#Also this isn't a place for media discourse just KILL!!!!!!!!!!!

[jerktournament]

11 more polls left to draft up babeyyyy! I'm done working for today.

To nourish you all until the polls are done, here is a baby for-fun poll i pulled out of my ass. This has nothing to do with the main poll.

#i tried really hard to think of characters i want to turn into dust and kill forever #i tried to go with ones i thought would be semi-known. (LOL dude really tried to sneak kromer in like we wouldn't notice !!) #i hate them all. i'm crushing them with my fists. die #poll #txt #erm #not main poll #Also this isn't a place for media discourse just KILL!!!!!!!!!!! #csm #pmmm #limbus company #fma

[gazelessmenagerie]

No one:

me, waking up bc for some reason the heater is up and I am sweating to have to get up and crack open the window: .... The reason I focus hard on the personal struggles and inner turmoil of Broly is just because that’s how I see his character aside from the terrifying psycho he is when all hell breaks loose from him after years of what could be trauma. Yeah everyone loves his lssj form but fuck if i don’t like seeing what could possibly go on beneath the surface. What aspects could be warped or driven to be a certain way because its all he ever knew and how would it affect him when small changes are coaxed into him through repeated interactions and slowly getting used to having someone around that he legitimately becomes accustomed to.

another part of my brain: ... is this also an elaborate way to say I have no goddamn idea what to do with the lssj because in my head, he can basically obliterate just about anything? yes. yes it is. the only valid way I can see him actually getting into trouble outside of powerful transformations by capable individuals or their own power alone is actually Himself because his Anger is so prevalent that it stresses him out without the aid of that suppression device forcing him to calm down (or having certain people in some cases that manage to have enough of a bond to him that he is capable of calming down to their efforts or ways they employ). Honestly, what sort of after effects could happen to him being used to this device and the feelings it forced upon and then suddenly getting his freedom away from it? The bastard’s more intelligent than he lets on and its evident through watching him fight with what could very well just be ambush tactics and throwing his weight around as what he probably learned from growing up watching other predatory animals as he grew into power.

The Heehoo part of my brain: ... Him being a fucking psycho is hot but lmfao I don’t think I can use it much outside of plotted threads or drabbles. I blame some artists for capturing that side of him so well in illustrative mediums and I hope to one day get to that level but in a literary sense (along with artistic but that’s already a bit of a work in progress)

My body: can the cold air get in here faster? sweating up a damn storm from the heater being too high.

#|| Character Study: {Broly} #( and then I look on twitter and realize... wrow #( glad I'm not interested in any db discourse bc gd. the amount of people I'd need to block would be staggering. ) #( I just throw some choice pieces of art I do and call it a day. read some of the nice comments and fade back to here ) #( where I can splurge my ideas and wants with this fucking asshole villain and flourish. ) #( love it when he finally gets some better things but also love it when he becomes deranged and a damned menace ) #( adfljg idk. could be me overanalyzing my own muse bc I don't touch upon his viciously darker aspects as much ) #( precisely because he can fucking destroy almost anyone in an actual fight up until they surpass his lssj and then ) #( he'd eventually break his own power ceiling in attaining even higher forms. ) #( BUT. that isn't to say all forms are available to him and others require a monumentous amount of work from him ) #( on the personal growth level to actually be acheivable in the first place. ) #( I want him to fucking struggle with himself. I want him to struggle against factors he never anticipated before and has to adapt in ways ) #( beyond his instinctual habit of getting fucking pissed off. ) #( and in the same token. seeing how destructive it becomes not only to the environment/battle but to himself is just another ) #( facet I enjoy exploring and I kinda lowkey wish the actual show or maybe some medium of media could tap into that ) #( than make him just the secret boss again or like an add-in for something. idk afnlsdgj ) #( I love the fucking nuggets I get from such smaller pieces like him getting amnesiac and actually being a bit better. ) #( to how much of a drastic change of mind he gets talking to him in xenoverse and picking apart his dialogue in a ) #( constant state of lssj vs what his actual personality might be when he's in base form. ) #( still an asshole but at least he could be reasoned with a little more... or he just flat out kills you bc he fucking can and its funny ) #( the thoughts I have about this asshole are many and I only wish I could write them down and explore them without being limited to ) #( time. motivation and availability on myself and others adsnflgj ) #( thx for coming to my morning ted talk alfahsldhgkdjslgj )

[lily-orchard]

Since this appears to be the topic this month, what do you think about topics that artists should be allowed to cover? I see this a lot in how people should be allowed to write whatever they want, often bringing up Lolita as an example.

As one of my favourite creators once said: There is no right to be heard.

One problem with this kind of discourse is that regardless of whether you think they should or not, people are free to have whatever opinion about you that they like. More often than not discussions about what is wise to create or what is responsible to create gets twisted by some truly awful people into conversations about what is "allowed."

It's like how criticism gets rebuked with "let people enjoy things." We're not stopping you.

Someone saying "You writing about this is an endorsement of it" is not actually infringing on your rights in any way. You have the right to yell "Ban this sick filth" as much as you fucking please.

That having been said, it's always interesting when Lolita gets brought up in these arguments because Lolita is usually brought up to defend brazenly pornographic Lolicon shit, when it's a completely irrelevant comparison.

Lolita is not a love story. Lolita is a psychological examination of a self-pitying criminal and the consequences and human costs of his heinous crimes.

This isn't something you could stick beside AO3 fetish porn because the authors of AO3 fetish porn are the SUBJECT and VILLAIN of the book. It's like trying to put "Riding in Cars with Boys" next to a Republican propaganda film about the righteousness of teen mothers and shotgun weddings.

If it were released today it'd be branded by the people using it as a cudgel as 'hateful propaganda for the antis.'

You already have the right to write whatever you please, and I or any other critical voice can't take that from you no matter how much or little any of us might want to. So bear that in mind as I make my next point:

Dark material only works if you have something to say. You have to do something with it. You could do something with it and fail, but failure is something the rest of us learn from. Even bad art has a place in history, if only to serve as some 'how not to do it' guide.

But there's this recent trend that, as an artist myself, has always fucking irked me. And that's "let's watch them get worse." Where you take the darkest material that you can possibly think of ("you" being a white suburban woman whose idea of getting freaky involves fuzzy handcuffs you got at Dollar Tree) and then you just sit there with it and do nothing. You just watch things get worse and worse and the thing we're supposed to take away from it is... nothing. Because it was made to shock the normies.

I played a game like this for the upcoming video and the only thing about it that was actually shocking was the disparity between how it was marketed and sold vs the actual product. It was utterly artless from start to finish, with only one or two moments that provided anything more thought provoking than "Wow what a whack-a-doodle." But even with that 'refuge in audacity' it was still weirdly afraid of itself to the point that it would pass the Hayes Code if it were released 70 years ago.

I think in the script I actually describe the writing as the living embodiement of "Ha ha just kidding unless."

It establishes that its protagonist is not a good person, and then all but one of the people they kill also had it coming. For something that billed itself as 'edgy' that was just fucking sad.

But that's really where we're at. We have a large group of people who want edgy, taboo-defying media, but they also want that media to comfortably fit into the fandom cycle. And really edgy material doesn't do that because part of being edgy is having a point to make. And if your story has a theme, it doesn't fit into the fandom cycle.

This has always been the contradiction between people who want "serious art" and the reality of how those same people consume art in the first place. They want serious art, but the characters still have to be malleable for headcanons and shipping. The characters still have to be pristine and sexy for the simps. So any theme the work has will be blunted so hard that it suits the censorship standards of almost a century ago.

And that section of art, that I used to call "Adventure Fantasy" when it was just limited to animation but now I need to find a new name for it, is one I truly believe has no right to exist.

[ceasarslegion]

Ive made my stance on oppenheimer discourse very clear but one detail of it that really bothers me is the "movies about sad white men are always bad" attitude, and i didnt really know why until i was able to sit down and parse it out.

Here's the thing. I have a film degree, I've spent more time in movie theaters than I have sleeping and I've easily seen more films and shows than all of my peers combined. Which isn't a flex btw, I'm a little hermit who prefers the warm embrace of a cinema seat to human connection and is the most annoying mfer imaginable during family movie night; don't be like me.

But I know hollywood, I know cinema history, and I know the legitimate frustration this attitude comes from. Hollywood doesn't like to take risks, they have to historically be dragged kicking and screaming into any territory that isn't a guaranteed profit, which usually means that we get periods of stagnation where every film is the same goddamn formula over and over again until audiences get sick of it and stop buying tickets en masse. Hollywood also tends to reflect the dominant culture and the sociopolitical issues of the time, but not SOOO much that you'd rock the boat. As an exec, you wanna hit that sweet spot where audiences relate to your films without them being so blatant that they'd cause them to question things that weren't acceptable to question. Noir was a picture-perfect example of that.

And in the modern day, that DOES tend to translate into the weird genre of Sad White Man Who Regrets Killing Foreigners movies. Like American Sniper. But I've seen American Sniper, so I can speak on how lowkey disturbing I found it, and the history it's based in and the goals it had as an art piece were to make you sympathize with a system of corruption. And here's my unpopular opinion: if done RIGHT, those films still have a place within the cinematic sphere of influence, like if you made a film exploring the psyche and experiences of what leads a man to willingly participate in a system like that, but that's not really what it was.

