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About Me!!

Name: Dee

Species: Human-Ish

Pronouns: they/them

Preferred Titles: Mx. or Mixter

Preferred Terms: Default to neutral or masculine unless otherwise specified.

Age: 16-18, my age is weird 'cause of plural stuff, and age regression. The body is 18 years old.

Role in the system: Default fronter for when nobody else can/will front, ex-host

Significant Labels: queer, transgender, gamyflux, plural, identiflux

Partners: None

Favorite Colors: Oranges, blues, and purples

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Boundaries

Okay for everyone: tagging me in posts, sending in asks, asking to be friends, nondirected swearing, asking about my system, reblogging/liking/commenting on things I post, compliments, claiming an emoji for anon stuff, and infodumping in my ask box

Ask First Unless You're a Friend: DMs, touch, RPs

Please don't do this: Venting in my ask box, fakeclaiming me, reality checking me without asking, trying to trigger me on purpose

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DNI and BYF

Please DNI if you fall under these categories:

transrace (adoption term is fine, transx term is not)

transabled (BIID is fine)

transage (chronosian is fine)

anti-endogenic systems

anti-contradictory identities (mspec gays/lesbians, binary nonbinary people, she/her gays, he/him lesbians, lesboys, gaybians, etc.)

anti researched self-diagnosis

ALM/Trump supporters/prolife/hard right politics

incest/consang supporters

pro/complex contact pedophiles/necrophiles/zoophiles (you can interact if you're strictly anti-contact, but if you're pro-contact for anything that cannot consent then block me immediately.)

ableist

sexualize agere/petre/other coping mechanisms

pro-ana/pro-ED

Terfs/swerfs/radfems/ect.

Before you Follow:

I am 18 years old, I am white, I am disabled, mentally ill, and neurodivergent. I am not good with tone or social cues, and I use tone tags a lot. I'm part of a mixed origins system, and I don't front a lot. I age regress and pet regress, but will probably not post during those times. I'm still figuring out my identity, so the "About Me" section is subject to change a bit as time goes on. Not everything I post or reblog will be sfw, most likely. If that bothers you I suggest not following me or blocking nsfw tags.

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Miscellaneous Stuff

System and Headmate Blogs:

@virgil-the-cat-bat -Virgil's Blog

@intrusiveduke - Remus's Blog

@the-amazing-dragon-witch - Helio's Blog

@sheep-n-sleep - Emile's Blog

@the-catboy-princess -Roman's Blog

@ruff-rabbit-rhyme - Noiz's Blog

@the-milky-way-system - Main System Blog

@blurred-pride - System Mogai Coining Blog

Current Hyperfixtions:

SkipTheTutorial on youtube, mogai stuff, EazySpeezy on youtube, Markiplier on youtube, Jacksepticeye on youtube, Wings Of Fire, Warrior Cats, The Riordanverse

#fluffy-froggie #byf #dni #about me

[capableism]

If you love your pet, stop treating them as family

My brother just adopted a 13-week-old kitten. I love cats; it is obvious I am  officially an Uncle. Humanizing them feels natural. They are living beings that deserve love and respect. Domesticated animals are dependent on us, just like  babies. However, there's a difference between caring for an animal and  projecting human values onto them. Projecting stereotypes and prejudice can  end in a "mercy killing" because of the bias that nature is governed by the  natural selection of the strongest animals. There are lines drawn to define what  makes you human vs. animal. As much as we love them, they are considered  lesser even though we depend on them for everyday essentials like food and clothing. 

The humanization of disabled animals can lead to pity (that leads to  euthanasia) or inspiration focused on the animals overcoming the hardships of  living with a disability.

Euthanasia conflicts with most people's stance on how to treat disabled people. It is worth noting that there have been movements to abort babies known in utero to have a disability. In animals, this treatment may be lauded as saving these "poor" animals. However, there is evidence that animals can recognize a disabled or elderly animal's different needs and adjust their behavior accordingly. "It is known, for example, that male  silverback gorillas will slow down their troop so that elderly, ill, and disabled  members can keep up. Other species, such as elephants and wolves, have  been shown to do the same." (Taylor, 16)  

Taylor describes the word disability as "uniquely human." I agree. The term  depends on a comparison to human society. The animal world is still being  studied, but it's almost guaranteed that animals have empathy and other  emotions toward each other. Human politics of disability and being humane  conflict when animals are "better off dead." That trope also appears in literature,  such as Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. 

Categorizing animals as disabled links  them to ableist people trying to be humane and "save"the animals. 

Much of this  is unconscious societal bias. Success stories of disabled animals' reintegration into society are inspirational. Especially when a human has rescued an animal  from the dangerous wild where they wouldn't have survived.

The 2011 film Dolphin Tale depicts the true story of Winter. She was a dolphin  rescued from a crab trap by the Marine Life Institute. Sadly, Winter's tail was  severely injured and had to be amputated.

Eventually, Winter adapted, but the  new swimming technique was damaging her spinal cord. So, through the combined effort of prosthetists, an artificial tail was created. The film's  protagonist is 12-year-old Sawyer, who immediately bonds with Winter. It is an emotional "true story" adapted with the usual Hollywood formula.“The story is tailor-made film with loads of kid appeal. Still, to make sure, the filmmakers have sweetened the deal with a great charismatic cast and a plot line that centers on a troubled boy, Sawyer (Nathan Gamble), who finds hope in his empathetic connection with the amazing mammal." (The LA Times)

"Winter became a media darling and to this day is the aquarium's star attraction, becoming an inspiring symbol to children, adults, and returning vets with disabilities.” (The LA Times)

Sources

Taylor, C. (2020). Animal crips. In S. Jenkins & K. S. Montford (Eds.), Disability and animality:rip perspective in critical animal studies (pp. 13-34). Academia. https://www.academia.edu/45026461/Disability_and_Animality_Crip_Perspectives_in_Critical_Animal_Studies?auto=citations&from=cover_page

Tulich, K. (2011, September 23). 'Dolphin Tale' a swimming success. LA Times. https://www.latimes.com/socal/glendale-news-press/entertainment/tn-gnp-0925-filmreview-story.html

#humanity #animals #pets #animalrights #pet parent #dolphin tale #morgan freeman #2011 #winter #disabilities #disabledanimals #disabled animals #stereotypes #ableism #ableist nonsense #ableist people #disabled characters #disabled character of the day #dolphins #intelligent species #inspiration #pity #media tropes #disabled life #amputee #swimmimg #humane society #harmful stereotypes #kids films #childhood movies

[dein0nychus]

every time i see a sylphling i get a step closer to becoming the joker

#STOP!!! SUPPORTING!!!! THEM!!!!! #sauntproof stole a design and mass produced it despite the owner repeatedly asking her not to #profited HEAVILY off east asian culture (shes white) without doing anything for asian people #was generally snotty and shitty and made rules without consulting anyone and refused to take criticism #hid behind her mental illness as a reason why she refused to take criticism #was ableist in her old species #and the MYO contest was rigged (over 100 entries and it took them less than half an hour to pick the winners #who were all mods or friends of saunt)

[gryficowa]

In Poland, pop culture is strange, and I have lived in this country since I was born, well, at least women in short hair in movies and series are everyday life, worse with gay characters in movies who are like a couch of life from the musical Beetlejuice (It's about characteristic behavior)

A common theme in Polish romantic comedies (Apart from stalking and such absurd situations that even I, as a person with a phase on the musical Beetlejuice, do not understand) is a gay friend who is a fashion expert and other crap (Alexa from a certain browser game), okay, I don't mind a gay man like fashion, but the problem is that in Polish films this theme is even abused (which means that the creators see homosexuals in this way, in the sense of gays, as women in a man's body, I cannot explain it, because you have to see it to understand it)

For some reason my country fell in love with this genre too much and probably every other movie is of this genre (Apart from Vega's films, whose films are a massacre, because instead of focusing on characters, it tries to create controversy, okay, for some it can be strong but it gets boring over time, and the characters swear more than I do when my laptop turns off when I play minecraft)

We seem to have series like " Świat według Kiepskich" but many episodes from this show didn't age very well, an example would be the episode where Ferdinand and his son found some kind of helmet (Or a cap, I don't remember) that makes them invisible, at some point he breaks down, but the father about I don't know it and you know what I want to do? Harass random women on the bus… it got really bad old plus is he gets beaten up but that doesn't change the fact he molested women on the bus

The only good show is "Miodowe lata" which may be licensed from some old American series, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a good series (The creators of The Flintstones were based on the series that was just licensed by the Polish version, there was something with copyright, but who cares?)

Whereas the memic has become "Klan"

because of how this series was bad (Looking logically, he was also ableistic, because one of the characters is a boy with Down syndrome and what's wrong with him is … I don't know how to comment on it, okay? His character has become a meme, because the creators gave a lot of action with his character, backstage it was not interesting with this actor, he believed that what is happening on stage is his real life and he is too concerned about the death of a character on the show, in the sense that he thought the person who acted died)

And probably in the series "M jak miłość" character died by driving into cardboard boxes (Kind of an aneurysm, but well, it really looked like driving into cardboard boxes killed her) and that also became a meme

Usually memes become Polish para-documents, because they are so bad that the very fact of creating such something is something unusual, it's like watching "The Room", but in the form of a series with different characters, they even created furras once, the problem is that they were running in pajamas (You know, pajamas with animal features) and there dude said, that it has an animal element (?), this episode is comedy gold, the beginning seems like a typical episode of a para-document, and suddenly my father makes a strange noise and says that he always had an animal element in him, I greet the furras who read this and they have the following: What?

Polish cabarets are only interested in boomers, so I will not mention them, but a Polish TV station has become memical (Yes, it's about this station with a trans-species deer), when you start to listen to it, you feel as if you are sitting in a different reality, then after just such a departure in what is said there, that only those on foil caps are equal in this (Or the historical sewers after midnight)

There are also some celebrities and politicians (Including the president, who is as you see it, yes, it's about Duda, he pissed me off with the text "LGBT is not people, it's ideology", which made me become more interested in politics, because even with little knowledge, I knew that what he was saying was not very cool)

Let's not forget about the Pope (known as "Yellow Mouth" in Poland), who became a caricature of himself (In the sense, people loved him so much that the young generation started to meme it to piss off boomers, now these memes are seriously absurd, sometimes they have pedophile humor, on the Polish version of FB, in the sense of some person from Poland, fed up with "Politically Correct FB" created a page called ablicia, guess who the most was there, yeah popes got funny in its stupidity, the page that was supposed to be the new FB was taken over by an army of popes, they didn't play in any comedy) and some time ago, the minister of education announced that that will increase the number of classes on this particular pope, I can already imagine what memes from the alpha generation will arise

In Poland, there is a cult of the number 2137, the Pope died at this time, and seriously, it is so trivial that it's ridiculous, that's why this number is used in the form of a joke (Like 69 or 666)

#Poland #Gumball Watterson #TAWOG #Cartoon #Cartoonist #delia deetz #beetlejuice #beetlejuice the musical #bjtm #lydia deetz #beetlejuicebway #beetlejuice musical #bjtmtmtm #The Flintstones #Pope

[quitethepirategal]

An Analysis in Threes

❥ TAGGED BY: @emcads​ like 30 years ago ❥ TAGGING: @riidcr​ @starsailingcaptain​ @covencrown​ @hookd​ @all-fleshed-out​ @evermxre​ @motherofredemption​ @bup1957​ @conquistadoradelmar​ @seaprofound​ @tcthinecwnself​ @withinycu​ @windguided​ @daevilhorns​ @concordia-cum-sinistro​ and YOU and I spent like 8 hours on this so pLEASE READ IT PLEASE I AM BEGGING I NEED VALIDATION I’M-

     repost don’t reblog. yall dont have to type this much.

