174 posts
Latest Posts by blackwater776 - Page 2
Let's make one thing clear: TERFs at large do not care about women's rights.
That is why they will complain about trans women in sport, but not about how underfunded women's sports are, how women at times are forced to play in revealing outfits for the benefit of investors, or on fake grass, making injuries more likely. It is why they complain about trans women in sport, but not cis male and at times cis female trainers accussed or even charged with sexual assault trainging female teams.
They do not care about women's rights. That is why they explicitly ask cis men who want to commit violence against women in women's brathrooms - to scare off trans women, who never really assaulted anyone. It is, why they will support rapist and domestic abusers, bullying their victims of social media, while also complaining about the supposed inherent danger of trans women.
They do not care about women's rights. That is why they stay silent on fascist regimes trying to persecute women who abort or loose pregnancies, or even on those regimes trying to just receive safe healthcare.
They do not care about women's rights. That is why they do not push for better diagnostic criteria and medication for women - specifically also neurodivergent women, while they fearmonger about what they suppose are "girls forced to be boys".
TERFs do not care about the rights or safety of women. That is why they would rather hunt down a minority, who is far more likely to be victim of all forms of violence rather than the perpetrator, than stand up to those cis men who have assaulted, violated, and at times killed many, many women, and try to make this violence against women legal.
There is a reason why TERFs cheer for men like Trump, and Musk, and those like them. And that is, that they never cared about women's rights to begin with.
im gonna throw hands
Hi everyone, my works have been unfortunately stolen for generative AI use, as are most preceding March 2025. I don’t know/have the capabilities to file for copyright infringement and I’m unaware of the current status, however for future events, I will be locking my fics down for only registered users indefinitely. This really pains me, as someone whose fics are mostly enjoyed by guest users. Please share this information with others and protect your work at all costs! MY WORKS ARE NOT TO TRAIN GENERATIVE AI
Finding Fate and all other one shots, and my two original works will be locked from now on.
I have listed some information down below
One of my friends on Discord shared this and I think it's important, esp since there r a lot of fanfic writers not just in the tadc fandom but on this website/app in general. Spread the word y'all!
Oh, and by the way, that Supreme Court ruling is where that Harry Potter money goes.
Someone needs to study why everyone who meets Xiao Xingchen becomes permanently obsessed with him.
A-Qing knew him for about five minutes and was like, yeah I’m gonna follow him around for the rest of my life.
Song Lan is more subtle about this, but I want people to remember that they knew each other for only about a year, max two years. And after their parting he spent his whole time searching for Xiao Xingchen and now will spend the rest of his life trying to heal his soul. He’s a little more stable about it, I would say, but still.
And then Xue Yang, I don’t think that needs any explanation.
"Am I intersex?"
If you have ever asked this question, we hope this post finds you (and that you check out our intersex guide, which we updated today.)
Do you have high levels of androgens, or high levels of estrogen? That is intersex. (Yes, even if its from PCOS. Yes, even if you are 'female' with hyperestrogenism or hypoandrogenism, or 'male' with hyperandrogenism or hypoestrogenism.)
Do you have low levels of androgens, or low levels of estrogen (not caused by menopause/andropause)? Or does your body not process the hormones it is producing? That is intersex
Do you have chromosomes that differ from XX or XY? Or do your chromosomes "mismatch" your body? That is intersex
Is your urethra in an atypical spot, being lower or higher than expected (hypospadias or epispadias)? Were you born with an extra urethra? Or is your urethra merged with your vaginal canal, anus, or both? That is intersex
Were you born with a curved penis (congenital chordee)? Were you born with a scrotum that is atypical (penoscrotal transposition, shawl scrotum, etc)? Do you have an extra penis? That is intersex
Were you born with genitals that have absent, small, or closed parts? A narrow, incomplete, or absent urethra? A narrow or shallow vagina? An absent vagina? A hymen or tissue that partially or fully blocks the vaginal entry? A vulva that has absent labia on one or both sides? A small or absent clitoris? A micropenis? A congenital hidden/buried penis? A penis born with no foreskin? Undescended testicles (that didn't naturally descend within the first 3-6 months after birth)? Little or no genitalia whatsoever? That is intersex
Do you have ambiguous genitals (that ARENT from surgery or HRT?) Do you have a bifid scrotum? Do you have fused labia? Do you have a large clitoris (yes, even one that developed naturally during puberty)? Do you have a penis and a clitoris at the same time? Or penis with labia? Or a penis where a clitoris "should" be? Or a vaginal canal underneath a penis? That is intersex
Are your reproductive organs atypical? Is your uterus, prostate, gonads, fallopian tubes, vas deferens, or seminal vesicles small or absent? Do you have streak gonads? Do you have extra reproductive traits (extra gonads, extra vas deferens, uterus didelphys, etc)? Do you have both ovarian tissue and testicular tissue present in your body at the same time? Do you have a prostate and a uterus at the same time? That is intersex
Whether you have only ONE of these traits, or MULTIPLE of these traits - the conclusion is the same. Every single trait listed here...is intersex.
And if you used to have these things, but your body was changed (either by yourself, or as a form of medical abuse, such as genital mutilation, reproductive mutilation, hormone abuse, etc)...you are still intersex.
Doctors will very likely not diagnose you as intersex. They may actively deny your intersex status when you call yourself that. But you are intersex if you fall under any of these traits. They will instead likely tell you that you have a "hormone disorder", "urogenital/genital deformity/disorder", "reproductive disorder/deformity", "disorder of sexual development/DSD", or other intersexist work-arounds that they were taught in medical school, or personally came up with.
