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inkskinned · 6 months

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no, but really, we need to talk about the casual objectification that has become the fallback discourse of the internet: if you're pretty and dressed nicely, you're a slut. and if you're even vaguely outside of their body standard, you're fucking disgusting.

too-frequently, people position sex workers as being "the problem". they sneer you're addicted to pornography, you don't know what a real woman looks like. but real women are in pornography. the real bodies on display are not the issue here: the issue is that other people feel extremely confident when commenting on someone's physique.

2000's super-thin is slowly worming its way back into the public ideal. recently i saw someone get told to "go for a run", despite the fact she was on the thinner side of average. not that it would ever be appropriate to say that: but it's kind of like sticker shock when you see it. people think that is fat? holy shit. do they just have no idea about things?

but what are you going to do about it? that's the problem, right. because chances are - you're a normal person. we can say normalize carrying fat on your body, but we are not the billion-dollar diet industry. we are not the billion-dollar fashion industry. we are just, like. people. who are trying to make content on the internet, without being treated shittily.

as someone who has been on both sides of things: you are treated better when you are thin and pretty. this is statistically correct. i am not saying that you cannot be bullied for being thin; i'm saying there are objective institutional biases against certain bodytypes. there are videos of men and women who lost weight all saying: i now know for a fact exactly how much worse you're treated. in the comments, some asshole inevitably says something akin to you deserved to be dehumanized when you were fat.

which means that ... the easiest thing to do is be pretty and thin. it is the path of least resistance, because of course it is, because any time you post a picture of yourself without a thigh gap, someone immediately comments something like you need to try a diet.

the other half is also dehumanizing though, huh, just in a different way. when i put on makeup and nice clothes, i am told i slept my way to the top as a professional. do you know how many women in STEM have told me they purposefully dress to "unimpress" because they already struggle to be taken seriously and if they're ever considered pretty - it for some reason takes away from their authority.

so they make it seem like it's your fault. you, existing in a body - it's your fault! if you didn't want shitty comments, don't have a body. they position us against each other like chess pieces; vying for male attention we don't even need.

and i can be an authority on this unless you think i'm fat and unattractive. when i am pretty and thin, i'm an activist. when i am just a normal person who makes a good point: i am immediately dismissed. nobody fucking believes you if you're not seen as attractive. you literally lose value. you cease to exist.

but the whole time, it feels like - is anyone actually grounded the fuck in reality? the line of "pretty and thin" keeps shifting. nobody seems to understand what "a normal weight" even looks like, because it's not something that exists - you cannot tell a person's health by looking at their body. even if you think you could tell that, even if you're sure a person is dangerously overweight - people are not your dolls. they do not need to be dressed up or displayed properly to soothe your aesthetics. you aren't concerned for them, you're stealing their agency. you don't get to say if they're "allowed" to take pictures and post them on the internet - you don't get to tell them how to exist.

people hide behind "the obesity epidemic" without any actual qualifications. they crow things about "normalizing unhealthiness".

but it's bullshit. i have visible abs. there is a pair of parallel lines on my body, even when i'm relaxed; where my obliques meet my abdominal wall. i am proud of this because it means i'm strong, because i overcame an eating disorder only to be ripped as fuck. it is genetic and physical luck that i even get any definition, i'm pleased as punch.

but it does mean that my abdominal wall sticks out a little bit. the other day i posted a video of myself dancing, and, for a moment, my shirt slipped. you could see a little bit of my stomach. i was cartwheeling to the floor. moments before this, i'd had my foot over my head.

a guy slid into my DMs. a row of vomiting emojis prefaced: you should really lose some weight before you think about dancing.

i stared at it for a long time. there was a time when i would have been triggered by this, where it would have encouraged me to starve myself. i would have ignored the fact i'm flexible, agile, good at jumping: i would have lost the weight for a stranger's passing comment. i would have found myself and my body fucking disgusting.

and for what? to please what? because why? so that he can exist in this world without an unchallenged eyeball? what would my self-hatred even accomplish? usually i write paragraphs. obviously. on this particular occasion, in this body i've been at war with for ages: i just felt exhausted.

it shouldn't be even worth saying. it shouldn't be hard to explain. all of this emotional turmoil when he cannot even comprehend the most basic truth: i am not an object on display for him.

#spilled ink #writeblr #warm up #like if im getting fatshamed. babe......... wake up #is there fat on my body? yes :)#btw this behavior wouldn't be okay even if I WAS overweight!!! that is my point!!!#it is both that people have no idea what weight is supposed to look like #and even if they DID... they do not seem to understand that PEOPLE ARE NOT DOLLS #YOU DO NOT GET TO TELL THEM HOW TO EXIST #if you respond anything akin to ''but raquel there IS an obesity epidemic''#you're blocked and reported.#go fucking DONATE TO A FOOD BANK THEN. volunteer in a food desert. start a free fitness program #GO GET A DEGREE AS A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL AND PRACTICE IN NUTRITION IN UNDERPRIVILEDGED LOCATIONS #FIGURE OUT HOW TO LOWER FOOD COSTS. FIGURE OUT HOW TO NORMALIZE AND STANDARDIZE #ACCESS TO FARM-FRESH FOOD. PROVIDE ACTUAL FREE ACCESS TO OUTSIDE ACTIVITIES #FIGURE OUT HOW TO TEACH PEOPLE HEALTHY CHOICE MAKING WHILE ALSO LOWERING THE COST OF MEALS.#THE AVERAGE GROCERY BILL OF THE AMERICAN CITIZEN HAS QUADRUPILED IN THE LAST YEAR.#SHUT. THE FUCK. UP!!!!!!!!!#you don't want to help these people!!!!!#you want to bully them but still feel like a good person!#you want to be justified in your hatred of an entire CLASS of people!!!#you don't give a fuck about how it makes them feel!!!!#you care ONLY about whether or not YOU get to VIRTUE SIGNAL that YOURE so thin and pretty!!!!#it is BECAUSE of people like you #and the fact you tolerate fatphobia - BECAUSE of that normalization. that men like the one who called me fat #feel like they can get away with it.#bc there's a line for you where you WOULD be okay with it. where if i WASNT thin you'd be okay with it.#which means the line can always be pushed in a certain direction. and it's always going to appeal to male aesthetics.#''well you didn't deserve it'' maybe fucking NOBODY does babe. maybe we should just all agree not to comment on ppls bodies!!

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hanafubukki · 3 days

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So Hana; I came across a post talking about unpopular twst opinions and was wondering if you had any.

Hello Violet 🌸💚🌷

I hope it’s okay for me to call you Violet 💚🌷

This is a rather interesting question 🤔 and I had to think on it a bit. I honestly don’t know if some of what I say is unpopular or not, so I guess I’ll express a few of my opinions that I have. ☺️🌺

I guess before I list them I should say that this is my opinion only. I don’t mean to hurt anyone by expressing them nor am I calling out anyone. Literally just my thoughts. You’re allowed to agree or disagree✨✨

Normally, I would assume I wouldn’t have to put a disclaimer such as this because everyone has their own opinions and we should all have an open mind but I’ve seen the internet lol and wowza on how some act to such things lol 🌺🙏

I hate the guest room. Personally, I’m not into that kind of mechanics in gaming. It’s not for me. The fact that we have to do it to level up friendship levels irks me. And it’s a complicated system too which is another annoying aspect. I also kind of blame the guest room function for personal stories being lowered since those have been replaced with furniture. It’s just an extra chore that I’m not really into.

Event wise: I think we have too many octa (+ ortho and ace) in them. My diasomnia bias aside, I don’t think the other characters get enough spotlight. When was the last time Ruggie was in an event? Cater? Riddle? Jack? Kalim? Rook? Deuce? I know octa make them money but still, give the others more spotlight? I don’t count the beach or Halloween event either. Because Halloween, half the cast is in it and beach event was similar. Even New years I don’t count, because eventually, we will get them all in new years outfit. The usually four character events is what I’m speaking of because that’s when you get proper screen time and development for each character. I can literally go on lolol

I don’t know why this would be unpopular but it seems it might be? But I don’t hate RSA. They have a lot of potential story telling wise and their side of things. And I know there’s biasness with NRC and we wanting them to win, but I feel there’s more to RSA than we know. Like how we shouldn’t judge villains, we shouldn’t judge the “heroes” either.

