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woodsfae · 2 years

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Babylon 5 S01E07: The War Prayer

First

ToC

That is an ominous episode name if ever I’ve seen one. Gonna be pretty funny if this is a light, filler episode.

I hope this is Delenn-heavy because I’m ready to feel the hype this website has for her. And her friend is a poet! I want to hear this poem they’re talking about.

Do the Minbari all have fake ears as part of their makeup? Or do they only cast actors with tiny, low-set ears with attached earlobes?

Hate crimes. Sad days.

“Than make them give a damn,” yeah you need a good social media person.

That’s a badass decision by Mayan the poet - keeping the hate crime brand.

Not the coffee plants! C’mon Garibaldi.

I don’t like Susan’s ex. And am going to go ahead and predict that he’s involved in the hate crimes.

Not sure I’ll ever be able to stop immediately thinking “they have manes and tails, oh my god,” whenever I see Centauri. It’s etched into my neurons.

The Centauri not only have slavery but also have forced marriage. Lovely. “Yeah forced marriage is miserable, but we were all miserable in our marriages so you should be too,” one of my favorite justifications for continuing awful traditions.

Kosh is kinda hilarious. Just chillin and watching the highlights and lowlifes of human history and refusing to talk to the other ambassadors unless explicitly officially necessary.

Hope the Centauri lovebirds run away before they’re sent back. Seriously, if arranged marriages are to keep power and influence within the right families and build alliances - there’s no reason they can’t marry each other! They’re both aristocrats! But our own history shows us that people aren’t that sensible.

“Do you ever regret leaving me?” HELL NO SHE DOESN’T. Calling it harder. this “I shouldn’t have let you go,” dick is one of the home guard. And just assuming they’ll be together since he moved here? jayzus. That’s some entitled behavior.

Tensions are at a boil, and seem to be about to boil the fuck over.

“If he dies she will experience enormous grief. But every moment together will make her grief a little less.”

I agree. Missing moments and wishing for more time are some of the main hallmarks of my grief.

Incitement is happening on all sides. Everyone’s riling their people. Including this asshat ex. And Sinclair is going straight for them. I knew Susan’s asshat ex was up to no good.

Why don’t fin-headed people have an ambassador on Babylon 5? I’m a little baffled as to why each species doesn’t have an ambassador. And Sinclair, “he’ll recover,” is not at all reassuring to people worried they’re going to be attacked and murdered, even if you’re saying it to get asshat to think you’re on his side.

This exchange of looks. I choose to interpret them thusly:

Sinclair: How’m I doing? Ivanova: Fuckin’ terrible but he seems to be buying it, and I’m increasingly baffled as to what I ever saw in him if you’re fooling him with this hamfisted dialogue. Sinclair: Fuck yea

OH the Centauri kids are literally children, at least legally so. Aww, Londo is on the side of love now. And probably assuming their infatuation will end sooner or later anyway. And in any case, this fosterage gets everyone off his back to Do Something About the Kids!

Secret military prototypes. Of course they’re in fascist hands. Ambassadors Down. The berries on this asshat demanding a loyalty test from the most powerful person on Babylon 5.

Whew! So this was not a lighthearted filler episode misnamed amusingly. It was a good episode, just pretty heavy. I am bummed that this wasn’t actually all that Delenn-heavy, but it did have slightly higher Delenn content than the last few, so I am content for now. It was also sadly bereft of Talia/Susan but so have they all lately. I’ll be content with quietly meaning-laden glances and tension thick enough to cut, but it hasn’t even been giving me that yet!

Next Episode

#babylon 5 #woodsfae b5

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feral-catgirl · 2 years

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yeah man voting dem is whats gonna stop the tranny killer party from passing the kill all trannies act. its not like the dems have long since admitted that they see trans lives as another compromisable bargaining chip that they are prepared to forfeit at any time to try and fail to appease the fascists.

we’re fighting a war. don’t fucking talk to me about pragmatism unless you’re ready to face facts and pick up a gun.

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kradogsrats · 2 years

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Rewatch Shitposts: S3, Ep 5-9

OKAY HOME STRETCH

“I am the senate law”

SOREN, my baby

HAY HAY HAY HAY HAY

Soren like “and you all said CHA was a dump stat lmao”

“You are okay, right?” Claudia I can 110% assure you he is absolutely not okay and has not been for quite a while

Oh fuck, that “everything’s going to be okay, Dad” is very relevant to some of my current interests. I must have subconsciously remembered it.

Not shown: how Soren explains why he’s going back into the castle with his wagon of hay for the hungry, hungry horses still full

Pretty sure this ambler chase is a Breath of the Wild boss fight

ngl I do enjoy a good fictional fascist motivational speech

of course it’s a bit ruined because all I can hear at the end is “YOU are the weakest link, GOODBYE”

the smollest loaf of bread omg

Nyx like “I’ll just be sending you my matchmaker fee later, yeah?”

vi.

Aaravos: “you killed Avizandum”, Viren: “how dare you! …so who the fuck is that”

Ah, there we go with the last breath

Okay, so the unicorn horn can’t be in Puzzle House, because Claudia only got it right before Thunder was killed? Well, then I’m again no longer sure where they’re going with that. Unless it’s “Claudia meets the last unicorn as a child, then comes back for its horn ten years later.”

Appreciate Kasef’s “Wingarduim Levio-SAH” moment

… Horse girl Aaravos

Claudia really is behind literally every spell in this story isn’t she

vii.

Zubeia dying of a broken heart, as is traditional for cartoon mothers and also Padme Amidala

OH, Claudia DOES see adoraburrs, and it is perfection

Ah, the “Aaravos, no” “Aaravos YES” conversation

Basically Aaravos realizing that subtlety is absolutely not required at this point, thank you Viren

Shoutout to the multiple fanfics carefully describing thicc wormvaros crawling down Viren’s throat to be smuggled into Lux Aurea, that also is just gonna live rent-free in my head forever

“No, Mister Bond… I expect you to die”

If you haven’t read the ToX sourcebook adventure about the corrupted Sunforge as nuclear meltdown allegory, highly recommend because it’s actually pretty funny?

Kasef thinking he’s being the hero everyone needs…

Ibis a fucking hottie tbh

viii.

Ten days ago is what… when Zubeia would have received Runaan’s message? ... that is a joke about the series’ compressed timeline, I know that s1ep1 was longer ago than that.

Soren: “you may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like”

Love Calllum’s noodle arm during that fulminis cast

Scouting from the sky is not super useful when you’re above the cloud layer

Viren: /gets roundhouse-kicked doen a flight of stairs, literally bouncing the entire way down, me: … AND THEN HE DIED

Where was Zubeia, anyway? Postpartum spa day?

Soren really nailing it here

I know exactly enough ASL to see Callum spell “Rayla” and then do “friend”

ix.

Huh, I think Rayla just introduced two recaps in a row?

“transcend the limits of your human form” is usually a bad idea in this kind of context, just saying

I feel like it cannot be overstated how much LotR clearly influenced this initial battle choreography, but y’know what? Fair.

”I got more wind where that came from” is such a tragedy of a missed fart joke opportunity, but someone probably thought it was a mood-killer

Aanya just straight-up shoots a dude to death, demonstrating that she is, in fact, this show’s single biggest badass

Fire damage immunity a questionable trade-off for critical weakness to piercing

”We would have been here earlier, but we had to stop and make these sick battle standards”

Viren just… carries the coins everywhere, then? okay

Ah… of course. I see now what’s happening, here. (tbh it should have been obvious)

… and then he ACTUALLY died, despite there being no stairs involved(?)

Hmmm, Janai and the other Sunfire elves doing the human gesture of respect for the human king

I wonder if Zym will have a voice for s4?