Now let's move onto Oppenheimer and other films like it. I don't think these films are at ALL equivalent to films like American Sniper, even if they follow a sad white man who regrets killing foreigners. You are looking at the bare bones surface level of it and assuming its contents both real world and dramatized and judging it based on that instead of the, well, actual film.

One of the biggest differences here is that Oppenheimer WAS an important historical figure just, objectively. Even removing all western racial influence from the equation, you can not look me in the eyes and tell me that the man who invented the atomic bomb in the middle of the largest world war of modern history was not an important historical figure. If you try to make THAT argument just based on the sad white man-ness of him, I'm sorry but your point is already moot, because it's not based in historical fact anymore but your own personal subjective feelings. He IS an important historical figure, he's not soldier number 648 in the middle of a massive battlefield who followed other peoples orders.

And also to be completely honest, you are a huge fucking liar if you try to claim that people like Dr. Oppenheimer are not interesting. Flawed people who make flawed decisions with complicated variables are what make for good fiction, so when one exists in the historical record, of course they are going to interest people. They are going to be studied and interviewed if they're still alive and have their entire lives and every word they said picked apart and analyzed because they are interesting. You are straight up lying if you try to act like these people arent interesting enough on their own to have media made about them, regardless of what identity they had that fits into the opposing side of the 21st centure culture wars. This attitude reminds me a lot of the people who claim that the only reason anybody could find true crime interesting is because they MUST want to fuck jeffrey dahmer or whatever. The argument just doesnt hold up because all it takes is one person going "thats not what i find interesting about them" to collapse that entire absolutist argument.

So yes, hollywood absolutely has a racism and war glorification issue. But I take issue when these accusations are just made blindly against any historical dramatization based on nothing but the poster. If you're going to talk about hollywoods sad white men issue, at least make sure the films youre citing actually fit that bill AND that you actually understand whats WRONG with those sad white men movies, because its not just the presence of a sad white male protagonist, its a conglomerate of various sociopolitical issues that must be present within those characters and what they represent.

#some thoughts #oppenheimer

[crypticpatterns]

I'm seeing Moash discourse and because I hate peace I'm going to chime in with my own two cents since I think everyone is wrong.

On one side you've got the Moash defenders who want to genuinely advocate for him or say he's misunderstood or shouldn't be held accountable for his actions because he's under the control of Odium or was a slave or a victim or whathaveyou, which I think is pretty short sighted and ignorant because regardless Moash still made the choices he did of his own volition and he did decide to be put under Odium's emotional control in the first place. I do think Moash is a sympathetic and complex figure because of his background and the way he's been made a victim, but it's wrong to erase his culpability or try to say he's right when he just absolutely is not.

On the other side you've got Moash haters who are also just wrong. Because even if Moash is a bad person, he's not actually a person, but a character written by a human being with political and moral views. And regardless of your opinion on Moash as a moral figure, its inarguable that he is written as a lower class person who is driven by hate and revenge to become a monster and he's villainized beyond the point of other characters who are more privileged than him but committed just as if not even more horrific actions. Moash is "problematic" if you will, because he's a caricature that paints all forms of revolutions of violent rebellion as especially evil and dangerous. He is an example of the kind of media that portrays the leftist revolutionaries who have a point as the villains because they kill people. His writing results from those same neoliberal politics.

And on the topic of redemption, I don't think Brandon is against Moash being redeemed or thinks he's "worse" than other characters like a lot of people have tried to claim based on those WOB about him not being interested and having farther to go than Dalinar. Brandon is simply saying that redemption is a choice and right now Moash isn't interested in that choice, so that journey is going to be a lot more difficult for him as things stand now.

I do think there are problems with the way Moash is written but I think people are identifying those problems and then trying to defend Moash in the wrong ways. Whether he was justified in his actions is completely irrelevant to the issue of how he was written to commit those actions in the first place. And that's where the problem actually lies. Moash's writing is problematic because it paints the victims of oppressive systems as "just as bad" as the oppressors and villainizes genuine revolution because it's "too dangerous."

As for my personal feelings toward Moash the character, I don't hate him like a lot of people seem to. I sympathize with him too strongly to hate him. I honestly mostly feel bad for him and find his particular character conflict incredibly compelling, especially in ROW after he's made the decision to imprison himself and is attempting to imprison Kaladin. I do find the hatred towards Moash from the fandom a bit concerning, especially when Stormlight is full of characters who have committed similar atrocities who are much more liked. People don't have the sympathy towards his circumstances that I think they should.

#it's been a couple years since I read the earlier books so sorry if I was wrong about anything #gonna regret tagging this but oh well since when have I not had extremely controversial takes. this is nothing new #moash stormlight #cosmere #stormlight archive #sera posts

[nightshadehoney]

I never watched James Somerton's shitty Killing Stalking video because I was trying to be good to myself and avoid something that I knew would make me very angry. In fact, I never watched any of his stuff because the fact that he made a video like that was enough to discount any thing he ever had to say (also I heard about the Celluloid Closet plagiarism).

But man, is the James Somerton discourse bringing a lot of Killing Stalking-related feelings back up for me. Because I'm mad; I'm still so mad. There are a suprising amount of people on social media who are saying they never watched any of his stuff except for the Killing Stalking video. I'm annoyed not just to find out that the vid had that sort of reach and influence, but also because Somerton's unmasking hasn't seemed to make people reasses the validity of the kind of thing he was saying. People are just now being like "hmm I think this guy might have Issues With Women" but that doesn't warrant any reflection on what exactly the motivation is of people who complain about women enjoying a niche webcomic? Because I don't actually believe you're concerned about the influence of some obscure piece of media when you advertise its existence to your large audience many of whom had not heard of it and would never have heard of it but for your transparent outrage porn video. It's rage bait and the target was women that are perceived as straight. A big channel has publicized the fact that they excised a section that endorsed the opinions in this video from their own because they became aware of Somerton's plagiarism and dishonesty (presumably; if it was actually because they recognized his views were coming from a sexist place I would welcome a clarification). And you know, I don't think that's a good look actually. That you needed to be told he was a bad person and couldn't idependently put together that the misogynist man was saying misogynist things.

The comic ended years ago and the fandom has gone mostly quiet, but to this day people are still the peddling the"fujoshi/stupid teenage girls who don't know what's good for them are shipping these characters because they are too braindead to realize it's not a romance; it's a horror, two things I believe are mutually exclusive. I am smarter than all of these cringe degenerates" bullshit. It's in the comments of the hbomberguy video even; one comment was such a gross misrepresentation of the series that my friend needed to talk me down from getting into a pointless youtube comments argument (bless him) because these people are officially making me lose my marbles.

This narrative is full of shit, it's demonstrably not fucking true. You can go on the artist's twitter right now and its full of her retweeting shippy fanart of that pairing readers were apparently never intended to ship.

(I don't think Koogi knows or cares about James Somerton; she just reblogs the works of fans who tag her. This made me laugh though).

Now this is all speculation because he died decades before social media existed, but I think if Nabokov was alive today his twitter would not be full of Humbert Humbert x Dolores Haze fanart. And yet, I have unironically seen people compare shipping Sangwoo and Bum in Killing Stalking with the misreading of Lolita as a precocious sexual temptress more than once.

And this isn't me saying that Killing Stalking is the disgusting"pro-sexualized abuse" comic that tumblr purity police used to characterize it as either. One of these days I'm going to go truly bonkers and end up banging pots and pans on the street corner, yelling at random innocent passerbys about how stories about romantic and sexual relationships are not required to be Hallmark movies. You can make art about the negative, dark, and troubling parts of these feelings and relationships without creating a pat morality tale. You don't need to approach media analysis like your 7th grade teacher has assigned you an essay on explaining what a novel's "message" is.

Nobody, not the author and not the fans, genuinely thinks that Sangwoo and Bum have a healthy or aspirational relationship. This hypothetical person that does not understand the relationship is toxic doesn't exist. Because girls and women, even the ones having cringey fandom fun on tiktok or whatever, are not so stupid and naive that they are unware that breaking someone's legs and locking them in a muder basement is bad. The type of concern troll rhetoric Somerton employed in his video is directed near exclusively at women interested in men and there's a reason for this. Women are not responsible for abuse that men do to them; nobody is responsible for their partner abusing them. If I never saw people spit this bullshit again it would be too soon.

#this is not usually the kind of post I make here because I really try to make this tumblr a positive mental space for me but ffs #james somerton #killing stalking

[sirfrogsworth]

Review of Blue Eye Samurai on Netflix

There are some spoiler-ish things below, but I think most of it is in the trailer, so I don't think I will ruin anything. I'll warn you during the most spoilery section, though the show makes the "twist" pretty obvious from the beginning.

