I do not like this overwhelming narrative in fanon that certain vigilante characters are weak woobies that must be protected by their fans. These characters are fictional, and they are also heroes. Vigilanteism is effectively their lifestyle, their culture, and should be respected instead of ignored.

These guys are fighters that feel like they must protect humanity because of a sense of duty either instilled into them at a young age or because of various circumstances that led to them waking up to the realities of their particular universe.

Getting angry and getting into fights is also a normal part of that very same culture. Characters should not be demonized because they punched each other that one time due to difference of opinions (and also because the writers hated that one character a little too much).

Now, when the fighting is ridiculously drawn out, when one side is clearly not fighting back while the other side beats them to a pulp, then the conflict should be called out, especially if the narrative continues to hold to this ridiculous idea that the one who is still fighting a battle he’s already won is somehow still a hero.

sokka hates the fire nation but nonetheless subscribes to their logic through internalizing his own dehumanization, albeit in the name of sacrificing what is necessary to resist imperialism. on the other hand, aang refuses to sacrifice his humanity, which is intrinsically tied to the culture that was deemed deserving of extermination, and by recognizing the fullness of his personhood and his intrinsic right to exist, he defeats the tenets of imperialism on an ideological battleground. that is why it is so crucial that aang’s influence over sokka, as an air nomad, and as someone who did not grow up under the looming shadow of colonialism and genocide, is what helps him regain the childhood he had forsworn in the name of war—his laughter, his joy, and his humanity.

Fun fact about the Avatar universe that I don’t see touched on often: Fire Lord Sozin made gay marriage illegal, meaning that gay marriage was illegal all throughout the original ATLA story

Source: The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars part 1

every time someone calls moirallegience just an alien qpr i wilt a lil like YEAH thats more or less the CLOSEST human thing but its also Literally Not That. like a qpr is fundanmentally not romantic and thats not even going into moirails whole Actual Purpose of calming ppl down. its just. aughhhhh pisses me off i see the confusion but, as aformentioned, aughhhhh

OH MY GOD THIS HAS BEEN BOTHERING ME TOO.... but i don't want to get petty at the people in my notes always saying "moirails are QPRs!" because in some ways that is the closest human thing so it's hard to be mad...

i think there's definitely some overlap in some ways. but NOT because moirallegiance and qprs are the same at all really, but INSTEAD because both relationships have unconventional boundaries defined by the people within them.

you know... like every relationship.

like the only reason the two have overlap is because they are both partnerships that emotionally care for each other but can choose to not bang (which is true for any romance anyway, even if it's considered abnormal). they're both just romances* that are unconventional to human norms, which makes people view them as the same thing when they're not.

i think the REAL issue here is that humans insist on using human words to understand things that are just, fundamentally, alien. can't we just appreciate alien romance for being... alien romance?

no, it's not platonic, it's romantic. it's just romantic in a way you aren't quite wired to understand, is all.

*in generalization, most QPRs are not romantic, because they are made up of aroaces who are life partners in a non-romantic way. however i want to disagree with you that none of them are romantic, because that is up to the partners in question.

when are they going to make a star trek baseball spinoff show actually

throws up my hands in mock resignation but also a hint of frustration Okay Valentino is a cool villain I guess

He's like. Genuinely unsettling. Wish the show struck a better balance with his character sometimes (like sometimes when he's onscreen I have to skip over because I feel queasy and sometimes he's so unsubtle he feels more like a prop than a guy who's going to be a Huge Deal in s2)

I have been meaning to talk about how accomplished Jun is though. She:

is such a powerful psychic that her clan apparently considered her a 'chosen one'

is literally such a strong fighter that she is able to suppress projecting her aura - something only the most powerful are able to do - which is why animals feel safe to approach her

fought well enough in the second tournament that Kazuya still thinks about her strength 22 years later in the story mode and waxes lyrical about it in his character ending (❓ on if she actually faced him though)

defeated Devil while pregnant ✔️ (only the half, but still counts)

has the survival skills to not only survive but thrive far from civilization

defeated Ogre ✔️

achieved the above via drawing power from sacred ground, something the average person obviously cannot do

is implied to have Yatagarasu guiding her per one of her intros

Sqq gets kidnapped by demons and he's allowed to write one (1) letter to cq, but he's not allowed to even HINT at being stuck or kidnapped. Knowing this, he sprinkles in just enough demonic lingo to render the letter vaguely indecipherable to yqy (and pass muster with the demons as 'not code'), meaning he has to summon sqh to try and figure out what his xiao jiu is saying. Sqh takes one looks at this harmless letter and sees, as a line break, the more code sos.

