the statements “platonic relationships should not be undervalued” and “it’s ok to ship wlw ships and mlm ships even if the characters involved have no canonical romantic interest in each other” are not mutual exclusive.

many people were confused about some of my previous posts, so for the sake of clarity i am condensing everything! tumblr has extremely transphobic moderation practices, often flagging completely innocent posts as explicit, solely for containing trans women in them or mentioning transgenderism. while letting untagged porn in sfw tags (ive literally seen porn tagged as "sfw agere") and blatent hatespeech, especially twards trans people (just look at the "gender critical" tag) go completely unchecked recently the CEO of tumblr had a big public hissyfit about people (rightfully) calling him transmysogenistic, going into random trans womens dms to harrass them, and saying that predstrogen saying she "hopes he explodes with hammers and then explodes again and hammers fly everywhere" is a death threat and saying he is calling the FBI on her (repeatedly misgendering her and calling her "it") and many bloggers, apon speaking out about it or even making harmless jokes (one trans woman posted a picture of a car and a hammer with the caption "reblog to scare matt" and got nuked for it) and many are very very angry (rightfully) about this whole affair and tumblr in general. if you would like to look into it i reccomend scrolling the "predstrogen" tag as she is the case most people are talking about at the moment. So, what can we do? this is clearly an ongoing issue, and, dispite having lost a lawsuit about their transphobic moderation in the past (see : https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21274288-tumblr-nycchr-settlement) its clearly not gonna stop with just user complaints, as staff members are perfectly content to just go scorched earth on users who even so much as lightly poke fun at them well if you want to help you should contact the human rights commision (i will give clear details further down) ! you dont have to be in the US, nor be an adult to file, and it only takes a few minutes. this is the best and most effective method to fix this, because it hits tumblr where it hurts. human rights acencies have a lot of legal and financial power and tumblr CAN NOT just ignore them, and given that this will be the seccond time this is happening, the commisions shouldnt be playing nice anymore eaither. its really important that AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE FILE, and with different examples! while maybe your case might not be enough to prop up a lawsuit on its own, we need to prove a general trend. so every little bit counts! to respond to another question abt this ive gotten, as for what exactly to report, you should a) write about an act of discrimination youve recieved on tumblr that was eaither administered by a staff member OR that staff refused to give adequate moderation action in for example : a terf posted some blatent hatespeech targeted twards you, and you reported them, and staff looked at the issue and refused to persecute it. example 2 : you were unfairly flagged, deleted, or otherwise punished by a staff member and you are queer ( AND the post they banned you for has some kind of tie to your gender, ex : a sfw transition progress photo ) OR b) if you have not personally recieved something like that, please look for other peoples stories (THEY SHOULDNT BE HARD TO FIND, within the last couple of hours trans people have been being banned LEFT AND RIGHT for trying to speak on this. i would reccomend checking some of the tags related to what happened with predstrogen) and you should describe that incident as best as possible (be sure to disclose that you are speaking for someone else, ideally you should tell the story of someone you know, if possible.) you can also mention any reports you have made twards people posting blatent hatespeech that, opon reveiwing tumblr refused to prosecute dispite it being very obviously against terms of service. just so nobody gets confused about the filing process, im laying it out in more plain languadge!!

first you should email the SF HRC (san francisco human rights commision), at [email protected] and say something along these lines :

Hello, I am [full name] from [country or state] and I am filing a complaint against Tumblr, witch is owned by the parent company Automattic Inc. located at 60 29th St, San Francisco, CA 94110.

Tumblr has had previous issues with the NYC DHR for their moderation being unfairly biased against trans women (see : https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21274288-tumblr-nycchr-settlement).

Despite a legally binding agreement with the NYC DHR, staff members still regularly harrass users based on their gender or sexual orientations. For example : on [date of most recent infraction] [describe incident] (if you are describing an incident that did not happen to you specifically, say something like) This incident involves the user [username] who I am not affiliated with (or/) who I am filing on behalf of.

I can be reached for further inquiries about this incident at [email you want to talk over] or [phone number you want to talk over]. (if you would like to be anonymous) However, In the event of legal prosecution against Automattic I would refer to be kept anonymous, where possible, in court proceedings. alternatively, you can also call the SF HRC at : 415-252-2500, you can use the above text as a starting point for this as well, next you want to fill out the form for the NYC DHR (new york city department of human rights) here : https://www.nyc.gov/site/cchr/about/report-discrimination.page for company you wanna put : Automattic and/or Tumblr for address you wanna put : 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 for phone number you wanna put : (646) 513-4321 and for category of discrimination you can put : Discriminatory harassment and basis of discrimination you can put : Gender; Gender identity you can then use a similar script on the written section of the form. when describing a specific incident, you should attach as many screenshots and links as possible! (for links, include both a live link and an archival link, so take a capture with the internet archive and have that as an alternative, incase a staff member gets petty.) this should only take a few minutes at most, and it helps alot! you can fill this out if you are a minor, and you dont have to be a us resident, please please take the time!!! and, just to clarify because there are many posts going around that are confused about this tumblr moved offices to san francisco recently, so their main HQ is at : 60 29th St, San Francisco, CA 94110 they DO still have an office in new york city, and thats where their PREVIOUS HQ was, the address is : 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003

on the one hand I do understand where people are coming from when they respond to The White American Desire For Authentic Culture by going "you already have a culture" and pointing out that this desire often has reactionary undertones

that being said, I think it's largely sidestepping the actual issue, which is that American culture fucking blows chunks. American culture is strip malls and military worship and the elevation of mass-market pablum to Bold Artistic Statements.

and subculture is only partially an escape from this, because most subcultures exist within the same constraints of American culture as a whole; they are captured and redefined by capital on such a frequent basis that it often feels impossible to hold onto them in any meaningful way.

moreover, even the parts of American culture that aren't complete garbage are more or less inextricable from the colonial, imperialist, and racially-stratified history of the country. like, I think of that post that went around a while ago talking about "America sucks but has some good parts," and one of the things it listed was national parks, and people (rightfully!) pointed out that the national park system is fundamentally flawed and tends to shit on indigenous nations by design.

the only thing I can think of that's even sort of an exception is pop culture - jazz and rock music, superhero comics, Hollywood. and all of those are, again, captured and defined by capital, and in one way or another have historically been built on screwing over the artist.

so we come to a position, one way or another, where a lot of people say something like: "I'm alienated. I'm surrounded by traditions and institutions I think are shit; I have no way to meaningfully undermine them, and I can't escape them without effectively destroying my life. the culture I was born into is a gravestone on top of another gravestone, lifeless and miserable, and people are constantly shouting that I should be grateful because it's The Greatest Country In The World."

at that point, one seeks an escape, and I think there are three major routes here.

one is to become a weird lib obsessed with the Real Soul Of America. America is really about the good parts, not the bad parts which outnumber them and which they are built upon.

another is to fixate on the Exotic, for lack of a better word. cultures which you do not have an obvious "connection" to, but which fascinate you or appeal to you. obviously this can be pretty fucking fraught, though I would argue that taking an interest in other cultures is a good thing if you aren't shitty about it. (That's its own conversation.)

the third is to fixate on the culture(s) you feel you "ought to have" had, that which was sacrificed on the altar of whiteness by grandparents or great-grandparents who, frankly, had different concerns. to look at a culture that may still be defined in many ways by cruelty and stratification - the way I would argue most human civilization has been - but that seems to have had something else going on, at least. a culture that may not have been recognizable 500 years ago, but at least it existed.

again, none of these impulses is beyond criticism, and I think it would be naive to say that the last one can't have reactionary undertones. I also doubt these impulses are unique to the USA! alienation is extremely common in today's world, and it's not as though the USA is the only settler state in existence.

what I am saying is more that I think the conditions that lead to these fixations are worth paying attention to, and that dismissing them with "you already have a culture" kind of misses the point in favor of getting in a zinger. people wouldn't want a different culture if they were happy with the one they had. like so many other things, people want one that Doesn't Completely Suck. failing that, they'd probably like to not be defined by any culture at all - but that, tragically, is just as impossible.

