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leportraitducadavre · 3 months

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It is quite striking how the main plot of Naruto focuses on the problems brought about by a military system whose foundations are intrinsically patriarchal and how much of the “feminist fandom” focuses on the little to no inclusion of women within that system, rather than its dismantling, which was proposed to and tried to be carried out by other characters such as Konan (to mention a female character as bringing Sasuke to the picture might “compromise” the fandom’s idea of “feminism” that upholds itself under the notion that only women can be part of it).

To quote @dushman-e-jaan:

What’s even funnier is that the military as an institution is deeply patriarchal: it’s patriarchy at its best. So wanting Sakura’s inclusion into its apparatus is just a dull, neo-liberal contextualization of locating a “middle-class side-lined girl” into patriarchy and its state strongholds, its militia arms, extensions that are extensively, liberally, and fully utilized to maintain state’s oppression. Something which we saw in the case of Ame’s mass-starvation, Uchiha Massacre, Hyuuga Clan’s slavery, etc. In this regard, to Sakura fandom, inclusion in this oppressive-apparatus is a power-fantasy, a means to cut in on the action not cut it out; so therefore, the question shouldn’t be as to why Sakura isn’t included; it ought to be that why should there be any expansion on the basis of inclusivity into patriarchal institutions in lieu of smashing these systems? However, Sasuke’s just a mean “terrorist” who made “weh-men tears” flow, so the misogyny is just Q-anon deep, and nothing but tumblr feminism can unfurl its insidious tentacles.

In lesser terms, the problem with this idea of “inclusivity” within an intrinsically repressive patriarchal system is that it is sustained on a smoke screen that hides the rottenest veins of the state, because then what is relevant is not the dismantling of an oppressive, enslaving, and genocidal political system, but the lack of female participation within that oppressive, enslaving, and genocidal political system. To this specific “woke feminist” fandom that is the real problem, that is the real issue within such a mindset.

Women are forbidden or diminished from positions of power in a structure specifically designed to oppress different groups of people to keep others at the top of the pyramid, and instead of seeing such a construction as a direct reflection of the real world’s dogmas and the characters that oppose them as real world’s feminist, you lot complain about the lack of female representation or “female power” within that maniacal structure! You’re more concerned about women not being “housewives” inside a military state that rewards blind nationalism and punishes criticism with literal genocide, than dismantling the entire structure upon which such a patriarchal notion is built.

[The idea that women cannot show off and are forced into a lesser role or have their capabilities diminished in pursuit of the enhancement of male abilities is absolutely in line with the patriarchal structure that Naruto's military system reflects. Even the "sexism" that Kishimoto reflects within the manga is consistent with the political system he puts forward and disputing it to make it more "feminist-friendly" does nothing but detract from its verisimilitude.]

Funnily enough, even when I point this out, they will find a way to twist it to their own benefit, because then Kishimoto is the one responsible for not “allowing” female characters to rise against such a patriarchal system (despite Sakura never suffering any of its worst consequences as she was taught by the Hokage herself, or even Hinata getting to be a slave-owner). Inclusivity is everything that this argument boils down to, your twisted wish to see women at every single panel whether it’ll be against or in favor of a genocidal state.

That’s what “woke feminists” taught you and that’s what you’ll defend with your breath, the problem gets again individualized and the real issue, the real problem that the plot is trying to reflect, gets buried upon piles of these arguments.

“The problem is about the military state that at its core it’s patriarchal” =/= “Then why did he write it as a patriarchal state?”

“The military state it’s patriarchal at its core so it’s the real world one” =/= “Then why didn’t he write female characters rising against it?”

“There’re characters that oppose such structure, which is feminism at its finest.” =/= “But they aren’t female.”

And so on… it’s impossible to “win” or get our point across as you move the end goal every time a new argument arises. It’s about fulfilling your power fantasies of invincibility rather than bringing down the patriarchal structure; just like with Naruto’s character, is about gaining acknowledgment within the oppressive system (becoming a renowned/desired individual) rather than dismantling the power sphere to guarantee other minorities’ safety.

Their idea of feminism comes down to women having a more important part inside that tyrannical paradigm, bringing the power scale towards them. It’s not about stripping oppressive institutions of their power, but rather having influence over such spaces.

This is an example of White Feminism’s victory; white feminism doesn’t want the oppressive structure to be questioned, they don’t want their faint position of power to be argued; they want to expand their influence and reach beyond the usual cultural “female” spaces, so they bring down the discussion to simpler topics, like the idea of female participation in such affairs; if they are involved, then it’s good if they’re not, then it’s not.

Even the fact that many of these "feminists" jump to the other side and incur either in the over-festivity of the capabilities of female characters (some being basic skills such as moving with speed) or in the minimization of such to compare them with the "better" male capabilities (which only serve in more violent, clearly patriarchal issues to which these people consider superior given a clear misogynist internalization of the little relevance of powers that are not aligned with the intrinsic violence of the military system) contradicts their supposed dogma.

Under this premise, and I repeat myself because I must keep my arguments as simple and repetitive as possible, the patriarchal system against which they claim to rebel is sustained and deepened since the women who claim to subscribe to the feminist movement have modified their bases to obtain greater relevance, greater individuality among the exploited community -they stop being oppressed to some degree as a reward for their contribution, they become what they swore to destroy in exchange for “inclusion.”

True feminism is about the dismantling of an oppressive structure, passing through the various spheres of repression; gender disparity is only one of many power relations to be questioned, not the only one.

#naruto #naruto meta #white feminism #woke feminism #anti feminist fandom #anti sakura fandom #anti hinata fandom #anti hinata #anti sakura #in defense of kishimoto

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ilgaksu · 2 months

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i will now be referring to this situation as weimargate, because i must laugh or i will dissolve into the void.

aka i have had a VERY weird experience of it in fandom lately, and it has escalated to memes in lieu of interpretative dance*, but also i want to talk about it because i think, in more general terms, it's relevant for discussion about how fandom is evolving.

(*as illustrated by @difeisheng because i am personally intimidated by photoshop. interpretative dance would've only had me to blame.)

so. hi! if you don't know me, i am an ao3 writer who goes by the pen name ilgaksu. i have 179 fics on my ao3 account, and of those, 46 of these are for DMBJ or grave robber's chronicles. i've been writing in this fandom for roughly three years, which means according to the laws of mathematics and my own inability to stop posting about my favourite blorbos, that's a new fic every 3.39 weeks. i have not counted chapter updates in this count, but given several have multiple chapters, i think we can see there's....a lot. one ongoing series is currently sitting at about 200k, word-count wise. i like to write, overall, about disability, reclamation, legacy and memory. i also overuse semi-colons.

i am also a very private person at this point in my fandom career. this will be the first post i've made in a while talking about myself where i have allowed there to be reblogs on it. this isn't intended as an affront to anyone else in fandom. my ask box is open, sans anon, and in the last few years, i chose to reply to every comment i could to make sure i still get to engage about the characters i love without compromising my own desire for privacy about my personal life. i choose to work under an explicit persona - because we all do on the internet but i have made mine obvious and enunciated and almost a brand - because i think there is something freeing about allowing myself that experience. it's allowed me to write work that i relate to deeply without having to divulge my life to be analysed by strangers on the internet. generally, i like to post my silly little stories, talk to people about them, and then go about my day offline.

anyway, so this week, i seriously considered walking away wholesale from my current fandom, and i'd actually like to talk about why, and talk about me as a person as opposed to the narrative of persona that i've crafted.

because the reality of a persona is that a real, living person is required to animate it. if i am the person who is small and human and anxious to even speak about this, then i am also the reason the operation is running. it's a one-man show. as much as i want my work to speak for itself without my need to justify its meaning or worth, without my experiences, research and choices about my time, the work would not exist. that's just fact. it's fact for every writer and artist and podficcer and person who labours out of love you see. i also deliberately consider myself a writer as opposed to a content creator, because i believe that label mimics a wider culture i have no interest in - that of someone creating a consumable, ownable object. my fanfiction is a hobby. it cannot be owned by other people. unlike my original work, where it can be bought, there is no formal, explicit contract between me and the reader. there is, however, in fandom, an implicit social contract of equality and collaboration, where we are all equals. i am fundamentally no better than someone who never writes fic and never wants to and never will. i reject the idea of superiority among fans because i do not engage in subculture to mimic the dominant culture, the one that tells me stories are something only certain people are allowed to see themselves in, or even tell to others; that production is the only means of social capital and intrinsic worth.

