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demontobee · 8 months

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Good Omens is queering TV/storytelling - part 1: GAZE

I would argue that part of why Good Omens is so refreshingly queer is because it does not cater to the male gaze (which centers around the preferences - aesthetic, romantic, sexual, visual, logical, emotional, political ... - of mainly white men in positions of power):

no oversexualization of groups or types of people: Women or characters that could be read as female presenting are not overly sexualized. In fact, some of them are shown to be grimy, slimy and not sexual at all. All of them are real characters and not just cardboard-cutout on-screen versions of male misogynistic fantasies. They portray real people with real people problems. They are human, or exempt from our categories when portraying angels or demons. There are no overly sexualized bodies in general (as has so far also often been the case with young gay men, PoC, etc.), no fetishization of power imbalances, and not exclusively youthful depiction of love and desire.

sex or sexual behavior is not shown directly (yet): All imagery and symbolism of sex and sexuality is used not to entice the audience but is very intimately played out between characters, which makes it almost uncomfortable to watch (e.g., Aziraphale being tempted to eat meat, Crowley watching Aziraphale eat, the whole gun imagery).

flaunting heteronormativity: Throughout GO but especially GO2, there is very little depiction of heterosexual/romantic couples; most couples are very diverse and no one is making a fuss about it. There is no fetishization of bodies or identities. Just people (and angels and demons) being their beautiful selves (or trying to).

age: Even though Neil Gaiman explained that Crowley and Aziraphale are middle-aged because the actors are, I think it is also queering the idea of romance, love and desire existing mainly within youthful contexts. Male gaze has taught us that young people falling and being in love is what we have to want to see, and any depiction of love that involves people being not exactly young anymore is either part of a fetishized power imbalance (often with an older dude using his power to prey on younger folx) or presents us with marital problems, loss of desire, etc. – all with undertones of decay and patronizing sympathy. Here, however, we get a beautifully crafted, slow-burn, and somehow super realistic love story that centers around beings older than time and presenting as humans in their 50s figuring out how to deal with love. It makes them both innocent and experienced, in a way that is refreshing and heartbreaking and unusual and real.

does not (exclusively) center around romantic/sexual love: I don’t know if this is a gaze point exactly but I feel like male gaze and resulting expectations of what a love story should look like are heavily responsible for our preoccupation with romantic/sexual love in fiction – the “boy gets girl” type of story. And even though, technically, GO seems to focus on a romantic love story in the end, it is also possible to read this relationship but also the whole show as centering around a kind of love that goes beyond the narrow confines of our conditioned boxed-in thinking. It seems to depict a love of humanity and the world and the universe and just the ineffability of existence as a whole.

disability as beautiful and innate to existence: Disability is represented amongst angels by the extremely cool Saraqael and by diversely disabled unnamed angels in the Job minisode. Representation of disability is obviously super important in its own right, but is also queers what we perceive as aesthetically and ontologically "normal". Male gaze teaches us that youth and (physical and mental) health are the desirable standard and everything else is to be seen as a deviance, a mistake. By including disability among the angels, beings that have existed before time and space, the show clearly states that disability is a beautiful and innate part of existence.

gender is optional/obsolete: Characters like Crowley, Muriel and others really undermine the (visual and aesthetic) boundaries of gender and the black-and-white thinking about gender that informs male gaze. Characters cannot be identfied simply as (binary) men or women anymore just by looking at them or by interpreting their personalities or behaviors. Most characters in GO, and especially the more genderqueer ones, display a balance of feminine and masculine traits as well as indiosyncracies that dissolve the gender binary.

Feel free to add your own thoughts on this in the comments or tags!

#good omens s2 #good omens #good omens 2 #go2 #good omens meta #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #queer #queer TV #male gaze #thank you neil gaiman for cranking up the queer #neil gaiman #thank you neil gaiman

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littledemon55 · 2 months

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Why you shouldn’t watch Helluva Boss (this is coming from a former fan btw)

The only reason I continued to watch HB was because it did have some nice moments aka sparks of potential, however, in retrospect those moments were just there to appaer deep. They weren’t.

The characters swear WAY to much. It’s not funny.

Conflicts get resolved almost immediately

Stolitz is toxic af

Most characters are oversexualized, ESPECIALLY in merch

Male characters get way more screentime than the female ones

Almost all characters have daddy issues

The Sins don’t represent their sins (exept maybe Mammon)

Genuinely, everything is too one-dimensional

Unhappy Campers in its entirety just shows how deeply flawed the show is

They moved away from the pilot’s premise so fricking fast-

Vivziepop is confirmed to be a racist, fatphobe and also a transphobe against transmasculine individuals

Spindlehorse is known to be a very toxic work environment

More reasons are mentioned in the comments below ⬇️

#anti helluva boss #anti vivziepop #helluva boss critique #helluva boss criticism #helluva boss critical

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duaghterofstories · 18 days

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Someone unironically made a tiktok post that said 'The reason you all hate Chaggie is because it isn't oversexualized lesbians.' and another that I saw less then a minute later unironically said 'The reason you guys are shipping Charlastor and not Chaggie is because you're homophobic.' (Both are mildly paraphrased)

First of all, that's not true. I am gay. Charlastor literally have something going for itself other then the lack of anything that Chaggie had. Vaggie had nothing about herself that wasn't somehow about Charlie. Literally everything revolved around her. She had no personality. Alastor does outside of Charlie.

Vaggie does not give a fuck about any of Charlie's goals. She has no investment in redemption. She is only doing it because Charlie wants her to, and it's abundantly obvious that she doesn't care about the Sinners, even the ones who she is supposed to be close to.

Alastor doesn't really care about it, but he is invested. Yes, it's not because he cares in the same way that Charlie does, but he is there not because Charlie asked, but because he wants to be there. He is there to be entertained, but he assists Charlie because he wants to.

Vaggie also just enables Charlie's stupidity and willful ignorance, but Alastor doesn't feed into it.

Also, the lack of sex is very odd. Both of them are presumably sexual, neither are Ace, so it would make sense we would at least get some clues. But it seems more like Chaggie is just the stereotyped lesbian couple of 'Pure no sex lesbians, one is mean and the other is a soft baby'. It's a Vivziepop show. The lack of sex between them is very odd. Not why I don't like it, but just a comment.

There are other reasons that I hate Vaggie, but this is a post specifically about her relationship with Charlie and why it sucks.

#anti vaggie #anti chaggie #charlastor #alastor x charlie #charlie x alastor #hazbin ships #radiobelle #pro charlastor #anti charlie x vaggie #anti vaggie x charlie

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ohhnorr · 2 years

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Genshin impact is so painful now

I love this game to death, the open world and its lore, the dragons, the gameplay, and the land of liyue reeled me in. And ofc Kaeya was one of the major reasons I started playing. I've been playing the game like maybe a month since it was released. So, like the launch era (yes I take pride in that it was the best era).

