i genuinely don't care how good a piece of ai generated art or writing looks on the surface. i don't care if it emulates brush strokes and metaphor in a way indistinguishable from those created by a person.
it is not the product of thoughtful creation. it offers no insights into the creator's life or viewpoint. it has no connection to a moment in time or a place or an attitude. it has no perspective. it has no value.
it's empty, it's hollow, and it exists only to generate clicks (and by extension, ad revenue.)
it's just another revolting symptom of the disease that is late stage capitalism, and it fucking sucks.
I think the best part of finishing Burrow's End is the moment about six or so hours later, where you're chilling in the shower or in the middle of dinner, and you suddenly realize that the tape—you know, that tape—wasn't all five of the Firsts dog-piling and murdering Dr. Winnebago, but literally just Phoebe. And just that one stoat was enough to cause the carnage the kids found in the store room and turn the doctor into a Meat Dave when she didn't even know how to speak human yet.
sometimes I think of all the on-the-surface warm, well-meaning but deeply ineffectual advice and attention john gives harrow through harrow the ninth (make some soup and get some sleep! get a hobby! don't be so hard on yourself! self care harrow! as long as I need take no actual responsibility in this relationship whatsoever I would have loved to be your dad!) set up against the stark truth that with his other hand he has been staging her attempted horrific murder again and again and again like a living nightmare on the logic that it will 'put her down or fix her'. and then I find that I wish there is a hell. a special hell where twitch streamers turned necromantic death emperors go
the only reason people say that "mafuyu and tsukasa have nothing in common" when presented with mafukasa parallels is because they equate mafuyu and tsukasa being similar to "tsukasa has depression" because the fandom equates mafuyu's personality to being depressed and nothing else.
it doesn't help that people (primarily younger people in the fandom) who DO believe in mafukasa parallels end up making the mistake of portraying tsukasa as depressed because as of right now he is not (although it's possible he was in past because of his Very Unclear Middle School Backstory but that's irrelevant)
anyways, mafuyu and tsukasa are narrative foils because their core personalities are built off of the concept of wanting to make the people around them— especially their families— happy.
they both developed personalities at a young age based on someone they looked up to. for tsukasa, it was seiichi amami's performance that inspired him to be a star— a hero that could cheer anyone up. for mafuyu, it was her mother taking care of her that inspired her to be a nurse— and you can see the similarities from there.
for mafuyu, her identity would first come into conflict when her mother expressed her want for mafuyu to be a doctor— suddenly, "everyone's" happiness didn't match what she wanted to do, leaving her in a state of disorder and eventual depression.
for tsukasa, his identity was something he nearly forgot in its entirety at the start of the main story— becoming arrogant and fully absorbed in a hero persona, forgetting the kind person he truly is. furthermore, his current character arc seems to be foreshadowing that what "being a star" to him is going to be called into question— maybe it is something more than just being the main character that saves everyone.
their insecurities are incredibly similar.
in mafuyu's first mixed, mafuyu feels insecure towards ichika because unlike ichika, she feels as if her lyrics have no genuine meaning to be expressed to other people— despite them being her very real feelings. this is brought up again in her second mixed as well.
in tsukasa's third focus event, something similar happens. when watching seiichi's performance, he thinks that his acting is "real" and feels inferior towards him, which is ironic because tsukasa has been method acting this whole time. when tsukasa is acting out rio or bartlett or really anyone at this point in the story, it's not just those characters— it's a reflection of his traumas.
just like mafuyu, tsukasa undermines his passions he's poured his feelings into because someone else's work is more genuine in his eyes.
now, then, foils have many similarities and parallels (and i could honestly list a lot more), but how i define them is that they usually have some kind of major branching difference that MAKES them foils.
for mafuyu and tsukasa it's pretty straightforward.
mafuyu's people pleasing behavior comes from external expectations and pressures— her mother's demands.
tsukasa's people pleasing behavior comes internally, from himself— if he can't meet his own standards, if he can't be the perfect big brother or the perfect star, then he is nothing.
and even then, there's some overlap.
tsukasa's behavior was indirectly encouraged by his mother praising him for being a "good big brother" over the phone instead of asking him if he was okay while home alone.
