So I heard that Tumblr is slowly being abandoned (they seem to be laying off a majority of their staff and keeping a skeleton crew) and we might be nearing the end of this webbed site. I don't think it's currently worth panicking over, but I'm definitely going to start making that neocities website.
I'll make a post soon about other places where you can find me. Unfortunately, I've spent quite some time these last couple years getting rid of a majority of my social media because most platforms were bad for my mental health. I do not plan on going back to these platforms, so if tumblr goes down, I'm going to be only on non social media.
Maybe if one of the new social medias being created, actually take off (like bluesky or pillowfort or whatever else these days) I might join, but if not I might be entirely on personal websites, patreon (I will start posting regularly like a blog and make more free posts), some old websites I deleted but not because I hated them (such as ko-fi, which I deleted due to inactivity) and possibly furaffinity. I'm still on the fence about furaffinity. I might also finally start using my toyhouse but that is an oc sharing website and not much of an art sharing website.
I really do hope Tumblr doesn't go down, this is my one social media and if it does go down I am going to lose nearly all of my audience. I can make do by creating a personal blog and using whatever I have left in terms of "can post my art there and people can find me", and it won't discourage me from making my personal projects. I can make do, and I will make do, but I don't really want to make do.
Anyways, that's all I have to say right now, I'll make a post later once I set up some alternative sites to find me at, but for now I want to give the heads up that if I'm gone, you're not gonna find me on twitter, Instagram, or whatever third option there is. I'm likely going to just make do, be offline more, and likely just become active on the discord servers I'm on.
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I forget what the opposite of strawmanning is called, but it's like ... I don't doubt that Tolkien genuinely disliked feminism, I just find it rather odd that his way of addressing this in his work seemed to be writing bitter, hard-edged, and incredibly eloquent women who give fantastic speeches about being fucked over by patriarchy. And either there's no real response from other characters or the response is deeply underwhelming, so I'm like ... okay, what are you even trying to do here?
These women are also usually very beautiful, in the interests of full disclosure, so you get all these ... like, tall hot women who do not fear pain or death!!! and are full of towering resentment at very real injustice and/or suffering. The details and nuances of these characters are quite different, but these characters obviously represent a type that Tolkien found compelling and kept returning to without really finding a solution to the problems these characters raise and pose.
I've read a lot of female characters by a lot of authors, and maybe it's just because my personal taste in female characters is really similar to Tolkien's, but few things click with me so much as Éowyn's speech to Aragorn, or Erendis's to Ancalimë, or Andreth's and Morwen's... everything, or even the shorter defiant responses we hear from Haleth, Aredhel, Niënor, Galadriel. There's even a trace of this with someone as improbable and deliberately unlikable as Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, who confronted Saruman's men, survived imprisonment, and tottered out to hobbit glory.
I don't know, really. Maybe giving angry female characters kickass speeches was as far as he was willing to go with them. And to go by his favored types in male characters, he did have a taste for proud, attractive, talented, often abrasive, and hubristic characters regardless of gender. But it's not only a general type, IMO, when you've got a bunch of these women talking about gender specifically and its impact on them, so—I don't know, sometimes I just shrug and get on with my fandom life without trying to navigate the quagmire of intent. But it's definitely a question I return to.
So there's no real conclusion here. I guess I'll just leave you with my personal favorites! Here's Éowyn's response to Aragorn:
"All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more." (LOTR 767)
But also Erendis, my love:
"...Númenor was to be a rest after war. But if they[men] weary of rest and the plays of peace, soon they will go back to their great play, manslaying and war. Thus it is; and we are set here among them. But we need not assent. If we love Númenor also, let us enjoy it before they ruin it. We also are daughters of the great, and we have wills and courage of our own. Therefore do not bend, Ancalimë. Once bend a little, and they will bend you further until you are bowed down. Sink your roots into the rock, and face the wind, though it blow away all your leaves." (Unfinished Tales)
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It happened in the blink of an eye.
The Alpha Alakazam glanced at Khan, who had been oddly subdued since begrudgingly giving up where their next destination was, and then Ingo heard “you might be surprised by what you need,” and suddenly he was in the middle of a blood bath.
And Ingo was no stranger to battles- he and Emmet made a living off them, after all, and he'd participated in a handful of raids against scientists who thought they knew best for the world. He had seen the aftermath of people who had been attacked by wild pokemon, and what remained of those who decided their best course of action in life was to jump into a set of train tracks. It was never any less horrifying, and Ingo occasionally had nightmares about what he'd seen, but where he was now…
It simply was a nightmare.