Premise

Blue Eye Samurai is a Kill Bill-style revenge tale that takes place in 17th century Japan. The samurai is half white/half Japanese. The show states that no white folks were allowed in the country back then, so the samurai tries to conceal blue eyes with some sweet BluBlocker™ orange glasses. The Samurai is displeased to have white heritage and decides to try and kill all the "white devils" hiding in Japan.

Will some reactionaries complain there is a show all about someone trying to murder white people? I have no idea. But they're all bad white people, so I'm hoping it won't become a thing.

My Hot Takes

A few episodes meandered a bit, but I enjoyed the series as a whole quite a bit. If nothing else, the sword fights were epic and bloody. I would have watched it for that alone. And there is some gorgeous art direction where they really take advantage of the 2D styled, 3D animation. Plus, Japan is just really pretty. There is also a puppet show that was brilliantly mixed in with the story and the way they animated it was next level awesome.

They fell into cliche a few times. I think they were trying to do homages and tributes but ended up in Derivative Land and some of them felt a bit cringe.

They used "Battle Without Honor Or Humanity" which is that rousing instrumental song from Kill Bill and it was way too on the nose. Like, yes, this show is obviously a 1600s version of Kill Bill, but you're not supposed to make it that obvious.

Also, there was a Metallica song that equally made me roll my eyes and think, "That is badass" so I give them a pass on that one.

And there were a few sections where it felt like you were watching someone else play a video game. I don't know how else to describe it. As if the narrative melted away and suddenly a bunch of Prince of Persia obstacles appeared.

That said, the story was enjoyable, the actors were great, the characters were interesting, the animation was solid, and the fight choreography was top notch.

The nice thing about animation is you don't have to do any jump cuts during the action, so you get to really *see* the fights develop. Thankfully they didn't make use of a lot of impossible-in-real-life camera moves, so it all felt very grounded. As if these fights could actually be filmed in live-action. I suspect they may have even used motion capture or closely adhered to reference footage. Most of the non-fantastical choreography felt like something a stunt performer could actually do. They even had some legit Japanese samurai-style sword fighting moves before it got to the "John Wick with a katana" part of the show.

Back in the day, samurai duels were more akin to jousting than fencing and usually only lasted one or two moves. It can be pretty exciting as long as you build tension and anticipation. But if every sword fight in the show was like that, it would probably get boring. But it was still nice to see it toward the beginning.

So the quality was a bit roller coaster-y at times, but I think it was a solid first season. And I am really hopeful they get a chance to smooth things out in a second. But it is Netflix, soooooo...

As far as content warnings, there is a lot of blood and sex and nudity. Women are very subjegated and some of those depictions are rough. There are some brutal torture scenes. And I think there is implied rape, but it isn't made super clear.

The nudity was surprisingly balanced which felt refreshing. So get ready for boobies and floppy cartoon peens. All the genitals get screen time.

Quick aside about erotic scenes...

There has been recent discourse about nudity and sexy time in media. My biggest issue has always been that men's bodies are rarely shown aside from the patoot. It is never balanced and I always felt uncomfortable with that arrangement. I know movies are a bit stuck because the MPAA has decided dicks in a sexual context are an automatic NC-17. But even in newer HBO-type content where they do show penises, they are usually prosthetics. Hyper real fake dicks on top of real dicks that probably cost tens of thousands of dollars to develop and apply.

Like, the folks with boobs don't get expensive prosthetics. Only the most famous actresses can opt for a body double. For years, if an actress wasn't willing to get naked they would just say, "Well, I guess we'll just have to find another actress."

And now if a guy doesn't want to get naked, apparently the response is, "Don't worry, we'll raise Stan Winston from the dead so he can make you a perfect megadick."

Women are usually asked to do the brunt of the nudity and I have long felt that wasn't fair and it was exploitative whether intentional or not.

I just think if you are going to ask actors to be vulnerable, everyone should do it or no one should do it.

I also think we need to see more normal non-porn genitals. Like, you can't brag about your progressive all-inclusive nudity if you slap a giant fake wang on every time.

/end tangent

And now, the spoilery part...

The big twist, which is really only a big twist for a character in the show and not the audience, is that the Blue Eye Samurai was born a girl. To avoid capture and death they essentially hid in a different gender identity. And I'm trying to decide if this is a trans story or not.

Sometimes it felt like the show was bluntly saying, "She's a girl. See, she has boobs and no penis. And we make a big deal about her getting caught naked. It's like Mulan!"

But then the show kinda/sorta implies that while identifying as a man was a tactic at first, the Blue Eye Samurai came to feel much more comfortable as a man most of the time and only revealed their feminine attributes to a select few. They also had a binding scene which felt like intentional trans imagery.

Since there wasn't the same concept of trans-ness in 1600s Japan as we understand it in modern times, I'm having trouble determining if this is just an homage to Mulan that wasn't thought very deeply about, or if this is allegory exploring a trans identity.

It is unclear if the identity was chosen purely out of necessity or if there was more to it.

Was it like... they tried on a coat because it was cold, but then they really liked how it fit and made it an essential part of their wardrobe?

Or was it just pure pragmatism? If they don't wear the coat they will die from exposure.

I'm worried they wanted to stay close to that line where they could say it wasn't a trans story if that ended up being more convenient. I don't know. I'm fine with allegory and I really enjoyed how they did it with Nimona, but this felt more deliberately ambiguous and it frustrated me a bit. It would be nice if we could just have blatant trans stories that didn't need to hide in ambiguity to avoid controversy. But maybe there were more obvious things I missed and my confusion is unwarranted.

I also think an argument could be made for ol' Blue Eye being genderfluid. Actually genderfluid would make a lot of sense. Their masculine side is the stoic warrior and their feminine side is their vulnerability, love, and humanity—reserved only for those most trusted. And when the two blend and they are a warrior woman they get super horny. So the entire spectrum is there.

I'm sure there will be a long complicated video essay analyzing this gender dynamic.

/end of spoilery section

In any case, I think if you liked Kill Bill, this might be a show that interests you. It has much less cultural appropriation and blatant stereotyping. No Pussy Wagon, but there is a cool horse. And they did use an all East Asian voice cast, so that representation was cool. And the co-showrunner was Japanese, and I think that influence definitely made a difference.

I give Blue Eye Samurai 7.5 Froggies out of 10.

#long post #blue eye samurai spoilers

[intersexfairy]

I know a lot of minors aren't taught internet safety, so here are some internet safety tips. I learned these growing up, and by not being safe as a minor. Please note some of these have exceptions if a trusted adult is involved.

First, throw away the idea of the internet as a safe place. It is not safe. It never was and never will be safe. There are far too many people and things running around on the internet for it to be safe for anyone - adults included. But we can modify how we use it to minimize risk - that's all "internet safety" is. So, that said:

Do not give or display personal information (especially not to people you don't know offline). Use an alias, even on email accounts. Don't tell people how old you are, or where you live. Don't post your face, or pictures of anyone or thing that could be used to identify you. Keep any account with personal information private, only viewable to people you know in person. Make sure a trusted adult or friend is aware of what you do online - someone who knows things in case anything happens.

If you need to break some of the above rules due to dangers you face in person, stay anonymous. Blur your face and other identifying info. Make throwaway accounts. Only share what's necessary to help you, and nothing more. Be careful about where you seek help. If possible, find an organization with online resources or a hotline.

Stay away from adult spaces and pay attention to content warnings. Filter tags and phrases (ex: minors dni, nsfw, [insert your trigger here]). TW/CW tag content you post, too. Don't follow NSFW accounts, and certainly don't make one - there is no exception. Any sexual expression is best kept between you and your friends, in a safe, offline place. And any adult who tells you it's okay to be in 18+ spaces as a minor does not care about your safety.

Also, ideally, follow age ratings on media - social media and apps included. I know, this one isn't fun. Even Tumblr is 17+. You can have some really positive experiences on apps like this, so I wont tell you to gtfo. But you can just as easily have some awful ones. If you ever feel unsafe or distressed on a platform, please know you have every right to leave. Nothing is more important than your safety and wellbeing.

Lastly, I'm upset to say this one, but please dont fucking harass people. If you don't like someone, block them. And if someone is harming someone else, report them and let others know to block them. Harassing people online can, genuinely, kill them. I saw it happen the other day. (I mean this in the least hostile way possible) If you can't understand why this is wrong - that your actions and views may not always be justified - it is not safe for you to be online. In tandem with this, don't engage with upsetting things. Delete your discourse blog. Trust me - it's better to spend your energy on things that are actually fun and positive.

In summary: Stay anonymous. Keep private information private. Curate your online experience. Stay out of 18+ spaces as a minor. Be careful with who you trust, and treat people how you want to be treated. And while you do all this? Have fun! Remember, the internet (probably) isn't going anywhere. If you need a break, take it. Be kind to yourself - and others. The more people do this, the safer we all can use the internet.

#ifairy #internet #internet safety #tumblr #tumblr meta #social media

[utilitycaster]

wrt using 2016 fandom as a cudgel: in your experience, to what degree is that manifesting these days as "things were better back in the good old days" as opposed to "the fandom sucked back then so that justifies me refusing to hear criticism of my faves now"? or is it roughly equal and the degree of fervor behind that sentiment just depends more on the demographics of whichever social media site you're using?