Jp schedule wise I don’t think they are too slow as many believe. I think for the working female class, which the game is aimed at, the scheduling is perfect since it was made for them after all. It gives them time for daily life and twst gaming. Doesn’t mean I don’t get impatient either lolol

On the other spectrum, EN is going too quick. With events and main story. Slow down. What are you trying to accomplish except burn out your fanbase?

I don’t want an anime. We will get one. There’s a high chance and I’ll watch it obviously. But I honestly don’t care for one. The issues that an anime will bring…is a lot.

I don’t think the gameplay is boring. As mentioned before, the game was made for the female working class. So the gameplay is to the point, and depending on the event, can be challenging. But grinding wise and all that? It’s pretty working class friendly. If I didn’t have the auto lessons and battles, I wouldn’t be playing it. It’s because of those mechanics that I am. Thats what stops me from playing many mobile games. The constant forced to play and keep track. Hence part of why I’m not into Hoyoverse games.

I don’t really care for “this place in twst = this place in IRL.” to me, it’s a game in a fantasy world. Is it interesting to see some of the influences? Yes, of course. But that’s it. I’m playing this game for the fantasy setting, the magic, the story, and the characters. I don’t really care to add, realism, I guess you could say? (I’m trying to escape reality okay? Why would I want it in my games?? 🤣🤣)

I wish we had more magic in my magic world. And I think it mainly applies for book 7 for me personally and how “wow, tech is going to beat malleus and save the day” but I kind of wish that isn’t the case. Yes, it makes for fun story telling and memes. But, for a magic based dorm, I want a magic based solution. That and the fact, I don’t care for the implication how magic is slowly being taken over by technology. Kind of hits close to home you know?? With all the AI shenanigans.

I hope two certain popular theories aren’t true and I’ll leave it there. My personally thoughts on them is, I hope it’s not that predictable and I had hoped for a different route for such characters/events.

I’ll stop there before I make a whole essay for you to read lmao 🤣🤣 I have more thoughts that I could share but this is already so long 😆

I don’t know if this was a “unpopular opinion” or more me rambling but I’ll let you decide that Violet 🙏💞☺️

What about you? What are some of your thoughts?

Would love to hear other’s opinions as well ☺️🌺

#answered #🌺Violet🌺

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linkspooky · 9 months

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Gojo’s students, and in general Utahime’s students too, despite being Gen Z, they don’t have the mind set of one.

Then again, I am biased since I am an United States American who’s also within Generation Z, so I have a very westernized opinion on this. Gen Z in Japan can may well act very differently from the Gen Z in the USA. I don’t doubt that.

However, one thing I do want to point out is that the jjk younger generation didn’t seem to learn that the system they are in is terrible despite seeing or experiencing how horrible it is.

It could be a cultural thing, since my whole life the system that I lived in have failed me in every stage of my life. So I grew jaded and is critical of the system I’m in. I could see how they never have a change to learn nor see the flaws in the system due to how individualistic Gojo’s students are.

I suppose that’s a benefit with Utahime’s students, most of them are aware how terrible the system is, but all are too weak to do anything about it individuality.

Just some food for thought that I’ve been chewing on.

Okay, no comment on that Gen Z bit, but you're right there is an entire arc in the story dedicated to showing the Kyoto Kids and how they suffer from the injustices in their society. As they have suffered more directly from it, each of the Kyoto Kids is more than well-aware of the flaws in their society.

Each of the Kyoto kids is paired off with a Tokyo Kid and compared to them.

Panda and Mechmaru face off, and Mechamaru's point of jealousy is that he's not allowed to even walk around outside because he's debilitatingly ill due to his heavenly restriction and meanwhile Panda and every other sorcerer can walk in the sunlight free.

If you think about it Mechamaru is one of the children getting exploited, he's literally constantly in bodily pain, and he's still expected to perform as a sorcerer. Whereas, Panda's response is basicaly this: cool motivation bro.

In general, the Tokyo Kids all reply with very self-righteous statements that are technically right, but not too empathic to the person suffering right in front of them.

"Just because someone's been through a lot, doesn't mean they're right" is in fact a true statement, because the Kyoto Kids are lashing out with their emotions, and while their pain is valid emotions aren't objective fact they're just emotions.

However, the caveat of that statement is that suffering can also get you perspective though. People who aren't discrimminated against often don't understand the lives of people who are discrimminated against, because it's not a daily reality for them. It's just logical to not know about something that is not happening to you and you don't have to live with. So, suffering doesn't mean you're right, but it does give you perspective which the Tokyo Kids are sorely lacking.

So yes, Panda's not really obligated to care about Mechamaru's issue or life, but at the same time Gojo is trying to raise students with the purpose of having them correct the injustices of Jujutsu Society... but he's failed in that regard because when confronted with any of that injustice none of them really care.

When Momo tries to inform Nobara about the horrific abuse in the Zen'in Clan that Mai endures, something she's still not free of because unlike Maki she didn't get to leave Nobara's response is once again "I don't care." You have this same stock response that's technically right.

You don't have to pity the unfortunate, you don't owe them anything yes, but Gojo's trying to raise sorcerers that are going to correct Jujutsu Society so that less victims are made, but none of them listen to the victims around them and none of them even seem to grasp there's a problem... unless their name is Maki. Even then her solution to the problem isn't reform it's just destruction.

Kamo brings up clan politics and the pressures he faces as heir to the Kamo, and Megumi straight up says that not only does he not care about the Zen'in, or the Kamo or clan politics at all because it doesn't affect him personally, but he also doesn't care about whether or not he's right or wrong.

Megumi's not obligated to sympathize with Kamo, or even talk to him as they're practically strangers but at the same time how else are they supposed to fix the Jujutsu World if they don't listen to victims and aren't aware of the problems in it?

Which is a big problem in the Jujutsu World itself, because being a sorcerer is such a tough job, most sorcerers just work with their heads down not noticing what's going on around them. The kinds of sorcerers that rise to the top are exactly these people, ones that are either selfish enough to use others to further their advancements, ones who fit the molds of sorcerers a little too well and therefore aren't disadvantaged like a lot of the Kyoto kids, etc. etc.

This is pretty well demonstrated in Shibuya, someone like Nanami who is protective of children and tries to be a responsible adult around them dies because he stayed and fought, while someome like Mei Mei who actively abuses her brother and gets away with it still lives because she ran away.

Because Sorcerer society is such an individualistic society that rewards having your head down and being a cog, and punishes people who go against it by hammering down the nail that sticks out.

In order to overcome that you'd have to learn to think about other people than yourself, and look around you to see what's happening, but that requires thinking for themselves.

Which is Gojo's biggest flaw as a mentor, he's a cog that fits the machine of society so well, he still thinks with the values of sorcerer society. The solution to every problem is just get stronger. Which is why he's raised a bunch of strong sorcerers who fit perfectly into the machine just like he did, but he's failed to raise his children into free thinking adults.