Dune discourse is uniquely annoying because there's a bunch of extremely obvious, in-your-face orientalism perpetuated by the main characters that's being discussed at nauseum and is very easy to dismiss and completely overshadows any actual issues with the movie, like the refusal to use recognisable arabic phrases or the hiring practices. I'll be charitable here and assume that people have a rightfully negative reaction to how those images of white people, particularly Jessica, are used as marketing material, instead of just not getting the point, and with how often concerns like this are overlooked, I can understand why they aren't receptive to "no this thing that media does uncritically all the time is meant to be bad THIS time actually trust me bro just read this 1000 page book".

Seemingly the entire film crew having cold feet about including references to real world anti-colonial movements or just normal Arabic would always be concerning, but especially given the current situation in Palestine and it's all overshadowed by the colonisers in the book acting like colonisers because every other issue is more complicated. Dune, as a text, still believes in noble savages and "hard times create hard men" nonsense. I'm really not coming at this from a "don't criticise the thing I like" angle, but debates about Jessica's outfit have made me learn nothing besides occasionally seeing really cool pictures of real arabic clothing, while reading Haris A. Durrani's dissections of the books and the current adaptation has actually tought me a lot of stuff about both the book and the real world.

If you haven't seen his Dune essays, you can find a collection towards the bottom of this page: https://history.princeton.edu/people/haris-durrani

https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization < This blog post isn't specifically about Dune, but it uses the Fremen as an example to discuss the historic origins of the noble savage trope (Acoup is generally a cool history blog, mostly focused on greek and roman history)

I love Dune but it's so problematic, just not for the obvious reason and dissected Frank Herbert's actual politics and the strange intersection of conservatism and anti-colonialism is fascinating. You should criticise Dune, I would just like the criticism to be better, especially because focusing on the thing that is framed as bad in the story gives every chud an easy way to dismiss criticism of the text as bad media literacy

If Honkai star rail men had GWA accouts. Part 1?

Nsfw

Read Part 2 here

Cw: predator and prey, noncon, mentions of blood, breeding, creampie, pet play, power play, size kink

Gn! Reader x Caelus, Sampo, Blade, Jing Yuan

Caelus

Caelus literally posts whatever he wants. However, primarily ramble-faps, where his listeners can listen to how vocal he becomes when his hand is around his wet, leaking cock. His whimper is moans and pleads to be inside you all for you to hear

But no matter if it's a shit post meant to make you laugh or something serious, his audio will always have some sort of storyline.

Usually his predator&prey/noncon are his most popular for good reason, too; Caelus who makes it sound like he's tossing you around, growling and grunting in your ear while he pins you down onto the ground. His breath shakes as he tries to inhale more air and your scent, all the while using all of his strength to keep you from moving or getting away from him, his mouth drooling from the thought of taking you right here and now. And he will tell you this, coo about how you're so small and weak underneath him. He has caught you, and now you should rightfully submit to him.

Caelus is a switch, and he is not afraid to show every dark desire he has on his account. Sometimes a guy just wants to wear pretty makeup and then get fucked to the point where that makeup smears all over his face; or whimper for his master to let him cum.

Pet names for listener

Babe/baby

Darling

Sampo

Whimpering audios. Just kidding, if you want those, you'll have to pay him ;). Most, if not all, of his audio is where he spends weeks or months writing a script and making it are all paywalled, and he takes great pride in his work. ( though he hopes to God no one recognizes him in public)

First had the idea of prostituting his sexy voice for free money now he's far too deep and actually will get upset if you say his work is garbage. Excuse you his audios are a work of art he's already in A+ actor he doesn't need your criticism.

Sampo is very pan so of course, he's going to make audio pandering to his fellow Pansexuals. It can make his tone and Pitch higher to match up more feminine voice, so a lot of his threesome audios are just himself role-playing with himself.

As a good salesman mixed with the audience's wants, and if his audience wants to be called a good boy, girl, or toy, then who is he to refuse? Most of his audio has some form of praise kink. He just can't help but say nothing but nice things to his beloved fans. His most popular audios, however, are the ones where he either objectifies himself or objectifies the listener treating them as a prized possession or a slutty fuck toy.

Pet names for listener

Babe/baby

Beautiful/handsome

Doll

Blade

all his audios are dead dove or very dark. He treats his poor listeners like nothing more than a piece of meat for him to tear apart. His audios are seriously not for the faint of heart especially those who are more squeamish too pain or mentions of blood.

His audios are just a way for him to get off, so he hardly ever edits and pretty much only does the scripts he likes from other people. Though it would be lying if Blade said he didn't like all the attention he'd been getting, so he gets a new mic, a better one, so it could pick up the sounds of his wet cock when he strokes it.

His favorite scripts to do is yandere, noncon or any type of Slashers; Blade is most active during the fall mostly October when those type of content is more likely produced. If his audience isn't scared and aroused the same time then he's not doing a good job... he usually is not one to collab, but Jing Yuan asked(begged him) to collab and the script he sent was so delicious that he just had to show up.

In any audio he does he likes to be mean and degrade and use your body, even if he does softer audios where he's more gentle and loving he still likes to be on the snarky side he can't spoil you all rotten now can he?

Pet names for listener

Whore

Bitch

Fuck doll

Cocksleeve.

Jing Yuan

Says he does it as a hobby but has not only the best Mic but has that Mic where his voice will be on either side of you. He loves the praise he gets from his adoring fans, that seems to Hell and back over his sexy voice. Even though he only does the audios he wants to hear his fans will eat it up like it's breakfast lunch and dinner.

He almost exclusively does Scripts and occasionally ramblefaps. However, when something you know is on his mind and he's so horny he can't think, and the scripts he finds just aren't scratching that itch, he'll do it himself.

He prefers audio is where he is in a position of power over the listener he loves power play with a bit of size kink. Most of his audio has breeding or creampie. Talking about how his big cock is stretching you out and that he's close to cumming inside you gets him off so much.

However his most favorite is one of a pet play kink where he lends his dear pet to Blade but not before teaching him how to take care of you properly and how you need love, care, and praise. However blade rolling his eyes just tells him that he is spoiling you and proceeds to destroy your holes with his fat cock and degrade you while Jing Yuan watches, slowly stroking himself.

Pet nemes

Pet

Dear

Beloved

Sweetheart

Ray - Kakanaru prompt.

Uzumaki Naruto had a lot of fears growing up. Fears like ghosts, thiefs, villagers, him fading away and no one noticing, him losing people he considers his family, needles, for a while Orochimaru and snakes etc.