i am aware, also, that by being private the way i am, i end up sacrificing some experiences that i could have by being more accessible, but i want to reiterate that i have never gone out of my way to conceal my tumblr, nor ignored people who contacted me directly to talk about my fic. in fact, if you show up to talk about my fic, i will probably be so thrilled i'll never let you leave - especially since, when it comes to a majority of it - i spend a lot of time on research, something i enjoy, and deliberately cite my research in the notes because i want to share it as part of the experience of my writing. clearly, i want ideas i have come up with to be enjoyed and loved and shared, because otherwise why would i take the risk of putting them out online, where i then cannot control how they're received or transformed?

however, since about a year ago, i've maintained a policy of works based on my own that i've had outlined clearly in my profile on ao3 here:

as someone who is playing in someone else's sandbox for free myself, my only request is if when you use an idea, usually a headcanon, which is one i created, which you can as much and in whatever way you want because that is the nature of collaborative fandom and the reason i love it so much, you cite that i was the originator of the idea. and secondly, that you let me know. this is a personal request based on how writing can be a very lonely project, even in fandom. you put your work out into the world, with no sense of who it will reach and if it will mean anything to them, and you have to work on the faith that even if it doesn't, the work itself was worthwhile. but you hope it will, because everyone hopes it will.

all of this is outlining so it's understandable to people that read this how i was completely off my face bewildered when i found out a headcanon of mine had reached the level of fanon popularity where it's been mistaken for canon, and has been for over a year at the very least, and i had literally no idea this had happened.

which, frankly, was both hilarious, in a very bizarre way, and completely, deeply sucked.

i know this is my idea because of how distinctive it is, and how much it contravenes canon - namely, that a character, hei xiazi, was a medical student in berlin during the weimar republic. i know it's mine because the timeline with the canon we're told by the actual writer of the source material doesn't match up, which i was aware of and chose to retcon. it was designed and fitted to a personal interpretation of canon material i had been working on for years, and involved a lot of time and research and intense love for the era, the character, and the ways a story about being alone in a foreign country had intertwined with my own personal life. ever since i wrote it, i assumed that the one or two people who had used it with credit were the only ones who had, and because they had honoured my request i was honestly completely thrilled. i still am that those fics exist. that's because it was collaborative.

i want to be clear: nothing about the situation as it stands has been collaborative. a writer being the last to know about the commonality of their own idea in a small fandom is not collaborative. and while it might not bother everyone, it's bothered me to the point i've had serious consideration for several days about whether i should walk away from the fandom.

but ilgaksu, surely you should be flattered that people liked the idea so much?

yes. this was never about the use of the idea. it's about the way this idea has been isolated and used with an assumption that i would have no interest in knowing, or that i would even need to know. i'm not sure what has caused this - whether the persona element of my work has led people to believe i would not have any emotions about finding this out, but i am not, actually, a persona. i am the person who uses it. and as the person who uses it, this is how it felt to find this out. it felt, and still feels uncomfortable, hurtful and isolating to find out your idea has been so beloved but that nobody considered whether you would like to know. it feels like the collaborative element of fandom has been severed from you, specifically, and that your fanwork has been treated as entirely other from you as a fan. i hope nobody else making work feels like this, and i've been told this situation is so strange as to ensure that's hopefully not the case, but i think this is an ongoing issue more widely - the idea that writers are separate from fan culture, and their works are products as opposed to the shared results of a hobby.

do i think this was deliberate? not at all. do i think this was intended to be hurtful? not even in the slightest. but i want to be clear how personal this feels.

i don't have an answer for this situation. the cat is out of the bag, ilgaksu knows about the fanon, and hei xiazi is, despite all canon, going to medical school in 1920s germany. expressing my discomfort with how this has gone down feels important to me anyway, and it's also important to me that i do it in this very detailed way so that people who were unaware do not feel personally at fault, or feel like by me expressing this i am taking this idea back from them. i always wanted this idea to be loved and to be shared.

i also always hoped this idea would find people who wanted and needed a story about someone a long way from home following an ambition, and how much fear and hope and desire goes into the decision to do something like that, and what it means to be a disabled person in a foreign country, and what it means to be queer in a foreign country, and overall what it means to be a stranger in a strange land. i want to be clear that while i wrote this for me, i also wrote it for everyone who has also lived that. i want my work to feel like someone is holding your hand, not that they're at a distance and disregarding you, the reader, and the relationship we have together during the time you read my work.

i hope in future that if you use my headcanons and are aware of that being the case, you let me know. i don't have to read the work itself if you find that intimidating. i will not go out of my way to find it. whatever you've done with the idea, i will fundamentally see it as a compliment and evidence of an exchange between us as a fandom. but i want to know because otherwise, all i see is you taking something i loved and wanted to share and enjoying it with a door firmly shut between us. i am too old to care if i'm not invited to a party, but if the party is themed around a concept i put so much thought and love - for the source material, the people who were going to read it and myself - i can't help but care. it's hard to feel like a vending machine, even if the process of making the fic is so joyful for me that i won't stop until the joy is gone. it hasn't gone yet, but this week it's been dented a bit.

anyway - if you got to the end of this, thank you. please be considerate of how much this has taken for me to express, regardless of your own feelings on it, and how unusual it is for me to make a post that is able to be shared. if you use the idea in future, you do so with my blessing, which was always there. if you want primary sources, places to start, or anything like that - fashion, language, visuals - i want to be clear you can ask me and i will be beyond thrilled to help. i always have been and i'm concerned that because of this that hasn't been clear. but i also feel like if i don't state this experience in this way at this time, and how it was experienced by me, odds are i will now forever look over my shoulder and wonder if this will happen again, and i love writing for this fandom so much that i will not allow something like that to dim that love. i know you love these characters so much too - it's why you're here. i actually used to make a lot more meta posts like this, about fan culture, and i've been considering if i will again - just less personal and less anxiety-inducing to post next time. until and beyond then, i just hope we can all consider things like this in future - that i can treat you with the same grace - and understand the pressures and anxieties of writers in fandom at this point in time especially. a lot of us have hearts far more made of glass about the things we love, like our work, than can be immediately apparent.

anyway, i'm going back into hiding now.

your friendly local cryptid fanwriter,

ao3 user ilgaksu <3

#personal #fandom #okay to reblog

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fatalism-and-villainy · 4 months

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I would love to hear more of your opinions on Francis Dolarhyde

Anon, I am so sorry this took me two weeks to answer. I had the whole thing formulated, but it took awhile to track down the scenes/quotes that supported this argument, so here we are.

My initial response to this was “I don’t have many thoughts on him,” but that’s not actually true. I don’t have many thoughts on him as a character - I’m pretty okay with what he’s doing in the story and how he slots into Will and Hannibal’s dynamic, but he’s not one of the cast members who compels me the most.

But what I do find compelling about him is how his character is stylistically handled.

One of the most striking things about him, to me, is what Bryan Fuller said on one of the DVD commentaries for season 3, about the sequences at Dolarhyde’s house demonstrating the horror of cinema. And it’s really true - the horror of the scenes at his house, when he rehearses and relives his murders, is communicated visually through the close-ups on his film projector. For example, in episode 11, when Reba is at his house and he watches - unbeknown to her - footage of Molly and Walter, there are close-ups of the film spinning in its reel:

And this kind of visual focus on the projector and film is pretty frequent in the scenes at his house. It’s all about the film! Hannibal frequently features this kind of close-up object focus in its cinematography, but it’s telling that with Dolarhyde, the main other kind of technology we see it with is the tattoo needle shown upon his introduction.

The film, and the voyeurism it represents, is part of the technology of his becoming, just as his Red Dragon tattoos are. And his long introductory sequence also features the artsy sequence wherein he seemingly gets bound by the film and transforms into the projector.

His bestial nature is linked to his voyeurism and its monstrous appetites.