So please take this with a mountain of salt in that I know a decent amount about the Reddit through having dealt with the guy who founded it and through people I know who check it out, but I rarely actually go there, and similarly I don't care much for Twitter. Please also note that I started watching in 2018, and then lurked around the Tumblr fandom (as someone already on Tumblr) for about 5 months [was simultaneously binging C1 and watching C2 week to week, caught up around July 2018] before actually making this sideblog, so I was not myself there in 2015-2017.

With that said, my understanding is that it's the social media site you're using. Reddit is bemoaning the good old days when you could order the cast pizza and Matt posted dropboxes of his stuff regularly and forgetting that like, early episodes were filmed in an Ikea set from the mid-90s with sound that sounded like it was coming out of a cassette player from the mid-90s and more importantly that there was a strong group of rampant misogynists. Tumblr, meanwhile, has people who unironically think that there is some magic threshold of toxic misogyny after which you are indefinitely excused from even a whiff of anything that isn't adoring praise. I suspect, honestly, the Reddit is fueling much of the Tumblr discourse, because it feels like this attitude on Tumblr had been on a strong downswing during Campaign 2 and the few stragglers who were around (and who tipped me off to this phenomenon in the first place) rage quit at the end, but it's now being dragged around, Weekend At Bernie's-style, by people I legit do not remember seeing before like, a year ago.

I think there are valid discussions to be had because, frankly, every member of the cast has in some way been done dirty by the fandom, and on Tumblr at least I think that's been getting better every year as the cast continues to show off their range and grow more confident. But I also think, as the fandom picks up new people - which is good - you get this very ahistoric idea of What It Was Like (and again: I admit openly that I was there in 2018; I was not there in 2016). Like, people will claim that a woman character wouldn't get the same hate if she were played by Liam and that's just...never been true. It's fine to be frustrated by the way people talk about your favorite character, but there is a way to talk about that that isn't just straight up lies and presumptions. And I think again that's people not realizing the Reddit is not a remotely reliable source of what the fandom was like, despite the Reddit attempting to be a recreation of what it was once like, because nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

Hence the "kill the Reddit within". Setting aside what you think was going on during the early years of the fandom, what's the fandom like now? What issues do we see now? Are they a continuation of that attitude, or have they arisen since then as the fandom changes? How can you thoughtfully address them now in a way that isn't passive-aggressive (or worse, outright harassment) or relies on flat-out incorrect claims?

#answered #burr-ell #cr tag

[sawthatmountainburn]

I haven't watched the barbie movie and don't really plan to, I just have a problem with some arguments people have been making in its defense, as they are weak arguments regardless of what piece of media they're defending. specifically it's the "this is just feminism 101 for kids, it doesn't have to be a whole manifesto!" type of dismissive arguments.

first of all, if a movie is marketed as feminist and the fanbase praises it for its feminism, people who go see it will have certain expectations based on their own idea of feminism, since feminism is an umbrella term for different ideologies whose common trait is that they want rights for women. who counts as a woman, what specific rights they should have and how we should get them are all points of contention, without even getting into intersecrionality just yet. (very broad generalization, also some leftist feminists disagree with the 'rights' framing) there's only so many grains of sslt you can take, before you decide this is just too far away from what it was presented as and clearly, many women feel this way about the movie.

second of all, regardless of how a piece of media is marketed, it is always fair game for critism, whether that be from a feminist perspective, an anti-racism perspective, a leftist perspective or whatever else you can come up with. to demand that people simply not bring up these critiques because it's ruining people's fun or it's not that serious (but still serious enough that you call people misogynists for criticizing it?) is blatantly reactionary. it's the same thing angry geek boys do when you point out their funny little sci-fi and fantasy shows have weirdly few POC in them. you can say a criticism is in bad faith or based on a misreading of the text (I've seen this about the gynecologist scene, for example), sure, but what I'm seeing more commonly is just a total dismissal of these critiques and perspectives, as if the movie simply isn't subject to it for whatever reason.

expounding upon this, the "feminism 101" part of the argument is similarly reactionary. to reiterate what i said in my last reblog about this, the way people talk about this movie gives me the impression that it's way more suited to the ~2012-2014 pre-gamergate era of tumblr feminism, when people said stuff like "eyeliner so sharp it could kill a man" and feminist criticism was treated as more of a checklist of good and bad tropes. we're almost a decade past that era, with many events that changed the political and pop cultural landscape in the meantime, so what was passable back then might not be such now. we've talked extensively about intersecrionality, issues of race have been brought up time and time again, especially in light of the BLM movement and anti-Asian racism in the COVID era, queer issues have also been gaining more and more traction, etc etc, I can't and won't recap the last decade of political development. my point is, if you're a feminist in 2023 (or any other type of left-leaning politically active individual, but the barbie discourse is about feminism, so that's what I'm talking about specifically) you cannot simply ignore these issues and say multiply marginalized women will have their time, but they need to wait for the privileged women to go first. actually, it was always unacceptable to demand marginalized women support more privileged women while getting nothing in return, but it's even more obvious and ignorant in the current era, after we've been trying to make people understand intersecrionality for years.

it's also insidious how the implication is that feminism needs to be dumbed down for kids (a dubious claim in the first place) and for some reason, that dumbing down involves flattening everything to being about the most privileged women possible. why shouldn't young privileged girls learn about the issues that face their less privileged peers face? why should girls of marginalized groups have to sit and listen about the issues facing their privileged peers, but never being given the tools to discuss their own issues? whom does this dynamic serve exactly and why is it not only acceptable to continue to exist, but it also important to so vehemently defend?

I'm not trying to tell people not to like the barbie movie, that's really not what I care about. I'm saying the types of arguments being made reveal a failure of intersectionality and a dismissal of multiply marginalized women's issues, coupled with a self-centeredness which should be unacceptable to any serious feminist. stop making excuses for a hollywood blockbuster funded by a multi-billion(!!) dollar toy company and start giving a shit about the women in need right in front of you!

#barbie #<- category tag #barbie critical #<- tag for blacklisting #river.txt #social issues #long post #posting to my main bc i have a lot of rаdfеms blocked and none on my sideblog bc tumblr makes it hard to block ppl on ur side

[thetwelfthcrow]

Top 5 F1 ships

this is tougher to answer than i thought it'd be, solely bc i'm soooo focused on two ships that i can barely think of anything else. anyway! here's a top two+ three-pretty-ok-ships:

1. obviously, 4433 | lewis hamilton / max verstappen

it's got everything you ever need in a ship. rivalry, looking up to each other, being genuinely impressed, dumb jokes, heart eyes, always together on the podium (for a looong time), always greeting each other with a failed fistbump or a hug... this is a complicated ship due to the age gap, the negativities (the media drama), the constant fighting, but there's nothing more special than going through the epic highs and lows together, always finding the other guy waiting for you, breathing down your neck and then you're the one breathing down his neck. that push and pull, that cat and mouse game? unreal. this is a ship for connoisseurs and if you do not understand it, i can't blame you.

i could've easlily cheated my way through and put 3344 right under this one since i'm literally uncaring when it comes to who's top and who's bottom or who's dom and who's sub. that goes for any of the ships, btw. i'm too old for top/bottom discourse and since i swing both ways, everyone i write swings both ways.

2. nortrell | lando norris / max fewtrell

it may just be the complete opposite of 4433 in literally every way. but it's got that familiarity, that feeling of home they find in each other. but also the pain! the pain of lando living the dream that max would kill for to have. but also the acceptance, the compelte lack of jealousy. max does not want to be in lando's place, he wants to be beside lando. he doesn't want to have what lando has, because that'd mean lando doesn't have it. he wants to have it too. and this doesn't even touch on the codependency, the cutting meat for each other, the taking care of each other, the living together. max knowing when to talk about what with lando and when to not mention something. to defend lando on his stream, to vocalise the boundaries that lando doesn't say but does have. and also the ribbing, the not taking each other too seriously, the bullying -- they're just a safe haven for each other. a place where lando isn't mclaren's f1 driver lando norris, but just bob. a place where max isn't a streamer with a failed racing career hanging like a dark cloud above him, but just max. a place where they can be themselves, truly themselves. once again, a place where they can be home.

we're into pretty ok ships territory! these are ships i do not actively read and or write for, but when i see them together i go awww now hold hands!

3. norstappen | lando norris / max verstappen

a ship that never misses. great friends off grid, no tension between them, love to joke around, suuuuper supportive of each other (i didn't expct mclaren to be there, i always expect lando to be high). max likes to surround himself with people that don't admire him, that don't try to rub his ego, and lando would never. they don't take each other seriously! and also, whenever lando calls max, max answers and takes his time for him (like on stream multiple times). lando hops on whatever max is doing, like iracing, even after leaving redline. it's just good vibes all around!

4. piarles | pierre gasly / charles leclerc

tough one since i don't know all too much about either driver other than what i see other people talk about when it's in relation to drivers i do know a lot about. but! this is a cute ship. these guys always find each other, at a basketball game, on vacation, wrapping their arm around each other. good stuff, i love seeing homosexuality on main. it makes me happy that they're utilising their mediterranean nature to full gay extent! love seeing it.

