#as opposed to feeling like i'm superior in any way to people who do think this is funny

[decolonize-the-left]

What is there left to learn?

All you need to know of any good branch of leftism is that self determination and freedom is above everything.

We stand against so much because so much has been created to get in the way of that.

Money often gets in the way by imposing literal pay walls to basic needs so we oppose it. Racism gets in the way when racist gatekeepers prevent POC from receiving equal care, equal service, and equal access to resources so we oppose it. The same goes for all the other -isms and bigotries such as misogyny and homophobia.

Human beings come in all shapes, sizes, colors, sexualities, and genders. We are beautifully diverse this way, it's literally human nature.

And so we must learn to live and accept people different from ourselves.

Nobody has more rights or humanity than anyone else. Nobody has the right to enforce their own determinations and truths on anyone else. There is no singular way of being that is Right or makes you more deserving than the rest, that gives you the right to control others because it's just such a Good way of living. There never will be.

There is no natural way to determine what a good, deserving human looks like. And that's why leftism supports and hears all oppressed people.

Every single excuse and method that attempts to control/feel superior are all social constructs. Ex:

You're rich, fiscally responsible and think you're better than others? Money isn't natural, it's barely even real. It's something that some human made up one day to feel better than the others. It may as well be called pixie dust. And without it you're just like the rest of us.

Being White didn't mean anything before some human decided they could gain self esteem by reducing the perceived worthiness of Black and Brown ppl. Without made-up ideas of race you're just like the rest of us, made of the same hunger and thirst and love as we are.

Cis and Trans or Gay and straight are just different ways for humans to be born and exist. Some people like their bodies, some don't. Some people kiss the same sex, some dont. You aren't superior for being cis or only kissing one sex. You won't get a trophy for denying the kind of human you are or for making others feel bad about the kind of human they are either.

There is no natural test for superiority in humans because human superiority is unnatural. For any of us.

The only measure of being Better than others was how much better you were at being a community member; how much you contributed to the betterment of your peers. You didn't brag about being white, you bragged about how you killed so many deer that your people certainly will Not be starving.

We were born to share this planet and our only ACTUAL job is to take care of each other and the planet in whatever way we can. It's the only thing we've ever owed each other.

Racism, ableism, colonization, capitalism, white supremacy, genocide, Nazis, Zionists, etc.

These are not concepts that deserve to be kept alive. Anything that makes you hate someone else or makes you feel more Worthy than someone else has no place in the future.

I say all this because I feel like I'm beating a dead horse on this blog so often. I really do try to stay educational and focus on solidarity. But there's only so much that words can do without action.

And words without action are as good as dust in the wind.

I love this blog, but I'm long over this. We need to act. There is a genocide happening and I'm starting to believe that everyone who wants to stop it Already knows about it. They do not need awareness. They don't need voices. They need direction. They need community. They need support and bodies to help intimidate police.

They need us.

And instead I blog on Tumblr trying to rally people that hardly reblog a call to action.

This blog is starting to feel like a symptom of the system. A time-consuming distraction for me. And a way for you to placate yourselves while the world gets worse.

Just following leftists doesn't make you a good person. Having the Right opinions doesn't make you a good person. Even believing in equality doesn't make you a good person if you don't do something about it.

I'm tired of begging for people to organize and protest and show up for each other.

I'm convinced that if you ever had the intention of doing so then you already are. And if you're not then that's a choice you've made.

You either support genocide or you fight it, you know?

I don't know what else there is to learn or say. What are you waiting for? An invitation?

Please go fucking organize and join a protest.

In other news....I am getting closer to deleting this blog every day.

#on all level but physical i am on my knees banging my head against the wall #leftist #Decolonize #whiteness #free palestine #socialism #anarchist #self determination #native sovereignty #sovereignty #liberation #revolution #Palestine #BLM #ableism #lgbt #capitalism #biden #ndn #palestine #democrats #republican #social justice #trans #abolish ice #abolish capitalism #abolish the police #abolish prisons #Decolonization #decolonize palestine

[butch-reidentified]

ID: Screenshot reading "You will recognise it as an arguable point as soon as you switch the victim to a species that you think morally matters. Humans will inevitably die too" followed by a comma before the screenshot cuts off. It is not shown who the author is.

Preface: This will be a long post, but I think it's worthwhile as part of my efforts to open up real conversation about psychopathy and the stigma + misinformation surrounding it. The main reason I'm making a separate post instead of reblogging is that this post is not really intended to be about veganism. I'm more using the contents of the above screenshot to dive more into a topic I've touched on a few times recently.

Humans being "a species that you think morally matters" is an interesting assumption I often see vegan activists make. I've been undecided for a while about talking about this because I know how controversial this is and don't feel a strong desire to deal with the fallout of posting it/saying it outright, but seeing as I've always tried to be as honest and open as possible in here: I do not actually think humans "morally matter." I do not think killing is inherently wrong, either, regardless of species. Just about every creature on Earth engages in killing, either of each other or of members of other species, if not both. I don't think humans are sacred or special in any way, and thus are no exception. I don't see humans killing each other as any more INHERENTLY (this word is incredibly important here... obviously) wrong than, say, leopards killing each other. My culture used to engage in religious human sacrifice, so I have thought about this a whole lot, and it is a bit of a discourse topic in my community to this day (some even think we would be better off today if we had not stopped giving human sacrifices to the gods).

Most arguments for killing being inherently immoral that I've encountered are directly or indirectly rooted in religion, a societal value accepted without question, and/or the result of emotional reactions. One response I often get to this is that if I don't think killing is inherently wrong, I'm not allowed to be sad about it or grieve when people are killed - the idea being that this is somehow hypocritical. This is nonsense. I don't believe abortion is wrong in any way, but I'd never dream of telling someone who had mixed feelings about her abortion that she was a hypocrite for it*. Having complex, mixed, or even negative emotions about something does not make that thing immoral. Not to jump too far into moral philosophy**, but my view is that emotional responses are not - or at least should not be - an indicator of morality in any capacity. I suspect that more people agree with me on this than realize they do, and here is an example of why: Some people feel badly about killing an insect in their home, but most people do not consider this wrong. Even when it comes to humans, many - if not most - people would likely experience negative emotions when they kill out of genuine necessity, such as in self-defense, but very few people will argue that this is morally wrong, that you should just allow yourself to be harmed or killed if someone attacks you.

In this sense, it would be most logically consistent for me to view hunting wild animals in their own territory (as opposed to shit like when rich people transport animals to a personal hunting ground so they're guaranteed not to lose their prey) for food as morally superior to livestock farming, and I very much do. Traditional hunting is the method of killing for food most similar to that of other animals, as far as I understand. That said, I'm not remotely an expert on the topic beyond having hunted before as a kid and having a general understanding of animal behavior at the college level.

However, I will not pretend like I always behave consistently with the moral conclusions I come to. Like I've discussed before, I don't have an emotional response to violating my own morals. I simply didn't come wired with that feature. I don't really feel guilt or shame, so when I do something "bad," whether by my standards or others' standards, I either don't care at all or make a deliberate effort to cognitively "scold" myself, depending on the circumstances. I do consume meat that I have not personally hunted in the wild. While I do not think that livestock farming, especially modern livestock farming, is good in any way (ethically but also environmentally and health wise), because I don't have an emotional reaction to that thought (but do receive dopamine when I eat tasty food), I have so far been unable to convince myself to stop consuming meat.

I have said previously that I am glad that I am the way that I am, and that remains true; I do think my psychopathic traits are overwhelmingly more beneficial than not. This, however, is one example of the ways it actually is a negative to me - I really can't force myself to care about something I don't care about by default, and often have a hard time making conscious decisions that run counter to what produces dopamine. For this same reason, I have repeatedly failed to cut out gluten despite my doctor's insistence that I need to, and despite knowing how much better I feel (no daily migraines!) when I do abstain from it for a while. I tried to go vegan before and found that I latched onto very unhealthy junk food that was vegan by nature, like Oreos, and was eating incredibly badly. It does not help that I don't know how to cook, partly because my genetic disabilities make cooking a difficult endeavor for several reasons.

I am well aware that some people may be upset by this post, and may feel a need to label me a bad person for being this way. This is your prerogative, and I am certainly open to hearing your responses to this post, within reason. If all you want is to "punish" me for this, send me hate anons and insults, feel free, but I'll go ahead and let you know it doesn't do anything to me... not to mention I'm very used to it already as a radfem blogger. If you still want to do so because it makes you feel righteous or something, by all means go ahead, just be aware that it will not elicit a response from me in any way you'd desire, and definitely won't change my thought processes or behaviors. If you want to have an actual conversation, though, I'm more than happy to engage, answer questions, and hear your perspectives.