/falls face down on the floor and just lies there

#the dragon prince #pre s4 rewatch #thank god i took extra days off next weekend because this did NOT feel like a vacation

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lesbianmarrow · 2 years

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Hello, longtime (but shy) follower here. Just wondering, in good faith, if you would mind explaining your Cardassian culture post a little more? Because I 100% see what you’re getting at, but the show does demonstrate that not all individual Cardassians are fascists; it was their government, the politicians, the generals, the Obsidian Order, etc. I’m not about to be an apologist for those aspects. Howeverm most Cardassian fanon I see, personally, involves how Cardassian society rebuilds after being nearly wiped out in the Dominion War, into something that is (usually) markedly no longer fascist, drawing inspiration from the tidbits of lore we get about Cardassia pre-fascism. I’m definitely wary of people who woobify Cardassians like Dukat, Damar, Garak, etc, and I’ve blocked more than a few people like that. But I think there’s got to be a difference between romanticising fascism as represented by the Cardassian state, and taking interest in what is essentially a post-apocalyptic alien society reconstructing itself following a war as an interesting worldbuilding exercise. Or taking interest in the speculative biology of a lizard-like anthropomorphic species in general. While it is definitely possible to explore these things while also romanticising fascism, I would posit that such is not *inherently* the case. It might warrant a quick background check on the op depending, but I personally wouldn’t right away suspect someone who likes or creates post-war Cardassian fanon of romanticising fascists. Unless you think Cardassians as an entire species/concept are too rotten and should be thrown out? In that case, would you apply the same logic to people who create fanon for other horrible Trek societies like the Romulans and the Ferengi? I apologise that this got a little long, but I hope you will be able to answer. If it helps to characterise my opinions, I am Jewish and white. Thank you for your consideration!

hi! so first off, my post was not meant to be like a serious criticism of fan culture or whatever, but rather just an expression of my personal frustration with some of the ppl i've encountered on this site. i'm not trying to say that everyone who explores cardassian culture in their fics and posts is a bad person. but i have encountered enough fans on this site who fixate on cardassia, who are also prone to racism and antisemitism, that it just immediately makes me skeptical. it seems that it's very easy for some fans who create meta on cardassian culture to then start to romanticize fascism and fascist characters like dukat. so i just choose to not engage with these people. but that's just my personal preference.

you're right that not all the cardassians have fascist beliefs, and by the end of the show cardassia as a society seems to be moving in a more equitable direction. so i can see how fans might be interested in exploring that. but what bothers me is that fans are so ready to humanize the cardassian oppressors, but often take little interest in the people they oppressed. i don't see nearly as much fandom exploration of bajor, either what it was like before colonization or how it continued to rebuild after the show's end. and it just bothers me how there seems to be a fandom attitude of finding ways for cardassia to redeem itself while not really paying attention to the people they oppressed. i know it's a silly sci-fi metaphor but as someone whose ancestry is from a country that was devastated by imperialism and colonization, it stings a little to see how fandom imagination is so enraptured by cardassia but hardly at all interested in bajor. it kind of signals to me where people's priorities are - which characters they are able to identify with, and which characters they see as not worth their attention.

again, i'm not gonna tell you that you should stop engaging with meta on cardassia or whatever. i'm sure you can use your own judgment. but that's just how i feel about it.

#ds9 #thank you for your politeness i hope this answers your question #anon

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mieczyhale · 2 years

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someone really paid to put pro-trump bullshit on people's dashes. a qanon conspiracy-fucked nut who claims they didn't support trump but he did all kinds of good and we shouldn't hate him bc he's totally not a fascist demon and they still don't really support him but they'll pay money to force their thoughts about him onto people in a post that's full of incorrect information

i'm embarrassed for them tbh

oh to be so unaware of how much of an idiot you are, ohhh to think being for peace means telling people not to hate someone who aimed to hurt and destroy them - someone who idolized hitler, hated anyone different, disrespected women, altered whatever laws he wanted seemingly for fun bc none of it benefitted anyone not rich, white, straight, and male, tried to kill democracy, backed terrorists, encouraged the insurrection, really pushed and supported the concept of 'fake news' which wasn't as big of a conspiracy until he started it and now we have more people than ever who don't know shit and believe lies that are horribly harmful for us all, who didn't do anything about a virus despite knowing about it until the public learned about it months later-

to HEAVILY summarize some of his shit

listing all the bad, to bonkers, to downright evil he did during his time as president (and even while running for president) would take FOREVER. there's no way to do it unless you're trying to write an informative article

which i'm not

i'm just beyond over it to see support for that fucking orange in the year of our lord 2022

if you're gonna force us to see your support of him at least present some facts. i know that's hard considering the limited amount of neutral or good things that he's been associated with, which should really tell you something about him but i know it doesn't bc y'all really be in your own reality and you think you get to pick and choose what is fact and what isn't, but fucking try. try to like.. rub two fucking braincells together

#this was from like. two night ago but i didnt post it bc i couldnt get the 'read more' function to work and i fucking hate putting long #posts - especially rants or vents - on peoples dashes. my rage isnt your problem unless u want it to be babes #maison speaks

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yourdiscourseisbad · 10 months

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Obligatory Intro Post

Hi. You can call me Xan.

I'm here to try jamming some nuance into y'all's discourse.

If you disagree with something I say, ask box is open, anon is turned off. If you've got something to say to me, you can say it with your whole chest, or keep it to yourself.

Some stuff about me so you know what kind of person you're dealing with:

1) I’ve got a low tolerance for bullshit. If you wanna say something, say it plainly and clearly. I’m not gonna beat around the bush, and neither should you. If you can’t say things plainly and clearly, step back and think before you post.

2) Everyone starts on a level playing field. I don’t give respect freely, but I’ll extend basic courtesy unless you show me you can’t do the same. If I’m talking with you, I’m going to treat you like a reasonable human being capable of basic logic unless you show me you can’t. No one gets special treatment, no matter who you are.

3) The block button exists for a reason. You’ve got enough of a problem with me that you never wanna see my takes again? Go ahead and block me. It’s a lot easier than trying to start something. On the other side, if you prove to me that you can’t show basic courtesy, I’ll give you one chance to sort yourself out. If you can’t or won’t, I’m happy to block you. This is my sandbox, and you’ll play nice when you’re in it.

4) I’ve got no tolerance for hatred. If you’re a TERF, Nazi, racist, bigot, or otherwise a shitty person, you should turn around and leave now. If you start something with me and I find out you’re in one of those categories, it’s straight to getting blocked. The only good fascist is a very dead fascist.

5) I’ve got better things to do with my time. I’ll be keeping an eye on this blog pretty regularly, but I’m not gonna be super active. Surrounding yourself in constant discourse is bad for you, and I’m not going to let myself get trapped in that. I’ve also got plenty of patience, so I’m willing to wait to respond until I can give a clear-headed response, and I’ve got no problems waiting for a response if you need time to do so, including if you need time to cool off or figure out how you want to word things. I’d rather have a slow response that’s well thought out than a shitty response immediately.

6) Don’t respond to something I don’t say. If you’ve got a problem with something I say, I’m open to feedback as long as you’re not an asshole about it. But if you try twisting my words around into something I didn’t say, we’re gonna have problems. If you can’t respond to what I’ve said, rather than what you want me to have said, you shouldn’t say anything at all.

7) I don’t argue to win. Discourse at its best is each side presenting their points and their thoughts behind them, and legitimately considering the merits of others’ points. It’s about being better than you were yesterday, not coming out on top or proving people wrong. I’m open to changing my mind on things if someone can convince me that I should. If you can’t approach things with that same openness, don’t even start with me.

Beyond all that, all you need to know is that I’m an adult and I’ve got strong opinions. Expect to see a lot of them here.

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queermetalgremlin · 2 years

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⊱ ────── {.⋅ ♫ ⋅.} ───── ⊰

Hey all, i’m Asia/Marco, AKA The Tableful System, a neurogenic system!

I’m a 19 year old autistic person with severe OCD, i’m italian, my pronouns are She/They/He/Glitch/Xe and am an aspiring manga artist.

I’m extremely queer, and while i’m not a hoarder i do identify with several labels: Fluidflux, OCDgender, OCDniac, Aceflux, Grayromantic, Veldian and Bisexual to name a few.

I’m a neuronarrator, as well as a neurological Alterhuman, Alderglitch, Alderficti and Glitchiden.

I like making Discord servers, it’s relaxing, feel free to send an ask forn more clarifications!

I don’t have a posting schedule, and i’ll mostly rant and voice my unfiltered opinions on things. I’ll also write analysis on public artists, music and movie reviews, especially about extreme cinema and story-driven albums. I’ll occasionally coin identities as well.

I suffer from heavy paranoia, so my DNI aims to protect me and make me as comfortable as possible.

DNI below.