I also think about Dolarhyde in the context what Elizabeth Sandifer has to say about him, in her episode-by-episode commentary on Hannibal: that NBC!Dolarhyde “exists in constant tension with modernity.” Commenting on the effect of Dolarhyde retaining the job at the film processing plant that he has in the original Red Dragon novel, she says:

Inasmuch as it’s an object worthy of scrutiny, it speaks to Harris’s consistent fascination with turning modernity into monstrosity. But in 2015, nearly thirty-five years later, his connection to film is dated—a connection less to modernity than to early 20th century modernism. (Hannibal himself, of course, presents similar issues.) He is a technological monster, yes, but he is rooted in the hauntological qualities of technology as opposed to any futuristic ones.

And I just love that. Like, it’s fascinating to me that even though the film processing plant is no longer the means through which Dolarhyde is discovered, as in the novel, there’s something about it that just felt intrinsic to his character to Fuller&co. As an adaptational move, it turns the mundanity of his profession into a sort of retro technophilia, kind of reminiscent of that quote that goes around sometimes about how out-of-date technology acquires a new aesthetic resonance when it’s removed from its zeitgeist.

Hannibal is very deliberately out-of-time. Hannibal the character is surrounded by the signifiers of 19th century aestheticism, and Dolarhyde, in turn, becomes representative of the aestheticization of the late ‘70s. And that shift in temporality reflects the narrative turn in the utility of film in this arc - his videos are no longer a plot element, but rather a way of aesthetically and psychologically rendering his character. Rather appropriate to the fact that Will’s 3B arc, in turn, constitutes him shifting focus from the question of how Dolarhyde is choosing his victims to the question of the degree to which he himself shares Dolarhyde’s appetite.

I think the strange, out-of-time quality of Dolarhyde’s use of film - rather than modern digital technology - can also be taken to reflect the level of artistic distance through which we ourselves see the show. Violence on Hannibal is very stylized, very refracted through an aestheticized lens. It’s made beautiful to us. The datedness of this form of technology, the way it renders the projector and film themselves as aesthetic objects, keeps us at a remove from the violence itself. Instead, it reorients us towards point of view, and interpretation. Towards how things are seen, rather than simply the fact of their occurrence.

Geoff Klock, in the oft-cited book If Oscar Wilde Ate People, notes the significance of “seeing” in the show (113). The question “see?”, as Klock notes, bookends the first and last episodes of the show, posed first by Garett Jacob Hobbs and then, on the cliff, by Hannibal. And of course, Dolarhyde himself poses this question, when confronting Chilton with pictures of his crimes: “Do you see?”

Being able to see the aesthetic and artistic qualities in murder, and to see beyond its immorality, is thematically central to the show, in Klock’s argument. And to me, Dolarhyde embodies that concept perhaps more so than any of the show’s other villains (save, perhaps, Hannibal himself). As noted in the film Manhunter, sight is the main sense through which Dolarhyde perceives the world. The two pieces of iconography associated with him on the show are the broken mirror in his house (and of course, his habit of arranging the mirror shards on his victims’ eyes) and the film projector - demonstrating his fractured view of himself, and the consequential control he asserts over the images of his victims, and the way he uses them to transform his view of himself.

Essentially, the show links the potential for violence to a sort of interpretive capacity that is metaphorically associated with sight, and Dolarhyde is a character very associated with sight. And the cinematic and stylistic framing of his psyche has a lot of fascinating implications as to the show’s aesthetic rendering of violence.

#hannibal meta #francis dolarhyde #hannibal season 3 #hannibal #my meta #hannibal talk #i am always here to talk about style style STYLE #not to mention temporality #queue

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tohellandback99 · 5 months

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………heeeeeeyyyyy!

I have been doing my stuff, as you can see. I had been gone… uhh, see;

I was getting top surgery. Mm 😌

Wendell and Wild’s one year anniversary had passed, but it wasn’t lost on me. I would like to share some words, my feelings for a moment

At the beginning of November last year, I had simply wished to watch something on Netflix for the first time in forever. I’m not much of a movie or tv show person-I’m more of a gamer. (Unless it’s a stop-motion film)

Anyway, I saw Kat’s picture on the front of the movie and my jaw felll to the floor because of, “how the HELL, did I not hear of this movie?” Which I’m only a little bit happy about because I like being surprised (ONLY when it comes to finding a good movie,) and in this case, was absolutely absolutely bewitching. Beguiling. Refreshing. but people in NETFLIX should not have thrown this to the wind. This can actually help people! I read that it was made by Jordan Peele working with Henry Selick, a duo I would never have imagined but understood from their works that they would be, a wonderful pairing. And I find myself lucky that I hadn’t heard people online say that it is like Coraline because it’s not… It is BEEEEETTEEERRR! 😍 IT IS LOVE! It is my childhood fever dream doused in chocolate and fucking cheeeese *slaps table* iwantmoreofit

It was quite an emotional roller coaster of a movie. It’s one of those films that you’d say, is an “experience” as opposed to a “story.” Kat and Raul are BY FAAARRR characters that I would have liked to see on television in my childhood years. Instead of Johnny Test, Chowder, Total Drama-anything-it’s-all-the-same, and Ed, Edd, and Eddy. 😤 Kat and Raul are people that I’ve been surrounded by in my life that I prefer, and have BEEN, in my life. So much so that I struggle to call them “characters” instead of people. And I can relate and see my child selves in both Kat and Raul, A LOT. (dressed in a punk style and grew up with and enjoy quite a bit of punk music. used to have a Mohawk when I was Kat’s age! There’s more but I don’t want to say,) It was terrifying for a bit because it made me feel like I don’t exist. I can’t

I cried when she found her source, her key. And gave herself a hug and how it became one with her. The “shadow Kat.” I think. My passed therapist calls a “source” or a “core” that holds trauma, the key. 🥹 That was so intrinsically true and relative to someone doing trauma work that I’m immensely grateful. Exists. In a movie like this.

My criticisms of this movie come out of love for this movie. If I didn’t like it I wouldn’t have cared to critique it. All I wanted was more, generally. More time, because there’s a lot of interesting things that were alluded to, but left out. And that’s all!

So my art is this time, this is an art journaling thing that was never supposed to be one but I lost control and before I knew it, realized what it was becoming. It’s chaos. I’m trying not to be embarrassed of that, eeehhhhhhhh 😓 mrrp, *squint* *chirp!* I had to improvise in a way that felt right.

I drew and painted Kat, and drew her almost entirely without reference. She’s not crying because of Raul! Absolutely NOT. I was going to do something with her but didn’t have the space so I made this as a practice and, I am obviously still needing to get better at painting her. I am so much happier with how I draw her now. I drew Sweetie because I needed some sort of guardian before I continue. (She was so easy) And then, this genderbent Oogie Boogie was stuck in my head and I drew and painted her too, all villainous and imposing. It made for a great challenge I’d say

Oh yeah, right yes… RAUL, has a purple winding stair case behind him. Of course… *sips tea* yes, that’s the appropriate way to get things done simply. You know who your favorite character is when your brain suddenly is like, “hey! Let me surround him with a winding staircase 🤩” 🤭 what the hell

#wendell and wild #w&w #kat elliot #the nightmare before christmas #tnbc #tnbc fanart #fanart #creepy stuff #oogie boogie #internal monologue #watercolour pencils #watercolourpainting #portrait #Spotify

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gethoce · 8 days

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Hey uh, how does it feel to be that much of a great artist? Like, genuinely, you're so... Like, amazing what you do here, your art? Top Notch, the character designs are so unique, but they all feel like they have a soul, in the best way possible. All intrinsical shapes and sizes, motivations, color palletes, everything is so good. The writing? Stellar, basing your matters on actual folklore, history and mythology is genuinely so great. Your reinterpretations of Canon characters? Incredible, Metamorpho isn't really something I ship yet you somehow made me enjoy it when you draw it yourself, as well as things like Sir Arthur and Specially Morpho give me joy.

Your art is such an inspiration... You inspired me to make my own stuff! Even if I sometimes am jealous of it fjdjdj, like what you do is so good that it makes me a little bit angry, in the best way possible.