MUSE: Captain Red Handed Jessica

Three Strengths:

     Her adaptability and resourcefulness.  Is she brave, yes.  Is she lucky, also yes.   But over all, she can roll with the cards she’s been dealt in a way that many would call inhumanly clever.  Her intelligence, her perception, and her charisma are all different ingredients of this indomitable characteristic of hers.  She can see the value in just about anything and anyone, can pick up on clues and tangents few others can follow, and can remember seemingly endless details, tho unfortunately not on command.  But even then, her patchy memory seems to contribute to this adaptability as well, as it usually allows for detachment.  If she can find resources everywhere, it means she can survive everywhere. There have been countless times where the wheel of fortune has suddenly turned on her and she’d lost near everything and her response was more or less Damn, ok I need food water and shelter lets go.  No food?  Grow food.  No water?  Ask someone if they have water.  No shelter?  Sleep outside.  No money?  Steal money.  Can’t hear anymore?  Cool I can use loud weapons.  Crashed on an island?  My island now.  Shot?  Free bullet.  She knows when to push, she knows when to quit, and sometimes she knows when to gamble based on her ability ( what a man can do and what he can’t do and all that ).  Strong she may be, she knows its foolish to rely on strength.  Survival of the fittest actually rarely means survival of the strongest. ( edit; this is the theme for the entirety of her character. I will say it 50,000 times. I am very sorry ).  And as a student of philosophy and biology, she understands that phrase better than most. Leading to our next point.

     Her understanding.  As I stated, her charisma is something unmatched, and is a key element in all three of her strengths.  This charisma might not exist as prominently were it not for her ability to understand.  She has limited ( I’ll get back to that ) but deep running empathy and while not terribly observant all the time, she is always perceptive.  Not only that, but she’s personally known abuse, hardship, and uncertainty, and understands that hate or anger can be rooted in similar pain.  She was schooled lightly in both Christian and Buddhist values before diving heavily into democratic philosophy, meaning she believes all being experience suffering and therefore kindness is a powerful sign of strength, but also that suffering while free and equal is better than comfort in oppression.  And between her sweet words and beautiful face, she can get most people to open up in ways they themselves my not have expected.  Being very good with people means she can learn from them, gain something from them, lead them, and/or use them.  But Jessica isn’t a manipulator in truth; her intentions are almost always kind or healthy ones.  She absolutely uses people from time to time but not EVER without them consenting to or being made aware of such because again, unlike a manipulative person, she understands that can ruin a relationship and therefore ruin a resource.  What it makes for is an excellent leader, a beloved captain, and a trusted ally at most and an excellent conversationalist at the least.      But her understanding isn’t just social, oh no.  It’s academic as well.  Armed only with his little library and the lessons of his own teachers, Jessica’s foster father tirelessly smithed her into a not just a girl who knew a lot of things, but a truly intelligent, thinking mind. He’d die before learning he’d succeeded tenfold.  Jessica isn’t one to just except things as they are, facts or otherwise.  She usually needs to prove it, experiment, see things from a new angle.  Debates with her are fun!  She has no issue admitting she’s wrong or confessing she’s never thought of it that way, and is actually wrong a lot of the time.  It doesn’t bruise her ego, it excites her.  It means there’s more to learn.  And her ability to constantly understand new concepts paired with her ability to overwhelmingly understand people combine to make for a very powerful core idea of hers:  We are fittest to survive because we all fit together.  Our humanity, our empathy, our community are our strengths because they keep us united, which keeps us the fittest.  No one is independent, no man is an island.  People are power. And thus her final strength is just that.

     Her power.  While she and I still firmly state that strength isn’t everything don’t be disillusioned; its very goddamn important.  And it’s something Jessica has plenty of.  She is durable and clever because of her rocky early childhood, she is quick and versatile from her youth in a pirate port, she is physically strong and mighty from her years training in martial arts, and she’s an absolute crackshot after years of diligent practice with her trusty pistols.  Her true strength may lie in her brains and in her allies yes, but even without them, Red Jessica is a powerhouse of a warrior.  She can end fights extremely quickly or run from them without a prayer of catching her ( no shame in the later, both skills keep you alive ).  And it may be in bad taste to say, but ever since loosing most of her hearing, Jess swears up and down it’s made her vision better, her reaction time faster, and her quick thinking even quicker.  Yes of course she’s slowed down with age, but a bullet shoots at the same speed no matter how old you are.  And you best hope she didn’t bring her firecrackers, because while sudden loud noises will absolutely temporarily discombobulate or debilitate an opponent with healthy hearing, it’ll hardly effect her at all and suddenly, you’re a sitting duck.  You see those thighs?  You see those calves?  She can crush PINEAPPLES with them!  People have seen her do it!  Do you know how many micro-fractures broke and rebuilt those hands?  Thousands!  She can crush a trachea like a fucking beer can!  She can kick you to death!  One ill placed curb stomp and you are DECEASED.  Sometimes she’ll just psyche you out because she KNOWS you know she can kill your stupid ass!       But while her strength, mental and physical, have always been there, her power is relatively new.  As stated before, people are power.  Not knowledge, not money, not strength.  People.  She’s a fearsome warrior but she’d be useless if outnumbered.  Shes a very successful pirate, but she’d never make it out of port without a crew on her ship.  She found a gorgeous island, but it’d still be wild without those who built it’s piers and buildings.  She manages orchards and tends to them and harvests them herself, but she would loose all of her crop without the helping hands of her employed farmers.  And like I mentioned, she deeply understands this.  Freedom is not independence or vice versa.  Did you make the clothes on your back or the fabric that made those clothes?  Did you write the books you read to make you smarter or teach you that skill?  Did you plant the seed years ago that grew that orange you’re eating?  No, of course not.  Jessica didn’t either.  Another human did.  We all need each other to fill the holes in our lives that we can’t fill ourselves.  Humans are puzzle pieces in that way, there is no bigger picture or prayer for survival on our own.  And because of this, we can do anything we as a community, as a SPECIES work together to achieve.  There is no knowledge if there’s no one to learn from, there is no money if a society don’t give it value, your money is worthless if those you’re paying decide to rise against you, your role as leader only exists at the consent of those you lead, and your strength won’t save you from a sinking ship.  People are, and always will be, power.       And as someone who is exceptionally strong and exceedingly smart, Jessica has slotted herself in the humanity puzzle thusly: The strong exist to protect the weak, the smart exist to educate, and the lucky exist so the unlucky may be given aid.  And it is with this fairness and compassion that she has won the trust of so many.  She has a great many friends and allies even outside of those in her crew or on her island.  And she can make many more with ease.  That kind of power is not a power to be trifled with, even if she can kick your ass six ways to Saturday without it. 

Three Weaknesses:

     She suffers ADHD.  Now before ANY OF Y’ALL SAY ANYTHING, I myself also suffer ADHD.  And yes I do say suffer because well that’s what it causes for Jessica and I, suffering.  Yes, it is ableist language to say ‘suffering from’ rather than ‘has’ or ‘is diagnosed with’ and yes it perpetuates a stigma against us but god DAMN IT in both Jessica’s case and mine, it make life much much harder than it needs to be.  At the end of the day, Red Jessica is a fantasy of mine; I pour myself into her whether I mean to or not.  She’s the adult I wish I was, the person I might be if I had no anxiety, or brainfog, or lived in a world were I didn’t need a credit score or a degree. And even then, I can’t say I know anyone else’s problems better than my own.  So if my character has problems, by sheer osmosis they are going to reflect some of mine.  Both of the characters I write have ADHD because I have ADHD and I couldn’t even begin to know how a non-ADHD mind works to write it properly.  And no, I’m not being dramatic when I say it causes me suffering.  I can’t drive, I can’t hold down a job, I nearly flunked out of school, I still cant read very fast or spell very well, I am constantly overwhelmed by mundane things, I’m a slow learner, I forget very important things or recent things, I forget about things that mean the world to me, I forget about people, I stumble through tasks, I procrastinate hobbies and basic hygiene, and everything I do takes all goddamn day and I can only really do one important thing at a time and in order of importance.  If I have a date at 4pm, I’m dressed and ready at 11am because I’ve gotta do the important thing first or else I will forget to do the important thing.  I started typing this at a little before 5pm.  It’s 7;30.  It’ll probably be 10 o’clock at night by the time I fucking finish ( edit: l m a o its 1am bitch you thought ).  I’m 26 and am just medicated enough to barely function.  So yeah.  Suffering is the word.       Though for Jessica, perhaps suffering is a tad strong of a word.  Her ADHD affects her ability to function in far less debilitating ways ( though whether that’s a result of a less severe diagnosis than me or the result of the society, situations, and responsibilities she functions in and around are far different from mine, who’s to say ).  For her, she has very consuming hyperfixations that can last anywhere between weeks to decades, a spotty memory that is detail and memento oriented,  she’s scatterbrained more often then not but can focus with amazing clarity on her interests or in high adrenaline situations, is is ABYSMALLY bad at math and EXCRUCIATINGLY bad with numbers ( as opposed to me, who is good at numbers but shit at spelling or reading ), she can forget anything no matter how important it is to her or to anyone, she’s bad with names and dates, is COMPLETELY time-blind, has trouble prioritizing, and of course, wile not actually that materialistic, she absolutely has the ol’ magpie instinct.       While her poor memory assists in her adaptability and ability to move on, it also means she forgets things she needed to remember, like when the last time she bathed was and who this person is and what happened between her and someone else or what conversation’s shes had.  Unfortunately this means she’s a very good friend and leader... while you’re around and interacting with her on at least a weekly basis.  It’s almost a lack of object permanence in both a social and very real sense.  If something is not right in front of her, odds are she’s not going to think about it.  And while its something she constantly kicks herself for and actively tries to be better about, it applies to people too.  Face to face is the best way to interact with her; she won’t think to write you and in her modern verse she won’t think to ever call and she’ll text you back in perhaps a few days.  She doesn’t value you any less, I promise.  She’s just either distracted or overwhelmed.  Also, for someone as understanding as her, she is surprisingly self-centered.  Not selfish, self-centered.  She’ll talk about herself more than she should, and will assume people understand that she’s doing so as a form of showing empathy rather than bragging when they may not know this at all.  Actually she accidentally assumes all the time.  It was far worse when her hearing was functional; she’d finish your sentence for you or guess what it was you were going to say ( again, not to talk over, you but to show she understands you and the conversation, tho it usually came of as annoying or patronizing ).  Sometimes she mistakenly assumes you believe or know the same things she does without even realizing it.  Maybe she perceives the right idea off of someone but isn’t observant enough to notice anything past that.  And while she is willing to change her mind about things, she might change her mind a tad too quickly.  She’s an over-sharer and is horrible at keeping any kind of secret.  Romantic relationships tend to fizzle out. Her impulse control is improving but has a VERY long way to go. She’s always chasing something new.       All and all, when you’re a pirate, a librarian, or even a captain, all of these things may be irritating and inconvenient, but are overall manageable in chunks.  ...But as a governor to her island, as a leader of an entire population... oof. In the position of leadership that she’s in, she can’t afford to make too many massive mistakes, and she knows this.  ‘There is no power quite like the power of being underestimated’ is a phase you’ll hear her say a lot but for her, there is a shift in connotation.  If people expect less and you do more that’s a great upper hand in any situation but for her, it was a safety net.  Having ADHD sometimes means going months or years being fine and then eventually you fuck up and everyone around you wonders how in the world you managed to do that.  She has only barely avoided disaster more times than she’d like to admit.  Even with the resourcefulness, the understanding, and the power she wields, she’s finally starting to realize that she’s bit off more than she might be able to chew, with the entire well-beings and livelihoods of others on the line.  And she fears that one day she’ll play her cards wrong and everything she’d built, everything she’s done, will all come crashing down in ruin.

