#the problem isn’t with the idea it’s. with the Phrase Itself

[simcardiac-arrested]

if i see that damn “why can’t they just be friends not in a homophobic way but in a platonic way” post on my dash again im going to start attacking people feral hog style

#you guys …… Know …….. that ‘why cant they just be friends’ is still …… Homophobic ……. right ? #that it’s…. a homophobic dogwhistle ? ?? #You know that right? #you can’t just say it with your whole chest because you’re aromantic and special #i just dont know #head in my hands #crammerposting #the problem isn’t with the idea it’s. with the Phrase Itself #just use different words oh my god!!! why are you saying that exact homophobic phrase !!!

[paragonrobits]

There’s a phrase I like to use when people question why, in fantasy series, people don’t just take the most efficient and ruthless option. I say, “This isn’t Game of Thrones.” Bluntly put, apart from having a very unsatisfying ending to its character arcs due to a realistic but very abrupt swing from the character arcs it had been building up (and in one notable case, a character arc that WAS built up the whole time, but not in a way people anticipated), Game of Thrones is most notorious for a very realpolitick approach to how the characters make their decisions.

Efficiency, immediate needs and ruthlessness regardless of personal qualms comes up a lot in what people seem to have taken from that show’s success, and you see a LOT of people thinking that pragmatic ruthlessness is the most basic and standard solution to any story’s problems, regardless of whether or not its consistent with a story’s given themes and morals.

The Avatar setting is NOT one of those. In this setting, spirituality is vitally important; the reason WHY things are done, as well as HOW they done, are just as important as the actual end result, if not more.

So, one thing I see a LOT in fandom circles (usually in bad takes floating around and being mocked by the circles I am adjacent to, or ideas popular among Big Name Fans who are kind of sheltered from the actual themes of the show itself and have distanced themselves from what the show is actually like in favor of what is functionally a completely original series that appeals to their own preferences) comes down to discussions arguing that AtLA would be better if Aang just took down every one he fought and killed them all without hesitation; there is a popular implication among these ideas that Aang is considered weak to them BECAUSE he doesn't want to kill. Because killing is anathema to his people, because the deliberate taking of life is a HUGE deal to both the Air Nomads and the real life religions that they are based on.

These takes conclude that none of that matters; that his morals and compunctions should just be immediately tossed aside in order to achieve his goals. There's usually something like 'who cares about spirituality when the world is so bad' or the ends justifying the means. And the thing is that we DO see characters in AtLA saying that, quite often. Characters who don't care about the spiritual consequences of their actions, who do whatever it takes to accomplish their goals.

They're the villains.

In AtLA, ruthlessness, pragmatism and 'whatever it takes to get what I want' is SPECIFICALLY and EXCLUSIVELY associated with the antagonists. General Fong; Azula, Ozai, the entirety of the Fire Nation... one thing they all have in common, besides opposing Aang, is that they're not just willing to be ruthless, they have no interest in achieving their goals or really doing anything at all without being ruthless and amoral about it. There's a common point in the narrative here, and I think the episode the Avatar State neatly sums it up through its story, as we are presented with Fong, who is seemingly an ally, demanding that they ignore the spiritual demands in favor of just weaponizing a force of nature no one involved really understands.

His emphasis on the people dying in the meantime does make for a potent image, but he is ultimately and frequently established as a ruthless jackass who cares more about trying to weaponize the Avatar State (and mere mortals do not get to have a say in its decisions or what the World Spirit, in its fullest power, wants to do). Apart from this indicating a more or less full departure from a strict moral binary within the series, there's also an emphasis on Katara growing increasingly uncomfortable with the non-spiritual plan they're taking, to the point that she won't have anything to do with it, and she is very much the show's heart. If she disapproves of something with plot relevance, its usually a bad sign.

So this whole THING you have with people going 'everything would be better if Aang killed everyone immediately except for the secret Good Guys even though he has absolutely no way of knowing them out of context'... its genuinely really bewildering and I think its kind of proof of people not engaging with the show's themes or ethics, but assuming that ruthlessness and efficiency are the default way of handling everything. AtLA is not subtle about this and if you think that the show at any point suggests that this is a likely outcome, I don't think you're really engaging with it, or you're misunderstanding the context (such as the Ocean Spirit rampaging being framed as a last second moment of hope; I think people conflate its destruction as generally a Cool Thing, rather than the world itself protecting a dying culture from near certain destruction as the moon itself is... well, dead.)

(There's also a protagonist-centered morality in that they seem to want their characters to BE rather amoral, being all about love and acceptance and tolerance but also brutally and remorselessly kill everyone in their way without hesitation, and the people making these statements don't see any kind of logical flaw. I dunno but that's WEIRD to me.)

#atla #avatar the last airbender #meta #queued

[sprout-senior]

my personal headcanon for how monsters procreate in utmv/utdr: the babies just appear.

enough magic and intent from minimum two monsters will make a baby, it doesn’t matter what kind of intent etc(thinking of how PJ happened as a result of a battle between an alternate ink and error)

so there’s no incubation period. due to this, babies are that much more reliant on their parents for the first couple years of their life. basically proximity to their parents is vital to their physical and magical development; they CAN survive with only one parent’s presence, but it causes problems(i am yet again bringing up PJ and how they were raised primarily by ink for the first few years, don’t have a super solid physical form, and aren’t very powerful despite having two gods for parents. obviously my personal reasoning for this is not canon btw)

this period of necessary proximity to their parents does not HAVE to be the original monsters responsible for their creation. they can develop just fine with “surrogate” parents, given the magic bonds successfully. they CANNOT survive without consistent parents, for lack of better phrasing. if left alone or passed between caretakers too much over a long enough period of time, the baby will Fall Down and subsequently dust. fucked up i know but it’s my worldbuilding headcanon and i get to pick the rules

babies can bond with more than two parents! there isn’t a known maximum amount of parents, since no one has really tried to push the limits, but with several parents the baby will paradoxically take longer to develop their specific type of magic(their physical development is not stunted, but their personal magic takes longer because their soul has to “pick” between several different types of magic to base itself on)

once they’re around two, the baby’s magic type is “locked in”, so to speak. if there are several parents, it can take as long as three or four years in comparison. their power level is influenced by their parents, but not entirely dependent on them. some kids just have more of an affinity for magic, for no discernible reason.

part of what i really like about this headcanon is that gender and species are not factors in making a stable child! incest is still weird tho, i am not a fan of incest in any capacity. also, this means no monster has to deal with the absolute nightmare that is pregnancy. no morning sickness, extreme pain, risk of life, etc is involved. lucky bastards (obligatory “disclaimer this is not to discount the experience of anyone who has had good experiences with pregnancy and have things they really like about it. just bc i can’t personally empathize doesn’t mean i can’t understand that y’all’s experiences are vastly different than mine and you have a perspective informed by things i’ll never have the same level of knowledge and understanding of”)

uhhh that’s the main stuff, i think. literally the entire reason i came up with this idea is because i am just. deeply uncomfortable with mpreg and skelepreg. i don’t have any problem with people who DO like it, i just personally can’t deal. this will not affect my opinion of anybody, i need to make that abundantly clear.

in any case, any utmv/utdr monsters i make will have been born and developed this way. yes this applies to female mammal monsters, it applies to ALL monsters in my personal headcanon. maybe i don’t need to clarify that but whatever

if you like this idea, you’re more than welcome to adopt it! i think it’s an interesting piece of lore to incorporate in stories. i might even apply this to magic centered original works, unrelated to utmv/utdr, because i have become attached. i might not end up pursuing original stories, that’s not really what i’m interested in at this point in time, but i’ll always keep the option open.

if someone else has come up with an idea similar to this, that’s awesome! i promise i did not intentionally steal anyone’s idea, i am not currently aware of anything like it, so please extend some courtesy and understanding for me in the event that there’s a coincidence. i would request the same for if someone comes up with something similar AFTER this is posted, especially since i’m such a small creator without a whole lot of reach.

finally, if i’ve accidentally done something problematic here PLEASE tell me so i can fix it! i never want to cause harm with my work :)

if you’ve read this far, thanks! id love to hear your opinions and/or additions if you’ve got any!