*I chose this specific example not because anti-choicers think abortion is killing, but because I have seen women be told that their sadness or grief about an abortion (which, btw, does NOT mean she regrets it!) is somehow "pro life" and that she can't talk about how she feels or else the right wing will use it against us. This is also nonsense, and fucked up nonsense at that. The right wing will use whatever they can; I'm in no way disagreeing with that. However, silencing women and girls to serve a narrative is not the answer. The lived experiences of women and girls (or any marginalized persons) cannot ever be devalued or concealed just because the enemy would use them against us. Actually, this is the same response I have given when told I should hide the fact that I didn't regret my mastectomy, or even that I should pretend that I did regret it. My story, my truth, is mine to own and discuss as I choose, whether it could be weaponized by ideological opponents or not. Same is true for all marginalized persons.

** If you are interested in moral philosophy, specifically where morals come from/what people base morals in, this page and the following pages (there's a Next button in the bottom right corner) sum it up pretty well on Page 1, then dive in a good bit more thoroughly with individual pages for each "root cause" of moral systems.

Side note: I will be reblogging this later because it's 6:30am EDT and a lot of my audience is in the USA. I worked hard and spent a lot of time on this, so I'd like it to actually be seen. Not much point trying to educate/inform/raise awareness if nobody sees it lmao

#mine #emotionality #morality #moral philosophy #moral systems #anchor system #personal #vegan discourse #long post #text post #psychopathy

[13eyond13]

a friend of mine who isn't into Death Note asked me why people ship Lawlight. I gave her a pretty good answer but I feel that couldn't encapsulate it fully and you are the most articulate/analyzer person I can think of here, can you help me?

omg, I'm flattered you think that, but a bit worried I won't be able to speak for everybody about this! I'll probably just have to mostly say why I like to ship it and hopefully that will suffice...

1) the constant tension and the mind games between them is the heart and soul of the series to me. Light's a complicated character that is both very entertaining to follow and also sort of an infuriating bastard to watch as well, so when L waltzes in being like "HOLD ON A MINUTE HERE I KNOW IT'S YOU AND I'M DEFINITELY GONNA PROVE IT" and Light both seems to get extremely excited about how clever he is and also horrified and determined not to lose, that makes for a very charged dynamic that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Light's curiously positive reactions to L opposing him, as well as the way L intuitively understands him and pushes his buttons so effectively, is definitely one of the funniest and most intriguing things to watch in the entire show.

2) there's a lot going on in the narrative to continuously draw parallels between them and to sort of suggest that they're the true equal and peer that the other one has never actually had their entire lives, the solution to the boredom and loneliness and aloof superiority they've both been feeling due to their above-average intelligence and privileged positions and ambitious competitive stubborn streaks and so on. People love that and also find it super tragic/angsty or fascinatingly ironic and darkly funny that they end up only meeting in an enemies, "you're the closest thing to a real friend I've ever had but one or the other of us will have to die" sort of way

3) This part of their relationship also gets me as well - they probably would not have easily met if Light HADN'T been Kira, because L never has to meet any of the people he works alongside nor any of the criminals he catches in person - Light was just good enough at being a criminal to force L to meet him in person, basically. And there's also no guarantee that if they DID meet in other circumstances that they would have clicked so weirdly well as they do, because their cat and mouse game was probably the best way they could both impress each other the most and prove their own intelligence and entertainingness to each other as well. The immense difficulty of setting up this ship so that it actually works is part of the enduring appeal to me.

4) I think there's just a lot of intrigue to how much is left unsaid between them the entire time. They literally never get to have an actual straightforward heart-to-heart even once in the story, but they're seen obsessively thinking about each other the entire time (and Light continues to do so for years after L's death, even to the point of comparing everyone else who opposes him to L unfavorably after his death and admitting he feels bored again now that L is gone). I think a lot of fans were kind of dying to see them interact in a more straight-forward way

5) the handcuffs are certainly fairly suggestive and kinky hahaha... and the memory loss arc definitely brings up a lot of interesting "what if" type scenarios in every shipper's mind. Not everybody is convinced that they really hate each other, and seeing them work together on the case like that causes a lot of people to think about how they might get along if Light had never picked up the notebook in the first place. The fandom has a lot of people who really like the idea of them together whenever Light isn't Kira, and also a lot of people who think their dynamic is superior and works better when Light IS Kira - and having both of these different dynamics between them presented to us in canon makes for even more interesting possibilities to explore

#there is probably more to it than that as well #but these were the main things i could think of off the top of my head #ask #anon #lawlight #p

[captainofthetidesbreath]

i might be mistaken and so sorry if i am but i’m pretty sure you made a post about the “annoying selfish punk” tendencies that ashton has and was wondering if you could go a little bit more into what you mean by it? i love ashton so much but punk subculture is something i have no experience with and the premise of that post was really interesting

I did write that post! My thoughts on that are largely informed by the fact that my sister and her partner and many of her friends are in The Scene. I am not part of the subculture, but I am adjacent to it in a way where I know a lot of punks.

The short of what I meant there—and the long version is long—is that punk subculture has a lot going for it and has many philosophical virtues and ideals. However, the (for lack of a better word) energy of the subculture does have a tendency to attract many people for the wrong reasons who do otherwise uphold those values, just as it does in many other subcultures and groups, especially those subcultures built around improving social conditions or in response to suffocating conditions like punk is.

To be clear, before I launch into the whole thing: I do not think that all of this applies to Ashton. I'm just unpacking my experiences in the kinds of punks who are very self-centered in frustrating ways. It's a type that Ashton overlaps with and has SOME things in common with, enough to make them also very frustrating in a well-developed way, but not all of this applies to them.

A number of people in the scene are attracted to it because they simply want to defer responsibility for dissatisfaction in their lives or because they are trying to validate this feeling that they've been kept from something by someone else. Notice that these feelings are very similar to what Ashton expresses drove them to make the decision to take the shard: wanting someone else to blame, wanting to feel robbed. The subculture attracts people who center themselves and their personal grievances in this way alongside people who genuinely center the community-oriented ideals of punk. They're punk because they're trying to settle a score more than they're interested in improving things for everyone, uplifting community, etc.

Like any space that champions the virtues of community-centered values and fighting against structural oppression, punk also attracts some who value Being Seen doing something virtuous much more than they value ensuring that meaningful, important, constructive work is done. Being more invested in being Seen fighting The Man to the point that you resent less visible and rewarding but important solidarity and support work is selfish and self-centered. This attitude is not limited to punks, not at all, but punk has its folks who are there just to be self-righteous and holier-than-thou. There's a decent number of punks one very much feels compelled to remind that this should be out of love for people and community, not out of love for the fight, because many are drawn to punk in search of an excuse to be combative and break things and start fights (as opposed to doing that to defend and advance against oppression).

It has its share of people too who engage in the scene because they want to feel superior to Normies. So, they go to punk shows and listen to punk music and do it all because they're pretentious and want to feel superior.

The genuine ideals of punk about hope and community and joy and uplifting one another and raging against the structural oppression of the world are very real, even if they take forms often more varied, difficult, messy, and polarizing across history than many on Tumblr and Twitter care to admit. But, at least from my experience from my proximity to people in the scene, it also attracts people who want to be seen as Important, or want to feel like someone else kept them from being Special, or want to be validated in their self-righteousness. Some will claim that these kinds of people are not ACTUALLY punk, but No True Scotsman is a fallacy for punks too since these are very much people who like punk music, engage in the scene, and even participate in community action and upholding of other punk values—but they are doing so for self-centered, selfish, self-aggrandizing, self-flattering reasons. And they are frustrating and insufferable people.

I wrote that post after 3.74: "Roots Between Worlds", but we can see that a lot of the same sentiments I've said here are echoed in Ashton's assessment of their own behavior in 3.78: "Fractured", and all those things he said is exactly why I said what I said how there are some punks who are frustratingly self-centered.

#CR spoilers #Critical Role things #This is nonrebloggable bc not being super glowing about punk is a touchy subject on this website.

[lord-squiggletits]

Idk if my previous posts were unclear but I don't remotely hate any Optimus version that isn't IDW or think they suck. Every Optimus is good and there's a fan (or multiple fans!) of every version of OP no matter how obscure or underrated (as well as all the other characters).

What's more questionable (or at least annoying) is when fandom ignores canon character personalities in favor of writing specific archetypes that are either out of character or repetitive/stereotyped to the point of annoyance. As an example of this, it would be a female character being called the Team Mom just because she's a woman existing in a group of (primarily male) characters even if she's not remotely motherly or nurturing. Or, as a more topical example, how often I've seen Transformers ships where even though both characters are canonically masculine (or gender neutral), fanartists love to turn one of the characters small and weak (or even outright feminine) to turn the ship into Strong Dominant Seme and Sweet Cute Uke to fit a specific kink or romantic fantasy, even if it's a disservice/OOC to portray those characters like that.