⊱ ────── {⋅. ♪ .⋅} ────── ⊰

◤ -----------------------------------------◥

DNI IF:

Pro-contact MAPs/Pear/Pedophiles;

Pro-contact Zoophiles/Zeta;

Pro-contact Necrophiles;

Pro-contact Consangs;

LGBTQIA+ exclusionists (Battle-axe Bi, Transmed, Longsword Lesbian, Gravity Knife Gay, TERF, TEHM, Anti-xenogenders, Anti-neopronouns, Exorsexist, Anti-mspec lesbians/gays/straights, Anti lesboys/turigirls, anti MOGAI, “Queer is a slur”);

Sysmed/Anti-endo;

Anti-kin, including fictionkin and factkin (factkin =/= identity theft);

Anti-alterhuman;

Active shipcoursers. I don’t give a fuck ‘bout who you ship, just don’t piss me off;

People who kinkshame (kinkshaming doesn’t mean standing up for SA victims btw, just in case this crosses someone’s mind);

Anti-paras (no, that doesn’t mean anti-contact, i’m anti-contact myself);

Ableists;

People who support “Autism $peaks”;

Aspie supremacists;

People who demonize personality disorders;

Pro-ana/Thinspo blogs;

Alt-rights, Nazis, Fascists, Trump supporters;

Religious extremists;

People who think that liking creations made by shitty people = supporting said people;

Anti-chronosian (unless used to perpetuate SA);

BYF:

I support people with BIID and their self-identitication;

I don’t give a fuck if you’re pro/anti transX, as long as you don’t harass each other it’s fine by me;

I’m generally antiship for ourselves, not gonna go out of my way to harass proshippers though (if that would make me proship, so be it), and those who do are way worse than them;

I’m bodily an adult;

I’m pro AFAB transfem and AMAB transmascs;

Tone tags aren’t required but are apppreciated;

Anti-factkin rhetoric harms factives as well;

Children, animals and corpses can’t consent, period;

Transandrophobia exists, deal with it;

I won’t hesitate to block harassers for my own health.

◣-------------------------------------------◢

Hope you enjoy your stay!

#dni #byf #about the owner #intro

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shadowfae · 3 years

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Not trying to be rude, I am just a little confused. “People were already afraid of sharks when Jaws came out. It amplified that fear and fed back into reality.” So why would fiction romanticizing pedophilia not amplify and feed back into reality? Also, have you read Lolita? Again, I just need clarification because I’m trying to genuinely learn the arguments so I can find where I stand

I have. And it was a horror story with an unreliable narrator. That was also how it was intended, and I’m a little surprised not everyone got that. You know what it did? Take pedophilia from something never talked about and taboo and brought it into the international limelight to be studied and talked about, because suddenly pedophiles could be well-liked priests and good people everyone likes, not just always some scummy guy in an alleyway. It was monumental to help victims, because suddenly they could be believed. No big “oh okay pedophiles and giving children horrific trauma is okay now this book I read said so :)” happened whatsoever.

As for why Jaws did what fanfiction doesn’t: people already were afraid of sharks, and my fics that don’t top two hundred views and ten kudos aren’t being seen in theatres worldwide, and seriously dude how many people do you think are secretly okay with pedophilia in real life???

If fanfiction was going to normalize anything, Game of Thrones would have normalized it. And if you won’t go after GRRM, don’t go after some queer writer who doesn’t get paid to deal with your shit. GoT has incest and rape and pedophilia up the wazoo, and none of it’s tagged, and yet somehow people aren’t falling over themselves thinking dragons are real and it’s okay to fuck your sister.

Almost like fiction isn’t likely to change your mind unless you were already open to it, and it’s far more likely to validate what you already know, and if you’re reading fanfiction looking for a moral to the story... there is something wrong with you, dude, and I the writer am not obligated nor going to help you work through that. Maybe try an English class for third graders that makes you do basic literary analysis. And that probably sounds harsh, but it has to be. I do more work than fucking Game of Thrones to ensure people don’t get hurt if they want to read my fic, and I get called one of the worst things to ever fucking accuse someone of in return. You know if you call someone a pedophile in real life, they usually lose their job? You know that sort of accusation ruins people’s lives? You remember that? You haven’t forgotten it and reduced the meaning of a horrific child predator and abuser to someone you don’t like on the internet?

I do nothing the average YA author doesn’t do. I am going nowhere that hasn’t been gone before by people far more mainstream. And nobody has a problem with them, so if you’re gonna have an issue just with me and not them because I write fanfiction... Your misogyny and queerphobia is showing. Misogyny, because what is fanfiction if not women’s writing (and I acknowledge that as a man); and queerphobia, because this argument LITERALLY ONLY HAPPENS against queer writers. You’d forgive whatever show by and involving white men of all their sins, of course they can’t be better, but shred every queer thing to bits if it isn’t perfect. Dream Daddy, Thomas Sanders, Steven Universe, you fucking name it - it’s all Problematic and Secretly Pedophilia and Secretly Fascist Propoganda because it’s queer and not picture perfect with a moral for babies.

I’m not mad at you personally, anon, but there’s no other way to demonstrate how fucking asinine this entire thing is. If someone’s looking through my fic for a moral of the story that can be applied to real life: get lost and go read a book for five year olds. I’m not writing for you.

#asks #anonymous #on shipcourse #not trying to be aggressive but there wasn’t really another way to answer #i am so DONE being called the worst things in the book #because people like being queerphobic to ‘acceptable targets’#fuck you I don’t do anything that hasn’t been done in got and you idolize that asshole

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waynedunlaptheorgandonor · 3 years

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watched s11ep1

i will provide you with a quick review before i disappear back into the ether of twd avoidance

lots of spoilers under the cut. also i wrote way too much and i worked all night and haven’t slept so i didn’t bother to reread literally any of it, so it might be completely nonsensical, tho if you don’t expect that from me by this point idk whose blog you’ve been reading

enjoy:

hokay, first off, i’ll start by saying that i enjoyed it more than i expected to. i’ve been avoiding any sort of discussion about stuff, but my google algorithm is so fucked at this point that i still get recommended articles and stuff every now and then, so i was already pretty aware of what i was walking into, and was expecting it to be eh, but actually i prob enjoyed it more than i enjoyed the finale

(don’t get too excited tho, the finale was rly boring lmfao)

anyway

episode starts off with a tense scouting mission

it takes .005 seconds into the episode for caryl to exchange a look of longing, establishing that they are still having weird conflict and are both too fucking stubborn to do anything about it even tho they hate it desperately

i imagine that will continue for a while

rosita, kelly, carol, maggie, what’s her face with the bad hair, and lydia (i think that’s everyone?) lower down to some army bunker or something, where a bunch of walkers are taking a snooze, and the girls are very respectful of walker naptime, and do their best not to wake them up

obviously they eventually wake up, but i’ll get to that in a sec

as they’re tiptoeing through the walker tulips, there’s this split second where carol spots a machine gun, and looks at maggie with a face like, “can i plzzzz, i am mad horny for that machine gun,” but maggie tells her no. (i 110% expected her to defy orders and accidentally wake up all the walkers, but she actually behaved herself for once. well. mostly)

never fear, tho, after the girl gang collects a bunch of MREs they go back to wait for the dudes waiting up top to pull them up, and bc men ruin everything, one of the ropes break, and daryl catches it before it falls, but then a slow motion drop of blood falls on a walker’s face, and just like that, walker naptime is over, and carol uses her bow and arrow for two seconds before she is like “fuck this” and whips out the machine gun

yes, she is super hot using it

yes, daryl watches her do it

anyway, all the other girls get rescued, and carol is about to be pulled up, but bc she is a #girlboss, she first makes a beeline for one more crate full of MREs. daryl covers her while she gets the loot, and when she gets back up top they have another charged moment as carol hands him back his knife

just fuck already, jfc

titles!

cut to alexandria where everything is still not smilestimes

BUT, we do get to see uncle daryl run and hug rj and judith (and dog), and FUCKING HERSHEL JR, LIGHT OF MY LIFE is also there

istg, they could not have casted a better child, i a d o r e him

oh, and some friends of maggie’s show up too, idk

cut to a staff meeting where everyone is like, whomp whomp, we’re all gonna starve to death unless we figure out something quick

cue maggie going, “oh, i know where food is, but it requires me to tell you my tragic backstory, in case anyone didn’t watch my bottle episode”

she tells her dramatic backstory about all her friends getting slaughtered by the reapers for no apparent reason, and then she’s like “anyway, let’s go back there!”

no one thinks it’s a great idea, but a group of people decide to go anyway, including daryl and gabriel. rosita is super pissed that gabriel is going, and carol doesn’t go, probably partly bc it’s a shitty fucking idea, and also bc they have to keep caryl apart bc otherwise they’ll fix their problems ahead of schedule and they won’t be able to drag out the needless angst

daryl looks kind of annoyed that carol doesn’t volunteer to go

bitch, i thought you wanted her to stop putting herself in the line of fire! make up your damn mind!