#sprouts yapping #utmv #undertale #undertale au #creative writing #fanfiction #utmv headcanons #headcanons #worldbuilding #i am aware i’ve overexplained a lot but i really value clarity and i like yapping so #anyway thanks bye

[omentranslates]

So I’ve seen a lot of discussion abt this line and how in the anime the subs say “I’m regretting that, a bit” and it’s my understanding that the English manga wrote “That was more than I deserve, maybe” and it kinda fascinates me bc like neither of them are wrong bc it’s both like. Lines like this drive me insane that we can’t have both bc it literally MEANS both of those things it isn’t one or the other in it’s original form like

もったいない is like Almost Always in my experience translated as basically “what a waste” but it’s like non-specific it’s one of those not necessarily literal expressions in a lot of cases and it’s mostly indicative of that sense of regret so like the expression itself FEELS more like what he says in the anime that he’s kinda like “damn maybe I shouldn’t have done that” bc as a phrase it’s used almost like “well that sucks” is in English like the interpretation the manga comes to is correct obviously but it’s not necessarily the only or even first one that you might come to AND ALSO the idea that the time with those girls would’ve been wasted ON HIM bc he doesn’t deserve it is closer to the literal meaning of the phrase (which “more than one deserves” is part of as like a secondary meaning when I looked into it actually I don’t think I’ve seen it used for that directly colloquially but it’s there in the dictionary) LIKE ITS BOTH BOTH VERSIONS REFLECTED DIFFERENT SIDES OF THAT LIKE NATURAL AMBIGUITY and I love shit like this in writing so much bc it’s one of those things that becomes clear the more you get to know the character and how THEY see things bc ultimately the context is what clarifies What They Meant by it like it seems so obvious Knowing Vash but the first time I read this I was like “oh does he have problems connecting :(” and then rereading it later like “WAIT ITS HIS TENDENCIES” it means. Both.

#not really a translation I’m rambling again #trigun #this might already be common knowledge sorry just let me ramble I have one hell of a Fixation on studying and I’m insane abt him #do you see what I mean when I said this IP’s translation drives me absolutely up the wall like it’s so good there’s so much #it is So Study Material what if I read it 1000 times until the sun blows up

[charmquarkstrangequark]

George: The Best of Us

Can’t start this one off without acknowledging that George Cubbins and George Karim do have some differences, so I’ll be looking a bit at both of them. But I agree with Lucy’s characterization of George: he’s the best of them. Warning: mild book spoilers follow.

We don’t have a lot of background from George’s early life. We know he comes from a loving family and still visits them.  George Karim mentions having a granny in Sidcup and three older brothers who are all engineers. (This is a bit funny, because he talks about his family as “engineer, engineer, engineer, weirdo”, and if you’ve ever met an engineer, you realize that there really isn’t a difference among the 4 of them.) Anyway, we know from the books that George Cubbins has a mum who has given Lockwood at least one tea cozy (it’s used to cover Skull at one point) and by extension, likely other gifts as well. So, they’re obviously loving and supportive.

We know that George once worked for Fittes.  Little is made of George’s Talent, other than Lockwood mentioning that George has the Touch, but obviously he had enough of it to get a job at the premier psychical investigation agency in the country.  In fact, he only left Fittes after being fired for being too curious; Ms. Fittes must have realized that if anyone were going to uncover the truth about the Problem, it would be George. The oversight of George’s Talent is likely because it is overshadowed by his intelligence and research skills, which are formidable.

George has the ability to do a deep dive into the history of nearly any topic or place. He has an indefatigable willingness to visit churches, libraries, and any place necessary to uncover the details of a location’s history, thus cluing his teammates into possible sources. They'd really be blundering around in the dark without his guidance. Doing research itself is a skill; knowing how to cross reference topics, knowing all the different words and phrases possible for the same topic throughout the ages, catching the minute details that link people, places, and objects together. And it’s a skill George does better than any other character that either readers or viewers meet in the Lockwood & Co universe. George can make the inferential leaps that others are blind to, and he does it intuitively and quickly, leaving others behind in the dust. Take the theft of the bone glass at Kensal Green. Lockwood and Lucy have a little role play, talking through how the thief may have made their way into the chapel - then- crime scene.  They are able to build off each other’s ideas to come up with a hypothesis, and go off to check it…only to find George already there, having already come to this conclusion on his own. In fact, George is used to working on his own, something that will set him up to be hurt later.

George and Lockwood obviously have an incredibly deep friendship, one based on mutual respect and understanding.  Lockwood appreciates George. He understands that George doesn’t think about things and people the way others do, and has no desire to change George. He values George’s differences. George respects Lockwood, too.  He recognizes Lockwood’s reckless nature, the darkness within him, but he doesn’t challenge Lockwood on it. At one point he criticizes Lucy for not stopping Lockwood from going to the Hope house without the research having been completed (“You’re meant to stop him, Lucy”), but he’s guilty of the same thing the night they go wraith hunting while Lucy is recovering from her initial interaction with Skull.  He accuses Lockwood of not giving him time to properly do the research, but obviously, he went along with Lockwood anyway. Also, his trust in Lockwood is absolute. When bad press starts coming after the Hope house fire, Lockwood says, "I'll handle it" and George just says, "Ok". He doesn't ask how; he accepts at face value that if Lockwood says he'll handle it, he will.

Over time, George and Lucy grow close, as well. He truly appreciates their blossoming friendship ("She's really starting to get me"). His concern for her behavior in the bath is genuine. (side note: I have a hc that George's parents found him in the bath as a young child with his clothes on and told him, gently, that this was Not Normal, and that's why he says the same to Lucy, later.) Anyway, he sees the ache in her, the need for belonging that he also sees in his best friend. He recognizes that the two will complement each other, and becomes her unfailing advocate from that point forward.

George may not be touchy-feely, but he definitely believes in acts of service. He cooks, and maintains 35 Portland Row, he keeps the books and files because Lockwood doesn't have the patience to do so, and he manages much of the logistics of the Agency. Lockwood and Lucy rely on him to the point of advantage; they don't even comment on how much he does until they suddenly realize they haven't packed the chains, or re-ordered flares. He balances their impulsivity. He considers risk and consequences, protecting them from themselves.

A lot is made of what appears to be some neurodivergence in George, wonderfully acted by Ali Hadji-Heshmati.  He’s awkward with eye contact, and speaks his mind a little too freely.  He has little affect; Lucy can tell more about his mood by how he cleans his spectacles than by tone of voice or facial expression. He obviously is touch-sensitive: he prefers not wearing trousers, and when he does, they’re loose and baggy. Even his kit belt is different to the others; Lockwood and Lucy wear stiff leather kit belts, but George’s is a kind of mesh. (Combine that with psychic ability linked to Touch, and realize what a tough go of it George must have had growing up.) I really like that all of these aspects of George’s character are just that; they’re not highlighted, he’s not made into some kind of token neurodivergent character.  He’s just…George. His strengths and differences are appreciated as much as any other character’s.

The combination of George's research skill and different manner of thinking combine to make him susceptible to obsessive behaviors. He is, of every other character in the series, the only one who is actively trying to SOLVE the Problem. Everyone else is caught up in reacting to it. George sees the big picture, that the agencies are losing, giving ground to the seemingly unstoppable onslaught of Visitors. He realizes that the only way to stop the Problem is to find its source, to prevent more Visitors from coming, rather than to just keep trying to eliminate the ones they find, one at a time. The obsession is a point of weakness capitalized upon by Joplin & the bone glass. George's tendency to do the work alone isolates him from his team and leaves him vulnerable. An important part of his character arc is to recognize how his skills dovetail with those of his teammates to create a unified front of strength and efficacy. Once he does so, he also uncovers the cause of the Problem, and thus, a way to potentially control it.

What I find most admirable about George is his bravery.  In the books, George Cubbins is described quite unfavorably by Lucy as having a face that begged to be slapped and a backside in need of a well placed kick. George Cubbins is described as slovenly, appearing not to own a comb, with a completely disorderly room.  George Karim, on the other hand, stress cleans.  He may not be one to dress up, but he seems not to suffer from the hygiene issues of his literary counterpart. 

