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oldtvandcomics · 1 year

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Happy Queer Media Monday!

Today: Paradise Lost (2018)

Most beautiful movie I’ve seen since The Blue Caftan.

(Picture taken from Netflix, because Google didn’t give me a lot to work with. This is Imã, in one of his performance costumes.)

Police officer Odair randomly ends up at a small bar called Paradise Lost, run by a family. The grandfather hires him as a bodyguard for Imã, his very effeminate (and gay) grandson, who runs a certain risk of getting hatecrimed. As he spends more time at the bar, Odair grows close to the different family members, who all have their own battles to fight, and discovers something about them that will also affect his own life.

This movie was SO BEAUTIFUL, I’m still not over it half a week after I watched it. The story is wonderfully human, but it’s the execution that makes it special. The way it’s shot is gorgeous, with some very good frames and great use of color. Then there is the music. The entire movie is carried by the songs sung by the different family members, which for one is good to listen to, but also adds so much intimacy to the whole thing.

If I find more movies like this and The Blue Caftan (2022) (another one so beautiful that I’m still not over it), I will have to make a separate category somewhere for “queer movies that are just too beautiful, in a very bittersweet way”.

Watch it. It’s on Netflix and Mubi. Also, here is the IMBD link.

Queer Media Monday is an action I started to talk about some important and/or interesting parts of our queer heritage, that people, especially young people who are only just beginning to discover the wealth of stories out there, should be aware of. Please feel free to join in on the fun and make your own posts about things you personally find important!

#see this is art #looks like everyone was making amazing movies except for Hollywood....#based not just on this #but on a bunch of non-Hollywood movies I've seen lately from various countries #pretty much all of which had something very special going for them #The Blue Caftan and this one stand out by being too dang good though #so yeah GREAT movie #doesn't seem to be too well-known though #based on the lack of results when I googled it #it was basically just links to Netflix #also nothing in the image search #I'd bet that Netflix doesn't really show it either huh #Paradise Lost (2018)#Paraíso Perdido (2018)#queer movies #Brazilian Movies #Movie Recommendation #Queer Media Monday

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front-facing-pokemon · 1 month

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I noticed a distinct lack of mega charizard x (unless I missed it) so here's a front-facing shot of my shiny one in Pokémon Go

two shiny submissions today, which is the most i've ever gotten. you two had the same idea at the same time, i suppose!

now take some more asks

this confirms the nose rater brazilian allegations, for sure

:) you are welcome. i didn't see it as all that impressive when i first posted it. didn't even have a face. but evidently folks are liking it quite a lot

well, i would have to imagine, being based off a gen seven pokémon, which is already a somewhat recent generation. perhaps there's not much discovered About it for wikipedia to list. although someone in the comments of that ask did mention that apparently there are a ton of other bugs that've also been named after pokémon besides just that one, which i think is just. wonderful

this is the result that i got when i googled it afterwards! and this does track. that does look like xurkitree

well that one was a while ago. i thought you did passimian?

oh wait that's all the asks. well! nice!

#not pkmn #nose ratings #when i get to espathra the angle will definitely be different but if i remember i'll throw one of this angle in just for you #mega charizard X…… i think i got an ask about that before. i remember maaayyybe posting it in that ask?#but not sure‚ to be honest. i think i might've stated that i couldn't find a model for it and just gone with that #but i've found model rips for more obscure pokémon so i'm sure i could find it nowadays

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sgiandubh · 6 months

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Do you think he does different types of promo to attract all the different crowds?

Dear Promo Anon,

Not only I think he does that, I also happen to think he (or anyone seriously hoping to sell anything other than snake oil) should do exactly that.

The problem is not the logical correlation between what you want to sell and the people to whom you want to sell it. The first problem is the lack of balance between your way of interacting with your different target groups, which could lead to a very fuzzy brand image. Both of your products and of yourself, who are their creator and main promoter.

Promoting a brand without a clear set of main ideas and values is very likely to have a negative impact on your sales. Show them biceps, sea, sex (?) and sun galore is all fine and dandy for the younger crowd (and the LGBT+ one, btw). But showing at the same time that you can be a gentleman (please, for the love of Saruman, get rid of those rings! that woman doesn't know what she's talking about!) should be at least on par with the Lustfest promise you ventilate to your other segment. Possible message being: working hard and playing hard - you can have the best of both worlds (or at least try).

The second problem is that S's brand is.. ehrm... way too personal. Too approachable (I already mentioned the Costco Hugfest) for a rabid fandom. That goes both ways, btw, because many (on both sides of the Great Divide) honestly feel they own a bit of S. At the same time, he is also JAMMF to many people in here, who imagine he has almost superhuman qualities (most probably not the case). That is exhilarating and empowering, until it's not. One or three or twenty faux-pas later, people will feel the savage urge to spit on the idol. A simple matter of collective instinct, but a very tricky situation for S.

The third problem are the side players. I am not talking about AN or CB or TMcG or the Fitness Harem. I am talking about the Trolls, who really don't do him any favor. Nothing worse for his brand potential than lascivious comments - let's suppose you are a major distributor's marketing expert and you land on That Blog, where the owner shares publicly her dream of licking her way from (how was it?) LHR to GLA to the Highlands to the ends of the known Universe, for a chance of God knows what. What would you write in that memo to the CEO? 'Yes, please: immediately place ALL his booze upfront near the cashier, because the man is an idol to a bunch of fifty-something women who dream the impossible dream?' You think I am exaggerating? Try googling for SRH tumblr and see the first results (😱). These people are visible and that visibility directly informs the interaction between SS and its potential business partners. Especially when your Partner Everyday thought blasting a sizeable chunk of OL's Tumblr fandom in Vanity Fair was a clever strategy for The Win - things like this invite (unwanted) attention.

I pleaded for diversification of the marketing strategy and for a more sophisticated approach and I welcome the change, Anon. The only thing I would like you to take home from this very long answer is simple:

Social Media is just Social Media. The glitz, the glam, the superficial stardust, the Truman Show where it never rains.

Real Life is Real Life. We only see glimpses, speculate on it, have a more or less educated guess and if we are lucky enough, some tidbits to chew on.

Progressively, the very unprofessional (bantering) Social Media strategy has been replaced with an account strategy based on product promotion. Convenient, when you do not (for reasons X, Y and Z) want to discuss what you feel is private and likely to remain so, for a while.

That's about it, Anon. If you still have questions, you can always pop in here. I promise I won't charge a retainer, out of my good heart.

#Anon #BoozeWars

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and-then-there-were-n0ne · 1 month

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Yesterday CNN published an article by senior writer Tara John about the UK National Health Service’s newly skeptical stance toward youth gender medicine. The main takeaway, which is big news to observers of this debate, is that the NHS will no longer provide puberty blockers to young people, other than in research contexts. (As for cross-sex hormones, a relatively strict-seeming regime is set to be implemented, and they will be offered to youth only “from around their 16th birthday.”)

As myself and a number of others pointed out, the article contains a sentence that is, in context, rather wild: John writes that “Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender — the one the person was designated at birth — to their affirmed gender — the gender by which one wants to be known.” But of course, whether youth gender medicine is medically necessary and evidence-based is exactly the thing being debated, and anyone who has been following this debate closely knows that every national health system that has examined this question closely, including the NHS, has come to the same conclusion: the evidence is paltry. That’s why so many countries, including Sweden, Finland, the UK, and Norway have significantly scaled back access to these treatments for youth. So it’s very strange to see this sentence, which reads as though it comes from an activist press release, published in a news article in CNN, an outlet that generally adheres to the old-school divide between news and opinion.

There’s a strong case to be made that CNN’s sentence, as written, is false. Gender medicine is at best unproven, when it comes to the standards society (and regulatory bodies) expects medical researchers to adhere to. The situation with youth gender medicine is particularly dicey, given that this is a newer area of medicine suffering from an even severer paucity of quality studies.

It would be bad enough for this sentence to have appeared in one article on one of the most important news websites in the world. But here’s the thing: this wasn’t the first time. Rather, this exact sentence, and close variants of it, has been copied and pasted into dozens of CNN.com stories over the last few years, as a Google search quickly reveals.

This sentence, and its close variants, appear over and over and over. I asked my researcher to create a list of all the instances he could find. Here’s what he sent back, in reverse chronological order [...]

I haven’t triple-checked every single one of these, but it’s undeniable that effectively the same words have appeared in about three dozen CNN articles since May of 2022, which was already years after the present wave of European nations rethinking these treatments had begun.

When I asked CNN about this, I heard back from someone there who explained on background that it’s standard for outlets to provide reporters with guidance about accurate and appropriate language. While that’s true, it doesn’t really answer my question. Sure, it’s not unusual for an outlet to have a house style, sometimes enshrined in a stylebook, that provides rules about how to refer to, for example, individuals in the United States who lack legal status. They used to be called “illegal immigrants,” and now they’re often called “undocumented immigrants,” or language to that effect. This is a fairly normal process by which language changes and, sometimes as a result of a push-pull between outlets and advocacy groups, outlets decide which changes to make and when. So you may or may not agree with the fact that many outlets have switched from “biological sex” to “sex assigned at birth” when discussing trans issues, but the underlying process of switching from one phrase to another is standard and occurs in many areas.

This is quite different. You do not generally see the same complex sentence pasted over and over and over into news stories written by different authors and published in different sections. I asked CNN if it could provide me any other examples of CNN.com publishing the same sentence in multiple stories by different authors, and posed the same question in an email to Virginia Moseley, the CNN executive editor who, according to the website, “oversee[s] international and domestic news operations across platforms.” I didn’t hear back about this.

This copy-paste job is journalistically problematic for a number of reasons. For one thing, it suggests that CNN has decided, at the editorial level, that its institutional stance is that youth gender medicine is “medically necessary” and “evidence-based.” While they’re being used somewhat colloquially in these articles, these terms have fairly specific definitions in certain medical and legal contexts, and treatments only qualify for such designations if they have exceeded a certain evidentiary benchmark based on solid published research. That is not the case here — far from it, actually. As written, this is a deeply misleading sentence.

The language also puts CNN writers in an awkward position. Does each and every bylined author of these stories believe that youth gender medicine is “medically necessary” and “evidence-based”? Maybe they do (which would be disturbing), but the fact is that they didn’t write these sentences — they, or one of their editors, grabbed that language from somewhere else and pasted it in. They are effectively outsourcing their own judgment on a hotly contested controversy to their employer. This is not what journalists are supposed to do, and, at the risk of repeating myself, it’s significantly different from a reporter rolling their eyes when using language like “undocumented immigrant” or “sex assigned at birth,” rather than their own preferred verbiage. Those are rather small-stakes linguistic quibbles, different not only in degree but in kind from the question of whether or not youth gender medicine is medically necessary and evidence-based. And it goes without saying that a CNN reporter who does develop doubts about youth gender medicine is likely to be deterred from investigating further by the fact that their bosses have already decided that this is the way they’re going to cover this subject — say the line, Bart. Why bother?

It’s a pattern, unfortunately. Many outlets dug themselves into a deep hole on this issue by simply acting as stenographers and megaphones for activist groups rather than doing their jobs. And now that there is ever-mounting evidence undercutting the loudest activist claims, climbing out of this hole is going to be awkward. But there’s no other option, really. Because right now there’s absolutely no reason to take CNN.com seriously on this issue — the site has proven, demonstrably, that it doesn’t take itself seriously on this issue.

#transgender #ccn #jesse singal #feminism #radical feminism #intersectional feminism

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archandshri · 2 months

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23rd Feb '24 - [arch] OH RISO my beloved!!!!!! ft. cyberpunk hermitcraft soup group

A cliffhanger!!!! And now I have to wait a month for you to upload the second half?? How will I cope :’’0

For real, it’s so awesome to see your process and the sheer amount of inspiration you take! In particular, I thought ‘Sit on Two Chairs’ and ‘This Was Our Pact’ were particularly yummy.