Mondstadt was an amazing introduction, to the familiar buildings of Germany. And the beautiful design of the culture mixed with the signature of genshin's design made the characters brilliant. Now the first story event (reconciling stars??) made me heavily excited about all the lore that was hidden ingame.

When I got to liyue I was glued to the game, forever, I thought. This was china from a whole nother perspective for me as a Moroccan. And to see such an elegant (not heavily sexualized) character like Ninguang in that cutscene. Yo, I fell in love. Childe was cute too, but then the man that got me everything or anything related to excitement and admiration came upon us. Zhongli. Oh, he was the package, with a beautiful outfit reminding u of the Chinese culture as it has its own modern genshin signature twist. Stunning. It's such characters that get me obsessed with games. Next to all of the intricate details and lore plus gameplay.

To finish off, Inazuma. That was one beautiful region, from the flora to the architecture. The temples and that beautiful quest. Ayaka's design is by far one of my favourites. Her design has her culture written all over it and it's beautiful. In Inazuma, we have so many characters inspired by their Japanese ancestry and it looks stunning and recognizable.

But then the sumeru leaks dwindled along. I was super excited for sumeru, that was my downfall.

After seeing these 3 beautifully represented cultures i was so naïvely excited for Sumeru. And thats expected right, i was rightfully excited to see the beautiful culture of the middle east, north africa and SEA being equally represented like the other three.

But thats when i heard al haitham an important arab figure whose name is now being occupied by a white buff tech man with a fandom who couldnt even pronounce his name right and call him habibi ?

ATTENTION: REPRESENTING. SWANA

Unrecognizable. In no way was the representation of Sumeru as intricately thought out as with the other regions. We have been colorised, orientalized and sexualized once again.

I'm gonna start with the one hurting me the most, Dehya.

(Listen i only heard her name and i was so excited to see my culture in this game i was jumping and ecstatic to see representation--- wait she is a cat girl warrior tf)

Dehya's name is inspired by Dihya, the name of an Amazigh Algerian military queen (Kahena). So quite a name to live up to. The Imazighen (us North Africans) barely get any representation as it is. And when we do, we become drawn out as barbarians or savages (for example another "name" for us is Berbers which the Romans called us).

Now what does Dehya look like huh? Yes indeed she has been revealed to be some warrior cat with an wild and savage look. And as an amazigh i hoped to see at least a little of our beautiful culture respresented. Yet i didint recognize any cultural aspects in comparison to litteraly any character in this game.

While we actually wear alot of beautiful jewelry! And we also have beautiful tribal tattoos, and Dihya herself is such a stunning figure to take refrence from.

But instead we get practically nothing. So we are now standing up for her. And yet there are people complaining against us saying that sexualization happens to every character. But Dehya is litteraly oversexualized on such a level that no cultural aspect is recognizable nor a point of interest.

Look im aware of the sexualization of female characters in games especially in gacha's. And its mostly the reason why i dont play alot of them. Yet in genshin its more mild and the design still upholds cultural aspects. Like with Inazuman characters; https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/o7eifv/inazuma_characters_design_analysis_spoilers_for/

And alot of Liyue characters;

This is why i ask of the bare minimum. To analyze and take interest in the amazigh culture. So Dehya's design could be oh so much more elevated and still badass. Because we as well would love to see a badass cat warrior with actual amazigh tattoos, clothes and jewelry.

Unfortunatly she isint the only problematic character.

Nilou, is an Persian dancer. Whilst having culturally accurate horns from the Sassanian period and a burst move from the gorgeous Persian dance. She has still been sexualized and orientalized. Dancers have always had their stomachs covered. Its culture, it's beautiful. By exposing the belly it's unrecognizable as Persian and becomes mixed with the Arab belly dancing outfit. If they want to sexualise her that badly then exposing the belly is the worst move- it erases the culture, it mixes with another culture, it sexualizes and orientalizes. It becomes a problem.

(Cr: demonscallme on twitter)

Tighnari, an amazigh name supposedly Moroccan. With ears from the fennec an animal from the western desert. Other than that his outfit and design is all over the place. In genshin they are more than capable of making modern day clothing mix with cultural themes. Yet this is not working at all. Nothing is recognizable nor representative of anything amazigh nor arab. Its just a jumbled mess. Disappointing in comparison to the modern clothing and cultural mixture of design with for example zhongli.

Dori is the worst of all the characters. She is orientalized and sexualized. No one encounters representation except seeing a fucking joke. She has no cultural aspects that are recognizable instead she is the spitting image of an orientalized character. They have a huge region and countries with countless cultures to take interest in. Yet they went with none and followed stereotypes. Her clothing is also grossly sexualized for a child model. It's disappointing how we are being spat on, our cultures are being treated like a joke.

Now a major argument against anything related to the word orientalism had been "it's fictional".

Stereotyping and racism are stated under orientalism. When we say it's racist, stereotyped, and so orientalized it is wrong, it should not be spread around as if it's nothing. It hurts to see and it's disrespectful. So we SWANA deserve just like the german, Chinese and Japanese to be respected and upheld with the same input into our designated region. This game isin't so fictional anymore.

Colourism, all characters until now are pale. Not denying it. We have in the swana region, people of all colours. If u are gonna represent characters from that region we expect different skin tones. To be recognizing oneself is an amazing experience. And it would be representing swana perfectly. It does not hurt it only embraces. That's why we are speaking up about this. Look I'm willing to wait, to take this back, the moment we get a broad set of people from different skin colours. Its not hard to do, it does not contradict anything. So why are people still pressed? Aren't we supposed to break free from the stupid standard of the pale is elevated. There are white Arabs yes, I'm not saying we can't have any pale characters. But with a region as broad as the swana region. There are bound to be some different skin tones and that should not be ignored.

To conclude,

we want to have equal input into our region as there has been done with the previous three. We want people to see our beautiful cultures. And above all, we want to be respected. Yes, we cannot have everything, but it does not hurt to try. It does not hurt to speak out. And you who are against this notion, you are not achieving freemogems out of this. You are not changing our minds. You are not the only one in the world. Broaden your perspectives. For the sake of an exceptional game.

#genshin impact #genshin impact inazuma #genshin #genshin impact liyue #genshin impact leaks #sumeru #genshin leaks #genshin impact sumeru #sumeru leaks #genshin impact dehya #dehya #genshin impact haitham #al haitham #Tighnari #Dori #Nilou #Collei #genshin sumeru

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potuzzz · 10 months

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This is an excellent question!

This is going to be an incredibly long answer!

On the surface, yes, it would appear that way. After all, nothing can beat the original Nazis at fascism, right?

However, upon closer inspection, we can see that the United States is not only a fascist country, but the most successful iteration of fascism to exist in human history. The Nazis are more overtly fascistic, but the true genius of U.S. fascism is how it has doled out more death and destruction but can avoid the Obvious Bad Guy reputation the Nazis quickly accumulated.