In other words, a fandom's popularity of certain characters, ships, headcanons, etc is often more informed by tropes and forcing canon to adhere to one's personal tastes, as opposed to approaching canon and trying to understand it on its own terms. I'm not talking about the quality of the source material, but rather the way that the fandom interprets the source materials in ways that don't make any sense, approach it in bad faith, or just generally don't care about canon at all. So I'm not saying one OP is better than another, my problem is when fandom consistently focuses on certain stereotypes or flanderizations of a character, and then any character that doesn't fit the popular (often stereotyped) mold is ignored or virulently rejected. In other words, I think popular fandom often does a DISSERVICE to characters whether they love them or hate them, it just takes different forms.

So, just as an example, I think one fandom caricature of Optimus that I see a lot (and heavily dislike) is making Optimus some sort of shrinking wallflower type who's innocent, sweet, and virginal, in contrast to an opposite caricature of Megatron that's big, strong, dominant, and rugged, and making ship art that forces the characters into some kind of seme/uke or borderline heteronormative romance. Despite the fact that canon Optimus (in, say, TFP for example) is tall, broadly built, deep voiced, dignified, assertive, and strong (physically and morally), completely incorrect interpretations of him as a shy feminized uke type are still pretty common to find. And it makes you ask yourself why it is so many people make MOP ship art of them of The Small One and The Large One or The Small, Cute One and The Big, Violent One when it's completely different from canon. It feels as if such fanart is made by people who just want to see seme/uke style slash ships, and if canon doesn't give them what they want, they'll simply trash it and replace it with their own version, even if it's completely OOC.

So when I said in my other post that people don't like IDW Optimus because he can't be fit into caricatures like happy dad or shy twink, I'm not saying it to say "other OPs who resemble that suck," I'm saying it to express "Fandom tends to simplify characters into easily palatable and comfortable tropes, and when they encounter a character they can't do that with, they respond by ignoring or even hating on that character."

Other versions of Optimus have the problem where fandom turns them into a stereotype instead of the actual character they are, e.g. portraying TFA OP as some poor abused damsel with no self confidence and crippling anxiety being abused by his superiors, and then they talk more about this fake uwu smoll bean cinnamon roll version of TFA OP than they do about actual canon TFA OP. And honestly I can't think of any prominent content/meta about G1 OP that isn't just "he plays basketball and does funny one liners and is Team Dad/Grandpa." (Hell, you even get that with non-Optimus characters that get simplified to just sexy twink, old grandpa, comedy relief, evil ex, Diversity Win-- She's A Lesbian, third wheel to the favored ship, etc even though there's way more depth to them than just their surface level stereotype.)

IDW OP's problem is that he can't be stereotyped like that so instead the fandom ignores him. He's not small, so they can't stereotype him as a skinny twink getting topped by a burly uke. He's not jovial or happy go lucky or extroverted, so they can't stereotype him as Team Dad or Comedy Relief. He's assertive, blunt, and has a temper, so they can't stereotype him as a shy wallflower in need of protecting. He makes catastrophic mistakes and is responsible for bad things happening, so they can't stereotype him into a sweet cinnamon roll who has never done anything wrong in his whole life or The Infinitely Wise and Kind Paragon. There's no Big Bad Authority Figure who was mean to IDW OP and traumatized him, so they can't excuse the bad things he did as "he's traumatized so he couldn't help it" and wave away his flaws as "it's his abuser's fault, they made him this way." IDW OP has the kind of depression where he's grumpy, shut off, and angry-- as opposed to the shy, sad kind of depression that just stares forlornly out of the window in a beautifully tragic way-- so they can't make him into a sad woobie kicked around unfairly by life.

Or I guess they just stereotype IDW OP as "evil bastard with no redeeming qualities that's mean to everyone for no reason, plus the writers forced everyone to like him just because he's Optimus Prime" even though that isn't accurate either.

Put bluntly, IDW OP forces fandom to contend with the idea that someone can be a good person with good intentions but still fuck up on a massive scale and maybe end up hurting more than they helped. IDW OP is messy, ugly, flawed, mean, stoic, closed off. When IDW OP has mental breakdowns or has his feelings hurt, he's loud and angry and harsh, and the consequences of what he did while he was unwell continue to haunt him long after. In other words, he actually experiences negative emotions the way a real person would, and sometimes when he's under the influence of negative emotions, he lashes out or does stupid things (like a real person might) instead of inoffensively crying in a corner somewhere. He isn't sanitized enough for a fandom that only wants Perfect Pure Good Optimus Who Never Hurts Anyone Even By Accident, so instead of IDW OP's mistakes and dark moments being treated as the logical end point of a person put in constant no-win situations until he breaks, he gets treated as if his mistakes and flaws make him an irredeemable bastard with no good qualities who should've fucked up less often to make fans actually like him.

And this is all in a fandom where 90% of the characters are war criminals and a good half of them have massacred organic planets. But god forbid IDW Optimus ever make a bad decision in a stressful situation. Or be mean to someone. Or have a character arc about how blindly idolizing people as paragons ends badly for everyone involved because no one can be that perfect. He is simply The Worst Optimus Ever and there's absolutely nothing about him worth discussing.

And just to be clear, the problem isn't the fact that some people don't like IDW OP, or he's just not their thing and they don't care.

The problem is the fact that he's consistently and actively hated by the fanbase who makes a concentrated effort to say he sucks and make sure none of their fan works ever include him. It's literally at a level where I stopped looking in the Optimus tag on this website because I was tired of people randomly going "and btw IDW OP sucks and I want to drown him in a ditch" in posts that weren't even about IDW, and I stopped looking for MegOP fic on AO3 because most of it is IDW Megatron/clearly TFP or G1 inspired continuity soup Optimus. Places that are Optimus friendly for Optimus fans, where I could reasonably expect to find positive conversations, but instead get sucker punched by hate about the character The Space Is About. And I can't even have conversations asking about why they do, bc the way 90% of them talk, I can tell they literally just didn't read the comics or deliberately misinterpreted the story.

I find it bizarre and frankly, tragic, that the hate train for IDW OP is so pervasive that people actively erase and replace him from fan works IN THE IDW UNIVERSE in a way that no other character is targeted in. I have tried so hard to understand why IDW OP gets this sort of hate and erasure when other characters who were as bad or worse than him have perfectly normal takes about them that go "yeah he kinda sucks but he's cool and I like him" or "who cares if he's problematic IRL, it's a story." The only conclusion I can come to is that because Optimus Prime (TM) has a specific brand image and is locked into being a cultural icon, he's held to a standard of The Ideal Perfect Hero instead of the way better standard of "Is he an interesting, well written character?"

#squiggposting #discourse #i tried my best to phrase this in a way that didnt invalidate different tastes #but like honestly. some ppls tastes suck. or are actually problematic and not in a fake way #like as an example from the main text avoe #i hate it so much when gay ships are made seme/uke - dominant/submissive - fem/masc #when that not only isnt in character or accurate to canon. but is also really boring at best or homophobic at worst #i cant control ppl's opinions but i can still think theyre boring stupid or even downright offensive #i have SEEN pretty much every popular TF character or pairing get flanderized somehow #so it's not just my attachment to OP in larticular #and i find it very frustrating when it seems as if ppl arent fans of the very media they consume #and they turn an interesting story into cookie cutter stereotypes #and then when the story isnt a cookie cutter stereotype easily divisible into black and white #they hate the characters and story and call it trash #might delete later bc i feel cring #but this is oretty much the culmination of all the thoughts and discussions ive had #with multiple people #anyways ive seen enough fandom discourse posts about The State of Fandom #and The Same 5 Tropes Recycled just copy pasted into different fandoms #what i speak of isnt just about my fave. rather my fave is a victim of this fandom tencency #and it is a FACT that fandom will force characters into offensive stereotypes that dont even make sense #tldr sometimes fanon.....is way worse than canon #also i revised and edited this like a billion times to make sure i wasnt hasty or vague or mean #so if i still made a mistake. whatever i guess this post took hours #it's not about wanting absolutely everyone to love my favorite #it's about the fact that ppl actively hate him even in spaces that are about him/ships he's in #to the point i have to not interact with strangers bc i never know if my fsve will randomly get shit on #and on top that the hate is mostly based on surface level assumptions and misinformation #so not only is my fav hated in a way no other character is. they dont even hate him for canon facts #sucks to see the fandom so thoroughly full of hate by ppl who arent informed bc they never gave canon a chance

[starwalker03]

I realized WMLP Dick’s position in that army unit is similar to his early experience with the team. He’s the youngest has a lot of experience and skills his squad mates don’t, among peers for the first time in a while, hiding his true identity, gets pushed out of his comfort zone by the people he was with. Expect this time is was true war. And he came away without bonding with his team and looking down on them. Would this experience effect how he views his memories of The Team?