George coming in strong once again to boost my confidence. Your comments are very much appreciated and highly valued. Every artist longs for motivational boosts like this. I am flattered, to say the least and delighted to hear that I have inspired you!! eje6e5f2uf

That being said, how does it feel? I’m in constant fear of failure. I could probably easily list like 20 artists I wished I could be more like without even leaving Kirblr. If you ever wonder whether I too feel insecure about my art the answer is yes. I've been trying to find something to work on that the community enjoys in greater numbers for almost a year and failed time and time again. But we keep on going all the same :galathumb:

Anyway, on a brighter note, Metamorpho! Or how I like to call it Morphometa because the Metamorpho tag is terrible for finding art of them which might contribute to the low popularity of the ship. As a matter of fact, it is so unpopular there doesn't even appear to be a ship name to borrow from the Japanese fandom.

What is the appeal for me in this ship? They have chemistry for being warriors of similar moral standing but there gotta be more than that. In the case of my interpretation, spoiler alert, it's the depressed guy and reaper dynamic. One who views himself as a monster that wants to go out as a hero never to be seen as what he is and a one who on surface level is a being of life and light but has hidden flaws that haunt his mind every second of every day. One who sees the good in the other and wishes for him to see the bad in him as opposed to the one who just can't do either. There is a wish to be understood and over time they learn to be just that for each other.

Then Sir Arthur… a terrible person who is trying to become better without ever being held accountable for his action. Someone who thinks he has successfully left his past behind only for potential secrets to be exposed. A man who is willing to switch sides at any second if he sees no way towards redemption anymore. Never turn your back towards this man.

#gethoce #answered ask #i may have rambled a little too much #anyway back to work i go

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agriftatsea · 4 months

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Do antishippers consider themselves conservatives?

Wikipedia quotes are in orange to provide definitions to clarify my point: American conservatives tend to support Christian values, moral absolutism, traditional family values, and American exceptionalism, while opposing abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, and transgender rights.

Further breakdown of points: Christian values include the concept of 'sin' as a moral failing and heavily stigmatize sex for any method other than for heterosexual procreation, and a goal of 'purity from sin' includes the absence of sinful thoughts. It includes censorship of sexual content, especially in films and on television, sexual abstinence outside marriage and abstinence-only sex education to protect children from topics that may harm them.

Traditional family values places a parent (usually the father) as the head of the household, with a submissive wife and obedient children who are seen as property. It encourages families, rather than the government, to take care of children. It is also used to advocate against an enormous list of ideologies, including feminism (which disrupts the masculine center of power) and divorce (which disrupts the traditional family model)

Moral absolutism is an ethical view that some (potentially all) actions are intrinsically right or wrong, regardless of context or consequence. It can also be referred to as black and white thinking.

To quote fan-lore: Anti-shipper is someone who is against the portrayal of certain romantic relationships. Since the mid-2010s, the term is most often used to refer to a fan who believes that it is morally wrong to ship some ships.

In contrast, the general concept of a pro-shipper is that they believe "fiction is not reality" and often see every ship as valid, regardless of the opinions others may have towards the ship. Proshippers and Antishippers most often butt heads regarding (perceived or literal) representations of incest, non-con or dub-con, underage or age gap romances.

Please note that your own individual race, sexuality, religion, etc. do not exclude you from either category. Being LGBTQ and being liberal are two different, though often overlapping, categories.

If you send me any kind of hate, you owe me $1 per message.

#signal boost #fan poll #fanfiction writing #proship #antiship

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cryptyid · 5 days

Text

oh no i am being observed

Just to clarify a few things:

-> If you are not someone who can hold empathy and compassion for both Palestinians and Israelis, hostages and refugees, you are fundamentally not someone who shares my values. All life has dignity and is important. Every death is the end of an entire world.

-> If you are willing to ignore or excuse one form of oppression or bigotry to ostensibly fight another, you are not seeking liberation; you are merely trying to change who gets to rule. Advocacy is not a zero-sum game, and anyone telling you it is is trying to get you to excuse something you shouldn't.

-> Jews have the same intrinsic right to return to our ancestral lands as any other colonized or displaced people. This does not give us the right to bring those same harms down on others. The treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli state has been abhorrent (which is not to somehow say that Palestinian leadership is blameless in the ongoing conflict, they are far from it) and it must stop. There is land enough for all.

-> Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu, and the rest of the Kahanist mamzerim in their coalition, represent a Theocratic Fascist movement within Israeli politics. They need to be removed, before they take irrevocable control of the Israeli state and make the worst half-truths and misinformation of the western "Free Palestine" movement a reality.

-> Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the Islamic Republic represent an extant, overtly genocidal, Theocratic Fascist threat to all who value women, life, and freedom. They brutalize their own people to maintain power, and anyone cheering them on simply because they oppose the US and Israel is a fool at best.

-> In philosophical sense, I do not support the creation of a Palestinian state, but I do not support the existence of the Israeli state either. I don't support any state because the modern paradigm of the nation-state is an integral part of why this conflict has been ongoing for nearly a century. Fuck "globalizing the intifada"; globalize the democratic confederalist revolution. Open every border, end every government.

I do however live in reality, and recognize that this is (probably) not going to happen in my lifetime. A two-state solution is not perfect, but if it is achievable, it must be achieved. Any change to the status quo that ends the killing must be pursued. We cannot afford to sacrifice something better because it is not perfect.

-> If your primary source of news is social media posts and screenshots, I could not possibly care less about your opinion.

-> If you are not Jewish and are attempting to explain why something is not antisemitic, I will probably just block you. This is tumblr, you are not one of my students, and it's not worth my time.

-> If this all makes me some sort of Filthy Zionist or (((Globalist))) (some of y'all are using them so interchangeably these days, it's hard to keep up) to you, please go find another corner of the web to piss yourself in.

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hitsuzenhusbands · 6 months

Note

hey! i hope you're having a good day! i just read your (amazing!) asoue fic "ashes to ashes," and i was fascinated by the way you portrayed kit and olaf. i thought i'd send this ask because i'd really love to hear more of your thoughts on their dynamic if you feel like sharing? but if you don't feel like expanding on it, i totally understand! thank you so much for sharing your beautiful work on ao3!

OHH anon you are so kind...i apologize for being so extremely late but i just finished writing a little analysis so i figured now's about the right time to write a semi-legible response. might have been scary and incomprehensible otherwise. but i am finally here to scream and cry and thank you so desperately because im SO happy you enjoyed them AND decided to ask for more info! <3

to begin, i'd be absolutely inconsolable if i didn't point you towards @virginian-wolfsnake's fic the eye of the storm, probably one of my fave k&o fics of all time that delves into the meat of their relationship through the years from the perspective of kit. they're young and still excited by missions and flirty and tender and genuine, and, in time, when the rest of their world collapses, so do they--messy and tense and so wonderfully realistic you have to read it and then read it again. honestly, if you don't want to read the rest of this but still want an answer, just read that. but also read it anyway

and now i have to ask you to forgive me...i have not read the books in a very long time and while i know the netflix series (in comparison) is bad and awful and terrible, i have watched it a million times. so if i'm wrong on anything. that's why.

to begin, the version of olaf i depicted in my fic is at the height of his...how do you say...pathetic misery. not including the spiral he has during the series. to me, the death of his parents are the beginning of his downfall into something-like-insanity, but he's still (and will continue to be) recognizably himself, if that makes sense. he's always been messy and emotional and dramatic (see the line: "...Kit has seen him in worse states and with a much better view..."), but only now does he reveal not a different side of himself per se, but a different angle of one that already existed.

im a fervent believer that olaf's always been a little self destructive and a lot crazy. hes spent the greater half of his life coming to terms with the fact that he is intrinsically not as noble as the rest of vfd--hes impulsive and obnoxious and self-obsessed, barely even literate at times--and it takes a special kind of guy to carve the insignia of the organization full of people he despises into his own front door. still, his parents' death was a catalyst, meaning he wasn't entirely opposed to vfd beforehand. he probably liked the missions and the secrecy and the dramatics, obviously the disguises and everything, but i think before the night at the opera it was really just a source of fun for him. he never truly grasped the reality of it, the nature of his actions and the weight of his involvement. whether that was out of naivety or pure neglect of the facts is up for debate. (there's a little bit of this in the shattering of thalia and melpomene if that interests you at all, beloved anon. see the line: "...[Esme] could never compare to the extent to which [Olaf] removes himself from everyone else entirely. How he spends so much time worrying about himself he almost forgets to worry about himself...Esme could never truly get lost in her own greatness. Could never turn a blind eye to the inner workings of V.F.D.")