     She is Hard of Hearing.  This one is literally as simple as it sounds: she has moderate and degenerative hearing loss and tinnitus after years of canons, explosions, gunshots, and a definitive, scale tipping attack in her early 30s.  Her ears just don’t work at all like they used to.  The whole world sounds like it would if everything was underwater: she can’t pin point the location of sounds, how far off or close sounds are, and barely registers changes in volume. And it only gets worse the older she gets; one day she won’t hear anything at all.  And while yes, again, it might be very harsh and ableist to say, the truth of the matter that being deaf a “ weakness ” more often than its a strength.       That said, it very well can be a strength.  I’ve already mentioned that trick with the firecrackers and let me tell you it is a DAMN EFFECTIVE TRICK.  Shes around explosions and canons and guns all the time and now she can focus while being around them five times better than she could in the past!  But unfortunately it also means she’s very easy to sneak up on, she sometimes isn’t aware of danger until it’s nearly too late,  no one can get her attention or warn her across any distance, it’s very easy to escape from her, and it’s easy for her to be just... left out of things.  She might hear you talking, but she has little to no idea what you’re saying without sign or lipreading.  Some people don’t have the patience or even just the courtesy to speak slower, or clearer, or repeat themselves a lot.  Though, those last too thinks aren’t weaknesses of hers so much as they are the weakness of others, but they still negatively affect her self esteem and her effectiveness as a leader.       All of this has taught her to pick her battles carefully, and plan around the elements of surprise and discombobulation.  And while communication was tricky at first, it only got easier, and now she can talk to you almost like anyone can, so long as she’s looking you in the face. 

     That damn bleeding heart.  We have established a number of things that should easily add up to an overly empathetic, trusting, fight-the-good-fight, martyr-some, idealistic pushover;  she believes humanity and kindness are strengths, she has taken on the role of leader and then a provider, she has known suffering and tasked herself with ending the suffering of others to the best of her ability,  she lacks the clarity of mind to assume people aren’t just as good or capable as her automatically, she can have poor impulse control at times,  she wants to have relationships, and ( while I never stated this outright yet it can be inferred  ), she believes that being able to see yourself in others is the foundation of humanity and ( as i did say outright ) humanity is what keeps us unified and unity is what makes us fit and strong.  Keeping up?  Good. Here’s the curve ball: How can she whole hardheartedly preach and believe all of this, to the point of it being the foundation of her character, WHILE BEING A VIOLENT THIEVING AND BLOODTHIRSTY PIRATE?!  HOW, MANGO? HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?! MAKE IT MAKE SENSE!!  Ok, fine, sure, I will. I’m sure about one half of you are looking up from the screen and going “ Oh yeah, wow I totally forgot that bit. “ and the other half got about two and a half paragraphs in before squinting and silently calling bullshit. So let me explain.      In short, she’s a detached hypocrite and is well aware and unashamed of her hypocrisy while far less aware of her detachment. I’ll cover both:  Western culture as a whole seems to be under the impression that hypocrisy, despite context or importance, is automatically bad.  I don’t know where this comes from personally ( my bet is Christianity but I have exactly 0 evidence ) but its a very... flawed idea.  Take the freedom of speech vs racism problem; say you owned a bar where all could speak their mind freely over cold drinks.  Excellent concept without context, right?  Sure. ....Then a die hard racist covered in slurs and symbols walks in and orders- what are you going to do?  The correct answer is to throw him out instantly.  Not let him sit so long as he doesn’t cause trouble, not just ignore him and hope he doesn’t return, you throw him out.  Is it hypocritical?  Yep!  Sure is!  But it is also 100% necessary to protect your other patrons because if you don’t, the racist starts feeling safe and bringing his racist buddies, literally everyone else starts feeling unsafe and starts to hang out elsewhere, and two months later, ta da!  You now own a n*zi bar and there is literally nothing you can do about it. Jessica is in a somewhat similar situation.  You as a pretend bar owner need to make a decision as who to let into your bar and who to throw out for the good of all of your patrons.  Jessica too is faced daily with that decision.  If she want’s to help as many people as possible, the only realistic way she can do that are by protecting those under her leadership... only.  She is surrounded by hateful, angry, sneaky, traitorous, abusive, or otherwise evil people.  Piracy as a profession and poverty in general can do that to a person.  Of course there is a clear difference between those down on their luck and desperate, and the truly cruel and twisted, but unfortunately both types of people yield the same wrongdoings.  It’s absolutely her nature to extend a hand to anyone and everyone but.... she just can’t anymore.  Too many times has her trust been betrayed, too many times has she gotten in peoples business trying to be helpful, only for her to absolutely bite her in the ass.  Too many time the extended hand is bitten and once or twice, she’s actually made things worse.       Now, she will only help someone she loves, someone under her leadership, or someone who seeks her out.  That’s it.  And even then, sometime it manages to bite er in the ass.  But she had to set that hard limit for herself out of necessity, one she does her absolute best to adhere too and... these days she adheres a little too well. That leads us to our next point; what I was alluding to at the beginning of her Understanding essay when I said she has limited but deep running empathy.  That detachment again, courtesy of a very unattached mother and unchecked ADHD. ( It isn’t a strong enough characteristic to even rank as a strength or a weakness but damn if it isn’t an undercurrent to a lot of her motivations and experiences. ) Strangers are fair game that she tries to ignore, but if she even perceives you as a threat, you could be in danger. Like anyone used to violence or perhaps anyone trapped in an us verses them mindset, she can just... flat... turn her empathy off.  Not on command, she’s not a socio or psychopath persay.  But she has become totally numb to the horror of violence via her warrior upbringing that, in her mind, violence can actually be rather fun. Pair that with the fact that she purposely tailored herself to only be empathetic to her allies and boom.  You get a kindhearted killer.  Cops and soldiers in our world do it literally every day.  Actually anyone can do it really, even you if you tried. You don’t have to be evil or even angry to kill or steal or lie... you just have to believe you’re right.

Three Secrets:

     WHAT SECRETS?!  LMAO this bitch is the oversharing queen!! I’ve been typing and pondering her character for literal hours ( its currently 11:16, fuck you adderall ), and I still can not think of a single goddamn secret.  There is nothing about her that at least five random people don’t fucking know about!! The only secrets she has are secrets she knows about other people and even then she is!! literally the worst!! She spills her guts left and right and yet she wants to be a mysterious bitch SO BAD like BABE I love you, you’re precious, but you are a dumbass attention seeking validation chasing adhd CLOWN girl!! Stop telling random people about your hermaphroditism or your dairy allergy or your dead dad or that time you fell asleep in a barrel like that is literally your uber driver Jessica honey come ooooon. I’m skipping this section mom holy fuck.

Three Fears:

     What if she does wrong by everyone who trusts her?  As stated at the end of the ADHD essay, she’s terrified of failing those she leads.  Where it as simple as personal failure, she’d be fine.  Ever if her entire world came crashing down on top of her she’d either die or start back from square one.  Death is a fact of life and her adaptability means she can just dust herself off and move on, so neither her death nor her failures really scare her... But it isn’t just her life and happiness at stake, is it? Not anymore, right?  What started as a leader of a small gang of rebels became a full crew, then a crew became a slew of allies, then those allies built a town and now... now she’s the governor of the Crimson Isle and there are nearly twenty five HUNDRED lives at her mercy.   HER mercy.  One really, really bad mistake could ruin their livelihoods or spark disorder and disloyalty.  And if she died?  Would whoever it is that will take her place be as good to them as she is?  Is she good enough to begin with in the first place? Every day the paperwork gets a little bit thicker, every year there’s a new baby or two.  And the isle has fertile soil sure but will it last?  Are they prepared for a raid or a hurricane?  And if Jessica trusts the wrong people, where her people right to trust her?  ...can I protect them? Can I protect them?! CAN I PROTECT THEM?!

     Who am I if I’m not interesting?  This is, literally, an entirely subconscious fear.  She’s not at all aware it exists and therefor this entry is short. But between her short time with her very unimpressed mother, her own ADHD, she is constantly hungry for attention without even realizing it.  She must be interesting and intriguing and engaging, and I did mention she wants to also be mysterious.  She wants not so much your input or even your validation - but rather if shes not perceived then.... is she really there? Remember, she is unaware of any of this.  And fortunately she’d never been starved for attention to act out over it in the first place, even when her disinterested mother was alive. Look at her; she’s radiant, she’s beautiful, and she’s 6′4 / 195 cm shredded and covered in cool scars. Without even opening her mouth, without even her colorful clothes, she’s kind of automatically interesting.  So she’s never been so desperate for attention that she acts out because she’s never been without it for very long.  But it’s there. Hungry, aching, silent.  Those years after the M branding were horrible and she could never really explain why.  She still throws parties, organizes festivals, and talks to damn near anyone who will listen.  Look at my art!  Look at my library! Listen to how much I know! Let me tell you how lovely you are! Look at my scares! Look at my hair! Look at me haha, please, please look at me. 