#metasks #jjk meta

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catoscloves · 3 months

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suzanne collins's inclusion of the career tributes was actually a genius move thematically. because yeah, of course logically katniss is going to be repulsed by their actions (while i am a heavy career tribute defender i can admit that in katniss's place if i watched a bunch of rowdy obnoxious children kill people and laugh about it, i'd be a little angry about at them too) but she eventually recognizes something that's really important to the message of the books. while the careers receive the benefit of the capitol's favor and therefore don't experience the extreme poverty and starvation that katniss and her allies do, they in some ways have it worse because they genuinely believe that the capitol cares for them and that they benefit from the authoritarian regime, only to be exploited by it themselves.

and most of the thg audience/readers see these minor characters that katniss knows little about and gives very little attention to as these gleefully bloodthirsty violent people and therefore their deaths seem justified. but can you imagine being in their place?

the career kids are at a severe disadvantage because of the extensive indoctrination that the capitol subjects them to. teens in the real world, despite the fact that a lot of them are actually generally unappreciative of and ignorant about current events (this is based on my personal experiences with kids my age but is probably just a generalized assumption), have access to advanced technology and a world of information at their fingertips. they can easily access information about what happens in impoverished areas and educate themselves if they wanted to. in a system like panem, obviously this would never be allowed, and snow/the capitol keep the districts as disconnected from each other and from what's going on as possible.

that means that the career tributes, like the outer district kids, literally are cut off from the world. they don't know the terrible working/poverty conditions of the outer districts, they have no way of knowing anything other than the pro-capitol ideology they were raised with. the entire reason the capitol stayed in power for so long was because the districts didn't get information about one another, which is why the career children literally have no context of any situation in any other district and only know what they experience. so of course they see the capitol as this generous and honorable and just government, because what do they have that will say otherwise? what other sources of information can they turn to?

not only that, they are raised from childbirth on the belief that the capitol is a benevolent, supreme authority, and that murdering other children is an incredible act of honor and power. the way people are raised impacts them profoundly for the rest of their life and well into adulthood, and that is especially clear from brutus and enobaria's personalities (or at least, in katniss's extremely biased interpretations of them) because they followed the Career Tribute Creed long after they aged out of the games. however the educational system in d2 works, it's clear that they experience extreme brainwashing. the careers are an important example of how authoritarian governments can easily corrupt the education system and use it to manipulate young, impressionable, inexperienced children, molding new generations to support their fascist regimes.

#if you raise someone to think of nothing but murder you shouldn't be surprised when they have no problems with murder #career tributes #thg #the hunger games #cato hadley #clove kentwell #brutus #enobaria #district 2 #district 1 #anna speaks

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moonlightsapphic · 11 months

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Y'all, I find the reception of XO, Kitty so dissapointing.

TL; DR: The underlying homophobia/biphobia/lesbophobia/misoginy towards Yuri as potential and viable endgame which I don't think would have happened if she were yet another hot guy.

The straight-baiting marketing of this show was absolutely genius and I loved that Jenny Han, who writes the straightest central romances to ever romance (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, The Summer I Turned Pretty), actually initiated a series with such visibly queer storylines and then literally jumped into this sort-of-interracial, sapphic romance centered around a bi+ character. I could see Han trying to be more inclusive in her past on-screen works, but this was incredible.

No you don't understand. There was this point midway through the show where I thought I was in a fever dream and watching wishful fanmade content because I couldn't believe an IRL Netflix show could actually give us this. My mind was blown.

So you'll understand that I was fully bamboozled to see that social media is swamped with Min-ho fangirls pretending like Yuri doesn't even exist. I love Min-ho too, but am I the only one who also saw so many signs that point to a future Yuri x Kitty?

First, for the narrative satisfaction of their moms being best friends in the past!

... and to complete Kitty's coming of age! Kitty, growing up in the cisheteronormative Song-Covey household, made the oversight of initially operating under the assumption that she exclusively likes boys and that she has mastered the art of relationships. That's already been debunked partway by her breakup with her first boyfriend who was supposed to be endgame, and is only going to be sealed further if she ends up with a girl in a long-term relationship. (And no, of course she doesn't have to "end up" with a girl for her queer identity to be valid, but I think it just makes the most narrative sense to have that unfold in the story as her worldview alters.)

Here I present to you: my pet peeves in the XO, Kitty fandom

hyping up parallels between Peter x LJ and Minho x Kitty scenes claiming that this means Minho x Kitty may be endgame. They literally have to reach and dig for those because the most parallels are between Peter x LJ and Yuri x Kitty, right from the scene that they bumped into each other! Kitty has also shown zero romantic interest in Minho so far, as opposed to her very keen interest in Yuri.

People finally addressing the elephant in the room like "Ugh, Yuri is probably going to be endgame. 🙄 I want Minho instead!!" like it's such a disappointing or borderline gross outcome. Yuri is a much more intense enemies-to-lovers character than Minho. She is beautiful, kind, and fun with a little bit of bite, everything that Minho is plus Kitty is falling for her hard.

Being real here—If you think Yuri is a boring love interest or kind of a b*tch while Minho is simply a fun old enemies-to-lovers character, I am begging you to check your biases. You, a straight woman, may only see hostile fictional women as competitiion and hostile fictional men as ... well, kinda hot. However, Kitty is bi+ and she could see them both as viable romantic interests, equally. Yes, Yuri has done more malicious things than Minho, but then again she has had a harder time this academic year than Minho. You are obviously still allowed to like Minho better, as long as you're not dismissing the struggles of and flattening a strong female character. Misoginy and homophobia make an ugly combo, y'all. Trust me, you don't want any part in that.

(Additional unpopular opinion: I'm going to get crucified for this but I genuinely think Kitty is too boring for Minho in the same way that Dae was too boring for Kitty. He seems to be into her only from the Halo Effect. Minho is my child and I squeal whenever he's on screen and I hope to see him finding someone actually fun!)

Saying that Kitty’s crush on Yuri was just a token plot point with no real basis or depth. While there is some unrealistic family drama in the show, it's all still credible. Fiction is supposed to bring in imaginative elements and try to keep things grounded. Regardless, I'm never going to be the person who says that a wild and shocking bi- or gay-awakening is unrealistic. As a queer person, let me tell you that it is just as wild and confusinh for us IRL.

Besides, many cishet people actually do not care if (or is hateful when) the MC is bi, that I doubt how much it “helps” with marketing. (That's why queerbaiting exists, folks.) Also, have you seen Kitty in TATBILB? That's a bi preteen right there if I've ever seen one.

"Stop trying to invalidate other people's ships!" I will say this once: I don't care if you ship Kitty with Min-ho, or Dae, or anyone else that's not Yuri. I DON'T CARE! Frankly, good for you because straight ships have better luck out there anyway, ya know? I am simply begging you to not reduce a queer person's nuanced concerns about dismissal of sapphic fictional characters to petty fandom arguments. Read the room, guys. Please.

This is such a crucial show to many of us. I just want y'all to understand that this is just a little bigger than your celebrity crush on a hot guy whose character you're rooting for. We never, ever get contemporary slice-of-life romcom sapphic rep (and Netflix is notorious for cancelling sapphic shows, too). Please don't be dismissive of a perfectly good possible ending! We want to give Netflix every reason to renew this show, and give Han every reason to allow Kitty to flourish just the way she plans to! (This is me begging y'all to not influence the writers into swerving last-minute towards a sloppy Minho endgame, though I do trust her better than that.)

I hope that Netflix renews the show, even if it's through the excitement of straight people in denial LMAO. And then I hope it treats us with a glorious sapphic ending.*

*(Aaaand I can already imagine the cishet women in the audience complaining online about what a terrible person Kitty is for leading Min-ho on and then dumping him, and how she and Yuri are both awful and totally deserve each other. Music to my ears.)

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keeperoftinyarmy · 2 months

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Lol what ? That anon raised some dumb points and you thought it's great because they used some fancy language? 🤣

Tbh what anon said was absolute bs.. kudos to humanuser for roasting them with facts and questions.

I agree they were given scripts and roles when they were young and new to kpop industry. They didn't had much media training like those big 3 company idols so they behaved how company asked them to even if it was cringy. But that's NOT the case when they reached to the point they were able to make strong opinions on their music and contents released. Like Humanuser did Jin was asked to behave cold, Hobi cute, Tae weird, Jimin manly and JK wasn't even allowed tk workout to be seen as maknae. And how long did they followed these 'persona'? 2016 Max. After that slowly they let go of these persona and began showing their real selfs. And guess what Jikook began to showcase their love more since 2017 mid, when they were about to sign their 2nd contract with new terms on how much control the company has on them and their work.

Hobi is naturally cute but stopped acting cringy cute, Jin doesn't have a single cold behavior, Jimin literally asked fans to stop referring to him as manly and JK is built like a hulk. To this day, they all have a 'script' but that's not what you said.. but a general thread they should follow so they won't say dumb or sensitive things on stage infront of millions. That's it.