However, none of this bothers George, because he doesn’t care much about how others look on the surface. He doesn’t worry about his own outward appearance because he hopes others will judge him in the way he judges them: by their actions, by who they are inside.  In fact, Skull (who mostly sees only a person’s inner self, what will eventually become their plasm if they become Visitors after death, and which I interpret to be a soul) notes that only himself and George are able to see past surface distractions to the truth of a person. It's part of why he's able to see past Flo's ghost trauma and recognize her intelligence, bravery, skill, and freedom.

George is unapologetically himself. In the final book, when Sir Rupert and his goons are targeting the smaller agencies and assaulting agents on the streets, George is the only one of Lockwood & Co to stand up to Sir Rupert’s bullying. He is unafraid to be out at any time of day or night, and has complete faith in his own ability to defend himself. He speaks his mind because he knows he has the ability to back it up, if necessary.  He is criminally overlooked by most people who meet him, but George is intelligent, brave, loyal, skilled, possesses a sharp and witty sense of humor, and is the glue that holds his agency together.  He really is, as Lucy says, the best of them.

#george karim #george cubbins #lockwood & co #lockwood and co #renew lockwood and co #l&co character analysis #ali hadji heshmati #George appreciation post #anthony lockwood #lucy carlyle #Lockwood & Co book spoilers

[zebulontheadult]

I understand this can't be what you mean, but when talking about this, for safeguarding purposes, you should explicitly state that it is not acceptable to ever make any assumptions about consent, regardless of someone's disabilities. Any communication ambiguity or ambiguity around capacity to consent means you have to assume someone is not consenting and cannot consent to sexual contact. We can never assume what someone's inner world is like, that's true- that's why we must always err on the side of not raping people. The way you phrased this reads as the type of rhetoric used to justify crimes such as Anna Stubblefield's assault of a disabled man, which was enabled by her belief in forms of facilitated communication that allow for these crimes to be justified in the abuser's mind. I get that this isn't what you mean, but it needs to be explicitly made clear, because safeguarding means creating an environment where it's clear everyone is in agreement about what is and isn't sexual violence. Your post as you wrote it creates a grey area that a bad actor can read as endorsing the idea that because someone can consent internally despite an outward lack of successful and unambigous communication, people who can't communicate unambiguously enough (in one medium or another) to clearly demonstrate capacity to consent and consent itself, aren't necessarily being assaulted if touched sexually. They are, it's illegal, it's rape. I get that you must know that but we need to be very explicit on this because this is a very vulnerable population and there are people who want to violate them and can easily convince themselves their victims are consenting.

Hey anon. I’m not even sure how to come about this, or even talk about this subject. This subject is so important, and I think it’s also important to realize. I am intellectually disabled. And autistic, and learning disabled, and schizospec, my wording is not going to be 100% but I will say this now. Not once did I say that I agree if someone is not able to explicitly consent, they can consent. If someone is able to explicitly consent in their manner of communicating, then they consent. If they’re not, then they have not consented.

I want people to realize that there is more ways then verbally saying it because verbal words, aren’t the default for many. Sign language users, AAC users, people who write one letter at a time on a piece of fucking paper. These are all ways that people communicate. Verbal. Words. Aren’t. The. Default. That’s what I’m getting at.

It’s also important to realize that a LOT an insanely amount of people with ID are purposefully withheld being taught sex education even if they can comprehend the process of consent. Even verbal, seemingly ok on the outside ID folks who were in special education have been withheld from learning about special education. That’s what I’m getting at.

My posts are not a rapists way of saying “Well you never know they might be able to consent blah blah” No. Consent is explicit. It is something that is heavily debated on within the medical community because they still don’t believe that people with ID, even mild ID, have the minds of adults instead of “children”. Mental age is a HUGE problem, that’s what I’m getting at.

I’m not creating a grey area. I’m not intending to at least. Either someone consents or they don’t, either they’re able to or they’re not. That is between them, their caretakers/parents/support team, and doctors. Although, these people can be wrong. And that’s what I’m also getting at.

Do you see what I’m saying? I’m not creating a grey area, I’m trying to open up a conversation that had been in the ID community for DECADES. Decades of being ignored and being told that ALL people with ID cannot consent when that isn’t true. See what I’m saying?

I hope this helps. Have a nice day.

#intellectual disability #consent #this was a hard one to write and I felt a bit angry. #it’s hard to explain and get through these things #long post

[there-was-a-hole-here-itsgonenow]

MEAT above Melvin

@howtobecomeadragon and I have been exchanging a variety of ideas about what this sign could mean and we reached some interesting analyses!

This is such an intriguing shot because of that word alone. It’s directly, perfectly centered above Mike and El—perfectly centered in-frame (with the ‘S’ cut off) too. It’s a purposeful shot.

Obviously there’s the flesh monster as a present, looming threat that can be correlated here, but the monster itself isn’t a literal threat that poses to meaningfully separate Mike and El. It’s not like the shot of the very obvious #1 hanging right above (in-between if you imagine a frontal shot) Will and Mike specifically, in the same episode no less.

From this shot, I gather that One aims to get between and separate Will and Mike for his own purposes. Mike is constantly involved with thwarting One’s plans throughout the series, a big one being Mike’s interference with Will’s possession. Will opened up to Mike about feeling the Mind Flayer, and Mike said ‘maybe that’s good’ because Will was like a super spy. Mike later knew Will needed to be sedated when he was possessed because Will had able to open up to him previously. It was also Mike’s “it was the best thing I’ve ever done” monologue that got Will to break through enough to communicate via Morse code. All this to say that these interferences highlight the problem for One: Mike’s bond with Will. Henry is aware of Mike’s power in this bond, and so this analysis of the above shot holds weight.

But then there’s MEAT. Dragon mentioned that Mike and El could’ve been placed in an area where there’s health/nursing/pharmaceutical significance to represent taking care of their relationship, but we don’t get that. And unlike the #1 sign that points toward an outside force wanting to separate Will and Mike for a Henry-specific purpose, we can’t grab a similar analysis from MEAT/ the flesh monster. What can be understood is that Melvin’s relationship is compromised by themselves; Mike especially when breaking down what is about to happen after we see MEAT. One conclusion howtobecomeadragon and I came to is the concept of butchering/spilling blood in the way meat is prepared. It’s a messy, bloody process. ‘Butchering,’ by definition as an alternate description, can mean to spoil something completely by performing or dealing with a situation very badly.

Cue Mike. Howtobecomeadragon describes Mike as having ‘butchered’ not only his apology to El but also his messy attempt to say “I love you” to El. And of course, we have this very telling choice phrase from Mike (along with “Dustin, you’re breaking up”):

Mike and El have been going way too fast in their relationship and aren’t taking the time to understand each other (El is perfectly in-shot by Mike’s head when he says this, emphasizing that point). This truth is further emphasized by this next shot howtobecomeadragon pointed out to me:

A divider is between El and Mike, revealing a divide. The divider itself is not set perfectly between them either, once again depicting how El and Mike are not on the same page. Mike is placed further away from the divider, indicating he is not anywhere near resolving his issue. El is placed near the divider, and, though she isn’t on the same page as Mike, being close to the divider is indicative of her trying to listen/understand. Overall, it’s easy to notice the very clear divide within the divide represented here.

So Mike is butchering his words to El, dealing with their situation badly and even ‘performing’ the role of a boyfriend badly to his girlfriend. Of course, this goes deeper then just being a bad boyfriend. Pair the action of butchering with ‘spilling blood,’ a requirement when cutting meat. Blood is our force of life and, as such, contains our essence. Our essence is within the core of our beliefs, personality, and sense of identity: all that encompasses you. If you know the phrase “it’s in my blood,” this is part of your essence. It means you simply are the way you are/ are born the way you are.