moving on

cut to a thunderstorm, where, if you look closely, you’ll notice daryl is wearing the STUPIDEST hat i’ve ever seen. just get an umbrella, jfc

for some reason negan is with them, bc ig he knows his way around washington dc, and no one in six years has bothered to figure out how to get around the city and/or get a map, and he is like “hey guys, maybe we shouldn’t try to walk in this fucking hurricane,” and everyone is like “FUCK YOU NEGAN, YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF US!!!”

this will be a common occurrence

but eventually daryl is even like “actually, it’s rly unpleasant out here, and my hat is mad stupid, can we go inside plz?”

so they go inside an old metro station, which is actually a rly cool cinematic choice. i rly like the idea, and they executed it rly well

speaking of executions

there are some fucking RULL CREEPY walkers. idk why they bothered me so badly, but they were what they at first assumed were corpses wrapped up in tarps, but turns out none of them had been properly put down, so they go through killing these rotted bodies that had supposedly been there since The Fall, and it’s very gross and cool

this entire time, btw, negan is like “hey, i know i’m a shitty person, but i have some rational arguments about why we shouldn’t be doing this right now,” and everyone is like, “FUCK YOU NEGAN, YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF US!!!” and he’s just like “god fucking damnit”

(i forgot to mention that at one point, when they’re headed into the metro station, negan is trying to warn ppl of the potential danger, and everyone is ignoring him, and he tries to talk to daryl, and daryl is like “fuck you, you think we’re BUDDIES?” and negan is like “oh, ok, so you’re gonna be like that too? fanfreakingtastic” and it’s very funny)

anyway. a fat monster zombie escapes its tarp at one point, and tries to eat some npc, and negan saves him, again is like “hey, anyone else realize that this is a FUCKING BAD PLAN?”, and everyone is like “we don’t care, you’re still shitty and we’re not listening to you, and you don’t actually care about random npc i would literally not be able to pick out in a lineup bc his face is so generic, you’re not the boss of us!!!”

it’s at this point that negan finally is like, “why am i even here? bc i know how to get around washington dc? do none of you have a map?” and i was like, “right?! that’s what i said!”

it’s then revealed that maggie only brought negan along to murder him under the guise of “oops, he got hurt in the line of duty, it wasn’t my fault,” and daryl has this look on his face that says, “i seriously need to stop hanging out with lethal women bent on revenge bc it’s gonna give me high blood pressure,” and maggie has a badass moment where she points a gun she has for some reason at negan and is like “i have like, one shred of human compassion left inside of me, and if you keep pushing me i will fucking kill you without a second thought, so shut the hell up”

(in her defense, negan had just dropped glenn’s name to purposely antagonize her, which was rude as hell)

(for the record, i’m completely on maggie’s side here, but negan still is right that trapping themselves in a metro station is a bad call)

anyway, moving away from that briefly

i think this jump cut happens sooner, i don’t actually remember, but whatever who cares, point is, we get to the part of the show that actually matters, and that’s anything involving my love, juanita “princess” sanchez

and also eugene, yumiko, and ezekiel

they are being asked increasingly invasive questions by commonwealth ppl, some of which i wish they actually would of answered (what do they use to wipe their asses with?? surely toilet paper has long since become extinct)

zeke, who is so much more tolerable as a character now that he’s not larping as a king, has this incredibly weird and sort of sexually charged moment with a dude in an orange stormtrooper costume, where he’s like, “i bet you were an asshole cop back before The Fall, you stupid fascist, #fuckthepolice, mb literally? idk, this moment has a lot of pent up aggression that could easily translate to hate sex, it might just be the intense eye contact, but w/e, let’s just move along,” and then he has a coughing fit to remind the audience that he’s currently dying of cancer, and orange stormtrooper is like “lolz, loser, drink some water you dumb piece of shit”

cut to the wholesome foursome sitting at a picnic table in a guarded courtyard eating gruel, and yumkio, who finally has a personality, and princess are like “hey, this place fucking sucks, can we leave?” and zeke is like, “yeah, i met this orange stormtrooper who i think might be dtf and/or murder, so we should probably bounce”

but eugene is like, “but i want some hot stephanie ass, and also some bullshit excuse about how mb commonewealth will save alexandria” which, they left before things went super downhill, right? idr. it was after hilltop fell, but they don’t know alexandria got fucked either, if i recall? w/e, not important

two seconds after he says this, they talk to some people who are like “we’ve been here for four months, or maybe it’s been nine, i don’t actually remember, i’ve stopped processing the passage of time,” and the wholesome foursome takes this as a bad sign, tho that’s just the life i’ve lived as a night worker during a pandemic, so i was like #mood

but then they watch some guy get dragged away screaming to get “reprocessed” and eugene is like “ok, nvm, let’s bounce”

(my theory on what “reprocessing” is, is that they’re stuck in a room and have to watch hours and hours of customer service training videos on vhs from the 90s)

i definitely got my jump cut scenes mixed up bc i think the negan accusing maggie of a murder plot thing happened in between this scene and then the next commonwealth scene, but w/e, i’ll just finish what happens in the commonwealth arch

the wholesome foursome are trying to hatch a plan to escape, except princess, my love, is distracted watching some stormtroopers flirt, and the other three are like “wtf, dude, how can you even tell any of them apart?” and princess then tells them every stormtroopers backstory bc she is brilliant and pays rly close attention to shit, and the other three are like, “this is useful information, thank you for being an insane person”

their plan involves yumiko and eugene dressing up as stormtroopers and leading princess and zeke out of the place, which works fine actually, except on their way out they come across the Depressing Wall of Probably Mostly Dead Missing Loved Ones

they’re about to leave, when princess is like, “wait, yumiko, you’re on here, that’s weird huh?”

sure enough, yumiko is on the wall, with a note from ig her sister

the scene ends with yumiko going, “guys...i can’t leave...i have tragic backstory to unveil”

tragic backstory to be continued ig

back in murder metro town, npc and some other npc have stolen all the supplies, there’s a train blocking the track, and a horde of walkers are coming towards them, so things are not going fantastic

they horde is too big to take down, so they start to climb on top of the train car to get away

but dog runs away!

and daryl, being every pet owner ever, is like “gotta go get my dog, guys, try not to get killed while i’m gone, c u soon!” and he ducks under the train and disappears

#priorities

the episode ends with maggie climbing up the train car but getting grabbed by a walker and dangling off the edge, and negan is there and they have a lion king moment where maggie is like, “scar! help me!” and negan is like “long live the king, bitch” and walks away into the shadows, leaving maggie to a potential death

which, while i know isn’t actually going to happen, would be a really fucking funny move on the writers’ part

like, “look, lauren’s back! and now she’s dead, bet you didn’t expect that!”

anyway

my assumption is negan will actually end up helping her up or something, continuing his ambiguous morality bullshit that actually isn’t ambiguous bc he BEAT GLENN TO DEATH WITH A FUCKING BAT WRAPPED IN BARBED WIRE IN FRONT OF HIS PREGNANT WIFE

the maggie/negan arch is kind of dumb, but whatevs, i’ll tolerate it, as long as my boy glenn gets justice in the end

anyway, cue credits!

final assessment: good episode. i’m much more interested in commonwealth than the reapers, tho i am hoping that daryl’s personality-less ex turns out to be a monster killing machine with no conscience, that’ll be fun. princess is a gift from god. hershel jr needs his own tv show. needs more carol (and caryl)

the end! going back into my walking dead free chamber! see you next episode!

-diz

#i didn't mean to recap the entire fucking episode lol #sorry #it's to make up for my lack of content lately #or something #anyway #caryl #twd s11ep1 #twd s11 spoilers #dunlap tp

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dwellordream · 3 years

Text

“…Now, if people are taught anything at all about medieval history it often is English medieval history. People with absolutely no other frame of reference can often tell you when the Norman Conquest of England took place, or the date of the signing of Magna Carta even if they don’t know exactly why these things are important. (TBH Magna Carta isn’t important unless you were a very rich dude at the time, sooooo.) If you ask people to name a medieval book they’ll probably say Beowulf even if they’ve never read it.

Here’s the thing though – England was a total backwater in terms of the way medieval people thought and was not particularly important at the time. How much of a backwater? Well, when Anne of Bohemia, daughter of my man Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV (RIP, mate. Mourn ya til I join ya.) married King Richard II of England in the fourteenth century there was uproar in Prague. How could a Bohemian imperial princess be sent to London? How would she survive in the hinterlands? The answer was she was sent along with an entire cadre of Bohemian ladies in waiting to give her people with whom she could have a sophisticated conversation.