- - -

So fascism as we all know is tricky because 100 people will give 100 different definitions of it. I myself started off loving Umberto Eco's "Ur-Fascism," and eventually added more excellent breakdowns by people like Lenin, Parenti, etc.

Personally, my favorite way to simply define fascism is "imperialism, turned inwards," with imperialism of course being "the highest stage of capitalism," or "capitalism in decay." I myself do not really see fascism or imperialism as separate from each other in the same way that a highly abusive person is not fundamentally operating differently when they are abusing themselves versus abusing others; both are symptoms of a highly damaged person, whether they internalize it or externalize it, because in truth the two go hand-in-hand and reinforce each other. I also see fascism/imperialism as the logical development of capitalism, capitalism is meant to either evolve into socialism or stagnate and fester into fascism, capitalism cannot truly stay still. This becomes more evident when one sees Western-style social democracy as the prettiest face of fascism--and once one understands the true nature of social democracy as this, it will become quickly clear why the U.S. is so wholly and dangerously fascist.

For starters, let's go back to the whole internal vs. external abuse example.

If we look at the internal, domestic policy of the United States, no country has so wholly abused their subjects such as us. This country immediately began with the incredible genocide of an entire continent of the Native people, then was built on the backs of the most extensive slaving operation in human history. Alone what we did and continue to do to the Natives and to Black Africans cannot be matched. We have abused the Black American to the point that they are firmly relegated to a terrible second-class citizenship that is largely invisible to the average person--even American progressives tend to fail to truly understand how fundamentally different and crueler the role of the Black American is. This is of course to say nothing of the long tradition of the poor whites, the yeomen relegated to the same squalor and suffering who are pitted against their Black brethren while often enduring the same spit and whips.

Sex and gender here are so distorted that we are stuck with a choice between dangerously inhuman violent Puritan prudishness that seeks to burn all sexuality out of human beings with a red hot fire poker, or the debilitatingly depraved, violently hyper pornographic commodified oversexualization of anything and everything. Here, people may fuck with desperation or abstain with desperation, but rarely do people experience genuine connection, love, sensuality or eroticism.

Our incredible rates of suicide and mass shootings are a feature, not a bug. The depths of mental illness affecting all Americans is truly unique, and the cultural differences between us and other countries while not always able to be easily articulated neither by USians nor non-USians, is stark. Nowhere else is advertising so omnipresent, aggressive, relentless. Nowhere else is fear and misanthropy so cleverly interwoven into every facet of society. Nowhere else has the very existence and concept of community be so thoroughly devastated and perverted. Nowhere else does every single political faction--from fascists to conservatives to liberals to "leftists" to the "apolitical"--think they are truly anti-status quo and yet, without fail, wholly and happily adhere and advocate for the Empire's will at every turn.

It is genius because it is so completely unremarkable; people do not even register how evil the commercials on the TV or on their phones are. People don't get exposed to enough people outside of their bubble to truly appreciate how unnatural and fucked up their every interaction and supposed relationship with others is. It is so unceasing, people barely have a moment with their heads above water to have something decent to compare it to.

This is to say absolutely nothing about the state of our healthcare and education, which regularly and reliably gets worse results than some of the poorest countries in the world and yet with 100x the cost. We have the greatest homeless population in the world by several magnitudes.

This is to say nothing about the absolutely despicable state of every artistic medium of entertainment that is produced here or influenced by here, from our music to our movies to our shows, games, books, and all else. Dishonesty is so deeply ingrained in our way of life that I hardly see someone smile and mean it.

This is to say nothing of this being THE highest concentration of corporate power in the world--one of the most essential hallmarks of fascism. This is THE homebase of capitalism. We have a completely, openly non-existent democracy and yet, with fascistic Newspeak, we dare to chant about how free and democratic we are and how we must violently spread our freedom and democracy to the entire world.

Ah, yes, the entire world.

Another powerful hallmark of a true fascist entity is how they react to their foil, to their mortal enemy, to the opposite end of the dichotomy: socialism.

Every single even remotely leftward movement, individual, or country in the last 100 years has, at the very least, endured an attempted murder (or hundreds of attempts) by the U.S. government. The entire continents worth of people in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia were all steadily becoming more and more progressive, many interested in outright socialism, in the 1900s. And time after time, we violently invaded, couped, bombed, assassinated, sieged, embargoed, and starved them. We have installed fascist dictators and fermented fascist movements in every nook and cranny of the world--even our lily white European counterparts we keep as pets in the garden were not safe from this. Our war doctrine has not just the precedence by the outright encouragement to target water treatement facilities, hospitals, schools, churches, playgrounds, factories, power plants, libraries. We kill children for sport and then post-humously label them "combatants." When people flee our flood of death, we will napalm entire ecosystems just to ensure that no man, woman, or child can live on this land if we can't own them and use them as slaves. Hundreds of millions of civilians ALONE have died by our hands, and that's just going off of what we openly admit to doing. Democracy, prosperity, and peace by foreign people in foreign lands is treated like a cancer by the U.S., to be eradicated with extreme impunity.

When we are not exporting raw death and destruction, we export racism, lies, anti-intellectualism, psychologically manipulative advertising, destability, insecurity, queerphobia...

We are literally destroying the world as the single greatest contributor to climate change, both by lifetime pollution and per-capita contributions. And this DOESN’T include the U.S. military, the true single greatest polluter on the planet, who gets a pass from being counted. Because, oh yeah, we have complete control of the Western institutions that define the rules for our world. We completely control the academia, the media, the sciences, and the rules for trade, diplomacy, war, and all else--none of which we follow--and those who dare to make their own rules, we seek their death.

Some of the worst empires in recent history were some of our greatest inspirations. When we inherited the British Empire, we didn't criticize them for their genocides of the Indians or the Irish, or carving up the world to plunder and sparking endless needless conflicts, we said, "Wow, cool. We can do that, but more subtly and effectively!" Our form of evangelical fascist Christianity is an evolution of the European conquistadors and missionaries that preceded us. America LOVED fascist Germany until our interests in domination eventually pitted us against each other; we ignored the Soviet stories of the Holocaust for as long as we could, we could not send American soldiers to undo this damage because they were too sympathetic to the Nazis over the Jews and Slavs and gays and Blacks and disabled, and after firebombing Dresden and Tokyo for fun, after nuking Japan twice despite their defeat and surrender being well-known to be immediately imminent, after all of this what did we do? We fought against the other Allied Powers, who had suffered actual invasion and destruction and death, to preserve the lives of as many Nazis as we could. Why? To integrate them. We brought powerful Nazis into the US as scientists, think tankers, sociologists, legislators, generals, and said, "Hey! We really liked what you were doing, but it was a little sloppy. We like your spunk, kid, you just need to buff the rougher edges. Let's build something together!"

Whether we are talking raw body count, destroyed cultures, destroyed countries, destroyed ecosystems, or more abstract things like the damage to people's psyches and sensibilities, there is no contest. The United States beats all other fascist empires put together. The British, Japanese, Germans, Romans, and Israelis combined don't do a dent compared to the stain United States of America has left on the human race.

