#I make a point to avoid Discourse where i can usually | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sneezypeasy · 1 month

Text

Why I Deliberately Avoided the "Colonizer" Argument in my Zutara Thesis - and Why I'll Continue to Avoid it Forever

This is a question that occasionally comes up under my Zutara video essay, because somehow in 2 hours worth of content I still didn't manage to address everything (lol.) But this argument specifically is one I made a point of avoiding entirely, and there are some slightly complicated reasons behind that. I figure I'll write them all out here.

From a surface-level perspective, Zuko's whole arc, his raison d'etre, is to be a de-colonizer. Zuko's redemption arc is kinda all about being a de-colonizer, and his redemption arc is probably like the most talked about plot point of ATLA, so from a basic media literacy standpoint, the whole argument is unsound in the first place, and on that basis alone I find it childish to even entertain as an argument worth engaging with, to be honest.

(At least one person in my comments pointed out that if any ship's "political implications" are problematic in some way, it really ought to be Maiko, as Mai herself is never shown or suggested to be a strong candidate for being a de-colonizing co-ruler alongside Zuko. If anything her attitudes towards lording over servants/underlings would make her… a less than suitable choice for this role, but I digress.)

But the reason I avoided rebutting this particular argument in my video goes deeper than that. From what I've observed of fandom discourse, I find that the colonizer argument is usually an attempt to smear the ship as "problematic" - i.e., this ship is an immoral dynamic, which would make it problematic to depict as canon (and by extension, if you ship it regardless, you're probably problematic yourself.)

And here is where I end up taking a stand that differentiates me from the more authoritarian sectors of fandom.

I'm not here to be the fandom morality police. When it comes to lit crit, I'm really just here to talk about good vs. bad writing. (And when I say "good", I mean structurally sound, thematically cohesive, etc; works that are well-written - I don't mean works that are morally virtuous. More on this in a minute.) So the whole colonizer angle isn't something I'm interested in discussing, for the same reason that I actually avoided discussing Katara "mothering" Aang or the "problematic" aspects of the Kataang ship (such as how he kissed her twice without her consent). My whole entire sections on "Kataang bad" or "Maiko bad" in my 2 hour video was specifically, "how are they written in a way that did a disservice to the story", and "how making them false leads would have created valuable meaning". I deliberately avoided making an argument that consisted purely of, "here's how Kataang/Maiko toxic and Zutara wholesome, hence Zutara superiority, the end".

Why am I not willing to be the fandom morality police? Two reasons:

I don't really have a refined take on these subjects anyway. Unless a piece of literature or art happens to touch on a particular issue that resonates with me personally, the moral value of art is something that doesn't usually spark my interest, so I rarely have much to say on it to begin with. On the whole "colonizer ship" subject specifically, other people who have more passion and knowledge than me on the topic can (and have) put their arguments into words far better than I ever could. I'm more than happy to defer to their take(s), because honestly, they can do these subjects justice in a way I can't. Passing the mic over to someone else is the most responsible thing I can do here, lol. But more importantly:

I reject the conflation of literary merit with moral virtue. It is my opinion that a good story well-told is not always, and does not have to be, a story free from moral vices/questionable themes. In my opinion, there are good problematic stories and bad "pure" stories and literally everything in between. To go one step further, I believe that there are ways that a romance can come off "icky", and then there are ways that it might actually be bad for the story, and meming/shitposting aside, the fact that these two things don't always neatly align is not only a truth I recognise about art but also one of those truths that makes art incredibly interesting to me! So on the one hand, I don't think it is either fair or accurate to conflate literary "goodness" with moral "goodness". On a more serious note, I not only find this type of conflation unfair/inaccurate, I also find it potentially dangerous - and this is why I am really critical of this mindset beyond just disagreeing with it factually. What I see is that people who espouse this rhetoric tend to encourage (or even personally engage in) wilful blindness one way or the other, because ultimately, viewing art through these lens ends up boxing all art into either "morally permissible" or "morally impermissible" categories, and shames anyone enjoying art in the "morally impermissible" box. Unfortunately, I see a lot of people responding to this by A) making excuses for art that they guiltily love despite its problematic elements and/or B) denying the value of any art that they are unable to defend as free from moral wickedness.

Now, I'm not saying that media shouldn't be critiqued on its moral virtue. I actually think morally critiquing art has its place, and assuming it's being done in good faith, it absolutely should be done, and probably even more often than it is now.

Because here's the truth: Sometimes, a story can be really good. Sometimes, you can have a genuinely amazing story with well developed characters and powerful themes that resonate deeply with anyone who reads it. Sometimes, a story can be all of these things - and still be problematic.*

(Or, sometimes a story can be all of those things, and still be written by a problematic author.)

That's why I say, when people conflate moral art with good art, they become blind to the possibility that the art they like being potentially immoral (or vice versa). If only "bad art" is immoral, how can the art that tells the story hitting all the right beats and with perfect rhythm and emotional depth, be ever problematic?

(And how can the art I love, be ever problematic?)

This is why I reject the idea that literary merit = moral virtue (or vice versa) - because I do care about holding art accountable. Even the art that is "good art". Actually, especially the art that is "good art". Especially the art that is well loved and respected and appreciated. The failure to distinguish literary critique from moral critique bothers me on a personal level because I think that conflating the two results in the detriment of both - the latter being the most concerning to me, actually.

So while I respect the inherent value of moral criticism, I'm really not a fan of any argument that presents moral criticism as equivalent to literary criticism, and I will call that out when I see it. And from what I've observed, a lot of the "but Zutara is a colonizer ship" tries to do exactly that, which is why I find it a dishonest and frankly harmful media analysis framework to begin with.

But even when it is done in good faith, moral criticism of art is also just something I personally am neither interested nor good at talking about, and I prefer to talk about the things that I am interested and good at talking about.

(And some people are genuinely good at tackling the moral side of things! I mean, I for one really enjoyed Lindsay Ellis's take on Rent contextualising it within the broader political landscape at the time to show how it's not the progressive queer story it might otherwise appear to be. Moral critique has value, and has its place, and there are definitely circumstances where it can lead to societal progress. Just because I'm not personally interested in addressing it doesn't mean nobody else can do it let alone that nobody else should do it, but also, just because it can and should be done, doesn't mean that it's the only "one true way" to approach lit crit by anyone ever. You know, sometimes... two things… can be true… at once?)

Anyway, if anyone reading this far has recognised that this is basically a variant of the proship vs. antiship debate, you're right, it is. And on that note, I'm just going to leave some links here. I've said about as much as I'm willing/able to say on this subject, but in case anyone is interested in delving deeper into the philosophy behind my convictions, including why I believe leftist authoritarian rhetoric is harmful, and why the whole "but it would be problematic in real life" is an anti-ship argument that doesn't always hold up to scrutiny, I highly recommend these posts/threads:

In general this blog is pretty solid; I agree with almost all of their takes - though they focus more specifically on fanfic/fanart than mainstream media, and I think quite a lot of their arguments are at least somewhat appropriate to extrapolate to mainstream media as well.

I also strongly recommend Bob Altemeyer's book "The Authoritarians" which the author, a verified giga chad, actually made free to download as a pdf, here. His work focuses primarily on right-wing authoritarians, but a lot of his research and conclusions are, you guessed it, applicable to left-wing authoritarians also.

And if you're an anti yourself, welp, you won't find support from me here. This is not an anti-ship safe space, sorrynotsorry 👆

In conclusion, honestly any "but Zutara is problematic" argument is one I'm likely to consider unsound to begin with, let alone the "Zutara is a colonizer ship" argument - but even if it wasn't, it's not something I'm interested in discussing, even if I recognise there are contexts where these discussions have value. I resent the idea that just because I have refined opinions on one aspect of a discussion means I must have (and be willing to preach) refined opinions on all aspects of said discussion. (I don't mean to sound reproachful here - actually the vast majority of the comments I get on my video/tumblr are really sweet and respectful, but I do get a handful of silly comments here and there and I'm at the point where I do feel like this is something worth saying.) Anyway, I'm quite happy to defer to other analysts who have the passion and knowledge to give complicated topics the justice they deserve. All I request is that care is taken not to conflate literary criticism with moral criticism to the detriment of both - and I think it's important to acknowledge when that is indeed happening. And respectfully, don't expect me to give my own take on the matter when other people are already willing and able to put their thoughts into words so much better than me. Peace ✌

*P.S. This works for real life too, by the way. There are people out there who are genuinely not only charming and likeable, but also generous, charitable and warm to the vast majority of the people they know. They may also be amazing at their work, and if they have a job that involves saving lives like firefighting or surgery or w.e, they may even be the reason dozens of people are still alive today. They may honestly do a lot of things you'd have to concede are "good" deeds.

They may be all of these things, and still be someone's abuser. 🙃

Two things can be true at once. It's important never to forget that.

#zutara discourse #the colonizer argument #anti anti zutara #text post #long post #anti maiko #anti mai #tagging just in case #anti purity culture #this is not an anti-ship safe space

261 notes · View notes

ajhediting · 9 months

Text

Hello Tumblr Writers!

Are you having trouble organizing your thoughts on the page?

Does your writing feel repetitive or incomplete?

Do you just want someone to look over the spelling and grammar?

Let me edit for you!