Huh. Actually that's a good point.

It would definitely make him remember how unprepared they were for That Whole Situation, just thrown into missions having never worked together except for the Cadmus mission which ended with an exploded building like. Bruh. I know they weren't giving the league many options but also what the fUCK guys y'all just sent them off on their merry way like that. The fact they didn't die in episode three is a miracle.

But then also he's so aware of the difference between working with people who are fighting because they're genuinely good people with a desire to help others, as opposed to... Well. People who wanna shoot guns, had no other options, want the military to pay off their degree, et cetera et cetera so on so forth. Like this team is so different to his old one it's almost distracting. It's almost problematic. It's almost enough to snap Dick out of the constant unrelenting need to do as he's told and question Slade because 'uh hey yeah what the fUCK is up with these people'

Dick has to force a level of indifference between himself and his new team because if he doesn't he can't focus on the task at hand. He can't help but think about the fact that these people should not be running around armed with thousands of lives in their hands.

It doesn't help that they're all unaware of half of the shit that goes down in the world. Even Dick's superiors have only the smallest understandings of figures like Count Vertigo and Gorilla Grod and none of them have any idea who Vandal Savage is. Queen Bee? Uh you mean the dictator of that small kick of desert in the middle east?

(CW for conversations about the "war on terror" ahead)

Oh my god. I didn't even consider that if Bialya and Qurac are middle eastern countries they're surprisingly close by during the wars of the early 2000s. Like I've hand waved and said 'yeah going off timeline Dick probably got sent around the middle east' but completely failed to realise he might have even been in Bialya or Qurac for missions.

I wonder how those countries engaged with wars in the area in lore. It's apparently north of Saudi Arabia and Iran in wider DC lore? But YJ isn't specific?

Here's a Reddit thread I found where people start getting into nitty gritty details:

Essentially they're depi ting Bialya and Qurac as west and east Iran, respectively. And also offering theories as to how those countries could have come to be.

If I continue to use Australia as the example (which I suppose I should cause I've essentially canonized it in the fic at this point), Australia was only particularly involved with Afghanistan and Yemen I believe, but I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge.

Bialya and Qurac could, possibly, border operations in Afghanistan. Young justice lore states that Bialya is a part of the UN and therefore may not be particularly open to military operations but very well could have housed a few bases on the borders.

Jesus. Getting this into the lore of YJ feels so strange and I'm honestly not sure if it's inappropriate or not. I could believe Queen Bee being involved with the war on terror, whether it's a part of Savage's plans or not, just because she enjoys conflict. Moreover it helps with the anti-Quraci thing she has going. From what I can tell of the show, Qurac seems to be a majority Islamic country? So I could see her manipulating the image of things to benefit her attempts to take back Qurac.

Well this spiralled. Uh I might end this answer here actually.

#dc comics #fanfiction #dick grayson #young justice #with morality like a polynomial #wmlp #deathstroke #angst #cw war #cw war on terror

[shadowqueenjude]

I was tagged in this game a long time ago by @positivelyruined

Things you'd like to know about fellow writers:

Last book I read: last book I FINISHED was House of Flame and Shadow. Currently we're struggling through The Cruel Prince.

Greatest literary inspirations: Suzanne Collins, Rick Riordan, JK Rowling, and Jane Austen (please note this is ONLY for their writing, not their beliefs outside of their works)

Things in my fandom that I want to read but I don't want to write: honestly having trouble writing long fics these days, have been sticking to one-shots, but Nesta having a relationship with Ember and Bryce and Tamlin slowly recovering from his trauma post-ACOSF are top of the list. Why I want to read this? I think Nesta could benefit a lot from having a good mother in her life; her life was molded by her abusive mother, and she has so few people in her life who stand up for her. And Bryce humbling the shit out of everyone IC and being Ember's daughter? Bestie potential fr. Tamlin recovering from his trauma post-ACOSF? Because I think he has been done dirty by SJM and I would like to feel his struggles first-hand. I don't feel like I'm qualified enough to write about this though (not the skill of my writing, but it's a heavy topic). Also, I have too many WIPs.

Things in my current fandom that I want to write about but I don't think anyone will be interested but me: honestly i THOUGHT my Azriel-Beron mating bond idea would be unpopular, but it is getting a SURPRISING amount of traction recently so guess who's writing it for sjmvillainweek???

You can recognize my writing by: I'm a very emotional writer first and foremost; I like writing emotionally charged scenes and allowing you inside the character's head so you can really see how powerful their emotions are.

My most controversial takes:

Some time ago I would've said it's that Feysand-Nessian-Elriel are the absolute worst ships in the fandom, but I don't think that's a controversial take anymore; the people are realizing.

So maybe my most controversial takes are:

Azriel ain't all that, he is infantilized too much by the pro and anti side of this fandom and it's ridiculous that he gets so much love for literally doing nothing. He's like that mediocre guy who nobody expects shit from so the one time he actually DOES do stuff he is treated like a celebrity. He is whiny when most of his problems are self-made, which is highly irritating. He's a total creep and he's got a LONG way to go before he is in any way worthy of Gwyn.

Tamlin should no longer be a High Lord. I was honestly surprised this was such a controversial take, but I think I've surrounded myself with loads of pro-Tamlins. Obviously I want him to ensure the future of Spring before he abdicates, but being a High Lord is something that truly made him miserable, especially as of ACOSF. We might not have been having this conversation had he remained as he was in book 1, but the truth is he is no longer the same guy he once was and I simply don't see how SJM is going to bring him back. I'd rather he live in peace than be SJM's plaything.

Favorite tropes:

Black cat girlfriend-golden retriever/doberman boyfriend

Literally anything regency-related

Forced Proximity, rivals to lovers (enemies to lovers is a bit much for me I think)

Current writing mood: 5 because I can write loads of short snippets but actually putting together a story is rough for me rn

Fandom frustration:

Honestly, fandom hierarchies. Some people are obsessed with follower count and catering their content to appeal to a wider audience and while I think that's fine to an extent, we have people trying to lord themselves over others because they have a couple hundred more followers. Like...at the end of the day, we're all just fucking nerds, tf do you mean you think you're superior?

Also, butting into the opposing side of the fandom. Like, it's different if a post asks for friendly discourse, but when the post is clearly not meant for you, why tf are you trying to make your opinion known? Know when your opinion is wanted.

Also the current threat to fanfiction. Stop trying to buy and sell fanfic tf? We write this shit for free.

Everyone has probably already done this, but...

Tagging: @crazy-ache @sonics-atelier @simmanin anyone who wants to do it!

#tag games #writers on tumblr

[archivalofsins]

Hey now that some folks are out of bounds- "LET'S PARTY"!

Gunsli what do you mean? Remember when I said I haven't talked about what verdict I've personally wanted for Kotoko. That's because I couldn't care less, I like both options when it comes to the narrative of Milgram.

I am in no way condoning Kotoko's behavior I'm solely saying this from a narrative perspective.

Let me explain through exploring how I view the options~

So why would some want Kotoko Guilty?

Well the reason for that is simple she jumped some people's favorites and could do it again if voted Innocent.

Haruka and Mu are still sitting at Guilty. Their fans have a vested interest in not indulging Kotoko's mindset further. Secondarily she threatened to kill Mikoto. Thirdly she's shown through her second voice drama and song that she no longer believes in Es' judgment and is vying for the role of guard herself. Anyone who recognizes any of these things and are opposed to them happening will vote her guilty.

Meaning fans of Haruka, Mu, and Es all have a reason to be wary of Kotoko getting a second Innocent verdict.

Though in the words of Utena,

"But was that really such a good idea?"

Kotoko's trials are questioning the degree of separation necessary needed to excessively punish another. Because no one knew her victims when this started it was easier to forgive her behavior. I mean we only have one side of the story and she's so passionate against evil doers. Why would anyone not take her at face value.

So, what will be gained from saying I'm okay with you jumping strangers who I viewed as in the wrong without knowing a thing about them based solely on your word. Yet, I know the people here I know them well and I think some of them are nice. These people didn't deserve the way you treated them.

Though what makes the prisoners better than any of Kotoko's victims? Is it such a good idea to present that people only matter dependent on how well we know them? Is that any different from for example Shidou's mindset.

"Someone’s value cannot be the same as another."/"Should choose between superiority or inferiority."

Is there a sense of equality if one were to instead just,

"Hate evil as the evil that it is."

Or are both ways of thinking to binary and rigid to fully be acceptable. Are the audience hypocrites in finding Kotoko Innocent for killing killers we don't know and then finding her guilty for simply harming some killers that some of us feel like we know.

That's the question of her trials. Do people hate the sin or just the sinner? That's the question of Milgram overall. How much can another person judge someone. Over what ammount of time will one become more lenient or forgiving on someone.