Anon, you can think your fav is following a script and he's an actor or whatever. But as a Jimin biased, I CANT NOT think of him as someone who will do anything his company asks just for some claps by fans. No I'm not saying he's 101% his genuine self on cam... even we won't do that infront of cam or public lol. But he's a very genuine human AND artist who loves to do his job as professionally and organically as he can. And I'm pretty sure majority of Jimin stans who love him for who he is have the same opinion.

I guess the first part of was for me…I haven’t really shared my opinion on any of the comments on this topic. I’m trying to objectively listen. I am appreciative of all who chose to share their thoughts even if I personally don’t agree with them. I also appreciate every person that decides to debate a post as well….like you are doing here.

—/—

Here’s a personal comment: Jimin is my bias as well. I feel that dropping those early personas was the best thing that could have happened for him. I sometimes felt like I literally watched him bloom as he was more free to be his true self. Jimin being so private means we aren’t seeing everything (which is how it should be) but I feel comforted that we are seeing the parts he truly wants to reveal.

—/—

Thank you for commenting. You’ve made some good points and I appreciate that you chose to share them. 💜

#kota asks

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thosemintcookies · 1 year

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Okay so basically I think something to discuss about Daredevil in general is the underlying reason Matt is daredevil. I think a lot of post-DDTV fandom emphasizes Matt's character as one primarily concerned with righteousness and justice, where I am personally of the belief that successful and versions of Matt are primarily about the masked identity as escapism.

The problem with framing Matt's character to be one of justice is that it runs into two major roadblocks:

1. The Ableism.

When Matt's character is about righteousness and justice it frames his disability in a metaphorical way ("justice is blind"). This lets the narrative avoid really contending with actual ableism, as his disability becomes a thematic accessory to the real issue of justice. Coupled with a huge emphasis on matt's piety and upward mobility, it also plays into inspiration porn, as it becomes a rags-to-riches story where Matt is an overseer as Lady Justice is, venerated for being detached and pure, a figure of judgement apart from the rest of abled society, as opposed to a regular human who is a part of regular society.

2. The Morality Aspect.

When we have Matt as a symbol for justice, his views are reified as unquestionable; as a symbol and conduit for justice, he can't be wrong about things. That just sort of makes his character weaker overall in my opinion. We can't trust that he's an unreliable narrator and flawed human as is literally every single other person is in the cast.

(In the comics, this is explored way more. He is called out on multiple occasions for his shortsighted views on crime, which don't effectively get at the root of social ills associated with systemic and structural injustice associated with higher criminality. Luke Cage notably says he's not getting rid of crime, merely displacing it. The narrative also goes to great pains introducing other characters with other ideas of "doing what's right" (Milla, who works in housing, Ben, who serves justice through journalistic exposure, Foggy, who is loyal on a personal level while being pretty ambivalent about his methods, etc etc.) Introducing new perspectives is sort of the point. If the thesis of Daredevil is "justice exists outside the law" the answer isn't just to punch people.)

In addition, it sort of ignores the other ways Matt is privileged. Again, as Justice, he can't be wrong, which means we're encouraged to ignore the ways his status as a lawyer and as a white man play into his biases. He's not neutral. Volume 2 as a whole also emphasizes the way his being myopic and, honestly, sexist, ruins his marriage as he fails to consider his partner's needs and frames tragedy that falls onto the women in his life as primarily his own issues, rather than traumas his wife/friends are dealing with. In Soule's and Zdarsky's runs we have characters like Sam Chung and Cole North who challenge Matt's experiences with citizenship, and sense of neutral raciality. Again, this isn't an accident of the writing. We as the audience are being asked to consider other perspectives.

(Also having him be more prominently Catholic while having him be a symbol of justice is also implicitly a colonial message.)

The intent of DD as an escape from his regular identity, as it was originally conceived, serves a larger narrative purpose. He gets an escape from ableism and other systemic barriers to being able to serve his sense of justice (which, as previously stated, can be very flawed). It's fundamentally self-justified identity, not a selfless one. It's liberating for him personally, and something he pursues because he enjoys it (despite it being pointed out on multiple occasions that it is sometimes detrimental to his health and relationships.) (Also I think it makes him have a more fun personality, because it lets him be cocky rather than burdened.)

The duality of being a truer version of himself as a masked man allows him to be a complex messy character. Explorations of his character tensions (straddling poverty vs. status, marginalization vs. privilege, violence vs procedural justice, etc etc) are more interesting. His dynamic tensions with other characters (both on his side and antagonists) are made more rewarding as we see competing interests play out and we are encouraged and challenged to take a stance rather than assuming Matt's simply correct.

In addition, this also is why I'm overall not a fan of this idea that just anyone can take on the helm of Daredevil. Daredevil is, unlike some other marvel characters, not really a title so much as an escapist identity taken on by a very specific mentally and physically disabled man to contend with his specific feelings of impotence and marginalization, which doesn't really work unless we explore these themes in other characters, or they were established to similarly be preoccupied with this identity tension.

#daredevil #meta

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winns-stuff · 1 year

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LO ANNOUNCEMENT:

Okay so some very concerning news have been brought up to me about Pyrrhic and Victoria that isn’t the best at all. Which is of course their dismissal of the coercion that Persephone endured when she was pressured by Apollo in that one scene.

Now I want to make something clear, I heard about this the first time I watched that video and immediately I was confused and a little upset why they would even say something like that. I can say all I want about Lore Olympus and how upset a lot of the things around it makes me feel but never am I going to agree that Persephone was never assaulted, that’s just incredibly insane. Now I know what you’re wondering, “if you heard it and had negative emotions about it being said why didn’t you just stop watching then and there?” and I’ll answer for you in the most honest way that I can. I was really biased at that point, I once again found people who had good takes and similar opinions to mine and immediately I gravitated towards that, not only that but I began to grow love from them because they gave me a lot of joy. I don’t usually watch hours long videos cause I’m just too impatient and I get bored easily but obviously I enjoyed watching them enough to finish every video. I loved their dynamic, although I didn’t agree with all of their jokes I never thought they would go this far you know?

So in short since I keep dragging it, I made excuses for them. I just told myself that they didn’t actually mean that and I looked past them. Honestly that’s on me, I’ve got to learn to stop always giving people second chances especially when they’re saying borderline fucked up shit. It’s a habit and I’ve got to break that because what do I look like preaching all of this bullshit and not actually living by it in the first place.

But now I’m going to fix my mistake and I’m gonna take down the rant(maybe rants?) that included their video cause I can’t just continue supporting them when they’re allowing people to say that what happened to Persephone wasn’t SA. I do not care if it was the most “non-violent” form of SA ever it is still SA, coercion is still SA because you literally coerce the person into doing it it’s not of their free will. The very definition of Coercion is the act of making someone do something either by force or threats, that doesn’t scream consent to me. And speaking of consent I’m tired of people thinking consent is just something that can’t be taken away after the person says “yes”, it absolutely can. That’s the whole point of consent, someone can absolutely say yes one minute and say no the next, the no is still valid even after they said yes and it’s time to stop thinking that it’s not.

Consent is consent and no matter what happens it can definitely be declined if you want to decline.