kit, on the other hand, definitely did. serving as a volunteer was her purpose, the sole thing she had to cling to. she dedicated her life to it, making conscious decisions to go against her moral code in the hope that it all truly was for a greater good. i think, at times, she could fall into her own little fits of self-destruction, putting vfd above herself entirely (see the line: "This wouldn’t be the first time she’d done something she would never truly volunteer for...he’d still spent year after year watching her run off...to do something she could never speak of." "...she still returned with clenched teeth and knit eyebrows, as though she had no choice in the matter at all.")

to avoid any more convolution, in my mind it goes something like this: both are volunteers--olaf born and raised (along with beatrice), kit torn from her family and thrust into the thick of it so early on its all she knows. they grow up, probably-definitely know each other but dont know each other until, say, late teens-early twenties?

up until then, they've been everything previously described, but intermingling with one another changes this. olaf's easygoing approach rubs off on kit, partly because she finds more joy in his company than in missions, partly because he makes every attempt to keep her from leaving. i like to think she tries to keep his relatively flimsy moral code in check, or at the very least restrain his temper to the best of her abilities.

to me, they're a simultaneously great and terrible couple. at their best, they counteract each other in a positive way as described above and serve as a welcome distraction from the realities of a crumbling vfd, a little island of tenderness and domesticity in the ocean of turmoil that surrounds them.

and at their worst, their personalities combat so violently it's hard to see how they ever could have been together. olaf deals out the worst of it, prone to neglect and self-isolation, a deeply inset refusal to discuss anything with her, an inclination towards firestarting and an increasingly poor reputation with everyone kit knows. then again, kit isn't free of blame (if you can call it that), she's just as opposed to talking anything out as he is, and her isolation takes on the shape of running off to do as many missions as as she can before she's dead on her feet. she's pulled in different directions--a well-instilled hatred towards firestarers, only further influenced by whatever rumours olaf's growing list of enemies supplies her, versus her love for him, her knowledge of who he really is, a concept that is often tested. (see the line: "He’s reminded of a fight they once had, about something or other, that ended in her angry admission that it was easier to be upset with him when he wasn’t nearby.")

anyway, the idea is they grow further and further apart both ideologically and physically/relationship-wise until the opera night and the crash following that (see: the whole fic!) and from then on i think they fall into something like an evil situationship. they barely see each other, complete opposite sides of the schism. i say situationship because i think when they do see each other (on missions, at events/in public, in private, etc.) it is just a terrible experience no matter what. they're both torn between hating the other for what they know about them/what they did (i like to think olaf finds out about kit supplying the darts) and reminiscing/yearning for what they once had.

for the sake of this i wont give my thoughts on whose baby kit has because that's a whole other thing (not really. its just more of a fun hc i think about on occasion as opposed to something concrete in canon or even my version of canon) but their scene in the end does make me insane. its a culmination of all the time spent wishing what happened didnt happen, almost as though theyre seeing each other for the first time once again, perhaps not blind to the past but looking away for (on olafs part) one final moment of normalcy.

i hope thats what you were looking for to any degree, anon. im a little rusty on my lore but they matter to me soo much. if i have to leave this on anything, its go read eye of the storm. kitlaf fic of all time.

#im so sorry this took approximately one million years #i hope it suffices anon...#also i hope its ok to tag u out of the blue my wonderful mutual #that fic is so good....makes me crazy everytime i think abt it #asoue #a series of unfortunate events #count olaf #kit snicket #kitlaf #answered asks #analysis #fic posting

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gsirvitor · 5 months

Note

"Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on four foundational rights, that of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law."

That's libertarianism. That's what modern day libertarianism is. But that's also the old definition of liberalism. Aka classical liberalism. So I understand why you're mislabeling yourself.

Liberalism in the modern day just means the left side of the political compass.

From what I can see you're a conservative libertarian, not a liberal.

You stand squarely on the right with a support for personal freedoms.

You're not a liberal and you don't support liberalism, you support libertarianism.

Incorrect.

Liberalism is the foundation, from which the philosophies of Libertarianism and Conservatism have evolved, what you're referring to when you speak of "modern" Liberalism isn't Liberalism, it is Social or Neo Liberalism, socialist political philosophies that wear Liberalism like a skinsuit.

I do not mislabel myself, I am a Liberal, those you call Liberal, are not adherents of Liberalism.

Incorrect, I am of the center left, the Overton window has just shifted so far left, I appear to be of the right to those ignorant of social political shifts.

I do support, adhere to, and promote Liberalism, I'm sorry you're ignorant as to what Liberalism is.

But let's go over the differences, because despite the fact I have gone over them dozens of times in the past, it never quite sinks in with those who proclaim to know what Liberalism is.

Liberalism is very simple, and quite easy to understand, it is a political and moral philosophy based on the natural rights.

Liberals are committed to individualism, liberty, and equal rights and holds these rights to be intrinsic to the individual, following natural rights philosophy. They believe these goals require a free economy with minimal to no government interference.

Some elements of this gave birth to Conservatism and Libertarianism, as I've said.

Let’s just go over Liberty.

Liberty is a natural right, and is understood as the state of being free within society from control or oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views.

The concept can be categorized in a threefold manner;

Moral liberties, those being freedom of moral choice, such as freedom of conscience.

Civil liberties, those being freedom of individuals as constituting members of a civil society, such as freedom of speech.

Political liberties, those being freedom of individuals in relation to the state, such as freedom of political association.

Liberty can be simplified as the status of the free man as opposed to that of the slave.

Aristotle defined the general essence of liberty as being one’s own person for one’s own sake rather than belonging to another.

What discriminates the slave from the free man, then, is not that he is restricted in his actions and not subject to coercion but that everything he does is done to serve the interest of someone else.

This is antithetical to Libertarianism by the by, as they believe any form of coercion or restrictions on actions to be violations of one's own Liberty, Liberals do not.

Now, onto Natural Rights.

Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government, and so are universal, fundamental and inalienable, meaning they cannot be repealed by human laws, though one can forfeit their enjoyment through one’s actions, such as by violating someone else’s rights.

Natural law is the law of natural rights.

Natural Law is a system of law based on a close observation of human nature, and based on values intrinsic to human nature that can be deduced and applied independently of positive law, or the privileges conferred by a state or society.

According to the theory of law called jusnaturalism, all people have inherent rights, conferred not by act of legislation but by God, nature, or reason.

Natural law theory can also refer to theories of ethics, theories of politics, theories of civil law, and theories of religious morality.

In jurisprudence, natural law can be understood as the following;

That just laws are immanent in nature, that is, they can be discovered or found but not created by such things as a bill of rights.

That they can emerge by the natural process of resolving conflicts, as embodied by the evolutionary process of the common law; or that the meaning of law is such that its content cannot be determined except by reference to moral principles.

These meanings can either oppose or complement each other, although they share the common trait that they rely on inherence as opposed to design in finding just laws.

Natural Rights are as follows;

The Right to Preserve Life

All humans have the right to stay alive, and no government can ever take that right away, that doesn’t mean they can’t kill you, or try to.

This right extends to the right to defend yourself against people who cause you harm. Most philosophers agree that the right to life is the most fundamental natural right.

The Right to Liberty

Scroll up.

The Right to Own Property

Every person has the right to own property, either by themselves or with other people. No government can take this right from you, this again, does not mean they cannot create laws to rob you, this means the right to own property is always yours.

Some philosophers, including John Locke, believed that one’s ability to own property extended to their ownership of their own labor.

The Right to Make a Living

Humans have the right to make a living. Thomas Jefferson summarized this right as “the pursuit of happiness.”

This right reflects one’s right to economic liberty; the government cannot stop a person from making a living, and without the government and its laws people would still be able to freely trade with one another and make ends meat.

The Right to Have a Family

All people have the right to have a family.

Aquinas wrote extensively of this view, which maintains that one has a natural right to marry as a reflection of their natural liberty.

They may also have children without the consent of the government or state.

Natural rights refer to the rights given to all humans, simply for the sake of being human. They are universal moral principles among all cultures and societies and can’t be reversed by government law.