And should one even be more lenient on another person just because of how long they've known them or how well their beliefs allign with their own?

In the same vein people would want Kotoko innocent for the same reasons she stated she dislikes. Not because they believed what she's doing is right or acceptable but just because they like her. She would be innocent for no reason other than being a killer we've gotten to know. Enforcing once again that she is no different from anyone else here. A thing that she has been shown to be upset about and afraid of through her second mv.

She'd just be innocnet because the majority would think they know her well enough. That's she's good deep down, she just made a mistake, was a little too extreme. Even though her actions were bad it doesn't mean she is. To be forgiven under those circumstances. Oh, she'd really hate that I'd imagine.

Simply because she wants to find others that understand her mindset and behavior people that view these things in the same and truly believe she's right. Finding her Innocent while still stating her actions were wrong in this case finding what she did forgivable wouldn't be enough. Now she could assume that everyone found her innocnet because they agreed with her so hard.

However she was innocent by a pretty large percent last time and her mv still shows her anxieties around her own innocence... So, I personally doubt that'd be the case.

So I feel like being innocent again would just strengthen her feelings of being treated like the rest. Especially considering even more people are innocent including Mikoto. It just doesn't seem like it would give her the feeling of drowing in the knowledge that she's right that she's stated to want from the jump.

So, I think in response she'd do exactly what she's doing now and what was implied she'd do from her first cover Anti Beat. Lash out in order to hide her own insecurity and take some control over the situation. The best way for her to do that is to put herself in Es' position to prove how above the others she really is.

Which that outcome would be pretty cool too actually.I would like to see how they'd follow through on the foreshadowing in Yonah if she were Innocent. Even if I do have a good idea on how they would.

Personally I just think she'd lash out even more just to prove to herself that she's better. Because she simply always feels inferior on some level. Like it's not difficult to tell that she doubts her own feelings and philosophy. Especially since she seems to need to be told she's right because she already feels she's wrong but she hates being told she's right. because she knows better than anyone how wrong she is.

So, she'd just keep stepping over the boundaries of others and put them in a position beneath her. The same thing we see her try to do with Es over the course of her second trial just to assert that she's doing what must be done. She's doing what others are too weak to do themselves all to stregthen her own feelings of vindication.

It's a lose/lose situation no matter how I look at it. That's what makes it so lovely. When nothing can be right that in turn means nothing can be wrong. These are just events that are happening att that point. The label of good and bad is completely up to the observer.

That's the best part of Milgram. It goes exactly where the audience is willing to take it.

Oh but Gunsli you wouldn't want Kotoko to run the prison and Es to just defer to her would you? That could be bad. You wouldn't want Mikoto to possibly die? You wouldn't want anything bad to happen to Haruka and Mu the only two guilty? It's not about what the fuck I or anyone else wants.

It's about the characters wills after the last bell tolls everything that happens next is up to the sort of people they naturally are.

Isn't that exhilirating. Isn't the most equisite kindness a story and author can give. The opportunity for the reader to enact their own will on the media and the media enact its will on the audience in kind?Isn't there something so miraculous about that. It's a thing of immeasurable beauty a once and life time experience. At the same time isn't it also the most disgutsting thing one could ever do to others and themselves.

Doesn't everyone want to see it- What lies at the end of Milgram? The culmination of all these choices all these clashing wills. Kotoko's trial is so engaging to me because it sets the stage for trial three perfectly. It's interesting because Innocent or Guilty the cog will still turn.

The worst part is the question what is judgment? What good does it do? What would Innocent serve? To be told you're right or acceptable just because someone assumes they know you and sees the good in you. That they know what you'd do and who you are deep down. It's soul crushing isn't it? It can be painful can't it? Even heartbreaking.

The hero some see are they real was the victim? If a person doesn't push what can they learn? What will one do when the things they don't yet know become things they can't unknow? Will they lash out in anger saying this wasn't what I thought it would be? Will they dig themselves in even deeper? Try to force that thing into being the shape they wanted it to be?

To me the fact is with this case Innocent and Guilry are quite frankly the same thing. If she's guilty she's no better than the others she judged and if she's innocent with the rest of them that still means she's no better than they are. She'll never be drowning in that feeling of being right unless everyone is guilty except her.

I find that mindset of Kotoko's that insecurity which ultimately stops her from accepting any kindness. So, very touching and human. Though it's ultimately going to fuck us all over no matter the outcome. It's tragic she was last in line. So tragic that she was put there-

Jackalope must be laughing about that placement choice just a bit. The same with Muu who wanted everyone innocent. Maybe if they just showed up a bit earlier the things they desired would have been possible.

Too bad, so tragic... I wonder just who put them there again.

Regardless of if one knows the outcome. Despite what one speculates. I wonder... Should ones morals change based on that sort of thing. Personally I think a person should do what they'd regret least. That's usually how I do things.

This isn't a post I spent days on or anything just some thoughts on the verdict outcomes for Kotoko specifically. Plus what I think the logic around it is. I personally think both choices lead to bad things for each prisoner not just Kotoko. So, this isn't the only trial like this but it was funny for it to be the one where this is most apparent to me.

I'm really interested in both options because I'm the sort that would like to have both if possible. It's so incredibly unfair that there's no way to see it all here.

#gunsli rambles #milgram

[longhands-the-second]

Queer Trigun and why it feels so familiar to me:

(~1,500 words. Unfortunate mentions of white supremacists and general trimax subject matter incoming. Overly reliant on real world parallels. This is very much twins centric despite starting off with ww. I had a brain blast after watching stampede for the 7th time and this is very unorganized. This take is mid/incomplete and I know it.)

I’ve only read through volume 5 of Trimax, but I’ve watched both anime at least 3 times each. That being said, stampede spoilers and kind of implied Trimax spoilers. There’s one thing I know that happens with knives in the manga but I don’t have context so I didn’t include it.

Wolfwood isn’t a character I would immediately say reads as trans, but the further I get into the manga the more I feel like there’s something to that.

Traumatic puberty. Grows up VERY suddenly and in a horrific, painful way. He was functionally a child and I'm willing to bet he was treated as such. Sure he’s in his 20s now, but I can't imagine that goes away with age. People who know what you are will probably always look at you differently for it.

Trying your damn hardest to live with the hand you’ve been dealt. He has to conform to an authority or he dies, or his ‘family’ dies, or his one safe place is wiped off the fucking map.

Catholic Guilt (his relationship with religion isn’t something I’m equipped to discuss with any nuance. Apologies).

This one might be a reach, but he reminds me of when I was too insecure to take gnc people seriously. Like transmen who are also femboys, or mogai culture, or neopronouns. He tears other people (vash) down to conform to his worldview (i.e. murder is necessary and you should be able to fucking deal with it like I have all these years) instead of admitting he doesn’t want to live like that. I’m sure he knows this is wrong internally, like I did, but it’s about survival. God forbid anybody finds out you don’t just LOVE conforming to something “respectable.”

You should really get back in the box if you want to survive with any success, basically. He wants that for Vash so he can just Live. Vash is Not Fucking Having it.

That last point is why I think I generally find Vash more relatable. For the sake of this reading, he’s a more openly queer person, but from a place of privilege. He CAN afford to be accepting of people, to fight for them, to grossly over-empathize because of his position (long lived, functionally immortal because bugs bunny rules, etc etc). Irl this might be something like class and/or race (guy who knows he could flatten the planet with his “power” and is so horrified by it that it makes him feel like a monster, and the fact that he’s forced to do so makes him feel even worse [the fact that this is an innate part of him as opposed to a thing that society gives him muddies this and I recognize that]). Basically, he’s got white queer privilege, + he’s good at passing when he needs to. Wolfwood, in this scenario, does not have that. Vash realizes this post Emilio and makes it clear that he appreciates Wolfwood making an effort to change- That has to be terrifying from WW’s position.

Does this make Vash read as someone with white guilt and/or as a white savior? A little, yeah. Maybe I’m crazy (and very pale myself mind you), but this is how he’s read to me since coming back to this series. I may be able to attribute this partially to stampede just based on how Conrad likes to talk about Knives/independents as “superior in every way.” There’s no delicate way to say that Knives and crew seem just a little tiny bit like white supremacists. Do I think the Bible stuff plays into this? Yes. Am I qualified to speak on that? No. It just pokes the same place in my brain. This doesn’t necessarily need to correlate to whiteness, it’s just the nearest example in my brain to what I mean.

Now, as far as the twins being queer goes, I have a LOT to say about them. There’s hundreds of readings you could have, and I don’t want to flatten it to this metaphor specifically.

Reasons I read them both as trans and/or intersex:

From a group that is otherwise afab/afab adjacent/female coded. (Version dependent maybe. I can’t imagine we’ll get uh. Direct Confirmation in Stampede. They seem to be taking a much more alien approach.)

