People online seem to think that if a harrassment campaign is against someone they think is bad, then it's justified. It's not. it just makes it easier for people to justify another harrassment campaign.
Harrassment is never right, full stop. And is also inefficent as hell. Because the people who like the "bad" person will just rally round them due to the harrassment, and it's not like you wouldn't do the same if it was someone you liked.
If you dislike someone, then just block and move on, it's much easier and better for your mental health.
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on the one hand it is A Tad Frustrating to see a creator's response of "this work's queer themes are a pretty substantial chunk of the actual story so i can't answer this without spoiling the work itself, which wouldn't be ideal given that this is a serial work; any concept art not found on the site where the work is hosted is not indicative of how these themes manifest in canon" be met with "so the queer themes aren't canon anymore? :(". on the other hand though it does create a very funny mental image of like, a bunch of people muttering worriedly over to each other at like a comic con panel or something, and then there's a loud "WAHOO YIPPEE" from offscreen and it pans over to me wearing a "#1 SLOW BURN LOVER" t shirt and jumping joyously and clicking my heels and snoopy dancing etc.
We're on a fast track to another Trump presidency. It was already going to be a dicey situation given his popularity among the white power groups, the antiqueer extremists, the misogynists, xenophobes, terrorist militias, and ultraconservative Christians.
Unfortunately, there's another equally large group throwing themselves in the mix. People who claim to be leftists, but whose beliefs align more with the alt-right than anything on the liberals side.
The NeverBidens use Biden's involvement with Israel over Palestine as a rallying cry to oust him. They're furious over the genocide taking place in Palestine and think the only way to "save" those people is to get rid of Biden.
"We need to send a message to Dems!" they claim. This has never worked in modern history, of course, and has led to an increase in suffering when attempts have been made, but that hardly matters. Whether it's refusing to vote at all or wasting a vote on a third party, their goal is the same as MAGA's: get Trump installed as president.
Why? Well, some of them say that Trump can "hardly be worse" than Biden, which shows a significant memory failure, if true. Others have flat-out stated that their goal is to destroy the US: burn it all down and start over from the ashes. This is, they claim, the only way to "fix" the country. I'm beginning to believe that this is what all of them want, no matter what excuses they make or lies they tell themselves.
Some of them may claim that no, this isn't about killing the US, it's about saving Palestinians, but if that were true they'd voting for the guy who is at least starting to waffle a bit rather than the guy who thinks Benji should "finish the job already."
The ones willing to admit they want the violent destruction of the US are also aware that this will lead to countless deaths, both in the US and across the world. It's a "necessary sacrifice" to achieve the "better world" they envision, and they're willing to throw all of us onto the pyre of their beliefs.
This is part of why I say that NeverBidens are a death cult: whether they're willing to admit it or not, they know a lot of innocent people are going to die, and they either want that or don't care as long as they "win." Many of them may not even care what comes next as long as the rest of us are punished: for allowing the country to get this bad, for voting Biden into office in the first place, for not managing to fix everything already.
Do the people calling for the death of the US honestly believe something better will take its place? Or do they just want the country to die and don't care what happens next? Hard to say. I'm sure some of them could probably outline grand plans for a better future, one where everyone is treated equally and nothing bad ever happens and all is wonderful and perfect, but that isn't the same as believing it's possible. And it isn't the same as being able to successfully implement those plans without any hiccups or dissent.
As an aside, I remember reading about a group of disenfranchised fic fans who decided they'd had enough of AO3's lenient content policies and decided to start up their own perfect archive: one where Immoral Content™ was forbidden and all the creepy perverts on AO3 wouldn't be allowed.
Which might have worked well if they had been able to agree on the specifics of the immoral content and where to draw the lines. Except, y'know, everyone has their own opinions on "immoral" and eventually the arguing got so bad that the project was abandoned.
Anyway! NeverBidens are a death cult. A lot of them get angry when you point that out. No, no, they don't want more people to die, they want the Palestinians to live! How, exactly, that's supposed to be accomplished with Trump as president remains vague and undefined. And even if, by some miracle, Trump suddenly decided to stop sending Israel money and weapons, A) I'm pretty sure Benji could continue to cause damage without us (we're his biggest supporter, not his only one), and B) what about the rest of the world? What about the genocides in Sudan, Ukraine, Afghanistan, etc? What about the hellscapes in the DR Congo? Haiti? Nigeria? Mass death and violence is happening in so many places across the world, not just Palestine.
While Palestine deserves to be recognized, so do all the other people who are suffering. And yeah, the US is going to get significantly worse under Trump, too. As is planned. As is desired by certain factions, including the NeverBidens. But hey, a little mass death, stripped rights, global suffering, and terrorism is better than letting Biden remain in office, right?