I think book covers are really hard. You have to sum up a book’s energy in one image, make it stand out and show just enough so people want more. Exploring the narrative through those full pages is really interesting - though this is something you did for fun, it could be a really useful technique for getting to know a narrative. When I’m designing my comic covers, I always do it last - that way I’ve had practice with the visual style and I’m thoroughly familiar with the themes, so I guess spending a bit of time with the characters and narrative in this way helps for standalone book covers too. Of course, it helps if you have the time for that XD

Okay!! Onto what I've been up to!!! [warning this is a beefy post I'm sorry for your poor reading brain]

The past two weeks have been really enjoyable! I’ve been playing a lot with slow world-building, in sketchbooks, google documents, and voice notes to friends. Letting myself really sit with concepts, think about the characters, let them play in my head with no expectations. With this relaxation and lack of pressure, some beautiful narratives and interactions have been developing. I’m starting to need a name for a world/ the story. I’m not quite ready to give them a full introduction to the internet - I know it doesn’t but it feels like there’s some accountability to *produce something* and this slow development is really important for the quality and my skill building. It’s really hard to take on, but we actually don’t have to make the perfect thing now! In fact, it’s impossible. Pressure on ourselves makes it so hard to make something good if we’re always grasping at the final result. In the meantime, while those characters develop, I have been working hard on my basic skills. I wrote about characterization last post, but this week I focused on setting and colour. I was inspired (once again) by Hermitcraft. I’ve seen some really incredible illustrations of Minecraft builds in the fandom, and it seems like a great exercise.

Bdouble0's Season 10 Base illustrated by @applestruda [source] and The Red Zone, built and illustrated by Bdouble0 [source]

One of the creators on Hermitcraft, ImpulseSV, created this build in a recent episode. It takes inspiration from the last season of Hermitcraft, where he was part of the ‘soup group’ with two other players, and his current base concept - a cyberpunk city. I also LOVE his new character design, so I wanted to place him in the scene.

Screenshot from Impulse's video and new impulse design by @maxx-doodles

Here are some initial thumbnails I did, trying to figure out the composition. I wasn’t sure of the vibe yet, so I tried some rough thumbnailing, and drawing on an isometric grid and other perspective techniques. I’m going a bit mad for characters at the mo, so I wanted to place some in the scene. I found the angle of the isometric grid steep to place characters comfortably, so decided against that.

Looking back at it, I love the second! But I believe I was struggling with the perspective. I decided on the last one eventually.

Now, I absolutely adore all of the players in the Soup Group, and I am BIG fan of redesigning their notable characteristics to suit different settings. So yes, I decided to put all of the soup group in the image.

PearlescentMoon (left) from my comic and GeminiTay's Hermitcraft Season 10 design [from this thumbnail] (right)

Here's the sketch of the final image. I really enjoyed coming up with cyberpunk versions of them all. I used the impulse design almost exactly, with a few extra interesting details since he's mostly viewed from the back. For PearlescentMoon (middle) I kept her fringe, dark hair and gave her a glowing moon symbol on her top. For GeminiTay, I kept her long ginger hair, antlers (but glowing!) and took inspiration from her new season 10 design - a dark blue jumpsuit to match her dark blue clothes in her new design, and the braids she is often drawn with. I also gave them edgy new hairstyles. And a robot arm. I don't have lore for that.

As usual, I filled each flat colour-to-be with black and lowered the opacity to play with the values. Then I added colours one at a time, aware might be riso printing it. Originally I stuck to trying to make it printable (making the colours out of ones I could make my layering 2-3 colours at different opacities), but as I went on, I decided to drop that and focus on the quality of the image in a digital format alone. I did keep the grayscale version above with all the separate layers in case I needed that if/when I came to riso printing it. Below are the main two digital colour schemes I tried out.

I settled on the one on the left, with the blue tones - the foreground characters really pop. I put a few details in Gem's hair, colour variations etc, and cropped it for Instagram. I actually much prefer the cropped version - it sits better in a rule of thirds.

Now the moment we've all been waiting for :'')

RISO!!!!!!!!!!!

I returned to Cardiff after a couple of months away and was delighted to spend my first day back at The Printhaus, an awesome shared print studio where I have basically made my home. A few of my awesome friends happened to be there, so I spent the day playing around with this image with their help! (please check them out they're very cool - Gavin helped me a lot (we hung out at Thought Bubble, remember? and Rhi gave good crits too!!)

For those who don't know, risograph is basically a shitty photocopier that can only print one colour at a time. However, you can play with gradients and opacities, and layer colours really nicely to combine. I've done a lot of single-colour tonal work with riso but this is my first go really layering.

First, Gavin showed me how to separate the channels in Photoshop, using the flat image uploaded to the 'gram. We copied and pasted these layers in grayscale and added blending modes to each layer to replicate what they might look like when printed.

With blending modes, the digital mockup looked like this!!

This bit goes into technical details for replicating what the print might look like for those who might want it - feel free to skip :)))

I copied and pasted the Cyan, Black and Magenta layers as greyscale (as you can see above)

I made all of the greyscale layers multiply layers since risograph ink is transparent and we wanted to see how it layers. The ink usually comes out a bit lighter than you think, so it's good to bear that in mind. I used a clipping mask over each greyscale layer and a blending mode. WHEN YOU PRINT, PRINT IN GREYSCALE, NOT COLOUR.

Here's how I split the colours from CMYK to the riso colours, their hex codes and the blending mode I used to replicate the colours:

Cyan - Mint [HEX#82D8D5] Screen Magenta - Fluorescent Pink [HEX#FF48B0] Screen Black - Blue [HEX#0078BF] Overlay Yellow - scrapped for colour scheme purposes

Blue, Mint and Florencent Pink layers in greyscale in Procreate.

Riso printed Mint and Florescent Pink layers on separate paper, followed by the two layered together.

We always start with the lighter colour inks first, because sometimes the rollers can pick up the ink and cause extra marks where you don't want them. The first two colours came out great!

The first time we printed the blue, it came out very dark (left, first image). I have had this issue before - my last book, Winter Wellbeing, came out much darker than I wanted. Now I realise that the blue ink is super sensitive. All the 'white space' that is covered by a low-opacity blue on the left is only 2%, and yet it has come out pretty strong. We tried printing it on one of the misaligned images just to see, but it took all of the brightness out of the neon soup sign at the top of the image (second image). So I changed the values and pushed them way lighter, so it just pushed the values of the darker bits slightly, and brightened some of the lineart (right, first image)

And this is the final riso printed version!! I'm so so happy with how this came out. It's so different from the original digital version, and I actually love that.

I didn't create new colours in the way that I intended to - I wanted to play with overlaying purposefully to create specific colours eg. orange for the hair etc. But!!! I'm really happy with how it came out. That will have to be a project for next time.

Also, many copies are slightly misaligned, so in future I think I'd do flat layers for the colours a more blobby style with the linework on one layer only so there's less of a chance for obvious misalignment. design for the riso, rather than riso the design.

Overall though, this feels like a super cool step up and a milestone for me. Super happy with how it came out!! And I'm excited to play with colour some more. Can't wait to see the rest of the Lionheart brothers! Enjoy your weekend :)))

Archie 🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺 <3

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chalkeater · 4 months

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What does being a fictive even mean, actually? Is it an actual identity, or something more akin to roleplay? Or am I misunderstanding it even more?

heyy! so while i can be super detailed about it ill try to keep it really simple. ill use some medical terminology but just note that im just using "DID" so you can google stuff after this ok?. skip to the bottom for a TLDR. i just want to be thorough in case youre curious.

have you ever heard of systems? if not have you ever heard of Dissociative identity disorder or DID?

if you dont know what it is we made an infographic on this last year! this will have all the basic info you need, including terms ill use immediately after this sentence

alters can have different "sources" for what the brain can base them off of sometimes.

in the medical world there is the word introject. the opposite of this is insourced. (these are a label/categorizations for a kind of alter to explain its origin- which is going to be part of an identity if one chooses to be public or identify with it. yknow. the nuance of labels)

Introject = an alter based off of an external source from the body/mind. this can be fictional characters or objects, animals.. or factual things like a real life plush, a family pet, or a real person. a famous example for "real person" introjects tend to be family members, friends, or abusers.

Insourced = not based on any external thing, source, media. for the most part. so it's like the brain's "oc" for the lack of a better word lol

NOW. i havent even gotten to fictives yet.

In the community. someone wanted to coin a word to differentiate between "fictional introject" and "factual introject" faster. SO! fictional introjects got coined as FICTIVES. and Factual introjects got coined as FACTIVES!

TL;DR - Fictives is the system community coined term to be the shortened version of "fictional introject"!!! so looking up fictional introject might get you results on google.

Fictives are related to SYSTEMS, NOT SINGLETS (Singlets = non-systems)

Further information on fictives as a person:

alters in systems are not roleplaying or kinning, but you might find the occassional system who will identify that way- but it's in no way roleplaying or pretending at all. every system is different. you meet one system then you MET one system LOL.

fictives are NOT to be confused with fictionkin! the communities have a long tie with each other though!!

its not roleplay. a fictive is just who they ARE. its like how you are YOU! You cant imagine what its like to be someone else. you never were BORN as someone else. you dig?

fictives can remember memories of the past or present of when another alter switches and isnt that fictive but thats not the fictive's memories. that's the other guy's memories from when they were fronting. make sense?

ANYWAY im not an educational blog so feel free to google this stuff! im in class LOL

heres more resources though if you want.

Plural Pride/The Plurality Playbook • Multiplicity FAQ • More than one

Fictives, Factives (you can probably find "professional" articles on these. i just dont have the time right now. you have google you can do it i trust)

#ask #idiotic-b-gilson #SORRY THIS IS LONG #I Hope you dont think im being rude i just wanna let you have all the context you need lol #if you have more questions feel free to ask #just dont see me as a voice for systems #also i have a carrd?

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neopronouns · 6 months

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Not a request, just a question. Do you know what the main or "best" MOGAI wiki is? It seems like there's a lot of drama between certain wikis, and I know that Fandom (the company that owns a lot of wikias) isn't very well liked. There's a ton of MOGAI wikias out there, all with different stuff, and I really wish I only had to deal with one of them. What wikia do you use when researching this kind of thing? Are wikias even the best place to archive this stuff?

honestly, there isn't really a 'best' wiki. you're right that they all contain different terms, which sadly makes it impossible to only use one for term searches and the like. i'll review a few.

just based on its comprehensive pages, especially for recoined terms, i like genderpedia's format most, but i'm fairly certain that only the wiki owners can edit it, so it takes a while for new pages to appear.

the lgbta wiki probably has the most pages, but they have an extreme problem with redefining terms (cough cough vincian/calling the gay man flag an mlm flag), prioritizing those redefinitions and redesigned flags over original definitions and more well-known flags, and lacking sources. they're in the process of fixing some of these things, but it's still not perfect and that makes a lot of coiners wary of it.

the mogai wiki doesn't seem to be updated very often, and many of its pages are copied over from the lgbta wiki pending edits, so i don't use it often

the lgbtqia+ wiki resulted in the deletion of almost every other queer wiki on fandom, deleted the vast majority of their pages, and made every other page less inclusive. i don't touch this one.

the gender wiki sometimes has pages that others don't, mainly for older terms. i don't tend to search this one manually, but if it pops up in a google search when other wikis don't, it can be useful.

speaking of older terms, though the anti-mogai wiki mogaipedia has been deleted, the majority of its pages were archived on the wayback machine. if you're getting no results elsewhere, it's worth trying here, just ignore the rude categories and inane poems.

honestly though, none of these are perfect. if you're searching for terms, i recommend trawling @radiomogai, @gender-archival, @lgbtqiarchive, and @variant-archive, and if you're coining terms and want to ensure they're archived, tag radiomogai in your coining posts.