5. maxiel | max verstappen / daniel ricciardo

i only mention this one bc i have a complicated relationship with maxiel. i like the guys, i like seeing them hang around each other and joke, i think daniel brings out the true comedian that max is more than he shows naturally. i just. i don't. i find it a bit of a lazy ship. of course you ship them! they hug, they joke, they laugh together, max shows his crinkly eyes and genuine joy and surprise, daniel ribbs him just to get that rise ouf of him, knows what cards to play and what buttons to press. it's easy with them, which is nice. and there used to be tension, sure! but the fics have basically been writing themselves and i like a challenge.

sorry it took so long anon! but here you have a breakdown of ships. other ships that deserve an honorary mention are dando (fully due to nadia ngl), yukierre, charlos, versainz, and probably some more but tbh i've been wayy too obsessed with nortrell and 4433 to think about anyone else. cheers babes!

#Anonymous #f1 ships #ask my top 5 anything! #zhalia’s lil’ chit chat #i did not mean to slander maxiel shippers too much - don't get me wrong i *get* you! it's just not for me <3 #didn't want to hate on lestappen on main too much but i gotta say - lestappen is just 4433 lite. #it's got everything 4433 has but then in milder versions. sure they talk about each other and w/e but it doesn't have that tension or #those layers that 4433 does. it's a solid 6 ship but every point of feedback that a teacher would give it #is something that 4433 has. #but not everyone is ready for this conversation yet.

[thegreatandpowerfulversy]

Hi! I just want to say I've found your blog a really valuable source of differing jewish opinions. I'm in sort of a pro-palestine echo chamber, which initially I thought was a good thing (and to be clear I still don't think palestinian people should be harmed, killed, deprived of human necessities or forcibly removed from their homes) - but I am also increasingly aware of the lack of critical thinking, casual antisemitism as well as full blown antisemitic conspiracy that happens in these discussions. I don't always recognise it immediately, but I understand it is there. And knowing many antizionist jewish people doesn't at all stop that from being true. I'm buddhist (culturally but also in practice) and it is important to me to consider the welfare of human beings and to not simply get trapped in dogma. I hope all of us can reflect on our views and be more mindful of the takes we uncritically share on social media - not simply whether or not they are 'true', but also if they are actively harmful to marginalised peoples. There's a real oppression olympics feeling to some of the discourse that I really dislike. People seem allergic to caring about multiple kinds of people at the same time. I've been able to better navigate the free palestine tag despite the claims of 'antisemites not welcome' as a result of your blog. I don't necessarily agree with every last thing everyone you've ever reblogged has said but I just wanted you to know you've helped me learn a lot. And I am still learning

Thank you for the message! I'm happy that you're taking steps to recognize the environment you've been in and get to a healthier place, and I'm very glad the posts I reblog and my occasional rambling in tags thereof is helping!

I fully agree with you that everyone deserves human rights, that's what the "human" part of the phrase means, no exceptions. I find it incredibly tragic that so many people are dying in this war, and I wish none of them had to (even the Hamas fighters, in a perfect world they would be captured and given trials, because they're humans too). But one of my biggest issues with the online pro-pal movement is how they insist that this war is somehow exceptional -- that it must be genocide, that it must have the highest death toll ever, that it must be so much worse than any other conflict... and that's simply not the case on all counts. And the expectation that it would be, simply because Israel is one of the combatants, is due to ingrained antisemitism that, in most people anyway, probably isn't even at the level of conscious thought.

Also, even I don't 100% agree with everything on the blogs of all the people I follow. I'm aware that some of the Israeli news articles I see have a right-wing slant, but to me at least, going in with my eyes open is better than not hearing what's going on at all. I've definitely seen some Islamophobic posts going around and I don't endorse that any more than I do antisemitism.

Anyway, thanks again for sharing your thoughts! I hope you continue to learn and grow and fight for human rights for all, Palestinian and Jewish both... and Israeli Arab, and Bedouin, and Druze, and Samaritan, and all the other groups in that area who always get forgotten by people in their black-and-white thinking. The only way we achieve peace is if we all stand together.

#honestly it means so much to hear someone say all this #good luck anon

[dgcatanisiri]

I apologize for bringing up discourse that I legitimately am trying to not unleash yet again, but... Well, it hit my dash, I'm gonna clear things up and word vomit this out so I don't just get into fights with strangers on a subject I'm trying VERY hard to just... put behind me because I'm just spent on trying to understand how things shook out.

ON PAPER, maybe you could argue that TLJ is not sympathetic to Kylo, and sure, Rey and Kylo as a pairing did not spontaneously appear only after the second movie of the trilogy.

TLJ is still responsible for the massive spike of these things.

Let's start with the second point - that ship was certainly around as of TFA, sure. But the audience for it was... if not more restrained, then at least a little less... INTENSE. Y'know, with the big mystery of Rey's parentage, there was a legitimate concern that maybe she'd turn out to be Luke's daughter, or the secret second Solo child, something that gave her and Kylo a blood relation. So they were there, they were certainly annoying for anyone trying to not interact, but they weren't the overbearing EVERYTHING of the response.

But then TLJ made everything revolve around the two of them, doing its damnedest to shove Finn out of the picture entirely, after the previous film had been spend building up the Finn-Rey relationship. It spends all this time, emphasizing the similarities between Rey and Kylo... Which, honestly? Was also FINN'S place in the prior film, because Finn was the only one who had done anything when Snoke says "there has been an awakening." The events that made Finn defect from the First Order were actions outright ordered by Kylo himself. Finn explicitly came from nothing, given that he was a rank and file stormtrooper, given only a number, not even a name, by the First Order, while, of course, Kylo is the son of Rebellion/New Republic heroes. Kylo was trying to make Rey his counterpoint, but TFA plays FINN as such.

Likewise... Why does Rey even CARE about Kylo? Her experience with him is him kidnapping and torturing her, killing her father figure (and his actual father - I'll be back to this point late), and grievously wounding Finn, the first person she's had who would come back to her. And also leaving him for dead on Starkiller, a planet that exploded a short time later - why isn't she surprised he's even alive, let alone why does she decide to bring him back to the light?

TLJ was what gave the spotlight to the Rey and Kylo relationship, so yeah, it's fair to call that the spark that spurred on the worst of that pairing's attitude and fans.

And then to the first point... Again. On paper, sure, you can argue that the story is not sympathetic to him because of, say, that final shot of him having attained the highest point of the fascism and found it hollow and empty, cutting him off from those who offered him kindness...

But it doesn't change how the film still goes face first into what tends to be call the Satire Paradox, the inability for those being criticized by the media to understand that THEY are the punchline. Or the trope "Do Not Do This Cool Thing," of putting forward something negative, but in such framing that the things it's criticizing are actually things that are positive. This is a common concern for anything that centers on the calling out fascism, of how in exposing it and bringing it to light, those already inclined to it will take it as a recruitment film, rather than a warning - we see this with American History X, a film meant to put the spotlight on and show the dangers of hatred and neo-natsees specifically, but you know who love the imagery of American History X? The neo-natsees. Fascism is pagentry, it's about visuals and the appearance of the machine, so if you give them something that looks cool, it will be all they focus on, ignoring the message of how the fascism is bad, actually.

That's something I've been pointing out as of late in my other non-tagged Star Wars takes, that, up until Andor, a series it did not produce until 2022, Disney has tried very hard to soften the edges of Imperial fascism (an act that, genuinely, I do attribute to Disney wanting to make a buck of Imperial merch and utilizing the masked Imperials as mascot figures in their parks, rather than the more individualized and distinctive characters on the side of the heroes, as opposed to being intentionally and actively endorsing these things, but it is still a problem), and this is obvious in how the sequels are so much the story of Kylo, a fact that begins HERE. Where the film spends much time focusing on and caring about HIS inner conflict. It's what comes from having him remove and destroy his helmet - now he is not a faceless figure, we get to see his eyes and expressions as the film spends so much time building up his struggles and story, portray his inner struggles now that we can see his pensive glances and such (there's a reason the saying is that the eyes are the windows to a person's soul - actors often cite their eyes as a valuable acting tool to convey emotions).

It's played as a tragedy when he will not go with Rey and abandon the First Order. His fall is treated as something done to him and not a conscious choice on his part to turn on the organizations that his loving family built up, after having Luke Skywalker - the man who looked to Darth Vader and said "I feel the good in you, father," after years of him being the enemy - contemplate killing him simply because of what he might do.

The film threw out the established characterization of the legacy character, didn't try to connect the dots in how that changed, and tries to frame this all as the established character's fault.

That's what it comes to. NO ONE is calling out Kylo's actions and behavior as HIS responsibility. If I'm generous, the film is leaving it implicit... But unfortunately, when you leave it implicit, it also leaves the door open for the worst people to dismiss that message and try to take it in that direction of "but it looks so cool while he's doing it."