Services I Offer

Proofreading is checking spelling, grammar, punctuation, and layout. This is the most basic kind of editing but actually happens last—it’s very difficult to properly proofread something that is disorganized or needs more work. If you've already gone over everything and are sure it's all where it's supposed to be, I recommend the proofreading service to catch the grammatical and spelling errors that you might've missed.

Copy editing includes proofreading and checking the formatting and style. This would include making sure everything follows the style guide you’re using, such as APA, MLA, or CMoS. I recommend this more for academic writers because professors and journals are usually very strict about following style guides.

Line editing focuses on the flow of the writing on a paragraph level—things like word choice, sentence structure, and concision. I recommend this service if you feel that you're having trouble finding the right words to communicate your idea or if your writing feels too wordy.

Content editing focuses on the flow of writing on a chapter or section level—things like rearranging or deleting paragraphs and pointing out incomplete sections to improve readability. I recommend this service if you want help organizing your writing or identifying places that need more work.

Types of Writing I Edit

Fiction

My favorite genres are fantasy, sci fi, and horror, but I can edit whatever genre you write

I prefer not to edit graphic/explicit sex scenes, but it’s negotiable

I will not edit anything that supports racist, sexist, queerphobic, xenophobic, or other bigoted ideologies

Any length, from comic panels to novels

Nonfiction

Persuasive essays, informational texts, instructional guides, etc.

Any length

Academic

Anything you’re going to submit for a grade or evaluation

I have degrees in applied linguistics/discourse studies, anthropology, and psychology, so I’m best able to edit those subjects and related or similar subjects

For other subjects, message me about your writing and I’ll tell you what I can do with it

To avoid issues of academic integrity and fraud, I offer more limited services for academic writing. Message me for more information

Minimum 1000 words (about 4 double-spaced pages)

Rates

Proofreading: $15 USD per 1000 words

Copy editing: $17 USD per 1000 words

Line editing: $20 USD per 1000 words

Content editing: $22 USD per 1000 words

Rates may be negotiable on a case-by-case basis.

If you feel self-conscious about the quality of your writing, don’t worry! I understand that English is a difficult language, that getting words on the page is a hassle, that sometimes what's in our brains doesn't want to show up on the page (there's a reason I'm an editor and not a writer). I'm not here to judge your handle on language; I'm here to help you express your ideas and communicate effectively with your audience. I also have experience working with ESL writers and can explain both the basic rules of English and the complex things that even native English writers have trouble with.

#writing #writeblr #writers on tumblr #editing #proofreading

240 notes · View notes

still-a-morosexual-help · 4 months

Text

New rec: Choices book I actively avoided for years because the cover art gives "supernatural love triangle between the 'nice guy' & the 'bad boy'" and it's a trope I despise except turns out I'm an idiot because holy shit this was one of my favourite books

For one, the vampire lore is unique? Or at least uncommon enough that it feels like something new. It's even different from Choices' other vampire series

Second? Both LIs are wrong about their view on vampires and actually have to come to terms with this and learn to change and grow throughout the series. If anything, MC's the only one who's got it right. Both LIs have their own flaws & trauma while still being interesting and likeable characters and neither one is pushed above the other as being "the correct choice".

It also doesn't make the "bad boy" so antagonistic towards MC and the "nice guy" so sweet that it makes no sense for MC to pick the bad boy (*cough*choices' save the date*cough* my favourite is the antagonistic LI but also he's so hot & cold towards MC and a jerk to her for no real reason???). MC clicks with both of them in a different way and there's enough reason for MC to choose either one of them. It actually shows why MC needs both of them

Also, MC is initially built up in a way before they interact with the LIs so that all of their decisions throughout the story actually make sense. They're responsible but also insanely competitive. Despite staying in line presumably throughout their life, they're drawn towards anything that'll give them a shot of adrenaline

Plus all three characters get their time to shine and MC's a fucking badass, honestly they're up there with om's MC as being one of the more interesting & fun to play MCs

And MY favourite, absolute favorite thing about this, the main thing that shot this up to one of my favourite choices stories:

MC makes a Buffy reference in this. That means at one point they watched and/or read Buffy and/or Angel, saw her get together with first the tortured ""good guy"" and then later the rebellious ""bad boy"", saw all the love triangle discourse in the fandom and said well that's fucking stupid, watch me introduce them both to the concept of polyamory that's right it's NOT a fucking love triangle

or it can be if you want it to, like you can choose one of the two LIs but the "true" route, the one where you get a charm each from both LIs and complete MC's charm bracelet (usually the indicator of a fully completed story in any choices book is to complete a set of something) is the one where MC picks both of them

There are also frequent instances where the choices are [no romantic option at all] and [romantic option for both LIs eg: holding both their hands]

And yeah the LIs aren't in love with each other and spend a lot of time competing for MC, something they do right until the very end of the book BUT at about the midway point they become a proper team and start talking about the three of them as an inseparable team making it very clear that if this doesn't end with MC choosing both of them it's gonna turn into a me and you and your friend steve situation.

And then when either one of them talks about how much they care about MC they start using "we" and "our" [eg: "that's our girl/boy" when the two LIs are alone together]

And then they start being as protective of each other as they are of MC

Cas screaming "don't touch him" when Gabriel gets attacked + Gabriel throwing himself over and shielding both MC & Cas when they get attacked

I'm not saying they're in love or that they'll ever fall in love but they are much much more okay with sharing a partner with each other than either one is willing to admit

anyway, this is them:

#choices #choices immortal desires #immortal desires

114 notes · View notes

togglesbloggle · 1 year

Text

Okie, here’s a slightly dangerous essay I’ve had rattling around for a while. Dangerous because Discourse, which I usually avoid in this space, so I hope you’ll try not to reward it too much and provide weird incentives for me. But it’s a pretty interesting little model, too handy to fully pass over in silence.

Expect mild gender-binary essentialism and heteronormativity for modeling purposes- invoking these things in an explanatory but not normative or ethical sense.

Aside from being aggressively horrible, the state of female beauty standards as a cultural force is also fiddly and interesting in a way that I can’t resist chewing on. Naively, beauty ought to be a pretty idiosyncratic thing. We understand differences in taste between Picasso and Rembrant, or a trip to the mountains and a trip to the beach. But when it comes to human beauty, especially female beauty, we keep needing to reach for phrases like ‘traditionally attractive,’ and things in that vicinity. It’s understood that this ‘traditionally attractive’ stuff has tremendous influence over how our society is ordered, but its origin seems… vague, at best? And it clearly varies between cultures and times; it’s monotonic, not static. And the further away you get from socially mainstream forms of sex, the more it breaks down. Gay and kink communities seem to resist it somewhat, in the form of ‘types’ like bears and butches and whatnot, though it’s still lurking in the shadows a fair bit. So, why?

I’ve arrived at a model that seems to have decent predictive utility, which is: (female) beauty standards are set principally by the ability to convince others that you can leverage male agency.

This is, notably, not exactly the same thing as actually leveraging male agency, or even actually being able to. Male agency itself, though notably responsive to beautiful women in the general case, is of course a lot more complex when you start talking about individual men. These may be asexual or gay, obviously, but even the ones attracted to women are going to have individual preferences, navigate those preferences in different ways, and be more or less responsive to leverage. So to ‘be beautiful’ you’re attempting to land on a consensus, common-knowledge understanding of what everyone else thinks men are attracted to, one that’s anchored by the experiences and preferences of men, but because it’s women who try to achieve beauty in most cases, female-led social spaces are often where ‘beauty’ is processed and filtered from the complicated individual preferences of men and forged in to a coherent set of standards for women to work towards. (Economic forces also play an important role, of course, and are gendered in different ways.)

That consensus, in turn, need not correspond to the preferences of any individual man, even though it’s still (in a removed sense) ‘about’ male preference. An individual woman can even sometimes find more success in the dating market by deliberately stepping away from traditional beauty standards and finding something closer to the actual preferences of (a subset of) the men around her, though that means sacrificing real and important status in other circles. Because as power, the concept of beauty depends on the state of common knowledge among people on both sides of the gender dynamic as much as it does on the behaviors and preferences of men. This is part of what allows beauty standards to vary so widely in time and place (that is, they’re arbitrary to some degree), but be so strong wherever they appear- it’s a Schelling point that women can use to communicate both to men and to other women that they have some degree of influence over others. Thus, one of the many tragedies that heterosexual romance has to navigate. To achieve beauty as power, women have to get closer to that Schelling point, even though being ‘beautiful’ in that sense may actually make it harder to find a good partner that you like. Beauty means the competition is tougher, you’re locked out of considering the preferences of individual men you care about, you’re locked in to fairly oppressive standards that sand off many of your own best qualities because they’re too rare to be included in the consensus, and you’re now filtering for men who date women generically for social prestige rather than having intrinsic interest in you as an individual. But no human can opt out of the power game entirely; the consequences of ostracism in a social species are lethal.