This ended up completely changing fashion in England. Anne is the girl who introduced those sweet horned headdresses you think of when you think of medieval ladies, riding side-saddle, and the word “coach” to England, (from the Hungairan Kocs, where the cart she arrived at court the first time came from). Sweetening her transition to English life was the fact that she didn’t have to pay a dowry to get married. Instead, the English were allowed to trade freely with Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire and allowed to be around a Czech lady. That was reward enough as far as the Empire was concerned. That’s how much England was not a thing. (The English took this insult very badly, and hated Anne at first, but since she was a G they got over it. Don’t worry.)

If England was unimportant why do we know about English medieval history and nothing else? Same reason you’re reading this blog in English right now, homes. I’m not sure if you know this, but in the modern period, the English got super super good at going around the world an enslaving anyone they met. When you’re busy not thinking about German imperial atrocities in the nineteenth century it’s because you’re busy thinking about British imperial atrocities, you feel me? So we all speak English now and if we harken back to historical things it gives us a grandiose idea of English history.

Say, then, you are trying to establish a curriculum for schools that bigs up English history, as is our want. Ask yourself – are you gonna want to dwell on an era where England was so unimportant that Czechs were flexing on it? Answer: no. You gonna gloss right over that and skip to the early modern era and the Tudors who I am absolutely sure you know all the fuck about. The second colonial-imperialist reason for not learning about medieval history is that medieval history doesn’t exactly aggrandise the colonial-imperialist system.

Yes, there are empires in medieval Europe. In addition to the Holy Roman Empire there’s the Eastern Roman Empire, aka the Byzantine Empire, whose downfall is often pointed to as one of several possible bookends to the medieval period. You also have opportunists like the Venetians who set up colonies around the Adriatic and Mediterranean, or the Normans who defo jump in boats and take over, well, anything they could get their hands on.

Notably, when these dudes got where they were going, they didn’t end up enslaving a bunch of people, committing genocide, and then funnelling all resources back to a theoretical homeland. The Normans settled down where they were eventually creating distinctive court cultures, and the Venetian colonies enjoyed a seriously high level of trade and quality of life without major disruption to local customs. Force was certainly used to take over at the outset, but it wasn’t something that resulted in the complete subjugation and deaths of millions halfway around the world from where the aggressors started.

No, the European middle ages are a lot more about local areas muddling along with smaller systems of rule. That’s why you have distinctive areas like say, Burgundy or Sicily calling their own shots and developing their own styles and fashions. Hell, even within imperial systems like the Holy Roman Empire Bavarians or Bohemians saw themselves as very much distinct peoples within an imperial system, not necessarily imperial subjects first and foremost.

You know where you would go to find some history that justifies huge imperial systems that require constant conquest and an army of slaves to keep them afloat? Ancient Rome. Remember how you got taught how great Rome was? How it was a democracy? How they had wonderful technology and underfloor heating, and oh isn’t that temple beautiful? Yeah, that’s because you were being inculcated to think that the ends of imperial violence justifies mass enslavement and disenfranchisement.

In reality, Rome wasn’t some sort of grand free democracy. Only a tiny percentage of Romans could actually vote. Women of any station certainly could not, and even men who were lucky enough to be free weren’t necessarily Roman citizens. Freedom here is particularly important because by the 1 century BCE 35 – 40% of the population of the Italian peninsula were slaves. Woo yeah democracy. I love it. And that’s not even taking into account all those times when an Emperor would suspend voting altogether.

Those slaves were busy building all the grand buildings your high school history teacher was dry jacking it about, stuffing the dormice that the rich people were reclining to eat, and basically keeping the joint running. Those slaves also necessitated the ridiculously huge army that Rome kept going because you had to get slaves from somewhere after all, so warfare had to be continuous. How uplifting.

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that this Roman nonsense is pretty much exactly what was going on during the modern colonial imperial age. You can say whatever the fuck you want about how free and revolutionary America was, for example. That doesn’t change the fact that only a handful of white property owning men could vote, and that the entire project required the mass enslavement of Africans and the genocide of Native Americans. That’s why you’ve been taught Rome is great. It helps you sleep well at night on stolen land because, really, haven’t all great societies done this? I mean without a forever war against anyone you can find, how will you keep a society going?

Our imperialist ideas about history lead to some weird historical takes. People love to tell you that no one bathed in the medieval period when medieval people had pretty much exactly the same sort of bathing culture as Romans. People laugh at medieval people believing in medical humoral theory despite the fact that Romans believed exactly the same thing and get a total pass on that front. The Roman ban on dissection is often taught as a medieval ban, shifting Roman superstition onto the shoulders of medieval people.

On-going Roman warfare is reported in glowing terms with emphasis on the “brilliance” of Roman military technique, while inter-kingdom warfare in the medieval period is portrayed as barbaric and ignorant. The Roman people who were encouraged to worship emperors as literal gods are used as an example of theoretical religion-free logical thinking, while medieval Christians are cast as ignorant for believing in God even when they are studiously working on the same philosophical queries as their predecessors. None of this makes any fucking sense.

But here’s the thing – it doesn’t need to. In a colonial imperialist society we have positioned Rome as a guiding light no matter what it’s actual practices and that’s not a mistake. It’s a design that helps to justify our own society. Further, this mindset requires us to castigate the medieval period when rule was more localised and systems of slavery had taken a precipitous dive. If only there had been more slavery, you know? Things might have been so much better.

Historical narratives and who controls them are always in flux. That old adage “history is written by the winners” comes to mind here, but that’s not exactly true. What the winners do is decide which histories are promoted, taught, and broadcasted. You can write all the history you want and if no one reads it, then it doesn’t really matter. That’s the gap that medieval history has fallen into. Colonial imperialism hasn’t figured out how to weaponise it yet, so it’s ignored. You could write this off as a “so what”, of course. Sure, maybe teaching the Roman Empire as a goal is a negative, but is ignoring medieval history really that bad a thing? You will be unsurprised to learn that I definitely think it is a bad thing, yes.

Ignorance about the medieval period is one of the things that is allowing the current swelling ranks of fascists to claim medieval Europe as some sort of “pure” white ideal. Spoiler: it was not. However, if you don’t know anything about medieval society how are you gonna argue with some chinless douche with a fake viking rune tattoo?History is always political. We use it to understand our world, but more than that we also use it to justify our world. Ignoring it helps us prop up our worst impulses, so let’s not.”

- Eleanor Janega, “On colonialism, imperialism, and ignoring medieval history.”

#colonialism #imperialism #history #medieval #eleanor janega

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anachronisticcrab · 3 years

Text

This has been on my mind for a while, but I’ve never actually addressed it, so here’s my honest opinion on the ‘feminism’ in PJO/HOO/TOA (I haven’t read Kane Chronicles in years, and I’ve never actually read MCGA, so I’m not addressing either of those)

The Hunters of Artemis

Fucking misandrists. It’s not feminism

Kicking people out for being wlw? Not feminist

Kicking girls out if they enjoy sex, or if they have sexual encounters? Not feminist, that’s slut shaming and it’s not okay

Preying on 8 to 16 year old girls, whose brains have not finished developing? Not fucking feminist

Treating men like they’re the scum of the Earth? Not feminist

I’m not saying that men are great. Personally, I’ve got a long and complicated history with men. But I don’t treat them like I’m better than them because I’m not a man—that’s misandry not gender equality, and not feminism

Lying and tricking young girls into hunting down mythical creatures for their entire lives (during which they will be children forever), without letting them in on the knowledge that they will be in constant danger and will never be able to see their families and friends again? Not feminist

They are the epitome of ‘not like other girl’ feminism, which is a recurring theme in Rick’s books

Plus they’re inherently ableist. The second you become a hunter, all physical imperfections disappear because they ‘make you weaker’? Plus, no way in hell would someone in a wheelchair, or someone with depression, or someone with sensory issues, or someone whose blind or deaf be allowed to join the hunters. It’s not feminist

The fact that I’m willing to bet that femme nonbinary and/or trans women won’t be allowed to join. After all, if wlw are kicked out for being wlw, why the fuck would Artemis let trans women or nonbinary ppl in? That’s not fucking feminist

Also, half the Hunters don’t think that satyrs are real guys cause they’re half goat? Like shut the fuck up, they ID as a man, they’re a man.

Artemis finds underage girls who are unhappy, tells them that they’ll have no responsibility, that they’ll be immortal, and that they’ll have fun all the time... and doesn’t tell them any of the bad parts until after they’ve pledged their eternal allegiance to her and her Hunt

The fact that she stops they’re education?? How is convincing young girls not to educate themselves feminism??

