"But Only 2% Of The Population Is Intersex. It's Not That Common. Why Should We Reframe Or Perception

If you think these "anti drag" pushes aren't going to be used against trans people for just existing in public, you really really need to read up on the vice laws which caused Stonewall.

If you think Stonewall was only trans women and transmascs/butches/trans men weren't arrested during the leadup to the riot, you need to read up on who was there, who was arrested, and why.

They are coming for all of us. Your supposed respectability will not save you. We will survive this if we stick together, and only if.

reblog if you’ve read fanfictions that are more professional, better written than some actual novels. I’m trying to see something

The Goncharov meme is such a fun little spotlight on how people view media. Like, fake academic analysis about a movie that doesn't exist. Cool. But that's only the first level.

Next you have posts recreating a modern tumblr audience "discovering" an older piece of media and engaging with it through the lens of fan culture. Particularly tumblr-specific fan culture. Particularly in a way that feels like it got its blueprint from Dracula Daily. (Shitposts and memes, intense love for the most prominent female character, reads of complex romantic dynamics between characters, etc.)

Then you get fake discourse about the fake fan response to a fake movie that are quietly complaining about real ways real people respond to real media. I.e., America-centric readings, shallow, shipping-based readings, fans lionizing a protagonist not meant to be admired, etc.

(My personal favorite are posts that recreate the experience of being told a piece of media is so gay, you guys, only to watch it and find it isn't even remotely, that fans who wanted queer subtext wrung blood from a stone and thoroughly misled you.)

I also like the extra-meta ones about "this obscure movie being recently re-discovered," fake film history about copyright battles or the original cut being suppressed, etc. And of course, Johnny fucking Truant is here to give his editorial take on it, as he should be.

Pale Fire, House of Leaves, Goncharov. Humanity is such that every now and then we need to get really invested in fake arguments about a piece of media that doesn't exist.

this was amazing

I think a lot about The Bathroom Scene™ and how Kaz's selfless actions towards Inej are contrasted with their discussion about whether he's any different from Pekka, but Chapter 26 as a whole also does a lot to show how much Kaz cares about all of his Crows and not just Inej. He spends a lot of time in that chapter thinking about how he's probably about to die, and yet he does everything in his power to make sure his Crows get out alive.

He specifically zeroes on Inej's safety, of course (because when isn't Kaz focused on her?) but his actions, dialogue, and internal monologue are all entirely centered around how guilty he feels for getting everyone into this mess and how desperate he is to make sure he's the only collateral damage of his own scheme at the end of the day:

Kaz sits down and (more or less) fully explains his entire plan to the Crows instead of keeping them in the dark

Kaz gives Jesper's dad the only protection he's still able to give: his own family's name and reputation

Kaz ruminates on why he called Jesper by his brother's name and implicitly acknowledges that it's because he's scared to recognize Jordie in Jesper (that he's afraid to lose another brother)

Kaz thinks "But they’d landed in a trap, and if he had to chew his paw off to get them out of it, then that was what he would do."

Kaz pays off Inej's contract by liquidating "every asset he had" and explicitly tells her "I don't want you to be beholden to Per Haskell. Or me."

Kaz tells Inej about his emergency money stash and charges her with getting everyone out of the city safely if he doesn't come back from the Slat

Kaz tells her "Whatever happens to me, survive this city. Get your ship, have your vengeance, carve your name into their bones. But survive this mess I’ve gotten us into."

Kaz leaves on a suicide mission, telling Inej not to follow, because if he's going to die he wants to be the only one in active danger

And of course Kaz had already offered to serve himself up on a silver platter to the stadwatch and give them a way out even before he came up with the auction plan (though we don't get Kaz's point of view of The Clocktower Fight, I suspect it's also why he picked that fight with Jesper: he knew Jesper would never leave him to die unless he made him mad enough to "walk away" for once in his life).

What separates Kaz from other Barrel Bosses like Pekka isn't just that he would never sell a person or con/otherwise harm children. It's that at his lowest, when all the bravado and scheming and masks are stripped away, Kaz chooses to put himself on the line and sacrifice his own safety over putting his people in any more danger than they have to be. Because despite his ruthlessness and casual assholery, Kaz simply doesn't have it in him to watch those he cares about get hurt if he can prevent it. He ended Chapter 26 saying he intended to leave damage behind when he's gone, but also spent the entirety of the Geldrunner chapters spending time and effort and money he didn't have to minimize the damage as much as possible for his friends (his new family) if the worst should happen to him.