Once again, cue Mike. It is my belief that because Mike says “blank makes you crazy” to El in this scene, Will is automatically bound to this scene due to “crazy” being a word in ST used synonymously with “love.” We know “love makes you crazy.” We know “Crazy together.” We know many examples. It should be clear that “blank makes you crazy,” and Mike’s inability to say “love” himself here, is all you need to understand that love for him is found naturally with Will but not with El. Regardless of your stance on Mike’s sexuality, the fact that Mike can be in love with and attracted to Will/to men is part of what makes Mike… Mike (“born this way”). Tie this with the spilling of blood—the spilling of your life’s essence, which is tied to truth. Your truth. Mike cannot spill his truth here. He cannot profess/‘spill’ “love” to El because that is not his truth. Bring this back around to ‘butchering,’ to spoiling something completely by dealing with a situation badly. Mike tries to force the word “love,” and so makes the situation more confusing (made infinitely worse in s4).

To further expand on this, puberty is a clear theme in s3. Puberty is a messy process. Howtobecomeadragon referenced Mike’s previous assertion to Will, that they aren’t kids anymore, and compared that to Mike trying to get El to say ‘love’ (as he clearly can’t say it himself) during this scene: “it’s what old people say to each other.” Dragon says Mike’s idea of romance stems from aging, which is correct because the presence of puberty in s3 is laying out what Mike believes getting older entails: having a girlfriend and leaving what’s believed to be ‘childish’/not ‘normal’ [in the process of growing up and assimilating into society] behind.

Additionally, he and El can only be physical (kiss) without proper communication. Physical -> Meat -> Flesh -> Puberty, the process in which your physical body begins to change. More than just physically, you are expected to change. While Mike and El are in the convenient store, trying to communicate/figure out their issues, MEAT hangs above them while a flesh monster is out to get them [more symbolically than literally]. The physical truth is out to get them, looms over them, and the truth behind their issues—Mike’s hidden issue particularly (perhaps even expressed through the MEAT sign, as the ME part falls perfectly over Mike and possibly represents a ‘me’ issue for Mike + an abundance of Mike’s blue lighting takes up the center-aisle shot)—is the threat to their relationship. This hidden issue of Mike’s that ‘threatens’ to break Melvin up is not meant to be a bad thing for them (no longer being a couple is the best outcome for them both). It is, however, Mike’s truth that is a threat against him having the norm. His truth is a threat to what is socially expected of him, causing Mike to continue this [butchered] heteronormative performance.

#after all… #what if they don’t like the truth? #mike wheeler #anti m*leven #byler #meat symbolism #st set design #st3

[qqueenofhades]

US-centric racial bullshit is even a problem in Canada. We LOVE pretending that we’re so much better than the United States and that our prejudices aren’t nearly as bad, but the way we’ve treated indigenous peoples has been abysmal for centuries, and most Canadians who aren’t Gen Z weren’t even aware of the worst of it until 2021. I’m not sure how many people outside of Canada know this but in 2021 they found a mass grave of 215 indigenous children outside an old residential school in Kamloops in BC, and everyone was scandalized for approximately two weeks. They’ve since searched like maybe five more schools out of over a hundred and found thousands of more bodies, and the initiative to even look has kind of fizzled out. This was my parents’ first exposure to the idea of residential schools, we’ve been sweeping this shit under the rug for decades, and we still get off to “not being the US”.

All this to say that Canadian history isn’t as flashy as the US but is still worth taking a look at. There’s a lot of harmful institutions still in place left over from like 1873 that symbolize incredibly tense political situations that continue to this day. And even our black history gets boiled down to “Underground Railroad”, oh aren’t we nice, when that’s really not all that happened.

Because I read international news and follow international politics, I am personally aware of the Canadian residential schools scandal, but it absolutely is something that fizzled out after a few weeks and was attempted to be covered up with a few boilerplate apologies and nothing in the way of real change or action. I would therefore gently question your phrasing of "US-centric racial bullshit," since the whole point of your ask is that while Canada pretends to be better than the US, it has its own specific racial and cultural blind spots relating to its own practice of racism. So would this not be more accurately called "Canada-centric racial bullshit?" After all, you're talking about something that happened in Canada, was perpetrated by Canadians, is directly related to the modern Canadian state, and as such as has been denied by white Canadians. After all, the big Trucker March of right-wingers that shut down Toronto took place in Canada, not the US. So yes, there's definitely a need to talk about Canadian racism in and of itself, and not just Canadian racism as a corollary of the US.

Canada is likewise a white settler-colonial state founded by Europeans (English and French, a split still prominent in modern Canada), and that therefore involved equally horrendous legacies of displacement and genocide against the First Nations people. Because Canada is so much smaller population-wise (300 million+ in the US vs just 38 million in Canada), it has thus to some degree been forced to expand its population by relying on immigrants and refugees. And to its credit, it has been more proactive about accepting refugees than the US. But there are still plenty of right-wingers who think that a geographically enormous and empty country like Canada, with only 38 million people, is getting too "crowded" with "foreigners." Likewise, Canada is still officially a part of the Commonwealth, aka the lightly rebranded British Empire, so its formal head of state is the UK monarch. And to the best of my knowledge, there haven't been any serious conversations about breaking that link and reorganizing as a republic, the way there have been in Caribbean Commonwealth countries like Jamaica and Barbados (which in fact just did it). That is because white first-world Canadians can see association with the British Empire as a "prestige," instead of the legacy of slavery and exploitation that was the British Empire against majority-black countries in the Caribbean.

Anyway: Canadians are always stereotyped as the nice people who apologize for everything and mind their business, and yes, the flaming dumpster fire of America would make anyone feel superior about not being that. But it doesn't mean there's no problems or that it's a perfect society free of its own flaws and failures, and Americans are also definitely guilty of treating it as some magical escape valve: witness the "I'm going to move to Canada" refrain when something political goes wrong here. In some ways, yes, that would be preferable, viz. free healthcare and strict gun laws. But yeah.

#murderturtles #ask #canadian history #history of racism

[sonnet-of-anarchy]

Polyamory, collectivism, and modern monogamy:

I.e a piece on Robin’s character development & individual understanding/ tolerance.

(Not at all to be patronising, but just in case:)

Collectivism: the value of group satisfaction over individual significance. I.E group value > individual value.

Atomism: the recognition of value of individuals within a group & their importance is prioritised. I.E individual value > group value.

Speaking as someone who’s ambiamorous, this isn’t some piece on Robin’s poly rep in the show (I mean yeah, it’s cool… but there’s more to its substance/significance than that).

Robin’s open attitude to relationships & polygamy, in my opinion, reflects a great deal on his personality - and I don’t just mean his repulsion to monogamy, but generally his social interactions and attitudes to problem solving.

Robin’s attitude to priority in earlier seasons is heavily influenced by his own experience in a collective, polygamous society. He views problems in a wider, logical sense which means he can frequently come to intelligible solutions that satisfy the group’s qualms - but they often come at the cost of individual satisfaction, appearing sometimes blunt or insensitive.

e.g, the pilot episode: the group are arguing over the ‘room situation’ until Robin comes to a conclusion that satisfies them all. Whilst, indeed this solution is simple & methodical - his phrasing ‘it’s simple’ perhaps disregards the individual’s own intelligence, bluntly ordering the individuals to do something in aid of appeasing the group without considering if they’d like to swap rooms.

e.g, S1, ep6, Robin finds a solution to sort the group problem (ICOEIC) but fails to address the other individual solutions, or the practicality of his idea based on individual skills or their interest in it. He’s so used to a cooperative society of equal status that, perhaps, atomism never occurred to him.

His nature of relationships is largely focused on group satisfaction (indeed, modern nuance equally focuses on individual happiness) - but Robin’s primitive society would naturally put the needs of the masses over the needs of the few. If an individual defected, he’d still have the group to love and protect - but if the group itself fell apart? His whole collective philosophy would crumble, as would polygamy itself.

However, as Robin has grown increasingly accustomed to modern monogamy, his views on prioritisation have coincidentally shifted. In later seasons, he’s come to value individual quirks and differentiation and put less emphasis on group function as opposed to individual needs, trusting that the individuals, in turn, will independently contribute to group maintenance.

e.g chess, not only its symbolism (see previous thing I did https://www.tumblr.com/sonnet-of-anarchy/707355905218461696/thesis-incoming-chess-sex-symbolism-in) - but the implications of a ‘solo’ game between two individuals. Not only does this lend to Robin indirectly being introduced to, and enjoying, a monogamous relationship (so to speak) but implies individual desire as opposed to staying with the group. Robin only plays with Julian, acknowledging different desires and independence from group collaboration.