“it is the parents responsibility to keep their children away from media that contains any vulgar/mature content and we shouldnt blame the media creators for it” and “hazbin hotel has writing that specifically appeals to fandom teenagers” are two opinions that i feel like can coexist
One more thing that I'd like to get out of my system, since being ill during the Dead Days has apparently caused me to abandon all caution and have real opinions online -
When I get frothy about the WoD and its many failings, I'm not having a go at the original writers and developers and artists (except Leif Jones). They were a bunch of geeks from rural Georgia, creating this game in a time before domestic broadband, with a very different knowledge economy - it was, undeniably, harder to look shit up and educate yourself than it is now. I don't blame them for occasionally getting things wrong, phoning things in, or letting through some dodgy ideas.
I do blame the contemporary fans and creators (there's a certain amount of overlap here) who have decided that under-researched, part-baked, often-extremely-sus ideas from thirty odd years ago are sacred texts and can never be revised, retconned, or abandoned.
Not, I hasten to add, memory holed. I'm talking about a direct, transparent and honest acknowledgment that this idea right here is stupid, or bad, or doesn't work, and it has been removed or replaced because of explicitly stated reasons. Not just papering over the problem with an in-universe solution, but copping to the original fault, acknowledging the error and identifying the improvement. Making mistakes, doing the correction, showing the working - this is how individuals learn, and it's how learning is transmitted to those who come after us. This is, on the whole, a good thing and should be done.
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beginning in Old Valyria, Targaryens were but a minor House of dragonlords. yet the Valyrian Freehold was built with the blood of those enslaved beneath its nine volcanoes, ever digging for greater riches, and the horrific inventions of Valyria's sorcerers who tested their theories on the conquered to twist the natural into the supernatural.
(yes, i'm one of the theorists who take House Targaryen's "blood of the dragom" quite literally)
Upon surviving the Doom, House Targaryen was a dormant threat during the Century of Blood: then came Aegon, Visenya & Rhaenys who decided to found a new empire for themselves by "uniting Westeros"... at dragonpoint.
CW: Old Valyria, its hobbies of enslavement and eugenics, anti-imperialism, Targaryen-skepticism, Stark-skepticism, critique of historic Targaryens, critique of Prince Rhaegar, potential spoilers for The Dragon Shows.
There is no good justification for conquest, the genocide of entire families, for destroying holy sites, for dragonbombing civilians (Aegon & Visenya took out their vengeance for Rhaenys on the entirety of Dorne, who dared to defy the Targaryens just as Nymeria defied Valyria's efforts to destroy her people after leaving their home a toxic wasteland). A (hypothetical) prophecy of ice & fire was assumed by these dragonlords as an entitlement to an entire continent "united" under THEIR rule.
if Aegon truly cared about the future, about a threat to humanity, he could have proposed alliance with House Stark and the other Kingdoms of Westeros. marriage, trade, mutual ceasefire: there are many methods of peacibly uniting peoples for a future problem. no, any service for "a greater good" should come at the cost of smaller, everyday acts of goodness. Ser Davos said it best, when his king Stannis proposed the sacrifice of one child (Edric Storm, his own nephew) to secure a hypothetical victory for his army: the sacrifice of one child means everything, in the context of war & kingship.
Targaryen Exceptionalism became "codified" into the Faith of The Seven during the reign of King Jaeherys I: he sent seven speakers to walk Westeros, praising and preaching the goodness of the new king & the exceptional nature of Targaryens in the eyes of the divine. Dragons raise Targaryens from the laws of mortal men, Valyrian tradition supercedes common sense and human taboo. The speakers, at the orders of Jaeherys I (& Vermithor, Alysanne & Silverwing) Targaryens rule Westeros but were not of it nor subject to its rules.
After the last Targaryen dragon died, the case for Targaryen Exceptionalism was rendered hollow: by this point there had been some intermarrying of House Targaryen with the other houses of Westeros and its members were far removed from the memory of Valyria beyond romanticized legend & its language (also spoken and used by peoples of Essos, descendants of escaped slaves & those once-conquered).
By the timeline of the main series of ASOIAF, the views on House Targaryen are polarizing: King Robert Baratheon saw any Targaryen as an abomination, laughing at the horror wrought unto Princess Elia's children and Princess Elia herself (again Dorne is considered an "acceptable target" by wider Westeros), demanding the death of pregnant 13 yr old Daenerys in AGoT; Ned Stark finds the murder of children horrific, like any sane person would, despite being the most wounded (surviving) party of House Targaryen and the actual rallying point of Robert's Rebellion; Daenerys, on the childhood memories told to her by her brother, by her hatching dragons... Daenerys renders herself Exceptional.
Targaryen Exceptionalism OUTSIDE of the ASOIAF books & shows is more questionable: the POVs we are given and the presentation of dragons & valyrian steel as a natural means of opposing Winter Personfied results in a fanbase who have bought into Valyrian exceptionalism almost entirely. Secret Targaryens are found or made because it is Assumed that, because past Targaryens claimed & proved themselves exceptional, because Daenerys Stormborn is exceptional... only those with dragon blood can be exceptional. This is not unique to House Targaryen: Stark blood and First Men heritage is also of much ado, based on the likes of Robb, Bran, & Arya Stark (Tully-Starks).