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wild-wombytch · 8 months

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So. I'm still new to radical feminism and still in the middle of my peak trans, so I'm trying to be careful with my critical thinking and tonight I genuinely wondered about that injunction that feminism must by default ve trans inclusive. Because does it, really? What do trans people actually bring on the table for feminism? Or are they only beneficiary/exploitative of feminism without bringing on anything in return but misogynistic anon hate? I wondered "hey, if "trans women are women" is a true statement, then what is statistically the involvement of trans women in women's rights? In abortion's rights? In thing that allegedly concern womanhood even if it doesn't concern them personally?"

Because I'm a lesbian and chances are I'll never need an abortion in my whole life. Hell, due to personal reasons, I'd have more chances to want to keep my pregnancy going if I had to have one because I might not be able handle abortion psychologically. Yet, I'm fighting for every woman to be able to have an abortion, to have that choice. Even if more likely than not it doesn't effect me as an individual as much as it effects me as a woman. Because women always have to bear the weight of all the women's rights anyway, we get little privileges in terms of individuation in comparison to men. So I wondered -genuinely, in good faith- if trans women were feeling the weight of this as well or if it was going to be full male "not my problem, don't care" entitlement. And ladies. Let me offer some more exhibit (I swear these are all the first results I had for TWO different wordings on Google):

So let's do the midnight/mushbrain quick unpacking of this :

- No stats

- No arguments, we're supposed to accept trans women benefit feminism because They Said So™

- Lots of vitriolic takes on anyone questioning it ("cruel" "appropriative of the rhetoric of women's rights" that "inflict life-threatening harm on trans people"-lol-, "narrowly interpreting a statement", "bigoted", "anti feminist", weakening feminism)

- Many of those are made by trans women and also denying biological reality [not surprising, BUT an argument of TRAs is that most trans people believe in bio sex...despite hating radfems, somehow]

- It's so focused on pushing the trans activism, trying to prove that trans women don't have male privileges (an idea in these examples often defended by...other males) and that uwu but transwomen experience misogyny too uwu + trying so hard to prove us that there's no threat to women's rights here whatsoever. Nope. None. Please, look elsewhere. That it doesn't answer my question directly.

And by that lack of answer I ironically found it. It's male centered. It's gaslighting us in believing women's rights are ok and NEED trans activism (cause women need saviors and haven't been handling feminism themselves on their own and under hatred all of these centuries, y'know /s?). Nobody cares about women's rights here. It's not based on facts, it's all based on the fact we should blindly believe what TiM say. That including them will benefit us somehow and that it's not male violence because they identify as women so they allegedly can't reproduce male violence. All that while packaging disagreement from female feminists in diverse degrees of insults and misogyny and misinformation...say again how there's no trans agenda here and how it's not like, oh, I don't know, literal male entitlement and narcissism?

Anyway, I'm too sleepy to dig further but by all means, please do if you want to add something.

Just, I'm new to this and this is already pretty exhausting. To think a lot of you have been radfems for years...istg y'all are braver than honeybadgers (complimentary). Literally all the online communities now cater to them and throw us under the bus when we raise questions. It's male privileges benefiting males over females.

Exhibit 4852 about why radfems/gender criticals are right.

#anyways.#tras are mras #radical feminism #radblr #radblr safe #sex not gender #terfsafe #terfblr #radfem safe #gender critical #smash the patriarchy #transgenderism #terf safe #terf please interact #radfem please interact #radical feminists please touch #libfem bullshit

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reaperintheroses · 2 years

Text

The meeting

~Next Part

@psychshawnjuleshanluke requested a drabble series with rooster x mavericks daughter who's also a pilot. Here's the first part. (Also friendly little disclaimer regardless of how much I shit on the navy please realize that it's very similar to a sibling rivalry. Many people in the different branches of the military do things that other branches couldn't even fathom let alone want to do. That being said, army is the best). As previously stated I made the divider myself, you are more than welcome to use it please just give me credit Warnings: swearing like once I think. I didn't actually look and check but knowing me it's possible. Also before you get confused, according to google Phoenix's first name is Natasha. I don't think they ever actually say it in the movie but you tend to not refer to yourself as your own callsign soooo.

When you were invited to attend Top Gun, you had a very fast realization after the initial excitement ran its course. Regardless of your parentage and your last name, you were going to have to work equally as hard to be respected. You had thirteen weeks. Thirteen weeks to make your mark on this school and build your reputation as a Naval Aviator. It was likely that you would be the only woman in your class. Regardless of what your colleagues liked to sneer at you, you definitely weren't there to find love, just to become a better pilot. Your father had warned you about the type of pilots that frequented Top Guns halls, and regardless of the undying love you had for him, you also knew that you were the result of a one night stand with a girl whose name your father didn't remember till a year later, when you were suddenly dropped into his life. Top Gun was for the best of the best. The top one percent. You just had to be better.

Top Gun: Week Two

As your wheels made connections with the landing strip, you felt like you could finally breathe again. For the third time in a row, you were the only one who had been able to defeat Warlock in long distance dogfight training.

You had felt a distinct satisfaction at pressing that red button and announcing "That's a shot," into your radio. As you sat back and let your plane be taxied and placed in the correct spot, you grinned under your mask. You climbed out of your plane and climbed down the ladder. Unclipping your chin strap on your helmet, you placed it on the ground next to you as you nodded to the landing attendant. You cracked your bones into place before beginning basic maintenance on your plane. The longer you could spend outside and avoid the hostile stares of your peers, the better. Especially Hangman. You worked until the sun had already begun to disappear below the horizon. You wiped your hand across your forehead to rid yourself of the sweat that had begun to gather there. You bent down and picked up your helmet before giving your plane one last glance. You nodded, pleased with your work before turning around on your heel and making your way back inside the base. As you opened the door you looked quickly to your left and right before walking inside. You made sure to keep your steps light in case anyone was hanging out in the breakroom. You made your way to the dorms making fast work of opening your door. You smiled in the relief that the air conditioning provided. You raised your eyebrows at the distinct lack of your roommate when you spotted a yellow sticky note on your lamp shade. Walking over you picked it up and chuckled at the message.

"Hey, I went to grab a bite to eat with that cute bartender we met last weekend. If I play my cards right I shouldn't be back until tomorrow morning. XOXO- Natasha."

Phoenix had spent all night talking to that girl, so you were glad that she was able to get her number. You unzipped your fly suit and let it drop to the ground, stepping out of it before kicking it to the corner of your room. You grabbed a random pair of sweatpants that were lying on your floor before reaching under your bed for the extra storage that you had placed there containing some towels and your shower caddy. You placed both items on your bed as you bent back down and switched to the other bin containing various items of non-uniform clothing. You grabbed a sweatshirt advertising your old Navy base and a pair of gym shorts. You tucked those along with your towel underneath your arm before using your other hand to grab your caddy.

You felt so much better after your shower. Regardless of the fact that you had grown up in the sky, you still felt disgusting after multiple hours spent in your heavy flight suit under the hot sun. You glanced at your reflection in the mirror as you combed your hair, making sure to smooth out the various knots that had accumulated from the sweat and helmet hair. You tucked your hair behind your ears as you dropped your comb into your shower caddy. You quickly tied up your hair into a braid to keep it out of your face as you slept before gathering all of your belongings. You opened the locker room door and looked out into the hall before making the walk back to the dorm hall. You reached out your hand to your doorknob when someone behind you cleared their throat. You turned around with curiosity before smiling.

Rooster smiled back at you as you turned back around to retire to your dorm for the night. "Hey good work up there, Vixen, you have to teach me that maneuver sometime." You reached a hand up to your face to tuck your hair behind your ears before quickly dropping it again when you realized it was pulled too far back from your face. "Thanks, that- uh that means a lot." You rolled your lip between your teeth as he raised his eyebrows at you. "Well anyway, have a goodnight." You nodded before turning back around to your door. "You too, Bradley," you only realized a moment too late that he had already shut his door.

"It's just awkward because we grew up together, and then my dad pulled his papers from the academy and he just stopped talking to me." You hugged your pillow to your chest as you looked across the room to where Phoenix was trying to catch a piece of popcorn in her mouth. It had been three days since Rooster had complimented you and you couldn't get his face out of your head. "Well you guys seem to get along fine everytime I see you interact." You rolled your eyes at the statement. "Well sure, but that's more just him being polite. You should've seen how close we were in highschool."

She raised an eyebrow at you from her place on her bed. "When you say close do you mean," she trailed off at the end of her sentence. "Nothing other than close, we were just really good friends." She raised her eyebrows at you, "How bad was your crush on him?" You snorted, "I had it so bad for him, lasted from eighth grade until I went to the academy and he didn't." She threw more popcorn in her mouth. "Well what's so wrong with liking him now," you leveled a glare at her. "Besides the fact that we aren't seventeen anymore," you fell down on your side before rolling onto your back, "he hates my dad and by extension hates me, falling for him wouldn't get me anywhere." Phoenix huffed before tilting the popcorn bag up to dump more in her mouth. "You have no way of proving that he hates you unless you ask him. You'll never know his true feelings until you ask." You huffed at the statement before reaching to your desk to shut off your lamp. "Just think about it, I'm not telling you to actively thirst after him at every waking moment but don't deny feelings based on a non-credible hunch. Sleep well." You sighed at her words before twisting off the lamp. You shut your eyes to try and get some sleep before your five AM wake-up call, but instead all you saw was his face and all you heard was his warm laugh.

Top Gun: Week Four

Every waking moment that wasn't spent thinking about flying or actually flying was spent thinking about Rooster. Anything about him. Did he still use the old spice body wash? What did he do while you were at the academy? Did he think about you like this too? You missed being around him; you missed breathing the same air as him. As the weeks went on and your crush on Bradley intensified, you knew that you were done for. You knew that this was going to end in someone getting heart broken.

You looked over to the sink counter where your phone rested while you were getting ready. You had twenty more minutes until you had to leave to make it to your dad's house on time for dinner. Regardless of where you went or what the Navy threw in your face, your dad always found some way to follow you, and Top Gun was no different. You looked up in the mirror, deeming your makeup exceptional enough. You pushed your hair past your shoulders before packing up your toiletries. You put them back in your locker before shutting it. You turned to give yourself one final once over before walking out of the locker room and making your way to the parking lot.

"So, how's class going?" You look up from your plate at your fathers words. "Um it's going good, I'm doing pretty well." He nodded as he scooped up some salad onto his fork. You took a sip of wine as you waited for the inevitable question. "Nothing too difficult?" You shook your head as you raised your eyebrows at him. He opened his mouth and you rolled your eyes at him. "Bradley's fine, dad." His shoulders sagged slightly. "I invited him to come eat with us again, he didn't even open the message." You tilted your head as you continued to eat. "Can you really blame him? You set him back years in his career." He shut his eyes as you continued to eat. "He hasn't been shot out of the sky, he's an adult and he's not your responsibility anymore." Your dad looked at you with raw emotions in his eyes. You'd only seen him look at you like that at other times in your life. When he told you the true story of your mother and when news reached him of Carol's death. Under the surface you knew how your father was feeling. You wanted nothing more than for everything to go back to how it was in high school. When Bradley would go watch sports in the basement with your dad while Carol would teach you how to grill. Your dad looked back down to his empty plate fighting the tears that you were sure crowded his waterline. You put your fork down on your napkin and reached across the table to grab his hand. "Who knows, he'll probably come around one day. You've been in his life too long for him not to." Your father turned a smile towards you as you drained the rest of your wine glass. "I'll clean up in here, why don't you pick a movie for us to watch before I have to go back."