For this reason, natural rights are often called inalienable rights, meaning they cannot be taken away.

Natural rights are the basis of a social contract in society. They would exist even if the government didn’t.

As Thomas Aquinas said, the main principle of natural law was that “good is to be done and pursued and evil avoided.”

All natural rights can exist without a government and its laws, though legal rights cannot, if someone is on a deserted island with a group of others, each person has the above natural rights, none of the legal rights exist, each person has the right to earn their keep, keep property, live freely, protect themselves, their property and others, and start a family, none of these things are reliant on governmental consent, only the consent of individuals.

If these individuals try to suppress the natural rights of another, then they can be opposed by the other thanks to the natural right to defense of oneself given via the right to preserve life and the right to liberty.

Now, what I have described is Liberalism, the foundation of both Conservatism and Libertarianism, who’s foundation can be found in Christian teachings and philosophy.

Those you would call Liberal, do not adhere to any of the above, the more you afford the political Left the political smokescreen of Liberalism, the more ground you will lose, for you are not fighting them or their principles, you are instead fighting me, and Liberals like me, when we are not opposed.

Now, onto Classical Liberalism, a moral political philosophy that also spawned from Liberalism, the name Classical Liberalism is a rather unfortunate misnomer, for it did not predate Liberalism, it is a product of it.

Classical Liberalism is an 18th century British invention, that was made in response to royal charters, monopolies, and protectionist policies under mercantilism so as to encourage entrepreneurship and increase productive efficiency.

It believed that government gave rights, that the only way to stop the royalty from acting like crony 18th century factory owners was to implement even more stringent laws, they wanted to create laws that would allow people to not be oppressed by laws, which looking at Britain today, didn't end well for them, did it?

In their vain attempt to advance the Liberal ideal that individuals should be free to pursue their interests without government interference, they created more government oversight, Classical "Liberals" indeed.

I am not a Classical Liberal and do not adhere to Classical Liberalism, and I'd thank you to not read Wikipedia when trying to figure out Liberalism, it's prone to mislabel things.

Classical Liberalism also isn't old, it's a modern philosophy that is as old as Socialism, Libertarianism and Anarchism, Liberalism is far older, as its foundations can be found not only in Antiquity, but in Christianity.

You can think of each like this.

Liberalism is the Foundation.

Modern Conservatism is the Liberal attempt to reacquaint itself with Traditional Conservatism.

Libertarianism is in essence radical Liberalism, Liberalism brought to its logical conclusions.

Classical Liberalism is a Liberal failing, it was trying to adhere to the Monarchist systems of utilizing governance, while attempting to appeal to Liberal ideals.

Social Liberalism is Socialism by another name, it preaches Liberal ideals and philosophy, but adheres to the Socialist structures and precepts, it was a rejection of Liberalism due to the failings of the Classical Liberals of the 19th century.

Neo Liberalism is the corporatist evolution of Social Liberalism, it is a machine that believes society is numbers, and all can be fixed by adjusting said numbers, it is radical Social Liberalism, in this way it is what Libertarianism is to Liberalism.

I do hope this helped you, I am getting rather tired of spelling it out again and again.

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secularprolifeconspectus · 9 months

Text

Why Anti-Abortion isn't Fascist (& How Pro-Abortion Is)

I think many people conflate "fascism" and "fascists" with "oppression" and "oppressors". You don't have to be fascist to be an oppressor, but fascism is inherently oppressive.

I refer to the definition provided by Robert Paxton of fascism, "a particular set of tactics to seize power".

Now, how do the anti-abortion and pro-abortion camps stack up? Let's start by defining their most basic positions:

Anti-abortion: All humans are people. It is murder to kill people, especially the dependent, who are powerless and captive, thus utterly at your mercy.

Pro-abortion: Some humans aren't people. It is slavery to force people to sustain other humans with their bodies and labor, especially non-people.

Neither of these stances on their own is intrinsically fascist, but they sure do make the opposing side look fascist. But here's the thing: according to Paxton, fascism isn't an ideology or a belief. Rather, fascism is a set of tactics.

Paxton identifies the following as fascist tactics:

Suppression of liberties

Incarceration of opponents

Prohibition of strikes

Unlimited police power

Military aggression

Fearmongering

Violence

Propaganda, promoting: rejection of rights and democracy, anti-socialism and nationalism, group exclusion and allegiance

In order to isolate abortion access alone as the fascist factor, with other variables controlled so as not to confound, we must compare two groups from the same side of the political spectrum. So, I am going to compare two left-wing groups for this exercise: Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) and NYC for Abortion Rights (NYCFAR).

See how each camp stacks up below the cut ↓

Pt. I: Tactics

Suppression of liberties

PAAU: allegedly suppresses freedom of religion by imposing their beliefs (but their rationale for fetal personhood is secular, not faith-based). Obstructs privacy by counseling patients and tresspassing.

NYCFAR: suppresses freedom of speech and press by calling for "no airtime for antis." Attempts to obstruct free exercise of assembly, protest, and religion every month by blocking Witness for Life.

Incarceration of Opponents

PAAU: openly anti-carceral. Opposes incarcerating anyone for complicity in abortion.

NYCFAR: members regularly express desire for opponents to be incarcerated and violated within prison.

Prohibition of Strikes

PAAU: supports unionization of the working class. Refuses to cross picket lines in solidarity.

NYCFAR: promotes Planned Parenthood despite their known union busting and worker abuses.

Unlimited Police Power

PAAU: believes in community defense. Minimizes contact with police. Lobbies against DOJ and FBI.

NYCFAR: members frequently call for the police to arrest Witness for Life leader Fr. Fidelis and to enforce illegitimate sanctions against Red Rose Rescue members that violate the Right to (be) Rescue(d).

Military Aggression

PAAU: while PAAU's activists may appear militant, they are committed to non-violence in principle and practice.

NYCFAR: some members participate in the aggressive guerilla militia of Jane's Revenge, which destroys property to intimidate and threaten escalation to violence.

Fearmongering

PAAU: the accusation that they fearmonger about later abortion is verifiably false and they can back up their claims with forensic evidence and data.

NYCFAR: fearmongers that abortion bans reduce access to ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage treatment, that people will be convicted or will die.

Violence

PAAU: holds that abortions are brutality, exploitation, excessive force, abuse of power, and violations of freedom from deliberate violence.

NYCFAR: many incidents of assault of pro-life activists, including sexually assaulting a priest and intentionally wounding a sidewalk counselor.

Propaganda, promoting:

Rejection of rights

PAAU: supposedly rejects right to bodily autonomy (yet supports access to contraception, gender-affirming care, and sterilization.)

NYCFAR: rejects the human right to life as inalienable, restricts freedom from deliberate violence to a privilege for the perfect and planned.

Rejection of democracy

PAAU: works within democracy to amass power, such as through lobbying and campaigning.

NYCFAR: advocates for legislative bypass of the Supreme Court and against checks and balances fundamental to constitutional democracy.

Anti-socialism

PAAU: embraces socialist and other economic left frameworks for addressing the material needs of parents, children, and families in crisis.

NYCFAR: protects a capitalist profits-over-people corporation and neoimperialist billion-dollar industrial complex that exploits the working class.

Nationalism

PAAU: as misfits both among pro-choice progressives and pro-life conservatives, doesn't identify with a particular nation or tribe.

NYCFAR: identification with the pro-choice "nation" and leftist "tribe"; disenfranchise preborn to gain socioeconomic power for the left.

Group exclusion

PAAU: policy is only exclusionary of individuals and groups who promote hate and use violence against others; all humans have human rights.

NYCFAR: excludes an entire class of humans from equal rights by claiming that they are clumps of cells and calls for their extermination.

Group allegiance

PAAU: unifies outcasts from the mainstream pro-life movement, members share principles from a diverse set of other social movements.

NYCFAR: allegiance to "sisterhood" and "the block"; gatekeeps feminism and socialism as belonging solely to the pro-choice movement.

Pt. II: Principles

Paxton defines a single core principle to fascism: gain power by any means necessary. His contemporary, Burley asserts that "Fascism promotes the concept of innate inequality and inescapable social hierarchies... a person's rank in society is determined by aspects of identity that are beyond their control." Fascists seize power for the "master" group.