- - -

Fascism to me is ultimately a spiritual addiction to fear that operates on the bleakest possibly understanding of reality, with everything else being a symptom of this core disease. And if there is one thing I see when I look on the face of an American? It's fear, and an unrealistically pessimistic understanding of how life is and how reality operates.

We are the singularly most brainwashed population in the world. Our values are so horrifically butchered and removed from normal human experience, our worldviews so radically corrupt, I daresay it would take the most extensive, intensive and resource-heavy re-education campaign in human history to undo the damage the system has inflicted upon, unfortunately, not just US citizens but on hundreds of minds across the world we have polluted through our influence.

- - -

I want to be clear that, obviously, other countries and peoples throughout history of all colors have done terrible things. Part of that is just the human experience. However, the internal logic of capitalism necessarily and invariably results in the highest echelons of power being occupied by deeply insecure misanthropic psychopaths who have the most potent and insatiable hunger of any human being, increasingly, slowly over time. A wide array of factors all played into the U.S. becoming the focal point of evil, and if just one variable had shifted it might have been somebody different. But it is us, and the world is a brighter place every day deeper we go into the 2020s and this bastard beast dies slowly by no hand other than its own.

- - -

This honestly could no joke be a 400 page book so I am heavily generalizing, glossing over entire insane tangents, reducing incredibly depraved events into vague gestures. This shit goes as deep as you like.

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zvtara-was-never-canon · 13 days

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Yesterday I saw a post that basically said that Avatar wasn’t a feminist show that has a bias towards Zuko and that no female villains get redeemed(?!?)

And said that the show oversexualises Azula which like WHAT

This is not a Cuties situation the camera never accentuates cleavage or anything, if you just saw Azula showing more skin in the beach episode (because she’s at the fucking beach) and then immediately thought about sex that sounds like a you problem.

People really gotta learn what words mean - and that no show from nearly TWENTY YEARS AGO is gonna present social issues the same way modern series would. Avatar has two whole episodes in which the whole lesson is "Sexism is bad, don't mistreat women", and a ton of the female characters are absolutely badass and incredibly well-written. One or two questionable moments is not enough to make claim it is misogynistic.

A female villain not getting redeemed while a male character does is only sexist if her gender is presented as the reason why she can't be redeemed, or if they did all the same things but her actions are presented as worse - and while the ATLA fandom is often guilty of that last one (not always because of sexism, but also because of ableism), that doesn't mean the writting of the SHOW was sexist.

I say this as someone who loves Azula's character and wants a redemption arc for her: the show's ending is a tragic, but logical one. Not everyone changes. Not everyone wants to change, or even gets the chance to. It's sad, but it makes sense and there's nothing offensive about the finale (unlike the way Azula was treated in the comics, but once again the root of the problem there was "the mentally ill are inherently evil/beyond help so anything and everything done to them is justifiable").

"The show oversexualizes her" That one is bit more complex - but not THAT much.

Avatar is a show with lots of fanservice (see Zuko taking off his shirt causing birds to fly and fangirls to appear behind him squeeling), but all of it is stuff that was ALWAYS presented in a way that was 100% appropriate for children. More importantly, the show never tried to use the fanservice to compensate for poor writting or to make Azula an evil seductress (a trope that is not inherently sexist, but can become so if the writer isn't careful with it). Making Azula gorgeous in a scene, or letting Grey Delisle have some fun like the did during the confrontation Zuko and Azula had in The Awakening, is not the same as them reducing Azula from character to sex-object.

Once again, the fandom is far more guilty of the "Attractive means sexual and sex is evil" mentality than the show ever was. I lost count of how many people "theorize" that Azula is a "slut" who slept her way to the top and has even raped people (usually Zuko and Suki) even though the show made it clear she can't flirt to save her life, is so respected/feared because she's a great fighter/manipulator, and has literally never forced herself onto her brother and was obviously lying when implying she had done something Suki because THE SHOW ITSELF told us everything she was telling the Gaang on that scene was just an attempt to buy her father more time until the eclipse was over.

Some of the fans treat her as the typical "evil femme fatale that you can tell is evil because she sleeps around", but the show itself never did that.

Also a lot of what I sometimes see fans claim is "sexualization" is just mundane stuff. I lost count of how many times people were losing their shit because "WHY IS A FOURTEEN YEAR GIRL ALWAYS WEARING MAKE UP?"

Maybe because said fourteen year old is a perfectionist that can't even stand to have one hair out of place, so obviously she'd want her face looking perfect too? Or maybe she wants to look older not to "seduce" anyone but because she'd rather not risk not being taken seriously for being so young? And, crazy thought but bear with me here, maybe, just maybe... Azula likes make-up. Revolutionary concept, I know.

And it's not like the show ever got weird about it like the comics (seriously, girl is hallucinating in a straight-jacket and her hair is all messed up, but SOMEHOW she put on lipstic/the doctors did it for her????). She had a clean face when she was sleeping and when she was at the royal spa getting her hair done, and even at Chan's party her make-up is exactly the same she wears during the day. The "weirdest" place she wore it at was at the beach, and again considering it's Azula, who always wants to look perfect, I can see it.

Seriously guys, there's a difference between "TikTok is constantly telling women, teen girls and children they need to buy 37 different products that they gotta put on before anyone can *gasp* see their face" and "This cartoon had one of the characters constantly wearing make-up because that's a thing teenagers do sometimes + it helps the character be more memorable"

#azula is no femme fatale

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feminismisstillahatemovement · 8 months

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Going anon because this just corrodes me due to being too stupid, but I´m the only one that thinks porn at large has done a lot of damage to society? From gender to politics and economics, I think porn was like a small dog at the start that somehow we allowed to get too wild and now is ravaging society at large, sometimes without us noticing. Maybe is just a conspirancy from someone that hates how oversexualized is everything nowadays, but there must be a tiny bit of reason in this way of thinking imo.

Well, like prostitution, pornography has always been with us (the word itself goes back to the ancient Greek words for prostitutes and writing): intentionally erotic depictions of sex exist in architecture and cave paintings and everything else for thousands of years, and as soon as the printing press was invented, erotica was one of the first things mass-consumed.

What's really changed this century is the ease of access to it that came with the internet: suddenly every sexual thought can be played out by others for you every second of the day, which has led to us all having the mind of some jaded and deranged sultan, clapping his hands every 5 minutes to bring on the dancing girls and their one cup to relieve his boredom.

But I think focusing on just the sexual aspect of this is to miss the bigger change that is happening, in which ALL our internal thoughts are moving online, into the global machine: Porn cuts us off from, and makes us less reliant on, and interested in, others, but then so does an Instagram account. So does Twitch, so does Twitter. So does Tinder. So does online shopping.

All these things eat away at, and replace, our deep flesh and blood connections with others, and trap us in our own minds, our own echo chambers, our own fantasies. It seems to me they all make us a little less warm and considerate and human, and yet it's only humans that would come up with any of it.