The one fear he was never able to outgrow, a fear that unlike everything else didn't fade away or turn into a life lesson, despite facing missing nin, reanimated PPL, tailed beasts, controlled allies, sentient plant matter, and a freaking alien is the fear of ghosts.

It would all have been fine. Maybe even something the others could have an incredulous laugh on except it's not fine when this critical information is revealed in the midst of a C turned deadly SS rank mission with Kakashi and Naruto separated from the rest of the team and transported to a new place,facing what is essentially seeming to be an encounter with the paranormal.

It is certainly not hilarious when someone who is essentially the saviour of the shinobi world starts collapsing at the seams, his body, mind and chakra reacting catastrophically to a threat only he perceives. The worst part is that Kurama isn't putting a stop to his host's idioticy. (Not my personal pov. This is strictly from Kakashi's view)

Or- Kakashi is a bastard. Naruto keeps way too many things hidden. Their relationship suffered and since then never repaired when Naruto met Tsunade and Shizune and understood the true meaning of the term sensei and mentor. And Kakashi- like every other time in his life - when he saw one of the few good things in his life spilling from his hand like grains of sand didn't bother closing his fist until it was too late.

Or- Naruto has Phasmophobia and much like everything else this ties back into his shitty childhood in Konoha. Kurama knows everything. And there have always been spirits and supernatural at play when it concerned Naruto. It was not sheer dumb luck or resilience that helped him survive Konoha after all.

There is a reason children shouldn't be left unsupervised. And now the others can only watch as these forces take away what is rightfully theirs.

fuck I'd read the shit out of this

AITA for being hesitant to believe potential victims/not really caring about discourse? Any names will be fake and pulled from the game Wargroove but the situation will probably be identifiable to anyone familiar with the situation.

I (19) have been following these content creators for a while, Mercia (she/her) and Nuru. I think they generally have good takes backed up with research and evidence. Some time ago, they had a collaboration with Ragna (any prns, so I'll use he/him for clarity) to discuss Ragna's sister, Sigrid, who they've talked about in the past. It was enlightening and horrifying to hear what Ragna had been through during his childhood. There wasn't much proof that could be offered, but Sigrid has a pretty well documented series of behavior and childhood abuse is very difficult to prove.

But then there was a falling out between the Ragna and the Mercia-Nuru group for some hard to pin point reason. Mercia brought up having Ragna's nudes in conversation. The only screenshots I've seen were just her saying she had them. There's no clear timeline, so it could just be in response to the allegations. Ragna made a post saying that they had Mercia and Nuru's address, which was taken as doxxing. Ragna then clarified that he'd just go to their house himself.

Ragna's made a handful of friends in the anti-Sigrid community, and he, along with said community, has been saying a lot of shit about Mercia with little to no evidence. What evidence they have does lead a bad taste in my mouth but is nothing outright heinous. Mentally ill people can struggle with boundaries; it's not good per say but it's not Chernobyl toxic. But I'm hesitant to agree with Ragna and the anti-Sigrid community because Ragna has a lot of bad takes. Like a lot. Ragna criticized the US's (lack of) laws around media censorship in a time where book bannings are very real while using a very poorly picked example of something fictional that is "rightfully banned". What isn't word of mouth tends to be hyperbole or ad hominem. Nevermind comparing Mercia to Sigrid.

I get that creators can be two-faced. I've seen the illuminaughtii implosion alright. I would like to believe victims, but I don't want to stop enjoying content creators I like, especially when the potential victims aren't exactly easy to believe.

What are these acronyms?

Yo your Shuggy King/ Jester AU is such a good take and I swear to everything holy i'd do unspeakable things to get more of it! Like like like --- like, what if Buggy's not even a jester and was really some third rate theif there to steel some expense trinket or another at some feast and he gets caught beacuse hes a pretty shit third rate thief and just somehow got lucky that the right door was unlocked somewhere but now these folks are ushering him in to entertain the king and his aristocratic asshole friends and he doesnt know what to do!!!! He should have just stuck to picking pockets at taverns and now he's in front of the king and -- wow, OK, so the king is kind of hot? -- nothepoint!!! -- they're all looking at him and he just... the feast turns into a roast and it's so unhinged and also a commentary on all the shit buggy really feels about these rich stuck up assholes and the king is dying from laughing so hard so he just... keeps going? And then he is asked to stay on full time and, sure, why not? Beats the streets any day and plus hes closer to treasure and can just buy his time and strike it rich but then he gets legit invested because don't these assholes know what the people need? What they want? 1 guess and the first one is already wrong because apparently everyone has their heads so far up their asses that they can't see the real issues in the kingdom so he accidentally speaks out of turn and totally out of place but the king, like, listens? He's listening to him. He's taking Buggy's advice and... oh shit... he might be in love now....

Ohhhh you did not just spike my interest back into an au that flopped like a month ago

This is sooo... I'm speechless because yes??? yes please!?!?

Also hi, sorry it took me a little to answer, i try to answer asks in order of who sent one first ':)

Buggy never stops taking small things. Trinkets no one in the castle would miss. But such trinkets outside the castle go for quite some berry. Unfortunately for him, some of the guards caught wind of what he was doing so they start following him around. He meets up with his friends and heist buddies on the outside, selling and buying and they see it all.

He still had connections that only multiplied once he got to in the palace.

One day they practically throw Buggy in King Shanks's feet and started listing all the accusations he was very rightfully blamed about and he thinks that was it. He was going to die because liked the weight of money in his pockets.

And the King is furious. He's shouting and spitting venom. No one had seen him this angry in a while, or maybe even ever. But the most shocking thing was that he was angry at the guards who caught Buggy. He claimed that Buggy was sent by him personally into the city to scout out the common folk. After all how could he know what the people need and lack if he can't leave the castle. He tels them he doesn't need such incompetent and naive people in his guard but he'll send them off with just a warning.

He was talking so convincingly that even Buggy started believing him.

When the doors close and it's just them, Shanks falls to his knees to inspect Buggy for any injuries.

The king is in his royal garments, the ones that probably cost ten times more than what he stole through the whole week. And he's just sitting there, worrying because Buggy's elbow got scratched when he was tossed in the marble floors.

After a good amount of time, Buggy still getting away with way too much, decides to test the limits. A lot had changed since the first time they met. But Buggy was still convinced that there was no way an attractive, powerful and charismatic king like Shanks was genuinely interested in a jester who only tells him what to do and steals from him. And for what? What was Buggy giving in return? Criticized the court and sneak around. Sure they messed around sometimes but the king could have a dozen way more beautiful women at his feet in a second if he wished so. So why?

One night, he feels ballsy and takes a knife into their bed. He hides it under his pillow and waits for the right time to come. He thinks that him and the king had gotten their lines so blurred that Shanks didn't notice the knife, but it wasn't true. Because when it happens nothing changes.

Buggy was fast. The king was already curled up in him, so it took only one motion for the jester to straddle him and put the knife up to his throat.

Shanks was smiling. His hands still running up and down his thighs. And the jester is so confused. If he pushed a bit harder he was sure he would have drawn blood. So why? "Why aren't you scared of me?Why do you keep me around?"