Top Gun: Week Five

Today's training exercise was a repeat of the past few weeks. You knew that today was going to be another late night to avoid your peers and their leering words whispered behind your back. Right as you had opened the maintenance panel and begun to assess what needed extra work, you heard a set of footsteps approaching you. Great, they had figured out your hiding spot. You heard someone clear their throat behind you. You turned around with your wrench in hand, hoping to convey that you were busy and wanted to be left alone.

"Hey Vixen, that was some great work up there." You raised your eyebrows at Bradley's kind words. He's been complimenting you and reaching out to you more in the last two weeks. You knew it wasn't nearly the same as it had been, but it was a step in the right direction. "Thanks, it definitely pays off that I was basically raised in the cockpit." he chuckled at your words as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Hey so listen, I had a question for you." You nodded before placing the wrench on the ground to show him he had your full attention. "Sure, what's up?" His tongue darted out to lick his lips, he almost seemed to be stalling.

"So I know I've been distant for a few years and it wasn't fair to you at all-" you nodded along to his words, not denying the statement- "I would totally understand because of all of that if you wanted to say no but would you want to go out with me sometime?" You blinked at him, allowing your mind a moment to catch up to his words. He went from barely speaking to you to asking you out within the span of five weeks. "Yes! I mean, that would be great. I can give you my number." He raised his eyebrows at you. "Has it changed?" You shook your head; your emotions were still reeling. "No, that's right you probably still have it. No, my number hasn't changed. Text me when you have availability?" He nodded before running a hand through his hair. "I'll do that, have a good night if I don't see you." Your fingers started twitching from their place at your sides. "Yeah, you too." Did that really just happen? You had to go home. You had to figure out what you were going to wear and- oh God, what would your dad say?

#robins topgun sleepover #topgun maverick #rooster x reader #rooster x you #rooster x yn #bradley bradshaw x you #bradley bradshaw x reader #top gun rooster #top gun requests #bradley bradshaw x yn

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happyk44 · 1 month

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So I just found out that Poseidon is also the god of droughts and what are your thoughts on a child of poseidon with drought powers, a complete opposite to their more sea based children?

[ID: Screenshot of a google search. The search term reads, "god of drought in gr...". The search term is cut off due to the mobile layout of the screenshot. A featured snippet at the top comes from wikipedia, reading, "List of water of deities".

The core of the screenshot is the People Also Ask section, of which the return is "Who is the Greek god of drought?" This question has been dropped down to show a result from "www.theoi.com". The answer reads, "Poseidon was the Olympian god of the sea, earthquake, floods, drought and horses. He was depicted as a mature man with a sturdy build and a dark beard holding a trident (a three-pronged fisherman's spear)." /end ID]

Oh! I knew this 🙌 I think it's related to him being the god of the sea/water, sort of like how Apollo is associated with healing but also the plague. I always find it funny when that happens 🤣

So for the kids who skew more to the side of drought, obviously they still have their sea powers. They're probably far more dry in tone, less empathic, less emotional. Maybe they're more prone to the earthshaker side of Poseidon as well, and the equine, to make up for the lesser interest in the sea. Plus earthquakes and horses are more land-based and a drought affects the land (agricultural loss, wildfires, increased sandstorms, etc).

In PJO canon, I'd want to say drought-based kids grew up more inland where access to a large body of water was difficult to come across. So it's less about internal nature (as with my interpretation of the freshwater vs seastorm Neptune babies), and more about familiarity and adaptation - sort of like how catci and other desert plants have evolved to handle long periods without water.

Powers that they have an increased capability for over their sea counterparts:

causing earthquakes! they can manipulate them on a small or large scale, but they have higher propensity. it's a little harder for them to cause underwater earthquakes tho (which. can become tsunamis btw)

dehydration - sort of an inverse of drowning a person in their own fluids, they will the liquids inside them to dry up at a rapid pace

as a subset of that, i think it would be so cool if they could pull a tantalus-like punishment with enough focus on someone. no matter how much you drink, you will always be thirsty, you will never be satisfied, you will be captain barbosa and his crew, turning skeletal in the moonlight

they can withstand higher and drier heats than their sea-preferred counterparts (for example, percy would be hanging off of carter in the desert, crying for water, while they're chilling and vibing, truly a cactus of a person)

similarly, they retain water better, and sweat less. their bodies need less fluid to keep going on (this makes them better at giving blood lol, stay juicy everybody!)

while most children of poseidon are capable of piling water in the air into something usable, the drought prone kids have picked up how to pull water/usable liquid from anything available, as dry climates may lack enough water in the air for it to be worthwhile compared to humid climates --- so they're more likely to pull water out of living things, pull water out of the ground, or even find water deep underground (well water!)

due to the above, they're more capable of causing inland floods, they can pull water out from deep in the earth and force it to surround areas that are devoid of rivers, lakes, or even high rainfalls - this isn't just because of the whole "god of floods" thing either, it's because after a long period of drought, sudden rains can cause flash flooding to occur, so they're good at making flood happens

heat generation! they may be able to make things hotter, and/or drier

they have perpetual black thumbs. they are... not very good at growing plants lol

finding/summoning horses. it might take a while, but if there is a horse, they will find it (like the horse version of a dowsing rod, which, lol, they're kind of the human version of a dowsing rod, i guess), and if there are no horses nearby, they will get one to come to them through ✨ vibes ✨

their version of a storm is a heatwave OR extreme rain. yes, they can summon hurricanes or typhoons, but those are much more ocean-based things. so forcing high and burning levels of heat that makes everyone stumble and sag, sweating through every inch of fabric they have OR extreme and heavy rainfall that practically drowns you where you stand and knocks you to the ground is more their instinct

lowkey i wanna give them sandstorms as well, since that can be an effective of long-period of drought, but. you know. idk how much greece was ever getting pummeled by sandstorms for that to be something they associated with drought. (egypt, on the other hand, set, my dangerous and beloved)

(funnily enough set is also the god of foreigners, so like, who knows, maybe he and poseidon struck a funny deal when one of his kids traipsed over there while wandering around)

Since I think the difference between sea-based Poseidon babies and land-based Poseidon babies is just due to their adaptation of their environment, I think someone who is sea-based could easily become more land-based after living in such conditions for a while, and vice versa. Sort of like accents, lol. You know, if Percy decided to up and move to the desert in his 40s, he'd adapt after an initial period of "oh my gods oh my gods where is the fucking water where is the ocean i am dying" lol. it would take him a lot longer to pick up on the accent of the land than if he were younger, and so he'd still maintain his "sea" accent long-term

Because of this, I think it would be really neat if, way back when, it was common for the kids to take a few months away from camp to go living in the desert for a bit so they could pick up some land skills - like a rite of passage for poseidon demigods. one of the older cabin members goes out with them to make sure they don't die, helps them hone into the skills they might not have tapped into before, etc and so on. The kids come back at the end of their outing, more well-rounded and capable of tapping into the opposite side of their powers, when and if needed. Some of the kids might repeat the outing more than once for funsies, but most of them usually just do the one time thing, and then practice their land-based powers on a smaller scale at camp.

If a land-based kid comes into camp when they're much older, they don't typically have to do the outing, but sometimes they'll go out, not to learn anything, but to help the others, since they'll essentially receive assistance with their sea-based powers while they're at camp (presuming every version of camp has been based near the ocean or some giant water mass throughout the years - if not, then it goes the other way around, where they take a few months to go chill out on a beach for a few months).

Thanks for asking! If anyone else has any extra ideas, feel free to add them on! :)

Additionally, just 'cause, here are the four types of droughts I came across while googling "drought causes" because, lol, I'm an island boy, I am not familiar with droughts and wanted to get some facts in that weren't high temps and low rainfall (source):

Meteorological: region-specific; occur when an area receives less rainfall than normal; often measured by comparing the current situation to previous years’ rainfall. Some locations are affected more harshly than others.

Agricultural: when there is not enough moisture in the soil to sustain the growth of crops. Crops need different amounts of water based on their level of maturity, so they can be susceptible to droughts at different times. For example, most plants require moist topsoil to germinate, but this could be less important down the line as the plant matures. So, the effects of an agricultural drought hinge largely on the growth stage of the plants.

Hydrological: when there is a lack of surface and subsurface water supply; detrimental effects can be most readily observed in watersheds and river basins; affect the entire water cycle, take longer to notice, and have effects less immediately obvious than with other droughts.

Socioeconomic: when the water supply is too low to support human and environmental needs; wreaks havoc on the supply and demand of crucial commodities like water, grains, fish, and hydroelectric power.

#happy's asks #chiefkideclipselamp #happy talks pjo #percy jackson #percy watching one of his new sibling running around the desert with carter like it's not driest place in the world #they are vibing he is dying chugging all the water and wondering why he agreed to come out here (oh right his massive crush on carter)

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yukirayu · 1 year

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A Haunting Shadow, a Drifting Ghost (A Meta about Madarame)

In this thread, I'll be looking into when and why Madarame shows himself to Towa, and all other things related to it. (This is also available on Google Docs, if you want to read it there instead for convenience.)

I'll start by saying the following:

I love Madarame, and I find him to be a very interesting character. That being said, I also get why many don’t like him. And for this meta, I'm not wearing a pair of rose-tinted glasses when I analyze him and I’ll say things as they are.

Everything you see here is only my opinion. I do my best to explain based on what the visual novel showed us, but we still all have a different way of interpreting things.

By the time I made this meta, the progress of the translation of Madarame’s drama CD has only been on the first track, so some things here may likely have been discredited there. But based on the little I can infer from what I had listened, what’s covered in the drama CD isn’t likely to coincide much with what I’ll discuss here, but then again, I could be wrong.

If I quote anything from the visual novel, I opted to rephrase it into third-person POV because that’s how it originally read in the JP version anyway, and doing so helps provide more objectivity.

Be warned that there are spoilers abound here, so be warned before you read any further because if you have not yet gotten to his route, I advise that you play his route - or rather - that you finish all the routes first before reading this.

And with that…

Setting the Stage for Madarame’s Appearance

Madarame’s Route

When we all first played Taku and Rei's routes, we at least got to see Fujieda. But no signs of Madarame at all; at most, just a few mentions of his name. His route does answer why, eventually, but... not entirely.

In Madarame's route, what happens differently? Ikuina commits suicide.

This alone changes the atmosphere of the rest of the route, since it greatly affects both Towa's mood and his relationship with Taku and Rei. Both always had reservations with what Towa does as the artist 'euphoria', but besides patching up his wounds and the occasional lecture, it was more or less a normal routine for them. At least until Ikuina, because before him, none of the previous models died.

It's why they become a lot more grave and cautious with their approach to Towa, because they feel that he may have started to take his tendencies too far. At the same time, however, Towa is overcome with an itching urge that he cannot fathom, let alone figure out how to quell.

Both clash like oil and water, and it results in Towa drifting further away from Taku and Rei even though they try (and fail) to help him. They mean well, but they don't know the best way to help him, or even just how to get through to him.

And so, Towa is on his own.

The final route hints that Towa was overwhelmed with a frustration that neither violence nor sex can truly sate because he's actually bothered by the fact that he, in a way, took a life.

But he never realizes this, because he needs to remember his past in order to do so. And his own subconscious is determined to keep certain memories hidden and forgotten. So without an answer, and with every day that he can't get an answer, a release, or any form of support (that he wouldn’t reject), Towa becomes more frustrated and vulnerable in equal measure.

Even the bar manager comments on how Towa starts to look more like his old self using the same word: vulnerable.

Because some things play differently, Towa never ends up getting curious about his past (or more specifically, his childhood), so his thoughts remain hazy as long as his mind lacks something to focus on.