To conclude: a direct comparison:

S1, ep2: Julian leaves, upset, although Robin does not follow him. He acknowledges the group’s importance over Julian’s individual emotion (collectivism)

S4, ep7: Pat leaves, upset, and Robin does follow him. He acknowledges his individual needs are vital in order for group maintenance (atomism)

Robin’s historical knowledge of polygamy has developed his ability to appease a group without favouritism or excessive dependence (in other words, he’s non bias & independent. Indifference allows him to never put all his eggs in one basket). However, as he’s developed an understanding and appreciation for monogamy, his character had simultaneously developed to better understand individuals and specific attachment without the worry of breaking group moral or dynamics.

#cheers if you read all this #once again explained this really quite awfully #bbc ghosts #bbc ghosts robin #polyamory #robin the caveman #Robbie words

[fancylala4]

ykw's something that annoys me about Disney's Tangled?! It's not the movie itself, it's what came after it. People try to make Rapunzel out to be more badass and like a "strong feminist female character" than she actually is! Like, yes she is physically strong, and she is also shown to be strong-willed, optimistic, determined, plucky, and courageous; she certainly has the potential to be a strong female character...but the movie makes everything about Flynn and hardly lets her show the chops she deserves to show! Like she is shown to be badass with her hair and in excellent control over it(which is impressive, because it's literally like a 70-foot rope that dangles from her head), but we rarely get to see it outside of mere gags or scenes that don't mean anything, but are just performative displays of the badassery that she possesses that SHOULD be more displayed. Like how she swings from her hair in the scene right before the cave water scene with suspenseful music to go with it, but then it's just used to segue into Flynn fighting Maximus with Rapunzel watching. It frustrates me so much and is super manipulative! But it sadly works on the intended audience who genuinely thinks that Rapunzel fought the guards and was absolutely a sufficiently strong and awesome action heroine when really the movie gives you crumbs and then tells you to fill in the gaps for yourself. And anyway the real reason I said all of this was because of the scene in Wreck-it-Ralph too where Rapunzel of all princesses literally says "do people assume that all your problems got solved because a big strong man showed up?" Like. In your case it was true tho? She never would have left the tower if Flynn didn't show up? What the hell is this? But ofc the naive Tangled fans will fall for it hook line and sinker. It maddens me as someone who still really likes Tangled and Rapunzel but can't look past what they did to the story. Rapunzel deserves better than to be reduced to a prop in her own movie but who is given occasional bits of action to pretend she has agency. She deserves better, and this entire movie deserves better in the form of a massive rewrite.

That’s actually one of my gripes with the movie and rapunzel fans. I don’t have a issue with characters who need saving and are dependent on others. But I do have a issue with people making a character to be something they are not. Rapunzel’s fans think she’s this badass who fought many guys to get to her dream and doesn’t take shit from anyone. However, In actual movie, she’s none of these things. She’s needed Flynn though out the movie and couldn’t even defeat her own villain. Worse of all, rapunzel fans trash other princesses who needed help like Snow White and Cinderella. It makes me so angry that they criticize those two for being “weak” and needing a man as if rapunzel wasn’t in the same situation as them in her movie.

I agree that the movie does a good job of hiding the fact that she isn’t independent and can’t fight. One thing I noticed about the movie was how different the narrative treated rapunzel and Flynn with a frying pan. Rapunzel is treated like a joke with it while Flynn is treated like he’s a threat with it. The fact he got a fight scene while rapunzel was in the background watching him fight shows how sidelined rapunzel was in HER own movie. I also found it weird how she never used her hair to fight. Disney took this idea from rapunzel’s revenge and that rapunzel could fight using her hair. I guess for some reason Disney didn’t want rapunzel to fight.

That line from wir was so ironic coming from rapunzel. Like you said, she was going to stay in the tower if Flynn didn’t show up. I feel like Disney is trying to change how people see rapunzel’s movie. They keep on repeating the same phrase over and over in their art books. Like how she drives her story and how she is a independent character. It’s like Disney knows rapunzel wasn’t independent and was a plot device. But they want people to think she’s one of their most feminist characters.

I agree. This whole movie suffered from sexism. Changing the name, making that cradle robber the protagonist and reducing rapunzel to a plot device was all bad. We deserved so much better than this movie.

#ask #anti tangled #disney critical

[thavron]

I know I'm a little late to the Good Omens discourse, so this has probably been discussed at great length, but here's my two pennies worth.

Crowley, is morally good.

There are different kinds of morality, and there are two competing ideas on display constantly on the show. Deontology versus Utilitarianism.

Deontology essentially boils down to the idea that the morality of an act is inherent to the act itself. Stealing is wrong for example. The angels in Good Omens not unreasonably seem to follow this idea. The morality of the act is defined by a higher authority and they simply obey. God says its a sin, so it is a sin. The main issue with this kind of morality is that there is no flexibility or room for compromise. 

Interestingly, the demons of hell are also following this idea, except whilst angels strive for the good, demons strive to do what is wrong.

Enter Crowley. He is what I would consider a Utilitarian. You’ve probably heard the phrase “the greatest good for the greatest number” that is the bare bones of utilitarianism. What this kind of morality teaches us is that no act is inherently good or evil, we can only find morality in the consequences. Stealing is neither good nor bad, but if you steal from someone who has an abundance of food to feed a starving child, then you could argue it is an act of good. The flashbacks to Edinburgh really tried to drive this point home. The problem with this kind of thinking is that none of us can see the full consequences of our actions. The food you gave to the starving child saves their life, but what if the man you stole it from was planning to donate it to an orphanage? There is lots of scope to get it wrong. That said, Crowley always seems to try to act in such a way that the consequences that he can foresee are good. He is striving to be good, even if he sometimes misses. He is only pretending to be evil to fool hell.

This leads me to previous thoughts about what Crowley did to deserve to fall. He is not evil, he does not deserve to be in hell. Asking questions is not a sin, and should not have resulted in his expulsion. So what did he do? I wonder if his interest in consequences in fact comes from his fall. Did his questions set something in motion, some kind consequence that was so bad he was expelled. The use of goat symbolism around Crowley is very consistent throughout the show, and I wonder if it is pointing to the idea that he is some kind of scapegoat. Or perhaps its simply that, unlike sheep, goats don't always follow the herd. I don’t know, this isn’t really a coherent thought. As a viewer, I’d really like to see Crowely find redemption. For him that doesn’t mean being reinstated as an angel, I think that would mean giving him the answer to the question, what did he do? I'd really like to know too.

#thavrons watches #good omens #again #because i love this show #you know i interviewed at oxford university to study philosophy? #i ended up taking chemistry eslewhere though #what can you do with a philosophy degree aye? #somehow i ended up with an art degree life is weird #what am i talking about? #good omens meta #my meta

[lone-rhapsodist]

A letter to Classics Tumblr

This is a blog post I wrote to talk about: 1) my university experience of academic writing; 2) my frustration with academia, especially the humanities; 3) my struggles with writing and with my mental health; 4) my experience of teaching as an environment which aims to encourage the expression of new ideas; and 5) my project to create a space for ancient studies which encourages people to share their ideas, including an outline of how it would work and how it would benefit our subject. I hope you will find this valuable. I hope you will be happy to support the project. Thank you.

When I was a university student, sometimes in essays I would write what I call ‘feel’ statements. Feel statements are statements which start with ‘I think’, ‘I feel’, ‘I believe’ etc. They are usually frowned upon in academic writing. I have checked a few writing guides before writing this blog post, and most recommend that these statements be edited like so: 1) remove ‘I feel’ etc.; 2) add evidence to back your statement up; 3) change your phrasing to make your statement sound more objective. Now, I agree that statements should as much as possible be backed up with evidence. But why remove ‘I feel’ when it is ‘I’ who feels that the statement is true? And what counts as ‘evidence’ exactly?