I think what scares me the most about fandoms like MARVEL and Stranger Things is the amount of people who think that just because there are unrealistic concepts in most of the movies/episodes that all of it is unlikely to be “relatable” or “realistic”, when, in fact, that is not the case.
Civil War is between a bunch of superheroes with advanced weaponry and impossible abilities. But what people don’t seem to realize is that the very thing they’re fighting over is so much like our world and its politics that you don’t realize how much damage you’re doing by taking one side over the other. If you’re Team Iron Man, you were actively for a law that would limit the rights of enhanced individuals (voluntarily or not) just because of how much “destruction” they caused trying to save the world from worse threats. And, we can see that by the end of the movie, the “rogues” were trapped in the Raft (a highly secure prison made for villains like Rhino, Electro, Shocker, Goblin, etc.) and Wanda, a sixteen-year-old who was manipulated into being experimented on, was even in a straight jacket. They were locked away because they tried to fight for their rights as enhanced individuals against men who either: were not advanced, or had the privilege to take their powers off (Iron Man and his suit). While you may consider this as fiction and nothing more, this is real to lots of people all over the world who are fighting for their lives and rights every day against men like Ross and Tony.
The same applies to Stranger Things, that, although is based around monsters and scientific concepts that are near-to-impossible in our reality, still contains themes that may be relatable to struggling children and adults. We see that in the very first season with the Byers family, and how they were all traumatized by Lonnie and his mental/physical/emotional abuse. In the second season, we also saw the relationship between Billy and Max, which ultimately led to multiple fanfics trying to portray Billy as anything but a monster. A manipulative, romanticized monster whose actions were brushed off simply because of his troubled childhood.
“It’s literally fictional/a fictional character. It’s not that deep.” Maybe it doesn’t apply to you or anyone you know, but to many, those topics are a constant in their lives.
it will forever bug me that tony stark sat on his ass for five years while the universe was crumbling and struggling to rebalance their communities after the blip, but yet when he finally helped bring back the billions of people that died, he was the one to get murals. he was the one to have a proper funeral. he was the one who left a “legacy”.
not natasha, who was always there for the people and being the one to run the avengers.
not vision, who was a primary factor into trying to stop the blip from happening in the first place by sacrificing himself.
not any other hero who was murdered or sacrificed themselves during the battle of wakanda or the final battle between the avengers and thanos.
no one else got a funeral except a billionaire who spent the first thirty years of his life realizing that building war weapons was wrong, and spending the next ten years creating more problems for the real heroes.
I'm never going to stop thinking about how May's murderer, who killed her in front of Peter only a few hours ago, was goading Peter into killing him, actively encouraging his violence, the Green Goblin wanted to revel in corrupting Spider-Man, and all it took was a Look for Peter to come back to himself and decide to save Norman instead, no words, no begging, no pleading, no repeated attempts to reason with him or escape from him, just one blocked swing and a Look.
And there's still people who think he'd want to "give team cap a piece of his mind", or would've still been on Tony's team had he not been kidnapped, blackmailed and lied to about why he was there.
Peter could not be more Steve coded if he tried and we had five movies trying to shove "Peter is Tony's mini-me" down our throats just because Peter's a genius. One trait shared with Tony does not make him like him, he's Iron Man's antithesis by the end of NWH. I'll be so mad if Spider-Man 4 is another of the same, or even worse acts like May's loss isn't as big of a deal to Peter as that man.
Baba Yaga the Kind
Like I said in this post, in Russian fairy tales Baba Yaga can range from helpful to occasionally murderous to actual cannibal, but @the-importance-of-being-wilde wanted to know about stories where she is friendly. So here are the ones I know:
The Three Kingdoms
The hero Ivashko Lie-on-the-Stove is sent to Baba Yaga for help after a quest gets him stranded far away from home. He calls her “little grandmother” and she lends him her giant eagle to fly back to Russia. However, this is Baba Yaga’s eagle, so she instructs him to take enough meat with him to feed it every time it got hungry, or it might start snacking on Ivashko himself… (Don’t worry, he only loses a bit of his shoulder before he gets home and even that gets magically healed.)
The Maiden Tsar
I know this is about Baba Yaga, but the Maiden Tsar sails around with a fleet of ships accompanied by her thirty foster sisters just to court an extremely beautiful merchant’s son named Ivan. It’s awesome. Of course the lovers get divided and the Maiden Tsar lets Ivan know that he can find her in the thrice tenth kingdom. Ivan cannot find it, but he does find Baba Yaga’s hut and asks her for help. She says she does not know, but perhaps her younger sister does. Her sister is described as “another Baba Yaga”, but she does not know either. She tells him to go to their youngest sister and warns him that she might get angry and want to eat him, but that if he quickly begs her for three horns and asks her permission to blow upon them everything will be alright. Sure enough, this happens and when he does blow the horns a large firebird comes to fly him to the trice tenth kingdom. (Where Ivan makes amends to the Maiden Tsar and manages to win her love again.)
Keep reading
I really love the idea of Baba Yaga: an old witch who lives in a house with chicken legs. Are there any Baba Yaga stories you know of where Baba Yaga isn't evil? If not, what are your ideas on a friendly Baba Yaga
Oh I agree, Baba Yaga is a great character! She features in broader Slavic folklore, but I know her mostly from Russian fairy tales. There she mainly shows up in three forms: helpful Baba Yaga, cannibal Baba Yaga and… let’s call her maybe-murderous Baba Yaga:
The helpful type gives heroes good advice and useful gifts. (E.g. The Three Kingdoms, The Maiden Tsar, King Bear, The Sea King and Vasila the Wise, Go I Know Not Wither, Bring Back I Know Not What, Ilya Muromets and the Dragon.)