Shortly after, he is suddenly handed over a red windproof lighter, which hints to him that Madarame - after years of being presumed dead - is actually alive. With this and the rumors of a “ghost” that’s been haunting the Deathmatch Area, Towa easily puts two and two together.

Like his childhood in Euphoria, Madarame is also a part of Towa’s past that he would rather forget. In this case, however, it's a more conscious decision, rather than an unconscious one brought about by his mental trauma trying to keep his sanity intact. As such, while it doesn't exactly help abate that discontent inside him, wondering whether Madarame is really alive or not still (in a way) did its job in keeping his mind preoccupied on something else.

In time, it would soon lead to when Madarame eventually shows himself to Towa.

Fujieda’s Route

In Fujieda's route, Towa is in a similarly miserable situation, though it has less to do with his model committing suicide (which he doesn't even learn of until much much later), and more with the mental stress he starts to suffer from after receiving a package containing relics of his childhood.

While the effect of the change of events on Towa’s relationship with Taku and Rei are nowhere near as bad, there's nevertheless some distance between them in the last route that leaves Towa (mostly) on his own. This is because this time around, one can't help him while the other won't help him with what he wants.

In Rei's case, it's only because he doesn't know what's going on and thus truly can't be of much help to Towa even though he wants to. But even then, he has his own problems to deal with, namely his father and being burdened with the man’s debt. As for Taku, Towa finds out that Taku knows more about his past... but is determined to keep it a secret at all costs, and not even any threats or call-outs will get him to spill anything. And we all know how Towa responded to that.

Unlike before, Towa knows why he’s in a state of unrest this time. Someone out there is compelling him to dig up his past, but the voices in his head tell him something which echoes what Taku also told him: “There are some things you’re better off not remembering.”

And again, he tries to quell his frustrations with violence and sex, by either picking a fight, or sleeping around with whoever’s willing to give it to him. However, while he’s left to his own devices, he has a clear-cut goal in his mind. He has a focus. He’s still vulnerable, but he’s not completely lost this time.

Even then, just like before, Madarame leaves a hint to Towa that he’s still alive. And naturally, Towa also gets concerned about Madarame’s presence. But his interest in knowing more about his younger years and about his mother overshadows that concern.

Heck, even the visual novel outright tells us (through Sakaki) that everything about Madarame will be on the back-burner in this route. If anything, the man only gets to hog the spotlight for five minutes maximum, as we all know.

And even before he shows up, Towa had already gone through many vicissitudes in his journey to uncover more about his childhood. So by the time Madarame shows up, the only reason why his presence really alarms Towa (besides the standard shock at how Madarame isn’t really dead) is because he has endangered not just Taku, but also Rei.

That, and it doesn’t take too long for him to vanish as quickly as he showed up.

The (Other) Reason behind Madarame’s Presence

“If you were too far gone, then I had no intention of involving myself with you.”

Is basically the answer to why Madarame never appears in Taku and Rei’s routes.

However, this answer is only a half-truth.

Some of his remarks confirmed that he had - to some degree - checked on Towa a few times, and there is proof for this. While it’s easy to miss, there are instances in the earlier parts of the game where Towa pauses and looks around, feeling like he’s being watched.

Towa’s usually right on the money whenever he feels like someone’s stalking him, so it’s highly likely that someone was watching him from a distance. That being said, we never know who it is, and the visual novel never confirms it either. Based on everything we know by the endgame, it could be Eiji keeping tabs on Towa for Sakaki. It could also be someone from the Takasato-gumi trailing Towa on Toono’s orders (at least, if you take Taku’s route). Or it could be Madarame, trying to see for himself if Towa has lost his fangs.

And there are two scenes which further support Madarame’s statement about how he has stalked Towa at some point.

One is the additional cutscene during an Exploration, which you get after completing Taku’s route and gives you the additional Clue needed to get Madarame’s route. Before bumping into Sakaki in said cutscene, Towa took notice of something… or someone else.

While Towa was on his way to Roost, he caught sight of a guy slipping away from a crowd. He recognized that man. His restless gait carried him toward an alley.

He didn't get a good look at the man’s face, but he was sure he knew him.

But right as Towa was about to follow him...

The other is a scene from Taku’s route. While Towa and Rei are having a meal outside, Rei points out that someone’s been watching them from across the diner, but neither he nor Towa could see the guy’s face, what with it hiding behind a newspaper.

With a tense look on his face, Rei set down his spoon and leaned across the table to whisper.

"Do you know that person? The one reading the newspaper?"

Towa followed Rei's gaze to the counter, where a man sat while reading the paper. He had it spread out so widely, Towa couldn't see his face.

"Is he a friend of yours?"

Towa, "No..."

"Well, he keeps peeking at us from behind the paper. When I looked back at him, he went straight back to 'reading'... but he's still been glancing at us. ….What's his deal? Is he a stalker?"

Towa scrutinized the man at the counter, but he never looked up from his paper. Then he rose to his feet, paid his bill, and left the diner.

[...]

More importantly, who was that man just now? If Rei was to be believed, then he was watching them for some reason.

And it wouldn't be the first time a fan of 'euphoria' stalked Towa. In that case, it would mean he really was watching Towa.

...No, he could be overthinking it. It was entirely possible the man wasn't even looking at them on purpose.

Given that Towa would recognize Madarame’s face even years later, if the mysterious stalker is Madarame, it would make sense for him to keep Towa from seeing his visage.

In Taku and Rei’s routes, Towa never really suffers any special stress-induced episodes that make him go on his own version of a rampage. He just lives life like he always had, and only gets involved in either Taku or Rei’s troubles later on. So in Madarame’s eyes, Towa - being at peace (for the most part) and not really in the mood to bash in some skulls - is “too far gone”, which is why he’s absent on both routes and is only mentioned in passing a few times.

But that’s the thing. Besides the injuries he got from his sessions with Ikuina and Asakura/Kirihara, Towa is none the worse for wear. And this is enough cause for Madarame to decide to not bother with Towa any longer in the first two routes.

What’s easy to miss here is that it’s not just about Towa lacking his old rebellious streak. Madarame isn’t just trying to see if Towa has already lost all traces of his old self or not. He’s also on the lookout for something else.

When Madarame told Towa on what basis he went with to decide whether or not he would go after Towa, he still omitted something.

What was that part he kept quiet about? Besides the mental and emotional state Towa is in, that question can be answered with another question: what did Towa still have in both routes that slowly erodes and disappears in Madarame’s route?

A support system.

In other words, someone to rely on. Someone who he subconsciously trusts and can go to. Someone to look out for him at the end and at the start of the day.

And it’s hard to say that he still has that in Madarame’s route; since while Taku and Rei do want to help him, with Towa pushing them away even before Madarame entered the picture, he may as well have had no one left.

In Fujieda’s route, he’s still on his own, but the circumstances are different. Again, Rei - besides not being able to do much for Towa - has an issue of his own to handle. Taku already has his whole ordeal with Toono - but being caught red-handed as a secret-keeper of Towa’s past ended up adding fuel to the fire, leaving Towa alone in his pursuit of his past. And until much later in the game, Fujieda is no more than a distant and reluctant ally.

Still, in Madarame’s eyes, in (at least) the early parts of the last route, Towa appears isolated and left without anyone to rely on. Not to mention, he’s in a near-helpless situation because of the strain he’s in from attempting to unearth a dark chapter of his past. Hence why, even though Madarame didn’t “bump into” Towa to test whether Towa was still someone who could punch back after being punched, still left a clue that he’s alive.

So to sum up, Madarame only reveals his presence to Towa if the following conditions are met:

✓ Towa has traces of his spunkier and younger self

✓ Towa is distant from his friends

✓ Towa is alone and vulnerable

Option: Pursue or Abandon?

Note: If I sound redundant by this point, it’s because I’ve already more or less discussed this topic in another meta I previously made where I compared and contrasted Madarame and Taku. I’m just going into more detail in this particular meta (or at least, I think I am).

Prelude: Yet Another Reason

So there’s the matter of when Madarame reveals himself to Towa. But there’s also the matter of whether he continues going after Towa or not.

I listed a while ago the three conditions that needed to be met in order for Madarame to make his presence known to Towa. Again, to make his presence known.

Even after he and Towa meet face-to-face, Madarame’s hunt is far from over. He’s still gauging the situation. There’s still something else that he’s observing.

In other words, as for whether he will continue pursuing Towa or decide to give it up, a secret fourth condition needs to be met.

This is something that he can gauge from when he first shows up in both his and Fujieda’s routes.

In his own route, it’s only a given that he goes all in. In Fujieda’s route, he calls it quits instead. For the latter case, it’s only natural because he’s not the love interest there, but that’s not all.

In the scene where he appears in the Deathmatch Area, there are a lot of interesting things to observe up to when Madarame suddenly decides to just make his leave, since they all lend credence to what I said earlier: that Madarame wasn’t telling the complete truth when he told Towa that he’d only find him worth going after if he still had his old fighting spirit.

Looking at his route alone, it is hard to see what other motive Madarame would have, given that the route would mention how he’s a man who’s true to his desires. He seems collected, sure, but his mercurial nature is also reflected in how he does whatever he pleases whenever he feels like it. He’s not a man of restraint, either in his actions or in his words.

But it doesn’t mean he’s someone who would never lie for his own benefit.

As discussed in the meta I mentioned earlier, there was when he tells nothing to Towa about his past in his route, only hinting that Taku knows something but is keeping it from him… but then he does the opposite in Fujieda’s route. He doesn’t tell everything, but what he does reveal to Towa is enough for him (and Fujieda) to make progress with their investigation.

Given that Towa becomes distressed upon learning the truth, but the full scope or just a partial detail, it’s strongly hinted that whether Madarame divulges anything or not is done with the same goal. Since Towa’s investigation of his past results in some distance between him and Taku and Rei, Madarame seeks to sever those bonds completely.

This makes up one half of that secret fourth condition. As for the other half, we’ll have to cover a few other points first.

First Encounter: The When, Where and How

To get there, let’s first recall in detail the setting of when Towa and Madarame first meet face-to-face in both routes, and I’m not just talking about the room they’re in. This is important.

In Madarame’s route, Towa was forced to meet with whoever called him alone. He had no choice since Taku was held hostage, and the caller made it clear that Taku is as good as dead if Towa tries anything funny. So Towa does as he’s told… and gets knocked out. When he comes to and realizes that the culprit is Madarame, Towa also finds that he is in one of the many dilapidated buildings of District A, and is in chains too. He’s alone and powerless, with no one else to turn to or call for help.

In Fujieda’s route, Taku is held hostage as well. But it just so happens that Rei had also encountered Madarame, since he was acting on the Takasato-gumi’s orders at the time. And both are present when Towa shows up, so even though Towa still is at a disadvantage, he isn’t on his own, especially not after Fujieda tracks him down.

The difference of the situation also shows the stark difference of the chances Madarame has in getting what he’s after.

In his route, he’s the only one Towa interacts with, hence it’s easy for him to poke and prod Towa (by that I mean punch and pin down), and the more Towa gives in to Madarame’s provocations, the easier it is for Madarame to string him along and manipulate him. Yes, Madarame can be manipulative, and he has proven to be such. This is a fact, no matter how much we may like him.

In Fujieda’s route, however, he doesn’t have much of an opportunity to do that to Towa. He can still fan the flames, but with the other three love interests being there to protect Towa regardless of the condition they’re in, Madarame doesn’t have much freedom of movement, for lack of a better word.

You can say that the aforementioned details only point back to the part I said about Towa either having a support system or not. But besides that, what else stands out?

It’s whether Towa is on the way to recovery, or to regression.

In Love with Your Wounds, Physical and Mental

It’s hinted early on that there’s a story behind Towa’s scars and it’s not just because he finds it fun. His brand of masochism doesn’t come without a reason either. When we first played the visual novel, we all anticipated at some point that it would be from something traumatic, and true enough, Fujieda’s route confirmed it as such.