As I was writing essays at university, I was constantly facing one of two problems. 1) I was working too much with the original Latin or Ancient Greek text and too little with the scholarship. As a result of this, I was able to develop many original ideas but could not back them up with scholarship, since there was no scholarship discussing those ideas, and so my analysis was good, but it was not sufficiently ‘evidenced’ by scholarship. Alternatively, 2) I was working too much with scholarship, reading lots of books and articles and so on, until my ideas were basically a mash-up of all the ideas contained in the scholarship, and my engagement with the text was completely filtered through those ideas. This meant I had a very good view of the scholarly landscape, but little to no work on the text, and so my work was weak because of the lack of original thinking to support it.

I hated this so much. I hated that, if I engaged mainly with the text, my work did not have enough ‘evidence’ to back it up. But then, if I engaged mainly with the scholarship, my own analysis of the text suffered, and I could not develop the original thinking necessary to make good work. I just could not win!

It was around my third year of university that I started to lose passion for ‘originality-driven’ academic writing and started seeing it more like an exercise in style. Do some analysis of the text, include lots of scholarship, and congrats! You will impress your lectures AND get good grades! Like that is what matters. Like this isn’t all about generating new ideas, new ways of looking at the text. No, it wasn’t about trying anymore. It was about playing safe. No trial and error, God forbid you stumble upon something good and original. Nope. Just stick to the plan and you will be fine.

However, despite my best efforts, I could never get rid of feel statements in my writing. And why should I? Especially if I am making an original point. Especially if there is no evidence from previous scholarship to back it up. Of course, I am going to explain why I think this is a good point, why I believe the evidence in the text itself supports this point, why I feel like this should be regarded as a valid interpretation of the text. But if you are just going to shut me down by claiming that there is no scholarship to support my statement, I am sorry, that is not my fault.

Folks, I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on Aristophanes. I read every single book in the university library about Aristophanes. I know because I was also Library Champion for Classics at the university, and I ended up ordering a lot of books on Aristophanes and Old Comedy just because our university did not have some of the most important scholarly works on either. I read so much that I knew what our library had was not enough, and I asked for more! I even went to another university library to consult some of the works we did not have in our own library, just so I could use them for my dissertation.

And yet… it still wasn’t enough! I was making some very original points about the texts, about the plays themselves, but there was no scholarship to back them up! I ended up writing so many feel statements, just because I had no other way to support my ideas from previous scholarship. I mean, actual scholars, people who dedicated their lives to studying this stuff, did not see what I saw! How is that my fault? How is that their fault? It’s no one’s fault!

There was no fault with what I was doing. The fault was with the system which did not approve of what I was doing. Academia. The humanities. The writing guides. All of these things. Yet what I was doing was simply working on the text and developing my ideas from there. Because this is what you do in the humanities. You sit down with the text and you go from there. And if you are reading Aristophanes, yes there is a lot of factual information, yes there is a lot of context, but at the end of the day, it’s just you and the mighty beast that is Old Comedy. You can read all the scholarship in the world, but in the end, you need to face the text. And if you face the text first, you will come up with a thousand original ideas, but if you read the scholarship first, you won’t. So, which one do you think you should start first? The text. The text. It’s always the text.

But then, if you always start from the text, you will find it difficult to fit your original ideas into the scholarly landscape, and you will write ‘I feel’ a lot, and your work will not be deemed good enough, and you will struggle. And sometimes, you will struggle so much, you will have a mental breakdown. And you will tell your doctor. You will tell your family. You will tell your department. And you will get a big, long extension for all your remaining assignments and end up submitting your master’s dissertation six weeks late.

That’s me. That is what happened to me. I had a breakdown and I finished my master’s late. And now, I struggle with writing. Massively. And every time I try to write, either about my subject, academia, or my university experience, one of three things happen: 1) I feel like throwing up; 2) I have a mini-depressive episode in which I feel so debilitated I had to lie down and sleep for an hour; or 3) I actually write something, like I am doing now, as in some kind of ADHD-induced hyper-focus fever dream, and the result was is usually so messy I never dare to post it.

But now… I can’t do this anymore. I am 27. I finished my master’s four years ago. By every measure but my own, I am a successful professional entering his third year as a teacher. Yet I just… cannot let it go. I cannot accept that this happened to me. Most importantly, I cannot accept that this is only my fault. I cannot accept that I was made to feel so insecure about my work that I actually wanted to end it all, and I nearly did! Mind you, I do accept that some of it is my fault. I definitely put too much pressure on myself. I was so worried I was going to disappoint my family and my lecturers that I showed no kindness to myself. Also, a lot of bad stuff happened all at once. Financial problems in my family. My girlfriend and I broke up. My dog died. It was basically a perfect storm. But the system… I cannot absolve the system. The system has its faults. And it does in this story too.

Every time I see a writing guide which discourages students from using feel statements… every time I see academics do the same, claiming that students’ work is too rushed, or even that they are being anti-academic or anti-intellectual… I am sorry, but what the fuck. And this is happening in the humanities. A discipline which is famously based on one’s own interpretation of the sources. I can understand if a student did not do enough work on the text, or enough reading around a topic, but if they did, and they came up with an original idea about it, why in the world are you demanding from them that they rephrase their ‘I feel’ statements into something more objective-sounding? How? If there is no scholarship which supports their statement, because no one else has thought of that idea before, how can they possibly back it up with that sort of evidence? Surely, they can use the text for that. I mean, that is where their idea came from in the first place. What? That’s not enough? What is your problem?

What do you think people did at the beginning of scholarship? Did they not come up with original ideas themselves, supported by their own analysis of the text? Didn’t they use the text to explain why they believed their ideas were valid, and perhaps add any other scholarly evidence, if they had any? But if they didn’t, what would they write? ‘I think’. ‘I feel’. ‘I believe’. Those were the words. If not those words exactly, something similar. But that is the way new ideas were formulated. And it has been more or less so up to the 1960s, until someone decided we needed to go all scientific and devoid of any human emotion. Because after all it’s the humanities we are talking about. Why be human about it?

So yes, feel statements used to be good for a while, but we don’t that anymore, God forbid we accidentally stumble upon something original that isn’t backed up by at least two scholarly citations. It’s ridiculous. And it’s even more ridiculous when you realise that academics today do still use feel statements in their work! Full professors do it, and they allow themselves to, because they know a lot about their subject, and so they reserve themselves the right to feel things from time to time. But even regular lecturers do it! There was this great article I read recently titled “Research: It Starts with a Feeling”, and subtitled “Can we talk about our feelings, hunches, or instinct about our research openly?”. Yes, we can! Of course, we can! That is the whole freaking point! So why in the world are we sitting here actively discouraging students from using feel statements in their work, and in the humanities of all disciplines!?

I guess because we are afraid. Because we know that, in the humanities in particular, true objectivity is a myth. We know that, as much as we have knowledge and we try to evidence our statements, they’re still ‘our’ statements, and in that lies our humanity. And we are worried about looking human, in the humanities of all disciplines. Because our discipline is constantly under attack in this capitalist world, where knowledge is all about power, and not pursued for its own sake. And if the people who run the world realise that there is still humanity in the humanities, they’ll pull the plug on funding. They’ll kill the humanities, and with it, humanity. And so here we are. Trying to make it all sound more objective. Feeding the narrative that there is an objective truth out there, we just have to find it.

Well, you know what’s also out there? People. People who know stuff. People who have ideas about stuff. And if we all sat down and talked with each other, perhaps we would reach some kind of collective knowledge, together. Perhaps we would realise how stupid it is to think that true, objective knowledge of this world lies outside of it, and how it makes so much more epistemological sense that knowledge is a combination of all the facts as well as all our thoughts, beliefs, interpretations, experiences and what not. Then, we could finally allow ourselves to just sit down with each other, feel vulnerable, and say what we feel. And sure, there needs to be some knowledge behind those statements. And there needs to be some evidence to back those feelings up. But why not give people a chance? Why not let people be human? In the humanities!

If someone asked me what that would look like in practice, I would think of my experience as a teacher. One time, I was introducing my students to a passage from Ovid in which he talks about an (alleged) sorceress called Dipsas. Dipsas was trying to end the relationship between Ovid and his girlfriend, but that was just the context of the poem. However, the passage we were studying was all about Dipsas’ (alleged) wondrous powers. One of her powers was the ability to “split open the ground with a solid spell”. Well, one of my students came up with the genius idea that the chasm Dipsas was (allegedly) able to create with her powers could possibly be representative of the ‘chasm’ she was also trying to create between Ovid and his girlfriend. I was AMAZED! I had never thought of that. The commentary notes from Cambridge made no mention of it either. And it just made so much damn sense! It was even right at the end of the passage, clearly foreshadowing what was going to happen in the rest of the poem. And this was from a student at her third ever Latin poem in her life! No previous knowledge, barely any context, just… pure intuition!