Brynden Rivers, Euron Greyjoy, Vladymr Six-Skins, & Jojen Reed demonstrate the magic in First Men blood; House Dayne's ancestral sword, Dawn, & their purple eyes draw theories of Valyrian exceptionalism several thousand years prior to the Freehold's existence; the black stone castles found throughout Westeros also kindle theories of anachronistic Valyrians (despite dragons existing throughout the histories of Westeros & Essos well before their becoming so intimately linked with Valyria or Targaryens).
Then there are the Sons of Ice & Fire: Brynden Rivers, a Targaryen bastard of a Blackwood mother, currently a tree wizard freezing beyond the wall; Jon Snow, of R + L = J. There was That Dragon Show, which romanticized such a Song by skipping over that whole "15 year old disappears without word, Kingsguard keeping her in a distant tower & attempting to murder her brother"; "Lord Rickard and his heir being tortured & burned to death, Aerys II subsequently calling for the heads of several other Lords Paramount"; "Prince Rhaegar's abandoning his wife & small children in his father's court, sparing a lone hostage-kingsguard for 4 royals & a city", etc. There was the "romance" between an undead king who sought a desperate alliance & his, unknown to them, young aunt who ditched her existing subjects in Essos for a pointy chair in a home she knows nothing of.
No one came out of That Dragon Show looking any good, the characters at its end being shadows of themselves by its end.
The NEW Dragon Show is set in the "Golden Age" of House Targaryen in Westeros: their game of musical chairs bloody and cruel, forced unto each generation by the fears & ambitions of those before them (children parenting children, grandfathers & second sons seeking power greater than the might they hold already).
I worry over The Sowing of Seeds: will Targaryen Exceptionalism be codified as true? will the Hiccup Method, nurture revealing itself as mattering more than nature?
I hope for the latter: any victory that belatedly justifies the horrors of Old Valyria, the cruelties of House Targaryen on its own children, the celebration of feudal monarchy as something heroic & inspirational... these things would sully the primary themes of ASOIAF: the hypocricies demanded of chivalry, the futility of war, the struggles of those rejected by songs & storybooks. eugenics is setdressing, not an ideal (both targaryen & stark exceptionalism awkwardly based within that concept, however innocently-intended).
It has been almost two years since the release of my first novel, Saving Seymour, a treacherous romance between a liberal and a conservative
It's the two year anniversary of Saving Seymour, and not only have I just finished the first draft of my next bigger, badder novel...the orca who inspired Seymour is now apparently being released to a sea pen in the waters she was stolen from decades ago. I've written a bit about what Toki's return home means in the above piece. Keep your eyes peeled for more second novel stuff soon...
I overheard this conversation in a coffee shop last week...
‘Indeed. We do need more gentle people, that's for sure. After all, who will hammer the swords into plowshares once the war is over? We need peace loving people very much. However, we also need warriors, people with a warrior's spirit. I say it's the problem of our time! We stand a house divided!
‘The end of all war would be wonderful, assuming that will ever be possible. We're not the first society to struggle with this level of dichotomy and division, and we'll probably not be the last. To me our current situation illustrates an inability to think rationally. And by that I mean, to be able to consider both sides of an issue, and make as unemotional, and logical a choice as possible, and then: compromise!
‘To me, that is one of the great forgotten secrets of our Democracy. I get some, you get some, and we both walk away with a deal. Maybe not everything we’d like, but easily something that keeps the bread on the table and the guns in their holsters.
‘We can do better! Too many warriors and lovers have died fighting for freedom and all its glory! If those who gave their lives on Omaha beach could see us now, I think they would be heartbroken for all of us.
‘All of us! From the poor person on the street all the way up to the rich and powerful in their halls of granite! Including all our likes and dislikes, loves and hates, genders, politics, sickness, health, petty quarrels, and serious differences.
We've got this! You can shoot this down when I write it, but I believe American society can handle the terrible divisions from which we all are suffering.
‘Including Mother earth! And that last is way more eggshell fragile than most of us realize. You crack that egg, and there ain't no putting it back together again, at least not in our lifetimes.
‘The Constitution of the United States gives us the power and the right to correct the wrongs of our people! In fact, its our duty to preserve it from any and all threats, foreign or domestic. And when I say domestic, I mean us! We the people! ‘We are our own biggest enemy!!
‘And I hate to sound ominous, but we need to come together soon! I don't see any of our dear leaders putting in their own skins to help change things, do you? So it looks very much like we are going to have to do it ourselves! And that's another big secret: the grassroots effort has shown itself to be a winner every time!
‘I say we are the people. We can do it! We can make our world an even better place if we all work together!