So he gives them a safe place to land where the gangs won't find them. He tries to push them away and make them mad enough that they won't grieve him when he dies. He gives them multiple ways out even if none of those options guarantee his own safety. He gives them money and as much safety as he can provide with the whole city out for their blood. He gives Inej her freedom. And he gives them time to rest, recharge, and prepare for whichever plan they end up doing while he goes off to stage a coup he's not sure he'll come back from.

This is all to say: Kaz could never be Pekka, no matter how tough of a game he talks about burning everything to the ground, because Kaz cares too much to ever become Pekka. Even as he continues to pretend not to care about anything but the money, his love for his city and his Crows are baked into every one of his thoughts and actions in those chapters. Unlike Pekka, who flees first Ketterdam and then Kerch entirely when his son is in (percieved) danger, Kaz stays to fight for the city he bent to his will. And unlike Per Haskell, who lets other people do his dirty work and sells out at the first opportunity for glory, Kaz puts himself on the front lines first even when doing so comes at a great cost to himself.

Pekka chases money and power for their own sake. Per Haskell chases money and power for the decadence, glory, and laziness it allows him to get away with. Kaz chases money and power because he knows what it's like to be powerless and wants to, in his own weird way, protect others from suffering his trauma and himself from losing anyone else he cares about. And that's why even at his most unhinged Kaz could never become Pekka Rollins: his quest for power and fame and riches comes from a fundamentally different place. Kaz Brekker doesn't need a reason, but he has at least five at all times during the course of the duology...and while those reasons are often filtered through his primary reason (Inej's freedom, safety, and happiness), none of them are ever far from his mind.

I'm obsessed, help

can someone explain what's going on i literally have no idea

also rip eugene he's so dead lmao

i feel kinda bad for donald i was literally cringing watching him have a mental breakdown in the middle of his office like damn

Jake's friend group + thoughts

(Okay so just to clarify I don't actually care about the morality of fictional characters because they're, well, fictional. I just wrote this because I don't really see anybody else talking about them)

Usually when I see people talk about the Daehyeon boys it's usually about how they're similar to Eunjang and that if it wasn't for the Union, Jake's crew would get along with Eunjang so well etc etc.

But I don't really believe that Eunjang and Jake's crew could be friends (hang out?? tolerate each other, maybe, but not friends) with all their differences. It's pretty obvious that SEOPASS made them similar on purpose so I'm not gonna act like that's some groundbreaking discovery I made lmao, but there are some things that make me think that the two groups are actually pretty different.

For one, when Gray and his friends are leaving to go find Big Ben after fighting Dean and the others, he tells the guys from Daehyeon that Ben wouldn't gang up on Jake with them, and that Ben wasn't "Some wannabe thug like you guys."

(Pop off Gray)

But yeah, Jake and his gang can act like they're the chill, strong, laid back good guys, but that's all it is. An act. I mean, Dean and Eunchan literally pick fights with people for no reason, and are assholes a lot of the time.

Jake doesn't start fights for no reason but he never stops his friends from doing so, and though I've never seen this happen in canon before, I can a 100% imagine him being excited when that happens so that he can get into fights for a 'justifyable' reason. (This reminds me of something @rare-and-beautiful-things in a post before about Jake beating people up for his friends in their strong abd kind Union member post)

Plus the dynamics in their group are actually pretty different. Eunchan and Dean immediately underestimate their opponents (and in a way, Jake does too, but that's more understandable since he IS the number two in the Union), making a bunch of derogratory comments about the people they're fighting.

I've never seen anybody in Eunjang do that (besides Teddy but he's a special case💀) even though most of them are unbelievably strong they always approach their opponent with caution and never look down on them.

Also,, one thing I've noticed is that Dean and Eunchan have the tendency not only to look down on their opponents, but their friends as well. Okay that sounds bad so let me explain more😭😭

I feel like Eunchan and Dean unconciously rank people? (like most people in the Union do, and I guess it kind of comes along with being a thug) and don't get me wrong, I think they geniunely think of Timothy as a friend and care for him, but when you're in the Union you tend to view people who can't fight as someone less deserving of your respect, whether you do it consciously or not.

An example of this is when Gray is about to fight Dean, Eugene warns Gray about Dean's strength, Gray pats him on the shoulder and tells him not to worry.

But when Timothy does the same to Dean, Dean tells Timothy that he "didn't give a crap about his data", and I don't think he would have responded the same way if someone like Jake (or someone he viewed as 'more powerful' than him) told him to be cautious.