The movie is centered on trying to show Kylo wavering, uncertain, looking back towards the light after being immersed in the dark... And this is a decision that he made rather definitively in the prior film, when he MURDERED HIS FATHER. Why are we now, after the fact, spending this time questioning if maybe he can be redeemed? When the prequels had Anakin Force choke Padme, it was a sign that he had crossed the line. Why is Kylo impaling Han Solo on his lightsaber a sign that he really wants to be good?

If pressed, I would call TLJ a fine standalone film. The problem it comes down to, however, is that it was NOT meant to BE a standalone film. It was supposed to be part two of a trilogy, part eight of a saga. Rather than build on the elements established in the prior film, TLJ wants to go off in its own direction, tripping over the elements that it can't discard from the prior film.

And any writer who goes into this situation, knowing they are writing a middle part of a story, and approaches things as "well, [thing] introduced in [prior film] doesn't fit with the story I want to tell, so I'm going to ignore it"? Yeah, I'm comfortable calling them a bad writer and their story a bad story, because you were hired to WORK with those elements, not just discard them.

#dg rants #the last jedi critical #anti the last jedi

[fantastic-nonsense]

I think if we’re going to tackle the “Dick wanted to send Tim to Arkham” demonizing Dick, woobifying Tim bs we also have to tackle the “Dick put Jason in Arkham at the same time the Joker was there and Jason was traumatized by it” demonizing Dick, woobifying Jason bs, because they stem from the same place with the same goal and they’re both completely non-canon

I mean...you're right and you should say it.

(General Warning for Tony Daniel's and Grant Morrison's shitty Jason characterization that created this situation in the first place. You have been warned)

Okay, so like...every time 'Dick sent Jason to Arkham!' discourse pops up, I always want to remind people of four things:

The Joker wasn't there. Literally. The Joker. Was. Not. There. Jason never interacted with the Joker, he never saw the Joker, he was never once in the Joker's presence during this arc. It didn't happen.

Jason being sent to Arkham rather than somewhere like Blackgate was explicitly for Jason's own self-protection, because he would have been flat-out murdered in a normal prison (and in fact, he nearly was the second he was transferred). Jason being in Arkham was Dick's personal preference because it meant Jason had an actual chance at rehabilitation rather than being shanked the second he walked out of his cell. However, Dick didn’t actually send him there. That’s just where he ended up.

Jason's canonical actions at the time justified his incarceration at a prison facility specifically geared towards working with criminals with poor mental health rather than being left to the 'normal' prison system.

Dick was actively working to improve Arkham's conditions and spent several issues in various comics dismantling its corrupt leadership and practices (though it's not stated, it's implied that he was so dedicated to it because of his own experiences when he was trapped, drugged, and tortured there during Batman RIP). This was explicitly shown on several occasions, and we're also explicitly shown that Jason is genuinely being helped. He doesn't want to be helped and said help is so-so at being effective (because...Morrison), but he was hardly being tortured or shut away in a straitjacket 24/7.

The big things I always want to remind people is that a) Joker was literally never in Arkham at the same time as Jason (he was free and causing mayhem around Gotham during Jason's Arkham arc) and b) Jason was incredibly unstable during this arc. You all have to understand that at the time Dick handed Jason over to Gordon, Jason had JUST been waltzing around as a killer Batman and nearly killed Tim (again) in Battle for the Cowl. In the story where he was arrested, he was casually murdering criminals and uploading pics of their dead bodies to social media with his new teen sidekick. This isn't a situation where Dick was just like "well he's a villain and villains go to Arkham." Jason was doing some incredibly messed up stuff and basically dared Dick to take him on while doing so.

Jason's actions weren't particularly in character during this arc, but Dick had pretty legitimate reasons for thinking so given his words/actions in Battle for the Cowl; it's not like the decision was made on a whim. Also, a lot of people maliciously misrepresent both how much of a say Dick had in where Jason was placed and his perspective on Jason in general. He was both genuinely trying to help Jason and constrained by what he could do with Gordon standing right there:

"Look at yourself, Jason. You're a mess. Everything's a mess. Stop all this...and let us help you." "Help me? It's...too late for me, Grayson. And it was always too late." -Batman and Robin (2009) #6

Dick handed Jason over to Gordon, and the legal system put him in Arkham over Blackgate because of the danger he posed. However, Dick actually petitioned for Arkham over a normal prison not because he agreed with that assessment, but because Jason wouldn't be safe in Blackgate. Dick even says this to Bruce when Jason (who's scheming up a prison break) puts in a transfer request to a regular prison:

"He won't be safe in a conventional prison...there will be a list of enemies a mile long locked up in there with him. Unless he's in twenty-four hour protective custody, all he'll be doing is fending off attacks. Why would he put himself at such risk?" -Batman and Robin (2009) #23

So does Bruce, by the way, though he's uh...characteristically blunt and Batman-y about it:

"You're in Arkham for your own safety." -Batman and Robin (2009) #23

And Dick does try to make sure Jason's in an environment where he can be helped; again, Dick spends a lot of time during his tenure as Batman specifically and explicitly cleaning up the corruption in and around Arkham's administration and making sure the Asylum treats its inmates fairly and with compassion; it's the entire plot of the Arkham Reborn mini, and we also get a couple of Batman issues dedicated to it as he tracked down and turned in Dr. Jeremiah Arkham, the then-Head of Arkham Asylum.

Dick spent basically all of Jason's time in Arkham worried about Jason's safety...and he was right to, by the way; when Jason's transfer request is approved, he does, in fact, spend basically all of his time trying not to get killed (he also killed around 100 people in his prison break scheme so again: this version of Jason was absolutely not in a place where he should have been allowed to participate in general society. This is not post-Flashpoint!Jason, whose story and personality was drastically softened to "rebel with a cause" as DC fully committed to the anti-hero direction; this is full-on Villain!Jason at his worst).

Since Jason basically disappears after his prison break and retrieval of Scarlet and we don't see him again before the reboot, we have no idea if his time in Arkham helped him (if at all); however, it's implied that he still doesn't feel much remorse for his actions and he's ready to continue wreaking havoc on Gotham.

Morrison's characterization was fucked up, but within the context of the story written, Jason's incarceration in Arkham was both justified and a genuine attempt on Dick's part to keep him safe and get him help. Jason's actions were well beyond anything considered moral acceptability and basically put Dick in an impossible situation without a lot of options (said options were "Arkham or Blackgate," not "Arkham or freedom").

Jason wasn't a victim (either of Dick's supposedly unjustified decision to "put him in Arkham" or of any particularly awful treatment while he was there) and Dick weighed in to the best of his ability in order to make sure Jason was safe while incarcerated and surrounded by people who would genuinely do their best to help him. Any attempt to twist Dick's actions to be otherwise is an active misrepresentation of what canonically happened designed to woobify Jason and villainize Dick for no reason.

#long post #dick grayson #jason todd #dc meta #dc comics #batman and robin #jason todd meta #dick grayson meta #tony daniel's and grant morrison's jason todd my beloathed #but anyway: yeah no the eternal nonsense about how Dick is a terrible person b/c he 'threw Jason in Arkham' is bs to the highest degree #thanks for coming to my ted talk #asks

[wickedpact]

A ranking of all the TTT stories in order of how much I liked them.

(Oh god this is so long)

1 My Mother's Axe

BABY ANDYYYYYYYYYYYY. Honestly this one had the trifecta of developing a character's motivations, developing a character's backstory, & developing their personality. The story starting out with Andy teaching Nile to use the axe was so charming and fun, and you could feel that chemistry they had in Opening Fire, the way they teased and bickered with each other so naturally. I loved the wedge between them on the subject of the axe, how Nile was perhaps a little too young to understand Andy's feelings about whether or not its the 'same' axe. I also love how the axe is obviously the symbol of the franchise and hugely important, but you never get a sense of exactly how important it is to Andy until you read the story.

I love the entire Ship of Theseus theme, and how it feels so natural that for Andy she has to get attached to the idea of things rather than the things themselves because she'll always outlive the things themselves-- the axe is symbolically her mom's axe, even if physically it isn't. And I love how she clearly clings to that concept so tightly. "This is the labrys she held in her hands...." IT GETS ME.

And the fact that this sense of BELONGING, of FAMILY, of CULTURE is so important to Andy that she clings to it (figuratively and literally) with both hands. And of course it's important to her, she spent so long alone that the woman doesn't even remember her birth name. That axe (or the idea of that axe) is all she has left of her mother and that family/culture she was born into.

PLUS on that note I love how Andy doesn't remember if her mom was her actual biological mother, but it doesn't matter to her. This woman was her mother in all the ways that counted. And how her mom BETRAYED AND KILLED Andy but Andy loved her so much that she avenged her and carried her axe for thousands of years. THOUSANDS OF YEARS!!!!!!

I also loved how the story transcends the timeline of the whole franchise and seeing Andy through the years. Loved seeing her with the varying squads and with varying axes. Also baby Andy was so cute. It was cool seeing her so young. like holy fuck. Andromache The Scythian, Immortal Warrior (but smol). Love that.

Also I think this one is one of the few ttt stories that doesn't suffer from length problems.

tldr: goddammit greg you've done it again.