They are still very much plants, but they’re out of their “tanks.” Something something women being birds in a cage bc patriarchy. They’ve escaped it as long as no one finds out, but even then they have something to fall back on.

Nonhumans that were already at least a little GNC, therefore queer coded by default.

Vash has that T boy swag.

People think they’re gross, or unnatural, or a disruption.

Pretty much everything about the last few episodes of Stampede tbh.

Plants are, up to this point at least, all but stated to be angels which, generally speaking, are above gender entirely.

Regularly occurring themes of body horror frequently involving both feminine and baby imagery. (Hahahhahaha this is so much fun when you’ve got tokophobia guys it doesn’t fuck with me At All) (come back later for my ted talk on “is vash aroace or does he just hate himself? Or is it both?”)

Here’s the thing. They’re both queer. It’s just how they read. Here’s the other thing- Knives is fucking scared of humanity. To him, they’re the people who would readily rip him and his brother open just to see what makes them so strange (or for the sake of discussion, cishet people). It’s easier for him to just demonize them than grapple with the idea that most of them are Just People trying to survive.

Vash takes this to the other extreme. He affords everyone the same understanding and empathy, even if that’s not in his best interests. Even if they haven’t earned it. It’s similarly destructive but entirely focuses on him- he knows what he is, but more specifically what he’s done, and to him that means he deserves the abuse he gets from people.

To me this is the twins, who are of a species otherwise portrayed as all female, read as transmascs dealing with internalized misogyny. Hell, this whole damn thing could be about internalized misogyny. Maybe I’m telling on myself here, but that’s an incredibly compelling way for me to read Knives. I can understand him that way. I get it. Obviously he remains scummy and abusive, but the fear is something I know well. This post (Trimax spoilers) is much better at explaining a lot of this than I am and I’m eating it right up.

Knives surrounds himself with other marginalized people on purpose, so he doesn’t have to face his fear. Instead of building community, trying to fix things, he tries to make everybody fear him. He’s unironically a “kill all men” feminist. Or I guess in this case a “kill all straights”? “Kill all humans” environmental activist? You get the picture. He likes scaring them because it makes him feel like he has control. Beverage bitch needs to feel safe and he can only do that if he’s the biggest, scariest motherfucker around, and it’s not hard for him to pull that off.

In Stampede, Knives has these corpses of plants hanging around. Personally I take this as him making their suffering about him (again, kind of a privileged queer thing to do). Am I saying this would never happen to him? No. Am I saying it’s substantially less likely because of his abilities and/or appearance? Yes. He has that same kind of power that Vash does and he does NOT use it responsibly. In this way he’s kind of a Caitlyn Jenner- “fuck you, I got mine.” Less in the suck up pick me way though. I think he’s still holding on to ideas of masculinity that just hurt him.

Knives is a lot of contradictory extremes at the same time, and that’s why I think he’s so fucking fascinating. On some level, he IS doing this for his brother and other plants, but isn’t he just viewing them as extensions of himself? At what point did he go from justified fear to Human Extermination? There’s a very real and very complex way that humans and plants interact with each other. I don’t want to flatten that into making it all real world adjacent. This is just thought soup, and I would love it if y’all threw a little something in it to make it less bland.

BASICALLY, this is just one way to take a lot of this. You could take Knives in a completely opposite direction and still have a valid point. It’s all very messy idk idk.

***I am not immune to blind spots and I generally don’t post shit like this, please be patient lol.***

#trigun #trimax #trigun stampede #trigun maximum #trigun meta #I’ve been sitting on these thoughts for a Minute #Tristamp vash is so intrinsically trans to me #listen I LOOKED LIKE THAT as a kid. I SOUNDED LIKE THAT TOO. ugh ugh ugh #I’m not ready for the rest of the manga guys I’ll combust irl

[davyjoneslockr]

LOOVE your post you made about mista n the oddities about his stand. adding on to the whole "why are some stands not colony stands when itd make more sense for them to be?" thing, personally i think that stands have a tendency to form they way they do partially due to different people percieving the same thing in different ways, like how some people think 75 degrees fahrenheight is either cold or hot or neutral or something like that.

This actually makes a lot of sense, because I feel like stands do tend to be based a lot on one's perception of themself. Like, Purple Haze is all about Fugo's self-image - his stand is terrifying, unclean, and ruled by base emotions, because that's how Fugo views himself. In Purple Haze Feedback, when he overcomes his shame, guilt, and self-loathing, and learns to accept his anger and past mistakes, Purple Haze changes to reflect this. Same with Moody Blues being doomed to repeat the past, Killer Queen manifesting as a cat (a typical domestic house pet, reflecting Kira's belief that, despite everything, he is a normal man who wants a quiet life) - hell, if you buy the theory that Dio's stand abilities are roughly the same as each living Joestar's (ie Joseph, Holly, and Jotaro), it reflects his sense of superiority over them; he's mastered their own games before any of them can, and is more deserving of the gifts they have. Actually, now that I think of it, you know the theory that Star Platinum is Jonathan's spirit? Maybe it resembles Jonathan because Jotaro views himself as, for better or for worse, the new savior of the Joestars, and he believes that he must carry the weight of his family line on his shoulders. Whether all these things are true or not, their stands reflect them. Whatever, now I'm just rambling.

Anyhow, I really like the idea that the colony stands manifest due to perception more than some sort of objective factor. I think it'd definitely make sense for Mista, considering he's all about perception as opposed to objectivity. I'm just wondering what specifically he'd be perceiving that sets him apart from non-colony stand users. Maybe having multiple Pistols implies that he prefers seeing the world through a certain lens; he has distinct, clear-cut beliefs and rules that, if put together, would be too contradictory and complicated to make sense of. It's easier for him to deal with a stand in different parts, rather than a single amalgamated one with all its symbolism smashed together. He's a very black-and-white thinker - things are good or bad, lucky or unlucky - and I doubt he'd want a stand that comes with a lot of gray area. But idk, if anyone else has ideas feel free to share!!

#ty for the ask anon analyzing stands is fun :] #jjba #guido mista

[winterrose527]

This is an ill-advised rant that is just thoughts and based on conversations with people in my life rather than any actual research. I'll likely delete it but I'm just feeling a certain way and need to write it out so that I can get past it.

I'm so sick of hearing that people understand information bubbles. It feels like a straw man, that thing you mention at the beginning of an essay of I'm acknowledging that some people say x, so as to lend some apparent credibility to my entirely ignoring that in favor of what I want to say.

Acknowledging that information bubbles exist is not the same thing as understanding them or seeing your own.

How is it that I could write a list of wedge issues and know for a fact where my brother and my mom will fall on every single one of them? How is it possible that people raised in the same family structure the same socio-economic structure the same geographical location, who had access to the same education, who have had all the same privileges of their race, whose core morality is so similar would fall on opposing sides of every single one of them?

Isn't it strange that each of them are able to believe starkly in an agenda that contradicts itself? Shouldn't, if one were to go to the core of each issue, people who advocate for gun rights and abortion rights be on the same side of the argument? Both are about personal sovereignty and the ability to protect oneself from an overbearing government or other outside threat. Is there not some disconnect that disallows people on either side of both arguments to see that rationale in the other? What makes them both cling to stories of the worst perpetrators abusing their rights, yet be able to accuse the other of doing so without seeing it in their own arguments?

How is it possible that a country as vast as the United States of America can be split into two parties? Yes, those parties are 'diverse', full of factions and co-opting by their most vocal and and opinionated members, but if one were to poll the average voter from both on that same list of wedge issues, it is likely that their answers would be the same as my brother and mom's.

How does that happen? How did we make that decision? I refuse to believe that it is because democrats are soft and republicans are cruel. Often people who try to define either party as such are misdirecting you from looking too closely at their own.

People seem to think that the information bubble is just about what slant your news has, but that is only the first piece of it. The biggest, that I've seen, is frequency. It is not just how an issue is discussed, but how often an issue is discussed. What is that mark of demarcation? What takes a story from an oh that is such a weird thing! to this is a problem threatening our children and our country? How many articles and sound bites and podcasts are required to galvanize a base? How many single sentences from 250 page reports are required to convince whole swaths of the population of dangerous misinformation?

Brainwashing is a term that is used lightly and often, as a way of separating ourselves from those that we deem radicalized. In some cases, to horrifying results, it is absolutely true. But to use it so liberally (ha!) is harmful, because it allows us to presume an intellectual or moral superiority which only furthers the chasm, and makes the gap that much harder to bridge.

I know I know, the irrational man says meet me in the middle and you take a step forward and he takes a step back. I get it. I am not equating anything. I am firmly on one side of each of those wedge issues and nearly all of them fall along party lines. I am not superior, I am susceptible, but I am trying, and I wish more people in my life were doing the same.