#lo critical #anti lore olympus #anti lo

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bfpnola · 1 year

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hello! I have mental illness myself, and have recently begun diving into your resources. I agree that your mental condition does not determine who you are, but growing up, I had a parent with NPD who was extremely abusive. I know it's not meant in a way to pretend abuse isn't real, but when I see things like "narcissistic abuse isn't real", it makes me really uncomfortable- because I have suffered it myself. I still am learning about things, so I may be misinformed, but doesn't NPD mean your personality- who you are- is supremely arrogant and self-centered, with no regard for others? The only explanation I have come up with is that creating personality disorders to label bad people is what's wrong, but I really would appreciate your response.

hey! thank you so much for sending in a question. and thank you to the 5 folks who helped out by adding their input during the making of this post. let’s break this down together!

when someone says "narcissistic abuse isn't real," it's the part in reference to NPD that matters. when we rush to automatically equate a diagnosis with abusive behavior, in many ways, we are leaning into sanism and eugenics, often the very same biologically-dependent attitudes that criminalize people of color. the abuse you faced was real and i don't think anyone should be allowed to erase those experiences for you! continuing, personality can and does influence behavior. all of these things can be true while also accepting that having NPD does not automatically make someone abusive or somehow more prone to abusive behaviors, even if that was only implied.

why though? for one, because saying the opposite absolve us of our power as well! as humans, we are all capable of harm, of hurting people, even in egregious ways. this was something i personally struggled with literally up until a couple months ago when i hurt someone i really loved. i wanted to be a good person so badly, and those around me knew how much good i was capable of spreading, so certain actions continued to slide. the reality is that i'm not just good or just bad, but human! i'm capable of hurting other people, and that's so scary to me, but it's the truth. and that's the same for everyone else. as some of our friends in BFP even said just now (not sharing their names for privacy purposes), no one (i hope) walks around saying "depressive abuse" or "PTSD abuse" even though people with these disorders are equally capable of perpetuating harm, like anyone else. cluster B disorders are constantly demonized when in reality, you and i could have both been abused by a "regular" person just the same. erasing our capability to harm not only makes it harder to hold one another accountable in the future (why should i get help or change my behavior when it's due to my disorder?), but equally pushes forth a narrative that the DSM (the book used to diagnose people) is law. what do i mean by that though?

in mad studies, we acknowledge that the DSM, rather than having distinct diagnoses with quantifiable, empirical symptoms like literally any other field of science, groups together pre-existing symptoms that tend to appear together and labels them. the diagnoses we receive are better to be thought as shorthand for clusters of commonly comorbid behaviors. and what of these symptoms? who gets to decide what irregular behavior looks like? who are we comparing Mad individuals to? who represents the norm, the "regular" i mentioned earlier? psychiatry and psychology are extremely biased, my favorite examples of which are drapetomania (a "mental illness" meant to explain why enslaved Africans kept running away from plantations), The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease by Jonathan Metzl, hysteria, and prolonged grief disorder. none of this is to say that diagnoses can't be helpful or that your experiences aren't real, but to be wary of the subjectivity, biases, hierarchies, and abuse intrinsic to the field.

because of everything i just said, i feel uncomfortable setting clear delineations for what NPD is and isn't, so i'll leave that part up to a volunteer of ours actually with this diagnosis:

firstly, at our cores we are very insecure about ourselves. we put on a façade of grandiosity to feel better about ourselves and to avoid showing people our insecurities. most of us were hurt by people close to us when we were children, most commonly caretakers, and we do our best to avoid showing this insecurity and hurt. secondly, our self esteem tends to be reliant on the opinions of others. we depend on approval from other people to feel good about ourselves, because we're so insecure. NPD is also characterized by delusions of grandiosity, which is the most stereotypical feature of the disorder. but there's more than just grandiosity. we also experience what's called a "narc crash" (or just a "crash"), which typically happens after a grandiose high. these crashes involve feelings of intense shame, self hatred, etc. the other thing i would include in a definition of NPD is the fantasies, because we hate ourselves so much we are often preoccupied with fantasies of power, success, and fame to help us feel better about ourselves. in short, NPD is defined by extreme insecurity masked by delusions of grandeur, which are followed by crashes. it is also defined by dependence on others for validation since we cannot validate ourselves. a lot of people assume that we just have inflated egos and love ourselves so much, but it's all a façade to hide our extreme insecurity and lack of self worth.

TLDR: 1) the phrase "narcissistic abuse isn’t real" does not erase any abuse you faced by someone who may have had NPD but rather recognizes that the implication of all people with NPD or Cluster B disorders being abusive is not only harmful to everyone but bleeds into eugenics. 2) it's important to be wary of how we deify the DSM and the diagnoses it provides, as it perpetuates the active dehumanization of people who don't meet a certain standard. a standard set by whom? 3) NPD is characterized by extreme insecurity and dependence on others for validation, followed by crashes due to delusions of grandeur clashing with reality.

if you have any more questions, please keep sending them in to @bfpnola! for more on mad studies, here’s our study guide for beginners.

-- reaux (she/they)

#reaux answers #npd #mad liberation #Narcissistic personality disorder #narcissistic abuse #tw abuse mention #bipoc

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cookinguptales · 2 years

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Sigh... Next, the big one. Freddie and Guillermo’s relationship.

Now... I will preface this by saying I am (still) a huge nandermo shipper and while I feel I have tried to be painstakingly fair to Freddie leading up to his introduction, that’ll still affect my analysis here. I wanna be upfront about my biases. lmao

But... god, yeah, Freddie/Guillermo was a fucking disaster. I think we can all agree on that, even if we disagree on what was its downfall. Personally, though, I think it was always doomed to fail. Freddie was utterly faithless with very little magical intervention, but like... more than that, the intimacy just wasn’t there, and I think the fault of that can really be shared around.

I’ll start with Guillermo. I’ve talked about this before and I’ll just keep talking about it and talking about it and probably writing like 30k words of fic about it but like. God, Guillermo is such a liar. It’s always been a part of his character and the show is really starting to engage with the way that it’s harmed his relationships with everyone around him. He lies to the vampires, he lies to his friends, he lies to his family, he lies to his boyfriend. He lies for self-preservation and he lies for personal gain and, this one’s the kicker, he lies to avoid difficult conversations.

It’s hard to fault Guillermo for most of his lies. Like if he’d told the vampires that he was a slayer before he proved his loyalty, they might have killed him. If he’d told his family about the vampires, they might have killed his friends and disowned him. Coming out to your family is always hard. Freddie would uhhhh probably not have accepted it if he’d found out that his new boyfriend was a literal serial killer.

But at the same time, those lies all create a chilling effect on his relationships. No one can truly know and love him because he won’t let them. He won’t let anyone see the real him or help him with any of his crises because he doesn’t trust anyone to accept or support him. And sometimes he’s right! But other times, like when he finally told Nandor about being a slayer and told his family about being gay, he found out that they were far more accepting and supportive than he ever could have imagined. He just... didn’t allow himself to believe that he could depend on them. Which is a little hurtful, if understandable.

You really see this lack of trust extend to his relationship with Freddie. As much as I dislike Freddie, I have to admit that Guillermo never put his true self into this relationship. Him lying to Freddie about his job had such long-ranging effects. It means he never talked to Freddie about what was actually going on in his day-to-day life. It means he never talked to Freddie about any of the people who were important to him. It means he never talked to Freddie about any of his real hopes or dreams or struggles. It means he was never fully open with Freddie about the true nature of his loneliness and sense of betrayal in London.

He never told Freddie about anything important. So how could Freddie ever get to know the real him? He never met the real Guillermo! He met this facsimile that Guillermo created in order to feel normal and playact at being normal and reel in a normal guy. But none of that was real.

But Freddie, on the other hand, let him. I don’t get the impression that Freddie ever really dug that hard to learn about the real Guillermo. Almost all of their conversations were extremely surface-level (beans? okay...) and Freddie doesn’t seem to know much about Guillermo’s hobbies, interests, or preferences -- and I’m not convinced that he cares.

Freddie seems enormously comfortable with Guillermo refusing to allow him access to any of his deeper emotions. In fact, when Guillermo does start exhibiting real emotions around him for the first time (when Freddie comes to the house unannounced, when they walk in on Nandor and Freddie’s yelling at him to hurry up, when the Freddies are playing charades and both ignoring Guillermo’s obvious horror, anger, and hurt, etc.) Freddie just straight-up ignores them. He never once tries to actually comfort Guillermo throughout this entire episode despite him sorely needing it. He doesn’t even bother breaking up with him before he starts dating two other people. That’s a lot.