Also, the old joke about ‘Woman Upset that Men are Staring at her Breast Implants’ is, in this model, a perfectly rational set of behaviors on the face of it- you don’t need to invoke either dysphoria or hypocrisy. The woman in question is not interested in actually provoking male behavior, she’s interested in communicating to others, often and especially other women, that she could if she wanted to. She wants enough social power to feel safe, which is a basic and sensible primate drive. It also demonstrates how this particular form of power both promotes and benefits from restrictive male gender roles, particularly as regards when and how to respond to women. The more restrictive the roles, the safer it is to accumulate power without being exposed to undue risk of unwanted (or unsanctioned?) male agency, and in turn the more power will be leveraged by beauty as a force. Feedback loops. Depending on the specifics of culture and local social networks, it’s quite possible for an individual woman to experience the benefits of beauty primarily as higher prestige in her interactions with heterosexual women, and for the dynamic between herself and men as a group to skew more and more negative as she achieves beauty, without beauty itself being net-negative.

(Aside: notice how increasingly restrictive standards of sexual decorum in men in the 21st century correspond to a leveling-off of female workforce participation rates. Libertine attitudes from the 60’s through the 90’s correlate with an expansion of economic power among women as an alternative to gendered beauty.)

One of the reasons that I like this model is that it’s written in the same alphabet as displays of traditional (i.e. political, military) power within formal hierarchies, displays of wealth, or even physical prowess- using this framework, beauty, wealth, and hierarchical power are all measured roughly by the number of people that will do what you ask them to. It makes sense that there would be commonalities between them, such as elements of a seemingly counterproductive red queen race, or brinksmanship in which neither side wants to actually deploy their power.

The differences are also real, and significant- because of the intrinsic dynamics of heterosexuality, beauty-as-a-face-of-power is ‘flat’, without tesselating hierarchies, and it doesn’t scale up indefinitely. This gives it a more limited scope than being a CEO or a president with control over employees, and a much more limited scope than you get through wealth in a tangled economic system. It also means that beauty is much less winner-take-all, meaning that almost all women benefit at the margins from pursuing beauty. It also peaks early and then degenerates over time. All these together in a dynamic mix I think help explain a lot of the complicated relationships that many women have with their physical appearance.

For example, this model makes it pretty easy to talk about why both women and men would be averse to a woman asking a guy out, even in This, The 21th Century- a woman who takes the initiative is in a sense forfeiting a game in which women demonstrate how powerful they are, and making herself less interesting at the margins during a stage of courtship where nobody has much information about the other party.

It also, I think, makes a lot of the old Incel discourse more legible, though it’s probably wiser to leave that particular one as an exercise for the reader. And it’s worth noting also that physical strength shares a surprising symmetry with female attractiveness in this sense, even if explicitly leveraging the social power of physical intimidation is taboo in a lot of modern urban cultures.

Anyway, it’s a good little model. Like all models, it’s wrong, but I think the epicycles here are modest and it's a useful way to interrogate a wide variety of phenomena.

168 notes · View notes

whoiwanttoday · 5 months

Text

Taylor Swift won Time's Person of the Year and I have to say I wasn't expecting that and I can't wait for the discourse around that. By that I mean I hope to avoid it at all costs because it will be fucking unbearable. I will admit my first reaction was a bit of, "Really?" Then I was like, "Well, she is like a billionaire now and the most famous entertainer in the world and single-handedly changed the lives of so many people who work for her by being generous. In a time where labor relations are clearly in flux she is the model of what a good employer could aspire to be". I mean, she isn't hurting financially but also could afford to be remarkably generous, which tends to shine a light on the lie that somehow most employers can't pay a living wage. Apparently you can and still be filthy rich. Then I thought about the fact that she did have a movie out that made a lot of money and skipped the studios, which really can't have helped the studios position during the strike. Hard to claim you're the side that deserves all the money when apparently you're completely superfluous. So like, as I thought about it it made more sense but I didn't really care because I don;'t much care about Time Magazine and I am sure many people will point out Hitler was also Time's Person of the Year so it might not be the highest of honors. Not like getting posted here for example. All that is my way of saying she isn't here because she won Time's Person of the Year. Not directly. She's here cause Time did a photoshoot for it and she looks fantastic. Like, I usually like to double check before I make wild claims and I haven't read that issue of Time but I am going to go ahead and say she looks way, way better than Hitler. Which is the first time I have ever used that as a measure of beauty and god willing it will be the last. So she looked good and here she is. Today I want to fuck Taylor Swift.

#Taylor Swift #blonde #Musician #whoiwanttofucktoday

45 notes · View notes

leviathan-supersystem · 1 year

Text

some thoughts on the right-libertarian discourse on greed, namely the whole "stupid communists are against greed, but they don't realize that greed, ie. self-interest, is actually good, and an inevitable part of human nature" talking point:

so like, on the face of it, treating "greed" and "self interest" as synonymous is obviously moronic. greed is a type of self-interest, sure, but most people would not define all self-interest as "greedy". brushing your teeth is obviously in your own self-interest but nobody is going to be like "wow look at this greedy motherfucker brushing their teeth". no, obviously when people talk about greed they're talking about when people act in their self-interest specifically in ways that harm the interests of others, when someone acts only with regard to themselves in ways that harm the group overall.

to give a hypothetical, if there's a birthday party, it's not greedy for someone to get a piece of cake, even though this is obviously in their self-interest, it's greedy for them to go back for fourths or fifths before everyone else has gotten a piece, thus causing others to go without. and by pursuing their short-term self interest in a way that does not take into account the interests of others, they harm their long-term self interests, since after that people might not want to invite them to future parties.

so the whole "greed is human nature" argument ignores that while there are of course circumstances for every person in which they will act in their self-interest without regard for the well-being of others, there are also circumstances for every person where they will be willing to make sacrifices to their short-term self interest for the greater benefit of the group. largely this depends on how someone feels about the other people in this scenario, we'd probably be more willing to make a personal sacrifice to help our best friends than to help a stranger, or our worst enemy.

and of course usually this can still be modeled in terms of long-term self-interest, but that said, there have been examples of people giving their lives to save the lives of other people they truly care about, and i think it's pretty hard to model that in terms of long-term self interest. but at any rate, in most cases all that's really necessary to avoid acting in ways that anyone might call "greedy" is to just consider long-term self-interest and not just short-term self-interest, to consider how making sacrifices to our own short-term self-interest for the greater good of our community benefits us in the long term because we benefit from our community continuing to function.

okay, so we've established that "greed" is not the same as self-interest, but rather, a specific form of malignant self-interest, short-term self-interest pursued in ways harmful to the community, and, consequently, usually to one's own long-term self interest. great. but the thing is, libertarians/ancaps/objectivists/etc ultimately do acknowledge this distinction.

the real disagreement between marxists and righ-libertarians isn't "one thinks humankind can exist without greed/self interest, one knows that greed/self interest is human nature", though of course right-libertarians are very fond of this framing since it's flattering to themselves, it's that marxists and right-libertarians fundamentally disagree on where the distinction between benign self-interest and greed is. see this tweet which is what got me thinking about this in the first place:

okay so do you see what he did there! first he talks as if greed and self-interest are fundamentally the same, but then he changes gears and talks about how greedy communists are with clear disdain. almost as if greed isn't just "self-interest", but rather, self-interest to the detriment of others, most especially, theft. the most direct and overt form of prioritizing one's own self-interest with callous disregard for others.

and the thing is, both marxism and right-libertarianism propose vast expansions to the category of "theft", propose that many acts which are currently considered benign are in fact malignant acts of greed/theft, namely that marxism proposes that the profit reaped by landlords and owners is theft, and right-libertarians propose that taxation is theft.

but while marxism arrives at this conclusion by looking at society as it exists, looking to see where it's dysfunctional, and drawing conclusions about how it could be improved, right-libertarianism bases itself not on material analysis but rather deonotological principles which are derived from nothing. the "NAP" is true because it's true because it's true, don't question it, don't ask them to provide evidence that it's a viable foundation for a functional society. and certainly don't ask why it's "aggression" for a tenant to stay on a property when they can't make rent, but it's not aggression when the landlord calls the cops to drag them into the street.

like, the funny thing is right-libertarianism proposes that basically every society on earth is wildly wrong about the morality of taxation, but also proposes that all existing land ownership claims are legitimate, even though basically every one of them, worldwide, can be traced back to either feudal land disputes, which were resolved through violence, or colonization, which also occurred through violence. fundamentally, the history of existing land ownership claims is so drenched in violence that the notion that they're somehow one of the only things society as a whole got right is ludicrous, especially coming from people who claim their ideology is based on a "non aggression principle."

152 notes · View notes

whimsicalpoet44 · 2 years

Text

Does Saturn really hate us? Thoughts from a Cap Rising.

If you're in the astrology community, you've probably heard a lot of discourse about Saturn and how tough of a planet it is. Many say it's the planet of limiting beliefs, how you give and get revenge for maltreatment, and where you receive your toughest lessons. Which isn't wrong, but I think Saturn gets a bit of a bad rep.

Saturn is there to help you. He assists in identifying the parts of our lives that we struggle with the most. Saturn is there to protect you. Saturn holds you to your highest potential. He sees all that you have the capability to become and he pushes you to get there. By any means necessary.

Saturn ruled signs and people with heavy Saturn placements (Capricorn and Aquarius) are pushed slightly harder than everyone else. Think of them like the older sibiling that's holding the family together. Heavy Capricorn and Aquarius placements aren't held to the same standards as the rest of their family (maybe with the exception of Pluto, but that's another topic for another day).

You get what you give

When Capricorn and Aquarius placements harm others, Saturn makes sure that he holds them accountable. It can seem harsh, but from a young age, people with Saturn placements usually learn quickly to live from a set value system to avoid turmoil.