     GHOSTS. NOPE. No. NO. Fuck ALL of that noise. Stay dead, go to hell, eat a dick.  Red Jessica is a scientist and superstitious atheist. As an academic and somewhat bi-cultural woman she simply thinks there are far too many religions with far too much history for any of them to be considered The One True Thing You Must Believe Or ElseTM and she tends to not truly believe anything until she finds some kind of proof.  Shes not afraid of the unknown, shes thrilled by it. She’s not afraid of death or the afterlife, that’s beyond her control. She’s only superstitious because she does believe in and value luck, and also its a bit of a cultural habit. BUT IF SOME SHIT STARTS MOVING ON ITS OWN OR IF SHE SEES SOME BULLSHIT IN THE CORNER OF HER EYE THEN SHE IS OUT OF THERE. OUTIE 5000. She has heard the tales of lost souls from purgatory or the eternally ravenous Pret or dangerous Phi Tai Hong or the tragic and startling Banshees or the creepy Santa Compana and she wouldn’t believe a word of it where it not for one thing.      SHE FUCKING SAW ONE. She’ll never forget it, it was the first and last time she EVER attempted to plunder a tomb all Skyrim style and at first she thought it was one of the crewmean being creepy as shit until she got a good look and he was SEE THROUGH AS SHIT AND SKINNY AS FCUK AND SHE GOT LITERALLY CHASED THE FUCK OUT OF THAT JOINT. She does not CARE that some ghosts are just apparitions she does not CARE that some are friendly and trying to warn her of something if you are MOVING and DEAD at the SAME time get FUCKED. If any of y’all cringe try-hards bring a Ouija board to the party you are getting SENT HOME and BLOCKED. NO CAP.

Three Goals:

   She really only has one left. Listen its... almost 1am and ive been typing since like 5pm i think i covered goals somewhere in here but ive gotta throw in the towel but even then I’m kinda being serious.  Her only remaining goal is to find a suitable heir of some kind.  She wants what she’s built to fall into worthey hands but she could never seem to find a good parter and even when she did she couldn’t sustain a pregnancy ( you’d think that would be a huge deal but it hardly mattered to her oddly ).  So at 50 the option of having kids is out but there’s still plenty of hope for either adoption or a protege.  But then again, she’s so busy these days that she hardly prioritizes it like she wants to.  

                                                                               holy shit i need some water...

#i.... i did it.. its done.. its DONE #...this took my entire saterday #i will literally pay yall actuall dollars to read all of this please... it took so long i dont want it to be for nothing qwq #x; EVER PLAYED CRAZY EIGHTS? { dash games } #x; QUITE THE PIRATE GAL { portrait } #x; WHY AREN'T YOU A CLEVER ONE? { meta }

[ben-10-setting-omnicrom]

Hey there, you made a post recently bashing one of mine. Totally fine to disagree but bashing other people's posts aren't the way to go about it. Both posts you were bashing were speculation and if you really had a problem with it, you could've left a comment to open up a real discussion about it on my post or the other person's.

I think you misread some of the tones in the posts. We were exploring political themes in a fictional universe. These sorts of things aren't for everyone and there's a wide variety of perspectives on the subjects. The other person's was, as I interpreted it, a "hey what if this happened" sort of post. Mine was a theory about the dynamics between species based on what we see in canon. I don't think either warranted the reaction it got from you, especially considering the fact we're talking about a cartoon. Perhaps they are darker interpretations but not impossible. No bold, declarative statements were made. No one was pushing their thoughts on others. Both were just people sharing their thoughts on possibilities we could not see in canon.

Again, it's okay to disagree. You, however, took it a step further. I deal with discourse on subjects more serious than a cartoon so I really don't care if you think there's something wrong with this but I'm getting the sense you are trying to start drama in the fandom which really isn't appreciated. This is generally a positive space and it's not hard to match the tone, even when you don't agree.

If you keep this up, I'll just block you so we don't see each others posts. Can't speak for the other person, of course, but they're a respected member of the fandom so I'm sure people would also appreciate it if you didn't go after them.

But I will ask two things of you. If you continue making posts like this, consider using a more respectful tone. I have no idea how other people you have bashed reacted but you are saying these things about real people, many of them likely minors. It's not hard to be courteous.

The other thing is to not use the delusional tag or call people insane. Maybe some people have some hot takes or discuss theories in a sphere a bit extreme for a cartoon but that does not mean it's okay for you to directly attack them. And, some of the words you used are ableist language. I am not disabled so I am not necessarily affected by it but a bar must be set and I'm setting it pretty low. You can continue what you're doing but do not disrespect people or use ableist language. Even if you don't care what I think, note that chances are people will not take you seriously if you sound like a child throwing a tantrum or speak like you're trying to hurt someone.

Even though I disagree with your tone, I will admit you weren't completely off target. You had some good points. And if you had brought them up in a respectful manner, I would have been happy to have a discussion about it. But, you didn't and here we are.

Where the hell do I even start with this?

Ok, first of all NO I'm not trying to start drama. I'm expressing my distaste on a trend I've seen in posts in the Ben 10 tag where this echo chamber perpetually spews out ridiculous baseless shit.

"A generally peaceful space" lmao, you mean like the time several users INSISTED Cracker isn't a slur and you can't be racist to white people, after a user called another one it while shamelessly and without irony claim they wouldn't stoop to bullying like @xcatxgirlx was wrongly accused of? Or the fact several users adamantly and insistently warp and twist her words to fit their delusional narrative where she's apparently the next spawn of Satan or whateverthefuck? Or the fact if you disagree with said echo chamber they'll call you bootlicker and say you have brainrot.

Also can you quit with the victim complex? I'm not going after anyone, I'm refuting claims and headcanons by pointing out no such thing is even remotely hinted at in canon.

Gods at this point I'm going to have to pin dictionary.com with how often I've had to quote people the definitions of words.

having false or unrealistic beliefs or opinions:

In other words ideas not based in reality or that can be gleaned from pertinent information. Reality in this case being the canon of the series.

Saying Ben wanted to kill Kevin because he was jealous of him saving the day in the Forge of Creation episode is FLAT OUT DELUSIONAL. Full stop.

Saying the Plumbers would practice brutality and gay bashing at the drop of a hat DURING PRIDE MONTH is utterly baseless and ridiculous, not to mention actively insensitive to irl acts of such. Their WHOLE THING is keeping the peace and anyone practicing police brutality would get jailed JUST LIKE THE NUMEROUS TIMES IN CANON THEY'VE DEALT WITH EVIL PLUMBERS.

Saying the Galvans are totally discriminating against a entire species is absolutely baseless especially when shit all is preventing said species from basically doing whatever the fuck they want. Baz-El is literally a damn archeologist after all.

You want to know what all those things have in common?

They take the flimsiest of "evidence", ignore context, and actively distort facts to shine things in the worst light possible, like a corrupted fun house mirrors from hell.

Also why would I ask for permission to document for posterity posts I reference? I'm literally only doing that shit so they can't say said posts didn't say what it did or if said posts are erased. It's no different from using the Way Back Machine to check on old posts.

Also also, like for future reference PLEASE add spaces to your posts. Your ask was honestly kind of hard to read.

#ben 10 #asks #plumbers #kevin levin #ben tennyson #galvanic mechamorph #galvan #mini omni rant #delusional ben 10

[drbahama]

Alyx Vance callout post

tw for: (violence, h*mest*ck, ableism, theft, anarchism)

Alyx Vance is a 24 year old heterosexual AFAB (she/her). She is mutuals with Gordon Freeman (27, he/him) and Barney Calhoun (44, he/him), both of whom are recorded anticitizens. This callout post is to spread the word of her blatant displays of abuse.

Alyx Vance absolutely refuses to use stairs. She is constantly jumping over railings and rejecting the warnings she has been given by Civil Protection. She expects her knees and her leg's skeletal structure to take the brunt of her immature actions. Alyx is immature and impulsive.

She made a robot and named it D0G. She used a "0" instead of the letter "o". Now Alyx has been incredibly lowkey with her H*mest*ck hyperfixation, to the point where she's made 0 posts about it, but this is the equivalent of a smoking gun. Alyx is a h*mest*ck stan.

Another sign of Alyx being generally immature is her making puns. She directly makes puns in front of Gordon after he just deals with an intense shootout, most likely making his anxiety and trauma worse. This also makes her ableistic.

Alyx's Father, Eli, is friends with an inventor by the name of "Russel". During what can be considered a troubling event in her life, Alyx "borrows" Russel's gun and has not SINCE given it back. She refuses to buy him a replacement, and this is nothing short of blatant theft. Speaking of Eli Vance, he is a known anticitzen and is considered the leader of the rebellion, which may I remind you, is directly responsible for limiting our potential as a species. It seems the apple does not fall far from the tree.

During Alyx's stay in City 17, she has since assaulted several Civil Protection officers. This highlights her violent tendencies, and is a sign of her possibly being an abuser.

Alyx Vance is a ABHORRENT individual, and I fully expect the fact that she will not own up to any of this, like the hypocrite she is. PLEASE spread this! It's incredibly important that word gets out, she CANNOT keep getting away with this despicable behavior.

Be wise. Be safe. Be aware.

REBLOGS > LIKES

#THIS IS SATIRE THIS IS SATIRE THIS IS SATIRE ITS A JOKE PLEASE DONT TAKE ITS SERIOUSLY #soda.txt #dr breen wrote this #hl

[oddthingsndaydreams]

Hi! I just wanted to say, i see you voltron au, but what about team prime and the others? And starscream is megtron son?