mafuyu's terrified to be herself around other people because she doesn't want to worry or bother them— she doesn't want to be a burden— and projects her mother's expectations onto them, not realizing that they would prefer the real mafuyu if they knew the truth.
and the concept of mafukasa being foils is most perfectly and blatantly portrayed in these two cards.
mafuyu, the marionette, sitting limp on the floor— puppeteered by her mother's demands and donning a mask to hide her true self.
tsukasa, the jester, standing above everything else— puppeteering silenced plushies— his feelings. he's not being completely honest with himself, and he doesn't even realize it.
mafuyu has cut her strings and ripped her mask in half. she has acknowledged her true feelings and expressed them to her mother, even if she had to run away in the end.
amazing episode EASILY one of my most favorite battle episodes of all time. How Ever is it insane of me to wish it went Just a little bit worse than it did. for the plot
Ok, none of you know what's going on. None of you understand why so many women and young streamers are stepping forward right now. None of you understand why this has to be public.
Multiple large streamers have used their fame, influence, and money to manipulate and abuse those they see as below them. So long as they continue to have fame, influence, and money, this cycle will not end.
This is bigger than just individual cases of sexual assault or other abuse. This is a break down of a much larger problem within the entertainment industry.
These women are telling stories about very powerful men in this space. They are sharing stories of abuse and manipulation. This is very scary for them—it could ruin their careers or lives.
Stop saying "they should have handled this privately." This isn't a private matter. So long as these men have power, they will hurt more women. They aren't sorry. They won't play fair.
By trying to stay silent and bury these accusations, you are ensuring these women never know peace. You are ensuring that more women get hurt.
One day your boss will assault you, and all the men in your life will blame you for waiting as long as you did to speak about it. They will find any reason to blame you. They don't want to get rid of your boss. They hope that one day, they can assault a woman just like you.
This is fucking serious. This is real life. This isn't just some fucking fandom drama that we can bury and move on from. These are real life issues that require real meaningful discussion.
Stop trying to discredit these women just because your streamer is in trouble. You are part of the fucking problem.
i keep getting this thought in my head of bakugou, for the majority of his life, just having this view and understanding of like. my body gets the job done. i take care of it so i can do what i need to do. scars, wounds, imperfections don't matter, as long as i can keep going.
like almost no fucks for what it looks like in an aesthetic sense. he works out, he eats right because then he can do his job right. it's got nothing to do with trying to appeal to anyone.
and then you come along. and for the very first time—he's leaning a little closer to the mirror in the morning, brushing a finger over the scar on his face. when he gets dressed for the day, his eyes can't seem to rip away from the marred skin of his torso: at his hip, at his shoulder, right in the middle of his chest.
is that...something that would scare you? that you'd find....ugly? would you prefer him without them?
i wouldn't say it makes him terribly physically insecure, but. he is hesitating for just a second the first time he takes his shirt off around you. if you look at him head-on for too long, he's ducking his head and turning it, so that way only the pretty side is visible.
So long as the political and economic system remains intact, voter enfranchisement, though perhaps resisted by overt white supremacists, is still welcomed so long as nothing about the overall political arrangement fundamentally changes. The facade of political equality can occur under violent occupation, but liberation cannot be found in the occupier’s ballot box. In the context of settler colonialism voting is the “civic duty” of maintaining our own oppression. It is intrinsically bound to a strategy of extinguishing our cultural identities and autonomy.
[...]
Since we cannot expect those selected to rule in this system to make decisions that benefit our lands and peoples, we have to do it ourselves. Direct action, or the unmediated expression of individual or collective desire, has always been the most effective means by which we change the conditions of our communities.
What do we get out of voting that we cannot directly provide for ourselves and our people? What ways can we organize and make decisions that are in harmony with our diverse lifeways? What ways can the immense amount of material resources and energy focused on persuading people to vote be redirected into services and support that we actually need? What ways can we direct our energy, individually and collectively, into efforts that have immediate impact in our lives and the lives of those around us?