To sum up, just to make my point later much clearer, his mother allowed him to be tortured and violated and mutilated, and it resulted in his masochism, which is his means to both cope with something that he suffered (even if he cannot remember) and to gain autonomy.

What do I mean by autonomy? As Fujieda explained (albeit with different words), all those times Towa was cut and beaten and raped, he had no control. But if he sought it out and tried to find entertainment and pleasure in it, he could then say that any violence inflicted on him was done on his own terms.

Besides that, there’s one other thing I should point out. When Maya died, Towa’s personality changed and led him to become wilder and more volatile. A short story even confirmed that his sudden switch of demeanor happened right after Maya’s death, since before that, he was timid and well-behaved. Not to mention, it was when Towa’s personality was more turbulent in nature that he got recruited into the Takasato-gumi, which is likely when he and Madarame also met each other.

When they got to know each other more. Even if, most of the time, they ended up fighting, and I mean that in both senses of the word.

Now, Madarame made it pretty clear that he wants Towa to be like how he remembered him. Like how he used to be when he was at the gang. Or, in other words, when Towa was at his most damaged.

And speaking of damage, let’s bring up the shootout that resulted in Kaga’s death and the loss of one of Towa’s eyes. Towa had admitted that the experience had left him a bit more detached. This is confirmed not just in Madarame’s route, but in Taku’s route as well.

From Madarame’s route:

Madarame: Since the day I came back to Shinkoumi, I've been watching you. You'll take a hit, but you won't fight back. You're like a worn-out punching bag. So what changed you?

Towa: ...It was that fight that made me stop caring about anything. I lost Kaga, I lost my eye, I lost you... and this is what's left.

And from Taku’s route:

Towa thought back to that day. To that shootout that cost him his right eye.

Taku had his ruptured eyeball removed at Shinkoumi General Hospital.

Towa personally didn’t miss it much, but the experience still had changed him on a subconscious level.

One can argue that Towa only says that he feels he had nothing left after the shootout because, by that point, he had chosen to keep his distance from Taku and Rei out of the belief that he no longer belongs with them and that only Madarame could understand him. But either way, that experience had undoubtedly affected him.

And yet, even then, he still had friends who had his back. Even though they couldn’t really give him the proper support that he needed to fully resolve his trauma, they still could help keep him on the right track… more or less. So Towa, while not exactly doing too great, is still doing relatively better than before.

While his journey to find his past is taking a toll on him in the physical, emotional and mental sense in the true route, it is established in the Euphoria ending that what awaits him once he’s confronted the ghosts of his past is closure and recovery and self-fulfillment.

All of which he is the farthest away from in Madarame’s route.

The Punchline?

All this, leads up to the latter half of fourth condition, to what Madarame ultimately wants from Towa. The first three only make him interested in showing himself to Towa, and the fourth is what will determine whether he continues going after Towa.

You may ask, why does he even want Towa even after all those years? One reason is that he loves Towa, or at least a certain version of Towa, because he feels that the most damaged and violent kind of Towa validates his own existence.

“I love the look in your eye when you come at me again and again. You don't flinch away; you always come back begging for more. You're like me: deep down, you revel in fighting to the death, and nothing else matters to you.”

“We're perfectly compatible.”

“With you, [I’ll never get bored].”

“I’ll never get bored.”

No matter what kind of person you are, it’s almost always a given that you want at least one other person who would understand you. More often than not, that person has to be someone who mirrors you, who shares your viewpoints. And even someone like Madarame wasn’t immune to having that desire.

In fact, his Madness ending only even happens because by being asked way too many questions, he felt that Towa had failed to become that person he wants him to be if he can’t understand him from the get-go, from just a look or a few words. And that reason was apparently more than enough to set him off and drive him over the edge.

Though that aside, as I said before, Madarame knew he could only have the kind of Towa that he wants if Towa never comes anywhere close to resolving his trauma–which Madarame is sure to know about, even to a degree.

No matter how he got to know about Euphoria, whether he knew it for a long time or because Eiji told him years later, he still knew about it. Anyone who knows Towa and that much about him can draw the connection between what went on in the mansion, the fact that Towa came from there, and why he was the self-destructive masochist that he is at present. Or in other words, the person Madarame knew him as.

Yet, the brutal and tragic truth is, Madarame prefers him that way.

Based on the interactions I’ve seen on Twitter or on Discord, many of us are in agreement that whether we like the two as a pairing or not, Towa and Madarame are undoubtedly the kind of couple that are unhealthy for each other and bring out the worst of each other, but that’s also why they’re so compatible. Even if it’s only when Towa is at his lowest and at his worst and most destructive.

Final Decision: Abandon (Fujieda’s Route)

As such, Madarame has no interest in Towa not only if Towa can’t go back to his more aggressive self. When Madarame says “Guess you’ve changed,” a part of that sentence is kept quiet and unspoken. He actually meant to say,

“Guess you’ve changed for the better.”

Even in Fujieda’s route, Towa still gets to show that he has some bite by fighting back against Madarame. However, he fought back to protect someone else. That alone clued in Madarame on the fact that the Towa in front of him is getting further and further from the vulnerable and dangerous yet damaged goods that he remembered him being.

With him having people to care for him, with him caring enough about people to willingly take a hit to protect them and not because he was trying to seek getting destroyed inside out, Madarame already can get the hint that Towa is, in his eyes, a lost cause.

Even in the other routes, where Towa doesn’t face his past, he’s still bound to head to a better place, both mentally and emotionally. But it’s a place Madarame would rather not be, and where he and Towa would be more incompatible.

So, he loses interest and gives up, and thus makes his leave. Towa is no longer in his mind for another minute, neither is he given much thought by Towa anymore.

Final Decision: Pursue (Madarame’s Route)

Of course…. none of the things above happen in Madarame’s route, where he has the opportunity to continue, chooses to continue, and thus gets the outcome he wants, without anyone to get in his way. At most, the others also end up being pawns in his game with Towa.

In the penultimate route, Towa is completely at Madarame’s mercy. But credit where credit is due, because it’s not as if Towa immediately surrenders. In fact, he still struggles and attempts to resist. But there’s so much that even he can do against a man who is indomitable and not just because he has the strength of ten men.

Towa knows that he cannot get a read on Madarame, which is more than enough for the man to be able to wrap him around his finger. He knows this, and thus tries his best to not fall into the other’s trap. However, Madarame knows him all too well. Or at the very least, since Madarame only focuses on a specific version of Towa, knows what makes the younger man tick. And before Towa realizes it, Madarame has already got him, hook, line, and sinker, with every beating he would inflict, and every provocation he would give.

Towa knew Madarame was goading him. If the man would go ahead and treat him like a plaything, he could get into that. But no—he wanted Towa to voluntarily do so, to which he didn’t want to. And yet...

Deep down, Towa got a thrill out of it. He was at his limits, physically and mentally... and as a result, he had no more self-control.

Madarame was capable of giving him the pleasure he wanted. They were a perfect match. Towa’s body was well aware of this, and it found the temptation hard to refuse.

Madarame punched without hesitation. He fought to kill. And he enjoyed the violence from the bottom of his heart. Even if it resulted in his own death, he didn't care. Naturally, he didn't care if his opponent died, either. That was the kind of game he played.

His desires matched Towa’s on a fundamental level. It was impossible for Towa to not be able to relate.

Still, Towa didn't want to let him win. It was because Towa could relate that he refused to take Madarame's orders. He admitted that a long time ago, he felt comfortable in Madarame’s presence.

But even then... too much time had passed. Towa had changed. He didn't want to be his pet. He just wanted to exist.

Even as Towa feels resentful and angry about how helpless he is, that trauma-induced masochism rooted in his being also starts to crave the pain, the violence and the humiliation because all of them are what he has been used to for a long time.

Unlike now, he was only occasionally exposed to such things in the past. Sure, he often sought out one-night stands, but they were still nothing like Madarame’s level of ferocity. That aside, he also had Taku and Rei keeping him in check. This time, however, with Madarame, no holds are barred every time Towa would get brutalized. Whether he’s punched or penetrated, he subconsciously finds himself becoming more and more addicted to it, like a drug.

And as some may now, this is something that can happen with abuse victims. Even after they've broken free of it, should they get subjected to that same violent treatment even for just a short amount of time, their subconscious may make them cling to it again. It’s not just a response of their survival instincts. Because, when abused enough, the victim feels that whatever it is that damaged them is all they need to have.

Even though Towa hasn’t been gone for even a quarter of a year, Madarame was able to get to him. Enough so that in a month, Towa already feels that he can’t go back anymore. That even when given the chance to leave, and twice over, he doesn’t.

The narration may say that it’s because he no longer needed Taku and Rei. But Towa isn’t being honest with himself here. If he no longer needed them, then he should no longer care for them.

Yet when Madarame was about to beat up Rei, Towa stopped him. Even though his voice was ragged and dry and hoarse. Even though he was already so beaten that he could snap like a twig if Madarame decided to retaliate by punching him again.

He cares for them. In truth, he knows he needs them. He does want to be with them. He just feels that he can’t. And his time with Madarame made it that every second he will be spending back with Taku and Rei would both be foreign and frightening to Towa now. So he leaves. And it’ll be easier to forget the pain of leaving them behind if he convinces himself that they no longer matter to him. Which is why, on his way back, he kept his mind focused on Madarame. And after that, he tried his best to regard Taku and Rei as no more than mere afterthoughts of a past that he (believes he) no longer needs or can return to.

Also, in Towa’s second chance to leave, the only reason Madarame even lets him go is because he knows that Towa’s departure will be only temporary. It’s just to let Towa know and see firsthand that nothing is the same anymore. No matter how hard he tries to adjust, he will forever be a stranger in what should be a familiar land. And with Towa feeling that he needs only the hurtful treatment, any kindness and support he’ll be getting will just terrify him now. And no matter what Taku would say to him, whether he completely fessed up or decided to say quiet or not say enough, Towa would eventually cave and leave because he doesn’t feel like he can go back anymore.

It was an inevitable outcome, one that Madarame had anticipated.

Towa walked in... and stopped short. The first thing that entered his vision was Madarame.

Just like the day Towa left, Madarame was lounging in his chair. His arms were folded, and he was smiling... almost like he had known Towa was coming.

As Towa stood there, frozen, Madarame cocked his head in a smug manner.

“Did you have a fun little adventure?” His Smoke slowly swayed. His tone suggested he had always known Towa would come back.

And he was right. He knew full well that their world wouldn't be enough for Towa.

Did he kick Towa out on purpose to make him see it?

"......!" Rage exploded inside Towa.

Until this very moment, Towa wanted nothing more than to be with Madarame again. But now that he was there, he didn't know how to feel anymore. Time and time again, Madarame’s arrogance suggested to Towa that he thought he could control me.

But what was more infuriating was that Towa walked right into the same trap every time.

Gritting his teeth, Towa charged at him. With all his strength, he swung his fist—but of course, Madarame dodged with ease before punching back.

"......!" Towa hit the ground hard, and a moment later, Madarame had climbed on top of him.

"Get off...!" Towa tried to push him off, but he didn't budge.

He grinned down at Towa. "You know, it's funny—I had a feeling you'd be back any moment now."

He grabbed Towa’s hand, brought it to his lips, and bit down on the fingers.

"......!"

"You remember now, don't you? You remember what kind of man you are."

Towa, "......"

"Is playing house with your little friends what you truly want? No? You want pain and suffering. Biting each other's jugulars and drinking the blood. That kind of thrill.”

His whisper sounded almost seductive. Towa squeezed his eye shut.

Madarame was completely right, too, which infuriated Towa all the more.

Everything Madarame just said? He wanted it. He craved it.