So there's the rub: the technological progress it is a result of is not a genie that's going to go back into any bottle; it's global change that we aren't going to be able to stop, so to a large part we just have to accept that the world has changed and this is what reality is now.

Like recreational drugs, internet porn exists and runs rampant the way it does because it partially solves an aspect of human loneliness. The downside of both is that by doing so they increase all the other aspects of human loneliness. You won't "solve" the "problem" of pornography without fixing the much bigger problem of millions of people not having happy, joyous, love-filled existences that seem better to them than painkillers, fantasy and hermitude.

The only way I know to counteract at least some of the negative effects of all of the above is to deeply fall in love with another, and prioritize real-life connections with real-life people over pixels on screens. But that is hard work, dangerous and frightening, which is largely why each one of us is staring at this Tumblr post right now.

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eth3real-ess3nce · 2 years

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My Astro Observations (part 4)

😳 Neptune in the 7th or Venus-Neptune aspects, is a catfish placement. This could both go ways, like they could be the one who has catfished OR could have been catfished by someone else before.

🐠 Mercury in Pisces can't type a sentence or a text without using emojis. Hey, it makes speech look more alive. 😂

🙄 Chiron in the 9th house or Sagittarius makes the individual incline towards a nihilistic mindset. It seems like their faith has been let down a lot in their lifetime, so they adopt a certain kind of philoshopy that "rejects" the meaningfulness of life overall. This usually stems from a self-loathing wound and they use such beliefs in order to avoid facing it. They believe everything is inherently pointless and the irony is that they gradually tend to jump from philoshopy to philosophy in order to find the meaning they've been subconsciously chasing after.

💙 Moon-Uranus or Venus-Uranus must have experienced online/long distance relationship at least once in their lives. Or long time crushes. Could mean that you met your s/o online too.

💭 Moon in Pisces can get lost in their primal, sexual desires and sometimes the individual can get hooked on pornography.

🦁‌ Leo Mars in the natal chart could indicate high blood pressure.

💻 Sun conjunct Mercury and Sun in the 5th house might choose a career path that has to do with lots of analysis (computers, psychology, etc)

‌🥀 Females with Venus/Moon aspects to Pluto, might have fallen victims of oversexualization and/or meaningless hookups. I've seen this a lot. Even if some of them wouldn't see themselves as stunners, they have this dark magnetism that tends to attract potential partners like moths to light. From a young age, they see this as a power of theirs and might engage in sexual acts just to gain validation + to feel like they are in control. This is more likely to happen after rejection, a breakup or during an emotionally intese period. Most of the time they regret it. And even if multiple hook-ups isn't the case, sexual trauma is almost always an issue for them.

🍒 Most girls I know that have Aries placements, have dyed their hair in red shades before.

🚢‌ I've seen too many men with Sagittarius placements / midheaven follow a career that is related to the sea , specifically traveling by it or working on-board! I just love it when the traveler archetype perfectly plays out 😂

‌🐏 There is a reason why Aries is so opinionated and fixated on what they have to say. Besides the quick-tempered nature Mars gives them, Aries is ruled by Mercury in esoteric astrology. People with prominent aries placements will always feel like they have to speak their minds. They're born to teach, to analyze, to understand. To bring new and fresh perspectives on the table and fight for them is one of their highest callings. Self-awareness is important though, in order to avoid being perceived as arrogant. 😅

🔮 Everyone is divinely protected in some way, but people with their natal Jupiter in water signs and/or water houses (especially pisces and 12th), are more protected more than most. This is because of good karma and their selfless acts.

💔 Hard aspects (square,opposition,conjuction) between Sun-Chiron and/or Moon-Chiron ; these people have inherited their parents' trauma and they're given the opportunity to heal their ancestry line. Known also as generational trauma, basically it's all the unhealed wounds from our ancestors being passed down to us. Such aspects indicate that the individual will indeed suffer in life, but as they spiritually evolve, they will be able to stop the generational wounding with their own healing. Their self-awareness is high so they will be able to see the trauma in themselves and other family members too. Chiron is literally the 'wounded healer' and this path of yours is full of loneliness, but it grants you tranquility in the end.

🌕 Women with an ill-dignified moon (moon with negative aspects to personal planets) might experience issues with their womanhood and tend to take visits to the obgyn more frequently than most.

🔥‌ Your 5th house ruler shows your sexual preferences and potential "kinks". For example let's say someone has scorpio in the 5th. Scorpio is originally ruled by Mars, their Mars is in taurus in the 10th house. Therefore the individual likes their sexual acts sensual and dominating.

‌🏆 Why do people with 10th house placements feel like they're never enough or that they are underaccomplished in comparison to their peers? It's because 10th house opposes their 4th house which represents what they learnt from home. Therefore, they feel that they live to meet their family's standards which might contradict their own. There's a constant battle between who family/society wants you to be and who you aspire to be. Don't be afraid to make a difference.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

#astrology observations #astro observations #astro notes #astrology

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uriekukistan · 16 days

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can you do maki for the character ask :3

yesss i love her ty for the ask :))

favorite thing about them: SHE'S SO COOL i love how she defies everything about jujutsu society, both in terms of gender expectations and also not having a curse technique

least favorite thing about them: gege loves toji so much that he has a hard time separating maki from toji sometimes

favorite line: sfjkgh i genuinely cant think of one idk why

brOTP: yuuta and/or yuuji. ik a lot of ppl ship her with yuuta and i see why but i also like them more just as friends. (holding out hope that this will be the Dream Team that takes down sukuna)

OTP: nobamaki...i love lesbians

nOTP: i havent seen her shipped with anyone other than yuuta or nobara, but im sure there's something weird like her with naoya or something like that.

random headcanon: less of a headcanon and more of an Idea, but she should try ballet (ik i have the dancers au but) like she's so flexible and agile, i think she'd be good at it. and i always have this idea of really skilled fighters training in dance so they can move easier idk. also i think her worst fear is how deeply she loves.

unpopular opinion: oversexualized. she's a teenager, if ur an adult, please get a grip. also in terms of manga readers, i noticed once her appearance changed with the scars and shorter hair, more people started disliking her, which to me is just further proof of her being oversexualized. i have this problem with a lot of jjk characters though, where they just get watered down bc of this.

song i associate with them: i think i said this for another character earlier, but half return by adrianne lenker

favorite picture of them: AWAKENED MAKI !!

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rainbowsky · 1 year

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Yibo-Official international accounts

I've gotten a lot of asks about the new Twitter account, so I guess I'll finally address these accounts Yibo-Official has created on international platforms:

Yibo-Official Instagram <- fake?

Yibo-Official YouTube <- fake?

Yibo-Official Twitter <- FAKE!!

Because the Twitter account has been shown to be fake, this calls into question the authenticity of all of them for me. The fan club that shared the Twitter account is the same one that shared the others. Proceed with caution.