To which the answer sounded so simple it almost didn't register in Buggy's mind. "Because I relish in your presence. And you have my favor." He put his hand on the one holding the knife. "I know you won't kill me..." it wasn't arrogance. It wounded more like comfort.

Because of course he wouldn't. If he did, what would he do? He'd have nowhere to go. And the people would get some snot-nosed brat who would ruin the country. Where would he run? Who would he reside in? Who would love him like this?

Buggy didn't know how but he ended up crying in his king's arms that night. Worst part was - it was the most comforting place the jester had ever been to.

Idk something like that, I probably missed something I wanted to add but oh well

The Right Are Engineering A Recession In NZ

tumblr isn't very good at local news, which is why i tend to get my nz politics information from elsewhere. so i can confidently tell you that aotearoa under national is totally, utterly fucked. like, not just in terms of all the social progress they plan to undo, though they do very much do plan to do all of that.

national+act+nzfirst have committed to a financial policy that makes zero fucking economic sense. you know how every time the economy is in bad shape, tories sieze the good economic opportunity to slash services or give tax cuts to the rich? imagine if that was happening for just no reason at all. there’s no crisis we’re facing this would even marginally help, but that's what nact+nzfs tax cut policy is anyway.

aotearoa is currently in a cost of living crisis, like much of the world, and our inflation is, to give it it's technical term, "sticky". This means that it's not still shooting up the graph like crazy, but it should have started to go down more by now according to predictions, but it hasn't, and is sitting at an unsustainably high level.

Inflation is bad because it eats away at the value of your money (not something you want generally) but this inflation is especially bad because it's inflation we created to ward off a recession back in 2020. NZ had the hardest and fastest lockdowns in the world, but at a huge cost -- our economy basically stopped overnight. Without goods and services being bought and sold, we would have been plunged into a financial crisis. But instead the government borrowed money to fund the wage subsidy and pay workers through the lockdowns, injecting money into and stimulating the economy.

This was a bill that was always going to come back to bite us, and for the past several years, the Labour government and the Reserve Bank had been playing a balacing game with our economy, steering us between a recession and a wage-price inflation spiral, with a recession definitely being the preferable one of the two. We actually had short soft one that we’ve come out of, exactly what Grant Robertson and Adrien Orr were aiming for.

Recessions can be small or big - inflation spirals are usually just big. We wanted to aim for a "soft" landing recession by hiking interests rates just enough to bring inflation back under control. The Reserve Bank uses it's tool - the Official Cash Rate, or the OCR, which basically sets the price of interest rates across the country, and the government also can use it's powers to create monetary policy to help the economy. A lot of the criticism Labour received before losing the election was about overspending in areas post-pandemic, as putting money into the economy through government spend by using debt to fund it genuinely causes inflation.

What a government should do during a time of inflation is remove money from the economy. For example, a right wing government would often issue an austerity policy, where the cut the amount of government spending through slashing programmes, benefits, staff, etc etc. A government could also increase taxes so people have less money to spend, could pay down government debt, could invest the money into a fund (e.g. NZ has a superannuation fund that's designed to be eventually self-funding set up by Labour that National have paused payments on when getting into government). It doesn't matter too much what, theoretically speaking -- the point is to get the money out of the economy.

What you definitely, definitely don't want to do during a period of high and sticky inflation is put more money into the economy. That would do the opposite of what you want. Labour were rightfully (at some points) criticised for their inflationary policies. So you'd think National would take their criticisms of Labour’s debt blowout and start paying it down to show how responsible they are, right? No, they’re cutting taxes for (mostly) the wealthy while offsetting this with austerity measures to make this “fiscally neutral”. They will make up for the inflationary effects of doling out money to landlords by cutting back essential government services, trying to frame it as a personnel and budget blowout (it’s not) and saying Labour mismanaged the books and we are in terrible financial shape (we are not; we have a triple A credit rating).

And further, it’s becoming increasingly hard to ignore our infrastructure crisis at nearly every level and every location. Our water systems needs billions of dollars of investment that our councils can’t afford to borrow, our rates are shooting up (and so will our rents), our ferries are old and broken down and Nicola Willis Minister of Finance just canned the “too expensive” deal that was needed to replace them — with most of the money going to into wharf upgrades that are desperately needed. There was a huge sunk cost; we’re not going to be able to to buy shit now. The ferries link the North and the South Island and are vital infrastructure; when they break down (which they did multiple times last year) it causes chaos and brings things to a standstill.

Why are they doing this? Land. It’s always about fucking land. All of National have divested in shares and have bought into land under the guise of this removing the “conflict of interest” that would exist if they had invested into specific companies. The usual alternative that solves this is a blind trust, but that’s not what most of the caucus has money in. Luxon alone sold about 12 million dollars worth of Air NZ shares and now has a property profile worth 20+ million. Oh, and he’s charging the taxpayer $50,000 a year to live in his own house. Thats 2.5 times what I get on the benefit that he’s cutting and putting sanctions on.

Nact don’t care if businesses go under and share prices crash; they’ll just sell their houses and buy stocks for cheaper. Their only concern is propping up the housing market ponzi scheme that they have all invested at the top of. This is why they’ve allowed councils to opt out of densification requirements and why they cut back the brightline test and are trying to boost the population with migrant workers; all of these things make house prices go up, make housing better for investors who make millions in untaxed capital gains.

NACT will not let the property market crash any further. Despite what they’re saying out loud, they actually want it to increase.

And they’re more than happy to wreck the economy to do it.

I never felt so uncomfortable about the voices of other bisexual people until trans rights activists, the majority of whom are bisexual, have become so comfortably homophobic.

There have always been bad apples. But now, when lesbians aren't even allowed their own spaces to talk about being solely attracted to the same sex, I've frequently felt sick to my stomach. There is no reason why those can't exist alongside a shared space for homosexuals and bisexuals, but here we are! I see many bisexuals who are so deprived of talking about their same-sex attraction, experiences, struggles and joy that they are desperate to connect with openly homosexuals but homosexuals are rightfully wary of risking what little they have left. There are barely any lesbian spaces in real life or online left!

I'm sick of bisexuals dictating what homosexuals should or shouldn't be attracted to and yes, I'm also pointing at trans rights activists for being insanely homophobic and going too far by spewing conversion therapy rhetoric like saying someone's sex doesn't matter during sex, or going stealth until clothes come off and traumatising or triggering the other, or lying to trans people in general that their "masculinity" or "feminity" changes their sex or that they can change their sex through surgery, which trickled down to calling homosexuals transphobic at the drop of a hat.

Since when do homosexuals owe you affirmation? Since when do you feel entitled to their spaces? Why did the majority of bisexuals see this happen and just shrug because they aren't monosexual and thus not the target?

"Genital fetishists," are you all daft? A fetish is a form of sexual desire in which gratification is strongly linked to a particular object or activity or a part of the body other than the sexual organs. The attraction towards genitals is intrinsic to sexuality and sexual attraction. I feel like I'm perpetually talking to first graders.

I'm so disgusted with the online bisexual "community" for blindly nodding their heads like spineless, "no infighting please" puppies. Do you think none of this matters? How safe must your life be to not care about others?