Like... I think it’s probably somewhat debatable whether Freddie 2 conceptualized fucking Nandor as cheating on Guillermo. Nandor never actually specified that he wanted a version of Freddie that didn’t know about and/or wasn’t dating Guillermo, and Freddie 2 had all of Freddie 1′s other memories, so there’s no reason to believe that Nandor was wrong when he said he could easily steal Guillermo’s boyfriend. With Freddie 2, that’s exactly what he did. Freddie 2 woke up still thinking he was dating Guillermo and immediately decided he’d rather fuck Nandor instead. Yikes!

Whether that’s because Nandor was something new and fun and exotic (😬) and exciting or because Freddie 2 heard that he was a clone and was like “well, I guess that other guy is dating him and I can do what I want”, it’s still yikes! Either way, Freddie 2 just showed absolutely no love or loyalty towards Guillermo whatsoever. It’s not like the two Freddies were fighting over who’d get to be with Guillermo over here.

I think that raises the biggest issue. There was just very little genuine intimacy and connection between the two of them. There was barely any real physical intimacy when you compare Freddie’s interactions with Guillermo vs. Freddie’s interactions with Nandor and his own clone, the two never talked about anything particularly intimate that we ever saw, and they barely knew each other. Freddie left Guillermo so quickly that like... I honestly wonder if he ever saw the relationship as more than a casual LDR in the first place.

I really do think that they had a “whirlwind romance” in the UK because Guillermo was Freddie’s new thing but Freddie was Guillermo’s everything. He’d never had a boyfriend before and he was so, so lonely. So he really built up this relationship in his head. He really romanticized the hell out of it. He really thought it was gonna work, he really thought that Freddie loved him, he really thought that what they had was healthy and intimate and good.

But really, Freddie was just the only person who was being remotely nice to Guillermo during a period when he was intensely emotionally vulnerable, and Guillermo latched onto that. And I think that someone being as into you as Guillermo was into Freddie would be really flattering, which (a deeply narcissistic) Freddie clearly responded to. But as much as Guillermo told Freddie he loved him, we never once heard him say it back -- though we did hear him say it to his clone, and kiss him, which is a thing we never saw him do with Guillermo during his visit.

Guillermo... I love you dearly, but he’s just not that into you.

Guillermo, for all that he was all in, seemed to be fairly interchangeable to Freddie. Freddie was happy to do his list of tourist attractions with someone else that he literally just met. (And the only one that wasn’t on his list was Wicked, which implies that either the list was longer than just those four things or that was the only thing that Guillermo wanted to do, which makes it even more fucking tragic that Freddie repurposed the idea for a date with a different person.) Freddie was just as happy to spend the rest of his time in NYC with Nandor and Freddie 2. Freddie started cheating on Guillermo with Freddie 2 both emotionally and then physically about as quickly as he possibly could.

I mean... if I were talking to my partner and someone else grabbed their ipad so they could talk to me instead, I would simply say I was talking to my partner. Because I actually like talking to the people I love and would not want to hurt their feelings. Freddie was more than happy to hurt Guillermo so he could talk to his own clone instead, though, and that’s just not a great sign for a relationship!

So yeah, I think that even if Nandor had kept his dumb ass out of Guillermo’s relationship, it was just doomed to fail. I do think that Freddie had genuine affection for Guillermo, but only in the most casual of ways. I don’t think he truly loved him. I don’t think he cared if he got to spend time with him or not. I don’t think the two of them were particularly physically or emotionally intimate.

And it was because neither of them actually wanted to be. Guillermo wanted to have a boyfriend, but he wasn’t willing to submit to that whole mortifying ordeal of being known thing. And Freddie simply didn’t want to bother.

As much as I hate to say it, I think Guillermo was just a guy for him to hang out with until someone more interesting came along.

So honestly, the fact that Guillermo had built this relationship up in his head the way he did was more a tragic indictment of his total lack of experience with anyone being nice to him at all than evidence of a real relationship.

Fuck, Guillermo. Now I’m sad. You have no idea what it’s like to be truly loved or valued, and that’s mostly because Nandor refuses to show you. :(

#wwdits #wwdits meta #wwdits s4 spoilers

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acearohippo · 10 months

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Alright I’ll bite. First of all, I don’t give a shit about tang yun, you can blast off about him all you want. I have a problem when someone starts implying that the creators are intentionally making it incest or, sorry, “”incest undertones”” with proof the size of a walnut

Second, obsession and possessiveness is not inherently romantic nor sexual. Are both the tang brothers and Yuuhime and Yamato’s relationship toxic and abusive? Very much so, especially on the latter relationship. You are allowed to hate these relationships and talk about how toxic and abusive it is. But-

Third, the proof you have is *checks notes* a blush and the word hogtie. And for Yamato, it was caressing her cheek. Kay so, Tang Yun blushing could be interpreted as embarrassment or shame since the context is that Tang Xuan literally just told him “don’t tie up people you love bitch, that’s weird” (exaggeration but still). Putting yourself into a hypothetical obsession mindset, would the target of your obsession saying that make you: A) make your heart go Doki Doki B) embarrassed? For the hogtie thing, hogtie isn’t inherently sexual either just because it’s used in bdsm. Fucking police hogtie people. The definition is to bind all four limbs together and knowing dislyte’s translation history, probably what was originally meant.

And Yamato “lovingly caressing Yuuhime’s face which mean he obviously wants to fuck her”… bro, have you never seen any villain ever do that. It’s a common trope to sadistically caress or touch a person’s face while they’re impaired or captured. He’s doing it to show the power and control over her. It’s possessive and abusive to a T but it’s not fucking incest. Like literally give me a list of actual romantic or sexual gestures he does to her cuz I haven’t seen it, I got my binoculars on.

My original point was that by consuming media where sibling relationships turned into incest, thus, incest media, you admit that you are biased towards seeing these interactions as potentially becoming incest and thus would influence your critique on them. As for your whole “I added tags to explain you can just ignore me UwU” You wrote a hella provocative post. You can’t expect a paragraph of fucking tags to handwave away anyone who would get pissed at you.

Sighs. Alright, I guess we’re doing it. First, let me remind you that the three definitions of incestuous, the adjective, I’ve been very specific on using, are:

Constituting or involving incest

Guilty of incest

Excessively or improperly intimate or exclusive

All of these are pulled from the Miriam-Webster Dictionary. Got that? Good. Because I have only been using the term “incestuous”, specifically to highlight the inappropriate levels of “affection” both Tang Yun and Yamato express towards their respective siblings. Not. Once. Have I said anything that about Dislyte intentionally making incest in there stories. What I have said is 1.) I am not going to forgive them for having incestuous overtones between the two siblings during the final act of the Sea of Sorrows event and 2.) the imagery Tang Yun brings up when speaking to his brother (or implying something to his brother) is uncomfortable. Not once do I say or imply that I think Dislyte is trying to push a romantic bond between the two siblings. Incestuous, the adjective, isn’t inherently romantic or sexual coercion, it is simply intimacy that is improper, inappropriate, uncomfortable, manipulative, abusive, and so on. Companies that have incestuous relationships with their customers have manipulated a state of dependency on the customers with their products, rendering them docile and accepting to whatever demands the company asks of. Incestuous can relate to intrusive thoughts, the way someone thinks- consciously or inadvertently- not necessarily how they act. Incestuous is just a descriptor, not the event.

This is why I specified that "incest media" is not the same as "media with incestuous overtones". The former is a kink, the latter is an unfortunate story telling device.

We see this in Tang Yun’s voice lines, in game, and how they are literally about how he feels towards Tang Xuan. If he can’t have him, no one can. All that he does, he does it for “his dear brother”. He simultaneously looks forward to the day and fears the day he can destroy his brother with his two hands. He was accused of abducting his brother and then he says he’ll hogtie him if he disappears like that again. These are all uncomfortable levels of obsession. It’s excessive. He agrees with Yamato’s intense stance on “protecting” his sister, Yamato who took away her second of freedom to be the one in charge of her actions through the musical device.