However etiquette is still important so I'm going to leave this post up.

Let's talk a bit about etiquette...

International account etiquette

For those who are maybe newer to the fandom or who haven't spent a lot of time on the Weibo supertopics, you might not be aware of the rules and protocols turtles have over there.

Here are the rules in brief:

Never use their real names or tag their accounts.

Nor any other public figure.

Stay 'on-topic' and in your own lane, don't attack others.

Observe and respect top-bottom dynamics.

Don't use other people's content without permission, always attribute.

No feminizing or denigrating, or anything that can damage their image.

No sharing of private information or media about GGDD, no oversexualizing.

No fandom policing or spamming of the supertopic.

No sharing of anti material.

No reposting of content from other platforms.

No spreading of unconfirmed rumors and gossip.

Don't fill the supertopic with unrelated or personal posts.

No unauthorized contests or lotteries.

No merch or sales without admin approval.

There are some people who feel strongly that those rules should apply to international platforms as well. I've always disagreed with that to some degree. I talk about that a bit in this post. However, with GG and DD going more international these rules are becoming more and more relevant to us.

The first rule of BJYX is...

However one of the rules I feel absolutely must apply here as well as on Weibo, is rule #1: Never tag their official accounts or refer to them using their real names.

There are many good reasons for this, but ultimately what it boils down to is,

"what happens in turtledom stays in turtledom."

Everything we do here is for turtle eyes only. When you tag outside accounts or mention/tag their names or initials, you bring others into our world. That crossover can harm GG and DD in various ways.

This is something I talk about in my Fandom Etiquette guide, and it's something I feel very strongly about.

Just look at Twitter, where BXG are often tagging CPN posts, fan art and photo edits with GG and DD's individual names. Look at all the fan wars that causes when solos browsing their hashtags stumble across CPN and turtle fan content. It's completely out of control.

We don't like it when solos tag their hateful rhetoric with #bjyx or #yizhan, and this is why. It invades and impacts our experience of fandom. Please respect the fandom experience of others. Even solos you dislike deserve this courtesy, and as I have already stated, fan wars are harmful. We need to do whatever we can to prevent them.

And it's not just solos we should be concerned about. Anyone interested in GG or DD, when going to Twitter, is likely to browse #wangyibo and #xiaozhan. The last thing we should want them to stumble across is a fanfic prompt about spitroasting, pornographic fanart of GGDD, or CPN clowning.

Respect GG and DD's personal reputations.

It's fine to clown, it's fine to write fanfic and draw fanart - even smut. But it's not OK to make that a feature of what passersby will see when looking them up. STAY IN YOUR OWN LANE.

This is doubly true with their official accounts. Just don't do it.

And this goes triply for tagging official accounts in fandom disputes. Incredibly I've seen this happen on Twitter quite a bit, including solos tagging official endorsement accounts to slander BXG.

Do I really need to explain why that's an insane, ridiculous, utterly disruptive and awful thing to do?

EDIT: And toxic XFX on Twitter are currently tagging Yibo-Official on turtle CPN posts, trying to start a war. As I said in this update, blocking is the best protection for turtles and for Yibo-Official. Toxics can't tag and harass over posts they can't even see.

Bottom line: Just don't tag their official accounts. Don't comment in their account threads with anything Yizhan related - or anything related to the other (i.e. don't mention GG in DD's comment threads, or vice versa). Don't mention their real names in your clownery.

Don't do it.

Stay in your own lane.

A note on authenticity

I waited to post about these because I wanted to be sure they weren't fakes. While DD's fan club did post them on Weibo, I wanted to be doubly sure because of how misleading fakes can be. Especially since there were issues with one of the videos being removed from the YouTube channel (it was later restored).

The release of the Hidden Blade roadshow video on YT confirmed for me that this is highly unlikely to be a fake account. The video uses English captions in the same style as the Chinese ones that appeared on Weibo, which means that whoever added the captions had to have access to the original footage.

The amount of effort someone would have to go to in order to fake that clip, it's unlikely to be fake. They'd have to hunt down all the original clips (if the footage was even ever released previously), edit it precisely and then add captions. Not something I see a faker bothering with.

So while these accounts will likely never be 100% verified, I think we can be reasonably certain of their authenticity.

UPDATE: The Twitter account was a fake, so I think that we need to consider that all of them might be fake because the fan club that shared the Twitter link was the same one that shared the link to the YouTube and Instagram accounts.

Update 2: They are very likely real. I explain why here.

Is Tumblr coming next?

Some people asked me if Yibo-Official will create a Tumblr account. You people are monsters!! 😅 No, please no! The last thing I need to worry about is DD's team reading our clownery here! 😅

Rest assured, this is highly unlikely to ever happen. Tumblr is far too tiny of an audience to make maintaining an account here even remotely worth it. Especially since most of the people here also use the other major international platforms. There would be no point.

EDIT: Follow-up post here.

#bjyx #yizhan #bjyxszd #fandom reflections #yibo official #dd twitter #dd instagram #dd youtube #ask

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bloompawz · 3 months

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I think I'm aroallo?

CW: sex mentions, talk about aroallo stereotypes

I think I'm aroallo. I've been identifying as aroace for a while now, but I keep saying to my girlfriend, "I feel like I might not be asexual after all." I've been saying that again and again for months. Her response is always, "You're probably not."

I don't question my aromanticism at all. It's one aspect of my identity that I'm very sure about. But my asexuality, on the other hand... I don't think that I'm really ace. I feel like I've been clinging to the asexual label because of the assumptions people make about aroallos. Being aroace is one thing, but being aroallo is a lot harder for me to accept.

People tend to assume that aroallos are always hypersexual, or always loveless, or always prioritize sex above all else when it comes to their relationships with people. And all of those things are valid experiences, but they don't apply to me personally.

I've been trying to put it into words... People think that a lack of romantic attraction necessitates an amplified sexual attraction. Like just because I'm aro, I must be "more sexual" than other allosexual people. It seems like people think sexuality has to be "balanced out" with romance. But I'm not particularly sexual; I'm just not ace.

Tangentially related, this idea that "no romantic attraction = amplified sexual attraction" also seemed really prevalent in SAM discourse a while back. One of the big arguments people used against romantic orientation labels was that they were "oversexualizing" sexuality labels or "reducing everything to sex" by separating the romantic aspect from the sexual aspect.

I'm talking about the people who would say shit like, "Why would you call yourself biromantic instead of bisexual? Are you implying that bisexual people only care about sex?" when they saw a biromantic ace. That sort of "logic."

And the implication with that argument is, if the tables were turned (i.e. they were bisexual and aromantic), it would be appalling to them. And it was especially paired with the assumption that sex - romance = oversexualized, in whatever way "oversexualized" may be defined. Lots of sex negativity mixed in with the discourse.

On another note, I've voiced my disdain for the Attraction Layer Cake elsewhere before. There are a lot of problems with it, but I'm going to focus on the "Crimson" part specifically: the crimson layer is the only option if you're aromantic without being asexual. That and "Red" I suppose, but the red layer could describe any allosexual orientation, whether aromantic or not.