The cannibal type wants to trap people to cook in her stove and eat. (E.g. “Baba Yaga”, Baba Yaga and the Brave Youth, The Prince Danila Govorila.)
The maybe-murderous type is only helpful when the hero performs the right kind of behaviour. (E.g. “Baba Yaga”, Maria Morevna, Vasilisa the Beautiful, and Ilya Muromets and the Dragon, again.)
In some stories there is more than one Baba Yaga, in which case they are sisters.
She is sometimes called “Baba Yaga the Bone-Legged”, in whatever form she takes. The dangerous Baba Yaga’s often fly around in a mortar, wielding the pestle as a magic rudder. The cannibal and maybe-murderous types often have a fence around their house made from human bones or decorated with skulls.
The iconic little hut on chicken feet is usually the first thing a hero ever sees of Baba Yaga and multiple stories state you must greet the house thus: “Little hut, little hut, turn your back to the forest and your front to me.” That way you can go in.
I will make a separate post to tell you some more about specific stories where Baba Yaga is friendly!
Folktales you can read as queer without squinting
Happy Pride everyone! Here is a selection of folk and fairy tales that I enjoy for both their plots and their queer vibes. I speak of vibes only, because I cannot say I have insight in the historical intention of these tales, but I do vouch for me presenting them to you unaltered, as I found them.
I will give the titles with links to the full texts here and summaries under the read more:
Gold-tree and Silver-tree Scottish fairy tale, collected by Joseph Jacobs, published in 1892. [Cw: abusive parent, murder.]
The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces Cape Verdian folktale, collected by Elsie Clews Parsons in 1916-1917. [Cw: attempted poisoning]
The Unicorn Spanish fairy tale, collected by Aurelio Espinosa in 1947. [Cw: murder, attempt at being outed, awkward use of pronouns.]
The Tale of Tamamizu Japanese literary folktale, written by an unknown author between the Muromachi period (1336–1573) and the beginning of the Edo period (1603–1867). [Cw: tragic ending.]
The Tale of the Marquise-Marquis of Banneville French literary fairy tale, published in 1697, authorship contested (suggested: François-Timoléon de Choisy, Marie-Jeanne L'Héritier, Charles Perrault). [Cw: gender dysphoria, age difference.]
Bisclavret French literary legend, written by Marie de France in the 12th century. [Cw: wolf-violence]
Keep reading
Captain America vol. 6, #19 by Ed Brubaker
I think about these pages a lot, every time I read meta about Steve not being as… expressive or emotive in the MCU as other characters.
Steve is an artist. And a bookworm. Who loves fantasy most of all. This is canon, none of these things are indicators of someone who is stoic and taciturn by nature. So what we can deduce from this is that Steve learned to keep things close to the chest through nurture not nature.
Why?
Three factors, all summed up above.
1) Steve was heavily bullied as a child. Picked on, beat up, tormented. There have been depictions of this in almost every single Cap run I’ve read, and I’ve read a lot of Cap. I could show you panels that would make you cry, where a child!Steve is laid out on the pavement bleeding because his childhood bullies got a hold of him.
This is not solely indigenous to 616!Steve, as in the MCU!Steve also indicated to Peggy that he was beat up a lot as a child.
Someone who is targeted by that kind of physical and mental abuse learns to keep it all in, so as not to show any weakness less his tormentors use that against him.
2) Steve lived through the Great Depression during his most informative years. The small, sickly child of a single mother. The dialogue here breaks my heart:
“And with every broken bone or black eye I knew I was letting my mother down. Sure I was scared of the bullies waiting for me but my REAL fear was that I’d get home and she wouldn’t be there. I knew it was irrational, she was a GREAT mother, but that’s just how life felt back then, like it could all fall apart at any moment.”
Loss. Steve’s greatest fear and the heartbreaking thing is that it’s he’s had to live through again and again and again. And it all started because he was raised during a time when the bulk of America had lost everything and were starving in the streets. If we look at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the most basic necessities for survival weren’t being met for a very large population of people: food, water, safety.
Steve’s words here are actually very accurate. I have a 96-year-old grandmother who can personally collaborate the sentiment expressed here. In fact she told me that it was very common for children to be sent away to relatives who could feed them, for families to be split up because the parents could no longer afford to provide basic necessities. And in other families children were actually put to work in factories. In fact, Steve worked. As early as six he was selling newspapers when he wasn’t in school (Remender’s run, Cap vol. 7).
3) War. The most destructive war in recent history no less.
The highest suicide rate in the country goes to veterans. This is fact.
In 2014, an average of 20 Veterans died from suicide each day. 6 of the 20 were users of VA services.
source
Any war related issues such as PTSD and Survivals Guilt would have been even worse during WW2 because no one recognized PTSD as being valid. In fact General Patton once slapped soldiers who were bed ridden due to exhibiting PTSD symptoms. This is also fact.
source
So, as a soldier, your choices were try your hardest to keep a stiff upper lip or exhibit your symptoms and be considered a coward and a traitor.
And yet despite all of this Steve said this…
“And I think THAT was what shaped me. How the whole world felt unfair… unjust. That’s why I tried over and over again to enlist before we were even in the war. Because I wanted to punch Hitler in the jaw.”
This is it, this is the essence of Steve Rogers.
The underdog. The defender of the maligned and the targeted.
Steve Rogers took his pain and rather than letting it make him bitter like others would in his circumstances, he became determined to help others.
….I just think that maybe we, as a fandom, should not assume that the silent type aren’t grappling with unimaginable pain just because they’re silent. I think we should recognize that perhaps the silence, itself, is also a symptom.