It also annoys the shit out of me that Artemis and her Hunters claim to support women, but send untrained, clueless, unsure girls who have only been a part of the hunt for two days on deadly quests where 2 ppl have been prophecized to die. Wouldn’t you want to send someone with more experience? Wouldn’t you want to actually support each other and send in someone with a higher chance of survival? And YEA, I’m talking about Bianca (not her biggest fan, but it was still fucking shitty)

In short, I freaking hate the Hunters, if you couldn’t tell. They aren’t feminist. They’re TERFs and misandrists. And Artemis is fucking creepy

The Amazon’s

Worse than the Hunters

In this case, I don’t know if they kick out wlw, trans women, or nb ppl (I don’t think so, but I’m not sure on that) so I’m gonna put that to the side for now

What I do know however is that they have actual slaves. Like motherfucking human slaves

They rape men, and force them into slavery. How the fuck is that okay? It’s not fucking feminism!

It’s not feminist to put someone in slavery; it’s fucking inhumane and terrifying! It’s a violation of about a hundred basic human rights!

It’s not fucking feminist to rape guys; it’s inhumane and in violation of basic human rights (again!)

They are not feminist; they’re misandrist slave owners

‘Not Like Other Girls’

Both Annabeth and Piper were portrayed as feminist icons during the series. Right? Right??

Fucking wrong. They both repeatedly put down other girls for exemplifying feminine qualities, basically saying that being feminine is weakness and it’s disgusting

How is that feminism?

Piper constantly shit talks her siblings because they’re super girly (for the most part)

She and Annabeth treat Drew like shit because she’s feminine and she goes after guys (and ok, Drew is a bit of an asshole, but there are better reasons to dislike her than she’s girly and likes guys!)

That’s not okay— feminism is about uplifting women, and supporting one another. Not about slut shaming and denoting ppl for exuding feminine qualities

Femininity does not equate to weakness. femininity does not mean you are less than. femininity does not mean you deserve less respect. femininity is not inferior to masculinity. Femininity does not mean you’re dumb, weak, silent, or cowardly. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You are always worthy of respect (unless you’re a fascist or anything along those lines)

Thalia Grace

She gets her own category cause oh my gods I hate her so much

Not only does she support the Hunters and Artemis, she’s a dedicated defender of it

On top of that, there’s her Death to Barbie pin. What the fuck? Cause Barbie isn’t feminist?

Barbie is a doll that comes in all different shapes, sizes and colours, a doll that has hundreds of different careers, a doll that shows little girls that no matter what they look like, or where they come from, they can do or be anything (I know that it used to only be a skinny white blond girl, and maybe one other white girl, but that’s changed). How is Barbie not fucking feminist?

How is sporting a pin that threatens to destroy a doll that uplifts and promotes self love and positivity to little girls all over the world feminist? How is she feminist? She’s not-like-other-girls

She simultaneously supports an ableist, transphobic, homophobic goddess who preys on young girls, is actively against anything remotely feminine, and claims to be feminist, liberal, and punk, of all things! She’s not fucking feminist, she’s not fucking punk (I’m gonna make a whole other post trashing her, cause oh my fucking God she drives me crazy)

Basically what I’m trying to say in this is that the ‘feminism’ in the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles is fucking disgusting. It’s not feminism

If you don’t agree with any of this, or if you don’t like this, dni.

#pjo #hoo #og post #the hunters of artemis #anti hunters of Artemis #anti Thalia Grace #piper mclean #annabeth chase #anti Amazon’s #amazons pjo #feminism #toa #rr crit #rr criticism

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kjack89 · 3 years

Note

E studying late in the library, R as the late-night security guard

The only sound that came from the far corner of the second floor of the library was the steady, and occasionally emphatic, clacking of laptop keys as Enjolras hunched over his laptop. He only paused to grab a sip of coffee or swipe a notification from Twitter off of his phone screen, and as the time crept past midnight, he showed no sign of slowing down.

At least, he showed no sign until, without warning, the lights turned off.

Enjolras looked up, his face lit only by his laptop screen. “Hello?” he called, but no one answered. “Is anyone there?”

Again, there was no answer, and Enjolras glanced at first the time on his phone screen and then at the document he was working on, which was no closer to being done than it had been when he had started working on it some two hours prior, and he groaned. “God damnit,” he sighed, standing up and grabbing his phone and, after only a moment of hesitation, his coffee.

He made his way to the stairs, guided by the dim glow of the exit sign. Luckily, the lights were on in the stairwell, and Enjolras made his way to the ground floor. The lights were also off on the first floor, and Enjolras scowled before catching sight of a light from an office behind the circulation desk.

Enjolras stalked over and rapped his knuckles against the desk. “Hello?” he called, peering into the office. There was a man in there, lounging in his chair, and Enjolras raised his voice. “Excuse me?” The man did not look up and Enjolras scowled in irritation before practically bellowing, “Excuse me!”

The man startled upright, blinking owlishly through the window at Enjolras before standing and making his way to the office door. “Can I help you?” he asked mildly, which caused Enjolras’s blood pressure to skyrocket.

“Someone turned the lights off,” he said stiffly.

The man raised one dark eyebrow. “Pardon?”

Enjolras ground his teeth together. “On the second floor,” he said. “Someone turned the lights off.”

Leaning casually against the doorway and crossing his arms in front of his chest – Enjolras tried not to stare at how his t-shirt stretched across his chest as he did – the man then had the audacity to smile at him. “I’m sure they did.”

“Right,” Enjolras said, tearing his eyes away from the tattoo on the man’s bicep. “Only, I’m trying to get some work done and that normally requires, y’know, light.”

The man nodded. “One might think.”

Enjolras counted to five in his head to try and stop from yelling. “Are you going to turn the lights back on?”

The man tugged at the collar of his university t-shirt as he considered it. “No.”

“What?”

“No, I’m not going to turn the lights back on.”

Enjolras stared at him, his mouth hanging open, before drawing himself up to glare at him. “And why the hell not?” he demanded.

The man shrugged. “Library closed at midnight.”

Enjolras blinked. “Since when?”

“Since we’re operating under summer break hours,” the man told him, sounding far too amused, and Enjolras scowled again.

“It’s May.”

The man smiled lazily at him. “Your grasp of the calendar year notwithstanding, the semester’s over, so the library is no longer open 24/7.”

Enjolras tried very hard not to seethe. “So you’re kicking me out.”

The man shrugged again. “I mean, I’m not gonna bodily remove you from the building or something, but yeah, I am gonna ask you nicely to leave, and if you refuse, I’ll probably have to call campus security.”

Enjolras’s brow furrowed. “You’re not campus security?”

“I’m library security,” the man corrected. “There’s a difference.”

“What’s the difference?” Enjolras asked sourly.

“Slightly less fascist,” the man said cheerfully, and Enjolras almost smiled. Keyword being almost. “Also I’m a student, and mostly I’m here to make sure folks swipe their IDs when they come in and to stop folks from walking out with books they haven’t checked out.”

Enjolras cocked his head. “And what’s the punishment for that?”

“Normally me escorting them to the checkout counter so that they can check them out.”

Enjolras huffed a dry laugh. “I’m not getting the vibe that you have a lot of authority here.”

The man chuckled. “That’s because I don’t.” He hesitated before adding, “My name’s Grantaire. And you are…?”

“Not sharing my name to prevent you from sharing it with campus security,” Enjolras replied coolly.

Grantaire grinned. “That’s a mouthful, your parents must’ve really hated you.”

Enjolras smiled slightly as well. “I mean, they did, but not for that reason.”

Grantaire took a step towards him. “If I promise not to report you, will you tell me your name?”

“How about you turn the lights on the second floor back on?” Enjolras countered.

“They’re on a timer, and I don’t have the means of overriding it, so unless you want me to stand up there holding my flashlight up for you to read by…”

Enjolras smirked. “Now that is a tempting thought.”

Grantaire gave him what Enjolras imagined he thought of as a pleading look. “C’mon, tell your name. I can go through the records of ID swipes, but I’d really rather not have to take that kind of time.”

“Why do you want to know my name so badly?” Enjolras asked.

“Because I have a feeling I’m going to be seeing a lot of you this summer,” Grantaire said archly. “Besides, I like to know the name of the cute guy I’ve been flirting with for the last fifteen minutes.”

Enjolras opened his mouth to scoff, or to tell him that this wasn’t flirting, or to do any number of things to rebuff the implication, but instead, what came out was, “Enjolras.”