This is not only a moral but a practical position and so we embrace our contradictions. We’re not rallying for a perfect prescription for “decolonization” or a multitude of Indigenous Nationalisms, but for a great undoing of the settler colonial project that comprises the United States of America so that we may restore healthy and just relations with Mother Earth and all her beings. Our tendency is towards autonomous anti-colonial struggles that intervene and attack the critical infrastructure that the U.S. and its institutions rest on. Interestingly enough, these are the areas of our homelands under greatest threat by resource colonialism. This is where the system is most prone to rupture, it’s the fragility of colonial power. Our enemies are only as powerful as the infrastructure that sustains them. The brutal result of forced assimilation is that we know our enemies better than they know themselves. What strategies and actions can we devise to make it impossible for this system to govern on stolen land?
We aren’t advocating for a state-based solution, redwashed European politic, or some other colonial fantasy of “utopia.” In our rejection of the abstraction of settler colonialism, we don’t aim to seize colonial state power but to abolish it.
We seek nothing but total liberation.
Voting Is Not Harm Reduction - An Indigenous Perspective
Alright new Jason Todd headcanons in a dpxdc setting:
Danny is a "liminal" ghost, rather than a "half" ghost. He's alive and dead at the same time. (He's like Jesus Christ (in the church denomination I grew up in), fully ghost and fully human.) Danny, in human form, can go through a ghost shield, because he IS a living human.
Jason, however, is a reanimated corpse. He isn't a ghost, wouldn't have a ghost core, etc, he has a normal human system that runs ON ectoplasm. Jason CANNOT go through a ghost shield, because he is always an ectoplasmic entity. Danny can go through the Fenton Ghost Catcher and be split into a ghost and a human; if Jason went through the ghost catcher, he would straight up die.
(For my purposes I'm gonna say that Jason became an ectoplasmic entity upon his resurrection, but wasn't very stable. Dunking in the Lazarus pit stabilized his system but also poisoned his ectoplasm.)
I do think that Jason could learn certain ghost abilities if he learned to harness his ectoplasm, especially if they detoxed him off the Lazarus waters. He's probably already enhancing his stealth and strength in ways he hasn't really noticed. I think he's held back by the amount of physical matter he's lugging around, so maybe he couldn't fly, but I'm imagining temporary invisibility, or intagibility of like, a limb at a time. Maybe he can't walk through walls, but in a fight he can dodge by instinctively making the targeted part of his body intangible.
in some ways, vaggie has the personality and risk assessment capabilities of a small furry animal
meaning everyone in hell THINKS she's the idiot chihuahua, picking fights with the local dobermans, getting metaphorically (literally?) dragged away by charlie for her own good
the twist is she's actually one of those damn weasel things, able to fuck up creatures several times her size and almost impossible to kill normally- yet STILL she's somehow picking fights waaaaay above her weight class
charlie got headaches over this in the early days, i bet. before vaggie simmered down from "don't kill kids wft" to "sinners maybe kinda redeemable actually? not for killy killy stab??"
even now though there's the vibe that, if left alone with alastor and even one less fuck to give, vaggie would be throttling him in seconds flat
this would probably not go well... sadly, once she got started, i could see her probably not noticing or caring much. imagine charlie worrying about this possibility a lot. some nights staying awake, concerned who her girlfriend might pick a fight with next, while vaggie lies fast asleep in her arms, blissfully smiling... likely dreaming of finally getting to stab somebody again like she means it <3
okay wait i got another post in me about the gala scene (yeah, im still not over it.)
also this might just be an excuse to drool over more frames from this jaw dropping moment
so the one thing about this that absolutely wallops me is just how quickly rogneto's dance escalates into. well. more than just a dance (you know if i were there i'd be fucking hooting and hollering until my lungs burst. GET YOUR OLD MAN GIRL.)
LIKE. it starts off soooo polite. magneto's hand is at rogue's waist. they're ballroom dancing, with the hands in the usual positions. VERY RESPECTFUL. they even do a lil spin!
uh. but then they--
THEN THEY--
OLD MAN WHERE IS YOUR TONGUE GOING--
for real though I'm kind in love with?? how rogue seems to take the lead in this entire sequence?? she's the one that invites magneto to dance. she offers her hand to him first (much in the same way that happens in episode 2). he follows her as they rise further into the air and acts every bit the gentleman until she encourages him to take it further. and then of course when he sees the green light the shirt buttons come undone, he's pulling out allllllllllllll the moves he's probably thought about for years now.
anyways. I'm so normal over this scene. thank you x-men '97 for blessing me with a new fave comfort ship and media.