Sometimes I just kinda wanna cry because in the MCU, Steven Grant Rogers:
Was violently bullied throughout his childhood and into adulthood.
Watched his mother waste away and die.
Was an orphan by his mid-to-late teens.
Grew up in poverty, during the Great Depression, as the child of immigrants .
Grew up color-blind, partially-deaf, malnourished/stunted, and chronically-ill, in a culture that was so big on eugenics that Nazis took their cues from the US systems.
Signed up for the army and then dove on what he believed to be a live grenade because he believed the best use of his life was to exchange it for the lives of others.
Fought on the front lines of the bloodiest and most horrific war in human history, where he undoubtedly witnessed terrible violence and atrocities.
Watched his best friend die and lived with the guilt of believing he was responsible.
Crashed a plane into the ocean, fully believing he was going to die.
Was frozen alive.
Woke up to find that nearly everyone he’d ever known was dead and gone, and his home was changed nearly beyond recognition; he could never truly go home from the war. Ever.
Lost his shot at happiness with the one woman who ever actually looked at him when he was small and frail, and had to watch her mind come apart, and later carry her coffin.
Found out his sacrifice – the thing he gave up his life, his friends, his whole world for – was in vain, and that HYDRA had corrupted the legacy of the people he loved.
Found out his best friend survived, and that he’d abandoned him to a fate worse than death, and got to then live with THAT fresh guilt.
Is seen by most people as Captain America; almost no one sees Steve Rogers.
Was only 26 years old, biologically, during the Battle of New York.
Has not had the time or resources to cope with any of this.
Solitary Confinement
While I haven’t been directly asked for a Masterpost on Solitary Confinement the sheer volume of asks on the subject prompted me to put this together.
Let’s start with some definitions-
Most sources define solitary confinement as 23 hours (or more) a day without human contact. This can be in or outside of a prison context.
Most sources agree that anything over a week is prolonged solitary confinement and most victims would begin to show symptoms within a week or sooner.
All of the research on solitary confinement that I am familiar with was conducted in a prison context. Most of it was done in the USA. Some of the results and conclusions will be affected by that context and we do know that environment effects how well victims cope with isolation.
Symptoms of solitary confinement affect both physical and mental health
Physical symptoms include-
Headaches
Eye problems
Joint pain
Lethargy
Insomnia
Feelings of physical weakness
Psychological symptoms include-
Worsening of all pre-existing mental health problems
Depression
Anxiety
Feelings of helplessness
Self harm
Suicidal ideation
Aggression
Severe mood swings
Irrational impulses
Hallucinations
Psychosis
Difficulty interacting with people
Difficulty learning new skills
Memory problems
There is some data on the prevalence rates of different symptoms but it’s not very clear cut. The fact that pre-existing mental health conditions are more common in prison populations may skew the data.
Speaking in general terms: physical symptoms of some kind are extremely common, depression or suicidal inclination is extremely common, anxiety is extremely common. Hallucinations and psychosis are less common but some estimates put their occurrence rate as high as 30%.
Factors that make Solitary Even Worse
Age is a major risk factor. Research on children specifically is lacking and the research that there is isn’t always clear about the age of the children involved. However in teenagers solitary confinement has greater and longer lasting negative effects. The current research suggests that younger children would suffer even more.
Pre-existing mental health conditions are all worsened significantly by solitary confinement.
When solitary is combined with poor living conditions the effects on individuals can be devastating. Particularly harmful are lack of space, lack of stimulation, lack of light, lack of sound and any combination of the factors mentioned in this list.
Having no known release date or time has been shown experimentally to drastically reduce the amount of time people will feel comfortable in solitary confinement. This holds true over days. Characters who are confined indefinitely or with no known release date should show worse symptoms then characters who know when they’ll be let out.
Any additional stress, trauma or torture. Threats, lack of medical care and anything that is likely to cause additional suffering will make solitary worse.
Protective Factors
Some people are really resistant to the effects of isolation and we don’t know why. Individuals such as astronauts, lone sailors and people conducting polar research are often specially selected in part for their ability to withstand isolation. The important thing to remember is that while they exist these people are not common and they are not the norm.
Having a cause seems to have a hugely protective effect. Political prisoners in solitary confinement do better than other types of prisoners but they do still show symptoms and suffer from confinement.
How long is too long?
A lot of the asks I get on solitary assume it is much less damaging than it is, so I’m going to end with a couple of points on timings that will hopefully help people judge what’s an appropriate time frame for their story.
Remember that torture is cumulative and any additional factors/traumas will make symptoms significantly worse.
Less than a week- the character probably won’t show any lasting effects, though they will probably have started to show some symptoms while confined.
One week to one month- the character will have multiple symptoms, some of which will persist after they get out of solitary and start interacting with people again. They will struggle with mental health problems and may find it difficult to interact with people in a socially acceptable way. However with a strong support network and time they may still make a full recovery.
One month to one year- it is extremely likely that the character has self harmed and/or attempted suicide at least once. They will have multiple severe symptoms. The risk of hallucinations, psychosis and catatonia is increased. Multiple severe symptoms will persist when the character is released and they will probably have to deal with the resulting mental health problems for the rest of their life. Social isolation after release is extremely common and makes symptoms worse. Socially unacceptable symptoms are more likely and likely to persist after release.
Several years- the risk of death by suicide is incredibly high. Self mutilation (ie amputation, scarring the face etc) starts to become an issue. Symptoms can be so severe that the character may not have a firm grasp of reality. Chance of recovery is minimal and many victims find that on release they can no longer interact with others in socially acceptable ways. They are often isolated and severely mentally ill. The risk of suicide after release remains high.