Crimson is labeled as aromantic sexuality, which is a problem in and of itself. It should say aromantic allosexuality. But that's not the part I take the most issue with. I hate the description.

"The purpose of relationships is primarily sexuality. Romance is not specifically desired."

Again, there's nothing wrong with prioritizing or emphasizing sexuality. But that's not an inherent aspect of being aroallo, and it doesn't describe me personally. The primary purpose of my relationships is emotional connection. Sex is just a cool thing that I may or may not do with people.

Also, "relationships" is vague. Does it mean relationships in general, regardless of whether they're romantic, platonic, etc? In that case, that's a huge generalization of the many types of relationships aroallos may have.

Or does it specifically refer to romantic relationships? In that case, that's also a huge generalization, because it assumes aroallos will have romantic partners, and it implies that it's only okay to have sex with people if you're also romantically involved.

Aromantic people also have to deal with a lot of explicitly negative stereotypes. Manipulative, abusive, cruel. I feel like these assumptions get amplified when you're aroallo specifically. A lot of people think that explicitly wanting sex, without explicitly wanting romance, automatically makes you a horrible person. I'm too exhausted to even delve into these stereotypes.

All I'll say is, there's nothing wrong with wanting sex, and there's nothing wrong with having no desire for romance. Sexual attraction doesn't need to be "justified" via romantic attraction, and sex doesn't need to be "justified" via romance. As long as everyone is consenting and upfront with their intentions, whose business is it anyways?

I'm not 100% sure if I'm allosexual. But after months of saying, "I don't think I'm asexual after all," I think it's safe to say that I'm not aroace. Maybe I'm greysexual at most, but eh. Whether I'm allosexual or ace-spec, there's one thing I'm certain of: I'm more aro than I am ace, if I'm even ace-spec at all.

I'm sitting here sort of feeling... Out of place. Like, everywhere. I'm a romance-indifferent aroallo, who isn't heavily sexual, but still enjoys sex. It's sort of isolating, I guess. It would be reassuring to see more people with similar experiences.

Slightly unrelated, but my primary special interest is Littlest Pet Shop, and I love putting these little guys on pride flags. So, here's the aroallo flag with a bunny on it. Makes me happy despite all the confusion and conflicted feelings

#lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtqia #aromantic #aro #aromanticism #aromanticity #aromantic spectrum #arospec #aroallo #alloaro #aromantic allosexual #allosexual aromantic #aromantic zedsexual #zedsexual aromantic #not sure if I articulated myself well but whatever #this took hours to type and the sun isn't even up yet #a healthy sleep schedule? what's that?

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bisupergirl · 1 year

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i’ve seen some talk lately about how superhero civilian outfits have become boring and uninspired, and that their outfits in the 70s/80s showcased a lot more individual personality. which kara outfits from back then would you say suited her the most?

thank u so much for this question i love thinking about kara's civilian outfits <3 here are some of my favorites from the 70s/80s:

(my favs from this are the green pants/black top and the pink skirt outfits from the top row <3) they're all very cute and fun. there was obviously effort put into designing something she would genuinely wear, and i think everything that they put her in does a good job at getting across what her personality was at the time. she was very confident and actually really enjoyed fashion, which you could chalk up to male writers thinking "what do women find interesting? clothing, obviously." BUT i do view kara as a very artistic person (in every field—acting, painting, music etc etc) so it definitely ties into that for me!

and because i spent a good half hour collecting panels of kara's more modern outfit choices, here's my thoughts on her fashion from other eras:

when kara was first reintroduced in 2004 it was clear that the outfits she was put in were chosen to maximize her sexual appeal:

to me this just reads as what the artists (ian churchill and michael turner in this case) found attractive. there's no real character reason for why she chooses to dress this way, which i guess is fitting considering how she was characterized during this time. imo she really didn't have a discernible personality beyond "oversexualized 2000s teenage girl". later on (when loeb and kelly stopped writing her) her clothing choices get more personality and it seems like there's genuine thought put into what she's wearing:

i'm generally not a fan of 2000s/2010s fashion (i do think a lot of these outfits are cute though!), but it's clear to me that the artists thought "what would kara—someone who's in her late teens and had been on earth for a couple years at this point—choose to wear?" instead of "what is the sexiest thing that i, a grown man, can think to put this teenager in?"

now for rebirth—i don't like how she dresses (i think it's boring and uninspired), BUT i do think it's fitting for her personality at this time. early on in rebirth kara was characterized as being pretty reserved and unsure of herself. all her clothes are fairly plain and she also worked at catco (cw supergirl my enemy 🔪) so she pretty much just wore business casual outfits all the time (🤮):

and i don't love it! it's just shirt-jacket-pants over and over again (with some exceptions). and it makes sense! she's trying to stay out of the spotlight and keep her identity hidden, so i get that she'd wear some plainer clothing that contrasts with what she wears as supergirl. and obviously it's important to keep in mind that she's like 16 at this point, so it's not like i expect her to have a super intricate wardrobe, but again it's just boring to me. it's somewhat fitting! but it stinks.

#asks #kara zor el #thank u again for the ask 😊#i think what gets me most abt her vol 7 wardrobe is that i fucking HATEEEE business casual.....#shes 16 let her have fun with her clothes!!#anyway nobody lets her appear anymore outside of background appearances where shes in her supersuit so! whatever.

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msallurea · 8 months

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Darling the world is gonna hate you suck it up

Not before you guys jump me just hear me out!! Something I've noticed time and time again even within myself is that majority of the things we want, the things we hate about ourselves, the things we love about ourselves, etc literally come from just what the world viewed us as.

For example, black girls are the biggest target when it comes to my statement. We have been brainwashed to believe time and time again that our ethnic features, our lingo, our presence, our aura, our skin, etc have all been deemed as "unattractive" or "ugly". Girls and even guys who have a certain tone or accent to there voice (I'm specifically talking about my southern brothers n sisters here) is seen as "aggressive", women with deeper more stronger voices are seen as "manly" that quite literally takes away women pure sense of femininity!! Our bodies, if your skinny your unattractive your called things like sticks n whatnot (yall know), if your fat you're unattractive, if your body is curvy the internet may try to deem u as attractive but then we go out in the real world you're now not only oversexualized but now your body is what defines who u are as a character they dont even care to know if you're nice or not they will judge based off your physique entirely saying names such as "slut" or "whore" or even going as far as assuming your ran through or something when alot of times that's not true at all. A more softer approach such as acne, having a big nose, if your hair is short or even if it's long but looks a certain eay(yall know what I'm talking about), you even liking a certain color now since it isn't trendy all of a sudden it's an "ugly color" be so fucking fr😭. Pink and purple were the top 2 prime colors that fit this description perfectly.