In the reverse, Saturn placements receive quicker vengeance from Saturn if someone harms them. If you mess with Caps or Aquas, be prepared to receive a visit from Saturn. And soon.

If you're ruled by Saturn, then you've probably been accused of hexing a person after they did you wrong. Typically, this is because their life will fall apart bit by bit until Saturn has decided the act was repaid in kind. Saturn always looks out for his children.

So, is Saturn the villain?

No. He isn't. But he does demand attention. If he sees unused potential inside of you, he's going to make you use it. Look to the house and the sign ruling it to determine what that potential may be.

What form will vengeance take for those that do us harm?

You can usually tell how someone's life will be affected when they cause you harm by looking at the house their Saturn placement is in.

1st House: Self, identity, appearance, attitude, first impressions.

This can look like someone having an identity crisis, spilling their coffee on their shirt the day they're supposed to present that power point at work, having a negative change in attitude about life which shifts their perspective, or they may leave bad impressions on the new people they meet.

2nd House: Money, work, income, daily routine, material possessions

They could have troubles with their finances unexpectedly, they may get demoted or struggle to keep up with their work duties, their bank account could lock on a trip and prevent them from accessing it, their daily routine could be thrown off from an unexpected event, or they could break items that are important to them.

3rd House: The mind, thinking, communication, sibilings, social activity, neighbors.

This person could begin to feud with their neighbors, began fighting with their sibilings, experience issues with electronics or forms of communication, be excluded from social activities or stop going to them on their own accord, or they can be troubled with overthinking. They may also end up on the receiving end of lies from those they care about

4th House: Home, neighborhood, hometown, family, self-care, emotions, mother, children, femininity

This person may struggle with feelings of hopelessness. They may struggle with seeing the way out of a bad situation. They can struggle with lack of emotional support, poor self-care practices, trouble with their childhood or their mother, and they could even be battling their own wounded divine feminine energy (we all have masculine and feminine energy).

5th House: Romance, love, affairs, play, creativity, joy, self-expression.

They may have their creative work judged harshly or have a hard time navigating romantic endeavors. They may have their joy taken from them or they could have a form of their own self expression ripped away. Instead of self expression causing peace, it could humiliate them instead. They may struggle with their confidence or they may find it difficult to connect to their inner child.

6th House: Health, fitness, systems, pets, work habits, organization, services, feeling useful.

If they slack off at work or take credit for a project you accomplished, they may find themselves demoted or criticized by your boss. Their system of organization could be a victim to the consequences of their wrongdoings. They may struggle with the confidence at it relates to their job or any services they provide others.

7th House: Relationships, marriage, contracts, business partners, interpersonal style.

They may encounter struggles in business agreements or among business associates. They may experience a change in relationship status that they weren't expecting. They could have contracts fall through or business deals might not work out. They may even experience a crisis regarding their fashion decisions.

8th House: Intimacy, shared finances, inheritance, taxes, loans, assets, property, goals.

This person may have trouble connecting with others emotionally or romantically. They could have disputes on inheritances or may receive a bill from the IRS about taxes they didn't pay. Their goals can fall flat and any assets they have may be subject to criticism or legal matters.

9th House: Travel, wisdom, philosophy, higher education, law, religion, learning ethics, cross-cultural relations.

Someone that tries to harm you may find themselves caught up in an existential crisis. They may be questioning their faith, their values, their ethics, and even their perspective of how they view the world. They may end up in legal troubles or their grades may suffer if they're enrolled in school.

10th House: Career, long-term goals, status, reputation, public image, masculinity, fathers, fame.

If a person treats you wrong, they may soon find their reputation being called into question. They may struggle with achieving goals that once came easy to them. They could struggle with the career trajectory and the positive influence their name once held may disappear.

11th House: Groups, friends, social awareness, humanitarianism, technology, hopes, wishes for the future.

Friend groups may dissolve. They could be kicked out of their friend groups. They may struggle with understanding how they fit in socially (note: this would not be due to autism or neurodivergency. This would be for a person that once knew their social standing and then suddenly didn't after experiencing a falling out with friends.).

12th House: Endings, healing, closure, spirituality, solitude, old age, afterlife, limiting beliefs, subconscious.

They may experience nightmares or an opportunity may be taken out of their reach. They may struggle to find closure and experience more limiting beliefs than they were before.

Note: this is just how it may present. It doesn't mean this exactly how it will present. Just giving examples.

#astrology #astrology observations #saturn in houses #planets #zodiac signs #capricorn #capricorn rising #aquarius

464 notes · View notes

captainmera · 7 months

Note

What are the fairy types??? I love IBWR and I would eat your world building if I could <3

There is three categories of peculiars: Erebus, Beast and Fae.

Fairies belong with FAE types.

Fae has, in the UK, these peculiars: Fairies, Spriggan, Nymph (Theodore would call them a Huldra or skogsrå), and Giants.

FAE: Fairy like by looks but often the most "human/regular" looking out of all peculiars. Usually it's the ears or size that gives them away. Their powers are often just seen as either what peak-human-power would be (like strength, skill, etc)

Peculiars can be from all walks of life. They can have any religion, gender, background and race. It doesn't matter.

QUICK FACTS:

Faries are, in a largely Christian society anyway, associated with the seven sins.

They are also easily spotted by their stark colour coded looks.

The shades vary a bit on the scale, there's no set colour of "Pink" for example, but if you look at them and think "ah that's pink" it's probably pink.

A fairy can get a child of any colour of the parents' eye colour. So if it's a pink fairy father, but a green-eyed regular mother, the baby could be either a pink or green fairy - or a regular!

But it's usually the eye-colour that determines it.

Or, wild card - night fairies just kind of come out of nowhere and it's a 1 out of 500 chance of that happening. They're rare.

FAIRY FLAWS:

Fairies have something called a fairy flaw, this is where the seven sins thing come in.

In folklore, fairies are said to be so small that they can only hold one feeling at the time! (like Tinkerbelle from Peter Pan). This is obviously not true! Not only are they human sized, but they feel just as any other mortal person.

The reason fairy tales say that about fairies is based on their fairy-flaw.

So what is the flaw about?

Well, every fairy has an Achilles heel feeling they just can't seem to temper or control. It's the emotion that consumes them and it is very difficult for them to get out of that feeling.

You could say that about a regular-person too, some regulars just feel a certain thing very intensely. But it makes the general public feel better to point at fairies and say they're not perfect - just look how petty they are!

Also, it is true that all fairies just.. naturally struggle with this one emotion they have. For some fairies, it can take a lifetime to find a way to work with it. But most fairies just try to avoid feeling it at all, which.. as you can imagine.. causes an endless cycle of rinse and repeat - you cannot stop yourself from feeling something. That's not how emotions work. And if you try to repress something, it will come back ten folds.

Which, then, just further feeds into the prejudice being true.

FAIRY PERKS (gift):

Fairies are naturally gifted. It can be anything; writing books, making shoes, mathematics, music, you name it.

You know how, sometimes, you meet someone and they just got IT, with seemingly no effort at all? That's fairies.

They pick something up and off they go. You spend your life honing your craft and in waltz this newbie and does in an hour what you worked your whole life for.

Everyone admires them, except the people in the shared field who feels like they've been cheated.

Fairies are almost always excluded from talent shows, being chosen as representatives, etc, because the unionised opinion is that: Albeit they are brilliant at what they do, and probably the best in the room, it's a gift and it's unfair and nobody really wants to include them.

This also means that if you hire a fairy, the standards go up. Fairies can face work environment bullying or praise, it depends on the individual space. But it's always a gamble, really, if their gift is welcomed or not.

It does give some fairies a sense of "I'm better than all of you anyway!" kind of attitude, sometimes, anyway. But it's easy to see why.

No fairy is the same, of course. Fairies often have discourse about whatever or not their perks and flaws are something to be proud of or not. Which, gets really difficult, for the purple and green fairies sometimes.

The issue here is, also, that Fairies fade if they don't get to do what they love, get to exercise their gifts. And sometimes, most of the time, they

FADING:

Fading is just a fancy word for depression. Because regulars make the rules and they don't think it counts as "real" depression, since it almost always involves their perk/gift.

Fading looks like any depression. Sometimes involving substance abuse.

The things that DOES make it a bit different though is that their colours fade. They bleak and their hair and eyes colour turns white, or at least their colour bleak so much that it turns pastel-almost-white.

A faded fairy is cause for concern as they are most likely going to commit suicide. The only cure is rehabilitation where they get encouraged to pursue their heart's desire and exercise their gift.

Sometimes, the reason they fade isn't because others has made it difficult. Sometimes it's because there's just... No space for their gift. It might be a gift that is just simply inaccessible to them. Whatever because they're in the wrong class of society, because they don't have the money to get a degree that allows them to pursue it, etc.

NIGHT FAIRIES:

These are not categorised as a fae-type, but they are fairies. They are categorised as an Erebus due to their dangerous nature.

They are almost always mellow and flat in their expression. They like being in solitude, they are - on surface anyway - to the victorian public... Seemingly evil.

They work just like any other fairy. Except, that, well.... they do not have a flaw.

And that's the only danger they pose. That's literally it. People just don't know what's up with them. And it makes people uncomfortable that they have a gift (that often exceeds even other fairies talents) without carrying the restraints of a flaw.