2 Zanzibar and Other Harbors

Zanzibar my beloved. I've said before, but it's downright comedic how little regard there was for Joe and Nicky's character designs in this story. The same person who does the colors for the regular comic did the colors for this one too, and you can tell, every panel of this story was Beautiful.

Ik there was A Lot of criticism of this one (lmao @ how the fandom had no idea what was to come) but I thought a lot of The Discourse was a bit dramatic. I did think Nicky came off as a little oblivious to Joe's feelings in this story, but I've said before, I honestly think that was a 'tone not translating' thing. It felt like Nicky was nagging Joe for [checks notes] saving innocent people, but Joe was so amused by Nicky's complaints I really do think it was supposed to come off as teasing.

Plus I know the 'Joe running off into danger and Nicky reluctantly following' dynamic wasn't popular (I'm a pretty meh on it meself) but I did love how Joe's impulsiveness (if you want to call it that) was interpreted as heroism and not hot-hotheadedness. All of the examples Nicky and Joe talked about included Joe explicitly saving people. (and it also took A Lot for the nazi to actually provoke Joe).

I also feel like their characterization here was closest to the movie canon-- the bit where they hear the woman scream and Joe goes running in to save her while Nicky swoops in on Joe's heels to comfort her while Joe and the nazi were fighting reminds me of the train car scene. Joe had suggested First that they go find Nile because she needed to be protected, and Nicky later added that Nile probably also needed emotional support. Similar reactions.

But it was So Good, the themes of queer community and the enduring nature of queer culture are Not themes you see in media that often and it was such a delight how it was done. Also it's one of the few more modern TTT stories that has a completely valid excuse for taking place when it did. Chef's kiss.

3 Passchendaele

I love the Duality between seeing baby Andy and then seeing Mama Andy in the very next issue. This story doesn't have a ton of meat to it, but the entire concept of Andy adopting a war orphan straight off the battlefield PLUCKS MY TENDER LITTLE HEARTSTRINGS, and I think it's especially poignant for comic!Andy. I think most people wouldn't think twice about movie!Andy doing something like that but comic Andy is so hardened and almost cruel sometimes, and seeing that even for her the world hasn't beaten all of the compassion from her yet is SO!!!!!!! this woman contains MULTITUDES okay, she's violent and angry and tired and Done but she's also so kind and compassionate and THE STRENGTH OF HER!!!!! Also the idea of her and Yitzhak co-raising a kid together is so damn cute. It was #mysterious pre-Yitzhak-story but now it's cute. holy fuck. It's cute.

& the headbonk panel of her and Zeus lives in my heart. anyways.

4 Many Happy Returns

I Know people weren't thrilled about Booker being in this one, but I've developed a pet-peeve about that: this story was *not* booker-centric. Booker only exists in this story to the extent required to explain the importance of the gesture Nile makes towards him. If there was a story about Booker making some grand gesture of kindness to Nile no one would be saying it was Nile-centric. bc it wouldn't be! Booker exists in this story to explore Nile's kindness, its not about him. I saw that a couple times and it bothered me. anyways.

AAAAAAAAAA I loved this one, the art was beautiful, I loved how Andy Nile and Booker were drawn (like their comic selves but.. more looking like actual people). I loved Andy and Nile's Bants, how Andy wanted to jump right in and Do Violence but Nile was basically telling her to hold her horses.

I feel like I'm just repeating the post I made on this story a few days ago, but I LOVED how Nile's plan revolves not around violence or Cool Mercenary Skills but on Nile's own life skills (as she canonly did a lot of minimum wage job-hopping before the marines in comics canon). Her plan used her skills, not the skills of an immortal warrior, and HER SKILLS were in fact more useful for the situation! lov to see Nile's resourcefulness and planning skills.

AND HOW NILE WAS PROBABLY WATCHING BOOKER??? it's so Much bc 1.) nile knew booker A SINGLE DAY and yet he made such an impression on her emotionally that she had to keep an eye on him and 2.) she said in the movie she wanted Booker to get off free with an apology. Yes she's a member of the team but that doesn't mean she's necessarily going to follow orders like a good little soldier. I also love how she convinced Andy to go along with it. her HEART, her KINDNESS, her THOUGHTFULNESS, UGH.

5 The Bear

Honestly I have like no negative things to say about this one other than a.) character design issues which is less about the story itself and is more of a 'tog comic in general' criticism and b.) too short, but it was supposed to be a tease, so.

But I loved Yitzhak, I wasn't expecting to really like him at all but like I said in my other post, he tickled me. I love characters who are Kind™, especially if they have little reason to be so given their backgrounds. Chef's kiss. Lov him.

6 Bonsai Shokunin

I know this one was a little controversial bc of the outsider POV but whenever I see people upset about that they never point out that the Outsider Guy (the samurai) existed as a reflection on Noriko. His ideas are explained in the text to develop hers. The whole story follows how she gave mercy to a scared young man and in response he murdered Noriko, repeatedly! Who gave him the right to inflict such pain and suffering on the world? In his opinion, the lack of response from the gods was his permission. And for Noriko-- over and over again she dies and suffers because she gave mercy, which lines up with her ideas in FM about how it's their fate to rule mortals and if they don't align with that plan/fate/whatever then they suffer. It shows some background to those ideas and how they developed in her mind outside of Ocean Madness™. Additionally, his idea of 'the Gods have done nothing to strike me down so it's fine if I do these things' kind of explains how Noriko may justify her own morally corrupt actions-- she's died so many times and it's never stuck. Maybe if she did die any of those times, or while she was in the water, maybe that would've been a sign she was doing something right, or at least doing something normal. But she hasn't died. Fate isn't done with Noriko yet. And maybe there's a reason for that. In her mind, it's just not a very pleasant reason, is all.

There were things I was kind of meh about tho. I did kind of wish we saw something of Noriko and the team, or smth explaining the way she was before her dip in the pool-- personality, likes dislikes, etc. but it wasn't bad or anything. It was super vague tho, I had to read it a few times before I got what it was going for. Liked the art. Liked the bonsai metaphor. And of course I Respect the decision to use the 1300s (1200s? I don't remember off the top of my head) rather than using the last 200 years.

7 Strong Medicine

Honestly looking back, this one made me kind of sad because both this one and Bonsai Shokunin explored character's ideas on Fate and The Divine and how that intersects with immortality and I totally thought that theme would be continued, especially with Love Letters. But Then It Wasn't™.

Admittedly.... I had to re-read this one to remember most of it. I liked Booker's ideas on God, 'The conductor of the symphony just may not be very good at his trade' but the plot itself was kind of forgettable. Some fuckin cowboys try to kill a doctor (their second) because he couldn't save their sickly brother. Book tries to stop them, gets killed, and then comes back and kills them all before they get the doctor. Alright. I liked the artstyle because the characters were ugly in a similar way that leandro's are, but way more bearable.

I love the Irony of Booker concluding that there is no such thing as fate or destiny and nothing has meaning, AS HE UNKNOWINGLY SAVES MERRICK'S GRANDFATHER FROM BEING KILLED. Booker getting fucked over by life/god/destiny yet again. It also kind of explains about where the fuck hell Merrick's interest in immortal mercenaries even came from.

I originally had this one a lot higher and then I thought about it and moved it down like two spots.

8 Never Gets Old

I liked seeing Booker interact with his kid. And we got a name for the kid! Philippe was a little bitch though, he was a little obnoxious. I liked how Booker was so thrilled to experience a restaurant with his kid (and since we know he was there before, it can be assumed he went with all of his kids and yet he was so charmed each time). It fits with his line to Nicky in the moon landing story about how you don't appreciate beautiful things 'unless you have someone to share them with'. It was charming to see Booker interact with his kid, and to see him so happy. Also lmao @ Booker's big fat Ye Olde Crush on Andy.

However at the same time it was like.. of all the things to write about,,, I guess? Booker's Night Out...... alright. Especially since Book had so many stories.

I don't know, it was alright. The old man killing him really came out of nowhere, (but the 'Salut, asshole!' panel was funny tho).

9 How To Make a Ghost Town

I've hit a point where talking about these stories has gotten less fun. I liked this one but I felt like Achilles getting lynched was not really necessary for a story that was already tragic (a story that already involved Achilles doing a lot of suffering at the hand of bigots). When we first got the blurb for this story I thought it would be about Andy returning to the squad and making friends with Booker after losing Achilles and them butting heads on the idea of family and when to cut off ties. So a little bit of my underwhelmedness about this one might be just my expectations being different.

Honestly I was pretty interested in Andy and Achilles' relationship and I would've liked to see more of them-- like, what was their dynamic like? What did they love about each other?

But anyways Andy leaving and Achilles getting killed anyways feels so pointlessly tragic (which I suppose is the point..... I don't like tragedies) she left to save him and yet people killed him anyway. Meh.

I did love the bits about Andy wanting to have a domestic life (Andy and her multitudes again) and the little detail about how she buried her axe near the road but he buried his guns under his bed-- he was an escaped slave, he never had the luxury of assuredness like Andy did. It was a sad story.