So to summarise-
Solitary confinement is an extremely damaging torture which has long term repercussions effecting victims for the rest of their lives.
It’s rarely portrayed accurately in fiction, but you can help me change that.
If you’d like to use solitary confinement in your writing think about the symptoms your character will show and the time frame they’re confined for.
Consider how those symptoms impact on your character and your story. If possible pick symptoms that fit well with your story and character. Use both physical and psychological symptoms.
Above all don’t be tempted to play down the symptoms and effects of solitary.
I know it’s a long and intimidating list of symptoms. That, I suppose, is part of the point. Writing torture victims well means accepting that characters won’t survive without symptoms and trying to capture how they’d deal with these changes and challenges.
It isn’t easy. It shouldn’t be. It’s also far from impossible.
And as always I am here to help.
[Sources:
Sourcebook on Solitary Confinement by S Shalev A good general overview of the subject.
Solitary Confinement by P S Smith A summary of scholarly debate.
Deep Custody: Segreation Units and Close Supervision Centres in England and Wales by S Shalev and K Edgar This source is particularly about UK prisons but talks in more depth about the process of prisoners being put into solitary confinement and the conditions in UK jails.
American Civil Liberties Union, a source of first hand accounts.
Solitary Watch, another good source of first hand accounts, focused on US prisoners primarily but with some other cases around the world.]
Edited for typos, thank you for catching that.
Disclaimer
🖤💜 Happy international asexuality day! 🖤💜🐀
Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction to others, or low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity 🖤💜
I'M DOING AN EXPERIMENT
To prove something to a friend, please
REBLOG IF YOU THINK ASEXUALS BELONG IN LGBTQ+ SPACES
LIKE IF YOU THINK ASEXUALS DON’T BELONG IN LGBTQ+ SPACES
Fandom in general is too quick to label characters as having a Savior Complex or being Self-Sacrificing without taking into account the context surrounding the characters actions. This bothers me because those labels are often used to accuse characters of being reckless and thoughtless or depressive and suicidal as if those were the only possible motivations for a character to take a risk for other.
In the MDZS fandom I've seen those labels being applied to Wei Wuxian - incorrectly - in order to diminish the weight of his choices.
Wei Wuxian wasn't Self-Sacrificing. Not anymore that his job required him to be. He wasn't someone who went around in search of a heroic death. But as a Cultivator it was his responsibility to protect people - we can compare a Cultivator to a firefighter: saving people is part of their job, and that comes with a risk, but nobody thinks firefighters are just recklessly throwing themselves at danger for nothing, or that they are stupid for not ignoring that burning building.
Cultivators are supposed to protect people from the supernatural and that's a risky job. But Wei Wuxian isn't reckless. He's actually quite thoughtful and very strategic in his approach to any adversary. He's also an excellent teacher because of his patience and analytical skills - he's the opposite of reckless, really.
One of the plot points I see people use to accuse him of being reckless and self-sacrificing is the XuanWu cave debacle. The thing is, Wei Wuxian wasn't being reckless then. He bid his time, waited to see what Wen Chao would do first. He defended MianMian not out of some sort of self-sacrificing reaction, but because his morals compelled him to do so, and he wasn't the only one. Remember, a Cultivator is supposed to follow a strict moral code. When an innocent person, MianMian, was being attacked in front of them they were supposed to help her. For those who didn't, it was a moral failing.
But more than that, Wen Chao's plan to summon the XuanWu of Slaughter was utterly stupid and was bound to get them all killed. Wen Chao was absolutely not competent enough to kill the XuanWu of Slaughter himself, and when the situation inevitably got out of control Wen Chao's cronies would still whisk him away to safety and let the hostages there to die. Wei Wuxian's choice to confront Wen Chao then wasn't reckless, it was borne from a lack of better options and knowing if they didn't make a stand then and there they would all die. It's one of those situations in which none of the options available are ideal, and you just have to choose the least worse option. Between dying without resisting and fighting for a small chance of survival, Wei Wuxian chose to fight because he wasn't stupid or suicidal, and unlike the vast majority of people in the Cultivation World, Wei Wuxian actually lived up to the moral ideal.
Another plot point I see brought up again and again against Wei Wuxian is his use of "demonic cultivation". First off, the cultivation path Wei Wuxian invented and used wasn't demonic, it was the ghost path, and that's different. Demonic cultivation implicates the use of living humans and Wei Wuxian didn't do that. He used the resentment of ghosts, and he was repeatedly shown to be very kind and compassionate toward those ghosts, but he never used humans. The only character in MDZS that practiced demonic cultivation was Xue Yang, who created living corpses.
Moreover, Wei Wuxian didn't just choose to go for a walk in the burial mounds, he was thrown there to die by Wen Chao. He invented the ghost path because of necessity and it's a testament to his strong will to survive. Personally, I've never understood people who think Wei Wuxian creating the ghost path was self destructive. Dying is easy. If he had been self-destructive, he wouldn't have made it out of the burial mounds alive. Wei Wuxian was kind and compassionate and a genius and he had a strong will to live, so he created a new path of cultivation that could get him out alive and that would allow him to keep fighting, because it was war and they were losing, and if the Wens won it would be catastrophic for the world.
After the war, Wei Wuxian chose to stand up for the Wen Remnants, and that choice wasn't reckless, it wasn't self-sacrificing and it wasn't self-destructive. The Wen Remnants represent the great moral debate in the story: what was happening to them was genocide, and doing nothing meant being complicit in it. The persecution and extermination of the Wen Remnants was the culmination of the moral corruption of that society.