Fires burned in varying degrees all around him. Some consumed trees, and some consumed bodies. He tried to find something to put them out with there was nothing nearby. Not even snow. At the sound of laughter he turned his head to see a group of humans in pale tunics walking away, a few of them carrying bloodied sticks. Anger flushed through his veins and he went to chase after them but was pulled backwards instead. He tried again, and again, but their strange words vanished into the forest and faded into darkness. Ingo was left surrounded by corpses of pokemon, confused and horrified.
There was nothing he could do, and he didn't know why he was here.
The sun faded in the sky and the fires began to die, slowly turning to embers. The bodies they'd consumed were nothing but charred husks, and the primitive buildings he'd first thought to simply be fallen trees collapsed on themselves with no support left. It has taken Ingo longer than he cared to admit that this hadn't just been a group of pokemon- it had been their home, where they'd had their own rooms. There were enough bodies here to be an entire family, the kind biologists loved to see where he came from. They were so few and far between, requiring a curious amount of intelligence, teamwork, and tolerance. He knew people, personally, who would have loved to observe this family.
And here he was, observing their bodies instead.
A terrified yelp grabbed his attention; another den had just collapsed. Apparently this inhabitant had been alive. Ingo dashed over and tried to remove branches- his hands went right through, but he didn't stop trying. After releasing his own anguished scream - why was he here when he was so useless?! - the branches moved. An ashen, burnt paw emerged first. The sticks wiggled again, collapsing around the body further, until the remaining pokemon finally managed to pull itself free. And it was only then, staring at the young Zorua, that Ingo finally realized what he must have walked into.
He turned to look, to take in what he had taken for granted before.
The bodies weren't just pokemon. They were Zoroarks, Zoruas. Pokemon that had, from his understanding, been long loathed in Hisui. Seen as ill omens, as dangers to their societies. This clan must have settled somewhere, thinking it a safe area to raise their family, only for it to be discovered by humans. Humans who were fearful of what they saw as dangerous. Attack before you are attacked. Ingo could, to an extent, understand why- pokemon in Hisui were so much more aggressive, defensive, than those he had grown up with and known. Some people had pokemon partners but they were not like what he was used to. And with this clan settling in, with new generations being reared, he could only imagine the thought process the humans who had found it must have had.
Get them, before they get us.
He turned back to the Zorua, who had emerged from the collapsed den and now stood silently.
Staring.
Ingo wanted to know what his expression was, but just as he began to lean over to look the pokemon began moving. He approached the closest corpse first- this one hadn't been burned, at least, but there was a puddle of blood haloing it. The Zorua didn't seem to notice his paws getting wet as he drew closer, lifting a paw to nudge the body. The corpse. As Ingo expected, there was no response. The Zorua tried again, finally turning away when the corpse remained still.
Ingo followed as it staggered around the ashes of the clearing, prodding at every body it found regardless of their state. Some were so very obviously dead… but the Zorua still tried.
Trauma, Ingo knew, did funny things to a mind. To one as young as this…
It was no wonder why Khan was the way he was.
The young pokemon finally stopped, his breaths coming faster and faster. Ingo knelt down when his back legs collapsed, arms reaching out as if he could help. As before, he simply phased through. The Zorua turned his head, finally revealing the scar that Ingo would come to know well, now a fresh wound that still bled. His paws were cut up and burnt, there were scratches and lesions all along his back. He was a mess. Ingo could hear frantic, near-silent whines coming from the Zorua. It was hard to say if the volume was from fear that he would be heard, or if the smoke had gotten to his lungs.
Tears began slipping from the Zorua 's eyes. His panting became one long, hiccuping whine. His head remained turned, staring behind him, and Ingo was struck by what he'd yelled at Khan in anger so long ago, and yet so recently.
“You have no idea what it's like to have a family you can't return to!”
Khan, of all of their companions, absolutely did. This… this was why his reaction had been so strong, why Nana and Mnesomyne both had stepped in to stop Khan from assaulting - perhaps even killing - Ingo.
This is why she sent me here.
Ingo looked down at the Zorua again. Khan seemed to be frozen in place, but the wind around them was moving leaves and leftover smoke. It was only Khan who was frozen, unable to look away from his slaughtered family.
“I'm sorry,” Ingo said quietly, placing his hands around Khan's body as if he could actually hold him, “I'm so sorry.”
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