You were spilling all my will out I was bleeding my last brains It's nothing like the nothingness That normally numbs one's pain

Goodbye, oh goodbye

some closeups for you

I sometimes do not understand how people cannot have multiple ships for the same character (not in a mean way I just genuinely don't know why someone wouldn't want to do this w a lot of ships). Like, you're saying you don't have fifty versions of this character in your head each one w different relationship dynamics? That's wild bro.

Do you think Peter's ever accidentally saved famous people? Not just like superhero famous but regular celebrities.

Like, a lot of people headcanon that Peter is obsessed with Hamilton, and Broadway is literally in NYC. Do you think Peter's ever been in the middle of a supervillain fight and swung down to rescue someone, and once he'd gotten them to safety been like, Lin Manuel Miranda???????

wip wednesday: made a HUGE amount of progress this week (for context—purple is unfinished & yellow is finished; last week all of them were purple) … i am in the home stretch here

watched a majora's mask analysis earlier today with my fiancee. my verdict is that I actually really enjoyed the op's interpretations, but that I wished that they talked more about mm's literal level and what one can get from it, rather than talking about those events as if they are strictly metaphor. yes, of course the metaphorical layer of the game is rich to dig into, but it's also such an open-ended and surreal game that it's difficult to nail down every single distinct metaphor that can be derived from its events. which is why I consider it necessary to discuss the way the literal layer presents itself and what sort of motifs and ideas exist there as a baseline before you begin looking at it as metaphor

(maybe) unpopular opinion? definitely a shinran shipper through and through, but I don’t think kaishin being cousins is the dealbreaker that it is considering again context, Japan. So like ship and let ship.

Thank you for your post about the word shiksa. I'd seen similar posts in the past - that you shouldn't call yourself that and it's not a term worth reclaiming - but none of those posts ever properly explained WHY. The best I could ever find was that it's often used to insultingly refer to converts that were married to or planning to marry Jewish men before their conversion as a way to imply their reasoning for becoming a Jew wasn't genuine enough. I didn't understand why that would be something that shouldn't be reclaimed. Knowing that it's a term meant to refer to people that fetishize Jews puts it in an ENTIRELY different light. At least, in my brain, it does. So, yeah, thanks for actually explaining your point.

"Shiksa" cannot be "reclaimed." It's not as if that word has a widely-known history or is used by a hegemonic population to oppress people. There's no need or use for reclamation. A gentile woman calling themselves a shiksa, knowing what it means, seriously makes me feel disgusted. It's the same as someone who fetishizes Asians proudly saying they have "Yellow Fever."

I've never heard that phrase in reference to converts, only towards gentile women who seek out Jewish men specifically. It's more common than people would think. I once invited a Christian friend to a Purim party, where she told me she was just trying to take home one of the men there. This same friend told me she broke up with her Jewish boyfriend because he had been to Israel. Suffice to say we aren't friends anymore. It's incredibly common for (white) Christians specifically to fetishize Jews. It's just expected that all of the Jewish dating apps are unusable because they're full of WASPs looking for Jews.

While there isn't a widely used term for gentile men who fixate on Jewish women, I have seen the term "bagel chasers." I don't like it, because it makes it seem more cutesy and funny than it actually is in real life. It's deeply unsettling and uncomfortable when I'm working and men approach me saying they'd convert for me, or think that saying "shabbat shalom" to me on a Tuesday will make me believe they're also Jewish (and thus someone I should date). There's not a single part of me that thinks it's funny. They see Jews as a novelty and not as people. It's less because they are interested in us, they're interested in conquering us.