Here's All The Ikuni Series Characters (and The Man Himself) Sorted By Their Astrological Sign In Case

MARY COMMISSIONED yourhandiheld FOR MY BIRTHDAY AND I’M DYING GOODBYE

IV…four…which sounds like death in Japanese…

死の世界…world of death… “afterlife”

🥀

Can't wait for the uniqueness of the holocaust to be a topic of importance in a political campaign in america in 2024. That's how it should be. That's normal

Les Femmes Palestiniennes (1974, Jocelyne Saab)

youtube (eng subs). vimeo (spanish subs)

Palestinian women share with men this role in the armed struggle. […] We run our suicidal operations, they attack us from airplanes. It’s easy to fight, using aviation when one is up against simple armed Fedayeen. They attack us with American and French airplanes. It’s not just Israel who’s at war with us, but also the United States and France and all the other countries. We’re not afraid of Israel. We fight at broad daylight, face to face. The coward ones fight with their aviation. The brave ones fight on foot to free their land. […] And if there’s a political (two-state) solution? There won’t be any political solution. The only thing there will be is Palestine. As long as there’s at least one of our children left alive, there won’t be any political solution. There will only be Palestine, in its entirety.

Meryl Stryfe.

1/5

every piece of ""autistic representation"" in hollywood sucks not just because of the infantalization and inspiration porn but because movie executives always fail to realize the real universal autistic experience: spending your childhood slowly and unfalteringly realizing all of your friends not so secretly hated and/or merely tolerated you at best and you've missed every social signal about it ever

lot of people take the idea they might be an oppressor like it's some kind of curse or marks them or makes them fundamentally irredeemable.

this means whenever someone suggests they might have structural power over some group, rather than being normal about it and going "oh yeah i should be mindful of how i act so i don't abuse that," they take it as a personal attack, and either jump to defending themselves by denying it, or start lashing out.

this makes 99.99999% of all conversations on this website completely fucking unbearable.

Many transformative works fandoms start with the assumption that they are part of an aggrieved minority that's the target of unjust persecution, given:

- homophobia at large in the wider world (many polls indicate that fandom has a larger-than-average percentage of queer people);

- misogyny at large in the wider world (most polls over the years indicate that fandom is majority female);

- regressive conservatism across the board regarding (but not limited to) media content.

And in the wider world: yes, transformative works fans are a minority, and often each individual has trauma, baggage, &/or a history of being marginalized and oppressed, if not outright harmed, in "real world" spaces.

However, within the communities of fanspace, I have rarely seen any subsect of fandom acknowledge that it is the dominant force within that fanspace in a responsible way beyond the occasional fundraiser (that benefits third party charities and not marginalized individuals within the fandom) or campaigns to get continuations of their preferred media or for their ships to get canonized (which is, ultimately, self-serving).

Instead, we get:

- defensive posturing every time even the mildest thoughtful critique of their favorite ships/characters/fandoms enters their awareness;

- widespread harassment campaigns framed as "victims" just "fighting back" against "oppression" (when the "oppressors" have fewer numbers, smaller reach/social capital/etc within that space);

- a very Americanized blend of "staunch individualism" (where one's own actions should be judged on their own and not as part of a wider pattern across fandom(s)) and "White Girlboss Choice Feminism" (where "if a (white) woman chooses to do something, it is inherently progressive for her to do it, without regard for her positionally or impact within an intersectional framework").

And so on.

What would "responsible ways" of acknowledging one's power within fanspace look like, you may ask?

- donating directly to and signal boosting mutual aid links, especially for fans of marginalized identities;

- taking hard public stances against bigotry of ALL kinds within the ranks of your fellow fans, by sharing information about bad actors, deplatforming and disengaging with bad actors even if they make fanwork you enjoy, and protecting/standing up for targets of harassment outside your fandom coterie(s);

- openness to thoughtful critique of your circle within fanspace (rather than being defensive and assuming victimhood by default) and sharing same, encouraging both yourself and others to learn and improve;

- actively taking steps to read/share/create fanwork (which includes meta, media analysis, etc) that embraces/uplifts a diversity of perspectives beyond your own.

If we can't be responsible with our social power *within the spaces where we do hold that power,* we're no better than those regressive white nerdbros complaining about "woke invasions" of "our spaces" - when the reality is, nerds won the culture war and have way more social capital than some John Hughes-style archetypes of the Bullied Nerd.

We can be better than them. Our fanspaces can be better than that. Let's work together to make that happen.