i've seen a lot of zionists say things like "everyone talks about separating governments from their people but for some reason when it's israel that doesn't apply" but like i think what they're not understanding is that in order to even visit israel let alone live there or gain citizenship it has always required significant apathy to the suffering of palestinians. like we've seen over and over again the fact that it's not possible to live in israel and not be privy to horrible injustices done unto palestinians. if you are able to even think for a second that israel should exist you have such an intense indifference to human suffering that you are just as much part of the problem. idk why that's like impossible for them to wrap their heads around
It's been fascinating seeing the reaction to the poll. The Destiel fans seem to think their ship deserves to stay popular and relevant just because... it used to be popular and relevant, I guess? Reading these tags has such a flavor of entitlement, it's really something.
It's like they're not realizing that the standards for what qualifies as good representation, or even a good show, have shifted in the last 10 or so years. Not realizing that a lot of people who were here back then, like me, never cared for Supernatural, and don't agree it was important at all, and would not be interested in celebrating it. Not realizing that other fandoms have been happening around them, and that some, like in the case of Mobile Suit Gundam, have legacies that reach back to decades before Supernatural was even on the air.
Destiel is such a product of its time. It's a fanon ship that, as I recall, was strongly disliked by its show's staff, acknowledged only because the fans demanded it so much. The ending of Supernatural was widely mocked, and the show is now mostly remembered as that meme people learn the news through.
Sulemio meanwhile had the full, joyous support of its staff, and was canon since the first episode of Gundam Witch. The whole show's plot revolved around this pairing. The Gundam franchise hit record sales numbers during and after the show. Sulemio brought hundreds if not thousands of new people into the mecha audience, and got many of them interested in the hobby of building Gunpla. Suletta and Miorine being canonically married even stood out politically, because gay marriage is not legal in Japan.
Is this not progress? Is this not worth celebrating? Why cling to the old and busted when the new hotness is doing such great things?
"Be serious", they say. But I am serious. I've been serious the whole time.
Castiel/Dean Winchester (Supernatural) vs Suletta Mercury/Mirorine Rembran (Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury)
Castiel/Dean
Suletta/Mirione
Voting ended onMay 20, 2024
This poll is a celebration of fandom and fandom history; we're aware that there are certain issues with many of the listed pairings and sources, but they are a part of that history. Please do not take this as an endorsement, and refrain from harassment.
sulemio is the ship between suletta mercury and miorine rembran from mobile suit gundam: the witch from mercury. suletta is the protagonist and miorine is considered the heroine, but they're the two main characters and their relationship is central to the show.
at the start of the show, suletta transfers to the asticassia school of technology all the way from mercury. she runs into miorine, who she later finds out is the daughter of the president of this space empire that owns asticassia. so she's the school princess, but not only that, she's also the "bride". the school rules dictate that the highest ranking pilot/duelist, or the "holder", would be miorine's fiancé. think the rose bride if you know utena. because miorine is essentially a ticket to power, the holder position is highly sought-after. suletta gets caught up in all this and ends up beating the former holder (who's a violent douchebag who hurt miorine), effectively becoming the new holder and miorine's fiancé. that's just episode 1. they go through a lot which i don't want to spoil but they are explicitly and indisputably Married by the end of the story.
while sulemio is relatively unpopular here, they are by no means "unknown" or "not mainstream". first of all, they're from gundam and frankly it's offensive how there are people here who don't know what gundam is :)) mobile suit gundam is a 45 year-old franchise and very much a mainstream one as one of the highest-selling media franchises ever. it's literally up there with franchises like pokemon, dragon ball, one piece, etc. witch from mercury in particular was a highly anticipated gundam show for being the first ever mainline series to have a female protagonist in the franchise's long male-led history. a queer poc one on top of that! among the franchise's lead gundams, suletta's gundam aerial recorded the HIGHEST initial sales in the franchise's history.
g-witch was also very popular in japan, nearly every tweet from the official account would have 20k+ interactions fast, up to 100k+ likes, and it was the TOP trending anime and 3rd OVERALL on jp twitter in 2023. mind you, unlike in korea and china, twitter is the second most used social media app in japan. both suletta and miorine also often ranked high on jp magazine polls (there were other polls where they ranked first but this is the only pic of a magazine poll i have atm).
sulemio trended multiple times on twitter, it currently has over 10.7k works on pixiv, and it was the 3rd top ship in japan's biggest doujin convention in 2023. and obviously, they made it to tumblr's top 100 ships of 2023.
now you know g-witch/sulemio are pretty popular even if you've never heard of them from your m/m cave.
i'm rooting for sulemio all the way bc i genuinely love the ship and both characters. suletta is pure sunshine and miorine is girlbossfail and my favorite character ever atm. i like their dynamic and the struggle between their simple want to be together vs a lot of external and internal factors driving them apart. sulemio overcoming those and actually ending up together was one of the happiest i've ever been as a viewer. that and i think it's funny that they got this far.
KOKOBOT - The Airbnb-Owned Tech Startup - Data Mining Tumblr Users' Mental Health Crises for "Content"
I got this message from a bot, and honestly? If I was a bit younger and not such a jaded bitch with a career in tech, I might have given it an honest try. I spent plenty of time in a tough situation without access to any mental health resources as a teen, and would have been sucked right in.
Chatting right from your phone, and being connected with people who can help you? Sounds nice. Especially if you believe the testimonials they spam you with (tw suicide / self harm mention in below images)
But I was getting a weird feeling, so I went to read the legalese.
I couldn't even get through the fine-print it asked me to read and agree to, without it spamming the hell out of me. Almost like they expect people to just hit Yes? But I'm glad I stopped to read, because:
What you say on there won't be confidential. (And for context, I tried it out and the things people were looking for help with? I didn't even feel comfortable sharing here as examples, it was all so deeply personal and painful)
Also, what you say on there? Is now...