This is now the second time someone brought up Tang Yun blushing, I don’t know why cause that was never my focus. The two times I’ve brought up the incestuous overtones, it was always about the actions and their implications, never about the physical reaction. Him blushing doesn’t mean anything, but him cutting off his justification for his possessive thoughts when he noticed his brother getting upset with him after voicing them? The implication that he’s holding back his darker thoughts so as not to spook Tang Xuan, the object of his obsessions? That’s infinitely more solid proof of the disturbing nature of his affection.

The fact that they are SIBLINGS is what makes it appear more incestuous than a regular villain/victim combo. You know why no one sees villains “caressing” their victim’s cheeks “lovingly” as incestuous? It’s because the victim isn’t usually related to them. Cause, guess what, when there is a familial relationship? The consumers of the media will see it as incestuous. Because it is. It’s a line being crossed/blurred between family. If a villain does this action to their victim of the same sex, guess what? It will be interpreted as homoerotic overtones. If a villain does this action to a child, it’s interpreted as paedophilic overtones. That’s the point of being able to make logical inferences, without the author needing to explicitly state “Hey, this villain right here? Immoral as shit.” They can use this sort of tool to exemplify the corrupted morality of the villain. The posts I’ve made were never about the two siblings being incestuous, but it being used as a tool to paint Tang Yun and Yamato as immoral bastards. I understand that not everyone will pick up on that, but as someone who has consumed media where this happens often, I can pick up on that story-telling tool. Because, once you notice how it’s been used, you will pick up on it quicker.

Speaking of noticing things, did you truly read my post or did you skim through it and get upset? Because I made sure to find an example of hogtying that wasn’t NSFW and highlighted the position itself, rather than any sexual implications of it because this post isn’t about anything sexual. If you still saw it as sexual, then I can’t really blame you, or anyone, for seeing it that way. The thing about tying people up is that it is seen more often as a sexual kink, and I was worried about people having that imagery which is why I tried to minimise the damage by finding a demonstration that wasn’t overtly sexual (you’ll notice it’s more of a diagram featuring a fully clothed man with a neutral expression on his face, with colours contrasting only the rope and number/angles against said man) and by explicitly asking people to ignore any NSFW implications to focus on the the vulnerability.

It’s ironic, because I got this image from an online journal/news outlet documenting the US Criminal Justice system. The image is in reference to police hogtying, and yet you still got the BDSM reading I was trying to avoid. That, accidentally, proves my point that the imagery Tang Yun conjured with that specific phrasing is disturbing, seeing as it is directed to his brother. When it comes to siblings, there shouldn't be any sort of sexual implication between them.

It also doesn’t disprove what I was saying about vulnerability, because the position is used to render victims immovable and, historically, has been used against minorities in overt displays of power imbalances, rendering them vulnerable for sick displays of superiority. I’m sure the Dislyte devs understood the weight of that word, corrupt policemen being an international plague, and that’s why they had him use hogtie rather than just threaten to tie him up, something way less emotionally charged.

Let me reiterate, that the phrase I have been using, “incestuous overtones”, is used to describe any sort of uncomfortable intimacy between two people, specifically siblings in this case. If I was calling it incest, I would tag it as such. Its not incest, it’s implied. And implications can be just as uncomfortable to see/read as demonstrations. While it wasn’t my intention to be provocative in my post, I guess I’ll accept it since it’s inspired this sort of conversation. At the end of the day, I’m just a fan trying to piece together the behind the scenes relationships of one of my favourite characters. If you don’t notice anything incestuous, there is nothing wrong with that. That’s the fun thing about storytelling, people can get different interpretations from the same material depending on their experiences. I recognise the incestuous red flags, you only recognise the abusive red flags. I know that the overtones are done in a way to provoke discomfort in the audience, you are interpreting my understanding as a callout to the Dislyte Devs. I am telling you that’s not even close to my intentions but, at the end of the day, if this is how it feels to you (and others) then I cannot do much about it. I’m not going to spend all day going back and forth with you, you cannot convince me there aren’t any incestuous overtones. Likewise, I am not here to convince anyone that what is happening is incestuous. I am responding to your queries, but this isn’t me trying to evangelise anyone. I don’t care whether or not you agree with me, but you wanted my side so here it is.

Basically, I think this boils down to: you think I'm implying a sexual/romantic relationship is happening between the Tang twins and Yamato and Yuuhime, but that couldn't be further from the truth. It was never sexual/romantic to begin with, just disturbing and uncomfortable to watch happen between siblings.

Has it occurred to you that, perhaps, you're doing the projecting?

#the hippo answers #again don't know what this is going to accomplish but there you have it #i did chuckle at the “uwu” part #never been implied to be UwU anything before #this is just how you use tumblr #the tags are like endnotes #can add literally anything here #and sometimes it's to expand on the post #other times its to allow for derailing #i personally use them for the latter so that people focus on the post #like i'm doing now seeing as i didn't know how to add this section organically to my reply #dislyte #i'm not going to tag any characters because i really don't want this to continue on any space #i apologise to any tang yun and yamato lovers because i have no intent to make them unlikable with this conversation

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et-ceterra · 5 months

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this poem but make it royai

I Am Not Yours I am not yours, not lost in you, Not lost, although I long to be Lost as a candle lit at noon, Lost as a snowflake in the sea. You love me, and I find you still A spirit beautiful and bright, Yet I am I, who long to be Lost as a light is lost in light. Oh plunge me deep in love—put out My senses, leave me deaf and blind, Swept by the tempest of your love, A taper in a rushing wind.

Sara Teasdale, "I Am Not Yours"

Obviously there are different interpretations of this text, I'm just going to point out what stuck out to me. Also for anyone curious here's linked below I Am Not Yours arr. Z. Randall Stroope as well as my biased overanalyzed Royai reading of this lol.

youtube

Today I was listening to the above choral arrangement with this text and since I happen to be rewatching Fullmetal Alchemist at the same time I couldn't help but draw parallels from this poem and, of course, Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye.

Side note, coincidence but the text was also first published in 1915 which is right after the climax of the FMA storyline. So I imagine this being from both Roy and Riza’s perspectives, after everything has happened and Ed and Al have their bodies back.

In this poem, the narrator longs to be loved so deeply and intimately. And yet this juxtaposition exists in which the narrator cannot allow themselves to be lost in the other person, or perhaps they are refusing to lose all self control. They want to, need to be their own person and their s/o is their own person as well. It paints this beautifully tragic picture of something that the narrator feels they can never achieve. The fact is that no matter how much they want to experience this love, they feel that they never can because of their circumstances.

Taking some of the imagery more literally, let’s talk about the “lost as a candle” line. As the Flame Alchemist, Roy is extremely powerful. On a smaller scale, a candle is powerful in that it cuts through darkness; a spark can start a flame. But a candle's range is limited. For all the light and warmth he can produce on his own, Riza is Roy's true light in his life; she is "noon" in this scenario. So much of what he does, he does for her. She in turn is the light that keeps him from going astray and giving into his burning desire for revenge against Envy. She keeps him from performing human transmutation (of his own free will).

If Roy is warm, burning, charismatic, driven, Riza is cold, calculated steady, and distant, at least on the outside. Her time in Ishval and in the military has left her hardened. She does not hesitate to take others' lives if it's to protect her loved ones. She also does not hesitate to point a gun at her very own colonel when she knows he is doing something he will regret. I find it interesting that the two similes in the first stanza are so opposite, and yet the meaning is the same. Roy and Riza are two different sides, but the same coin. Roy is the hot, passionate fire, and Riza is the cold winter snow, but they equally desire to be loved by each other.

Although both Roy and Riza may wish for something more between them, and they know that the other is a "spirit beautiful and bright," there are all these legal and emotional barriers that prevent them from being together. Roy has dreams of becoming Fuhrer, Riza has people to protect, the military has laws in place preventing any sort of romance between officers. Riza and Roy long to be loved, completely accepted in the face of the horrible burdens that they carry. But even if they acknowledge that they do love each other, there are so many obstacles that they face to doing anything about it.