Wei Wuxian's choice to stand up for the Wen Remnants wasn't reckless. He understood the consequences and made a choice with a clear head. He knew from the beginning that they were all living on borrowed time. He certainly hoped at some points that maybe some sort of more permanent truce could be worked out with the sects, but he was always aware that the chances of that were slim. His choice to protect the Wen Remnants wasn't borne out of some sort of self-sacrificing ideal either. He didn't want to die and sacrificing his life was never his go-to response to any situation. He died after having tried everything else, after being pushed into a dead end by the entire world and resisting for around two years, which is two years more than most people would be able to resist for.
His choice to protect the Wen Remnants was a matter of morality. Wei Wuxian saw a genocide happening in front of him and his conscience wouldn't allow him to walk away. That's what Wei Wuxian means when he says to Lan Wangji, during Lan Wangji's visit to Yiling:
“But, let the self judge the right and the wrong, let others decide to praise or to blame, let gains and losses remain uncommented on. I, too, know what I should and shouldn’t do.”
Wei Wuxian chose to protect the Wens because while that might cost his life, choosing otherwise would cost him everything he was as a person.
MDZS is a story about society's failings and the extermination of the Wen Remnants is the great symbol of societal corruption: they fought a war to defeat a monster, only to turn around and become the next monsters themselves. In this sense, only the outliers of society could retain their pure hearts - Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji (who was in equal parts praised and superficially respected for his morals, as well as considered too rigid for it - Lan Wangji is respected as a member of the aristocracy and as an ideal role model, but when the same morals he's praised for get in the way of sect interests he's criticized for it), there's MianMian, Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan, a-Qing too, despite her not being a cultivator. All of those highly ideal characters exist apart from society.
Yet another plot point that's often wrongly used to paint Wei Wuxian as reckless is the ambush on Qiongqi pass, where Jin Zixuan died. The thing is, it was an ambush. He didn't have a chance to plan for it. Jin Zixun had 300 archers constantly attacking Wei Wuxian. It's already quite commendable that he was able to survive, asking for great planning in this kind of situation in ridiculous and beyond what's humanly achievable.
Moreover, despite all that, Wei Wuxian still had the presence of mind to explain the situation to Jin Zixuan and warn him not to get close or else he might die. And what did Jin Zixuan do? He asked the guy being attacked to stop defending himself instead of forcing his stupid cousin to stop attacking, then proceeded to ignore Wei Wuxian's warning and got close, then died as he'd been warned would happen. In this situation, Jin Zixuan was the one who showed an appalling lack of awareness of the situation, poor tactical skill, lack of leadership skills, poor diplomacy, and reckless behavior, not Wei Wuxian.
As for the battle of Nightless City, it was an extenuating circumstance, because Wei Wuxian wasn't sound of mind at this point. He was grieving and angry and had been targeted repeatedly for over two years by then, he'd been a victim of systemic oppression and had watched friends die. Not to mention that all of it started almost immediately after a three year long war in which he'd been a frontline soldier. He wasn't alright. And yet, he wasn't the one who started the fight. He showed up there and vented verbally at the people who'd just murdered his friends, the people responsible for s genocide, the people who'd been oppressing them for over two years, and yet Wei Wuxian only used violence after being attacked first. At this point, I think he had the right to respond with full power.
But the point here is that Wei Wuxian was pushed to this place step by step. He did everything right, he chose as best as he could, but society just wouldn't give him any other option.
I guess my point with this rant is to show that labels like self-sacrificing, reckless etc. often dismiss the context in which the characters are making their choices. Sometimes there isn't an option in which everyone gets to be safe and happy, and sometimes every single choice available will pose a great risk to life, sometimes every available option the circumstances afford the characters will end with someone they care about dying. And yet, they have to choose anyway, because the world won't stop until the stars align and all the problems disappear. No matter how fucked up the circumstances are, choices still have to be made, even if it hurts.
TW: Pedophilia
Teenagers are rarely taught the reason why they can't consent to sex with adults.
And that's because teaching them that would completely unravel our coercion-based society.
It can be difficult to explain in detail the exact reason and all the specifics in a way that they will understand. But the simplest way to phrase it is that in some cases, even when someone agrees to something and even when they appear enthusiastic about it, there's too much of a power imbalance that it's no different than forcing them. Also, having power and being abusive doesn't require a conscious expectation to be obeyed.
Imagine a world in which every teenager understood that and was easily able to call out anyone who tried to convince them otherwise.
They'd know that there's no such thing as an employee consenting to working for a poverty wage, working in unsafe conditions, working long hours, or working without taking breaks. They'd know that there's no such thing as consenting to paying a bank overdraft fee. They'd know that there's no such thing as consenting to student loan debt. They'd know that there's no such thing as consenting to medical bills. They'd know that there's no such thing as consenting to generating profit for banks or landlords in order to have a place to live and being evicted or foreclosed when you lose your source of income. They'd know that there's no such thing as consenting to a police search. They'd know that there's no such thing as a child who's okay with their parents spanking them. They'd know that being dependent on someone does not mean that you can never criticize them. They'd know that if it's considered abusive to simply play along when someone obeys, then it has to be much more abusive to actively expect to be obeyed, which many adults do to them.
And people who benefit from a society based on coercion masquerading as freedom wouldn't like that.
So instead, teenagers are taught something dismissive. They're taught that what they want doesn't matter. They're taught that they're too young to know what love is. They're taught "it's the law". They're taught things that are insulting to their intelligence, which they'll naturally rebel against.
writing advice for characters with a missing eye: dear God does losing an eyes function fuck up your neck. Ever since mine crapped out I've been slowly and unconsciously shifting towards holding my head at an angle to put the good eye closer to the center. and human necks. are not meant to accommodate that sorta thing.