Hallo, thanks for dropping by. Apologies, this is going to be a bit of a wall of text and I’m not sure how to tag asks when it doesn’t allow me the option currently. Been a while since I was on tumblr, oof. When I aligned the characters I was looking at who fit which personality best. I’m not real big on the BlackarachniaxMegatron ship but BA as Haggar was far too good to pass up. So just imagine her as she was in the beginning of the show before it was revealed they were a broken family unit. Or not, up to you guys. This AU all happened in one night and then I forgot about it, lol. Starscream would end up being Megatron’s son. By whom, I do not know. So, no Megascream for this AU, sorry guys. Team Prime does have some assigned character swaps. The designs I made were meant to come in a whole batch of images but I never finished the con side of things. To be honest, I’m more into cons than bots and the similarities between Megatron and Zarkon had me going so I never got everyone fully sorted. That said: Team Prime would fill the role of the Paladins. It might very well end up being mixed too, more like ye olde Voltron was, just because I have a wicked fun idea about Bumblebee being a half breed like Ezor and stationed among the Blade of Marmora. I know the colors of Voltron align with specific ideals but it’s been a hot minute since I watched the show. For now, based off shared body types, Bulkhead probably tanks with the Yellow Lion and might even be Balmoran? I forget what that species is called. Optimus leads with the Black Lion, Ratchet is either support in the Castle of Lions or he flies the Red Lion because... colors, shrugs. He’s red, Red Lion I dunno. Prowl is green because nature vibes. If Bumblebee joins the Paladins that would make him Blue, unless Ratchet stays support and then he’d be Red I think. Orrrrr, Sari could be on the team as blue. Sari would still be Sumdac’s daughter, still adopted. She’s from Earth but I’ll probably make her a cyborg. I guess she ends up with Pidge’s backstory, looking for her father who was captured by the Galra. Or maybe she has more of a Star Lord backstory and, while from Earth, got lost in space at some point then adopted by Sumdac. The Alteans never died and they make up the bulk of the other ‘Bot characters. Ultra Magnus is Altean, maybe Blurr too I dunno. Rodimus is probably Altean, picture that elf archer look. Sounds nice, aye. I just realized I forgot Soundwave existed. Again. Oof. TFA Soundwave isn’t a huge character in the show, sorry guys, my bad. Emmmmm. Oh right. This whole thing was inspired by Pastel’s art of Kolivantok where... Kolivan? The one with the mask, looked reminiscent of Lugnut. Shockwave was meant to take Haxxus’s place but it was easier to fake his design with Narti and the blind bit made it so I can maybe nerf him as a spy. Galra seem like the type to be ableist, wasn’t that a plot point somewhere on the show? I dunno. OHHH also, the Seeker Clones would fill the roles of Lotor’s generals, not as clones, but as separate characters. Maybe they’re related maybe not, depends on whether you want to maintain trines for this AU I guess. Don’t ask me what Stryka’s doing, she’s probably a general in Megatron’s army. Anyways, Shockwave as strictly communications officer at High Command means I can send Blitzwing and Lugnut to infiltrate the Blade of Marmora. Lugnut can get his mask and the visual similarities will be complete. At first their mission is to infiltrate and destroy but as they rise the ranks Blitzwing starts spending perhaps a little too much time with a short n’ spunky member and yup that’s Bumblebee. Defection is likely and I low key wonder if Lugnut will go with. Galra empire got hecced in the show later on so maybe Stryka wavers too. Welp, there ye go. Stryka leads resistance at the Kral Zera with the backing of the Blade of Marmora. Lugnut can fill a diplomacy role between them. Again I picture Bumblebee as being more like Ezor, a Galran half-breed but maaaaaybe more yellow than pink. Who knows, tis fun thought.

#Voltron AU #TFA AU #I figured out how to tag this but I dunno what else to tag #cw: long post

[mamthew]

My full review of Persona 5: Scramble. Some mostly minor spoilers scattered throughout, though I try to flag them in advance.

When Persona 5: Scramble was announced, my expectations were fairly low. As it was yet another Warriors spinoff of a better-known series, I expected Hyrule Warriors but with Persona characters. I thought we’d get the P5 crew, maybe even a few from P3 or P4, maybe a villain or two, mindlessly tearing through thousands of enemies in essentially interchangeable levels, justified by a threadbare, 6-hour story. The demo, then, blew me away. It was just…the beginning of a sequel to Persona 5, maintaining the locations, presentation, and characters of the original game, but with a beat ‘em up battle system. I began thinking of Scramble as a direct sequel to literally my favorite game of all time, including everything a sequel might entail. 

Having played through almost all of Persona 5: Strikers (I have started but not bothered seriously attempting New Game+ in Merciless difficulty), the game we ended up getting was halfway between those, I think. They managed to recreate the presentation of P5 impeccably, with gorgeous menus, beautiful battle effects, entertaining scene transitions, etc. However, the half of the game that isn’t dungeon-crawling is deceptively scant. The story centers around a road trip across Japan, but each city isn’t nearly as realized as P5’s Tokyo, with only about 3 rooms apiece, and some of the later ones not even getting a hub at all. The hubs really only exist to have shops, with none of the time management, minigames, or relationship building in a mainline Persona game. Still, it’s the only Persona spinoff I’ve played that has a real-life component at all, so I found it refreshing to get to wander Sendai, Okinawa, Osaka, and other towns in a game I’d initially not expected to have any towns at all.

The dungeons are where this game shines, though. They’re actual Persona 5-style dungeons, made occasionally even more dynamic with the addition of platforming and sidescrolling sections reminiscent of Nier Automata. The battle system uses the bones of the system in every warriors game, but slowly builds on it with more and more complexity until it’s not only a unique system, but is honestly one of the more engaging action battle systems I’ve played in a minute, in which you’re constantly trying to time dodges just right for extra hits, which can then open the option to either get in an extra hit with your character, which heals some SP, or switch to another character for an extra hit with them, which increases the rate at which the special gauge increases. As Joker, you have an array of Personas you can switch between on the fly, shifting your moveset, your stats, and your strategy as you go. Each of the other characters has their own gimmick that makes them unique and fun to play and sets them apart from Joker, who otherwise would have access to all their elemental attacks and stat spreads. Strategically placed objects around dungeons can be used to pull off special moves in battles, as well, letting you jump up to chandeliers and drop them on enemies or dive off of walls and tackle enemies. The battle system takes a little too long to actually become complex, but once it actually reaches that point it’s really rewarding. The bosses, too, are fun, with designs deserving of the Persona name and strategies that make full use of the environments. You can even replay them at different difficulty levels as the game goes on. I’ve never played a Koei Tecmo game with this much polish, and the battle system makes me hope the Warriors team goes to try an actual Platinum-style character action game. I think they’d knock it out of the park.

I’m a little split on the story of this game. The bones of the story are good. The characters are all written perfectly, and seeing them interact again was enough that I actually teared up a bit when I first booted up the game. I enjoy the new characters, and they work well with the party. The pacing is solid and it has a good emotional core. The villains are decent for the most part, and the ending is pretty satisfying. Several of the villains directly correlate to specific party members, too, which gives us further insight into those party members, and lets us watch as they see themselves in someone else and recognize where that other person broke off from their path. The game is in part about trauma and the ways it drives individuals to lash out at a world they’ve always believed to be cold and unforgiving, which could be a powerful message if done well. In this game, though, it’s not done very well at all. The ultimate message – if this game could be said to have one – is that individuals without support networks are driven by trauma to make bad decisions. That’s not…necessarily untrue, but it’s not…necessarily true, either. This message is probably at its worst when the game gets into inadvertently ableist territory with a character near the end, who -spoilers until the end of the paragraph- tries to essentially enslave mankind because her dissociation due to trauma convinces her that she has no emotions and therefore the species as a whole should have no emotions either. It’s…frankly a really gross bookend on a game that, until that point, had managed to avoid most of the issues with male gaze and homophobia that the original game had.

Every message in this game, though, is too individual-focused to function as a real message or social commentary. It even undercuts the sharp themes in the original by showing people in similar positions of power as the original villains just…choosing not to fall to corruption and consequently avoiding all of the problems that would arise from their power discrepancy. For a spoilery example until the end of the paragraph, the villain in Persona 5 who’s a CEO is a villain because his need to make profit drives him to exploit his workers, paying them less and working them more. The villain in Strikers who’s a CEO is a villain because his father was abusive and that led him to think people must be controlled. One is a real-world problem applicable to any CEO. The other is a story that exists only in the fictional realm.

This wouldn’t be such a glaring issue if Persona games – and especially Persona 5 – weren’t known for their social commentary. That’s not limited to the main games, either. Persona 4 Dancing was a rhythm game with a story about parasocial relationships and the pressures they place on public figures. Strikers ostensibly touches on parasocial relationships, but doesn’t…really have anything to say about them.

The game does try to make a statement sometimes, but everything it tries to say is disjointed, at odds with the previous game, or inapplicable to real life. The villains’ deeds don’t really have much similarity to each other, either, unlike in 5, and it’s stated outright that several of them would not hold any power at all without the supernatural world, which both prevents their stories from saying anything about the real world, and flies in the face of the purpose of Persona as a series. The supernatural worlds in Persona games are the collective unconscious, which means that the worlds are used to give the characters and the player visual representations of abstract concepts. The Palaces in Persona 5 are not the sources of the villains’ power; that comes from regular old societal hierarchies. The characters in Persona 4 were experiencing their inner turmoil before they were sucked into the TV world, and the midnight channel only made manifest what was already there and unseen. Conversely, the first two villains in Strikers are only in the public eye because they use supernatural means to make people like them. That the supernatural means involve smart phones doesn’t say anything about technology, because that’s not how technology actually works. In a follow-up to a game that was as furious at the world and desperate for change as Persona 5 was, it’s a glaring departure for the characters to just…befriend “the good cop,” or -spoilers again- push the mayor who’s based on Margaret Fucking Thatcher to run again but do things the “right way” this time.

That being said, I’m not actually that upset with this game. I have a lot to say about its missteps because I have a lot to say about Persona 5, but the gameplay is legitimately fun, and I do really love seeing the characters again. I’m more bemused than upset with the game’s fumbling of…the thing that made me fall in love with Persona 5 to begin with. Part of that is because the game is still so solid and fun, and the characters are written so well that I can overlook the issues. Even deeper, though, is that the last few years has radicalized so many people that the statements made in Persona 5 are simply…more visible in the mainstream than they were when it released. Late show hosts rage about the exploitation of waged workers. Video game streamers remark on the cruel arbitrariness of the current system. Shows about cops are being pushed to justify their existence to an increasingly disillusioned public. I think if Persona 5 released today, it wouldn’t have the same impact it did in 2017. To my mind, the game no longer carries the responsibility it once did. So this game is fun and doesn’t really matter, and that’s actually okay.

But if Persona 6 isn’t a return to form, I’ll take it back.

#persona 5 strikers #persona 5 #persona 5 scramble

[bowlerhatwearer]

Connor and June the forest cat

Name: Connor and June the forest cat

Nickname/Alias: Conjune (by himself and friends)

Species: Norwegian Forest Cat

Alignment:  Lawful Good

Age: 21 years

Birthplace: Suburban town of Empire city

Current residence: Misty Forest Zone

Gender: Male

Personality: withdrawn, cold, confident, smooth temper, unprovocable [in public spaces], passive, indifferent, reserved.