#long post #political #unpopular opinions #information bubbles #hypocrisy #will delete later

[reikunrei]

the more i think about it, the less i think i want Will to have any powers at all...

like, just thinking about it in relation to his character, and also to El's, and to Vecna/Henward and the story as a whole... i find it harder and harder to place Will having powers into it?

like... he is an extremely non-violent character, and while his powers don't necessarily have to be like that of El or Henry which involve violence sometimes, i just... have trouble imagining what else they could take the form of. (which is just on me more than anything, but still.) the only thing i can really think of that would make everything come full circle is "casting" a protection "spell" like he almost did in season 1 in their campaign. but imo that wouldn't even require him to have any real "powers."

i'm just a total sucker for "he uses his sense of love, kindness, and understanding to save the day." like he doesn't use any sort of magical/psychic powers, but his steadfast love protects him and his friends from harm; they create an "armor" that Vecna can't break through. (kind of like It, how the Losers weaken It by basically laughing in its face and not letting the fear take over. i'm in the middle of reading It rn so i don't remember exactly how it all works lmao sorry)

and again to go back to his non-violent nature, he's a smart kid. he doesn't need brawn to fight back. he can run, he can hide, he can outsmart the bad guy.

and that leads me into how this relates to El and Vecna: i feel like it would be fitting for both of them to learn they're not "superior" just because they have their abilities. like, for the sake of El, she doesn't need to have powers to be powerful, to be a "superhero" if she wants to be one from time to time, she can just be herself, and that alone makes her worthy of love and praise. and Vecna doesn't belong on his high horse just because he has these powers; they don't make him better than anyone else. and he needs to understand that he is just like everyone else, and someone simply holding out a helping hand is all he needs. and i feel like Will should be that person. Vecna's true opponent isn't someone who's on his level, like El, imo. his true opponent and the one who will really change him is someone who is simply kind to him.

and isn't that what the whole story is about? about being kind to each other and accepting each other, no matter the differences or the grievances? people do bad things sometimes, but it's always better to try and understand them rather than simply condemning them to death. life is messy, we're all human, we make mistakes, and we simply have to learn to grow from them.

now, I’ve seen plenty of "Will with powers" theories and the ideas of what they might be, and I’m not opposed to it at all, bc I trust they’ll be handled in a way that’s good both for him and for the story. earlier i even mentioned the "outsmarting the bad guy" discussion that he and Joyce have in season 1, and he says there that he needs the fireballs because sometimes the bad guys are smart, too. cool! maybe Will has some sort of power involving light and fire, which would work thematically with the interactions with the lights (maybe Will was the the one who made that happen and it isn't something default to the UD) and the constant connections between Will and sunlight.

but again... does that mean he has to have actual powers? or is Will, himself, the "light"? is Will and his kind nature all that they need to break through to Henry and Edward? we've already been shown that physical violence will not work against Vecna. he was turned into a flaming slice of swiss cheese and he still got up and walked away. we’ve even been shown that he can’t be defeated by psychic abilities, since the main timeline(s) we see don’t result in his actual death in HNL, so why would Will need psychic abilities to defeat him?

idk i just... think it's interesting and i'm curious to see where it goes. because while it could and would make sense for him to have powers of some kind, i feel like it would also be extremely satisfying if his "power" was simply being himself: a kind, sensitive, and simple boy who just wants to find love and happiness. like, if his arc is about learning he's allowed to want love, and he's deserving of love, then why not have him extend that to Vecna?

in short, i think a lot of my thoughts and questions about it boils down to: what does it bring to the story as a whole? what makes it necessary that he have powers like El and Henry? what kind of message does it send to the audience? what is the purpose?

#ramble ramble ramble idk if I’m making any sense!!! #ive just been thinking about this a lot lately and had to put my thoughts out into words #i say things #will byers #stranger things #watch me come back and edit this 5000 times throughout the day as i remember more things that change my opinion #bc that always fucking happens lmao #also thinking about hxh ‘gon. you are light. sometimes it’s so bright I have to look away’

[foxounderscorecube]

The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

4¼ ⭐

I first read this book when I was a teenager and a really big edgelord. I think my mum told me about it because the storyline really stuck with her for its weirdness, and who'd have thought it, it stuck with me, too.

Re-reading it, though, it's a very funny book - funnier than I remembered. I think the contrast of Frank's weird sort of innocence and his sadism is part of it, but the times that he gets this close to self-awareness are great, too. He knows he's awful (albeit not anything close to as awful as he really is) and he just chooses to be that way. It's everyone else's problem to deal with it. In that sense, the story reminds me of Nekojiru Gekijou, a dark comedy anime about two kittens with terrible parents that deals with very similar themes (and definitely something I'd recommend if you like that sort of thing). Frank would get on great with Nyako and Nyatta if it weren't for the fact he'd probably put them on the Sacrifice Poles.

Frank's witchcraft (although he'd probably hate it being called that) is really interesting to me as someone who also has a tendency to look for patterns in things and read some sort of meaning in the patterns. I just do tarot readings as opposed to torturing wasps, but there's a lot of… hmm, you can't really call it sense, but there's a structure to his beliefs. I think that's really worth noting, because it's one thing having a character be an amateur diviner, but it's another to have him do his own made-up rituals that have a sense of logic to them, you know?

The book contains almost no likeable characters of any importance, unless you count Jamie, who deserves a better friend than Frank. He's just a fella hanging out and seems to really care about Frank, inexplicably. I do really enjoy how Frank seems to see his dad as an entirely different creature, but they are remarkably similar people: very emotionally detached, very manipulative, very focused on their weird pursuits, and very certain of their intellectual superiority over others. I think their parallels are drawn really well.

Eric is sort of an outlier and sort of not. It's kind of like he had some sort of layer of kindness and humanity that cloaked an inner core that matched his father and brother that was only revealed after his mental break triggered in part by the incident with the smiling baby (still the only scene I've read that has ever made me physically gag! Not as bad when I knew what to expect but still absolutely fucking horrifying stuff. Thanks, Iain Banks.). That the story ends before we ever really know what was going on with Eric's escape is kind of disappointing, but it does seem like a good place for it to end. The anticipation of Eric was the point - it's what Frank has been imagining and focusing on for however long, what so much of his divination asks after, all of that.

The whole thing about Frank's assigned sex is… bizarre? I mean, okay, when I'm reading it then there's suspension of disbelief here, but I like to overthink things and then ramble about them, so you know. It seems that Frank probably is a guy - his masculinity is VERY important to him and his misogyny is based on what he thinks are very logical beliefs (dumbass. He'd love modern incel culture). That's probably a good thing because the real-life experiments of raising a child as the opposite sex without their knowledge have resulted (to my knowledge) in the poor thing growing up with gender dysphoria and all the shit that comes with that. But he seems surprisingly okay with the fact that his dad hid his sex from him this entire time. Pissed off, which you would be. But, in the end, just kind of like "huh. alright I guess?". If Frank had shown any indication of feeling that he was truly a girl, it'd have made sense (although I suppose the hypermasculinity could have been cope), but for someone who shows real devastation and sadness and - dare I say it - bottom dysphoria over their lack of dick and balls (which is the case for most guys, regardless of whether they've had a freak accident castration or unsatisfactory genital assignment), you'd expect him to be a bit more confused, right, if nothing else?

Then again, his brother did also just try to blow up the entire house with him and their dad still in it, so I guess he's got more pressing things to consider, all in all. And it does make for quite the plot twist. It adds a nice layer of irony to the fact that Women are one of Frank's worst enemies, and that's ultimately the point - I don't think it's especially included because of anything to do with gender identity in that sense.

It could also be argued that surely, at the age of 16, he'd have investigated his anatomy enough to find that he had a vulva, although given that he was also medicated to keep his libido minimal and is shown to avoid ever looking at or interacting with his crotch any more than scratching an itch from time to time, eh, I don't really know. His curiosity is rather more directed towards the outside world than himself and he seems to prefer not to think too hard about his physical form because it doesn't match his view of himself as the big buff manly man he thinks he should be.

Overall, I had fun reading this book, even now I'm out of my phase of reading edgy shit for the sake of it. It's a bit silly and gratuitous in its violence and if that's not for you, then that's totally fair enough. I like its horridness, though, and it manages to be a very interesting exploration of innocence and ignorance and - dare I say it - a decent (and heavily-barbed) critique of toxic masculinity in various forms.

#read 2023 #reviewed 2023 #reread #fiction #horror fiction #book review #reading

[trekwiz]

I just posted about this, but I want to share a crosspost from Faccebook because the other post didn't really say everything I wanted to.

I'm not going to name names because fuck that; I'm optimistic (maybe I shouldn't be?) that he understands it's a place for his personal growth. But I'm still stewing on it, and it really gets to the heart of my comments on this subject.