As a bisexual, what occurred that made you think you could comment on the experience of monosexuals? And I'm well aware many call themselves "gay," or "lesbian," while being bisexual. If you have a vagina and you would have sex with someone with a penis, you're not a lesbian. If you have a penis and you would have sex with someone with a vagina, you're not gay. If neither of you have the same genitalia, it's not homosexuality.

"Labels don't matter," was for those who weren't sexually awakened and were figuring themselves out. But this is what it has led to: the utter deterioration of homosexual spaces, and it's vile and there should be a lot more shame about it.

I'm glad that in personal relations and daily life, the connection between bisexuals and homosexuals is a bit better. But the physical gay and lesbian spaces we were once proud of are now paradoxically wary of homosexuals for fear of being called transphobic.

And I'm also blaming bisexuals for not being critical. For prioritising fetishes and kinks before sexuality. For not listening to the experiences of people with a sexuality different from their own varied, but not exhaustive, experiences. I'm blaming bisexuals for not standing up for homosexuals.

I'm not ashamed of being bisexual. I've never been ashamed of it and I never will be. I'll post this post and continue like normal - and isn't that a privilege?

I will always love other bisexuals who aren't homophobic. There are plently, but there should be more. And louder.

I saw your Beyonce/Taylor Swift post and What's wrong with "comparing two queens that are killing it". line? Isn't that what it comes down to with female artists? Why can't we just appreciate all female artists instead of the competitions?

I’m going to take this as you asking this question in good faith so here’s the short answer: No. There is nothing inherently wrong with that statement, and depending on the context, I agree with it. But here’s the long answer:

A lot of fandoms do take it upon themselves to start unnecessary, unprovoked beef between artists, especially female artists of color (i.e the Cardi and Nicki drama), consequently ruining the love a lot of people have for those artists. However, the Taylor and Beyoncè comparisons have a few problems I want to address that aren’t actually new when talking about female artists of color and their white counterparts. Firstly, the whole comparisons only started because of the uptick of insufferable swifties online discrediting all of the work, effort, and impact Beyoncé has had on people before and today (and Beyoncé fans are simply responding to these ridiculous claims). Secondly, swifties also have a strange tendency to compare her exclusively to objectively better black artists (Beyoncé, Prince, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and more) by diminishing their work and influence in order to prop her up. Noticeable so, they never really do this with Taylor’s fellow white peers. It begs the question: Why do so many swifties feel the need to put Taylor on a pedestal by discrediting arguably more popular, influential black and queer artists? While I do agree with the notion that female artists should be celebrated and giving the props they deserve, we can no longer pretend that black artists like Beyoncé don’t have to give twice the effort, twice the dedication, twice the energy, and twice the style in order to be given their credit. Meanwhile, an artist like Taylor is rewarded and worshiped for her white mediocrity and performance activism, never really pressured to perform to the degree other black artists are expected to, or forced to show allyship when it really matters. So for her fans to degrade Beyoncé’s high quality vocals, performance, and production—which has been consistent and improving over the years—and be rightfully told off just to resort to the corny “let’s just celebrate all women” is, in my eyes, the epitome of white feminism.

Taylor’s fans have even admitted that she isn’t the best singer, only marketing herself as a good “songwriter”. Ok, so an artist that can’t sing that well, can’t dance, has easily replicable lyrics we could get from other Indie artists, and has a very specific demographic as her fans is someone to be considered a legend? How is this considered the standard but influential black legends’ work are downplayed and diminished? Why does it hurt swifties to see black women be given their credit? Why does Taylor have to be included in every conversation (I.e the Lizzo situation at the Grammy’s where Taylor Swift fans took Lizzo’s appreciation for Beyoncé as hatred for Taylor or Beyoncé’s success on the renaissance tour being overshadowed by the eras tour). And when called out on this, why do her stans resort back to the fake “just support all women” take?

It’s why I can’t really stand by that one post up here that states we shouldn’t debate over female artists because at the end of the day, “they’re all female artists subjected to the harsh lens of the patriarchy.” That statement ignores the intersectionality present in the topic of female artists’ treatment in the industry. It ignores how the expectations of white female artists more than often than not tend to be different for woc artists. I see the “let’s just all get along” saying as a way to deflect from the valid criticism and complaints people of color have for white artists like Taylor Swift. And considering how Taylor’s online brand is playing victim and being the poor innocent white girl whenever she is called out on something, the behavior her stans exhibit are nothing out of the ordinary.

In summary, I don’t think comparisons between female artists are needed. Especially female artists in entirely different genres of music and style. But I do know a lot white Taylor Swift fans love to play the racism card and then hide behind misogyny to cover their tracks. Once again, something Taylor herself does WELL.

Caramelldansen, the Disney Channel theme, & obfuscated authorship

Kevin Perjurer's Disney Channel's Theme: A History Mystery and jan Misali's who wrote Caramelldansen? feel like complimentary opposites.

Both are videos about the authorship of music that lots of people have heard but few people think about. But the similarities end there. (Aside from some fairly petty stuff like "both have iconic associated choreography, if the wand thing counts as choreography".)

Perjurer expresses frustration that, for all the artistry he puts into this and his other documentaries, he will be remembered as a YouTuber or a content creator, not a documentarian or a filmmaker. For all the work jan Misali puts into his craft, he embraces the fact that he makes YouTube videos. It's not easy to remix "Die Young" and "Hare Hare Yukai," but Misali did it...and what kind of documentary would have a 13-second title card in the middle with a mashup of a J-pop song and an A-pop song playing over it?

(Are American pop songs called A-pop? They should be.)

On a related note: Perjurer's documentary seems to have that tension as its primary theme. The tension between the effort and artistry that goes into something like the Disney Channel theme, and the disrespect it receives for not even qualifying as "low art". The primary theme of Misali's video seems to be more along the line of "It's worth remembering random facts about the world," expressed through his frustration at Remix Records, his frustration at how much Caramelldansen ("I would absolutely love to play the garbage Caramelldansen rhythm game!"), and the random facts he dug up while researching and chose to share for no other reason.

(There's a decent argument that who wrote Caramelldansen?'s primary theme is more along the lines of "'Caramelldansen''s original authorship is irrelevant, because the meme is what makes it 'Caramelldansen'," but that theme doesn't really appear outside the video's conclusion.)

Another stream-of-thought association: Perjurer has nothing but respect for the work of Alex Lasarenko, both his contributions to the Disney Channel theme and his broader work. Misali has nothing but shade to throw on the work of Giovanni Sconfienza, both his "contributions" to Caramelldansen and his broader work, and especially his attempts to take the Caramell out of Caramelldansen. I feel both of these are 100% justified, given context, but it's another interesting contrast!

Perjurer assumes that the audience will accept that the Disney Channel theme's importance is obvious to the viewer, and understand what made it so prominent. It was played on one of the biggest kid's TV networks of the 21st century! Misali focuses most of the video on why and how Caramelldansen rose to prominence, because for a lot of people it's just "that song that plays for ANIME LOL".

The obfuscation of the Disney Channel theme's authorship comes down to Disney being Disney and not saying anything about non-Disney people who make Disney Disney. (And, to be fair, broader industry trends.) The obfuscation of "Caramelldansen"'s authorship comes down to some rebranding done years after the fact. Misali is (I feel, rightfully) critical of [name]. Perjurer is (I feel, rightfully) respectful towards Alex Lasarenko and the music he directed/composed.