The third stanza culminates in what the two deep down truly desire - to be completely enveloped in love and companionship and acceptance. And Roy is the only one who can do that for Riza and vice versa, because of this long, scarred history that the two share. This is something so raw and intimate, something that the two feel they cannot admit - have they even admitted it to themselves? But the reality is that they would give up everything for each other. Roy literally did go blind at one point in the story, after an act of immense love and trust for his lieutenant.

This is a final, silent plea to the other to not hold back, seen in the expression (pain? jealousy?) in Roy's eyes when he watches Ed and Winry get happily married. Seen in Hawkeye's stolen glances across the office to her colonel's desk. Yearning silently, yet desperately, for the day that they can unashamedly be swept up in the other's love and desire, but unsure if that day will ever come.

#fma #fmab #riza hawkeye #roy mustang #roy x riza #royai #Youtube

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nothorses · 5 months

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Asking on anon because I don't feel like getting fucking lambasted by both radical sides of this. But I think they're are some folks that talk about transandrophobia (not you, baeddel-txt, etc) that are starting to pick up on toxic masculinity in the same way TIRFs picked up on TME/TMA shite and the like. (I have it on my blog but only because I'm tired of getting a toss up treatment from shallow transfems and getting reduced to either a cis man or them insinuating I'm not who I say I am, and the like. Frankly as of today I'm muting all of the related tags on both sides because frankly... I need a break).

I agree with y'all just like, be aware of it just like transfems should be aware of our own problems.

I also dislike the whole TIRFs "reclaiming" baeddel as a.) It's literally a ye old slur for intersex people (re: tfems having a problem with fetishizing intersex people, speaking from personal experience here)

b.) it reads like a far inferior version of reclaiming the tslur, which tbh, I would just prefer if they did that.

Also I guess if you ask this and you care so much about who's sending this, I'll reveal myself, just don't make it public because I don't need to be getting harassed by TIRFs for being a weird reject because I just choose to be both a girl and a boy identity wise and clearly the everything not binary fem phobia (even if I meet the criteria of not "CAFAB" to them.) they have is still clearly alive and well considering I took a soft ban 3 months ago for it. (After getting a full ban rolled back bc of staff reviewing it.)

The "baeddel"/TIRF ideology reminds me a lot of my own internalized transmisogyny turning me into a shithead radfem both pre and post coming out, but also everything else going with it.

That's not to say that there isn't some areas where it can be disproportionate. I also don't understand the obsession with violence statistics when a.) It shouldn't be happening period and b.) I don't think either side is accurately reported, really, unless it's entirely relying on self reporting. Also c.) I don't know how much of violence on trans SWers is reported in that, i could see it being even or even mildly trans fem biased, not statistically significant though.

I'll be honest here in that I am not 100% sure I'm understanding you correctly, but it sounds to me like you're making a couple of different points that I'd love to be able to engage with- I think I just need some clarification first so I can make sure I'm not completely misinterpreting what you're trying to get across.

So like, if it's cool, I would love a follow-up ask to clarify a couple of things!

What are folks doing with "toxic masculinity" that you feel is similar to what TIRFs have done with TME/TMA? My understanding would be that TME/TMA were turned into a kind of definitive label that people use to determine who's allowed to speak on certain issues, who's "oppressed enough" to matter, etc., but I don't really see a way that parallels "toxic masculininity" among folks who talk about transandrophobia. Unless you mean that people are distancing themselves from the possibility of being masculine in a toxic way on the basis of their identity? (If that's the case, I think I'm misunderstanding the connection to TME/TMA)

Could you expand on: "The "baeddel"/TIRF ideology reminds me a lot of my own internalized transmisogyny turning me into a shithead radfem"? I think the sentence after that muddied what you meant, for me, and I'm curious what insights you have there!

Also RE: statistics, I really agree that there need to be more studies and research into these issues in order to get any real sense of clarity. IMO the best uses for statistics of violence and discrimination against trans people, specifically stats that tell us who is facing what kind of discrimination, is to better understand the systems causing us harm in order to work towards dismantling them.

Trying to determine "who has it worst" overall is pointless and self-defeating. The goal should be to understand why transmascs tend to face more lifetime sexual violence, while transfems tend to face more childhood sexual violence. Not to decide which issue to give a shit about and which issue to ignore, or which trans people "deserve" to be prioritized over all the others.

I will also say that the study I draw from more than others is the U.S. Transgender Survey, which relies on self-reporting. I recommend checking them out if stats interest you; they're pretty expansive and had a massive sample size. The 2015 results have been published for a while, and 2022 results are coming soon.

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the-final-sif · 2 years

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Also i am slightly afraid people will take Dream not saying much as some sort of guilt and not as his lawyer or pr person (if he has ether, sounds like he does) telling him he should not say stuff that hasn't been reviewed beforehand/to shut up while they handle it.

Now, admittedly, I literally refuse to enter the twitter landscape outside of investigating reported information, but honestly from what I've seen at least on reddit and elsewhere, they've actually taken it to mean the opposite. Amanda kinda did a lot of harm to her case/the public perception of her credibility (even if it could be an understandable response to stress, it is unhelpful and new claims/stating she had evidence and then admitting she didn't brought a lot of public doubt. Some people have begun no longer trusting her claims at all. I personally don't think that's fair, and that she still absolutely deserves to be heard, treated with respect, and be allowed the same chance to provide evidence as anyone else. However, I do understand why people may have begun to mistrust her or given her claims less weight).

Dream, by remaining quiet outside of his one statement, effectively didn't give people any bait or anything to work with outside of his one response. This gave people a chance to calm down, look at what's been presented, and come to terms with the fact we don't currently have answers and we might not for awhile yet. If he is really taking legal action, then the wait is understandable, and from what I've seen, most people have seen remaining quiet at the smart choice.

Kersplusion on r/dreamwastaken 2 has actually been running polls every so often, which, while absolutely not perfect (they changed question wording, utterly belothed) and certainly going to have biases, do reveal an interesting trend, given that roughly the same number of users have been polled and we can assume that it's going to at least roughly the same population of users over time.

The first poll they posted was right after Dream posted his response (late friday), it got 860 responses and the numbers worked out like this;

Yes, some of it is fake and he’s taking legal action 30.70%

No, it’s real. And they will silence victims 8.72%

I don’t think he’s committed a crime anyways 16.40%

I’m still processing 44.19%

The second poll they ran was on Saturday, in the midst of a lot of the twitter storm, and had 958 responses that broke down like this;

The sexting is fake 15.34%

The sexting is real 5.64%

No crime was committed 22.03%

I’m still processing/waiting 56.99%

In that roughly one day period, nearly 3% of people who thought the incident was real dropped off. 15% of people switched (likely because "some of it is fake" was changed into "the sexting is fake") into either "No crime was committed" or "Still waiting". Which leads to our final (still ongoing atm but at 854 responses at the time of posting) poll, done today (monday).

The alleged sexting was real, Dream is guilty 3.75%

The alleged sexting was fake, Dream is innocent 21.66%

No crime was committed 21.90%

I’m still waiting 52.69%

Since Saturday, the number of people who believe the sexting was real has sharply dipped to just 3.75%. The number of people waiting has dipped by about 4%, and the number of people who think the sexting is fake is up by a little over 6%.

Now, again, these numbers aren't perfect by any means. The wording of questions changed, and plenty of biases in the way the questions were written. But I do think that it reveals a very interesting trend. Despite Dream having only made one statement on the matter, the number of people who think he's guilty has been steadily dropping. Whether this is because of external factors or not, it is still revealing that apparently, "shut up and go talk to a lawyer" has (within the limitations of these polls), been an effective public opinion management strategy compared to the alternative.

Now, again, I will restate my own personal belief that I am firmly in the waiting category. I don't think we have enough evidence to make a call one way or another. I want all parties treated with respect, and to be given a chance to make their case in a more rational setting. I just wanted to offer this data up because I did find the trends interesting. I also think that it will help offer assurance, that no, at least within this polled population, people do not appear to be assuming that silence is guilt.

#sif answers #kuro-tsuki-san #dream discourse #discourse #data #sif speaks #Also I think this data helps advocate for my point that shutting up and getting a lawyer is always a good idea

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