My point is this, I want you to take a realllllll good look at yourself in the mirror, think of everything you absolutely hate about yourself write it out if u need to absolutely every little thing. Now look at all those things you hate about yourself and ask yourself "Do I genuinely hate all these things about me? Or were these things I was TOLD to hate about me?" Soon enough you will eventually began to realize that a lot of those things you THOUGHT u hated about yourself, were actually opinions coming from someone else NOT YOU!! You don't like the way you smile? Why? Did someone tell u they didn't like your smile? Or is it your teeth? What's wrong with them? What's wrong with smiling your heart out regardless if u show teeth or not? Absolutely nothing!! Oh someone told you that dressing up in more classy attire rather than fast fashion makes u seem lame?? Oh so now u don't wanna be the guy that dresses like he's a rich and wealthy billionaire but rather something you know every other guy is wearing also?? What was wrong with dressing in a fresh suit or being color coordinated and dress to impress with your layers and your nice button down with the pressed slacks? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!

"Darling, for as long as I am here with you. I want you to learn and understand that this world, this world will hate you, this world will turn its back on you and they won't even have a real reason why but they will. I do not know why the world is this way and why it is so dark and cruel sometimes. But, you are the light the shines above all thos darkness. You are the angel that brings heaven to the hellish parts of the world. The world hates because they can't stand to be next to someone who loves themselves so much and are so secure and accepting of who they really are. Do not limit yourself because of the things the world loves about you that is for normies and you, my child, are not that at all. You are a Queen/King, hand chosen by the most high the God of all God's, to be in this world and bring love, light and beauty to its atmosphere, crafted by love, beauty, intelligence, compassion, empathy, patience, security, fulfillment, kindness, loyalty, discipline, strength, courage and all things divine. Don't you ever lower yourself for anyone in this world except God himself. Fall in love with your creation, be in love with the divine creation that you are just as I, and surely enough, in its own strange and peculiar way the world will also fall in love with you as well. Why? Because what is a world, without you in it? "

-Ms. Allurèa

#many of you need to hear this #msallurea #my blog #advice #fix your shit

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pxayopina-unilsiyu · 8 months

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look who's back with Opinions (tm)

i'll be 100% honest, i have no issue with smut in general. i don't personally consume it, but i can respect it as a form of expression (especially for women) in a very sex-negative purity culture world.

but... Avatar smut so often just completely irks me, and not because of the sexual nature of it. nah, it's not that, it's the creepy racism aspect that is so often prevalent. basically inescapable.

(nsfw warning for everything below)

Many a smutfic posted on here has some tag like "heat cycle" or "heat scent" or "knotting" that makes me recoil. This is not me trying to be a kink-shaming holier-than-thou puritan, rather, an observation about the way some people on here engage with the film and the Na'vi in general, that I think is worth thinking critically about.

In my opinion, these tags and similar ones all have something in common: animalization and exoticism. It's framing the Na'vi less as sapient beings with cognition and culture on an equal level to humans and more as primal and animalistic creatures who have yet to develop a society past the point of breeding permissions and sexual hierarchies--more akin to wolf packs and lion prides than human civilizations.

I don't think it's a coincidence how people so vehemently despised the RDA characters like Quaritch and Wainfleet until they were in Na'vi bodies and therein suddenly had exotic alien sex appeal. It takes a stunning degree of cognitive dissonance to be disgusted by their militaristic and imperialistic culture, mindset, and behavior when they're human, and then turn around and fetishize that aspect of them when they're Na'vi.

I don't think it's a coincidence how the Sully children, despite being no older than 16, are so rampantly sexualized by the fandom. And yes, most who write fanfics about them age them up or whatever, but I gotta ask why the focus on turning them into objects of sexual desire is so heavy--heavier than existing adult male characters like Jake, Tsu'tey, Tonowari, etc. I have never seen people so eager to mental-gymnastics their way into sexualizing a bunch of child characters like I do in the Avatar fandom.

Is it a coincidence we hardly ever see this kind of treatment given to Spider? Only the Na'vi children?

All of this to say--Kinks are informed by culture and society, among other things; they don't manifest out of thin air. I see this sort of thing circulate around the fandom and I have to pause and ask where it's coming from. The Na'vi are undeniably analogous to real-world civilizations and cultures, and I can't in good conscience say that how you engage with them in fiction is wholly detached from how you engage with these real cultures. I've witnessed firsthand how hatred of the Na'vi on the part of RDA apologists translates almost 1:1 with racism and imperialism apology toward real-world Indigenous cultures. I'm not pulling this out of my ass.

Fetishization of "exotic" cultures is a real aspect of imperialism and colonialism, the effects of which are still felt and seen today. Hypersexualization of Asian, Native American, African, and tribal cultures is still rampant in the modern day and was even more so even just a few decades ago. And you see this sort of hypersexualization of the Na'vi everywhere. Ironically, I even see this imperialistic mindset jump out when people try to critique the Na'vi for being oversexualized in the franchise: i.e., "They dress so immodestly!", ignoring the fact that modesty is a wholly Western construct, and women being "immodest" to colonizers was used by colonizers to frame them and their cultures as hypersexualized tribal beasts. It excused sexual abuse against them and their descendants by gaslighting the populus and even the abused themselves into believing sexual abuse was normal, excusable, desired.

(And to be clear, the Na'vi are not above criticism for leaning into Western perceptions of real-world Indigenous cultures, but I wouldn't say they're hypersexualized in the media itself. Yes, they dress """immodestly""", but their immodesty and bodies are never hypersexualized in writing or on screen, imo.)

In conclusion, I guess: I am not saying it's wrong to find the Na'vi attractive, sexually or otherwise. That's 100% okay! And agreeable! I'm not saying having the kinks described above is inherently wrong or that it makes one a bad person--but I am going to point out biases where I think they exist. Kinks are not immune to criticism and analysis. Anything you put out on the internet is subject to it. I'm not trying to stop anyone from writing this stuff or lecture anyone about how wrong and icky it is. You can write whatever you'd like; these are just my opinions. (And please fuck off with the "pro-ship" / "anti" discourse, i am not in the mood to deal with that bag of cats.)

Avatar is a franchise centralized around Indigenous rights and experiences, even if it's through the metaphorical lens of a fictional species. Eroding the shell of humanness that encases the Na'vi and their culture opens the door to mindsets like hypersexualization and fetishization and it isn't unreasonable to point out the possibility of that evolving past the movie screen.

And, just so we clear our bases: if nothing in this post applies to you personally, then it isn't about you--plain and simple. I'm not calling out anyone or any fanfics in particular. This post is about general themes and ideas.

ramble over

#avatar #avatar: the way of water #meta #18+ content #not even touching the misogynistic themes that are often extremely prevalent in 'breeding' 'heat cycle' and 'mating ritual' kinks #or how i have experienced first-hand how consuming this sort of content affects how people perceive my Na'vi characters and create their ow #anyway i barely proofread this so dont pick it apart too hard preferably #but im happy to have a chat about any of the ideas presented

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