Taikas Reaction Whenthe Interviewer Mentions Ofmd

taika’s reaction when the interviewer mentions ofmd 🥺

As I see a lot of doom and gloom posts cross my dash (yes, warranted/understandable, but unhelpful when they are all you see), I think it's worth extra highlighting this piece from the above: "A majority of Americans disapprove of the court’s decision to effectively end all federal protections on abortion."

It is not everyone in the US who wants to harm women and minorities by denying them basic rights or access to basic health care. It is not even a majority of Americans who want those things. It is a very vocal minority, who are able to strip women and minorities of rights because they currently have the greatest share of institutional power.

The way to combat them is to limit their institutional power - something that Sen. Warren is advocating for by advocating for more Supreme Court judges, which would mean less power per individual judge and thus less chance for a few far right judges to strip away rights from anyone they deem an acceptable target. Another way to combat them is by voting to keep Republicans out of office at every level you are able to vote at, where there is a viable alternative candidate who is further left. Even if you disagree with many of that alternative candidate's stances, even if they are only a bare few steps to the left of the right-wing candidate, it is still worth voting for every leftward step we can get. Progress is often incremental, but if you wait for perfect candidates before you bother to vote, we'll just keep getting dragged to the right instead of making any progress back at all.

Warren calls for Supreme Court expansion after Roe overturned

"We need to get some confidence back in our court...we need more justices on the United States supreme court."

The Supreme Court “set a torch” to its legitimacy with its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, warranting an expansion of the number of supreme court justices, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.

Why it matters: A majority of Americans disapprove of the court’s decision to effectively end all federal protections on abortion.

At least 26 Republican-led states in total are expected to ban abortions or heavily restrict access to them in the wake of the ruling, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion-rights organization.

What they’re saying: “This court has lost legitimacy. They have burned whatever legitimacy they still may have had after their gun decision, after their voting decision, after their union decision,” Warren said.

“They just took the last of it and set a torch to it with the Roe v. Wade opinion,” she added.

“I believe we need to get some confidence back in our court and that means we need more justices on the United States Supreme Court.”

Warren also said that she was “deeply concerned” about Justice Clarence Thomas’ suggestion in his concurring opinion to the Roe v. Wade ruling that the Supreme Court should reconsider opinions protecting same-sex relationships, marriage equality and access to contraceptives.

Since there are a lot of valid reasons why people might feel uncomfortable answering questions, especially from strangers on the internet (it's an extremely personal issue, and you don't want to talk about it with strangers or in group settings; the question covers something you don't know or a group you aren't actually a part of; you've been asked the same question a thousand times before and don't like answering it; you're just kind of tired and were looking to do something fun that day instead of answer other people's questions; literally whatever), it might also be helpful to keep a mental backlog of polite ways to turn down questions.

Not everyone wants to be a teacher, not everyone wants to be in a position of teaching people about issues relevant to their personal lives, and no one should be expected to be ready to teach other people at any moment. However, you can shut down questions you aren't able/willing/prepared to answer without being an asshole.

"That's a really common question, with a complicated answer! There's a lot that can be said, but you can find some great beginner resources at [link]!"

"That's a really interesting question - a lot of people have put some good work into answering it at [link 1], [link 2], and [link 3]!"

"I'm probably not the best person to answer that, but if you go to [link] that might help you find what you're looking for!"

"I'm not the best person to answer that. Followers are welcome to reblog if they have an answer!"

"That's pretty outside the purview of this blog/group/class/etc. You might have better luck asking someone else!"

thinking about that time I was at some kind of diversity and inclusion thing that involved discussion in small groups and one straight girl said she really wanted to be a good ally but sometimes there were some things she just didn’t know and was too afraid to ask for fear of accidentally being offensive. and as the only queer person in this 4-5 person group I said well go ahead and ask me, I don’t care if you accidentally use the wrong term right now or whatever, it’s better to talk about it and learn something, I love talking about queerness and I’ll answer the best I can. and she just looked so nervous and in the end wound up refusing to ask for fear of causing offense. and it wasn’t just the group setting, I’ve known straight people to act similarly even when it’s just one on one

and just. you guys. this is what purity culture and the “if you don’t know something you were never a real ally in fact you’re a bigot in fact you’re worse than bigots because you pretended not to be one” attitude does. how can our allies be allies if they’re scared to talk to us? to ask questions, to make mistakes, to learn? can we please bring back the idea of “in good faith”? there’s way more to say here about identity politics and virtue signaling and acting like language is more important than action but I’m too tired for that right now

please feel free to add to the discussion (regardless of if you’re queer or not), I would love to hear about people’s experiences with this and if others feel differently about it