Most obviously: It takes months of research, correspondence, interviews, and so forth before Perjurer can figure out who wrote the Disney Channel Theme. Misali identifies Caramell as the creators of "Caramelldansen" in the opening seconds of the video. (Also, it's in the song's title.)

Now, you might reasonably wonder why I wrote this post, comparing two random YouTube video essays on similar topics. I'd like to provide some grand thesis statement that ties my conclusions and process into some statement about the nature of art. However, at the end of the day, this is more of a jan Misali post than a Kevin Perjurer one. But I think both would agree that this kind of little thing has merit. (Nowhere near enough to ask for their opinion or assume they'd have one, of course.)

Soul Eater Episode : 39 - Totally Uncool

Soul Eater has a number of great episodes, with the crowning jewel the series had being the finale to Maka's second fight with Crona.

However there is another episode that in my opinion is easily the second best, that being episod episode 39, where Crona's finally snaps regarding betraying Maka and the rest of the main cast to Medusa.

It's a very great episode, but the single best part is the way it connects both Maka and Crona rejecting their abusive mothers, just in different ways, while also using that to strengthen the bond between the two of them.

The first critical moment of this takes place in the early part of the episode, where Crona(Who is reeling with internal pains about Medusa, and betraying everyone) and Maka have a conversation where Maka bares her soul to Crona... Sort of.

Both of the two of them have massive, massive issues with their respective abusive mothers. While Medusa is an abusive mother who forces her child to dance to her tunes, and gasslighting Crona to believe nobody except her will ever show "forgiveness and kindness" Maka's mom instead very deliberately fought her exhusband for custody... Then after having achieved this symbolic victory over her husband, she took off, and abandoned her own child, only making contact with her through one sided postcards despite having every opportunity, and frankly a duty as Maka's legal guardian to look after her own kid.

Both of these women left deep, deep mental scars on their own children, just in different ways.

With Crona it is very, very obvious what Medusa has done, and is doing to her own child, as the episode is very much about confronting the effects of that abuse, but with Maka it's a bit less spelled out, and you have to read the subtext.

Maka puts her mom on a pedestal, mentally projecting her as a perfect woman who can do no wrong, not really being able to addmit to herself that her mom has left her and is not coming back. She instead projects all her frustration about everything to other people, more speciffically at the closest male figures in her life, Spirit and Soul.

It's a deeply, deeply unhealthy way of handling cope, and fuels a lot of her character flaws through the series, with both her relationahip with her father(Who though a terrible husband is not exactly the worst dad in the world) and her partner Soul being painted by hyper agression, a short temper, and a mental inability to give them any benefit of the doubt.

Interestingly enough, though chrona doesn't really push the point, it is Crona who is the person in the series who come the closest to realising directly just how fucked up Maka's relationship to her mom actualy is.

The most interesting part of their conversation though, is when Crona asks Maka what her best memories of her mother is, which Maka replies was when she divorced her dad, at which she saw her mom at her coolest.

This is a really, really fucked up thing to say for any child... But when you actually break it down, it gets even worse.

Maka blames her father rightfully for everything that went wrong in her parents marriage... But this divorce was a deeply fucked up thing. Her mother fought with her father for custody and won... Not because she actually wanted what was best for her child, but just to spite her husband. She wanted to rub it in that she won, and got the single most precious thing she could take from him... And having achieved this goal, she left, leaving her daughter behind in the same city her exhusband lived in, and effectively acting as her father anyway.

Its not exsctly clear why she did this. It could be that despite Maka's rose tinted glasses about her mother, her parent never actually loved her back nearly as much as she did her. It could be that she secretely came to resent her kid for a variety of reasons. Or it could be that she simply was too much of a coward to confront and live with the remains of her broken life, so she abandoned the most obvious reminder of that life.

Regardless, despite Maka's assessment that this was the coolest thing she ever saw her mother do, while the divorce itself was justified, what she actually did with it was the cowards way out, and left her daughter with a shit ton of issues, which she frankly was nowhere near able to recover from by the time the anime ended.

Regardless of her intentions though, her baring her soul to Crona about her(in denial) feelings about her mother does not help Crona, who still runs away from Death city, and has a breakdown of sort(a much smaller one than the one that will immediatly follow) after leaving the city and wandering to find a place to be alone.

Feeling completely alone, guilty, and with a massive case of selfloathing, selfhate and fear of rejection, Crona essentially shuts down, while thinking about happier days, the days with Maka and the rest of the gang.

It's here in this sandpit that Crona finally loses it due to guilt and lays it all out as Maka and Soul catch up.

Crona at first rejects Maka's request to come back home with them, angrily shouting that Maka doesn't know anything about Crona's real self.

It is here that Crona really, really loses it and lays out everything, poisoning Stein, still following Medusa's orders, the words, the tone and body language making it abundantly clear that Crona is absolutely wracked with self hatred for all this.

What Crona wants in this scene is for Maka to come down there and reinforce everything that Medusa has ever said, every lesson ever drilled in through long, hard, abuse. That Crona is a horrible, horrible person, who does not deserve sympathy or forgiveness, who frankly cannot be forgiven.

It's not what Crona actually wants deep down, but it is what the horrible words being said should logically lead to. It is the easy way out. The cowards way out.

And at first it seems to work, because Maka gets absolutely pissed, and storms down there to confront Crona directly, with Crona not offering a hint of resistance... Only for Maka, rather than punching Crona in the face for betraying her, instead say this.

Maka calls Crona out, but not in the manner she has so often done with her father or Soul.

Instead, rather than act with anger, or rage, lashing out because she feels angry and betrayed, she forces Crona to confront the fact that Crona neither wants to be a bad person following Medusa's orders, nor is completely devoid of virtues, quite on the contrary.

Maka is in this moment, doing the exact opposite of what her "Cool" mom did with her.

After experiencing a brutal, hard betrayal from her husband, rather than take the risk of opening herself up her heart again to anyone, she instead left her old life behind, and after one, final display of anger and rage, she left her own child behind after lashing out at her husband.

She took the cowards way out.

Maka does not take the cowards way out. Instead, after experiencing betrayal from a person she loves and understands, she makes the concious choice to take the hard road. To embrace the seeming madness that is opening her heart again to that person and risk facing betrayal again, despite Crona's words.

Its an extremely powerful moment, not just because it serves to show Maka's growth, how much Crona really means to her, but also for how in the end it ties her thematically to Asura, and the ultimate point of the series. Bravery and madness are two sides of the same coin.

It is madness to open yourself up to someone else, to bare your heart and soul, knowing fully well that action can lead to betrayal and hurt unlike any other... But it is also something that only those who are brave are able to do.

It is something Maka's mother, and Asura was never able to do... But Maka did, and through that, she's able help Crona begin the road to actual recovery as well.

Reading the anon abt the doll hobby not having anti drama, and I just had to make sure it didn't mention the BJD hobby, because that one is filled with drama and anti drama. I'm probably more prone to look for drama, but some of it isn't hard to find.

Idk why but I almost wanna share some of my highlights, so I'll do that. Buckle up, this is a long one, and it's only scratching some of the dumb shit bullshit that's happened over the years.