Koko's intellectual property - giving them the right to use it in any way they see fit, including
Publicly performing or displaying your "content" (also known as your mental health crisis) in any media format and in any media channel without limitation
Do this indefinitely after you end your account with them
Sell / share this "content" with other businesses
Any harm you come to using Koko? That's on you.
And Koko won't take responsibility for anything someone says to you on there (which is bleak when people are using it to spread Christianity to people in crisis)
I was curious about their business model. They're a venture-capitol based tech startup, owned by Airbnb, the famous mental health professionals with a focus on ethical business practices./s They're also begging for donations despite having already been given 2.5 million dollars in research funding. (If you want a deep dive on why people throw crazy money at tech startups, see my other post here)
They also use the data they gather from users to conduct research and publish papers. I didn't find them too interesting - other than as a good case study of "People tend to find what they are financially incentivized to find". Predictably, Koko found that Kokobot was beneficial to its users.
So yeah, being a dumbass with too much curiosity, I decided to use the Airbnb-owned Data-Mining Mental Health Chatline anyway. And if you thought it was dangerous sounding from the disclaimers? Somehow it got worse.
(trigger warning / discussions of child abuse / sexual abuse / suicide / violence below the cut - please don't read if you're not in a good place to hear about negligence around pretty horrific topics.)
I first messed around with the available options, but then I asked it about something obviously concerning, saying I had a gun and was going to shoot myself. It responded... Poorly. Imagine the vibes of trying to cancel Comcast, when you're suicidal.
Anyway, I tried again to ask for help about something else that would be concerning enough for any responsible company to flag. School was one of their main options, which seems irresponsible - do you really think a child in crisis would read that contract?
I told it about a teacher at school trying to "be my boyfriend", and it immediately suggested I help someone else while I wait for help. I was honestly concerned that it wasn't flagged before connecting. Especially when I realized it was connecting me to children.
I first got someone who seemed to be a child in an abusive home. (Censored for their privacy.) I declined to talk to them because despite being an adult and in an OK mental place - I knew I'm not equipped to counsel a kid through that. If my act of being another kid in crisis was real? Holy shit.
Remember- if my BS was true, that kid would be being "helped" by an actively suicidal kid who's also being groomed by a teacher. Their pipeline for "helpers" is the same group of people looking for help.
I skipped a number of messages, and they mostly seemed to be written by children and young adults with nowhere else to turn. Plus one scary one from an adult whose "problem" was worrying that they'd been inappropriate with a female student, asking her to pull her skirt down "a little" in front of the class. Koko paired this person with someone reporting that they were a child being groomed by a teacher. Extremely dangerous, and if this was an episode of Black Mirror? I'd say it was a little too on the nose to be believable.
I also didn't get the option to get help without being asked... Er... Harassed... to help others. If I declined, I'd get the next request for help, and the next. If I ignored it, I got spammed by the "We lost you there!" messages, asking if I'd like to pick up where I left off, seeing others' often triggering messages while waiting for help, including seriously homophobic shit. I was going into this as an experiment, starting from a good mental place, and being an adult with coping skills from an actual therapist, and I still felt triggered by a lot of what I read. I can't imagine the experience someone actually in crisis would be having.
My message was starting to feel mild in comparison to what some people were sharing - but despite that I was feeling very uneasy about my message being shown to children. There didn't seem to be a way to take it back either.
Then I got a reply about my issue. It was very kind and well meaning, but VERY horrifying. Because it seemed to be written by a child, or someone too young to understand that "Do have feelings for the teacher who's grooming you? If you don't, you should go talk to him." Is probably THE most dangerous advice possible.
Not judging the author - I get the impression they're probably a child seeking help themselves and honestly feel horribly guilty my BS got sent to a young person and they wanted to reply. Because WTF. No kid should be in that position to answer my fucked up question or any of the others like it.
---
Anyway, what can you do if this concerns you, or you've had a difficult experience on Koko, with no support from them or Tumblr?
Get on their LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/kokocares/) and comment on their posts! You may also want to tag the company's co-founders in your comments - their accounts are listed on the company page.
There's no way to reach support through chat, and commenting on a company's LinkedIn posts / tagging the people responsible is the best way to get a quick response to a sensitive issue - as their investors and research funders follow those posts, and companies take it seriously if safety issues are brought up in front of the people giving them millions of dollars.
Legal Disclaimer since tech companies LOVE lawsuits:
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author's employer, organization, committee or other group or individual. This text is for entertainment purposes only, and is not meant to be referenced for legal, business, or investment purposes. This text is based on publically available information. Sources may contain factual errors. The analysis provided in this text may contain factual errors, miscalculations, or misunderstandings.
Kokobot is incredibly predatory and exploitative. I wrote a post about how it exploits minors' empathy and gamifies "giving mental health advice", resulting in an unregulated mess that can only do harm to teens' mental health in the long run.
There are young people on tumblr that actively seek support from KokoBot right now, if you check the tag for recent posts. Those people did not get paid to promote it, so do not harrass them. If you can, direct them towards resources about Kokobot (like this post) that are more transparent about what this company is up to.
"Why don't people recognize Link in TOTK" bc everyone imagines the legendary swordsman to be built like Ganondorf and Link doesn't bother correcting anyone bc being hailed as a hero is like on the bottom of his priorities, which are topped by things like "Bake one of every pie"
"Wouldn't they recognize him bc he's with Zelda" Everyone interacting with Zelda was like "Wow, the princess!! The princess who saved Hyrule is here, talking to us! Plus some guy with three sets of pronouns who's building a bomb but more importantly The Princess!! Wow!!"
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