Grantaire blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“My name is Enjolras.”

“Enjolras,” Grantaire repeated, a slow smile crossing his face. “Wow, your parents really did hate you.”

“Almost as much as yours,” Enjolras shot back, “naming you Grantaire.”

Grantaire laughed. “Like you said, mine did too, but not because of the name.” He hesitated. “Why don’t you work down here?”

Enjolras blinked. “What?”

“I can’t turn the lights back on upstairs, and the only lights are going to be in stairwells or around emergency exits, or here, at my desk. As comfortable as I imagine studying in the stairwell would be, I’m pretty sure I can rustle up another chair for you.”

The offer took him by surprise, and Enjolras hesitated, trying to find a good reason not to and coming up short. “Are you going to watch TV all night?”

Grantaire shrugged. “Maybe. But I can put some headphones on if it’ll bother you.”

Enjolras’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you sort of need to pay attention to the security of the building?”

“Yes, because I’m sure all of the students who have gone home for the summer are planning to break into the library,” Grantaire said dryly.

Enjolras laughed lightly. “Well, when you put it like that…”

Grantaire perked up. “So is that a yes?”

Enjolras hesitated for only a moment more before jerking a nod. “Let me grab my stuff.”

Grantaire grinned. I’ll be here.”

“I’m sure you will,” Enjolras muttered, turning around to grab his things from upstairs. He knew that he should just go home, or maybe move to Starbucks or the student union, both of which he was pretty sure were still open 24/7.

But if he was being honest, he was mostly just working to have something to do while he waited for Combeferre and Courfeyrac to get back to campus. And besides, whether or not it was flirting, if Enjolras was being entirely honest, he hadn’t entirely hated the conversation he’d had with Grantaire.

Even if Grantaire was two steps away from being a fascist cop.

His mind made up, Enjolras gathering his belongings and made his way back to the circulation desk, letting himself behind the desk and joining Grantaire back in the office, where, true to his word, Grantaire had procured another chair. “Voila,” Grantaire said, grinning up at him, and Enjolras set his stuff down on the desk, glancing at the computer screen, which was paused on an advertisement.

“What are you watching?” he asked.

Grantaire glanced at the computer as if he’d completely forgotten he was watching anything. “Oh, uh, Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”

“Seriously?” Enjolras demanded.

“Yeah, well, it’s quite popular—”

Enjolras snorted. “Sure, it’s copaganda repackaged into a sitcom, what’s not to love?”

Grantaire whistled lowly. “Wow, you must be fun at parties.”

“I make it my business not to attend too many parties,” Enjolras retorted.

Grantaire looked amused. “I’m not entirely sure that’s the comeback you think it is.”

Enjolras had realized the same thing, and flushed slightly. “Seriously, though, don’t you understand what role shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine or Law & Order or—”

“Or Chicago PD or NCIS or CSI when it was still airing,” Grantaire continued, nodding officiously.

Enjolras glared at him. “My point,” he said icily, “is that these shows have engendered in the American public a tacit complicity in the ever-expanding and increasing militarization of our police.”

Grantaire nodded. “They sure do.”

“You agree with me?” Enjolras asked.

Grantaire raised an eyebrow. “That surprises you?”

Enjolras shrugged. “I mean, I was expecting even boilerplate pushback about how it’s ‘just a show’ or something like that.”

“Entertainment is as much a reflection of society as it is a tool to shape it,” Grantaire said, propping his feet up on the desk. “Only an idiot would argue against that.”

“And I’m meant to believe you’re no idiot,” Enjolras said dryly. “So then are you just...ok with the militarization of our police?”

Grantaire sighed. “Of course not.”

“Ok, so you acknowledge the role shows like this play, and you are against said role, but you’re watching it anyway?”

Grantaire considered it for a moment. “Yeah, sounds about right,” he said cheerfully.

Enjolras stared at him. “But...why?”

“Because I believe you can critically engage with the media you consume while also, y’know, consuming it,” Grantaire said. “Besides, it’s funny.” Enjolras shook his head slowly but Grantaire didn’t let him speak, instead patting the seat next to him invitingly. “Look, you and I can and probably will argue about this all night, but how about you sit for it? I’m getting a crick in my neck looking up at you.”

Enjolras’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”

“Really?” Grantaire asked mildly. “I would think you of all people would be more in favor of an egalitarian seating arrangement.”

Even though Enjolras glared at him, he nonetheless sat down. “Fine,” he said stiffly. “But don’t think that this conversation is done.”

Grantaire grinned at him. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Besides, I’ve got all night. Are you going somewhere?”

This time, Enjolras didn’t hesitate. “I’m not going anywhere.”

#Enjolras #Grantaire #Enjolras x Grantaire #exr #enjoltaire #ask #answered #hey nonny #les miserables #fanfiction #one shot #modern au #developing relationship #prompt fill #Anonymous

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cultofplush · 2 years

Text

Fallout Shitpost

This is gonna be one of the dumbest takes I’ve ever posted but whatever, here goes:

I have seen real-life, actual people in the world who have Brotherhood of Steel tattoos, and I can’t help but judge the fuck out of them

Other than the chapter of the Brotherhood from fallout 3, you know, the one that is outcast and cut off from the rest of the organization for being “too radical” in that they want to...help people? the Brotherhood is kind of awful as an whole, just a bunch of self-righteous technology hoarders who COULD be helping people, but mostly just spend their time reinforcing this ridiculous macho warrior-priest culture and making sure no one but them has access to the best technology from before the war

and they’re not even that GREAT with the tech they DO have -- at best, they’re good at refurbishing old equipment from TWO HUNDRED YEARS in the past. Unless I’m missing some kind of ~deep lore~ here, all the power armor and stuff? Yeah, all of that is refurbished OLD gear, military surplus, and yeah, I guess it’s supposed to be a making a point about how excessive the pre-apocalypse war machine was so huge that even 200 years later you’re still able to have a fully equipped cult of fascists still running around in it.

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whitehotharlots · 3 years

Text

It’s all religion, and it’s all profane

Over the past few days I have delved, rather pointlessly, into the messy scenery of the UK’s ongoing gender wars. My interest was equal parts morbid and academic. I hoped to answer two questions. First, why is the back-and-forth between trans rights advocates and gender critical feminists so vicious in the UK, culminating not just in the threats and recriminations found in the war’s American iteration, but in women being blackmailed and even arrested.

The second question is why is it even happening? That is, why is the UK in particular a hotbed for an ideological war of this type among liberal-identifying people, while in the US the feminist movement has accepted trans ideology more or less uniformly and with minimal pushback. My first inclination was that it was a matter of professional survival. Perhaps academic jobs aren’t as precarious in the UK, meaning that it’s somewhat safer for people to issue heterodox opinions. But, again, the viciousness of the first question seems to rebut my assumption in regards to the second. Losing your job is bad, but going to prison is worse.

Of course, I found no clear answer to either question. UK academe is utterly unknowable to an American who’s never experienced it. I found out what “O Levels” means but after that I got kind of lost. As much as a shitty lie our myth of academic meritocracy might be, the UK makes us look like a Dutch Montessori school run by doctrinaire Quakers. If your first name isn’t proceeded by Lord, Lady, or Sir, or if you don’t have a number after your name that’s at least as high as The Fourth, there’s not much of a chance you’re going to get yourself a gig within Oxbridge.

So I delved into the viciousness, and oh boy did I get what I was looking for. The English are renowned for their dry, cutting humor, but that’s because only the best of the best come into the American purview. The majority of pedestrian UK humor is a sort of sarcasm without jokes. Like, let’s say you brought home a sausage pizza. I asked you what the topping was and you said “It’s pepperoni, mate.” And then you opened it up and it was sausage and that made me confused and slightly pissed. That’s the extent of the comedic ability of your average Brit.

The fights, meanwhile, are more direct and blunt, really a sight to behold. Again, there’s no attempts at humor, which tend to accompany the verbal conflicts of Americans. When Americans fight, we’re usually doing it to try and get the people around us to think we’re cool. When UK people fight, they just want to hurt the other person.

Of course, there’s much in common between the US and UK iterations of gender discourse. Minor disagreements are regarded as violence, hyperbolic overstatements of harm are routine, and person who uses terminology that was considered progressive up until very recently can find themself labeled a Nazi for not making linguistic adjustments quickly enough. But it’s still somehow even more rancorous in the UK. You get a sense that they’re not in it just for online clout but out of a desire to cause real, physical harm to members of the other side.

