I Hated Percy Jackson So So Much. It Was Boring, The Story Telling Was Mid At Best, All The Characters

chess is improved by picking two pieces to be star-crossed lovers who cannot bring themselves to kill the other

There is something really annoying to me about magic systems that are dependent on the sex of the user. Especially since it always seems tied to sex assigned at birth rather than identity.

Like, there's this super powerful force permeating the universe that allows those who harness it to perform amazing feats that no human would be able to perform otherwise.

But it all depends on what genitals you came out of the womb with.

I'm watching the original Fun With Dick and Jane from 1977, and I was entirely unaware that there was a scene where the male lead is told off for being transphobic.

Dick, who is aptly named, is in line at the unemployment office behind a trans woman who got fired for coming out. When Dick talks to the guy at the desk, he immediately insults the woman, calling her crazy and using the f slur.

And the guy absolutely shuts him down. Tells him that she's just a trans woman trying to live her life with the most "fuck off" look on his face.

I was not expecting this from a comedy made in the 70s.

Fucking love it.

It's boy band vs monsters tonight on The Robi Show

Final Fantasy XV tonight at 10:30 EST

i think it's called the unwinding? it's a dystopia where the premise is that there was a civil war between pro-choice and pro-life groups in america(?) and they made the compromise that all pregnancies must be carried to term and kids must be raised for a certain amt of years, but then at a certain age, 13 i think it was, if the parents dont like the kid they can have them "unwound," which is that they will be meticulously surgically taken apart but all of their organs and skin and everything will still be alive? somehow? and ig they'll still have some level of consciousness? and like, anyone who needs an organ transplant or skin grafts or like, amputees who want a new arm or whatever get that body part from an unwound kid. and the book follows a runaway who was gonna be unwound and then also a kid who was tithed, so like his parents had him w the express purpose of donating him to the church for unwinding?? the premise is absolutely bonkers and the narrative of the book shifts constantly, it touches on a whole bunch of real-world politics without ever actually committing to any stance, and the whole thing reads like a wattpad original work in a really bad way. but somehow there's like a whole series and it's legit popular!! i dont get it at all

This sounds like some fundie subterfuge nonsense.

They love to do this. The YA dystopia boom brought us so many books like this. Gentle Tyranny is another one, it's all about how feminism is evil.

They think that they can put a secular mask on and convert people without them realizing it. But they're really really bad at it. Like, who else other than fundies would even come up with this idea??

Was the writer a blonde white woman? I don't want this book in my search history, but I'm willing to bet I'm right

Astarion's ascension is extremely popular, despite it clearly being the designed bad ending for him.

So many fans of this version want to argue that it's a "valid" path to choose if you enjoy his character, or that it's equally good as his Spawn ending. The "it's what he wants" argument is the hegemonic justification in question.

But is wanting something better than needing another thing? Yes, he talks about ascension ever since he finds out about the ritual.

Yes, when push comes to shove he's still committed to ascend. But is this enough? Should we support his choice, even when everything but his words tell us not to? Should we trust the judgment of a deeply traumatized man about the best way for him to feel better?

This may sound harsh, but the answer is no.

Because in many circumstances, we see Astarion behaving unhealthily as a result of his trauma: he's hypersexual at the beginning of the game, using sex as a survival mechanism. He's yet to learn what his boundaries should be, what it means not to be an object, to see himself as a person that deserves respect and has so much more to offer than just his body. His trauma is still fresh. And he's so scared of losing his freedom, being trapped under slavery again.

We can't blame him being so desperate to feel safe that he will trade everything he is for it.

Because that's what the ritual means, Cazador says so himself: despite gaining the ritual's power, Astarion is still part of the bargain for said power. He still loses his soul in the process, and that is clear once we see how he acts post-ascension.

Of course, someone that is still suffering from the consequences of 200 years of abuse wouldn't care if he became less of himself, in the process of becoming untouchable ever again. Astarion's behaviour towards himself highlights that he doesn't care for the person he is because that person is, sadly, the product of those centuries of abuse.

He doesn't want to be that person anymore: even better, he doesn't want to be a person anymore: people suffer, people get taken advantage of, people are submitted by more powerful beings. He is willing to give this up not despite losing everything he is, but because of it. And that's what happens after his ascension: he retains his body, which becomes an empty shell of who he once was, with someone else inside of it to fill the void left by his soul.

This situation is a perfect, brutal metaphor of an abused person that later in life becomes the abuser himself, a thing that often happens to male victims of SA.

This is what is fundamentally wrong with Astarion's ascension: he's choosing power, his abuser's tool, over healing. Instead of learning to feel like a person again, to deal with his trauma to life after having endured it, he chooses to not feel anymore, while letting thousands of spawns (like he was) be consumed to get what he wants.

This terribly selfish act is the first instance of Astarion behaving like Cazador, considering the spawns as lesser beings, as nothing but his tools, like all vampire lords do. In this process he also sees himself, the person he gives up being, as a tool. He isn't healing. He's losing all of himself entirely.

Why would someone see this sacrifice as not only necessary to leave his trauma behind, but also preferable to healing from it?

The fan-favourite characteristic of Ascended Astarion is his behaviour towards Tav: in this version of "himself", he clearly is even more sexual than he was in his first days with the tadpole. And this expression of his sexuality is drastically different from the one we got to know prior to this point.

He is dominant, prevaricating, demanding in his avances: he enjoys being in a position of power even in his relationship.

This isn't the Astarion that slowly learns to trust his partner, to build a real loving relationship with someone who sees him as equal and truly cares for him.

Everything that he learns during his romance and his plot gets nullified by his ascension; and yet, this gets overlooked in favour of this more sexually appealing version of him. For people that claim to love his character because of his complexity, Ascended Astarion fans seem to only truly love him when he's less of himself than ever.

When all that's left of him is his body, and he behaves more like the toxic love interest from a young adult romance book, a great number of his fans get wild. Is this all that they want from him? The husk of the funny, sarcastic, dramatic and complex character, filled with this more traditionally masculine attitude, replacing what he used to be? An Astarion that never heals from his trauma, choosing to leave behind everything he was instead? Who resembles his abuser more than ever?

Do his fans who like his ascended version so much to genuinely think this is the best outcome for him, or do they just enjoy being able to project this "macho" fantasy on a physically attractive male character, that otherwise isn't anything like this prototype of man?

We can't help but think that appreciating Ascended Astarion is the same as believing in, if not loving, his hypersexual facade: it's overlooking his humanity in favour of sexualising him.

Which is the biggest disservice one could ever do to his character.

Bisexuals in media: "I don't really like labels, you know. I just date who I want. We don't have to call it anything."

Bisexuals in real life: "Hey, I'm bi! Have I mentioned that I'm bi? You have to understand, I am bisexual. Bi. I am bi. I love being bi. Did you know that I'm bi? Check out my bi pride shirt/poster/pin/shoes/tattoo. Isn't it awesome that I'm bi?"

I'm back with Dragon Age 2. Let's see if I can remain faithful to Sebastian or if I'll get distracted by sexy elves and mages. https://www.twitch.tv/therobichaud

I am in Control.

Join me at 5 PM EST

before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. that way if you end up having to kill more people, you already have an extra grave prepared for it.