Let's look at how each group fits this principle:

Innate inequality

PAAU: dehumanizes pregnant humans by using them as incubators to gestate clumps of cells into babies; discriminates based on sex and gender.

NYCFAR: dehumanizes preborn humans by using them as currency to purchase the liberation; discriminates based on age, ability, and location.

Social hierarchy

PAAU: treats pregnant people as second-class citizens by restricting reproductive autonomy and thereby their socioeconomic mobility.

NYCFAR: treats preborn people as untouchables outside the class system who may be exploited and discarded with impunity and no recourse.

Master group

PAAU: upholds the paternalistic patriarchy of old, rich, abled, religious, white cishet men against their own interests in order to siphon off power.

NYCFAR: upholds ableist adult supremacy in order to defend their power and "born privilege" over the most powerless members of humankind.

Pt. III: Elements

Stemming from this, Paxton suggests several common (but not definitive) elements in fascism, including: group primacy, victim mindset, rejection of individualism and liberalism, enhanced sense of identity and belonging, idolization of a leader, sublimation of violence, collaboration with elite to protect private property, and economic autarky.

You can't generalize either stance as fascist, but you can certainly find fascist factions and actors within either respective movement. Let's see if either of these leftist groups fit the bill:

Group primacy

PAAU: explores cognitive dissonance with curiosity and openness. Prioritizes wellbeing of individuals over image of group. Works across the aisle to build coalitions over shared goals.

NYCFAR: cognitive dissonance is dismissed and denied. Sacrifices wellbeing of individuals to maintain power of group. Unwilling to collaborate with opponents to achieve common goals.

Victim mindset

PAAU: praxis is non-violent, radical solidarity with primary victims via rescue, recognizes abortion is murder but murder isn't justified in return.

NYCFAR: justifies sexual assault and physical battery of opponents by identifying as victims of violation of consent, violates consent in return.

Rejection of individualism & liberalism

PAAU: encourages critical thought, dissent treated as opportunity for learning and growth, loose framework for ideals allows individualism.

NYCFAR: unity requires uniform adherence to collective ideals, shuts down critique to maintain status quo, dissent treated as threat to cohesion.

Enhanced sense of identity & belonging

PAAU: encourages sense of intrinsic self-worth and dignity, self-esteem tied to personal integrity, morale independent of group gains and losses.

NYCFAR: group esteem dependent on extrinsic perception of success, over-identification with "the cause" leads to reactionary internal policing.

Idolization of a leader

PAAU: Randall Terry erroneously purported to be leader; atheist founder; decentralized leadership, structured in autonomous affinity groups.

NYCFAR: defends Planned Parenthood despite accusations of racism; mythologizes abortion providers and denies allegations of misconduct and harm by victims.

Sublimation of violence

PAAU: teaches organizers "you've got to learn to take a hit" and to never retaliate against violence with more violence, explicitly non-violent.

NYCFAR: frames violence against peaceful protesters as romanticized struggles against fascist powers by grassroots activists.

Collaboration with elite to protect private property

PAAU: collaborates with Catholic Church to uphold women as private property of men (despite being a feminist organization).

NYCFAR: collaborates with ruling class old money such as the Rockefeller Foundation to uphold oppression of working class via abortion trauma.

Economic autarky

PAAU: advocates for socialist programs, mutualist aid, and radical community care to give poor people self-sufficiency so parenting is a feasible option.

NYCFAR: advocates for reproductive autonomy, aka the right to a dead baby, to give poor people economic self-sufficiency and unburden the State.

Discussion & Conclusion

Full disclosure: I am a staff member of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, and I wrote this analysis on my own time as my own idea.

I was recruited by PAAU because I believed in its principles. As such, obviously I conclude that PAAU beats the allegations: we are not fascists, and being anti-abortion is not fascist because ideologies themselves cannot be fascist. Rather, it is our leftist contemporaries in the pro-choice movement who are using fascist tactics to defend their exploitation of preborn people to expand power for the "master race" of born people.

There absolutely are fascist and oppressive individuals, groups, and factions within the pro-life movement. Those who are violent I refuse to cooperate with, and I refuse to resort to fascist tactics to advance our cause.

I believe I have proven NYCFAR to be (to use their lingo) "Fash", ironically. And I think most of the pro-choice movement also resorts to fascist tactics, in part because pro-choice is inherently pro-violence.

Your view of which stance you see as oppressive is founded upon whether or not you understand the preborn to be full and equal people to you and I, but violence is unequivocally done to living preborn human organisms by abortion regardless of your fetal personhood perspective. Pro-Choice is Pro-Violence, and as such they are quick to resort to violence to seize power.

So for my anti-abortion homies, here's two quick responses you can take from this:

Pro-Aborts accuse us of having fascist beliefs, but fascism is a set of tactics, not a set of beliefs.

Pro-Aborts use fascist tactics such as fearmongering and violence to seize power.

#fascism #fascist #pro-life #anti-abortion #hide #antifa #antifascist #anti capitalism #anticapitalist #disquisitions

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ultrvmonogamy · 6 months

Note

if you really were in your 40s you seriously need to update your bio to 21+ and not 18+. especially with the themes on your blog it can come off as creepy and pedo ish

bestie i'm a bit confused by this message, n i feel like there's a lot to unpack here for what's essentially a single sentence.

first of all, there's the fact that the text is red, which i suppose is meant to indicate that this is a warning of sorts or that i'm in error somehow like if my attempt at creating a password didn't include the correct combination of length n special characters or wtv. this was strange to see upon opening my inbox, n it strikes me as a bit aggressive/reprimanding in a manner that does not lead me to feel that ur offering counsel in good faith.

second, it seems ur insinuating that i'm lying abt my age, which to my mind establishes a dynamic of distrust, and for what reason i do not know.

third, u proceed to dictate what i seriously need to do if perchance i'm not lying abt my age. that's p fucking weird n rude n presumptuously authoritarian, and i have to wonder if u could possibly have believed that i'd be receptive to such an approach. i mean, u mention my blog's content, so u must have at least some cursory awareness of my general attitude, no? or maybe as my anonymous overlord who also happens to be the supreme arbiter of social dynamics, such trivial matters as actually communicating w the person ur admonishing is of little import. or perhaps ur just appallingly bad at human interaction, in which case i won't hold it against u as long as ur willing to reflect on that n make some changes including but not limited to staying in ur lane.

fourth, putting 18+ (and, u know, MDNI in multiple places) is creepy n pedo-ish? but also somehow changing that to 21+ would alleviate ur concerns? to my mind, this is so misguided on so many levels that i truly do not know where to begin, but hey i'll give it a try anyway..

let's pretend that u didn't just errantly apply to adults a term that is reserved by its very definition for atrocious acts n desires towards prepubescent children. furthermore, let's pretend u didn't just come to my inbox n associate that term w me. actually, i'd better backtrack n ask u to pause for a moment bc ur probably still thinking abt the fact that i made that distinction n r likely now running some dialogue in ur mind abt how fucking gross i am for even calling out the semantics. ofc i could be wrong abt what ur thinking, but if u do find urself thinking along those lines, then i'm going to take this opportunity to tell u that u seriously need to talk to adult survivors of prepubescent sexual abuse and explain to them why u feel their experience is categorically the same as that of an adult choosing to have sex w someone u personally deem inappropriately older, n then convince them that it's fair to erase the distinction as it pertains to their own experiences.

where was i?

okay, so now let's pretend age gap sex is intrinsically pathological until the younger partner reaches 21 n so therefore 18+ vs 21+ categorically changes the dynamics: even then what exactly is ur premise here? do u think that my intent is to fuck anyone n everyone who looks at my blog? or that i even just want to fuck anyone n everyone who looks at my blog? r u the kind of person who sees someone's horny post n then dms them inappropriately as tho it was written to u personally? literally what the fuck? if a profile on a hookup app is asking for 18+, u'd have grounds to believe the user is seeking sex w ppl at least 18 yrs old, but this is not a hookup app; it's a microblogging platform ffs. like, there is no shortage of blogs that i follow here for art, science, fandoms, cats, moths, religious iconography, knives, symbology, gore, spirituality, etc. do u think i wanna fuck all those bloggers too, or only if they happen to follow this blog as opposed to one of my others? if that's how ur mind works, i'd suggest u put 200+ in ur bio bc i personally do not think adults of any age should have to suffer exposure to u, but even so i do think that adults who would choose to do so have every right to do so (assuming ur not posting the kinds of things ur ostensibly condemning in ur message to me, in which case they would not have the right). now wrt 18+ being an issue: do u think i should be protecting adults from kink or from my sense of humor or what? do u not believe adults should be allowed agency until age 21? or is that just wrt looking at tumblr blogs? maybe just mine? or just blogs run by bloggers 40 n over? was 18+ okay w u when i was 39? 35? 30? 29? do u have some kind of table w a range of adult ages on one axis n various activities on the other? maybe w green checkmarks or red exes at the intersections? is it a case by case basis? is there some kind of puritanical mental gymnastics to be performed so that an integer value pops out from the ether? r u gonna share the formula?