They just don't emote like everybody else, they're basically just autistic coded people - the autistic creature if you will.

Night fairies are deemed dangerous because, to the victorian scope of knowledge and cultural/religious reference, you don't look like that, is a fairy ontop of it with no flaw to boot, and there's not at least SOMETHING spooky going on.

Fae-type fairies, unfortunately, does not like them much. As their lack of a flaw makes them, well, there's just grounds for being resentful apparently.

The Erebus sub-culture enjoy them quite a lot though. They're the baby brother of the Erebus types.

Most Erebus, when meeting a night fairy, is going to feel for them the way they would feel for any other Erebus. Which is a look of comradery that other peculiars just don't have. And because Erebus types are pretty tightly knitted in comradery, they're aware of one another's struggles. Meaning that they are aware Night Fairies are technically the least threatening peculiar there is, but no other peculiar is going to side with them. So most Erebus types just rope in these defenceless outcasts because it's just not fair.

And Erebus knows all about it not being fair.

So yeah! Night fairies are the least dangerous or powerful peculiar, slotted in with the most powerful and dangerous of them.

it's like the bullied kid is placed amongst the jocks and the jocks are good guys actually.

The night fairies do struggle socially though. Despite their seeming disinterest, they are not heartless or unfeeling. They just struggle to emote and have a hard time with being overstimulated. Which is why they turn to their gifts to cope, leading them to often far surpass any other fairy.

Erebus types are, like, kind of aware of this and often just include them on sight. It's a thing. Most erebus are brought up with the notion that you don't mess with night fairies.

Some erebus, though, have cruel intentions and take advantage of their lack of social skill, often hiring them for their gift and misusing it.

Night fairies also, unfortunately, if they are gifted in something that involves social things - like music, and they are expected to perform in front of crowds, it can be means to cause them to fade.

Sometimes, having a gift isn't about making a buck on it. Sometimes it's simply because it's nice for your heart. And that's the essence of night fairies - they just love what they do. It's everyone else who's got a problem.

AND THAT ABOUT COVERS IT, I THINK???

I'm sure I missed something. There's some peculiar culture stuff that's a little too much to get into. And doesn't really serve much purpose other than be-riching the world I've created and alows me, the authour, to imply cultural codes and social systems in the world without having to always spell it out.

Oliver, for one, is going to be aware of these things. While Theodore is not.

#ibwr #in blood we rise #ibwr lore #ibwr world building #*chuckles* and then there's just night fairies #night fairies really just be sitting here all “????” while everything happens around them

63 notes · View notes

kvothbloodless · 11 months

Note

As someone who’s followed you for a long time, and a fellow writer….do you genuinely support chatGPT? Even if it has been proven to scrape people’s writings without their consent? And the fact that its a soulless husk of what actual writing is?

So Ive done my best to avoid AI discourse, but I am bad at it. So to put it clearly.

I dont Support chatgpt specifically. Its a program made by a corporation because they can make a profit from it, and curtail its capabilities in line with their goals. I use it sometimes because its fun ans convenient, but I dont pay for it or anything. I think pretty much all legitimate concerns about AI are really just concerns about corporate ethics, at which point the AI specifically becomes irrelevant

I also dont really think the situation in general is one where "support" is the right word to use; its like asking if I support cameras.

I want to be clear im not trying to be vague though; i think in general AI is pretty cool, and that 99% of the arguments against it are factually incorrect, based on inconsistent or bad moral frameworks, or both. Im not going to get into all the reasons AIs are cool, since I dont feel up to doing a Big AI Post, but I do want to gesture vahuely in the direction of how much more accessible this makes artistic creation and experimentation, and all the insanely fun things people can use AI for. However, i do want to address the common arguments against it, especially since it feels like a lot of people are just misinformed and falling into the very easy tumblr trap.

1. Scraping fics without consent: if you post something on a public site for the public to read, and someone downloads it to read it, its not stealing. Tumblr is generally pretty firmly against strict copywrite laws, so its a bit weird that so many people are Very concerned about AIs "stealing" their work in a way thats even less direct than fanfiction. Like, "your writing is so in character" and "wow youre really good at imitating the authors writing style" are common compliments on fics.

To be clear, there are absolutely ways of interacting with free public content thats bad (like reposting). But AIs arent frankensteining stuff together, or copy pasting anything; they literally could not do that. The training/model files are so insanely tiny compared to the amount of training data that it would be impossible for them to be storing that sort of thing. An AI learning from your writing isnt really any different than a human reading your writing, going "oh I like that" subconsciously, and using that to inform their future writing.

Whats that quote about "to get better at writing, read more"? If you believe that statememt is accurate, then Im a bit confused how youd be upset about an AI "reading" your writing and learning from it?

All of the Actual ways this could be used badly (copying someones art style and then selling art cheaper, etc.) arent actually unique to AI (a person can also do that!), and also usually arent really a thing thats happening enough to be a problem (most people who want art from an artist enough to commission them, are going to want it to actually be done By that artist). Using AI to make an original work, or even to finish a fanfic someone else wrote, is no more theft than if you did it by yourself.

2. "Soulless Husk": im sorry im genuinely trying my best here to be gentle and respectful, but this talking point genuinely makes my blood boil a bit, so im not trying to get personal or insult anyone specifically. Claiming that art made by humans is automatically deeper, that art is all about Meaning and Struggle, comes off as extremely pretentious and just doesnt engage with the reality of art. Im having trouble articulating a good argument here, but like. Art doesnt have to be deep, it doesnt have to have a Message, and the necessity of struggling in order to learn about and create art is an unequivocable bad thing.

Many many people make art (visual, written, etc.) becuase they want to see or read something cool or because they think others will find it fun. Many many people who would like to create art do not do so because it requires talent/practice that they are not willing to put the time and effort into developing, and this is not a moral issue. As Ive said before, laziness is a virtue and self-indulgance is a goal we should aspire to. Using a tool to make the incredibly fun act of creating easier and more accessible is awesome.

Also, who gets to define what "actual art" is? Genuinely seems a bit arrogant and presumptuous to declare that something is or is not "actual art" based on your own preferences.

The posts that Really annoy me are the ones that are like "cant understand the people RPing or playing a TTRPG with AI becuz its soulless. I only ever RP with other people because the fun part is being social or collaberatively building story" or whatever. Cool. I rp and play tabletops because i like to have fun and I enjoy those activities. Im gonna be honest, i find it a bit offensive and kinda.. dumb, to act like its somehow morally superior to only enjoy oneself in a way that Builds Community or Has A Meaning. People do meaningless things because they enjoy doing them and so long as no one is being hurt, thats fine.

3. Replacing workers: This is the only argument that has Any weight, but its still a bad argument. Its absolutrly true that AI is gonna put people out of work. The fact that more people will be out of work and struggling is a bad thing. This is also what happens when literally any new technology is developed, dating all the way back to the industrial revolution (at the Very latest). Automation is almost always a massive net benefit to humanity (im aware this topic could be its own series of posts but You Know What I Mean, please dont start industrialization discourse here), and the fact that it puts people out of work isnt actually an argument against it. Lots of radio operators lost their job when telephones were invented, but that doesnt mean people should have never used the telephone and obstinately stuck with radios. When phone technology advanced, a lot of phone operators lost their jobs, but that doesnt mean people were Morally Wrong to use the new developments that made phones far more convenient.

As in all things, el problema es capitalismo; AI isnt preventing anyone from doing art, its just reducing how many people can get paid to do their art. The correct solution to automation putting people out of work is not to stop the wheel of tech development, but to change society so that one doesnt have to slave away in order to survive.

This also raises the adjacent point, which is that halting tech development like this is impossible. Once the cat is out of the bag, its not going back in. AI tech is going to develop and become more widespread and theres literally nothing you can do to stop that. If you want to be upset about that, its your perogative ig, but im gonna be excitedly waiting for the dam to break and we get an open source LLM that I can use without worrying about data privacy or corporate filters, so I can have fun and RP however much I want and finally be able to write the stuff I want to write but cant do on my own because I have adhd and chronic fatigue, and Id kinda prefer if people stopped trying to rain on my parade because they think im not having fun or creating art in the "right way".

EDIT: I did want to add one more thing! A US court ruled that you cant copywrite something created completely by an AI, and i think thats an awesome move and I hope it gets expanded a bit and spreads elsewhere. This isnt a position based on whether something produced in this way counts as "real art" or is morally bad or whatever, I just think that reducing corporate and IP grasp on anything is good, and that AI specifically is going to be most enjoyable when its free and open source.

#AI #discourse #im genuinely happy to discuss this so feel free to send more asks or reply #but im turning off reblogs because im not a fan of online discoursing

50 notes · View notes

tanadrin · 2 years

Note

In 3 months there is gonna be a call out about you that will make you abadon your tumblr

thanks for the warning! i'd hate for any callout posts to miss my most problematic opinions. let's see here... ok, i'm contemptuous of almost all forms of spirituality and religion, i think i'm on record as saying that astrology is both proto-fascist and a way for people to avoid having to deal with their actual emotional issues, 'victim's rights' as a movement is actually fascist, most anticolonial discourse is just white ethnonationalism that's been brownwashed, and most of the anti-racist activism that's in vogue right now is useless.

but here are some other opinions to cancel me over. pick whichever ones seem most problematic to you:

english orthography is good, actually.

there is no scenario on this earth where i would rather swim in the gross slimy ocean than in a nice clean swimming pool. absolutely none. fuck the ocean. it's full of dead fish and it's existentially terrifying.

i find it basically impossible to grok nonbinary people who present in a way indistinguishable from their ASAB.

cats are slightly preferable to dogs

almost all fantasy fiction is irredeemably derivative of first-wave fantasy (roughly ending with Lord of the Rings), in a way which betrays a fundamental narrowness of imagination among almost all fantasy enjoyers.