My experience of teaching has shown me that, when you create an environment which encourages people to share how they feel about something, they come up with amazing ideas, interpretations you would never have thought of, even ‘hot takes’ which can change your perspective on something entirely. This is the sort of stuff which I would love to see more of in academia… but I do not think it will ever happen. Sure, there will always be seminars with fun lecturers who will encourage students to look for this sort of stuff. For example, I once had a lecturer compare Juvenal’s verses with Eminem’s lyrics, and it was fantastic! But there are not that many academics who do things like that, and again, it’s more for fun than anything else.

I wish more academics were more open about their approach to their subject. I wish they would share more about how, for all their knowledge and intellect, they are still driven by feeling, by passion, by their soul as well as their mind. To be fairer to academics, I wish academia itself, especially the humanities, was more open in this respect. I wish the system could be changed, that the vulnerabilities could be shared, that a conversation could be started about how to make things better, together. But, again, I am not sure it will ever happen.

So, fuck it. I’ll say it first, if no one has said it before. I believe that feel statements should be allowed in academic writing in the humanities. I believe that, if you have good knowledge of a topic, you will have feelings about it, and insofar as your knowledge of the topic is correct, and there is no clear evidence contradicting your statements on a topic, then your feelings should be regarded as valid and should be taken seriously by others.

That’s the project, folks. That is what it’s all about. If you have some knowledge of a topic and you have certain feelings about it, you should be able to share them in a safe space, where others can read them, appreciate them, and give you feedback and advice on how to develop your ideas further. This is the space which I want to create with my project. I want it to be welcoming and encouraging. I want people in it to be kind and supportive. I want to give people the opportunity to put forward their ideas anonymously if they do not wish to reveal their identity at first. And I want others to be able to give constructive criticism in structured, time-stamped, informed discussions which can easily be archived and saved for future reference.

This space would be open to people of any ethnicity, gender and sexuality. Ideally, I would like anyone, literally anyone to be in it, from researchers to PhDs to graduates to university students to high schoolers to enthusiasts of any age or background, whatever their education level or knowledge of the ancient world, I do not care! It would be about ancient studies (which is a better name for Classics), and it would be about the ancient people, literature, history and culture of anywhere in the ancient world, defined as you prefer.

Honestly, I would put no limits to whatever we can talk about in this space. It would be a Discord server, but it would be run like a forum. There would be a general chat for casual conversation, and specifically created channels for dedicated discussions, with moderation as necessary. There would also be voice channels for live discussions and potentially live community events. Of course, like for any community, there would still be rules. Like, don’t be an asshole. Don’t be a Nazi. Don’t misappropriate the ancient past to support your extremist ideas. Also, fuck TERFs.

But also, please do not perpetuate in your interactions with others any of the awful academic practices which we are trying to move away from with this project. For example, the principle of authority. The principle of authority states that we must always accept the opinion of an authority on a given topic, without any possibility for criticism, on account of the fact that, since they are an authority on that topic, their opinion must be regarded as superior. It’s Galileo Galilei vs the Aristotelians all over again, folks. And it’s wild. So yeah. Don’t just claim that because one scholar said something, then a person’s opinion is invalid. Especially if they have evidence to back it up. Like their own analysis of the text. Or the opinion of other scholars. In general, please do not perpetuate that stifling traditionalism which we are trying to get away from.

So yeah. This is the project. To create a space, a Discord server, where people can share their ideas about anything related to the ancient world, and get support and advice from others to develop their ideas further into whatever they like, be it an academic paper or a research proposal, or even just a blog post. But it doesn’t need to be just non-fiction or writing. I would love for this space to be a place for creative writers as well. I would love to see poetry, prose, whether stories or fan fiction, blossoming from it, even other media, such as art, comics, music, videos, podcasts etc. I mean, this is a place for people who feel things about the ancient world. Surely the feelers par excellence, the artists, should be involved in a project like this.

I once asked a scholar of ancient drama whether it would be important for future researchers on this topic to seek further collaboration with artists in their work. He answered with a resounding ‘yes’. I never stopped thinking about that. I never stopped thinking about what he essentially said: that an artist, through their interpretation of an ancient work, can offer an expert on that same work a perspective which even they, for all their knowledge, could not have thought of. Just like my student did, with her brilliant comment about that poem by Ovid. Anyone who has a passion, an enthusiasm, a willingness to learn about the ancient world, has 100% the potential to make an outstanding contribution to our wonderful subject. These people are out there, and they are desperate for a place to ask their questions, share their feelings, and put forward their ideas. I really hope this project can do something to help towards that. I hope you will be happy to support it.

I hope that you will not think of this project as being anti-academic or anti-intellectual. If you do, I am sorry about that. I welcome your feedback on this matter. Also, if I have shared with you my story, it’s because I wanted to explain the reasons behind my frustration with academia, especially the humanities, and how that has fuelled as my passion for this project. It will be a long journey to turn this idea from fantasy into a reality, into a community. But I do believe that, with your support, this could be something truly amazing for our subject. Beyond academia, and back to our humanity. Thank you and stay human.

lone-rhapsodist

#lone-rhapsodist #personal #classics #tumblr #project #writing #academia #humanities #mental health #tagamemnon #tagitus #ancient studies #ancient world

[eurovision-del]

Ireland will be the next ones to select their song, with Eurosong happening on The Late Late Show this Friday. Here’s my ranking of the six competing songs!

Ailsha – Go Tobann

Bambie Thug – Doomsday Blue

JyellowL – Judas

Isabelle Kearney – Let Me Be The Fire

Erica-Cody – Love Me Like I Do

Next In Line – Love Like Us

This one fell into place easily, there’s a huge range here in terms of how much I enjoy these songs. My runaway favourite is Go Tobann – I love the chaos in the music, a blend of hyperpop, metal, and celtic folk which certainly makes for a unique sound! The intensity of it is almost breathtaking, and I love it when songs aren’t afraid to get messy. The message, about loss of language, is an important one, and I love how it’s been executed by showing not telling, the Irish phrases being simple things you’d learn in school, then the English laments how she doesn’t have the words to properly express herself, with the music itself expressing that frustration.  

I also really enjoyed Doomsday Blue, I almost felt a little bad for it being in this selection. It’s very distinct from Go Tobann, but it scratches the same itch, with its metal influenced chaos. It’s got a little more shape to it, with the calmer, smoother sections in between the louder, harsher sections, and I love the darkness of it all. I think it’s a great track, and another one I’m gonna come back to, but it’s a clear second place in this selection for me.

After that I feel there’s a big jump in quality. I enjoy the rap verses of Judas, but I find the chorus really uninspired. Both Let Me Be The Fire and Love Me Like I Do are fine pop songs, and both vocalists sound great in the studio cut, which I’m hopeful will be true live too. I slightly prefer the overall sounds of Let Me Be The Fire, but the gap between those two is

Finally. Ireland. I’m begging you. Please don’t send the Louis Walsh boyband. Please have learnt something from the last… honestly however many years. To be fair, Love Like Us isn’t a particularly bad song, but that’s kind of the problem, it’s such a by the numbers boy band track, there’s nothing interesting or distinct about it.

Even with all that said, I have zero idea what will end up representing Ireland of these. Both Go Tobann and Doomsday Blue have such distinct styles that I have no idea how they’ll come across live, and both could be pretty divisive. I think either of the solo pop songs could be a decent option if performed really well, but even then I think they’d be borderline qualifiers at Eurovision itself. There’s a real chance that Love Like Us will get picked considering what Ireland have gone for in the past, but if that happens I fully expect it will do about as well as We Are One did last year. My hope is that Go Tobann ends up being great live and ends up winning, I think it’s Ireland’s best shot at the final, but I’m very curious as to what the performance will look like!