This entire scene said it all. Madarame is a brute, but he is no dumb brute. He can be skilled at subjugation when he wants to be, and this is one such way to bend someone’s will to his own. Does Towa still have some autonomy? Yeah. But it’s one that’s dependent on Madarame now.

All long-time BL lovers would see a similar tactic used before in another classic work. Which is that, you may ask? That would be Ai no Kusabi. For context to those who don’t know, let’s just say that in that work, the seme literally keeps the uke as a pet in a society where artificial humans have all the power and wealth while the natural-born humans are left in the dregs. Usually, pets are artificially made, but the uke is a natural-born human and is rebellious. Eventually, for various reasons, the seme lets him go back home. However, his motive is made very clear.

Go back, Riki. Go back to the slums, stretch the weight off your wings. It's been three years. You can greet your old friends. You can even get back together with Guy.

However… you'll certainly realize the length of three years you can't bury. And then you'll know. The weight of freedom and the thirst of your blood.

There is no pet ring left to bind you. Go, and come back, Riki. I'll give you only one year of freedom. Go, and make certain with your eyes, with your body, that you are already a stranger there, and return.

I… will merely wait. Until that moment in which you truly become mine. That moment.... (Translation source)

And that is not really all that different from what Madarame did with Towa.

So, to sum up, Madarame wanted the old Towa back. So he captured him. Beat him. Dominated him with actions and words. Let him have a false sense of freedom just to let him know that he can’t be free anymore.

He wanted to bring back Towa’s fighting spirit. But he also wanted to distance Towa from his friends. That, and ensure that Towa would be that same feisty yet fragile product of trauma of a childhood no one should ever have. Without friends, without a safe home, Towa could be turned back into how he remembered him being.

In his route, he chose to pursue and he played the long game with Towa, a game he ultimately won.

Immutable… Immutable Indeed

And after all this, what’s left to say is that Kabura-sensei really knew what she was doing when she titled Madarame’s story “Immutable”.

If you look up the word online, what does it mean:

Definition: unchanging over time or unable to be changed.

Synonyms: unchangeable, fixed, set, rigid, inflexible, unyielding, unbending, etc.

At first, you realize why the chapter is named as such at how Towa noticed that even in the years that passed, Madarame had not changed one bit where his personality is concerned since the last time Towa saw him. And he would be right.

Then you also realize that the word also describes how Madarame is someone who can dominate, but can never be dominated. Even when Towa subjects Madarame to an Interrogation, he’s never the one with an upper hand during the conversation. In the end, it’s Madarame who still gets to call the shots. But even Towa aside, there was still absolutely no one who could intimidate Madarame.

The only one who came close to an exception was Kaga who managed to never back down in a fight with Madarame. But what’s interesting is that Kaga wasn’t like Towa. And Kaga was nothing like Madarame either. The only thing they both had in common was that they were true to themselves. But even then, Madarame still had some respect for Kaga. Even if he brushes it off as if he never cared for the man, anyone who says that someone’s death was unnecessary is already saying that they held that person in high regard.

That aside, one would think that that was all the chapter title referred to. How Madarame had not changed at all, and how he could not be changed, or broken, nor could he be stopped if he was set on doing something.

But in Madarame’s story, when talking about his character, the word would focus most on change. And what is easy to miss is that Madarame isn’t just someone who has never changed. He’s also someone who does not want to change.

More accurately, he does not want things to change at all. Much like how he doesn’t want Towa to change.

To him, time had frozen at the night when Kaga died. Everything else beyond that is nothing to him, and is no more than meaningless rabble. It’s part of why his chapter even starts with a picture of the full moon that loomed over from the sky on that same night.

But isn’t it ironic that he acts in such a way? Especially when he’s the one who said that the past and the future do not matter, and all that’s important is the present. The here and now. Yet the Towa of the here and now is not one who he would ever acknowledge or accept. He only wants the Towa of the past. He wants to bring back what they used to have.

Thus, he ends up contradicting himself. For all his talk, he cannot move on from the past. He’s not truly living in the present, not when he wants to reclaim that part of the past.

And if Towa is bound to move forward rather than turn back, then Madarame isn’t willing to give them a chance. I even made a poll about it before to see what you thought of the possibility of Madarame, in slightly different circumstances, deciding to give things a shot. Anything that doesn’t conform to how he would like things to be, which was how everything was back in the day, will never be of interest or import to him.

Yet at the same time, it also shows how he truly is immutable.

His will. His personality. His desire. It all traces back to immutability.

To constancy. Or, depending on how you view it, stagnancy.

Because when it all comes down to it, change - of anything or anyone - is something he’s just averse to.

Closing Remarks

I’m pretty sure that in spite of my best efforts to organize my thoughts, this post is as disoriented as Madarame himself.

Still, I have tried my best, and it’s already been weeks since I started making this. At this point, it’s now or never, and so I had to finalize it as best as I could and share the document publicly. But I may go back and reorganize and revise a few things once I’ve calmed down because expanding and completing this meta was a very turbulent process.

Once again, I wish to stress that I do not hate Madarame. But I understand if some do. But no matter your opinion of him, I really hope that this meta will not invite any discourse whatsoever.

And so, I can only hope that you’ve enjoyed reading this, no matter if you like him, dislike him, or are just plainly neutral.

Well, that and understand everything I’ve just typed here because I still doubt that I’ve made any sense whatsoever. (•᷄- •᷅ ;)

#slow damage #fen writes meta

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debunkingtherightwing · 2 months

Text

Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson wage a very stupid war against "sexual boredom"

Projection intensifies (source: Ben Shapiro on YouTube)

This is one of those things that I wanted to talk about when it came out but it kind of fell by the wayside. However, I figured that since it's been kind of boring in the griftosphere and we need to laugh at something after that last episode, here is a 9 minute video of Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson talking about sexual boredom.

Now I know what you're thinking, a guy who thinks all that women are "chaos dragons" and another guy who accidentally admitted that he can't get his wife wet while reading the lyrics of a rap song are probably not the best sources for anything coming remotely close to sexual advice. And you're completely right. Lets get into it.

00:00, Ben Shapiro: "The amount of sexual boredom in this society is extraordinary. So you have more sexual choice and variety available than anytime in human history, given free license by the state because there are no intermediate social institutions in which informal mechanisms of disapproval could make themself felt, and one of the things that human beings psychologically are turned on by is taboo. So when you get rid of literally every taboo then people tend to get bored and then the question is-

Jordan Peterson: "Yeah, well there's no novelty."

And just what exactly is this based off of? Seriously, they never really give any data to back up the existence of this sexual boredom epidemic that they are talking about. I guess them feeling sexually bored is evidence enough.

Anyway, there are still a lot of taboos, we've just more or less moved on from some of the bigoted ones like "no gay marriage" that these guys like. These guys perceive a lack of taboos because society has moved on from the taboos that they think should be in place. Despite what these guys might have heard from their media diet that seemingly consists of nothing but LibsOfTikTok, the world isn't some giant sexual free for all.

What even is this argument by the way? Is Ben's argument that we should get the government step in and regulate and restrict the sexual affairs of private citizens so that those citizens....can break the rules?

Just to really put a final nail in Ben and Jordan's "no taboo's create sexual boredom" coffin, the states with the highest porn consumption are highly conservative states that tend to have more taboos than others. I think people who consume a lot of pornography are pretty sexually bored, don't you?

00:33, Ben Shapiro: "Particularly men are driven by sexual novelty, it's something that's very deeply engrained."

"And that's why we need to stop sleeping in separate beds honey."

00:53, Ben Shapiro: "I mean the -- the part of Freud that everybody ignores is the part where Freud actually is in favor of sublimation right."

So, sublimation is essentially the psychological concept of channeling unwanted thoughts into something positive. So for instance, if somebody is lonely they could join a club. Most psychologists seem to say that sublimation is a good thing so I don't get where he's even coming from with this.

00:58, Ben Shapiro: "It's only later psychologists and philosophers who suggest the sublimation needs to be destroyed and done away with to free all forms of human artistic and material expression."

Who Ben?! I googled "Is sublimation bad, psychology" and there were so many articles talking about how it's an overall good thing. I honestly am wondering if Ben is talking about gay people sublimating their urges and as a result becoming straight given his past track record on gay marriage. Because I honestly don't understand where any of this is coming from!

01:09, Ben Shapiro: "But Freud never said that, Freud says you actually have to sublimate a lot of those short term hedonic desires to something higher."

OK Ben, I don't think Freud meant that you need to sublimate your sexual urges to God.

I think I'm starting to understand why these two are sexually bored.

01:15, Ben Shapiro: "But again that gets back to kind of the fundamental premise that you were speaking to which is there is this narrative of accepted values that we used to live inside of and when you destroy that narrative by saying that for some reason it's not true because it's not coming out of your own head, well once that happens we don't hold a common narrative, there are no common narratives. And if there are no common narratives and everything is then acceptable then what exactly is the taboo? Where does the sublimation take place? There is no sublimation and there is no future orientation, because what sublimation really is is orientation of short term in favor of long term."

Again, this argument is built on a stupid premise that there aren't anymore taboos. Public sex is still pretty taboo and a lot of people find novelty in either having sex in public or staging a sexual encounter to look like that. And that's just one example off the top of my head.

Again, the subtext here is that these two are pissed off that things like LGBTQ+ acceptance are becoming less taboo and as a result they seem to have drawn the conclusion that there are no taboos anymore.

01:50, Jordan Peterson: "Well, and in favor of other people right? So it's long-term plus the social. Yeah well so --- you can think about this technically as well. If there's no uniting narrative, here's the necessary consequences. First of all there's no higher order super ordinate aim."

I can't figure out if these two are talking about God or marriage. Probably both to be honest.

02:15, Jordan Peterson: "We experience positive motivation and the impotence to move forward. So that would be; curiosity, hope, inspiration, enthusiasm, even aesthetic interest. We experience that only in relationship to an aim. And so if you destroy the ultimate aim you destroy the structure upon which reward is dependent."

"You are physically incapable of feeling happiness unless you live the life that I want you to live" is a take I wasn't expecting from a video allegedly about sexual boredom.

The ironic thing about this video is that so far following Jordan and Ben's advice will probably lead to more sexual boredom.

03:28, Jordan Peterson: "There's a relationship between scarcity and deprivation and value, right? And so if you are surfeited by a stimulus lets say, or a resource, so you are overfed, as soon as you're not hungry food is of no interest, if you're stuffed food is nauseating."

This is such a ridiculous analogy. The only way for it to make sense is if people had sex on a daily basis and essentially became screwing machines. Contrary to Jordan and Ben's belief, people aren't having sex multiple times every single day.

Plus, there's the issue of consent. The food can't tell you "No, I don't actually want to be eaten." and as a result, people can stuff themselves to their hearts content. Other people can say they don't want to have sex. There is a massive difference.

Jordan talks about the story of the Israelites and them getting too much quail from the Bible. I mean, I guess if the point is that if you have too much sex then maybe you should take a break fair enough. But again, this metaphor is missing so much stuff like the issue of consent. Then Ben does an ad.

05:44, Jordan Peterson: "We don't know how much depravation is necessary for proper sexual function to make itself manifest."

"And that's why I'm here telling you how much sex you should have."

07:01, Jordan Peterson: "And then you were talking about novelty. And so this is pretty interesting too, so you said men will chase novelty in a sexual relationship. Well, I think part of what is incumbent on married individuals is to figure out how to keep that novelty alive. Right, so that means that each of them have to be transforming and I think the best way to do that is in relationship to a spiritual pursuit."

Nothing spices things up in the bedroom quite like a frank discussion about scripture.