ASOIAF specifically is trash. And not the fun kind.

kids seeing fucked up things on the internet too young is good actually

ok, that's kind of a contrarian way to make my point, which is a bit subtler, but is essentially:

i trust young people to seek out information and develop their own intellectual curiosities and identities much more than i trust sanctimonious gatekeepers to accurately judge what is bad for them and what is good, and given the structure of our society the only people who are empowered by censorship are prudes, authoritarians, and bigots. i do not at all trust the average parent not to infantilize or intrude on the autonomy of their kid in a way that's more harmful to them than accidentally seeing weird porn on the internet

age of consent laws, on balance, probably do a lot more harm (in the form of subjecting teenagers engaging in consensual and healthy sexual activity to state violence, usually along lines of class and race and gender) than good (in prosecuting adults who sexually exploit children). there are much better ways to protect children from sexual exploitation by adults.

abolishing the nuclear family, for instance

"asexual" is kind of a weird label to form identity politics around. not saying it's bad, just that it seems fundamentally different from most other classifications of sexual identity, in that there have been approved social roles for asexuals for centuries, and if anything, celibacy, or at least a lack of overt interest in sex, is generally considered to be morally neutral to laudatory historically, unlike homosexuality or a deviant gender expression.

discourse on cultural appropriation is stupid

'witchcraft' is really cringe. imitation of older customs in an effort to revive them will always involve reifying things as conscious Traditions that were simply part of the normal background of life, which renders any attempt to re-create them pure performance that can never capture the spirit of the original. plus, nobody who's in to neopaganism or witchcraft seems to have more than a shallow understanding of the history and culture in which the practices they're interested in were embedded, even if they're nominally descended from that culture. in many cases such a deep understanding is simply not possible owing to a lack of evidence.

goa's annexation by India was not only illegal but unjust.

higher levels of buddhist practice and spiritual attainment resemble both spiritual psychosis and garden-variety spiritual abuse too much for that to really be a coincidence.

the dutch language is inherently ridiculous

communities do not have moral rights. individuals and collections of individuals have moral rights, and we can speak of group moral rights as a useful shorthand for that, but frequently we get lost at that layer of abstraction and start treating groups as first-class concepts, and this produces (at best) inane conclusions and (at worst) an excuse to fuck over individuals in service of the community--which in practice cashes out to serving the interests of the elite that runs the community, i.e., authoritarian conservatism. authoritarian conservatism is not better just because the authoritarian conservatives it serves happen to be a racial or religious minority.

not only should all monarchies be abolished, countries that have abolished their monarchies should make it illegal to accept titles of nobility

germany was too lenient by letting people keep their titles as part of their name during the German Revolution. they should have abolished them full stop.

even orders of merit are on thin fucking ice

maine is the rightful territory of massachussetts, and mainers are a fictional ethnicity created to justify the destruction of Greater Massachussetts. Massachussetts should annex it.

Make Washington D.C. Square Again

228 notes · View notes

just-antithings · 9 months

Note

Hello. I'm a gay trans man, and I wanted to provide a few of my thoughts on the disc horse surrounding MLM fetishization in fandoms. Of course, my fandom experience is very limited, so if anyone else disagrees with me or has had different experiences, that is okay and I respect that. Now, with that out of the way, let me get to my main point:

The discourse surrounding MLM fetishization makes me, a literal gay man, feel unsafe and unwelcome. This is because as a trans man I exist in a world that believes I am predatory for existing, and as a gay man I too exist in a world that believes I am predatory for existing. These two parts of my identity that I'm regularly ostracized for intersect in this disc horse, where people claim that they are protecting trans people AND protecting gay men, but by doing so they are punching down on gay trans men and throwing us under the bus.

Let me elaborate. Before I even knew I was trans, I regularly read MLM fanfic and consumed media that featured those types of relationships. Obviously now, I was drawn to that media because I'm trans. Before I realized I was trans, was I fetishizing gay men?

Of course not, because even if I didn't know it at the time, I was one.

Now, let's consider this scenario. Let's say, hypothetically, that I knew I was trans, but for whatever reason I did not want to come out online. So would I, a closeted trans man going by she/her, be fetishizing gay men?

Of course not, because I am one.

Here's the even bigger issue. The majority of non-transmascs online have biases that lead them to view transmascs as both men and women, applying the worst stereotypes of both binary genders to us whenever convenient. People in very progressive spaces that talk about fetishization and things like that are unfortunately no different. They've internalized TEHM rhetoric. This means that they'll view transmascs enjoying fanfic about gay men as the same as women enjoying fanfic about gay men, and I've literally been told to my face by progressives that that's how they see me.

However, it's even worse than that. Since cis women don't experience transphobia on a systemic level like trans people do, trans men are treated worse than cis women in this fetishization disc horse because we have both misogyny and transphobia used against us to shut us up and gatekeep us out of existence. The people acting like women invading gay men's spaces are a serious issue and fearmongering about them are using a dogwhistle against trans men. Just because you say that you include gay trans men in your definition of gay men doesn't mean you've taken the time to unlearn your transphobia or learn about how you can avoid spreading dogwhistles.

And when I call out any of these issues in fandom disc horse about MLM fetishization? Either people pretend they do not see me talk about it, or they respond by acting like I'm downplaying their trauma from "horrible women invading the poor men's spaces :("

Like, I'm literally gay. I've experienced my fair share of homophobia from straight women and I speak out about it often. There are ways to critique women for the ways in which they benefit from homophobia, but trying to gatekeep them from enjoying a certain genre of fanfic Ain't It. None of these people I've seen who hate trans men and AFAB nonbinary people have actually called out a straight woman for doing something genuinely homophobic. The cis people doing this are using the fetishization disc horse as a cover for their transphobia, and if it's a woman who is allied with these TEHM-lites, they're usually doing this to pretend to themselves and others that they care about gay men while not giving a shit about us.

I've had to argue about this with cis women. It's really telling that some cis women won't listen to a trans gay man talk about his own experiences and thoughts on homophobia. It's almost like they don't see us as real gay men and feel justified in speaking over us.

And there are definitely trans men that fearmonger about fetishization, but as far as I've seen, they generally seem to be under 18 and usually change their views quickly. The ones that don't change their views upon me talking to them usually hold truscum beliefs. One that I've spoken to thinks that anyone who's a real gay trans man was against "fujoshits" from before he came out and no real gay trans man would ever touch MLM content. Great job pretending like there's one behavior or trait that marks transness! That's literally truscum koolaid.

I know that there are other reasons that the fetishization disc horse is bad, especially anti-Asian racism, and the blatant misogyny, but I think I've said enough.

#mod erin #ask #posted without comment #just anti things #just exclusionist things

26 notes · View notes

lloydfrontera · 9 months

Note

I bet ksh wrote the "what if Lloyd wasn't a useless drunk" fic right after ppl who read the "Lloyd dies at the beginning and everyone is better off bc of it" fic accused him of hating Lloyd's character lmao. Just to be like "see i don't hate him (more than normal fans do)!" And then it started new discourse about the only palatable way Lloyd was avoiding death/getting significant screentime in his stories was if he was totally ooc lol

about this au

askhdjksah "see i don't hate the guy!" (<- wrote a completely different guy with the same name)

some people accused him of character bashing and even when most of his readers pointed out that he wasn't writing anything that wasn't either canon or completely in character, suho still decided to see if he could write a fic that involved lloyd frontera as a main character without being an antagonist. and it turned out it was really fucking hard lol

so he just. changed a few things. couple little nothings.

the thing is i can kinda see suho. despising. lloyd's character alskhkda

is just that. the guy has everything he would kill for. he has his parents, a little brother, financial stability and a potential loyal friend right there and he wastes all of it by being a complete bastard. he would want to wring his neck sooo bad ajkskda

maybe in a particular bad night when he misses his parents, feels really lonely and only had one cup of ramen to eat the entire day, he reads a part of tkbi where lloyd acts especially nasty and gets really bitter so he writes a rant fic about how things would've been so much better if lloyd had just died and stopped making his family miserable.

once he gets it out of his system, he probably feels a bit embarrassed about how angry the fic turned out but he does see a glimmer of a good idea there so he turns it into a tamer version of an outline, where he strips away most of the raw emotion and changes it into a bittersweet tale of how the death of someone irrevocably changes the lives around them in ways that sometimes aren't predictable.

it's not even a "he died and everyone was happy about it" fic as that would be 1) in bad taste and 2) not in character. it would've been more about how lloyd's death paralyzed the fronteras so much in their shock and grief that some key events in their downfall would've been missed. how the absence of abuse would've allowed julian to flourish onto himself even as he dealt with mixed feelings about the way he feels about his older brother and whether he wishes to forgive him now that he's dead but can never make amends to him. like. that kinda thing.