Hobbies: solving crosswords, playing board games or video games, reading books [mostly science fiction / realistic space novels], listening to music [mostly rock music], acting [musicals and theatre]

Likes: Space, Aerospace, Musicals and Theatres, Science Fiction, tea and tea biscuits/cookies.

Dislikes: Rushed work, go fever, coffee, deadlines, unforeseen/unexpected change of plans, Eccentrics, Hospitals, medical equipment.

Appearance:

Given that Conjune is a Norwegian Forest Cat he has long haired fur with a striped pattern that is mostly light brown and grey with the exception around his chest, eyes, and nose where it is mostly white and a bit crème coloured.

Being a Janus Cat Conjune has two faces on his head, both noses and mouths, one left, one right are on the same level (his left face is a bit lower although it needs some time and direct observation to notice that). All three of his eyes are green, his middle eye which is also bigger than the one on the left and right side appears to be staring given that it is non-functional.

His left mouth is completely developed but is not connected to the oesophagus/gullet, the trachea/windpipe, and the vocal cords, when Connor and June talk with their right mouth, the left one moves as well, given the impression that he talks with both mouths at the same time.  (The right mouth is the dominant mouth for talking, breathing eating and drinking)

History/Bio:

Born as a child with Diprosopus Connor and June was given a slim chance of survival on the first hours and days when he was born. Thankfully to a dedicated senior staff member of the delivery suite and a nurse, Connor and June survived the struggles that have been his birth and the complications afterwards. Raised by the chief physician and the nurse the forest cat spends his early days for many weeks of the years in the hospital which contributed to the Janus cat growing a dislike for medical equipment and hospitals.

Growing up in the suburbs of Empire city Connor and June would often go with his parents for a walk exploring the suburban town of the great city. It was also the old telescope from his mother’s grandfather that would spark the cat’s interest for the vast and mysterious space that holds so many unexplored secrets and unanswered questions.

When coming to the age to enrol for elementary school it was his father who at first was undecided whether to register his son for a public school or to home-school him, fearing that his son might be the victim of bullying and harassment given Connor and Junes appearance.  

It was after a long talk and conversation with his wife and colleagues from the hospital that his father accepted to enrol Connor and June into an elementary school, but not before promising him to be there for him and make sure that people who would make fun of him or prank him to make sure there would be consequences for those who would do the forest cat any harm.

Whilst Conjune unfortunately got made fun off and harassed by some [but thanks to his mothers and father’s intervention the school did react in those cases] he also made a few friends, many who would remain friends a live long and following him to the secondary school he was attending. Although the cat had his fair share of happy experiences and memories, the negative impact from some of his school colleagues also made him withdrawn and cold looking to strangers and people he had not much contact with. Whilst his family and friends knew him, for others he appeared distant.

In the secondary school Connor and June discovered his passion not only for physics and mathematics, but also it was there where his interest in theatre awoke and the reason, he joined the school’s theatre club. Despite being someone who preferred to be alone from time to time and not being a extroverted person, it longed Connor and June to be part of a stage play where people would see them play minor part or perhaps one day even a major role.  

It was unfortunately a rocky start due of the senior theatre director being heavily unfriendly, antagonistic, and even ableist to Connor and June which almost prompted the cat to leave as a member of the club. Fortunately, the junior theatre club director had a different view and attitude towards Connor and June and was more than eager for the cat to join, having seen the cats acting skills the junior director saw the potential of the forest cats acting and recruited him for his first roll in one of the musicals. With the senior directors (early) retirement Connor and June would act in different rolls and theatre plays trough the years of secondary school.

When reaching the age of sixteen the cats parents admitted to their son, that they are in fact not, his biological parents but had adopted him which led for some time to a fallout between him and his parents as well as him often staying with friends. Whilst both his mother and father assured him that they kept it for this long to themselves not for ill meaning but rather being ashamed of how his biological parents threated and acted towards their new. Leading his mother who was a friend of his parents, breaking up the contact with them. The northern forest cat was still hurt by for how long his parents have kept this information from him. Resulting in him not trusting them for some time.

Searching for his biological parents to get closure, Connor and June experienced by himself just how distant his biological parents are to him by when he finally had the strength to meet with them, his “parents” send out their butler at the manor to tell him to go away and not to return. Over time the fallout with his adoptive parents got resolved and Connor and June sees them as their true parents for how they cared and loved him going so far that when his biological parents suddenly passed away he did not accept the inheritance that lawfully would he had the right to claim. Making his reclusive younger sibling the sole heir.

Having passed his final exam Conjune decided to take a different path. Despite his liking for musicals and other forms of theatrical plays, the wasted potential of space exploration around his home-planet and their solar system inspired the cat to enlist into a studying program for aerospace engineering which he passed a few years later. With the degree of an Aerospace engineer and the lessons of business economics and business management, Connor and June had the requirements to open his own aerospace manufacturing and space transportation company which he called “Twin Wing Corp.”

The search for co-workers and investors was stressful and tiring, being able to convince people to invest their money for a company that brought people and satellites into space was a tiring task. Thanks to his dedication, hard work and success in bringing experimental equipment and construction parts alike, Connor and June stand out as a reliable head of the company pleasing his investors and fans for space exploration alike