Reblogging because this is REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT.
Also second that people shouldn't have to dump their whole medical history on someone, or be forced to share their medical trauma/life story, just to get what the hell they asked for and what they are more often literally PAYING for.
None of them are making this a problem. Especially if they ask "can you do this" and don't usually make a fuss if you can't, they just want to know so they can make an informed decision. It only becomes a problem when pretentious people decide to be spiteful, hateful, deceitful or judgemental with no cause and MAKE it a problem.
Just trust people to know what the fuck they can eat on their own. It's not your damn business.
DO NOT DO THIS.
This makes me so angry.
If you work in a movie theater and you do this I have no respect for you.
My younger brother is Type 1 Diabetic.
When we go to a movie theater, we always get him diet soda. If he were to get regular when we asked for diet, we would not give him the insulin he would need for it. If that happens, his blood sugar level could go so high he could go into a coma, go blind, or even die.
If somebody gave him regular soda instead of diet without telling us, that person could be responsible for a nine-year-old being killed or blinded.
Just thinking about that makes me so angry. I get scared every time we take him to a movie in case the people working there saw this picture and decide to do the same thing.
Please signal boost this so people know.
I found this hilarious post stating elons girlfriends as typical c drama concubines and I'm loosing it
Bonus
Dean Winchester is the open wound in the body that is Supernatural. He is an infection that spreads until it poisons everything around him, no matter if It's a person or a plotline.
At first, he was just annoying and borderline abusive, something that could be explained by his upbringing, that could’ve been explored. There was potential for him to grow, to evolve beyond the toxic traits he inherited from John, to show that people can get better, that your upbringing didn't define you and for a bit, it seemed like he might. But as soon as he showed signs of becoming better, he ripped off the scab of progress and let the wound fester instead. Season after season, rather than improving, he got worse, getting more selfish, hypocritical, and abusive. Instead of healing, he became the rot at the show’s core.
The infection spread beyond just his character however, it consumed the entire narrative. Everything began to revolve around what Dean wanted, how Dean felt, and what Dean needed. The other characters stopped being people with their own agency and instead became tools, existing to serve and cater to his every whim. The story bent itself around him, sacrificing logic, depth, and complexity in favor of ensuring that Dean never had to face real consequences. It ruined the show’s potential. Instead of telling a story about how a bond like Sam and Dean’s (or even Dean’s relationships with Cas, Charlie, etc.) could help someone grow into a better person, they doubled down on Dean’s worst tendencies. Instead of evolving, he dragged everyone else down with him.
One example of how Dean’s toxicity didn’t just warp the narrative but completely destroyed a character is Castiel. Castiel represented something meaningful at the start: the idea that humanity, despite all its flaws, was still worth fighting for and that people can change and form their own opinions even though they've been controlled and manipulated before. He was proof that even among corruption and destruction, there was goodness that made it all worthwhile, that people can forge their own path if they believe in something and act upon said belief.
But, once the writers started throwing rotting breadcrumbs at the Destiel shippers, they stripped Castiel of his character and made everything about Dean. Instead of being a character with his own beliefs, struggles, and development, he was reduced to nothing more than an extension of Dean, an accessory whose only purpose was to suffer for him. And what did Dean do in return? Nothing good. He never treated Castiel as an equal. He constantly belittled and ridiculed him, acting as though Castiel’s sacrifices were either expected or irrelevant.
Castiel went from breaking free of heaven’s control, from questioning blind obedience and learning to think for himself, to willingly throwing himself into another toxic, one-sided dynamic where his needs and wants didn’t matter. He lost everything, his family, his power, his home, his life, and for what? Are we supposed to find it meaningful that Castiel’s entire existence was reduced to a last-minute, half-baked confession that Dean didn’t even acknowledge? That his death scene was brushed aside with no real grief, no impact, no weight? He deserved better than that but the writers decided it would be a good idea to have Castiel’s story amount to nothing. In the end, he was nothing but a footnote in Dean’s narrative, something that mattered for a few minutes before it lost its relevance.
But if Castiel was collateral damage in Dean’s story, Sam was the biggest victim.
From the very beginning, Sam had potential, potential for something beyond hunting, beyond the endless cycle of death and violence that consumed their lives. He had dreams, ambitions, and a future that should have been his. And every step of the way, Dean was there to tear him down. Long before the show even started, Dean was already keeping Sam small, making sure he never realized that he deserved more than a life of blood and misery. Dean wanted Sam trapped in hunting, dependent on him, tied to him forever and that pattern never changed.
He is obsessive and possessive, acting less like a brother and more like an overbearing owner who refuses to let Sam have any independence. The second Sam does anything without telling him, whether it's texting someone, making his own choices, or simply not answering a call, Dean immediately acts like Sam just opened Pandora's Box. He treats Sam’s autonomy as a threat, as if the moment he isn't constantly under surveillance, the world will fall apart.
But he's not just abusive he's also incapable of accepting his mistakes considering that Dean becomes aggressive and defensive as soon as they get brought up. Examples include breaking the first seal which was 'understandable because he got tortured', tricking Sam into getting possessed which was 'something he needed to do because he didn't want Sam to die' (no matter how much Sam wanted to), and locking Sam in the panic room to die because he'd "at least die human". Still, he never hesitates to throw Sam’s mistakes back in his face. Sam is never allowed to forget drinking demon blood, never allowed to forget trusting Ruby, even though she preyed on his vulnerability and caused his addiction to manipulate him. Dean also holds him responsible for being Lucifer’s vessel, even though that was quite literally decided by God. And yet, when Dean makes mistakes suddenly it’s not his fault, and everyone just needs to move on because they all made mistakes (especially Sam, apparently).