and because it turns into a genuinely good fic it escapes containment from ksh's usual readers circle and ends up being a hot topic into the general fandom.

which is divided between those who think is a very bittersweet fic that doesn't bash the character but does point out his canon actions and depicts his death as tragic while acknowledging the consequences both bad and good it has. and those who think it's still in poor taste to write something that basically boils down "if he died everything would've been okay" and point out the narrative itself does carry heavy negativity against lloyd.

it is. messy.

suho isn't really affected by the criticism he gets but he does try not to project too hard onto his fics and some called out it almost seems personal so he kinda panics and writes something that deflect the accidental emotional vulnerability that slipped through and writes the other fic and he even makes lloyd suffer just a little bit in this one. compared to what the fic would actually be if he was being more honest. it is after all an attempt at making it seem like he doesn't hate the guy (more than normal that is) lol

of course that fic starts other kind of discourse but! i do see lloyd being a divisive character in the fandom in general, a lot of people would really dislike him based on his abuse on julian, his meanness to javier and the contempt he shows for his parents, but i can also see some people woobifying him and thinking he just needed some,,, idk, love ig?? (*cough* ignoring the fact he had a family that loved him and he alienated by his behavior *cough*). so the discourse that ensues after his second fic is less targeted to him and more in line with the discourse that would surround og!lloyd anyway so it's fine.

i also kinda love the idea of suho being the kind of cryptid writer that doesn't really leave author notes or has any online presence besides their ao3 notes. so he just drops the most compelling pieces of fiction people have read in the entire year and then vanishes again, only replying to nice comments with a "thanks!" or "happy you liked it :)" and a "👍🏽" or "ok" to assholes.

so he drops his "Lloyd dies at the beginning and everyone is better off bc of it" fic, drops from the face of earth to everyone else, sees the discourse it starts, writes the "what if Lloyd wasn't a useless drunk" fic, drops it and then sees an even bigger discourse start all without commenting a single thing about it askjdksa

he drops two consecutive atomic bombs on the fandom and then dips out. he has two jobs he's got no time for disk-horse after all aksdjkla

#hey i got an ask #Anonymous #tged #the greatest estate developer #kim suho #fic writer ksh au #i. didn't mean for this to be so long. oh my god.

20 notes · View notes

joys-of-everyday · 10 months

Text

Wei Wuxian and the Difficulties of Morality

Wow so I did not realise how much discourse there was around Wei Wuxian and moral greyness. Let me erm… poke around a little because that’s a hobby of mine.

Btw, I usually write about SVSSS. This won’t change. This is a one-off thing (for now).

Firstly, an Anecdote

Fun story, I watched cql and the mdzs donghua with my mum. There were many memorable things that came out of this, but one of the relevant points is an offhanded comment from my mum. She said (translated into English): ‘Wei Wuxian has no face to show Jiang Cheng, because he broke his promise to stay by his side’ (1). For context, my mum grew up in a fairly traditional Asian household. They take their declarations of loyalty seriously (or at least, that is my impression).

I find this interesting, because when it comes to moral judgement, I (who grew up in the west, with a lot of western values) get far more hung up on the things WWX did, rather than some promise he made in his adolescence. Breaking a promise is not ideal, but in my books, doesn’t really count as a huge moral failing.

The point here is not to say anything about the ethics of promise breaking, but to illustrate a point. Different people have different values. Or one person can have conflicting values. There are many scenarios where it’s not possible to say with certainty what is right or wrong. This is moral ambiguity.

(Funnily enough, the issue that my dad took with WWX was the fact he was fiddling around with dead bodies, which was like… the least of my concerns, but then I realised that bodies have a lot of religious significance.)

What even is moral greyness?

There are two possible and equally valid definitions of moral greyness.

1. Characters who are not 100% evil or 100% good

2. Characters who do not fall into the categories of ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

Note that definition 2 is a strictly stronger definition than definition 1. It is not that hard to argue that WWX does not fall under definition 2, in that he is somehow overall ‘good’. (I would also argue that MXTX encourages you to not think too hard about these dichotomies, particularly via SVSSS, but that’s a rabbit hole for another day.) It is also not that hard to argue WWX does fall under definition 1. Mainly because it’s quite hard not to breathe without falling under definition 1.

The Two Kinds of Uncertainty

When it comes to ethical questions, there are two uncertainties you naturally run into. Firstly, uncertainty of the world, which comes from having imperfect information about the situation or consequences of any given action. Secondly, uncertainty around the underlying moral question. Is it okay to sacrifice few for the sake of many? Should we place more value on those close to us in comparison to a stranger?

Humanity has not figured out morality, and certainly not for a lack of trying. Standards change over time. We look at the behaviour of our ancestors just a few hundred years ago with no small amount of repugnance. Most likely, in a few hundred years’ time our descendants will do the same. This isn’t to pass judgement on anything or anybody, but to make an observation that there is nothing you can do in the world that doesn’t inherently come with moral ambiguity, because there is always uncertainty – both of the world and the morals you are applying. And wherever there is moral ambiguity, there is moral greyness (definition 1).

That being said, ‘everything is morally grey’ is not really a helpful statement. There are things that we (society today) generally agree on e.g. ‘killing someone for no reason is bad’ or ‘being nice to people is good’. So the argument I want to posit today is that WWX’s moral greyness goes beyond this in a substantial way.

The Uncertain Character of WWX

The Fundamental Principle of MXTX is that all narrators are unreliable. At the bloodbath of the Nightless City, did WWX kill 5000? 3000? Far fewer? Had WWX acted in a different way, could JYL’s death have been avoided? We’ll never know.

To add to this complexity is subtle shifts in canon depending on the adaptation. WWX tortures Wen Chao pretty brutally in the novel (and even if you hate him, it’s a bit ick). In cql, it ‘fades to black’. In the donghua it’s a nice quick stab. Then there’s all of the fiddling around they did with JGY depending on the adaptations, giving him more or less blame for the events. I’m not sure if ‘novel is the only canon’ is the correct way to go, mainly because adaptation!WWX is interesting to analyse in itself. I won’t explore this too deeply here, but something to keep in mind.

Anyway, I want to argue that WWX is morally grey, through commentary on a few elements of his character.

1. The Horrors of War

WWX does a lot of things that are somewhat eyebrow raising. You know, killing people and stuff. Now it has been pointed out plenty of times that his situation was unusual (it was war!). The moralities surrounding warfare are in itself complicated. A pacifist might argue that war is no excuse for violence, but even without going to such extremes, these days we appreciate that there are some actions that cannot be condoned, even during times of coflict – this is the notion of war crimes.

War crimes are a surprisingly modern thing (people started to care a lot after the atrocities of WWII). Medieval warfare was brutal. Anyway, these include things like ‘torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments’ and ‘wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages’. Note that while killing large numbers of enemy soldiers doesn’t fall under war crimes (although some methods of going about this do, like biological weapons), torture does, so that’s one strike against book!WWX. Now there is subtly in these things, because if you judged people by these standards for anything more than 200 years old, basically everyone is committing war crimes without thinking too hard about it. WWX did do a lot of arguably good things in the Sunshot Campaign (whatever good means in war) – he fought against the tyranny of the Wens and was one of the key things that shifted the tides towards victory. Without him, the world might have looked a lot darker. Whether these ‘goods’ weigh over the ‘bads’ is something to think about.

On a slightly softer note, weapons of mass destructions are another cause of serious discussion. Those involved in the Manhattan Project creating the first atomic bomb weren’t exactly all war criminals (moreover, many of them genuinely believed they were doing what was right and necessary) but the consequences of their actions are what they are. So while WWX made the Yin Tiger Talley as a method of deterrence and assurance, considering the consequences of its use and the potential for future misuse, here lies another moral ambiguity.

2. Intent vs Consequences

It’s fair to say that most of the time, WWX’s intentions were good. Whether it be to protect the weak, to stand up for justice, these are all things we can get behind. The consequences of his actions? Well, JYL is dead, as well as a bunch of other people, and most the Wens didn’t survive anyway. That’s a big oof.

Now most people don’t subscribe to the strongest version of consequentialism which judges whether something is right or wrong by its consequences only. As in, for one, it’s almost impossible to apply in practice because you can’t predict the consequences of your actions at the point at which you chose to do them. Case in point, most of the consequences of WWX’s actions weren’t wholly down to WWX and it’s difficult to say if there was anything at all that he could have done to lead to a better outcome. (Arguably, WWX should have tried harder to negotiate with the rest of the cultivation world instead of being a one-man army against them, but in that case, they might have just mowed down the Wens anyway.)

Then again, I think most people do subscribe to at least a weak form of consequentialism. No matter how good the intentions, no matter how righteous and commendable… if the outcome is bad, it’s hard to label those actions as ‘good’ (play pumps is an example if you want to look into how charities can do more harm than good).

I draw no conclusions here. It’s food for thought.

3. On Conflicting Values and Lose-Lose Scenarios

A lot of the above comes from applying modern ethics to a character in a world largely based on ‘Ancient China’ (the quotation marks from the fact Ancient China is several thousands years old and changes significantly over time). We do this all the time. Hell, people are still reimagining the Three Kingdoms and making commentary on the morality of Cao Cao (155-220). MDZS makes a lot of commentary on modern social issues (the ‘mob mentality’ of MDZS feels like Weibo/twitter lol), so viewing it through a modern lens makes sense.