am i completely missing smth here? is there some key information abt the age of 21* that i'm not privy to? srsly, bc if there is such a thing then i'm wholly unaware of it but would v much like to be made aware, and i earnestly invite u to provide me w the relevant information.

if u take nothing else from my response, plz stop misusing that term bc by doing so u r erasing not simply the scale but rather the profound developmental damage of an atrocity that does not track proportionately w age. and to anyone who would choose to do that willfully n knowingly just for the sake of rhetorical impact, i say fuck u bc ur a piece of shit.

if u actually want to have a conversation in good faith, talk to me off anon. just don't fucking coming back here associating those kinds of labels w me, n don't presume to tell me (like some kind of fascist) what i need to do, especially not while invalidating the lived experiences of those who've suffered in one of the worst ways imaginable.

*as i sit here thinking abt it, i actually would not be surprised if 18 yr olds on avg r less inclined to make bad decisions than 21 yr olds on average, but i'd need to see a whole lot of data that most definitely does not exist in any reliable representative form.

bleh.

#mail #anon #i hate it here #oc

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soloorganaas · 1 year

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i always love to see your thoughts on the black family + mental illness! you have such interesting insight and it's clear you've thought about it a lot. as a bipolar girl myself i spend a lot of time thinking about how i'm like 40g of an unspecified antipsychotic away from becoming walburga lol. for me i think the part that sticks out the most is the anger/lack of mood regulation -- that just SCREAMS untreated bipolar to me, but i think it's a relatively common trait to a couple of mental illnesses. i've always (or at least since i got diagnosed) considered the black family madness to be "just bipolar" because it seems so similar to my own experience and my family's experiences. but i'll be really interested to hear what you have to say on bpd and the black family, because that's not one i know as much about.

thank you for sharing your thoughts! i really do always get excited when i see them pop up on my feed :)

the mood regulation really is it and I think is such a crucial part of the house of black being the way they are bc it exacerbates so many dif issues

the way I understand bpd as opposed to bipolar disorder is that it’s a permanent state of disregulation, bc it’s a personality disorder rather than a mood disorder. so if you’re struggling with that disregulation every day it’s gonna look like anger issues, self esteem issues, problems with stable relationships etc. bipolar disorder is a mood disorder, meaning you have weeks/months long phases of depression or mania (or a neutral-ish in between). which still causes a general feeling of instability but with more built up, often catastrophic effects than bpd

i have bipolar disorder not bpd so I can’t speak to bpd as accurately or authentically, but I think there are a lot of aspects to at least some of the house of black’s members that speak to those disorders. and to be really fucking clear: neither of them inherently make you a bad person or do bad things (like inciting antisemitic violence and preaching conspiracy theories, for instance). if unstable relationships, anger, impulsivity or recklessness, delusional thinking or similar lead you to harmful behaviours or ideas to start with, then mental health problems can obviously exacerbate them. if your recklessness looks like climbing dangerous mountains by yourself (🙋🏻‍♀️) then mania is gonna exacerbate that

so with walburga, she was clearly devoted to her sons and her family. kreacher talks about how sirius leaving broke her heart. she also then lost her second son a few years later. that kind of trauma and grief could trigger truly awful manic/depressive episodes, which could lead to serious instability long term. it could also tear away any control she had over anger management or emotional regulation in her relationships. i think it’s important to remember that the portrait of her isn’t an accurate/entire representation (@narcissa-black-supermacy has said some great stuff about this), but that also capturing her at the absolute lowest point in her life also isn’t representative of her overall

I think if you also grow up suffocated by the world you’re in and knowing nothing else but those crushing expectations, that sort of pressure is going to make it very hard to form a stable solid sense of self and emotional foundation. I am fully extrapolating here, as we know little to nothing about walburga, but as she was presumably arranged into a marriage with her cousin, her life isn’t painted as a picture of freedom. the intensity of mood/personality disorders would exacerbate the worst aspects of that. if you’re only ever surrounded by other manic/depressive or unstable people, that’s what you’re going to intrinsically absorb as normal, and your mind is going to keep proving that bias right

so I think it’s really the story of a woman under a combination of horrific pressure and expectation and control, living in an era of dangerous fascism to which her family was intrinsically connected, raised knowing nothing else but them and their ideas, with the responsibility of raising two boys as the continuation of their line who are both, in different ways, racing as fast as possible towards their own destruction

none if this is to justify child abuse either physically or emotionally. there’s a lot of dif interpretations of this from canon but it’s fair to say sirius had a toxic relationship with his mother and was subject to at least some form of abuse as part of it. what I’m arguing is that simply passing a character off as “mad and evil” is just such a bigoted simplistic way of discussing mental illness and its interactions with morality, power and in this case family. and I think examining how mental illness interacts with the members of the house of black in v different ways reveals an enormous amount about them and adds a lot of meaningful layers to the story

#the amount of them who commit death defying or actually fatal acts for the people they love #no thoughts just vibes #the amount of them who straight up just abandon their family #two out of five cousins in one generation #it’s about the extremes #house of black #hp #hp meta

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eleemosynecdoche · 20 days

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To begin with, here's why I'm doing this:

I like mythology. Much of my creative work has involved mythology as a source to engage with. Many of the works of art I enjoy enough to engage in fannishness about are also ones which engage heavily with mythology. On purely descriptive terms, I care about this stuff.

However, the way in which I care about it is different from how many people in online and fannish spaces care about it, and I think that the way I care about it is worth articulating so that people can understand it as an option or alternative they can choose and pursue. It might also help people understand some of the things I say and make, which I would also like to happen.

So. What am I disagreeing with?

I would call it a mode of engaging with mythology which has the following qualities:

It is atomizing, treating mythology functionally as a collection of stories that are connected through characters and settings.

It is reifying, treating mythology as a static phenomenon which is always dead- one can draw upon the corpse but whatever one does is separate from the corpse.

It is reverential and deferential, treating mythology as existing on some removed plane of cultural production and "proper" engagement with mythology approaching from "below", with the products of engagement with mythology being intrinsically lesser than the mythology.

It is isolating, treating mythology as existing in a separate sphere. This includes both vulgar Marxism that treats the base-superstructure relationship as one-way and incurious rejection of mythology as contextual.

Some of this is plainly a product of how academic analysis of mythology functions, and some of it is a decontextualized use of pieces of that functionality. Regardless, I think this approach has serious pitfalls when it comes to both understanding a number of artistic works and engaging in creative activity with mythology.

Thus, to lay out oppositions and what I think:

Mythology is always embedded in a system or multiple systems, and cannot be reduced to simply a collection of stories, because the throughlines between stories on different topics and the structural, thematic, and symbolic similarities between mythological stories are important.

Mythology is only truly dead when it is forgotten and is always fluid and changing. Media which engages with mythology creatively, even for the purposes of analysis, is part of that mythological tradition.

Treating mythology with reverence is not the same thing as treating it respectfully or seriously, and in many cases, the two things are directly opposed. Furthermore, deferentiality impairs understanding and use- by treating yourself as always "below" a teacher, you can't truly learn from them, because the transmission of knowledge makes you an equal to the teacher once taught.

Mythology connects to the broader world. It both transforms in response to changes in the material circumstances of culture which produces it, but transforms those material circumstances in turn. It is frequently necessary to treat it in isolation temporarily, but it is fundamentally connected.

High-minded principles, huh? Let's see what I think flows out of them and where I got them from.

#the effy myth

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