One of the more salient aspects of UK arguments is how their insults will often consist of a simple description of a person. Sometimes you’ll get “fat” or “snaggle toothed” or something most of us would consider mean. But other times it’s like “you blonde cunt” or “you working class shite” or something else that us Americans would never regard as an insult. Mentions of religion are surprisingly common. They say “you Catholic bigot” as opposed to “you bigot,” or “you deranged Protestant” instead of “you freak.”

This really struck me. You’d never, ever see that in America. Firstly because it’s taboo (unless it’s a Republican talking about Muslims). Secondly, because we simply do not care. Your average religious American cannot articulate any meaningful difference between Catholics and Protestants. We have no need to, because as much as we love Jesus we don’t bother with any of the messy parts of religion, such as having a faint understanding of the faiths we claim to adhere to.

This, I have always felt, is the greatest folly of New Atheism. What are you gonna do, present a scientific case demonstrating the absurdity of the creation myth? You gonna stick solely to the bible and highlight its multiple hypocrisies and contradictions? What is that gonna achieve? These people had Donald Trump autograph their bibles. They think salvation can be purchased by giving 20% of their paychecks to millionaires who preach in stadiums. There’s nothing an outsider can do to profane their religion that’s more obscene than the manner in which they practice it.

(I recall a time in my mid-teens when I attempted to “A-ha!” a youth pastor with my knowledge of the story of Jephthah from the Book of Judges, who committed yahweh-approved ritualistic sacrifice of his eldest daughter. In response, the pastor informed me that he hadn’t read that part of the bible, and that his relationship with Jesus was more about the feelings it gave him than some words written down in an old book. Needless to say, he won the argument.)

The UK is, even now, broadly to the left of the US in regards to their social safety net and most cultural matters (this is a low bar, for sure, but they do clear it). Perhaps people who us Americans would identify as liberal (in that they don’t openly want to murder poor people; they’ll often still do it, but they won’t giggle while doing it) aren’t as ideologically siloed over there. The Democratic party is, after all, an unworkable mishmash of a few dozen different concerns, and their basic strategy since the Clinton era has been to blame the incompatibility of those concerns for the fact that their governance is indistinguishable from that of the GOP.

An American liberal therefore doesn’t focus on piddling things like principles or ideals or even whether or not a policy they support does the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to achieve. Paying too close attention to the workings of our coalition will reveal its manifest contradictions, which will in turn weaken it, and if gets too weak then we’ll once again have an evil fascist doing the exact same stuff that a good and honorable man like Joe Biden is presently doing. Instead, we must understand politics as a means of achieving self-actualization through the process of deferring our concerns to others. Those concerns are not addressed within the present system, no, and neither are our own, but worrying about cause and effect and results is not the point. It’s much more important to exist, to validate, and to listen.

In the UK, politics is still understood as politics. It is a means of gaining and exercising power. In the US, politics falls eerily in line with our profane understanding of what religious devotion entails: an acontextual, borderline illiterate expression of ourselves, which we have been trained to believe connects us to some kind of higher power that unifies us as humans by calcifying our utter disconnectedness from one another.

And so maybe that’s the difference? In the UK, people are delusional enough to think that politics is entered into by people who have something to gain or lose. In the US, it’s all about vibes.

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orionsangel86 · 3 years

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How are y'all puzzled by the end and how TPTB, Dabb and Singer seemingly got the wrong message about fandom, when I've seen countless of Destiel shippers being "pro-ship". Advocating to treat incest, pedo*lia and best*ality the same as queer ships, and how it's totally ok. How often "meta crew" called me terf, fascist for saying it shouldn't be accepted into our queer spaces. It got Bobo to write a char for superwiki. They prob thought we're all just thirsty women who want to see two dudes b*ng

I have no idea what you are talking about.

I’m not puzzled. I know some fuckery went down. I’ve stated my opinions countless times now over the past few months over on Twitter and since coming back to Tumblr properly on my conspiracies post:

TPTB are all business, and they made a last minute business decision based on backing the Walker horse and not wanting Destiel to distract from Jared/Sam, whilst being fearful of the gAY scaring away the CisHet Male audience that they so desperately wanted to cling on to for Walker.

Singer has always been a bronly. Has always seen any queer subtext purely as homoeroticism and is definitely the kind of person who would queerbait fans to get views.

Dabb was weak. He backed down and let his script get butchered.

I don’t know what you mean by destiel shippers advocating those things? Unless you mean supporting AO3 not being censored and regulated of course? Because if you are one of these people that thinks that AO3 needs censoring then you are part of the problem. Believe me, no one in Destiel fandom that I know of is normalising incest, pedophilia or bestiality. No one thinks those things are part of queer spaces.

Some people multiship though. So long as they respect tagging systems and don’t force other people to have to see nasty stuff like what you’ve mentioned, then let people be into what they’re into. I might personally find it gross, and a bit strange, but people are always gonna wanna explore fucked up topics for all manner of reasons. We ain’t purity police here.

Also something I feel I need to be very clear on, which I haven’t mentioned before but um “meta crew”. Which meta crew would that be? There are many many meta writers in spn fandom. We are not a hive mind. Some are some of the nicest people I have ever met, some I don’t interact with much but write some really beautiful stuff and seem to be good people, but there are others who call themselves meta writers who are just bullies, who mock and harass anyone who disagrees with their opinion. Do NOT lump us all into the same boat.

Why any meta writers would call you a terf or a fascist without a good reason is beyond me. I don’t have context here do i? Could you look back over what you said and consider if it sounded terfy? Or fascist? I dunno man I don’t have a say in this, if people have called you out for something you’ve said, maybe look back over what you said and try to see it from their angle? Especially if it was transphobic.

A general rule of thumb for interacting with any fandom:

Ship and let Ship - in other words, don’t judge people on the pairings they like, even if they are problematic, so long as those pairings are well tagged and labelled so people can block as necessary.

Your kink is not my kink - Don’t kink shame people. If people wanna write really fucked up shit, that’s their right. Again, so long as it is all tagged and clearly labelled with content warnings, then there shouldn’t be a problem. It’s not on you to psychoanalyse people for their reasons for being into twisted things. Some people may genuinely be abuse survivors who are using it as a coping mechanism. You don’t know.

The Archive is a fandom holy place - it is protected. It is adored. Do not attack it or you will feel the wrath of 100 different fandoms coming at you. The archive is free from censorship, free from corporate manipulation, free from outside sources trying to mess with it. The archive belongs to US.

Just generally don’t be an asshole. Fandoms tend to attract people who are different from the general norms of society. We were the nerds and losers in school, the queer kids, the ones struggling with MHI. We all have a lot of shit and are all just trying to navigate our way through life via our passions. Don’t shit on peoples passions. You’ll come across a load of people who disagree with you, and occassionally you might be unfortunate enough to come across actual bullies. But most of the time, it won’t take much to rub someone the wrong way because everyone in these spaces tends to be at least kind of emotional, and attached to their passions. So you really do have to be polite. I can’t even tell you how many people in this fandom hate me - some to the point of obsession and slander. I’ve got a block list a mile long and continue to add people to it. There are posts out there with my name and screenshots from my SM spreading lies and hate about me, encouraging people to laugh at me and accusing me of doing things that I have never had the time or the energy to do. Shit happens. Don’t be those people, and you’re golden.

Superwiki is well known by SPN writers for being a bible of information for the show. The writers have previously confirmed that they refer to the SuperWiki when wanting quick research for their episodes. Yes, Bobo named a character after the person who runs the wiki, but I doubt Bobo is aware of how problematic that person is. The name was just in honour of someone who put a lot of work into building the wiki, hell, even I use the wiki! But I certainly don’t support any of Jules personal views. Don’t read into things like that. It never means what you think.

The thirsty women part I would have agreed with back 6 years ago. But they have adapted with us now. We are no longer Becky in season 4. We became Charlie remember? And after that we became intelligent teenagers wanted to tell an exciting story. If they thought destiel shippers were all about the hot guys banging, they certainly wouldn’t have made the love story canon, and they did that. Remember? Cas confessed his love for Dean, and it was the most beautiful, touching, heartfelt moment in the entire series. They did that. Not because they wanted us to objectify the actors, but because they knew how much that love story meant to us. Unfortunately, the network had other ideas for the actual finale. But that doesn’t take away the writers intentions up to that point. So please don’t erase what they worked for.

Ultimately I’m not sure what point you were trying to make with this ask, but this post is I suppose my very long way of saying you are wrong.

#spn conspiracy theories #anti spn finale #destiel #fandom wank #asks #anon #Anonymous

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