I'll give Jordan a tiny bit of leeway here due to the fact that some studies have shown that religious couples do report better sex than non-religious couples. But there are a lot of moving parts in said study such as the fact that couples showing heightened religiosity overall reported lower sexual satisfaction and the increased sexual satisfaction was more tied with the sanctification of sex. Essentially people who believe that the sex they have with their partner is sacred.

It was only conducted through two groups of people through their workplace as well meaning it's not particularly indicative of the greater population.

07:56, Ben Shapiro: "One of the things that's actually fascinating about this is, biblically speaking, I mean not to get into obstruse Jewish law but I mean, this is actually right in the Bible forget about the obstruse Jewish law, right in the Bible one of the mandates is that for a period of at least one week out of every month married couples are not supposed to have sex."

You know, there's a subtle hint in why that was when you said the word period!

That was clearly about menstruation. It wasn't just no sex either, it was in pretty much every aspect. It was because women were viewed as "unclean" after having their periods at that time. And just to prove it, here's Leviticus 15:19;

"Whenever a woman has her menstrual period, she will be ceremonially unclean for seven days. Anyone who touches her during that time will be unclean until evening."

So essentially that week was more about the fact that women were viewed as "unclean" after having their period in biblical times.

Conclusion:

Well, on the one hand I'm glad that these two are finally talking about a topic that they would presumably know a lot about. On the other hand, this was dumber than I thought it would be. I kind of want to call Jordan and Ben the Sexual Boredom Squad from now on.

Cheers and I'll see you in the next one.

#right wing bullshit #conservative bullshit #fact checking #journalism #bad takes #conservatives #disinformation #debunking #politics #daily wire #ben shapiro #jordan peterson

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sebastard69 · 1 year

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Hello! Sooo could you give us more information for autistic genshin characters? (honestly felt that alhaitham could be neurodivergent since the beginning so hhhhhhh)

Btw, do you have any reliable sources to learn about autism and such? I learnt recently that I may be autistic (self-diagnosed but the results speak for themselves) and I really want to know more about it

I'm also self-diagnosed! A lot of my information has come from other autistic people I've made connections with, as well as some websites like spectrumnews or additudemag - though these sites I simply used as a springboard for more in-depth research I did during my psychology and sociology classes using peer reviewed papers and studies. It's been a while since I did my own research, however, so I no longer have links to the papers I used :( The good news is that Google has a specific search engine for research papers here, if dense research papers are your speed!

And I would LOVE to give more information on autistic genshin characters! This is a bit of a long one, so I'll stick my explanations under a read more!

Albedo and Shenhe are kind of obvious imo, they have the classic "low empathy" thing going on (which I find that to be such a misnomer, autistics don't have low empathy we just express it differently), and struggle to understand and express emotions. Albedo uses art and alchemy to try and understand the world around him while Shenhe tries to find logical explanations for the concept of friendship.

Cyno is one of my favorite examples! He is not very expressive, he has an intense sense of justice, he is fiercely loyal to those he considers friends, and the entire reason he tells such bad jokes is because he recognizes his shortcomings and wants to be a better leader to the other Matra. He knows jokes can help ease tension and build morale, but he doesn't have the same sense of humor as most other people and tends to assume their lack of laughter is from a lack of understanding so he over-explains them a lot.

Tighnari's special interest is botany and medicine! He also has a strong sense of justice and left the akademiya to pursue what he believes to be a just and worthy cause. He has a tendency to get frustrated with people who don't understand him and he's protective of the people he's taken into his care. He's not exactly the Too Expressive kind of autistic, but he is more expressive than Cyno - who, btw, he is an expert at reading and understanding even when Cyno doesn't speak. In the 3.2 archon quest, he says something about Cyno seeming more lonely than usual, despite Cyno's demeanor and expression seemingly never changing.

Alhaithammmmm I love him he's just like me fr fr. Another person with a strong sense of justice, and he has a need for things to make sense at all times. If he doesn't understand it, he'll keep digging until he does, no matter what and the main reason he helps you in the archon quest is because of his own curiosity. His sense of humor strikes me as very autistic, too, but in a distinctly different way than Cyno's is. He is INCREDIBLY blunt, literally says "I do what I want" more or less, and is very adamant about the fact that "you can't save everyone."

Nahida is tricky because I know a lot of people will say that she is the way she is because she was locked up for 500 years, but I don't see that as a valid explanation. She has the ability to enter peoples' dreams and frequently ventured into the world in Katherine's body, and had the means to observe and learn about human behavior - something she spent 500 years doing. And yet it seems she's learned barely anything because she tends to try and turn emotions into logical reasoning and it doesn't work that way. During the archon quest, she gets confused by the traveler's response to things multiple times because she'd predicted a different outcome based on a logical inference she made using data collected from humans over 500 years. This is how she perceives the world and processes new information, almost like a computer. Sounds VERY autistic to me.

Diluc is, again, a character that struggles to express himself emotionally and has a strong sense of justice - that's a recurring theme in Genshin I noticed. He consistently does heroic things but does not see himself as worthy of being called a hero because of past mistakes, and struggles to reconcile his feelings in regards to Kaeya because of this sense of justice i.e he loves Kaeya and misses his brother, but can't forgive him for lying. (Or for when he chose to come clean, which honestly is very fair because that was like the worst possible moment to do so)

"Ok, but Razor was raised by wolves, so of course he struggles socially, etc etc etc!" Boring, lame, dumb take. Razor was, and still is, taught by Lisa very regularly. He struggles to articulate himself and speak not because he doesn't know how, it's just hard for him. When you put him in your teapot one of the first conversations you can have with him involves him expressing a desire to get better at speaking regularly and he asks you to help him practice, it's very sweet tbh. He is socially anxious and struggles to express himself.

The more I think about Klee the more I realize she's probably both autistic and has adhd. Her special interest is bombs, she has a habit of breaking rules even though she knows exactly what will happen if she does, and she's a little hyperactive. It's hard to say exactly whether all of that is both or just one because she's young, but I say both.

Yanfei! My gorl! Special interest is law and crime, has a strong sense of justice, she uses her understanding of law and civil code to express herself, is a little socially inept (but what adeptus isn't) but thrives when she meets people she meshes well with - like Yelan or Shinobu!

I know none of this was Mihoyo's intent, stuff like this rarely is, but I revel in finding bits of myself in the media I enjoy nonetheless!

#genshin impact #genshin #yanfei #klee #razor genshin impact #diluc ragnvindr #nahida #alhaitham #cyno #tighnari #asd #autism #neurodivergent #albedo #shenhe

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dwn024 · 1 year

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i hate you read receipts i hate you online status indicators i hate you cloud file sharing i hate you "[name of person] viewed this file" i hate you google docs showing everyone who is looking at a file at once especially when it isn't anonymous i hate you public likes i hate you recommendation algorithm i hate you personal data sold to advertisers i hate you expectation to reply in a timely manner i hate you being unable to use the web without everyone else knowing what you are up to at all times i hate you "based on your likes" i hate you "other people also liked" i hate you death of physical media as a result of the prevalence of online streaming i hate you profit motivation i hate you lack of respect or care for media preservation i hate you tiktok i hate you instagram i hate you twitter i hate you netflix i hate you crypto i hate you cocomelon i hate you trending i hate you hashtag i hate you internet echochamber that was supposed to bring people together and expand our worldview but has just done nothing but condense everything into a smaller worse homogenized version of itself hate let me tell you how much i've come to hate you since i began to live there are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer thin layers that fill my complex if the word hate was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of millions of miles it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate i feel for humans at this micro-instant for you hate hate

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denimbex1986 · 10 months

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Barbie is everything. He’s just … Robert Oppenheimer.

That’s right. The main character competing with Barbie for attention right now isn’t Ken, her plastic significant other. It’s the man who designed the atomic bomb.

Fans have been waiting for this summer’s release of two movies — “Barbie,” from Warner Bros. and directed by Greta Gerwig, and “Oppenheimer,” from Universal Pictures and directed by Christopher Nolan — which are both coming out on July 21, and they have been poking fun at the stark contrast in the movies’ themes, moods and color schemes.

The result of the release schedule is a mash-up many people may not have seen coming: Barbenheimer. Or Boppenheimer, if you will.

“Oppenheimer” is Nolan’s prestige movie based on “American Prometheus,” a biography of Oppenheimer, the scientist who led the Manhattan Project, which during World War II produced the first atomic bombs. The trailers for that film, with intense music and suspenseful scenes starring a pensive-looking Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer, are in stark contrast with the pink and sparkly trailers for “Barbie,” which show Margot Robbie as the doll living in Barbieland before setting off on an adventure into the real world.

The two characters could hardly be more different (does this Venn diagram even have a middle?). And yet, Robbie and Murphy are appearing on T-shirts and sweaters together.

Memes, videos and online chatter have flooded social media, and some people are making plans to see the two movies on the same day. A debate about which order to see them in — “Barbie” first to start the day off light, or “Oppenheimer” first, to end on a more cheerful note — hasn’t been settled.

The curious crossover is also giving rise to real-life merchandise. A Google search for “Barbenheimer T-shirt” brings tens of thousands of results, and sellers on Etsy have designed their own versions. Some feature Robbie and Murphy, while others combine Barbie’s pink font with a pink drawing of an atomic cloud.

One such T-shirt, and an early entry in the crowded field, is a simple split-screen combination of the two movie logos, spelling out “Barbenheimer” with the release date of the films.

Hunter Hudson, 23, a filmmaker in San Antonio, said he originally designed and created the shirts for him and his friends to “roll up to the Barbenheimer double feature” on July 21. But when he posted pictures of the shirt on his Twitter feed, he said, it took off beyond his expectations.

“I normally get about three or four likes on anything I post,” Hudson said. But after sharing a few mock-ups of the shirt, he woke up one morning to hundreds of messages from people asking him if they could buy it.

Hudson makes the shirts himself, with a friend, and charges $40. So far he said he had made about 150 shirts, with a second batch of about 70 more on the way. It takes him about 45 minutes to an hour to make one T-shirt, which he does by cutting two shirts in half, pinning them together and sewing and pressing them.

“I had a couple of movie theaters reach out to me privately to do bulk orders for employees,” he said. “It’s been overwhelmingly positive.”

This kind of organic marketing is probably good for both films, said Robert Mitchell, the director of theatrical insights at Gower Street, a company that does predictive analysis for the film industry.

Not that the studios’ marketing has been lacking: There are life-size cardboard Barbie boxes in theaters for people to take pictures and a selfie generator. There have been collaborations with multiple brands: The frozen yogurt chain Pinkberry is offering a Barbie flavor, Gap has a line of Barbie-themed clothes, and Airbnb is offering a real-life Barbie Dream House in Malibu. Warner Bros. declined to comment on the movie’s marketing efforts.

What all this hype means for box office results for either film is unclear, and awareness doesn’t always translate into attendance, Mitchell said. Predictions for opening weekends are tricky and a lot can still happen before July 21, said David Gross, a movie consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office numbers. Some conservative industry estimates, he said, have “Barbie” opening between $55 million and $65 million in the United States and Canada, and “Oppenheimer” between $40 million and $50 million. Both of those estimates would be strong for a fantasy comedy and a historical drama, neither of which are sequels. Superhero, big action and big animation movies usually open higher, Mr. Gross said.

Still, the hype around the films could be beneficial to the numbers. “Every time ‘Barbie’ released a trailer, ‘Oppenheimer’ would start trending,” Mitchell said.

“They’re so vastly different,” he said, “that they allow for the narrative that popped up organically: This would be strangest double bill ever.” That online conversation, he said, “is pretty much a gift for distributors.”

While social media is full of people showing off their tickets to see the double feature, it’s unclear how many really will. “But it shouldn’t matter,” Gross said. “Audiences are going to find them, and both films are going to do extremely well.”

#Oppenheimer #Cillian Murphy #Christopher Nolan #Barbie #Margot Robbie #Greta Gerwig

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