People constantly let themselves be scammed. There are some well known people, and when you look up their seller names you can literally find people who keep up with their renaming because they're such notorious scammers. People still "take a chance" and then a few weeks later: Guys you won't believe this, I got scammed.

There was an entire thing surrounding a company (companies?) selling dolls in the tone oriental. People were using that name because that's what it's literally named, and other people got upset and started an entire discourse about it. Yeah, only that it was an Asian company that had named that tone, they had been made aware of some Western collectors being upset about it, and really didn't care. There are several instances of Asian sellers and companies from Asia using the terms oriental.

The discourse about one Chinese doll company who made a statement on their Eng twitter about supporting the CCP in attacking Hong Kong. People were rightfully upset at the company, which had previously been criticized in the Western hobby sphere for Nazi-themed dolls. Yeah, so people started defending the company, claiming that the only did it to not get hurt by the CCP. Except no other company did something that stupid. It took several Chinese hobbyists from China coming over and making it pretty clear that that company has a real bad reputation in the Chinese hobby to begin with, and to stop defending them especially for the HK thing because that was their choice.

The hobby is actually incredibly open for cultural exchanges, and appreciation. But every once in a while there are people who start bitching about cultural appropriation, and then everyone has to tell them to shut up because people love their dolls and just think it looks neat and want to share.

On the topic of cultural appropriation. Some times the people who bitch about it mess up and attack people of that culture. One such person made a red doll, put it in a qipao for Lunar New year some years ago, saying she's a dragon. Yeah, turns out the artist is Chinese, and the people angry about "White people take a red doll, put it in a qipao calling it a dragon are fucking racist cultural appropriators." Also, once that came out, even before that, a bunch of people once again came in and made fun of these people, especially those that culturally celebrate Lunar new year.

On the same wave though, lol, that artist who made the doll is infamous for her completely batshit doll pre-order, and then her trying to hide that she took the money of a bunch of people and ran. It's even a doll that a lot of doll ooak artist youtubers worked with. The entire story is fucking wild, beyond her trying to blame the company (one person?) who'd produce them, and then pretending it was some flaw with the system they used to let people order.

"If you use runes, I'm gonna view you as a white Supremacist until you prove otherwise." Scandinavians and even Scandinavian poc people told them to shut up (there were actually good arguments about how offensive that statement was, but it was a good dress down), and then clearly not Scandinavian nor Scandi poc decided to double down. Last I saw there was still a stalemate between the Scandi's, and people who're sensible, and the people who just wanna be racist about Nordic runes and call them all white supremacist and attacking Scandi poc.

Sex dolls aren't BJDs...

People are also bitching about "child coded" dolls being put in naughty stuff. The problem is that these dolls often are bobbleheaded anime looking mofos. Even in the cases where you have a child doll: It's still not child porn. It's a hunk of plastic, calm down.

Some doll companies, like VOLKS have raffles/lotteries to have a change to buy the doll. You heard that right, just to be able to buy it. There has been tons of discourse about how unfair it is that US people get to enter twice. Or how people who don't even want the dolls just the raffles.

Scalpers. Nuff said.

People who can't budget, and constantly make that everyone else's problem when they buy a new doll they can't afford and then start panicking.

Customs. By God the customs bitching.

Paypal friends&family. For the love of Christ, stop buying things from random people with F&F especially when you don't know them, or if they're a confirmed fucking scammer.

There's literally a guy who's doll at first glance have some of the best diversity and rep, but the guy is an absolute asshole, and part of the hobby don't really know how to handle it. Small list: Told a disabled person who got frustrated when they were completely unable to assemble it that his dolls aren't made for them. Constantly bans people from buying from him for the dumbest reasons, like 1) Guy asking how shipping would be handled during 2020. 2) Person who got a faulty product, and asked what to do with it.* 3) Assuming a buyer was another already banned person, when it was made clear they weren't he still kept the ban. 4) Basically anyone who critiques his dolls. *He claims "wabi sabi", even though some of the product issues are way beyond any wabi sabi aesthetic. He also calls his "haters" the "entitled" and once made a comic about "eradicating the entitled" and had a doll in a striking uniform salute with a flat hand. Yeah so a Jewish person mentioned how the wording and pic combined gave bad Nazi'esque image and that he should avoid it. He banned the Jewish person. (The Jewish person was very respectful about it, and explained why phrasing things like "eradicating the entitled" and some other stuff was not a good combination.)

--

I remember back in the 00s seeing endless wank over people's porny photoshoots with their multiple BJDs that were styled as a visual kei group.

Also everyone's favorite perpetual wank topic: "OMG, how do you have 5? That's my rent for months!"

To this day, I see the acronym "BJD" and think "Time for popcorn!" even though I rarely see the wank anymore.

If this gets me anon hate I don't care, I have been awake since 3 am and have real life problems to deal with than this.

So, let me say this for the last time and let me be clear

If you can't handle people hating on your favorite character,consider not being in fandom spaces, consider being in fandoms with a small group of friends like the rest of us learned to do.

Because listen, you guys complain about people calling out white favoritism in the fandom but then hate on the Latino brown character.

You guys go around saying that Derek dlc is boring and long and go on and on, on why you hate his dlc (when again Derek is fucking Mexican and guess what's important in Mexican culture dip shit) but heaven forbids we discuss THE VERY REAL PROBLEMS BAXTER DLC HAD: like the fact that it was clearly rushed, the fact that Kab had to hire someone else to finish it, the fact that you are forced to walk in on Baxter getting changed, the fact that you can't a normal conversation with him without him choosing how you should feel and so many more

You guys get to criticize Derek dlc (the dlc about a BROWN LATINO CHARACTER) without understanding it mind you because if you understood why Derek family is important to the dlc and still didn't like it I wouldn't give a fuck. But the second, the second, someone dares to say anything negative about Baxter (again a white man) then suddenly is abuse, suddenly it's fandom drama, suddenly you guys are the victims and we're Baxter haters who are abusing your poor white boy.

I understand the point Baxter dlc was trying to make, I hated the execution, I moved on with my life, I saw people explaining why it was bad, I agreed and moved on with my fucking life

And guess what??? You're allowed to like something someone dislike, it's ok, it's not an attack on you just idk??? Go outside and worry about the genocides that not a single one of you has been speaking about (I've noticed that those who agree with my points usually are speaking about what's happening in Palestine specifically,and those who are claiming we're abusing Baxter have not shared a single post about what's happening, I bring this up because a black artist in the fandom recently got anon hate for, rightfully, worrying about fandom racism and the person bring it up "what about real life issues" while being vague when there's a lot of things to worry about right now)

i have many many thoughts about the portrayal of elizabeth (and henry) in adaptations of frankenstein and they need to be broadcasted immediately. feverish incoherent raving about this subject under the cut. tw for very brief mention of SA