#eurovision #esc2024 #nf ranking #ireland

[thedailytao]

Passage 75

When people go hungry, the government’s taxes are too high. When people become rebellious, the government has become too intrusive.

When people begin to view death lightly, wealthy people have too much, which causes others to starve.

Only those who do not cling to their life can save it.

This passage is a sort of continuation of the previous. Where the previous talked about moderating our fear of death, this one cautions us to also moderate our love of life. The last line can be translated in many ways. I think McDonald’s choice here captures the message fairly well. Other translations provide a comparison, variously phrased to this effect: that it is better to not care about your life than it is to care about it too much.

Caring about one’s life too much drives people to try to control and prolong it, to hoard wealth and food. I once saw an interview with an old money type who gave away 99% of his wealth, leaving him with $10 million. His family, he said, were horrified, and one asked him, “but what if you have a child that has expensive special needs?” Hearing that, all I could think of was a hoarder saying, “Don’t throw out that box – I might need it!” Reading this passage, we can see that the hoarding of wealth has been motivated by the same desperate fears for thousands of years: clinging to money, clinging to life, uncaring of all those without enough.

I should note that the word translated here as ‘intrusive’ is yǒu wéi (有為), the opposite of the wuwei hands-off government that I discussed way, way back in this blog. It is interesting to me to bookend these two concepts way at the front and back of the book. Since learning about wuwei, the Tao te Ching has presented us with countless lessons about flexibility and yielding, about how you can only have an enemy if you have a self, how if you give people nothing to oppose, they will not oppose you. After all of that, presenting the idea of the youwei government, it seems such an obvious mistake. Of course a government that injects itself into people’s lives is more likely to incite opposition – it’s giving them something to oppose!

Finally, I appreciate that “viewing death lightly” is also admonished in this passage about overvaluing life – but here it is not seen as an evil unto itself, the way clinging to life is. Rather, it’s a symptom of a larger problem. I think about how relentlessly we are exposed to news about death in the modern day. I can’t load a news page without seeing a headline about some celebrity death or the death toll from a natural disaster on the other side of the world. I can’t help but wonder, seeing them, if the constant barrage of death on my phone, most of which I have no connection to and couldn’t have done anything about, isn’t desensitizing me to the impact of deaths closer to home, which I might have more agency in preventing.

#the daily tao #taoism #tao te ching

[helen--richardson]

ok so, some thoughts on the new magnus archives stuff

I really hope they don’t do a sequel. I think the ending they left it at, while emotionally devastating, is thematically appropriate and satisfying. Not that I haven’t written/am writing several fix-it fics, but that’s an activity I do as a fan and it isn’t something I’d want to do if I was telling my own story like this. I think giving any canon conclusion to the story would cheapen the ending.

I’d also like to think that Jonny is a better writer than that.

The “concerning” thing is that “Magnus Archives Two” has specifically been mentioned. I don’t like the vibes of that. Like, the direct connotation is a sequel, which I don’t like for aforementioned reasons. I don’t really know what else two could mean in this context. It could potentially mean another universe/reality or a remake. 

Now, thinking about things in the context of our reality, I don’t think that a project that big would actually happen. It’s a lot more likely that something smaller is happening. Some ideas I’ve seen/thought about are:

new/special merch drop

partial or complete adaptation into a book or something

special halloween episode (non canon canon or pre-ending)

other bonus content release, like previous patreon-exclusive things

live action adaptation (lol this one is definitley not happening)

something ARG-esque (the vibes are arguably already there with all the code-solving)

lore-wise, something spider related. maybe the web is sitll in the og universe, maybe it’s branched off into other unvierses and that’s what we’re hearing, maybe we get a snippit of a different martin/jon, etc.

a devastating idea would be hearing the beginning of the story again, in a different universe, confiming that the fears are spreading and the tragedy is going to replay itself (edit: the fact that we can even listen at all is confirmation that the tapes have spread lol)

Again, the problem is some of these wouldn’t make sense with “magnus archives two.” It’s completely possible that I’m just overanalyzing that one phrase, or it could have other connotations that I haven’t thought of but will make sense when what ever it is is revealed.

I don’t really have a conclusion to this, I am kind of just saying shit. I guess a nice thought to end this on is that I am slightly apprehensive but also very excited about what comes next.

(also shoutout to @martinswormjar they’ve talked w/ me a lot and influenced my thought processes and also they are sititng next to me in class as i type this)

#tma #the magnus archives #the magnus archives two #are you still listening?

[tuulikki]

You know, as someone who is very much aroace and always has been I don’t understand the new vague of young queers people on the Internet talking about how disrespectful it is to want to have sex with someone and talk about your physical attraction to them. It’s probably because they are Americans and brainwashed by Puritanism because I don’t see people from other countries do that. I genuinely don’t understand how you can find someone sexy because I have never felt like this but damn even (1/2)

It’s definitely sad to see. A lot of cultures have sex negativity, but there’s a particular strain of it in certain online native-Anglophone queer spaces that really is heartbreaking to see. And I’m somewhere in the ace spectrum with you (near the demi end), so you’ll understand me when I say I don’t understand the “damn, I’d tap that” impulse either—and likewise I couldn’t agree with you more that it’s tragic when people start thinking there’s something somehow wrong with visual attraction. It’s a sad but predictable byproduct of an oversexed yet sex negative-society, with a heaping dose of societal homophobia on top of it.

I do think a lot of these people are trying their best to navigate a complex issue (i.e., human sexuality), but nothing in their society has given them the tools to do so. The explosion of pop-psych obfuscations of the definition of consent has also probably aggravated this: I heard someone asking a sex columnist if you’re morally required to ask someone else for consent if you want to masturbate while thinking about them (specifically people you’re not in a relationship with). That’s what’s hiding under the “I didn’t consent to see kink at Pride” bullshit, too, imo. People are seeing sex and sexuality as so fundamentally harmful and corrosive that to even think about someone sexually is committing an act of violent spiritual defilement against them for which you need to beg preliminary forgiveness—and that is what people are actually saying when they say they want “consent” in these scenarios of Sinning In Thought (and not at all in word and deed). It’s the same reason the idea of kids seeing people ambling around in kinkwear at Pride triggers such strong reactions: if you still see sexuality as something dangerous and morally contaminating, then of course “exposing” children to the idea of happy consensual sex in goofy costumes gets phrased as though it were “exposing” them to a terrifying contagion. (And I’d rather explain kink to a child than explain purity rings—one of those concepts is infinitely more harmful than the other.)

I’d argue that the uwu wlw soft sapphic vibes did have its limited purpose as a placeholder in the sexual development of plenty of young queer folks, the same way that baby-faced boyband stars do for young people who fancy guys. Bisexually speaking, I leaned more towards Orlando Bloom’s Legolas when I was in middle school, and now I’m more interested in aesthetically pondering Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn. I likewise reblogged a lot of uwu wlw pastel shit in my early years, as was my right and privilege at that age. But the problem with only doing the uwu “wlw desire isn’t horny, it’s beautiful and pure” thing is that it can so easily begin to live halfway between purity ring bullshit and between a deformed pseudo-feminism that assumes that straight male desire is inherently and innately predicated on harm. There are conversations to be had about how a patriarchal society can articulate toxic concepts of masculine sexuality, but believing what the patriarchy says about itself lends patriarchy an authority on the innate qualities of human beings that it has no credible claim to.

idk I can still put my finger to the live wire of my cultural programming by writing the words “sex is pure” and making myself think about it, because even after all these years, the idea of sex as something impure still lurks in my head. Caveat: Obviously not all sex is morally good sex, but the same can be said for plenty of human acts (not all car-driving is morally good, not all sandwiches are made with eager enthusiastic consent). But still. Sex is great and all, I’m a big fan, but we treat it as this colossally important thing and so ofc we still find ourselves writing obsessive secular theologies about what constitutes evil or holy sex. It’s just sex, guys. It’s a lovely activity, sometimes an impressive hobby, and sometimes a profession, but it’s not some vast cosmically important thing. It’s just a naked game of Twister with more fluids and some fun physiological responses. Think about boobs and maybe you’ll all calm down.

#dunno what prompted your ask but I have thoughts #doctor strangesex or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the dong #long post #opinions #sex positive