I'm taking steps to flee the country before it becomes irreparably unsafe. I'm in sticker shock of how expensive it's going to be--not just the moving the costs, but the application fees and everything related. When it happens, we're likely not going to be able to be homeowners again for some time.

There is no way to get around it or nice it up: this is happening because of Christians. This is happening because of Christianity's inherent fascism. You can't separate the attack on our rights, our humanity, and our safety from the Christianity that inspires it. It's just not possible.

Christianity has taken a lot away from me throughout my life. And it's striking again. Right when it seemed like the threat they pose was finally being contained and I was achieving something resembling stability.

To respond to my anger about being kicked by Christianity, again, by not just trying to witness to me, but also co-opting language about coming out, just to build a completely fake story of adversity to be specifically relatable to me as a gay person, is incredibly offensive. Completely crass.

I believe he honestly feels he was trying to build a bridge. But he was witnessing. He did what his religion trained him to do. The polite kind; the kind of Christianity that opposes racism, homophobia, and transphobia. The culture he was groomed into taught him to look for that opening; to make that bridge to show how great Jesus is. A different kind of Christian. A better one than those fake Christians who do evil things. Isn't Jesus wonderful? Don't you just want to celebrate him for his greatness because he's not like his followers today?

It's so insidious. That kind of tactic works so well on someone who has not been an active target of Christianity's incessant hate. If you grew up around a church community and weren't actively excluded and attacked, that seems so welcoming. It's friendly. It's an incredible conversion tool because it's disarming. He probably doesn't even realize this was active brainwashing by the churches he belongs to. This behavior is just unquestioned second nature. And it looks friendly! It's meant to.

This is missionary work. You get close to the "barbarians" and show them how much better your way of life is. How superior it is. So they'll just give up their ways and follow along.

It's so incredibly disrespectful. And it's a key component in enforcing Christianity's inherent fascism.

It's a fairly common tactic of abusers: you beat someone, tell them how useless they are, and follow through with "I know I'm flawed, but I love you." The Christians who infiltrated the Supreme Court need you to be the "but I love you" kind. You're useful to them. You soften their image. They can engage in these horrific atrocities because, "no, it's not Christians. See this Christian love here? It's really just extremists." The "polite" Christians are their shield.

If you're still a Christian today, after these absolutely awful attacks on human rights, and think, "it's ok, I'm one of the good ones." Maybe you should really examine how your behavior and your participation in this religion would appear to its targets, and ask, "am I really one of the good ones? Is any of my behavior, as a Christian, damaging to other people? Is my decision to do this also helping the bad ones to do what they do, by giving them free PR?"

I can guarantee that, as a consequence of your Christianity, you've got at least a few harmful behaviors that you're blind to, that have been actively rewarded over years or decades. I'm increasingly skeptical that someone can be a good person in spite of their Christianity.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

Thank god is not just me who mourns the loss of flavor to Emmet's dialogue. I too love how short and choppy his sentences are, to the point, no words wasted, a fantastic contrast to how comparatively wordy Ingo is. Which makes sense, as they're mirrors of each other in many ways! iirc in Japanese Ingo is also very formal while Emmet is much more casual in the way he talks, which I think translated to English pretty well, although obviously some nuance is lost because we don't have different formal levels built in like Japanese does.

I think you captured that well in oop too, as Emmet lacks the level of politeness that Ingo has, and he's a lot more blunt. It's well matched to how you've written Emmet in the first arc too, with his near single-mindedness in finding Ingo, and how it puts characters like Rei and Cyllene at ease. I've always kind of thought that the blunt way he talked, his blatant honesty and confidence without any frills, was what got Cyllene to trust him. She's very similar in that regard, which I think is probably part of what made Rei trust him so fast in turn (well, that and he's a kid who is floundering and desperate to have an Adult take charge and give them direction, especially an adult who showed him kindness and care in the way he righted Rei's rails when he started to panic)

YEAAH YEAH okay i am also glad this is not just like... a me observation. like i don't play ex so i hadn't really looked at the quotes before now and... why did they do that to my man... it feels so wroooong

and re: what you were saying about translations, yeah, maybe the ex voice is the more accurate translation, i. would not really know, but like. rip to japanese players for missing out on emmet's incredible eng bw cadence if it's true. it's simply the far superior version... i'm sorry...

+ the thing abt him having an opposing voice to his brother!! like yeah, imho you REALLY lose that contrast in ex because english just does not have the same kind of obvious registers for formality. the bw dialogue is sooo much better in terms of making a really clear contrast btwn them... and also i know i said it before but the eng bw voice is just like. better? more interesting? it has more Character in it? im tryna sound objective and all here really what i mean is i love it and am obsessed with it.

ANYWAAAY waaah yeah!! like i said idc what they do with emmet in newer games they can pry his bw cadence out of my cold dead hands. and i'm REALLY REALLY GLAD it comes across in oop... i think i've said before that he's one of my fav characters to write bc he is just so unique in the way he talks and just sort of. his character generally. in such a perfect way. he's blunt and direct and incredibly purposeful and. with all of the careful hop-stepping and social maneuvering and mind games going around in pla it is SO fun to write a character who actively refuses to fuck around like that even a little bit. and yeah!! i think it can be both very disarming and very reassuring to people.

like cyllene you are exactly right!! they only spent a very brief time together but i REALLY love the idea of them interacting anyway. cyllene i think is someone who has a very specific way of reading and interpreting others, and to her it just came across so strongly how much emmet meant what he was saying, and how driven and simultaneously caring he was, and. like i said. both disarming and reassuring. i think she likes and trusts him an inadvisable amount already.

#the nemesis speaks #the nemesis answers #anonymous #jailbirds au #i think emmet also kind of reminds rei of cyllene in that they're both kind of intimidating but like #in a way where he also thinks they're very cool and wants to emulate them #everyone in oop thinks emmet is either very intimidating or cool or both lmao #idk if that's unrealistic or w/e i'm just incapable of imagining anyone feeling differently abt him. #my man my guy my everything... #there's a line that got cut from ch11 that was ingo noting that he couldn't remember ever meeting a person so self-possessed #and like yeah that's the word

[letterful]

what are some of your favorite tropes? <3

oh dear. i'm going to focus on the characterisation and relationship tropes (mind you, i’m using the term "trope" very loosely here, and also somewhat interchangeably with “theme”), as opposed to the ones pertaining to worldbuilding, narrative structure and genre conventions, because otherwise this reply would get much overlong, but. here we go:

— characters who feel too much and characters who feel too little (and opposite extremes in general), — similarly: characters who are not good at being human, don't know how to "people" correctly, and their different ways of coping with it (does it make them feel inferior? superior? do they even care?), — morally sound but inherently unlikeable characters (& utterly charming but morally bankrupt characters), — emotional ambivalence, moral ambiguity, leaving things unspoken or up in the air, everything conflicted/contradictory/paradoxical,  — enemies as lovers, lovers to enemies, — mutual antagonism (/disdain/contempt/disgust/etc.), — tenderness and cruelty intertwined, — anything that can be described as consensual but not safe or sane tbh, — couples that are simply not meant to be (the opposite of soulmates, if you will), intense yet short-lived flames, unhappy unions, unrequited passions, broken marriages, etc. — human-shaped eldritch abominations (on a related note: supernatural beings attempting (& failing!) to think and/or act like humans), all things uncanny valley, — awful people being tender with each other (and with each other only), good people being cruel to each other (and to each other only), — self-destructive tendencies, sabotaging the best thing you’ve ever had, — hoping against hope, acting against your better judgment, — choosing one's duty or ambition over love, — senseless betrayals, impossible forgiveness (or lack thereof), — reluctant vulnerability, forced intimacy, — casual/dismissive/thoughtless cruelty, — irrational, "ugly" emotions in general (jealousy, resentment, paranoia, etc.), — power imbalances, power struggles, gender-based power dynamics being dissected/deconstructed, — identity issues (including those of "becoming the mask" variety) and existential crises, — self-recognition through the other (derogatory), characters who act as each other's (twisted) mirror reflections, simultaneously feeling irresistibly drawn to and utterly repulsed by your narrative double (unsuprisingly, i’m not overly fond of the "opposites attract" trope), — lovelessness, be it considered a tragedy or a blessing (or both!), — seeking/receiving comfort from the person responsible for your suffering (to quote the one and only Angela Carter: I clung to him as though only the one who had inflicted the pain could comfort me for suffering it), — self-awareness! specifically: being aware (catastrophically aware) that you have fucked up. or been fucked up. or both! (see: gone girl's what have we done to each other?) (also: epiphanies. or slowly dawning realisations. i just live for the moment when the truth finally sinks in, in all its unbearableness) — relationships that don't necessarily feel like endgames; lack of permanence in general, in all its bittersweetness — characters being aware (see above!) that their current state/situation is in all probability only temporary and that things might go south at any given moment.

(i like my narratives dark and bitter, evidently)