And let's be honest, you'd only talk to somebody that way if you didn't respect them.

It's pretty obvious that Eunchan does the same thing too. When Eugene and Timothy start fighting, Eunchan looks over at them and says, "What a bunch of losers."

I literally did a double take at that one because 1. Calling your friend (who's trying to help you) a loser? 2. It confirms what I thought about the other guys looking down on Tim for not being able to fight. They hang out with him and love him, sure, but subconsiously to them, anybody who cannot fight is a rank below them: a loser.

(I'm pretty sure they aren't aware of this since their friendship does seem pretty geniune. It's probably from the inflated ego that comes along with being a thug.)

The Eunjang boys have never once looked down on Eugene for not being able to defend themselves and always treated him as an equal, so that's another difference.

(Also another thing that's pretty telling is Eunchan's style of fighting- he hits Eugene in the face even though Eugene was practically defenseless and not attacking him. He also got Timothy to hold Rowan down so he could beat him up which is dirty asf and also just proves that they aren't really the 'cool strong heroes' they think they are.)

Anyways thanks for reading all this rambling and like I said at the start (i'll just repeat it because some people can't read and i don't want any hate) i don't actually care about whether fictional characters are good or bad because if I did I wouldn't be reading action webtoons (or having Wolf Keum as a fav) I just wanted to talk about this.

Interested in hearing yalls thoughts</3

in short, think self diagnosis, after extensive research, is valid.

not everyone have access to medical professionals. not everyone have access to competent quality medical professionals. not everyone can afford. medical trauma & medical neglect exist. misdiagnosis exist. medical racism sexism misogyny. etc.

though. to add some nuance: (i am specifically addressing autism but probably applies to most self diagnosis)

1. sites like tiktok and tumblr provide important lived experience lens that hard to find any other place. often play huge part in journey! but tiktok and tumblr should not be only place you do research for self diagnosis.

further, watching one tiktok or one tumblr post is not enough for self diagnosis. know most people who self diagnose isn’t doing this, but do see some people do this.

2. there are late diagnosed autistic people with higher support needs. there are late diagnosed autistic people who are visibly developmentally disabled but their other I/DD diagnosis covered over their autism. etc.

having said that though. overwhelming majority of autistic who self diagnose who are late diagnosed. have lower support needs, are high masking, less visibly autistic. most of them lived their life in nondisabled neurotypical society, mainstreamed, go to typical school, get job, maybe job after job after job fired quit fired again—often forced to be this way, not given choice. which is all distressing. have grief about not being noticed as autistic earlier.

but. you need to know that there are early diagnosed autistic folks, some of them high support needs and/or nonspeaking minimally speaking, some of them who put in special ed, go to “special” schools, who have high support needs, who can’t or not allowed to live independently, who needs full physical assistance with bADLs, who can’t keep own basic safety, who will never able to hold typical job, etc etc… they are still autistic. just because you have trauma about being late diagnosed late identified doesn’t mean for them early diagnosis is a abuse free blessing.

early diagnosed, visibly developmentally disabled people like these often face the blunt of the violence. they are one of the most marginalized groups in our community.

some late diagnosed autistics hold privilege over some early diagnosed autistics. (note i say some—late diagnosis early diagnosis not monolith experiences.)

3. just because you are, say, autistic, doesn’t mean right this second you should be an autistic advocate, or right this second you’re qualified to. i believe all autistic people have important meaningful thing to say about own experience with autism. but being an advocate involves so much more than that.

being advocate involves constant learning, especially from people more marginalized than you and people not similar to you.

being advocate means constant self reflection, means reflect on own privilege and oppression, means reflect on own internalized ableism internalized racism, etc.

being advocate means learning to decenter self, learning how to hold space for others, learning how to apologize and take accountability.

being advocate means learning how to listen.

being advocate means learning how to take responsibility.

being an advocate means addressing own trauma and not project trauma onto others, especially other more marginalized groups.

being an advocate means acknowledging nuance.

newly realized autistics, newly self diagnosed autistics, newly professionally diagnosed autistics (who didn’t know they autistic before professional diagnosis), they all have important place in autistic community and autistic conversations. but being new to this means you have so much more to learn. and you need to learn how to do more good than harm when share own experience and do own advocacy.

4. there is a world of autism experiences beyond your own. listen to them, too.

with all that said. self diagnosis, after extensive research, is valid.