10 Lacus Solitudinis

'You put this one above love letters crim??? how could you???' easy, lmao.

There was stuff in this one I liked. But to talk about stuff I didn't like: (I'll keep it brief, I know ragging on this story has been done time and time again)

UH, setting aside the 6 year cold shoulder between Joe and Nicky, I thought their chosen method of conflict resolution was... bad at best. Nicky's inability to talk about his feelings was also annoying, especially since the entire point of this story is a fight Joe and Nicky had, and yet we don't get both sides to the story, which is...... important? That fact is especially annoying bc in the absence of Nicky explaining his side of the story, it's absolutely a possible (and admittedly probably unintentional) interpretation of the text that we do get that Joe routinely resolves conflict between him and Nicky by simply cutting Nicky out of his life entirely until Nicky just. caves? Even if it takes years?

WHICH i could get into that interpretation and how fucked up i find it. but im not going to. out of restraint.

I don't know, I think there are a lot of interesting ways to go about this conflict but 'Nicky wants to kill a guy and Joe refuses to acknowledge his existence until he stops because he thinks Nicky is too much of a Good Boy to get his hands dirty like that' ('I wont watch as the world turns his (...) compassion into something ugly'. ) wasn't.. how I would've done it. (I mean you know Joe doesn't give a shit about what Nicky is doing in a moral way, because Joe doesn't even care or mention that Booker is killing those cops too. Joe only cares because he doesn't like the idea of Nicky changing in a way he finds undesirable.)

admittedly I've said before, I do like the emphasis Joe's reaction puts on Nicky's kindness. Joe has a complete inability to cope with Nicky simply Not Being Kind. It speaks to the steadiness of Nicky's compassion all those years. but still that fact doesn't make it the conflict feel worth it

hm. I said I would be brief and I wasn't.

oh well. basically I thought there was interesting conflict potential there but it wasn't done the way I would've liked, and the way it was done leaves a lot of disturbing (and again probably unintended) interpretations to lie.

What I did like? Andy and Joe having that pessimist/optimist dynamic. Joe nerding out about science. Andy not being impressed by The Achievements Of Man. I loved Booker needling at Nicky about his outdated slang and also trying to give him Older Brother advice practically in the same breath. I loved Booker giving The Worst relationship advice ever and Nicky being like 'I Will Not Do That, Ever, Thanks.' the family vibes were so good. The Joenicky vibes left a lot to be desired tho.

11 Love Letters

I talked about my problems with Nicky in this story (and Lacus Solitudinis). I don't know, the story isn't bad but I do hold a little bit of a grudge towards it because its very existence begs the existence of a solo Joe story and we didn't get one. If we never got this story, then we could happily count Lacus Solitudinis and Zanzibar as The Joenicky Stories™ and move on with our lives. sigh.

I remember when we first got the blurb for this story I was really curious about why Nicky specifically + the setting, and the answer kind of feels like 'the author had an idea for a story like this and saw ttt as a good enough place to utilize that idea'. Plus I was really underwhelmed by the Romantic Sentiment in the letter. If you look at it line-by-line, the majority of the letter is actually Nicky talking about how lonely and disturbed he is, rather than actual,, yknow,,, Romantic Sentiment. I mean, compare the van speech and this letter and this letter is just kind of meh in comparison. I liked nicky calling joe wise! and I liked the brief sun/moon metaphor! and otherwise it was eh. It didn't even have cute squad banter, which is why Lacus Solitudinis is above this one.

12 An Old Soul

Nun orgy. Nun orgy?????? Nun orgy.......

The whole story felt like a setup to have a nun orgy. Why did Booker have abs? Why did they do that to Andy's nose? ?????? the art was good at least.

nun orgy.

#tales through time spoilers #obviously #long post #seriously dont open that read more unless youre committed to scrolling past all these Words

[sapropel]

The main things that turned me off of conversion for now were

1. I have alot of shit on my plate and am low income as a result so finding a place that will help might be hard because locally there really aren't any synagogues around

2. The synagogue I did find locally was uhhh...... Hhhhh. Their web page had a huge section about Israel in a positive light..

I love the religion, I love certain values it holds however I refuse to align with anyone who justifies colonialism and bloodshed against another group of people while ignoring past bloodshed done onto themselves. It makes 0 sense to me and is highly hypocritical.

Hypocrisy was one of the reasons I hated Christianity so much. Constantly causing bloodshed, huge present and past history of colonialism, huge present day history of wanting people like me who are gay or trans dead and in the ground.

the difference with Christianity is that there isn't even a present day persecution or justified worry of safety despite the fact that I've seen jack chick esque evangelical fuckers unironically act like they're holocaust survivors whenever a pride parade happens within 1 mile of them.

It makes me sad, I don't see the point in colonizing or maiming a group of people who should be your equals.

It's racist at best, dangerous and actively contributing to more death and violence at worst.

The thing is there isn't really a "point." It creates its own point. Real actionable Zionist sentiment was basically non-existent until the rise of European nationalism. It's literally the exact same brand of nationalism that gave birth to fascist Italy and other great failures of modernity. And when "Israel" was a proto-state basically its entire existence was contingent upon its continued usefulness to Britain as a tool of control over India through the Suez. Zionist claims to the land are super shaky at best and straight up revisionist at worst. Post-facto Israel has tried to give itself legitimacy through fearmongering, genocide, and forging alliances with other imperialist powers. It's doing what America did (and is doing) but it's happening in the age of mass media and we are all watching colonial revisionism happen in real time.

If you are letting the prevalence of Zionism keep you from Judaism, I would say you should keep thinking about it. If you treat Judaism as too thoroughly engulfed in Zionism, you do the work of Zionists for them--you legitimize their claim that Judaism is Zionism is Israel. You legitimize the idea that anti-Zionism is antisemitism which is incidentally exactly how my local rabbis have been fucking me over since June. You are of course totally within your rights not to convert to a religion that doesn't work for you, but I hope you rethink the implication that converting to Judaism is akin to aligning with Zionism.

And yeah, Zionist hypocrisy is a systematic issue within American Jewish institutions in a feedback loop with Jewish populations. Any institutional apparatus is going to have systematic issues that reflect the dominant discourse of the greater cultural framework--mainstream Jewish institutions are going to, both by the nature of maintaining relevancy in America and by the natures of fearmongering and cultural amnesia, have a vested interest in participating in capitalism, imperialism, racism... You are not going to find mainstream insitutions that don't perpetuate them. That's why they're dominant. You are no more aligning yourself with Zionism by going to a synagogue than you are aligning yourself with capitalism by shopping at Wal-Mart. Anything you meaningfully do in public is in some way going to be "problematic" on some level because public space is designed to keep itself alive by those values.

It's exhausting to make yourself never come close to anyone or anything bad at all--refusing to associate with anyone with a problematic ideology is a doomed enterprise. I've been there. A lot of Zionist sentiment is implanted in people's minds with lifelong propaganda and destructive mind control techniques, and it's important to recognize that. That doesn't mean Zionist adults don't have a responsibility to unlearn it, but I think it's possible to have compassion for people who do try to do their best with improving themselves. Most people you meet want to be good and don't want to be willfully ignorant. I try to think about how difficult it is to convince the average well-meaning white American of the merits of decolonization/land back. Most well-meaning Zionist Jews are going to feel the same way about Israel--actual systematic justice and decolonization are not in their lexicons. Decolonization is hidden behind thought-stopping techniques that they have been inundated with from day 1. But most people do have a basic sense of goodness and are willing to sacrifice something for it. Most people are willing to give ground for the sake of human decency. The only way I can survive talking to people I know are Zionists is by understanding that we both want the world to be a better place and if I dwell on the specifics of how I perceive them to be evil, the possibility of us having a working relationship and any hope at productive dialogue drops to zero.

You don't have to be patient with Zionists or Zionist institutions. You don't have to forgive them. You don't even have to be compassionate. But you do need to understand, intellectually, that imposed cognitive dissonance is a very powerful tool of mind control (and I'm not talking about woo-woo shit I'm extrapolating from cult research and personal experience) and that the pathos of Zionism isn't supposed to be logical. Fear trumps hypocrisy. Fatigue trumps informed consent. Charisma trumps logic. Any bigoted ideology is going to fall apart under logical scrutiny, and that's why the only battleground for maintaining bigotry is necessarily charismatic and emotional.

We haven't yet, of course, acknowledged that there are also tons of anti-Zionist Jews and that the concept isn't absurd or fringe, no matter what the dominant Zionist discourse says. It's important for us not to let Zionists be the stewards of Judaism--Zionists do not OWN Judaism. Just like the most Orthodox of Jews also don't OWN Judaism. Judaism is only what you make it to be, and if you leave it alone because you are too worried about Zionism, that is all Judaism is ever going to be for you. Of course, you still have to contend with Zionism, and if you actually are interested in being a Jew, you would have to find a way not to let it kill your Judaism. I've come close (ish) to giving up on Judaism a couple of times because of Israel and Zionism, but I'm glad I haven't. I've stuck it out long enough to give myself to tools I need to separate the two and see the situation with more clarity.

#j tag