But Dean’s hypocrisy doesn’t stop there, oh no. Because when Sam was blamed for "freeing Lucifer," by mistake he alone was expected to fix it, but when Castiel knowingly freed Lucifer suddenly all of them needed to take care of it. The double standard is obvious and tells us the following: Dean plays favorites when it suits him, and when it doesn’t, he shifts the blame onto whoever is most convenient which more often than not, means Sam is getting blamed.
And yet, despite treating Sam like a scapegoat, he also treats him like a trophy, a possession, something he has complete control over. He needs to know where Sam is, who he's talking to, and what he's doing or he'll pretend like the world is ending.
But he doesn’t just control Sam, he's not just hypocritical and abusive, he also sabotages his storylines at every turn. I'm saying that because every time Sam had an interesting plotline, something that could have made the show richer and more compelling, something that could've made Sam stronger, Dean was there to ruin it.
Sam's demon blood arc? Reduced to a mistake Dean never let him forget about, rather than the complex story about addiction and manipulation that it could have been. Not to mention the fact that even before Ruby used Sam's grief to get him addicted Dean judged Sam for having the blood inside him in the first place; as if it was his fault Mary made that deal, as if Sam could have stopped yellow eyes as an infant.
Sam as the Boy King of Hell? Dropped without explanation and never picked up again (until years later for one minute that is). I personally think they dropped that particular arc because Dean would have been insufferable towards Sam during it which they couldn't do considering 'Dean is such a cool guy'. It was the same with Sam being psychic: Dean would never accept the fact his brother wasn't what he wanted him to be so the plotline was scrapped.
Sam's hell trauma? No need to explore it or show the lasting effects because Dean would be sad if Sam wasn't perfectly fine after his mangled soul got forced back into his body (by Dean, mind you).
Sam being suicidal? Why explore that if you can do other, more interesting things with Dean instead?
Even Sam’s relationship with Jack was downplayed. The parallels between Sam and Jack alone make it obvious that the relationship between the two of them should have been the focus of Jack’s introductory season. Sam, who spent his life struggling under the weight of what he was supposed to be, who was told time and time again that he was dangerous, that his powers made him evil, was the perfect person to guide Jack through the same struggles. But that wasn’t explored. The fact that Sam was raising the child of the man who abused and controlled him, the child of the being that essentially destroyed Sam's life and psyche even though he was probably scared to death every time he saw Jack wasn't explored either.
Jack’s entire story should have revolved around his relationship with Sam, the person who treated him with kindness, and who tried to help him even though his father was, like I said, the being who abused him for centuries. Their relationship should have been so much more but it wasn’t and why?
Because they needed to shove Dean into Jack’s story instead. Even though Sam was the one who treated him with kindness, who defended him, and who saw him as more than just a weapon, the writers made sure to include forced bonding scenes between Dean and Jack so that they could pretend Dean had always been the father figure. I'm sure they did that so Destihellers and the writers could pretend Cas and Dean were Jack's parents even though everyone who watched the show should know that isn't true no matter how much certain people might want it to be.
Alone the fact that Dean threatened to kill Jack should make that obvious.
The sad thing about all of this is that Sam was supposed to be the main character but when fans decided Dean was cooler, the writers catered to them instead of telling a story about the person that's objectively more interesting.
So in conclusion, Dean Winchester wasn’t just a toxic character; he was an infection that spread through the entire show, warping the story, ruining the characters, and dragging Supernatural down with him. Every plotline, every relationship, every moment of potential was sacrificed so that he could remain the center of attention. The show could have been so much more, but instead, it chose to revolve around the worst thing in it: Dean.
(I will make separate posts about Sam and Castiel as well)
Side note: I wrote this at 3 a.m. because I couldn't sleep and saw people waxing poetry about Dean on Twitter.
HuaLian Nation, we've been blessed again! They are SERVING! 🤯😍🔥
I’m starting to sound like a nutcase at work because upper management keeps trying to implement AI programs and AI assistants and Chat GPT and my middle-of-the-road, don’t-infodump, don’t-engage response has been “I don’t like AI”, “I prefer to remain in control of my own tasks”, “I’d rather make my own mistakes”, and “I don’t trust any machine smarter than a toaster”
The reason why Luo Binghe (specifically Bingmei) is not treated on the same level as Shen Jiu by story is because he took on the difficulty of making his loved one understand him, this is between xin mo manipulating his trauma and obsession. He inherently, did not want to treat Shen Qingqiu cruelly at any time and was terrified of that outcome. Shen Jiu at no point cared if he treated Yue Qingyuan cruelly because he was convinced of his own narrative (in a similar vein to Shen Yuan thinking that Bingmei is still the same as Bingge).
And the what if doesn't work for Shen Jiu finding out about Yue Qingyuan's hardships because he is very jealous of others of his same circumstances being able to persevere and be talented. He did not want to be seen as an equal but wanted the entitlement of prestige and the cruelty that can be used from it, just as Bingge achieved during PIDW. It did not matter how much they were beloved, because they wanted entitlement while ridiculing love. Something that Shen Jiu instilled into his Luo Binghe. Because Shen Qingqiu changed that trajectory for Bingmei he was still able to believe in small kindnesses by one person not ridiculing that concept.
Shen Jiu did not care if he was actually loved. He used being unloved as his weapon to be worse because doing the opposite was much more difficult.
Oh no. MAGA is mad that the NYT shared the names of DOGE staffers. Don’t share this! Would be a shame