I keep struggling to write up Zuko meta around the Crossroads of Destiny and after, mainly because I don't want to start up a bunch of arguments about Katara vs. Zuko and who was more wrong. And I still very much don't want that. (I love a good faith debate about fictional stories, but those good faith and fictional stories bits are key.)

There is one piece I need to toss out into the void to get it out of my head, though, because I see it all the time and disagree with it so completely.

Zuko didn't betray Katara in Ba Sing Se.

Betrayal is a violation of someone's trust, and yes Katara had started to trust Zuko. However! Zuko never promised Katara anything. Her tentative trust was based on her own lack of understanding of Zuko's situation.

Katara yells at Zuko and accuses him of working with Azula. She tells him that he's the Fire Lord's son, so "spreading violence and hatred is in [his] blood." Zuko tells her that she doesn't know what she's talking about, to which she responds by telling him that the Fire Nation had taken her mother. Zuko reaches out to Katara and shares how he lost his mother, too.

Katara apologizes to him for yelling, and then talks about how she used to picture his face as the face of the enemy. Zuko assumes that she's talking about his scar, to which she clarifies that's not what she meant. Even so, Zuko shares with her that for a long time he viewed his scar as, "the mark of the banished prince, cursed to chase the Avatar forever. But lately, I've realized I'm free to determine my own destiny, even if I'll never be free of my mark."

Some important things here, from Zuko's side. This is Zuko saying that he's growing to accept his scar, and to accept that it doesn't control him. He has not said that he's chosen a new side in the war, or even that he knows what destiny he will choose now that he feels free to choose.

At this point, Katara still doesn't know the whole story of Zuko's scar. What she does know, is that he saw it as the mark that cursed him to chase Aang forever. Zuko is already realizing that his scar doesn't have to control him, but it does still weigh on him. So Katara offers to heal it, thus "freeing" him of the destiny of chasing Aang.

And Zuko doesn't take her up on it immediately. He is clearly considering it, but he hasn't agreed or promised Katara anything when they are interrupted by Aang and Iroh's arrival. When Aang shows up, the moment between Katara and Zuko is shattered and Katara runs over to hug Aang in relief, while Aang glares at Zuko in distrust over her shoulder.

Katara may have thought that she was, "giving Zuko a chance," and that he betrayed her trust, but Zuko has already lampshaded the truth for us with his first line to Katara - she doesn't know him, she doesn't know the full context of his situation or motivations, and she doesn't get to tell him who he is or how he feels about the world. She has made a lot of assumptions, some kind and some less so, but the first genuine question she asks is what Zuko would do if she healed his scar. That is a question Zuko never gets to answer before they're interrupted, and thus Katara only had her assumption of what his answer would have been and what it would have meant.

(Which is in character for Katara! She's a young girl who has very strong opinions and morals and is willing to stand up for what she believes is right, but who is still in many ways lacking experience with the wider world (yes, she's traveled a lot with Aang, now, but S3 shows us that she still has things to learn, especially about the Fire Nation, and about herself and the kind of person she wants to be when she has the power to choose). She is also very compassionate, and she clearly wants people she feels any kind of sympathy for to be on her side. The flip side of those things is that she also tends to assume things about other people without confirming the truth, and then act as though her assumptions are facts.)

Katara's assumptions being wrong, however, does not constitute a betrayal on Zuko's part.

As much as I love ‘I would kill for you’, it kinda really loses its impact if the person saying it is a villain who already kills at the slightest provocation

’I would refrain from killing for you, I would spare them all if you asked me’ is a very sexy alternative, and a much more powerful declaration of love coming from a character prone to violence