But let’s put that aside for a second and return to my mum’s comment about WWX’s broken promise. By traditional values, family is important. In Confucianism, the Four Virtues are ‘loyalty’, ‘filial piety’, ‘continence’, and ‘righteousness’. To illustrate just how serious family was, in the conflict between Liu Bang and Xiang Yu, Xiang Yu at some point threatened to kill Liu Bang’s father. Then Liu Bang was like ‘we’re sworn brothers, so technically he’s your father too’, and Xiang Yu didn’t kill him, because it would be unfilial to do so. All this is to say, WWX turning his back on his sect and his family was a big deal. Equally, loyalty towards a superior was valued greatly, even towards eyebrow raising superiors.

But Confucianism also teaches the importance of things like ‘righteousness’ and ‘benevolence’. Throughout many dynasties, important people have cared a lot about the grievances of the masses. Bullying the weak and hoarding power unjustly is seen as one of the ultimate evils, a big reason for a leader to lose the Mandate of Heaven, thus becoming unfit to rule. Plenty of subordinates have stood up against the tyranny of their superiors. So WWX standing up to the evils of the Jin clan is highly commendable by these standards too.

Another thing is ‘paying back your benefactors’. In the west, although we do have concepts like ‘owing a life’, I don’t think it’s as strong??? This is also serious business. In the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao spared his enemy general Guan Yu, and later Guan Yu briefly fought for Cao Cao even though he was an enemy, in order to repay this debt. Wen Ning and Wen Qing saved WWX’s life and helped him when he was in need – WWX has a moral obligation to help them in return.

Thus we see WWX between a rock and hard place. Turn away from the Jiangs and he turns away from his family, and from someone he promised his loyalty to. But turn a blind eye to the treatment of the Wens, and he is a not only allowing evil to go unchallenged, but also abandoning his benefactors. The game is rigged. There is no right move here. Morally ambiguity -> moral greyness.

(Note: A lot of the previous two points can also be viewed from a 'traditional' lens. Mohism has been arguing about pacifism and universal love since 400BC. Taoism has many things to say about intervening in world affairs. Life has always been complicated, and while our language/framework may shift, many of the underlying questions remain.)

(Second note: my knowledge of Chinese philosophy is all the stuff I learnt in Saturday school+a few books/youtube videos aka. not a lot. Please call me out if I'm sprouting nonsense.)

Let’s wrap up

Tl;dr WWX is a morally grey character.

And I haven’t even started on what went down at the Nightless City, or how interesting (read: morally sus) his methods of murder were, or his fantastic takes on risk assessment.

Maybe he’s good overall. Maybe he’s a hero. But heroes too can be morally grey. That’s just a part of life.

1. This is really hard to translate actually, and I think the way I’ve written it makes sense but comes across stronger than it was. More literally it was ‘can’t raise his head towards’. It was sort of explaining why JC was giving WWX a lot of shit later on and WWX wasn’t arguing back, more in a sympathetic way rather than a critical way.

As usual, thank you for reading! Comments and criticism appreciated, but I may be significantly slower getting back because my brain is in svsss mode rn :)

#mdzs #mdzs meta #wei wuxian #wei ying #i started writing this at midnight #its now 4am #why do i do this?

24 notes · View notes

aspiringnexu · 5 months

Text

Saw a post a while ago that mentioned a debate among Star Wars fans and Star Trek fans about the typical who-would-win between a Borg Cube and the Death Star.

I'll leave them to that debate because who-would-win is highly dependent on the plot anyway and that kind of debate only leads to arguments (plus I find it incredibly boring, I'd much rather debate things like the similarities and disparities between human cultures in the two universes, one with and one without Earth, that would be interesting). But what did catch my eye was a mini-debate later on with people discussing whether or not said Cube would detect the Death Star approaching, the argument being that the modes of travel in the two different universes (namely warp and hyperspace) are so different that the Cube wouldn't be able to detect the Death Star until it reverted to real space.

Which reminded me how much I love that the two travel systems are so similar and yet so different.

I won't be able to get too technical, I'm sure some fans know the exact ins and outs of both kinds of space traversal, but the fundamental difference is how the ships attain FTL, or Faster Than Light. Because otherwise space travel takes FOREVER.

In Star Trek they use impulse engines to putter about for more precision maneuvering but use warp engines to achieve FTL, the warp engines 'warping' space by making a subspace bubble around the ship and therefore insulating it from the extreme pressures of breaking normal physics. As you do.

In Star Wars they use sublight engines for the usual puttering and maneuvering but instead they rely on the hyperdrive to achieve FTL which punts the ship into hyperspace, basically a parallel dimension where ships can achieve FTL without undue stress to the ship itself.

In both cases ships can be pulled out of their warp bubbles or their hyperspace streams due to factors in normal space. In Star Wars, for example, there exist Interdictor class ships which produce massive gravity wells, similar to those of moons or any other significant cosmic body which forces ships to drop out of hyperspace in order to avoid crashing into said body. (This also makes jumping into hyperspace too close to a planetary body incredibly risky. Not impossible, mind, but there is a reason planetary governments have a minimum distance allocated for incoming and outgoing ships.) Star Wars also makes a big deal out of Hyperspace Lanes (there was an entire war fought over them at one point) which are routes that have been confirmed to be empty of any cosmic phenomena discounting the occasional asteroid that wanders in. They're used as major shipping lanes and commercial passenger transports as a result. You can, of course, elect not to use the routes but you run the risk of encountering surprises even with a navicomputer.

In Star Trek the same rules seem to apply with various cosmic phenomena able to disrupt the warp drive and pull the ship out of warp, whether it be extreme gravimetric distortions that require precision piloting to avoid or nebula too thick for the engines to filter or, really, the list goes on. Could be anything from a nebula to the glowing green hand of a supposed Greek god stopping you from going to warp.

But regardless of the actual metrics of the two kinds of space travel, I find the idea that neither ship would be expecting the other to just appear incredibly amusing.

Neither universe would have any experience with a ship that travels in a space bubble or a ship that just casually drops in from another dimension and really why focus on inter-fandom discourse when you can focus on the incidental comedy?

#star wars #star trek #lore #star wars lore #star trek lore #space travel #there's also that wee detail that staring into the swirling blue of hyperspace has been proven to drive people insane #because its literally another dimension not meant to be seen by humanoid eyes #Darth Vader repeatedly spends ages on the bridge just staring into Hyperspace a lot #I can never decide if he's doing it to punish himself or just to prove to himself that he can without completely losing it #I mean it's Anakin “I'm so dramatic and tragic watch me” Skywalker so both could apply #can just imagine a Republic officer taking a Starfleet officer on a tour through a Venator and they reach the bridge #“Ah here we are. Please don't look outside.”#“What? Why?”#“Well you can but please keep it to brief glances. No more than five minutes at a time. Or you'll lose your mind in short order.”#Maybe the only kinds of people that can stand looking into Hyperspace are Jedi and Vulcans #They see it as a mental gym #A test of their mental mettle

8 notes · View notes

reflections-in-a-critical-eye · 6 months

Note

Starting to think the only way I can consume bts-related content is by removing myself from fandom spaces entirely. Sorry to use this as a space to rant but the constant black/white thinking, competitiveness to prove who's the biggest fan, cherry-picking performative activism, worshipping etc is all becoming too much to the point I feel sort of burnt out and ready for a break. I know you've addressed these aspects a lot on here and I really appreciate the honesty and space for discussion.

I got into bts during their boy with luv comeback in 2019 and they quickly became my whole life -- I basically only thought about or spoke about them, to the point it was unhealthy. I stepped away from the fandom a little bit in 2022 after some aggravating experiences but this year I got back into them because I loved Namjoon and Jimin's solo releases, and remembered how much comfort I took from their music and content. I started venturing back into army social media spaces.

But oh my god, it's honestly unbearable out there and it's exhausting. I'm so sick of the way armys worship and idolize these seven men like they aren't even human. They put them above their values and dedicate their entire lives to them, and don't see anything wrong with that. I'm a little apprehensive for 2025 because who knows what the fandom will look like by then? I guess it's just hard to reconcile being a fan of the group but not wanting to be associated with the stans. Do you have a balance between enjoying the content but not being driven crazy by army? lmao

I mean, the only way you can truly enjoy the content is to move yourself away completely from fandom spaces, particularly those focused on discourse. For example, I can't avoid army or the daily issue even if I follow some Jimin accounts because of course they're bringing up whatever is happening, usually criticism. And then it adds up and before you know it, you get angry everyday so where does that leave us?

A solution, at least from what I've noticed and if you want to still be aware of what's going on and enjoy the experience, apart from paying attention to content, would be to follow focused accounts on something very specific. Like strictly career updates or more on the fun side which usually post images and videos.

But apart from that, take breaks, make sure you find other stuff to be interested about and not just this. I try to curate my twitter feed and tumblr dashboard with lots of other areas of interest, mixing it up so I don't get sucked into BTS discourse and everything adjacent to it. But then, without asking, I still get the info in my inbox which is not always ideal, but that's on me and having an active blog.

#m thoughts #fandom participation #fandom experience #bts

12 notes · View notes