so. elizabeth lavenza. by the time of the wedding, elizabeth is rather obviously portrayed to be just as morose and brooding as victor is, she just isn't as susceptible to episodes of mania and psychosis so it doesn't seem nearly as dramatic compared to victor's trauma. she's been through the gutter herself, being an orphan for starters, then being adopted into a family and having to assume the role of caregiver in the frankenstein family because of the coercion of her dead mother to not only take her place as the maternal figure in the family but also marry her surrogate brother (or literal cousin, depending on which version you read). then her surrogate younger brother william dies, and the within weeks she has to watch her closest heterosexual life partner justine be unjustly hung by a corrupt justice system. and she vocalizes, actively, her pessimism and hopelessness in light of these many tragedies. tldr she's fucked up and rightfully so, and while she's a little less crippled by depression than victor, she still has the distinct appearance of being rather ill, listless, and tired, especially towards the end of the novel. anyways my point is in the novel, the most important thing about elizabeth is not that she's a woman and victor's bride. yes, that's obviously the purpose she was created for, but shelley went out of her way to give elizabeth an extremely definite and unique character. she's gentle and maternal like most woman in early 19th century literature, but she's also introspective, intelligent, and perceptive. she displays agency and self-awareness repeatedly (her guilt over the locket, going to the execution of justine even when alphonse tells her not to, waxing poetic on the failures of the justice system, asking repeatedly and rather pointedly if victor actually wants to go through with the marriage, obvious anxiety and solemnity concerning the wedding) we also have to take into account that elizabeth's personality is being relayed to us BY VICTOR, and he wants to see elizabeth as docile and femininely passive, even if a lot of her actions themselves in the novel actually seem to contradict that. also, i am peppering in that many people can (and have) made a genuine and convincing argument that victor and elizabeth are not in love and were groomed to accept their union by their weirdo parents - that they care for each other, but the text includes important nuances that make it evident that victor doesn't feel anything for elizabeth like that. it is a legitimate interpretation of the book - dare i say it's the correct interpretation of the relationship between victor and elizabeth. but that's another essay for another day and it's not SUPER integral to my rant here today. it just highlights the complexity of elizabeth as a character.

so. for some fucking reason, writers do not understand this when they are adapting the novel, and do not want to apply more than eight seconds of critical thinking and the absolute shallowest 3rd grader levels of reading comprehension to this character, so they simplify her from what she was in the original novel, freshly complex, opinionated, and introspective to boring useless incest lady. victor is never portrayed with the same amount of nuance he deserves in any adaptation (also another essay for another day), because adaptations also have a very surface level reading of him as "guy who was ambitious and played god which immediately cements him as an irredeemable self-aggrandizing asshole and/or a raging insufferable narcissist who's a dick to everyone around him EXCEPT for elizabeth" but at least SOME adaptations are able to kiiinnnddaaaa capture the sympathy meant to be felt for the character in the novel. not so for elizabeth. her character in basically every adaptation can be boiled down to this: "omg victor my brother let me hammer in that you are my brother. im just going to stand here and look clueless and annoyingly naive for the entire time im on screen/stage. im just a little girl and idk what's going on victor but im gonna stay blindly devoted to you and ask numerous but completely useless questions 🥺 let me stare at you with tender worry in my eyes and treat you like a child even though we have absolutely no romantic chemistry and you're an objectifying dick towards me and we have nothing in common and the audience is actively dry heaving as we sensually make out for no other reason than to have characters in this movie sensually make out. im basically a carbon copy of original-novel-henry expect super boring and super useless because im a woman which means the doylist explanation for why im here HAS TO BE ONLY for the main character to fuck me and to hold the attention of the male viewership. now time for me to get SA'd by the creechur for basically no reason" we can observe something approximating this in basically every frankenstein adaptation i've ever seen: kenneth branagh's (my enemy) 1994 film, the 2004 hallmark miniseries, the musical, and the ballet. also in the 1931 film, but that one isn't really trying to be book-accurate so it doesn't really count for this rant.

with this understanding of elizabeth, writers then attempt to artificially generate more romance between these characters, mostly by, yes, replacing a lot of henry's role in the novel with elizabeth, hence why we see so many adaptations (1994, 2004, ballet) make elizabeth nurse victor back to health in ingolstadt instead of henry, which generates... so many problems. one problem with this is that it just sorta ruins henry's original role in the novel in one go. writers recognize that henry is supposed to be victor's character foil, but now they don't have much for him to do so he can demonstrate that role in the story since they gave all of the romantic tension moments to elizabeth. meaning that in adaptations you can tell the writers didn't really know what to do with henry because he's reduced to a comic relief bumbling idiot (1994, ballet, 2004 to an extent) with his only personality traits being "random xd" and "morals good playing god wrong!!!! 😠" (2004, musical, several independent stage adaptations). they keep him as a character foil, but just replace all of his compassion, tenderness, and devotion with elizabeth, while effectively draining henry of all of his original appeal and charm and stamping those traits onto their already stripped-of-all-nuance elizabeth. so now both henry and elizabeth are not only extremely different from their original roles in the novel but extremely, woefully less charming and complex. this especially pisses me off because it's explicitly stated in the book that henry was victor's only friend precisely because he was victor's intellectual equal, so seeing henry reduced to a smiley idiot and/or stupid generic male side character with Morals fills me with a visceral rage. writers will also sometimes make victor and henry meet in college (ballet, 1994) and try to strengthen the bond between victor and elizabeth by making it appear as though she was victor's ONLY childhood friend and companion. other times, victor and henry will be friends pre-ingolstadt (2004, musical) but most of the relationship development will be between elizabeth and victor. those two have all of the tender bonding moments while henry is just kinda inexplicably there sometimes. but i digress. this post is supposed to be about elizabeth. but IF YOU NEED A CHARACTER TO BE A SUNSHINE SOFT OPTIMISTIC LOVER FOR VICTOR IN A FRANKENSTEIN ADAPTATION, HENRY IS ABLE AND WILLING ARE YOU STEPPING ON MY BALLS

clervalstein is true. anyway

elizabeth is somehow more complex and powerful as a female character than the literal adaptations produced almost 200 years later. in adaptations, the most important thing about her is somebody else. the development of all of her character traits (which usually never go beyond standing around and looking helpless) are solely dependant on victor. she feels more like an appendage of the protagonist than an individual with thoughts and experiences separate from victor, and her character is loosely defined and flimsy so the writers can have her conform to her actions in the book whenever it's convenient and then change things up entirely that completely contradict her characterization in the book whenever it's convenient. i have no idea why the fuck this keeps happening with frankenstein adaptations (it's misogyny) and because it isn't looking like guillermo del toro's film (from what ive heard) is going to be super book accurate, i dont foresee too much of a shift in frankenstein adaptations.

look i get it. it's a movie/play/ballet which lasts like 2 hours and you have a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it. i understand you have to make sacrifices for brevity and these characters are, frankly, a lot less interesting and exciting than victor and creechur. people didn't come to see john hughes levels of charm and complexity in the side characters, they came to watch the creechur do scary shit and for victor to say IT'S ALIVE 😱 and be an evil mad scientist you love to hate. they came for their values of "it's wrong to play god!!!" and "too much ambition bad!!!" to be re-cemented even though that's not even the original point of the novel. which is why imo if you're going to adapt frankenstein in a manner that does justice to the beautiful and sublime subtlety of the original novel, it needs to be either a miniseries or a REALLY LONG film. it's a short book, but it's very eventful, and imo for an adaptation to work you have to let the audience sit with it. which is why you all need to donate to my gofundme so i can produce an honest to god frankenstein adaptation. in fact, im running for president in this year's primaries :3

just a disclaimer: im not an academic or a scholar or anything. i just like the book. i probably have no idea what the fuck im talking about. but im a very very passionate little guy and this has been my rant