Currently Connor and June are planning for a manned space exploration to their neighbour planet that he and many others are eager to explore since it is the planet with the highest habitability next to their own home world.

~~~~~~

Special Thanks: I would like to thank @freakova who read this character sheet beforehand and not only helped me improving my writing but also gave great input for Connor and June. Many thanks to her for giving me the encouragement to write and publish this Sonic OC. 

#Sth #Sonic #Sonic OC #OC from me #IDW Sonic #Writing #Diprosopus #Janus Cat #Writing from me #Written by me #Fandom #Sonic Fandom #Connor and June the Cat #Connor and June #Conjune

[words-writ-in-starlight]

bruh my cousin is an anti-vaxxer (despite our uncle having gotten polio bc the vaccine didn't exist when he contracted it - he literally missed it by a couple of years) and one of her kids recently infected our aunt (her MOM) with something that landed her in hospital which could've been completely preventable and avoidable if she'd just vaccinated the kid... i don't understand anti-vaxxers AT ALL

I managed to resist getting in a fight almost all the way through Thanksgiving...until someone pulled out some Top Grade Bullshit about vaccines, at which point I ripped into one of my dad’s friends like a cheap chew toy.  I just.

Oh my god, I’m so angry about it.  It’s just especially hilarious, in a sick kind of way, to talk to someone about vaccines and hear them go “Oh, no, of course I’m not vaccinating my kid" and then I go “but your parents vaccinated you, right” and they go “yes, because [thing] was really an epidemic when I was younger” with a complete failure to understand the conflict there.  Literally don’t even try me with the pitch of “most of those diseases are harmless anyway, no one dies from chicken pox.”  First of all, even if absolutely no one died from chicken pox, shingles is really hideously miserable and I feel like avoiding it is a reasonable desire.  Second of all, almost every disease people point to and go “this is not really a problem” is probably more dangerous than that.  You’re not worried about pertussis because you’re an adult, and you had it and you were fine?  Did you KNOW that whooping cough kills one in two hundred children who contract it before they’re two?  Did you KNOW that most of the children who contract it are in that age range because their vaccines aren’t up yet and they are vulnerable to the assholes around them who don’t get their shots?  Oh, what about measles?  No one dies from measles, right?  NOPE, about one in one thousand people (usually children) who contract measles die outright from the disease.  If that number doesn’t do it for you, more end up with serious complications ranging from encephalitis or meningitis, both of which can be incredibly dangerous, to serious birth defects if a pregnant woman contracts the disease.  Also, did you KNOW that measles wipes your immune system of past immune codings, in a phenomenon called “immune amnesia”?  Say bye-bye to your naturally acquired chicken pox immunity you were so pleased with, and adults absolutely DO die of chicken pox you shrieking coat rack.

“““““““It’s just the flu”““““““““

INFLUENZA KILLED MORE PEOPLE IN FOUR MONTHS THAN WORLD WAR ONE KILLED IN FOUR YEARS.  THE REASON YOU CAN TALK ABOUT “JUST THE FLU” IS BECAUSE BEING VACCINATED AGAINST MULTIPLE STRAINS OF THE VIRUS MAKES YOUR SYSTEM MORE EQUIPPED TO FIGHT BACK AGAINST A NEW ONE.  DON’T TALK TO ME ABOUT “JUST THE FLU.”

See, the problem is that vaccines are getting better and safer and more effective and we as a species are forgetting to be afraid.  Vaccines are so good that they have convinced people that sickness is nothing to fear, because we started vaccinating people for the worst illnesses first.  We vaccinated one of the top killers out of existence when the smallpox vaccine was developed.  Measles was gone from the US in 2000, after having been so common that people thought it was just acne for seven year olds.  We went from a near-100% infection rate to none, and now we’re back to having endemic infections all over the nation and the world, costing lives because people decided to chug their Ableist Jackass juice.

Modern medicine is good but we cannot fix everything.  Tetanus and whooping cough and mumps and measles and chicken pox and influenza still kill people.  The complications leave people with permanent damage to organs (*waves* that’s me! hi!) or loss of function in nerves or any number of other issues.  Children and people with chronic illnesses and transplant patients and everyone else who can’t be vaccinated depend on us, the rest of the world, to protect them from those illnesses, which, AGAIN, can kill them.  These diseases are still something to be wary of, and vaccines are safer and more effective at protecting against them than any other method in the world.

I just can’t believe how careless people are with the lives of those around them, with the lives of their children.  I just.  I can’t fathom it.

Listen to me.  We have a vaccine for the virus that causes over 90% of cervical cancers, plus a huge percentage of oral and genital cancers across the board.  Let me repeat that: we have a vaccine.  For cancer.  That’s the goddamn Holy Grail.  Curing cancer is great, but the ideal is to never have cancer in the first place!  The HPV vaccine is safe and effective and should have been hailed as the next staple of pediatric medicine!

Instead, people are so invested in their kid not having a bit of redness and swelling from a shot, or in their kid not getting one more vaccine, or HPV just really not being that bad, that getting kids the shot is an uphill battle every step of the way.

It’s a vaccine for cancer.  Not six days of itching or a month of coughing but cancer.  And we’re still out here fighting over it.

I will never understand looking at that and saying “No, I don’t want that for my child.”

Sorry for this rant but holy shit I’m furious about it.

#vaccines #vaccinate your spawn #PLEASE vaccinate your spawn good god people #i put a cut in this because i was absolutely HAZY with wrath and could NOT shut up about it #i'll literally never understand refusing to vaccinate for anything less than an absolute medical inability #like! the tdap makes me sick i'm allergic to the preservative! #i still get the damn shot! #because A) i don't want to get pertussis and rupture a lung or some shit #and B) i don't want to risk the people around me with a highly contagious disease! #whatever whatever whatever i'm fine #don't even worry about it folks #i've been stewing about this all day #a queue we will keep and our honor someday avenge #Anonymous #asked and answered

[koalas-koalas-everywhere]

Regarding Vulcans and autism

Since why the hell not make it a series with recognizable titles that will make it easy to look up and create links for if I ever make enough of them for it to be worth it. Disclaimer: it might be hard to understand what I’m getting at without reading the other posts since this isn’t supposed to be, like, a comprehensive analysis on how one is like the other.

Thing is, as an Aspie woman, I can see perfectly well how Vulcans expressing nothing but neutrality gets twisted in reception and interpreted as smugness/disdain, and autism (or at least Asperger’s, I am sorta more knowledgeable about one than the other) does tend to include self-awareness issues that leads to feelings of superiority and/or inferiority, and with the most recognizably “autistic” (either explicitly or through coding) being the Sheldon Coopers and the BBC Sherlock types, the assumption that anyone like them in some ways will follow in others (heck, might be why pop culture has accepted Holmes as an asshole at all, since he wasn’t that bad in the stories but he WAS smart and eccentric and every once in a while disdaindful of the people whose jobs he did better than them) is not unexpected.

The problem’s not really there because I actually have faith that we could have talked about it and raised awareness of not only this case, but also made people question why seeing a smart(er), seemingly cold but all-around just neutral characters or races made everyone raise their hackles to such a degree, assume that they’re actually mostaken about their skills (literally have seen people go “but what if Vulcans only think they’re some of the best scientists around bc they’re supercilious assholes and it’s just not true”)and wrong about life in general. Don’t get me wrong, I do get the impulse ever since Star Trek (2009), but, well, that’s just the thing, that’s where the problem is. Because we could have talked about it in fandom and be friends about it, but now there are TWO official canon sources that depict the Vulcans as intolerant, xenophobic, racist, ableist hypocrites, and not only is it harder to argue with actual canon telling you that you were right about your worst assumptions, but now you’ve seen them be actually WORSE than you first thougt, and to your faves, and in such a way that none of their positive/redeeming qualities (say, being all of that stuff sorta kinda messes up the whole IDIC thing, but it wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t doing it out out of malice, but out of ignorance and genuine misunderstanding, and if the only members who were shown to be sorta kinda decent weren’t at least partly from a different species (u.s., uh, I mean, us) and/or implied to have been influenced by a different culture) were shown. In fact, those good qualities, such as their pacifism, reverence for life, belief and respect for diversity, their curiosity and constant push for knowledge that probably wouldn’t let them just let a kid fall by the wayside becuase he was dyslexic (“there is no other wisdom, and no hope for us, but that we grow wise”), their deep attachment to their morality that’s even more important to them than to be liked by the other members of the Federation COUGH COUGH AUTISM MUCH COUGH COUGH were the first to be dropped in favour of what’s anathema to all of this, the last one in particular was turned on its head so it wasn’t that they used their logic to arrive to the most compassionate and fair choice, and it had to be logic since emotion would resist a sacrifice in a way logic won’t, making logic the compassionate choice (as they saw it, I don’t think it’s universally true, but also not universaly false), but that they were mich more willing to let people suffer and to look the other way and not be affected at all because, I don’t know, they mistook logic, which is a tool, with efficiency, which is a goal, I’d guess.

They lost the best things about them because freaking J J Abrams decided to make movies about a franchise he didn’t even like and then, even though all of it could have stayed in a parallel universe were, as many have proposed, Vulcans were worse because the Kelvin accident led people to know what Romulans looked like earlier so THEY were worse and everyone was just an asshole to each other, but then Discovery took a leaf out of his book and used his version of Vulcans and even changed old characters to fit this new version better (Sarek doesn’t disagree with Starfleet because of its bellicosity [you can’t even argue that he still disaproves of violence because he spent the worst part of the war following General Cornwell around and idk commiting mind crimes] or because he sees it as a rejection from Spock [since he says he’ll keep his distance because it’s what Spock would want and what the fuck even was that?] and he’s a cold bastard who’d take a child to a completely different culture than the one she’s used to purely for superficial beliefs and even then he’ll still prioritize his more Vulcan son, Amanda doesn’t think Vulcan’s is a hard but better way [and honestly she wouldn’t be justified to] so since she can’t be staying because of her children since they’re being mistreated, she must be doing it because of Sarek which is just so feminist, you guys, and ok, I better change topics before this becomes an “everything that’s wrong about Disco with a sidenote of everything that’s not objectively wrong but I still didn’t like”, but also, Vulcan brains can literally lobotomize themselves while dealing with trauma, don’t you think they’d take mental health seriously?) so now it’s canon in the original universe, too. Even with Enterprise (which, to be honest, I haven’t watched, I’ve only learned what was going on with Vulcans from Memory Alpha and the recounting might hace left events and/or the essence and implications of the plotline out), the tomfoolery was supposed to be Romulans infiltrating the government and twisting Surak’s teachings, all of this is supposed to be how things vecame after they got his katra back and went through the Reform.

And this got long, but the thing is: it’s not just about the Vulcans. It’s about the fact that some of the worst assumptions made about them were recognizable at least by this one Aspie as, among other things, a neurotypical’s response to an autistic trait and a long history of negative autistic coding, and now they’ve been confirmed by canon, so instead of having a nice discussion and maybe a bit of disk horse about this, we’ve gotta deal with the fact that now some people feel legitimally repelled by and resentful of Vulcans (insofar as any emotion applies to fiction) because they are now the bigots and oppressors - now it’s not a one episode race of black&white and white&black people ridiculously pointing at the obvious differences between each other, but Vulcans who have said and done bigoted things many people have been exposed to during their lives, and if they were ever willing to give them, and by extension us, a chance, now it’s ruined. I am not, of course, saying that if you hate Vulcans, especially now, you’re ableist, or that making them the Asshole^tm will turn people ableist. Just that it would have been nice to see people like me who didn’t end up justifiably despised.*

*Especially through character assassination, couldn’t you have at least made them unlikeable from the start?

#Star Trek #Vulcans #Spock #am I metaing yet? #I don’t know #it’s been bothering me #because I really love Vulcans and all of this seems like a permanent giant stain

[smallhatlogan]

Why Nonbinary Borderlands Fans are Mad About Zer0′s Pronouns, In a Timeline

2012

Zer0 was introduced in Borderlands 2 as a character meant to be absurdly mysterious in almost every way.  Zer0 is apparently not their real name, they seem not to be human (but it’s unclear if they’re an alien, robot, or something else entirely), no one knows where they came from, etc. Still, in Borderlands 2, they defaulted to he/him, and was assumed male.  It’s worth noting that Borderlands 2 also featured Bloodwing, Mordecai’s pet alien bird. In the original Borderlands Bloodwing was referred to as he/him, but switched between games to she/her. This is explained outside the game by Burch, who says that Bloodwing’s species changes gender halfway through life.

2013

Gearbox released the Diamond Plate Loot Chest. In it was the “Pandoran Gazette” an in-universe newspaper. It included an “Ask Doctor Tannis” advice column, the last question being:

Dear Doctor Tannis,

I have heard you are acquainted with the vault hunter known as "Zer0". I have been meaning to ask - that's not really his true name, is it? Hell, maybe Zer0 isn't even a "he". Do you have any details on this mysterious figure?

- Curious in Old Haven

Dear Curious,

I am indeed acquainted with the towering stack of leather and poorly-written poetry that so many refer to as "Zer0". As you have correctly noted, "Zer0" is not the Vault Hunter's true name. Zer0's actual name and gender are (CONTINUED ON PAGE 9)

Page 9 was not included. To my knowledge, this was where it was first seeded that Zer0 may not be male. 

November 2, 2014

 In a panel titled “Playing as a female character panel - Does it Matter” during PAX Australia, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford discussed Zer0’s gender:

“The other things that’s interesting to me is sometimes when there’s characters that don’t have a gender or have an ambiguous gender I’ll choose them...In Borderlands 2 we left Zer0’s identity very ambiguous. What gender is he?” *crowd laughs* “We need better pronouns, don’t we? Don’t we need better pronouns?” (Timestamp) 

“What’s the gender of Zer0?….That says more about me than it does say about Zer0, the fact that I use the pronoun he when I describe Zer0. In fact, um, we purposely have left Zer0’s gender ambiguous. There’s a lot of folks at Gearbox that like to think that maybe Zer0’s of a particular species that doesn’t have gender- That is more androgynous.”  (Timestamp) 

(Timeline continues under cut)

November 25th, 2014

The first episode of Tales From the Borderlands was released. Anthony Burch answered this question on his Ask.fm: 

To my memory, tumblr blew up with excited nonbinary fans. Prior to seeing screenshots of this, I really didn’t have interest in Borderlands. The idea of a cool nonbinary character who used they/them pronouns, admist a virtual desert of representation, made me play through the entire series as fast as I could so I could catch up in time to see these pronouns in action. For a long time afterwards I’ve seen other nonbinary people expressing the same sudden interest in the series after learning this about Zer0. Because, yeah, it was a pretty big deal. 

2015: 

Zer0 appeared again in episode 5 of Tales, released almost a year later after the first. Their voice had changed to one that sounds more ambiguous in terms of gender, but Zer0 was still being referred to as “he/him”. Anthony Burch was one of the writers on this episode. Afterward, he answered this on his ask.fm:

Since he claimed it was honestly a mistake, nonbinary fans held out hope. There were posts going around tumblr clarifying that yes, Zer0 was still nonbinary, and still was meant to use they/them pronouns. It was just a mistake made by a thoughtless cisgender man. Of course, then some presumably-cisgender fan goes to Burch, and validates him, because clearly a character can’t just up and CHANGE pronouns! It’s not like anyone ever does that in real life! 

It’s not a fair point. It’s a dumb point from someone who has no stakes in this.  (Another thing worth noting is it has only been other characters who referred to Zer0 as he/him. Zer0 has never made a point of standing up for their own pronouns.) After this Burch just kind of gives up on the whole idea. 

This statement about characters being “progressive enough not to misgender someone” is weird, because the characters, even the sympathetic ones, in Borderlands have often blatantly failed to be progressive. The original Borderlands has the worst of it, it’s your basic 2009 edgelord shit. There’s blatant misogyny, not to mention the extremely homophobic joke surrounding Mr. Shank (and within that the transphobic joke about his girlfriend being a man in a wig). Burch only started writing for the game in Borderlands 2, however. It’s a huge step up, but there’s still a lot of bigotry. Captain Scarlett makes a “no fatties” joke. Mr Torgue fat-shames Ellie. Mr Torgue uses the R-slur. Multiple characters slut-shame Moxxi. Incest jokes surrounding Scooter, who also is implied to be a huge creep towards women.  Heck, there’s the entirety of Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt DLC is a racist, colonialist mess. Its antagonist is implied to be gay, one of two gay male characters introduced thus far, and he’s a pathetic, creepy stalker.  This is the game series where there are two common enemy types whose names are straight up ableist.  So citing characters as being “too progressive” rings hollow with this context.  Besides, trans people are often misgendered, even by people who’d otherwise be considered progressive.  Burch left Gearbox the same year, so he’s not entirely to blame for what anything afterwards. He just set a pretty bad precedent.

2019:

Gearbox did seem to take the “make a new nonbinary character” thing to heart.  They give us Fl4k, again a nonhuman character, who uses they/them pronouns. And okay, I love Fl4k, but like most nonbinary people I’m tired of all nonbinary characters being robots, aliens, or otherwise non-human in appearance (a trope that yes, Zer0 falls into as well). Still, Fl4k is cute and having a nonbinary playable character who uses they/them pronouns is cool! I definitely plan to play as them. Many nonbinary fans were suspicious though, it seemed likely that Fl4k might be meant to appease us and they could keep on using he/him for Zer0. We were proven right when they released the gameplay preview on May 1st. We hear Zer0 called “he”. None of us are surprised, but it still hurts, we felt like we’d been baited with Zer0.  Besides, why can only one character at a time be nonbinary? Why can a bird change pronouns but not a person? Why was a writer allowed to go out and promise this if it wasn’t going to be followed through on (yes, he didn’t use the word “promise” but telling a marginalized group something like that isn’t something you can just “forget” without people feeling betrayed)?

And that’s where we’re at, as of me writing this. I feel like there are some comments I’m bound to get on this, so I’ll answer them here: Why are you making such a big deal about this?

Me typing a few paragraphs isn’t making a big deal. But I feel misled and baited. After a few years of no clarification after Burch promising us they/them Zer0, a lot of people hung on to hope. A lot of people became big fans of Zer0 because they’re a fun, badass, nonbinary character. Their design is really, really rad! And heck, they were (at least for a time) the most popular playable character in Borderlands 2. Telling everyone, in-game, “actually Zer0 was never really a he, they’ve been a ‘they’ this whole time” would have been HUGE. Like how Blizzard made Overwatch’s poster girl, Tracer, canonically a lesbian, and then revealed their badass gruff guy (who fills the roll of your basic FPS protagonist), Soldier 76, to be a gay man. They/them are still not widely accepted pronouns. For us who use them, it’s difficult to convince people not to default to something gendered. Especially when we fail to appear completely androgynous. I’ve been told Zer0 can’t possibly be nonbinary because they have a deep voice and “masculine” body shape. But real nonbinary people come in all shapes and sizes with all kinds of voices! 

What about Fl4k?

As I said, I’m very happy about Fl4k. They fall into some problematic tropes even more than Zer0 (as Fl4k is verified beyond a doubt to be a robot, and has an “acceptable” androgynous shape to them). I don’t know their voice yet, I wouldn’t be surprised if it also fell into the category of “acceptably androgynous”. Fl4k is new and already “they/them”. Zer0 is an established character who already has a lot of fans among a bunch of different groups of people. There’s definite value in demonstrating a character can switch pronouns, since pretty much every nonbinary person who uses they/them haven’t used those pronouns their entire life. Besides, there can and should be more than one nonbinary character.  Fl4k being nonbinary but not Zer0 kind of feels like Gearbox expects us to shut up and be happy with what we’re given.

What about nonbinary people who use he/him pronouns? Can’t Zer0 be that?

Those people are real and valid.  However, we’re talking about real people versus a fictional character. I admit I’d feel better if it was stated, in-game, “Yeah, Zer0 is nonbinary and uses he/him”. But even then, it’s REALLY EASY for cisgender people to ignore that information and write Zer0 off as male (And knowing gearbox, they’d put it somewhere easily missed. I’ve surprised so many straight people who’d played through Borderlands 2 with the fact that Sir Hammerlock is gay, simply because it was only verified in a side quest). And you know, we were promised they/them, so like, not doing that kind of sucks. Also I think it’s really important to normalize they/them.

So what are we supposed to do about this? What do you expect to change, anyways?

Honestly? I don’t expect Gearbox to fix this so late. In all likelihood, that’s way too much dialogue to re-record. But I still think it’s worth making our voices heard. We shouldn’t silently put up with this kind of thing. Other people will pull the same shit, being either unsympathetic or unaware of the harm they do. And heck, it’s unlikely, but maybe Gearbox will at least acknowledge their wrongdoing.

Also, it’s maybe worthwhile to ignore canon, and keep referring to Zer0 as “they/them”, or if this whole thing is news to you, it’s not too late to start. It would mean a lot to nonbinary fans, and make a point about how Zer0 is regarded.

#borderlands #borderlands 3 #zer0 the assassin #misgendering #tftbl #anthony burch #zer0 #nonbinary #transgender #representation

[wingsoffireconfessions]

Wait, isnt it just good writing when a character has opinions other than the authors? Like isnt that the point of writing villains and such? Why does tui have to support the ableist tropes she writes sorry I dont get it o.o

It can be good writing, yes. Pretty much any story with an antagonist relies on the author being able to write characters that have views different from their own.

The issue here, condensed because I can go on about this for a very long time, is that none of the characters in Wings of Fire have much in the way of opinions beyond Being The Protagonist And Doing What’s Right. Pretty much every character is... the equivalent to a cardboard cutout, especially in this scene. 

I’m putting a break here because I’m going to go into detail, which... most of you won’t read, but I’m writing it anyway.

The main characters who are present for this conversation are Tsunami, Turtle, Qibli and Moonwatcher. What good characterization would be here would be, for examples;

Tsunami, who met Tamarin during the queen challenges and later likely saw her in passing frequently at JMA, is surprised that Anemone is making that kind of spell, because she hasn’t noticed Tamarin having any issues with being blind. She doesn’t take either ‘side’ to the issue, but notes that Starflight has had more issue with his lost vision than Tamarin does, and considers having a talk with Anemone about what her powers should be used for.

Turtle, as someone who also has such powers, states outright that he doesn’t like magic being used like that; that it causes enough trouble when just healing injuries and it shouldn’t be used as a cure-all solution. He’s also worried that Anemone is using too much of her magic, even if it is under the only-for-good enchantment, and wants her to stop and consider her spells more just in case magic-induced madness is still a thing.

Qibli, having grown up in areas where fighting is common and injuries even more so, probably would also dislike Tamarin being cured - but he may feel that way because he’s seen worse injuries, and thinks that the results of violence should be addressed first. He has a focus on people being happy and working together; he’d probably see magic being used on someone who’s already happy as a waste. As someone who turned down the chance to be an animus, he probably also doesn’t see the point in using magic to ‘solve’ an issue that can be dealt with through more practical means.

Moonwatcher, having just seen her entire tribe brainwashed with magical gifts by a two thousand year old all-powerful genocidal manipulator, probably would be pretty set against anyone having any kind of magic used on them, especially without their explicit consent. I can’t fathom Moonwatcher as a character hearing about someone being enchanted out of the blue and not being super freaked out about it.

The issue with the writing here is that all of these characters, who all would have different views and opinions on this kind of spell, all just let it pass without comment. That’s not the characters having different opinions than the author - that’s the author not bothering to give the characters different opinions. None of them have any opinion about it, and that’s the problem; because these characters having the background they do should make them have opinions on this.

The issue here is that because none of the characters make any note of this, it means it was written in as a throw-away line. The characters weren’t meant to have a reaction to it; it was an example of a spell that Tui could use to show magic was no longer working. Right? The problem with that is that something like that isn’t a throwaway line. That’s a spell that has moral issues, which was used as a throwaway line, which is not challenged inside or outside of the text. Which means, by extension, Tui didn’t see ‘curing a disabled character’ as anything notable. Are you following so far?

There are infinite options that could have taken the place of Anemone’s spell that would have been genuine throw-away lines. Like... Anemone tried to fix a tear on one of Tamarin’s school bags, or something, and the tear didn’t mend. That would have fit the situation, and would have been both a nod to Anemone’s crush and an innocent, throw-away act with no moral complications. What it means is that Tui looked at Tamarin and Anemone, thought ‘what spells could Anemone do to help Tamarin?’ and what came to mind was curing her disability. 

The context that the event is in and the brevity of the attention given to it show that Tui really didn’t consider it worth spending time on - that Anemone curing her crush’s disability, potentially against her will, wasn’t an event that needed any focus given to it. And that’s why the text reflects ableism on to Tui; because it’s written in a way where it’s not supposed to matter to the characters or to the readers. 

And to divert back to characters having different opinions than the author, rather than this specific event; yes, characters having different opinions than the author is normal and shows good writing. Wings of Fire doesn’t have that; the conflict is pretty much always ‘I’m The Good Guy’ versus ‘I’m The Bad Guy’. Even in the third arc so far, the protagonists are the ones who think Violence Is The Bad Solution, but... they don’t expand on that. 

A character who is an owned slave fighting the system that enslaves him should have a different opinion on violence than the slaveowner who Isn’t As Bad As The Others, but they don’t - and then the other slaves are portrayed as completely useless without the slaveowner’s help or as needlessly violent for wanting to kill their oppressors but that’s a whole other post that I’m going to get called out for later. The slavery plot of the third arc does not improve with The Hive Queen, guys, Blue and Swordtail literally spend most of the book disguised as Cricket’s slaves and it’s mentioned in passing like, once. Again, another post, for later, because I have a lot of words on that topic.

Anyways, yeah. Characters having different opinions is good! None of the characters in Wings of Fire have different opinions; they may have different motivations, or goals, but not opinions* - which means that the protagonists are all, by extension, echoing the author’s beliefs. 

*The only ‘opinions’ shown to be different are those where a character thinks a species of dragon is useless / powerless / etc because they’ve been told that, and it’s later proven factually that that ‘opinion’ was incorrect and then once that knowledge is known, the ‘opinion’ of all characters in the know changes instantly. ‘RainWings are lazy and useless’ doesn’t count as a different opinion in the early books, because as soon as RainWings are shown to not be lazy and useless, those who see that change their opinion instantly and with no issue whatsoever. It’s also worth noting that it’s never the protagonist - the Dragonets of Destiny don’t ever think Glory is less capable than they are, Blue thinks from the start that Not All HiveWings Are Bad. Protagonists are inevitably right in their assumptions, pretty much every time.

#wings of fire #wof #mod posts #canon critical #long post #mild thq spoilers but nothing related to the plot itself #Anonymous #ask